The Strange Physics of the Heidelberg Laboratory

by David Kristoph

  His anger shocks you into movement. You give Jay one last look--he seems strangely sad--before dropping the CS Rifle on the desk.

  You sprint through the hall toward the Decontamination Chamber. The barrier looms above you, a massive blast door made of thick steel, designed to withstand a meltdown. The control panel on its surface glows with electricity. You punch in a few keys and, with a loud groan, it opens.

  Inside, you're blasted with powerful jets of hot air from all sides. The normally inconvenient process is pure joy, now. The system confirms you're clean and the door to the lobby opens.

  You rush to the elevator door to press the button. The elevator car takes forever to descend, but finally it reaches your level, opening with a polite ding.

  The ride up is just as long. After several minutes the doors open on the surface. The frigid air of the Alps buffets you in the face as you jump out of the car.

  And into an enormous crowd of armed people.

  See what's going on by HEADING TO PAGE 134

  133

  You spin around to face the glass wall, but you already know what you're going to see. The air distorts and twists, and a Phase Being appears in front of the window.

  "That's what happens when a person gets stuck in time," Jay says. "They're simultaneously existing in multiple points in time. That's why we can't see them clearly."

  "That's a person?" Penny looks horrified. "Could that be my father?"

  The Phase Being cocks its head at you.

  You nod. "Maybe. Which is why we need to help them."

  The other Phase Being seemed unable to move, but this one takes a slow step forward. Then, without warning, it dives across the room. Right at Penny!

  If you have the CS Rifle, shoot it ON PAGE 140

  Otherwise, grab Penny and pull her away ON PAGE 71

  134

  The men are uniformed, with rifles held across their chests and SWAT style helmets covering their heads. For a moment they're surprised by your appearance. Then they aimed their guns at you. They begin shouting in accented French.

  You raise your hands. There's not much else for you to do. Behind them on the mountain top sit two helicopters, with men unloading gear from inside. In the distance you see three more approaching your location. Wow, this is a big deal! It's like a military invasion.

  "Penny? Penny!" Someone pushes through the ring of SWAT members. It's Penny's dad, Doctor Kessler. He runs forward and embraces her. "Oh, Penny. I thought you were gone!"

  She frowns and pushes him away. "How did you get up here? You left me down there!"

  "Sweetie, I don't know what happened." He looks confused. "The Causality Neutrino went haywire, there were papers and debris flying in all directions... it felt like I was flying through the air, even though my feet stayed planted on the ground. Then suddenly... I appeared here. Up on the surface. We called the emergency response team, but everything was locked down. Even the elevator, until just a few minutes ago."

  "The Causality Neutrino displaced you," you say. "You were stuck in time."

  Kessler sees you for the first time. "Stuck in time? Who are you?"

  "This is the man who saved me," Penny says. "His name is Jeremy Heller."

  "He's just an intern," Kessler says dismissively. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

  "Sure I do. Jay told me..."

  You trail off as another rumble shakes the mountain. Up high, with the other mountain peaks in the distance and the valley below, it gives you the feeling of being near a volcano when it erupts. The shaking goes on for several seconds, and knocks a few people to their knees.

  Finally it stops. "I think that was the big one," Penny says.

  "Jay said we had lots of time left," you say. "He was down there!"

  "Who is Jay? What's his last name?" Kessler asks.

  "Jay, one of the physicists. I don't know his last name. He stayed down there to try to stop the core from melting down. We were collecting parts of the shutdown sequence..."

  135

  Kessler scrunches his face up. "And did you succeed? The sequence is printed in manuals all over the facility!"

  "I... we tried, but... there was so much damage and debris everywhere it was tough to find..."

  Medics appear and wrap blankets around you and Penny. You're given cups of warm broth too. Kessler goes over to a makeshift radio system that has been erected in the snow and shouts orders into the receiver. A while later he returns.

  "Well," Kessler says. "The facility is indeed lost."

  You and Penny slump your heads. "So did Jay..."

  "There is no 'Jay' that works here," Kessler interrupts. "I know everyone in the facility. Regardless..." He sighs. "You've brought my precious daughter out in one piece. For that, I am eternally grateful. You have done well, Jeremy Heller."

  You try to protest more, but someone calls Kessler over to the elevator, and he descends into the Laboratory. You look at Penny. "I didn't imagine Jay, did I?"

  She shrugs. "Nope, he was definitely there. Hey, why didn't we get stuck in time like the others? It seems like a strange coincidence that hundreds of people disappeared except you, me, and Jay."

  Huh, that is strange. "I don't know. I'm sure they'll figure it out in the coming days."

  She rests her head on your shoulder. "Do you have a place to stay?"

  Her head feels warm on your shoulder. "I'm renting a room from an old woman in town. It's above a restaurant, so it's loud, but I don't mind."

