by Alten-Steve
Unable to speak, Manny stares at Lilith, attempting to communicate telepathically.
She sees him struggling. Offers him a glass of orange juice, positioning the straw between his parched lips. “Sip this slowly. Manny, I was so scared, I thought I lost you forever. Are you in pain? Can you remember anything?”
He looks around the bedroom, bewildered, his blinking eyes swimming in confusion. “Tortured me … how long?”
“Tortured you? No, Manny, that must have been a dream. We were spacewalking, don’t you remember? The singularity passed through you while your consciousness was still harbored in the Nexus. You’ve been unconscious seven weeks.”
Seven weeks. The forty-nine days of Omer. Is it possible? Confusion turns to anger. Enraged at having his prison sentence reduced in Lilith’s eyes he struggles to sit up, his body aching and weak. “Not seven weeks. It was longer … forty years of darkness. Forty years of torture!”
“Forty years, wandering in darkness? Just like the Israelites, huh? That must have been some dream.”
Manny’s head whips around, the blood draining from his bearded face. The familiar male voice echoes in whispers that infest his mind with a coldness that lacks all warmth—verbal tentacles of evil that wrap all rational thought in fear. Terrified beyond the ability to reason, Manny falls off the far side of the bed like a flogged animal, tearing the IV needles from his veins in his hasty retreat.
Devlin Mabus smiles from the doorway to his mother’s bedroom suite. The bloodshot sclera of his eyes are now totally red, his aura cold and settled—the adolescent permanently excised. “Welcome back, Uncle. We missed you.”
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
CASE NO. 00CV1672 [2000]:
WALTER L. WAGNER
(Plaintiff)
vs.
BROOKHAVEN SCIENCE ASSOCIATES
(Defendant)
SWORN AFFIDAVIT
I, H. Kimball Hansen, PhD, declare under penalty of perjury as follows:
I am a Professor, emeritus, of astronomy in the Department of Physics and astronomy at brigham young university, provo, utah. I was a member of the faculty there between 1963 and 1993, and from 1968 through 1991 I was also associate editor of The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
I have read the First Amended Complaint, the Affidavits of Drs. Richard J. Wagner and Walter L. Wagner, the Safety Review[1] referenced therein, and the science article on strangelets by Joshua Holden, and am familiar with the issues therein with respect to operation of the RHIC [Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory].
[1] Review of speculative “Disaster Scenarios” at RHIC
I concur that the so-called “supernova argument” used in the Safety Review to ostensibly show the safety of the RHIC is wholly faulty. It presupposes the stability of small strangelets, with lifetimes on the order of centuries or longer, long enough to travel great distances through space. The authors had previously asserted that to be dangerous strangelets only needed to have lifetimes on the order of a billionth of a second, just long enough to travel a few centimeters and reach normal matter outside the vacuum of the RHIC.
There are a number of theoretical arguments that show that strangelets might be dangerous, and there are faults in the arguments presented, to date, to show the safety of the RHIC. I am of the opinion that it would be wise to avoid head-on collisions in the RHIC until a more thorough safety review, preferably before the physics community as a whole, has been obtained. However, the fixed-target mode of operation for the RHIC would be acceptable.
H. Kimball Hansen, PhD
May 17, 2000
10
Earth News & Media
July 1, 2047: Chikurachki, the highest volcano on Paramushir Island in Russia, erupted late last night at 11:44 p.m. with ash clouds reported as high as 7 km (22,970 feet). Chikurachki is the fourth volcano of the six volcanoes in the Tatariono group to erupt in the last three days. Ash plumes from the four eruptions have spread east, covering 143 miles.
Geneva, Switzerland
“It comes down to the how and the why. The why deals with God and religion, the how is what particle physics is all about.”
They are riding in the back of a limousine through the French countryside, the aging physicist and the CIA-trained assassin having arrived in Geneva an hour ago aboard Lilith Mabus’s private jet.
Dr. Dave Mohr is lost in his element.
