The Null Prophecy
Page 23
“Eva, can you hear me?” she shouted, getting out of the car.
Static.
“If you can, I just got to Calder’s. What’s up?”
Yet more static.
“Eva, I can’t hear you. Try again later. Good-bye.”
She walked up to the front door, knocked, and waited, her nerves clanging like a fire alarm. A moment later the door opened. Calder looked rested but not entirely happy to see her.
He looked through the peephole, hesitated, then reluctantly opened the door.
“Morning!” Allie said. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
She looked beautiful, as always.
“No, no. I was just on my way to the lab, actually.”
“Oh.”
He opened the door wider. “But come in, come in.”
She stepped inside. “I tried calling ahead but I got a fast busy signal on both your home and lab phones.”
He led her into the house. “That’s because I took the receivers off the hook. People just won’t leave me alone. I’m even getting calls from Hollywood producers who wanna make a movie about me.”
“I warned you, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah, you did. I was naïve. I just wanted Hero to get the credit she deserves, not become. . . . Never mind. How ‘bout a cup of joe?”
“Yes, please. Make mine a double; I’m about to collapse.”
He went to the kitchen, poured Allie and himself some coffee, then came out and handed her one of the cups. “Let’s go to the living room.”
They sat at opposite ends of the overstuffed, fawn-colored couch.
“So—”
They’d spoken simultaneously and now laughed nervously.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Ladies first.”
She grinned from behind her steaming coffee. “Oh, that’s good. So you still think I’m a lady.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I do.”
SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (4:46 P.M. CENTRAL EUROPEAN SUMMER TIME)
POOR CLARES’ SACRED HEART CONVENT; SEVILLE, SPAIN
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 43 HOURS 2 MINUTES
Mother Yolanda was saying good-bye to the well-dressed man who proposed to swap their venerable property for a place well away from Sevilla. She had just finished describing the miraculous windfall the convent was receiving from generous donors all over the world.
“Please, if anything changes, Reverend Mother,” he said, “you know how to get in touch with me. You know our offer would have benefited many people, not just the orphanage.”
“Yes, my son.” She plunged her hands into the habit’s oversized pockets, feeling for the rosary beads. “Please go with God and our sincere thanks.”
“Take care of yourselves,” he said, walking out. Then he stopped and looked up at the sky. “They’re saying one of the holes is right above this region.”
She had no idea what nonsense he was saying and was eager for him to leave.
“Yes, my son, yes. But we’re all in God’s hands, always.”
When at last the man left, she looked up. The sun was encircled by a soft, gilded crown and the sky had a festive red tinting. Could it be a sign of their sudden good fortune?
She lowered her head and briefly closed her eyes.
Thank you.
Earlier in the morning she notified the parish priest that they already had enough money for a full-time, resident doctor and all the upgrades the new government was requiring of them: better electrical wiring, smoke alarms, lead-free plumbing, proper handrails on the staircases—the list went on and on.
Entering her cell, she made straight for the shortwave radio, eager to inform the world about God’s surprising provision. But on the radio there was nothing but white noise. No matter how much she tried finding a clear channel, the static was unrelenting.
At last she gave up.
“Yes,” she said to herself, smiling. “I might’ve known.”
Sliding off the seat, she spoke quietly but firmly to someone or something invisible whose presence she felt.
“Well,” she said in conclusion, “I can be just as stubborn. Do you hear me? Just as stubborn.”
Tomorrow she would try again.
SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (5:46 P.M. ISRAEL DAYLIGHT TIME)
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 43 HOURS 2 MINUTES
Lorena rambled furtively through the narrow passageways of Old Jerusalem. She paused to gawp at the lowering sun and darkening sky, both of which were unusually colorful.
“Crosses, very good price.”
She turned and saw an old vendor, his brown face wrinkled and weathered, his vacant, cheerless eyes dark. He was holding up a small, colorful wooden crucifix.
“For you, Miss, ten percent discount.”
She stared blankly at the old man, her thoughts casting back to the previous evening. After her photo appeared on the evening news, Asher—God bless him—offered to shelter her from the authorities; he was completely sympathetic to her plight. At first she accepted. But by late afternoon today she decided to leave—and not just to avoid risking trouble for Asher’s household or righteous cause.
It was because the time was quickly nearing for her to be in place for Jesus’s return. The scary news about the giant solar flare and magnetic holes confirmed her conviction: the Second Coming was happening before the rebuilding of the Temple. The End was less than two days away!
“Don’t worry, old friend,” she said to Asher upon her leave-taking. “I’ll be fine.”
Myra gave Lorena a shawarma to go and a headscarf to help conceal her identity. Lorena left the house with the black, flower-patterned headscarf securely wrapped around her head and so far it was working beautifully.
She looked around guardedly and then stepped forward for a closer look at the seemingly ancient crucifix.
“Ten percent, ten percent,” the weathered vendor said eagerly, handing it to her.
Taking hold of the relic, she went weak in the knees imagining the extraordinary event that was about to happen right here in Jerusalem. The event Christians had been anticipating for more than two thousand years.
