by Scott Jarol
“I thought Doc took it,” said Nate. “We saw him take it from the junk pile.”
“If that janitor took your personal property, he didn’t take very good care of it,” Cynthia said. “I’m sure he meant well, trying to rescue it from the trash or something. Principal Fairchild will not be happy to hear about that, but honestly, I think he might be a pack rat. Poor thing, he can’t help himself.” She leaned closer and whispered. “I suppose it’s related to his mental breakdown.”
Still no response from Ezekiel. Darn him. She smiled brightly. “Can you fix it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ezekiel. “My brain is kind of fuzzy. I don’t know if I remember how it works.”
Mr. Bruder snatched up Ezekiel’s backpack and shook its contents out onto her desk. Ezekiel’s toolkit and a notebook spilled out along with a few uncharged power cells, a protein ration bar, and a key card to something. Was that the North Star Laboratory logo?
Ezekiel reached for his stuff, but Mr. Bruder pressed him back into his chair.
“Here it is.” Virgil held up the notebook.
“Of course you have a notebook,” said Cynthia. “All geniuses do, where they scribble all their ideas and stuff. Looks old and moldy.”
She motioned at Virgil to open it.
Virgil paged through the notebook slowly, scrutinizing the complex, hand-drawn diagrams and formulas for something recognizable. Mr. Bruder snatched it from Virgil’s hands, flicking the pages until he found a drawing that looked like the QuARC. He stabbed the page with his index finger as if to say, “there you go.”
Ezekiel reached out to take the notebook, but Mr. Bruder blocked him with his other arm. “Hold on, Krapopoulos.”
“It’s Kapopoulos,” said Nate.
Mr. Bruder’s jaw clenched.
“I mean, I believe it’s pronounced Kapopoulos, sir.”
Cynthia was looking past Mr. Bruder’s hand to examine the pages he held open. “What does it mean?”
“It’s kind of mathy,” said Virgil.
“So we don’t know,” she said.
Mr. Bruder studied the diagram but said nothing.
Virgil frowned apprehensively.
“Of course not. That’s why we need a genius like Ezekiel.”
Ezekiel was already tracing one of the densely coiled wires with his fingertip, murmuring to himself as he considered the damage.
Cynthia was almost purring. Right where she wanted him. She huddled closer to Nate and Ezekiel.
“You know that I believe in you,” said Cynthia, “how smart you are and stuff. I wish I could help, but how could I ever keep up with your giant brains? If everyone in your class were as smart as you two, it would make my job so super easy. If anyone can bring it back to life, I know you can.”
Ezekiel gave her another blank look. Darn it, she couldn’t read what was going on behind his eyes. She would need to keep pouring on the persuasion.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “That scary man, Thomas, stopped by and said the Chairman needs this working by today or Ezekiel is going to have to pay him back somehow. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I’m sure it’s not something pleasant. I think he mentioned something about Ezekiel’s mom.”
Ezekiel sat up straight. “My mother has nothing to do with this.”
“Kinda the point,” said Mr. Bruder.
Cynthia patted Ezekiel’s knee. “I know, I know. We can’t let him hurt her, or even you. That’s why I promised them you would totally fix this thingy. Wasn’t that smart? And now you don’t have to do it all by yourself—you have all of us, your friends, to help you. Isn’t that so great?”
Ezekiel reached for his tool pouch, but Mr. Bruder kept a hand on his shoulder until Cynthia nodded. Ezekiel grabbed his tools and rolled the heavy coil over, which dropped even more dirt on Cynthia’s desk.
When Virgil tried to sweep up again, she waved him away.
“Go get us all some hot cocoa. And Chuck, close that door.”
Chuck closed the door.
“I mean, close it from the outside and stand guard in the hall. If the principal comes, tap on the door and then ask her about her new safety program. That will keep her talking for a few minutes.”
She couldn’t risk a surprise visit from Principal Fairchild, not with the QuARC right there on her desk. The principal had ordered the device destroyed the day before.
