“I was just going to tell him to warn Daniel about this.”
“Yeah, wait,” Marie said again. “I might have an idea.”
Thomas perked up. “Ideas are good, especially around here.”
Marie tossed the components of a plan around in her mind like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle thrown onto a table. Whether they would all fit into a whole picture was another matter. An enormous bubble of 4-D space, hanging over a power plant in Texas. Growing bigger by the minute. The weird property of spatial compression. A ratio of instability, mass versus volume.
Definitely a jumble, but one by one, the pieces began to fall into place. There were complications, not the least of which was the degree to which this fabulously dangerous headband was scrambling her brain. Was she even capable of solving this problem?
The puzzle pieces weren’t well defined, and neither was the final picture they might represent. But it was better than standing around waiting for the light to flash again. She’d come here to use her unique ability to rescue people. It was time for action.
“I have a plan,” she said, still holding Nala’s hand. “Tell them to make the bubble bigger. Make it as big as they can.”
“Bigger?” Thomas asked. “You sure? Wouldn’t that make the explosion worse?”
Nala smiled. “Ah, yes. Clever girl. I think I see your point.” Nala returned her attention to the phone and tapped out a message.
41 Non Sequitur
Finch drove, Daniel rode shotgun and two FEMA employees hitched a ride in the backseat—a man and a woman, both young, both frazzled, but in an excited kind of way.
“Did you see that? Some kind of crazy shit,” the young woman said, waving her arms. She had brown bangs that almost completely covered her eyes.
“Never seen anything like it,” said the young man, a grin breaking across his stubbled face. “But I could easily do that again.”
“Whoa, I don’t know. I was just standing out in the parking lot, recalibrating my Lidar, when the asphalt literally rolled under my feet.” She reached a hand out to Daniel. “Hi, I’m Audrey. This is Parker.”
“That’s what was so freaking weird,” Parker continued. “It was suddenly like, surf’s up. And it wasn’t just the parking lot. The whole place was jiggling. That building where they burn the coal is seven freaking stories tall. Even the stacks looked like… what are those long red candy things called?”
“Twizzlers?” Audrey asked.
“Yeah, like a Twizzler getting shook. Wacked out.”
“Everybody on your team okay?” Daniel asked. The evacuation had turned out to be far more rapid than anyone had anticipated, but at least all the buildings had still been in place as multiple vehicles had roared out of the parking area.
“Yeah, probably,” Audrey said. “Most of the rest of them were in the van. We couldn’t fit. Hey, thanks for the lift.”
“No problem,” said Finch. He was doing sixty in a thirty-five, but the only other cars on the road were in a single-file line, ahead and behind. The fallback position was about eight miles away and located on the primary route back to Austin. Easy access, in case they needed to retreat even further.
“Dude, you’re that famous scientist guy,” Parker said, pointing to Daniel.
Daniel nodded. “You’ve seen me on TV?”
“Seriously? Nobody watches TV. I saw you on Jacked Up.”
“Sorry?” Daniel asked. The program name didn’t ring a bell.
Audrey and Parker exchanged a knowing glance: The old guy who has no clue.
“It’s pretty cool,” Audrey said. “Quick clips. Twenty seconds each. You should check it out. You’re on it all the time.”
Besides press conferences, Daniel had been involved in several science-based programs. Even if the next generation was getting their information chopped into bite-sized pieces on a show named after cocaine addiction, as long as it included science, the state of the world couldn’t be too bad.
They arrived at the fallback command center, which turned out to be a restaurant that had probably been closed for at least a year. A variety of police and government vehicles filled the parking lot, and dozens of tripods with cameras and various electronics had been set up in a patio area that looked as though it had once been an outdoor barbeque pit but now sprouted weeds between paving stones.
Gonzalo Ayala stood on the patio, staring off into the distance. Several others encircled the busy man, including FEMA, state troopers and other officials. Several reporters and photographers clustered on one side of the patio, setting up cameras and preparing for their live broadcasts.
Daniel gazed southeast, the same direction everyone else was looking. The swirling cloud that hung over the power plant was still visible in the distance. It had grown since he’d first seen it, and the air beneath shimmered like heat waves over hot pavement.
“Dr. Rice,” a voice behind him called. It was Ayala, with his entourage following. “Best estimate. Are we far enough away?”
Daniel had little information other than what his eyes could tell him, but he wasn’t likely to get much more within the next few seconds. Time-constrained decisions weren’t like science; someone had to make a choice based only on best available information, however poor.
“Those waves under the cloud appear to be the same physical wave that we all just experienced. Based on that, it looks like 3-D space is being impacted out to two or three miles. I’d use the waves as an indicator. Unless they spread, we’re probably okay.”
“Then we’ll stay,” Ayala said. “Evacuation is complete to this distance, about eight miles, though there’s still a lot of livestock inside that circle. Austin is still the main concern.”
“How far is Austin?”
“Eastern suburbs, about fifteen miles from the plant. Downtown, more like twenty. If it gets any worse, we’ll push back to twenty miles and evac the eastern side of the city. One step at a time, though.”
