The Tank Man

by William Oday

  “Hey, Bob.”

  “You okay, Dr. Han?”

  “Sorry,” Zhang said and then nodded. “I’m just run down. Haven’t slept much lately.”

  Bob shifted the mop handle in his left hand to his right. “Gotta get sleep, doc. Brains and bodies gotta recharge at night. It’s like a supernova, you know?”

  “How so?”

  “You run out of gas and end up blowing up.”

  Zhang smirked. Bob always had a pearl of wisdom to pass along to those smart enough to listen.

  “You’re right, of course. I’ll go take a nap after lunch.”

  Bob hooked a thumb at the digital clock on the wall next to the door to the small office. It read 11:52 PM. “Too late for that, I’d say.”

  Zhang blinked his eyes amazed at how heavy they suddenly felt. He glanced at the assortment of cups littering his desk. That wouldn’t have been too bad but the two dozen balls of wadded cellophane from vending machine goodies made it an absolute pig sty. “Let me get this mess out of your—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I don’t want you to have stay late cleaning up my—”

  “Shift goes until morning anyway. Heading down to the ring level when I’m done here.” He grabbed the mop with both hands and started to push the wheeled bucket toward the door and then paused. “Dr. Han?”

  “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to thank you again for what you did for Marjorie.”

  Zhang winced when he realized he’d forgotten to ask about Bob’s ailing wife. “I feel terrible I forgot to ask. I’m so out of it. How is she?”

  “Doing better ever since you got her accepted into that experimental treatment at the hospital in Kodiak.”

  Zhang shook his head. “I simply informed a colleague that your wife was an ideal candidate for the—”

  “Well, whatever you said worked because all I got was No’s before.”

  Zhang nodded. “I’m happy to hear it. Give her my regards.”

  “You can yourself once she’s well enough to be up and around again. She’s insisting we have you over for dinner. Something about a blueberry cobbler like you’ve never tasted.”

  Zhang smirked. “Tell her I’d be delighted.”

  “Will do. Now get some rest, doc. You’re running out of hydrogen.” He finished and left the room.

  Zhang started to shut down the programs on his computer screen. The thought of returning to his sleeping quarters made him grimace. Like everywhere else in the underground base, it was cramped and musty. The bed mattress was sealed in plastic to prevent mold. It was only marginally softer than laying on the carved rock floors. That and it made a loud crinkling sound every time he shifted positions.

  Even without the turmoil in his mind, nothing about it promised a restful repose.

  A chat window popped up on his screen. A text from Dr. Ganesh. He’d barely been in his office next door of late. As director of the Hermes Project, the final days before a collider test always had him running all over the base ensuring every minute detail was accounted for.

  DR. GANESH:> Go get some sleep!

  Zhang chuckled and typed a reply.

  DR. HAN:> How did you know I’d still be up?

  DR. GANESH:> Because the greatest scientific discovery of all time may happen tomorrow.

  That wasn’t the only thing on Zhang’s mind, but it certainly occupied a prominent space.

  DR. HAN:> Do you think we’ll find them?

  There was a pause before the reply appeared.

  DR. GANESH:> If we are to believe String Theory, then yes, tachyons must be more than a mathematical hypothesis.

  Tachyons.

  Elementary particles that theoretically travelled at greater than the speed of light. Ones that theoretically travelled backward in time. Continuing discoveries in the field of quantum physics had increasingly ripped holes into our common understanding of what constituted reality. The last of these to hold together was the linearity of time.

  That it only went in one direction, always forward.

  But if tomorrow’s test proved the existence of particles that could travel backward through time, then what?

  Was time travel then theoretically possible?

  No one knew.

  And if anything could confirm their existence, it would be the twenty mile particle accelerator located ten stories below Zhang’s feet. The last test had been at seventy percent of maximum capacity and everything had operated as expected. Even at that capacity, they’d proven the existence of the Higgs boson particle while the folks over at CERN were twiddling their thumbs and years away from the same discovery.

  Sure, they hadn’t been able to share that knowledge with anyone outside the project, but no one joined the project looking for peer adulation. They, like him, joined to be a part of the greatest scientific discovery of all time.

  And now, after months of final checks and calibrations, they were ready to truly peel back the veil and peer at the remaining biggest mystery of the universe.

  The military brass, of course, didn’t give two shits about anything so vague as pure scientific discovery. They wanted practical results that could be weaponized and they wanted them yesterday. That wasn’t an angle any of the staff on the scientific side liked to remember, but funding was funding and lots of it was what made this possible.

  DR. GANESH:> Go get some sleep. I need you at your best tomorrow.

  DR. HAN:> Already off to bed!

  Zhang closed the chat window and was about to log off when a soft ding told him a new email had arrived in his inbox. Like a knee-jerk reaction, he reflexively clicked it open. Something from Dr. Jiang in the Particle Physics department at National Taiwan University. Getting email from colleagues wasn’t unusual. But the field of high energy physics was an exceedingly small one. Its members gathered several times a year at symposiums to share results and try to one up each other. The scientists at the Hermes Project could never be more than interested observers at such events, but they knew all the players.

