The Deplosion Saga

by Paul Anlee

  He strode back to the grayish bubble separating him from Darian. “You can’t beat me. You know that, right? You might be smarter and faster but I have much, much more experience with this system. I know what it’s capable of, and what it’s not capable of. You have only theory.”

  He banged in some new commands and the bubble compression resumed. This time, instead of a smoothly shrinking sphere, the microverse jumped from one change to another every few seconds. It shrank several percent, and then inflated a few percent. Its net movement, though, was definitely working toward collapse.

  He’s attached the series to a random number generator–Darian thought. He knew the algorithms intimately. While they might appear random to the uninitiated, they were reasonably predictable as long as they were tied to the internal calculations of the microprocessor. He examined the changes to the radius of the field and tried to match the values of the pseudorandom seed number.

  Darian worked out the sequence and generated opposing fields to the collapsing steps. The random oscillations of the gray sphere slowed in frequency, and the radius began to grow as Darian permitted certain favorable RAF changes to pass without interference.

  Larry watched the growing sphere, momentarily confused.

  Only a few more steps and the laws inside will match the natural universe again! Darian would be free in less than a minute.

  Larry punched in new commands. Only seconds had passed since Darian figured out the pseudorandom field generation, and already the gray microverse had nearly regained its original size.

  “Yes!” Larry cried out, and pushed a final key. The field instantly collapsed by thirty percent, and then another twenty percent.

  Darian employed countermeasures, trying to follow the rapid changes Larry was generating, but he couldn’t keep up. The field shrunk another ten percent, and another. He now stood under a meter tall.

  The field collapsed a further fifty percent. Changes were coming too fast and the steps were too large. Darian couldn’t get enough samples to counter the rapid changes.

  Larry pushed another key, got up from behind the desk, strolled over to address the gray, translucent sphere containing a very small Darian.

  “Nothing more to say, Professor?” Larry waited for an answer but there was none. He returned to the desk and pressed a final key. The sphere shrunk to a few centimeters.

  Darian screamed in frustration, sending out wave after wave of random changes to the fields, hoping against hope that something he did would disrupt the collapse of the microverse or buy more time to work, but the collapse was inevitable.

  Darian knew he was done. I can’t keep up with all of these changing configurations Larry keeps throwing at me.

  The next change shrunk the microverse to a millimeter. In a final act of desperation, Darian dumped himself—everything he knew, everything he remembered, everything he was—into one final lattice transmission to the only people he trusted.

  The data that comprised the essence of Darian Leigh poured out of him on multiple channels in uncoordinated, overlapping chunks, seeking paths along any available transmission modality to its intended destination. It took up temporary residence wherever there was available memory: in bits of lab equipment, in cell phones, in smart appliances, in HVAC systems, in automobile navigation systems, in inactive computers all over the lower mainland.

  Darian sent whatever he could, as fast as he could, but there was too much data and not enough time. Then an idea occurred to him, maybe a way to survive the collapse. He had one last hope to preserve the integrity of his essence—not by fighting against the fields that were destroying the very matter he was made of, but by accepting this new universe into which he was being forced. He smiled one final, peaceful, microscopic smile and sent a new configuration to his RAF generator.

  In the lab, Larry watched the gray bubble shrink beyond the threshold of visibility. Gone! He stared at the empty spot where the microverse had been. His triumph was complete.

  Now, I’d better get out of here, too. He walked back to the desk, shut everything down, and tucked the laptop inside his backpack.

  Grabbing his coat off the back of the chair, he took one last look around the lab that had been his second home for the past half year and departed.

  29

  Larry didn’t answer the doorbell or his cell phone.

  “Larry! It’s Greg! C’mon, dude, get up! It works! Hey, let’s go! Larry, are you in there?” He pounded on the wooden door of the basement suite but only succeeded in waking up the neighbors. They were none too pleased about Larry’s rowdy pre-dawn visitor.

  “Hey! Do you mind? Shut up down there!” A window slammed shut immediately above their heads, making Greg and Kathy jump.

  “He’s either out cold or he didn’t make it home last night. Let’s go,” Kathy suggested.

  “Yeah, I guess. Hang on a sec, maybe the window’s open,” Greg pushed at the flimsy aluminum frame but it held tight. They cupped their hands around their eyes and tried to peer in past the cheap cotton curtains, but couldn’t see or hear anything that gave them reason to stay. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  Great. Chalk up yet another reason for Larry to be resentful. Well, he can’t say we didn’t try—Greg grumbled to himself. They got in the car and headed out to the expressway.

  “It’s weird that he’s not answering his phone,” Kathy said. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine. Probably just switched it off. He used to do that all the time. You’ll see. He either crashed at the lab or on somebody’s sofa.” They rode the rest of the way in silence; it was still too early in the morning for sensible conversation.

  Greg signaled, slowed down, and turned into the university parking lot.

  The flood of data hit their lattices without warning.

  Flashes of speculative physics, RAF electronics, and new designs for dendy lattices mixed with memories of a childhood that neither of them had lived and washed over them in an exquisitely painful, mind-wrenching torrent.

