The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (34 page)

Shaw made his measurements, flying across the interior of the dome and from its apex to the ground. Almost half a mile in diameter and just over a quarter of a mile tall. He used his recently-returned wrap to do the rest of the math. The whole dome covered one hundred acres, and entirely contained the Lattice tower and the Installation sprawling out around it. Shaw couldn’t imagine what it would be like to work under this dark and artificial sky.

Looking up from inside the dome, he saw the reflective particle collectors being installed, slowly crawling up the inside wall like moss. He wondered about the walls of the dome itself, and flew through them a couple of times to measure. Nearly two meters thick at the base of the dome, but the most recent lead being melted into place near the top was thinner, just over a meter thick.

Shaw flew up into the air and looked down on the scene beneath him. He was reminded of a jump tour of human history he and Ellie had taken. How they’d watched construction of the Egyptian pyramids. The scene was unmistakably the same. A general buzzing of constant noise, and activity everywhere. From this distance, the drones could be mistaken for their Egyptian slave counterparts.

Staring at the immense scene, Shaw understood the pressure Taveena felt. Six days, she said? After that, what hope did they have? This was going to be an impenetrable barrier, resisting any kind of attack.

But what options did they have before then?

The only opening left right now was from the air. And that hole at the top was rapidly closing. In three days time it might be less than 100 meters across.

Maybe they could infiltrate through deception, just as Ono had pretended to be Yang. He looked for an opening in the dome, but didn’t see anything that resembled a door.

Finally he noticed a new outbuilding being constructed out away from the dome. Shaw investigated and discovered it housed the start to a long ramped tunnel that went deep underground to an elevator under the Installation, the only connection from inside the dome to the rest of the world. All staff and supplies would probably come through there, he thought. He hadn’t seen any other opening in the dome walls. Could they infiltrate the tunnel? Maybe. But what then? Once Ono had gotten through their defenses, he still relied on an attack from the outside. Getting someone through wasn’t going to be enough.

And if they held true to their goal of destroying the Lattice without killing everyone on the inside, this tunnel might be necessary to get everyone out. Was that goal even realistic anymore, Shaw wondered? He didn’t think he could stomach killing everyone inside, though. Iverson. Braybrook. He used to work with these people. He wasn’t about to kill them all.

Any plan to destroy the Lattice had to have two parts, though. Assuming they could knock out this Lattice, what kind of hope did they have for the Geneva Lattice? It was buried deep underground in a heavily populated city. The surefire plot Wulf and the raiders had constructed was already revealed—to prevent something as simple as a thought. His thought, Shaw couldn’t help but reflect.

They’d gone to great lengths to hide themselves, and it had almost certainly been necessary. But now, where did that leave them? A dome blocking their path in the desert and a city blocking them half a world away.

What did he have in the face of all that? A network of true believers. Shaw’s mind flashed to the explosion of the space hotel—that’s what true believers got him. He wasn’t sure he was ready to call on them again.

What else did he have? The
Walden
itself. And the spheres.

A wondrous new technology. He could teleport a tiny molecule across the world and it would start building on itself, constructing a small sphere—or a pipe or disc—anywhere in the world, built out of the very nitrogen in the air around it. They weren’t a surprise anymore—the secret was out and Shaw was certain they were being thoroughly researched.

But if not even the inventors of the spheres had tapped their true potential, could Braybrook and Geneva security be truly prepared for it?

Shaw left the jump—he’d seen everything he needed to. He knew what tools he had and what he was up against. The Lattice wasn’t going to help anymore. What he needed now was his imagination.

Shaw was on his way to the great room when Helix came down a hallway, landing in front of him. He stopped short, their eyes locked. Hers were bloodshot and puffy. Shaw hoped someone would come and break the scene, but it was just the two of them.

“Helix—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say. I know he didn’t like me much, but I learned a little about him from Taveena. He seemed like a good man.”

Her eyes narrowed. “He was a good man. It’s what held him back, in everything he touched. Even this. But he was
mine
. And I loved him.”

