White Collar, Green Flame - A Technothriller

by Shain Carter

  They both turned to the glove box, which now looked completely normal.

  “What about it?” Meredith asked.

  “It nearly breached. For some reason it was being evacuated. By the time I got here nearly all the argon had been sucked out of it. Another minute and something would have given, and when it did air would have filled it up. Between the green flame compounds, all the flammable solvents in here, and my tanks of ethylene gas, this entire end of the building could have been taken out.”

  “What would have caused it to evacuate like that?” Ted asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jones peered thoughtfully through the Plexiglas. After a moment he pointed into the interior. “That’s it,” he said softly. He thrust his arms into the gloves and gently pushed the interior antechamber door. It moved easily.

  Dawson turned to Ted and Meredith. “The inner door wasn’t sealed properly. The pump was evacuating the antechamber, so I could bring some things in, but because of the lack of seal the argon from within the box was also getting pumped out. Eventually the whole box would have emptied, and atmospheric pressure would have shattered the front plate, or burst the gloves. Either way, air gets in and the fuel explodes.”

  “How could you have been so careless?” Ted asked incredulously.

  Ignoring the accusatory nature of Ted’s comment, Dawson concentrated back to his actions as he left the lab. “I don’t think I was careless,” he said slowly. “If I didn’t seal the door properly then I would have heard something unusual before I got out of the lab. Besides, the box would have emptied and breached in only a few minutes, not the half hour I was gone. So it must have been sealed when I left, but then for some reason came loose on its own. I’m going to have to take the door mechanism apart and see what the problem was before I risk doing any more work.”

  “Will that set you back much?” Meredith asked.

  Dawson shrugged. “A day, possibly two. But I’ll be finished with this stage of work within a week regardless, so no real harm done. Another minute or two, though, and it would have been a much different story.”

  Dawson eventually determined that a securing bolt had come loose from the door handle. Curiously, he found the nut that held it behind a vial on the far side of the box, a spot that would have been difficult for the nut to have simply rolled in to. The incident was soon forgotten, though, partly because it was eclipsed by a larger mishap - an accident that was less dangerous than the near breach, but potentially more disastrous to the interceptor program.

  It occurred in the morning, several days later. Ted, Meredith and Dawson were all ahead of schedule on their individual programs, and they gave themselves the luxury of a late breakfast. George, Burt and Derek had already left for Derek’s “war room” - the name he had given his office in Building 12. Alec, whose health was continuing to decline, had not yet appeared for breakfast. He had lately taken to working only part days, spending much of the afternoon resting in his room, despite George’s constant urging to move more quickly.

  Dawson had just poured Ted a third cup of the strong Turkish coffee when Alec burst into the dining room. His face was even more ashen than usual. He walked briskly and with purpose, making a beeline for their table. In his arms he cradled his laptop computer, which he then laid gingerly in front of Ted.

  “Lad, I’m in desperate need a computer guru. I’ve been working on a calculation all week, but now I can’t find the data. It’s not in the data folder, and not in the trashcan. It must be in the damn computer somewhere - I didn’t do a thing differently than I’ve done a hundred times before.”

  Ted had been unofficially in charge of repairing the group’s computers. It seemed every few days one of their computers developed a glitch, slowing down progress or even reversing it. Ted was getting faster at fixing the problems, and he didn’t seem particularly concerned about this one.

  Ted flipped open the laptop and after a few seconds the screen glowed with Alec’s desktop.

  “There’s my data folder,” said Alec, pointing to the screen. “It’s empty now.”

  Ted spent the next few minute tapping away while Alec fretted, looking over his shoulder. Finally Ted stood and, telling Alec he would be right back, bound out of the room. Alec sat and tapped his fingers nervously on the tabletop while he waited for Ted’s return. Meredith offered him coffee, but he declined. “I’ve spent a whole week calculating that data,” he moaned, as much to himself as to Meredith and Dawson. “It’s a tricky problem, but I nearly had it beat. Another hour or two at the most.”

