Scarcity

by Robert Calbeck

  The suit approached and flashed a carbon enforcement badge. The agency was global, having originally descended from the UN. carbon enforcement had supplanted it in wake of the world adopting the stringent Paris 2 protocols in an effort to fight global warming. They controlled the CPI system, and regulated the world’s carbon output. The carbon police, or carps as everyone else called them, were the police force they used to enforce the carbon laws. As such they had authority over pretty much any legal dispute, so most governments simply contracted them to handle all police work, not just carbon. Qwiz felt his nerves clench; carbon enforcement also handled matters of terrorism and major crime since they had unrestricted access to the CPI databases. They had ultimate jurisdiction wherever they went, much like the FBI, though carbon enforcement had absorbed almost all of the duties of that atrophied organization.

  The suit looked like he had absorbed the muscles of a few FBI agents himself. His bulk towered over Qwiz, with close cropped, graying black hair, and a face that could have been stolen from The Vanguard. Qwiz swallowed hard and stood up to meet him, trying as hard as he could to disguise the tempest of fear in his stomach.

  “Can I help you?” Qwiz asked.

  “Agent Glover,” the suit said, as if trying to find the tersest possible introduction. “I have some questions.”

  Qwiz tried to look like an open book. If he was lucky, he would be able to hide the incriminating pages by appearing to disclose them all.

  “You are the lead computer technician here?” Agent Glover scanned a clipboard, “Quency Park?”

  “Yes sir,” he said, feeling a bead of sweat forming near his hairline.

  “When was the last time you saw a physicist named Luthor Tenrel?”

  Qwiz was no actor, but he scratched his head as if struggling to come up with the day. “I think it has been at least two weeks. The last I saw him he was preparing to leave for Geneva.”

  “You knew he was leaving?”

  Qwiz mentally winced. He had already said too much. No going back now. Don’t give them any information that isn’t publicly available.

  “A lot of us did. He and one of the interns from here went to attend the International Energy Convention.”

  “Do you know who the intern was?”

  Qwiz hesitated. Lying was wrong. Betraying your innocent friends was worse. Even honor dictated lying sometimes, in this case it would have the fringe benefit of keeping him out of jail. “I’m pretty sure it was the black guy that works with him.”

  The agent peered down at Qwiz. He could have been three meters tall. “Why were they attending?”

  “I don’t know,” Qwiz said. “Maybe to find a more efficient way of powering the cyclotron. It’s an energy hog.”

  The agent jotted a note on his clipboard, his bulging forearm managing to make it look menacing. Qwiz resisted the urge to wipe his brow. He thought he was doing okay so far and didn’t want to botch his performance to remove a little sweat.

  “What do you know of their experiments?”

  “Not much.” Qwiz said, the lie tasting sour in his mouth, “they were in charge of the cyclotron. Basically, they smash atoms together and hope they stick.”

  The agent frowned deeper, if possible, indicating he was impatient and wanted more detail.

  “They were trying to discover new super-heavy elements. And study their properties if they made anything.”

  “Were they successful?”

  “They never discovered any new elements,” Qwiz said, relieved at being able to finally tell the truth. “The biggest one is still element 126.”

  His pen scratched like a medieval torture device. He turned to exit. Qwiz felt his abdomen release some of its pent-up tension.

  He turned around in the doorway. Qwiz glimpsed the words investigate phone call scrawled at the bottom of his paper.

  “Have you had any contact with Tenrel since he left?”

  Qwiz felt his intestines tie themselves in knots. “No sir,” his voice felt weak.

  “You haven’t had a phone call with him?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him since he left.”

  More scribbling. “You are aware that Tenrel is the prime suspect in the Aurora bombing. If it is discovered you are intentionally withholding information, you would be considered an accomplice and prosecuted along with Tenrel as a terrorist.” He loomed, staring down into Qwiz’s Asian eyes. “Helping him would be dangerous particularly for someone with your— background.” They both knew he meant race.

