The bus stops. Anil and five other Google employees step off and approach the dock. They greet their boss.
Austin spots Anil. “How long before the gravity event?”
Anil checks his watch. “Less than two hours.”
“That’s not a lot of time. Diego’s not with you?”
“No, Dr. Sanders.”
“He’s supposed to bring the titanium. Where is he?”
Anil shrugs. “I don’t know. He said he would be here at 1 a.m.”
“He’s late, and he hasn’t responded to my messages.”
“Any word on the neodymium laser, Dr. Sanders?” Fei asks.
“No.” Austin rubs his face with his palms. “Beth said she would find one and I haven’t heard from her either. This is a horrible start.”
Fei approaches the back of the bus. “The good news is we brought the Titan prototype.” She opens the trunk and reveals a five-by-five-foot wooden crate stamped with red “Radioactive” labels.
“It’s larger than I imagined,” Austin says.
“We encased it in lead,” Fei remarks. “The reactor itself is about a foot long.”
“You packaged the tritium and deuterium in the core?”
“Yes, Dr. Sanders. We used a small amount of our fuel supply. The prototype is fully assembled and ready to go.”
Austin inspects the package. “How will we test this? Assuming it works, we need a way to measure the output of our reactor.”
Anil points. “We found some old Tesla batteries in a junkyard. They’re inside.”
“Perfect. Let’s carry this into the Cyclotron.” Austin wheels a ten-foot cart onto the dock and ferries it into the truck. “Help me transfer the package.” The crew takes positions around the wooden box. “Ready, set, lift!”
They heave with all their might but the unit does not budge. Fei flicks her wrist in pain. “The lead casing is too heavy.”
Austin wipes sweat from his face. “How did you get this into the bus?”
“A robot moved it for us.”
“Just great,” Austin says. “Time’s running out and we can’t even move our reactor in place.”
Anil steps forward. “Let’s not lose hope. Two hours is plenty of time. Why don’t we unload the other cargo?”
“Okay, take the cart.”
They walk along the side of the bus and open a luggage door to reveal five corroded Tesla batteries, relics of a time when electric vehicles roamed the streets. They unload the four-foot units and transport them across the loading dock into a research building, heading down a dim hallway and through a door labeled “Cyclotron.”
A sensor activates a light switch and illuminates a massive laboratory space. In the center of the room, a thirty-foot particle accelerator extends to the ceiling and sits idle. Along its circular exterior, hundreds of wires and tubes emerge to feed a robotic arm attached to a computer console. The machine is dotted with dozens of yellow hazard stickers—Strong Magnet, Caution and Radioactive.
Fei taps a display next to the instrument. “Does anyone know how to use this thing?”
Austin scans the console. “There’s no A.I. built into the software. We’ll have to operate it ourselves.”
“That’s impossible. There’s no way we could learn how to use this.”
Austin gives a cold stare. “Fei, in the old days, we had something called user manuals to operate machinery.”
Fei laughs. “Instructions for humans? What a funny idea.”
Anil removes a timer from his pocket and synchronizes it with the countdown from Barnard’s Star. He places it on a desk for everyone to see.
98:45, 98:44, 98:43…
Austin’s eyes widen. “Ninety-eight minutes before the gravitational wave arrives?”
“Yes, Dr. Sanders.”
“Time’s running out.”
Anil inspects the accelerator. “This arm loads the circular track. Somehow you insert the titanium here and it gets deposited inside.”
Fei rolls her eyes. “The titanium that Diego was supposed to bring?”
Austin’s face reddens. “That and no laser. This is a tragedy. I need a cigarette.”
A rumble shakes the room and a thumping blasts through the vents. Austin glances at his teammates. “Someone’s here!”
They race outside to find a helicopter in the sky, its spotlight shining on the loading dock. Austin runs behind a trash can. “Hide! Get away from the light.” His teammates run back into the hallway. “It might be the military.”
The chopper slowly descends and lands on the parking lot. Its engine powers down and a door opens. Two people emerge.
“Guys!” someone shouts.
Austin stands. “It’s Beth!” He runs towards her and his colleagues follow, racing to the copter to greet their boss.
Beth gestures to her guest. “Team, please meet Dr. Tom Lee, head of Stanford’s Applied Physics Department. He and I were classmates here decades ago.”
Austin shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you, Tom. You must be in charge of the Cyclotron?”
“Yes, my group operates it, but we haven’t used it in several months.”
“Does it still work?”
“Yes, though we have no more funding to run experiments. The NSF stopped supporting physics projects. All their money goes to the War.”
“That’s a shame,” Austin says. “This facility is an institution.”
Tom beams. “We did a lot of great work here. We discovered new subatomic elements and advanced quantum physics.”
Beth wags a finger. “Today we spend more on bullet casings than on science. Listen, team, I’ve brought Dr. Lee up to speed on Project Titan. He has granted us access to the accelerator—”
“That’s wonderful,” Austin interrupts, “but we have an hour before the gravity wave arrives. We’re still missing the titanium and the neodymium laser!”
Beth points her thumb at her helicopter. “You underestimate me.”
Austin’s peers through the chopper’s windows, spotting a four-foot metal cylinder. “Is that the laser? Where did you find one?”
She opens the door and drags the package out. “Give me a hand.” The team lifts the device and carries it towards the loading dock. “I purchased it from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the East Bay. They have the world’s largest neodymium laser and some miniature versions they no longer use.”
Austin turns his head. “How much did it cost you?”
“Half a million dollars. This one was built twenty years ago, and they promised me it’s functional.”
“Let’s hope so.”
The team places the tube on a wheeled cart in the dock. Austin leads them into the bus’s trunk. “Beth, take a look. We built the reactor prototype.”
She inspects the wooden crate. “Wonderful. Let’s get it into the laboratory.”
“We tried. It’s very heavy.”
Tom laughs. “You were planning to carry it in yourselves? Let me help you.” He taps his smartglasses and his pupils dart around. Seconds later, a door opens and a delivery robot emerges, its circular metal base resting on eight six-inch tires.
Austin chuckles. “It looks like a pancake on wheels.”
The robot drives up to dock and approaches the team.
“Hello, Sally,” Tom says to it. “Transfer this shipment into the lab.”
The machine whirls as a panel retracts and two arms thrust outward from its base, rotating and inserting under the crate. The package lifts in the air and transfers onto the stand. Metal rods stabilize the cargo as it heads for the research building.
“I need one of those,” Austin says.
The team follows the robot.
Beth turns to the group. “Dr. Lee will run our experiment tonight. He is an expert in nuclear physics.”