Outland (World-Lines Book 1)

by Taylor, Dennis

  The students responded with a susurrus of chuckles before resuming their bolt for the exit.

  As the three friends shuffled their way out of the lecture hall through the crush of bodies, Donna asked Erin, “Do you think you’ll be seeing hot-stuff tonight?”

  Erin gave a head-bob in agreement, and Donna continued, “So, maybe some gossip tomorrow, then?”

  Erin shook her head with disbelief. “You have way too much time on your hands, girl. You need a hobby.”

  Toba, Sumatra - 74,000 B.C.E.

  The sudden earthquake moved the forest canopy and sent flocks of birds fleeing into the safety of the air.

  The yearling stopped browsing and looked to the other herd members in alarm. The adults barely looked up at the shaking.

  The herd of Sambar deer lived in the shadow of Toba. The Sumatran forest was thick and lush, deer paradise if not for the predators. Certainly not a territory to be given up casually.

  The tremblors had been coming for a few seasons now. Had the deer been able to measure and count, they would know that the quakes were coming more frequently. But the deer had learned through repetition that the quakes caused no harm. The bushes would shake, a tree branch might break, and the stream might slosh momentarily out of its bed. But to the deer, these events were less noteworthy than the frequent tropical downpours, which were at least uncomfortable enough to make them seek cover.

  Taking his cue from his mother, the yearling went back to the important business of eating.

  Another quake hit, this one much stronger. There was a loud grinding sound, accompanied by the sharp crackling sound of collapsing trees. The yearling bugled in fear and pushed himself as close to his mother as possible. The herd milled around in confusion, and the shaking stopped as abruptly as a light being switched off.

  The deer stood still for a few moments, then turned back to their grazing.

  It was the last act of their lives.

  With no buildup or preamble, a massive explosion ripped the mountain right off the face of the Earth. The eruption ejected 2,800 cubic kilometers of earth, rock, mud, ash, and magma into the atmosphere at supersonic speed.

  The herd was lucky — they were vaporized immediately by the incredible heat. Their nervous systems had no time to register the event, let alone feel any pain.

  Animals up to a few kilometers farther away were ripped apart by the explosion and flying shrapnel. Up to twenty kilometers away, the earth was simply scraped clean as if by a sand-blaster.

  Pyroclastic flows, rains of rock and ash, and poisonous gases took out another wave of victims up to a hundred kilometers away. Ash fall caused yet another wave of deaths, and obliterated ecosystems for tens of thousands of square kilometers. Lack of potable water killed many. Ash-induced pulmonary diseases killed far more.

  The real death toll came, not from the very impressive pyrotechnics, but from a slower, more insidious cause. Over the next weeks and months, the cloud of ash spread in the upper atmosphere until it covered a significant portion of the planet. The reduced sunlight and acid rain caused ecosystems to crash worldwide.

  As the clouds of ash and volcanic gases from the eruption fell to earth, the heaviest settled first, drowning the local ecosystem in a heavy, suffocating blanket. The finer particles hitched a ride in the jet stream, spreading over the planet. The heavy haze blocked sunlight, causing phytoplankton die-offs in the oceans and plant die-offs on land. The loss of their food source caused population crashes in both environments. The effect dominoed up the food chain, resulting in partial or total collapse of regional ecologies. Many animals didn’t have time to starve, dying long before of respiratory and related diseases. Their bodies provided an emergency food source for smaller scavengers and less fussy predators.

  Sulfur dioxide from the eruption converted to sulfuric acid, which fell as acid rain, killing more land animals and acidifying water. Corals in the oceans died en masse; fish in fresh-water lakes were all but obliterated.

  The devastation took a couple of years to peak. The effects were far-reaching. In Africa, several species of hominids, our close cousins, were driven to extinction.

  Lab Prep

  “Here are the specs for the focusing device.” Richard handed Bill a set of untitled printouts. Kevin hovered in the background, looking like he wanted to say something but was unsure how to go about it.

  Bill looked at the diagrams from several different angles. Although they had started out as CAD printouts, they had suffered a significant amount of manual editing with colored felt pens. “So, it’s a hoop-shaped device. I see wave guides, and something that looks like it’s trying to create a toroidal magnetic field?”

  “That’s right. Plus some low-level lasers intended to produce single-photon emissions in a precise sequence.” Richard pointed to a spot on the diagram. “Doable?”

  “Oh sure, no prob. This is all about the internals, though, right? The casing doesn’t enter into the tolerances?”

  “That’s correct. Why?” Richard looked puzzled.

  “Oh, no reason…” Bill replied, smiling. Leaves room for a few extras.

  Richard frowned, suspicion written all over his face.

  Matt looked up from the controller module he was working on, rolled his eyes, and muttered, “Calling Captain Reference…”

  Bill gave him a sideways look and a minimal shake of the head. Chill, dude. Don’t blow the ‘reveal.’

  Diagrams in hand, Bill paused for a moment to look around the lab. At one end, a couple of louvered windows let in the summer breeze and managed to cool the room to a tolerable level. At the other end, part of the room had been split off by a pony wall topped with thick safety glass.