  Qwiz felt his resolve solidify. “I would never help anyone who would blow up innocent people.”

  “Good. Just hope the voice-detection program doesn’t determine it was your voice on the phone with Tenrel last week.” The man walked out and began to question other people. Qwiz decided to move everything related to 126 to Bill’s apartment as soon as he got home.

  #

  Somewhere in the mid-Atlantic

  Michael found them an hour before dawn in the same secluded game room where they had first tested the 126 with Eli’s polymer. Luthor wasted no time and gave him a full -n man-hug.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Luthor began, “thank you. You saved my life. I’m sorry, I never should have put you in that position.”

  “Damn straight.” Michael said, “just don’t be such a polluted pussy next time and maybe I won’t have to save you.”

  “I won’t… I hope.”

  “And Luthor?”

  “Yes?”

  “You can let go now.”

  Luthor released his embrace and Michael informed them of his own narrow escape. He was particularly interested in Michael’s impromptu use of 126. It seemed that the gravity of the element did scale exponentially with its density, which was a frightening, if interesting, discovery.

  “Luthor, why didn’t we ever put this much of it together until now? It would be damn helpful to have more info on what it does in larger densities than we use in the generator.”

  Luthor nodded his assent. They had been so consumed with making a functioning generator that they had never studied higher concentrations. There had been the fear that if the concentrations became too extreme, they wouldn’t be able to separate the 126 again. They really only knew that it changed gravity a lot more when it was condensed than when it was spread out, but apart from their time on the ship they’d never dared measure specifics.

  “This shit is really starting to scare me. I just killed a man with it.”

  “We just need to be careful,” Luthor said.

  “Careful? What happens if we accidentally clump it together?” Michael asked. “I’m serious, could we make a black hole? I really don’t want to be swallowed into a singularity along with the rest of this smogging planet.”

  It was a frightening idea.

  “I honestly don’t know what would happen.”

  The others silence indicated that they didn’t much care for Luthor’s response. The problem was, it was the truth.

  “Take a guess, Tenrel. You discovered it,” Vika said.

  “I think there are some problems with that line of thinking,” Luthor began. “We don’t have nearly enough 126 to approach those kind of extremes, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

  “You don’t know that,” Michael said, “we have no idea how quickly the gravity increases. For all we know, I was only one more bead away from sinking the entire ship!”

  “I don’t think that math makes sense, Michael. Even if it grows exponentially, you were a long way from destroying anything that size. And regardless, I don’t think the physics works either.”

  “Why not? We have no reason to assume the gravity-increase ever levels off.”

  “You’re right. And we can’t test it. But, think about it, where does the enhanced gravity come from?”

  Michael looked frustrated. “How the hell am I supposed to know? We haven’t exactly had access to Fermilab’s old Tevatron. Do you have any idea what it would cost just to get it runni
ng again? So, we can’t exactly look for some mythical graviton or something subatomic. All we know is that the gravity is some property of the element itself.”

  “Exactly, so let’s start there.” Luthor waved his arm in the air, looking for an example. “Some elements are reactive, some aren’t. Some conduct electricity, some don’t. Why? Because they do. It’s just an innate property of the element. It has to do with the nucleus and electron shells.

  “All we can ascertain is that 126 conducts gravity somehow. Why? Who the hell knows? But we do know that the nucleus is absolutely gigantic. It’s got 126 protons, 184 neutrons. It’s bigger than any other atom with a half-life longer than a microsecond. Who knows what happens when you have that much of the strong and weak nuclear forces boiling around in there? Maybe it spills out into the macro world as gravity. Whatever is going on, it has to do with the nucleus.”

  Michael’s eyes widened. “But in a hyper-gravity situation, the nucleus would be destroyed, like in a neutron star.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Sorry, will someone please translate that into English?” Tanya said.

