The Prophet of Queens Read online

  The collider?

  Unlikely. While TPC was by far the largest, most complex machine ever built, it was also engineered to run without detection. On the other hand, the trials this weekend were to work out bugs.

  Ariel looked past the oak to the tower in the distance, picturing the sequence of events now underway. Her former colleagues would be at their stations, riveted to their instruments. While in the valley beyond, deep underground, opposing streams of hadron particles would be gathering momentum along a hundred-mile loop of massive, donut-shaped, superconducting magnets.

  At its heart, TPC was a generator. The most powerful in the world. Designed to produce a staggering 10,000 megawatts, it would accelerate quantum particle streams to a velocity never before achieved. Virtual light speed.

  If the test runs went well, Monday would begin the experiments Ariel and friends had worked toward so long and hard. The streams would be pushed to their limits, whizzing by in opposite directions until, at peak speed, they’d be diverted into a collision chamber and a tiny ball of antimatter plasma ten-times hotter than the sun. A head-on crash to create a micro explosion unlike the universe had seen since the Big Bang.

  “Goddammit,” Max barked, louder than Newton.

  Ariel left the books on the lawn and hurried for the dog. Only to pull up once more, startled by a loud rumble. Thunder. Yet, not a cloud in the sky. Like the bellow of some cosmic behemoth.

  The hairs on her arms rose, and she felt queasy. The thunder warbled into a piercing whine, driving Newton nuts. But silently. Ariel watched amazed to see the dog’s mouth move without sound, as if she’d pressed a mute button. And from where she now stood, she could see it wasn’t the tree he was fixating on, but an indeterminate spot midpoint, as if he were challenging some invisible foe.

  No, not invisible…

  The whine ebbed and Ariel froze. To her horror, something was materializing midair in front of her. A rippling, swirling, transparent distortion. It darkened into a maelstrom of cloud, hovering chest-high, the size of a large pizza.

  Ariel gasped and sank to her knees. The protesters were right. Impossible, but there it was. In an instant, it would suck her, Newton, friends and all else into oblivion.

  And yet, it didn’t. The longest moment of her life. Then abruptly the specter shrank and vanished, the whine returned and segued back to thunder, the thunder subsided, and everything was as before.

  Ariel collapsed on her haunches, shaking. She could hear Newton again, whimpering, chain rustling as he retreated into his house.

  Behind her, a screen door banged, she heard footsteps, and Max called out, “You okay?” He appeared at her side. “What happened, you’re white as a ghost.”

  This was no time to poke fun at her complexion. She stammered, “Y-you heard. You saw.”

  “What?”

  “A, a singularity. Here in the yard, right in front of me.”

  The screen door banged again, and Tia called, “What’s wrong?”

  Max shouted back, “She fainted.”

  “I didn’t faint,” Ariel cried.

  Tia and Stan ran to her, and Ariel pointed a shaky finger. “There, twenty feet from the tree, a spatial disturbance of some kind. And thunder. And high-pitched humming. The collider.”

  Stan checked his watch. “Time’s right, assuming the run went off on schedule.”

  Max exhaled, looking to Stan. “I didn’t hear anything, did you?”

  Stan shook his head, and Tia said, “If Ariel says it happened, it happened.”

  She patted Ariel’s arm. “What did it look like?”

  “A whirlpool of black cloud, a meter wide. Only lasted a minute.”

  Tia and Stan looked puzzled, and Max said, “I know what you’re thinking, but whatever it was, it was no black hole. We wouldn’t be here to talk about it.”

  Stan suggested, “If the collider’s electromagnets are out of sync, and the beam went off track, it could have caused a spatial displacement of some kind. A phase-locked loop, maybe.”

  Ariel knew there were quirks of electromagnetism that could create distortions far removed from the energy that produced it. “But it changed,” she said. “It started as waves in the air, then darkened into a vortex.”

  Tia offered, “Refracted by moisture in the atmosphere. Like a rainbow, only dark.”

  Ariel shook her head. “How do you explain the noise?”

  “The beam splitting the air,” Max said. “Same way lightning causes thunder.”

