by Gary Ballard
Bridge marveled at the sheer naivete of these incredibly intelligent people. “Do you know how many people this would put out of work? Do you realize the kind of leg-breaking assholes in the construction industry you’d threaten if this ever went to market?”
Lydia’s earnest response was almost painfully innocent. “But those displaced workers can go on to learn a more lucrative, less labor-intensive trade. They don’t need to toil in such dangerous conditions…”
“Mmmmm, innocence, it tastes like candy. Look lady, you ever heard the expression ‘somebody’s got to dig ditches?’ Well, some people, that’s all they know and all they want to know. You think they give two fucks about improving their education? They want their GlobalNet titties, they want their reality vids, they want to drink and fuck themselves into a stupor every night until the day they die with as little hassle as possible.”
Lydia huffed. “I fail to see why we should retard human progress because some humans are lazy, lice-picking monkeys.” She turned quickly on her heels and continued on down the corridor.
“Because those lice-picking monkeys will burn your fucking house down,” Bridge yelled at her retreating back. Janicki smirked with cold humor and followed her.
As they penetrated further into the areas of the complex affected by the nanotech constructors, Bridge began to notice the thrumming hum of electricity. It grew in intensity until his fillings practically vibrated. It was as if the very air was supercharged with electricity, the constructors’ power needs so great they created a web of static charge that made his interface jack tingle. Finally, they reached a set of double doors and pushed through into a lab unlike anything Bridge had ever seen.
The room he entered had originally been very large but these geeks’ experiments with nano-constructors had made it cavernous. The lab was constructed as two interlocking rings. The outer ring was a series of workstations, crèches, and white boards. A barrier of transparent safety glass walls protected the outer ring from the machinery of the inner ring, which was full of robotic arms, worktables, assemblers, laser mechanisms and other machinery Bridge couldn’t identify. At one point in the near past, however, the roof had been destroyed. The nano-constructors were hard at work stabilizing and restructuring a new internal configuration. Where there had been at least three floors above this lab, now there was only a metallic silo reaching to the sky. That silo was filled with light, the shimmering light Bridge had seen rising from the tower to feed the dome. The shaft of light terminated in a machine about six feet tall by ten feet wide in the center of the inner lab. The machine was lined with glowing circuits and capacitors and appeared to have no moving external parts whatsoever. Oblivious to the marvel glowing behind him, another scientist toiled at one of the worktables on the far side of the machine.
Standing barely five foot eight, the scientist was balding, his shiny scalp showing through a halo of graying brown hair. Dressed in a lab coat with goggles reflecting the sparks his experiment produced, he waved his empty hands in the air as if working with invisible tools, manipulating the robotic arms of a constructor just as Wong had controlled his football players. “Mark,” Lydia shouted across the room. The man jumped as if shocked and stopped working.
“Oh, didn’t see you there,” he muttered. “Is this him?” He threw off his goggles excitedly and ran over to greet Bridge.
“Yes, Mark Balfour… excuse me, DR. Mark Balfour,” Lydia began. Balfour waved away the honorific with an irritated gesture. “Meet Artemis Bridge. He likes to be called Bridge. No Mister.”
Balfour reached out both his hands to give Bridge a handshake which Bridge clumsily refused. “Sorry, don’t do handshakes. Germs, nanoviruses, never know what somebody’s going to give you.”
“Nonsense, these things are sterile as a surgeon’s scalpel.” He held up his hands, both of which glimmered in the light, their metallic surfaces as smooth and shiny as any cybernetic limbs Bridge had ever seen. Though mildly insulted, Balfour accepted Bridge’s phobia. “Fair enough, then. I’m glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
Bridge’s eyes narrowed into a suspicious squint. “From who? Who the hell told you about me?”
Balfour seemed to ignore the question momentarily. “entarilyForgive our manners. Tea? Coffee? I’m sure you must be parched after walking all that way to get here.” When Bridge refused, he prattled on. “We have a mutual friend, Mr. Bridge. I’m sure you are familiar with Michael Freeman?”
