Beth cocks her head. “If they found out we burn dead organic matter to fuel our society, they’ll take us off the smart species list.”
The door opens, and a breeze kicks up dust. Four Google employees enter the warehouse, pausing when they see their CEO.
Beth approaches them and guides them to the chairs. “Welcome, please have a seat.” More programmers trickle in and the room soon fills.
Austin gives up his chair and sits on a table. “It’s about time you all showed up.”
“I thought we were having a party,” Diego says. “Where are the hors d’oeuvres?”
“We’re here to work. You fell for the oldest trick in the book!”
Beth stands in the center of the circle. “Let’s get started.” She waits for them to settle. “We called you here today for an urgent meeting on Project Titan, which is now our company’s top priority. From now on, I will be personally involved in this endeavor.”
The team members steal glances at one another. Several programmers prepare their tablets to take notes.
“Starting today, our communications are confidential. You are not to discuss our findings with anyone outside this group. We will hold our team meetings in secret locations like this one.”
Diego raises his hand. “Is there some sort of urgency?”
Austin steps forward. “I’ll answer that. You should all be aware that external powers are threatening Google’s culture. We can’t take our safety and security for granted. The Information Tariffs might be a preview of what’s to come.”
Whispers break out along with expressions of concern.
Diego panics. “Could we lose our jobs?”
“No,” Beth says reassuringly, holding out her hands. “I will do everything I can to protect you. These circumstances will test our character and resolve but we must not cower in fear. Panic will embolden our enemies. Our best response is to collaborate and innovate. We win by doubling down on our core values.”
“What are these forces trying to accomplish?” Diego asks.
Beth looks down and paces the circle. “It’s a power grab. They think they can run Google better than we can.”
Kwame points. “It sounds like politics.”
Beth nods. “Yes, it is. Politics is universal at every company. There are always those who want to take over and assert their will.” She pauses. “Let me tell you a story. Once long ago, Austin and I worked on an effort called Project Bodi, our original prototype for the Google Vision smartglasses.”
Austin laughs. “That was almost forty years ago. None of you were alive back then!”
Diego nudges his neighbor as the tension in the room eases.
Beth continues. “Back then, no one believed that Augmented Reality smartglasses were feasible. People called it a pipedream and laughed us out of the room when we proposed it. I remember a board member, Ed Koch, who called us fools for trying to innovate. I later learned he tried to dismantle our department and take our resources for himself. Thankfully, we fought against him and persisted, eventually developing the core technologies in today’s smartglasses. Nothing came easy. It was an uphill battle.”
She points at Austin. “Back in 2029, I was the A.I. department’s youngest head and Austin was my twenty-something programmer fresh out of graduate school. It was he who made the key breakthroughs on Project Bodi.”
Diego applauds. “Dr. Sanders, you never told us this story!”
Austin smiles. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
“We were innovative back then,” Beth proclaims, making firm eye contact with her employees. “Our CEO at the time, Shiv Patel, wrote a book called ‘Awaken the Power of Insight.’ I will send each of you a copy and I ask that you read it today. Shiv awakened our mind by showing us how to unlock innovation. He taught us how to harness insights from the subconscious mind, and we learned to liberate our creativity and reach our full potential.”
Austin acknowledges. “That’s true. Shiv’s book really helped me.”
“What did it teach you?” Diego asks. “How can we improve our minds?”
Austin hesitates. “…I have to think about it. It has been so long…”
“Innovation,” Beth interrupts, “doesn’t happen by chance. Every one of you can make pioneering breakthroughs and discoveries if you develop the connection with your subconscious mind. This is the core message of Shiv’s book.”
“That’s right,” Austin says. “I remember now. Shiv told us to leave our pride at the door and work together for a common purpose. Don’t allow the ego’s self-serving agenda to dominate your decision-making. Keep your focus on the results of your team. That’s what truly matters.”
“Exactly,” Beth says, “we must work together for the good of the company and, in this case, for the future of the world. There are tools you can use to unlock your mind’s innovation and we will discuss them later. For now, let’s turn our attention to Titan. Austin, tell us where we are with the project.”
He turns to a wall and beams an image from his smartglasses. “Happy to. Here are blueprints of a reactor from our colleagues at Transatomic. They helped us design a small-scale prototype. You can see here the inner fuel core containing deuterium and tritium surrounded by a zirconium shell.”
“Have you assembled it?” Beth asks.
“Yes, it’s ready thanks to Fei and Kwame. Our challenge is in heating the shell to 100 million degrees to trigger the fusion reaction, which will release clean energy just like the sun. Diego, why don’t you take it from here?”
Diego crosses his arms. “Sure. Our collaborators suggested we use an X-ray laser to heat the metal shell. Unfortunately, their calculations were wrong and we will never reach the threshold temperature that way.”
