by Chris Hechtl
Fortunately, Antigua Prime had the video in its archives. It was ancient, not even in 3-D but in flat 2-D of all things. “The Lagroose MAM incident,” he murmured. He frowned at the name. “Stupid name,” he muttered. He knew about Lagroose; everyone knew that name. He snorted when he read the dissertation from a professor, as well as various notes from students. Most of it was crap, He shook his head at the source and found the actual movie from a link one of the students had posted.
It was sad that they were critiquing the movie, the plot, the acting, etc, but not the actual subject matter. That would have allowed him to cheat a bit. He had found out through skimming the review that the source material for the script had been compiled from various sources including Athena's historical files and memoirs. There was a pithy comment about some liberties taken by Hollywood, but the historians could tell fact from fiction. It had happened or was as close to reality as they could get this far down the timeline. He read on for a moment, then whistled softly. A flick of his implants sent the video streaming to his wall screen in his small living room. He popped the cap on a fresh beer as the initial credits began to roll. “This should be something, if only good enough to put me to sleep.”
~~~(>O<)~~~
2150
Millions of people were now in space, scattered across the solar system. Space around Earth and the moon was crowded by platforms and space stations big and small. Even the sun had its own observation and solar energy platforms. But contrary to the astronomy community and the purists, there was one other facility near the sun. Perilously near, yet it survived and endured. Some called it the doomsday of doomsdays for the solar system. Others called it Jack's latest nutty scheme.
The station was mostly automated. It was an energy platform like no other. The platform had a “straw,” a way to scoop plasma directly from the surface of the star itself. The process was called a solar tap and was highly controversial. Protests had been mounted on Earth and on a few of the colonies but in vain. Jack was a stubborn man who would not be deterred by the fears and jeers of small-minded folk. He had ignored it all, just like the scientific community had ignored the supposed threat in 2008 that the large hadron collider on Earth would have destroyed the star system with a micro black hole while attempting to find the Higgs boson.
The threat of possibly destabilizing the sun's “climate” state was indeed real. So real that Lagroose Industries took great pains to model what it could and couldn't produce with the solar tap and under what conditions.
Many people thought the solar tap was a waste of time. A science project, but one that would be best done by observation, not direct work. The idea of using it to generate electricity had been scoffed at. Sure nuclear fusion had entered its second generation and mankind had learned how to handle superheated plasma readily, but it was still foolhardy. The solar farms Lagroose and other companies and Earth nations had built in orbit of the star were enough for everyone or so they thought.
Jack Lagroose had other ideas. He'd set the solar tap up as a demonstration model to develop new technologies and test bed them but also to power massive and powerful particle accelerators in the first industrial application of such machines in order to not only research and better develop an understanding of hyperspace physics but also to produce something more tangible. Antimatter.
Some of the scientific community had cried foul at the prostitution of such valuable machines, and again, Jack had ignored it. Star Reach had predicted that antimatter would be needed to power starships and advanced sublight craft. They hadn't, however, found a way to mass produce the stuff in any useful quantities. He aimed to change that.
However the scientists and engineers involved in the initial labs had found that creating and storing antimatter was difficult verging on impossible. So while they worked on perfecting more efficient methods, Jack had ordered his people to take an alternate route. Quantity, building dozens of particle accelerators in order to mass produce the fuel. Jack believed in building, not spending decades stuck in research.
Trapping the antimatter was easier in space, which already had a vacuum. They had to perfect the vacuum to an absolute clean environment, then use a magnetic containment trap known as a Penning trap. The magnets around the inside wall of the container kept the antimatter from coming into contact with any regular matter and thus safe.
But to get there they had to find a way to better perfect the extremely inefficient method of creating antimatter in the first place. Physicists had been attempting it and perfecting some methods to do it since 1995 when the first molecules of antihydrogen were created by CERN, Europe's research think tank for nuclear physics.
Various minor achievements had been noted over the following twenty years, including improvements to the antiproton decelerator, the deceleration methods, and improvements to the Penning-Malmberg trap.
The company directive improved the production of antiprotons by using advanced ultra-intense lasers and millimeter thick gold material as the initial substrate. They built a massive automated facility that also had a thousand antimatter decelerators and magnetic traps in the solar platform. The initial prototype for the entire complex was orbiting Venus in Race Track Station. That prototype had been converted to do research for the hyper physics community and was woefully out of date compared to the latest production run.
Still, they couldn't get the efficiency of the production above 0.9 percent of the original amount. To be fair, the scientific community was more concerned with what experiments they could do on the antimatter and what they could learn over producing vast quantities of the material. To Eathen Zi, their nominal boss, it wasn't good enough. It was never good enough.
Doctor Josh Turner was largely responsible for the recent line of improvements to the basic design. All of the latest generation of decelerators came from him and he was quite proud of that achievement.
His junior partner, Doctor Anna Bright, was also quite proud of his work as well as her own modest contributions to the subject. She looked on to him and Albert as they sat in the control room. One control room to control a thousand decelerators. “I just wish the company would let us do research. We're finding out all sorts of fascinating data on dark matter and hyper physics here!” She shook her head as she watched their third team member, Doctor Albert Russell, go over his notes, head down. He still was cold to her.
