Sunfall

by Jim Al-Khalili

  Looking back, he had to admit that his career had gone exceptionally well. He was intelligent and ambitious and had used both traits well to build up his power base. But, despite appearances, he was still very much a loner. His only true friends were his three dogs. Animals understood him. They asked nothing of him other than to provide them with food and shelter and, in return, granted him obedience and loyalty. Humans were different. Too many of them failed in life because they allowed emotions to cloud their judgement. To him, traits such as compassion and empathy served no purpose when it came to survival of the species. Sure, altruism could be found among many creatures, like bees and termites, but that was simple kin selection: ensuring the propagation of an individual’s genes by helping those closest to it genetically to survive. But human culture had tried to push this idea too far. And that was always going to be its downfall. Selflessness was overrated.

  By any measure, his career in politics had been meteoric. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame back in ’26 he’d started out by serving on the Indiana State Election Board before working as an attorney in practice, mainly dealing with environmental cases pushing for the closure of the State’s remaining coal-fired power plants, the last of which shut its gates in ’34. He ran for the US Senate as a Democrat in ’37 on an anti-corruption ticket, sweeping to victory to become the youngest member of Congress at that time at the age of thirty-two.

  While it seemed that just about everyone in politics now considered themselves to be an environmentalist, they had different ways of showing it. In a state like Indiana, which along with West Virginia had been at the bottom of the Green League Table of America for many years, standing for election as a champion of the environment was now a good political move. But Peter Hogan was smart enough to know that he could not reveal his true feelings. A passion to protect the biosphere from further destruction by humankind was one thing, but to let slip his contempt for humanity itself would not have been a particularly wise move. Instead, he made sure that his green credentials were just what the administration, desperate for allies in Congress, were looking for: someone who could help lift the country out of the doldrums after the failure of The Walls project, which of course he had opposed from the outset. That two-trillion-dollar, overly ambitious scheme to build five-metre-high sea walls to protect the country’s coastal cities was doomed before it got started. He had spoken out vociferously against it, when other politicians saw it as the only solution. Now, of course, southern states such as Louisiana and Mississippi were bankrupt and unable to fund their huge repopulation programmes to deal with the displaced inhabitants of lost coastal cities like New Orleans and Gulfport.

  People who had never met him thought Hogan came across as charming; smart and ambitious, but likeable and warm. Those who did know him would have agreed with the first three attributes but would have struggled to apply the last two to him. Senator Peter Hogan was anything but likeable and warm.

  In recent months, he’d felt particularly good about life. In fact, the charm button was so much easier to switch on now that the fate of humankind was sealed. It would certainly serve no purpose for the public to know the truth about the dying magnetic field. What would be the point of panicking billions of people? After all, nothing could be done about it now. Far better for everyone if the world remained in its innocent ignorant slumber, hoping as always that things would eventually turn out for the best.

  Well, amen to that.

  He left the bedroom and walked downstairs, checking the time as he went: seven-fifteen. Time to leave. He didn’t like to be too late, but always enjoyed a grand entrance. He uttered a command as he entered the kitchen and the French windows slid silently open. His dogs, who had been sitting patiently out on the patio, ran in. They were hungry.

  As he walked out of the front door of his luxury apartment, just ten minutes’ walk away from Ambassador Xu’s mansion, his wristpad buzzed. It was Gabriel Aguda. The man looked highly agitated.

  22

  Monday, 11 February – New York

  Despite the chill, Marc was feeling uncomfortably warm under the tightly buttoned collar of his dress shirt as he walked up the mansion steps with Qiang. He’d struggled to find a dinner jacket at short notice and had ended up borrowing the whole outfit from a former Columbia University colleague. Now he wished he’d just worn the old grey suit he’d packed back in Auckland. After all, he wasn’t planning on impressing anyone this evening.

  Qiang also appeared out of place and awkward, despite looking the part, complete with a resplendent bright red bow tie. The Chinese physicist must have seen the amused look on his face.

  ‘I really do prefer the familiarity of a traditional scientific conference dinner, you know, where all I have to do to smarten up is to put on a jacket and tie—’

  ‘—Yup, preferably one with a science-themed image on it, like a Feynman diagram or the periodic table,’ laughed Marc.

  Qiang nodded in fake seriousness. ‘That’s the beauty of ties like that, they’re so terrible, they go with whatever shirt you’ve been wearing during the day.’

  They joined the throng of well-heeled guests arriving at the reception, all of whom seemed to exude that same casual air of confidence and entitlement that always marked out the wealthy and powerful.

  The Chinese ambassador’s mansion was an impressive building. Technically a townhouse, it had been built in 1911 in neo-French Renaissance style by an American billionaire whose family had finally sold it to the Chinese government ten years ago, just one example of so much of America’s prime real estate these days that was now owned by the East. Its imposing steps led up to the main entrance, where an equally imposing doorway was set back from a stone arch. Spotlights high on the roof of the building bathed everything in an insipid bluish hue.