  “Then why didn’t you hear it? You heard Newton. This was much louder.”

  No one had an answer.

  Tia and Stan helped her up, steadying her.

  Max said, “LHC had e-mag problems at startup, too,” referring to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, an accelerator distantly second to TPC in size and power. He should know, that’s where his new job was taking him. “No big deal.”

  Ariel pulled free. “No big deal? What if it hit Newton? Or me? And what about tomorrow when they go full speed? We’ve got to warn Keller.”

  Winston Keller, the director of TPC operations.

  Max shook his head. “If it’s an alignment issue, they’ve already caught it.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’d detect a singularity,” Ariel replied.

  Singularity. A point in spacetime where intense gravitational forces distort both space and time—such as in the formation of a black hole. A phenomenon for which, so far, science had no understanding, no mathematical model to explain it. Whatever it was Ariel saw, it was exactly how she pictured a singularity.

  “…TPC isn’t looking for a singularity. Did LHC’s problem create a spatial displacement?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Max told her.

  Tia said, “LHC is in the middle of nowhere, like us. If it caused a displacement, what are the odds anyone would have seen?”

  Ariel whipped out her cell and began punching in text.

  Before she could finish, Max snatched it, read it, and fumed, “You can’t say that! Keller will have to report it to the NRC. There’ll be an investigation, it could set things back months.”

  NRC. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, responsible for licensing and overseeing TPC.

  Ariel could barely control herself. “How petty of me—we’re only talking a black hole.”

  “And I’m telling you, it’s no black hole. You know the physics.”

  Tia ran fingers through her ragged pink hair. “No, mi corazón,” she explained to Ariel softly, “it can’t be a black hole. Even a hint would’ve been the end of us.”

  Ariel weighed her friends’ opinions against what she’d seen. Her knowledge of particle physics paled by comparison, and in truth, what she did know argued against a singularity. But of one thing she was certain, something the others could not dispute: “The universe has a nasty habit of overturning conventional wisdom.”

  Stan took a long breath. “How about this? We stick around for tomorrow’s run. If the anomaly repeats, we call it in before we go.”

  There was no pressing reason they couldn’t stay another night, other than late fees on their u-hauls. Issue settled, they helped gather up Ariel’s books.

  Max advised, “Load everything into the trailers but your beds and necessaries, and we’ll take care of the rest after tomorrow’s run.” He raised a brow at Ariel. “Barring doomsday.”

  His snark did nothing to diminish the darkness whirling in Ariel’s head. Nor did it help when Stan called TPC to learn that today’s test had gone off without a hitch.

  Chapter 30

  Thursday, October 4, 6:00 pm, Talawanda, NY

  That night, Ariel and friends gathered in the living room on the floor eating takeout, watching the TV Max had dragged in from his trailer.

  The demonstration at TPC was the big story on every news channel, which Max confirmed by chasing the coverage around the dial. Multiple times and from various angles, Ariel watched their car exit the gate into the thick of picketers. Eventually, stat
e troopers did arrive, but did nothing other than observe. According to the news, TPC personnel were overnighting at the complex. Apparently, they’d also seen the video of Ariel and Max’s precarious escape.

  Max settled on a channel airing a live shot of the compound and crowd, cornfields sprawled with campers, RVs, and tents. TPC’s tower glowed eerily in the twilight sky behind. A portable stage was set up in a field near the fence—a flatbed trailer under pole lights with a miked podium and row of chairs. The camera zoomed in on a man in bib overalls at the podium. Below and in front of him, supporters shouted and waved placards heralding Judgment Day.

  Max sneered, “They’ll be so bummed when the world doesn’t end.”

  The camera panned the crowd, and Ariel saw signs denouncing science as the archenemy of religion and family values. Other signs promoted Dark-Age politicians like Republican Roger Filby, his slogan: The Right Way to Prosperity.

  Ariel wondered, “Has Filby come out against the collider now, too?” She’d only known him to dance around science issues, avoiding controversies like climate-change by acknowledging the evidence, rejecting human cause.

