The Bridge Chronicles Trilogy

by Gary Ballard

  ‘Or kill us for it,’ Balfour thought.

  Lydia’s face scrunched up in a sour glare. “So we either succeed, or we destroy our careers with nothing to show for it.”

  “Or we all die to horrible, unforeseen side effects,” Carl added with a sardonic grin. Lydia lowered her eyes. “Besides, aren’t you the least bit curious what you could do with that thing?”

  Her smile was an emphatic yes.

  *****

  True to his word, Rolfsberg cranked out the casings quickly. Within five weeks, they’d generated five prototypes, improving the fabrication with every new version. Instead of adding a new particle to each engine, Balfour discovered he could concentrate on transferring a piece of the dimensionally-charged particle in his own engine into the new engines. His first attempt was both a spectacular failure and a fascinating discovery. Rather than powering up the empty engine, he managed to fire the group’s first fireball into the table. The fire that resulted was luckily extinguished before the building’s fire alarms could alert the rest of the campus. After some nervous giggling, Balfour tried again, concentrating even harder as he pictured an atomic diagram of the particle in his head, splicing and dicing the particle with waves of equations, precisely considered formulas flashing through his mind’s eye. The second attempt worked. The engine was fully powered with no explosive side effects.

  Bowing to the pressure of Rolfsberg’s blistering annoyance, they agreed to let him implant the second engine. Janicki performed the operation while Balfour powered up the third engine for Lydia. Once Rolfsberg’s operation was complete, Balfour explained the use of the engine, sharing the mental formula he used for energy transfer. Rolfsberg claimed to understand, but he was unable to complete the simple particle transfer.

  “Are you thinking of the formula I told you?” Balfour asked.

  Rolfsberg snapped irritably. “Of course I am. I’m not an imbecile. It’s not working.” He pointed his arm at the engine and squinted but nothing happened.

  “Maybe you need a different formula,” Carl suggested. Seeing Balfour’s questioning glance, he elaborated. “It seems like everything we’ve seen you do, from logging on to the GlobalNet without a jack to controlling the constructors, everything we’ve seen you do is triggered by what? You visualize a particular equation and solve it in your head. We’re not even sure how or why the engine allows those mental processes to manifest as physical phenomena. But everybody’s mental processes are unique. Everybody learns a different way as their brain’s chemistry alters around new bits of knowledge. Perhaps each individual has to visualize their actions in a unique way.”

  Lydia spoke up from the table where Janicki worked on her back. “That would make some kind of sense. Why don’t you try visualizing it like an engineering problem as opposed to a mathematical one?”

  “What? Like I’m building something?” Lydia nodded. Rolfsberg shrugged and reset himself, closing his eyes for focus. He held both his arms up to the engine, and began to wiggle his fingers and move his hands as if he was assembling a physical construct. A soft glow sheathed both his metallic and flesh arm.

  “Careful, careful,” Balfour said gingerly. “You only need a miniscule amount.” Balfour ran a piece of diagnostic software he’d written to monitor the engine’s power output. The program appeared as a thin hologram in the air in front of him.

  Carl whistled. “That’s a new one, Dr. Balfour. You’ve been holding out on us.” He poked a finger through the hologram and stared at it in rapt fascination. “Oh, the things I’m going to do with you,” he said, rubbing his hands together like a kid eyeing a free candy store.

  “It’s done,” Rolfsberg said, dropping his arms to his side. He was suffused with sweat. He plopped into a seat awkwardly. “That sure takes a lot out of me.”

  Lydia’s gaze snapped to the Norseman, concern evident in her voice. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve run a marathon.”

  Balfour considered. “Huh. I’ve never had that happen to me. I always feel wired after using it.”

  “Are you just about done?” Lydia asked Janicki hurriedly. He snapped closed the interface port and slapped her on the back. “May I?”

