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"My position comes with weight and responsibility no Avitorian should ever carry on their own. As long as The Eighteenth prevails, I will never rest. I will continue to fly and to carry our heritage. You can choose not to fly, to blend in with the humans, but you will never be one of them. You owe it to Carina to teach her about her heritage and to let her fly if she wants." (Georgeo speaking to Carina's parents shortly after her birth.)
Leif awoke hesitantly from the vibration of his cellphone alarm. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes and his face. The car was great for driving. It was lousy for sleeping in, especially when parked at a slight incline at the end of a dirt road in the forest. Two days of no sleep and constant anxiety was taking its toll on his mind and body. He checked his cellphone for new messages from Georgeo. Only the last message from earlier in the day appeared:
Site @ 6pm
The clock on the phone showed 5:47 pm. It was dark outside and it was hard for Leif to see out through the fogged up windows. He opened his door and quickly grabbed the keys from the ignition switch when the dinging alert of the car startled him. Stepping into the cold, crisp, night air felt refreshing and helped to shake the groggy remnant of sleep from his mind. He took a deep breath, blew it out slowly while closing his eyes, and reached out with his senses. There were some small animals hiding cautiously at a distance - no doubt startled by the car door and dinging alert. He reached out further and could sense a group of deer, bedded down for the night while one of them stood guard, possibly smelling Leif’s scent. He smiled when he detected Georgeo approaching through the boughs of the evergreens overhead.
“You’re early,” Leif continued to stare out into the woods while Georgeo slowly settled next to him.
“I’m glad you noticed. I doubt you would’ve been able to see me.”
Leif turned to see Georgeo was completely dressed in black. From tennis shoes, jeans, jacket, and black knitted cap. If it wasn’t for his face, he would just be a shadow in the woods. “What did you find out?” Georgia asked.
“I managed to login to a email account for a Kevin Smith at the astrophysics lab. There were a couple emails to Dr. Corellis saying their subject was delivered to the MSB.”
“MSB? What’s a MSB?”
“It’s the Marine Sciences Building. It’s where the doctor’s boat is docked. I did some snooping around and saw the doctor and her crew go into the building. I attempted to get in but...” Leif paused for a moment. He knew Georgeo wouldn’t be happy about his being seen. He sighed and continued. “The campus cops saw me and I had to bail into the water.”
Georgeo gazed up into the canopy of the evergreen trees, pulled off his knitted cap, and ran one hand through his silvery hair. He pulled the cap back on and looked back at Leif. “That’s going to make it tougher. I’m guessing Suzanne suspects it was you.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty certain of it.” Leif added.
“Why?”
“She’s blackmailing me to do some programming for their dark matter measurements in the lab. She said my work would be a less painful approach than her other options.”
“Carina could be her other option, or just take you captive as well.”
“There’s more.” Leif added. “Another email from Kevin said she’s sedated and that a surgical team is arriving to insert some type of receptors.”
Leif could sense the anger building up in Georgeo. It was too dark to see the details of his face. The minute of silence seemed to last forever till he finally responded.
Georgeo’s voice was lower, quieter, and full of wrath. “I’ll meet you here at eleven. Get more intel if you can, but be very, very careful. We go in tonight.”
The whoosh of Georgeo’s departure into the sky startled Leif. He felt the breeze and heard the rush of evergreen branches, all within a split second. The sudden movement made him blink and Georgeo was gone.
***
Dr. Corellis slowly paced the rear boat deck while gesturing with one hand and holding a cellphone to her ear with the other. “We have to stabilize her. The team will be here tomorrow and they’re not going to be very happy if they can’t get started! Understand?” She stopped pacing and waited for a response. “Keep me posted,” she concluded and tossed the phone onto a padded chair.
“What’s her status?” Matt asked while handing the doctor a glass of red wine.
“Vitals have improved, but she’s still not responsive. I didn’t anticipate this.” She stood at the deck railing, stared off toward the opposite shoreline, and sipped her wine.
