Annihilation (The Seamus Chronicles Book 1)

by McAdams, K. D.

  Annihilation

  Book 1

  The Seamus Chronicles

  K. D. McAdams

  Copyright © 2015 by K. D. McAdams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are figments of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Jade Designs

  Interior design: K. D. McAdams

  Version 8.03.15

  Caveman Worldwide LLC

  ISBN: 978-0-9889588-0-7

  To learn more about The Seamus Chronicles and other stories from K. D. McAdams please sign up for my newsletter.

  The Seamus Chronicles

  Annihilation – Book 1

  Evacuation – Book 2

  Colonization – Book 3

  Confrontation – Book 4

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  I am about to revolutionize the way the world generates and even thinks about power. Eight years of experimentation and self-taught physics have me days, possibly hours, away from achieving my dream—a dark energy reactor. I just need a little more time and some quiet to cull the final answers from the recesses of my brain where I know they must live.

  I have spent half of my life on this invention. I have sacrificed almost everything that matters to most people my age. There have been no Homecoming dances, first kisses or game-winning goals. Experiments and research alone in my basement lair have consumed my sleeping and waking thoughts.

  But I owe it to myself and, I think, to the world, to complete my work. While the goal started out selfishly enough, it has evolved as I have grown and matured. I’m sure that no one realizes I am no longer the little boy that doesn’t want to do chores. After all, I still fuss and complain like that little boy. But now I complain because I am too smart and my work is too important to be delayed by taking out the trash or emptying the dishwasher.

  I no longer need a robot to tackle the mundane for me. I need to fix so many of the things that are broken and not fair in the world. My reactor will allow me to bring power to any corner of the world. Imagine how lives can be changed and improved with unlimited free power!

  After selling or licensing my design, I can use the profits to build reactors and travel to the places that will most benefit from the technology. My plan is to start in Ethiopia, where my brother Liam was born. Together we will travel to the village where his family lived and install the reactor. Refrigeration and electric water pumps will completely change the community. Instead of hours spent each day collecting food and water, they will be able to learn and think about the future.

  After Ethiopia, I’ll travel to China with my sister. She was born in a small city on the South China Sea but desperately wants to save the entire country. With pollution-free electricity, we’ll be able to shift the base of control from the cities to the smaller villages and towns. People will flock out of the metropolitan areas where they are forced to wear masks and go days without sunlight because of the smog. They will need to rent or buy from the current occupants and it will be a seller’s market.

  My plans are big and far from selfish, but first I need to deal with my junior year of high school. I also want to keep an eye on this virus that seems to be getting out of hand. School I can deal with, even though it irritates me. The virus seems well beyond my control.

  After eighth grade I asked my parents if I could take the GED and start taking classes at M.I.T. in the fall. Mom said yes and Dad said no. There was no doubt that I would pass the GED—I’m a genius, literally. There was also no doubt that I would be welcomed at M.I.T. I have been interacting with professors, PhDs, and doctoral candidates since the sixth grade.

  Dad claims he was worried about my emotional development. He says that I wasn’t ready, from a maturity-level standpoint, to attend classes with adults. He repeats, way too often: “Intellectual preparedness does not equal emotional preparedness.” I think he was afraid of how much it would cost him for me to take classes.

  They fought about it for maybe a week, but then the house needed a new roof and Liam needed braces. Necessities of parenting, home ownership and life came in and left me in my basement lab alone, solving not one, but two of the biggest physics questions of our time. How do you prove the existence of and identify a safe use for dark energy? All while fighting a daily battle with ignorant school administrators and under-educated and disinterested teachers.

  On the other hand, there’s the virus that seems to be sweeping around the world. They are calling it the “killer cold,” an indiscriminate harbinger of death. I noticed activity spiking on Monday. “Fluid in the lungs” was trending as a Google search term and was also spiking on the global news feeds.

  Mention of the “killer cold” was muted on establishment media outlets but there were references. The reports that were done tried to downplay the issue as a local, unfortunate series of unconnected deaths. Even a cursory review of social media topics and trends made it clear that the deaths were connected and not localized. I’m not sure where the virus came from but it is clear to me that no part of the world will be completely safe.

  Today is Wednesday and I have survived another day of school. I was able to catch a nap in history class. We had a substitute and she played a movie. The other classes required that I keep my eyes open, but that was about it. There were several kids and teachers absent. Not enough to really worry anyone (other than me).

  I wonder if I can convince Dad that we should all stay home for the next few days. Isolating ourselves from others who may be carrying the virus cannot be a bad idea. I’m sure he’ll refuse, though, and tell me that when I have a temperature over 100 degrees I can stay home. He probably doesn’t understand that this isn’t a cold and you won’t get better if you catch it. I don’t have the energy to argue, though. My reactor is waiting, and once it’s done all of these foolish discussions will come to an end.

  Sometimes I wonder if I should have pursued medicine or biology instead of physics. With my intellect, I may have been able to cure diseases and save lives. Would I be able to understand and defeat this “killer cold”? Could I have made a difference in the world that way?

