Crux Page 8

  “No,” Isaiah shook his head, “I’ll take you back to your hotel and I’ll have Sataturi watch you again. Just be ready early tomorrow. And remember what I said about clothes. Don’t pack anything you want to keep.”

  “You don’t make flight reservations?”

  “No. I’ll get the tickets after we get to the airport.”

  “I forgot how cautious you are. I’m glad I’ve got you.”

  With a smile Isaiah shut the case.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “You’ve got me.”

  ***

  Muttering a curse, Jackman lowered the binoculars. Beside him, Roy Burris and Janet continued to study the Large Hadron Supercollider’s enormous compound. It was at least a hundred acres and looked like any other town surrounded by snowcapped peaks. There was very little that hinted at what monstrous machine was buried beneath it except for heavily armed guards patrolling the streets.

  “There just ain’t no way in without being seen by a guard or a civilian or one of them security cameras.” Jackson chewed on his cigar. “They got roads, but they’re all guarded. All entrances are guarded. They got snipers on the roof of the topside facility which ain’t nuthin’ but an elevator shaft. The guards inside the building are armed with rifles. Or, for Janet’s sake, they’ve got what civilians call machineguns.”

  Janet didn’t lower her binoculars. “Thank you, general, but I know what a fully automatic weapon is. The guards are in a two-by-two roving patrol carrying a mix of Colts, Zeniths, and Scorpions, all nine-millimeter or two-twenty-threes. They won’t stop a rhinoceros, but they’re more than enough for stopping a human being. And, the deeper you go, the more security you run into. The only other thing they told us about guns is that there are no armor-piercing rounds allowed inside the compound because they can’t risk knocking a hole in the collider. It uses a zillion explosive gases.”

  Roy muttered, “They may allow tours of this place, but I bet they don’t show you the guts of it. Anybody with half a brain would know that no research facility needs a thousand guns to protect it.”

  With a weary sigh Jackman half-turned on the tiny hill they’d selected from a topographical map. It was far enough to avoid naked surveillance, but if someone were watching through a telescope, they were easily visible. “Anybody got any good ideas?” he asked. Then added, “Hell, I’d be happy for a bad idea.”

  “Mansfield has got us oriented for the Observation Room,” Janet began, “but we haven’t been taken down to the collider so we’ve only got the vaguest idea how we can get the team inside.” She hesitated. “I did do some checking, though, and found out that the electricians have to go through a retinal scan, too, so we can scratch the idea of kidnapping a few and using their IDs, hands and eyeballs, God help me.”

  Roy asked, “Can you start a fire or distraction from the Observation Room so that everyone has to leave the building? Something like a fire drill or chemical spill?”

  “No,” Janet shook her head. “The Observation Room is exclusively devoted to measuring particles in the collider relayed through the proton detectors and the security in the collider corridor itself. It has no connection to the rest of the facility. So, basically, I can do very little from my station to affect the whole compound. I can only do stuff that affects the collider corridor itself.”

  “What about scrambling the security system to the corridor?”

  “Then a bunch of titanium doors shut and they can’t be lifted by anything less than a bulldozer. The elevators are shut down. The stairs are locked down. Nobody gets in. Nobody gets out. Everybody grows old and dies in the dark.”

  “Can you leave your post?” asked Roy.

  “I can,” Janet said, “but not without them monitoring my every move. To put it mildly, they are obsessed with knowing where everyone is at every second. That’s why all personnel wear a badge and every badge has an individual signature that is read by a heavily guarded computer that automatically alerts armed guards if someone wanders into a red zone when they’re only qualified to be in a green zone. Obviously, they don’t want eyeballs going where eyeballs are not color-coded to go.”

  Jackman asked, “Why all this secrecy above the ground? I don’t see nuthin’ above ground worth protecting. All the money is buried.”

  After a long pause Janet said, “Well, some say these people are a bunch of warlocks or witches. Whatever the difference is. Maybe they have a temple to Shiva or Satan or something and that’s what they’re protecting.”

