by Scott Jarol
“Did you see Dr. Willis’s hand?” she asked Nate as quietly as she could.
“What do you mean?” asked Nate, in his normal, loud voice.
“Shhh.” Several technicians looked her way.
“I mean, people are concentrating,” she said loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear her. “We should stay out of the way.”
She pulled Nate to the rear corner of the room. “The scar on Dr. Willis’s left hand—it’s just like Doc’s,” she said, pointing to the fleshy part of her own hand between the thumb and first finger.
“So they both got hurt. You heard him. This place is dangerous. He can’t see. It was probably an accident.”
Margaux remembered that Nate had no clue what had happened to Zeke and therefore no reason to suspect a similar connection between Willis and Doc. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“Is anyone else seeing this?” Dr. Chang was asking the other technicians. “Is someone running a simulation?”
One of the techs tapped some commands into her console. “Not a simulation. All three rings are drawing more load from the grid.”
“Who started the sequence?” asked Dr. Chang.
No one answered—bewildered looks all around.
“We still have people in there,” said Dr. Chang. “Let’s kill the startup cycle.”
“I think Triton is turning on,” Nate whispered to Margaux.
“But Ezekiel is down there,” said Margaux. “And Doc.”
“Wait—what’s Doc doing down there? How do you know?” asked Nate.
Dr. Chang was still in tense conversation with the technicians. “What’s taking so long? Shut it down.”
“There’s a lockout,” said the technician. “We have no control.”
“Howard!” Dr. Chang called over the intercom. “You have to get out of there.”
Howard didn’t answer.
“The Core’s gone into isolation,” said another technician. “Comms are down.”
Margaux’s eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
Dr. Chang answered without looking up from his console screen. “To protect against interference, Triton blocks all nonessential signals. Since no one is supposed to be in there when it’s operating, that includes the intercom system.”
“What about Zekie?” asked Mrs. Kapopoulos. “Someone help him.”
“I can’t let anyone else go down there, ma’am,” Dr. Chang said. “Howard knows what he’s doing. He’ll get them out.”
But the others! Margaux realized it was up to her.
“We have to get to Doc and Zeke,” she whispered to Nate. “They might not know what’s happening.”
Nate still looked puzzled. “How do you know Doc is down there?”
“He went ahead of us, with the other Zeke.”
“Other who?”
Margaux sighed impatiently. There wasn’t time for this. She nudged him a step or two farther away from the others for privacy. “Something happened at Doc’s house. There was this machine. There were beams and stuff. Then this gigantic explosion.”
Nate was looking at her as if she’d finally cracked.
“Nate, just take my word for it. Doc is down there. He told us to bring Ezekiel.”
“I don’t know,” said Nate in his usual loud voice, “I think Dr. Willis really wanted us to wait here. He said it was dangerous down there.”
Mrs. Kapopoulos covered her face with her hands.
Margaux glared at Nate. “Don’t scare Mrs. K.!”
“Sorry,” said Nate. He nodded in Dr. Chang’s direction. “That guy looks like he knows what he’s doing. Maybe we should tell him about Doc.”
Margaux glanced at Dr. Chang. He was still punching in commands while shaking his head. She could see the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching.
“I think he’s not so sure,” she said. “We’re going.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Okay, but I still think this might not be a good idea. I hope we don’t get in trouble.”
“Young man,” Mrs. Kapopoulos was asking. “What’s happening?”
“Just a glitch, ma’am,” said Dr. Chang. “For some reason, Triton must have automatically started up. It could have been a software bug, or someone made a mistake. But don’t worry. Until the beams come on, they can easily get out of there.”
He rolled his chair back suddenly to look beneath the console. Lucy was between his feet, pecking and tugging at his shoelaces like worms.
Margaux sent up a prayer of thanks to the little chicken. Thank you, Lucy, this was just the distraction we needed.
She scooped up Schrödinger and silently headed in the direction Willis had taken Ezekiel, beckoning the others to join her. When she discovered Mrs. Kapopoulos was still lost in thought, Margaux tiptoed quietly back and led her by the hand.
Dr. Chang was trying to shoo Lucy away by flapping his hand at her and tap dancing his feet under the desk. He looked up to discover the three visitors were missing. By the time he caught up with them, the elevator doors were already closing. His alarmed eyes met Margaux’s just as the doors pinched shut.
Chapter 30
Triton Core, North Star Laboratory
The elevator descended past floor after floor, once again agitating Margaux’s motion sick stomach. “How far down does this place go?” Margaux wondered aloud.
“I hope we don’t have to get back out of here in a hurry,” said Nate. “Stairs would be faster, if there are any.”
The elevator lurched to a stop at the lowest level, and Margaux and the others gaped in surprise. Cynthia stood waiting impatiently, twirling a piece of hair around one finger.
“There you are,” said Cynthia. “I was so worried that you guys might have burned up in the fire. The Chairman rescued us and I begged them to find you because we couldn’t just leave you there, but everything was falling down.” She paused to catch her breath. “Wait, where’s Ezekiel?”
