by Scott Jarol
Ezekiel saw them continue up the narrow stairs to the top catwalk, catching their balance with each step. The scaffolding below had begun to sag at a steep angle, and the bending steel groaned under the strain.
“Zekie,” shouted his mother. “What was that?”
“I’m okay,” said Zeke.
Ezekiel watched Zeke hook the high edge of the tilting walkway with his fingertips. He pulled up his knees into a crouch, leveraging his weight to press his feet hard against the tilting platform like a rock climber. Fine. Let him play the hero. That would keep him busy while he and Dr. Willis dealt with Doc.
“Someone needs to help Zekie,” said Ezekiel’s mother.
“The best thing to do right now is fix this problem,” said Doc. “As soon as Willis and I take care of things, Gary and Zeke’s friends can get him down.”
“Please hurry.”
“Please don’t leave me here,” Cynthia whimpered from below.
Ezekiel looked down on Cynthia, who sat curled up with her arms wrapped around her knees, looking genuinely scared for the first time he could remember. She deserved nothing less than the terror she had brought upon herself.
“Don’t worry, Cynthia,” called Zeke. “I’m here. I’ll help you as soon as I can.”
Ezekiel realized Zeke couldn’t possibly reach Cynthia, who was still caged in by the particle beams, the void, and tons of collapsing steel. Without the lower catwalk, there was no way for Zeke to get down or Cynthia to climb up from the bottom floor. He suspected Zeke knew that and just wanted to calm Cynthia. They both knew they were all running out of escape routes.
“The void is still growing,” said Gary above him. “I need to retune the QuARC.”
Not much time left, then. Ezekiel accelerated around the disintegrating catwalk and made his way up to join Dr. Willis on the top level. From the other side of the void, Gary was shouting. “Zeke, can you hold on a little longer?”
Chapter 33
Triton Core, North Star Laboratory
Ezekiel heard the sound of running footsteps, feint at first, then growing louder just before he saw Howard sprint from a service tunnel off the upper catwalk.
“I think we have a problem,” Howard shouted, huffing and puffing. He would have toppled over the railing if Doc hadn’t grabbed him by the shirttail. “I mean, another problem.”
“What’s happening there?” asked Nate.
Ezekiel looked down. Nate was pointing toward one of the portals off the middle catwalk, where a strange fluid poured from the opening. It spread across the glass wall like an expanding mirror.
“Watch out,” said Gary in a high-pitched helium voice. As a blast of cold vapor rushed around them, Gary crashed into Nate, shoving him aside just before the liquid helium surged from the opening. They slammed down onto the metal grating.
“Ouch!” Nate squeaked. The rising helium vapor had pinched all their vocal cords into cartoon voices again. He shot Gary a look of frustration.
“You must be my eyes,” Dr. Willis said to Ezekiel. “Please tell me what is happening.”
“I think liquid helium is covering the walls,” said Ezekiel.
“Congratulations, Drs. Steiner and Chang,” said Dr. Willis. “It appears that your crude attempts at sabotage have been successful.”
Ezekiel found it strange that Dr. Willis’s voice was unaffected by the helium. He must be some kind of superhuman.
“What do you mean?” asked Howard.
“For the first time since I recruited you to this project, you have actually fulfilled my expectations.”
Ezekiel watched helium stream from one portal after another. The violet-blue particle beams began to wink out one by one and then in bunches. Whatever Gary and Howard had done to sabotage Triton, it was working. The corona dissolved as Triton died. The hum of the powerful magnets ceased. All that remained was silence and the firefly sparks shed by gas molecules claimed by the void. In the darkness, the annihilations twinkled across the void’s surface like the sparkling stars and galaxies of an inside-out universe.
“Time to go,” said Howard.
“I will not leave Zekie,” said Zeke’s mom, indignantly.
“We’re not leaving anyone behind,” said Margaux.
“I’m so cold,” Cynthia whined from below.
“I don’t mean to complain,” squeaked Zeke softly, “but I think my fingers are frozen.”
