Quantum Void (Quantum Series Book 2)

by Douglas Phillips

  “A one-way trip, then,” Daniel said. It wasn’t a question, but Jan’s confirmation would help him picture the problem.

  “One-way,” Jan said. “I’m afraid so. It does give us another path to provide supplies, but whatever we throw in will never come out again.”

  Daniel’s anxiety level was going nowhere but up. Nala and Thomas trapped, and now Marie too.

  Jan explained how communications had improved. Daniel listened, but Jan’s voice began to fade into the background as his attention focused on the small office where he stood. It was shaking. The walls were moving.

  Are we having an earthquake?

  “Hold on, Jan,” he said. “Something’s up.”

  The floor rolled as if someone had picked up one end of the carpet and shaken it. The wave passed through the room, through Daniel and through the wall behind him. A smaller wave followed it, and another, slowly dampening until the strange effect was no longer noticeable. He’d been in an earthquake before. This was something very different.

  He heard a voice from the hallway. “Fall back. Everyone out. Now!”

  40

  Density

  Marie plopped on the floor, sitting between Nala and Thomas. Nala was on to something, but it was impossible to decipher the advanced physics gobbledygook. “Sorry, I really don’t follow any of this. Critical density? You talk about it like it’s some mystical number.”

  “Mystical. Not a bad description,” Thomas said.

  Nala seemed as confused as anyone. “Most people have never heard of it. I’ll explain, but you might want to take that crown off first.” She gestured with both hands like her head was going to explode. “Crazy stuff.”

  The exploding head metaphor was a terribly overused joke. Marie took the headband off anyway.

  “The universe is expanding, right?” Nala said. Marie nodded. Edwin Hubble had discovered this in the 1920s. “And gravity tries to halt that expansion by pulling things together. More mass, more gravity. Critical density is a number with deep meaning. It tells you the precise amount of mass that is needed to exactly cancel expansion. It’s what makes our universe flat.”

  Marie had read about the flat universe, but it was one of those social media memes that seemed unimportant. “Makes the universe sound a bit boring. You know, flat instead of exotic.”

  “It’s anything but boring,” Nala said. “It’s fundamental. What existed before the Big Bang?”

  Changing the subject seemed to be common for physicists, but Marie understood why they did it. When the topic was complex, an analogy often helped. She pondered the question. “Jan brought this up too. Nobody knows what came before the Big Bang. That’s the edge of scientific knowledge.”

  “Not true,” Nala answered. “Astrophysicists are pretty sure, but they haven’t explained it very well to everyone else. The data comes from two satellites, one in 2000 and another in 2013. Being from NASA, you’ve probably heard of them—WMAP and Planck?”

  “Rings a bell, but I’m in human spaceflight. Those missions were probably research,” Marie answered.

  “Okay. But you probably know what those missions produced—almost everyone does. They mapped the cosmic microwave background radiation, the leftovers from the Big Bang.”

  “Ah, yes, now I remember. A spotty orange-and-blue map of the whole night sky.”

  “Right. The map itself is fairly well known, but most people never heard what happened after that map circulated on the internet. The scientists used the data to make precise calculations of two numbers: critical density—the tipping point for expansion versus gravity—and the actual density of the universe.”

  Nala paused, either in thought or maybe just for dramatic effect. “They’re the same number. Critical density and actual density are exactly the same, to the degree that we can measure them. There’s absolutely no reason that they should be the same, they just are.”

  “Is that bad?” Marie asked, still not sure of the deep meaning that Nala apparently saw.

  “It’s not good or bad. It’s flat. It’s like sitting down at a restaurant, picking from the menu blindfolded and then finding out at the end of the meal that the bill is exactly the amount of money you happen to have in your wallet, to the penny. A flat universe happens to have exactly the right amount of mass to perfectly balance out its expansion. What’s more, Jan says we just confirmed it from an entirely different angle. Expanded four-dimensional space becomes unstable at exactly the same density.”