“I do too, Anna, but you know they are all about the bottom line. We can sneak some science in if it has an end purpose that we can use to justify it. Like how we managed to bump the efficiency of the traps up by 2 percent last year,” Josh said when Albert didn't say anything.
Albert was slightly balding, a bit overweight and brooding. He'd become a physicist after reading about his two name sakes, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. He'd been fascinated by their work or so he told everyone at company parties. He'd also dated Anna briefly some time ago, but she'd broken it off.
“Turner, what's with this memo on extra security?” Albert rumbled.
Anna rolled her eyes in despair at the boss as she turned away from Albert and his sour tone.
“Nothing to get paranoid over; it's just safety. They did that overhaul a couple months back, and they want to make some improvements.”
“Why?” Albert asked.
“Why not?” Anna murmured.
Turner glanced her way then to Albert. “Because it's a company. Megacorps prey on each other, especially out here. You can't be too careful. There are also nuts out there who'd love to sabotage us just to point a finger at us and say see, they are evil!” he shook his head.
“We're not. Not necessarily,” Albert muttered.
“Not what? Evil? Of course not!”
“Yeah well, tell that to the Germans,” Albert growled. Turner blinked at him in confusion. “My namesake and others fled Europe back before World War II to get away from the Germans—the Nazis. Some stayed behind. But …,” he shrugged at Turner's expression. The man's eyes were clouding over with bo
redom. “Never mind. You don't care,” he growled.
“Not really, no.”
“Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Remember that, Turner.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Turner asked, lifting an eyebrow as Albert rose from his stool.
“You're a smart guy, figure it out,” Albert said as a parting shot as he left.
“He's one sour grape lately,” Josh said, looking at Anna.
She grimaced. She'd dated Albert when they first started in the program, but she'd broken it off over a year ago. She'd thought she'd let him down gentle, but he'd been sullen and taciturn for months, avoiding her. Recently he'd gotten a kick about history, and such. “I don't know what his problem is,” she muttered.
“He should get laid or something. Relax. Take a chill pill or something before he blows a blood vessel or stresses me out and I do,” Turner growled, turning back to the project at hand. He exhaled a cleansing breath. “Okay, let's run the latest data strip. The comparison files should be finished, so we can see what worked and what didn't. We need something to build off of the last files.”
“I see. Don't you think we should be doing real science? Not just confirming or refining the old experiments, Josh?”
“The more we refine it, the better our understanding. The comparison?” he demanded.
“Coming right up, oh mon Capitan,” she quipped, giving him a jaunty salute.
“Funny. Real funny,” he mock growled.
~~~(>O<)~~~
They didn't understand. How could they? No appreciation of the past, no appreciation of what went before. They were so high on getting the next achievement, in a breakthrough. Getting their names in the history books. Yet, why won't they read those same books? Albert snarled softly, lips writhing in annoyance as he stomped his way down the hall. Interns and techs glanced his way and then got out of the area fast lest they become an unwitting victim of his wrath. “They are so smart! Geesh. They are so excited about getting it done, about can they do it; they never think to ask if they should!” He paused, lifting his head as that thought struck him. Now, where had he gotten that quote from he wondered? He frowned thoughtfully but couldn't come up with a reference. He pulled out his tablet, typed it in, and then made a note to look it up later. The computer would give him the original quote and source material later, most likely as his morning coffee buzz to start his day.
He didn't like the increase in security. The mechs, bots, people, unsmiling people who scared him. It bothered him on so many levels. The people of Germany had been thankful of the Nazis in their pretty uniforms at first. The sense of security, the feeling of power, belonging …. They hadn't seen them as evil. Oh no. Nor did the people in those organizations. Not at all. Many not even after the war concluded and all of their war crimes were brought to light.
He frowned thoughtfully as he walked. Then there was the other side of the coin, the Manhattan Project. Was it his namesake? No, it was someone else. “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds …” What was his name?” He shook his head in irritation.
Of late he'd thought a lot of the Manhattan Project. Some of the parallels were eerily familiar to their present day occupation.
Oh, sure, they weren't at war, nor working for a government per say, but they were making something dangerous. A field of nuclear physics that … His scowl turned bleak briefly as he went into his office. He slammed the door behind him. Could have, would have, should have. They were on the cusp, antimatter as a weapon. He could feel it. Taste it in the air, see the delight in some of his so-called colleague's eyes. He had to think. Had to find some way to put the genie back in the bottle before it became too late.
Their research, technically his research had recently concluded that antimatter wasn't necessary to run a starship's hyperdrive. He had explored dark matter, gravitational physics of antimatter, and quantum foam and had worked out a revolutionary method of generating and controlling the hyperspace bubble. He resented that a lot of the credit had gone to Doctor Castill. The kid had theorized some of the work, but he hadn't proven it! Not conclusively! And he hadn't figured out how to miniaturize an antimatter production device into something so small it could fit in a hyperdrive! All the drive needed were a few molecules to jump start the process. Why store the stuff when you could make it on site? The lasers, gold … it didn't matter he thought. Turner had gotten the pat on his back for that one.