“In there.” Margaux pointed at the massive vault door, painted with borders of black and yellow stripes and, across the middle, the words EXTREME DANGER – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in large red letters.
Cynthia waved the key card in the air. “Isn’t it so totally lucky I found this with Zeke’s stuff? You guys were in such a big hurry, he forgot his backpack.” Cynthia touched the card to the security scanner, and the doors rumbled apart.
They stepped up to the threshold.
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” asked Nate. “Was there a flash?”
Margaux swiveled her head like an owl. “Everything in the middle is dark. I don’t think it’s our eyes.” No matter where she directed her eyes, the dark spot remained in the same place.
Cynthia marched forward into the room, hands on her hips. “Ew, this place is so weird. Why doesn’t someone turn on the lights?”
“Who are you?” Howard looked over his shoulder with an expression of alarm as the others filed in behind Cynthia.
“What are you guys doing down here?” asked Ezekiel.
“We came to warn you that someone turned on Triton,” said Margaux.
“It had to be Willis,” said Howard. “He’s the only one who can override all the security systems. Bad things are going to happen. You shouldn’t be down here. Go back up to the control room. It’s the safest place.”
He and Ezekiel slid themselves feet first from under the dark orb.
“Gary, what are these guys doing down here?” Howard shouted, expecting an answer over the intercom.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Margaux said. “That’s why we came down here.”
“Okay, we’ll take one of the maintenance tunnels,” said Howard. “Whatever you do, stay away from the void, and never stand in front of those beam ports.” He pointed out several of the holes dotting the walls.
“That’s an awesome name,” said Nate. “The void.”
Margaux approached the dark boundary and held up her palm to it. She shuddered. “Not hot, not
cold.”
Beside her, Schrödinger sniffed at the void. He wasn’t fond of things that had no odor. He backed up, then retreated behind Mrs. Kapopoulos.
“A wormhole, maybe?” Nate wondered. “I wouldn’t get any closer, or you could end up floating around some star in another galaxy.”
“It’s not a wormhole,” said Howard. “Right now, we just need to get out of here.”
As if on cue, a voice seemed to fill the air, reverberating from all directions around the man-made cavern: Gone, and a million things leave no trace . . .
Margaux glanced questioningly at Howard.
“Willis likes to make an entrance,” said Howard.
Dr. Willis appeared high above them on the upper catwalk as he continued to recite:
Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind—
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me:
Now I know the pearl of the Buddha-nature
Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.
“Is it some kind of black hole?” asked Margaux.
“If it was a black hole, it would have already sucked up the whole planet—and the rest of the solar system, too,” Ezekiel said.
“And this conversation would not be taking place,” added Dr. Willis in a scholarly tone, as if lecturing to hundreds of students. “It’s quite the opposite of a black hole. A black hole compresses matter until its gravity becomes so concentrated that even light cannot escape. What you see here is the inverse of that, something so empty, so devoid of anything that it cannot even be called space.”
“If it’s not a black hole, and it’s not space, what is it?” asked Nate.
“Have you ever wondered what existed before the universe flashed into existence in the big bang, or what lies outside the universe?”
“That question makes no sense,” said Ezekiel, indignantly. “The universe is everything, so nothing can be outside of it.”
“The universe came into existence at a precise point in time 13.75 billion years ago,” said Nate.
“I must express to Principal Fairchild how impressed I am with the quality of her students.”
“She’ll be so super surprised to hear that,” said Margaux, mocking Cynthia.
“Yeah—so great,” Cynthia snapped back.
“Dr. Willis,” Howard interrupted, “it’s not safe down here. We need to get everyone out.”
“Plenty of time,” said Dr. Willis. “There will never be another opportunity like this. Is Ezekiel’s device installed?”
“Yes,” said Ezekiel.
Margaux was sure Doc was around somewhere, watching them, but she wasn’t so sure what he had in mind. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be going so well.
* * *
Zeke looked down on Ezekiel from above. Except in a mirror, he had never seen himself from the outside like this. It was like looking at a reflection that moved independently. But the other him never looked up in his direction. Was he too busy trying to save them all to pay attention to anyone else, or did he have a secret plan of his own?
“I can’t read his thoughts,” Zeke said to Doc.
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Doc. “You each have your own mind.”
From the upper catwalk, on the opposite side of the void from Dr. Willis, Zeke listened in on Dr. Willis’s explanation.
“The dark hole,” Zeke whispered to Doc, “you and my dad made it?”
“Something like it. This one is Willis’s creation. We had made a breakthrough. We were just starting to get barely more energy out of the system than we were putting in, but that tiny difference meant something was working. We got excited. We thought we could fine-tune it—boost the output. The void took us by surprise. It didn’t pop out in our calculations. Your dad took one look at it, and it was like he just knew what was happening. Before I could stop him, he did the math in his head and took care of it himself.”
