by Ian Williams
“And you plan on doing what with it?”
“The military plan on using it to break through that shield over the city. I can’t say I’m too happy about my experiment being used in this way, but if it can help those poor people down there then I’m happy enough to cooperate.”
Without any indication of what he planned on doing, Stephen wandered around the sphere, gawking at the puzzle each wire made by following it. If Emma was the one responsible for designing the device, then what did he have to do with it?
“Stephen,” Emma said, turning to find where he had gone. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I just want to pull it apart and put it all back together again,” he replied.
“Don’t you dare; I’m not going to spend hours fixing it after you’ve played around with it again. Now, I need you to begin setting things up for me. Brigadier Harrington just ordered me to ready it for a test firing.”
Graham and Sean stepped away from the action while the others went about their work. Emma continued to dirty herself with the machine’s physical parts as Stephen rolled out his schematics and turned on a bank of holo-displays. In this part of the process they required the most up-to-date tech.
Stephen then slid on a pair of blue gloves that lit up once on. As images began to pop out of the holo-display, he manipulated them with his gloved hands. The way he appeared able to pick up and move the floating objects suggested the gloves processed haptic feedback to allow him to grab them as though really there.
“So, this is what you’ve been doing while I was asleep?” Graham said to Sean beside him, both of who now felt themselves nothing more than superfluous to what was to come.
“Yep, this is the best shot so far at getting past the force-field. It took three weeks to put together, but the last piece only arrived today, along with you too.”
“Why’s it so important to try it out after that relay was destroyed?”
Again Emma replied from her position by the sphere. She had remarkable hearing. “Because the area of the shield above that relay is now weaker than other parts, and this device is designed to overpower it. With the area weaker it will be less of a strain to generate a high enough energy beam to blast a hole through it – well that’s the plan anyway.” She turned to Stephen and called out, “You nearly ready with that?”
“Oh yes,” Stephen answered with an extravagant wave of his gloved hands. “I’ve calibrated the system to output as close to 90% as I can.”
“Good, that should do fine. So, we have a 360-degree setup inside the sphere made up of fifty units, all producing a high powered laser each,” Emma explained as she picked up a wrench and attacked a stubborn bolt with it. “They aim their energy onto a set of mirrors in the centre, which then diverts and combines them into one kickass beam. Oh, and the components inside are held within a permanent vacuum, and need to be kept at a low temperature to stop it all overheating, hence the icicles on the windows.”
“Right, got it,” Graham replied, despite having zoned out during her speech.
“Stephen, make sure you keep track of the frequencies of each unit while it’s firing. If any look like they’re losing cohesion, you cut it off.” Emma then slid her wrench into a small pocket on the front of her boiler-suit and ventured over to the apertures on the right side of the sphere. She wiped each lens with a dirty cloth before she was happy to continue, then spun around to face a floor to ceiling shutter that broke the thick glass window running the length of the room. “Right, I’m switching on the rig, better stand back.”
A metal cabinet on caster wheels was positioned next to the sphere, with thick cables coming out of it and trailing away to the device. Emma took position working on a screen held over the cabinet by an articulated arm. She went through a mental checklist of button pushes and switches, all of which were accompanied by a building of vibrations through the floor as the energy grew within her apparatus. Each of the units inside it had begun to gather together what they required to unleash a devastatingly powerful laser beam, their efforts now made visible by a bright white light that tried to penetrate the machine’s casing. Through the apertures came a warm glow, one Emma became immediately interested in.
“Opening shutter,” she said as she pulled the goggles down over her eyes and tapped at the touchscreen of her computer. On her command the metal shutter in front of the sphere rattled and then began to rise up.
From their safe distance from the machine, Graham and Sean watched with awe as the outside world suddenly entered. The room instantly brightened with the sun’s unfiltered light shining inside and reflecting off every metal surface within. Even Emma’s goggles had become a shade of the outside view – still a shade of purple.
Yet behind the shutter was not open air and an endless drop down to the city, but a glass bubble, and another sphere held in the centre. The second device was much smaller, suggesting to Graham that this one focused the other beams as had been described.
Once ready, Emma left the front of the larger sphere and approached Graham and Sean. She quickly diverted to a table she passed along the way and picked up a handful of spare goggles. What she handed over were blacked out and covered in a thin film of grease. He removed as much grime as he could with his hands before rubbing them rigorously against his jeans instead.
“That smaller sphere is what does the real work, though – and is the reason for my pending patent. Firing a laser at the shield won’t do much by itself. That’s why the smaller device converts the light, which exists as a stream of massless photons, into something halfway between energy and matter. Cool, isn’t it?” She received only blank looks in response. “Anyway. When this thing fires it will be brighter than the sun, so best protect yourself. Stephen, you too, goggles on,” Emma said, then tapped the wrist screen she had hidden beneath her sleeve. “Brigadier Harrington, this is Dr. Emma Grace.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’re ready to proceed. Please stop the Ring.”
