Quantum Void

by Douglas Phillips

  “Our admin produced this sample of Nala’s handwriting—a group lunch order from last week.”

  Marie compared both side by side. The handwriting looked the same.

  “It’s her,” Jan said. “I’m sure of it. But with the Diastasi lab gone, we have no hope of accessing wherever she is.”

  Park nodded. “Yes, with our technology lost, Nala is beyond our reach. But it doesn’t mean that hope is lost. We are in touch with colleagues in Geneva, and even though they have suspended their own operations, I believe we may yet get help. This is no longer a disaster investigation, it’s a rescue. Please.” He motioned for them to follow. “I will show you her most recent communication.”

  The hallway made a left turn past Park’s office, with a break room on one side and Jan’s office on the other. A decorative clock hung on the wall next to the break room entrance, and a hand-drawn black line dropped from the clock to the tile floor. The line ended in an arrow. Scrawled in large letters, the message ran across the floor and partially up the side of the doorway.

  Daniel suppressed a smile. “Pure Nala,” he said.

  Marie had almost forgotten the rumors, but Daniel’s face confirmed them—the two had been a couple. Maybe they still were. The words on the floor made it crystal clear—Nala was very much alive.

  Park stood next to the writing, without stepping on it. “This message was not here at six p.m. I know, I passed through here at that time. I noticed it later, around eight p.m. She has been here, not here literally, but within range of our dimensions, and only a few hours ago.”

  “So, we do as she suggests,” Daniel said. “We return here at eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, definitely,” Jan said.

  “With food,” Marie added. “She’s probably starved. But… how would she eat?”

  “Maybe we leave that for her to figure out,” Daniel said. “Let’s do exactly as she suggests.”

  “Even the vodka?” Maybe it was to sterilize a wound. But probably not.

  Daniel had a faraway look in his eyes. Recalling a vodka-related memory? “Yes,” he said. “Vodka, too.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The lower reaches deep underground at the vast Fermilab facility were quiet and dark, the hallway lighting having automatically shifted to a subdued overnight mode. Marie walked alongside Daniel. Park had offered to take them, but Daniel had dissuaded him. Marie was thankful for that. This task would be difficult enough; easier if the people around you were your friends. Daniel was.

  In her hand, she carried a leather case the size of a small pizza box. You can do this, she reminded herself more than once.

  Daniel hadn’t spoken since they’d left Wilson Hall and dropped by elevator to the catacombs beneath. So many of the lower hallways looked the same—stark concrete lined with pipes and electrical bundles. She would have never found her way alone, but Daniel had used this facility each time he’d spoken with Core. He probably felt like one of the staff by now.

  They stopped at a security desk to sign in, and the guard called upstairs for permission. It seemed like a procedure that had only recently been established. After some back-and-forth on the phone and a double check of their credentials, they were cleared and given instructions not to touch any of the monitoring equipment.

  Won’t be a problem, Marie thought. I brought my own.

  “Just up ahead,” Daniel said, motioning to a turn in the hallway.

  They rounded the corner and stopped. The destruction couldn’t have been this large, but it was. The floor of the hall ended abruptly, as if someone had sliced through the metal and concrete with a hot knife. Beyond it was a vast bottomless hole, dark without end. The hole extended above them, with no ceiling in sight. Far out into the darkness floated a small but bright light.

  “Oh my God,” Marie said. She kept her eyes fixated on the destruction. Wires dangled from above. The crackle of an electrical spark echoed, or perhaps it was just her imagination.

  “How does anyone survive this?” Daniel whispered, shaking his head.

  A spiral of dust revolved around the tiny light. Water dripped somewhere far below, but all else was still. If there was a far side to this cavern, Marie couldn’t see it.

  They stood in awe of the force that had taken away a large portion of the building. Neither spoke for several minutes, mesmerized by the slowly rotating dust set aglow by the light within it.

  Finally, Daniel broke the silence. “She’s in there… somewhere.”

