A sense of unease escalated into terror as Daniel’s face melted before her eyes. She ripped the alien band from her head and dropped it to the floor. Her vision didn’t improve. The floor pixelated too, its surface alive with vibrating dots that made the whole room shimmer. The vibration increased in intensity, as if every dot sought out the pattern of its neighbors and chose to synchronize. She felt the vibration enter her body from the floor. Her legs wobbled, her arms shook, her hands trembled. The vibrations continued up each bone, through her nervous system and into her spine. The shaking reached into her head, making her feel like it might explode.
Help me! She yelled, yet nothing came out.
Marie collapsed to the floor. Its surface seethed with vibrating pixels all around. They shaped themselves, becoming millions of individual creatures with legs, eyes at the ends of stalks and antennae. A pixelated army of bugs crawled across the surface toward her, their numbers increasing by the second and their target clear.
She screamed but heard nothing, as if her open mouth was incapable of physical noise. And suddenly, it stopped. The vibration dampened like the surface of a drum no longer struck. The marching insects disappeared as quickly as they had formed.
Her vision returned, even while her heart beat furiously. She lay on a carpeted floor in a darkened hallway. Very quiet. An acrid smell of electricity permeated the air.
Daniel came into view, dropping to his knees, his face inches away. “Marie, can you hear me?”
Her heart pounded, and the fog of terror lingered. Waking from a nightmare was nothing compared with the hallucination. There was no doubt of its fantasy, but that didn’t make it any less fearful.
“I… I can.”
“You fainted,” he said. “Just lie still for a minute.”
Marie rolled onto her back and took several deep breaths. Her heart calmed.
A few feet away, the headband lay on the floor. A device with capabilities beyond any human technology. But access came with a price. The hallucination seemed real enough to make her heart race and her adrenaline spike. Luckily, it hadn’t lasted long, and the rational world had returned. What she had experienced was all in her head, as the shrinks say. Temporary psychosis.
“Can I get you some water?” Daniel asked.
“No, I’m alright now. Just help me up.” She could manage standing, she hoped.
Daniel pulled on one arm and helped her up. The room spun. “Uh… little dizzy.”
“Sit down,” he said, putting an arm around her. She stumbled to the wall and slid to the floor. Daniel squatted just in front.
After a minute, the spinning room slowed down. “I think I’m okay now. Thanks, Daniel.”
He held out a comforting hand and she took it. “Damn, Marie. You had me worried. One minute you were staring at me with a funny look, and the next you just hit the deck.”
Of course, there was more that Daniel hadn’t seen. “Did I scream?” She’d certainly tried, but like a dream, the mind only imagines what the body is doing.
“No, you just collapsed. Sorry, I didn’t catch you in time. It must have hurt falling on that headband.”
She felt her head for bumps. “But I threw the headband off well before I dropped.”
“No, you didn’t.” Daniel seemed surprised.
“Didn’t what?”
“You didn’t throw the headband off,” he said. “You just fell. It came off when you hit.”
That’s weird. I’m sure I threw it down.
Of course, things were going south pretty fast at that point. It might have taken longer to get the headband off than she’d thought. But then… if Daniel was right, had throwing the headband been part of the hallucination? It could explain why the nightmare hadn’t stopped until she was on the ground. She was in uncharted territory.
“Sorry, this didn’t turn out like I thought it would,” Marie said.
“Nonsense,” Daniel said. “Your descriptions of the spheres might be helpful. While you were visualizing, I recorded everything on my phone.”
Marie snorted. “That’ll be embarrassing. Psychic crazy lady thinks she sees purple bubbles floating in the sky.”
Daniel grinned. “Yeah, but think how many likes you’ll get when you post it.”
Marie did her best to smile.
Daniel’s grin disappeared. “It was more than just fainting, wasn’t it?”
Marie nodded.
“Did it scare you, like you mentioned back in Florida?”
Marie nodded. “Just a hallucination. It wasn’t real.”
Daniel picked up the empty leather case and handed it to her. “Maybe you should just put that thing away for now. Somebody needs to have a deeper discussion with the Dancers about their technology.”
Marie took the case. She understood a little more about herself every day. Today’s lesson: finding a path along the narrow dividing line between safety and risk. Daniel had just come down on the side of safety. Something told her she was heading in the opposite direction.
He stood up and reached down for her hand. “Come on, partner. It’s late, and we’ve still got a lot to do before we meet Nala in the morning.”
27 Duty
Marie dropped her roller bag by the door and collapsed spread-eagle on the hotel room bed. The clock showed just past one a.m. and they would need to be up early, but sleep would need to wait until emotions were sorted out. It wasn’t just the creepy-crawlies. The visualization took a toll, put a noticeable stress on her psyche. In some ways, it was like any mental effort: organizing, writing, designing or just being creative often results in fatigue. The headband was like that too, but amplified.
Psychosis. She’d looked it up on a medical site on their drive to the hotel. Brief psychotic disorder. BPD, they called it. A loss of reality on a temporary basis, and more common than most people realized, particularly for women under thirty-five. Treatable, but the web page didn’t mention anything about alien headbands.