Brigadier Harrington’s voice was only just loud enough to be heard over the sphere’s whining. “Excellent. Do you have the power you require?”
“We have enough for now, but if we need more then I will need it immediately. If you could keep the reactor ready, that would be great.”
“You’ll have it at your complete disposal, Doctor. Proceed at your discretion. Target coordinates should be coming through to you now.”
Stephen whistled from his far away position on the other side of the room. “Let’s get this party started!” he followed with.
“Right, you heard the man, let’s begin,” Emma said, a wink to the unexpectedly quiet Sean; her close proximity had him nervous. “Let’s unleash hell.”
At the peak of the sphere’s high-pitched whirling the floor of the Ring began to shake at a similar intensity. After having come to a stationary position in readiness, the structure did its best to contain the energy coursing through its systems, all for the sake of the laser device’s almost insatiable appetite.
Graham held on to the table by his side to steady himself in expectation. He feared the vibrations were about to break the Ring apart from the inside.
“Here goes,” Emma shouted above the immense noise. The countdown reached its end and now plan C could finally begin. No more rhetoric, or planning, just action in the form of a direct attack on the shield. “By now the smaller beams are bouncing around the inside of the sphere like an angry swarm of bees. When I flick this switch,” she said while hovering her right hand over the one in question, “all that energy is going to need somewhere to go.”
“Look out below!” Stephen called across to them.
With her arm extended out away from her, Emma activated the sphere and turned her head in the opposite direction. Her pose suggested she was not entirely sure it would not explode in her face. Thankfully, it did nothing as disastrous. Although what it did do was still an impressive sight for those in the room with it.
All of the noise coming from the d
evice ceased and was instead replaced by a lightning bolt of brightness. Except the light was not emanating from the large sphere as Graham had been expecting a moment earlier, but from the small device embedded in the glass bubble just past the shutter. He stared at the now glowing orb – his goggles protecting his sight from damage. The process confused him. Where was the solid line of the laser?
“It’s not working?” he called to Emma.
“Nonsense,” she replied, not once looking away from her machine.
“Why can’t we see it then? You said the laser would be brighter than the sun?”
“The beam isn’t yet visible, Graham, the light it’s creating isn’t in the visible part of the spectrum. But the energy all of the smaller beams is concentrating on the small sphere is visible. Once the gain medium inside that small sphere hits the sweet-spot – what’s called a population inversion – the device will fire a beam of matter.”
Graham turned back to watching the only visible part of the energy release he could see, what had slowly begun to look like a floating ball of plasma, and waited. After a second or two of silence he finally got what he had been hoping to see from the laser rig and leapt back in surprise. From the outside surface of the small sphere erupted a dazzling pulse of violet light. After a few sputters it eventually grew into a steady stream of energy, which raced away from the Ring and down to the shield far below.
“Holy shit,” he shouted unintentionally.
The ground beneath his feet lurched gently in the opposite direction to the beam. Graham landed a foot behind himself to keep him in place. He then ran for the window to his side, slamming his hands into the glass as he reached it unexpectedly. His mouth hung open. Where the laser beam had met the shield a fierce fight had broken out that threw out light like an enormous arc-welder. Each refused to give in and kept at the fight for all their worth, neither appearing to be winning in any meaningful way.
In spite of this very obvious struggle, Emma jumped up and down on the spot, clapping and whooping to herself in excitement. Her ‘baby’ had cried out to its mother for the very first time, its first ever sound a sign of life that no-one could ignore. The only person not at all happy to see such a thing was Graham, who had seen himself pushed one step closer to his trip into the city. This was a success he for one did not want to see continue for long.
But after only a few seconds of this hugely impressive show something began to change within the beam. The solid structure of light had slowly started to fade and shrink in width. Its fight with the shield had been lost and Emma’s laser rig was quickly forced into an embarrassing retreat.
“Stephen, what’s happening?” Emma said in a sudden outburst of panic.
“Oh no, no, no, that’s not right.”
“What? Tell me.”
The reply from Stephen was interrupted by the return of Graham’s unseen friend. It had something helpful to say again. “They’re not getting enough power.”
“What could you possibly know about all of this?” Graham replied under his breath. While the others ran about from screen to screen and activated a series of backup systems to feed more power to the sphere, he could converse with himself without the attention turning to him. For now, even Sean was oblivious to his odd discussion.
“Trust me, they’ll need a much more efficient power supply than even the generator on this flying castle can produce.”
“I thought you were me? Doesn’t that mean you only know what I do?”
The voice laughed, the sound surrounding Graham. “Well, maybe you’re more intelligent than you think, G.”
“Fine, be that way again. Let me know when you have something useful to tell me.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, G. Look, would it make this easier for you to see my face?”
Graham looked to Sean a few feet away as a sense of paranoia rushed him all of a sudden. The voice was his alone to hear, he had no intention of sharing it with the others – they already saw him differently from before. But seeing who he talked with had a strong pull on him. He agreed with a subtle nod of his head and waited in case the others saw it too. If they did, then maybe he was not that broken after all.
