by Jay Falconer
Drew gave the E-121 container to Trevor and wheeled himself to the Primary Control Station. He sat in front of the right console; Abby sat down to his left. When she scooted her chair closer to his, he could smell her strawberry-scented perfume. It reminded him of his mother’s backyard vegetable garden.
Abby was looking over her right shoulder when she whispered to him, “What’s the deal with Trevor? He gives me the creeps.”
“Trevor? Oh, he’s harmless. He’s a big teddy bear and would never hurt a fly.”
“He just stands there with his arms folded and never says anything.”
“That’s just the way he is. Sometimes he goes an entire day without saying a word.”
“I’m glad you’re not that way,” she said, touching her hand lightly on his shoulder.
Drew felt his face flush when she smiled at him. He had difficulty stabilizing his left hand when he reached for a series of red switches located on the riser panel in front of her. When he pulled back his arm after enabling power to the chamber’s video system, his forearm grazed her shoulder. The tiny black hairs on his arm tingled, sending a wave of shivers throughout his body. He waited for his LCD screen to fill with four equal-sized windows. Three of them contained camera feeds showing the exterior of the reactor; the fourth was a shot of the reactor’s core.
“So what happens next?” Abby asked, opening her documentation journal.
He changed the upper-left video feed to show Trevor and Lucas standing inside the decontamination chamber. Lucas was holding the E-121 container while Trevor put on his triple-XL hazmat suit.
“It’s time to load the core,” Drew told her.
He brought up a command window on his computer screen, obscuring the video feeds except the one monitoring his brother. He waited until he received the thumbs-up signal from Lucas before entering a series of programming constructs into his wireless keyboard. Thirty seconds later, the decontamination sequence was complete.
* * *
Lucas stepped through the inner door first and led the way back to the reactor. He unscrewed four wing nuts securing the reactor’s protective shroud and slid it open. He stood aside and waited for Trevor to place the E-121 container inside the core’s main housing. The container fit perfectly inside the precision-made receptacle.
“The material’s in place. Closing the core now,” he announced over the communication system.
Lucas closed the heavy shield, secured it, and the two scientists headed for the exit. They followed established air-lock decontamination procedures before removing their safety gear and leaving the chamber.
“All set, boss. We’re good to go,” Lucas said, sitting down in front of the left console. He was only a few feet to the right of the chamber’s door. Abby was seated to his right with Drew on the other side of her.
Lucas spent the next several minutes preparing his workstation for the experiment, but was distracted by Abby and Drew babbling away. Occasionally, the chatter was interrupted by one of Abby’s giggles. He looked back to see Kleezebee talking with Trevor near the center worktable. Lucas couldn’t hear their conversation, but based on Kleezebee’s body language and the professor’s frequent glances at Drew, he suspected a problem.
Lucas leaned around the front of Abby and quietly told his brother, “You need to concentrate on the work. Kleezebee’s watching, and he looks pissed.”
“Sorry,” Drew said, straightening himself up in his chair.
A short while later, Kleezebee and Trevor had finished their conversation and joined the Ramsays at the Primary Control Station. “All right, then, let’s fire this baby up,” Kleezebee said.
Drew opened the procedure manual, licked his forefinger, and used it to turn to the first page. It contained almost forty pages of instrument checks, startup protocols, calculations, and notes to run the experiment. The first order of business was to boot the various systems and reset the instruments. Kleezebee’s procedure manual included extensive notes regarding startup protocols and baseline readings.
“Control systems initiated. Stage one complete,” Lucas reported after calibrating the final set of instruments.
Abby documented every facet of the experiment in precise detail. As was true with most scientists, Lucas despised the tedious documentation requirements mandated by the advisors and often chose to shortcut the process by avoiding it altogether. He hoped Abby’s detail-oriented nature would save him a tremendous amount of grunt work.
Kleezebee was standing watch over Lucas’ shoulder, his arms folded high across his chest. He was grinning and seemed proud of their accomplishments. Lucas felt the same way. Their team was about to rewrite the laws of gravity.
“Go ahead and remove the atmosphere from the core,” Kleezebee said.
Drew started typing into his keyboard and seconds later, the custom-built reactor engaged, filling the lab with a momentary swooshing sound.
Lucas checked his instruments to verify the reactor’s core had transformed into a space-like vacuum. It had. “Core’s ready, Professor.”
“Now let’s flood it with the gas,” Kleezebee said.
Drew turned to another page in the procedure manual and pressed a series of bright yellow switches in order from left to right. Then he twisted two quarter-sized control knobs and pressed a black button labeled FLOW. “Flow regulators are set. Releasing the Radon gas now,” he said, typing commands into his console.
“Radon gas?” Abby asked Drew.
“We use pressurized inert gas to stop unwanted chain reactions from occurring.”
“Status?” Kleezebee asked.
“Seals holding and all systems report green,” Drew replied after checking his instruments.
“Lucas, fire up the EM system, and make sure it’s calibrated properly,” Kleezebee said.
