The Strange Physics of the Heidelberg Laboratory
Page 10
You look over her shoulder. They're charts of names, dates, times, and signatures. "Looks like maintenance logs of who worked in here."
Penny puts the clipboard back. "Okay, so this was a dead end. Maybe if we run we can look in the other--"
The PA squawks. "No more time, you two. Get back to the Control Room on the double. You've got to evacuate."
"But Jay..."
"NOW."
Time's up. Hurry back TO PAGE 82
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Jay points to the map. "There are three Maintenance Rooms here at the laboratory: one off of the Engineering Bay, one down by the Animal Enclosures, and one attached to the laboratory living quarters. They control the computer network, the laboratory oxygen levels, and the laboratory radiation levels."
You groan. "We have to go to all three?"
"No, of course not! That would be impossible in the amount of time we have. We only need to go to the one that houses the networking equipment."
"Whew." You and Penny look at each other with relief. "So which one is that?"
Jay shrugs. "Heck if I know."
"Wait, what? You don't know?"
"I'm still woozy from the explosion!" he protests. "I think it might be the one by... wait, no, I was certain it was the one with the... oh dear. Yes, I cannot be certain." He holds the side of his head and winces.
Penny frowns with concern. "You're awfully pale in the face. Maybe you should sit down." She reaches out to steady him.
He recoils from her hand and then looks at both of you with surprise. He blinks his eyes rapidly before abruptly sitting in the chair behind him. "Yes, sitting helps. In fact, maybe I should stay here in the Control Room while the two of you power up the network."
"Yeah, okay," you say. "Just tell us what to do."
"It's easy. There's a lever you throw to power on the system. It'll power on and do everything else automatically, which I'll be able to verify from here. And the system will say 'Network' on it, so you'll know if you get to the right one."
"Simple enough," you say.
"If we can find the right Maintenance Room." She turns to the map. "What do you think?"
To choose Maintenance Room #1, SHOOT BACK TO PAGE 76
To choose Maintenance Room #2, HEAD OVER TO PAGE 86
To choose Maintenance Room #3, GET GOING TO PAGE 117
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You feel your way around the wall until finding the light switch. You flick it up.
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"Hey, we're in business!" Penny says. "Now what?"
You go to the first bank of computers. There's a two-lever switch that looks like the throttle for an airplane. "Do you want to do the honors?" you ask.
"Nope, I do not. That's all you, physics boy."
Blushing at her comment, you turn and push the levers up until they slide into place with a loud KA-CHUNK.
Lights come on around the room, green and red and flickering at different speeds. The whir of computer fans drifts deep from inside the servers. There's a faint clicking from what sound like hard drives.
One indicator on the wall sticks out to you:
NETWORK SYSTEMS ONLINE:
1. Main Reactor
2. Control Room
3. Engineering Bay
4. Physics Wing
5. Living Quarters
Each system has a light next to it. Only the Main Reactor light is on, a steady green color that you assume is a good sign. Then the Control Room light blinks a few times before becoming solid, then the Engineering Bay. The last two turn on simultaneously.
"I think that's it," you say. "Let's go see if Jay has everything working in the Control Room."
Head back to PAGE 118
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The core towers before you, atop a metal cylinder a hundred feet tall. It's made of thick metal, but tinted windows are scattered across its surface, giving a view of the green glow within. The ground at the base is covered with thick cables, like the black roots of some enormous redwood tree. The outer walls are filled with computers. High above, catwalks extend away from the top of the core in the shape of an X.
Behind you, the blast doors close again. Just a precaution, you tell yourself. It's just in case things don't go well. But things were going to go well. Right?
There's a single ladder mounted along the wall, rising precipitously into the air until it reaches one of the catwalks. You crane your head to look up at it. You can taste bile at the back of your mouth.
Penny is staring up at it, too. "We don't have to go up there, do we?"
A voice inside your suit cuts on, clear as water. "I'm afraid so, my dear Penny."
You both look surprised, until you realize there's a speaker inside your suit. "Can you hear us?" you ask.
"Sure can. Now, that ladder. It's the only way to get to the reactor core administration terminal. It's up at the top of the core."
You look up and see a computer-like object, in the section above the core where the four catwalks meet.
You take a deep breath. "It's a good thing I'm not afraid of heights."
"Now's not the time for jokes, young mister Heller!"
You shamble over to the ladder and grip one of the rungs. The plastic material of the suit you're wearing gives you a slippery grip. You put one foot on the lowest rung, testing the weight.
There's no use delaying. You take one step up, then another.
Climb the ladder UP TO PAGE 145
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Penny's idea sounds best. You bob your head. "Yeah, let's distract it. Good thinking."
Penny beams.
"It's important that we choose the right item," Jay begins to lecture, but you've already found what you want. There's a cube-shaped circuit on the pile of debris, about the size of a baseball. Perfect throwing size.