  Roy drawled, “Why did Mansfield get you assigned to the War Room?”

  “The Observation Room?”

  “I’ll call it a War Room until we wrap this up.”

  “As far as I know, and as far as they know, I’m replacing an expert at detecting reductionistic atomism,” said Janet, nonplussed. “Susan is assigned to communications for all of the neutrino detectors, which doesn’t sound particularly important, but she’s critical to this operation and it’s too complicated to break down into layman’s terms. No offense.”

  “Give it a try,” stated Jackman.

  Janet exhaled, then continued, “Susan monitors the relays sent from the neutrino detectors to backup facilities all over the world, and that system allows her to link up to any satellite. And the satellites are where I plan to hide my command when I put the computer offline. If not, they’ll track me down fast. But if Susan can link enough encrypted satellite systems with foreign and domestic detector stations, interlacing all of them, I think I can put the system offline long enough for you guys to sneak inside without them tracing it back to me in seconds.”

  “You can put the computer offline without triggering the vaults?” asked Roy.

  “Yes,” Susan nodded curtly, “they’re separate programs. And they should be. You can’t have fifty security vaults slamming shut every time you have a computer glitch or you’d never get anything done. But, to a degree, they’re also interdependent, so if the computer is offline, the security system is also offline without initiating a full shutdown. Now, if security is offline for more than a half-hour, it initiates a shutdown, anyway. That’s the second protocol. But I can buy you guys a half-hour before that happens.”

  “What are we going to do in a half-hour?” asked Roy.

  “Get inside.”

  Roy glanced from the facility to Janet. “How?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  Jackman: “So what is it that you’re pretending to be? And, if you don’t mind, what the hell is atomic reductionism?”

  “We’re not ‘pretending’ to be anything at all, general. Susan is a genuine communications expert and I’m an expert in gamma rays and neutrinos, which are critical to reading the Higgs boson field and the wake fields left by antimatter.” Janet continued as if reciting, “The Higgs boson field tracks neutrinos which reveal tiny grams of dark matter, and that’s my specialty. I’m also an expert—as experts go—in antimatter, dark energy, and the uses and consequences of interacting with either of them. Basically, general, I’m what they call a real genius and I’m one of the few people in the world who actually understands the very serious dangers of dark energy.”

  “You know,” Roy mumbled, “I’ve heard that term a lot lately. Dark energy. Dark matter. Antimatter. Can you give me a layman’s understanding?”

  “Antimatter is just the opposite of matter,” Janet raised her binoculars again. “And it’s very unstable. If one gram of antimatter comes into contact with anything in our world, which is called matter, it would explode with catastrophic results.”

  Roy continued staring. “How catastrophic?”

  “Oh,” Susan answered in a bored tone, “approximately one gram of antimatter would explode with the force of about forty-two kilotons. That’s equal to forty-two-thousand tons of dynamite. Let’s say it’d make Hiroshima look like a firecracker.”

  Roy laughed, �
�Yeah, I know what a kiloton is. But I thought these guys were trying to open a portal to some kind of demonic dimension. Which is it? Bombs or portals? Or is it six of this and a half-dozen of that?”

  “For what I’ve seen so far it appears to be both,” Susan replied, “but I can’t say why they’re trying to build superbombs. If they can perfect the means for dimensional transport, then they could master time travel, as well. And, at that point, they won’t need bombs. They’ll just go back in time and wipe you out before you’re born. Hell, I don’t know what they’re ultimately planning to do. We’re dealing with sociopaths. Maybe they want superweapons because even they’re afraid of screwing up the timeline. They might have a secret fear of ‘the butterfly effect’ and they’re terrified they’ll wipe out their own existence by changing history. How the hell would I know what a sociopath wants to do with a time machine and an illegal weapons facility?” After a moment she added, “But if I let my rather bizarre imagination roam—not something I like to do—it’s possible that antimatter bombs could be used for terraforming.”

  “What’s terraforming?” asked Jackman.