  “He won’t risk it with the race so tight,” Max replied. “It would cost him Independents. Independents aren’t stupid, they support research.”

  Stan said, “The latest InstaPolls show TPC losing ground with Independents, too. All the fear-mongering and fake news is getting to people, even those who should know better.”

  The picture changed to a newswoman strolling among the campers. Ariel was surprised at the gamut of people on hand. From the well-dressed and kempt, to rough and scruffy and in between.

  “I’d sooner watch football,” Tia said, grabbing the remote from Max.

  “Know thine enemy, ” Max said, snatching it back.

  The reporter approached a man spreading a bedroll in the back of a pickup, its bumper plastered with stickers. Noticing the lights, he turned. Early sixties, gray hair, a T-shirt reading:

  “Research is what I do

  when I don’t know

  what I’m doing.”

  —Wernher Von Braun

  Tia snarled, “Fool. It means the opposite of what you think.”

  Ariel recalled that back in the days when John Kennedy was president and science mattered, rocket scientist Von Braun had pioneered the U.S. space program. He’d overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to land man on the moon.

  The reporter called up to the protester in the truck, “Nice night for sleeping out. Think this endless summer has anything to do with rising greenhouse gases?”

  Her crew extended a mike to the man, and he said, “Let me clue you, lady. Science has two ways to fund itself. Either it scares up money with manufactured threats, like global warming, or it suckers you into boondoggles, like colliders promising secrets of the universe. That’s how science survives, feeding off fears and dreams.”

  The woman asked, “Secrets of the universe aren’t important?”

  He hooked a thumb at TPC’s control tower. “There’s only one thing those bozos will discover, and it’s no secret. Once they run through the billions it’ll cost us, they’ll decide they need a bigger smasher.” And waving her off, he went back to his business.

  The reporter moved on to a group of twenty-somethings seated in front of a canopy tent. Across the front of the tent hung a banner displaying a black-and-white photo. Ariel recognized the face of the iconic female robot from the silent movie Metropolis. Encircling the face was an orange ring with a diagonal line struck through, and beneath that, in black and orange letters:

  R.U.S.T.

  Rescue Us from Science & Technology

  www.r.u.s.t.com

  Among the group was a bearded man in jeans plucking a guitar and singing, “The future’s here, and we’re all screwed, mad cows and Frankenfood—”

  He halted at the sight of the cameras, and next to him, a slender woman rose. The reporter asked her, “Can you tell our viewers what RUST is about?”

  The woman tossed back long brown hair to reveal the robot icon on her T-shirt. She replied, “Science and technology are out of control, fouling the planet. We’re drawing the line here.”

  The reporter pressed, “Throw out science, baby and bath?”

  “Not all science. Science isn’t evil, per se, but many of its creations are. They poison us—industrial wastes, pesticides, opioids.”

  It seemed Dark Agers weren’t the homogeneous movement Ariel had always thought, united instead by their various hostilities to science. Max was right. Know thine enemy. All the same, Max had had his fill. He changed to another news channel where a host was interviewing a physicist from the World Union of Concerned Scientists. Indeed, the physicist looked concerned.

  “Science is in crisis,” he was saying. “Industries lobby the government to ignore and defund research that runs counter to their interests. PACs spend fortunes to discredit our results. The religious right preaches pseudoscience. They bury the truth under so much disinformation and ignorance, it’s suffocating the planet.”

  Ariel had had her fill, too. Wrapping up the rest of her sandwich for Newton, she excused herself and went outside.

  Chapter 31

  Friday, October 5, 8:49 am, Talawanda

  Frantic, Ariel held onto Newton, Max onto her, Stan onto him, Tia onto Stan, all clinging together in a desperate chain against the vacuum of roaring vortex—

  Ariel bolted upright to find her bedclothes soaked with sweat. It had been like this all night. She blinked away the cobwebs to see the sun well up, but the clock on her phone assured her she hadn’t missed today’s run. Inhaling, she rose to notice Stan and Tia through the window tying down items in their trailers. No sign of Max, his trailer closed up, car gone.