  Marc and Qiang presented themselves for retinal scans by the two muscle mountains at the door and then had to pass through a security scanner. Once inside the ornately decorated grand hallway they were accosted by half a dozen bots carrying trays of drinks. Picking up a glass of champagne, Marc surveyed his surroundings. His eyes were first drawn to the fabulously colourful floor, which was covered in beautiful and intricate mosaic tiles. All around him were symbols of wealth and power. There was also no shortage of antique Chinese art on show: colourful Qing Dynasty paintings, Ming vases on pedestals and glazed ceramics of Chinese warriors on horseback. All this ostentation made Marc feel angry, although he couldn’t figure out why.

  He looked over to see Qiang already chatting to several other guests. Marc knew the protocol at occasions such as these. He would be expected to use face-recognition software in his retinal AR to find people he should be introducing himself to and, glancing around, he was amused to see that most people were doing just that. With a tinge of nostalgia, he thought back to the time, not so many years ago, when you could walk up to a stranger at a party and ask them how they knew the host or what they did for a living. Better still, if conference delegates were wearing name tags, you could try to sneak a glance down at it without appearing to break eye contact with the person, especially if you felt it was someone you should know. He had a secret and reluctant admiration for the younger generation, for whom the skill of simultaneously scanning their AR while seemingly engaging directly with the person in front of them came so naturally.

  Qiang must have noticed him watching and walked over. Marc put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘It’s OK, you know. You go and do the necessary schmoozing. Just don’t leave me alone all evening – I haven’t got to perform any social niceties at this party, but don’t forget I am supposed to be your date for the night.’ Qiang grinned and wandered off into the main reception room where most of the guests were gathering.

  Marc wandered over to one of the pictures on the wall to take a closer look. It depicted a Chinese man sitting at the base of a crooked tree. He guessed it was an original and probably worth a fortune. His thoughts drifted back to his afternoon with Evie and
how long it would take to fix their relationship. Still feeling flat, he strolled among the guests. Everywhere he heard the usual sycophantic and nauseatingly forced greetings and exchanges of pleasantries – always necessary to establish the social order at such occasions. But apart from the odd polite nod or smile from a few guests who either didn’t know who he was or didn’t feel inclined to chat to him, he was invisible. He maintained a faint smile frozen on his face that, he hoped, gave him the air of someone at ease with his surroundings and who attended such functions all the time. And he hated himself for doing it.

  One or two of the guests were now starting to raise their voices in more animated conversation and a number of them were standing still to focus on their AR feeds. Was some piece of news breaking?

  He decided he wasn’t interested enough to check right now and drifted back outside to get some fresh air. As he stood at the top of the steps, a limo pulled up with another VIP guest. An elegantly dressed woman in a knee-length black cocktail dress got out. She was carrying her coat over her arm, clearly not feeling the cold. Her blonde shoulder-length hair looked silvery under the building spotlights. She was surrounded by a flurry of tiny skeeter drones hovering over her head, mechanical dragonflies recording her every move and presumably beaming their feed to news networks. Marc watched as several security guards ushered her quickly up the steps towards him. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. Was she an internet star? A politician? There was something about her body language and defiant expression, however, that didn’t quite fit. She gave off a sense of aloofness that was less self-importance, and more nervous resolve.

  As she reached the top of the stairs she passed within a metre of where he was standing, and he saw a steeliness to her posture – her head held high. She had been looking straight ahead, not speaking, not smiling, but for the briefest of moments, their eyes met. It seemed to Marc to last an embarrassingly long time but couldn’t have been more than a second. She had a glazed look suggesting her thoughts were very far from her immediate surroundings.

  After she was swept inside, he followed her back in, just catching her being led up the grand staircase, which had only a few minutes earlier been roped off. Many of the guests around him were now talking in excited voices and Marc tapped a passing man’s shoulder. The man turned, his eyes clearly more than half focused on his AR feed.

  ‘Sorry, but could you tell me what’s going on? Who is this woman?’

  ‘Check your feed, pal. That’s Sarah Maitlin, one of the scientists involved in some scandal.’

  At first, it didn’t register, but then it hit him. Of course! She was the British scientist who’d been in the news a couple of weeks ago talking about the geomagnetic storm. But what was she doing at a reception held by the Chinese ambassador to the United States? And why was she the belle of the ball? Surely her media appearances hadn’t earned her such A-lister status? And anyway, what fucking scandal?

  He walked into the main reception room, where he spotted Qiang in conversation with an elderly couple on the far side. His friend broke off when Marc approached, and introduced the pair as the Portuguese ambassador and her husband. They nodded to Marc but were clearly not in the mood for small talk.

  Qiang sounded agitated and excited. He’d already removed his bow tie, as though whatever was now unfolding trumped any pretence of the formal occasion this was meant to be. ‘Have you been following the news, Marc? If true, this is huge.’

  ‘What? You mean in the few minutes since I last spoke to you? No, of course I’ve bloody not. I’ve been too preoccupied wondering why I am the only bloody person here who seems to be clueless.’

  He watched as Qiang pulled out and unfolded a plastic e-pad and activated it with his wristpad. He moved his fingers over it and brought up a live news feed, then passed it to Marc. At the bottom of the screen, alongside the words ‘Breaking News’, was the scrolling headline:

  SECRET FILES REVEAL STARTLING COVER-UP.

