by John Olson
MoleBot: A robot designed for digging and taking soil samples
MS: Mission Specialist
MSR: Mars Sample Return—a proposed unmanned mission for returning samples of Martian rock to earth
MuleBot: A robot designed for carrying cargo on the surface of Mars. The MuleBot, or “mule,” has no life support for astronauts and is designed for extreme durability and moderate carrying capacity
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NSA: National Security Agency
NSI: NASA Standard Initiator—a space-rated explosive
Olympus Mons: The largest volcano in the solar system, located on Mars
ORU: Orbital Replaceable Unit—stowage bins for living quarters in space
Panspermia: A theory that simple life‑forms may have been widely seeded through the universe on comets or meteorites, either by accident or design
Philogenetic tree: A “family tree” of life‑forms on Earth, constructed by comparing the DNA of different organisms. Also known as the “Tree of Life”
Photomicrograph: A photograph of a microscope image
PLSS: Primary Life Support System—the backpack on EVA suits containing water, oxygen, power, and everything else needed for life support
PLT: Pilot
PT: Physical Training
RCS: Reaction Control System—a system of small gas jets that allows space vehicles to rotate in space
Regolith: Martian soil, which has no organic material.
Rem: The standard unit of radiation dosage. A prompt dose of more than about 500 rems is fatal
RSA: Russian Space Agency
SAS: Space Adaptation Sickness
S-band: The low-frequency radio band normally used for voice transmissions and low-speed data transmission
SES: Systems Engineering Simulator
Silver Snoopy: A highly prized award, which must be voted on by the astronauts, given to recognize extraordinary efforts by persons on the ground for the success of a mission
Sol: The Martian day, about twenty‑four hours and forty minutes of Earth time
SRU: Sleep Restraint Unit—a sleeping bag with straps to restrain the sleeper’s head
Stromatolite: Laminated sedimentary structures formed by bacteria (usually cyanobacteria)
STS: Shuttle Transportation System—official name of the Space Shuttle
T-38: Supersonic Trainer Airplane, commonly used by astronaut pilots for maintaining proficiency
TDRSS: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System
TELMU: Telemetry, Electrical, EVA Mobility Unit officer
TMI: Trans Mars Injection—the rocket firing maneuver that will take a spaceship from an orbiting pattern around earth to a trajectory leading to Mars
Tonne: One metric ton—a thousand kilograms. About 2,200 English pounds
Unix: A commonly used computer operating system
VOX: Voice radio transmission
Sneak Peek at Double Vision
There’s a Code Even the NSA Can’t Crack
But Dillon Richard can. Dillon is a straight-arrow genius with Asperger’s syndrome.
He’s never told a lie.
He’s never been kissed.
And he’s never had a badass quantum computer for cracking codes.
Until now.
In just a few days, Dillon will finish the software to crack the “unbreakable” code that banks and terrorists use to protect their most valuable secrets.
Everybody’s going to want a piece of Dillon. The Mafia. The NSA. And his two beautiful co-workers.
Who'll get him first?
Click here to check out Double Vision.
* * *
Chapter 1
Keryn
KERYN WILLS WAS IN THE shower when she decided how to kill Josh Trenton.
Her best ideas usually came that way, letting the white noise of the pelting spray drown out the outside world. Josh had to die. That was just the way things were. If you were the designated corpse in a Keryn Wills murder mystery, your mission was to die—whether you agreed to accept it or not. The only question was how, and now Keryn had the answer.
All that remained was to slam it all down on paper before she lost it, and she had the whole Saturday ahead of her for that. Keryn twisted off the water and shoved back the shower curtain.
Smiley was sitting on the floor watching her, his blue eyes wide and glittery.
“What are you staring at?” Keryn grabbed her towel and began drying off.
Smiley yawned widely.
“You think I’m boring, is that it?” Keryn scowled at him. “Go on, admit it. I won’t be hurt.”
Smiley meowed and scurried out.
