Wormhole (2 page)

“Rather than try to explain why I called you together, let me show you.”

Dr. Dubois thumbed a button on the small remote control unit he picked up from the table, bringing the flat-panel display on the far wall to life. The screen showed a myriad of colored lines twisting away from a central point, something a child might have produced given a full day with a Spirograph.

Dr. Dubois moved the mouse pointer on the screen, circling the central point.

“This is an ATLAS image from testing conducted just prior to the latest system shutdown, early on the morning of the last
Friday in November. In fact it was still Thanksgiving night over in America when this image was captured.”

Rodger studied the screen. Without a detailed study of the complete data set he was at a loss to spot anything unusual in the image. Clearly the extreme energy released in the proton collisions had created a wide range of particles with different charges, spins, and masses, accounting for the assortment of paths that were displayed on the screen.

“Now this,” Dr. Dubois said, bringing a new image to the display, “is ATLAS data captured this very morning.”

Although the first image had been indicative of an extreme energy event, this latest image showed an order of magnitude increase in particle interactions, so many that it was difficult to discern one path from the other.

“Excuse me,” Dr. Craig interjected. “Were you using the same filter and trigger settings on this last event?”

“The ATLAS instrument settings are unchanged,” Dr. Dubois replied.

Something about that statement bothered Rodger, and he leaned forward. “But you said this was captured this morning. I didn’t realize that you had finished repairing the damaged electromagnets and restoring vacuum to the system. Have you managed to further increase beam energies beyond ten TeV?”

Dr. Dubois leaned back in his chair. “That brings us to the issue at hand. There’s really no way to put this except bluntly. There never was any electromagnet damage, or any loss of vacuum in the beam tube. That was merely a cover story issued to the press to allow us time to develop a detailed understanding of the anomaly.”

Voices rose in concert, each scientist demanding attention until no single question could be discerned above the noise. Dr. Dubois waited patiently until, at last, the scientists fell silent.

“I understand you have questions, but before I yield the floor, you need to hear the rest of what I have to present, information that will answer many of the questions you have already asked, but which will certainly raise more. Now may I continue?”

Glancing quickly around the table, Dr. Dubois encountered no objection. He rose from his chair, as if he could no longer bear the tension while remaining seated.

“As I indicated in my early remarks, the testing conducted through late November produced a series of exciting results. However, during a test conducted on the morning of the last Friday in November, we noted an odd spike in measurements across the range of ATLAS instruments. I’m talking about across the inner detector, the calorimeters, the muon spectrometer, even the outer toroid magnets.

“Even more disconcerting, the readings continued after the beam channel was shut down. Naturally, we first looked for some failure in the instrumentation, faults in the electronics or in the software responsible for collecting and processing the data.”

Dr. Dubois’s face had taken on a pallor that could not be blamed solely on the room lights. Rodger understood why. The implications were enormous. For ATLAS to record such a powerful event with no beam firing couldn’t be good.

“We shut down all further LHC testing until we could determine the exact nature of the problem. We have not done a beam firing since that day.”

“Wait one minute.” Dr. Gotlieb rose from his chair to point at the screen. “You said that image was collected this morning.”

Dr. Dubois nodded. “That is correct. That is a slice of the data collected by the ATLAS detector this morning.”

“But, if there has been no proton acceleration around the LHC, how...?”

Dr. Gotlieb’s question trailed off into horrified silence.

“Jesus Christ.” The words slipped from Rodger’s lips like a prayer. It was worse than he had thought.

“The November Anomaly, as we have come to call it, appeared at the interaction point within ATLAS and somehow achieved a semblance of stability. We immediately scrambled to isolate the anomaly in an intense electromagnetic containment field to keep it from escaping the vacuum chamber. Since that day, we have had a team of engineers working around the clock to improve the quality of the surrounding vacuum, adding multiple redundancies to prevent electromagnetic or vacuum failure.”

Dr. Dubois pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing at the beads of sweat that dampened his brow. “I think you can see why we’ve held this information close-hold as the best minds on the program struggled to understand exactly what has happened.”

“But how is that possible?” asked Dr. Boudre. “Admittedly I’m an astrophysicist rather than a quantum specialist, but even the energies provided by LHC collisions have far too small a probability cross section to allow for stable formation of some sort of micro black hole. Besides, Hawking radiation should dissipate any black hole with a mass of less than two hundred thousand kilograms in under a second. A micro black hole such as yours should have evaporated in a tiny fraction of that time.”

“We don’t think that’s what it is.”

“You don’t think?” Dr. Gotlieb sputtered.

Rodger realized that he had also risen to his feet, although he found himself leaning on the table for support.

“And after three months of secret study, what have you learned?”

Dr. Dubois started to speak, paused, then began again. “The anomaly violates all accepted theory. We have pored over every paper published in the last fifty years that could remotely have bearing on this matter and have only found one that seems to
describe what we are seeing. It’s a theoretical treatise titled ‘Quasi-Stable Quantum Singularities,’ published three years ago.”

“And what does the physicist who wrote the paper have to say about your anomaly?” Rodger pressed.

“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken to him.”

“What? Why the hell not?” Dr. Craig bellowed.

“Gentlemen, please sit back down. Thank you. I know you are all wondering why I have gathered you here instead of taking this directly to the world’s governing bodies. What we have here is something entirely beyond our current understanding of physics, something that for now appears quasi-stable. It has the potential to transform into something far more dangerous, possibly even a black hole that would consume our planet. If a government reacted to this out of fear, you can imagine what they might try.”

