by Scott Jarol
Ezekiel gazed into the void, his mind gripped by its profound darkness. He was beginning to wonder whether Dr. Willis had something more planned than distracting Doc from his attempts at sabotage while Triton came to life.
“What happens to things that go in there?” he asked.
“They vanish into oblivion,” said Dr. Willis, “never to return.”
* * *
Zeke ached to join the others below and especially to get a closer look at his other self.
Doc noticed his fixed gaze and joined him at the railing. After a few seconds of silent observation, he faced Zeke straight on. “So now I have to tell you something, and it may be confusing.”
“You mean about how your machine made two of me?” asked Zeke.
“Yeah. That mini-Triton I built in my workshop, it was supposed to prevent Willis from repeating our mistakes. What happened to you—it was meant for Willis. It’s a bad scene, but we can put you back together.”
“It was a trap?” asked Zeke. “You were trying to catch Dr. Willis? Is he a bad guy? What were you going to do with him?”
“He’s not bad, he’s just not all there. We’ll deal with him after we take care of you. Here’s the lowdown: Triton has a nasty habit of backfiring. Your QuARC makes it more predictable. The problem with Triton is that sometimes, instead of converting normal matter into energy, it converts dark matter into normal matter. Remember back in fourth grade, when you made a crystal in science class?”
Zeke nodded. “With salt.”
“The molecules dissolved in the water stuck to each other, into their natural shape, like they were preprogrammed. The Triton process followed your molecular structure like a pattern and made a second Zeke, only it made what’s known as a quantum-entangled pair, so you’re not exactly the same. You’re kind of opposites. You dig?”
“Like twins.” He’d always wanted a brother or sister. Maybe this was his chance.
“Not so much,” said Doc. “Not twins. I know, it’s confusing. Dig this, it’s like a deck of cards where one player gets all the spades and clubs, and the other guy gets the hearts and diamonds. If you shuffle the cards back together, you get a full deck. The difference is, the two of you are made from different forms of matter. If you get too close to each other, it all turns into energy—kaboom! And we’re talking like continent-smashing energy. That’s why I need you to trust me. Stay as far from the other you as possible, and we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
What would it feel like to explode? Would he feel anything? Would his consciousness linger long enough to recognize what had happened? Not if he instantly ceased to exist. But it might not be so quick and painless for Mom and everyone else around him, and maybe for millions of others.
“So you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do, no matter how scary?”
“I’m not scared,” said Zeke. Doc had been kind to him since kindergarten. No reason to doubt him now.
“I can’t lie to you, Zeke. I don’t know if it will work. This was never supposed to happen to you, but it’s the only way to go now.”
“What if it doesn’t work? Will they be okay?” Zeke pointed down to his mother and friends.
“The truth? I don’t know. We’re trekking the fringes of physics. Still gotta try.”
“This is my fault,” said Zeke. “What if everyone dies because of me?”
“No.” Doc squeezed his own head in his chunky hands and then took Zeke firmly by the shoulders. “It’s not your fault. I’m the only one who can take the rap for this mess. If anything, you may have prevented an even bigger disaster. If you hadn’t shown up with the QuARC, who knows how much damage Willis might have already done?”
Zeke faced the void. “Is that really whatever is beyond the universe?”
“Pretty sure.” Doc nodded.
“Whatever happens to me, I hope everyone else will be okay. Mom will be really sad. You’ll take care of her?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Zeke took a long, deep breath. “I wonder what it will be like out there.”
Chapter 31
Triton Core, North Star Laboratory
As Willis continued to lecture his captive audience, Howard glanced up. Gary had entered the chamber unnoticed. He removed his shoes and made his way over to kneel beside Howard a few feet away from the QuARC.
Howard raised his eyebrows expectantly. Gary spoke quietly in the direction of the void, taking advantage of its tendency to absorb sound. “It’s not connected to a power source? It’s just grounded out to the structure?”
