The Quantum Series Box Set

by Douglas Phillips

  “The void?”

  “A placeholder. A fanciful idea, most would say, even among cosmologists who subscribe to the multiverse theory.”

  “Sorry, multiverse?” Marie questioned.

  Jan was succinct in his answer. “If we’re part of a multiverse, the void is the stuff in between individual universes. It’s basically nothing, not even space in any conventional sense. But, theoretically, it could support ephemeral bubbles.”

  Daniel finished a phone conversation and hung up. “Come on, Jan. Shuttle Landing Facility. I’ve got another military jet for us, and it’s firing up its engines as we speak.”

  “You’re coming too?” Jan asked.

  “Absolutely,” Daniel answered. “This time it’s personal.” He turned to Marie. “It was great to see you again. Sorry to rush off.”

  There was no way she was going to let them go without her. Marie grabbed one of Daniel’s hands, firmly. “Daniel, I have a strong feeling about this. I think I can help. I want to help. Could you use an old partner once again?”

  “I’m sure we could,” Daniel replied, “but don’t you have duties here?”

  The plan formed quickly in her mind. She tapped her right temple twice. She could help, she was sure of it. “Go to the plane. I’ve got two things I need to do, and if it goes well I’ll meet you at the FBO. Can you give me ten minutes?”

  Daniel nodded in agreement, though he looked a little uncertain. There was no time to explain.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The Gulfstream jet was parked at Space Florida, a fixed-base operator, or FBO in aviation terminology. One engine was running with the airstair still deployed. Marie ran, dragging a small roller bag behind. She climbed the stairs just as the first officer arrived to close the door. Inside, Daniel and Jan sat on opposite sides of the aisle. Marie plopped into the seat behind Jan.

  Daniel twisted around. “You made it. Last-minute wrangling with the boss?”

  “Something like that,” she answered. “I’m cleared to stay as long as needed, and I’m authorized to help in any way I can.”

  “Authorized?” He pointed to the suitcase. Nothing got past Daniel. “You didn’t.”

  “I did,” she answered with a confident grin.

  “Marie, are you sure you want to put that thing back on your head? It sounds like it produces some nasty side effects. The Dancers didn’t do their homework when they altered it for human use.”

  He was probably right about its flaws. But Daniel had never experienced the headband’s power. More importantly, she felt sure she’d been chosen, her importance as a probability stated by Zin and now confirmed by Core. It had to mean something.

  She had needed only a minute to get Ibarra’s permission to take the headband offsite. Before she left his office, he’d stated that in a broad sense her destiny seemed to be intertwined with the alien device. A bit intimidating, coming from her boss, but there was no time to think about the implications. It took only a few minutes more to locate and retrieve the headband from several surprised NASA engineers who didn’t put up much resistance. After all, she was the designated wearer of the device.

  “Daniel, this thing works,” Marie argued. “I wouldn’t have brought it if I wasn’t confident. Jan, you said it yourself—you’re dealing with an aberration of space. The void, ephemeral bubbles… or whatever you said.”

  Jan shook his head. “Marie, I really don’t know what we’re dealing with. We’re going to need a lot more information.”

  She patted her suitcase. “And that’s exactly what I can give you.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It was dark in the Chicago area when they touched down at the DuPage regional airport. A car and driver were waiting for them.

  “You’ve sure got good connections,” Jan said.

  “I can’t complain,” Daniel responded. “Those of us lucky enough to be White House staff do pretty well.”

  Marie rolled her eyes without looking at Daniel. The rest of us government peons just trudge along without the White House perks.

  The thought was unnecessarily rude, and Marie admonished herself for even thinking it. Yes, Daniel could be full of himself sometimes, and yes, he was a famous science spokesperson now, with special privileges only the president could confer, but he was still her partner and someone to trust.

  Marie followed Jan and Daniel into the black town car, and within minutes they arrived at the front door of Fermilab. She recognized the building, the place where she and Daniel had had their first taste of the bizarre world of four-dimensional quantum space. It seemed like a long time ago.

  “Bring back memories?” Daniel asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Marie said. “That look-inside-your-guts 4-D camera view was so disturbing. Still gives me the creeps.”

  Most of the lights in the building were off, the workday having ended hours before. The front desk was staffed by a security guard, who said Dr. Park was expecting them. They received temporary badges and rode the elevator up.

  At the top-floor hallway, a familiar face peeked out of an office. Jae-ho Park stepped into the hall. “Jan, I thought it might be you. And Dr. Rice and Ms. Kendrick too. So wonderful to see you both again. I only wish the circumstances were better.”

  The man had aged, his white hair thinning and his eyes sunken. The scientific efforts at Fermilab were well known these days, and probably a lot more stressful for the people who worked here. More hazardous, too. They weren’t just scouring the unknown edges of the universe; they were clearly poking around in a field of land mines.

  “Is it really Nala? Are you sure?” Daniel asked.

  “I am convinced of it,” Park said. “Now I must show you. I think you will find the evidence is unambiguous.”

  Park ushered them into his office, handed a sticky note to Daniel and an empty paper coffee cup to Marie. The writing on the yellow square of paper was bold and black, though one word ran off the edge.