  “Which means?”

  “Think about it. All the expansion energy in the universe is completely canceled by all the mass energy. The pluses and the minuses perfectly balance to zero. Taken as a whole, the universe is literally nothing. And that tells you where it came from.”

  “Nothing?” Marie asked, finally beginning to see Nala’s point.

  Nala nodded. “Our universe and everything in it sprang from nothing. Prior to the Big Bang, there was nothing. No mass, no energy, no space. Nothing. The void, as they call it. It’s hard to wrap your head around that idea, but it’s reality and we just helped to prove it. There’s no reason that 4-D space should obey this same rule, but it does.”

  Something from nothing. It had come up in Core’s answer to one of Jan’s questions. Marie hadn’t realized it at the time, but Core might have been pointing the way. There was something else in the back of her mind. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but Nala’s explanation was almost like an extension of the visualizations.

  “I don’t think any of this is a coincidence,” Nala said. “It’s—”

  The light from the singularity flashed off and then back on again, freezing her in midsentence. Nala looked at Thomas, who hadn’t disappeared. Thomas looked at Marie, with the headband still in her hand. And Marie hoped for an explanation from either one of them. “Is this flashing, like, a regular occurrence?”

  “It’s becoming more frequent,” Nala said. “Anyone have any fuzzy thoughts that feel like a dream?”

  No one said anything. Nala patted herself down like she was checking for wounds. “It could be something small, maybe something we wouldn’t even notice.”

  “I’m alive this time,” Thomas said. “Two out of four. Not bad.”

  Nala leaned across and gave him a hug. “We’re in this together, big guy.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Marie said. “We’ve got to get out of here while we’re all still whole.” Marie thought more about Nala’s explanation. “There was something you said… the visualizations are so similar. I should know what it is, but I can’t quite place it.”

  “Something I said?” Nala questioned. “About a flat universe? Or critical density?”

  Marie tried to piece it together. Critical density. A single number that measured the stability of space. She’d seen this concept before. Colors. Ratios. All floating in a grand visualization of space.

  “What was the number for critical density again?” Marie asked.

  Nala picked up one of the cracker boxes and wrote on it: 9.47 × 10–27 kg / m3. “Nine point four seven times ten to the minus twenty-seven kilograms per cubic meter,” she recited.

  Marie nodded. “And the actual density is the same number, right?”

  “Right,” Nala said. “The ratio is exactly 1.0, which tells you the universe is flat, or that 4-D space is stable.”

  The headband had been talking to her; she just hadn’t realized what it was saying until now. “That’s it!” she yelled.

  Nala and Thomas were startled by her shout. They both stared silently as she stood up, placed the headband over her hair and tapped twice. Multiple spheres popped into view, hovering all around. Their colors told a story, one that she now recognized and finally understood.

  The spheres glowed in various shades of color. Most were shades of blue, with numbers like 0.912, 0.974 and 0.877. In every case, the value—a density ratio—was less than one. Stable space. They were four-dimensional bubbles, probably created by Nala and Thomas during their experime
nts, and they weren’t going anywhere.

  Yet two spheres were very different, colored in shades of deep purple. The first purple sphere surrounded them. She’d seen it both from the outside and now from the inside. Its number, provided by the visualization, was 1.324, larger than one. Unstable space, the result of a cataclysmic explosion that had destroyed much of Fermilab.

  The other sphere was far beyond their position, also deep purple, but larger, bulging and distorted. Its number was 1.629, the highest ratio of any.

  “You okay?” asked Nala.

  “No… yes… well, I’m okay, but I’m worried that Daniel and a whole bunch of people in Texas are in big trouble.”

  “You want to explain?” Nala might still be skeptical of the headband, but Marie hadn’t done a good job of explaining how she knew these things. She wasn’t entirely sure herself.