Howard nodded.
“Maybe Willis was right. It looks stable.” Gary dialed in the settings on his pocket-sized instrument. “It’s definitely generating some kind of feedback.”
“The void isn’t growing at all,” agreed Howard. “It looks like it’s breaking up the surface resonances. Somehow this wire-ball is generating a damping field, kinda like throwing a huge blanket over a cathedral bell.”
“It’s working right now, but do you think we should bet the universe on some kid’s science project?”
“It’s worse than that.”
“Worse? How can things be any worse than Willis flushing the entire universe down the drain?”
“We have a situation.” Howard flicked his eyes upward in the direction of the catwalk.
Zeke waved enthusiastically. Doc placed his hand on Zeke’s shoulder to calm him before he called too much attention to himself. Gary looked back at Howard, then at Ezekiel, then back up at Zeke.
“Again?” asked Gary.
“Doc says he’s got a plan, but he needs to use Triton.”
“Then I guess he’s in the right place.”
“He needs it to keep working once it starts up.” Howard waited patiently for Gary to catch on.
Gary’s jaw dropped as what Howard was getting at sunk in. “He wants us to undo our little modification?”
“It’s the only way. We have to remove the shunt. But one of us needs to be here in case Willis starts barking orders. If we’re both gone, he’ll get suspicious. I’ll go take care of it.”
“You better hurry. He’s already initiated the startup sequence. That’s why I came down here.”
The main doors slammed together with a hollow bang that rolled around the chamber like thunder. Howard popped up to his feet in alarm. Triton was locking down in preparation for full power operation. “What’s he doing? He’ll kill us all!”
“I’ll get everyone else out of here,” said Gary. “He’s programmed the maintenance tunnels to stay open. He may be a megalomaniac, but he’s not suicidal.”
“At least we know he didn’t find our fix. Otherwise he’d have had a dozen techs down there undoing it before he flipped the switch. I’ll patch it so Doc can take care of his problem, and then I’ll make sure Triton wipes out enough of itself to prevent Willis and Doc from doing any more crazy stuff.”
Howard stepped away lightly across the platform, climbed the stairs, and took off running among the revolving beacons sweeping the tubular surfaces of the Beta tunnel.
* * *
Doc’s voice reverberated from above. “You make ripping a hole in space-time sound like an achievement, Willis.”
Ezekiel followed Margaux’s gaze to spot Doc, who stood opposite Dr. Willis on the uppermost catwalk, separated by the void. Their voices resonated around the glassy walls with quivering reverberations, as if emanating from another world.
“Dr. Freeman,” said Dr. Willis. “Come to celebrate our belated success?”
“How can you say Triton is a success if it made a hole in the universe?” asked Margaux.
“That’s a fair concern, young lady,” said Dr. Willis. “Indeed, this aberration was an unintended side effect of our research. We meant only to disrupt the forces that hold matter together, what we physicists call the strong force, which makes all matter in the universe possible. As the particles disintegrate, Triton releases enormous quantities of energy.”
“E equals MC squared,” said Nate.
“Correct,” said Dr. Willis. “Albert Einstein showed us that matter and energy are interchangeable. However, compared to the nuclear reactions discovered in the twentieth century in which we split or fused atoms, leaving behind radioactive waste, this process is complete.”
“What do you mean, complete?” asked Ezekiel.
“Total subatomic annihilation, 100 percent conversion of matter into energy,” said Dr. Willis. “Many objects have resonant frequencies. Triton slams high-energy particles together, propagating powerful shockwaves. The vibrations pile up on top of one another until protons and neutrons disintegrate, releasing the forces that have held them together since the birth of the universe.”
“That’s awesome,” said Nate.
“Yeah,” said Doc, “except for one little problem. Releasing the binding energy can kick off a chain reaction that rips through all the surrounding matter, including the dark matter that holds space together.”