  Janicki agreed. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Hope not,” she countered, hopping off the table without bothering to put her shirt on. Seeing Quon and Carl’s embarrassed glances and the lascivious stares from both Janicki and Rolfsberg, she covered her chest with a lab coat.

  “If I’d have known that was all it took to get your top off, I’d have fainted in front of you much earlier,” Rolfsberg quipped.

  “Pig. Act like you’ve never seen tits before.” She smiled. “Oh right, you geeks probably haven’t.” Her cursory examination revealed nothing worrying. “Take it easy. You seem to be fine physically. Perhaps you should drink some electrolyte replenishers. Quon, can you get him an energy drink?” The Chinese scientist jumped at her orders without hesitation. Drinking the sugary concoction seemed to level Rolfsberg off.

  Within an hour, they were all fitted with mana engines. Balfour offered as much instruction as he could on using the device, but ended the evening with simple instructions. “As we’ve already seen, it appears everyone can and will use the engine slightly differently. Let’s take the time between this meeting and the next to come up with as many creative uses as you can. Watch your vitals. Watch your electrolytes. Call one of us immediately if you feel even slightly unhealthy. None of you are allowed to die before we change the world.”

  *****

  The next months were an amazing time of creativity, with each scientist bringing some exciting new idea to each meeting. Balfour’s experiments on power generation and remote cybernetic control allowed him to manipulate all the machines and computers in his lab with a thought. He could jack into any network, including the GlobalNet from any location on campus without using his interface jack. He discovered that he could even enter closed systems that normally only allowed interface through a hard wire, such as the Engineering Center’s security system. He was practically ecstatic the night he discovered this. He could stand in front of the keypad at any door in the building and enter its closed system, allowing him to bypass every electronic lock he could find with ease.

  Balfour found his hacking skills on the GlobalNet to be greatly improved. By duplicating the same thought processes that he used to control machines in the physical world, he could create virtual machines that outstripped most of the software he had previously written. The things Balfour could accomplish with software floored Michael Freeman. Though none of the programs Balfour demonstrated could overcome the hacker god’s best work, Freeman pointed out that they were at least as strong as those of a dedicated hacker. Considering Balfour only learned as much about hacking as he needed to further his research, it was high praise indeed.

  Lydia and Wong worked together closely. Though he stayed out of their business, it became obvious that their working relationship was turning into something beyond professional again. Balfour hoped their romantic urges did not interfere with the work of the group as a whole. He pulled her aside before one of the group’s meetings. “Lydia, I would like to speak to you about your relationship with Dr. Wong.”

  A tense, nervous look of apprehension leapt into her eyes. “What about Quon?”

  “It has come to my attention that the two of you are growing very close again, perhaps even considering rekindling your sexual relationship.”

  She stiffened as if slapped. “I fail to see how that’s any of your business, DOCTOR Balfour.”

  “Normally, I would say that you are entirely correct. These are extraordinary circumstances under which we labor, however. Once the endorphins and the hormones start rushing around the bloodstream, heretofore completely rational people tend to act altogether irrationally, sometimes dangerously so.”

  “I am perfectly capable of separating my work relationships from my personal ones.”

  Balfour peered down his nose at
her, a smug expression of knowing judgement written across his face. “Previous history might disagree with you.” The ryou.” ush of red in her cheeks told him that he had made his point. “I am in no way suggesting you should alter your behavior in any way, only that you should observe… caution.”

  “Duly noted. Now, if you’d like to hear about my research.”

  The work she and Wong demonstrated, combining Lydia’s research into particle states with Wong’s nanomachines, produced some fantastic results. Wong had designed an army of nanobots that could deconstruct any inanimate materials, from steel to wood, and reconstruct them into whatever he wished. He could animate the materials like puppets, or use them to build anything. His first demonstration transformed one of the workbenches into a frightening golem that strode around the room before reconstituting itself as a cabinet. Lydia used the nanoconstructors to remodel the cubicle farm in the outer ring of the lab, theorizing that with enough of the little machines, she could erect an entire building from refuse in days.

