Freedom Incorporated (62 page)

“
What is it?”
Simon asked, blandly unimpressed. Dan was too busy studying the
almost-fluorescent paste to speak.

“
PortaNet
calls it SuperFlex. Have you ever down in a portal looked?” The
more excited he became, the more his English deteriorated. “This is
the white circle. This keeps from spreading the synthetic black
hole and stops passengers from crush. This stops the gravitational
fields from consuming the planet!”

“
Like a black
hole would.”

“
Yes.” Hans
dipped the tongues back into the nitrogen and banged them against
the side to remove the resolidified paste before sealing the lid
and peeling the glove from his hand. He was sweaty and the rubber
stuck to his skin as if by suction. It yielded suddenly with a
nerve-jolting slap.

Dan was eager to prove he
was clever too. “Which is why they made it illegal to open the
portals, right?”

“
Exactly. And
why portals stop work if the seal is broken, and why only certified
technicians can reactivate them. The reactivation scanner works on
a rotating frequency timed with the supercomputer of PortaNet. They
do not want anyone to get a portal online after someone has
tampered with it. Additionally, a registration computer checks
regularly the status of every portal. If it detects a problem, it
removes the portal from the grid and a technician must manually
reset the portal
and
the registration computer.”

“
Sounds like
they’re paranoid,” Simon interjected. “And for good reason. There’s
always one loon who wants to see what’s inside and will probably
damage the white circle thingy and bugger up the solar system with
a runaway black hole.”

“
Um… yes.”
Hans smiled awkwardly.

“
Where exactly
did you get your sample?” Dan asked, rather tactlessly Simon
thought.

“
Lars Olssen
shared some with me.” Hans looked grave. “Which brings me to why
PortaNet had him killed. You see, this matter is volatile. Its
atomic structure is very weak and in large quantities has the
potential to collapse.” He paused, allowing the gravity of his
words to sink in.

But they
didn’t.

“
Yeah?” Dan
prompted.
So?

“
That means
the protons, neutrons and electrons in the atoms collapse into
subatomic particles, such as quarks. Then they fold into even
smaller particles.”

Simon and Dan waited
patiently for the punch line.

God, don’t
you know anything?
“So when that happens, it
amplifies gravity in the surrounding atoms and they too begin to
collapse. It starts a chain reaction that ends in a black hole.”
Hans held up his hands to forestall their exclamations. “But, by my
calculations, you must have 500 tons for 0.01 probabilities of that
to happen per thousand years.”

“
Then it’s
stable?” Simon was getting confused.

Hans shrugged. “Not as
stable as inert gas. Not as stable as uranium. But stable enough to
use safely.”

“
Then
why-”

“
However,
” Hans silenced him with his
vigour. “There is a by-product of the manufacture process that is
as unstable as a hydrogen balloon balanced on a burning match.
PortaNet neglects to mention this to anybody, including the WEF and
world governments. If they had, they never would have permission to
build portals. With just one kilogram you will have one percent
chance of a black hole
every
year
.”

Dan’s eyes popped wide.
“Okay, that explains why PortaNet’s willing to kill people. I don’t
imagine they want this secret going public.”

“
Correct.”
Hans squatted and gently scratched Kat under her chin. “Lars became
curious about SuperFlex, the miracle substance of PortaNet.” He
tapped the side of his box with his tongues. “He reverse-engineered
the manufacture process in his lab in Stockholm and discovered all
this. He asked me to verify his findings before publication, so I
went there and looked for myself. Every 100 grams of SuperFlex
creates 500 grams of waste material.” He correctly read their
alarmed expressions. “Yes, I know. Bad news.”

“
And PortaNet
found out that he knew?” Dan asked with rising nausea.

“
Of course, he
told them. He wanted to make sure they understood how serious the
matter was. We could not believe people deliberately risk black
holes for money. We thought they did not know. Lars had physicist
contacts inside the company, which is how he got the sample of
SuperFlex. But when he told them of his discovery, others were
listening.”

“
Echelon?”

“
No, the
security team of PortaNet. Lars was in Sydney to deliver his
findings at an international subatomic-physics convention when the
cleaning crew of PortaNet killed him.” He looked at Dan. “Which is
where you came in.”

Dan nodded,
mute.

Simon didn’t know what to
say either.

But Hans didn’t have that
problem. He finally had someone to talk to, and an even bigger
blessing – they were willing to listen. “I do not believe everyone
who works for PortaNet knows what happens. Those that do know keep
it very quiet. I know they have commissioned a department to take
care of the waste, called the Generation Planners.” He smiled
morbidly. “Probably because the quality of their plans will
determine if there is to be another generation.”

“
Well this
explains why you’re so jumpy,” Dan said, sneaking a look at
Simon.

“
How is it
that you’re still alive?” Simon wondered aloud.

“
Luck.”

“
I don’t
believe in luck,” Dan retorted.

“
Oh really?”
Hans found that amusing. “Then you must not appreciate how fucked
we really are. By my calculations, even if PortaNet cease
manufacture of portals today, every year there will be 0.5 percent
probability of a black hole. So, in two hundred years, chances are
good there will be nothing of our solar system left. In truth, I am
surprised it has not happened yet. That makes us
lucky
just to be
alive.”

Dan shook his head. “I
meant, why hasn’t-”

“
I know what
you meant,” Hans cut him off again. “PortaNet does not know about
me and I have worked very hard to keep it that way.”

“
Why don’t you
bring it into the open?” Simon suggested. “If everybody knows,
PortaNet will have no reason to kill you.”

