A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth

by Hans G. Schantz

  “True social justice warriors are hard to find. Most students are wrapped up in their own petty interests. In fact, they don’t truly understand what those interests are. They need more enlightened folk like us to figure out what’s best for them and then to nudge them in the right direction through our power and our persuasion,” Professor Gomulka explained. “Ultimately, we are the secret kings. One day, before too much longer, we will rule the world. But don’t worry about all that just now. This little lunch is merely our way of saying thanks to a couple of our valued junior allies. Welcome aboard!”

  I had to run off to my chemistry lab final when we got back to campus. I met up with Amit at dinner.

  “I know Professor Muldoon is hardly your favorite guy,” Amit began.

  “That’s an understatement,” I said, “but I think George P. needs to help him out, anyway. Enemy of our enemy and all that. Let’s send Muldoon a letter explaining what’s going on, and the usual instructions for using encrypted email. I’m more disturbed by the fact that Gomulka saw right through George P.’s handiwork with Ryan and Marcus. I thought we had them both in the clear.”

  “George P. can email the details from the social justice review session to them both,” Amit suggested. “That should get them through the final. In the long run though, Gomulka will probably find a way to boot them both from the program. We’ll have to warn them. They’ll need to be figuring out another way to fund their educations for next year.”

  “The bigger issue is how we can derail the Social Justice Initiative’s program of systematic indoctrination,” I pointed out. “We need to take a page out of Gomulka’s playbook – find some way to discredit him and the program.”

  “If we’re the teaching assistants, we’ll have a certain amount of leverage to influence the implementation of the program,” Amit noted. “Anything really drastic, however, and we’d be found out. We can’t just flunk out the most obnoxious of Gomulka’s ‘social justice warriors.’ He’d see right through that.”

  “I wonder if we could get inside the selection process for next year’s class,” I offered. “Gomulka is lazy. I swear half the reason he makes us read our essays out loud in class is so he can listen and score them then and there, instead of having to prepare a lecture and take a stack of essays back to his office to grade. It wouldn’t take much persuasion to get him to let us do the evaluation for him.”

  “Half the reason? You’re too conservative, as usual.” An evil smile danced across Amit’s face. “I’m beginning to think Gomulka needs our help. You know how bad he is with computers and email. Suppose I help him out with his computer, and maybe add a key logger.”

  “Key logger?”

  “It’s a program that records his key strokes,” Amit explained. “We’ll get his passwords and anything he types. We could get his passwords, read all his email.” We brainstormed a bit. Amit already had something in the scripts and tools he’d downloaded from the “Dark Web,” the online black market of hackers. He installed it on my school computer and we confirmed that everything worked as advertised. Then, we finalized our plans.

  * * *

  I slid a note from George P. Burdell under Professor Muldoon’s office door the next day detailing the dean’s plans for an equipment audit and suggesting the professor open an encrypted email channel to us so George P. Burdell could keep him informed of further developments. A few days later, Amit got back a “Thanks, George P.” note from Muldoon by encrypted email.

  The dean summoned Ryan and Marcus for a meeting at the same time as the review session for the social justice final. We took scrupulous notes of the arcane social justice history Professor Gomulka shared. Somehow, the professor’s email inbox had filled up with spam overnight, each email running a long and CPU-cycle consuming script as he attempted to preview the contents. After class, Amit approached him, “Is everything OK with your laptop, professor?”

  “No,” he replied. “I can’t get my email to load.”

  “I can help you with that,” Amit offered. He turned off the email preview mode, did a global search for a keyword he’d embedded in the emails and deleted them. The problem was resolved and the email loaded perfectly.

  “Let me check your anti-virus software…. Your definitions are out of date.” Amit started the update process. “I can install some software that will help keep that from happening again.”

  “Go ahead,” the Professor Gomulka agreed, delighted at how quickly Amit had resolved his difficulties.”