  Carl had the flashiest application. His research on holographic projection created solid light constructs that could affect their environment, perfect illusions with physical manifestations of mass, density and energy. His most impressive was the flame dragon; rather than being a solid entity, the illusion surrounded his body like an exoskeleton composed of light. He could alter the illusion’s appearance like a GlobalNet avatar at will. He and Wong collaborated on the flight equations, which only the two of them could control. Once the two had discovered this new power, it became extremely hard to keep them from zipping around the campus at all times. They chafed at the restraint, taking every opportunity to use their late night meetings as an excuse to fly all over campus.

  Rolfsberg struggled with the engine the most. His creations were pedestrian. Whatever he shared with the group, they improved. His imagination couldn’t keep up. He became almost palpably jealous, especially once Wong and Carl discovered flight. Rolfsberg spent most of their meetings sulking. He had great success with the nanoconstructors, using them to improve his materials fabrication but he was clearly disgruntled. Thanks to his work, they had each upgraded their mana engines three times by September. Both Rolfsberg and Janicki insisted that the discarded engines be destroyed at a molecular level, using the energy contained in the engine to implode and disintegrate the case and all evidence of its existence. “We have to be careful,” Rolfsberg argued. “We all know who funded Mark’s work. We all know that corporations like that take great pleasure in exploiting the work of scientists without paying them a dime. I for one do not intend to do this work for free. If they want it, they’re going to have to pay.” The argument was a long one that night, but in the end all agreed no matter how reluctantly that the work must be guarded jealously.

  Janicki took Balfour’s designs for portable power sources and expanded their range, output and longevity. Uninterested in the parlor tricks of flight, the garish displays of power like Carl’s flame dragons and fireballs, he concentrated on something the group could sell. He started small, creating small power amplifiers for the lab. The power amplifiers he dubbed ‘glowbugs.’ He could attach one of the tiny cylinders to any power source, from a fuse box to a generator, a battery pack or even a wall outlet. With a tiny jolt of energy from his mana engine, the glowbug could produce power for whatever device they were attached to indefinitely. He could di. He coual up or down the amount of power generated by the glowbug so that he could split the device’s power consumption between the glowbug and a traditional supply. Janicki’s eyes lit up when he talked about the glowbug’s marketability.

  As the campus buzzed with costumed students celebrating Halloween, the group met in the lab to discuss their most ambitious experiment, one they would use to prove their success and unveil their research to the public. They set the date of the experiment during the wee hours of November the second.

  *****

  After long nights of furious work by the entire group, they had their proof of concept prepared. Their first prototype was a glowbug on steroids, as Janicki put it, a featureless box standing over six feet tall. While glowbugs were wired into an existing power source, this larger, more powerful version would generate power wirelessly to any electrical device within its sizeable radius. This cloud of energy gave the device its name, the cloud generator. Due to the mana engine’s asymmetrical power conversion ratio, they couldn’t pin down how long the cloud would operate on the tiny bit of startup energy. It might only last a few minutes, or it could go for years. Rolfsberg’s math was imprecise, and everyone else was too busy with their own work to double-check him thoroughly. Since the generator had no moving parts, as long as it could generate power, it would need no physical maintenance. If it worked, it could literally power an entire building without cost.

  The experiment was certain to attract attention. In order to test the cloud, the group would have to disconnect the Engineering Center from the campus’s power grid. If the generator worked as planned, the Center’s power would be restored within seconds, but even that tiny interruption in power would be noticed. Since their work would most certainly be discovered whether it succeeded or failed, they had decided to make this night their public debut. Once the campus administration questioned them, they would reveal their research by releasing it into the GlobalNet as open source designs.