“I’m sorry, Helix.”

“You didn’t cast a vote against him.
They
did,” she said, her finger jabbing at the door to the great room. “
They
were the ones who chose you over him. You might be ready to betray me, but as far as I’m concerned,
they
already have. And when we’re done with this, they’re going to answer for what they’ve done.”

Helix stomped away and into the great room, and a shudder rippled through Shaw. He slowly followed her in.

The chairs he’d seen on his first night on board the Walden were back, this time placed in a semi-circle around the room, their backs to the Earth hanging above them out the window.

All the chairs were full, and Shaw knew that his place was in front of them. The gray sticky wall was illuminated with a bird’s eye view of the lead dome at the Lattice Installation. He thought he detected subtle movements in the image, and knew it was a live feed from the Lattice.

Erling got out of his chair and pushed off to greet Shaw. He helped make sure Shaw’s wrap was tied in to the screen on the wall. Even though the screen operated on the same controls he used in the Installation, Shaw let Erling show him how to use it, and took the opportunity to collect his thoughts and push the conversation he’d just had with Helix from his mind.

When Erling sat down again, Shaw moved to the front of the room.

“Welcome, Byron,” Wulf said from his chair.

“Thank you.”

“We are here to answer a question. How do we destroy the Lattice, given … this. After the events of the past few days, we haven’t had a chance to get back to it. But with all of that … drama behind us, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that this is our most pressing concern right now. We only have a few days before that dome is finished. Certainly this doesn’t fall on your shoulders entirely. Any decision made will be a group decision. But you have a fresh perspective and your insight right now would be most welcome. The floor is yours.”

Shaw nodded and took a breath. Wulf had adopted a tone he’d heard a million times from Braybrook and other superior officers. It was enough to clear his head.
It’s just a normal briefing.

“Thank you. I should let you know that I’ve been thinking about this question nonstop for the last few days, and I believe I have a solution that will destroy both the Nevada and the Geneva Lattice without a single loss of life.”

There was a general shifting in the room, and Wulf said, “We’re all ears.”

“On the screen you can see the lead dome,” Shaw continued. It’s still in a partial state of completion, but I estimate that we have about four days—just over a hundred hours actually—until the exterior structure is complete. I propose that we launch our attack on the dome … in six days.”

“Six days?” Tranq interrupted. “Two days
after
it’s been completed?”

“That’s correct. Command at the Lattice Installation believe that the dome is all they need to protect themselves. They’ve been operating on emergency levels since your first attack. Staff is worn out, and most of them are scheduled to cycle out for some R&R within the forty-eight hours after major completion of the dome. By waiting two days, we can reduce the likelihood of casualties.”

“While I appreciate that we want to keep the loss of life to an absolute minimum, we’d prefer not to die ourselves if we can absolutely help it,” Tranq said. “Waiting until after the dome is completed feels like a suicide plan.”

“You said that command at the Lattice believes the dome is all they need to protect themselves. But isn’t that actually true? It
does
protect them.” Helix jumped in before Shaw could respond to Tranq.

“From conventional weapons, nukes, and lasers, absolutely. But I don’t believe conventional weapons can help us much anymore. As I’m sure you know, there’s no time to acquire them. And no good way to deploy them.

“Instead of looking to outside weapons, we need to use their own strength against them. More than a hundred years ago, the United States was involved in a war in a small country in South East Asia called Vietnam, more commonly known today as part of the Sunda States. The Americans had overwhelming firepower, but the poorer Vietnamese used discarded garbage from the Americans to create weapons. They played by different rules. They waged what we in the military call asymmetric warfare. And that’s what we’ll use to destroy the Lattice. We’ll need a team of two on the ground—at most—but I believe that dome itself will do the heavy lifting for us.”

There was a collective deep breath, and finally Erling burst out, “But
how
?”

