The Prophet of Queens Page 14

  Ariel loved doing research in her field of computational science, developing models to better understand the forces of quantum physics. No hope for that now as the Dark Age descended.

  Max knew each of their hearts, and how to touch them.

  She searched his face. “And you? You’d throw Hadron away on a long shot?”

  “Two weeks till I start,” he said. “Time enough to consider what we’ve got here.”

  Ever one to hedge his bet. Ariel knew his heart, too. In it, he was the next public face of science. The new-generation Neil DeGrasse Tyson. All he lacked, in his mind anyway, was cachet. Something to propel him into prominence. Like a major scientific discovery.

  But also in his mind, as Ariel and the others were all too aware, lay the true obstacle to his dream—the bipolar disorder he fought to control.

  Stan brought everyone back to Earth. “There’s no guarantee the anomaly will repeat. Any adjustments TPC makes could kill it. Tomorrow’s smash could kill it.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Max said. “And I’ll spring for the extra day on your u-hauls.”

  It was decided, then. They’d invest one more night, hold off contacting Keller to see what tomorrow’s epic collision might bring.

  Chapter 33

  Friday, October 5, 11:00 pm, Talawanda

  Ariel washed up in the bath that adjoined her and Tia’s rooms. Popping out her contacts, she changed into a nightshirt and crawled into bed with her laptop. Since her days in high school, she’d kept a daily journal, a way to empty her head so she could sleep. And after today, a day like no other she’d known, she’d much to record.

  It was no benefit tonight. Her mind was still racing when she finished, and she went online to search out the latest abstracts on particle accelerators and singularities. No help there, either. Nothing to shed light on the extraordinary events of this morning. Nor did she feel sleepy.

  One by one her housemates bedded down, and at last when all was quiet, Ariel threw on a robe and tiptoed barefoot into the hall. Dark but for light under Max’s door. She crept close to make out his muffled voice, a one-sided conversation. He was on his phone. At least, she hoped so. Was he having second thoughts about tomorrow, hashing things over with a former TPC colleague?

  She raised a fist to knock, thought better of it, and withdrew to the kitchen, grabbed leftovers from the fridge, and slipped out the back door.

  Balmy. Grass warm underfoot, skies cloudless and salted with stars. A near-full moon peeked over the big oak as she rounded the house, breeze ruffling the leaves, carrying a musty scent. She heard something on the front porch, and turned to see Tia leaning against the clapboard, sobbing softly.

  Stunned, Ariel rushed over, and Tia looked up, cheeks glistening in the pale light.

  “What’s wrong?” Ariel whispered with concern.

  Tia brushed off Ariel’s arms and ducked into the house without a word. Ariel sighed. No point following, Tia was inconsolable when these moods struck. Two years since her mom died, and there were still moments as if no time had passed. Tia’s mom had put Tia and her sisters through college on a nurse’s income, and when the last graduated, took her own life.

  No one had seen it coming. Only later did Tia learn that depression was a side effect of a medication her mom had been taking. But there was more driving Tia’s guilt, Ariel knew, and it reminded her of her own mom, whom Ariel had lost in a different way.

  Exhaling, she resumed course for the doghouse. As she neared the spot where the vortex had appeared, her senses sharpened, and she paid it wide berth. A sermon from her childhood sprang to mind. A terrifying exhortation about the opening of Hell’s Gate on the Last Day. Ariel shivered. All her years of science hadn’t entirely exorcised the old demons. And out here in the autumn quiet under the moon’s omniscient eye, she felt their grip again.

  Newton was in his house. If asleep, surely Ariel’s thumping heart woke him. He emerged with tail wagging so hard his whole frame shook. She knelt to squeeze him as he licked her face, and unhooking him, she led him around to the back door.

  Tia was nowhere to be seen or heard, but Max’s light was still on. Shushing Newton, Ariel picked him up with a grunt and sneaked to her room, depositing him on her bed.

  And snuggling in beside him, she finally slept.

  Chapter 34

  Saturday, October 6, 8:57 am, Talawanda

  Ariel woke to a dull headache and the muted voices of Max, Tia and Stan in the living room, TV on in the background. She sat up, Newton licked her face, and she hugged him tight.