  But I didn’t choose to pursue physics. It chose me. When I first understood dark energy, it was just obvious. There were no classes or lectures that taught me how to understand particles, I just knew. I was frustrated that my choices for powering an autonomous robot were limited to tethering it to a wall socket or using AA batteries. My father’s simplistic description of nuclear reactors and cold fusion sent me scrambling for Google.

  That was my first all-nighter. I will never forget those agonizing hours spent lying in bed waiting for Mom to come upstairs. When she finally came up I waited not nearly enough minutes to be sure she was in bed for good. Then I was in the kitchen on the family computer. It was as if I was remembering things that I had been taught in a previous life. I knew how each of the reactions was going to play out and, more importantly, why they worked that way. I scared myself and to this day it sends a shiver down my spine.

  Since that time I have been trying to explain to other physicists what it is I see and how I know it works. I’m working on an equation to describe what I know to be true, but that is no small feat. I feel strongly that I would rather complete my reactor to prove that what I know is true. Unfortunately, not everything is up to me. To get some of my resources, I have had to work with people and develop pieces of my equation. Some won awards and others didn’t understand what I was showing them. Those that couldn’t keep up would use my work in a thesis but break down during the de
fense.

  Chapter 2

  “Seamus, are you down there?” Dad’s yelling from the top of the stairs interrupts me. I glance at the clock and see that it’s already 6:10. Another sleepless night.

  A deep breath. In the most measured tone I can muster I answer, “Yes Dad, I am.”

  He tells me to come up and get ready for school as if I had no idea that this is why he’s yelling at me. School seems to be the most important thing in his world. Maybe it’s second most important, just behind his routine. I hate school. In addition to boring me to sleep it has to be one of the most pointless institutions on Earth. My father thinks I say this because I’m sixteen. My mother knows I say this because, for me, it’s true.

  As soon as I reach the top of the stairs, the lecture begins.

  “You know I don’t like it when you sleep in your lab on a school night,” Dad says with the stern ‘I’m disappointed in you’ face he thinks is so scary. I can’t believe he doesn’t realize gym class is not a valid reason to delay my work.

  “That’s okay, I didn’t sleep,” I say, barely able to contain my smirk.

  For someone who schedules and plans things down to the minute, my father never seems to see the details that matter.

  “If you fall asleep again in history class, I may take away lab privileges for a week. We’ll see how smart you are then.” My dad is forever making threats. After sixteen years, I have long since figured out that he never follows through. It actually annoys me to no end. But somehow we have evolved into this dynamic. He has power over me by expressing his opinion and making empty threats. I know they are empty but I can’t bring myself to push him only to prove that I know this. He should just say “Other people think I’m a bad parent when you fall asleep in public.” As always, it seems obvious and simple to me. But the power is in his hands, and while I don’t understand why, I respect it.

  He knows that I don’t need to go to school to learn what they teach in the classrooms. He says that for me school is about the social learning and finding a way to deal with a variety of personalities. If you are truly smart you can always learn from others, if you know what to look for. Apparently I don’t know what to look for.

  It’s not like I don’t have friends. Max and Alex are great guys and I can sit with them for a while talking about girls and video games. They don’t even say anything now when I get up and leave in the middle of something to go home to my lab. But we’re not what I would call “close.”

  The only place I am really happy is in my basement lab at home. Another knock on school, though—I built a physics lab in my parent’s basement mostly using eBay and stuff I found at the dump. It is way better than what we have in school.

  It’s 2014 and the physics department in my high school, the best in the great state of New Hampshire, is still working with levers and ramps. I can learn from Google in five minutes what my physics class takes six weeks to cover. At home in my lab, work happens at the subatomic level—protons and neutrons. Hydrogen is my favorite element. It is so simple but carries so much power. Nevertheless, I have to sit through physics class and keep my mouth shut so the other kids have an “equal opportunity to learn.”

  It drives my mother crazy. From about the middle of second grade she was asking why there wasn’t a gifted program for me. The best schools in the state are not set up to handle the best students in the country. The schools should be forced to provide an educational challenge for me. But my parents have a weird dynamic. My Mom lets Dad manage the kids while she works to provide for the family. Dad doesn’t want to rock the boat.

  Mom is up this morning, which is weird. 6:20 a.m. and Mom almost never intersect. Must be a business trip.

  “San Jose again?” I ask as she races about the kitchen. I am so much like her. Little things are stupid. Why can’t someone else worry about getting the tools where they need to be? A surgeon doesn’t pack, carry and keep track of all his instruments. His brain is occupied thinking about how the human body works so that he can use the tools to save a life. He stands over an open incision and calls out the tools he needs, which are then handed to him immediately and precisely.

  Sure that she would agree with me but knowing it wouldn’t help, I track down her phone and badge while she shoves her laptop, power cord and privacy screen in a bag. We both take the signature deep breath. No one else gets it.