  Amit navigated through the professor’s Omnibrowser, downloaded Malwarebytes, and started the installation process. “This is a great application for avoiding adware and other more subtle forms of malware that your virus scanner might miss.” Part way through the process, he reached up and scratched his left ear. That was my cue.

  “Professor Gomulka,” I drew his attention, “I still don’t understand how Clarence Darrow was able to impeach the credibility of Harry Orchard in the Steunenberg trail.” Amit deftly inserted his flash drive in the professor’s USB port. “I mean, Orchard confessed to planting the bomb that killed the governor, and he fingered ‘Big Bill’ Hayward and the Western Federation of Miners’ leadership in the assassination.” I saw Amit installing his script packages. “That’s about as open-and-shut as it gets, isn’t it?”

  “You have to appreciate the bare-knuckles approach to justice of the era,” Professor Gomulka replied, giving me his full attention. “Both sides tried to influence and bribe the jurors. Clarence Darrow and the miners’ union managed to out-hustle William Borah, the prosecution, and the Pinkertons.”

  That was a bit more honest and succinct an answer than I’d expected of him. I had to keep him distracted. “The irregularities of kidnapping Hayward and his co-defendants and transporting them to Idaho must have left a bad impression, too.”

  “You have to remember, this was before there was an FBI or any other truly federal law enforcement,” the professor answered. “That’s what gave the Pinkerton’s their power – filling the void between the competing jurisdictions of the various states.” Amit removed his flash drive. “Then they used that power to help business interests try to crush the legitimate interests of the emerging labor movement.”

  “All set, professor!” Amit said. “Run Malwarebytes every week or so. Let me know if you need any other help.”

  “Thanks, Amit.” Professor Gomulka looked thoughtful. “I have thousands of essays and applications to review,” he noted, “and it needs to be done over break so we can be getting the early admissions offers out. I do have some funds. I could pay you for your time.”

  Amit looked at me. I nodded my agreement. “We could do that for you,” Amit offered. “We could do an initial pass and make some recommendations, leaving the final decision up to you, of course. Between the two of us, we could get the job done over the break.”

  “Excellent!” Professor Gomulka looked relieved at our agreement to take on his workload. “I’ll be in touch.”

  George P. sent both Marcus and Ryan some excellent lecture notes full of the obscure social justice heroes not previously mentioned who nevertheless were prominently featured on the final exam. Amit’s penetration worked perfectly. The first fruit of our access was a copy of the final exam which George P. also helpfully passed along.

  * * *

  Amit headed home right after the exam. I decided to stay on campus through break. I really didn’t feel like going home to Uncle Rob. His betrayal, his treatment of me as a child in need of his guardianship, stung. I wanted to be doing something. We had to be so careful with our online research, and with the slow download speeds possible through TOR connections and Amit’s VPN, it took forever to get anywhere unless we had a very specific idea what we were seeking. Browsing in the library, on the other hand, allowed for anonymous access to vastly more information. Besides, Professor Chen offered to let me work in the mirror lab over break, and I could use the extra money, on top of what Professor Gomulka was going to pay u
s.

  My winter break began with a bang, the evening after finals.

  Bang! Bang, bang, bang! My door rattled with the pounding. I cracked it open. “Where’s Amit?” Ashley demanded angrily.

  “He’s not here. He already left...”

  “Amit!” She shoved past me into the room to check for herself. Amit really needed to see the kind of crazy girl he was dating. I walked past her to Amit’s camera clock and pushed the record button.

  “Why!” she screamed at me. “Why is he flirting with all those other girls, why?!?”

  “That’s how Amit is,” I tried to explain to her. “He…”

  “Tell me! Why, why, WHY?” Ashley screamed, trying to get in my face. The top of her head barely came up to my chin.

  I stood my ground. “Ashley,” I started again.

  “He doesn’t love me!” She interrupted, looking up at me. She was crying now in hysterical sobs. “He doesn’t love me!”