"Watch this," you tell Penny.
You pick up the circuit and pull back your arm. You hear Jay yell, "Wait!" right as you catapult your arm forward.
The cube soars through the air. You aimed to the right of the Phase Being, but it must have heard you because it whirls around with impossible reflexes. Its club of a hand snatches the cube out of the air.
And the cube explodes.
It's an explosion not of fire, but of light and sound, blinding you and knocking you to your knees. For a long moment all you see is white.
When your eyes open, the Phase Being is grabbing you.
Everything is moving except you and it. It doesn't make sense, but it's how you perceive it: the floor and walls, the laboratory, even the mountain rush away and come back in a blink, changing, rusting, collecting dust. Time passes. Slowly the Phase Being materializes into focus.
When it finally stops you're still in the lab, but everything is different.
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There's a musty odor to the air, like an Atraharsi tomb unopened for centuries. The lights are dim, the bulbs in the ceiling covered with a thick layer of dust. You cough, and suddenly the air blossoms with drifting particles.
Penny is there, along with a young man with a black beard, wearing overalls instead of a lab coat. His wide eyes spin around, taking in the surroundings.
"Who... are you?" he asks. "Where did you come from?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing!"
He checks the door. It won't open. "Only the emergency light is on," he says. "The doors are all out. We're stuck here!"
"What you mean, stuck here?"
But he's not listening to you anymore, and is checking the computer terminals. They're all dead.
A flip calendar on the nearest desk sticks out. You brush off a layer of dust and flip the page. The date shows in printed black lettering: APRIL 14, 2085.
Penny looks to you with fear, and you realize you've made a huge mistake. Jay was right about being stuck in time. Maybe you'll find a way back to the correct year, but for now this is...
THE END
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"Animal Enclosure," you say, feeling
panicked. "It's our last shot."
Penny hesitates. "But I told you I don't like mice..."
There's no time to waste arguing. You head down the hallway in that direction, and Penny quickly catches up. You stride into the room with a sense of urgency.
Three white objects fly across the floor, faster than any animal ought to move. Phase Beings, but of the laboratory test mice!
You take a step back but bump into Penny. She shrieks in your ear as she sees what's coming. You spin around just in time to see the door close. Your fingers fumble on the keypad, frantically pressing keys.
Penny screams louder. "They're at our feet! MAKE THEM GO AWAY!"
You feel a tingling sensation in your feet, and as you look down you realize you're falling apart. The atoms of your right leg have turned white and are spreading outward like steam in the shower. Penny grabs your arm tightly, and you realize the same thing is happening to her. You both share one final terrified look as the room spins and swirls, rushing away from you in all directions, moving through space and time.
Everything stops.
You're standing in the Animal Enclosure, but everything is different. The lights are all on, giving the room a clean, hospital feel. The cages are arranged differently: new clusters have been erected by the door. Most of them hold rabbits.
Penny screams and points.
On the ground in front of you is a white mouse. It's no longer a Phase Being. Penny's scream must have frightened it, because it bolts in a random direction.
Two scientists appear behind you. They're older, and their lab coats have a strange badge on the breast. Not only that, but the security door leading into the room is far more technologically advanced then before. Instead of a solid door, it's an opaque green membrane. The scientists step through and hold their hands out.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"Sarah, look at their clothes. Nobody has worn that in decades..."
Sarah touches the side of her ear. "Security!"
Penny is still trembling in your arms. She's looking to you for help. You have no idea how you're going to get out of this one, and it probably is...
THE END
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You click on the word SHREWD. There's a long pause on the screen, and the click of the computer's hard drive.
INCORRECT INPUT
CORRECT CHARACTER MATCH: 4
SYSTEM LOCKDOWN: ACTIVE
SYSTEM LOCKDOWN: ACTIVE
SYSTEM LOCKDOWN: ACTIVE
"NO!" you cry out. "Four correct? We were so close!"
Jay slumps his head. "Well. There's good news, and bad news. The bad news is that the system is completely locked out, so we have no way of knowing if the core reactor is going to meltdown any time soon."
"And the good?"
"The good news is that by you two bringing up the network, the Decontamination Chamber is active. The system lockdown in the Control Room doesn't affect that."
You and Penny look at one another. "So we can escape now? Really?"
"You bet." He doesn't look very happy. "I had hoped to stop the reactor, and maybe even... ahh, well there's nothing to be done now. You two better hurry up and get to the surface."
"You're not coming with us?" you ask.
He waves it off. "I'm going to try one last thing and see if I can bypass the computer. I'll be right behind you guys, I promise. Go, hurry!"
You take Penny's hand. "Come on, let's go!"
Run for it ON PAGE 62
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It feels like you're floating. Everything is bright, and you aren't sure if your eyes are open or closed.