Be safe, as Daniel advised.
Marie undressed and crawled under the covers. Her mind wandered for another half-hour before she finally drifted off to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daniel closed the door of his hotel room and pulled out his phone. With three text messages and two voicemails, he might be awake a little longer.
At least Marie was safely in her room. She had looked like she could use the rest. It was fascinating to watch the headband in action even if he couldn’t see what she saw. Her descriptions showed promise as guidance for Jan, just as Core had predicted. Understanding where Nala and Thomas were trapped was the first step to rescue, and Marie’s visualization of the extradimensional space that was apparently popping up all around Fermilab would surely be helpful. He was a bit envious of her visual access to an unseen world, though the intensity of the device clearly took a personal toll.
The Dancer technology was impressive. Daniel had always wondered what an atom looked like—not just a computer visualization, but what it really looks like. Could the device do that? Marie hadn’t described an atomic layer, but maybe that feature was hidden somewhere in the recesses of the alien device. Of course, a good photoionization microscope can create an image of a single atom, complete with a blurry path for an orbiting electron. But the best anyone had produced was still a computer representation of quantum probability data. There were no actual photographs of atoms and never would be. Even the largest atom, cesium, is six hundred times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, forever invisible to our eyes.
Could Marie visualize the link between quantum-entangled particles? Could she slow time and observe the nearly instantaneous process of radioactive decay? The headband could be an incredibly useful device in a variety of scientific fields. It was a fine gift, even if it produced some disturbing side effects. Maybe they could be controlled.
The physiological impact on Marie was real—she had passed out in front of him. Until they had a better handle on it, NASA should study the headba
nd’s capabilities under medical supervision. Marie should set the headband aside; it wasn’t worth further risk. He resolved to reinforce his recommendation when they met in the morning.
Daniel pulled up the first text message, a simple note from the night operator at the White House.
Priority message. Please check your voicemail.
The second text was similar, and the third was from Spencer Bradley, the White House science advisor and Daniel’s boss. It provided a phone number.
Something was going on. Daniel dialed into voicemail. Message one of two:
“Daniel, Spence here. I’ve called a few times but I guess your phone was off. We’ve got a problem developing down in Texas. We’re getting credible reports of unusual disturbances just east of Austin. I’ve got one description from a certified meteorologist of a ‘swirling vortex in the sky,’ as he called it. The USGS is also reporting ground tremors in the same area, and I really doubt it’s from fracking. Something big is happening. I don’t have all the details, but based on the location, you and I could both take a guess who might be responsible. Get on-site as soon as you can. I’ll text you a contact number for more information. And Daniel, the governor may be deploying the National Guard in the Austin area as we speak—it’s that serious.”
Holy hell. Not good.
He checked the second voicemail. It was from the EPA district manager, Jeffrey Finch, Daniel’s point of contact in Austin. He needed a callback as soon as possible.
Both calls had been placed within the past forty minutes. He’d switched off his phone to be sure there were no interruptions while Marie was using the headband. Bad timing, but at least he wasn’t too far behind the curve.
He’d have to leave, and right away. He shoved the thoughts of Nala to the back of his mind, even though it felt wrong.
His next step was a call to Janine’s mobile phone. After several rings she answered, groggy, but there. “I always know when it’s you, Daniel… the ringtone. Kind of late, isn’t it?”
“So sorry, Janine,” Daniel said. “It’s an emergency and I need to get to Austin. Can you do your magic?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Cessna Citation lifted above the lights of Chicago and turned south. Daniel connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi to finish his to-do list. Three a.m. It was going to be a long night.
He had already returned the call to Jeffrey Finch before takeoff. Strangely, the man had answered his mobile phone and offered to meet Daniel at the airport—even with an estimated five-thirty a.m. arrival time. Working all night wasn’t exactly normal government bureaucrat behavior. He hadn’t said anything more about the strange goings-on around Austin, but his voice was agitated.
Marie was next on the list, and Jan after that. He composed a short text to each, taking more time and care with the message to Marie.
Sorry, I’ve been called away to Texas. The power plant issue I told you about has escalated. Wish I could help at Fermilab, but you and Jan have far more to offer. Tell him what you saw, he’ll make sense of it. Then put that device back in its case—you’ve done your job. No more risks. Q: You described a distant bubble—the one you said was bulging. Any idea how far away? As far as Texas? Stay in touch. D.
He attached the recording he’d made of her visualization and sent the message. It was up to her now.
The connection between the distant bubble that Marie had seen and the event in Austin was purely a guess, but hard to ignore. You don’t need evidence to identify a suspect in a case. Evidence is uncovered during the investigation.
Whatever was going on, Daniel didn’t doubt the reports of ground tremors and swirls in the sky—they had come from trained scientists who, like any police detective, understand the difference between a witness who tells a good story versus one who provides a factual accounting.
Finally, there was Nala. Alive and communicating—all good. Better than good. Fantastic, unexpected and an instant flood of relief. His intuition that she was never dead had served him well.