“Doc and I will take care of Zeke,” Howard called in the darkness.
“And me,” Cynthia whined from below. “Why does everyone keep forgetting about me?”
“And her,” said Howard. “The rest of you need to keep going.”
“If the whole system is shut down, then so are the ventilation turbines,” said Gary. “The helium will replace all the oxygen and we’ll asphyxiate.”
Liquefied gas still streamed from all the beam portals and spilled up and down the glass walls, defying gravity like exotic cascades on the icy moon of a remote planet, splashing into the bottom of the spherical room.
“Look,” said Margaux in fascinated horror. “It can flow uphill.”
The mercurial liquid had coated the walls like a mirror, reflecting their own distorted figures, barely visible in the void’s faint starlight. “It’s like we’re floating in outer space.”
“It’s a superfluid,” said Gary. “If that liquefied gas catches you, it’ll freeze your skin instantly.”
Ezekiel heard pounding from the heavy steel door at the bottom. “Get me out of here,” Cynthia shouted. “How do you open this thing?” Freed from the now extinguished particle beams, Cynthia began looking for an escape route. However, as far as Ezekiel could see in the weak light and from great distance, Zeke was no longer moving. Frost covered his exposed hands and face. Would he feel a change, something to signal their severed connection?
“The door won’t open without power,” Gary called down to Cynthia.
Cynthia let out a helium-pinched squeal and kicked the door in frustration as the liquid helium sheeted over its surface. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”
“We’re running out of time,” said Howard. “If the helium takes out the QuARC, the void will start expanding again like an infinite balloon, right through the walls.”
“And us,” added Margaux.
Ezekiel left Dr. Willis’s side to lead his mother away.
“It looks like you’ll get your wish,” Doc said to Ezekiel.
Ezekiel didn’t need to look again at his other self to know his situation was hopeless. That part of him would soon be gone for good.
“I’m not leaving without my Zekie,” said his mother.
“I’m going with you,” said Ezekiel.
“Both of you. All of you.”
“We were just trying to stop Willis,” Howard said to Doc.
“Don’t sweat it,” he said to them quietly. “You did what you had to. You had no way to know I’d bungle things.”
They lined up single file along the catwalk. Margaux clutched Nate’s arm.
“It’s okay,” said Nate. “We’re safe up here.”
Ezekiel knew Nate was saying what everyone wanted to believe, however untrue. He could see it made Nate uncomfortable, but no one believed him anyway, not even Ezekiel’s mother.
“It can be stopped,” Doc shouted to Dr. Willis, “but it will take an instantaneous, massive release of energy at the right moment.”
“Yes,” agreed Willis from the opposite side of the high catwalk, visible over the top of the void. “The remedy is straightforward. You’ve outplayed me.”
What did that mean? How had Doc outplayed Dr. Willis? Doc was talking about throwing himself into the void just as Ezekiel’s father had, but as far as Ezekiel was concerned, it was the perfect repayment for what he’d done. So why was Dr. Willis admitting defeat?
Willis had something else in mind. He wouldn’t let Doc win.
“What’s he talking about?” Howard was asking Gary, echoing Ezekiel’s tho
ughts.
“A massive energy release directly into the void,” said Gary, “Could be enough to restore the normal Higgs field, like filling in a hole.”
“But it’s huge!” said Ezekiel. “How would the mass of one man be enough to close the void?”
Howard was about to reply when Margaux cried out in alarm. “Now I’m sure of it!” Margaux scanned Dr. Willis and Doc’s faces, back and forth.
“Sure of what?” Ezekiel asked.
“Dr. Willis and Doc are the same person, just like you and Zeke,” she said. “That’s why they both have that scar on their left hand.”
Schrödinger scrambled to Doc, then over to Dr. Willis, sniffing around each of them. After a warning growl at Dr. Willis, he barked his agreement.
“Yes, we were once a single individual,” said Dr. Willis. “We’ve grown apart.” He rounded the curve until he stood in full view. “More accurately, like Zeke and Ezekiel, we are now two different sides of what was once a single individual.”