  And he knew there was no Dr. Jiang in the Particle Physics department at National Taiwan University.

  And that could mean only one thing.

  He’d gotten the call.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Zhang’s hand shook as he tried to click on the summary to open the email. The mouse pointer kept jumping around clicking the one above or below it. He finally managed to hit it and his breath stopped in his chest.

  Dr. Han,

  You probably don’t know me, but I’ve been an admirer of yours for almost twenty years. We share friends even if we haven’t met face to face. I’m writing to discuss with you the symposium happening at Harvard this December. I’m looking to rent a flat across the river in Boston and I’d like to invite you to share the space. It would give us the perfect opportunity to get to know each other better. Perhaps you could be so kind as to find one for us. Make sure to use my name to hold the key.

  Please get back to me at your earliest convenience. Some things can’t survive the smallest delay.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Li Zhou Jiang

  Zhang read the last line again. His hand jerked so hard his knuckles banged a coffee cup, spilling its cold contents across the desk. Li. Zhou. His wife’s name and his son’s name.

  The day he’d dreaded for so long had arrived.

  Working under Dr. Ganesh gave him access to all of the most sensitive details of the project. It didn’t take a genius to realize the Chinese must’ve somehow learned of the facility and were aware of the upcoming test. And now they wanted information.

  Governments didn’t hold leverage for its theoretical value. They held it to use it.

  And now that the dreaded call had came, he’d have to decide between his adopted country, the country that had taken him in and given him a life and career beyond his wildest dreams, and his family.

  How could he choose?

  He hit reply, typed a short mes
sage expressing confusion about never having met a Dr. Jiang, and hit send. A few seconds later, the email came back as undeliverable.

  What?

  He was supposed to get back with whoever was posing as Dr. Jiang, but the return email didn’t work?

  So what was he supposed to do now?

  He read through the email again looking for a clue. Was there a hidden message in it somewhere?

  Dr. Jiang wanted to rent a flat in Boston… and he wanted Zhang to find it for them.

  Could there be something there?

  Maybe.

  Where was the easiest place to find a rental anywhere in the world?

  Craigslist.

  Zhang brought up a browser and jumped over to the home page for the Craigslist in Boston. His trembling fingers inadvertently tapped the mouse button as he scanned over the categories. He jumped back out of the discussion forum for Dying and found what he was looking for.

  Housing wanted.

  He clicked the link and scanned through several pages of posts not seeing anything that caught his eye. He jumped back up and found vacation rentals. He clicked that and started scanning through the posts.

  Half-way down the first page, a post practically jumped out of the screen and strangled him.

  flat in remodeled Tenement building bordering copley Square. reserve now before it’s too late!

  The price stuck out as odd. Where most were in the mid to high hundreds. This one was in the thousands.

  $6589.

  June 5, 1989. The day Zhang had stood in front of the tank outside Tiananmen Square.

  And why were there only two words capitalized?

  Tenement. Square.

  Tiananmen Square.

  He clicked the link and read the short description.

  The best accommodations and only for a limited time! Save money! All of the data says that our apartments meet or exceed expectations. With three floors of luxury amenities, days may pass before you remember the outside world. And your room reservation always includes family members free of charge.

  It sounded like a bunch of stilted marketing gibberish.

  He looked back to the email from Dr. Jiang and scanned through it.

  Use my name to hold the key.

  Was there something there?

  An old game he used to play as a kid was to encode secret messages in seemingly innocent messages by using a key to decode it. Without the key, it would be nearly impossible to figure out the embedded message.

  His name was the key!

  Jiang.

  Five letters.

  Could it be that simple?

  Zhang flipped open a note pad and wrote down the first word and then every subsequent fifth word. He finished and looked at the paper.

  the for money says or floors may the room members

  In other words, gibberish. He stared at the ad again. What was he missing? There was clearly a message here somewhere. The name Jiang held the key.

  But how?

  He tried another trick from his youth. Rather than starting the secret message at the first word of the larger message, he started with the tenth word because J was the tenth letter in the alphabet. He started at the tenth word and then recorded every fifth word.

  save data meet three days remember your family

  CHAPTER NINE

  Zhang sat down on the edge of his bunk and flinched when it crinkled like tearing open a bag of chips. He grabbed his pillow and hurled it at the carved rock wall across the cramped room. A tiny object lying on the bed where his pillow had been caught his attention.

  He picked it up and examined it.

  A USB drive the size of a fingernail.

  His heart jumped as he shoved it into his sock. All recording devices of any kind were banned inside the facility. Only the server room stored data. He’d be fired and probably thrown in jail if anyone discovered what was currently hidden in his sock.