  Halfway through the turn, Greg’s brain became completely inundated. Without meaning to, he let go of the steering wheel and gripped his head. Darian’s desperate outpouring overtook his own sensory input, and the whirlwind of images wrested away his consciousness. He heard voices crying out, and it took him a moment to recognize them as his own and Kathy’s.

  Unguided, the car rolled into a shallow ditch and came to rest against a spruce sapling. The two scientists were too busy fighting for their sanity and their identities to notice.

  As soon as the first few gigabytes had begun pushing their way into their consciousness, Kathy had understood what was happening. Darian is dying!

  She knew but, with all the incoming data, it was too much to process. She fought for control over a small part of her lattice and, for a split second, stemmed the incoming jumble of thoughts, images, sounds, and emotions. The narrow window was all she needed to assign her lattice the specific task of deactivating her external communications, and then she gave in to the stream.

  Three more excruciating seconds passed before the isolated subroutine managed to stop the incoming rush completely.

  Kathy felt her muscles relax and she slumped in her seat, letting her mind recover from the shock of trying to process all that data. She looked over at her partner, and managed a weak, “Greg? You okay?”

  He was hunched over the steering wheel, unmoving. The windshield is intact. No sign of blood—she noted. Using what was left of her strength, she reached out to touch his arm.

  As her fingers neared his sleeve, Greg let out an incoherent grunt and pitched backward, bolt upright in his seat. He grabbed both sides of his head, arched back further than she thought physically possible, and opened his mouth in a silent scream of agony. She shook him roughly and screamed, “Greg!” but couldn’t break him out of it.

  Desperate, she wrapped her subroutine in a viral program, opened her lattice long enough to send the package into the data torrent, and
shut it down again.

  Greg’s body remained in catatonic rigor a moment longer and then, as suddenly as it had begun, he was free. He sagged back into the seat, exhausted and wracked by both mental and physical pain, and barely holding onto consciousness. Kathy tenderly wiped the saliva from his chin with her sleeve, and sank back into her own seat. She was conscious but still in shock.

  Greg lolled his head in her direction. “What…was that?” he croaked.

  30

  Four days after Darian learned the truth and paid the ultimate price, a private car delivered Larry to the Austin home of Reverend Alan LaMontagne. Larry was tired but relieved. He’d made it to safety.

  The morning he’d sentenced Darian to what he considered a unique and fitting death, he’d gone straight to a payphone and called the Reverend’s private number.

  “I have to get out now. Right now,” he’d said after identifying himself and apologizing for the early hour.

  “What happened?” LaMontagne asked.

  “Darian is dead. Gone forever. I did it, and I have to get out of here right away.”

  To his credit, LaMontagne did not panic. “Do you have the RAF device?”

  “Yes, I do.” Larry heard the Reverend’s relieved sigh.

  “Good. Do you have a car?”

  “I can rent one.”

  “Okay. Very good. Here’s what you’ll do. Can you find where Interstate 40 crosses the border into the New Confederacy between Flagstaff and Albuquerque?”

  “I can read a map.”

  “Good. It’ll take you about three days to get there. Use your own passport at the crossing. Our people are in place on both sides of the border, and they’ll let you through without recording the fact. Someone will meet you on the New Confederacy side and take you to a hotel in Albuquerque. You can leave your car at the border station; it will be taken care of. Do you have enough money?”

  “I can stop at the ATM before I leave.”

  “Good. Use only cash, no credit cards, on your trip down. Travel as lightly as possible. You won’t need anything else, just your basic toiletries and such. Stop as little as possible and don’t use your real name anywhere; I mean it. Be careful. Don’t get stopped by the police.”

  “How do I make that happen?”

  “Drive carefully. Don’t speed. Eat and rest when you need to. Relax and try not to stand out. There’s a lot of traffic along that road. It’s easy to cruise right through without drawing attention to yourself if you just act normally.”

  “They’ll think I’m missing along with Darian. My picture will be all over the news.”

  “You’d better shave your head and buy some glasses.”

  “I don’t need glasses.”

  “Neutral prescription or sunglasses, then. That should be enough. It’s not a long trip.”

  “No, you’re right, it’s not. I’ll be fine.”

  “Very well. After you’ve had a chance to rest up in Albuquerque, my people will put you on a flight to Austin.”

  “A flight? Won’t they flag my passport?”

  “No, it’ll be a private plane, and the flight will be entirely inside the New Confederacy. Besides, the airport staff is loyal to our Church.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Larry bit his bottom lip. “I guess that’s about all. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Yes. And, Larry, thank you. You’ve done this country and this Church a great service.”

  The drive was long but no one paid Larry any attention along the way. He kept checking the news on the radio, TV screens, and websites when he stopped to eat.

  His and Darian’s disappearances weren’t reported until Monday afternoon. They were portrayed as Missing Persons, as a mystery. Foul play wasn’t ruled out but no one suspected murder just yet.

