The Joshua Stone

by James Barney

  “And is that what happened to me?” Califano asked.

  “Yes,” said McCreary, nodding. “And you were very lucky. Apparently, what you experienced were just the lingering aftereffects of a previous time-dilation event. If you’d been exposed to the full thing, we wouldn’t be seeing you for a long, long time.”

  Califano furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand. You mean the event that happened way back in 1959?”

  McCreary walked over to a nearby whiteboard and uncapped a dry-erase marker. “Here, let me show you what I think happened.” He quickly drew a bell curve on the whiteboard and labeled it as follows:

  “On October 5, 1959, the researchers at Thurmond National Laboratory inadvertently triggered a massive time-dilation event,” said McCreary. “Time inside the lab slowed way down compared to time outside the lab. How much did it slow down? We can’t know for sure. For instance, if the actual event lasted only ten seconds in the lab, and we know that fifty-four years have elapsed since 1959, then the ratio would be something like 170 million to 1. If the event lasted an hour, then that ratio is more like 470,000 to 1. But whatever the ratio, time was crawling inside the lab, compared to outside, okay?”

  Everyone at the table nodded. Indeed, this was the only logical explanation for Dr. Holzberg’s sudden appearance in Fire Creek after going missing in the lab fifty-four years earlier.

  “Based on what we know about time disruption in Thurmond and Fire Creek, it appears that the effects of this time-dilation event varied inversely with the distance from the lab, as I’ve shown here.” He pointed to the bell curve on the whiteboard. “Thurmond was only a mile from the lab, and it experienced a dramatic disruption of time. So much so that the entire town was quarantined and then evacuated.”

  “Yeah, the lady at the diner told me about that,” said Califano. “She also said the people who were relocated had all sorts of health issues, like loss of memory.”

  McCreary nodded. “It appears this time-dilation phenomenon can have severe effects on the human body, including some manifestations of rapid aging.” He pointed again to his bell curve. “Now, Fire Creek here is about ten miles from the lab, and I understand the time disruption effects were much less severe there.”

  “Three minutes a day,” said Califano. “That’s what Thelma Scott said. Every clock in town has been running three minutes slow since 1959.”

  “Incredible,” Ana remarked, shaking her head. “How could that not have been reported in the news?”

  Califano laughed. “If you saw Fire Creek, you’d know. It’s like the town that time forgot. Literally.”

  Admiral Armstrong interjected. “Bill, why couldn’t they have rescued those people down in the lab in 1959?”

  “They probably tried,” said McCreary. “But rescuing someone from a time-dilation event like this would be very difficult. Think about it. You send the elevator down, but the closer it gets to the lab, the slower time runs. So it could take years, in outside time, just to get an elevator down to the lab. And then it would take years to get it back up.”

  There was silence around the table as everyone tried to wrap their minds around that concept.

  “Look, we don’t know what rescue efforts were undertaken, if any,” said McCreary. “What we do know is that by November 1959, the decision was made to seal off the lab entirely, with everyone still trapped inside. My guess is they wanted to prevent anyone or anything from going in . . . or out. So they sealed the elevator shaft with concrete and created a fenced-in exclusion zone with a three-mile radius around the lab. They used the specter of radiation to keep people away, which was a pretty effective ploy. In truth, there probably never was any radiation associated with this event. In fact, what I saw up in Thurmond was a controlled gamma source in the elevator shaft that was probably placed there when the lab was decommissioned. This would have given the appearance that radiation was streaming from inside the lab. But I think we now have living proof that it isn’t.” He gestured toward Mike Califano.

  Now Califano spoke up. “So how come Dr. Holzberg was trapped down there for, like, fifty years, but I only lost a few days?”

  “Ah,” said McCreary. He quickly drew another curve on the whiteboard, and labeled it as follows:

  “I’m guessing that the effects of time dilation decay something like this. Back in 1959, when this event first occurred, the time dilation was tremendous. For all we know, it might have taken them decades in our time just to get through the first few seconds of the event down there. But, as time moves on, the dilation becomes less and less. Until eventually, it returns to normal. So let’s see . . .” McCreary scrawled some numbers on the whiteboard. “You say you experienced an elapsed time of about two and a half hours, or a hundred and fifty minutes. Elapsed time outside the lab was two and a half days, or about three thousand six hundred minutes. That means you experienced a time-dilation ratio of about twenty-four to one. As I said, you’re damn lucky it wasn’t twenty-four thousand to one, or you’d still be down there.”

  “What about our carjacker?” Ana asked. “He’s been spending fifty-dollar bills that weren’t even printed until 1970 and ’71. Assuming he came from the lab, how do you explain that?”

  “Easy,” said McCreary. He quickly added some features to his second graph, so it looked like this:

  “Let’s assume that guy entered the lab in 1972. In that case, he would have been exposed to time-dilation effects that were much less severe than what were experienced by Dr. Holzberg and the original crew. Perhaps the time-dilation ratio would have been cut in half by then, or even by two-thirds.”

  There were baffled looks all around the table.