“We expected it to cease when we cut off the bombardment beams,” said Dr. Willis, “but once initiated by Triton, the reaction sustained itself.”
“How could you do this, David?” Ezekiel’s mom called up to Dr. Willis. Ezekiel looked at his mother in surprise.
Margaux stepped closer to her. “Mrs. K., that was Dr. Willis talking.”
Ezekiel’s mother gave Margaux a serene look. “I know, but thank you, Margaux.”
“A simple mistake,” said Dr. Willis, “especially under stressful circumstances.”
Certain that everyone else was distracted by Dr. Willis’s endless lecture, Ezekiel circled around the void to the staircase hidden from everyone else’s view and ascended silently.
Dr. Willis, from the highest catwalk, continued his debate with Doc. “We took a calculated risk.”
Their voices filled the air, disembodied by the complex reflections of the curved walls.
“We?” asked Doc. “You made a bad bet. If this thing keeps growing, it’ll chew through Earth. First, it’ll reduce the planet to a floating pile of rocks, magma, and liquid iron. In a couple of decades, the Earth will have lost so much mass it’ll jump the sun’s gravity and make a beeline out of the solar system.”
“And then it will stop?” asked Margaux.
“Unfortunately not,” said Dr. Willis. “The gloomy picture that Dr. Freeman has painted for you is only the beginning. The extraspatial void will grow, or perhaps you could say in relative terms, the universe will shrink, until it has been consumed entirely. The universe will certainly end prematurely, in perhaps a few billion rather than hundreds of billions of years—an unfortunate side effect.”
“At least it’s kind of slow,” said Nate, holding his breath and squinting intently at the void’s edges, trying to detect its expansion.
“Until now,” said Dr. Willis, “it has continued to grow at a rate barely perceptible to your eyes. One year ago it was no larger than a pea. A month ago, it was the diameter of a soccer ball. It has accelerated steadily since then. Today, thanks to Ezekiel, its growth has been arrested. I’m afraid the only thing standing between us and total annihilation is Ezekiel’s QuARC.”
“You mean Ezekiel’s invention is going to save the universe?” asked Nate.
Ezekiel reached the middle catwalk. He hadn’t set out to solve Triton’s problems, and had no idea that Triton or the void even existed. That was Willis and Doc’s problem. His concern was making sure the QuARC ended up back in his own hands.
“We first detected the device when it began draining power from Triton,” Dr. Willis was saying.
“That’s probably why everything went weird in the school,” said Nate. “Too much voltage.”
“However, my assistants noticed a second effect. The field re-emitted by this object comprised a mix of frequencies that appeared to freeze the void’s expansion.”
Ezekiel froze, listening intently. This finally explained it. The QuARC must have been doing what his father had intended all along. Its ability to absorb electricity from the atmosphere was an accidental side effect. Still, electricity was why he had built it, and that’s what the Chairman was paying him to deliver.
“I mean,” Nate was saying, “it’s great that it’s not growing, but what about closing it for good?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Willis, “that would be the next logical step. Theoretically, with an instantaneous, massive release of energy, Triton could reconstitute the missing dark matter. Unfortunately, the only source of such prodigious energy here on Earth is Triton itself, which only serves to further perpetuate the problem—and hence, we find ourselves in a circular predicament.”
Ezekiel glanced down. Gary was waving Cynthia, Margaux, Nate, and his mother toward the closest stairs.
“Where’s Zekie?” asked his mother.
“Up there,” said Margaux.
Ezekiel saw her look up and point straight in his direction.
“He’s got the right idea,” said Gary. “The best way out of here is up above, through one of the service tunnels. There are three on the top level.”
Ezekiel held his breath and listened to the silence as the reverberations of their footsteps and voices rapidly faded, absorbed by the darkness. Willis said nothing. He had already set things in motion. Ezekiel needed to deal with Doc before the others caught up.