  Darian Leigh’s face dominated the reports—way too much coverage for Larry’s liking—with only minimal attention devoted to Darian’s assistant researcher. Larry wasn’t sure whether to feel peeved or relieved.

  Reporters hounded Greg and Kathy at first, but soon tired when they found the two had little to add to the initial report. The general public’s interest rapidly died down, as well. Missing scientists didn’t grab headlines the way missing celebrities did.

  Larry felt a twinge of nostalgia when he saw his photo alongside his three former colleagues in a front-page story about their work and the disappearances. He tapped his finger over the photo; the reporter had somehow procured their old security-identification headshots from a happier time when the team first came together.

  He was sure his mom would be worried sick by his unexplained disappearance. Once he got settled in the New Confederacy, he’d call and let her know he was okay. The Reverend will help me come up with a good story. He was certain of it.

  At dusk on the third evening, Larry reached the Arizona-New Mexico border crossing and, in keeping with the Reverend’s instructions, dutifully presented his passport.

  The official eyed the document, and then took a closer look at the person presenting it. “Please step inside, sir.”

  Larry felt his stomach crawl into his throat. All of his life, whether he’d had anything to hide or not, if someone in Customs, Security, or law enforcement asked him to “please…” well, pretty much anything, it caused him to break into a nervous sweat. This time, he had plenty to hide.

  He shifted his weight back and forth from left foot to right foot, then heel to toe, and back again, while the security guard read the note attached to his file in the database and called his supervisor. The supervisor came over and the two of them eyed Larry closely. They re-checked his passport, and reviewed the computer screen. After a brief, whispered discussion, the supervisor motioned at Larry to sit down, picked up the phone, and made a call.

  Larry chose the first available seat in the waiting area—a hard, orange plastic chair that was attached from below by a single metal bar to five equally uncomfortable chairs. The chairs seemed designed to throw people off balance psychologically as much as physically. He waited as calmly as he could, trying to appear casual and unconcerned. As such, he stood out as the most conspicuous person in the room.

  Five minutes later, a tall, well-groomed man in a dark suit left the corresponding New Confederacy border station and walked the twenty-five meters to the Pacifica side. He conferred briefly with the supervisor, who pointed to Larry, who now sat fidgeting like a six year old in his uncomfortable orange plastic chair in the Waiting Area. The man in the dark suit came around the counter and approached Larry.

  “Dr. Rusalov?”

  “That’s me,” Larry replied, sounding more chipper than he felt.

  “Leave your vehicle here and come with me, please.”

  “But my things are in there.”

  “Your instructions were to travel light.”

  “I don’t have much, but Reverend LaMontagne will want me to bring my backpack.”

  The man regarded him coolly. “Please don’t mention that name again,” he said. “Is the backpack all you have?”

  Larry considered for a moment. “I can fit everything I need in there. Give me a second.”

  The man followed him to the vehicle, where Larry moved his shaving kit and a change of clothes into his backpack. He slung the pack over one shoulder and closed the trunk of the car. “Where should I leave the keys?”

  The man held out his hand. Larry felt the weight of the keys, more than physically, as he handed them over. His apartment keys and three for the lab shared the ring. They belonged to his old life now. He let them go.

  Larry kept his head down and his eyes straight ahead as they passed through the Pacifica border. On the way by the office, the man in the dark suit dropped Larry’s keys into the hands of the supervisor. The two men nodded respectfully, neither uttering a word.

  The man in the dark suit escorted Larry the extra few steps into his new country, the New Confederacy, without ceremony or comment.

  Almost giddy with relief, Larry risked a glance bac
k at Pacifica in time to see the first border guard start up the abandoned rental car and drive it off the road into the desert. Don’t read too much into it—he assured himself.

  The man in the dark suit opened the passenger door of a nondescript dark sedan, made his way around to the driver’s side, and got behind the wheel. Larry claimed his seat, arranged his backpack between his feet, and buckled up.

  The two-hour drive into Albuquerque felt lonelier than the previous three combined. The man in the dark suit resisted all attempts at conversation, and wouldn’t allow Larry to adjust the station on the radio. They were tuned in to “Rockin’ Country” the entire journey. Thankfully, the radio was set to a nearly inaudible volume.

  The only thing he learned from the man in the dark suit was that his name was “Jeff.” Larry doubted that was his real name. What did it matter? He slumped against the door and slept most of the way into the city.

  They passed a night in some nondescript motor hotel on the edge of Albuquerque. The next morning, “Jeff” took Larry to the airport where they boarded a private jet to Austin. “Jeff”, Larry, and the two pilots were the only ones onboard. Hot breakfast trays waited at the separate seats to which he and “Jeff” were directed. The two men ate in silence. After breakfast, Larry stared out the window at the land unfurling far below and pondered his future.

  He had considered destroying the RAF generator and Darian’s server along with it until he realized that doing so would end his own scientific career as well. Instead, before leaving the city, he used the controller laptop to log into the server from home and download everything he could. As he made his own copy, he erased everything behind.

  It wasn’t so much that research into the physical laws of nature was inherently evil. Done with conscience and guidance, it was just another way to come to understand the mind of God.