Beth throws her hands in the air. “That’s ridiculous! Didn’t someone check their calculations?”
The team is silent.
“Well, did they propose a different solution?”
“Yes, Dr. Andrews,” Diego says. “They suggested we anchor our device to a fission reactor—that is, use a nuclear power station to trigger fusion.”
Austin fidgets. “That will never happen. Besides, we’re running out of uranium and plutonium for our aging nuclear plants. We need something else to heat the outer zirconium shell, and that’s where Anil comes in.”
Anil nervously squirms as all eyes turn to him. As the junior programmer of the group, he rarely speaks at team meetings.
Austin extends a hand. “Anil, tell us about your idea.”
Anil balks. “…I think the solution is…gravitational radiation.”
His boss, Fei, jerks forward. “What are you talking about?”
He answers nervously. “A couple of weeks ago, we discovered a countdown from Barnard’s Star that times the arrival of supermassive gravity waves. What if we build a device to harvest that energy?”
“A gravity engine,” Austin says. “Anil proposes we harness the incoming current to ignite our fusion reactor.”
The room erupts in conversation.
Diego shouts, “When does this countdown end?”
“About two days from now,” Anil says.
Fei rolls her head back. “We can’t build anything that quickly…that’s impossible—”
Beth interrupts. “How will the engine work, Anil?”
“I’ve thought a lot about this,” Anil says. “Let me first say that the gravity engine will not be a stand-alone power source. We will build it on top of a laser, such as neodymium.”
“Interesting,” Diego interrupts. “Neodymium lasers will heat our shell to 80 million degrees, close to our threshold but not enough to trigger fusion.”
“Correct. I believe that the cosmic wave will give the extra boost we need to reach 100 million degrees.”
Chatter erupts and Beth signals for silence. “Anil, tell us exactly how your machine works.”
Anil shares his laptop screen with the group. “Here’s a sketch. A gravitational wave is ener
gy created when objects like black holes collide in space.”
Austin waves. “Can you enlarge your drawings?”
Anil projects the image on the wall. “As you can see, the gravity engine converts the incoming energy directly into heat. It works by accelerating titanium atoms around a circular track. When the cosmic wave hits, it causes the atoms to collide and release an enormous amount of heat.”
Fei laughs. “I admit it’s brilliant, but again, how will you possibly construct your device in two days?”
Anil’s voice quivers. “You’re right. It’s probably impossible to build one on short notice.”
“Wait a minute,” Austin says, “you need to spin atoms around a track? Can’t we use a particle accelerator to do what you’re proposing?”
“Yes, theoretically, but where we will we find one?”
Beth’s eyes widen. “There’s one right down the street at my alma mater.”
“Stanford?” Austin asks.
“Yes, the Cyclotron! They have one on the old campus in Palo Alto.”
“Do we have access to it?”
“I know Tom Lee, the head of Stanford’s Applied Physics Department. We were classmates in college. I’m sure he’ll let us use it.”
Austin stands. “I sense a plan coming together. We can convert the accelerator into a gravity engine. All we need is some titanium to run through it.”
“What about the neodymium laser and the titanium?” Fei asks. “Where are we going to find those?”
The team grows quiet as they stare at Anil’s blueprints on the wall. Austin turns to Diego. “Where did you buy the deuterium pellets?”
“From a source in New Mexico,” Diego replies.
“Would they have ionized titanium?”
“I don’t believe so, but I’ll check.”
Beth anxiously paces the room with her hands clasped. “We have to go for it. This is our only shot.” She commands the room. “Necessity is the mother of invention and we are in desperate need for clean energy. It’s time to innovate. I will do everything I can do find a neodymium laser and I need all of you to step up your game.”
The team sits silently and listens intently.
Beth continues after a pause. “Here’s our plan. In the next forty-eight hours, we must track down a supply of titanium and a neodymium laser. Let’s gather everything and meet in the Stanford Cyclotron in two days. We have to catch the gravity wave when it hits Earth.”
“It’s a long shot,” Austin says, “but we’ll try our best.”
“There’s no other choice. This is our only hope for survival.”
17.
AT CIA HEADQUARTERS, Gareth Allen frantically rushes down a long hallway. Carrying a briefcase with a war dossier, he passes by portraits of Porter Goss and George H. W. Bush on his way to the Director's office.
As he walks, incoming messages stream into his smartglasses—“Bank of America under attack,” “Citibank offline,” and “Wave 3 commencing.”
He dictates a reply to his underling. “Is the enemy stealing money?”
Seconds later, a message arrives. “Most likely.”
“Did you ID the virus?” Gareth asks.
“Yes. It’s standard-issue Chinese military.”
Footsteps echo through the marble corridor as Gareth approaches his boss’s office. At an unmarked entrance, he looks up to a security setup. A camera scans his retina and the door opens.