  Ted returned with an external hard drive. “I have a few data recovery programs that ought to work,” he announced. For the next thirty minutes he labored over the laptop, trying first one program, then another. Alec sat, mumbling to himself. Meredith and Dawson stayed and watched in silence, not wanting to leave in case they could somehow be of assistance. Finally, Ted pushed the laptop away in frustration.

  “I don’t understand it. I’ve tried everything, but I just can’t get anything out of there. The unused memory on Alec’s hard drive is just filled with a pattern of numbers - zero, one, zero, one - there’s just no coherent information in there.”

  Burt turned to Alec. “Sorry, it looks like the data has just disappeared without a trace.”

  Alec looked as if he’d been hit in the stomach. “An entire week, lost,” he moaned, cradling his head in his hands.

  Just then George, Derek and Burt entered the room, breathing hard from the walk back from Building 12. Derek glared at the group at table. “It is a workday, you know,” he said pointedly. “I shouldn’t have to check up on you.”

  He paused, noticing their sullen faces.

  “Okay, now what is it?” he demanded.

  Ted quickly explained what had happened. Trouble showed on the new arrivals’ faces. George, in particular, took the news hard. “You have, of course, backed up your data, Dr. McPherson?”

  Alec shook his head sadly. “It’s so damn inconvenient, it just takes forever with these huge data files.”

  The room was silent, then Alec added, “I just wish I knew what caused it so I can be sure it won’t ever happen again.”

  Burt shrugged. “What’s done is done; we’ve got to move on. It could have been anything - something you did, the desert heat, a glitch in the battery. Hell, even a cosmic ray could have caused it.”

  “A cosmic ray?” Alec echoed uncertainly.

  “Sure,” Burt said breezily, “why not. You’d be amazed at how much computer data gets corrupted by them. That’s what ultimately limits the lifetime of digital data.”

  Alec smiled politely and told Burt that must be the case. Derek then told the group that he had come back to the dormitory not just to get the scientists back to work, but also to retrieve some papers that Burt had forgotten in his room.

  “You all finish up your breakfast, pronto” Derek told them. “Burt, you’re with me.”

  Derek turned and left the room, with Burt in tow. Alec stared at the doorway through which they had exited, his smile dissolving into a scowl. He slammed his open hand hard on the table.

  “Cosmic ray my ass,” Alec croaked. “It was those two brats, is what it was. Probably looking for a computer game.”

  Dawson opened his mouth to protest. The kids enjoyed their computer games, it was true, but they also respected the others’ property. Before Dawson could say anything, though, George, who had glared silently until now, jabbed his finger wildly at the door. “That man is a damn fool!” His voice quavered with emotion as his entire body shook with rage. “Singleton jokes about this, but it is no laughing matter. A week’s work, lost!”

  He turned to Alec, a wild look in his eyes. “I received an E-mail from Australia just this morning. The messenger probe has changed its trajectory. It has not decelerated as much as we anticipated. Professor Krezler can update you after he’s had a chance to see the data, but it is certain that our launch date must be moved up by a week. Every minute co
unts!”

  As he spoke George walked around the table until he stood directly in front of Alec. “This data loss is a great tragedy. In the future you must back up everything. Everything!”

  George bent down, drawing his face to within an inch of Alec’s. “And you must go one step further, Dr. McPherson,” he hissed. “Never, let your computer equipment out of your sight again. Never! Take it with you everywhere - to dinner, to bed, to the lavatory, everywhere. Leave it with no one. Do I make myself clear?”

  Alec nodded vigorously, his face frozen in a look of confused terror. The others just stared in shock. No one had ever seen George angry like this.

  George turned around to face the others. “That goes for all of you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Those children simply cannot be trusted!”

  Hearing George, too, blame Andy and Cindy was too much for Dawson. “You’re being very unfair, both of you. Alec, did you actually see the kids near your computer?”

  Alec shook his head mutely as Dawson continued. “I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt. They’re well behaved, they don’t fool with other people’s things. I don’t believe they did it.”