Bridge scowled. “Freeman. That shut-in gave you my name?”
Balfour nodded. “Yes, Michael was kind enough to provide me with a full accounting of your services. He’s quite impressed with your ability to… bullshit shall we say?”
“Yeah, I bet he is.” Freeman was the god of hackers, a world-class GlobalNet runner of exemplary skills. He had saved both Bridge’s and Angela’s lives during the election fiasco, providing the leverage Bridge needed to escape from a no-win situation. Freeman wasn’t just an accomplished credcrasher, information thief and all-around security expert, he was an interplanetary genius. Despite his past and present illegal activities, he worked for Chronosoft in Los Angeles. Bridge wasn’t exactly sure what parts of the corporation’s operations he didn’t have a hand in. Bridge also wasn’t sure when or if Freeman ever slept because he’d work just as tirelessly on his freelance projects outside of work as he did anything during office hours. And because Freeman had done Bridge such a huge solid before, Bridge was now stuck in this mess. He cursed the hacker silently. “How do you know Freeman?”
“Michael was a student of mine at UCLA years ago. We kept in touch. I’ve been known to get his thoughts on a few thorny problems. He has an absolutely breathtaking ability to analyze systems and point out the flaws, even in areas he’s not well-versed in. I’m hesitant to name him a super-genius, but he would certainly qualify. I think he’s a mutant, personally, a once in a generation evolutionary marvel with astounding mental capabilities. Why he spends his time working for those corporate bloodsuckers, I’ll never know.” He walked over to a coffee maker and poured a cup. “You sure I can’t offer you a cup? It’s Blue Mountain.”
The smell of the coffee was intoxicating and Bridge relented. “Yeah, I’ll take a cup. I could use the pick-me-up.” Bridge took the cup in both hands, barely allowing it to cool before sipping at it.
Balfour seemed to finally realize someone was missing. “Where are Wong and Rolfsberg?”
Lydia started down at her feet. “There was an… incident.”
“Incident? Somebody got dead and that’s what you call it, an incident?” Bridge fumed.
Balfour’s raised an eyebrow, but seemed otherwise unconcerned. “Dead? Who’s dead? Wong?”
Lydia shook her head. “No. Rolfsberg instigated a showdown with Wong. Wong didn’t back down and they fought. Wong won.”
“He dominated, you mean,” Janicki said with an unsettling glee. He held up the melted cyberarm. “This is all that’s left of that cocksucker.”
Balfour grabbed tour grabhe arm and began to examine it intently. “Impressive. Nothing else left? Everything ashed?” Janicki nodded with an irksome smile. Bridge had always considered himself cold-hearted, but Janicki and Balfour seemed to have no remorse about the death of their colleague. “The energy conversion rate is even greater than I’d calculated. That explains why our first large scale conversion was so explosive. Rolfsberg’s math was dangerously inaccurate.”
Bridge shouted angrily, “Your buddy got toasted and all you’re concerned about is his bad math? You geeks are amazing!”
Lydia put a hand on Bridge’s arm. He yanked it away angrily. “No, seriously, you’re sitting in a ghost town talking about the temperature required to ash human bone like you’re discussing what to have for lunch. Is not one of you concerned that there are thousands of ghosts running around this place and the National Guard is outside your doorstep and your buddy Carl is out there showing off as a flame dragon? Do you not think they’l
l come kicking down your door any minute now? Or that somehow I’ve been in this place like two hours and it’s gone from morning to night in that time?”
Balfour shot a puzzled glance at Lydia. She nodded. “The temporal distortion we’d been observing is accelerating. Bridge says that Carl was alive three hours ago.”
“Hrmmm. Mr. Bridge, how long has it been since we contacted you?”
Bridge totaled up the days in his head. “Five days. Maybe six by now, I’ve lost track. It was dead of night when I was on the other side of the dome, and daylight when I got to this side. How’s that work?”
