FIVE

 

Cerberus Headquarters, Rome, Italy

 

It did not take long at all for Carter to recognize that she was out of her depth. She was able to muddle through the wealth of information, particularly the official documentation that included very precise data she could verify for herself, but her unfamiliarity with the subject left her feeling underequipped. Distinguishing fact from fiction, where the more extravagant claims of the conspiracy theorists were concerned, was not her forte.

The stated goal of the HAARP project, Carter learned, was to use radio waves to excite plasma in the ionosphere—a five-hundred-mile-thick region of the Earth’s atmosphere, which began almost fifty miles above the surface—and then observe the results. In layman’s terms, the HAARP scientists were using a thirty-three-acre microwave oven to set the upper atmosphere on fire, just to see what would happen.

It was easy to see how people could be alarmed by that prospect. A single match was all it took to start a raging forest fire.

The idea had originated in the 1980s from an unlikely source, a physicist working for a petroleum company who was looking for an alternative means of transporting Alaska’s energy bounty out of the remote wilderness, to the port city of Valdez, hundreds of miles away. The proposed idea was to use that energy on site to power a microwave beam which would excite plasma in the ionosphere. How the energy would be recovered was not apparent, but the idea of heating the ionosphere opened the door to other intriguing possibilities of interest to the Cold War era military.

With precisely aimed radio waves, it might be possible to nudge tropical cyclones on the other side of the world, or see through solid ground to detect hidden enemy bunkers and missile silos. The potential was significant enough to prompt the construction of the quarter-billion dollar antenna array, but whether it had delivered on any of those extravagant aims remained uncertain. The scientists denied that such lines of research were being pursued, and the conspiracy theorists and critics made claims that defied the limits of reason.

According to official sources, HAARP was an enormous antenna array—one hundred and eighty antennas, lined up in a thirty-three acre rectangle—capable of both receiving and transmitting high frequency radio waves between 2.7 and 10 megahertz. By contrast, commercial FM radio stations operated between 88 and 100 megahertz, and military-grade radar frequencies reached into the gigahertz range, as did most microwave ovens. Even if the official specs were understating the output potential of the HAARP array, there were limits that could not be exceeded. HAARP was a powerful antenna broadcasting a weak signal, into a region of space that was bombarded by broad spectrum electro-magnetic radiation. Every second of every day in its 4.6 billion years of existence, the sun showered the Earth with 170 billion megawatts of EM radiation. It collided with gas molecules in the upper atmosphere, stripping away electrons and creating bands of ionized plasma visible to the naked eye. The effect was known as the Aurora Borealis in the north, and the less well-known Aurora Australis in the south. By contrast, HAARP’s maximum output was 3.6 megawatts.

HAARP could be compared to a struck match, but the ionosphere wasn’t a dry forest—it was already on fire. One more little flame wouldn’t make much difference.

But there were claims that Carter could not ignore. A Russian military journal had warned that heating the atmosphere might result in an electron cascade capable of destabilizing or flipping the Earth’s magnetic poles, which would wreak havoc with electronic communications and even leave the planet’s surface vulnerable to deadly cosmic radiation. Another claim, which under any other circumstances would have seemed ludicrous, was that HAARP could be used to transform the upper atmosphere into a lens to redirect solar radiation, amplifying or refracting sunlight in a way similar to what had been reported on the East Coast of the United States.

Had someone, using the HAARP array in Alaska or something like it on an even bigger scale, triggered the global explosion of earthquakes and the unusual solar event? Based on her understanding of the science, it was unlikely but not unthinkable.

“I need a consult,” she said after ten minutes of reading. “With an expert.”

Dourado, who had spent the time immersed in the alternate reality of cyberspace, glanced over. “What kind of expert?”

“Physics,” Carter decided.

“You’ll need to narrow it down a bit,” Dourado said.

The question flummoxed Carter for a moment. What sort of expertise did she need? “I need someone to help me make sense of HAARP, but who can also tell me a little about the earthquakes and the solar event.”

“So an expert but not a specialist.” Dourado scanned through several pages of virtual information. “Most fields of physics deal with theoretical applications, so we’ll focus on applied physics. I’ll cross-reference with people who worked on HAARP or similar projects.”

A list of names appeared on the screen, along with a brief curriculum vitae detailing academic affiliations, areas of research, notable papers written, and significant awards won. There was an additional notation at the end of each listing, the words ‘Recruitment code’, followed by a three digit number.

“Recruitment code? What’s that?”

“This is the database of scientists who might be valuable to the Herculean Society. That’s how Dr. Pierce found you.”