She spoke in a faint voice to no one in particular. “He’s coming back.”
“What? What you say, Miss?”
She shook herself. “Huh? What?”
“You say something, Miss. You want cross? Fifteen percent.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll take it.”
After paying, she clutched the holy artifact to her bosom and wandered away. “I’m coming, sweet Lord,” she whispered ecstatically. “I’m coming.”
CHAPTER 33
SHIFTING SAND
SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (7:46 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 43 HOURS 2 MINUTES
Allie reached down into the leather bag at her feet. “Okay, so let me show you something.”
She handed Calder a map of the magnetic holes.
He looked at it and then her. “Yeah, so what? It’s what Brody showed us up in Alert.”
“Yes, but there’s more. You know about Chladni plates, right?”
“Of course.”
“Yesterday morning when I was at the Space Weather Center my brother-in-law Dallan—you met him up in—”
“Yeah, what about him?”
Just before we went on the air he told me one of his analysts noticed a pattern in the locations of the magnetic holes. It fit a 3-D Chladni plate pattern. At the time it seemed like just a curiosity. But last night it came to me—a way to protect us from the CME.”
“Go ahead.”
She got down on the floor, extracted more papers from her giant purse, and laid them out on the coffee table. They were carpeted with handwritten calculations.
She motioned to him. “C’mon, sit down with me.”
He placed his mug on the end table and joined her on the floor.
“Now, before I tell you, I want to warn you: it’s a bit
out there. But it fits both with the Chladni pattern and what we talked about yesterday—that Hero seems to have an effect on the magnetic field.”
He made a face. “Oh, lord, not that again.”
“Yes, that again. You can’t deny it, Calder—unless you’re willing to believe it was a giant coincidence that on three separate occasions the whale strandings—which are caused by the magnetic holes—stopped happening exactly when we arrived.”
He looked away into space. In fact he had been thinking about it, and she was right—the plain evidence was too suggestive of a connection to be dismissed as coincidence. But that would mean . . .
He shook his head.
Just like always.
Just when things are going well.
“C’mon, Calder, we’ve been through this. Work with me. When I’m finished, if you think I’m all wet, then you come up with another plan that makes sense.”
His hand brushed away the idea. “Go ahead, go ahead.”
“Hero gets energy from the quantum vacuum, right?”
“Yes.” His voice was hard.
“So I’m presuming that means you’ve figured out a way to cause the vacuum to resonate, right? At just the right frequency to create matter-antimatter pairs.”
He felt himself tensing up.
“Yeah, the head-on collision of the laser and electron beams inside the chamber is what does it. The collision rattles the vacuum just right, so it spits out electrons and positrons. The pairs then collide with each other and explode. The energy from all the explosions is what propels Hero. It’s that straightforward.”
He was reminded of the many years it took him to figure it all out. He’d always been impressed with how a wine glass shattered when hit with sound waves of just the right frequency. In creating Hero’s engine, he’d used the same principle. Vibrations of just the right frequency jostled the vacuum’s invisible electromagnetic energy field so violently that, in a manner of speaking, it shattered it into countless electron-positron pairs, like so many shards of glass. Since matter and antimatter exploded on contact, he realized the creation of those pairs could be harnessed as a mighty propellant.
“Okay, good,” she said. “So here’s what I think is going on.” She sat up straight. “I think the violence inside Hero’s vacuum chamber is generating collateral harmonic vibrations that are radiating out into the greater quantum vacuum”—she made a widening gesture with her hands—“like ripples in a cosmic-sized pond.”
His shoulders slumped. “Oh, please.”
“No—no—remember, you yourself said it: the quantum vacuum is the foundation underneath everything. It’s everywhere. And it quivers, like Jell-O. Thwack it hard—like you’re doing inside Hero’s chamber—and who knows how far afield the harmonics of the disturbance will reverberate—theoretically, to the ends of the universe.”
He shook his head vehemently. He’d contemplated that possibility a long time ago—and discounted it. According to his computations, the amplitude of any stray ripples quickly diminished with distance and therefore couldn’t possibly have any palpable effect on the environment at large.
He explained it to Allie, but she wasn’t satisfied.
“Did you ever consider the possibility of constructive interference?” she said. “The possibility that all those small ripples could add up to something big, especially if Hero were in continuous operation for long periods of time?” She leveled her gaze at him. “You’ve been running Hero for some weeks now, yes? Even before our journey.”
He was stopped by her allegation. What she was saying—it was like when Sara was a kid and he pushed her on the swing. If he timed his little pushes just right, very quickly they added up to something so powerful Sara would be flying high, squealing with joy.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts, Calder. Have you ever done any calculations on the scenario I just mentioned? Yes or no.”
“No, but—”
She slapped the tabletop. “Well, I have. I did some calculations last night when I couldn’t sleep.”
He stared at her with incredulity.
This woman is inhuman!
“Let me tell you what I found.”
