The research said that the energy released would be massive. At least, in particle physics terms. Then they’d scale up.
“Carbon-11 is ready to go,” Theo, a bright young Chemistry doctorate candidate said. “Can I input it into the tube?”
“Hold,” Maggie said, holding out her hand and watching the monitor intensely as it ran through a last check. “What’s that?” She pointed at the monitor where a piece of the equation was missing.
“Umm,” Lindsay said, looking, “Looks like it dropped some of the equation for a couple lines, but see?” She pointed a few lines down, “It’s picked back up again.”
“I don’t like it,” Maggie breathed. “Why did Greg2 drop the equation?”
“This is just the basic algorithm CERN gave to us to focus the magnets,” Lindsay said. “It shouldn’t matter.”
“It does.” Maggie took a minute to think.
“The Carbon-11 is only stable for 10 more minutes,” Theo piped up from his own computer.
“Thank you, Theo,” Maggie snapped. Finally, she decided. The dropped equation meant that something was wrong somewhere, and Greg2 hadn’t picked it up in the millions of lines of code. “Shut it down,” Maggie breathed.
The room stopped. People looked up from their computers. Theo’s mouth dropped open.
“Pardon?” Theo breathed.
“Shut it down. That dropped code is a variable we need to solve before we go on this. If the proton becomes too unstable during the acceleration, it could destabilize all the sensors.”
“But… the code… it’s picked back up later.” Lindsay stammered.
“I said shut it down,” Maggie said, slowly, heart lurching in her chest. She knew she was being too cautious. Lindsay was most likely right; it was probably just a problem with the readout or something. But Maggie had to be sure. Her financial backers needed her to be sure. Any wrong moves and it would be a disaster and could mean over a million dollars in broken sensors. Or worse, a burnt-out computer.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Doctor York’s reedy voice interrupted the stunned silence. The pudgy intellectual was standing on the concrete stairs landing that led to the exit, a greasy smile on his face.
“We will not go today,” Maggie said, trying not to blush as her voice cracked ever so slightly.
“Why have you canceled a close to half billion-dollar project?” York sneered.
Maggie winced. “There’s an algorithm that’s dropped from the code.”
“An algorithm that’s dropped from the code?” York smiled. “I feel that you’re overreacting.”
“I am not overreacting. The algorithm that is dropped deals with the Carbon-11’s instability complex,” Maggie shot back, hating that the other scientists were staring at her still. “I need to make sure it doesn’t have an effect-”
“You’re not even sure if those lines of code have an effect?” York scoffed. “This project was too much for you,” he walked down the stairs and faced her. “You can go.”
“What? This is my project, York, you’re just here as a courtesy.”
“Not. Anymore.” He hissed. “The financial backers have recently come across your previous history in false claims and distrust your judgement. THEY called and asked me to make sure all was going to plan. Which, clearly, it isn’t.”
Maggie stood still, heart beating in her ears. She could hear Lindsay’s breath hitch behind her, and all she wanted was to shield her student from this pig.
“Mr. Tordera,” York said, speaking to a still stunned Theo. “How much time do we have left on the Carbon-11 before it decays?”
“One minute,” Theo said, glancing at the monitor in front of him.
“Well, I guess we better get moving then.” York said, pushing past Maggie to the main console. “Doctor Knight,” he said, without looking back. “You’re dismissed. However, I will allow you to stay and watch. As you put in some effort into this project.”
Maggie was so mad she could spit. A retort rose in her throat, but she swallowed it. As she stifled the urge to punch that fat bastard in the face.
“Load the Carbon-11, Mr. Tordera.”
Theo nodded and pressed enter on his keyboard. A whirring sound from inside the metal pipe that indicated a small vacuum sealed plastic chamber with about a million Carbon-11 radioisotopes had been raised to where the proton would hit.
“Magnets ready?”
“Yes,” Dirby said, an engineer across the room.
“Nitrogen cooling system a go?”
“Yes,” Lindsay said shakily beside her.
Maggie had to look. She had to watch her life’s work, even if she wasn’t the one to push the button.
“Fifteen seconds,” Theo piped up.
With a sneer, York locked eyes with Maggie, relishing her pain.
“Three, two, one, launch.”
Part III
Acceleration
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie
York pressed enter on the keyboard, launching a proton into the accelerator.
“Accelerating,” Lindsay breathed, watching the monitor closely. “Narrowing the beam.”
“Three seconds,” Theo said.
“Almost at light speed,” Lindsay said.
Maggie held her breath. The only way they would know if any of this worked would be a blip on Lindsay’s screen telling them about the release of energy.
“One second.”
“Impact.” Lindsay said.
A huge peak rose on Lindsay’s monitor.
The lights and monitors all blinked into darkness, leaving them in complete black.
“What the-”
York’s words were cut off by a rushing noise in everyone’s ears. Maggie felt it more than she heard it, the rushing reverberating through her skull. The air around her felt like it had suddenly been filled with static electricity. The life was being squeezed out of her and pressure built inside her skull.
“My head,” Theo said from somewhere in the darkness beside her.
