Linkage (The Narrows of Time Series Book 1)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Whatever the case, he remembered from his first semester Biology class that certain biological traits would persist over time, passing from one generation to another when survival was involved. And those that didn’t involve basic instincts, including the fight or flight response, would eventually wane and become secondary, sometimes disappearing all together.

  He wondered how those genetic tendencies would evolve now that he was a copy of the original. Would his race of BioTex replicas develop their own evolutionary chain of improvements? Or would they stay the same from one incarnation to the next? And how would his existence affect the rest of the universe, now that he was in it?

  When he was the real Lucas, he’d studied every facet of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, pondering the complexities of time fluidity and the twisted paradox of Cause and Effect. Temporal Mechanics would cause a mental meltdown for most graduate students, but like his younger brother, he welcomed its complexities. He knew he wasn’t caught in a time loop, but his current reality was distorted and seemed to be governed by a close cousin to Cause and Effect.

  His twin consciousness transcended the limits of a single life and a single perspective, leaving him as both the real Lucas and the replica, but not both simultaneously. He was the true embodiment of the quantum paradox: he was both the wave and the particle. Much like Schrödinger's cat, the feline who was both alive and dead at the same time, he was a stateless contradiction, living somewhere between the worlds of theory and fact. Perhaps it was more accurate to say he was living somewhere between human and alien. Either way, his existence was difficult to quantify.

  Then he realized, as a synthetic being, he had no real family and no home. His life had been rebooted, bringing him back to where it all started. Once again, he was an orphan whose passions were imprisoned between the margins of fortitude and heartache.

  L snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Bruno1 speak into his cell phone and say, “Yes, send them down to the armory.”

  L felt a cramp in the middle knuckle of his right hand, which soon spread to the rest of his fingers. His hand turned a scarlet color as it slowly wilted like a water-starved tulip. “Hey Bruno, I need a little help here.”

  “Check your pockets,” Bruno1 told him. “They’re stocked with candy bars and other sugar rations. You need to eat one of them now.” Bruno1 looked at L’s hand. “And I do mean right now.”

  L inventoried the contents of his pockets and found a five-inch caramel-covered chocolate bar. He tore its plain white wrapper open and consumed the snack in only three bites. Within seconds, a wild rush of energy surged throughout his body, invigorating him. “Wow, talk about intense,” L said, watching his malformed hand and fingers spring back to life in human form.

  “I take it you were feeling rather hungry just before the deformation began?” Bruno1 asked, not waiting for an answer. “Hunger is precursor to reversion and means your sugar reserves are low. If you want to avoid a public spectacle, you should refuel immediately once hunger starts. It’s better to stay on top of your sugar intake, though, and make sure you top-off every chance you get.”

  “Seems rather impractical,” L said, pulling out a stale golden sponge cake from the right front pocket of the vest, “to have us stop in the middle of whatever we are doing to wolf down a five-year-old Twinkie.” L tapped the Twinkie against the metal rifle rack, emitting a loud CLANG.

  “New replicas take time to build up adequate fuel reserves. In the beginning, you only have a short window to refuel—just a few minutes.”

  “That’s not much time to find sugar. Will it increase?”

  “Yes, once your synthetic engine adjusts to your new human metabolism. It’s like breaking in a new car, or bringing doses of medication up to a steady state. You need more at the beginning, but eventually, your body will give you more advance notice when reserves are low.”

  L raised his eyebrows while looking at Bruno1’s rotund waistline.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the man said, rubbing his belly. “I have a lot invested in my rather stout figure and must be able to go for days without a pit stop. But don’t forget, my size is simply an internal volume adjustment, nothing more. I can choose any programmed identity, like skinny little Mary, for example. My external shape has nothing to do with how much onboard fuel I’m carrying.”

  “It’s more about building up glucose reserves,” Bruno2 said. “Your artificial nanocells need the stored energy to maintain their volatile memory. Without it, they’ll suffer a cascade failure and revert to pure BioTex.”