Lucas activated the electromagnets surrounding the core by lifting eight toggle switches simultaneously. Within milliseconds, everyone could hear the reverberating hum of the superconducting magnets starting their power-up sequence. The low-pitched rumble shook the console desk, sending a jar of pencils and a pad of sticky notes off the edge. Abby bent down in her chair to pick them up off the floor.
Kleezebee said, “This is the point of no return. Let’s have a full systems check before we proceed.”
Drew reviewed each system. “Calibrations are . . . good. Power levels . . . check. Monitoring and safety systems are active and ready. E-121 is stable and pressures are holding. It looks like everything is working perfectly and within specs. I think we’re good to go.”
Lucas’ watch said 10:24 PM. He enshrined the time in his mind.
After a long exhale, Kleezebee said, “Set the beam’s power to Level One. When the capacitor is charged, let ‘er rip.”
Lucas reached forward and unlocked a palm-sized black control knob attached to the vertical portion of the control station. He twisted it counterclockwise and set its indicator to LEVEL ONE before locking its protective cover back into place. He pushed a neighboring red CHARGE button and waited for the capacitor’s power meter to increase. When it reached capacity, a green READY light lit up on his panel. He looked back. “Are we ready?”
Kleezebee nodded. Trevor scrunched up his face and took a giant step backward, as if he expected the chamber to explode.
Lucas steadied his finger and pressed the green READY button. A short, pulsating whirr resonated from deep inside the chamber, signaling that the capacitor had released its stored energy. “Almost there,” he mumbled with excitement. He could feel his chest tightening, making it difficult for him to breathe. Soon, the monitors began to stream multiple columns of numerical data up from the bottom.
When the final set of results appeared, Lucas stood up and yelled, “Shit!” and threw his safety glasses across the room with a side-armed throwing motion.
Abby flinched. “What’s wrong?”
Lucas raised his hands against the sides of his head. While looking to the heavens, he said, “Nothing. That’s what hap
pened. Not a goddamn thing. Two years of work, and then—DICK.”
Kleezebee touched Lucas’ shoulder. “Patience. It’s only our first attempt.”
The professor turned to the other Ramsay brother. “What’s the status of the core?”
Drew checked the reactor instruments. “Looks good. E-121 remains viable and the core’s adequately pressurized. Should we try again, possibly at full power?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. At this point, there’s no guarantee that doubling the power will accomplish anything.”
Kleezebee began to pace the room while everyone else remained silent. He shuffled to the far wall and back, looking immersed in thought, his hands folded behind his back. Then he stopped pacing and addressed the group. “Before we do anything, I need you to perform a complete systems analysis of the available data. Let’s see if we can tell what, if anything, happened. For now, let’s power down the EM system but leave the core pressurized.”
Kleezebee’s cell phone rang. He opened the phone’s flip cover. “Go for DL.” Partway through the conversation, he held his hand over the phone’s microphone and told the crew, “I need to take this call outside. I’ll be back in a few.”
* * *
Half an hour later, the team was huddled around the center worktable after concluding their detailed systems analysis. Kleezebee still hadn’t returned.
“So what do we have?” Lucas asked.
Drew read from a list of notes. “I checked the core’s internal data feeds and didn’t detect anything anomalous. The core’s material remained viable throughout the test and the internal housing was structurally sound. The core’s internal pressure held steady and was right on mark. Yet, our instruments failed to show any notable change in E-121’s EM field.”
Lucas sensed his brother had more to report. “Anything else?”
Drew nodded. “The really odd thing is that, with all the energy released, you’d think our instruments would have recorded something. If nothing else, it should have at least registered a power spike when the core was bombarded. But zilch. All that energy had to go somewhere. It’s as though the beam never fired.”
“Drew had me review the operational logs,” Abby said. “According to the project specs, the capacitor’s power level was precisely where it was supposed to be, and the beam frequency was tuned perfectly. All readings indicate that the energy was discharged and the beam fired.”
“I check magnets and calibration matched. Power okay. No failure,” Trevor added.
“Okay, then, let’s recap what we know,” Lucas said. “Everything was calibrated perfectly. The core and the E-121 were stable. We had the proper amount of power. All our readings were normal before, during, and after the test. The capacitor’s energy discharged and engaged the core, but no power was registered.”
Lucas rubbed his temples. “Damn, that makes no sense. What are we missing?”
“Nothing, it should have worked. What do we do next?” Drew asked, looking as perplexed as Lucas felt.
“The obvious next step is to run the test again, but this time we use full power. It’s entirely possible that the beam’s energy level was not sufficient enough to morph E-121’s EM field.”
“We could also try reversing the EM polarity?” Abby asked with a look of confidence.
“Maybe use inverse wave frequency?” Trevor added.
Lucas took a minute to consider the merit of each suggestion. After a short pause, he decided a politically correct answer was in order. It would help cover up his indecisiveness. “Hmmm, all three ideas have potential. But we need to run them by DL to see what he wants to do, if anything. I will—”
The room started to shake. The procedure manual slid off the console desk and the storage cabinets’ metal doors rattled and flung open. Several items fell off the shelves and landed on the floor. Abby grabbed Drew’s arm.
