The Null Prophecy

by Michael Guillen

  Her mind was in overdrive. “But then, what about all the other strandings? Does it mean—?”

  “Hold on.” Major Brody held up a hand. “What other strandings?”

  FRIDAY, APRIL 28 (8:57 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

  CANADIAN FORCES STATION ALERT; NUNAVUT, CANADA

  The major was surprised to hear strandings were happening in four other places throughout the world. “As I said,” he explained, “we’ve been cut off for the past several days.” Immediately, he led Calder and her to a large room at the back of the red and gold building.

  “This is our magnetograph,” he said, pointing to a piece of equipment, the likes of which Allie recognized. “We use it to monitor the magnetic field above the Arctic, twenty-four-seven.” He walked them over to a metal table atop which was a long strip of paper. “Here’s the first thing I want to show you: this is the printout of what just happened to the field, right when you guys arrived. Look here.” He traced the jagged line graph with his finger. “Here, as you can see, the field has virtually disappeared—then suddenly—right here—it comes back to life. Like Lazarus in the Bible.”

  Her thoughts were racing, stumbling over one another.

  Could it be?

  But it’s impossible!

  “Let me show you something else, just as puzzling.” He led them to a nearby computer monitor and hit some keys. “Our Internet just came back, so I can show you this. It’s a false-color image of Earth’s entire magnetosphere, not just the polar region.” He zoomed in on the image. “You see those red smudges?”

  To her they looked like a face full of red sores. “What are they?”

  But then she took note of their locations.

  Sweet lord!

  “They’re magnetic holes in the making,” the major said. “And they coincide perfectly with the coordinates of the strandings you just told me about. They’re small now, only a few miles across, but—”

  “Wait. What are you saying?” Calder said.

  “That the world is in trouble,” she interjected, “serious trouble.”

  Calder turned from her to the officer. “Major?”

  “She’s right. If the field keeps thinning out over those locations, they’ll experience the same things we have.”

  She locked eyes with Brody. “And not just beached whales, right? You never answered my question, major. What happened to those animals out there?”

  FRIDAY, APRIL 28 (9:21 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

  “Please, have a seat,” Brody said, gesturing to the room’s well-worn furniture. “We can talk more comfortably in here.”

  Before answering her question about the singed animal corpses, he’d hustled them out of the red and gold structure, across the station grounds, to the main building, and into his cluttered office.

  “Yesterday a terrible thing happened here,” he began, settling into a rickety wooden swivel chair behind his desk. “We’re still trying to figure it out; but we lost one person—the biologist I mentioned to you earlier, Dr. Becky. Another scientist was hurt, a visitor from the States.”

  A wave of chills coursed through her body. “What’s his name?”

  “Dr. O’Malley—Dallan O’Malley.”

  She leapt from her armchair. “Oh, my gosh! I know him! He’s my brother-in-law.”

  The major looked dumbly at her.

  “He’s married to my sister. Where is he? Is he all right?”

  She was surprised by how genuinely she cared to know, given her current resentment of him.

  “Well he went through a lot, I can tell you that,” Brody said, still looking dumbstruck. “But he’ll survive. I can arrange for you to see him.”

  “Yes, that’d be great, thank you.”

  Brody hesitated. “Do you want to do that now? Or do you want to hear what happened to him first? And the animals, too?”

  She resumed her seat. “No, please go ahead.”

  “Yes, please,” Calder agreed, looking every bit as astonished by the coincidence as the major.

  “Well, as I said, we’re still debriefing Dr. O’Malley, still trying to piece together exactly what happened. But from what he tells us, yesterday in the late afternoon, at the nadir of the magnetic crisis—right when the field totally disappeared—we believe unfiltered solar radiation poured through the hole with so much power it made it all the way down to the ground. I imagine it must’ve been something like a bomb, a dirty bomb, maybe.”

  She noticed Calder shift uncomfortably in his seat and began twisting her hair.

  It’s awful.

  He’s thinking of Nell.

  “And that’s what happened to the animals out on the ice?” she said, still eying Calder.

  “Yes, we think so, poor creatures. The only mercy is it probably happened in the wink of an eye.”

  She turned to the major. “What about Dallan? Was he burned too?”

  “That’s the miraculous part. He said it looked like a giant, fiery twister and acted like a tornado. When a tornado barrels through a town, its destruction can be selective—one house could be blown to smithereens while the one next to it could be left untouched. When the twister made landfall it got Dr. Becky but not him.”

  The room fell silent for a long moment.

  Allie, still worrying her hair, finally said, “Can I see him now?”

  “Of course.” Brody stood up. “Oh, my gosh, he’s going to be surprised.”

  FRIDAY, APRIL 28 (9:41 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

  “Here it is.” Brody gestured to Dallan’s room.

  She turned to Calder. “You sure you don’t want to meet him?”

  “No, you go ahead.”

  The major cracked open the door and poked his head inside. “Someone here to see you.” Then he backed away and let her go in alone.

  “Allie?!”

  Dallan, lying in bed under khaki-colored sheets looked as shocked as if he’d seen a ghost. His forehead and right hand were swathed in white bandages.

  She swallowed hard.