  “You mean I’ll collapse into a puddle of red goo?”

  “More or less, yes.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to wear a device that acted like a fuel gauge?” L asked. “With all your advanced technology, I have to believe there’s something better than waiting for your stomach to growl, then running to the fridge to scarf down a dozen Ding Dongs.”

  Bruno1 opened one of the corrugated storage boxes stacked in front of the rifle rack and pulled out a pentagon-shaped digital watch. “You mean something like this?”

  Bruno2 pointed to the watch on his right wrist, which was partially camouflaged by his forearm tattoos. “We all wear them. They also function as a communication device, a proximity sensor, and a bunch of other cool stuff. We’ll teach you about the rest, if and when it becomes necessary.”

  “I always wondered about that thing,” L said, drawing on the memories of his Authentic. He took one of the watches from Bruno1 and latched it around his wrist. “How does this it work? Is there a hidden speaker and microphone somewhere?”

  “No, it uses a non-linear, neuro-electrical connection. As long as you’re wearing the device, communications will be delivered through your nervous system and directly into your inner ear. No one else will hear it. To transmit, press the face of the watch and speak normally.”

  “Does everyone hear what I’m saying? Won’t that be confusing if we’re all talking at the same time?”

  “They’re wirelessly networked through a central comm system, which uses artificial intelligence to monitor and deliver communications automatically. So only the intended will hear your comms.”

  “Like a smart voice router,” L said. “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal them and reverse engineer the technology?”

  “Not possible. They’ve been encoded with biosensors, allowing them to only be used by our kind. If it loses physical contact with a BioTex replica, the advanced technology inside the watch self-destructs. To a human, it would appear to be just an ordinary watch.”

  “So, basically, don’t take it off your wrist or it fries,” L said.

  “Correct, unless you turn off the self-destruct mechanism first.”

  Before L could ask about the self-destruct mechanism, a balding, pot-bellied male technician in a lab coat walked into the room. He was carrying an enormous syringe, big enough to scare an elephant.

  “They’re here to install tactical programming,” Bruno1 said.

  “Okay, but where are you going to stick that thing?” L asked, worrying about his backside. “It looks like Schwarzenegger’s forearm.”

  “In your left ear canal,” the tech reported. “That’s where your direct neural interface device is located.”

  L pushed the tech away from him. Synthetic copy or not, the injection sounded painful. “Are you kidding me? My ear? Don’t get near me with that thing. Bruno, is he serious?”

  “Yes. It’s fine. We do it all the time.”

  “You just need to deactivate your pain receptors,” the tech said, holding up the probe for insertion.

  “Am I supposed to know how to do that? Bruno, help me out here.”

  “Close your eyes, tilt your head back, and concentrate on your ear’s cellular structure,” Bruno1 replied. “You have the ability to control your shape, which means you can morph any part of your body into gelatinous form. It’ll allow you to receive the encoder probe without pain.”

  �
��Like this,” Bruno2 said, tilting his head back. The side of his head began to lose its shape and consistency, turning a scarlet color. He inserted most of his left hand into the shimmering glob, then withdrew it a second later. “See? No pain,” he said, while his ear and the side of his head returned to human form. “Pretty slick, huh?”

  L was still skeptical but decided to try to give it a shot. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and concentrated on his left ear canal. He thought he might be getting the hang of it when he felt a watery sensation inside his left ear canal, but then his right eye drooped down across his cheek. His vision went askew, and he knew he was in trouble.

  “Dude, your eye,” Bruno2 said.

  “Oops, my bad,” L said, covering the deformity with his right hand. He quickly adjusted his concentration, making his eye return to its normal shape and location. “Whew, that’s better. This is gonna take some practice.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it. Go ahead. Try it again,” Bruno1 said. “Only this time, try not to think of anything but your left ear.”