  By her clock, it was an hour until the collider’s baptism of fire. Would TPC’s gates hold out the mob again so the test could go forward? Would the singularity reappear? And assuming so, would it remain stable through the ferocity of today’s matter/antimatter mash-up?

  Much hung in the balance today, perhaps the course of her life.

  Inhaling deep, Ariel slid from bed, shooed Newton out the window, dressed, and hurried through her morning regimen to join the others.

  Sunlight streamed through the bay window of the living room as she entered, striking the stone fireplace on the opposite wall. Mounted above the mantelpiece was an old shepherd’s staff; seven feet of stout wood ending in a crook. And hanging from the crook was Newton’s leash, its shiny metal fastener catching the sun’s rays, and Ariel’s attention. She went to get it. If things didn’t turn out today, she’d need the leash at rest stops on the long drive to Toledo.

  Her friends sat on the floor in front of the TV, sharing a pot of coffee and plate of fruit. Max patted a spot beside him, and Ariel took it, exchanging greetings, grabbing coffee and a canoe of cantaloupe.

  On TV was live coverage of the protest at TPC, volume low. The crowd was even larger and surlier as the countdown to the inaugural smashing loomed, and Ariel asked, “Anything new?”

  “They tried storming the gates last night,” Max said. “Finally, the governor called in the National Guard to keep the bastards at bay.”

  Ariel saw dozens of soldiers in riot gear stationed outside the fence. Federal forces would hopefully show more initiative than state troopers, who tended to share the protesters’ sentiments. All the same, the soldiers were badly outnumbered. Ariel estimated upwards of five-thousand demonstrators now.

  Stan added, “Dark Agers are pushing for an emergency bill in Congress to halt the test. A ‘stay of execution’ for the planet.” Few things riled Stan, but Dark Agers were one. “Luckily, they don’t have a quorum for a vote, most of Washington is off campaigning.”

  It was a fierce election year, not only for the presidency.

  The TV cut to the portable stage where a rally was underway. At the podium stood a well-dressed man with silver hair and commanding mien, and Ariel froze in the middle of a bite.

  Max grinned at her to say, “Well look who showed up for the Rapture, your old guru.”

  The crowd certainly appeared raptured. Max upped the volume, and a baritone long familiar to Ariel resounded off the walls of the bare living room. Echoes of Sunday mornings at church.

  “…Those who ignore the lessons of life,” the reverend Penbrook Thornton railed, “are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Those who ignore the lessons of scripture are doomed to everlasting fire.” He gestured toward the TPC complex. “What does the bible teach about the grandiose ambitions of man? Genesis tells us God once sent a Deluge to punish the world for its sins. And how did man respond? Rather than mend his ways, man, in his arrogance, began to erect a giant tower, thinking to escape God’s Wrath.

  “Then as now, you see, we underestimate our Maker. God foiled the scheme with a wave of His mighty Hand, confounding the language of the builders such that none understood the other. And unable to finish the tower, man fled babbling across the lands.”

  The crowd rumbled approval, and Thornton’s eyes flashed. He brought a damning forefinger to bear on the monolith behind. “Now, man has raised another Tower. More abhorrent than Babel—an insult to Go
d’s Intelligence.” His finger swept downward. “And hidden beneath is a tunnel—a Tunnel of Babel. Monstrous in size and extravagance and hubris, intended to expose God’s Secrets hidden from us since the very moment of Creation.”

  Met by howls of outrage, he turned to the complex, crying out, “Are you so blinded by your science? The knowledge you seek is fleeting. It leads only to more questions, more technology, more expense. There is but one true and lasting knowledge, and that knowledge is free.”

  He faced his audience again, expression and tone softening.

  “Brethren, we already have answers to the most profound questions of the universe. Wisdom to surpass all wisdom. And it’s readily accessible to everyone. All you need is to open a bible, enter a church, drop humbly to your knees and pray. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

  “Yeah,” Max said. “Screw research, get your science from Bronze-Age goat-herders.”