  “Basically, I am pretty sure we can’t create a black hole. If we ever had enough 126 to create super extreme gravity, like in a black hole, the gravity itself would destroy the 126 first. But enhanced gravity is itself a property of 126, so once the atoms were destroyed, the gravity they created would disappear.”

  “Then if it gets too powerful, it destroys itself. That’s comforting.”

  “Wait a minute, so could we create a gravity bomb then?” Michael asked.

  “Maybe,” Luthor said.

  “I think we could. If we made enough of it and had a device to condense it like in your generators, it would create a reverse explosion. An implosion!” Michael became more animated, “Instead of blowing stuff up, it would suck everything in. Then the 126 would destroy itself and the bomb would stop imploding.”

  “Intriguing. I wonder if under those situations, the 126 would spontaneously fission? Would it blow back up again?”

  Michael snapped his fingers, “I’m sure it would. You can’t just collapse a nucleus without the release of energy. We might even see—”

  Tanya interrupted him. “I am certain I didn’t just hear you devising military applications for 126. I know the man who is willing to kill innocent people to prevent war would never create a new weapon to use in one.”

  Luthor looked at his toes. The ones he had left wiggled self-consciously in his shoes. Those were not the words and thoughts of the man who claimed to want to save the world from future war and poverty. They were the words of a borderline mad-scientist, a liar, and a hypocrite.

  “So maybe we should try to figure out what we are going to do in New York when we get there, instead of figuring out how to kill more people, hmmm?”

  Luthor hated that tone. All women were endowed with it from birth for the sole purpose of tormenting others when they screwed up. The fact that every woman in history possessed such a voice could be used as evidence for God’s existence—and that God was actually a sadistic woman.

  Fortunately, Tanya stopped using it. Unfortunately, half an hour later, they still were arguing. Vika continued to adamantly insist that they try to sneak past customs. Remaining a fugitive was not an appealing option to Luthor.

  “They will not be looking for us. We aren’t technically on board,” she said.

  “She has been right so far, we should take her advice,” Michael added.

  “She also murdered a man in cold blood last night!” Tanya snapped.

  “So did I, if you want to call it that,” replied Michael.

  “That was different. Vika slit a helpless man’s throat!”

  Vika shrugged. “And now I have a silenced pistol. I can do it from a distance.”

  “No more killing!”

  “We aren’t having this discussion again!” Luthor yelled. “I don’t see what else we could have done in the situation.”

  Tanya crossed her arms. “You have done nothing but preach about wanting to give away your research,” she said. “Everyone besides me has killed someone by now to accomplish it. So, what better way to get out your discovery than a trial?”

  “That could work.”

  “But what if we don’t get a public trial?” Michael asked.

  Tanya shook her head. “A scientist escapes Europe after being accused of drummed up terrorist charges and turns himself in? It would be huge news. Even if it isn’t, we just have to stand on a few ceilings and we’re guaranteed to get some cameras to appear.”

  “It would work even without the computer working!” Michael said. “We could make a big show of it right as we get into port; show everyone what we have developed.”

  Vika clenched her fists, “it is not that simple. Your problems will not go away when you arrive in your precious America.”

  “What are you talking about? We’re citizens, we have rights. Even if they catch us, we’ll get a trial and be acquitted.”

  “Incorrect. You are not citizens.”

  “Like hell we aren’t!” Tanya shouted back.

  “You are not citizens,” she repeated, “you are terrorists.”

  Luthor shivered at the sound of that. The newscast still haunted him. The explosion. All those body bags, all blamed on him and his supposed ties with 2180. They would not be safe anywhere. It didn’t matter if he was a citizen with no criminal history and no ties to terrorists, he’d now been branded as one.