Carter had not been aware of it, but it seemed like a logical arrangement. “What do the numbers mean?”

“There’s an algorithm… It’s kind of complicated, but the short answer is that the computer looks at a variety of factors.”

“What kind of factors?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated. Some geniuses are easier to work with than others. And there are a few I wouldn’t trust with the key to the washroom. If someone scores above a certain number, we make sure that they receive funding or employment with one of our subsidiaries. All very discreet of course. It takes more than a high score to get admitted to the inner circle.”

Carter wondered what her recruitment score had been, but thought better of asking. “I’m not looking to hire anyone. I just need to ask a few questions.”

Dourado gestured to the screen. “Take your pick.”

“Can you organize it by proximity? I think this is going to take more than a phone call.”

The page refreshed, displaying candidates from across Europe. One name stood out to her, a Japanese scientist—Ishiro Tanaka—working in Geneva, Switzerland. Although his CV was extensive, including eighteen months at HAARP, his recruitment score was conspicuously lower than the others.

“Tanaka’s in Geneva,” Carter murmured. “CERN is in Geneva.”

CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research—was one of the world’s leading scientific institutions. It was also the location of the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator ring twenty miles around, where physicists tried to, among other things, recreate the Big Bang and produce miniature black holes.

“It is,” Dourado confirmed, “But Tanaka works for Marcus Fallon at Tomorrowland.”

“Fallon? I feel like I should know that name.”

“He’s like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates all rolled into one.”

Carter, a native of Seattle, recognized the last name, but the other two were no more familiar than Fallon’s. “I guess I’m a little behind the times. How long would it take me to get there?”

Dourado began checking travel information. “It looks like the earthquakes have everything screwed up right now. The trains are all on hold until the track repairs and inspections are complete. Flights are backed up. No word on how long that will last.”

“What about the roads? Can I drive it?”

Dourado brought up a map with the most direct route from Rome to Geneva marked in blue. On the map, it looked like a short distance; Switzerland and Italy were neighbors, but the two cities were separated by more than five hundred miles. “No major road closures being reported, but it’s a good nine hours.”

“I can always listen to an audiobook.”

“Maybe I can pull a few strings. Geneva is also where the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders are headquartered. Maybe I can get you on a relief flight.”

Carter kept staring at the map. “Cintia, can you put the earthquake map up again?”

Dourado did so with a keystroke. Carter moved closer, staring at the clusters of dots.

There it is. Why didn’t I see this before?

“Does it look to you like Geneva could be the center of the earthquake activity?”

“I…guess?”

“The quakes all happened at about 1000 UTC. What’s the time difference for Switzerland?”

“Same as here. Plus two hours during the summer.”

“So the quakes happened at noon. When the sun was directly overhead, more or less.” One of the problems with working in an underground laboratory was that it was easy to lose track of the time. “What’s the time difference between Switzerland and New York?”

“Six hours,” Dourado said, without having to think about it.

“So the quakes were hitting the East Coast at about six a.m. Shortly before sunrise. Which according to multiple reports, was more than a minute late.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

Carter continued to stare at the map. “Tell me about this man Tanaka works for.”

“Marcus Fallon. Easy. He’s kind of a hero of mine. The ultimate tech guy. He invented The Stork.”

Carter shook her head to signal her ignorance.

“‘He brings bundles of joy!’” Dourado seemed to be mimicking an announcer’s voice. “No? The Stork is a robotic aerial parcel delivery system…a package drone. It’s revolutionized online retail.” Dourado shrugged then went on. “Fallon is on the forefront of robotics research and AI. They use his software in self-driving cars. But his real passion is space colonization. His facility in Geneva, Tomorrowland, is a test laboratory focusing on robotic systems for building space stations and terraforming other planets.”

“So he would have use for someone like Tanaka. Does he have any military contracts?”

“I don’t know, but he’s an American living in Switzerland, so I’d say probably not.” Dourado narrowed her eyes. “As much as I don’t want to believe it, if anyone was capable of building a bigger version of HAARP, it would be Marcus Fallon. He’s got the genius and the money to do it.”

“I’m not accusing him, Cintia. I just want to ask a few questions.”

“That’s not what I mean. If he is responsible for what happened today, he’s not going to put out the welcome mat for you. Maybe you should wait until...” She left the sentence unfinished, but it was easy enough to figure out what she had left unsaid.

“I’m sure we’ll hear from them soon.” Carter gave her a patient but reassuring smile. “Look, it’s probably nothing. I’ll ask Tanaka my questions, and that will probably be the end of it. But if something more is going on, every second might count. Saving the world is what we do, right?”