  Looks a bit Mythbusters. What kind of physics experiments require that kind of glass?

  Matt, meanwhile, had finished installing the Linux controller card and was booting it up. A wireless network connection to the tablet he held allowed him to monitor the process. When he was done, he handed the tablet to Richard. “It’s all set up for you. You just have to turn on the power, and it’s all at your fingertips.”

  “And how are you handling the timing on the lasers?” Richard poked at one of the setup dialogs.

  “Eight-core processor,” Matt answered, “More than enough throughput.”

  Bill clapped his hands in satisfaction. “Well, hell. Looks like we’re gonna have us a working mad scientist’s lab!”

  Richard stared at him for a long moment, then went back to examining the menu tree on the tablet software.

  Bill sighed. Wow, dude. Grow a funny bone.

  Time Out

  How the hell does he do that? Does he ever miss? Bill stood under the hoop, retrieving the basketball and tossing it back. Matt worked his way around the three-point circle, hitting basket after basket.

  They had come to the gym during off-hours to get a bit of exercise. In Bill’s case, that consisted of retrieving the ball and returning it. Bill liked it that way. He didn’t like exercise, and he was pretty sure it was mutual.

  “I’m not a basketball scout,” he said, “but I’ll bet the coach would be real interested in you.”

  “Already had that conversation,” Matt replied. “They give you the spiel about having to eat, sleep, and breathe insert-your-sport-here, and my eyes glaze over. I’ve got my sport. Nothing else has ever hit me like martial arts.”

  “Bah-Boom-Tsh!”

  Matt laughed and tried for a Scottish accent. “Thank you, I'm here 'til Thursday. Try the veal.”

  Bill did his best to look offended. “Dude, that’s my shtick. Do I go all Kung Fu on you?”

  Matt grinned back at him and resumed sinking baskets.

  During a break, Bill brought up what had been on his mind all day. “This project with Richard Nadeski and Kevin Jahani — does it seem a little out there to you?”

  Matt raised one eyebrow. “How about a lot out there? It’s one thing to talk about computing with qubits, but this? The whole thing sounds like real
sci-fi stuff. It could almost be one of those B-movies you’re always watching.”

  Bill chuckled. “Well, you know, real life continues to disappoint me. I’ve been waiting twenty-two years now. Okay, maybe the first four years I was just trying not to poop my pants. But still, not one alien species has come to visit, not one monster from the deep has attacked New York, and not one evil mastermind has destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe we have planetary B.O.”

  Matt snorted. “Yeah, that must be it.” He did a couple of experimental dribbles, behind the back, through the legs, alternating hands.

  Bill hesitated for a moment. “So, really, do you have a funny feeling about this project? Does it seem legit to you?”

  Matt stopped and looked directly at Bill. “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. It sort of feels like these guys have gone rogue or something. If I asked Richard’s professor about the project, would he even know about it?”

  “Yeah, I get that. Nadeski seems pretty, um, focused.”

  Bill grinned at the deliberate understatement. “Right. If this were a TV show, I’d peg him as the maladjusted character who does bad things for noble reasons.”

  “Well, I’ll pull the plug if things start to smell,” Matt said, “or if it starts to interfere with my social life.”

  “Oh, yeah, your new girlfriend. Didn’t you say she was like an uber-genius in geology? Might not be a question of you making time for her.”

  Matt shrugged and took another shot, and Bill retrieved the ball and tossed it back.

  Preparing For Field Trip

  Most of the park rests atop a slumbering volcano that erupted half a million years ago and is showing signs of renewed activity. (Note: No eruption is expected in the near future.)

  There are more geysers and hot springs here than anywhere else on Earth.

  — National Geographic. “Yellowstone National Park.”

  Professor Collins looked around the lecture hall for any more raised hands. There were none.

  The professor waited a few more seconds before resuming. “Now, just a reminder— as if you needed it— that we leave day after tomorrow. Officially, this is a summer session activity, so you’ll get full course credit for this class. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to convince the university to spring for an all-expenses-paid trip to Sumatra for all of us to visit Toba.” He grinned at the class. “So instead, we’ll have to settle for a junket to Yellowstone in a rattling death-trap of a school bus.”

  Several people in the audience laughed. Sounding a little panicked, one of the students piped up, “I thought we had a charter plane?”

  “Just seeing if you’re paying attention, Ted,” the professor replied. “You get two internet points for that.” That got more laughs from students.

  The professor put a document up on the projector. “I’d like to thank everyone for having completed the paperwork early so I don’t have to come around and poke some of you with a stick. The university will be happy to know that you hold us blameless for anything that happens to you. And I do mean anything. Some lawyer financed his boat with that paperwork!

  “We will be staying in the Employee Housing at Lake Village. Don’t expect luxury. For that matter, don’t expect beds. You’ll get air mattresses, and you’ll like it. We will be dividing into groups every day. There will be USGS staff leading you around and introducing you to the great big world of geology in a still-active volcano.”

  Professor Collins swapped in a new document, this one a list of dates and events. “You have your itineraries. See you in a couple of days at the airport, for five fun-filled days of slogging around swamps, bogs, and forest and being eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls. Don’t you just love geology?” And with a theatrical flourish, he switched off the P.A. and waved to the class, most of whom were already stampeding for the exit.