  I felt bad for her. I wasn’t happy about having to clean up after Amit’s mess, but I calmed her down as best I could. We sat down – Ashley on the edge of my bed and me in my chair – and I let her tell me the many ways in which Amit was a jerk. She had some good points, actually, but she was completely overlooking her own very significant role in creating the mess she found herself in. Now was not the time to point that out. I just nodded and let her vent.

  Calmer, but still crying, Ashley said, “I need you to hold me.” She stood up, approached, straddled my lap and sat on me. She held my head against her chest.

  She was upset, and I wanted to comfort her, but this was getting to be too much. “Ashley,” I began.

  “Just hold me,” she insisted, slowly swaying in my lap. Reassuring her was becoming rather… arousing. I was frozen with indecision. On the one hand, her grinding against me felt great. On the other hand, she was seriously unstable. She leaned over and kissed me. What the hell. I reciprocated. Then, she lifted her shirt and pulled it over her head. She reached behind her back and undid her bra.

  It was overwhelming. I was dating her roommate, and she knew it. Yet what started as comforting a distraught friend had become a make-out session. A really intense make-out session. What a mess! She and Amit deserved each other. Ashley slowly undulated down my lap and started unzipping my pants. It was too much, too quickly. I reached down and stopped her. “No.”

  “You don’t want it?” she asked incredulously.

  “It’s too much. We’re seeing each other’s roommates, for goodness’ sake.”

  She look dumfounded at me for a moment. “Fuck roommates,” she blew up at me, pulling herself up and grabbing her shirt. I had just enough time to appreciate the view as she pulled her shirt over her head before she yelled, “and fuck you!” She stormed out, bra in hand, slamming the door behind her.

  Great.

  I spent the weekend after finals in the library. I’d gotten no further with the Majorana equation Professor Chen mentioned than I did with the Schrödinger or Dirac formulations. I’d simply reached the limit of my ability to understand the math. I might have to set aside my physics research for a year, until I could master quantum mechanics and partial differential equations better. Since I’d hit a brick wall trying to understand the physics, I thought I’d look into the history of Majorana. Amid all the long-lived quantum mechanics, he was clearly an outlier. Ettore Majorana (1906-1938?). Nineteen thirty eight… question mark? That’s when I knew I was on to something.

  Majorana vanished under “mysterious circumstances” while traveling by ship from Palermo to Naples on March 25, 1938. Five years earlier, in 1933 he went to study physics in Germany with Werner Heisenberg. He spent time in Copenhagen with Niels Bohr. He returned to Italy a changed man. Suffering from “nervous exhaustion,” the formerly gregarious physicist became a recluse, distant from friends and family alike. He became a professor of physics at the University of Naples.

  His mentor, Enrico Fermi, a first-rate physicist himself, proclaimed that Majorana was a genius on par with Galileo or Newton. One day, though, Majorana withdrew all his money from his bank account, and he sent the following note to Antonio Carrelli, Director of the Naples Physics Institute:

  Dear Carrelli,

  I made a decision that has become unavoidable. There isn't a bit of selfishness in it, but I realize what trouble my sudden disappearance will cause you and the students. For this as well, I beg your forgiveness, but especially for betraying the trust, the sincere friendship and the sympathy you gave me over the past months. I ask you to remember me to all those I learned to know and appreciate in your Institute, especially Sciuti: I will keep a fond memory of them all at least until 11 pm tonight, possibly later too.

  E. Majorana

  Then, he hopped on a ship, and was never seen again. Clearly, this was someone I needed to learn more about.

  “Good morning, Peter,” Professor Graf greeted me cheerfully when I checked in the Monday after finals. “Glad you’ll be joining us here over break. Get the kiln going, and come see me. I have something interesting to show you.” I immediately speculated on all the interesting things she could show me, but I had to push those thoughts aside and focus on getting the kiln going without setting anything else on fire.

  When I got back, she was waiting for me. “We’re ready to conduct a more detailed study of the data sets from the gamma ray observatory. Professor Chen and I have already taken a look through the data, but I’d like you to take an independent look and tell me what you find.”

