Jaunt (6 page)

“What is this shape?” he asked.

“I...I can’t be sure. It’s large, much larger than what I calculated it to be. There are absolutely no particle annihilations inside the boundary. It must have an immense effect on the spacetime fabric.”

“But gravity should also do the same, and this weighs no more than several grams.”

“True,” Waters allowed. “But there are more effects than just gravity.” She stared back at the image. “Whatever that object is, it’s no jewel. And this is no ordinary spacetime curvature, either.”

De Lis, Valagua and Gilmour returned to the jumpjet later, after a fruitless scavenge through the crater site. Despite the abundant presence of more metal shards buried deeper within the bowl, the absence of other artifacts similar to the skull dissuaded de Lis from staying longer than three hours.

Gilmour noticed throughout the second dig how distracted de Lis seemed; his thoughts were back in the lab. With de Lis’ career resting upon this mission, Gilmour wondered if it was a boon to him, or an albatross. Nobel prize aspirations aside, de Lis had been ordered here by the Defense Secretary, so he couldn’t focus solely on his dreams—

the world’s safety was on all their shoulders. Doubtless, that made good science pretty difficult.

“Richard, drop everything!” Waters exhorted. “Get back here!”

The mobile lab quickly grew quiet as Waters displayed the incredible image on the monitor deck, enthralling all eyes to its eerie otherworldliness and seemingly playing with their perceptions.

De Lis’ eyes sparkled. He angled his head in marvelous rapture. “This...this is phenomenal, Stacia! Absolutely...the curvature, the topology, much higher than I’ve ever seen, even in the lab simulations.”

Waters crossed her arms, locking her eyes on the holographic object. “Doctor, I...I’m not certain I have the experience necessary to even begin an adequate analysis. Quantum theory is one thing, but cosmological topology—”

“Pshhh,” de Lis scoffed. “You’re precisely the person for this moment. Tell me what you think it is. Use your most outlandish idea...nothing spared.”

Gilmour raised an eyebrow to Mason, who were both completely foreign to this schoolyard scientific method. The pair looked on while Waters massaged her jaw, employing her years of education to lend a hand in deciphering this most complex of puzzles.

“Logically,” she said, “it conflicts with gravity. The object itself has a mass of only a few grams, but has no quantum structure, as yet we can determine. It leads me to only one belief, and that is it’s as dense as matter can possibly be, even more so than a typical pulsar core. But that would be in defiance of all natural laws.” She took a breath. “In fact, quite absurd.”

“Good,” de Lis said, clapping his hands once. “Good. I like it. It makes no sense, but I like it!” He smiled back at her, lifting the tremendous weight from her mind. “Now, let’s see if we can tweak this a bit.”

De Lis manipulated the plate gears, bringing them closer. Inside, sheltered from the macroscopic world by the twin plates, an infinite number of virtual particles and antiparticles continued the eternal cycle of creation and annihilation, in the process distorting the curvature of the very fabric of space and time—the universe. Twisted and contorted beyond the stresses allowed by Mother Nature herself, this crude manipulation by mere men could lead to only one conclusion.

The monitor displayed the spectacular results. All eyes were drawn to the amorphous shape, which quickly grew from occupying one quarter of the monitor to eating up the available viewing area, leaving almost no room to visualize the remaining virtual particle explosions. The three scientists gasped, clearly awed by the increasingly dynamic structure of this object.

“Look at that!” de Lis exclaimed.

Below them, almost lost amongst the excitement of the shifting image above, the Casimir hummed louder, but not perceptibly, underneath the scientists’ thrill. A miniature earthquake rumbled throughout the solid vacuum device, rattling it a millimeter from its former position on the island table. Only when the holo-cam’s image itself become distorted did the odd behavior draw attention.

“Doctor,” Gilmour said, pointing out the Casimir device shaking its way across the table.

Waters and de Lis grabbed the device to halt its migration, but the violent shaking persisted, nearly shoving off the pair’s hands. De Lis reached for the button to deactivate the parallel plates’ gear mechanisms, but failed to reach it before the Casimir’s quaking reached a dangerous level.

Snow was the only image on the monitor now while the group fought to contain the animated machine. They wrestled delicately with the expensive device, hoping to salvage its cargo without having to take a sledgehammer to it.