Ezekiel operated on the QuARC like a surgeon, occasionally asking Nate for help holding loose wire windings in place while he spliced the broken ends together with a tight twist and dripped candle wax to insulate and seal the connections. Nate watched intently over Ezekiel’s shoulder, occasionally uttering praise for Ezekiel’s handiwork.
After about an hour, Ezekiel sat back and heaved a big sigh. “It might work now.”
“That’s it?” asked Cynthia. “All done?”
“It’s kind of messy.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “How do we know if it works?”
“We could test it,” he volunteered. “But I’ll need an antenna.”
Cynthia nodded. This was all going just perfectly.
Ezekiel climbed on one of the chairs and pushed up one end of an acoustic ceiling tile, peering into the dusty space above.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Mr. Bruder.
“Like I said,” Ezekiel replied. “We need an antenna. We can use the grid that holds the ceiling tiles. It runs through almost the entire school.”
“Okay, but make it quick.”
Cynthia touched Mr. Bruder’s shoulder to silence him and spoke calmly to Ezekiel and Nate. “Mr. Bruder just means we’re running out of time. The Chairman will come back any minute.”
Ezekiel felt around in the crawl space above the ceiling and then dropped a long wire down. He pantomimed scissors with his fingers, signaling for someone to hand him his wire cutter. When no one else got the message, Cynthia passed him the tool. The moment he snipped the line, the lights went out.
Butterflies erupted in Cynthia’s tummy as they waited for Mr. Bruder to use his pocket lighter to ignite the two alcohol lanterns on her desk. Crystals dangling from the glass lantern shades scattered dancing points of firelight over everyone and everything.
Ezekiel attached one end of the wire to the ceiling grid, leaving the loose end dangling like a vine. Nate took it while Ezekiel stepped down off the chair. Then Ezekiel twisted it together with one of the leads sticking out of the repaired QuARC.
“Nothing’s happening,” said Cynthia.
Ezekiel nodded as if he’d expected that. “Needs tuning. I need something with an adjustable circuit, like a radio or something.”
“Hmm. Will this work?” She offered her PTab.
“That’s probably perfect,” said Nate. “Are you sure? That’s really nice of you, Cynthia.”
She handed the device to Ezekiel. “You can borrow it, but I’ll need it back.”
Ezekiel began to pry off the back cover with the blade of his screwdriver. Mr. Bruder grabbed his wrist, but Cynthia waved him away. She winced at the cracking sound from her PTab as Ezekiel pried the back loose. “I guess that officially makes me one of your investors now. We’re partners, after all.”
Ezekiel turned on the device and traced the circuitry with his fingertip. He snapped some wires inside the PTab, and she turned away as if he were torturing a puppy. He twisted them with three wires protruding from the QuARC and fiddled with the PTab’s touchscreen until everyone noticed a tingling sensation. Nate asked Cynthia for permission to use a roll of tape from her desk, and while Ezekiel held the PTab in place, Nate bundled the QuARC and the PTab together securely.
Ezekiel looked up triumphantly. “Done.”
Mr. Bruder came closer to inspect the job and make sure it met his standards.
“See?” said Cynthia. “It’s just so amazing what we can accomplish when we work together.”
Mr. Bruder swiped his arms and torso with both hands, as if shooing spide
rs. “Must be working. Feels just like yesterday.”
Cynthia resisted the urge to wiggle as the frenzied electrons rioted over her skin. “I knew you could do it, Ezekiel. I think we’d better get it outside before the Chairman gets here.”
Mr. Bruder reached for the coil, but Ezekiel pulled back. “I wouldn’t do that. It’s pretty high-voltage. It probably wouldn’t kill you, but I don’t think it would feel too good.”
Once again, Cynthia found herself sniffing the air. “What’s that smell? It’s kind of smoky in here.”
Virgil burst in, spattered with hot cocoa and holding three empty cups.
“Was that our cocoa?” Cynthia asked.
“It’s smoking!” cried Virgil.
“The cocoa? Don’t you mean steaming? Remember our vocabulary.”
“Not the cocoa, the school!” he shouted.