  “I can see space in a very different way,” Marie said. Nala and Thomas both listened intently. “There are dozens of spheres—bubbles—all around us, and I’m pretty sure you created them. They’re colored. Most are blue, but two are purple. They all have numbers associated with them, and I never knew what the numbers meant until now. They’re ratios. I don’t know why I didn’t understand it before, but once you explained it… well, it’s obvious now.” She shrugged. “Just by looking, I can tell when four-dimensional space is unstable.”

  “Holy shit,” Thomas said.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Nala said.

  “I like her version better,” said Thomas, pointing at Nala. “Sounds more important.”

  “So, what’s this about Daniel?” Nala asked.

  “He’s in Texas, called away on an assignment.” Marie explained the details of the situation, as best she knew them.

  Nala picked up on one point. “So, these guys down in Texas are filling quantum space they created with smoke?”

  “Yeah—well, gases, soot, whatever comes out of a power plant.”

  “That’s it, then,” Nala said with authority. “It’s the density. They’re pouring a shitload of stuff into an unnaturally confined space, and the mass-to-volume ratio has skyrocketed. Their little gimmick to get rid of pollution is probably unstable as hell.”

  “Then, the explosion that destroyed Fermilab…”

  “Yeah,” Nala agreed. “They’re walking into the same disaster we did, and just as blind. But this one could be bigger. Maybe a lot bigger.”

  “We need to warn him,” Marie said. “Jan could get a message to him.”

  “Shouldn’t we have heard a big boom by now?” Thomas asked. “If the ratio is even higher than ours, doesn’t that mean this Texas bubble is even more unstable?”

  Marie thought about the question and compared it with what she’d visualized. The answer wasn’t clear, but perhaps there were clues. “It’s bulging, not spherical like all the others. Maybe the distortion is relieving some of the pressure?”

  Nala shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. Density is all about mass in a given volume, but I have no idea why one bubble would be more elastic than another. Hell, this is all new. There’s a ton of stuff we just don’t know.” She turned to Thomas. “If we ever get out of here, I’ve got a long list of tests you and I are going to make.”

  Thomas held up a finger. “With better safety protocols.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Nala said with a tight smile. “I’ve learned my lesson. Promise.”

  Thomas held out a bent pinky finger. “Pinky swear.”

  Nala hooked her finger into his. “Really, I absolutely, positively promise.”

  Nala picked up the phone and started to type another message to Jan, but Marie grabbed her hand. “Wait.” She paused in thought.

  “I was just going to tell him to warn Daniel about this.”

  “Yeah, wait,” Marie said again. “I might have an idea.”

  Thomas perked up. “Ideas are good, especially around here.”

  Marie tossed the components of a plan around in her mind like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle thrown onto a table. Whether they would all fit into a whole picture was another matter. An enormous bubble of 4-D space, hanging over a power plant in Texas. Growing bigger by the minute. The weird property of spatial compression. A ratio of instability, mass versus volume.

  Definitely a jumble, but one by one, the pieces began to fall into place. There were complications, not the least of which was the degree to which this fabulously dangerous headband was scrambling her brain. Was she even capable of solving this problem?

  The puzzle pieces weren’t well defined, and neither was the final picture they might represent. But it was better than standing around waiting for the light to flash again. She’d come here to use her unique ability to rescue people. It was time for action.

  “I have a plan,” she said, still holding Nala’s hand. “Tell them to make the bubble bigger. Make it as big as they can.”

  “Bigger?” Thomas asked. “You sure? Wouldn’t that make the explosion worse?”

  Nala smiled. “Ah, yes. Clever girl. I think I see your point.” Nala returned her attention to the phone and tapped out a message.

  41

  Non Sequitur

  Finch drove, Daniel rode shotgun and two FEMA employees hitched a ride in the backseat—a man and a woman, both young, both frazzled, but in an excited kind of way.

  “Did you see that? Some kind of crazy shit,” the young woman said, waving her arms. She had brown bangs that almost completely covered her eyes.

  “Never seen anything like it,” said the young man, a grin breaking across his stubbled face. “But I could easily do that again.”

