Never Again Page 19

  Burt’s first thought was about what the president had shown him: the Brotherhood of the Righteous. Were these the same lunatics the Prime Minister was referring to? His mind raced as he tried to recall anything in the news about religious riots, and suddenly, something clicked. “Wait a minute, I remember there were a bunch of religious leaders’ funerals that happened at the same time, like ten years ago. There was a huge thing made of it, but I thought they’d all died of heart attacks or—”

  “Yes,” the old man cut him off. “We need not talk more of the who and the what. Suffice it to say that the problem was taken care of, and taken care of quietly—without suspicion. It was only after that incident that the heads of the nuclear-capable states realized that we all had the same latent risk of security breaches. Cloaked under the shawl of a religious following, these suicide cults are still alive and well throughout the world, and with millions of followers or sympathizers. We, as a civilized set of nations, could not abide their ever gaining control or inciting global unrest.”

  Burt recalled the image of the albino monk, and shuddered at the thought that there might be millions of those zealots throughout the world.

  The Prime Minister motioned toward his peers arrayed on either side of him. “In each of our respective countries, we cull those who would be the most problematic amongst the cult members. We ensure that procedural votes do not give them sway in our respective governments. We also limit their access and success in business.”

  Pausing for a moment, a wry grin bloomed on his face. “I suppose we as a group aren’t very much unlike the boogiemen of many a cheap dime-store novel, those who control things in less-than-honorable manners. But we do it to keep the rest of humanity safe.”

  Burt nodded ever-so-slowly.

  Oddly enough, none of this bothered him. He wasn’t particularly religious, and he certainly didn’t want to accelerate that hand of God in any way, shape, or form. Burt may not have been perfectly content with some of the turns his life had taken, but he certainly wanted to continue living. “Prime Minister, if you know about Indigo, then why did you all need me here? Why tell me these things?”

  “Actually, the answer is quite simple.” The Prime Minster leaned back in his chair and motioned toward the others in the room. “We all wanted you to understand why this group exists. You needed to know that we’re fighting against a significant portion of our society, a portion that’s ready to believe almost anything, given certain circumstances. With the possibility of what Indigo presents, it seems clear to us all that if the truth were known by the public, we’d have a global disaster. Hell, even if our interstellar friend decided to forego visiting us, and this was all some kind of mistake, the public knowing of this threat would be a calamity of epic proportions. These suicide cults need only an excuse, or what they might deem as a sign from above, to wreak havoc on the civilization that we hold so dear.” The Prime Minster glanced at the others, and with a grim tone, explained, “There are activities already underway in each of our nations to stifle the reactions of those with whom we are concerned. From you, we want to fully understand the nature of what we’re facing and the preparations that will need to be done. This group might also have some suggestions on what to expose to the public and what not to expose, but first, let’s hear what you have to say.”

  Sitting comfortably on the plush leather chair, Burt slowly wheeled it closer to where he’d walked into the room, so that he could see everyone at once.

  With a brief cough to clear his throat, he projected across the room, “As you all I’m sure realize, a black hole is one of the most dangerous...”

  ###

  Burt felt supremely relieved that he’d spent nearly two days straight talking with Dave about all of the science regarding his solution, and considering the issues that might arise. After the nearly two hours of rather detailed discussions with the thirty-four heads of various countries, he felt drained. Almost as if he’d been on trial, suffering through a prosecutor’s interrogation. However, instead of one prosecutor, he’d needed to face down thirty-four of them, all asking pointed questions and probing every conceivable angle. In some cases, the dynamic debate resulted in heated arguments amongst the world leaders, and it was only after the British Prime Minister produced a gavel from somewhere and began banging loudly on the table that he managed to bring the room back to order.

  The only definitive conclusions that Burt could discern were that more discussions needed to occur, and each of the countries would be sending a representative from their scientific community with instructions from their government.

  As the group stood and began to migrate toward a table heavily laden with food and refreshments, the Prime Minister approached and patted Burt on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile. “Doctor Radcliffe, I apologize for some of what you just experienced. I know it must have been a bit trying, dealing with us politicians, many of whom who can barely spell physics, much less debate it in a cogent manner. Most of us are fairly level-headed, but we have our moments.”

  Burt shook his head and smiled. “No worries. I’ve seen worse. There’s an old saying in academia, ‘Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.’ That being said, I’ve waged these kind of verbal battles before.”

  The elderly gentleman nodded, but sighed heavily with an expression of regret. “Yes, I suppose you’re likely right about that. Just don’t be surprised if things for all of us get quite ugly before everyone falls into lockstep. People aren’t going to want to hear what needs to be said, but I’m sure you’ll do fine.” The Prime Minister pasted on a smile that almost certainly was intended to be reassuring, but nonetheless left Burt feeling even more worried. “You handled yourself very well, and I’ll be telling Margaret exactly that.” Glancing at a table with a large, silver tea set, the Prime Minister patted Burt’s shoulder once more. “I don’t know about you, but I need a spot of tea to soothe my frayed nerves.”