  “Terraforming is basically changing the atmosphere and landscape of the Earth. And one way to do it is with weapons of mass destruction. And I mean mass destruction like no one has ever seen. You see, the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated was fifty megatons. The Russians did it. It was called Tsar Bomba. But that bomb was, relatively speaking, just a firecracker compared to the power these boys are playing with. To put it simply, just two-hundred grams of dark matter would explode with at least sixty-thousand megatons and that’s enough force to level a lot of countries. It would make an area the size of Siberia uninhabitable for a million years. But only for human beings, and that’s where terraforming enters this.”

  Roy lowered his binoculars as he asked, “Terraforming? But not for human beings? Who are they gonna be terraforming it for?”

  “For whatever’s on the far side of that portal, Roy.”

  “They could do that?”

  “Yeah, they could. All they would have to do is build some very big antimatter bombs. And after they detonate enough of them, the blasts would terraform the land so these demons would have their own little playhouse off limits to human interference. Or, and this is the most horrible possibility, they could begin mating human beings with creatures comprised of neutral-charged antimatter and create a whole murderous race of hybrid abominations like the ancient monsters of the Bible.”

  “Monsters aren’t in the Bible,” Jackman commented.

  “Of course they’re in the Bible. What do you think Goliath was? Andy Warhol on steroids? No, general, Goliath was a member of a hybrid race. Like Og. And Goliath was a wimp compared to his ancestors. Goliath was only, like, eight feet tall. The Bible says his evil-as-Hell granddaddy, Marduk, was over thirteen feet tall and six feet wide. Now, if that isn’t a real-life monster, I don’t know what is.”

  “Where’d you learn so much about the Bible?” asked Roy.

  “All serious physicists know the Bible. You guys really don’t know crap about physicists, do you? Do you want to know what real physics is, Roy? Because it’s the same as the Bible.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A whole bunch of unanswered questions. Nobody knows what holds neutrinos together. Nobody knows why this whole planet doesn’t just disintegrate into space dust. And no one knows what protons and electrons are composed of. They assume electrons are comprised of neutrinos. But what’s a neutrino? What is it comprised of? We’re probably a thousand years from answering that one.” Janet’s laugh was ironic. “Physics is as much theory as provable science, which is generally considered a ‘fact.’ But for every fact we can relatively prove there’s a hundred suspected facts that we can’t prove and we don’t know why, so it’s a lot like the Bible. You can have any theory you want about the Bible, but you can’t conclusively prove much. And you can’t disprove much. Just like physics. The only scientists who claim to understand it all are fakes or uneducated political or religious psychopaths with a prejudice that has nothing to do with genuine science.”

  Roy was studying her. “How did you get a job in the damn CIA? Why ain’t you working at MIT or some place?”

  “The money’s better.”

  “That’s a joke!” Roy laughed harshly. “I ain’t getting’ rich doing all this shootin’ and lootin,’ that’s for sure. At least, that’s what my ex-wife told me often enough.”

  “Yeah,” Janet smiled, “but they don’t pay you what they pay me.”

  Roy blinked.

  Jackman lifted his binoculars. “You get what you pay for, major. Gunfighters are a dime a dozen. But a superspy with the mind of a nuclear scientist comes with a heavy price tag. I bet she even makes more than I do after thirty-five years in the service. But that ain’t saying nuthin, either.”

  Janet placed her hands on her hips, binoculars dangling. “Well, guys, I don’t need to see any more. What we should do is go back to the blueprints and come up with a workable plan because the doors are very obviously out of the question unless the major, here, goes full commando. And if you do that, Roy, you guys will be shot dead while you’re still in sight of the front desk. Plus that, security vaults will slam shut automatically and it’ll take a tank to open them. Or, to put it more comprehensively to you gentlemen, this whole mission will be mocked and scorned by the entire world as a spectacular and humiliating disaster and we’ll all spend the rest of our lives in front of a firing squad.”