  “I’ll know soon enough,” Marie said. She unzipped the leather pouch and withdrew the shiny metal band that was inside.

  Daniel watched as she prepared. “Is there anything I can do that would help?”

  Marie shook her head. The bond with the headband was hers alone. Daniel, along with a lineup of doctors, engineers and psychiatrists, wouldn’t make the slightest difference. No one else could help because no one else could grasp the experience, both the fascinating visual show that the device created inside her head and its sometimes-terrifying conclusion.

  Daniel stepped back a few feet, and Marie placed the silver band over her forehead. It dropped down to a snug fit, compressing her hair. She closed her eyes and tapped twice.

  26

  Visualization

  She visualized glowing globes in a sea of darkness. Dozens of them, scattered about, some the size of a hot-air balloon, others much larger. Spherical in shape, though the nearest was too large to see the whole. Its surface was a smooth curve that extended far overhead.

  They were colorful, varying in shades from navy blue to azure. Two of the spheres were deeper shades of purple. For such large objects, they seemed supremely fragile. Their curving surfaces were a thin film as tenuous as a soap bubble. Gentle fluctuations flowed across the flexible film like wind in a wheat field.

  Together the spheres composed a shimmering three-dimensional sculpture, like a collection of enormous but delicate glass balls. What the spheres represented had not yet come to mind.

  Marie rotated in twenty-degree increments, a fact confirmed by an unseen readout generated inside her head. She paused at each increment and studied the scene and then moved on until she had completed the full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn.

  One of the spherical surfaces—the one nearest—was the deepest purple, a beautiful indigo color. Its surface shimmered like the others, but it also had a number associated with it: 1.324, though it wasn’t clear what the number represented. She looked back at the other spheres and realized that they were all associated with a specific number: 0.577, 0.974, 1.629… The numbers weren’t displayed anywhere; it was more of a suggestion that came to mind as she looked at each sphere.

  She returned her attention to the closest sphere. Its glow was fascinating to watch, a combined effect of billions of tiny points of light covering its surface. Each minute sparkle winked out in a millisecond to be replaced by another equally small and equally temporary speck of light. Somehow, her mind could not only visualize each spark, but also imagine them collectively as a glow across the bubble’s surface.

  The detail was entrancing, but she had no idea what she was seeing. Daniel was near; she could sense his presence even with her eyes closed. But he remained silent, which was just as well.

  She walked forward, sensing the edge of the nearest sphere. Its curving surface soared overhead. It reminded her of standing at the base of the geodesic sphere at Epcot Center. For a moment, she opened her eyes. She stood within a few feet of the edge of broken concrete—the edge of a cliff over a vast spherical hole. The enormous purple soap bubble was somewhat larger than the hole but centered within the same space.

  Lifting one hand, she reached out to touch the iridescent purple film. Her hand easily penetrated and produced a slight vacillation that rippled across its surface.

  “Very cool.”

  “What?” came from behind.

  “Like a giant bubble. I can reach inside it.”

  “What’s in there?”
Daniel asked.

  She moved her head through the edge of the bubble, but its interior didn’t appear any different. “I don’t know. I can see the surface and there’s a number associated with it, but nothing else. It sparkles. Really, it’s quite beautiful.”

  She sensed motion, not physical motion and not nearby. She took several steps back from the spherical bubble and looked left to another spherical surface, very far away and much larger. It was the same indigo color as the one nearby, but its surface was different. It warped and bulged. It fluctuated in size and curvature.

  “There’s something big out there. Moving. Warping.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s another sphere, deep purple in color. But it’s too far away. I can’t see it in detail, not like the ones nearby. It seems to be deforming; maybe breaking apart, but in slow motion.”

  “So how many spheres are nearby?”

  “Maybe a dozen of the blue ones. They vary in size and a lot of them overlap, so it’s hard to count. The one we’re standing next to is different. Deep purple. Indigo.”

  “Are they fourth-dimensional space?” Daniel asked.

  “Maybe, but other than the numbers, I’m not getting any identification, at least not in this layer.”