  George turned sharply to Dawson. “Ohh?” he demanded, his voice rising shrilly. “I suppose you, too, think it was a cosmic ray?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just pointing out...”

  George slowly stalked towards Dawson. “Or perhaps you think it was the desert heat, or a power surge?”

  “It could have been...”

  “A solar storm? A micrometeorite? Maybe static discharge?”

  George grabbed Dawson’s shoulder and held it hard. Dawson pushed him away and jumped to his feet, his chair clattering backwards onto the floor behind him. For several long seconds the two men glowered at one another, their eyes locked, and Dawson wondered if they would get into a fistfight. George slowly backed off a step, then abruptly turned back to the others.

  “I will say it again. You all must to protect your work, and I do not mean just from the children or natural events. Or am I the only one that is troubled by the pattern of computer set-backs that we have been having? And no more mornings or afternoons off for any of you, but especially for Dr. McPherson. There is no excuse for not working. I will have Usef bring the car for you immediately to take you to Building 12.”

  With a final scowl at Dawson, George stormed out of the room.

  Dawson and Meredith exchanged puzzled glances, then Dawson turned to Alec. He was shaking uncontrollably and grabbing at his shirt pocket. “This is too much,” Alec muttered, pulling an amber plastic vial from the pocket. With some difficulty he pried the cap open and poured two red pills into his hand. “I’ll never make the new deadline.”

  Meredith reached over and squeezed his hand gently. “You’re doing a great job, Alec,” she assured him. “I’m sure you’ll be able to redo the calculations quickly. These things go much faster the second time around.”

  Alec threw her a hopeful look just as Burt came back into the room.

  “What was that all about?” Burt asked. “I could hear shouting all the way upstairs.”

  “George is pretty upset,” Meredith said. “He’s pushing on Alec to move faster.”

  Burt walked to the table and sat across from Alec.

  “You can’t let him drive you too hard, Alec,” Burt said softly. “You’ll do no one any good if you have a breakdown.”

  It was a familiar refrain from Burt. Since arriving he had taken an almost paternal interest in Alec’s health, constantly urging him to slow down and get more rest, and encouraging him to take the odd morning or afternoon off. This met with disapproval from Derek and George, but Burt persisted nonetheless.

  “Don’t let George intimidate you,” Burt continued. “You know this is important, and you’re working as hard as you can. Don’t overdo it because of something George says. In the long run, you’ll finish sooner if you set a more reasonable pace. Slow down if you have to - not even the messenger probe is worth ruining your health.”

  Before Alec could respond, George burst back into the cafeteria. “Your ride is waiting, Dr. McPherson. The rest of you, start walking. Breakfast is over.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  As Meredith had predicted, Alec was able to repeat his calculations in much less time than they had originally taken, and by the end of the following week his part of the program seemed firmly on track to meet the new deadline. The others, too, continued to be ahead of schedule. Ted had been able to adjust his navigational calculations to account for the greater speed of the messenger probe and plotted out a new course for the interceptor.

  As new data came in, it showed the probe undertaking complex maneuvers that at first seemed to make no sense at all. Ted then realized that it was orienting itself with Neptune so as to use the planet’s orbital motion to slow itself down. This procedure, known as the slingshot effect, was a familiar tool to Ted - he had used it many times to increase the speed of interplanetary craft. “But what the messenger probe is doing is absolutely ingenious,” he explained to the others. “We only think about using the slingshot effect to pick up speed, but the messenger probe has the opposite problem - it’s coming in too fast to spend much time in our vicinity. So it’s using the slingshot to slow itself down.”

  As for Dawson, he had finished all his calculations and was now just wrapping up loose ends. He was so far ahead of schedule, in fact, that he now had to wait for the manufacturing facilities he needed for next stage in the green flame program - scale-up to ton quantities of the fuel components - to become available. Meredith was equally ahead in her research, but in her case she could move on to the next step - fabrication of the reactor casing. George arranged for this to be done at a machine shop at another site, about two hours away by car. Alec’s work was in the process of being done there, and Alec had been to the site a few times, supervising fabrication of the linkage between the two scud missiles.