  Jackman grunted, “Yeah, there’s no way through topside without exposing ourselves. And, just asking, but what the hell is that statue all about? The big one inside that circle in front of the building? Is that Buddhist?”

  “It’s Hindu,” Janet stated. “It’s Shiva. And Shiva is a crazy-bitch Hindu goddess, or god, of destruction and death. Mayhem and disaster. Evil and corruption. He, or she, is not someone you want to share a bed with.”

  Roy asked, “He or she?”

  “Shiva is male and female. In that statue, the she-bitch is dancing the Tandava that symbolizes the destruction of the old, weary universe in favor of a new matrix that will replace everything that exists. That’s why her leg is upraised and her foot is on top of a little P. T. Barnum–style demon. Some people think they installed it here to celebrate, and even advertise, the real purpose of the collider.”

  “Which is what?” asked Roy.

  “The annihilation of this world and the creation of a new world ruled by Shiva and her perverted servants. So, if these people succeed, it’s safe to say that all of us are going to die.”

  Jackman was suddenly motionless. “I’ve read the science reports, but it was like trying to read a Chinese recipe for Moo-goo-dodo and I didn’t understand a word. Just how powerful is this collider?”

  “That’s a frighteningly ignorant question, general,” answered Janet. “Powerful enough to propel protons at ninety-nine percent of the speed of light. Powerful enough to handle a hundred Tera-Electron-Volts of electricity when they’re finished with this new insulation.” She turned to stare at Jackman. “Powerful enough to destroy this galaxy if they collide protons in the right combination. Or, and this is a worst-case scenario, they could smash together particles from alternate dimensions, open a dimensional portal, and keep that portal open so they could remove all the liquid antimatter they want. And anyone who controls that much liquid antimatter absolutely controls the world.”

  “Elaborate on that statement,” said Jackman.

  “What I mean, general, is that with nothing more than a half-gallon of antimatter they can create bombs a trillion times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba which, again, happens to have only been fifty megatons and is still the biggest nuclear explosion in the history of the world. And you want to know why the communist regime didn’t make it a hundred megatons? Because even those bloodless sons of bitches were afraid of w
hat might happen if they set off a one-hundred-megaton nuclear weapon. I think they were afraid they’d crack the planet in half.”

  Janet unleashed her normally unexpressed intensity as she pointed at the valley. “With one liter of antimatter those fools down there will be able to create an antimatter bomb that could literally obliterate North America. Nothing would survive. Not even the common cold. We’re talking about unleashing the power that fuels the universe. And these fools are stupid enough to tap into the unknown superpower that fuels that! And you don’t think that’s flirting with the end of the world? The end of the universe? The end of the galaxy?”

  Jackman: “What else can they do with it?”

  “It can get worse?” muttered Roy.

  “It can always get worse, Burris.”

  Without skipping a beat Janet said, “They’ll be able to create black holes that can swallow planets or solar systems or even galaxies. And like I said a few seconds ago, they’ll be able to create chimeras, or hybrid creatures. Maybe something that’s half matter and half antimatter that will have the physical strength to move mountains. Creatures that might be immune to radiation and age and disease and perfect for some unholy terraforming plan. In short, the people who control this supercollider, once they get it perfected, will be able to create any brave new world they want simply by programming it into the collider. They will be able to create a world ruled by demons, a world ruled by monsters, a world ruled by them. And even though I’m thinking they might be afraid of the butterfly effect, I don’t think they’ll be able to resist the temptation of time travel. And if they do that, they could make it so that the Bible, the Torah, the Talmud and the Koran disappear from history. They might try and make it so that beliefs in Jesus, Allah, Zeus, and Ra never existed. And there is no nation and no weapon that would be able to stop them. If they even suspect that you’re a threat, they’ll just push a button and you’ll disappear. Your parents will disappear. The city and hospital where you were born will disappear. Anything that has your name on it and the effects of anything you’ve done will disappear. In terms of reality it will be as if you were never born and nothing was ever associated with you.”