  “It was found on my administrative assistant’s desk,” Park said. “The word singularity is cut off, but the remainder appears on the admin’s desk as if Nala continued to write even beyond the paper.” Park motioned to Marie. “Turn the cup over.” Marie did.

  The same black writing fit within the paper cup’s indented bottom. “Help! Call Fermilab—NP,” Marie read.

  The handwriting and the pen used to write were the same for both messages. Park reached out and took the cup, turning it over in his hands. “The cup came from a nearby coffee shop. A barista noticed the text even before she filled it with coffee. There were several more found in their garbage.”

  “And you’re confident it’s Nala’s handwriting?” Daniel asked.

  Park nodded. “We use whiteboards frequently in our staff meetings. I’ve watched her write many times, as has Jan. Her hand is easy to recognize.” He picked up another slip of paper, a menu for a Chinese restaurant, from his desk. The Spicy Chicken item had been circled, and next to it was written Medium hot—Nala.

  “Our admin produced this sample of Nala’s handwriting—a group lunch order from last week.”

  Marie compared both side by side. The handwriting looked the same.

  “It’s her,” Jan said. “I’m sure of it. But with the Diastasi lab gone, we have no hope of accessing wherever she is.”

  Park nodded. “Yes, with our technology lost, Nala is beyond our reach. But it doesn’t mean that hope is lost. We are in touch with colleagues in Geneva, and even though they have suspended their own operations, I believe we may yet get help. This is no longer a disaster investigation, it’s a rescue. Please.” He motioned for them to follow. “I will show you her most recent communication.”

  The hallway made a left turn past Park’s office, with a break room on one side and Jan’s office on the other. A decorative clock hung on the wall next to the break room entrance, and a hand-drawn black line dropped from the clock to the tile floor. The line ended in an arrow. Scrawled in large letters, the message ran across the
floor and partially up the side of the doorway.

  Daniel suppressed a smile. “Pure Nala,” he said.

  Marie had almost forgotten the rumors, but Daniel’s face confirmed them—the two had been a couple. Maybe they still were. The words on the floor made it crystal clear—Nala was very much alive.

  Park stood next to the writing, without stepping on it. “This message was not here at six p.m. I know, I passed through here at that time. I noticed it later, around eight p.m. She has been here, not here literally, but within range of our dimensions, and only a few hours ago.”

  “So, we do as she suggests,” Daniel said. “We return here at eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, definitely,” Jan said.

  “With food,” Marie added. “She’s probably starved. But… how would she eat?”

  “Maybe we leave that for her to figure out,” Daniel said. “Let’s do exactly as she suggests.”

  “Even the vodka?” Maybe it was to sterilize a wound. But probably not.

  Daniel had a faraway look in his eyes. Recalling a vodka-related memory? “Yes,” he said. “Vodka, too.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The lower reaches deep underground at the vast Fermilab facility were quiet and dark, the hallway lighting having automatically shifted to a subdued overnight mode. Marie walked alongside Daniel. Park had offered to take them, but Daniel had dissuaded him. Marie was thankful for that. This task would be difficult enough; easier if the people around you were your friends. Daniel was.

  In her hand, she carried a leather case the size of a small pizza box. You can do this, she reminded herself more than once.

  Daniel hadn’t spoken since they’d left Wilson Hall and dropped by elevator to the catacombs beneath. So many of the lower hallways looked the same—stark concrete lined with pipes and electrical bundles. She would have never found her way alone, but Daniel had used this facility each time he’d spoken with Core. He probably felt like one of the staff by now.

  They stopped at a security desk to sign in, and the guard called upstairs for permission. It seemed like a procedure that had only recently been established. After some back-and-forth on the phone and a double check of their credentials, they were cleared and given instructions not to touch any of the monitoring equipment.

  Won’t be a problem, Marie thought. I brought my own.

  “Just up ahead,” Daniel said, motioning to a turn in the hallway.

  They rounded the corner and stopped. The destruction couldn’t have been this large, but it was. The floor of the hall ended abruptly, as if someone had sliced through the metal and concrete with a hot knife. Beyond it was a vast bottomless hole, dark without end. The hole extended above them, with no ceiling in sight. Far out into the darkness floated a small but bright light.

  “Oh my God,” Marie said. She kept her eyes fixated on the destruction. Wires dangled from above. The crackle of an electrical spark echoed, or perhaps it was just her imagination.

  “How does anyone survive this?” Daniel whispered, shaking his head.

  A spiral of dust revolved around the tiny light. Water dripped somewhere far below, but all else was still. If there was a far side to this cavern, Marie couldn’t see it.

  They stood in awe of the force that had taken away a large portion of the building. Neither spoke for several minutes, mesmerized by the slowly rotating dust set aglow by the light within it.

  Finally, Daniel broke the silence. “She’s in there… somewhere.”

  “I’ll know soon enough,” Marie said. She unzipped the leather pouch and withdrew the shiny metal band that was inside.

  Daniel watched as she prepared. “Is there anything I can do that would help?”

