Josh remained silent as he rubbed his jaw and looked away momentarily. “There are security issues with allowing a reporter to watch our work.”
“Look Josh, I’ve got an hour scheduled with you for this interview. Either we spend that here and delay your work, or we talk while I watch you create your spookyons.”
Joshua stared at her, indecisive about what to do. Security was of utmost importance, but he found Rachael somewhat disarming.
“Well?” Rachael said waiting for a response. “Look, I know that you’re under a lot of pressure from the university because of your lack of results. There are rumors that the university is considering cutting their losses and pulling the plug on this entire facility. I could be of help to you by taking some pressure off by writing an article showing the progress you’ve made and also stating that you’re close to your goal. But in order to do this, I need to be shown that progress.”
Joshua pondered the situation. He was keenly aware of the pressure being put on him to produce results. If Rachael was correct about the funding of the facility being in jeopardy, a positive news article would certainly help him. Besides, he could let her watch them create spookyons without revealing any critical details.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’m going to allow you to observe us make spookyons, but I must have final say in what you’re allowed to present in your article. Everything else is strictly off limits. You’re also going to have to turn off your recorder. Is that fair?”
“More than fair,” Rachael replied as she switched off the recorder and returned it to her briefcase. “Lead the way, Herr Doctor.”
Joshua carefully packed the sphere and detector in a black case lined with protective cushiony material. “Come on. Let’s take a walk,” he said, and the two left the office. “Do you consider yourself a lucky person?”
“I’m usually fairly lucky. Why do you ask? Are you superstitious?”
“Not usually, but the longer we go without creating entangled spookyons, the more superstitious I become.”
The pair walked to an elevator at the end of a dimly lit corridor. Joshua placed his thumb on a pad against the wall to the right of the elevator door.
“Thumbprint recognized,” said a female voice that Rachael suspected was computer-generated. “Dr. Joshua Andrews. Director. Access granted.”
“Pretty secret,” Rachael remarked as they advanced into the elevator.
“Wait until you see the man downstairs with the gun,” Joshua said, pressing the button with B for “basement.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Joshua stared at the closing doors, and the hairs on the back of Rachael’s neck stood up as she realized that her host wasn’t joking.
5
The Donut
As Joshua and Rachael stepped from the elevator into the basement, the director turned to his right and greeted a security guard wearing a gray shirt and matching slacks. His sidearm was a standard issue .38 caliber revolver.
“Hey, Gordon,” Joshua said. “Keeping busy?”
“Very funny, Dr. Andrews,” the guard replied. “I stand here eight hours at a stretch and stare at your . . . toys.”
“Expensive toys,” Joshua corrected, patting the guard on the shoulder. “As always, I’m appreciative of your diligence.”
“Follow me,” Joshua told his companion as they walked slowly around a large circular corridor two stories high.
To the right was a control room, behind which sat technicians—casually dressed in jeans and tee shirts—as they consulted computer screens and large panels that resembled mixing boards in recording studios. On the left was a slowly-curving metal wall with hundreds of pipes, ducts, and insulated electrical cables, all running parallel to each other as they disappeared around the curves ahead. Some of the pipes had thermal shielding surrounding them, but Rachael could see condensate flowing down as a fine mist from the areas where the shielding had gaps. Whatever the pipes were transporting must have been extremely cold.
“What exactly am I looking at?” Rachael asked looking at the curved metal wall to her left.
“A hollow metal donut fifty feet across. It’s where we create spookyons. We created a pair last week, but they didn’t survive because of contamination. A power cable blew out, and poof, the spookyons vanished. We use large amounts of energy to work our mojo in the cause of finding what may be one of the most elusive particles known to physics.”
“I don’t see any hollow metal donut,” Rachael commented, perplexed.
“You can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re standing right next to it—a machine called a tokamak, which takes the shape of a torus.”
Rachael was familiar with tokamaks. Invented in the 1940’s by the Russians, they’d been used mainly in the quest to create nuclear fusion. The inside chamber of tokamaks was usually in the shape of a torus, or a hollow donut. Surrounding the torus were powerful electromagnets that created a magnetic field in the in the shape of the donut. The magnetic field in turn was used to contain plasma, a super-heated form of matter, which formed when atoms were heated to an extreme level. At these extreme temperatures, the electrons and nuclei of the atoms were stripped from each other, forming a cloud comprised of negatively-charged electrons and positively-charged nuclei. The plasma was so hot that the only way to contain and control it was to use magnetic fields.
Rachael slowly nodded in understanding. “Torus? A circle bent into three-dimensional space and hollow on the inside. Hence, a hollow donut shape. But aren’t tokamaks what they’re using to try to create nuclear fusion?”
“Correct.” Joshua replied. “The tokamak uses powerful magnetic fields to create and confine superheated plasma in the shape of a torus. The entire tokamak is wrapped in field coils, both horizontally and vertically. That mist you see is condensate from the liquid helium pipes. The liquid helium is used to cool the coils that create the magnetic field. We need to cool them to the point of becoming superconductors.”
