by Jay Falconer
Drew whispered to Lucas, “Did you see all the soldiers on the way here?”
“Yeah, it seemed a bit odd,” Lucas whispered back, before angling his head in Mary’s direction. “Did you notice her ID badge?”
“Sure did. This whole thing makes me nervous.”
“Maybe the Marines have some joint venture project with NASA? After all, they’re all part of our same government. It’s probably not the first time they’ve pooled their resources.”
Drew looked down at his lap and began to rock back and forth, clutching the leather pouch that hung from his neck.
Lucas recognized his brother’s familiar response. Drew was slipping away into his secret, dark place, trying to conceal himself from reality. He gave his brother a small hug. “It’s going to be all right, little brother. I’ll take care of it. I always do.”
“Drew okay? Need help?” Trevor asked Lucas.
“He’ll be fine. Just give him a few minutes,” Lucas said. “But thanks for asking. You’re a good friend.”
Lucas turned to face his brother. He hoped that by interrupting his brother’s ritual, Drew would snap out of his funk. He nudged him on the shoulder. “Can you hand me the notebook?”
Drew stopped rocking, unzipped his backpack, and pulled out the multi-colored notebook they’d brought from the apartment. He gave it to Lucas. There was a faded purple stain on the lower half of its cover, next to the torn right edge.
Lucas and Drew had exhausted the evening hours formulating a number of unorthodox theories regarding the nature of the energy fields the day before. They knew conventional thinking was not going to provide them with answers, let alone a solution.
They’d considered every conceivable possibility, no matter how irrational or preposterous. They’d discussed cascading reactions, antimatter annihilation, subspace fractures, micro singularities, quantum rifts, subatomic spacetime turbulence, and even the possibility of third-party sabotage. They developed multiple theory paths and mapped them to an elaborate decision tree, which they could implement depending on how future events unfolded. It was an ingenious, well-conceived plan that the brothers hoped would impress Kleezebee. Despite their prowess for lateral scientific thinking, neither of them was able to explain the energy spike that they believed triggered the E-121 incident.
“Would you mind if I ran through some of these theories with you, Trevor?” Lucas said, turning to the third page. “We need a fresh pair of eyes to help us check their accuracy and make sure our assumptions are valid. You can be our sounding board.”
“Go ahead. I help.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Mary’s digital pager began to beep. She reached for the unit and disabled its alarm. Lucas wondered why she was using such an antiquated device. Perhaps a dampening field was in place—to block cell phone reception for security reasons. On the other hand, it may have been due to heavy terrestrial interference. A digital signal would degrade significantly having to penetrate twenty floors of thick cement and rebar. Lucas heard at least two other pagers going off, though they sounded distant, possibly down the hall.
“Are they ready for us?” Lucas asked her.
She shook her head with a concerned look on her face. “That wasn’t them.”
“Is something wrong?”
“NASA just ordered everyone to evacuate the building.”
“Do we need to leave?” Lucas put his hands on the chair’s armrests.
“I’m not sure. Let me check,” she replied before standing up, adjusting her blouse, and walking to the conference room door. She knocked twice, then leaned through the doorframe, as if she were waiting for permission to enter. She stepped inside, and was gone less than a minute before returning with a folded piece of white paper. She handed it to Trevor. “This is from Dr. Kleezebee. He says it’s for your eyes only.”
Trevor stood up and moved away before unfolding the paper and reading the note.
Mary told Lucas, “They’re almost ready for you. Should only be a few minutes.”
“Then I take it we’re not evacuating with everyone else?”
“No, you’re to remain here until they call for you.”
Trevor walked back and whispered something into Mary’s ear, after which the two of them hurried down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
“What was that all about?” Drew asked.
“Who knows? This just keeps getting stranger by the minute. All we need now is for your friend Griffith to show up with one of his toxic chemical experiments,” Lucas said, sitting back in his chair, thinking about the energy dome that chased them on campus. He was happy to be deep inside a hardened military-style shelter with thick, reinforced walls, far below ground where it couldn’t reach them.
Drew clutched his leather pouch again, and resumed rocking.
Lucas expected the next hour of his life to be one he would always remember. It was either going to be a career-making meeting—if one of their notebook theories proved to be the solution to the energy fields—or an hour filled with gut-wrenching stress; the kind that might destroy his self-confidence for life.
Kleezebee poked his head out of the conference room door. “Guys, we’re ready for you.”
Chapter 13
Repercussions
The windowless conference room was encased with gray, padded fabric along the interior of its walls. Lucas presumed it was some form of soundproof material, which was understandable given NASA’s secret activities. More than likely, NASA was employing several layers of security countermeasures to safeguard today’s meeting.
He recognized many of the people seated at the table. Directly across from him was Dr. Kai Suki, an undersized Korean fellow. Suki was the chairman of the university’s Advisory Committee and Kleezebee’s immediate boss. Two years earlier, Lucas had dropped Dr. Suki’s advanced calculus class when he discovered that Suki barely spoke English. The man was brilliant, but good luck understanding what he said. Lucas has made that mistake his first year in college when he struggled to pass a physics class taught by a chubby Italian professor whose lectures were littered with broken syllables and misused pronouns—not a good start to his college career.