All expression drained from Doc’s face. “Zeke’s dad called it the Gemini effect,” he said, “after the twins in the Zodiac.”
At last, Ezekiel understood what was going on between Doc and Dr. Willis. Doc had used the QuARC as bait to lure Dr. Willis to his workshop, where he would merge them again into a single person. But Dr. Willis had used Ezekiel, not the QuARC, to draw Doc to Triton in a play to eliminate him once and for all.
Dr. Willis had counted on Doc’s weakness, his overwhelming guilt and sense of responsibility for Ezekiel, to bring him to his own destruction. But Doc had been trying to help Ezekiel all along.
Ezekiel winced as the realization swept across him.
“Our paths have led us inevitably to this circumstance,” said Dr. Willis.
“I never intended to hold the fate of the universe in my own hands.” Doc peered over the edge of the catwalk.
“Don’t you think it’s presumptuous to declare yourself responsible?” Willis faced off with Doc, as if preparing to subdue him with nothing more than the force of his intellect.
“Perhaps other beings scattered among distant galaxies have made the same blunder. For all we know, darkness consumed the surrounding universe long ago and all we perceive through our telescopes is what remains of its projected light, advancing toward us on the vanguard of oblivion like a skier outrunning an avalanche. Don’t flatter yourself, Freeman. You don’t define the laws of nature. You—we—only stumble upon them.”
“Are you saying this was inevitable? Like you’re not responsible?” asked Ezekiel in disbelief.
“Unless we count ourselves as gods, the universe must have always contained the seed of its own destruction. We simply made way for its expression.”
Doc stood staring into the void while everyone waited for him to respond to Dr. Willis. Schrödinger padded up beside him. Doc finally spoke. “According to Buddha, form is emptiness; emptiness is form. All part of the same thing.”
“It now seems you will see your wish fulfilled—into oblivion as one,” Dr. Willis said flatly. “I personally take greater comfort in Epicurus’s blunt assessment, ‘Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.’”
“Boys!” shouted Cynthia from the ground floor. “Maybe we could skip the poetry slam. We’re kind of about to die here.”
Ezekiel raced around the catwalk for a better look at Zeke.
Zeke’s fingers must have been cramped and numb from clutching the edges of the sagging catwalk when the shimmering liquid helium had coated his hands and flowed up his arms. Ezekiel imagined the molecules of liquid helium swarming over him, coating him in a shimmering sheath, seeping in through his pores, between his lips, into his nostrils, beneath his eyelids.
Ezekiel rushed back to the others. Willis’s plan made no sense. Had he planned things to come out this way? It didn’t add up. If Willis was planning to let Doc sacrifice himself to the void, who or what would remain to close it? There was only one other pair of quantum doppelgangers.
Gary was thinking out loud. “Two hundred kilograms. That would be one big bang.”
“Our body masses should contain more than enough energy to close the rift,” said Doc.
“Wait, are you going to jump in?” asked Nate. “How will that fix it?”
Gary began to explain. “If the two masses—”
“Do you mean people?” demanded Margaux. “People, right?”
“Yes, people,” said Gary. “When they join as they enter the void, they’ll cancel each other out. It could work, but there could be major blowback.”
“Blowback?” said Nate.
“If the mass-energy cancellation begins outside the boundary of the void, some of the energy will radiate outward.”
“How much energy?” asked Howard.
“Total energy from the mass of two grown-ups would be over 4 gigatons, about eighty times as much as the biggest hydrogen bomb ever detonated. Not enough to blow apart the entire planet.”
“That makes me feel much better,” whispered Margaux.
“But the dust cloud would probably kill off most living things, except maybe bacteria and cockroaches,” Gary continued. “They always seem to survive mass extinctions.”
“Good to know,” said Nate.
“What if it happens inside the void? How much would escape then?” asked Margaux.
“Not sure. But if it does leak a little, it could be enough to vaporize us.”
“Nothing to worry about,” said Howard. “We won’t feel a thing.”