MONDAY, MAY 1 (12:35 A.M. AUSTRALIAN CENTRAL STANDARD TIME)
CASUARINA COASTAL RESERVE; NORTHERN TERRITORIES, AUSTRALIA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 42 HOURS 43 MINUTES
Sara was walking the beach alone, navigating by the light of the vivid colors swirling high in the night sky; they were brighter than a full moon. She stopped and stared up at the mesmerizing sight. It was as if some demonic entity were stirring a cauldron of green and red poison.
Shivering, she pulled her light jacket more tightly around her.
She made the trek to the isolated coastal reserve to think. Living beneath a magnetic hole, watching the sky turn colors, dealing with Lulu’s worsening bouts of craziness—all of it was creeping her out. But it was the internship that unsettled her the most. It wasn’t working out as she’d hoped.
She resumed walking. The sand, still warm beneath her naked feet, felt good.
A few minutes later she stopped again and sat down cross-legged, facing the ocean. The auroral lights played on the waves like thousands of tiny, dancing fairies.
She remained in that position for some time, absently watching the sparkling waves and the dark horizon beyond them.
Somewhere out there—
Oh, Dad.
She missed him so much it ached—and knew deep down it was the root cause of her despair.
She was dating Dirk and enjoyed his company, but he wasn’t her dad—not by a long shot. From their talks it seemed Dirk was interested in eventually landing a cushy academic position at a university or wildlife center close to Sydney. His biggest aim in life was to earn tenure so he could hang out with animals and not worry about anything else.
It was a decent enough ambition, but she yearned for something more thrilling, more adventurous. She hoped for a life like her dad’s. Difficulties and all, it was exciting. She was incredibly proud of his historic accomplishments with Hero.
Suddenly feeling the urge to speak with him, she scrambled to her feet and looked around for the quickest way back to her dorm. But in the sickly light, a sudden movement caught her eye—a large bird alighting on a nearby rock.
She squinted for a better look.
It can’t be!
A bright flash of whitish light high up in the sky stole her attention—a meteor?—but only for a moment. She returned her gaze to the odd-looking bird and moved slowly toward it. The conviction of what she was seeing grew stronger with every step. A few moments later, when she was close enough to erase any doubt, she gasped.
“Leucophaeus atricilla!” she whispered. “But that’s impossible.”
The Laughing Gull in front of her was not a rare bird. But it was in the wrong hemisphere, thousands of miles away from where it ought to be.
“You should be laughing your way north to Cape Cod right now, buddy,” she cooed to it. “What in the world are you doing here?”
SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (12:01 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 38 HOURS 47 MINUTES
Jared met Haley at the Ballast Point Village Rec Center at noon, as planned.
“How was church?” he said.
She made a face. “Boring. All I could think about was meeting you here.”
The girl reminded him a little of Maggie, but he put it out of his mind. There were important things to accomplish before tonight’s detonation of the Quantum virus.
“So whatta you wanna do?” she said flirtatiously. “I know this spot over by—”
“Maybe later, okay?” He spoke gently; he didn’t want to put her off. “Right now I need to use a computer.”
Seeing her pretty little face fall made him soften his approach even more.
“Just for a few hours, I mean.” He took her hand. “
Then we can go anywhere you want, okay?” He added, “I’m sure you have homework. Do it while I’m on the computer. Then we can have the whole rest of the day free.”
Her pout became a smile. Leaning in, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek before leading him to the rec center.
The facility housed the usual games—foosball, ping-pong, billards—as well as a widescreen TV and a bank of computers. Haley dragged him over to the help desk and introduced him to the resident tutor, a short-haired guy who Jared guessed was in his twenties.
“New here?” the tutor said.
“Yeah, my dad makes water pumps for the Navy. We’re here for just a few days.”
“Yeah? Where you from?”
“Connecticut.”
“Really? I’m from Connecticut too. What city?”
He hesitated. “Stamford. But hey! I have a whole lot of homework to do. Can I use one of the computers?”
The tutor looked at him quizzically. “Yeah, sure, that’s what they’re here for.”
Jared took Haley’s hand and started walking away.
“Say!” It was the tutor guy. “What did you say your name was?”
Jared took a deep, exasperated breath and said, “Sinclair—Billy Sinclair.”
SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (12:05 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 38 HOURS 43 MINUTES
She and Calder were still sitting on the floor of his living room, drinking their umpteenth cup of coffee and rehashing for the umpteenth time the very same argument. He was clearly in denial—she could see no other explanation for his obstinacy.
“One more time,” she said, struggling to maintain a patient voice. “Ripples in the quantum vacuum can interfere constructively with each other, exactly the way all waves can. Sound waves, water waves—it doesn’t matter. You know what I’m saying.”
She thought back to when she taught this stuff to Harvard undergrads. Showed them what happened when, in a shallow pan of water, waves advancing from opposite sides clashed head-on like ranks of enemy soldiers. Wherever the waves interfered destructively—a peak coincided with a valley—they cancelled out. Wherever they interfered constructively—a peak coincided with a peak—they built upon one another. The totality of those constructive highs and destructive lows—the overall image they produced—was called an interference pattern.