“The spheres. I’ve researched Taveena and Wulf’s work on the spheres, and while I can’t understand all of it, I do understand one important thing. The spheres you’ve made are incredibly strong, nearly unbreakable—like a diamond made out of nitrogen instead of carbon. But they have another unique property, thanks to the transported molecular machine that creates them from passing nitrogen atoms in the air: they can
grow
. How large can they grow, Taveena?”

“Larger than the
Walden
if need be. I’ve never tried anything larger than that, but theoretically there’s no reason they couldn’t just keep growing.”

“So tell me—you will know the answer to this better than anyone. What would happen if you placed two of your spheres in a confined space with a wooden box between them and let them grow?”

“They would crush the box. No question,” Taveena said.

“Is there any material you could put between them that wouldn’t be crushed?”

Taveena thought about it. “A diamond, like you said. Lead. Maybe some of the heavier metals. Not much else.”

“And there you have my plan.” Shaw looked up at the screen. “Over the next several days, while the dome is still incomplete, we will transport roughly five thousand molecular machines evenly around the interior of the lead dome. Then we wait for the dome to be complete. When it’s done, we activate those spheres with a command to grow indefinitely. It shouldn’t take more than forty-five minutes for the spheres to fill the entire volume of the dome. With the thick lead walls of the dome to contain the growing spheres, any building—even the well-armored building that houses the Lattice—will be crushed by their growth. The first Lattice will be destroyed in less than an hour. And it wouldn’t be possible without the dome.”

The room was mute. Shaw had expected a good reaction, but not this silence. Tranq looked over at Taveena and broke it. “Do his physics check out?”

Taveena was staring at the screen image of the dome, but Shaw could tell that she had spheres in her eyes. She nodded slowly. “It does.”

Tranq turned back to Shaw. “Why not use more spheres and destroy it faster and give them less time to react? With a few days notice, we can generate a lot more than five thousand molecular machines. We can do, how many, Taveena? Ten thousand a day?”

She nodded. “Or more if we really pushed it.”

“You haven’t heard my plan for the Geneva Lattice yet,” Shaw said. “We’ll need as many spheres as we can create for that attack. But at the same time, I want to give Braybrook and the staff at the Installation time to react. They need to understand what’s happening and still have time to evacuate staff through the tunnel.”

“They can evacuate faster than forty-five minutes.”

“Of course. But I am allowing time for … emotion. They’re going to try to fight it. They’re going to try to stop it. They’re only going to evacuate when they realize they can’t.”

“But what if they figure out a way? That you haven’t thought of.”

“They can’t. It’s basic physics. If they could destroy the dome in time, then the spheres would tumble out of it, scattering uselessly on the desert floor. But they can’t. The dome is too big, too heavy, and too strong. So that leaves them with one choice: to try to destroy the spheres. Maybe they can destroy a handful of them. Lasers would be the most likely candidate. But the ground lasers are mounted outside the dome. And the space-based lasers won’t be able to penetrate through the lead. Anything else they try is just as likely to destroy the Installation itself in the process. Once they realize all of that, they should still have time to evacuate.”

Tranq continued. “You said we needed two people on the ground. For what, exactly? I don’t see the need for any. This could all be handled from orbit if we wanted to.”

“Communication and observation.”

“Why not just use the Lattice?”

“My estimates of when the Lattice will be destroyed are just that, estimates. Should the Lattice tower itself be struck early by random chance, the rest of the team in Geneva will need to know. And with the first Lattice gone, there may be a period of quiet before the second Lattice can take over. Having people on the ground will prevent us from relying on the very system we’re trying to destroy.”

Tranq nodded. “All right. I’m convinced. We should be able to find two people from our roster who are willing to serve as communicators for us. Erling would know which of them would be close enough and reliable enough for this.”

“I disagree,” Shaw said before Erling could speak up. “Part of my assumption for this plan is that it will be entirely carried out by the people in this room.”

Tranq cocked his head. “We have a loyal network out there. Our communication can’t be traced back to us. Why risk ourselves by being on site for something as simple as this?”