Dr. Willis’s hand came down on Ezekiel’s shoulder. “The moment of truth is upon us.”
Ezekiel followed Dr. Willis to his position opposite Doc. The void lay beneath them like a bottomless pit.
“As soon as the void is closed,” said Doc to Nate and Margaux, “get down there and help Zeke. I’m counting on you two to make sure they get as far from each other as possible.”
“We have to cross the threshold at exactly the same moment,” Doc said.
“Then we shall need to synchronize our actions,” said Dr. Willis. “How should we signal each other?”
“Maybe you could just count to three,” suggested Nate.
Willis nodded his approval. “Simple and elegant.”
“I’ll count,” said Nate. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
Ezekiel turned mechanically toward Dr. Willis, as if driven by the clockwork of his own awakening thoughts. His mouth went dry. His heart was pounding. In the blankness of Willis’s dark glasses he’d once perceived deep mystery, but now recognized only empty reflections.
“It was you,” he said. “You and Doc. You’re the same person. You killed my father.”
“Let’s review your logic,” said Dr. Willis, unfazed by Ezekiel’s anger. “A grievous error was made, which claimed your father’s life. As an incidental consequence of said error, I came into existence. By any logical order of cause and effect, one could hardly say I was at fault.”
“But you said you were two sides of the same person. How do I know which side made the mistake?”
“Indeed, was it me, or was it my alter ego? Perhaps you should consider which of our two selves demonstrates superior intellect, the janitor or the scientist. Let evidence be your guide.”
“Doc never told me what happened to my father, but you lied to my face,” said Ezekiel through clenched teeth.
“I never said anything to you that was untrue, I—”
“You just left out the important stuff.”
“I omitted only that which was irrelevant. I’ve presented you with an opportunity, and I stand before you as a harbinger of the future that awaits you. Channel your passion toward fulfilling—”
“My destiny?”
“Destiny is a figment of the imagination. You will choose whether to fulfill your potential.”
Dr. Willis stretched his arms in a welcoming gesture and raised his voice so everyone could hear. “Now if e
veryone has said their farewells, then I suggest we proceed.”
“Ready for countdown,” Nate squeaked, as loudly as he could manage with his helium-pinched voice.
“One!” squeaked Nate.
“It will soon be time to go,” Dr. Willis told Ezekiel privately.
“What about them? My mother?”
“Freedom comes at a cost,” said Dr. Willis. “Sacrifice is the currency of achievement.”
Doc stood across from them at the railing, ready to vault into the abyss.
Nate shut his eyes. “Two!”
Ezekiel listened to the signs of life around him in the thin shell of space that remained between the advancing void and the mirrored walls. The disembodied whispers of all present and Cynthia’s sobbing reflected around the concave walls, scrambling their directions. The shadow of someone’s breath whispered into his ear, but when he turned, no one was there, an acoustic illusion.
“Stop!” he shouted. His voice raced ahead of him, reverberating in every direction as he sprinted around the catwalk.
But Doc, anticipating Nate’s count of three, had already leapt into the air. Ezekiel hurtled toward him and caught him midflight. They slammed into the steel floor together. Doc’s glasses flew off. One lens popped out and vanished into the void with a flash.
“What have you done?” hollered Doc, pushing Ezekiel off of him. “That was the only way!”
Margaux picked up Doc’s broken glasses. Ezekiel and Doc lay side by side on their backs, paralyzed more by shock than by the pain of their banged-up knees and elbows.
“We had to enter together,” said Doc. “You saved me for nothing.”
Ezekiel shook his head. “Willis lied.”
Ezekiel and Doc helped each other up.
“So Dr. Willis is . . . gone?” asked Margaux.
Ezekiel looked back to where Willis had been standing. “Not the way you think.” He turned back to Doc. “He left you here to die.”
Ezekiel saw understanding cross Doc’s face as he realized Dr. Willis had never intended to jump.
“No, he left us all to die,” said Doc.
“We’ll handle him,” said Gary. “He’s in the tunnel. Nowhere else to go.”