  The camera zoomed into Thornton, his eyes brimming with emotion. “Men and women of TPC, I beg you, heed the lessons of scripture. Continue on this reckless path, and sure as God is Lord, you will suffer His Judgment.”

  The crowd wailed and Ariel was a girl again, trembling in a pew at the Voice of God.

  Max snapped, “I’ve sure as hell suffered enough of you, asshole.” And tossing the remote to Ariel as if she bore some complicity, he grabbed his coffee, rose, and exited the front door.

  Ariel sighed. Max had no tolerance for religion. He failed to see its edifying aspects, equating faith with ignorance, clergy with hucksters. In fact, he had less understanding of spirituality than Thornton had of science. Max attributed Ariel’s drawn-out withdrawal from her faith to meekness and superstition, no empathy for the vice-grip of doctrine or the control of a Svengali. Their first Christmas here, he’d given her a flashdrive made to resemble a rabbit’s foot.

  Tia switched off the TV, and stood, and Ariel and Stan rose, too. With the Big Smash nearing, it was time to join Max on the blanket under the tree…

  As they settled in, Ariel felt relieved to see Max had calmed, and the conversation turned to the topic on which so much was now riding. The others had opinions about what the mysterious vortex might be, drawing from some of the latest theories about singularities. Concepts Ariel had never heard of and didn’t understand.

  Stan liked something called a “negative-mass macroscopic loop.” Max advocated for an “extended Schwarzschild negative V.” Tia, a “non-baryonic dark matter halo.” And not to be left out, Ariel mentioned the one theory in this arena she knew something about, having come across an article on it in a physics journal: a Niles-Begley omniscient wormhole.

  Also known as a “window on the universe,” a Niles-Begley singularity could presumably link to any location in existence, providing a direct glimpse into whatever was out there. A compelling notion. A window to anywhere. Ariel concluded by asking the others, “So what impact do you think today’s smashing will have on the vortex?”

  Tia replied, “I wouldn’t worry about a cataclysmic event, if that’s what you mean. Assuming the vortex is created by the streams alone, as seems likely, my fear is the smashing will disrupt the process, the vortex will fizzle, and we’ll be left empty-handed.”

  Max disagreed. “The collision occurs in a separate chamber outside the big loop. The streams are diverted for but trillionths of a second. I don’t see it affecting anything.”

  Ariel wasn’t so sure. After all, no collider had ever attempted anything of this magnitude, crashing matter into antimatter at such extremes of energy, speed and temperature.

  The closer the moment of impact, the more anxious she grew. With five minutes to spare, they all took positions behind the big oak again, crouching, peering in the direction of the house.

  Ariel noted Newton safely chained to his doghouse, tail wagging. But soon, he stopped and began to whimper and pace as if reacting to something beyond human perception. Ariel tensed, raising her phone with the others to record, feeling the telltale gooseflesh, a queer tilt to her equilibrium that none of her friends seemed to feel. Thunder erupted, soon giving way to whine, whine faded to ominous quiet, and Newton’s mouth moved without sound.

  Once again, Ariel watched enthralled as the vortex materialized. Same spot as before, midair. She had difficulty detecting it, at first—a slight distortion of the visual field, circular, heatwave-like ripples. Then the waves grew smoky and started to spiral, expanding into a silent, seething whirlpool two feet across, and the whine returned like the screech of some harbinger banshee.

  “Boost to full throttle,” Max declared.

  At this moment, scant miles away, twin streams of Hadron particles were roaring past each other in vast subterranean loops, propelled toward light speed by a staggering 10,000 megawatts of power, energy enough to run a major city.

  Suddenly in front of them, a hole within the vortex opened and expanded to a foot and a half across—a black void wrapped inside a maelstrom. Ariel stole a glance at Max to see him transfixed. The whine trailed off, and Ariel assumed the streams had reached peak speed, quantum impact looming. She closed her eyes.

  Dead silence but for her timpani heart. Seconds ticked. Surely, the collision had taken place. Ariel dared a squint to see no change, whirlpool still wreathing around the hole. If, in fact, the smashing had occurred, they and the aperture had survived it.

  She exhaled, and Stan mopped his brow. Seems he’d harbored some qualms, after all.