Then there were the new force emitters. His data had been tapped, again by the Castill brat, to redefine the force emitters and improve their efficiency by an entire factor. And did he get credit? Hell no!
He shook his head again as he flopped down in his battered chair. It creaked a bit as he swung back and forth. What burned him even more about the situation was the NDA, The Non-Disclosure Agreement. He couldn't publish! Someone else, somewhere was going to do it and get the credit. All he could do is seethe and wring his hands; it was nuts!
But at least there had been one tiny benefit of his research. Now that they'd proven it wasn't necessary, the powers that be had taken their research and was redesigning the hyperdrive. But they were also cutting funding to the antimatter project. In a few months, they would be a ghost of their former selves.
Which made the need for extra security all the more baffling and troubling. The same for the prohibition on publishing. Everything was now about improving the methodology, the equipment.—better, faster, cheaper. The bottom line and to hell with the science. It was an imperfect universe indeed. He rubbed his jaw.
~~~(>O<)~~~
Addison Darling hated her name. Addison sounded cute when she'd been a kid with dimples, but Darling? She'd been teased and tormented by any noob she'd run into about it. That had gotten old quick. Her mother had quipped something about small minds fixating on small things. She just didn't care. She'd been determined to change her name for years until her grandfather had sat her down and told her how proud of her he was for carrying the name like a trooper. She'd change it, eventually, when she got married.
She also hated her new promotion, security liaison to the antimatter production facility. A glorified security guard. Mall cop with no mall. The project that was being defunded and slowly shut down. In other words, babysit a bunch of eggheads and warehouses of crap.
The promotion didn't come with much of a pay raise, but it had come with a long counseling session from her old boss as well as a nerve wracking one from Roman the big boss. She was to consider the posting a stepping stone, not the Siberia she thought of it as. Right.
Being away from family sucked. Being near the damn sun? She couldn't get cool no matter what the temperature said it was. She sucked down water like she was in a sauna. Sixty-eight in the room? That was so much bullshit; she knew better. Communications restrictions sucked. Not being anywhere near anything at all sucked. No shopping, no parks, no sightseeing, just endless blinding views of the sun.
The gravity of the sun was sucking the life out of her. Seriously. They were closer to the sun than Mercury! Being there was insane, but she couldn't say that without … she paused and snorted in humor as she saw a cartoon someone had put up on a hatch. It was of a scientist hot footing it across the sun. Okay, so, someone else shared her view. Oddly she felt better. She'd have to track down the artist.
There had been a thousand techs associated with the program. Most had been associated with the actual construction of the facilities and instillation of the equipment. That was then. They had made great strides on automating as much of the process as possible, but there were still a hundred people left. With the program scaling back, they were going to see a sharp decline in faces.
Which meant her peachy assignment was going to be Siberia. A couple dozen people rattling around in the station complex, all waiting for the air to run out and for something to fail so the sun could consume them.
Well, on the bright …, she had to snort at her thought train, on the bright side. If she ever saw some religious nut, sh
e could tell them she'd seen and tasted hellfire. When the posting was over, she would deserve a rest in heaven.
Axial-1 or 2, now that was what she was thinking about! Old school! The other space colonies were bigger, but she remembered seeing it on the news growing up. It didn't have tall buildings, just a few high rises here and there. Nice parks … back when it was first built. Now it was getting crowded. The parks were filling in with hotels and apartment complexes. It was Earth all over again.
She shook her head as she drummed her fingers on her desk. She had to get out of this tour or at least get through it. There were two, no three ways to get a transfer. One, get sick, so sick she had to be replaced. Either her or a close family member and that wasn't going to happen. Besides, she hated the idea of failure.
The second was similar, fail. And again, she hated failure. She wasn't going to screw up on her watch! Not if she could help it, she thought with a mental snort of derision. If this was such a plum assignment, she didn't want to know what Roman thought was a bad one!
The third, was to do her job, put her transfer request in, and do it well enough to … she paused, thinking about it. No, if she did it too well she'd get stuck. They wouldn't want to train someone to replace her, not with her in place. But if she did it in such a way that it pissed some people off? A little over zealous? That would make the leadership want her out, and it couldn't be construed as her fault if she made waves doing her job by the regs. She smiled grimly. That might work.
She pulled up the regs and frowned, rocking her chair slightly as she ran through them. There had to be something. She flipped the fan on and basked in the breeze, trying to think. Psych exams? Some of the staff were overdue. Long overdue, she noted. She made a note to look into that. Then she frowned. Who could do the exam? Someone in the facility knew them too well, so their objectivity was compromised. The medic? She checked and scowled. The last doctor, last medical doctor had been transferred out in the last wave. That left a couple of paramedics manning the shop, doing double duty. Great. Another reason not to get sick here she reminded herself sternly.