  “Think about it this way,” said McCreary. “Put yourself in the shoes of Dr. Holzberg. It’s October 5, 1959, and a strange event has just occurred in the lab. Perhaps this event lasted for just a few seconds. But, unbeknownst to you, during that short span of time, ten years have gone by outside the lab. You go out and check the elevator shaft, and you discover, to your horror, that it’s been sealed with concrete. You’re trapped. A few more seconds tick by and suddenly someone arrives in the lab who says they’re from 1972. You wonder: How can it be 1972 already? It was 1959 just a minute ago. And then you wonder: How did this person even get down here with the elevator shaft sealed? And this guy says: ‘I know an escape route. A secret passage.’ ”

  “Actually, it’s a cross-ventilation shaft to Foster Number Two,” said Califano.

  “Fine, a ventilation shaft,” said McCreary. He pointed to his graph. “By now, it’s already 1995 or 2000 outside the lab. But to you, Dr. Holzberg, it still feels like 1959. And to your new acquaintance, the carjacker, it still feels like 1972.” McCreary suddenly turned to Califano. “Mike, how long did it take to get out of the lab through that shaft?”

  Califano shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe five minutes.”

  “Okay,” said McCreary. “So it takes five more minutes to get through this ventilation shaft and into the adjacent mine. Meanwhile, another ten or twelve years has gone by outside. You finally make it out, and it’s 2013. So you, Dr. Holzberg, have lost fifty-four years, and your rescuer, our carjacker, has lost forty-one years. But you both come out of the lab at nearly the same time.”

  Everyone was quiet for a while until Califano spoke up. “A couple of problems with your time line, Doc.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Well, first of all, who shot Dr. Holzberg in the gut? Was it the carjacker, or was it someone else? Second, who killed all those people in the lab? Like I told you, I saw at least five bodies down there. And I know gunshot wounds when I see them. And third—and this is a big one—who set those explosives that blew up the lab? Remember, I saw two people heading out through Foster Number Two when I was coming in. They were wearing gas masks, and they were armed. My guess is, they’re the culprits. So where are they on your time line?”

  “All good points,” said McCreary. “And here’s the answer. Those people you saw could have enter
ed the lab at any time. They could have entered the lab in 1975, or 1980, or 1985, or really any time. But from the perspective of Dr. Holzberg and the others inside the lab, it still would have seemed like those men with guns came in just a short time after the original event. Everything would have happened in the blink of an eye. Perhaps Dr. Holzberg was caught in the crossfire and managed to escape, while the rest of the lab crew was killed. We just don’t know.”

  “Jesus,” said Admiral Armstrong. “I don’t know about you people, but my head is starting to hurt. Just tell me this, Bill. What do we do now?”

  “For starters,” McCreary said. “We need to find that Thurmond material ASAP. We can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands. As you can see, this is a very powerful technology. The effects of a larger-scale dilation event could be catastrophic. Not to mention that whoever controls this technology will have a tremendous technological edge over the United States. If the Russians are involved, as we suspect they are, then that’s even more of a concern.”

  Ana rose to her feet. “To find this material, we need to find that carjacker. I’m convinced he’s the key to all of this.”

  “And where are we going to find him?” Califano asked.

  Ana arched her eyebrows and nodded toward the computer that Califano had been using three days earlier to run his data-mining program. “Isn’t that your job?”

  31

  200 KILOMETERS NORTH OF SEVERODVINSK, RUSSIA

  The Russian icebreaker Burnyi slowly made its way through the snow-covered ice that blanketed this region of the White Sea eight months out of the year. The ice was relatively thin for late October—only about six inches in most places—due to the unusually mild weather this year in the Arctic. But this was still a challenge for the Burnyi, a timeworn, diesel-powered icebreaker out of Severodvinsk. Especially with the heavy barge it was towing.

  Seventy miles due south, just at the edge of the winter ice sheet, the sleek, white Belyi Prizrak glided gracefully through the frigid blue water of the White Sea. On board, a group of powerful men were assembled in the yacht’s plush media room. Seated among four rows of red theater-style chairs were five high-ranking officials of the Russian government, including the first deputy prime minister and three Russian generals in full uniform; two representatives of the Chinese Defense Ministry; and one representative from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. In the back row were four older men who simply described themselves as posrednikov or “facilitators.” These were powerful—and dangerous—men with connections in both high and low places. They were the type of men who put the word “crony” in “crony capitalism,” which was what passed for free enterprise these days in Russia. In the front row, seated by himself with his legs crossed and a stoic expression on his face, was Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Benjamin Fulcher.

  Vladamir Krupnov, president and cofounder of Krupnov Energy, suddenly appeared on the room’s large plasma television screen. “Gentlemen,” he said with a dramatic flourish. “Welcome aboard the Belyi Prizrak. I apologize that I could not be here in person for this historic event. But if all goes as planned today, you will soon be witnessing the greatest technological accomplishment in Russia since the launch of Sputnik. Because of your tremendous support and patience, and your continued financial generosity, we are now in a position to announce that Krupnov Energy will be the first and only company in the world with the capability to harness mankind’s greatest untapped energy source . . . gravity.”

