Split second, p.27
Split Second, page 27
“Why not?” said Blake, shaking his head in disgust. “He has to make room for all those copies of Albert Einstein, after all.”
“Yeah,” said Cargill. “That, too. Everyone has a different definition of utopia. Knight could do a lot of good, which is one reason his followers are so passionate. Unlimited wealth, an end to terrorism, and the world populated only by brilliant, educated people. Sounds great, if it weren’t for the sacrifices others would have to make. And if we didn’t have to rely on his good nature and benevolent disposition. When Ted Kaczynski goes nuts and turns into the full-on Unabomber, you don’t want him ruling the world at the time.”
The room fell silent as everyone considered what living under the rule of an unstable genius might be like.
“Would he also force people into using his transporter machines?” asked Walsh finally. “You mentioned this was a long-held fantasy of his.”
“Actually, no,” said Cargill. “He was excited about this in the beginning, but he knows he has to keep time travel technology a closely guarded secret. He would keep the supply of his devices limited, and knowledge of their capabilities known only to a select few.”
“Won’t people catch on when they see a thousand Pattons?” said Walsh.
“Eventually, but they won’t know how he does it. They’ll suspect cloning before time travel. And they won’t know where he keeps the devices. He’ll also wield an iron fist to be sure no one else ever comes up with the technology.” Cargill paused. “Which it goes without saying, is something we’re dedicated to doing as well.”
“About the only thing you both agree on,” noted Blake.
“This makes sense no matter who controls the technology,” said Cargill. “Would you rather have one man with his finger poised above a nuclear button, or ten thousand men? With ten thousand you just multiply the chances that someone will push it.”
“So who does have access?” asked Blake.
“With respect to Q5, only me. I’m the only one with the proper codes to activate any of the devices. Knight invented the technology, and I was his boss. So we saw to it that the software that controls the devices was inextricably intertwined with instructions that limited access to the two of us. Period. I’m sure Knight didn’t change this. He has to protect his own power, and if his underlings could use these devices without him, what would stop them from freelancing? He needs control over his people. Some are true believers, but some are just in it for the money and power. And most, of course, have no idea what this is really all about, as is the case with Q5.”
“So I’m guessing there are no duplicate Edgar Knights out there,” said Blake.
“Hard to imagine,” said Cargill. “A megalomaniac like him would never be able to, um . . . trust himself.”
“Right,” said Jenna. “So maybe Roger Federer doesn’t want to play Roger Federer for the title, after all.”
Blake gestured to Cargill. “Can you still activate his devices?” he asked.
“Almost certainly. And he can still activate mine. Tearing out either of our accesses from the software can’t be done without compromising it. You’d have to redesign very complex control systems. Why tamper with success? He can use his own devices whenever he wants, so why would he use mine?”
“And vice-versa,” said Blake.
“Yes,” said Cargill. “Even if he did take my access away somehow, I had a backdoor engineered in without his knowledge. I wanted to be able to control it, even with respect to Knight. To override him. I suspect he’s built or duplicated additional devices, but each of these would also retain this backdoor access.”
“Have you ever re-captured any of his devices?” asked Blake.
“Not yet. They give off a telltale radiation signature—call it dark energy residual—but you have to be within a mile or two to pick it up. It’s very faint.”
“Any other major pieces of the puzzle?” said Blake. “Or are we pretty much up to speed?”
“You’re close. I’ve told you all the key facts.”
“I have to admit,” said Jenna, “as absurd and horrible as this all is, it does seem to explain everything that’s happened since I got involved.” She paused, remembering, and a veil of sadness settled over her. “So Knight was right about how Nathan and I came into the picture, wasn’t he?”
Cargill nodded, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said. “We’ve had computers tasked with monitoring any scientist who might have even a slight chance of reproducing Knight’s work, or in this case, explaining and extending it. When Nathan wrote about forty-five microseconds, he may as well have triggered a nuclear-powered siren. But we never wanted to hurt him,” he insisted. “We wanted to show him our set-up, tell him about Knight, and recruit him.”
“But Knight had a mole,” said Jenna, “and was just waiting for you to find someone like Nathan.”
“Yes. I was asleep at the wheel. It was unforgivable carelessness. Knight had been absolutely quiet since he left. I assumed he was building his team and capabilities, making sure to stay well under my radar while evading my considerable efforts to locate him. I let myself believe he wouldn’t risk taking any actions that might give himself away. I got soft and stupid. In short, he lulled me to sleep. It goes without saying,” he added, his eyes now blazing, “that I am now very much awake.”
“But at the cost of Nathan’s life,” said Jenna.
Cargill lowered his eyes. “Yes. Knight’s people must have been closing in on Dr. Wexler during his ambush. My men knew if Knight got to him, there would be nothing to stop him from ultimately achieving his goals.”
There was silence in the large conference room for almost a full minute, as everyone digested all that had been discussed.
“So what now?” said Blake, finally breaking the spell.
“I’d love for all of you to join our efforts,” replied Cargill.