Rachael knew that the plasma in most tokamaks consisted of heavy isotopes of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium. This plasma was superheated in an effort to get these hydrogen nuclei to collide and fuse in order to form helium. The fusion process released an enormous amount of energy and is what powered stars like the sun.
“I’m assuming that this is not a normal tokamak,” Rachael said. “You’re not trying to fuse hydrogen, are you?”
“No, we’re not,” Joshua replied. “We aren’t interested in creating energy via fusion, but we need high energy plasma made with a specific combination of elements to create spookyons. This tokamak was created entirely for that purpose. This specific combination of elements is the fuel we use.”
“Don’t suppose you care to tell me what’s in the fuel?” Rachel asked although she had little faith that Joshua was going to divulge such information.
“Absolutely off limits.”
“Thought so. Then the collision of the nuclei in your secret fuel causes the creation of spookyons?”
“That, combined with high-energy pulses of laser light at a specific wavelength and specific angles of polarization. The wavelength, power level, and polarization angles of the lasers are also off limits, in case you’re wondering.”
As they continued their walk around the tokamak, Rachael noticed some wording painted in large letters on the curved outer wall.
EINSTEIN WAS WRONG. LIGHT IS NOT THE FASTEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE . . . INFORMATION IS. AND EVERYTHING IS INFORMATION. – HENRY H. BOWMAN.
“From what I’ve read, tokamaks have been used for decades. How is it that nobody before Dr. Bowman came up with this process?” Rachael asked.
“It’s a long story, but I’ll condense it for you. When Henry was much younger, he worked at Princeton’s PLT, or the Princeton Large Torus. It was while working at Princeton that Henry developed a keen understanding of the intricacies of high energy plasma. Everyone else was using the plasma in tokamaks to try to create nuclear fusion to gener
ate energy, but Henry wanted to know what would happen in plasmas of other elements. He was kind of like a cook trying out different spices for his cooking. He noticed that when he used a specific combination of elements in his plasma, entangled particles were created that he couldn’t identify. These particles were artificially created and not found in nature, but like all entangled particles, their entanglement collapsed after sending one bit of information. Henry realized through rigorous mathematical calculations that these artificial particles could be modified to produce permanent entanglement. For the next forty years, he strived to get the correct combination of elements in the plasma along with the correct laser parameters to create artificial but permanently entangled particles—spookyons. He finally succeeded just before his death.”
“Wow, that story would make a great article in itself.”
“When I took over his research after his death, I told the university that I had a request. There was no working tokamak at Berkeley at the time, and Henry and I had borrowed time on a tokamak in San Diego to create the spookyons that are controlling the Mars rover. The university built one here, along with the research center. They knew that the spookyons Henry found would turn science on its ear and become a goldmine for them. The scientific and practical applications are endless. The university poured a ton of money into this facility, and it’s why they’re putting a lot of pressure on me to get results.”
The scientist and his guest had made almost a full circuit of the corridor surrounding the tokamak. They came to a door in the inner wall with a sign that read DECONTAMINATION above it. The door opened and a heavyset, young, Hispanic man walked out.
“Hey, Rodrigo. All set?” asked Joshua.
“All set, boss,” the man replied with a thick Spanish accent. “The first sphere is in place.”
Joshua introduced Rachel to his assistant. “Rodrigo, meet Rachael Miller. She’s a reporter from Scientific American who’s going to be observing today. Rachael, this is Rodrigo Torres. He’s my Ph.D. student. Henry had me, and now I have Rodrigo.”
“Que pasa?” Rachael asked.
Rodrigo replied in Spanish. “Ah, you speak Spanish?”
“Four years in high school and one year in college. Does Dr. Andrews speak Spanish too?”
“Hardly a word. How’d you get him to let you down here? We don’t get many visitors.”
“Let’s say I gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
Joshua looked back and forth at Rachael and Rodrigo, perplexed as to what they could be speaking about. It amazed him that even in a situation that would intimidate many people, Rachael was so poised and at ease.
“Right,” Rodrigo continued with a smile. “Knowing the boss, you definitely must have made an impression on him.”
“I hope so.”
“Probably didn’t hurt that you’re a hot chick and not some stodgy old dude.”
Many women would have been offended at such a crass and chauvinistic comment, but Rachael took it in stride. In her profession, she was accustomed to being around male scientists. “Probably didn’t hurt.” She replied. “Just curious—have you seen Joshua with many hot chicks?”
“Naw, he’s too much of a nerd to know any hot chicks.”
Rachael chuckled at the clandestine dig.
“What are you guys talking about?” Joshua finally asked.
“Baby chickens,” Rachael replied as Rodrigo gave her a smile.
“What?” Joshua asked.
“Never mind,” Rachael replied. “Inside joke.”
“Nice meeting you Rachael,” Rodrigo said as he started to walk away. “Boss, I’ll meet you at the control center.”
Joshua turned to Rachael and asked, “Want to take a look inside the tokamak?”
“Sure.”
“We need to install the sphere in this case inside the tokamak, but the inside is an ultra-clean environment,” Joshua said as he opened the door. “We have to put on anti-dust gear and be decontaminated before we enter.”