There was no way to know if twenty miles or even a hundred miles was perfectly safe. More information would help. Given all the tripods and electronics around the patio, some of that information was probably right here. Daniel gave Ayala a summary of the calls he’d made to Romania and Fermilab, including the plan to freeze the 4-D space as-is and avoid any spatial collapse. For the time being, it was all he had to offer.
For most people, unfamiliar electronics are something to avoid, like finding fried yak on a dinner menu. For Daniel, it was just the opposite; a complex-looking device with protruding lenses, tubes and dozens of cables perched on top of a tripod was an intellectual magnet.
Audrey, the young woman who had joined them in the car, was connecting cables on just such an instrument. Her colleague, Parker, lifted a high-powered telescope onto a heavy-duty tripod and screwed a camera onto its visual back. At least the telescope was recognizable.
“Is this your Lidar?” Daniel asked. He could only guess what the device might be used for, but she had mentioned it in the car.
Audrey nodded and connected a cable to a box that looked like a cross between a television studio camera and a gun sight. It sat atop three sturdy legs at eye level.
“Is it the same as Doppler radar?” Daniel’s best guess.
“Same idea,” she answered. “But Lidar works with a laser, not a radar beam. I’m taking cross-sections through the cloud every five minutes… well, as soon as I get it set up again.”
Daniel wasn’t familiar with the equipment, but any data was better than none. “What can you measure?”
“We’re doing real-time processing of twelve parameters. Wind, aerosols, cloud base, droplet size, molecular composition and a few others.” She pointed to a cable that ran across the ground to a NOAA van parked nearby. “We have a mobile analytics station for whatever parameter we need to study. Of course, it’s not a vertical profile like it was at our forward location, but it should still give a good view of what’s going on up there. You need something in particular?”
“For starte
rs, how high is the cloud?”
“Base is thirteen hundred meters. Top varies, but generally around three thousand. Kind of compressed compared with most cumulonimbus clouds.” Audrey seemed to know her stuff.
“Can you measure vorticity?”
“You bet. But vorticity is a measure of synoptic scales… low-pressure systems and hurricanes. This cloud is more of a mesoscale event, so we’re using an angular momentum circulation measure—same thing we do for tornadoes. I can get that data if you want it.”
Pouring through reams of cloud cross-sections probably wasn’t the best use of his time, but it was great to have a sharp meteorologist who seemed to be ready to answer whatever questions might come up. “No need. But one thing I’m curious about: is the rotation increasing?”
“Just like an ice skater pulling in her arms,” she said. “This baby is spinning up, at least the central core.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
“Science rules,” Audrey said.
“Damn straight,” said Parker, who was set up only a few feet away, adjusting the camera-telescope combination.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go for it,” Parker said. “I’m spotting the power plant.”
The SLR camera on the back end of the scope put a highly magnified image onto the camera’s display. The scope was trained on the center of the power plant, two of the four smokestacks visible. They wobbled just like Twizzlers.
Five questions in two minutes, and his understanding of an otherwise unknown phenomenon had just gone from severely limited to not bad. Science did, in fact, rule.
Daniel’s phone rang. “Excuse me.”
It was Jan, probably the busiest man in Illinois right now. “Daniel,” he said breathlessly. “Listen carefully. We need a big change. I’ve been in communication with Nala and Marie. They have a plan. I agree with their assessment, but we’re going to need the help of the Romanians to pull this off.”
Even over the phone, Jan’s concern was obvious. But so was his passion. “How can I help?” Daniel asked.
“The stability of dimensional space is a direct consequence of the ratio of mass to volume. Call the Romanians. Tell them to ramp up their neutrino oscillation. Make the space bigger. Double its size.”
The four-dimensional space hovering over this part of Texas was certainly the underlying reason for the ominous cloud that threatened to do what had already happened at Fermilab. Yet Jan wanted to double its size. It wasn’t the most obvious path to success. Daniel’s understanding of the situation had just reset back to severely limited.
“I have to get back to Nala,” Jan said. “Call them. And hurry.”
Daniel tried to piece together any scenario where this crazy idea might make sense, but he couldn’t think of any. It was a very foreign feeling for a man who usually not only had the answers but also assumed control of the solution. Double the size of the four-dimensional space? The evacuation perimeter eight miles out might suddenly seem entirely too close.
But there were times when decisions had to be made with the best available information. Jan and Nala were the experts, and they had clearly come up with a plan. After a minute of thought, Daniel dialed the contact in Romania.
42 Intersection
Marie and Nala kneeled side by side above the pancaked view of Jan’s office. The compressed figure of the three-dimensional man walked in and out, looking like he might be talking on his phone.
Nala finished typing a note and offered the phone to Marie. “Anything else before we go?” Nala asked.
Marie took the phone. “Yeah, just one more message to pass along to Daniel.” She finished typing and handed the phone back to Nala. The two exchanged a long look and Nala reached out, hugging Marie tightly around the neck.
Nala spoke into Marie’s ear. “This is a brilliant idea. I can see why Daniel loved you so much as a partner.”
Marie pushed back, still holding Nala by the shoulders. “Any idea is only as good as its chance of success. Realistically, what are the odds that we can pull this off?”