He turned toward Greg Soyer and nodded, making sure he knew he was included in this invitation. “Part of this is because you now know the score, and not many do. People who do are valuable. Since I want to limit this number, having you join the team would kill two birds with one stone.”
“And the other part?” said Blake.
“You’ve impressed the hell out of me, Mr. Blake. I wasn’t just blowing smoke when I told you this over the phone. I could use a man like you. As the number three man here, just behind Joe.”
Blake stared at Cargill thoughtfully, but didn’t respond.
“And we would love to add another world-class physicist like Dr. Walsh. Greg’s computer and Arabic language skills are also extremely impressive and would be very useful to us. And while Jenna is in genetics rather than the physical sciences, she is brilliant, and given the depth of her knowledge about what is really happening here, she could make significant contributions. Who better to study the ethics of our situation, and to find ways to keep me honest?”
Aaron Blake exchanged glances with the other three in question. “I’m sure I speak for us all in saying that we’d need to consider this a while before making any decisions. And learn more about your operation and goals.”
“Of course,” said Cargill. “Perhaps we can convince all of you to stay with us for a few weeks while you’re considering. Think of it as a trial period. We can pull strings so you have cover stories that keep your options open, and your employers happy.”
“Maybe,” said Blake noncommittally. “You’ve given us a lot to think about. We just have to decide how much we trust you.”
“I understand,” said Cargill, rising from his chair and motioning for the rest of the group to do the same. “So let me give you a tour, and demonstrate duplication. Then you can review tapes of Knight pushing for more aggressive use of the technology. And then of some of the men we captured who were in his camp. I’m not sure I painted Knight as being as much of a monster as he really is, but when you hear firsthand accounts of what he really wants to accomplish, I think you’ll find it very eye-opening, and very disturbing, ”
“You want to do all of this right now?” said Jenna.
“Absolutely,” replied Cargill. “The faster I can get you comfortable, the better.”
He blew out a long breath. “Because we’re dealing with a resurgent Edgar Knight. And we have a lot of work to do.”
47
The tour of Cheyenne Mountain—at least three quarters of it, since Cargill had said they couldn’t venture into the south quadrant and risk certain people there seeing them—had been as fascinating as any tour Jenna Morrison had ever taken. And yet only half of her mind was taking it in.
The other half was darting around like an over-caffeinated hummingbird, flittering madly from thought to thought. She had been drinking from a firehose since Sunday night, a period of less than seventy-two hours into which ten lifetimes of agony and trauma and revelation had been crammed. Her world had been destroyed, she had feared for her life on numerous occasions, and her horizons had been expanded in unimaginable ways.
And now she was being given a tour of the most remarkable facility in the US by the man who headed the group that had killed Nathan. Could she really work with this man? Just bury the hatchet and forgive? Should she say, “Sure I’ll work with you. Ever since you killed my fiancé, I’ve become a lot more flexible.”
She hated herself for not hating Lee Cargill more.
But he seemed genuine, and a good man. A man striving to help protect the world, a man who agonized over many of the things he had been forced to do in service to this goal. A man who was forced to weigh innocent lives and make impossible choices.
But she had thought the same of Edgar Knight, proving how easily she could be fooled.
The difference was that Lee Cargill was offering proof. And she was helpless, entirely in his control, and he had done nothing to take advantage of this. At least not so far.
Even if she came to believe that killing Nathan had been the only option under the circumstances—still a big if—could she ever forgive? And could she really change gears, abandon the years she had spent working toward her dream of becoming an experimental geneticist? And did Lee Cargill really mean it when he said one of her jobs would be to find ways to guard against abuses of power—by him and Q5? While this wouldn’t be her only responsibility, it was sure to be a treacherously difficult task, with no obvious solutions.
But wasn’t working with Q5, especially on this assignment, more important than anything else she could do with her life? And although they would be part of a larger team, the number of people within Q5 who knew what was driving this group was relatively small, so she would have ample opportunity to socialize with, and work with, Dan Walsh and Aaron Blake, something she found immensely appealing, much to her own surprise.
She had heard of the unbreakable bonds forged between brothers-in-arms during times of war, but never thought she would experience this. But she had. The level of affection, loyalty, and friendship she now felt toward the two men who had been with her through the past days’ trials and tribulations was extraordinary.
“So now that we’re done with the tour,” she heard Lee Cargill saying, as though through a fog, “it’s time for the demonstration.”
These words brought Jenna back from her reverie. If a time travel demonstration wasn’t worthy of her total focus, nothing was.
Cargill led the group through a reinforced door into a large room, a perfect square of maybe twenty-five yards on a side. The ceiling was unfinished mountain granite, but almost close enough to jump up and touch, especially for Cargill, the tallest of the group.
Walsh glanced up and winced. “Is it just me, or is having such a low ceiling that weighs as much as . . . well, as a mountain, a little disconcerting?”
Jenna and Blake both nodded their agreement, while Cargill exchanged a glance with Joe Allen and smiled. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said, “while that feeling gets a little better, it never fully goes away.”
“Good to know I have company,” said the physicist.