  The only way to exonerate himself was to release his discovery worldwide, proving his innocence, or at least his good intentions. If only the governments hadn’t completely rebuilt all communications networks leading up to the war. Supposedly, twenty years ago he would have been able to post something online without any censorship first. That would have been nice. Now all communication lines routed through central intelligence stations where calls, emails, and web activity were monitored. Long before video of them defying gravity ever hit the internet it would be read by multiple bureaucrats and undoubtedly confiscated. Illegal websites that circumnavigated the structural security still existed. They cropped up like weeds, but they were shut down long before any significant web traffic graced their URLs.

  “I don’t care what you say. I can’t believe that our country wouldn’t be willing to at least give us a fair trial. It dates back to the original Constitution.”

  Luthor was inclined to agree with Tanya. Maybe because he didn’t like the alternative.

  “That Constitution doesn’t exactly influence policy much anymore,” Michael said, “Not since we annexed the rest of the Western Hemisphere during the war.”

  Pre-crash America barely resembled the USW of the present. The Bill of Rights was a great idea for its time, but curbing the world’s carbon output had necessitated sacrificing some civil liberties—rather, most of them. Luthor itched the scar of his CPI chip on his right hand. Thomas Jefferson could never have foreseen a problem like climate change. It was a different world now; it needed different rules. Even Tanya would admit that much.

  “I don’t see much choice in the matter,” Luthor said. “If we can’t get the computer to turn on, we don’t have any evidence to acquit ourselves with. Going through customs should only be a last resort.”

  Tanya, crossed her arms. “Okay, I can go along with that. But on one condition: no matter what, we don’t kill anyone else.”

  Michael began to protest, but Tanya cut him off. “I’m serious. If you start shooting, I won’t be coming with you. I will turn myself in and you can fend for yourselves.”

  Chapter 12:

  Twelve years ago: Somewhere in Northern Alaska

  It was so cold. The cold leaked through every fiber in his high-tech clothes, through every pore in his skin, until it froze his very blood and gave his bones frostbite. His unit had been out on the Alaskan tundra for three days out in the dead of winter. One more day to go. It was supposed to prepare them for the extremes of the war in Antar
ctica and the North Sea. What haunted Luthor was that it was even colder in those places. Sometimes a lot colder.

  The wind was the worst part. It transformed the plummeting thermostat into relentless knives stabbing him everywhere. It howled in his ears, a thousand wolves in concert. It whipped across the barren rock and permafrost, slapping their completely covered faces like an offended lover. Luthor only wished he could apologize to Alaska and make amends for whatever he did to deserve this type of torture.

  They had been cross country skiing, but the current terrain made that impossible. They had strapped their skis to their backs. Marching in snow was awful.

  Garcia knelt and put up a fist. Everyone crouched. Doyle bumped into Luthor from behind, he hadn’t seen Garcia’s order. Chaz swore as he bumped into Doyle.

  Luthor shook himself to alertness, he hadn’t slept since they’d parachuted in; they weren’t allowed to on this exercise. Yesterday, Garcia had thrown a grenade when a man fell asleep. Luthor’s initial hypothesis was that sleep deprivation would have a negative effect on focus; so far, he was right. Some of the men had started droning—marching with eyes open, but dead asleep. Others had begun hallucinating: seeing dead relatives, fire-breathing monsters, and enemy tanks. None of them actually existed, but many rounds had been wasted making sure. Everyone arrived there eventually; the “exercise” taught them how long it would take and how to push through it. Luthor wasn’t at that point yet, but he suspected he was close. His eyes quivered from time to time, and there were stretches of time he simply didn’t remember. He held his MX-5 at the ready and flicked off the safety just in case. He didn’t know what Garcia had seen and wanted to be prepared.

  The comms embedded into their helmets popped to life, “Pipeline ahead.” They had finally reached their target, an aging Surface to Air Missile installation—or SAM site— protecting the trickling Alaskan oil pipeline. Its production was pathetic, but it still provided some meager oil, which had become more valuable than gold since the war began. The army had every intention of wringing out every last drop of oil from the earth like a ratty sponge. Their unit’s goal had been to simulate an enemy pipeline to ambush.