  She hugs me. “Thank you Seamus. You’re always bailing me out.” Not true but I don’t protest. Maybe knowing that there is someone else in the world that sees how ridiculous it is to waste energy worrying about little things is what bails her out more than the locating of those little things.

  “I know what you mean,” I say, as Grace glides into the room.

  Totally put-together and almost bouncing before 6:30 a.m., Grace is my polar opposite, yet we are halves of a whole. She keeps me grounded, sane. Grace is always there moments before I fly off the handle, and her presence keeps me in check. Her ability to diffuse my temper is magical. I love her so much; there isn’t a thing in the world I would not sacrifice to protect her from sadness or discomfort.

  Dad’s making breakfast and packing lunches. I’m grateful that he cooks and cleans for all of us, but really? How can an adult get satisfaction from so much time standing over the sink? It’s not like he’s Gordon Ramsey or anything, either. All winter it’s baked or roasted protein, some tasteless vegetable, and noodles, rice or potatoes. He doesn’t do big or extravagant, just enough to get by and a little better than takeout.

  Liam rolls into the kitchen. He’s a mess, totally disheveled, and he got a full night’s sleep. Liam is off-the-charts different than Grace and me. Where I learn things and Gracie works hard at things, Liam just does things. If we were on an airplane and the pilot died, I could tell you how much lift each of the wings is able to generate, the horsepower of the engines, and, based on our altitude, the time left until we hit the ground with no pilot at the controls. Grace would download a manual and read frantically believing that she could learn to fly in time to save the plane. Liam would just walk to the cockpit, sit down and try to fly.

  Liam asks why there is a limo in the driveway. For his ability to do things, he can’t put two and two together. Even looking at Mom and her suitcase, he has to ask why there might be a limo in the driveway. But the car means it’s time for all of us to get moving, the bus will be here soon, too.

  Grace heads upstairs to brush her teeth and Dad grabs Mom’s suitcase to take it out to the car. I’m on my way to my room when I hear Mom ask Dad if I was in the lab all night and what I might possibly be working on. Dad confirms that I was and he tells Mom that I am working on a battery or something. After that I am out of earshot and do not know what else they are talking about.

  The truth is that it is not a battery. A battery stores energy and releases the energy until there is none left. Then you have to fill it up again. I am building a dark energy reactor. Even a small reactor will be able to generate hundreds of millions of watts of electricity. Even better, it will do so while generating no heat and requiring no catalyst. Well, no catalyst that we can notice.

  Revolutionary new power reactor or not, I have to go to high school. There is a little excitement today but not the kind that I find interesting. The halls are at least half-empty, much worse than yesterday. Maybe it’s senior skip day? Doesn’t seem right for a Thursday in October. I’m dying to sleep, but I have English, history and gym this morning, which means no dozing.

  When I finally get to physics class I am ready to shut my eyes and get fifty minutes of sleep. The teacher still thinks she can keep me engaged, so she has been starting classes off with interesting physics news from around the world. I try to humor her, but most of it is old news to me since I subscribe to the leading journals and am very much engaged with the global community online. But today she stuns me. A development in the concept of a solar sail has been published. A scientist in Australia claims to have proven that, using a new material, he can move a part
icle approaching the speed of light. I’ve read some on solar sails but not enough to be comfortable with them. What I do know is that the concept requires lots of power, like from, say, a dark energy reactor.

  The power needed to catch and hold a single atom is massive. If I can get my reactor working, it might be able to generate enough energy to prove this concept in the real world. I don’t understand why there are not more people working on the power piece of the equation. The solar sail theory is great and important, but if we can’t move beyond simple nuclear reactors to generate power, we will forever be stuck experimenting and proving with equations. We need to increase our access to massive amounts of energy before we can move humanity to the next stage of evolution—interstellar travel. I guess I need to focus on my contribution first.

  School is more of a nuisance than ever. It’s all I can do to make it through the end of the period. I’m not even going to pretend that I’m sick. I just walk out of the building and start for home. My mind is racing. All the amazing people who said faster-than-light travel was impossible may be wrong. But I suppose there was a time when faster-than-sound travel was impossible, and a time when the earth was flat. It’s almost as if the concept of “impossible” was created just so it could be proven wrong. I can’t lose focus on my reactor, but I want to know more about this solar sail.

  Dad’s not home when I get there. He is probably out golfing or whatever. It doesn’t bother me because it means I can go straight to the lab with no hassles about why I’m not in school.

  The report is good. No, it’s better than good. I would almost call it flawless. This guy did not want to publish until he was certain. I like that. Too many scientists lately have been publishing too soon, only to have their findings discredited. In some parts there is a feeling that rushing to publish is speeding along understanding. It gets more eyes on the idea and drives more detailed looks at advanced theories. It seems sloppy to me. There are even scientists who have built their whole reputation on disproving other people’s work. Is this really science? These people have never had a creative thought in their lives, but they are process and documentation geeks. They will always find flaws in the way the people who do things actually do things.