Margaux poked her head through the open door behind Virgil. “Fire!”
Her eyes widened as she noticed Ezekiel.
“Zeke, your mom is still in the basement!” she shouted. She jumped forward and grabbed Ezekiel, but Mr. Bruder blocked the door.
Cynthia moved forward. “Oh, no. I can’t let you rush into another catastrophe. The boys can go rescue your mother. I’m sure she’s fine. Principal Fairchild always says in an emergency, everyone needs to stay calm. We’ll all just stay here and wait for the Chairman.”
Mr. Bruder did not stay calm. “It’s that thing again! This time, this troublemaker has gone and lit the school on fire.”
He jumped to disconnect the QuARC, but as soon as he touched it, he began shaking violently. His fingers clenched the wire involuntarily.
The idiot! He was going to ruin everything! Cynthia grabbed him to pull him away, adding herself to the electric circuit, and they both collapsed to the floor. The high voltage slithered up and down their spinal cords, and the room around her turned white, then gray, and then she lost sight of it entirely.
The next thing she saw was Virgil’s weaselly little face hovering above her. “You have some drool,” he said, reaching toward her cheek with his shirttail. She tried to reach out to stop him, but her arms wouldn’t obey, and a strange garbled noise slipped from between her lips. Virgil gently wiped the corner of her mouth and then wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders before heaving them both upright.
Chuck lifted Mr. Bruder under his arms and dropped him into Cynthia’s desk chair.
“You push the chair,” Virgil said. “I’ll carry Ms. Cynthia.”
She mumbled something that came out sounding like nonsense again as Ezekiel headed out into the corridor and toward the school’s main exit. The intense heat turned him back.
“The front entrance is blocked,” said Ezekiel.
“Oh no!” said Virgil. “So sorry. It’s all my fault—I kinda dropped the lamp when I was looking for Zeke. So sorry.”
Ezekiel bore down on Virgil. “You idiot! Are you trying to kill us?”
“It was probably an accident,” said Chuck, stepping between them. “But how do we get out of here?”
Margaux was pacing behind them like a trapped panther. “We need to go down to the basement.”
“That’s suicide,” said Chuck. “We’ll be trapped.”
“But I have to get my mother,” said Ezekiel.
“There’s a tunnel,” said Margaux. “It’s the only way.”
Cynthia managed a croak, but nobody was listening to her anymore. How was she going to get the QuARC to the Chairman if these idiots couldn’t figure out a way to get out of here alive? This was not going as well as she had planned. If only she could get her arms and legs to work right.
“Doc said Schrödinger will know the way,” Margaux continued. “He’s still down there with Mrs. K.”
“You guys go on,” said Chuck. “I’ll get these guys out of here.”
“What about me?” asked Virgil.
“You’re gonna stay here and help me,” said Chuck.
Ezekiel removed his coat and bundled up the QuARC, tying the sleeves tightly. “Better duck down. There’s less smoke closer to the floor. The lower we go, the easier it will be to breathe.”
Cynthia watched in frustration as Margaux and Nate plunged after him into the smoke-filled hallway, proceeding in quick, orderly fashion exactly as they’d practiced every three months during Principal Fairchild’s safety drills. Idiots—they’d never practiced going more deeply into the school in an emergency. What were they expecting to gain from heading deeper into a burning building?
Now who was going to get her out of here? She couldn’t decide who she trusted less, Chuck the lumbering giant or logically challenged Virgil. Virgil was yanking her arm so hard she was afraid the sleeve of her white coat might tear, and they hadn’t even managed to get out of the room yet. How on Earth were the two knuckleheads supposed get her and Mr. Bruder out of here alive. So super annoying.
Chapter 18
Dr. Willis’s Office, North Star Laboratory
“Dr. Willis,” said Howard, “that little problem we had got bigger.”
As usual, Howard and Gary had found Willis sitting in total darkness in his windowless office. Most of the senior scientists kept windowed offices in the administrative buildings on the surface, but Willis, having no need for daylight, preferred to remain close to Triton’s operations center, like a ship’s captain in his ready room.
