Ground Zero (The X-Files) (2 page)

Because of cost limitations and the on-again/off-again political treaties regarding nuclear testing, these hydrodynamic simulations were now the only way to study certain secondary effects, to analyze shock-front formations and fallout patterns. Aboveground atomic detonations had been banned by international treaty since 1963…but Dr. Gregory and his superiors believed they could succeed with the Bright Anvil Project—if all conditions turned out right. The Department of Energy was eager to see that all conditions turned out right. He moved to the next simulation screen, watching the dance of contours, pressure waves, temperature graphs on a nanosecond-by-nanosecond scale. Already he could see that it would be a lovely explosion.

Classified reports and memos littered his desk, buried under sheafs of printouts spewed from the laser printer he shared with the rest of his Bright Anvil team members down the hall. His deputy project head, “Bear” Dooley, posted regular weather reports and satellite photos, circling the interesting areas with a red felt-tip marker. The most recent picture showed a large circular depression gathered over the central Pacific, like spoiled milk swirling down a drain—eliciting a great deal of excitement from Dooley.

“Storm brewing!” the deputy had scrawled on a 4

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Post-it note stuck to the satellite photo. “Our best candidate so far!”

Dr. Gregory had to agree with the assessment. But they couldn’t proceed to the next step until he finished the final round of simulations. Though the Bright Anvil device had already been assembled except for its fissile core, Gregory eschewed lazy shortcuts. With such incredible power at one’s fingertips, caution was the watchword.

He whistled along to “Georgie Girl” as his computers simulated waves of mass destruction.

Somebody honked a car horn outside, either in support of the protesters, or just annoyed and trying to get past them. Since he planned to stay late, those demonstrators—weary and self-satisfied—would be long gone by the time Gregory headed for his own car.

It didn’t matter to him how many extra hours he remained in the lab, since research was the only thing left of his real life. Even if he went home, he would probably work anyway, in his too-quiet and too-empty house, surrounded by photos of the old 1950s hydrogen bomb shots out in the islands or atomic blasts at the Nevada Test Site. He had access to better computers in his lab, though, so he might as well work through dinner. He had a sandwich in the refrigerator down the hall, but his appetite had been unpredictable for the past few months.

At one time, Miriel Bremen would have stayed working with him. She was a sharp and imaginative young physicist who looked up to the older scientist with something like awe. Miriel had a great deal of talent, a genuine feel for the calculations and secondary effects. Her dedication and ambition made her the perfect research partner. Unfortunately, she also had too much conscience, and doubts had festered inside her.

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Miriel Bremen herself was the spearhead behind the formation of the vehement new activist group, Stop Nuclear Madness!, headquartered in Berkeley. She had abandoned her work at the research facility, spooked by certain incomprehensible aspects of the Bright Anvil warhead. Miriel had become a turncoat with a zeal that reminded him of the way some former cigarette smokers turned into the most outspoken antitobacco lobbyists. He thought of Miriel out there on the other side of the fence. She would be waving a sign, taunting the security guards to arrest her, making her point loud and clear, regardless of whether anyone wanted to hear it. Dr. Gregory forced himself to remain seated behind the computer workstation. He refused to go back to the window to look for her. He didn’t feel spite toward Miriel, just…disappointment. He wondered how he had failed her, how he could have misjudged his deputy so thoroughly. At least he didn’t have to worry about her replacement, Bear Dooley. Dooley was a bulldozer of a man, with a dearth of tact and patience, but a singular dedication to purpose. He, at least, had his head on straight. A knock came at the half-closed door to his lab office. Patty, his secretary—he still hadn’t gotten used to thinking of her as an “administrative assistant,” the current politically correct term—poked her head in.

“Afternoon mail, Dr. Gregory. There’s a package I thought you might like to see. Special delivery.” She waggled a small padded envelope. He started to push his aching body up from his computer chair, but she waved him back down.

“Here. Don’t get up.”

“Thanks, Patty.” He took the envelope, pulling 6

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his reading glasses from his pocket and settling them on his nose so he could see the postmark.
Honolulu, Hawaii
. No return address.