“I’ll try to explain this so a layman can understand,” Balfour began, with the tone of an exasperated parent talking to a thick-headed child. “Our experiments had a certain side effect, one not entirely unanticipated. This dome has sort of shifted us in time, as it were.” Seeing Bridge’s confusion, he continued to elaborate. “You perceive time as a straight line, an unalterable path from here to here, or more accurately from then to now. The value of that time is always constant, can always be expressed as X, correct? But really, the value of that X is only a perceived value based upon our limited consciousness, our restricted ability to see in only three dimensions. The altered dimensional vibrations we’ve created to amplify our original energy source so as to create enough power to generate and maintain the dome has altered the value of X, at least from our three-dimensional perceptions. Maybe X squared, cubed? I’m not entirely sure. I’ll have to run some calculations.” Balfour ran over to one of the workstations on the outer ring, his attention diverted from Bridge almost completely. He muttered as he worked. “In essence, your perception of the passage of time while within the dome appears as constant as it does outside the dome. But in actuality you are moving along the time path at a much slower rate than normal. Your mind creates the illusion that time is moving at the same rate you’ve always experienced because it cannot process the distortion.”
Bridge shook his head as if he’d been slapped. “You’re not making sense, Poindexter.”
Janicki grunted. “Time moves slower in here than outhere tha there. What’s been five or six days for you has been over two weeks for us in here. Your two hours in the dome has been a full day.”
“Right. And you say you spoke to Carl mere hours ago?”
Bridge nodded. Balfour continued to tap numbers into a terminal while talking to Bridge. “We received a message from him days ago saying he’d been attacked by the National Guard, and then nothing since. But perhaps what we received was not a message from our current point on the time path but one further up the path?”
“The future? You’re saying he spoke to you from the future? Does that make this the past? Oh shit, my head hurts.”
“I’ll have to do some more calculations to be sure, but yes, that’s entirely possible. And if we haven’t perceived that event on the time path outside of the dome yet, it’s possible when we leave the altered time path within the dome we could actually be on the path before said event occurs. We could change that future.”
Bridge slammed his coffee cup down. “Ok, that’s it. I don’t know what the fuck you guys are talking about, but I have had enough of this shit. You owe me an explanation. A clear, linear explanation. Start from the beginning and bring me up to speed assuming I know bupkiss. Assume I am a complete dumbass. Use the goddamn white board if you need to map it out for me. But please, explain to me what you did and what you expect me to do. Because right now, I’m ready to just leave you geeks here and head the fuck back to L.A. and let you fend for yourselves. Got it?”
If Balfour was insulted by Bridge’s anger, he didn’t show it. “Certainly, Mr. Bridge. It all started a year ago.”
*****
Interlude
Mark Balfour
“I can solve the world’s energy problems in one year.”
The statement was bold, bold enough to raise the eyebrows of a cynic like Lewis Janicki. Mark Balfour could tell neither Janicki nor Lydia Carlisle believed him. Why should they? Neither of them knew him or his work beyond casual greetings on the campus grounds and faculty scuttlebutt. He was just one of hundreds of professors conducting major research at the University of Colorado. He had only joined the faculty a year before and had been relegated to an office and lab space in the Engineering Center despite most of his research projects being funded by NASA and its corporate partners through the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. He knew where on the shere on cientist pecking order he stood, somewhere down near the grad students and non-tenured professors, stuck teaching first-year physics to hungover business school students who couldn’t tell the difference between an electron and a proton. The fact that much of his research involved attempts to mesh superstring theory with real-world applications made many of his more traditionally minded colleagues regard him as the scientific equivalent of a snake oil salesman.