  He announced in a wheezy voice, “Ladies and gentleman, I think we’re in business.”

  They all raised to full height, a team now. Collaborators in a quest to identify what might amount to only a scientific curiosity, but could also prove an important contribution to science.

  If they could determine what they were dealing with.

  Max grinned, gave a thumbs-up, and headed for the vortex. The others followed, and this time Ariel faced the hole not with fear, but pride of ownership. While Max inspected and the women videoed, Stan pulled out a tape measure.

  “Not too close,” Tia cautioned.

  He stretched the tape the width of the event horizon. “Tad under forty centimeters.” And the distance from ground to vortex. “One and a half meters.”

  Ariel watched his eyes go distant behind his glasses, and he turned to her to say, “I’m starting to favor your Niles-Begley window on the universe.”

  Also known as an “omniscient” wormhole—a telescope to everywhere.

  Tia nudged her, and Ariel felt flushed, peering closer into the abyss. But strain as she could, she saw nothing in its depths. No stars. No light whatsoever.

  All too soon, the hole closed, and the vortex dissolved, signing off with customary whine and thunder. And hardly had the last rumble ebbed, than everyone’s phones lit up with jubilant texts and tweets from comrades at TPC. The smashing had gone off without a hitch.

  “That settles it,” Stan said. “The anomaly is a byproduct of the streaming alone, unaffected by the smashing.”

  They broke into cheers, Newton chiming in. Ariel stiffened to feel arms envelop her from behind, hugging the breath out of her. Max. He passed her to the others for more hugs and a chorus of cheers. Her head was still reeling when abruptly Max clapped his hands to say, “Okay, gang, we’ve got a ton of work before the afternoon run. Ready to make a little history?”

  More cheers. Now that the collider’s maiden test was behind it, TPC would proceed with twice-daily runs, 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, seven days a week. Hopefully unimpeded by protesters now, Ariel trusted, given they’d just put their black-hole fears to rest.

  “We’ll need equipment,” Stan said. “Lots of it. Sensors, gauges, ‘ometers.”

  Max nodded. “Food and supplies. And, damn, we gotta contact the landlord before he rents the farm out from under us.”

  Tia waved her hands in the air. “Back to Earth, guys. You forget, we’ve got no income. We can’t make rent, much less afford a bunch of equipment.”

&
nbsp; Unfazed, Max snapped, “Think outside the box.”

  Ariel gritted her teeth. She hated that banality. More, she hated the condescending way Max tended to spout it, as if he were some paragon of resourcefulness. Though he came from money, he was hardly better off than the others, too proud to accept family help.

  He gestured to the driveway. “We’ll sell our cars. We can get by with just one. Take jobs in town if necessary, night shifts, waiters. Whatever it takes.”

  Ariel sighed. Max was indeed resourceful. And he was right. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. They couldn’t let it pass.

  It appeared settled until Tia said, “I’m in, but on two conditions.”

  She had everyone’s attention.

  “…Any papers we publish, we publish jointly. We’re a team, we stay a team.”

  Instant consensus.

  “And,” she turned to Ariel, “Ariel gets top billing.”

  Ariel felt herself flush again. She’d never experienced such an honor, ever the outsider. To be given prominence on this power team was most kind and generous.

  Stan readily approved, but Max’s lips tightened to a thin line. No doubt he’d anticipated the limelight, given his career aspirations. And in fairness, he was the best technical writer, likely to shoulder most of that heavy lifting. But Tia wasn’t backing down. And for once, Ariel wasn’t either, relishing her rare moment.

  Tia put a finer edge on it. “If not for Ariel’s tenacity, we wouldn’t be discussing this.”

  Three and a half years ago when Ariel joined the household, they’d made a pact. All decisions affecting the group would be decided by majority vote, and in case of ties, no action would be taken. The terms had served them well.

  Ignoring Max, Tia extended her little fist to the group. Ariel and Stan latched on like spokes of a wheel, and finally Max, grumbling, made it unanimous.

  Wherever this speculative venture led, they were in it together.

  Stan let out a whoop, Newton started barking again, and Max told Ariel, “If you’re gonna headline this show, one more condition: keep a lid on that dog.”