Mitchell Kurtz is just lost. “Okay, Doc, having spent all those billions of dollars building these massive particle accelerators, maybe you could tell me what you eggheads actually know about the Big Bang?”
“We know that approximately 13.7 billion years ago our universe sprang into existence as a singularity. Singularities are entities which we still lack the knowledge to define, though we believe they exist at the core of black holes. According to astrophysicists like Stephen Hawking, the singularity that originated the physical universe didn’t appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity.”
“So what existed before the singularity?”
“Before the singularity nothing existed. Not space or time, matter or energy.”
“Let me get this straight: the singularity that created the entire universe came from nothing? It just appeared … poof! God, that has got to be the dumbest thing a smart guy has ever said.”
“Maybe God was part of that side of the equation, we don’t know. What we do know is that our physical universe was and still remains inside the expanding singularity. Before the Big Bang occurred it didn’t exist and neither did we. Whatever it was, it was infinitesimally small—smaller than an atom—and extremely hot. And it didn’t explode, it more or less expanded outward in all directions at the speed of light.
“The Big Bang produced matter and antimatter in equal amounts. Seconds after creation, these two materials collided and destroyed one another, creating pure energy. Fortunately for us, most of the antimatter decayed or was annihilated, leaving enough matter intact to allow the physical universe as we know it to take root. As the universe expanded and cooled, quarks stuck together, forming protons and neutrons. Helium nuclei formed after one hundred seconds, but it took another hundred thousand years before the first atoms appeared. A billion years passed before helium and hydrogen massed together to form stars, all the while the universe continued cooling and expanding. It was Edwin Hubble who discovered this phenomenon in 1929, his observations, among others, tracing the expansion back to that concentrated superhot singularity.”
“If you know so much, why the need to build more of these Doomsday colliders?”
“Because the puzzle of creation is missing key pieces which can only be found in the subatomic particles created a millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Isaac Newton was way ahead of his time when he first initiated the field of particle physics, introducing the world to what some scientists called his ‘forbidden wisdom.’ Two centuries passed before Ernest Rutherford discovered atoms are mostly empty space, their mass concentrated in a tiny fat nucleus orbited by lightweight electrons. Physicists later discovered protons and neutrons inside the nucleus. That wasn’t enough, so they began probing the interior of these structures and discovered quarks. Meanwhile, Einstein’s general theory of relativity introduced the fabric of space-time and the revelation that matter bends space, all of which literally added another dimension—or, more accurately, a total of ten dimensions—to the theory of existence.”
“But that wasn’t enough either, huh?”
“The reason it wasn’t enough, Mitchell, is that theoretical physicists prefer everything neat and orderly. The Big Bang created ten dimensions, but we don’t know why. We question our standard model for elements within the physical universe because it’s chaotic and feels incomplete—fifty-seven particles, sixteen of which are fundamental particles, not counting antimatter or neutrinos which, as we sit here, are streaming through our bodies at the rate of trillio
ns per second. It’s too complex. Physicists desire a set of basic, simplified rules of how particles interact.”
“And so you eggheads had to start smashing atoms together.”
“It was the only way to test the theories of quantum physics. When I said there were missing pieces to the puzzle I was referring to a hypothetical seventeenth fundamental particle, known as the Higgs boson. Physicist Peter Higgs theorized that the void of space is not really empty, it’s permeated by an invisible field that acts like cosmic mud, providing mass to particles that shouldn’t have any. That cosmic mud is the Higgs boson, which has become the Holy Grail of particle physics. Some have labeled it the God particle. Particle accelerators were constructed to find it.”
“Ironic that the search for the God particle may end up destroying everything God created.”
“We sought knowledge of the universe. Was that so wrong?”
“Knowledge is power, Doc. Wisdom is knowing when to back off.” Kurtz glances out the window as they turn down Route Schrödinger, heading for a private compound of buildings. “When was the last time you were here?”