Inside the decontamination room, Joshua and Rachael donned white zip-up, anti-dust suits, as well as shoe and head covers, surgical masks, and gloves, leaving them with only the skin around their eyes exposed. They then walked through what appeared to Rachael to be a wind tunnel that was blowing a steady but strong breeze into their faces.
“The air flow blows away any remaining dust from us before we enter the tokamak,” Joshua said with a voice muffled by his surgical mask.
On the other side of the tunnel was a small, round, metallic hatch that led into the tokamak. On either side of the hatch were large coils of wire interspersed with piping that vented the mist Rachael had seen outside. She surmised that these were the superconducting coils that created the magnetic field that containing the super-hot plasma.
Passing a technician also covered head-to-toe in the same anti-dust gear, Joshua stepped inside with the black case and turned to Rachael. “Pardon the cliché, but don’t touch anything. The human body is surrounded by a small electromagnetic field, and these instruments are quite sensitive to it. Recalibrating the equipment can take hours.”
“Got it,” she said, taking Joshua’s free hand as he led her inside. It reminded her of stepping through hatchways from one compartment to another aboard nuclear submarines, something she’d done on many occasions while pursuing a story.
The inside of the tokamak was the hollow donut-shaped room—the torus. The curved walls, ceiling, and floor were covered with thousands of gleaming metallic plates. Just ahead were two metallic cylinders set vertically in the floor, each with a circular lid in the open position. Rachael peered into the first cylinder and saw a Bowman sphere at its base. The second cylinder was empty. Joshua had Rachael hold the black case in her hands while he opened it and removed the other Bowman sphere, leaving the detector in the case. He then carefully placed the sphere into the empty cylinder. Looking closely at the spheres, Rachael noticed a small hole at the top of each glass sphere. Joshua closed the lids and sealed both cylinders. The lids were slightly funnel-shaped, with small circular holes in the center that lined up with the holes in the spheres.
“Okay, both spheres are in place,” Joshua said as he closed the case and took it from Rachel. “Let’s go to the control room. After we evacuate all of the air in here to create a vacuum in the torus, we’re going to crank up old Hank here. We named the tokamak after Henry.”
Rachael and Joshua exited through the portal. The technician at the opening sealed the hatch behind them.
Behind the thick protective glass of the gently-curving control room, Rachael took a seat at the rear while Joshua moved from station to station to check the status of the various equipment. Rodrigo sat at a computer terminal, munching from a bag of Doritos, his fingers orange from the flavoring. There were five other technicians in the room, each seated at a terminal. Multiple overhead video monitors displayed feeds from inside the tokamak. Most showed images of the torus, but two showed the spheres inside the cylinders. Monitors showing the spheres were captioned with SPHERE 0 and SHPERE 1.
“Atmosphere evacuation complete,” a female technician announced. “Initiating magnetic containment.”
The lights in the control room dimmed slightly for a second and then returned to normal brightness. Rachael guessed that a large electrical load had been put on the complex’s power supply, which had taken a second to compensate for the extra amperage.
“Magnetic containment confirmed and stable,” the technician announced. “Starting fuel injection.”
The lights now dimmed permanently, with red flashing lights indicating that a test was imminent. The sounds in the torus—similar to a current of surging water—changed to loud rapid-fire clicks like those produced from the electromagnets in an MRI scanner.
Joshua turned to Rachael. “We’re injecting the fuel, and the sound you hear through the speaker is plasma swirling through the tokamak. Our instruments tell us everything we need to know, but the actual machinery makes certain sounds
when the experiment is proceeding as planned. The ear is a very discriminating instrument when it knows what to listen for.”
The monitor showing the inside of the torus displayed an eerie purple glow in its center that seemed to be getting brighter. Rachael figured that this was the plasma. She also noticed that the spheres now glowed a dim orange. “Are the spheres getting hot?”
“Yes, but hopefully not too hot.” Joshua replied. “Those cylinders they’re in provide thermal shielding so that they don’t melt.”
“Boss, there’s an imbalance in the electromagnetic field,” Rodrigo interrupted.
“Maybe a power surge,” Joshua replied. “Hopefully it will self-correct.”
The control room suddenly lost power, and all consoles were black.
“Damn it!” a female technician complained. “I think the tokamak’s fail safe just kicked in.”
“Carajo!” Rodrigo exclaimed. “Boss, the temperature in the torus is way too high. It’s in the danger zone for a coolant breach.”
“Damn!” Joshua yelled. “If that liquid helium breaches into the torus, the whole thing could blow! Increase the fuel injection rate!”
6
Heavy Metal
Rachael sat in the darkness, wondering if she was in danger. Beyond the thick glass windows of the control room, flashing red warning lights curved around the torus, interspersed with the words WARNING and OVER-TEMP. The faces of those at the work stations glowed red every five seconds before being enveloped by darkness again.
Unexpectedly, computer screens in the room came back to life, scrolling data on various functions of the reactor.
“Temperature stabilizing,” Rodrigo stated.
“Not to worry,” Joshua said calmly, his form a silhouette as the lights in the room returned to their previously dim settings. “Looks like increasing the fuel injection rate worked. The over-temp was probably a result of the electromagnetic field being temporarily out of alignment from a power fluctuation.”
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