The table jumped as Dr. Craig’s fist slammed its surface. “They’ll nuke the bloody hell out of your goddamned science experiment. Should have been done before now.”

Rodger understood Dr. Craig’s anger. But all he could do was lean back in his chair, too stunned to respond.

Dr. Dubois leaned forward. “And if they do that, they will probably bring about the disaster that we all fear. According to our analysis of the equations in the paper I mentioned, an anomaly of this type occupies an inflection point between a number of more stable states, most of which are unpleasant. Even a relatively minor perturbation could tip it from its perch, sweeping away humanity in an avalanche of destruction.

“So we have determined that you four, as respected scientific representatives of the key governments of the European Union, Great Britain, and the United States, are best suited to bring this knowledge to your political leadership. After those governments have absorbed the facts, they can come to consensus on how best to proceed.”

Dr. Craig’s face had acquired a purple cast. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why haven’t you contacted the physicist who wrote the damned paper?”

“Because, until now, we haven’t been able to.” Dr. Dubois looked directly at Rodger. “We’ll need the help of the American government to reach him.”

Rodger inhaled softly. “And why is that?”

“Because he’s incarcerated in an American prison. The physicist to whom I refer is the famous Dr. Donald R. Stephenson.”

The foot caught Mark just below the solar plexus, knocking the wind from his body even as he twisted to avoid the blow. Pain exploded in his gut, but Mark channeled it, storing it away for later processing. Right now, he just needed to survive.

A funny thought. Only moments earlier, Mark had been focused on winning this fight. Now, as blood and sweat blurred his vision and lack of breath sapped his strength, that goal seemed a distant dream. Jack Gregory was taking him apart with an ease that defied belief.

Marshaling all his neurally enhanced speed, Mark swung his body into a spinning side kick that should have hurled his tormentor across the room. Instead he felt himself lifted, propelled by his own momentum in a judo flip that slammed his back into the floor and sent white flashes dancing across his vision. Blinded and stunned, Mark whipped his legs around, somehow managing
to land back on his feet and stay there, even though his knees felt like rubber.

“Enough.”

Jack’s voice sounded distant, as if it came from one of those tin-can-and-string telephones that he’d made with Heather and Jen when they were kids.

“That’s enough for this session,” Jack continued, stepping forward to slap him smartly on the back. “Good workout.”

A small titter of laughter from across the room caused Mark to glance toward his sister. “Seriously, Mark,” Jen managed to get out between chortles. “There were a couple of times I thought you had him at your mercy.”

Struggling to regain enough breath for a sharp retort, Mark finally abandoned the attempt.

“That’s OK, Jennifer,” Jack said. “Your turn.”

As Mark stumbled to a seat beside Heather, he managed a smile. After suffering a major-league ass-whipping, it was nice to have something to look forward to.

The ten weeks that Mark, Jennifer, and Heather had spent at the Frazier hacienda had been the most difficult of their lives. Mark didn’t know what he had expected, but this hadn’t been it. Jack and Janet had immersed the three friends in a training program more intense than any imagined by the CIA. For twenty hours each day they had oscillated between physical training, weapons training, martial arts training, and a variety of classroom work on the how-tos of clandestine operations.

How to spot a tail. How to lose a tail. How and whom to bribe. How to establish a base of operations in continental Europe, the US, Britain, India, Pakistan, Africa, Russia, Latin America, China. How to blend into societies where you should stand out. How to purchase illegal weapons, documents, and equipment. And just when they thought it couldn’t get any tougher, Jack ratcheted up
the intensity. It was exciting, but it also kept Mark too busy and tired to worry much about other things, like what his parents must be going through.

Even though Jack knew about the neural enhancements they had received on the Bandolier Ship, he wanted to find out their limits. More than that, Mark knew that Jack wanted
them
to discover their limits.

Even though Mark loved that they were learning things very few people would ever know, he felt as if they would have made a break for freedom if it hadn’t been for the weekends.

Sci-Fi Saturdays and Sundays is what they’d come to call them, a sequence of
Twilight Zone
episodes driven by Jack’s desire to learn everything about the Bandolier Ship, its technologies, its agenda, and what it had done and was still doing to his three trainees. The lab sessions ranged from fascinating to downright spooky.

Recently Jack had them working in total darkness, letting their minds convert sound to images, a form of echolocation that produced imagery of their surroundings: the louder the noise, the brighter the resultant mental pictures.

Luckily, Friday and Saturday nights had been reserved for rest and relaxation, local R & R Janet called it. On those nights they could almost be mistaken for a family, Jack and Janet taking them to San Javier to stroll through the town, to stop for dinner over some Bolivian beers, to laugh and talk.

One thing Jack had said during their training sessions had imprinted itself on Mark’s brain. “This world will try to beat you down. Only laughter can counteract that. Laughter is ammunition. Resupply often.”

Mark remembered the sound of Janet’s throaty laughter echoing through the room at that remark, driving the point home. But since the birth of their baby, Robby, eight weeks ago, Jack had been their principal trainer.

Even the childbirth had been incorporated into their training. Yachay, the indigenous midwife, had managed the delivery, assisted by Mark, Jennifer, and Heather. The intensity of the experience had branded its details into his mind’s eye.

Janet had endured an agonizing eighteen hours of labor as Jack sat beside her, holding her hand and guiding her through a variation on Lamaze breathing exercises. A credit to her self- discipline, Janet never whimpered or cried out, although the sweat beaded on her forehead, forming tiny rivulets that Jack wiped away with a damp cloth.