  "Why don't you come home with me and dad tonight? My mom makes great spaetzle."

  "What's that?"

  "German noodles. They're delicious! I won't take no for an answer. It's settled, you'll come get a warm meal with us. You deserve it." She lifts her head and looks at you. "You saved me. I'll never forget that."

  There's a warmth in her eyes that relieves you of all the fears of the day. There's something special about Penny, you can feel it. It's as if you've known her your entire life. "Yeah. I'd like that."

  She smiles, and you feel happy to have reached...

  THE END

  136

  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. Bluish liquid rushes into the three coolant tubes, surging toward the core. But when they reach the outer shell, they begin spraying out the side of the valve instead. The force is so strong that the tubes are pushed back with a groan of steel, and the coolant dumps straight down on the ground.

  "You initiated the coolant dump too soon!" Jay cries. "You were supposed to open the core first!"

  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

  137

  You finish making your way to the Control Room. It looks like a tornado ran through the room, just the way you left it.

  "Oh my gosh," Penny says, sloshing through the few inches of water. "And I thought the Observation Lounge was bad!"

  Jay nods. "Yeah, looks like the Causality Neutrino really did a number during the test. I have so
me theories as to what went wrong."

  You scratch the back of your head. "Actually... I think I know."

  Jay smirks. "Go ahead."

  "My job is to monitor the reactor power levels. Normally everything is fine, but today the power kept spiking. Something was drawing a lot of power from the reactor. More than normal."

  "And we saw what that was," Jay comments. "Remember?"

  You think back. "The Particle Beam staging room!"

  Jay nods in confirmation.

  "I don't understand," Penny says.

  "It was before we reached the Observation Lounge," you say. "The Particle Beam, which creates the protons which are launched into the particle accelerator, was tampered with. Someone supercharged it to twice the recommended level!"

  "Why is that bad?"

  "Well," Jay says, gesturing to the destroyed room, "it's bad because that much power could create a very unstable Causality Neutrino."

  "Oh."

  "Oh indeed, my dear Penny. And that's not even the worst part."

  "Wait, it's not?" you say.

  "Of course not, young mister Heller. You should know what the bigger problem is."

  You scrunch your forehead in thought. "I don't know."

  "Think! You know this!"

  "Look, it's tough to think right now," you say. "Just tell me so we can..."

  "Is it the reactor?" Penny asks.

  Jay snaps his finger. "Bingo. The reactor. It might have been..."

  You finish his sentence. "...might have been damaged due to the extra load on it during the test. The reactor core could suffer a meltdown!"

  That's bad. FLIP TO PAGE 138

  138

  "So it might have a meltdown," Penny says. "Can't you just turn it off?"

  "Well, it's not that simple." Jay clasps his hands behind his back like a college professor. "You see, nuclear reactions are precarious things. Enriched uranium atoms become unstable and split, which in turn causes other uranium atoms to become unstable, and so on. We control this chain reaction by extending special rods into the nuclear reactor, which slow the reaction by absorbing all the extra electrons flying around."

  "Then let's do that."

  "Unfortunately," Jay says, "if a reaction is too far along, with too many unstable uranium atoms inside, the chain reaction cannot be stopped. The core will get hotter, and the pressure greater, until it eventually explodes."

  There's a short silence as the reality of that sinks in.

  "Then what can we do?" Penny asks.

  "Well, there's an emergency core shutdown sequence that we can follow to stop a meltdown," Jay says. "So it's good that we've already found some of the sequence. There are five steps altogether, so we'll need to find the others."

  "Let's get looking!" you say.

  "The core override sequence is just for emergencies, though. So before we do that, we need to confirm the core's status, and make sure it's actually going to meltdown." Jay points to the nearest computer. "But there's no way to verify with the computer network offline. We need to get it operational again."

  "I don't know," you say. "The core could meltdown at any moment. Maybe we should evacuate the lab while we can."

  "We could do that," Jay says, "if we were cowards."

  "Hey, I'm just saying--"

  "But it doesn't matter anyways," Jay mutters as he walks away, "because the computer system also controls the decontamination chamber. Currently it's locked tight. If the network is shutdown, so is our way out of the lab."

  "Oh yeah, that's right." You glance at Penny and feel foolish for suggesting it. "I guess we need to get the network online, then. How do we do that?"

  Jay stops by the wall, where a printed map of the Heisenberg Physics Laboratory is posted. "I'm glad you asked."

  Review the map ON PAGE 98

  139

  The Kitchen is a long, narrow room with stainless steel surfaces all along both walls, with room to walk down the middle. An industrial style ventilation system hangs above eight stove burners on the left. The ovens are on the right, four of them in a row, large enough to cook a meal for an entire facility full of scientists, engineers, and workers. Everything is clean and pristine, except for a single mixing bowl on the near shelf. You look inside: someone was mixing cookie dough. They must have gotten stuck in time right in the middle of it. It's a grim reminder of the disaster with the Causality Neutrino test.