  Marie shook her head. The bond with the headband was hers alone. Daniel, along with a lineup of doctors, engineers and psychiatrists, wouldn’t make the slightest difference. No one else could help because no one else could grasp the experience, both the fascinating visual show that the device created inside her head and its sometimes-terrifying conclusion.

  Daniel stepped back a few feet, and Marie placed the silver band over her forehead. It dropped down to a snug fit, compressing her hair. She closed her eyes and tapped twice.

  26 Visualization

  She visualized glowing globes in a sea of darkness. Dozens of them, scattered about, some the size of a hot-air balloon, others much larger. Spherical in shape, though the nearest was too large to see the whole. Its surface was a smooth curve that extended far overhead.

  They were colorful, varying in shades from navy blue to azure. Two of the spheres were deeper shades of purple. For such large objects, they seemed supremely fragile. Their curving surfaces were a thin film as tenuous as a soap bubble. Gentle fluctuations flowed across the flexible film like wind in a wheat field.

  Together the spheres composed a shimmering three-dimensional sculpture, like a collection of enormous but delicate glass balls. What the spheres represented had not yet come to mind.

  Marie rotated in twenty-degree increments, a fact confirmed by an unseen readout generated inside her head. She paused at each increment and studied the scene and then moved on until she had completed the full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn.

  One of the spherical surfaces—the one nearest—was the deepest purple, a beautiful indigo color. Its surface shimmered like the others, but it also had a number associated with it: 1.324, though it wasn’t clear what the number represented. She looked back at the other spheres and realized that they were all associated with a specific number: 0.577, 0.974, 1.629… The numbers weren’t displayed anywhere; it was more of a suggestion that came to mind as she looked at each sphere.

  She returned her attention to the closest sphere. Its glow was fascinating to watch, a combined effect of billions of tiny points of light covering its surface. Each minute sparkle winked out in a millisecond to be replaced by another equally small and equally temporary speck of light. Somehow, her mind could not only visualize each spark, but also imagine them collectively as a glow across the bubble’s surface.

  The detail was entrancing, but she had no idea what she was seeing. Daniel was near; she could sense his presence even with her eyes closed. But he remained silent, which was just as well.

  She walked forward, sensing the edge of the nearest sphere. Its curving surface soared overhead. It reminded her of standing at the base of the geodesic sphere at Epcot Center. For a moment, she opened her eyes. She stood within a few feet of the edge of broken concrete—the edge of a cliff over a vast spherical hole. The enormous purple soap bubble was somewhat larger than the hole but centered within the same space.

  Lifting one hand, she reached out to touch the iridescent purple film. Her hand easily penetrated and produced a slight vacillation that rippled across its surface.

  “Very cool.”

  “What?” came from behind.

  “Like a giant bubble. I can reach inside it.”

  “What’s in there?” Daniel asked.

  She moved her head through the edge of the bubble, but its interior didn’t appear any different. “I don’t know. I can see the surface and there’s a number associated with it, but nothing else. It sparkles. Really, it’s quite beautiful.”

  She sensed motion, not physical motion and not nearby. She took several steps back from the spherical bubble and looked left to another spherical surface, very far away and much larger. It was the same indigo color as the one nearby, but its surface was different. It warped and bulged. It fluctuated in size and curvature.

  “There’s something big out there. Moving. Warping.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s another sphere, deep purple in color. But it’s too far away. I can’t see it in detail, not like the ones nearby. It seems to be deforming; maybe breaking apart, but in slow motion.”

  “So how many spheres are nearby?”

  “Maybe a dozen of the blue ones. They vary in size and a lot of them overlap, so it’s hard to count. The one we
’re standing next to is different. Deep purple. Indigo.”

  “Are they fourth-dimensional space?” Daniel asked.

  “Maybe, but other than the numbers, I’m not getting any identification, at least not in this layer.”

  “Any holes in any of the spheres? Any connections to 3-D space? I’m just wondering if there’s a way in or out.”

  Marie looked around with her eyes open. The bright light stood out among the glowing spheres. “The light may be associated with this nearest purple sphere, because it seems to be in the center. Other than that, they’re just giant balls.”

  “Can you think of any way to find Nala and Thomas?”

  It was a good question. How she flipped between the visual layers was impossible to describe. It was not even clear which choices were available. Her mind controlled the visualizations, but not in any conscious way.

  Think about people.

  She concentrated. Nothing happened. She knew it wouldn’t; the device didn’t work that way. It wasn’t like flipping to the People Channel. The visualizations arrived as needed.

  After a few minutes, she gave up. “I’m sorry, I can’t find them.” She opened her eyes and turned to Daniel. “I feel like I’m missing something. Like there’s something behind a curtain if only I could pull it back.”

  Daniel stepped closer. “Too bad this thing didn’t come with a manual. But you’ve already provided some clues. It’s very likely that you’re seeing extradimensional space. If you can give the details to Jan, maybe he can work with it and find an answer.”

  As Daniel spoke, his words slowed and his voice deepened. An odd sensation of an image fluttering, like one of those old television sets unable to control its vertical hold. Suddenly, Daniel’s face pixelated, converting before her eyes into multicolored dots that vibrated in place. His body followed, becoming a sea of dots that turned him into a wiggling form, no longer human.