  He picked up his notes and was turning to leave when he realized that Erin Savard was hurrying toward him. He smiled. Erin was the kind of student that made his job worthwhile. She absorbed everything like a sponge, never missed a thing, and best yet, actually understood it.

  “Professor, I wanted to ask quickly. There’s been some heightened activity at Yellowstone. Will we be able to get close enough to observe any of that?”

  “Depends what you mean by ‘close,’ Erin. Close enough to see? Sure. Close enough to take lava samples? Not a chance.” Professor Collins smiled. “The university would toss me into a lava flow if I endangered the students like that.”

  Erin gave him a full-wattage smile in return, and Professor Collins felt sweat start to bead on his forehead. “You might consider bringing binoculars,” he said, quickly gathering up the rest of his lecture notes.

  Erin nodded, smiled again, and headed for the exit.

  Professor Collins made a conscious effort not to watch her leave. Damn. I’m too old for this.

  Matt's Apartment

  Matt sat and watched Erin as she walked around the apartment. This was the first time she’d been to his place, and she seemed impressed.

  “Your parents are paying for this? Just paying?”

  Matt smiled and gave her a half-shrug. The apartment wasn’t quite what you’d call a luxury suite; but for students used to a twelve-by-ten dorm room, an apartment with a separate bedroom and den was ultimate luxury. Having a kitchen and washroom to yourself was pure bonus.

  It was clean, spacious, the walls were painted in non-institutional colors, and the furniture did not look like it had been rescued from the curb. And if it impressed his new girlfriend, it was worth every penny.

  “My parents are pretty well-off. They’re happy to pay for this while I’m going to school, but they’re quick to point out that they’re well off, not we’re well off. So I’d better come out of this with a job.” Matt smiled again, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

  “But I’m guessing your parents earned it, not like… well…“ Erin trailed off.

  Matt raised an eyebrow in a silent query as she sat down.

  Erin continued, “Oh, I was watching E.T. the other night—a retrospective on celebrity weddings—and they were talking about Kim Kardashian’s wedding. You know her dress was worth half a million? Who makes that kind of money for, well, for what? And I’m still trying to figure out how to pay for new brakes for the crapmobile.”

  Matt could appreciate her frustration. He would be facing it sometime in the future. His father had made it very clear that Matt wouldn’t be a trust fund baby. Any luxuries he wanted as an adult would have to be earned the old-fashioned way.

  Meanwhile, he had a nice apartment, a new vehicle, an allowance, money from a couple of scholarships that he had forgotten to mention to his parents… and Erin.

  They had met only a week ago, and Matt still couldn’t believe his good fortune. Erin was tall, lean, athletic, and gorgeous without needing to rely on make-up. She was also an avid snowboarder, hiker, and camper. And she had her brown belt in Tae Kwon Do. They’d compared notes. She was nowhere near Matt’s level, but he’d started at five years old and had always been serious about the sport.

  “So you’ll be gone for five days?” Matt prompted.

  “Yes, this is an unbelievable opportunity. We get an entire course credit for a five-day field trip, three classes, and what amounts to a book report if you know the subject—and I do.”

  She finished with a smile and a mock-curtsy. The smile included dimples, and Matt felt his IQ dip for a moment.

  “And, Yellowstone has been active lately. There have been times in the past when it would have been just sitting there like that stupid cartoon frog on Retro.”

  They sang in unison, “Hello my baby, hello my darlin’, hello my rag-time gaaaaaaal.”

  “So there’ll be about twenty of us, and Professor Collins of course. And his assistant, what’s-his-face the creepy guy, but as long as he stays away from me, I don’t care. With all the activity in Yellowstone the last few months,
we could get some dramatic stuff happening!”

  “You’ll email while you’re gone, right?” Matt asked.

  “Oh absolutely! Every night.” She nudged him with an elbow. “Say, didn’t you promise to ply me with alcohol? I’m not feeling plied,” and she gave him the hairy eyeball.

  Matt hurried to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of red.

  He talked while working the corkscrew. “I guess this’ll give me time to get done with this science project I roped myself into. It’s a bit woo-woo, but the hardware’s interesting, and I’ll be able to document the implementation for my thesis.”

  He handed Erin a glass of wine, sat down with his arm around her, and picked up the remote. “So, any preferences?”

  Erin took the remote out of his hand, set it down, and looked up at him mischievously. “Yes.”

  Matt raised one eyebrow. “Well, all righty, then.”

  The Best Years

  Richard dropped his backpack with a tired sigh, just inside the door. He went into the kitchen, plugged in his phone, then tossed a microwavable frozen dinner into the nuker and set the timer. While it cooked, he grabbed a beer.

  He looked around the small basement suite that had been his home for the duration of his time at university. Basic student furniture stared back at him: a bricks-and-boards bookshelf, a second-hand couch, an actual picture-tube style TV. There were a few posters, but no pictures, no trophies, nothing personal other than the selection of books.

  And these are the best years of my life. Or so they say. Still, it feels more like home than anywhere else has since I was a kid.