“So, bring in the boy. Maybe she’ll respond to him.”
“Matt...” she turned to face him. “If we bring him in he’ll refuse to continue the math. I need him to finish. Dark Matter particle physics could be the key to understanding how it works - how they do it. No one has ever come this close to an understanding of the physics.”
“If you bring him in, she’ll respond. He’ll do whatever you want if he thinks you’ll let them go after the research.” Matt paused and stood beside her at the railing. He spoke almost in a whisper. “Show him Angela.”
Dr. Corellis stepped back from the railing, tossed the wine from her glass onto Matt’s face, and threw the wineglass to the deck with a crash. Glass shards flew across the wood in all directions. “How dare you! How dare you question my decisions! Apparently you don’t understand them as well as I thought you did.”
Matt wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. “Suzanne. I...”
She interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear it. You need to go!” She turned and faced the water and gripped the railing tightly with both hands.
Matt obliged, wiping wine off his face and headed for the ship’s cabin. As soon as he closed the door behind him Dr. Corellis signaled the guard over.
“Make sure the infrared is still on for tonight. I don’t want any more surprise visits.”
“Yes, doctor. May I suggest a fresh glass of merlot?”
“Hot tea, green. The air is a bit frigid tonight.”
***
The drive from Tiger Mountain to the university normally took 30 to 60 minutes depending on the traffic. Leif was in a hurry and managed to make it to the parking garage by 6:40 p.m. A little under 25 minutes. He hustled to the physics lab and his desk. As soon as he placed his backpack on his desk one of the other technicians showed up.
“Hey Leif, welcome to second shift,” the technician stated with a chuckle. “It’s interesting you’re showing up right now.”
Leif wasn’t quite sure how to react to the tech’s statement and he was a bit wary after Dr. Corellis’ veiled threat this morning. “Um, why’s that?”
“We’re getting ready to run a test experiment of particle mass detection in the hydrogen bubble chamber. Dr. Corellis has suggested we incorporate a weak light source via laser and see if the detection of neutrinos matches the math you’ve been working on for us. Aside from collisions with hydrogen atoms, we’re wanting to see if there’s any fluctuation in the light source during the collision.”
Leif was overwhelmed by the techno speak of the technician, but he kind of got the gist of it. “Wow. I had no idea my algorithms for the effects of gravity, light pressure, and planets could be taken down to such a minute level.”
“Well, all we do is reduce the mass equation of your math. The rest of the physics still applies.”
Leif nodded in agreement, not completely convinced it was that easy.
The technician continued. “Just follow me and we’ll go down to the bubble chamber.”
“Down?” Leif asked. “I keep forgetting there are a couple floors below.”
The technician chuckled again. “Yeah, there are 2 more floors below us. The chamber is on the lowest level.
During their walk and elevator ride Leif continued to quiz the technician about the experiment. His calculations of mass and densities of material, plus the distance from the center of the planet, provided the newer calculations for the effects of gravity on their measurements. He mentioned the university conducted sound depth measurements to get a feel for the type of material densities below the university, and thus be able to adjust what they expected to see.
As they reached the bottom level, the elevator door opened to reveal a small room with a set of double doors with instruction signs for how to enter. After they exited the elevator and the doors slid closed, the technician tapped on a panel and the lights of the room dimmed to darkness with a slight red glow. They waited till their eyes adjusted, filling the time with more astro-physics speak, until they were able to read the instructions. A press of a button opened the double doors.
The entire laboratory was bathed in the same red glow as the entry room. In the center of the room was a large, oblong, circular container. It looked like a railcar gas container without the wheels and trailer. Several window ports were spaced evenly along the side. Pipes and cables hung from above the container and were attached to the top. A square tube extended from one end of the container and reached down into a long dark tunnel off to Leif's left. Technicians in lab coats hurried about the large container with their tablet computers. It reminded Leif of ants scurrying around the queen of the burrow. Equipment racks with computers and monitors lined a wall on the right side of the lab.