  Just as the gray-haired man turned, Burt felt a tap on the middle of his back, and he turned to see a short Asian man not more than a foot away, staring intensely at him.

  “Oh, hello.” Burt immediately recognized the middle-aged and slightly overweight man as the one who’d sat at one of the ends of the U-shaped table. He’d never said a word, even when the others were yelling at each other. “Did you have a question?”

  “Radcliffe, arrange a time for me to meet privately with Dave Holmes. Dave and I are old friends.”

  Blinking, Burt was taken aback. “Uh, I don’t really have the authority to arrange meetings with Doctor Holmes for anyone. I’m afraid you’ll need to reach out to the president or maybe you ... I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you?”

  The man tilted his head at an angle and smiled. “Talking to your President may be difficult. There are many in my administration who aren’t particularly friendly with those in hers. When you talk to Dave, tell him Frank wants to talk about the power converter.”

  Burt took a step back, at first not sure if the man he was talking to was sane. But suddenly, the name Frank popped into his mind. “Frank? As in, North Korea Frank—the same one who went to school with Doctor Holmes?”

  With an unexpected burst of enthusiasm, Frank clapped his hands together gleefully. “So he talked about me? He needs to know that I’ve made progress on the project he and I had talked about.”

  Suddenly, he grabbed Burt by his upper arm and pressed his face closer. “I need to talk to him.”

  Shrugging his arms out of the man’s grip, Burt stepped back, and Frank’s eyes widened. Being the supreme leader of his country, he probably wasn’t used to dealing with people who weren’t cowed into total subservience when in his presence.

  Frank leaned forward and whispered in a hoarse, somewhat desperate tone. “There’s more, but I can’t really talk about it here.” The short man glanced nervously over his shoulder. “And the information I have ... I just can’t be sure. It seems crazy,
half-baked, but that’s why I need to talk with him. Dave had always been good at unscrambling things, finding the worth in the half-baked and ill-formed ideas that sometimes inspired me.” A sad expression bloomed onto his chubby face, as if remembering a time from long ago. “Even though he’s American, he’s really…” Frank paused, seeming to weigh his next words carefully. “He’s really smarter than any of us, no offense intended.”

  “Trust me, I understand.” Burt nodded. “Dave is beyond brilliant. I’ll talk with the president on your behalf and see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything more.”

  The pariah state’s Supreme Leader sighed. “It’s important. You can tell your Margaret Hager that I’m doing what I can to keep my generals in line, but only so much can be done in my situation.”

  And with that parting statement, North Korea’s Supreme Leader turned away and walked toward the table laden with an international collection of delicacies.

  ###

  Word of the threat had very carefully been spread amongst the other leaders of the world, yet through some small miracle, word hadn’t yet leaked to the general public. Burt had always heard that there was no such thing as a secret in government; people couldn’t help but talk about their “secrets.” Clearly, that wasn’t always the case.

  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the musty smell that permeated the room. He stood in front of a podium as the last of the nearly one-hundred-and-fifty scientists gathered in a secure auditorium located in Fort Meade. He wasn’t sure if his upset stomach was from the greasy breakfast he’d eaten at the hotel, or because he was going to be disclosing to the world’s top scientists, his peers, the details of how they would deal with the impending threat.

  Burt had steeped himself in academia and the scientific community for nearly three decades, and he knew how things worked. Peer review was required for any serious affirmation of new concepts, and he knew that the idea of telling over one hundred of these people that they’d have to forego the normal procedures for something literally Earth-shaking was lunacy.

  A lunacy that was necessary.

  As the last of the scientists settled into their seats, Burt leaned forward and tapped on the microphone, panning his gaze across the room.

  “Hello everyone,” he began, “I’m thrilled to see some old friends in the room, and I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of you for the first time. I just wish the situation wasn’t as serious as it is today.”

  Trying to rid himself of his nerves, Burt took another deep breath and shrugged his stiff shoulders.

  “You’ve all been briefed on what we’re facing. You’ve also been sworn to secrecy, and what is said in this room, stays here. This meeting has two purposes. One, it is for me to explain how we might be dealing with what is already described in the reports that you’ve received. But it’s also a time for us to discuss the ramifications of what is happening, and create a plan on what else might need to be done. Each of your respective countries needs your guidance, and I’m charged with helping coordinate this discussion and summarize the conclusions.”

  Having given many speeches over his lifetime, Burt’s nerves had melted away, only to be replaced with a steely determination to do what needed to be done. When word of Indigo eventually went public, he knew that it was these people who’d have to explain it to their constituents, and if they couldn’t, the result would almost certainly be panic. Too much was at stake for him to screw this up.

  “First of all, what I’m about to describe has been designed by Doctor David Holmes, who, if you don’t know him in person, you certainly know who he is. I wish he could be here, but he’s out there.” Burt motioned toward the outside world. “He’s trying to address the concerns we’re about to talk about, so I’m here in his place.”