  The small crowd did not stir at all. The dignitaries and other men assembled in the media room had all heard this promise many times before. What they wanted to see today were results.

  “This is just a demonstration, of course,” continued Krupnov. “But I think you will soon see that your investments in Krupnov Energy have been well placed.” Krupnov gestured toward Dr. Fulcher. “So without further ado, may I introduce Dr. Benjamin Fulcher.”

  Fulcher rose slowly with the help of his cane and turned toward the small audience. “Lights, please,” he said. The lights slowly dimmed in the media room and a video began playing on the screen behind him. “It all begins with a small seed,” he said. As he spoke, a small glass vial appeared on the screen with a tiny black shard floating lazily inside it. The camera zoomed in slowly until the floating object took up most of the screen.

  There was a collective murmur in the room as the seated dignitaries began exchanging emphatic whispers.

  “This,” continued Fulcher, “is one of the rarest substances on earth . . . perhaps in the entire universe. We are tremendously lucky to have this small bit in our possession. And I assure you, there is more on the way. This tiny seed material is what makes all of this technology possible.”

  “How does it float like that?” asked the Russian first deputy prime minister.

  Fulcher collected his thoughts for a moment before answering. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the force of gravity we experience all around us emanated from a single event known as the Big Bang.”

  The first deputy prime minister shrugged and nodded his head.

  “So all matter is attracted to all other matter because, in the beginning, it existed as just a single pinpoint of incredibly dense matter and energy, and it wants to return to that state. Let’s just accept that assumption as true.”

  The first deputy prime minister nodded again.

  “If that is true, then the material you see here on the screen somehow escaped the Big Bang. In other words, this material came to us from somewhere else, somewhere that was not involved in the Big Bang. And, as a result, this material is not imbued with the property that we call ‘gravity.’ ”

  “But . . . where could this material have come from if not from the Big Bang?” asked the Iranian official.

  Fulcher shrugged. “Another universe, perhaps. Or another dimension. Both possibilities are supported by modern string theory. Or, if you like, you could just say it came from God.”

  There were a few chuckles among the group. Fulcher, however, did not laugh or give any sign that he was joking. Because he wasn’t.

  “The question of where it came from is not terribly important,” said Fulcher. “What is important is that, under the right conditions, this seed material has the ability to influence other material.” Fulcher looked around the room to make sure this notion had sunk in. “This seed material,” he explained slowly, “can make ordinary material give up its gravitational force. And that, gentlemen, is what allows our reactor to convert gravity . . . into energy.”

  “Can you explain how the gravity reactor works?” asked one of the Chinese officials.

  Fulcher clicked a button, and the screen behind him suddenly transitioned to a slick animation of nuclear fission. “I can explain it best by comparing it to a conventional fission reactor. As you know, a fission reactor converts mass into energy. It does this by breaking an unstable uranium atom into fragments and using the released energy to heat water, which then runs turbines to generate electricity. But where does the energy come from? Well, if you were to weigh all the fragments that are left over after the uranium atom is broken up during fission and compare it to the original, intact atom, you would find there is a very tiny difference in mass. This is called the mass deficit, and this is where the energy actually comes from. The missing mass has been transformed directly into energy according to the formula E equals mc squared.” Fulcher paused for a moment and looked all around the small audience. “Of course, this was considered impossible a hundred years ago. Now it powers ships and submarines and entire cities. Next slide, please.”

  The screen changed to a simplified animation of Fulcher’s gravity reactor.

  “Our reactor is based on a similar principle. But instead of converting mass into energy, it converts gravity into energy. As I explained earlier, we start with a special seed material, which has the capability of influencing a secondary material, causing it to release its gravitational force. This results in a ‘gravitational deficit,’ and ene
rgy is simultaneously released according to the formula E equals mc squared, where m is the mass of the material that has transitioned to the nongravitational state.”

  “And what is the secondary material that you use?” asked one of the Russian generals.

  “For today’s demonstration, we will be using nickel. But virtually any dense mineral will work, such as iron or copper, or zinc, or even alloys such as steel. In time, we will be able to harvest the spent secondary material from the reactor. And I’m sure you gentlemen can imagine the many uses it will have.”

  “It will float?” asked the first deputy prime minister. “Just like the object we saw earlier?”

  Fulcher nodded. “Yes, it will.”

  “What about radiation?” asked the Iranian scientist.

  “There is no release of radiation from our reactor because the atoms are not being broken apart, as they are with fission. Therefore, when we harvest the spent secondary material, it will not be radioactive.” Fulcher paused. “There is, however, one important side effect. Which is why we are conducting this demonstration out here in the open ocean.”

  “You mean time dilation,” said the Iranian.

  Fulcher nodded. “Yes. It is most problematic during reactor start-up, and it diminishes over time. We believe that, once we have enough material to create a self-sustaining reaction, the time-dilation effect will reach a steady-state condition that can be easily managed. Perhaps it will be a factor of just slightly less than one. In other words, time will run just a bit slower in the vicinity of the reactor, but this should not affect operations or present any sort of health hazard. As a precaution, however, we are designing our first reactors to be placed out at sea. Long transmission lines will carry electrical power to the grid.”