Maggie dropped to her knees, holding her head. Trying desperately to focus.
Then, as fast as the electric air started, it stopped. The world expanded, and Maggie was kneeling on the concrete floor of the black concrete room.
The surrounding scientists were breathing heavily, much like Maggie was.
“What the hell was that?” York snapped a full octave higher than normal. It was coming from the floor somewhere beside Maggie. He’d fallen down as well.
“Does anyone feel that the air is heavy?” Dirby asked. “Why do I feel like the air is heavy?”
Dirby wasn’t wrong. Maggie felt that too. The air around her was thick and hot. As she breathed, she felt a little lightheaded, like she was getting too much oxygen.
“Maybe there is something wrong with the coolant,” Theo said. “We should get out of here.”
“Why isn’t the exit sign lit up?” Someone asked from the throng of scientists. “How are we going to get out of here?”
In the rising panic, the scientists weren’t using their brains.
Maggie sighed and fished her cellphone out of her jacket pocket. One reason she bought this particular suit jacket was for the large pocket on the inside liner. Women needed pockets, dammit. And Maggie refused outright to buy clothing that didn’t have pockets. Congratulating her past self on her ethics, Maggie hit the power button on the side of her phone.
The screen lit up, and like a moth to the flame, the entire room looked towards her. She didn’t even need to turn the flashlight on, as the screen was enough to lighten much of the small concrete room.
“What do we do now?” Theo asked the room.
“Let’s convene outside,” Maggie offered. Taking control of the situation was in her nature, and the previous self-doubt that had plagued her over the past two years was ebbing. She had always been able to think clearly in stressful situations.
Except for that one time.
Shak
ing the memory of the assault out of her head, she held the cellphone up so that everyone could see her, and she made her way to the bottom of the concrete stairs.
“Anyone else have a phone?”
A few laughed uneasily at the joke while the rest stayed silent. The group rustled in their respective pockets, pulling out phones and turning the screen on. The noise echoed on the walls and was so loud without the conventional hum of computers working in the room that it was unnerving.
Maggie knew what everyone was thinking. What had they done?
As more and more retrieved their phones and switched the screens on, the room lit up. The air was still moist and heavy.
“Maybe we blew a coolant chamber,” Maggie said, thinking out loud.
No one answered. They just looked around uncomfortably, keeping their phones high.
That didn’t explain the heady sensation. Unless there was a leak of something somewhere, like Carbon Monoxide or something. That meant they needed to get out of the room right now.
“I think we need to get out of here,” Maggie said. “Let’s get to the stairs.”
“I believe we should stay put,” York squeaked from behind her. “I’m sure the power will come back on soon.”
Maggie turned slowly, facing him. “No, that seems silly as there is no light and…” she checked her phone, “no service. We cannot call for help. The power just went out. End of story.”
“Right after impact?” A scientist squeaked from the back. “What are the odds of that?”
“Did anybody else feel the pressure in the air?” Another one gasped. “What could cause that?”
“Is it just me or is it ten degrees warmer than five minutes ago?”
The room erupted into talk as everyone posed questions to each other at the same time. Panic was building and Maggie understood why. Even she didn’t believe it was a simple power outage. Something had happened. Something big.
“Alright. ALRIGHT,” she yelled, and the room snapped silent. “I don’t think it’s a power outage. But I’m feeling heady. Anyone else?”
A rustle as the group nodded together.
“Okay. So, I’m worried about a chemical leak,” she said. White faces grew ashen. The tension in the room rose as everyone tried not to make a sprint for the narrow staircase. There were only twenty-five of them, but a stampede on those stairs could mean that people died.
“Now. In an ORDERLY fashion. We need to leave this room,” Maggie said. “I’ll stay at the bottom and wait until everyone is out.”
“I still think-”
“Then stay,” Maggie said, rounding on him. “The rest of you, up you go and watch your step.”
She gave them credit. They moved in an orderly fashion. Theo took the lead, all but running to the staircase. With a few lanky steps up, he opened the door to reveal a sunny morning.
Maggie sighed along with the rest of them. She stayed at the bottom and allowed everyone else to leave before her. They trickled out of the concrete room, a bit of the tension lifting when they saw that there was still sun outside.
Lindsay came last, and Maggie gave her a nod as she passed.
Finally, it was just Maggie and York.
Maggie didn’t give him the time of day. Instead, she walked ahead of him up the stairs and made her way out of the large steel door.
Into a crowd of stunned scientists.
“What?” Maggie asked. The gravel road leading out of the research facility looked the same. The clouds were a bit different, but her car was still there.
She looked at her phone. No service.
“Odd. Hey, Theo,” she said, turning to the young doctoral candidate. “Do you have any bars? I thought I would but-”
She looked at the slack-jawed man and all the surrounding scientists. They were staring past her to the other side of where the collider ran.
Maggie turned slowly and gasped with the rest of them.
The wheat field was now a dense forest. Huge fir trees stood, some cut in half lengthwise where the supercollider lay. A tropical plant flowered at the base of one fir, a giant red flower inviting them. The earth was still. Traffic noise from Saskatoon screamed at them, the calm forest a complete opposite. The trees were taller than anything that Maggie had ever seen. The plants on the ground were unlike anything this side of the equator. Large flowers grew, soaking up the sun. It was hot. Too hot. Hotter than any summer on record in Saskatoon.