  Be nice.

  “Hey, Bro. Surprise!”

  “Yeah, but how—where—??”

  She walked to his bedside and quickly filled him in on how they got there. She refrained from mentioning anything about Lorena.

  He whistled. “That’s unbelievable. This has to be the craziest thing you’ve ever done—and you’ve done some pretty crazy things.”

  “Yeah, well—can I sit down?”

  “Of course, please. I still can’t believe you’re real.”

  She took the only seat in the room. “I’ve got some other stuff to tell you, but first, tell me about you. I hear you survived a killer tornado of some sort? Are you okay? You look pale, but honestly I was expecting way worse, given what the major told us.”

  “Just bruises and some minor burns is all; nothing serious.” His expression turned dark. “My friend wasn’t so lucky. It was horrible. That’s the worst part; I can’t get the images out of my head.” He shook his head quickly as if to rid himself of the memories. “Anyway, I’ll be fine. I just heard about the storm—that it’s gone. I’m arranging to fly back to Boulder. I’ve been away for a week. They probably think I’m dead.”

  Allie, straightening in the chair, cleared her throat. “Dallan, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  Minutes later, after bringing him up to speed on Lorena, she stood. “I hate to lay it all on you like this, but since you’ve been cut off for—”

  He waved his hands. “No, no, you had to. But, please—just give me a few moments to digest everything, okay? Wow.” He made an effort to prop himself up on the pillows.

  She watched, wavered—

  Be Christian.

  She helped him sit up.

  “Thanks.”

  “Of course.”

  She sauntered to the window. Her impulse to vent on Dallan was gone. He looked so miserable. So defeated.

  Besides, if her sudden suspicions about the mission, about . . .

&nb
sp; But it can’t be true.

  It’s ridiculous.

  It’s just a coincidence.

  She stared out at the bleak landscape.

  The middle of nowhere.

  We need to get back to San Diego.

  I need to think this through; do some calculations.

  Oh, Lord, help me.

  Help us all.

  “Allie, I don’t know what to say.”

  She held her gaze out the window.

  “First off, I’m really ashamed of myself.” His voice faltered. “I don’t know why my life was spared—Becky’s the one who deserved to live, not me. But yesterday I made the decision that when I got back home I was going to meet with Lolo and see if we couldn’t work things out.”

  She wheeled. “What? Why the change of heart?”

  He looked away. “It’s—it’s something Becky said to me yesterday. Out on the ice. I’d never thought about it that way.”

  “Thought about what, what way?”

  He turned to her, but she could see it in his eyes: his mind was a thousand miles away. “Allie, it’s just that—you’re a Christian, right?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Trying to be.”

  “So you know all about the importance of forgiveness, right?”

  What is he babbling about?!

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m a Christian—I don’t know what I am, really. But for most of my grown-up life I’ve been carrying this guilt because of my childhood, you know?”

  Oh, Lord, here we go again, the sob story.

  “Allie, I felt really guilty about filing for divorce, okay? But I wanted to escape. Your sister was talking about having a family. It scared the bejeezus out of me. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran away—just like my old man.”

  “Dallan, you don’t need to tell—”

  “No, please, just listen. I don’t think it’s a coincidence you’re here. It’s spooky, really, because it’s just what I needed.”

  She wanted to leave. “Dallan—”

  “Allie, what I’m trying to say is yesterday out there on that ice”—he jabbed his bandaged right hand toward the window—“I was brought to my knees, literally, and I forgave my dad. For the first time in my life, I forgave my dad. I let him go. Set myself free. And now—right here, right now—I want to say I’m so sorry to you for the hurt I’ve caused Lolo and the entire family.” He locked eyes with hers. “I love Lolo, Allie. Can you please forgive me?”

  She hesitated. “Dallan, I’m not the one who—”

  There was knocking at the door. A voice from behind it said, “Dr. O’Malley. Your plane is ready whenever you are.”

  Dallan didn’t take his eyes off Allie. “Okay, thank you.”

  She walked up to his bed and rested her hands on the sheets. “Dallan, I love my sister—and if anything happens to her . . .”

  Be Christian!

  “ . . . but I’m trying to be a good Christian. So, yes, Dallan, I’m going to try hard to forgive you.” She folded her arms and stood up straight. “At the same time, Brother, you say you’ve changed? You say you love Lolo? I’m going to need to see some evidence of that before I can believe you.”

  FRIDAY, APRIL 28 (10:27 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

  The lumbering Snowcat came to a stop alongside Hero. The craft was still right where they’d left her: tied to a stake driven into the rocky beach.

  She, Calder, and Brody hopped off.

  “Thanks for the lift,” she said, eager to head home.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Calder said.

  “She’s a beauty, all right,” the major remarked, walking up to Hero and giving her the once over. “How did you say she works?”

  Allie rushed to unlock the windshield.

  “It’s actually pretty simple,” Calder said, pulling the stake out of the ground. “I’ve come up with a way to tap into the vacuum’s virtual energy fields.”

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Brody said, his hand shooting up. “In English, please. I’m a military guy, not a scientist.”