  L took a deep breath, then exhaled a rush of wind across the roof of his mouth. He mumbled quietly, “Don’t think about your groin. . . . You don’t need its contents melting down your leg. . . . Concentrate on your ear canal. . . . You can do this.”

  L continued his efforts and eventually succeeded in converting his left ear to the native BioTex. He was able to hold the semi-liquid state long enough for the technician to insert the probe and complete the fifteen-second programming update.

  “Okay, you’re good to go,” the balding tech said.

  “Glad that’s over with. It’s harder to do than it looks,” L said, feeling his ear return to normal shape. Without thinking, he inserted the tip of his index finger and began to rub the inside of his left ear, making the moisture squeak. He removed his finger and checked it for earwax, realizing his new ability would make removing the water from his ears much easier after his daily shower. Things were looking up, he mused.

  “Gentlemen, it’s time to deploy. We have a mission to complete,” Bruno1 told the group in a commanding voice.

  L stuffed four extra ammunition clips inside his vest pockets. “You can never have enough ammo, even if they’re only blanks.”

  “You’re catching on quick, Doc,” Bruno1 said.

  “Oh yeah, That’s right. I’m a doctor,” L said, remembering the day his Authentic earned his PhD.

  “See, there are perks to being synthetic. It’s not all sugar and goo.”

  L grinned. “This is gonna be fun.”

  “Lock and load,” Bruno2 replied.

  Bruno1 escorted L and Bruno2 up to the ground floor, where Bruno3 and Bruno4 were waiting in front of the silo’s entrance. Two lumbering tanker trucks with gleaming chrome pipes along their sides and one dark, unmarked sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of the group.

  * * *

  Drew leaned back in his wheelchair to watch the array of video monitors in the surveillance room. The screens were filled with energy fields wreaking havoc across London, Moscow, Las Vegas, and New York City. Densely populated neighborhoods, and even entire cities, were being razed without mercy.

  He’d seen enough. “Lucas, we can’t just sit here while thousands of people are being murdered in their homes.”

  “I agree. But what can we do?”

  Drew furrowed his brow, pretending not to know the answer to the question he was about to ask. “Remind me again, how big was the energy spike in our lab?”

  “Six times 1031 terajoules, but I’m sure you remember that.”

  Drew’s concentration drifted from his brother. He stared straight ahead at nothing in particular, while the tip of his tongue pushed at his lips, protruding out of the corner of his mouth. His head bobbed like it was ready to join the crowd on a dance floor.

  “Hey, I know that look,” Lucas said. “Come on, spill it.”

  “Assuming we could generate enough energy, and then somehow channel it into the dome’s vortex, do you think it would be sufficient to destabilize the wormhole?”

  “In theory, yes, it might work. But the energy requirement would be huge.”

  “What would be your estimate?”

  “At a minimum, we’d have to match the energy field’s total output.”

  “Which is six times 1031 terajoules, same as the E-121 energy spike, right?”

  “Of course, but where are you going with this?”

  “I’ve been thinking about taking the Big Ivan idea to the next level,” Drew said, opening the red-and-blue theory notebook from his knapsack. “Remember those equations I saw the two NASA techs working on when we followed Mary to the conference room?”

  “Vaguely. I think you said they had something to do with controlling virtual protons in a quantized field?”

  “Exactly,” Drew answered, pointing to a set of equations on page fifteen, with the letters QED written above them.

  “Quantum Electrodynamics?”

  “Do you remember the tremors in our lab right before E-121 vanished?”

  “Sure, but I don’t see the connection.”

  “What if NASA was running a vacuum energy test at the same time we were running our experiment? It might have caused some type of subspace linkage between the two, amplifying both.”

  “A QED amplification conduit,” Lucas mumbled, thinking it through. A few seconds later, he nodded when the facts crystallized in his brain. He smiled. “You might be on to something.”

  “Let’s hope so, ‘cause I can’t stand watching that anymore,” he said, pointing at the video feeds. Everywhere he looked, the screens were filled with death and destruction, from all across the planet.