He’d done his homework, however. The night he woke from a dream in a cold sweat with his mind bubbling with solutions to equations he’d just barely formulated, he had realized he would need help with this research. He would need another set of eyes on the applications; a set of eyes not jaundiced by pig-headed prejudice nor constrained by the rigid hierarchy of the university’s research guidelines. He’d need scientists so hungry for breakthroughs that they’d jump at the chance without worrying about the rules. He’d jacked into the GlobalNet and found his former student and friend Michael Freeman. They had stolen all the personnel files of the university’s research faculty and pored over them in a marathon cram session, searching for just the right combination of theoretical skills, application experience and willful disregard for procedure. In all, five candidates presented themselves. He’d stepped from the crèche physically exhausted, but inwardly renewed with a sense of purpose he’d not felt for years. When he invited Lydia to coffee after classes, he had to convince her that he was not asking her out on a date. “It’s purely professional, Dr. Carlisle.” The skepticism was plainly evident on her features, but she agreed. The three had met in an off-campus coffeehouse frequented by other faculty.
“That’s a very bold statement, Dr. Balfour,” Janicki responded. “You’ll forgive my skepticism, but I’m aware of your field. Superstring, correct? Have you suddenly discovered the energy dimension? Or magic energy fairy strings?” He barely contained a derisive giggle. Lydia frowned at the man with the goatee, but her sympathy did not signal agreement.
“There’s no need to be dismissive.” She gave Balfour a cautious questioning glance. “I’m sure Dr. Balfour would not waste our valuable research time without good reason. Let’s hear him out.”
Balfour nodded and began to explain his breakthrough. He scribbled frantic equations on napkins until the table was a tableau of paper scraps loaded with scribbled formulas. Somewhere after the fifteenth napkin, Janicki began to sit up and take notice, adding his comments and notes in the margins. His excitement became palpable by the time Balfour had finished. Though Lydia had taken slightly less convincing than Janicki, her calm exterior never quite broke into the ravenous enthusiasm Janicki displayed. But Balfour could see the twinkle of barely contained excitement in her green eyes.
Convinced fully at last, Janicki sat back with a huff, rubbing his shaved head with a hand that shook slightly. “Where did you come up with this? It’s… it’s not just incredible, it’s goddamned revolutionary.”
“It came to me in a dream,” Balfour said with a sheepish grin. Janicki scoffed. “No, really, I woke up and the formula was burning a hole in my brain.”
“I’d like a sample of your sleepingyour sle pill prescription,” Lydia joked. “We’ll need to run simulations to be sure, but on the surface, the math seems sound.” A serious mood gripped her, darkening her expression noticeably. Her next question was hesitant, as if she already knew the answer but did not want to face its implications. “Why tell us? Why not submit a research proposal?”
Balfour’s expression hardened into a ma
sk of resolute determination. “This is too big for protocol, too important. I need scientists of a particular skill set. I need you two and a few others and the chances of actually getting all five of us approved to work on the same project this decade is next to nil.”
Janicki squinted. “What others?” Balfour could see the ambition in the man, the naked greedy desire to share as little credit for this discovery as possible.
“Quon Wong, Carl Bullock, and Sven Rolfsberg,” Balfour replied flatly.
“Rolfsberg?” Janicki shouted. A few of the other patrons turned their heads at his shout. He asked again in a low whisper, conscious of the attention. “Rolfsberg? That guy’s an asshole. I worked with him last year on some cybernetic enhancements for the moon mission. His materials fabrication is spectacular, but his math…” He waved a dismissive hand. “Why him?”
“His materials work is good, as you said.” Balfour didn’t want to tell either of them that they’d all been chosen as much for their willingness to work off the books as for their work. “I’m sure his personal attitudes and mathematical deficiencies will not be a hindrance. Dr. Carlisle, can I rely on you to recruit Wong?”
The furtive look in her eyes confirmed the campus gossip as well as the entries in her personnel file. Lydia and Wong had been romantically involved last year while he was still her graduate assistant. The affair had been fleeting, ending many months ago, but the mere mention of his name made Lydia tense. Balfour worried for just a moment that he’d chosen his comrades poorly, but her resolute nod quelled his doubts. “And I will recruit Dr. Bullock. His work with holographic wireless communication systems and point-to-point energy transfer will be invaluable. We’ll work off the books, on our own time, using as much borrowed lab time as possible. My lab in the Engie Center is big enough for all of us, and everyone there ignores me. Too theoretical for the Engineering Department.”