Gary flicked on the overhead lights. Willis continued to slide beads up and down on his abacus without acknowledgment, manipulating numbers with the ancient calculating device by feel.
Howard waited what he thought might be a respectful period of time before continuing. “It’s accelerating. We believe it will become a runaway effect when it reaches a critical horizon at 100 meters in diameter.”
“We need to shut down Triton before it’s too late,” added Gary impatiently.
Willis didn’t appear to respond, although they could never tell if he might be rolling his eyes at them behind his opaque glasses.
“Dr. Willis,” Gary repeated, “we need your permission to shut it down.”
Willis slid his abacus squarely on the desk in front of him.
“You believe it will become a runaway effect. Belief is not a scientific principle.” He drummed his fingertips on the desktop. The two young men waited for his instructions. “Need I remind you once again how much analysis has led to this moment, the decades of work by minds much greater than yours?”
Howard shifted from foot to foot in frustration. “Yes, sir—I mean, no sir, you don’t need to remind us.”
“Then what makes you think that your beliefs are of even the slightest interest to me?”
“Dr. Willis, the effect is measurable. This is data, not just our opinion.”
Howard mindlessly scratched his arm throughout another seemingly endless pause, after which Willis finally offered, “Let’s review the situation.”
Gary started eagerly forward, ruffling some papers he had carried in. Willis held up a finger. “That won’t be necessary. You’ve already bombarded me with your observations. You are simply focused on the wrong problem.”
Baffled, Gary glanced back at Howard but said nothing.
“Allow me to share something with you,” said Willis. “Sometimes you have to cross the Rubicon. Are you familiar with that expression?”
He smiled without humor and continued without waiting for a response.
“In 49 BCE, Julius Caesar defied the law of the Roman Republic and led his army across the river Rubicon into Italy, an act of treason punishable by death for himself and all his soldiers. Caesar understood there would be a price to pay, a civil war, and if he lost, the stakes were high. Once he crossed the Rubicon, his fate was sealed. His act of defiance transformed Rome into an empire.”
“That’s exactly what we’re saying, I think,” interrupted Howard. “If we don’t do something soon, we’ll pass the point of no return.”
“You misunderstand me,” said Willis calmly. “You
see, Caesar staked his own life and the lives of thousands who followed him because he knew the outcome would be worthy of the risk.”
Gary gave Howard the quiet sign again. Howard went back to gnawing the inside of his cheek.
“The part of the equation you are missing is that when this facility becomes fully operational, the matter-energy field will stabilize. A feedback loop will emerge, and the energy output of the reaction will pour into the void, filling and hence closing it.”
Howard couldn’t stand it any longer. “And what if we never stabilize the field?”
“Is that your worry? Really? Gary, is this also your concern?”
“Yes, if the phenomenon becomes self-sustaining, our calculations show that it will grow indefinitely.”
“Meaning it will eventually consume everything, the entire universe,” said Willis.
“Yes, it’s possible.”
“Let me ask you this: If we shut down Triton now, right this moment, what will happen to the void?”
“We believe it will stop growing,” said Gary, “as long as we isolate it from normal matter.”
“And what then?”
Gary looked confused.
“Shall this be our legacy to all future generations, a hole in time and space that must be perpetually observed and guarded, lest it consume everyone, everything—all of creation?”
“Unless someone in the future finds a way to reverse the effect,” Howard said.
“We could buy time until physics catches up,” Gary added.
“I’m glad we’re having this talk, because it’s clear to me now that you both understand the magnitude of this problem. And I want to assure you that I share your anxiety.”
“You do?” asked Howard astonished.
“Of course,” said Willis. He stepped around to the front of his desk and seated himself on its edge between the two younger men. “The phenomenon of the void is unquestionably the greatest threat to existence we have ever encountered. And we’re responsible—you, me, Kapopoulos, Freeman, and every individual who has conceived, built, and operated this facility. Driven by our relentless curiosity and empowered by our collective ingenuity, we have conjured this beast. Don’t you agree we have a moral obligation to cage and destroy it?”