Zeke had imagined his father in many ways, from quiet recluse to inspirational hero. When he asked his mother she could only say he loved them before drifting away into her own memories. The formulas and diagrams in his father’s notebook gave away nothing of his personality. From Doc he might learn whether his father was happy or sad, funny or serious, warm or detached. “So he was brave,” said Zeke.
“He was, I suppose. He didn’t think of it as courage. It was logical to him. I think he figured out what needed to be done and did it. And that was that.”
“But you were there.”
“Yes.”
“And nothing happened to you?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” said Doc. “I’ve never been the same since that moment.”
“If it was so dangerous, why did you rebuild the machine in your workshop?” asked Zeke.
“After the accident, Willis refused to give up.”
“Willis was there too?”
“He participated. And despite the hazards, he convinced some people—very powerful people—to continue funding the research. He declared it was for the good of humanity.” Doc scratched his beard. “He rebuilt the experiment, and it turned into Triton. I had to keep him from repeating our mistakes.”
“How?”
“Your dad was working on an idea,” said Doc. “It might have been the missing puzzle piece. I thought he’d taken his ideas with him into the void. And then you showed up with the QuARC. You were too young to remember anything he may have told you, so how did you figure it out?”
“I found one of his notebooks with some drawings. It looked mostly like a clump of wire,” said Zeke. “I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to find out, so I followed the diagrams and made it.”
Zeke could still remember imagining that he was playing back his father’s thoughts in his brain, as if his father were living in Zeke’s mind and they were building the device together. “After I finished it, there was a thunderstorm and I got a bad shock. It knocked me over. That’s when I figured out it was picking up electricity from the atmosphere.”
“Very smart,” said Doc. “You know, I only meant to borrow it.”
“Okay,” said Zeke.
“I needed it to stop Willis.”
“Okay,” Zeke repeated. “What will happen to my mom? And everyone?”
“The truth is I don’t know,” said Doc. “It depends on whether Willis accepts my offer.”
“What offer?”
“The one I’m going to make him.”
* * *
Ezekiel felt himself twisting up on the inside. Why couldn’t Dr. Willis just get on with it? He seemed to be stalling. His mother appeared to be drawing some conclusion of her own, her face tightening as she listened. Cynthia, who showed no interest in Dr. Willis’s philosophical diatribe, was prowling around, apparently scheming her next move. He’d need to keep an eye on her.
Dr. Willis was still rambling on. “Thus, if we’ve correctly deduced that the universe began at a specific moment, therefore, it must have followed some kind of nonexistence. That suggests it emerged from something or somewhere other than itself.”
“From some kind of nothing,” said Margaux.
Nate seemed to be having a hard time with the concept of nothingness. “That’s impossible.”
“But nothing is possible,” said Dr. Willis.
“You mean, nothing is impossible,” Ezekiel corrected him.
“No,” said Dr. Willis, “I mean precisely that nothing is something.”
“Isn’t space nothing?” asked Ezekiel.
“In fact, space as we know it is quite full, a seething quantum foam of virtual particles like unimaginably tiny soap bubbles, perpetually winking in and out of existence.”
“Then why does it seem empty?” asked Margaux.
“Does it? What do you see when you look up at the clear night sky?”
“Stars,” Margaux and Nate answered together.
While Cynthia continued circling the main floor, Ezekiel noticed that Margau
x kept looking up. What, or who, was she looking for?
“And how do you see those stars?”
“From their light,” said Ezekiel. He was barely paying attention but jumped in to rush things along.
“And what is light?”
“Particles,” said Ezekiel.
“Therefore, space must be filled with light particles, known as photons, along with other particles invisible to our senses,” said Dr. Willis. “The airless vacuum is empty only to us humans because it lacks the density of certain gases required to sustain our lives. It’s simply our perspective, biased and incomplete.”
Dr. Willis strolled as casually as a tour guide around the black void until he disappeared behind it. “What do you see when you peer directly into this phenomenon?”
“Nothing,” said Margaux.
“We define the universe as that which comprises everything that was, is, or ever can be. Yet in this phenomenon before you, this void, you observe nothing, the true absence of anything. Your only point of reference is that immediately adjacent to this absolute nothingness, and all around it, is something. That which does not exist can be perceived only by comparison to what does exist. What you are observing is the edge of the universe.”
Ezekiel’s mother edged slightly closer to the void. He could hear her whispering his father’s name. Schrödinger nudged her ankles, and with a quick bark, urged her to step back.
“You are among the very few living beings to have seen the edge of the universe.”
Although the void was spherical from any angle, to Ezekiel it looked like a bottomless hole hanging in midair. Its impenetrable darkness gave no hint of its surface, no reflections or shading to divulge its third dimension.
“How can it be the edge of the universe?” asked Nate. “Isn’t it kind of inside it?”
“That’s true if you think only in three spatial dimensions,” said Dr. Willis. “The universe isn’t easily comprehended by our simple human brains.”