  One of the scientists in the front row, an older gentleman with a shock of white hair, stood and asked in a loud voice, “Doctor Radcliffe, I object to the idea that we’d stake the fate of the world on new beliefs or understandings. That’s not how things work, and you know it.”

  Having expected pushback from the audience, Burt shook his head. “Your objection is noted, but I’d assert that you’re forgetting our history. Advances in science often come in spurts. Things that are long understood to be fact are suddenly blown asunder by contradicting empirical data.

  “Until the late nineteenth century, the scientific world believed in a substance called luminiferous aether, a substance that was purported to be the medium by which light traveled. And then one day in 1905, a man named Albert Einstein tossed aside all that the scientific community believed with his theory of Special Relativity.

  “It was only fifty years ago that most thought that the world’s oceans came from the Earth’s early bombardment by comets and other water-carrying objects. However, only with the passage of Halley’s Comet and the spectroscopic analysis of other comets did we determine that those icy objects couldn’t have been the basis of our oceans. They had ratios of deuterium-based heavy water to normal water that were twice that of our own oceans.

  “Instead, we learned that a large portion of our Earth’s own upper mantle is composed of rock known as ringwoodite, that if brought to the surface, could easily bring forth many times the amount of water that we currently see in our oceans. Oh, and one fact to note ... the water trapped within our mantle has exactly the same composition as the water in our oceans. We now know that through many millions of years of volcanic activity, the Earth populated its own oceans, effectively setting aside our old understanding.

  “What modern scientists believed for centuries was overturned quickly due to these findings.

  “What Doctor Holmes has demonstrated as possible is, in my estimation, no less than what Albert Einstein did with the theory of Special and then General Relativity. Doctor Holmes has turned what we thought we knew on its head.”

  Knowing that what he was about to say would be controversial, Burt took a deep breath and tried to keep a grimace off his face.

  “What I’m about to describe is ridiculously complicated. Some of the things we’re going to talk about are going to challenge everything we hold to be true. Trust me, I know how we all are. I’m one of you, and in that, I mean that we’re all, by nature of our academic backgrounds, the type who ask lots of questions, debate, and believe in peer review of all things. I’m sorry, we don’t have that luxury anymore. Not for this.”

  A murmur rose from the audience, and a woman stood in the back. “That’s crazy,” she yelled. “Nothing is so complicated that it can’t be debated. If it’s so convoluted to explain, then I’d assert it’s probably not something we can depend on.”

  The murmur grew louder as some scientists shifted restlessly and others grumbled in Burt’s direction.

  Burt pursed his lips at the bold challenge and leaned closer to the microphone.

  “I never said I couldn’t explain it. I said that for some of you, it would be a challenge to accept.” With a surge of indignation, he changed tone, trying to head off what he feared might become a pissing contest. “You can question what I say all you like, but if you believe that science and the way we communicate concepts hasn’t been convoluted, you’re delusional. Even the simplest thing can be complicated beyond reason. And I’ll give you an example.

  “I know that some of you may not specialize in physics, but I’m fairly certain you all know that power is not the same as energy, right?

  “Power, being a measure of the amount of work being done at any given time, is expressed in watts. However, energy is the amount of work done over a span of time. That’s measured in watt-hours.

  “So you might say that, ‘One watt of power, maintained for an hour, is a watt-hour of energy.’ Simple, right?”

  Many faces in the audience stared blankly, while others showed signs of annoyance.

  “You’re all silently staring at me thinking, ‘This is remedial crap, why is he doing this?’

  “
I’m doing it to show you how anything simple can be screwed up when too many people debate what is already working instead of just moving on.

  “For instance, a battery’s energy isn’t expressed in watt-hours; it’s amp-hours, which of course means you need to multiply it by its voltage to get watt-hours. Simple yet again, I suppose.

  “You might think you know what a BTU is, that’s of course the British Thermal Unit, which is equivalent to 1,055 joules. Why 1,055 joules? Oh, because that’s how much power was needed to raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.

  “Obviously, to know that, we’re deep into the memorization area, right?

  “What if I told you that the British used to have something called a Board of Trade Unit, also known as a BTU? It was a kilowatt-hour, which I might note isn’t the same as the British Thermal Unit version of BTU. This form of BTU didn’t equal 1055 joules, but instead was 3.6 mega-joules. Confused yet?

  “But wait, there’s more.

  “In India, a kilowatt-hour is simply referred to as a Unit. So a million units is actually a gigawatt-hour, a billion units is a terawatt-hour, and so on.

  “Clearly, many of us have found ways to muck up the way we talk to each other or express common concepts, so let’s not pretend that we’re innocent of such things.

  “You’ve all been charged not with debating the nature of what we’re facing, or the solution that is currently being enacted, but with the ramifications of the solution and how each of your countries must prepare. Each of your respective countries need your guidance. If you can’t explain what I’m about to talk about, each and every one of you will be responsible for the inevitable chaos in your respective countries.”