  At breakfast one day Meredith was in an especially good mood. When Dawson asked why she was so upbeat, she told him that she would be traveling to the machine shop that afternoon. “Alec was planning to go anyway, so I thought I’d tag along. They’ll begin working on the reactor casing soon, and I’d like to go over a few tricky points with them before they get too far along,” she said brightly.

  Dawson could understand her good spirits; the fenced-in campus was like a prison to them, and their isolation was beginning to wear on everyone. These days any distraction, no matter how mundane, was welcome. This seemed especially true for Meredith, who had been disappointed that George had not yet taken her into Anjawan to explore the market, as he had promised her on the flight out.

  Dawson smiled at Meredith, sharing with her the good fortune she felt at getting an afternoon out.

  “Strictly speaking, it probably isn’t necessary I go just yet,” she continued, “but George offered, so I jumped at the chance.” She paused briefly, then added, “What are your plans for the today?”

  “Not much. A bit of cleaning in the lab. I thought I’d ask Ted to tell me more about his work, if he has the time.” Dawson had recently been getting Ted to teach him about interplanetary navigation. Ted was an eager teacher, happy for an audience that he could share the details of some of his more clever work. The mathematics was complex, but Dawson rose to the challenge, and he found the whole field more fascinating than he had expected.

  “Sounds like you’ve got some free time,” Meredith said, “want to take the afternoon off and come with me?”

  Dawson need little persuasion and agreed quickly.

  The invitation buoyed Dawson’s mood. He had recently been feeling something he hadn’t felt in years - restless. Ted’s tutorials on planetary navigation helped somewhat, but Ted had very little time to spend with Dawson. With the green flame program on hold until the scale-up facilities were ready, Dawson wanted to do more in the lab - expand in different directions - but he didn’t have the right equipment or chemicals. He
was so restless that he had even floated the idea of taking the kids into the mountains for an overnight camping excursion. George vetoed the idea on the spot, telling Derek that it was too dangerous with the wild dogs in the area.

  The pair finished breakfast quickly, but Alec had not yet come in. Just as Dawson was getting ready to go to Alec’s room to get him, George came in, a troubled expression on his face, and spoke to Meredith.

  “I’ve just seen Dr. McPherson. He doesn’t feel up to the trip. Would you still like to go?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Meredith replied, and Dawson added “I think I’ll go as well.”

  The troubled look on George’s face melted, and George smiled broadly, vigorously nodding his approval. “Excellent. You may need some machine shop work done at some point, so it wouldn’t hurt to see the facilities firsthand.”

  George led them outside, where a sedan was waiting for them, one of the two they had often seen in front of the soldiers’ barracks, next to the jeep and pick-up trucks. George motioned towards the man in the driver’s seat.

  “Abdu will drive you. He has taken Dr. McPherson out to the machine shop several times and is very familiar with the area."

  He gave them a wave and headed back into the dormitory. Meredith took the seat behind Abdu while Dawson went to the other side. He took the back seat, too, giving Abdu the front for himself. As he entered he noticed a small USB memory stick just poking out from the crack between the seat and seat back between him and Meredith. Probably Alec’s, Dawson thought as he pulled it out and put it in his pocket.

  Abdu started the car and they left the complex towards Anjawan. The ride to town was a short one. Dawson was looking forward to seeing Anjawan up close in daylight, but was disappointed in what he found. The buildings themselves were old and decaying. No real effort had been made to keep them up. As they drove Dawson was surprised at how few people he saw; no one was on the streets, and there was only an occasional face peering apprehensively at them from an open doorway or window. As Dawson looked out the front window it slowly dawned on him that the town was far from abandoned - the townspeople were actively avoiding them as they drove through. Dawson could see them quickly duck through doorways or behind buildings as the car approached.