Hans actually laughed.
“Do you not think I have thought of that? I would be dead before I
had the chance. Lars tried. They found him. If I mention this on
the phone or the net, they will know, and they will make sure I
cannot talk. Do you not understand? They have the power to make
people disappear. PortaNet has power enough to disappear a small
country!” Hans pleasured Kat by scratching her behind the ears and
for a minute her purring was the only sound in the room. “The
Generation Planners will soon reach their operational limit – I
presume in the next few months at the rate PortaNet manufactures
SuperFlex. They have supersaturated the Earth already; no more can
safely be stored here. They sent too much to other planets and the
moon is as a minefield. Nor can they send any to the sun – nobody
knows what the waste material would do at fusion temperature and
pressure. They eject much into space, but often send it without a
layer of SuperFlex to contain a potential black hole.”

“
Can’t they
just send it deeper into space?” Dan asked.
Aren’t there black holes out there already? What’s the harm
of one more?

“
No. They must
have a portal to accept it and we cannot build them far enough
away. The gravitational pull of a black hole is very great and it
would still destroy us.” Portal technology had made space
exploration easier but the distances involved were too vast to make
it simple. PortaNet had readily colonised Mars and established
mines to harvest valuable Martian minerals, but Mars was
comparatively close. They’d landed a buggy on the surface, which
had carried a solar-powered portal for its payload. From there it
had been easy, transporting astronauts and equipment instantly
between the red planet and space command on Earth. The intrepid
colonisers could effectively work on Mars and sleep at home with
their families.

PortaNet had carted
thousands of tons of portal equipment into space and the cost of
space exploration had plummeted because escaping Earth’s gravity
was no longer an issue. An orbiting station with a cargo-sized
portal received space supplies and a crew of engineers dispatched
portal-carrying probes daily. But the deeper PortaNet intended to
penetrate space, the more relay stations they needed to build.
Timing the portals was critical and once the probes had gone so far
that electromagnetic signals took more than five minutes to reach
the previous base, it was no longer possible to synchronise the
portals and transmit matter safely. They’d tried, but gravitational
distortions had destroyed the test robots.

So Dan’s suggestion was
impossible. But a team in PortaNet’s research and development
branch was working on a method for transmitting matter from an
Earth-bound portal to an existing black hole elsewhere in the
universe. They hoped to snare a black hole for long enough to pass
equipment to a distant galaxy and rocket space exploration to new
heights. So far it was little more than a lunatic’s orgasmic dream,
riddled with problems that had no solutions. The idea’s biggest
enemy was the fact that PortaNet had no control over which black
hole their experiment would lock onto, if any.

Hans continued his
narrative after giving his guests long enough to consider the
consequences of PortaNet’s actions. “I have a theory…”

“
Oh, do
share.” Simon smiled derisively, cynical now that his outlook on
the stability of life had forever changed. He was directing his
resentment towards Hans for enlightening him.

“
I think
Damien Richards was first to discover that his invention had these
side effects. I think his car accident was… not an
accident.”

Simon frowned. “Guilt
driven suicide?”

Dan gave Simon an
exasperated look. “He’s saying it was murder,” he muttered and
turned back to Hans. “So what’ll PortaNet do when they run out of
places to put their shit?”

An awkward silence
festered. Hans had no idea. He suspected PortaNet had no idea
either. And everything Hans had said only added fuel to Dan’s
inferno of anger. He felt like a boiler, straining at the seams to
contain the pressure.

“
I work on a
way of neutralising it, either with a different material to dampen
the field or I find some way to decontaminate the SuperFlex
by-product.” He looked weary. “So far, I have nothing. I work for a
year now and I have not much SuperFlex left for experiments.” He
waved an apologetic arm around his apartment. “And I do not have
access to a first-rate lab.”

“
Is that what
that is?” Simon jerked his chin toward the second bedroom. “I
thought I saw a disassembled portal.”

“
You
did.”

“
Oh.” Simon
flashed a smile. “Say, about what I said earlier…”

“
About loons
who foolishly open portals?”

“
Yeah, that’s
it.”

Hans waved it away. “You
are right. I am a loon. PortaNet does not make it easy to
experiment.”

“
By making it
illegal?” Simon asked, his inner-policeman itching.

“
No, by using
dampers to stop unauthorised portal activity. They are everywhere,
very big towers that guzzle electricity and produce a field to
prohibit unregulated gravitational fields. Recently they spent
trillions on geostationary satellites for the same purpose.” A slow
smile of pride crept onto Hans’s face until it hurt his bruised
chin, abruptly ending it. “But I found a way to negate the
field.”

Dan frowned. “You can
portal from here without PortaNet knowing?”

“
Yes.”

“
Anywhere you
want?” His frown deepened.

“
Um, after a
fashion, yes.”

“
Can you
override security lockdown circuits?”

Hans nodded.

“
So you can
access restricted areas without a chip?” Dan felt his excitement
mounting.

“
Yes, I can do
all that,” Hans said, lapping up Dan’s growing admiration as much
as Kat was lapping up the attention he doted on her.

“
Can we use
it?” Dan asked, looking covetously towards the
workshop-bedroom.

“
Um, no,” Hans
replied. “It can work without access to the network of PortaNet,
but I have no access to their database of addresses either. Normal
codes do not work. Do you know about computers or
networks?”

Simon raised his hand. “I
know a little.”

“
Good. So you
know every nano-net computer has a Protocol Address?” He didn’t
wait for confirmation. “That is the equivalent of the code you use
with the portals, but I cannot use that here. You know that each
network interface card has a unique MAC address?” He noted Simon’s
glazed expression but continued anyway. “That is what I need to
program my equipment. Each portal has a unique identifier, coded in
hardware.”