  “Whoa, I don’t know. I was just standing out in the parking lot, recalibrating my Lidar, when the asphalt literally rolled under my feet.” She reached a hand out to Daniel. “Hi, I’m Audrey. This is Parker.”

  “That’s what was so freaking weird,” Parker continued. “It was suddenly like, surf’s up. And it wasn’t just the parking lot. The whole place was jiggling. That building where they burn the coal is seven freaking stories tall. Even the stacks looked like… what are those long red candy things called?”

  “Twizzlers?” Audrey asked.

  “Yeah, like a Twizzler getting shook. Wacked out.”

  “Everybody on your team okay?” Daniel asked. The evacuation had turned out to be far more rapid than anyone had anticipated, but at least all the buildings had still been in place as multiple vehicles had roared out of the parking area.

  “Yeah, probably,” Audrey said. “Most of the rest of them were in the van. We couldn’t fit. Hey, thanks for the lift.”

  “No problem,” said Finch. He was doing sixty in a thirty-five, but the only other cars on the road were in a single-file line, ahead and behind. The fallback position was about eight miles away and located on the primary route back to Austin. Easy access, in case they needed to retreat even further.

  “Dude, you’re that famous scientist guy,” Parker said, pointing to Daniel.

  Daniel nodded. “You’ve seen me on TV?”

  “Seriously? Nobody watches TV. I saw you on Jacked Up.”

  “Sorry?” Daniel asked. The program name didn’t ring a bell.

  Audrey and Parker exchanged a knowing glance: The old guy who has no clue.

  “It’s pretty cool,” Audrey said. “Quick clips. Twenty seconds each. You should check it out. You’re on it all the time.”

  Besides press conferences, Daniel had been involved in several science-based programs. Even if the next generation was getting their information chopped into bite-sized pieces on a show named after cocaine addiction, as long as it included science, the state of the world couldn’t be too bad.

  They arrived at the fallback command center, which turned out to be a restaurant that had probably been closed for at least a year. A variety of police and government vehicles filled the parking lot, and dozens of tripods with cameras and various electronics had been set up in a patio area that looked as though it had once been an outdoor ba
rbeque pit but now sprouted weeds between paving stones.

  Gonzalo Ayala stood on the patio, staring off into the distance. Several others encircled the busy man, including FEMA, state troopers and other officials. Several reporters and photographers clustered on one side of the patio, setting up cameras and preparing for their live broadcasts.

  Daniel gazed southeast, the same direction everyone else was looking. The swirling cloud that hung over the power plant was still visible in the distance. It had grown since he’d first seen it, and the air beneath shimmered like heat waves over hot pavement.

  “Dr. Rice,” a voice behind him called. It was Ayala, with his entourage following. “Best estimate. Are we far enough away?”

  Daniel had little information other than what his eyes could tell him, but he wasn’t likely to get much more within the next few seconds. Time-constrained decisions weren’t like science; someone had to make a choice based only on best available information, however poor.

  “Those waves under the cloud appear to be the same physical wave that we all just experienced. Based on that, it looks like 3-D space is being impacted out to two or three miles. I’d use the waves as an indicator. Unless they spread, we’re probably okay.”

  “Then we’ll stay,” Ayala said. “Evacuation is complete to this distance, about eight miles, though there’s still a lot of livestock inside that circle. Austin is still the main concern.”

  “How far is Austin?”

  “Eastern suburbs, about fifteen miles from the plant. Downtown, more like twenty. If it gets any worse, we’ll push back to twenty miles and evac the eastern side of the city. One step at a time, though.”

  There was no way to know if twenty miles or even a hundred miles was perfectly safe. More information would help. Given all the tripods and electronics around the patio, some of that information was probably right here. Daniel gave Ayala a summary of the calls he’d made to Romania and Fermilab, including the plan to freeze the 4-D space as-is and avoid any spatial collapse. For the time being, it was all he had to offer.