Patty remained in the doorway, shuffling her feet. She cleared her throat. “It’s after four o’clock, Dr. Gregory. Would you mind if I left a little early today?” Her voice picked up speed, as if she were making excuses. “I know I’ve got those memos to type up tomorrow morning, but I’ll keep one step ahead of you.”

“You always do, Patty. Doctor’s appointment?” he said, still looking down at the mysterious envelope and turning it over in his hands.

“No, but I don’t really want to hassle with the protesters. They’ll probably try to block the gate at quitting time just to cause trouble. I’d rather be long gone.” She looked down at her pink-polished fingernails. Her face had a fallen-in, anxious expression.

Dr. Gregory laughed at her nervousness. “Go ahead. I’ll be staying late for the same reason.”

She thanked him and popped back out the door, pulling it shut behind her so he could work in peace. The computer calculations continued. The core of the simulated explosion had expanded, sending shockwaves all the way to the edge of the monitor screen, with secondary and tertiary effects propagating in less-defined directions through the plasma left behind from the initial detonation. Dr. Gregory peeled open the padded envelope, working one finger under the heavily glued flap. He dumped the contents onto his desk and blinked, perplexed. He blew out a curious breath.

The single scrap of paper wasn’t exactly a letter—no stationery, no signature—just carefully inked words in fine black lettering.

“FOR YOUR PART IN THE PAST—AND THE FUTURE.”

A small glassine packet fell out beside the note. It 7

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was a translucent envelope only a few inches long, filled with some sort of black powder. He shook the padded envelope, but it contained nothing else.

He picked up the glassine packet, squinting as he squeezed the contents with his fingers. The substance was lightweight, faintly greasy, like ash. He sniffed it, caught a faint, sour charcoal smell mostly faded by time.

For your part in the past—and the future
. Dr. Gregory frowned. He scornfully wondered if this could be some stunt by the protesters outside. In earlier actions, protesters had poured jars of animal blood on the ground in front of the facility’s security gates and planted flowers alongside the entry roads.

Black ash must be somebody’s newest idea—maybe even Miriel’s. He rolled his eyes and let out an “Oh brother!” sigh.

“You can’t change the world by poking your heads in the sand,” Dr. Gregory muttered, turning his gaze toward the window.

On the workstations, the redundant simulations neared completion after eating up hours of supercomputer time, projecting a step-by-step analysis of one second in time, the transient moment where a man-made device unleashed energies equivalent to the core of a sun. So far, the computers agreed with his wildest expectations. Though he himself was the project head, Dr. Gregory found parts of Bright Anvil inexplicable, based on baffling theoretical assumptions and producing aftereffects that went against all his training and experience in physics. But the simulations
worked
, and he knew enough not to ask questions of the sponsors who had presented him with the foundations of this new concept to implement.

After a fifty-one-year-long career, Dr. Gregory 8

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found it refreshing to find an entire portion of his chosen discipline that he could not explain. It opened up the wonder of science for him all over again.

He tossed the black ash aside and went back to work. Suddenly the overhead fluorescent lights flickered. There was an intense humming sound, as if a swarm of bees were trapped in the thin glass tubes. He heard the snapping shriek of an electrical discharge, and the lights popped and died. The radio on his desk gave out a brief squelch of static, right in the middle of “Hang on, Sloopy.” Then it fell silent. Dr. Gregory’s failing muscles sent stabs of pain through his body as he whirled in despair to see his computer workstations also winking out. The computers were crashing.

“Awww, no!” he groaned. The systems should have had infallible backup power supplies to protect them during normal electrical outages. He had just lost literally billions of supercomputer iterations.

He pounded his gnarled fist on the desk, then levered himself to his feet and staggered over to the window, moving more quickly than his unsteady balance and common sense allowed.

Reaching the glass, he glanced outside at the other buildings in the complex. All the interior lights were still shining in the adjacent wing of the research building. Very odd. It looked as if his office had been specifically targeted for a power disruption.