Keryn wrapped the towel around herself and dashed through her bedroom into her office. She grabbed a pen and began scribbling ideas on a white pad. How Josh Dies. Must look like accident.
The phone rang.
Keryn looked at the number on the caller ID. Mom and Dad. Not now. Just let it ring.
Botulism poisoning.
The phone kept ringing.
Keryn reached for her copy of Deadly Doses: A Writer’s Guide to Poisons.
The answering machine picked up. “Hello, this is Keryn Wills. I’d love to talk to you, but I’m out. Leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
A click, and then her mother’s voice. “Hi, honey, it’s me. Rusty’s still asleep. Long story, but just between you and me and the fence post, he got plastered again last night. Anyway, I just wanted to see how your big date went. Come on and pick up the phone, sweetheart. I know you’re there. I want details—big, luscious, foaming details. You are home, aren’t you? I swear, if you shacked up with that man on the first date, I’m going to call your preacher-creature and tell him you’re nothing but a hypocrite, so pick up the phone or—”
Keryn snatched up the phone. “Hi, Sunflower.” This was going to be horrible, but hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, so the only way through this was straight ahead, with all shields up.
“Sweetheart, I knew you were there. Now spill. Details. Remind me ... what’s the name of Mr. Possibility again?”
Keryn took a deep, calming breath and exhaled slowly. “Dillon.”
“I thought it was Rick or something.”
“That’s his last name. Richard.” Keryn tapped her fingers on the desk, itching to grab Deadly Doses and start flipping pages.
“Dillon Richard.” Sunflower pronounced it like a disease. “Sounds backwards. What kind of parents would name their boy Dillon Richard?”
Keryn ran her fingers through her wet hair and looked at the picture of her parents on her desk. The picture was five years old, and even back then, Sunflower’s hippie ponytail had gone a dull and streaky gray. Rusty’s hair wasn’t rusty anymore. Mostly it just ... wasn’t. Sunflower and Rusty. Locked in a time warp where the sixties were still groovin’ and life was free acid and psychedelic VW buses and Grateful Dead concerts.
“So hit me with some details, girlfriend,” Sunflower said.
Keryn sighed deeply. Please, please, please grow up, Mom. “We went to a play in La Jolla.”
A pregnant pause, and then the world’s most disbelieving voice. “That’s it? A play? You didn’t eat?”
“We ate. We went to a play. Dillon drove me home.”
A moment of horrified silence. “And ... ?”
“It was a first date.”
“And you invited him in? Please tell me you had the sense to invite him in for coffee.”
Keryn didn’t say anything. It had been late, and Dillon said something about going shooting in the morning. Shooting.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sunflower’s voice had a note of desperate resignation.
“Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s a perfect gentleman.” Who just happened to look like a young George Clooney and made Keryn’s brain turn into oatmeal every time she looked at him.
“He’s how old? Thirty-five? Got to be something wrong with him if he
’s never been married.”
“He’s … shy.” Shy wasn’t quite the right word, but if Keryn tried to explain, Sunflower would go into hysterics.
“He asked you out, didn’t he?”
Keryn hesitated. “Really shy.”
“You’re telling me you asked him out? Not a good sign, girlfriend. Looks bad. Like you know your clock is ticking.”
“My clock is ticking. It’s a biological fact. I’m going to get old and die someday. And so are you. Have you ... read that book I sent you?”
“I don’t read books by preacher-creatures.”
“Mom, please!”
Shocked silence.
Keryn regretted it immediately. That was the only way to shut up Sunflower. Hit her with a chunk of her own maternity. That bothered her way more than her mortality.
Keryn heard a call-waiting blip on her line. She checked the caller ID. “Hey, um, Sunflower? I’ve got a call incoming from my boss. Can I call you back later?”
Sunflower slammed the phone down.
Keryn clicked the button on her phone to pick up the incoming call. “Hello, Grant. What’s up?”
