Extinction Point (37 page)

Strange to say, that he had always found women more accepting of cigars than men. Perhaps it was a subconscious homophobic reaction to putting something so phallic in their mouths that turned certain men off.

At a nod from Jim, the waiter brought him another drink. Jim handed the kid his empty glass, took one more long pull off the cigar and settled in to watch the old year die.

* * *

In the moments leading up to midnight it seemed to Jim that the city had found a voice as thousands counted down the final seconds together at the top of their lungs.
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six
, it exclaimed,
Five, Four, Three, Two, One.
Fireworks erupted into the night sky, exploding in great flourishes of color, glorious in their beautifully short life.

Raising his half-full glass to the light show high above the city, he spoke quietly to the night air; "Happy New Year, Lark," before downing his drink in one swift swig and setting the empty glass on the table.

* * *

Jim arrived back at his room just after 1 am, his head buzzing pleasantly from the three drinks and the cigar, the taste of which still lingered agreeably on his palate and in his nostrils. He dropped his raincoat over the back of a chair still dry, the threatening storm never having materialized.

Standing at the window, he looked out over the city. The city was silent now.

“
Jim! You have a call from your agent in Los Angeles
.”

The sudden sound of his computer’s AI voice made him jump. He was half-tempted not to take the call. He knew that Archie would be disappointed with his lack of progress but he also knew that if he did not take his agent’s call he would be pestering him until he got what he wanted.

“Put it on speaker,” he said.

There was a faint click and then the voice of Archibald Krogh filled the room.

“
Hey Jim! Happy New Year.”
His voice sounded nasal, he probably had a cold.

“Happy New Year to you to Archie. Don’t you have better things to do than harass your clients in the middle of the night?”

His remark was met with a chuckle that deteriorated into a coughing fit. “Good God,” Krogh said finally, “
I swear this Flu is gonna’ kill me one of these days... So tell me, how’s the book coming along?”

Jim was not comfortable lying but he decided that for the sake of both his own sanity and his over stressed agent’s health he would make the exception this time.

“It’s doing just ...”

Everything changed.
 

* * *

Five

A little science estranges man from God,

much science leads them back to him.

Louis Pasteur

- Project TachCom Laboratory, 1
^st
January 2042 -

At 1.30 a.m., the laboratory was finally prepped and ready.

The transmitter sat on a plain wooden table in the center of the laboratory. About the size of two paperbacks stacked one on top of the other, it was not what style magazines would call 'sexy' in its design. Encased in dimpled black impact-plastic, it looked clunky and utilitarian. No sleek curves or shaded coloring, no logos or trendy advertising motifs; just a solid black box with a connector for a microphone on its fascia. Next to that; a plug for a VR-keyboard, and from the rear of the box a two-inch thick red high-voltage lead that snaked across the floor to a large transformer sitting in a locked cage in one corner of the lab.

A young woman wearing a white lab coat, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail that stretched down to the middle of her back, approached the table; a portable microphone in her left hand and its corresponding floor stand in her right. She placed both items on the table next to the box, careful not to jostle the delicate piece of equipment.

"Doctor Lorentz would you like me to connect the microphone now?" she asked.

Dr. Mitchell Lorentz looked up from his VR-Comp and regarded the girl over his pince-nez glasses.

"Yes, please do Doctor Drake. The sooner we get this over and done with the sooner we can get on our way, yes?" He smiled warmly at his assistant before turning back to his VR-comp.

Lorentz was a distinguished looking man. At seventy, he still had a full head of hair, sparingly peppered here-and-there with the odd brush stroke of gray that he insisted on keeping slicked back across his pate. Although he liked to dress casually, he always gave the impression he would have felt just at ease in a business suit or a tuxedo rather than the khaki slacks and polo shirt he wore beneath his ubiquitous white lab overcoat. A full mouth that was quick to grin and rarely frowned complemented his lean face and long Romanic nose.

Well known around the lab for being a stickler for his daily exercise, the professor would routinely break off a meeting if it interrupted his lunchtime workout regimen. Fit and lean, he was still a good-looking man for his age, his broad shoulders and toned arms often allowing him to be mistaken for a decade less than his actual age.

There was no Mrs. Lorentz. When asked why he had never married, he would reply in his most charming voice
'Not married? Have you not met my wife?
' while indicating the lab with a sweeping hand.

Those close to him, of which there were few, knew that he was too dedicated to his work to inflict his obsessive pursuits and eccentric time-tables on a wife. Not that there had been a lack of interest on the opposite sexes part, but it became quickly apparent to any woman who entered his life that
work
was his first and only true love.