  Zhang cursed under his breath. So this was what a snared rabbit felt like. The choice was to wait to be killed or gnaw off the trapped part of himself and soon die from the bleeding. He pinched his eyes shut and tried to focus his thinking.

  He couldn’t pass top secret information to a foreign government. Ethical considerations aside, getting caught meant spending the rest of his miserable life in prison, or worse. Yet, his wife and son would suffer a similar fate if he didn’t do it.

  It was an impossible choice.

  Unless he could figure out a third choice. Something a rabbit wouldn’t think of. Something. Anything.

  What that might be, he had no idea.

  How did the Chinese government know about the project, much less that it was at such a critical stage? Moreover, how did they know of his personal involvement? Calling him into action on the night before the full power collider test was no coincidence.

  But how could they know so much?

  The Hermes Project was a Special Access Program so even those in the government with Top Secret clearance wouldn’t know of its existence unless specifically invited into the program. That designation essentially limited knowledge of the project to the higher level staff that lived on base (and were never allowed unsupervised leave) and the few clandestine personnel that regularly visited and never volunteered their credentials. He doubted that even the President knew of its existence.

  In an instant, the truth became clear.

  There was a mole inside the project. Someone was feeding intel to the Chinese government.

  But who?

  And how?

  Zhang personally knew every single one of the sixty-four people living and working deep inside Barometer mountain. He couldn’t imagine any of them being a mole.

  And even if any of them were, how did information make it out of the base? All remote communications ran through a single room under constant human and electronic surveillance. Every email, every message, every click of the keyboard recorded and analyzed. Even the lower level employees who had no real knowledge of the project were remotely monitored when they went to town. Years ago, when new traffic lights were installed throughout the town of Kodiak, the townsfolk had thought the city had somehow paid for it.

  Not quite. The project had. The entire town was covered with remote sensing equipment.

  There was no way anyone could’ve gotten anything meaningful out.

  And yet clearly someone had done exactly that.

  Zhang’s eyes blinked open. The dim blue rectangle of light above the hatch to his quarters seemed to be floating in dark space. Panic clenched his gut so tight he doubled over into a ball on the bed. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped onto the thin sheets.

  The email from Dr. Jiang would be analyzed. And sooner or later, someone would figure out that it was suspicious.

  He couldn’t see a way out.

  To betray his family or betray a nation that had accepted him and given his life meaning and importance.

  He had to find the third choice.

  A thought occurred to him. Maybe he could free his family and free himself in one fell swoop. He could give them enough data to show the significance of the discovery, but leave out enough details to create leverage of his own. The promise of the remainder might be enough leverage to bring his wife and son to the United States.

  It was a weak plan. But, so far, it was the only one that didn’t end horribly. So, he grasped at it like a drowning man does a thrown rope.

  The next obvious problem was how to record the data onto the portable drive. None of the computers had ports or anything that could be plugged into. Dumb terminals were nothing more than monitors with keyboards and mice. All the hard drives and storage equipment were locked in the server room.

  And Zhang wasn’t a technician. He had no legitimate reason to enter that room and never had in the many years of his time in the installation. He would never be allowed inside and getting anywhere near it would immediately raise red flags.

  A thought came to him and he sprang up and bashed his head
on the low rock ceiling.

  “Owww!” he said as he rubbed his head.

  But he still had the solution.

  Maybe.

  There were four data access points inside the accelerator tunnel used by the hardware team for local troubleshooting of hardware issues. They sometimes needed direct-connect capabilities to realign the superconducting magnets and similar tasks. No one on the hardware team had access to the higher-level project results. Their permissions were strictly limited to the lower-level mechanical aspects of running the tests.

  But maybe with his permissions on one of those ports…

  Zhang glanced at his watch.

  2:52 AM.

  The test was scheduled to begin at ten in the morning. A little over seven hours from now. He had to get the drive installed beforehand and somehow figure out how to retrieve it afterwards.

  Yeah, the plan still had some major holes, but there was no time to nit pick the rough edges. Ignition protocols were set to begin in three hours. The first of those would be to lock down the tunnel and verify all personnel were evacuated. He had to get in and out before then.

  And considering the nearest data access point was three miles to the east and no shuttles would be running this close to ignition, he didn’t have a second to lose.

  Could he make it in time?

  He had to.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zhang squirmed out of bed still wearing the clothes from the day before, and the day before that, and maybe the day before that. He couldn’t remember through the blur of coffee, candy, and endless hours on the keyboard.

  He smoothed down his wrinkled shirt and pants and snatched the security badge clipped to the metal frame of the bed. He exited his room and headed to the main elevator shaft avoiding eye contact with the few other workers up at that hour.

  The elevator dinged and he swiped his badge over the reader and tapped the button to take him down to the ring level. It was technically the largest particle collider in the world with a circumference of twenty miles, every inch hued out of the ground under Barometer Mountain. But everyone just called it the ring. The joke was that it was the one ring that ruled them all.