“Bad news.” Grant O’Connell’s gravelly voice sounded tired. “I know it’s Saturday, but can you come in to work for a couple hours? We need to strategize.”
Keryn looked at her scribblings on the paper and tried to remember exactly how Josh was going to die. “Um ... sure.” I guess. It had to be bad if Grant wasn’t out golfing on a Saturday. “Can I ask what it’s about?”
“Not on the phone,” Grant said.
Keryn felt her pulse quicken. Not on the phone? This was starting to sound like one of her mysteries. Or maybe a John le Carré. “I’m not dressed yet. What time do you need me?”
“Ten-thirty,” Grant said. “I’ve already called the others. Dillon can’t get in any earlier. If you can believe it, he’s out shooting right now.”
Keryn wondered why she and Dillon would be invited to the same meeting. He was a Senior Engineer and she was Chief Financial Officer, and that didn’t give them a whole lot of common turf. “I’ll be there.”
“Don’t panic,” Grant said. “Everything’s going to be all right. There’s got to be some way out of this mess.” He hung up.
Keryn stared at the phone in her hand. It hadn’t occurred to her to panic until Grant told her not to. All of a sudden, she had a pounding headache, and her heart was hammering as fast as one of those old-fashioned typewriters. She put the phone down and headed back to her bedroom to get dressed.
She could already see that she wasn’t going to kill Josh Trenton today.
* * *
Dillon
Dillon drove carefully into his favorite parking spot. The lot was empty. He stepped out and locked his minivan, setting the alarm. He walked once around the vehicle and inspected each tire. A knot of anxiety clutched at his stomach. It was highly unusual for Grant to call a meeting on a Saturday. Highly unusual.
Dillon strode across the lot to the bridge. A thin trickle of water ran through the gully. Again, highly unusual. In June the gully should be dry. But this was no ordinary June. It had rained twice already, and it might rain again before the month was over.
“Hey, Dillon!” Clifton Potter leaned out of his SUV and waved at Dillon.
Clifton was the Chief Technology Officer of the company and Dillon considered him technically competent. Mostly.
Clifton pointed at Dillon’s minivan. “Dude! Why’d you park way over in the main lot? There’s plenty of spots right here by the building.”
Dillon did not know how to explain, so he shook his head and shrugged. He had parked in his favorite spot because ... it was his favorite spot. But Clifton was a Normal, and he could not be expected to understand.
Clifton shoved his door open and hopped out. He slammed the door and turned to Dillon. “Do you know what’s going down?”
“You forgot to lock your door.” Dillon pointed at Clifton’s SUV.
Clifton shook his head. “Chill it, Dillon! There’s nobody here on a Saturday to mess with my car.” His long blond ponytail swished back and forth.
Dillon found this unnerving. He did not know why Clifton wore his hair so long. Nor did he know why Clifton used so much slang. Slang made a person hard to understand. After thinking for a moment, Dillon remembered that chill had a secondary meaning—something about relaxing. It made no sense to Dillon, but it made sense to Normals, and therefore he made an effort to learn such things. But he would rather that people said what they meant in the first place.
Dillon put a hand on Clifton’s SUV. “Last year, 23,378 cars were stolen in San Diego County. The most popular makes among thieves are Toyotas and Hondas. Eighty percent of all cars stolen were left unlocked. You should lock your car.”
Clifton’s grin left his face. “Twenty-three thousand?”
“No. 23,378,” Dillon said. “Approximately 8.3 stolen cars per thousand residents.”
“Dude!” Clifton pulled out his keys and pressed a button. The car beeped and the door locks clicked with a satisfying chorus of thunks.
Dillon smiled. You could never be too careful about such things.
“So how was your hot date with our famous author last night?” Clifton said.
Dillon paused for a moment, then remembered that hot had a secondary meaning that had nothing to do with temperature. “It went extremely well. We had dinner and saw The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.”
“Spiff!” Clifton said. “‘To be, or not to be,’ huh?”