With the hands of de Lis, Valagua, Gilmour and Mason on the casing of the machine, Waters devised a newer strategy. “The dropchute! Open it!”

The four wrestled the unwieldy device onto its side long enough for Waters to land her left hand onto the dropchute. She retrieved a wrench from the top of the table, and using the leverage of her left arm to steady herself, placed the tool’s twin teeth over the clear housing of the dropchute. The rigged airlock hissed as she pulled it open, admitting the atmosphere to invade the pristine vacuum chamber below.

Despite this, the Casimir continued to quake. Whining horribly, the machine’s casing fractured, launching the dropchute into the lab’s ceiling. Gilmour and Mason pried de Lis and Valagua away from the mechanical volcano just before it cracked in two. The remains of the plates and gear mechanisms spilled out as the shell halves were blown past the exam table and onto the floor.

But that incredible explosion paled compared to the sight now before their eyes. Hovering in the remains of the Casimir—for a mere second—was a bizarre optical hole, an electromagnetic siphon curving light waves around its tight, spherical core. The jewel itself orbited the core, swiftly spiraling into the heart of the phenomenon before the assembled group could reach for their instruments to study it. The team gasped as the siphon instantly collapsed upon itself with a dreadful sucking echo, ending the anomaly and the mystery of the jewel all too soon.

“Jesus,” Valagua muttered.

“Break camp! We’re going back now!” de Lis shouted in the jumpjet.

Without hesitation, Gilmour and Mason, followed by Waters and Valagua, ran to the camp, hastily gathering and evacuating their gear from the temporary domiciles while de Lis secured the mobile lab for flight lockdown status.

Liftoff had been scheduled for 2047 hours, local time, under the descending layer of night, but the incident in the mobile lab virtually guaranteed their return to Ottawa should be as swift as possible. If the Confederation had indeed been aware of their presence here, there wasn’t much this tiny group could do to evade the Russians’ satellite platforms. The best they could hope for was to effect a quick exit, arousing as little notice as possible.

De Lis took a few minutes to devise a satisfactory explanation for their abrupt departure, mentioning nothing of the jewel, to Secretary Buhranda; the jumpjet’s pilots, meanwhile readied the jumpjet for emergency takeoff, fueling the craft with just enough hydrogen pellets to get back to USNA airspace, but no farther. It was truly a last-minute operation.

After performing final inventory checks of their equipment, Gilmour, Mason, Waters and Valagua boarded the jumpjet, leaving Nepal and the mysterious crater behind them. De Lis stepped aboard a few moments later via the starboard hatch, then signaled the pilots to depart. Wiping his jaw, de Lis took a seat and a deep breath. Deep down, he knew the easy part was done; the hard part was just beginning.

USNA airspace once again greeted them, lending a palpable ease to the craft. From what they could tell, the Confederation had not detected the team’s access to the Central Asian Conglomerates, a small comfort with the potentially hazardous cargo the team had retrieved from the earth.

The jumpjet made a smooth descent back at Hangar Building B, gliding under the opened doors which led to a cavernous subterranean chamber. Once the craft had set down, a grounds crew, loaded down with equipment cases, poured out an adjacent compartment. They hurried over to the jumpjet and flooded its interior, scanning the deck with an array of instruments. Gilmour and Mason watched the men with keen interest, remarking that they were probably searching for bugs, but not of the arthropod variety.

After a pair of MPs arrived to lead the agents to a chemical de-radiation and debiological washroom, Gilmour and Mason were issued appropriate attire to wear, then handed decorum guidelines to be employed throughout the Ottawa facility. Their previous visit here was too brief to be a proper introduction, so the agents were isolated inside another meeting room for an hour before they were released.

Dressed like blue-suited twins, the agents were accompanied by another pair of MPs downstairs to one of U5’s dark corridors, the jarheads saying nothing, per their reputation. The lead Marine soon found his pass key and slid it through the door panel to U5-29. The agents proceeded inside, this time met by de Lis, Waters, Valagua and several other personnel unknown to them, all seated at the conference table.