"This is the bubble chamber." The technician pointed to the large container. "It's filled with liquid hydrogen, highly pressurized and cooled to minus four hundred twenty three degrees, to keep the hydrogen in a liquid state."
"This way." The technician signaled Leif to follow. He continued as they walked to the left of the chamber. "As neutrinos pass through the earth at a high speed, they tend to miss most atoms. They just fly through happily along through space. But, in the slight chance one passes through our chamber, there are so many hydrogen atoms packed into the water, the odds of impact are greatly increased. If a neutrino strikes a hydrogen atom, leptons fly off from the impact, leaving a trail through the liquid. We have photo-receptors for capturing the events." He pointed at the side of the chamber, covered with a couple hundred protrusions, each with a network cable attached and coiling into a massive bundle of wires - all nicely zip-tied and dropping into a foot-wide pipe stretching into the tunnel.
"How often do the collision events happen?" Leif asked.
"The last one we saw was fourteen months ago."
"What?" Leif gasped while they continued walking into the tunnel, following the pipe and cables. "Why all the activity then?"
"Doctor Corellis has a project she's been developing, but she’s being pretty quiet about it. We think it’s something special for the Department of Defense, which would explain all the extra funding we’re getting. Anyway, she's providing some type of particle generator in the room above us within the next day or two. We're not permitted to see the source, but we'll be down here gathering measurements and looking for collisions." The technician paused as they reached a door at the end of the tunnel. The pipe and cables passed through a foam packed opening in the wall, next to the door. He scanned his card against a black security pad next to the door and continued. "The crew is making sure all the fittings and sensors are working correctly before the big experiment."
Leif’s heart sank with the realization the experiment would use Carina as the source of sub-atomic particles for impacting the hydrogen atoms. He didn’t know if anything could be measured. It made him angry to think of Carina as the doctor’s lab rat for experimentation. He loved her so deeply. I’ve got to get her away from these maniacs.
The door clicked, the technician pushed it open, and politely held it while letting Leif step through first. While the room did not have the dim red glow of the laboratory, it was still dimly lit. Most of the light in the room came from the rows of computer monitors and the wall of flat screen monitors, all showing measurements and status updates from the equipment in the lab. One of the wall monitors showed the dim, blue, glow from inside the bubble chamber. The fluid inside it was perfectly still, making it hard to tell it was full of liquid hydrogen. A large circular row of desks extended from one wall of the room, left of the wall monitors, and circled under the monitors to the wall on the right, almost forming three quarters of a full circle. In the middle of the circle was a recessed circular pit, with another set of circular desks, providing the occupants with a full view of the wall monitors and the monitors in the larger circle. Although there were close to fifty monitors in the large circle, only a few of the staff sat at their consoles. The senior engineers sat at the desks in the pit, engrossed in reviewing statistics on their own computers.
Leif had seen enough. “I’ve got to go.” He stated while glancing at his watch.
“What’s the hurry? We’re getting ready to grab a snapshot of the stable environment as a comparison against the actual experiment.”
“Um, I’ve got a lot of programming to do and now that I’ve seen what’s going on, I’m sure the doctor would want me to have some major features ready by tomorrow.” He turned and headed for the door. “I can find my way out. Thanks for the tour.”
Leif pushed open the door to the tunnel and was surprised to see someone preparing to enter. A mid-20ish man with spiked, short, blonde hair, and the build of a football line-backer squeezed past Leif - almost pushing him into the door frame. As Leif slid sideways, he got a peek at the man’s name tag, clipped to his brown leather jacket. The name ‘Smith, Kevin’ caught his eye. He glanced up from the tag to see Kevin frowning.
“Do you mind?” Kevin stated while stepping through the doorway.
Leif quickly raised his arm to cover his own name tag and reached out with it to pat Kevin on the shoulder. “Sorry buddy. Thought you were going to let me through first.”
