The way, it was found, was through the seeming annihilation of a small black hole. Dorland found a theory, and the theory became an Arch. It was found that the crushing effects of gravity as one approached the singularity could be neutralized by simply getting the black hole to spin at a fantastic rate of speed. The resulting reality was like a dead spot of calm in a whirlpool, or the eye at the heart of a swirling hurricane. It was realized in the center of the Arch, and anything that passed within its aura was protected from the annihilation of the event horizon. The Arch opened and forged a safe pathway through the event horizon of a controlled black hole, and all that lay beyond it.
While it was impossible for humans to physically re-arrange the particles of the universe into a new pattern, a quantum singularity achieved this result effortlessly. Humans only had to tell the universe what they wanted—what shape and time to assume on the other side of the singularity. Mathematics was their voice, and the universe, being about nothing of any particular importance at any given moment, was kind enough to heed them and comply.
Three years later, after extensive research and with the backing of corporate sponsors and private funds, a project was born at Lawrence National Laboratories just outside the U.C. Berkeley campus in California. The government believed it was simply another particle chamber to test the theory Dorland expounded. They never dreamed that the project had reached such an advanced state, ready to actually send objects through the Arch and retract them safely. That secret, however, was closely held by the key project team leaders, project staff, and a few select individuals from Maeve’s Outcomes Committee.
Dorland was the guiding light, and a small band of dedicated physicists, engineers and mathematicians had built the first prototype of a mechanism they hoped would tame the universe at last. They had an idea, and a theory, and an Arch. They didn’t know if it would work, but had faith that it might—until a man appeared at Nordhausen’s study door that night, out of a driving rain at the edge of a storm; with a pound of Peets coffee and an answer to all their doubts. It would work.
That was the only thing that offered them consolation as they bent themselves to the feverish task of configuring the Arch that night. They were confident that they could create a new milieu that was very close to the moment they desired, but yet they were afraid nonetheless. Quantum Mechanics made promises, but would keep them at a whim, and who knows what mischief they might accomplish when they first sought to tamper with the fabric of being itself?
Part III
The Arch
“Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.”
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
7
They made their rendezvous near the theatre and followed the winding route of Cyclotron Road to reach the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. Access to the facility was closely guarded, but each of the team members has been cleared long ago. Kelly produced his encrypted access card, rolling down the window and sliding the card through a reader. A camera was filming his face as he squinted through the drizzle of the night at the reader alcove. Somewhere, a computer was running pixels through a recognition algorithm and deciding who he was. It was enough to pass them through the first level of security that surrounded the complex.
They drove on past the circular dome of the Cyclotron building, and Dorland noted again how the bright, evenly spaced rectangular windows at the base of the dome gave the impression that an immense flying saucer was sitting on the rooftop of an otherwise nondescript building. The lights of the city glimmered in regular rows below them, defining streets that reached out to the dark blue edge of the East Bay, the waters illuminated with the soft amber glow of the city. They made a turn and headed for the lab in the newly renovated Building Complex Number 54.
A security guard emerged from a small white building on the left, squinting in as Kelly opened the front window to display his ID card. The guard nodded a greeting, almost as if he expected them, for they had been in and out of the facilities there with increasing frequency as the date of their planned project test drew near. Just the same, he checked all four ID cards, and carefully noted each person in the vehicle before he waved them through. They made their way around a bend and climbed the last switchback of roadway to Building 54. The parking lot outside the building was nearly vacant, but Dorland recognized a few of the vehicles as belonging to the Advanced Prep team members. He sighed with relief, glad that a few intrepid souls were still on their night shift standing a faithful watch over the Arch in anticipation of its debut performance on the morrow. They, too, were oblivious to the real implications of the project they were serving. Most were just promising Physics or Math students, serving out assignments they thought might help their post-graduate plans.
The cover story shielding the real intent of the Arch was that it was simply a test to see if particles could be moved in time, but it was already advanced well beyond that stage. Objects had been sent through the Arch and retrieved intact. Encouraged by their success they tried to send through small mechanical probes with cameras to capture images of the ‘other side.’ These never came back in a functioning state. The fragile electronics would just not work in the intense, otherworldly environment of the Arch. This fueled much of the debate about the long term prospects for success. Clearly things were going somewhere, but there was no evidence to prove they had actually traveled in time. Paul insisted that only a human being could make that determination, but could a person actually move through the arch and yet live? Could a sentient being travel in time, and interact with the past Meridian to change future events? These were the real questions the impending test planned to answer.
The rain was abating somewhat when they abandoned the Subaru and confronted the third security barrier before gaining entrance to the facility. This time each member had to pass a retinal scan, but at least they were in the outer hall and screened from the rain and cold. Once cleared, the inner doors opened with a click and they rushed through the lab entrance. Paul led the group, walking at a brisk pace with Kelly right behind him, the laptop computer huddled close to his chest and cradled like an infant in his arms.
“Evening Dr. Dorland.” A bright young graduate assistant that Dorland had enlisted as a project technician greeted them as they burst into the lab.
“Hello Jennifer, glad to see someone knows we’ve got a project underway here.” Dorland winked at her as they rushed in. “Is the Arch on standby?”
“Yes, sir. We started warming things up a few hours ago… But with the news and all, I thought—”
“Turn the generators over, Jen. We’re going to need full power in one hour. Kelly, you want to start the data feed?”
“I’m on it,” said Kelly, and he was already throwing off his coat and unzipping the satchel that held his laptop.
Jennifer, the lab assistant, stared from one person to the next, a bit wide eyed to find all four senior team members arriving in the dead of the night. She reached up and removed the MP3 player earphones she had been passing the time with, a bit flustered with the sudden intrusion in the quiet of the evening. She had been hiding from the stream of news events on the radio by playing a few of her favorite songs. Now, as she looked from one senior team member to another, the urgency that was driving the world on finally came home to her. At one point she thought the project would be called off, but now she could see that it was clearly more important than ever. She smoothed back a lock of her medium length hair, trying to gain some sense of composure in the growing haste of the others. “Evening, Professor,” she said to Nordhausen, but Robert was too preoccupied with his thoughts to heed her. “Then we’re still planning the experiment on schedule for tomorrow morning?”