“July of 2010. I was assigned to ATLAS, a detector that’s seven stories tall. There are four detectors positioned around the LHC. The heaviest is the Compact Muon Solenoid, which weighs more than the Eiffel Tower. The detectors record the collisions and help us to analyze massive amounts of data measured in petabytes—thousands of trillions of bits. The World Wide Web was actually created by a CERN physicist as a means of sharing his data with scientists across the globe.”
“So how does this particle collider work?”
“Essentially, the LHC is a large ring housed in a tunnel seventeen miles in circumference, located about one hundred feet underground. Two beams of particles race in opposite directions around the tunnel ten thousand times a second, guided by more than a thousand cylindrical, supercooled magnets. The collider accelerates protons to energies of 7 trillion electron volts and smashes them together at the four detector locations at near-light speed. The collisions transform matter into clumps of energy, creating an incredibly intense fireball smaller than the size of an atom, with a temperature about a million times hotter than the center of the sun. The singularity is so dense it’s like condensing the Empire State Building down to the size of a pinhead. By colliding these particles, the LHC recreates circumstances that existed about a millionth of a second after the Big Bang occurred, in order to discover new particles, forces, and dimensions.”
“And in doing so, you create black holes?”
“Small ones, yes.”
“According to the wicked witch, the one that passed through Manny wasn’t so small.”
Dr. Mohr gazes out his tinted window. “Everyone knew there was an inherent danger, no one believed it could actually happen. Actually, that’s not true. President Chaney believed it—I think it was the twins’ mother who pushed for the moratorium. And before that, a group of physicists sued Brookhaven’s Collider over concerns the experiments would create microscopic black holes or possibly strangelets, either of which had the potential to destroy the entire planet. According to their theories, a microscopic black hole would bounce around, striking and absorbing other atoms before it would repeatedly pass through the Earth’s magnetic core, each time growing larger. Our scientists dismissed their concerns, claiming mini black holes were too unstable to be sustained. The bigger concern was the creation of strangelets, a more stable type of singularity. If a strangelet passed through the chamber and escaped, it could theoretically convert any matter it came into contact with into a part of itself. Apparently that’s what happened, only it came into being in another dimension, an unexpected variable impossible for us to measure.”
“And if this unexpected variable materializes in our physical universe like Lilith fears?”
The physicist exhales a deep breath. “I don’t know. If it becomes a true third-dimensional black hole, and if it acquires the right size and gravitational forces, then yes—it would present a serious threat to our entire planet.”
“Marvelous.”
“It’s easy to play the blame game, Mitchell, and there’s plenty to go around. What’s important now is that we discover when the strangelet was created.”
“It must have been recently. The black hole that sunk Evelyn’s cruise ship—”
“That wasn’t a black hole, it was a wormhole, a residual anomaly created after the singularity passed through the Earth’s magnetic core.”
“Manny was talking about using a wormhole to travel back in time to a period before the 2012 Doomsday Event.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible. You can’t direct a wormhole.”
“Maybe he can.” Kurtz glances out his window as they arrive at the gated entrance of CERN’s Geneva campus. “So who’s this brainiac we’re here to see?”
“His name is Jack Harbach O’Sullivan. I call him the Jackson Pollock of physics. If Lilith and Manny really saw a strangelet passing through another dimension, Jack will know how to verify it.”
The limo proceeds to the visitor’s gate. A guard matches their biochip to the guest list, and they proceed to one of the white brick buildings ahead.
Gulf of Mexico
July 2, 2047
4:37 a.m.
The jet-copter soars beneath a starry night sky five hundred feet over the dark waters of the Gulf of Mexico, its pilot maintaining a southwesterly heading toward the Yucatan Peninsula. Ryan Beck occupies the copilot’s seat, the aging assassin snoring lightly. Lilith is in back, Manny’s head cradled in her lap. The Hunahpu twin is heavily sedated. His eyelids flutter, his breathing restless pants that have gone on unabated since they left South Florida two hours earlier.