  Carl and Lydia would sneak into the Center’s maintenance room and disconnect the back up generators first, then flip the switch on the whole complex. As the building went dark, Balfour would activate the cloud. Nervous anticipation made his stomach do flip-flops as he listened to Lydia’s reports. This was it, everything he’d worked for. He hadn’t eaten all day from the nervousness. His skin tingled with anticipation. His breathing seemed too rapid, too shallow. In the back of his mind, he could hear the voices urging him on, that subconscious creative inspiration whispering concepts and blueprints and ideas and visions into his head from the deepest recesses of his mind.

  “We’re in place, Dr. Balfour,” Carl said after what seemed an eternity. “Disconnecting the backups now.”

  “Be careful,” Rolfsberg hissed. Carl gissed. Crumbled inaudibly. He needed no instruction on the need for secrecy. Rolfsberg’s nervousness made him even more insufferable.

  Balfour checked his instruments one more time from his seat. He marveled at the engine’s abilities; he could do everything from his chair without ever lifting a finger. “Dr. Wong, Dr. Janicki, are you ready?”

  Wong hovered over the cloud generator. He had taken to levitating inside the lab as much as he could, but especially when Rolfsberg was around. Balfour thought he was showing off. The young scientist gave a hearty thumbs-up sign, a smile stretching from ear to ear. Janicki answered, “We are as good as we’re ever going to get, Mark.”

  “Carl, disconnect the backups.”

  “Backups down. Got a warning light blinking in here.”

  “Let it go. Proceed to blackout.”

  Lydia’s silken voice broke through the channel. “Shutting down now.”

  The building seemed to convulse once, then sigh into silent darkness. Only the computers that ran off individual backup power supplies lit the lab. “Fire it up, boys.”

  Wong and Janicki gestured at the cloud generator, each firing a tiny particle at the machine. Two globes of light about the size of marbles shot from their hands and struck the generator’s smooth outer surface, causing the outer skin to briefly glow a muted blue before the particles disappeared.

  “Did it work?” Rolfsberg asked out of the black.

  “I don’t see any lights,” Janicki snapped, stating the obvious.

  A low hum began to sound from the inky darkness. An imperceptible ambient glow grew to sheathe it in white light, throbbing like a heartbeat in an eerie cascade. One of the robotic arms closest to the generator twitched, then snapped into life. Lights began to burn, flooding the room with a sudden, disconcerting light. The battery backups on the computers shut off with
numerous audible clicks. As the hum of the generator grew strong, Balfour heard the building’s heating sigh to life. He displayed readouts of the power generation, confirming that it was working exactly as planned. But rather than level off, the power of the cloud continued to build, incrementing slowly at first, but as each second passed, its output doubled, trebled, and climbed on and on at an exponential rate.

  “Lydia, Carl, how’s it look down there?”

  “Power is steady and strong.”

  “This output isn’t leveling off. It’s already passed our highest estimates and keeps going.”

  “Is it stable?”

  Janicki answered qki answeuickly. “There’s a distinct hum, but no other outward negative signs. The casing is cool to the touch.”

  “Rolfsberg, can this casing contain that kind of buildup?”

  Rolfsberg tapped at a console furiously. “The casing is well within safe limits. Can we tamp down the output?”

  “Trying,” Balfour responded, maneuvering the equations as holograms in the air above him. “It’s not responding. It’s like it won’t stop building until it completes a specific cycle.”

  “Did you program that in?”

  “No, this is entirely unexpected. Rolfsberg, are you sure of your math?”

  “My math is solid, goddamnit!”

  “Obviously it isn’t!” Wong shouted back. “Dr. Balfour… something’s happening here.”

  Balfour looked down from his equations. The generator had started glowing, a cold white light building on the top surface. “Shut it down, boys. Shut it down.”

  Janicki and Wong gestured. Draining the feeder particles back out of the generator should gradually shut down the machine, at least in theory. The two particles flew from the machine, zipping into Wong and Janicki’s outstretched hands before disappearing. The light continued to grow brighter. “It’s not working.”