Dillon often felt off-balance when speaking with Clifton. Clifton used many words that even most Normals did not. It made Dillon feel uneasy. Very uneasy. However, Dillon saw that he could easily change the subject to quantum mechanics, one of his favorite topics. “After the play, we talked about quantum mechanics and multiple universes.”
Clifton’s face took on an expression Dillon could not parse. “Dude! What’s all that have to do with Hamlet?”
“‘To be, or not to be,’” Dillon said. “The question Hamlet asks implies that he has a choice, correct? But all choices must be quantum mechanical in nature.”
“Um, Dillon, have you been smoking something?”
“Cigarettes are very unhealthful.” Dillon could not understand why Clifton kept changing the subject. “I explained to Keryn that all of physics is deterministic, with one exception. When you make a quantum measurement, the result is not determined. The only rational conclusion is that, if we truly have free will, it must be because our thought processes are quantum mechanical. Making a choice is equivalent to performing a measurement on our own brains. A decision defines who and what we are.”
“Dude, I bet Keryn thought that was real interesting.”
Dillon nodded. Keryn had found it highly interesting. “She had never heard that making a quantum measurement causes the universe to split into several parallel universes. In each of those universes, the result measured is different. Hamlet poses himself a two-state question: ‘To be, or not to be.’ When he makes his choice, his future splits in two. In one universe, Hamlet chooses to live. In a second universe, he chooses to die.”
Clifton was staring at Dillon with his mouth open.
Dillon felt calm again. The multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics was logical. It was still not as popular among physicists as the old-fashioned Copenhagen interpretation, but the Copenhagen interpretation was not logical. When all physicists became logical, they would believe in the multiverse interpretation.
“Well, whatever, dude. And while you were talking about multiverses, did you also happen to notice that Keryn is one massively hot babe?”
Dillon took a few seconds to parse this. Keryn was an adult woman. Therefore, she could not literally be a baby. Therefore, babe must take on its secondary meaning—an attractive woman. Furthermore, Keryn’s body temperature was normal, so the word hot also took on its secondary meaning. Dillon thought it was insulting to call a grown woman a hot babe,
but he did not know how to explain this to Clifton.
He felt his face getting warm. Yes, Keryn was highly attractive. Whenever Dillon looked at her, he felt an odd fluttering in his stomach, and he sometimes found it difficult to talk. Last night, sitting next to her at the play, he had felt light-headed.
But Keryn had a kind way of looking at Dillon that made him feel warm and comfortable. She knew he was not a Normal, and yet she liked him anyway. That was far more important than the illogical question of whether a woman was attractive or homely.
Clifton’s cell phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and pressed a button. “Yo, hello, this is Clif.”
Dillon turned to look at the gully.
A mother duck and three ducklings paddled down the thin rivulet.
“Yeah, sure, Kendall’s a buddy of mine,” Clifton said. “You’re the dude who hooked him up with HP? Spiff, man! He used to have this bogus boss who thought he was God’s gift to lasers but didn’t know his head from a hole in the wave function. Know what I mean?”
Dillon was beginning to feel uncomfortable again. Clifton’s illogical style of speaking grated on him.
“Hold on a sec.” Clifton’s voice had taken on a peculiar tone. He began walking away toward the corner of the building. When he reached the corner, Clifton looked back at Dillon. Then his head jerked around as if he were embarrassed by something.
Dillon put his hands behind his back and thought about his time talking with Keryn last night. Keryn Wills was a writer. An intelligent woman. He had enjoyed talking with her. She was not a physicist or an engineer, but she had been extremely interested in how quantum mechanics tied in with The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
She had a quiet and comfortable way of talking that made Dillon feel as if he had known her all of his life, even though she had only been hired a few months ago. Also—Dillon felt his ears getting hot—she worked out at the gym every day and her clothes fit her extremely well. Of course it was shallow of him to notice such things, but he would be highly unobservant if he did not.