But communicating from where? A reality beyond our senses, yet a physical place. Daniel was leaving her fate to others, but what else could he do? His note to Marie was only partially accurate. True, Daniel had little to offer, but he wasn’t sure if Jan or Park had anything better. Even if Marie could help pinpoint Nala’s location, finding the technology to return her to the three-dimensional world was going to be a tall order.
They’d been in this position before. Just eight months before, three astronauts had been lost in four-dimensional space with no practical way to return home. Daniel hadn’t solved it. No one had. Those guys would have been dead if not for the intervention of Core and alien technology.
This time the alien savior option didn’t seem as likely. Core didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned that human scientists were in danger—or dead. It was almost an expected side effect in our efforts to manage the new science and technologies related to quantum space. People die. You will learn, and all that BS.
Still, it could be worth another appeal, especially now that they knew Nala was alive. Maybe Thomas too. Daniel sent one more message to Marie. Maybe the diplomat, Zin, could pave the way.
We’re in over our heads.
Being out of control is a humbling experience. But it wasn’t just Daniel, or even Fermilab. Maybe it was all of humanity. We’d stumbled into a brand-new science that we barely understood but, instead of carefully studying it, we were dashing as fast as we could toward its promised benefits—and directly into its dangers. Even Nala. She’d probably gone too fast, cutting too many corners. It was just like her.
Nala. Beautifully exotic. Magnetic.
With each passing minute, the jet put more miles between Daniel and Nala. It wasn’t the first time he’d left her. Duty called once again, just as it had when he’d declined her invitation to Haiti. Both times, he’d responded by choosing duty over Nala.
She was still alive, but there were no guarantees she’d survive. This was no Haiti, no waving it off with a “we’ll get together another time” excuse. This time it was life and death… and yet, he’d still left her.
The guilt felt like a knife twisting in his belly.
28 Huddle
Marie set the bag of groceries on the break room table along with a bottle of vodka and a small bottle of pineapple juice. The juice was intended as nourishment, not a cocktail mixer.
“Should we leave everything wrapped?” she asked Jae-ho Park. There was no telling how Nala would manage to access any of it.
Park pulled several bottles of water out of the kitchen’s refrigerator and set them on the same table. “I don’t think it matters. If she is dimensionally offset, Nala would see everything all at once. The outside of our bodies and the inside too. It would be the same with the food, the table, the building. Whatever view she has of us may be quite complex.”
“Then I guess we just leave it all on the table?” Marie asked.
“I could just as easily have left the water bottles in the refrigerator and she’d still be able to pull them out without even opening the door.” Park had a tendency toward fascinating explanations that never answered the question.
“So… table?” Marie asked again.
“It’s as good as anywhere,” Park said. He glanced at the clock on the break room wall. “It is nearly eight a.m. We will soon see what happens.”
They stood around the table and waited. Jan came running down the hall carrying a bundle under his arm, which he dropped on the table. “I thought of a few things she might need… assuming she has some way of taking them.”
He unrolled a blanket with a first-aid kit and a flashlight inside. He also set a pair of handheld radios on the table. “Her lab was already supplied with most of this, but I’m guessing it was all vaporized in the explosion.”
“Then how was she not vaporized?” Marie asked.
Jan held up both hands. “We’re dealing with a situation that none of us understands. This was not predicted by th
eory. I can’t even tell you where she is with any certainty.”
“Our best guess,” Park said, “is that the hovering light is a singularity, a zero-dimensional point. She may be quite literally inside that point, but only from our three-dimensional perspective.”
Marie shook her head. These were top physicists, but they were just guessing. She’d already seen more with the headband than they were able to explain. “Spheres,” she said. “I saw multiple iridescent spheres with sparkling surfaces. Some that were very large, and at least one that was very far away. They had numbers associated with them.” She was repeating herself; she’d already given Jan a detailed description the night before, but Jan had asked few questions.
Jan and Park didn’t speak for a moment of awkward silence. “I’m not making this up,” Marie finally said.
“I’m sure you’re not, Ms. Kendrick,” Park said. “But what does this add to our understanding?”
You’re the quantum geniuses, you tell me, Marie could have said. But she didn’t. Two people were trapped and needed help. Any squabbles with the physicists would just make the dilemma worse.
She wished Daniel were there. He should have been. Called away, he’d said in his message.
Really? Called away? You couldn’t have delayed your Texas thing by a few hours?
Lives were at stake, and one of them was a person Daniel supposedly cared very much about. What was in Texas that could possibly be more important than that? Marie wasn’t in any mood to be magnanimous about Daniel’s priorities or Park’s wandering soliloquies. This rescue team needed a little more focus. There were two people somewhere in that mix of iridescent spheres.
They waited. Marie pulled out a chair and sat, holding the headband in its carrying case on her lap. Daniel’s recommendation that she avoid using it was about as useful as him jetting off to Texas in the middle of the night. She’d do what was needed and nothing less.
The clock read ten after eight. Nala was late for her own appointment. Unless, of course, she had already arrived. There was no sign of her presence, but the ghostly idea that she might be standing in the same room but offset in another dimension of space was more than unsettling.
The Quantum Series Box Set Page 49