He had started out as a research assistant almost fifty years earlier, working for JPL out of California after graduating summa-cum-laude at Cal-Tech with a degree in Advanced Applied and Theoretical Physics. Part of the original NASA team that formulated the design of the first manned mission to Mars he had left the agency after the disastrous loss of the ship and its four man crew in 2017.

Despite the failure of the Mars project he quickly advanced, thanks in part to his capability as a project-manager but in no small way to his work on theoretical particles. Within ten years, he had gone on to head-up the research department at
TachDyne Research Industries
where he had received his first of two Nobel prizes for Science.

In 2030, just a few years after leaving
TachDyne
to open his own research lab in Pasadena, he had received his second Nobel prize for his company's work on superluminal propagation, proving finally the existence of that long disputed particle; the Tachyon. Long thought to be the equivalent of a scientific Snipe hunt, Lorentz proved its existence beyond a doubt when he simultaneously disproved the paradox of Gödel's
time-travel in a rotating-Universe theory
and proved the veracity of the reinterpretation principle, a theorem now known as the
Lorentz Effect
.
  

A few months after receiving the second Nobel, he sold his company to
Aberdeen Enterprises
and used the profits (which were considerable) to create a small start-up in Reno where he returned to his first love: hands on physics.

Dr. Lorentz spoke into a lapel mike attached to his lab-coat. "Edward, are you about ready?"

Lorentz voice was calm and level, and it amazed Drake. Here they were on the verge of an experiment that would revolutionize the communications industry and the Professor showed no signs of excitement at the prospect. She had worked with him for long enough to understand, she believed, why that was. He was one of those men who enjoyed the chase, the existence of the puzzle rather than its solving. It gave little gratification to him to know that he had potentially succeeded in his goal. She found that odd, alien even in this results driven world where she had spent her last few years.

Three rooms further down the corridor from the room that held the transmitter box, a similar box sat in a similar room. Instead of the connectors for the VR-Comp and microphone, this box had only one for an ancient
Bose
speaker that was resting on the table next to it, connected by a length of twisted speaker-wire.

 
A young man, his eyes owlishly amplified by his thick glasses, sat with the lid of the receiver resting next to him on the table. A soldering iron in hand, he was deep in the wiring of the machine, his shoulders hunched tightly as he maneuvered carefully through its electronic guts. A thin plume of gray smoke rose into the air as he secured a new component in place and the acrid smell of hot solder floated through the air.

"Just finishing up, Doc," he said in a basso-profundo voice that belied his wiry body. "Give me about five more minutes and we'll be ready to roll."

Back in his room, Dr. Lorentz pulled up a second virtual-display on the VR-comp and using his index finger to highlight and capture the data on the first display, pulled a duplicate across to the second screen that seemed to hang in the air a few feet in front of his face. Thanks to the
holo-projectors
located strategically around the room, no matter where Lorentz or any of his staff moved, the display screen of the VR-comp would follow them, always at the optimal position and angle for reading. As Lorentz walked around the room, the screens became transparent to allow him unhindered vision, coalescing once again back into visibility when he stopped moving.

Data was collected through the myriad sensors scattered throughout the room, or if manual entry or adjustment was required then by voice or hand; alleviating the need for physical keyboards. The main CPU that drove the system was located in its own room elsewhere within the laboratory complex.

"
Alright
," came Edward's voice over the com-link, "
just running the diagnostics ... and ... couple more seconds ... okay, everything's kosher here Doc
."

"Thank you Edward." Professor Lorentz pressed an icon outlined in red on the floating display in front of him and '
RECORDING'
began to flash at the top of the VR screen.

"Okay team, we are up and running. Everybody stand by, please," he said.

The computer now began churning through an automated program, displaying each step and its result onscreen. Although everybody on the project was receiving the same feed, and the VR-Comp was recording everything in real time, Lorentz still read each step aloud as the computer progressed – old habits died hard, at his age.

"Phase 1 Diagnostics: Complete." And: "Phase 2: Diagnostics: complete. System Diagnosis: Optimal."

The transformer in the corner of the room began to power-up, emitting a low whine that rattled the protective bars of its cage like a monkey testing the security of its enclosure. The whine slowly grew in pitch until it passed out of the range of human hearing, leaving behind a low
thrum
that reverberated through the walls and across the floor of the lab.

Then: "Power: Engaged." The old scientist's screen flashed a message in bold green letters:

System Diagnosis: Completed.

Power Level: Optimal
.

And a few lines underneath that, outlined by a flashing red border, a single icon glowed beckoningly.

ENGAGE?
it blinked.

He regarded the screen for a few moments longer, savoring the moment before finally turning to look directly at the black box on its table and his associate professor standing expectantly next to it, holding the microphone in her hand.

"Alright, fire her up," he whispered and pressed the engage icon.

Everything changed
.