Near Future 1: Awakening (16 page)

Miranda saw the reaction cross Doctor Ted's face at the mention of her name. If he had known the facts, she wouldn't have been anywhere close to the school. And a lot of people would probably be dead soon too. But he only nodded. "Yes, I know them quite well. Especially, Miss Summerlin, who is my patient under extended care."

Jimmy proceeded with his explanation. "As I suspect you will understand, Miss Summerlin has a way of convincing you she is right. She came to me earlier today with evidence that led us to believe that the plan for the attack somehow involved the bulbs at the soccer stadium. It appears that they were replaced last week in an unscheduled maintenance task. She explained that the new bulbs contain a tiny amount of exotic matter. She and her friends had struggled with this for the past twenty-four hours or so. They couldn't figure how such small amounts of exotic matter could be used to produce a big enough explosion. So she came to me for help, with our much decorated master sergeant here to vouch for her.

"After listening to her story, in my gut I believed her to be correct, even though the whole thing seemed rather far-fetched. I also recognized that if she were wrong, there would be no real consequences, but if she were right, we would be in real trouble. So I issued them both DHS friendly passes, with the stipulation she had to stay under authority of the sergeant. I also gave her the authorization to query Space Tech Technical regarding the exotic matter." Turning to the commander, he said, "Sir, all of this was within range of my authority, and I did not have time or reason to bring it to your attention along with many others in the myriad of tasks I completed today."

The commander nodded, so Jimmy continued. "It's been known for a time that someone has been helping the Organization with funds and weapons. Miss Summerlin speculated that this time they also gave them a lot of technical expertise beyond that which the Organization could pull off on their own. Based on what we have just seen, it appears that she was correct, a very worrisome development." Turning to Miranda, "Miss Summerlin, I believe you will need to explain what transpired from this point."

Miranda took a deep breath. "Very simply put, with the information I received from Space Tech, I was able to determine what we were up against. We were looking at an almost foolproof plan to set off a near nuclear level explosion in the soccer stadium." She paused a minute as a number of those in the room gave an audible gasp and Doctor Ted had turned rather pale. But there was no point in trying to gloss over that information.

"We had been looking for the trigger for the exotic matter, and thinking all along we were looking for a conventional level explosion. The answer was unfortunately simpler but much worse. We couldn't see it because we were all concentrating on the soccer field alone, and in the case of my friends and I, specifically the bulbs. Space Tech gave me all of their research on exotic matter, and buried in there is a big issue."

"When hit with a laser at certain frequencies, the exotic matter stores and amplifies the entire amount of energy in the laser pulse. The higher the power and the longer the pulse, the more energy stored. But shortly after that, it releases it all in a tiny fraction of time. The Organization, or their helpers in this case, had managed under the guise of construction work on the telescope building, to place a total of six high powered lasers on that building targeting the soccer field lights. I had estimated that each laser would get two shots in before the explosion would prevent further shots, not that it would have mattered soon after that because nothing would have been left to show what had happened, including the lasers or the telescope building. As the Master Sergeant indicated, the two of us took out the lasers with our sniper rifles. The last two lasers we shot out were in the process of powering on. If we had been a fraction of a second later with those last shots, it would have been nothing like having all of them, but we nevertheless would not be having this conversation."

By the time Miranda had finished everyone was in complete shock. Even Zeke, Joe and the Sarge, who had thought they had known what she meant by a very large explosion. After all, she had not had time to explain it all to them in this detail. In hindsight, that may have been for the best. If any one of the three had frozen at a critical time, it would have been fatal. She knew that she had not allowed herself to think of the ramifications of what had been going on. She amazingly didn't have even the tiniest headache, because she had somehow put it all away behind the importance of getting the job done. Now she felt rather weak in the knees.

Before anyone could speak, she added. "There's one more thing I think I need to say. We can't let the public know what just happened. Not until Space Tech can do a permanent recall of all their exotic matter light bulbs. I'm sure you can see why that is important."

Miranda's suddenly weak knees almost gave out, and Zeke quickly rushed over to help her to a chair. She gave him a weak smile. "Seems like you've done this before, Zeke."

The DHS commander had been shook up as much as the rest of them at what had almost happened, but he quickly took charge. He soon had everything sorted out. Everything would be classified; everyone in the room was sworn to silence. The three students and the Sarge would get classified commendations in their files. Space Tech would do a priority recall on the bulbs.

As everyone prepared to go their separate ways, Miranda overheard the commander offering Jimmy a new job that would be helping in the fight against the Organization. It would come with a big promotion and a lot of leeway to do his job. At least one thing worked out for the good. She suspected she herself was going to be in big trouble with Doctor Ted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Project

Space Tech has announced their tenth annual science fair competition is officially open. Only students and amateurs are allowed to enter. Submissions will be accepted for the next three months. Any school sponsoring such a student will receive funding for each student entering and the winner will receive one million dollars for a designated science field scholarship fund. Amateurs entering will receive similar funding, and if they submit the winning entry, they will be able to designate the scholarship money to the school of their choice. Already competition looks to be fierce this year. Any patentable entries will be able to have their patent applications completed by Space Tech Legal at no charge.

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The next week Miranda somewhat nervously went to the meeting location for the special projects class. With all the action the week before, the kick-off meeting for the class had been rescheduled to this week. She was glad that they had, because she had spent a good chunk of her past week convincing Doctor Ted that everything was ok, so that she could continue her studies. Of course, she had to explain about her participation on the shooting team and the sniper training she had completed. After quite a bit of negotiation on her part, he had agreed to leave her in school and she could remain on the team if she promised that she would keep her participation low key.