Slowly, the light begins to fade. Your other senses come around too: you hear a weird static sound, and there's an acrid smell in the air. Like burning.
You open your eyes.
You're on the ground, staring at the ceiling. You groan and get to your feet.
The Control Room looks like a bomb went off. Half the desks are turned over, with computer equipment scattered everywhere. It looks like an angry mob came in, smashed the computers against the walls, and then ran off. Loose sheets of paper cover the floor. A small fire crackles in the corner, the smoldering remains of a swivel chair. What happened in here?
You turn your eyes to the particle accelerator. The glass has been completely smashed, such that the large loop tube is open to the Control Room. You walk over there, feet crunching on tiny squares of glass. The orb, you remember. The Causality Neutrino. It had become unstable. That's what caused this.
Your hand begins to tremble. You whip your head around, looking for other people. There's nobody in sight. What happened to everyone? Are they gone?
And more importantly: are you all alone?
A computerized voice in the ceiling suddenly says, "Fire detected. Initiating sprinkler system."
"No!" you blurt out, running over to the small fire. It's hardly anything, just a small flame on the leg of the swivel chair. You take off your lab coat and bat at it, smothering it. With a sigh of relief you see that the flame has gone out, leaving just a thin trail of smoke drifting into the air.
A piercing alarm sounds. With a hiss the sprinkler system comes on anyways.
"No!" you blurt out, holding your coat over your head to shield yourself from the water. It cascades down in a million heavy streams, soaking everything. It begins to pool on the floor, the sound incredibly loud, as if you're standing next to a waterfall. The voice in the ceiling announces something, but you can't make it out.
Finally the sprinklers cut off. You shake the water off your coat. It may have helped, but the room is still submerged in about three inches of water. It's like a bath tub.
You're wondering what to do next when you hear someone groan across the room.
What are you waiting for? See who it is ON PAGE 112
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You type the command to open the core, and then press enter.
The text disappears from the screen, and all that remains is a blinking cursor. You wonder if anything is happening.
Abruptly, you find out. There's a rushing sound, like a bathtub faucet pouring free. On each of the three outer walls is a circular door, halfway between the catwalks and the floor. They open, and a bluish liquid pours out and onto the floor in three separate waterfalls.
"You initiated the coolant dump too soon!" Jay cries.
Penny looks horrified. "What did you do?"
"I thought that was the next step!"
Liquid pours into the room, flooding the floor. The electronics down there begin shorting out, sending arcs of electricity into the air.
"You have to get to the door," Jay says, sounding hurried. "If you don't get there within two minutes..."
"We can't!" Penny exclaims. "The floor is flooding!"
Helplessly, you watch as the liquid slowly rises. The core begins to groan as the pressure inside grows. You hope in vain that the coolant can do some of its job on the outside of the core, but it quickly becomes apparently that's not the case.
Penny sits on the catwalk and pulls her knees up to her chin. You can't even look at her. You were in charge, you had the sequence, and you entered the wrong one. This is a lousy way of reaching...
THE END
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Penny's idea sounds best. You bob your head and say, "Yeah, let's distract it. Good thinking."
Penny beams.
"It's important that we choose the right item," Jay begins to lecture, but you've already found what you want. There's a flat slab of metal the size of a frisbee.
You flick it sideways and it spins through the air. You aimed to the right of the Phase Being, but it must have heard you because it whirls around with impossible reflexes. Its club of a hand snatches the metal out of the air.
The metal slab goes through the Phase Being, its iron atoms stripped away and sent hurtling through time. The result is the slab being split in half, each piece falling to the ground leaving a trail of strange glowing light. They clatter against the wa
ll.
The Phase Being looks down at the metal, then back up at you.
"You have to be careful with what it touches," Jay says. "It's a good thing that slab was mostly iron. If you threw something with more complex elements we could have had a real explosion on our hands!"
"We have bigger problems," Penny says.
She's right. The Phase Being takes one cautious step toward you, as if walking on its legs for the first time. Then it takes another step.
"There's no way around it," you say. "Quick, to the backup reactor!
Make a getaway ON PAGE 61
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"Sure, we'll try the vents," you say. "Hopefully to Phase Beings can bother us in there." Penny removes the metal grate and you crawl into the dark tunnel, ignoring the spiderwebs and rat droppings brushing against your fingers.
You pass a vent that shows the inside of the Physics Room. There's a four-way intersection ahead. You picture the map of the laboratory in your head, imagining where the Maintenance Room is. "It's this way," you say.
The shaft veers to the right at an angle before continuing straight again. Any minute you should be above the Maintenance Room.
There: a grate up ahead, with a diagonal beam of light illuminating the air vent. You bang your way down toward it, excited.
"Is that it?" Penny asks.