Kleezebee was seated to Suki’s right, dressed in a shiny blue suit with a matching tie that was partially obscured by his thick gray beard. Lucas had never seen his boss dressed in formal attire before. In fact, he could not remember a time when he had not seen Kleezebee in his customary flannel shirt and blue coveralls. He thought Kleezebee’s closet might only contain a dozen copies of the same outfit.
“DL cleans up well,” he mused.
On the opposite side of Dr. Suki, was Randol Larson, the abhorrent Legal Counsel for the Advisory Committee. The man’s right eye was watering and blinking rapidly as if something were stuck in his eye. Larson pulled at his eyelid using his fingers. Lucas held back a chuckle by covering his mouth with his hand and coughing once.
Next to Larson was Dr. Judith Rosenbaum, chief scientific advisor to the President of the United States. Lucas recognized her from a recent magazine article on the effects of greenhouse gases on the planet’s atmosphere. The article mentioned that her winter home was in Green Valley, Arizona, a retirement community thirty miles south of Tucson. He had never been there, but had heard all the jokes about the golf-cart driving old-folks clogging up the city’s streets.
Rosenbaum’s wrinkled cheeks sagged down to her jaw line like a deflated balloon. Her face was riddled with liver spots, as were her tiny forearms. Her most prominent feature was the two-foot beehive hairdo, much like the animated character Marge Simpson wore, except it was gray instead of royal blue.
To Rosenbaum’s left was Hudson Rapp, a famous African-American astronaut who’d just been named by the U.S. President as the Director of NASA. He was an Arizona native. He’d been dominating the local news lately with claims of having discovered extrasolar life. His team had found traces of silicon-based microbial life hidden inside a porous meteorite that h
ad recently crashed in northern Oregon. Rapp was scheduled to be the university’s keynote speaker at next week’s mid-year graduation ceremonies.
A four-sided television platform was built into the center of the oval mahogany table. NASA’s logo was floating around on each screen, spinning in 3D.
Lucas knew the stakes had been raised when he recognized each of the famous political leaders on the three jumbo-sized teleconference screens attached to the left wall. Each one contained a different Washington official who appeared to be transmitting from a separate location.
Dennis M. Hubbs, President of the United States looked out from the center screen. The trim, forty-five-year-old was seated behind his desk in the oval office. He was flanked on the left screen by William Myers, Director of Homeland Security who appeared to be in a heated conversation with a slender, blond woman in a wilderness location. The elderly General Phillip Seymour Wright, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood tall in his uniform on the right screen, though his eyes were painted heavy with dark bags under them, making him look half-asleep.
Given the attendees, Lucas assumed Kleezebee chose the meeting’s new location to take advantage of NASA’s superior communication network and security systems. Microphones and video cameras circled the meeting area, allowing for real-time, transmission to all interested parties. A lengthy electronic whiteboard hung on the opposite wall from the teleconference screens. The university used the same technology, which was capable of digitally transcribing anything written on it, and then transmitting the contents to remote locations.
Lucas took his seat opposite Dr. Suki, with Drew on his left. When his hand brushed across the tabletop, he could feel its silky smooth surface. Someone had taken great care to buff and polish its shine until every blemish had been removed. The mahogany wood was a deep, reddish color, and its individual planks were edge-glued, using a book-match technique, much like that of a butterfly’s wings. It was a stunning piece of workmanship. There were stacks of reports in front of him along with yellow markers, pencils, legal pads, and several unlabeled bottles of water. He could also smell a hint of ammonia in the air.
Lucas looked at Kleezebee, searching for guidance and support, but Kleezebee’s face went stiff after he whispered, “Sorry.” Lucas felt like a defenseless rabbit who’d just hopped into a clearing, only to find the meadow was surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. Suddenly, the room’s temperature seemed a bit high, and the walls were much too close for comfort.
President Hubbs spoke first. “Dr. Ramsay, I wish to thank you and your brother for joining us here today.”
Lucas’ throat ran dry. He tried to utter a response, but the words stuck in his throat. It felt like someone had just dumped a mattress full of cotton into his mouth. He stuttered like an idiot. “Happy”—cough—“to be . . . here . . . Mr. President.” When he opened a bottle of water, the plastic bottle cap squirted out of his fingers and shot across the table. He tried to lunge for it as it bounced away from him, but missed. It rolled across the floor and into the far corner. “Sorry,” he said, sitting back in his chair. He drank a healthy swig of water, praying that his throat would remember how to swallow properly. It did.
The President cleared his throat. “I had planned to remain for the duration of this meeting, but unfortunately, I have a press conference to give. Dr. Rosenbaum will handle it from here,” the President said before standing up and removing his lavalier microphone. All three teleconference screens went dark.
Thank God. The last thing Lucas needed was to face the President of the United States and admit his mistakes. Hubbs was a former prosecuting attorney with a near perfect record of convictions. He would have wilted under direct cross-examination by the Commander-in-Chief.