When she arrived at the classroom, she saw only a small group of people there, and she realized that she didn't know anyone in the room. However, they all seemed to know each other based on their level of conversation. She also made the number of students in the class an odd number. She was worried that the instructor would tell her "Sorry, you can't do this class unless you have a partner" or that she would be stuck on somebody else's team as the third wheel. She was getting more and more stressed about the situation. Just as she was beginning to panic, Zeke came in, sitting down beside her.

He said quietly, "Your partner is here if you will have him." Zeke knew Miranda well enough to know that she had been stressing out over the situation, and he was sorry now that he had kept it such a surprise for her. Of course, he had not intended to be so late, but he had been stopped by someone on the way over and had lost track of the time.

Miranda said, "Yes! Yes!" She smiled, feeling a warm feeling. "I didn't know what I was going to do. Figured I would be the odd girl out."

"I'm sorry. I should have told you, but I wanted to keep it a surprise. Just not this much of a surprise. Actually, I'm looking forward to it, although I'm a little nervous. I've never done anything like this before, so I guess we're both in it together."

They looked up as the instructor came into the classroom. Everyone stopped talking so they could listen to him. Introducing himself as Doctor Smith, he explained in a somewhat dry tone how the special projects class worked. As Miranda already knew, the class would be divided into two-person teams. Each team had to choose a project that the two agreed to work together on. Moreover, half of the grade was based upon the detailed project plan that was due no later than midterm. Failure to complete a project was not necessarily considered a problem if the level of work was demonstrated. And for the project, components had to come from the school's supply of parts and the project had to be kept within the amount of dollars that were budgeted. All the details for the budgets and the cost to be used for the components were in the class notes. He went on to answer questions, although there weren't very many.

When it came time to choose their partners, Zeke had already submitted them to be partners on the project and Miranda quickly accepted. Then as the class broke up, the instructor gave them final instructions for each partner pair to get together, and to submit their chosen project for approval no later than the time for the class next week. As they walked out, Miranda said to Zeke, "Thank you so much for joining me in this project. I was very nervous about working with someone else," she admitted. "I still don't know very many of the students at the school, and I didn't know anyone in this class."

Zeke was glad that he had decided to take the class with her. "Well, we haven't been seeing much of each other, even with you just down the hall from me. I am looking forward to working with you on this project, but I haven't a clue what we're going to do for it."

"Do you have time to go to the library to talk about it? I would like to show you the ideas I have." Miranda couldn't hide some of her excitement about what she wanted to do but she she was a little nervous about it, too.
 

Zeke couldn't help but smile at her excitement. He hadn't seen her this excited since the little surprise visit he had made along with Emily at the hospital, all instigated by Doctor Ted. "Sure. I don't have anything else planned today. I would love to get this thing figured out."

 
They hurried across to the library, Miranda's excitement causing her to move faster than normal. When they arrived, Miranda went straight to the new special research area, surprising Zeke when she went directly into one of the rooms. He could not believe his eyes when she opened the door and was admitted without any problem. However, he followed her into the room.

Zeke could only stare when she pulled up the full scale VR interface. "Wow! I've never seen a VR system this big. It uses the entire room?"

"Yes, isn't it amazing," Miranda exclaimed. "I found it on my the first full day here. I was given access by the very helpful librarian assigned to this wing."

Zeke gave her a strange look at that. "As far as I know, they don't have any librarians assigned to this building. Everything is supposed to be automated, except for a single clerk that remains up front for helping out with any problems and she almost never leaves her station."

Shaking her head, Miranda said, "I don't know who he was, then." Miranda had been pulling up the diagrams of her proposed idea for the project. She was too excited to worry about the librarian right now. "This is my proposal." She displayed a diagram showing a number of components, including a control system and several detection systems.

"The idea is to test a theory of mine. I believe that dark matter and dark energy are actually the results of the interaction of ordinary matter and energy with the fabric of space, which I am calling the subspace fabric. This fabric is what holds the universe together, and the interaction varies depending on the thickness of this fabric. Where it is denser we see the effect of the clumping together of the galaxies, the effect being what we call dark matter, and where it is thinner between the galaxies we see the opposite effect, what we are calling dark energy. The experiment attempts to measure a tiny change in the subspace fabric by applying a specially shaped field using a much smaller version of the Space Tech containment field generator. We would then attempt to detect the effect which would appear as a tiny change of the apparent weight of a steel ball in the field. These components would generate the field, provide control of the system, and monitor the effects."

She was so excited and she talked so fast that Zeke was having trouble keeping up. When he looked at it more closely, he could see what were obviously computer system components, and he realized that he could easily work on those components with his computer knowledge. He was astonished at the depth of the subject that she was talking about, and he looked at her with even deeper respect.

Finally Miranda stopped talking and she looked up with a suddenly nervous glance. "What do you think?" she asked in a low voice.

Zeke smiled and said, "I bet this is the most complex project ever attempted in this class. I have no idea about half of what you just said, but if you say that it can be done, I believe you. I think I can do any of the computer stuff that we need to do. That will be extremely challenging, and a whole lot of fun to do."

Realizing that she had been holding her breath, Miranda let it out and gave Zeke a hug.
Oops, shouldn't have done that.
Wanting a distraction from what had just happened, Miranda quickly brought up the planning document that she had been working on, explaining that she had completed much of the design work already. She admitted, "I am a little worried about the budget, and I need to run the numbers for the costs he gave us in class." She pointed in the air to a floating icon that represented her pad, pulling up the information from it on the component costs and calculating in her head the cost for all of the components, highlighting each of them with a flick of a finger. It appeared that they could complete the project barely within the budget for the class.