The tremor lasted less than ten seconds.
“Was that an earthquake?” Abby asked, letting go of Drew.
“It felt like one, but it’s not. When it first started a month ago, we checked with the USGS, but they said there hadn’t been any seismic activity in the area,” Lucas replied.
“We think the NASA group must be firing up one of their experiments. Some type of underground experiment,” Drew said.
“What are they working on?” she asked.
“Nobody knows,” Lucas said. “If you continue down our hallway, around a few more corners, you’ll see their security station. It’s staffed with a full complement of security personnel.”
Drew added, “We call it ‘the Zone.’ If they think you’re a threat, they’ll charge at you with their guns drawn. We’ve heard several people have been arrested.” Drew grinned at her. Before anyone could respond to Drew’s comment, the lab’s telephone rang. It was mounted on the wall, next to the entrance.
Lucas sprinted over to it and snatched its receiver from the cradle. “Dr. Ramsay speaking.” He turned sideways and leaned his right shoulder against the wall. To balance himself, he crossed his right leg over his left. He remained silent until the very end of the conversation. “Okay, I’ll let the team know,” he told the caller before slamming down the receiver. “That was Kleezebee. He said our project is on hold, indefinitely, at least until he can convince the fucking Advisory Committee to let us continue our work.”
“What? How can that be? They already approved this project,” Drew snorted.
“Apparently, Larson just got in touch with the committee’s chairman and somehow convinced him to suspend our experiment, pending a formal review. Kleezebee said it has something to do with government liability and the E-121 samples. All I know for sure is Kleezebee told us to shut down for now. He thinks this could take a while, and we might as well head home for the holidays.”
“But we‘re so close. How can they do this to us now?”
Lucas figured his Internet humiliation was the reason. He wanted to tell Drew the truth, but couldn’t bear to disappoint him, especially not in front of the techs. “Could be any number of reasons.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. We deserve better than this.”
“I hear you, bro. But we’ll have to wait a few days until Kleezebee gets back. He said he was heading to Washington right away to meet with the entire Advisory Committee. I guess they’re at some technology conference in the Pentagon.”
He turned his attention to the techs. “You two can leave, if you want. There’s nothing more for you to do right now. We’ll call you when the project’s back on.” He told Trevor, “Kleezebee wants you to call him right away.”
Trevor nodded.
Abby gave Drew a folded slip of paper before gathering up her belongings and walking to the door. Trevor held the door open and waited for her to walk through.
Chapter 7
Fortitude
After Abby left, Drew opened her note and saw a phone number with a heart symbol drawn just below it. He memorized her number before stuffing the slip inside his shirt pocket.
“So, what do you think we should do?” Lucas asked.
Drew knew there was no guarantee that Kleezebee would ever be get approval from the committee. They had to try again, right then, before they were locked out of their own lab. His Quantum Energy Thesis was due in less than a month, and he needed the neutron beam technology to show positive results. He wanted it now.
“Well, I don’t want to quit now. We’re so close I can taste it. We’ve worked too darn hard for too darn long. If they shut us down now, our project will be a total failure. I’ve never failed at anything in my life, and I’m not about to start now. If it were up to me, I’d re-engage the EM system, charge the capacitor, this time to full strength, and hit it again. Unless someone checks the power logs, which is highly unlikely, nobody will ever know about it unless we succeed.”
“I don’t know, brother. Kleezebee was very specific.”
Drew had never used an obscenity in his life, but was ready to if it woul
d persuade his brother to try again. “You know as well as I do, we may never have this chance again. There’s no guarantee that Kleezebee will ever be able to get the committee to give us the go-ahead.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but—“
“You know what Dad always said? Don’t be afraid to go after what you want, because nobody else will do it for you.”
Lucas sighed but didn’t answer. He shook his head slowly.
“Please, we’re running out of time. We have to try before they lock us out of our own lab.”
Lucas still didn’t respond.
“If we’re successful, we can sell the patent and payoff Mom’s medical bills.”
Lucas appeared to be considering the idea. After a short minute, he said, “It would be nice to get rid of those fucking vultures, once and for all.”
“Then you agree?”
Lucas nodded. “If you think full power is the way to go, let’s try it.”
The brothers spent the next forty-five minutes preparing for their next attempt. They crosschecked and completed each step in the procedure manual, except this time around, they charged the beam’s capacitor to full power.
Drew completed the last step and was ready to begin. He recorded the new time into the logbook: 11:52 PM, December 21.
Just then, Drew wondered if Abby’s suggestion to reverse the polarity might actually work. He knew her proposal was a long shot, but it was worth considering. He flipped through the procedure manual, stopping on page sixteen to review the equations. “Wait, that can’t be right,” he mumbled. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a copy of their original work. After comparing the two versions of the manual, he said, “Holy cow, DL changed our calculations.”
“What?”
“How the heck did I miss this?” Drew asked, using a yellow marker to highlight the changes. He handed both copies of the manual to Lucas. “Here, see for yourself. He changed our wave displacement factors.”