With a sinking feeling, Dr. Gregory began to wonder about sabotage from the protesters. Could Miriel have gone so far overboard? She would know how to cause such damage. Though her security clearance had been taken away after she quit her job and formed Stop Nuclear Madness!, perhaps she had

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managed to bluff her way inside, to interfere with the simulations only she could have known her old mentor would be running.

He didn’t want to think her capable of such action…but he knew she would consider it, without qualms. Dr. Gregory swatted at the insistent hissing, buzzing noise that hovered about his ears, finally noticing it for the first time. With all the power suddenly smothered and machine sounds damped to nothingness, silence should have descended upon his office. But the whispers came instead.

With a growing sense of uneasiness that he forced himself to ignore, Dr. Gregory went to the door, intending to shout down the hall for Bear Dooley or any of the other physicists. For some reason, the company of others seemed highly desirable right now. But he found the doorknob unbearably hot.
Unnaturally
hot.

With a hiss, he yanked his hand away. He backed off, staring down in shock more than pain at the bright blisters forming in the center of his palm.

Smoke began to curl around the solid security-locked doorknob, oozing out of the keyslot.

“Hey, what is this? Hello!” He flapped his burned hand to cool it. “Patty? Are you still out there?”

Contained within the concrete walls of his office, the wind picked up, crackling with electrical static. Papers blew, curled up by a foul breath of heat. The glassine envelope of black powder spilled open, spraying dark ash into the air. Untucking his shirt and using the tail to protect his hand against the heat, he hurried back to the door again and reached for the knob. By now, though, it glowed red-hot, a throbbing scarlet that hurt his eyes.

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“Patty, I need your help. Bear! Somebody!” His voice cracked, growing high-pitched with fear. Like an elapsed-time simulation of sunrise, the light in the room grew brighter and
brighter
, seeming to emanate from the walls, a searing harsh glare.

Dr. Gregory backed toward the concrete blocks, holding up his hands to shield his face from yet another aspect of physics he did not understand. The whispering voices increased in volume, rising to a crescendo of screams and accusations climbing through the air itself. Reaching a critical point.

An avalanche of heat and fire struck him, so intense that it knocked him into the wall. A billion, billion X rays brought every cell in his body to a boil. Then came a
burst
of absolute light, like the core of an atomic explosion. And Dr. Gregory found himself standing alone at Ground Zero.

11

TWO

Teller Nuclear Research Facility

Tuesday, 10:13 A.M.

The security guard stepped out of a small prefab shack just outside the chain-link perimeter of the large research facility. He glanced at Fox Mulder’s papers and FBI identification, then motioned for him to drive his rental car over to the Badge Office just outside the gate.

In the passenger seat Dana Scully sat up straighter. She willed the cells of her body to supply more energy and bring her to full alertness. She hated catching red-eye flights, especially from the East Coast. Already today she had spent hours on the plane and now another hour in the car with her partner driving from the San Francisco Airport. She had rested fitfully on the large plane, managing only a brief nap instead of genuine sleep.

“Sometimes I wish that more of our cases would happen closer to home,” she said, not really meaning it. 12

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Mulder looked over at her, flashed a brief commiserating smile. “Look on the bright side, Scully—I know plenty of deskbound agents who envy us our exciting jet-setting lifestyle. We get to see the world. They get to see their offices.”

“I suppose the grass is always greener…” Scully said. “Still, if I ever do take a vacation, I think I’ll just stay home on the sofa and read a book.”

Scully had grown up as a Navy brat. She and her two brothers and her sister had been forced to pull up their roots every few years while they were young, whenever the Navy assigned her father to a different base or a different ship. She’d never complained, always respecting her father’s duty enough to do her part. But she had never dreamed that when it came to her own career, she would end up choosing something that required her to travel around so often. Mulder guided the car to the front of a small white office isolated from the large cluster of buildings inside the fence. The Badge Office appeared relatively new, with the type of clean yet flimsy architecture that reminded Scully of a child’s step-by-step model kit.