All around the chamber, dozens of blue particle beams flashed from the constellation of holes perforating the walls, converging inward as if probing the center of the void.
“That looks bad,” said Margaux.
“Everyone okay?” shouted Gary. “Everyone move back against the wall.”
Only a moment passed before he shouted again. “Wait! Whatever you do, don’t step in front of the beams.”
A flash of intense blue light streaked past Ezekiel’s right ear. He stiffened, making himself as skinny as possible, then sidestepped to his left before pivoting 180 degrees on one heel and walking with robotic precision directly toward the outer perimeter, shrinking away from the beams streaking above him and to either side.
Gary and the others had pressed their backs to the curved glass-lined wall along the outside of the chamber. The blue particle beams cut them off from one another.
“How come we can see the beams?” asked Nate. “Lasers should be invisible.”
“Those aren’t lasers,” said Margaux. “I’ve seen something like them before, at Doc’s place.”
“They’re high-energy particle beams,” said Gary. “The light comes from ionization. The protons smash into the oxygen and nitrogen gas molecules in the air, knocking off electrons and photons.”
“What’s that smell?” asked Cynthia. “Am I on fire?”
“It’s the ozone,” said Gary. “It’s formed by the ionized oxygen. Try not to breathe too deeply. Ozone can burn your lungs.”
The surface of the void glowed like a lantern as the particles streaming in on the beams crossed its boundary and flashed out of existence, buzzing like a swarm of locusts.
Ezekiel looked up again at Doc and his other self. Doc was doing the same, looking back at him and then at Zeke and back again. Only judging by the way he was furrowing his brow and talking to himself, Doc wasn’t comparing them out of amazement. He was working out some kind of plan.
Gary checked his instrument. “We should get everyone out of here right now before the radiation increases.”
“Radiation?” asked Nate. “I thought you said there wasn’t any radiation in Triton.”
“No waste,” said Gary, “but while it’s operating it throws off high-energy X-rays. Once it gets to peak power, it’ll cook us.”
Dr. Willis lorded over them from his safe spot in front of one of the service tunnels. Ignoring Gary, he announced, “As I’m sure you can see, certainly better than I, Triton is functioning normally.”
Ezekiel circled around to the nearest staircase and crept up to the midlevel catwalk, the longest of the three, running almost five hundred feet around th
e chamber’s equator.
“Willis,” Doc was saying, “you should have ended this experiment.”
“Therein lies our difference,” said Dr. Willis. “Again, Triton has progressed from experiment to proven technology. Lack of conviction has driven you to question everything and accomplish nothing. Nothing great was ever accomplished without courage.”
“It looks like your technology has a few holes in it. How do you propose to seal this one?” asked Doc.
“Dr. Freeman, remember that this defect was a product of your own miscalculation.”
“Doc, is that true?” Margaux asked. “And don’t say ‘it’s complicated.’”
“Okay,” said Doc. “I won’t say it.”
“Fortunately, Ezekiel’s device is stabilizing these inconvenient side effects.”
“Side effects?” said Nate. “The end of the universe seems like more than a side effect. Can’t you plug it up permanently?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Willis. “There is another remedy. However, it would require a great personal sacrifice.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Doc, “would it, Willis?”
Ezekiel’s mother gripped Margaux’s arm so tightly that even from 60 feet above, Ezekiel could see Margaux wince.
“It’s our responsibility,” said Doc.
“As soon as Triton is fully operational, we will take whatever action is necessary to clean up after ourselves.”
Gary bounded up the first staircase, two steps at a time. “We have to get everyone out of here, now!” he shouted.
“Not everyone,” Doc said. “They need to stay.”
“They who?” asked Nate, bewildered.
“But you said bad things would happen,” said Margaux.
“What kind of bad things?” asked Nate. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
Ezekiel silently stepped onto the highest catwalk and circled around the void to get a closer look at his other self.
Doc flung himself in front of Ezekiel. “Stop! Don’t come any closer.”