  Heaving open the windshield, Allie decided to help speed up the conversation. “According to quantum mechanics, a true vacuum is not really nothing. It’s filled with invisible energy fields. Science calls them ‘virtual’ fields. Dr. Sinclair here has figured out a way to tap into that energy.”

  Brody laughed. “No kidding. Sounds like science fiction to me.”

  “Except it’s real,” Calder said, stowing away the metal stake and mooring rope in Hero’s rear compartment. “We’ve traveled around the world literally on an empty gas tank.”

  “That’s right,” she said, donning her helmet. “According to physics, it is possible to get something from nothing. In fact, cosmologists think it’s how the universe began.”

  Brody was rubbing his chin, looking skeptical. “No way.”

  Eager to bring this elementary back-and-forth to a close and shove off, she said, “Think of it this way: in the beginning was the vacuum and the vacuum was with God and the vacuum was God.” She stepped into the rear passenger compartment and, addressing Brody as she might an undergrad back at Harvard, delivered the punch line of her deliberately theatrical soliloquy. “Then the vacuum swelled like a pregnant woman and whoosh! The universe was born.”

  Calder smiled at Brody. “It’s called the big bang.”

  CHAPTER 23

  UNWELCOME VISITORS

  FRIDAY, APRIL 28 (7:27 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  Jared sat up and stretched. He ached all over.

  He spent a quiet night sleeping amongst cleaning equipment inside a huge, unoccupied building he found shortly after arriving on the base. With luck, he discovered a small back door that was unlocked.

  Slowly, groggily, he surveyed the building’s dusky interior, squinting for a better look. It was a hangar of some sort, converted into what appeared to be a fancy research lab.

  He took out his cell phone and glanced at the screen: Friday, April 28, 7:27 a.m.

  Then it hit him.

  Maggie.

  Oh, Maggie!

  He crumpled back into his hidey-hole, all the grisly images and details of the previous day’s nightmare inundating him. For a long while he stayed there, rocking back and forth.

  At last he forced himself to sit up.

  C’mon, deal with it.

  Focus!

  May 1 was only, what? Two days away. He needed to lay low until then.

  He contemplated his scheme’s big finale after the G-20 protest. His mind flashed to his thirteenth birthday.

  Oh, Maggie.

  Focus!

  It was immediately following Maggie’s horrifying revelation on his thirteenth birthday that he set his mind on liberating himself and anyone else oppressed by extreme wealth. He vowed to make things right in the world, to help the ninety-nine percent suffering at the hands of the arrogant one percent.

  Very quickly his online research taught him about a worldwide army of hacker-activists, or hacktivists, called Anonymous, the “final boss of the Internet.” They called themselves defenders of freedom—above all, free knowledge and free speech.

  With swelling amazement he read about the group’s 2008 assault on Scientology’s main computer system using, among other cyber-weapons, software called Low Orbit Ion Cannon; their 2010 denial-of-service attacks that disabled computer systems belonging to PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard; their 2011 subversive, online protests that helped stoke the Arab Spring unrest in Egypt, leading to the resignation of President Mubarak; and on and on.

  Equally impressive to him was the hacktivism of an Australian lone wolf named Julian Assange, who’d begun his work using the handle Mendax. As a young man Assange was widely credited with hacking a NASA computer system and using it to reposition one of its orbiting satellites.

  In 2006 Assange founded a nonprofit organization called WikiLeaks, which published hacked information on the Web—sometimes with
powerful consequences. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election Assange released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee ultimately causing the resignation of its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

  Jared also read about a super-brash black hat hacking group called LulzSec, which beginning in 2011 successfully attacked computer systems belonging to Fast, PBS, a bunch of UK banks, the U.S. Senate, the CIA, police stations, and many others.

  Learning about all this hacktivism, he quickly became convinced the most awesome instrument of liberation at his disposal was right in front of him: computers.

  That’s when he began to conceive Quantum I.

  He grinned to himself, picturing the scene on May 1, a split-second after midnight. He imagined himself being interviewed by an awestruck reporter. Maybe that same woman, Allie Armendariz.

  “So how did you pull it off, Jared?”

  He would smirk. “By realizing that in today’s computerized world the most powerful weapon on the planet is the keyboard. From a living room, anyone with the right smarts can wreak havoc on the status quo—instantaneously, through the Web.

  “Think of history’s wickedest viruses—Storm, Melissa, ILOVEYOU, Sasser & Netsky, MyDoom—on steroids. Then think of a Trojan horse so monstrous, so indestructible no computer security system, no antivirus program on the market could possibly defeat it.

  “At the appointed moment, my Quantum I chip released a Trojan horse exactly like that into cyberspace, where it began cloning itself. The clones spread like a plague, riding the Internet at the speed of light, attaching themselves to websites, e-mails, documents, infecting every computer, TV, printer, smartphone, and server on the planet. Then quietly, qubit by qubit, they began unraveling the global oligarchy.

  “First, the clones produced a denial-of-service worm, which caused government and corporate websites to crash. Then the clones seized control of the computer systems of Fortune 500 companies and their equivalents worldwide, turning them into zombies. Now, under my control, those computers are coughing up their innermost industrial and financial secrets—all of which we’re posting on NeuroNet’s website.”