  “You and me both,” Lucas said, showing a furrowed brow.

  “I’m pretty sure my theory is sound, but the problem will be the power requirements. Do you think it would work? Combining ours with NASA’s?”

  “It’s possible. But we should run this by DL. He’ll know for sure.”

  Drew followed Lucas to Kleezebee’s location across the room.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Kleezebee, but Drew has an idea you need to hear,” Lucas said.

  Kleezebee looked up from the paperwork he was poring over, bringing his eyes to Drew. “Okay, shoot. What’s up, sport?”

  “When we were on NASA’s Sublevel Twenty, I saw something in one of the labs. Two techs were standing in front of a grease board working on a set of equations. I could only see part of their work, but I’m almost positive it had something to do with Quantum Foam.”

  “What’s Quantum Foam?” Bruno asked.

  “It’s a subatomic storm of creation and destruction that takes place constantly inside empty space,” Drew replied.

  “Wait a minute. If it has a storm in it, how can it be empty?” the guard asked.

  “The laws of QED say that on average the vacuum of space is empty. Which means there are other times when empty space isn’t empty. It all depends on when you happen to look at, or sample, the empty space. The storm happens so fast, sometimes you see it and other times you don’t.”

  Bruno shrugged and muttered, “Ummm…” Obviously, the information confounded him.

  Drew tried to dumb it down a little. “Think of it like the percolating foam on top of a bubble bath, except it takes place at a subatomic level. The storm is always churning away, creating particles of matter and anti-matter, which instantly destroy each other and give off energy. Now imagine you’re in the same bathroom, but it’s dark, and all you have is a strobe light that’s flashing slowly. If you happen to open your eyes at the same moment the light is on, you’ll see the foam creating and destroying virtual particles. If you look when the light is off, you won’t see it, even though the foam’s still there, doing its thing.”

  Bruno stood there with a puzzled look.

  Drew continued, “The way it works is empty space borrows energy from the future to create one particle of positive mass and one particle of negative mass. When t
hese two particles meet, they annihilate each other and release tremendous amounts of energy. This, in effect, pays back the borrowed energy to the future. This constant creation/destruction cycle is what we call Quantum Foam.”

  “Okay, I think I’m starting to get it,” Bruno said, rubbing the top of his glistening skull.

  Lucas added, “It’s like on Star Trek, when there’s a breach in the engine room’s anti-matter chamber. When matter and anti-matter meet, they instantly destroy each other and everything around them. We think this is where all the excess interstellar radiation comes from.”

  “Ah yes, Gene’s show,” Bruno replied, smiling at Kleezebee.

  “And why is all of this relevant to the situation at hand?” Kleezebee asked Drew.

  “The night E-121 vanished from the core, we felt powerful underground tremors. If NASA was running a Quantum Foam experiment at the exact same moment when we fired up our E-121 experiment at full power, then maybe—”

  “The zero-point energy produced by their experiment was drawn into yours.”

  “Like interstellar light being sucked into a black hole,” Bruno said with an upturned corner of his mouth.

  Kleezebee continued, moving his eyes from Drew to Lucas, “You think NASA’s experiment caused the energy spike. A quantum amplification wave of sorts.”

  “Yes, sir, we do,” Lucas said. “And that’s not all. Go ahead and tell him, Drew.”

  “Professor, I don’t think it’s purely coincidence these domes are using the same amount of energy as the energy spike. I think they’re related in some fashion. We might be able to use the energy produced by NASA’s experiment to overload a dome’s power matrix and collapse it.”

  “How?”

  “Not sure. I haven’t figured that part out, yet. I’ll need a better look at those equations and crunch some more numbers.”

  “If I can get you back down there, do you think you can show me where you saw those equations?”

  “Not a problem. I have the location memorized.”

  “How are we going to get past the soldiers?” Lucas asked.