Nala shrugged and started counting on her fingers. “Let’s see. Death by asphyxiation… death at the edge of the void… then there’s death from dimensional misalignment of every cell in our bodies… and, of course, death by a massive explosion. I’d say our chances are one in five.”
Both women laughed. “You know, I think I can live with that,” Marie said.
Thomas returned from the break room. He held out three paper masks, the kind commonly worn by doctors during surgery and by the Japanese to avoid germs. Marie had remembered seeing a stack of the masks at the Fermilab security desk and had texted Jan to provide them.
Thomas looked very confused. “I managed to peel them off the break room table, but somebody needs to tell me what the heck we’re doing.”
Marie grabbed his hand and pulled herself up from the floor. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Except for the masks, one bottle of water and the headband, they left everything else at the makeshift campsite over Jan’s office. If the plan worked, they wouldn’t need supplies. And if it didn’t work, there were at least four ways they were going to die. One way or another, their dimensional imprisonment was coming to an end.
They moved directly away from the singularity, away from its flashes of probability and eigenstates, away from the debris field and away from the one-way portal that had dropped Marie into this impossibly strange bubble of existence. She wouldn’t miss any of it.
Had it been a colossal mistake to leap down the rabbit hole? Probably. Words echoed from what now seemed like the distant past. You’re in over your head, Kendrick. Tim’s assessment, just before their mission to Ixtlub. Tim was a jerk, but his call had been spot-on, both then and now. She was unquestionably in over her head. But Tim had vastly underestimated her resolve.
There was a way out of this place. It might offer no better than a one-in-five chance of success, but at least it was a path. The three raced forward into the darkness.
“Don’t mind me,” Thomas said between breaths as they ran. “Go ahead and make your clever plans without explaining. I’m just the lab assistant. Probably just here for comic relief.”
Marie took two strides for each one of Thomas’s. “Sorry, Thomas. It’s all happening really fast. It’s the critical density that Nala and Jan figured out. We can change it, or at least Daniel can. If they make the bubble over Texas bigger, the density goes down, the ratio goes below one point zero and the bubble stabilizes. At least that’s the theory.”
“Okay, that part makes sense,” Thomas said.
Marie stopped running. “Hold up a second, let me check status.” She tapped the headband and tuned in to the colored spaces all around. Most of the smaller blue bubbles were already behind them. The purple bubble that surrounded them extended for another kilometer, maybe more. The larger bubble, the one she was sure was over Texas, had grown larger still. “It’s started!” she yelled. “It’s growing again. Daniel got the message!”
“How’s the ratio?” Nala asked. She leaned her hands on her knees, panting from the run. The only person who didn’t seem to be affected was Thomas, who looked like he was out for a Sunday stroll.
Marie examined the unseen numbers that displayed only within her mind. “Uh… down a little, 1.508.”
“But still well above 1.0,” Nala said. “Still dangerous. Is the edge getting closer?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
They started to run again. Thomas continued to ask questions. “You’re trying to make a stable 4-D space over Texas, right?” Marie nodded. “Great for the people of Texas, but how does that help us?”
“There’s a chance that the bubble will grow large enough to intersect this one.” It was the same technique that Zin had used to get them to Ixtlub. A small bubble on the departure side, a larger bubble at the arrival point, intersecting to provide a continuous 4-D path from one point to another. It was the
germ of an idea that had flashed into Marie’s head. Two bubbles, and the larger one would be their savior.
“A bubble merge? All the way from Texas?”
“Think about it,” Nala said, providing the expert validation for Marie’s plan. “It’s four-dimensional quantum space. When it expands, a direction in 3-D space must compress, right?”
“Right,” said Thomas. “We’ve established that relationship a million times.”
Nala waved one arm as she talked, her run reducing to a jog. “From our point of view inside 4-D space, the distance from here to Texas could become negligible—just a hop, skip and a jump. We’ve got two bubbles of 4-D space with the 3-D distance between them getting smaller by the minute. Merging should be no problem at all.”
“I like it,” Thomas said. “We just jog from Chicago to Texas.”
Marie examined the two bubbles in her mind. Though there was no specific data on their widths, she was confident the visualization represented each to scale. If they were currently in a sphere a kilometer wide, then the other bubble was probably ten times that size.
“Once they merge, it should be about six kilometers to the center,” Marie said. “At least from our perspective on the inside.”
“At a jog, we could cover six kilometers in thirty minutes,” said Thomas, clearly happy that he was contributing to the calculations.
Marie slowed to a walk, breathing heavily. “Another check,” she said. “It’s easier if I’m not running.” The distant bubble was not so distant anymore. A curving purple surface intersected the floor not far in front. “We’re really close. The bubbles could merge any minute. Ratio is down to 1.471. Still pretty high.”
“Going in the right direction,” Nala said, “but the whole thing might still collapse. Who knows where that would throw us?”
One of the four ways to die. There was no avoiding it. They had to cross the boundary into the larger bubble. Marie looked around, comparing the view her eyes provided against the one inside her brain. “We’re close to the edge. Might be safer to wait here for a minute until the bubbles join up.”
The Quantum Series Box Set Page 56