Whatever was infecting Immanuel Gabriel’s mind had removed all rational thought. Entrenched in a state of fear, he had bolted from Lilith’s bedroom by smashing through a set of hurricane-resistant French glass doors, leaping from the second-story balcony to the beach below. He had sprinted nearly a mile before Lilith caught him using the Nexus. Subduing him within the ethereal corridor of space-time, she injected him with a shot of Thorazine.
If Manny’s fear was worrisome, then Devlin’s transformation was outright terrifying. The teen’s cold, calculating demeanor had faded with the daylight, his schizophrenic behavior in full bloom by midnight. Stalking through the Mabus compound, jabbering in ancient tongues, the dangerous man-child seemed oblivious to his physical surroundings, his mind immersed in another dimension, the portals of which refused to allow him entry. Infuriated, he prostrated himself on the pool deck in the lunar light, pounding his skull against the brick pavers. It had taken enough tranquilizer to put down a horse before he had mercifully passed out.
The eastern horizon grays, revealing Ciudad del Carmen, the coastal city part of the Mexican state of Campeche. Continuing to the southwest, they fly over a green valley peppered with small lakes and sinkholes. Twenty minutes later, the Chiapas Highlands rise beneath a dense tropical jungle.
The pilot reduces his speed and altitude, then activates the jet-copter’s three-blade rotor as he retracts the wings, converting the plane back into chopper mode. The airship circles the dense foliage until a series of gray-white stone temples protrude from the canopy of green. Locating a flat open field a quarter mile west of the ruins, the pilot lands.
Palenque: Ancient capital of the Mayan city-state of B’aakal, known to the indigenous Indians as Lakam Ha. Springs and small rivers flow through the jungle fortification, which dates back to AD 300. In AD 431, K’uk B’alam became the first leader to ascend to the throne. Ten kings and 144 years later, an adolescent by the name of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal I (Pakal the Great) began a sixty-eight-year reign as ruler of the most important city in the classic Mayan era.
Ryan Beck tosses Immanuel Gabriel over his broad shoulder, then follows Lilith along a footpath leading into the manicured park. Waves of white mist cool the foliage in gentle waves, filtering the predawn light. The jungle s
lowly awakens around them in a concerto of chirps and catcalls and a thousand fluttering wings.
The path leads them through a cluster of temples known as the Cross Group. The park appears deserted, the gates not set to open to tourists for another three hours.
The old woman is waiting for them at the Temple of the Inscriptions, the five-foot Aztec Indian dwarfed by the two-hundred-foot-tall limestone monolith. A thin layer of leathery flesh hangs from her brittle bones, her cataract-ridden blue-gray eyes as cloudy as the mist. Her face is gaunt and weathered, her body wiry yet deceptively strong for a centenarian.
Lilith bends down and kisses her maternal great-aunt’s knobby cheek. “Chicahua, thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“We do not have much time. Awaken the Hunahpu.”
Beck glances down at Lilith, unsure.
“Chicahua is a seer, her ancestors advised kings. Do as she says.”
The bodyguard lowers Manny to the temple steps, then injects him with a shot of adrenalin.
Manny’s eyes snap open, wild and full of fear. He looks around, cowering as if the spirits of the dead are rising up through the earth around him.
Beck clotheslines him around his neck with his right biceps as he tries to flee, holding on for dear life. Manny twists out from the headlock, tossing the big man over his shoulder as if he were a schoolchild.
Blue-gray puffs of smoke meet the Gabriel twin’s nostrils, exhaled from the old woman’s herb-laced cigarette. Manny teeters back on his heels, the terror vacating his expression.
The old woman places both of her knotty hands over his eyes, pressing her right ear against his chest. “Chilam Balam … I recognize you. Lurking in the shadows like a wounded cat. Full of fear, Balam, your thoughts so tainted … filled with poison.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Lilith demands. “And why are you calling him Chilam Balam?”