Kevin turned and strode into the room, ignoring Leif’s pat on the shoulder and his comment. Leif used his foot to speed up the closing of the door. He turned and walked quickly through the tunnel, past the bubble chamber, and toward the double entry doors. No one noticed his nervous pace and glances back down the tunnel. Everyone else was too busy getting the chamber ready for the big test. He pressed a palm button next to the doors, unlocking them and switching the entryway to dim light - preventing flooding of the laboratory with bright light. As soon as he was through the doors he hit the elevator button and glanced back through the closing double doors to make sure Kevin wasn’t in pursuit. He pressed the lighted elevator button again and again. “Come on!” Adrenalin was coursing through his body and his heart was racing, along with his mind. I gotta get ahold of Georgeo. I’ve got to get Carina out.
Anger and anxiety was building up inside him. Part of him wanted to storm back into the lab, find Kevin, and beat the crap out of him. It might feel good for a few seconds, but it wouldn’t help him to get Carina out. Leif leaned one hand against the side of the elevator, took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. Calm. I have to calm down. Think clearly.
The elevator doors opened with a ding. Leif jumped in and tapped the button for his floor, then the button for closing the elevator door. The doors started closing and Leif could see the double doors of the laboratory open. Leif stepped to one side to get a better view of the lobby before the door slid closed. He caught a glimpse of Kevin lurching toward the elevator door. Leif jumped back and slammed against the back of the elevator as the door closed. He could hear Kevin spewing profanity and hitting against the door as the elevator started moving. Leif’s heart almost stopped from the shock of seeing Kevin come after him. Maybe the technician told him who I was? He realized the elevator’s next stop was the floor where he did his work. I have to get out of the building. He tapped the button for the ground floor and hoped no one would want to get on from the work area.
The elevator dinged and the door opened on the work floor. Leif exclaimed a sign of relief to see no one was there wanting to go up. Then he noticed a fire alarm switch on the other side of the hallway, outside of the elevator. Barely giving it much thought, he jumped out of the elevator, pulled the fire alarm switch, and quickly stuck his arm into the path of the closing elevator door to make sure it didn’t close. The screeching fire alarm echoed through the hallway, piercing his eardrums. He jumped back into the elevator and double tapped the button for the ground floor. “Come on, come on, come on.” He repeated and covered his ears from the loud alarm raging from the speaker in the elevator. It seemed like an eternity before the door finally opened on the ground level. Leif darted from the elevator and ran to the security guard in the lobby.
The guard was on the phone, speaking with the fire department. “... and it just went off a couple minutes ago, but I don’t see any issues on the fire panel.”
Leif shouted at the guard. “There’s a problem in the laboratory with the bubble chamber. You need to get the fire department and hazmat team here as soon as possible!” The guard stared back at him blankly, trying to digest the emergency as Leif ran through the lobby, out the double glass doors, and into the night.
It felt good to grab a deep breath of the cold night air. It invigorated Leif as he decided his next action. He pulled out his cell phone and quickly texted Georgeo.
Fire alarm on campus. Diversion. Need to move tonight.
Leif looked around quickly to see if anyone was in the area. The fire alarm could be heard outside the building and he knew it would attract attention. So far, no one was in the area to notice. He ran to the side of the building where most of the shadows were falling, away from the street lights. Looking up into the sky, he could see there was a low cloud layer passing slowly overhead. He could smell rain in the air. Taking another quick glance around he bounded into the air as quickly as he could and entered into the cold, damp clouds above the campus.
***
“What do you mean he was here? What’s all the noise?” Doctor Corellis stated into her cell phone. She paused a few seconds to listen, then responded. “He was in the lab with the bubble chamber? Fire alarm? You fools! How could you let this happen?!” She paused again, while pacing the rear deck of her yacht. “Fire department... Can you get the wave rifles?” She paused, collecting her emotions. “You already have them. Good. Bring them to me. I expect we might have some company tonight.”