  Opening the sash, she poked her head out on another warm day.

  “Morning,” Stan hailed, and Tia waved.

  “Where’s Max?” Ariel asked.

  “In town, gassing up. He’s bringing breakfast.”

  Of course. Max wanted to hit the road running soon as he disabused Ariel of her singularity.

  Like Stan and Tia, Max was a senior-level systems analyst with a post-grad degree—a slightly higher pay grade than Ariel’s position as a junior computational researcher. Before being laid off, he’d been up for a prestigious promotion as TPC’s public spokesperson/press liaison. An even higher-salaried position, and Max was especially bitter to have lost that opportunity. Now he’d be off to Boston to stay at his brother’s before departing to Geneva, end of the month.

  Stan was headed to Stanford, hoping for a teaching assistant position to open. While he could write his own ticket at the NSA if he wanted, having worked there straight out of grad school, he’d soured on government service. As he’d put it, “The bureaucracy has no soul.”

  Tia would be staying with an aunt in Omaha pending an iffy relationship with a ConAgra biologist there, and fellowship applications elsewhere. Her dad had disappeared long ago. Tough times awaited her, Ariel knew. Ariel had accompanied her to her mom’s funeral two years ago—estranged sisters, lots of tears and drama. Still, Ariel regretted being an only child.

  And as for her, Ariel was going to a wastewater treatment plant in Toledo as a chemical analyst. A far cry from her current position. As Max put it, “A shit job.”

  Stan called out to her again, “What say we get your bed apart?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” she told him, ducking back inside.

  She showered and went through her daily regimen: contacts, light makeup, sunscreen. Ariel hated sunscreen, but not as badly as makeup. Makeup made her feel dishonest, somehow. Nor did she like the interest it drew her from strange men. But as Tia always counseled, “Think of makeup as sunscreen that protects you from the way things used to be.” Ariel donned a top, shorts, ball cap and sunglasses, stepped into flip-flops, and headed for the hall.

  Her footsteps echoed in a house now bare of all that had made it home these past three-and-a half years. The only real
home Ariel had known since a little girl. Its emptiness pulled at her as she passed through. She’d be leaving with little more of material value than when she’d arrived. No savings from her meager pay, and for all practical purposes in these troubled times, no marketable skills.

  Yet, she would take away something priceless. Her time here had transformed her. Former classmates at UPenn who recalled the pale, meek geek at the back of lecture halls, if in fact anyone had ever noticed, wouldn’t recognize her now. Thanks to Tia, Ariel had undergone a metamorphosis. Appearance, attitude, social acumen. Not forgetting her proudest accomplishment, seeing her work respected by the TPC community.

  All the same, it was intimidating to face life alone again. Ariel’s previous moves, including from college to TPC, had always been from one structured environment to another. She’d never actually been on her own, and feared she wasn’t ready. As Tia always said, growth is a lifelong process, and Ariel had gotten a very late start.

  Wiping her eyes, she collected herself. Sniveling wasn’t how she wanted her friends to remember her.

  Tia heard the screen door slam, and Stan called up to her in the trailer, “You and Ariel can take it from here, I’ll dismantle her bed.”

  “Check,” Tia said, going to the tailgate to see Ariel high-five Stan as their paths crossed. Ariel looked stunning in a yellow tank top and cut-offs, her ivory arms and legs gleaming in the sun, hair shoulder-length and shining white-gold. She’d once been modest to the extreme, refusing to appear in less than baggy blouses and ankle-length skirts. “Christian burkas,” Max called them. Now she faced the world as the radiant young woman she truly was.

  But as Ariel neared, Tia saw redness in her eyes, and retreated into the shadows. She didn’t trust herself. Ariel would need strength as they cut the cord, and Tia had to buck up. She called out, “Put your shoulder to that headboard, will you?”

  Ariel heaved, and Tia took up slack in the rope and tied off.

  Leaving was hard on both of them, but it came not a moment too soon for Ariel. Even if the girl couldn’t see it yet, it was time to fly the nest before Max clipped her wings again.