  Penny senses your mood. Wordlessly, the two of you begin opening cabinets and searching drawers. You find lots of utensils, pots and pans and cutting boards. One shelf has a row of cookbooks. They're mostly in German, French, and Italian.

  At the end of the room, taped to a refrigerator, is a handwritten note:

  Jessica, I swear, if you leave your leftovers in the fridge over the weekend again I'm going to put a padlock on the door! This kitchen is for everyone. It's not your personal food hiding spot.

  After that, you've reached the end of the room. You've found nothing.

  The PA in the ceiling cuts on. "Eight minutes. You guys have eight minutes left. Hope you're making progress!"

  "Where should we search next?" Penny asks.

  There's a hall running toward the Sleeping Quarters, which also connects to the back of the two Bathrooms. Another door leads into the Supply Closet.

  Check the Sleeping Quarters ON PAGE 68

  Inspect the Bathrooms ON PAGE 30

  Hurry to the Supply Closet ON PAGE 45

  140

  The Phase Being lunges. Moving with instinct, you pull the rifle from over your shoulder and squeeze the trigger without aiming.

  The shot rings out in the Observation Lounge with a flash of light. The Phase Being freezes in mid-lunge as it's struck by the beam. The changing shapes that make up its body begin to flicker with color instead of just light, materializing into more solid forms. It spreads from the point where the beam struck, in the chest and down the legs, up into the shoulders and into the arms and hands. For a brief instant in time you see its face: a woman with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.

  And then with a pop she's gone.

  Penny looks horrified. "I recognized her. That was Jessica. She's worked with my father for years. Did you... did she...?"

  You quickly shake your head. "The CS Rifle fixes them, unsticking them from time."

  "Then why did she disappear? Why isn't she here right now?"

  "That means she came from another time," Jay explains. "The instability of the Causality Neutrino was so great that it affected not just the people in the Heidelberg Laboratory today, but all the people here in both the past and future!"

  "The CS Rifle sent her back to the correct time for her," you add.

  Penny says, "But if the Causality Neutrino affected all of the investors, and affected people in the future, why didn't it affect me? And why didn't it affect either of you?"

  It's a good question you hadn't even considered. You glance at Jay.

  "You are a very intelligent young woman," he says with a smile. "And that is a valid question. But the creation of this Causality Neutrino is too new of a scientific breakthrough. All we have are theories right now. I'm afraid I do not have an explanation."

  "We'll just have to count ourselves as lucky," you say.

  "Lucky indeed, young mister Heller. Let's get moving."

  Head back to the Control Room and FLIP TO PAGE 47

  141

  You head down the corridor to another security door. After punching in the code, it opens into the Test Simulator. It's strange seeing the three projectors in the ceiling offline, even though the servers in the corner are still making noise.

  Penny turns her attention to the two file cabinets against the wall. "I'll take the left cabinet, you take the right."

  You get to work pulling open drawers and sifting through papers. Most of the information is printed in three-ring binders, and fortunately they're labeled. Beam Focus Adjustment, 422 pages long. Small Loop Maintenance Cycle, 244 pages. Ther
e's even a binder with instructions on what to do if someone fails to be properly cleaned in the Decontamination Chamber. 158 pages for that.

  "Any luck?" you ask.

  Penny shakes her head and stands. She begins to go through the second drawer.

  It seems like they have a manual for everything in this place. You find one called Core Drain Monitoring, and for a moment your heart skips a beat, but a quick browse of the pages and you realize it's not the one. In fact, it's the manual on how to do your job.

  The job you used to have, at least. You doubt it will matter soon.

  You go through all the drawers before giving up. "Well this was a waste of time," you say.

  Penny scratches the back of her head and looks at the floor.

  "Five minutes left," Jay calls on the PA. "You've got five minutes until we absolutely need the code, or else we have to evacuate."

  "Where to next?" Penny asks.

  To explore the Animal Enclosure, RUN TO PAGE 106

  To search Maintenance Room #2 again, GO BACK TO PAGE 97

  142

  The men are uniformed, with rifles held across their chests and SWAT style helmets covering their heads. For a moment they're surprised by your appearance. Then they aimed their guns at you. They begin shouting in accented French.

  You raise your hands. There's not much else for you to do. Behind them on the mountain top sit two helicopters, with men unloading gear from inside. In the distance you see three more approaching your location. It's like a military invasion!

  "Penny? Penny!" Someone pushes through the ring of SWAT members. It's Penny's dad, Doctor Kessler. He runs forward and embraces her. "Oh, Penny. I thought you were gone!"