“Hey,” the voice said, “turn around, G.”
Slowly, and with a pause to check he was not drawing attention to himself, Graham twisted his head around to see.
To his surprise, standing beside Sean and watching the chaos unfolding within the room – one Graham had now totally blocked out of his mind – was a highly familiar figure. It was himself, though a much healthier version and with the same sweeping brown head of hair he had once possessed. The fuzzy beard and greasy mess of hair now adorning his own head was not there; this version looked much tidier.
“So, you really are me then.” Graham could talk louder this time as a cacophony of alarms began to ring out around them. Emma’s experiment was going wrong and threatening to fail entirely as he calmly conversed. Even the sparks that were spitting out of the large sphere’s casing could not distract him from it.
“Sort of.” The other Graham bowed as though formally introducing himself.
“Crying out loud,” Emma screamed above the alarms and whining of her device. Regardless of how angry she appeared to be, she still remained focused. But what she called for into her wrist computer was exactly what Graham knew she needed. There now appeared one more person there who understood the intricate workings of the sphere: the other Graham. “Brigadier Harrington, we need at least triple what you’re currently sending us. If you can’t give me more then I’m going to have to abort.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Grace, but the reactor is already nearing maximum output. I can’t give you anything more, I’m afraid,” Brigadier Harrington said through the tiny speaker, his voice distorted by interference.
“Told you, G. They need much more power to keep it going.” The other Graham wandered over to the sphere, which rattled with the strain. He ignored everything and everyone while he passed his hand over the metallic surface of the machine. With his eyes closed he investigated the structure of the metal, possibly on a molecular level. His head cocked to the side when he found something he disliked.
“So they can’t break the shield with this?” Graham asked with a selfish sense of relief at the thought. He would be spared a suicidal visit of the city for now.
“No, I didn’t say that. But to make this thing work they will need some help. G, walk over to a computer.”
“Why?”
“Because I can make this work. If you’ll allow me; I can give them the power they need.”
There was no movement from Graham’s feet, not even a twitch. He stood locked in place and tensing every muscle in his body, ready for a fight from the inside. Refusing to give the second him what he wanted came with a cost, he knew. One he had no intention of paying this time.
“Don’t forget, I don’t have to have your permission. I can take control again if I have to,” the other Graham said with an angry grimace.
“No, I won’t let you drag me any further into this. I want to go back to my family. You tell me right now what you’re planning or I’ll have myself locked up.”
“Locked up, seriously?”
“Yep, I’ll grab a gun from one of the soldiers out there. I bet they’ll want to lock me away for a while after that.”
The second Graham dropped his hands to his side and dipped his head. “We don’t have time for this, G,” he said. “Fine, I’ll do it myself. Blink!”
“What the…?” Graham said as he followed his orders without even thinking. He fluttered his eyelids a couple of times in confusion, unsure why he could not resist the urge. After a minute or so he eventually discovered what had happened.
All of the alarms had stopped and none of the vibrations remained to rob him of his balance. Time had been taken from him again, even after his refusal a moment earlier to give his body over.
“This is years ahead of current designs, Graham. How on earth do you know how
to do this?”
He spun around, away from the computer console he had suddenly found himself facing, and saw Emma standing right behind him. The look of amazement on her face, which she made no attempt to hide, made it clear to him that his symptoms had just worsened; now he was doing things he could not possibly have done by himself.
Stepping away from the screen and rubbing his hands together nervously, Graham let the expert take a look at the multiple screens of coding he had written while the second him was in control. He found Sean and Stephen waiting a few feet away, their faces showing nothing of the confusion they must have felt inside.
Emma studied the screen hard. “My god, this will increase power output by a factor of ten, at least. This is incredible.”
“I… I need to sit down,” Graham said, wiping his sweaty hands across his brow.
During his latest black-out he had given them exactly what they needed to punch a hole in the shield, and knew where that left him: his trip into a war-zone was back on. The other him really did intend on going in, whether he agreed or not. And without giving him any indication of why it was so desperate to do so.
Chapter 8
Nothing but numbers
Stanley wandered forward in complete darkness and unable to make out even his own hand in front of his face. He could have been stumbling through the centre of a black-hole for all he knew. Nothing had been explained before the light drained from Isaac’s office. This was part of the test, and it had begun without warning. One minute he was in familiar surroundings and the next he found himself with nowhere to go.
“Is there anyone there?” he called out, disturbed by the strange echo that pinged back. The office he stood inside earlier had no such sound to it. This new place had the ambience of a cathedral.
Still walking blindly forward, he eventually felt his body become lighter as though wading through water. The more he tried to move the more he seemed to float, until his feet no longer touched anything at all. He was not flying so much as bobbing along through the darkness. By now he would have expected to be neck deep in some form of liquid. This felt more like he had somehow been transported into deep space. But his head had not exploded yet, so he thought better of that idea.