  “Any holes in any of the spheres? Any connections to 3-D space? I’m just wondering if there’s a way in or out.”

  Marie looked around with her eyes open. The bright light stood out among the glowing spheres. “The light may be associated with this nearest purple sphere, because it seems to be in the center. Other than that, they’re just giant balls.”

  “Can you think of any way to find Nala and Thomas?”

  It was a good question. How she flipped between the visual layers was impossible to describe. It was not even clear which choices were available. Her mind controlled the visualizations, but not in any conscious way.

  Think about people.

  She concentrated. Nothing happened. She knew it wouldn’t; the device didn’t work that way. It wasn’t like flipping to the People Channel. The visualizations arrived as needed.

  After a few minutes, she gave up. “I’m sorry, I can’t find them.” She opened her eyes and turned to Daniel. “I feel like I’m missing something. Like there’s something behind a curtain if only I could pull it back.”

  Daniel stepped closer. “Too bad this thing didn’t come with a manual. But you’ve already provided some clues. It’s very likely that you’re seeing extradimensional space. If you can give the details to Jan, maybe he can work with it and find an answer.”

  As Daniel spoke, his words slowed and his voiced deepened. An odd sensation of an image fluttering, like one of those old television sets unable to control its vertical hold. Suddenly, Daniel’s face pixelated, converting before her eyes into multicolored dots that vibrated in place. His body followed, becoming a sea of dots that turned him into a wiggling form, no longer human.

  A sense of unease escalated into terror as Daniel’s face melted before her eyes. She ripped the alien band from her head and dropped it to the floor. Her vision didn’t improve. The floor pixelated too, its surface alive with vibrating dots that made the whole room shimmer. The vibration increased in intensity, as if every dot sought out the pattern of its neighbors and chose to synchronize. She felt the vibration enter her body from the floor. Her legs wobbled, her arms shook, her hands trembled. The vibrations continued up each bone, through her nervous system and into her spine. The shaking reached into her head, making her feel like it might explode.

  Help me! She yelled, yet nothing came out.

  Marie collapsed to the floor. Its surface seethed with vibrating pixels all around. They shaped themselves, becoming millions of individual creatures with legs, eyes at the ends of stalks and antennae. A pixelated army of bugs crawled across the surface toward her, their numbers increasing by the second and their target clear.

  She screamed but heard nothing, as if her open mouth was incapable of physical noise. And suddenly, it stopped. The vibration dampened like the surface of a drum no longer struck. The marching insects disappeared as quickly as they had formed.

  Her vision returned, even while her heart beat furiously. She lay on a carpeted floor in a darkened hallway. Very quiet. An acrid smell of electricity permeated the air.

  Daniel came into view, dropping to his knees, his face inches away. “Marie, can you hear me?”

  Her heart pounded, and the fog of terror lingered. Waking from a nightmare was nothing compared with the hallucination. There was no doubt of its fantasy, but that didn’t make it any less fearful.

  “I… I can.”

  “You fainted,” he said. “Just lie still for a minute.”

  Marie rolled onto her back and took several deep breaths. Her heart calmed.

  A few feet away, the headband lay on the floor. A device with capabilities beyond any human technology. But access came with a price. The hallucination seemed real enough to make her heart race and her adrenaline spike. Luckily, it hadn’t lasted long, and the rational world had returned. What she had experienced was all in her head, as the shrinks say. Temporary psychosis.

  “Can I get you some water?” Daniel asked.

  “No, I’m alright now. Just help me up.” She could manage standing, she hoped.

  Daniel pulled on one arm and helped her up. The room spun. “Uh… little dizzy.”

  “Sit down,” he said, putting an arm around her. She stumbled to the wall and slid to the floor. Daniel squatted just in front.

  After a minute, the spinning room slowed down. “I think I’m okay now. Thanks, Daniel.”

  He held out a comforting hand and she took it. “Damn, Marie. You had me worried. One minute you were staring at me with a funny look, and the next you just hit the deck.”