  IS THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD DYING?

  HAS THERE BEEN A CONSPIRACY TO HIDE THE TRUTH?

  NEURAL NETS REVEAL AUTHENTICITY OF SCIENTISTS AT CENTRE OF SCANDAL.

  The footage was of Sarah Maitlin in an online video chat with a man, and they were arguing about what to do with new revelations about the Earth’s magnetic field. Marc noticed that Sarah was wearing the dress he’d just seen her in, so this footage must have been from earlier this evening.

  It was followed by live footage of a reporter standing outside the Plaza Hotel in downtown Manhattan talking excitedly about a cyberterrorist group that had obtained top-secret files containing highly sensitive information. He claimed this group’s plot had been foiled and arrests had been made.

  On the one hand, this sort of thing wasn’t unusual; the networks supplied a steady stream of conspiracy stories and devastating cyber threats, but this time it seemed different, as though people could sense this was the real deal. As far as Marc could tell, as he quickly tapped and scanned his way through various news outlets on Qiang’s e-pad, it appeared that Sarah Maitlin had been at the Plaza Hotel too, but it wasn’t clear what her connection was. The reporter he’d seen first had claimed that she was some sort of whistle-blower, a hero, but there were other reports that she was in fact part of the cyberterrorist cell itself. Marc tried to dismiss all this speculation as the sort of rubbish that news networks would come out with at the start of a breaking story, in the frenetic skirmish to secure the lead coverage spot, with the billions of advertising revenue that would bring. At this very moment, network producers were probably frantically talking to their bosses, who were talking to their lawyers about what their position should be. After all, everyone in the news had to be either hero or villain. It didn’t really matter which, as long as a choice was made quickly.

  Marc was aware that all around him the sound of conversation was dropping away as more people stood around like zombies reading their feeds.

  He exchanged a look with Qiang. If this was true and the earth’s magnetic field really was dying, then the cover-up was far worse than the prospect of a mere delay to the Flip that Qiang had been so concerned about during their conversation in Princeton two days earlier. Marc turned to the Portuguese ambassador, who had just finished speaking on her phone in a low, urgent voice. ‘Is there any more you can tell us, Madam Ambassador? The news seems pretty confused right now.’

  ‘I’m afraid we are all confused, Professor Bruckner. In fact, I’m needed back in my Washington office immediately.’ She turned to speak to her husband and they both excused themselves and left. The room did indeed look like it was thinning out as politicians and dignitaries were recalled to their posts to deal with the inevitable shit-storm. Perhaps he and Qiang ought to be taking their idea a little more seriously. Perhaps, despite the utter outlandishness of the very notion of firing beams of dark matter into the Earth’s core, it might turn out to be the only way to save the planet.

  23

  Monday, 11 February – New York

  The young woman in the smart blue suit who had met Sarah at the entrance of the ambassador’s residence had insisted she follow her upstairs to a private conference room immediately. She had said it was for Sarah’s own safety, given the ‘sensitivity of the current situation’. Sarah’s first instinct was to turn and run, but where would she go? Who could she turn to for help or moral support? She thought about asking for a lawyer to be present, but decided she would just have to cope with whatever was coming. After all, what could they possibly do to her? She had done nothing wrong.

  She was led into an empty conference room on the second floor of the residence. The woman walked half a pace ahead of her and didn’t speak a word. Instead she exuded cold efficiency. Was she embassy staff, FBI, Homeland Security or something more sinister? The room Sarah entered was cavernous and felt somewhat out of place in a large stately home like this. It exuded power and efficiency, less of a traditional boardroom and more of a high-tech command centre, simi
lar to the room at the UN where she had first met Hogan and his committee, but larger and with portraits of important-looking figures in a range of power-stance poses adorning the walls. An interactive conference table took up more than half the room. She guessed it would normally have been lit up with an array of vid displays, e-docs and overlaying colourful graphics, but its graphene coating was now jet black. The woman pulled out a chair and gestured to her to sit down. ‘Can I get you a drink, Dr Maitlin?’

  ‘A glass of water, please.’ She hoped her voice didn’t betray the nervousness she was feeling. It felt like she was back at school and being hauled into the head’s office for a reprimand. The woman went over to the sideboard. Sarah heard the chink of ice in a glass and moments later was handed her drink in silence. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Please wait here. Someone will be along shortly.’

  The woman then turned and walked briskly out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Well, so much for the new cocktail dress. This is turning into one fun party. Sarah couldn’t have felt more inappropriately dressed had she turned up at a funeral in a clown’s outfit. She checked the time. It was seven-thirty – probably long enough for the world’s media to have gone into meltdown over the satellite data revelations. Or maybe not. Maybe whoever had been behind burying this in the first place was also more than capable of putting a new spin on it, or even discrediting it. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and wondered who she would be meeting. Was this to be a discussion among equals or were they going to blame her for the leak?

  After a few minutes alone with her thoughts, she summoned up the courage to check her feed. Sure enough, all across the net no one was talking about anything else. Some commentators were claiming that this was the biggest international cover-up since the Vatican scandal of 2029. And Dr Sarah Maitlin was the main protagonist in this drama. Just fucking great.