Cargill led them to a rectangular structure against one wall, about the size of a small apartment bathroom, made principally of what looked like two-inch-thick clear Plexiglas. The Plexiglas enclosed inner walls of four-inch-thick white plastic. A recessed viewing window had been cut into the plastic about chest height. The chamber’s floor and walls were crisscrossed with red grid lines and several arrows. The most interesting feature of the structure was the thick Plexiglas door with a bank-vault handle, which needed to be turned or spun to gain access.
Next to the structure was a table on which sat a sophisticated desktop supercomputer and several monitors.
“If this is your time travel device,” said Jenna, “it sure doesn’t look very impressive. Shouldn’t there be lasers and generators and cool spinning helices?”
Cargill laughed. “You forgot about electrical discharges and blindingly bright lights,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re a disappointment compared to Hollywood’s vision of time travel.”
“Not to mention,” said Greg Soyer, “that people in the movies tend to go back in time more than forty-five millionths of a second. You know, just a hair.”
“All kidding aside,” said Jenna, “you would seem to need much greater complexity to make something this impossible work.”
“The plastic is hiding all kinds of electronics and power grids,” said Joe Allen. “The device does generate a field, and it does have means to change the polarity and orientation of the field to achieve directionality. But once you know the secret to making it work, it’s surprisingly simple.”
“Which is what makes this even more dangerous,” said Cargill. “At least nuclear weapons have the decency to be difficult to construct in one’s basement.”
“Think of it this way,” said Allen. “The quintessence field powers it, and this is everywhere. The trick is to tap into it and let it provide the incomprehensible energies required. It’s like standing under the world’s most powerful magnet before the discovery of metal. You would think that tapping this mysterious magnetic force would require some major generators and complex electronics, when the truth is, a simple hunk of metal is all you’d need.”
“Good analogy,” said Jenna.
Cargill waited for further questions. When none were forthcoming, he said, “So let me demonstrate. Does anyone want to volunteer something to send back through time?” he asked. “A shoe? A piece of jewelry?”
Blake pulled a well-worn brown leather wallet from his back pocket. “How about this?”
“Perfect,” said Cargill. He took the wallet and entered the chamber. He placed it in a precise location and orientation on the floor, using the grid lines as a guide, and then placed a small glowing disk on top of it, one that was about the size of a very fat quarter and clearly electronic in nature. He then exited, spinning the door handle until a buzzing sound from the computer indicated the room was once again airtight.
He walked the short distance to the table and sat before the computer. “Joe, show them to the destination area. I’ll set this to fire one minute from now.”
Cargill’s hands flew over the keyboard while his second-in-command escorted them to a position fifty-eight feet away, along a diagonal. An X, about the size of a stop sign, appeared on the floor, made from red duct tape.
Jenna took her place with her companions, roughly encircling the X, and shook her head. The fact that she was about to witness one of the most extraordinary scientific and technological achievements of all time by watching a handmade X on the floor was absurd beyond measure.
Cargill began bellowing out a countdown from twenty yards away. “In five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now!”
There were three gasps as Blake’s wallet appeared in the center of the X, with the electronic disk still on top of it.
Greg Soyer, who had seen a few demonstrations already, simply grinned, and Joe Allen didn’t display emotion of any kind.
Intellectually, Jenna had expected this to happen, but it was still insane, still unreal. There had been no discharge, no fanfare, no sound. One moment the wallet wasn’t there, and the next it was.
“Notice that we only see one wallet,” said Allen while the three newcomers were still gawking. He lifted the electronic disk and held it up. “Which means this transmitter did its job. The instant it realized it was no longer at the coordinates we programmed in, it signaled the computer, which aborted the firing of the device.”
He picked up the wallet and handed it to Blake. “Follow me,” he said as he began walking back to Cargill.
When they arrived at the apparatus, Cargill turned the handle and held open the door, gesturing for Blake to enter.
His wallet was still on the floor, just where Cargill had left it. He brought it back out and set both wallets on the table. There could be no doubt they were identical. Every discolored spot, every worn-down edge, every nick was the same.
He opened both wallets to reveal the same contents, laid out identically. He removed a thin sheath of bills from both wallets, and compared the top one on each, a five. They were identical in every way. Their serial numbers, of course, but also creases, dirt, coloration and everything, down to the last atom.
Cargill asked for one of the sets of bills. When Blake handed them to him, he produced a lighter and set them on fire, tossing them into a steel trashcan by the desk when they became too hot to handle. “We tend to frown upon having bills with the same serial numbers in circulation,” he explained.
“Can you repeat the demonstration,” said Blake, “so we can watch the sending chamber this time?”
Cargill laughed. “We can do that, but it won’t do any good. I don’t know how much of this Knight covered, but you never actually see something get sent back through time. You never see it disappear. Because the universe starts all over again, reboots, after it arrives in the past. So the future universe it came from never comes into existence. And then it sends a signal to turn off the system.”
“So the universe with the wallet in the chamber waiting to be sent still exists,” added Allen. “But the universe from which it is actually sent never does.”