  Of course, there was more that Daniel hadn’t seen. “Did I scream?” She’d certainly tried, but like a dream, the mind only imagines what the body is doing.

  “No, you just collapsed. Sorry, I didn’t catch you in time. It must have hurt falling on that headband.”

  She felt her head for bumps. “But I threw the headband off well before I dropped.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Daniel seemed surprised.

  “Didn’t what?”

  “You didn’t throw the headband off,” he said. “You just fell. It came off when you hit.”

  That’s weird. I’m sure I threw it down.

  Of course, things were going south pretty fast at that point. It might have taken longer to get the headband off than she’d thought. But then… if Daniel was right, had throwing the headband been part of the hallucination? It could explain why the nightmare hadn’t stopped until she was on the ground. She was in uncharted territory.

  “Sorry, this didn’t turn out like I thought it would,” Marie said.

  “Nonsense,” Daniel said. “Your descriptions of the spheres might be helpful. While you were visualizing, I recorded everything on my phone.”

  Marie snorted. “That’ll be embarrassing. Psychic crazy lady thinks she sees purple bubbles floating in the sky.”

  Daniel grinned. “Yeah, but think how many likes you’ll get when you post it.”

  Marie did her best to smile.

  Daniel’s grin disappeared. “It was more than just fainting, wasn’t it?”

  Marie nodded.

  “Did it scare you, like you mentioned back in Florida?”

  Marie nodded. “Just a hallucination. It wasn’t real.”

  Daniel picked up the empty leather case and handed it to her. “Maybe you should just put that thing away for now. Somebody needs to have a deeper discussion with the Dancers about their technology.”

  Marie took the case. She understood a little more about herself every day. Today’s lesson: finding a path along the narrow dividing line between safety and risk. Daniel had just come down on the side of safety. Something told her she was heading in the opposite direction.

  He stood up and reached down for her hand.
“Come on, partner. It’s late, and we’ve still got a lot to do before we meet Nala in the morning.”

  27

  Duty

  Marie dropped her roller bag by the door and collapsed spread-eagle on the hotel room bed. The clock showed just past one a.m. and they would need to be up early, but sleep would need to wait until emotions were sorted out. It wasn’t just the creepy-crawlies. The visualization took a toll, put a noticeable stress on her psyche. In some ways, it was like any mental effort: organizing, writing, designing or just being creative often results in fatigue. The headband was like that too, but amplified.

  Psychosis. She’d looked it up on a medical site on their drive to the hotel. Brief psychotic disorder. BPD, they called it. A loss of reality on a temporary basis, and more common than most people realized, particularly for women under thirty-five. Treatable, but the web page didn’t mention anything about alien headbands.

  Be safe, as Daniel advised.

  Marie undressed and crawled under the covers. Her mind wandered for another half-hour before she finally drifted off to sleep.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Daniel closed the door of his hotel room and pulled out his phone. With three text messages and two voicemails, he might be awake a little longer.

  At least Marie was safely in her room. She had looked like she could use the rest. It was fascinating to watch the headband in action even if he couldn’t see what she saw. Her descriptions showed promise as guidance for Jan, just as Core had predicted. Understanding where Nala and Thomas were trapped was the first step to rescue, and Marie’s visualization of the extradimensional space that was apparently popping up all around Fermilab would surely be helpful. He was a bit envious of her visual access to an unseen world, though the intensity of the device clearly took a personal toll.

  The Dancer technology was impressive. Daniel had always wondered what an atom looks like—not just a computer visualization, but what it really looks like. Could the device do that? Marie hadn’t described an atomic layer, but maybe that feature was hidden somewhere in the recesses of the alien device. Of course, a good photoionization microscope can create an image of a single atom, complete with a blurry path for an orbiting electron. But the best anyone had produced was still a computer representation of quantum probability data. There were no actual photographs of atoms and never would be. Even the largest atom, cesium, is six hundred times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, forever invisible to our eyes.