Lucas kept his head down to avoid eye contact. He opened his red-and-blue notebook and scanned through the first few pages, pretending to be interested in the equations. He felt like an unprepared student, hiding in the back of the classroom, praying the teacher wouldn’t notice him. Maybe if he kept quiet, everyone would forget he was in the room, too. Without thinking, he began to chew on the middle of a #2 pencil. The soft wood surface gave way as his teeth clenched around its perimeter.
“Dr. Ramsay, we’re here to investigate the tragedies that have occurred on campus. Dr. Kleezebee has assured me we can expect your full cooperation as we address the cause of these horrific events. Rest assured, we will get to the bottom of this,” Rosenbaum said in a gravely voice that sounded older than she looked. She reached for a remote control sitting in front of her. “There have been some new developments overnight, of which you may not be aware. Please direct your attention to the TV screen in front of you.”
She clicked a button on the remote while pointing it at the table’s video carousel. The screens flickered for a moment, just before the video playback started with the word MUTE in the upper left corner of the screen. “This first report is from France and was filmed by one of their local news agencies.”
The broadcast showed aerial footage of a devastated gouge that cut through a crowded neighborhood in Paris. Portions of a school and a playground were missing.
“As you can see, another energy field has appeared and killed thousands of French citizens as they slept. Pay close attention to the last segment of the report.”
The camera zoomed in on a mound of shredded bodies left behind by the dome. The genetic material was seeping out and percolating in the afternoon sun. The pile appeared to be at least twice the size of the one Lucas had seen on the grassy mall.
“This next report is from Sydney, Australia. It was captured by an American tourist with a video camera.”
The recording showed a dome unleashing its might along the city’s waterfront. The energy field wasted little time consuming the city’s marina before leveling two restaurants and a parking lot crowded with vehicles. Not much remained after it passed.
The final report was from South Africa, where a city security camera captured an energy field flattening downtown Cape Town. It obliterated a dozen high-rise buildings and consumed a city park, trees and all.
Rosenbaum clicked a button on the remote control. The video playback paused. “In addition to last night’s reports, we have just received word that subsequent energy fields have reappeared in each of these areas, killing thousands more. Beijing, Moscow, and Baghdad have also reported their first incidents and the list of cities continues to grow. Each time a dome appears, its size increases. So does the duration of the event.”
Rosenbaum slipped on her reading glasses, and then opened a thick manila folder sitting in front of her. She took a few moments to scan through the paperwork before addressing Lucas. “Dr. Kleezebee has given us a detailed briefing as to the nature of your E-121 project. He also informed us that you believe these energy fields are linked to the second test of your experiment. Is that still your assessment, Dr Ramsay?”
“Yes, ma’am. While there’s no direct proof, we believe that E-121’s disappearance and the recurring energy fields are connected in some fashion. The timing of the events—the similar energy levels—the black powder residue. It can’t just be coincidence. It’s a good bet they’re related . . . somehow.”
“When you say related, do you mean that E-121’s disappearance caused the energy fields?”
“Yes, one could draw that conclusion. But that may not be the only—”
“Was your second test sanctioned by the university, Dr. Ramsay?”
“No, it wasn’t. But—”
“Then would it be correct to assume that if you had not violated protocols and run the experiment a second time, we would not be sitting here today?”
“Yes, you could say that—“
“Then by extension, would it be accurate to conclude that your unauthorized actions led to the murder of thousands of innocent civilians and billions of dollars’ worth of damage?”
Lucas didn’t answer right away. He needed time to think. It was clear she wasn’t there for answers. He
r agenda was obvious—she needed to pin the deaths on somebody and his name was the only one on the suspect board. Lucas figured he was screwed no matter what he said. Even so, she was right. This was his fault. He was the one who disobeyed Kleezebee’s orders. There was no denying it. He decided not to fight it. What difference would it make anyway? He looked at Drew who was sitting quietly, staring down at the table’s edge. Lucas took a deep breath before answering in a nervous voice. “Yes, it’s my fault all those people died. My brother had nothing to do with it. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
Rosenbaum nodded as if she was pleased with herself. She leaned forward in her chair. “Do you have anything else to add, Dr. Ramsay?”
He was surprised she opened the floor for response. “Only that there was an unexplained energy spike in the reactor’s core just before the material vanished. It may have overloaded the core, which might explain why the E-121 disappeared.”
“What was the origin of the spike?”
“Unknown.”
“Then how can you be certain there actually was an energy spike?”
“Our instruments recorded it.”
“Isn’t it possible your equipment may have malfunctioned and reported a spike when in fact there was none?”
“No, Dr. Rosenbaum, they were functioning properly.”
“Who built these instruments?”
“We did. They’re our own design and we spent months perfecting them.”
Rosenbaum pulled out a sheet of paper from her folder. “Your logbook reported the spike to be at least six times 1031 terajoules. Is that correct?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Were your instruments designed to handle that amount of energy?”