  I reviewed their results – beautiful maps of the concentration of various radioisotopes obtained from their distinctive gamma ray energies. Not all isotopes worked well in this kind of study. For instance, one of the decay products is the noble gas, krypton. It’s not reactive and merely floats off and disperses in the atmosphere. It doesn’t stay put, so it can’t be used to localize spills. Chen and Graf had focused on cesium-137. This isotope behaves like potassium, so it gets absorbed by plants – it persists in the neighborhood of where it was deposited in a nuclear event or accident. Their maps of the Chernobyl and Kyshtym disasters showed how decades later the gamma decays of cesium-137 could be used to map the fallout zones from these disasters.

  My professors were busy now looking at other isotopes – how they spread from the same disasters and persisted in the environment. I was curious about something Professor Chen had mentioned – the possibility of comparing the concentrations of different isotopes to date when the radioactive releases might have occurred. I looked at tin-121 – not as common as cesium-137, but it has a forty-year half-life and a strong gamma decay. I used the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the 1957 Kyshtym disasters to check out my idea, comparing the cesium-137 concentration to the concentration of tin-121 detections. Sure enough, the ratio was higher for the Chernobyl fallout zone than for Kyshtym.

  When I came in early the next morning, the glass disk I’d slumped in the kiln the previous day was cool. I put in a new disk and started up the kiln again. I carefully transferred the formed glass to the vacuum chamber and began evacuating the air. “Can you take a look at this, Professor Chen?” I asked when he came later that morning. I showed him how the ratios of tin-121 to cesium-137 were different in the different areas, but didn’t match the difference one might expect from simply comparing the half-lives of the isotopes.

  “The radioactive half-lives don’t tell the whole story,” he explained. “You have to account for the fission yields – tin-121 is much less likely to be created than cesium-137 in the first place. I tried the same analysis correcting for the yields. The problem is that tin and cesium have different chemical properties, and migrate and diffuse differently through the environment. Different climate, different rainfall, different wind, different erosion, yield different ratios. We won’t be able to date the various radioactive plumes very effectively. There simply aren’t any fission products where two different isotopes of the same element are strong gamma emitters. What we can do is study how different isotop
es spread in different ways into the environment.”

  Bummer.

  I kept working through the data set, using the tools Professor Graf had written to generate maps of the detection frequency for various gamma ray energies. In most cases, each energy level corresponded to a specific isotope, so the maps showed the distribution and density of that isotope. By then, the chamber was evacuated, so I turned on the heaters to melt the little scraps of aluminum wire and generate the aluminum vapor to deposit on the mirror. When the process was complete, I turned off the chamber and the kiln, ready to repeat the process all over again the following day. When I had time to give it my attention, I could crank out a mirror a day, and it only took a couple of hours of actual work.

  I’d accomplished quite a bit by the end of the day, but the idea of trying to date the radioactive plumes intrigued me. I thought about the problem overnight. If only I could find two different isotopes of the same element. The chemically-identical isotopes would behave and diffuse in the same way, allowing for a direct comparison of their half-lives. I looked through the fission product tables but only confirmed what Professor Chen had told me. There were plenty of cases where two isotopes of the same chemical element were created, but they decayed differently. For instance, I’d been looking at tin-121. It had a forty-year half-life and yielded a nice strong gamma ray detection. Tin-126 is another common decay product with a whopping 230,000 year half-life. On human time scales, the decay rate would seem virtually constant. Unfortunately, tin-126 undergoes a beta decay – an electron pops out, as a neutron changes to a proton yielding antimony-126. That beta particle can’t be detected from orbit.

  It had been a few days since I checked our encrypted email accounts, so I set up the Wi-Fi antenna to hit a remote Wi-Fi connection from a law office high up a skyscraper on the other side of the Interstate, and I connected to Lavabit via TOR. I discovered our friend Petrel had been busy.