“We need to get inside before the blast front gets here,” he said, leaning back into the room.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“We’re right at the edge of where the military will let civilians stay,” a reporter was saying in an excited voice. “We just got hit by the blast front…” For a moment he was drowned out as a wave of noise enveloped the trailer. It shook on its foundations and one of the computers gave a pop and the monitor showed “No signal” but other than that there was no damage. “And that was extremely frightening but we’re in a bunker and we rode it out fine.”
“Is there any danger of radiation in your area?” the anchor asked.
“Well, we’ve got radiation detectors and they haven’t gone off,” the reporter said. “The military says that the bombs are going to be as clean as they can make them, since they’re bursting in the air. And the winds are from the west, so the explosion is downwind of our current location. Units of the 3rd Infantry Division are standing by and I can hear them revving up the motors in their big tanks and fighting vehicles. They’re going to go right into the blast zone as soon as they get the okay and try to snatch back the gate from the Titcher. I understand it’s going to be much harder in Tennessee where the terrain doesn’t let them get their fighting vehicles up to the gate.”
“Thanks for that report, Tom,” the anchor said. “And you take care, you hear? We’ve got another report from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is close to the gate up there. Melissa Mays is standing by with a live report.”
“I’m here in Oak Ridge where the best way I can describe it is a festival is going on,” the reporter said in a bemused voice. “About a thousand people, lab workers, shopkeepers and others including schoolchildren were out to watch the nuclear attack on the Titcher stronghold. All of them were wearing the same dark glasses we had been issued by the military and when the bombs went off they broke out in spontaneous cheers. Since then it’s just been an air of carnival. People have opened up beer kegs and started a barbeque in the town square. I’m talking with the mayor of Oak Ridge, Phillip Lampert. Thank you for speaking to us, Mr. Mayor.”
“My pleasure, Melissa,” the portly man said. He had a sandwich in one hand, a beer in the other and heavy, dark-tinted, goggles dangling around his neck.
“Can you explain these remarkable events?”
“Well, as I understand it, some sort of particle was generated at the University of Central Florida…”
“No,” the reporter corrected. “I mean this… this… party. Most people would be crying at the sight of a nuclear weapon going off right next door.”
“Well, little lady,” the man said in a voice like he was speaking to a small child. “Since 1943, when the U.S. government decided that the best place to hide their new super bomb research was a sleepy little town in the Tennessee mountains, Oak Ridge has been the main site for nuclear research in the entire United States. Some towns have steel plants, some towns have the local car and truck plant, Oak Ridge has nuclear weapons. We don’t make them here anymore, but we live with their existence every day of our lives and most of the people around here have never seen a shoot…”
“A what?”
“A nuclear explosion,” the mayor continued. “Above ground nuclear testing was ended before you were born but they used to take our parents out to Los Alamos to see the shoots, sort of like taking the employees to another factory to see how their parts are used. Besides, from what I’ve seen of the Titcher, it was the smartest thing the President could do and it took a lot of b… courage. I’d rather watch fireworks than have them invade the town.”
“But aren’t you worried about fallout?” the reporter pressed. Surely some of these idiot rednecks were going to have to realize that setting off a nuclear weapon was much worse than any conceivable alternative.
“Little lady… I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Melissa Mays,” the reporter said, tightly.
“Miss Mays, did you have a job when you were in high school?”
“Yes,” she said. “But the question was about fallout.”
“What was the job?” the mayor pressed.
The reporter took a moment and then said: “I worked in a McDonalds.”
“And I’m sure you were a bright spot in that cheerless place,” the mayor replied, giving her his very best “I know you think I’m a male chauvinist and I just don’t care” smile. “Miss Mays, between my junior and senior year, and again between high school and going to UT, I worked in a lead-shielded room pouring batches of green, glowing goop from one beaker into another beaker. I met the woman who is still my wife in that lab. We have two beautiful children who are straight A students and neither of them have two heads. Now, Miss Mays, do you really think I’m going to be troubled about a little cesium from an airburst?”
“No,” the reporter admitted in a defeated tone. “Thank you, Mayor Lampert,” she added then turned to the camera. “Well, that’s the news from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the party looks to continue into the wee hours of the morning.”
“Thank you, Melissa, for that… illuminating report,” the anchor said, bemusedly.
“Gotta love high-tech rednecks,” Weaver said, turning down the sound.
“I can’t believe they’re having a party for God’s sake,” Robin said.
“I can,” Earp replied. “You’ve clearly never been to Oak Ridge. I think the mayor is wrong, the radiation has had an effect: they’re all insane. No, they’re crazy but not insane. They just know what they’re talking about and it makes them seem a little crazy. The mayor was right. Nuking Eustis was a tragedy; people lost homes and possessions that they loved and cherished and they’ll never get them back. There might have even been a few that were missed by the evacuation sweeps and were killed. The only thing that was lost in the hills of Tennessee were some deer and bear and undoubtedly some rare and endangered species of plants and salamanders. But they were going to be lost anyway if the Titcher weren’t stopped. The Titcher consider it their job to make everything endangered, rare or extinct except Titcher. They’re a pain in the ass. Wish we could be one to them.”
Weaver was smiling at the rant but he stopped at the end. “Say that again.”
“Well, the Titcher see it as their job…”
“No, the last bit,” Bill said, closing his eyes.
“I wish we could be a pain in their ass,” Earp replied.
“Got it,” Weaver said, opening his eyes. “Thanks. I need to go find Chief Miller.”
“I’ve talked with three or four other physicists today,” Weaver said to the secretary of defense and the national security advisor. The President and the Homeland Security director were both out showing the flag and trying to explain why it had been necessary to nuke two spots in the continental United States. “And we’re all pretty much in agreement that what the bosons are doing is establishing stable wormholes.”
“And those are?” the secretary of defense asked.
“Basically what we’re seeing,” Weaver replied. “Instantaneous ‘gateways’ to another place. Meisner, Thorn, and Wheeler are the main guys to go to; hell that is why THE general relativity book is known as MTW rather than Gravitation as it is titled. I sent an email out to Kip Thorn and one of his colleagues Michael Morris but got “Out of Office” replies. I then tried Stephen Hawking but he didn’t respond except to say that they were “interesting” which means he’ll think about them for eight years or so and then point out several things I missed but conclude I was right despite not taking enough care in my assumptions. The one thing we’re not getting is neutrino emissions, that I know of, but neutrino detection is very difficult. I’ve got a call out for a mobile neutrino detector but the only one is in Japan. The point is that one theory of wormholes is that if you dump enough energy into them, they destabilize.”