“What the fuck,” Ginny said.
Maggie turned her head slowly to stare at the resident geologist, a large woman of forty who had been a professor for ten years.
“Yeah. Yeah, what the fuck.”
“We died,” Theo said, voice hoarse. “We died, we’re dead, we died, we’re dead.”
“Shut up,” Dirby said. A large mosquito flew by, easily the size of a pigeon. “We didn’t die.”
“It sure fucking looks like I did!” Theo screamed. “Are you fucking seeing this?”
“Yeah, I’m seeing it,” Dirby snapped back. “Which makes me think we didn’t die.”
A roar sounded in the jungle. Footsteps reverberated through Maggie’s spine.
“Umm, guys?” Maggie said, backing away from the small concrete building that held the research station. She reached out and grabbed Lindsay’s arm.
“We fucking died,” Theo screamed.
The other scientists were in a daze. Even Doctor York. He stared at the tropical forest dumbly, tongue slightly out of his mouth.
The footsteps grew closer and louder.
“Umm…” Maggie said.
“We’re fucking dead, Knight,” Theo shouted, rounding on her. “Can’t you see? This is hell!”
Maggie didn’t get an opportunity to dispute.
A Triceratops, three meters tall, launched itself out of the trees in a deep roar.
Maggie reacted as the dinosaur cleared the trees, running far faster than she could ever think was possible for the sheer size. Pulling Lindsay from her stunned silence, Maggie turned and sprinted towards her SUV. It was the only car in the parking lot. The scientists scattered. Maggie heard a bang and a scream.
Don’t look. Don’t look.
Maggie pivoted to look. The Triceratops roared and stepped on the stunned chemist, effectively ending his life with a sickening crunch.
There were others dead beside Theo, too scared and stunned to run.
“THE KEYS!” Dirby yelled from the SUV.
Maggie fumbled in her pocket as she ran and clicked the unlock button. Dirby hopped in, followed closely by Ginny. York was right behind Lindsay and Maggie, sprinting towards the only way out. The other scientists had lost their heads, some running into the jungle, some trying to get back into the research facility. The Triceratops seemed confused at the small and fast movements and turned side to side, huffing out of its nostrils.
Maggie swung the driver’s side door open. Lindsay piled into the back of the SUV and slammed the door. Maggie hopped in and, thankfully, didn’t need to worry about putting the keys in the ignition.
Thank Christ for Push to Start vehicles.
She slammed the ENGINE ON button and the SUV cooperated.
“WAIT!” York yelled from behind them. The Triceratops saw him and stopped its confused circle.
Maggie locked eyes with Lindsay in the rear-view mirror and she reversed the vehicle out of the parking spot.
“York is almost here,” Ginny said, gasping with the effort of running to the car.
Maggie didn’t wait. She slammed the vehicle into drive and, tires spinning, took off down the grid road.
“WAIT!” York called from behind them, now fifty meters away. The Triceratops charged behind him.
Maggie slammed the door closed as she drove, a stunned Ginny and Dirby looking around, wide eyed.
Locking eyes once again with Lindsay, she nodded. Lindsay nodded back.
Maggie didn’t look behind her again.
Chapter Fifteen
John
Joh
n happily munched on his sandwich and completely ignored the shit show that was happening out in triage.
It was his break, and it wasn’t his problem.
It would not be his problem for three and a half more minutes.
The clock ticked away as John ignored everything around him. A shout sounded from triage, and John contently played Candy Crush on his phone. He’d absent-mindedly cleared the notifications on his phone at the start of his break and didn’t notice the text from Mason.
So, he really had nothing to worry about.
The shriek of the overdose patient’s mother would bother him, eventually. When he was out of scrubs and sitting alone in his house with a Crown Royal watching garbage TV. His wife would be in bed, celebrating or lamenting her day. And John would be left alone to wonder how he would sound if it was Mason on that table, intubated. Or Kennedy that was hit by the car on her bike riding home from school. It would worm its way into his brain, and the only way to make it stop and fucking sleep once in a while was whiskey.
Maggie thought he snored so loud because he slept well. If drunk and passed out was considered a good sleep, then John was the champion.
John checked the clock and sighed, shoving the last quarter of his sandwich into his mouth.
Ten ’til noon. Time to head back to triage and try not to kill anyone.
John stood, and the world tilted around him.
“What the fuck?”
A squeezing entered his brain. The world around him started sparking with electrical energy. His world spun and narrowed, and John was sure that he would pass out. The world felt heavy and John sank to his knees.
This was it. The stress of his job had caused a blood clot that had gone to his brain.
As fast as the pressure started, it stopped. The world rushed back around him and focused. The electricity in the air stopped.
All the lights went out at once. The air felt damp and heavy around him. The change between the previously air-conditioned room and the forty degrees and humid struck John more than the lights or the electric air.
Prehistoric Survival | Book 1 | Doomed City Page 6