Gareth approaches a receptionist. “Hi, Holly, sorry I'm late.”
“Please have a seat,” she says. “Mr. Klein will be ready in a minute.”
Gareth drops his bag and catches his breath in the windowless waiting room. He wipes his brow and adjusts his suit jacket, then flips on a tablet computer and scans the front page of the Telegraph. “War Update – Days after implementation of the Information Tariffs, enemy forces have launched strikes against banks and infrastructure. The cyberattacks come as Chinese companies face stiff penalties for using American-made information technology, including software and web services. One Pentagon official says, ‘The enemy is desperate to attack us, but we will prevail.’”
He sends a message to Manos. “Were you affected by the viruses?”
Moments later a reply appears. “We are recovering.”
“Good.”
After a pause, another memo arrives from Manos. “I will take you up on your offer.”
Gareth appears confused. “Which one?”
Seconds later, a note pops up. “Google CEO.”
Holly stands. “Mr. Allen, the Director is ready to see you. Right this way.”
Gareth replies to Manos. “I will call you soon to discuss.” He follows Holly to a large office with portraits of former CIA Directors. An executive table spans the room.
“The Director will be with you shortly,” Holly says before leaving.
Gareth clears this throat and sips some water, preparing himself for his boss. He glances at the photographs on the wall when Stan Klein enters and hovers tall above the room.
Gareth grows nervous. “How are you, sir?”
“Dismal,” Stan mutters tensely. “Debrief me. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Gareth taps a tablet and loads a map of the United States. “Let’s get right to it. Here is the latest view of the cyberattacks. The barrage lasted 72 hours and a number of our banks and corporations went down.”
“What’s the damage?”
“$200B in lost economic activity.”
Stan's face reddens. “That’s horrible. Is the attack over?”
“Yes, we believe so. It’s been 24 hours since the last transmission.”
“Bastards. We disturbed the hornet’s nest.”
Gareth nods. “We did, sir. This response is a good sign that the tariffs hit them hard. Their stock markets have fallen significantly. I also learned that they retaliated with standard-issue military-grade viruses. I believe we have the upper hand, sir.”
Stan makes a fist. “We need to bounce back quickly.”
“Citibank is trying to get online and others will follow suit. We will recover from this raid as we have before.”
“That's good to hear, but don’t get too relaxed just yet. It’s not over.”
Gareth crosses his arms. “Sir?”
“I don't believe the Chinese are finished. We should remain on the defensive.”
“You think they will launch another wave?”
Stan’s jaw tightens. “There’s chatter of something bigger, maybe a blitz in space.”
Gareth opens the briefcase and picks up the dossier. “We are prepared for that. This briefing outlines a scenario involving American spacecraft. We know exactly how to respond, sir.”
Stan gestures. “You can put that down. The chatter points to something different.”
“Like what?”
“Based on what I'm hearing, I believe the Chinese may enforce a blockade on Mars.”
Gareth pauses. “You think they’ll stop our spacecraft from landing?”
“Yes. They might seize our colony and take our citizens hostage. They want Mars all to themselves. We have to be ready for that possibility, do you understand?”
Gareth puts down the war dossier. “Yes, of course, sir.”
“Listen Gareth, I need you to prepare a counter-response. We must be swift and decisive. What are the options on the table?”
“We can launch missiles.”
“From Earth?”
“Yes.”
“How long will it take to hit Mars?”
“Several months, sir.”
Stan shakes his head. “That’s too slow. What are other options?”
Gareth contemplates, then looks up. “We can launch missiles from our spacecraft. We have three ships in orbit around Mars.”
“Is there enough firepower to destroy New China?”
Gareth falters. “…probably not, sir.”
Stan slams his fist. “Did you hear what I said? What part of ‘swift and decisive’
do you not understand? If you want to keep your job, you’ll have to find a solution.”
Sweat drips from Gareth’s brow. He flips through the war documents and comes across a map of Greenland. “…there may be another solution.”
“What?”
“We can launch electromagnetic pulses. In the North, EMP blasts were highly effective at disabling Russian factories. We neutralized electronics in an instant.”
Stan stands and paces. “Interesting. Will they work in space?”
“Absolutely. EMP rays cripple everything in their path. We can shut off New China quite easily.”
“How do we launch them?”
Gareth grins. “We have a fleet in space equipped with EMP rays. It is simple to aim those guns towards Mars.”
“What kind of destruction are we talking about?”
“Let’s put it this way. Without their power generators, the Chinese colonies will suffocate within days.”
Stan's brow relaxes. “Perfect. Are the spacecraft near Mars? We need swift, coordinated action.”
“Sir, EMP waves travel at the speed of light. We can launch an offensive from here on Earth.”
“Excellent. Listen, I want you to update the plans for space. We must match China’s threats equally and forcefully.”
“Yes, sir.”
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