“Agents Gilmour and Mason,” de Lis said, gesturing, “have a seat.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Gilmour and Mason rounded the table and sat down across from de Lis. To Gilmour’s right was Waters, and over one was a new staff member, a dark woman with slim features who appeared to be a staff scientist. A mustached Native American man in USNA officer’s uniform was next to her, and across from this man was a taller, bespectacled gentleman. A Latina woman with greying temples sat adjacent to de Lis, who surveyed the agents with a discerning stare.

De Lis leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. “Let me introduce you to the rest of our senior staff. To Doctor Waters’ right is our chief anthropologist and sociologist, Doctor Carol Marlane. Next to her is our lead liaison with the North American Army, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Dark Horse. Next to you, Agent Mason, is our quantum mechanics lead theorist, Doctor Lionel Roget.”

Roget smiled and shook hands with Mason, lending the agent his first sign of cordiality since they arrived here.

De Lis continued, “And last, our facility’s State Department liaison, foreign policy scholar and analyst, Professor Inez Quintanilla. All of my esteemed colleagues and I, as well as you, Agents Gilmour and Mason, will work closely to decode the mystery of the crash site, and the various artifacts we have found therein.”

Once the briefing had adjourned for the day and the agents had read up on the latest mission reports, de Lis and his staff introduced Gilmour and Mason to U5’s theoretical studies laboratory, a set of contiguous offices spanning most of the floor space, located in its central square and bounded by an outer peri-meter corridor. Upon entry, the first room that met them was also the largest: U5-1, the main diagnostic and experimental laboratory, a hexagon-shaped room. Six smaller units branched off from it, creating a space reminiscent of a beehive. Around them, a dozen junior scientists outfitted with goggles, clear antiseptic exam suits and holobooks scurried about, relaying information to one another from an array of computer terminals situated throughout the lab. Gilmour imagined that each was performing a separate test on the jewels found in Nepal, quantifying and cataloguing the specifications of each object.

Sterility permeated the lab, granting a scrubbed feel and smell to it, owing to the enormous quantity of North America’s finest quantum computers and diagnostic equipment spread amongst the complex and narrow rows of office tables and wheeled chairs. An ever present hum vibrated in the air, coupled with an electric crispness, like ozone from a spring thunderstorm.

The lighting here was particularly bright, more than making up for the dim corridors. Each agent took note of the five-centimeter-thick fullerene glass separating the adjacent offices, a clear, ceiling-to-floor material, sufficient to observe any and all the smaller labs at once, and capable of containing any accidents with Level-3 bio-and chem-safety protocols. Fullerene glass also had the ability—due to its remarkable carbon-60 structure—to become opaque on command for private briefings and provide, if need be, instant security behind its bullet-resistant surface.

Ordinary walls here were nonexistent, save for U5-6, a room sequestered to their far left, which de Lis identified only as the aforementioned gallery, a multibillion-dollar minifacility for large-scale holographic presentations. The agents could only wonder what the good doctor had in store for them in there.

De Lis soon ushered them over to his own office, U5-3, inhabiting the north wall of the theoretical studies lab, to their right. Sliding his pass key into the round, fullerenesuspended panel, de Lis led them inside. He walked behind his small desk and quickly read from a holobook, then set it back down, looking both agents in the eyes. “This is your home from now on. This is what we do to keep the world out of harm’s grasp. All of this,” he gestured with his outstretched hands, “is our first line of defense.”

De Lis stepped over to the two men, leading them to the fullerene wall overlooking the area. All three observed the busy scientists on the other side, each doing his or her duty to decipher the secrets of the microscopic universe.

“I just hope our defense isn’t too late.”

Despite the vast pressure exerted by the government to decode the mystery of the jewels, the next several days passed by fleetingly. Various tests on the remaining jewels extracted from the robe revealed no more than before, and de Lis was hesitant to employ another Casimir experiment until all other avenues had been exhausted.

While work on the bizarre, unforgiving objects proceeded with fits and starts, Valagua and Marlane made many examinations of the cryptid skull, as well as the topographical map handed to them by the abbot. A complex, three-dimensional holograph of the skull by the two scientists reconstructed areas on the original specimen that had long ago been crushed or fractured, allowing them a better chance of perhaps defining a genus and species for the cryptid, and just maybe figure out who or what brought these jewels to Earth, and for what purpose.