“He created a vortex, Mr. Bane, and the object could be made to disappear into it. In effect, it would cease to exist. It would not only be invisible to the naked eye, but also to radar. It would still be there, traveling in its path on the other side of space. But if you reached out to touch it you would feel nothing. It could be regenerated after a certain period of time or once it encountered a certain sequence of conditions. But until then, it wouldn’t be there… or anywhere.”
“The missing forty minutes,” Bane muttered.
“What?”
“The period the 727 was … gone felt like seconds to the passengers but it was actually forty minutes.”
“Once inside the vortex, Mr. Bane, time ceases to have meaning. It’s an entirely different continuum. Time becomes warped. You might say everything happens between the beats of a heart and ticks of a watch.”
“That’s incredible,” was all Bane could say.
“And Chilgers, of course, saw all this as a means to develop the ultimate weapon. The very phrase ‘arms race’ is a misnomer, Mr. Bane, because there is really no such thing. The superpowers are not racing to keep up with each other, they are both struggling to find a means to end the race forever. Nuclear arms will never be used in their uttermost form because one side knows no matter what it does the other will still have retaliatory capabilities. Satellites tell us — and them — as soon as a launch occurs, after which comes a twenty-minute lag before impact. An eternity. Under these circumstances, striking first will at best gain one power an advantage of two or three minutes; hardly worth the effort. The idea has always been to find a first-strike attack that would take the enemy totally by surprise. Without those precious twenty minutes, his retaliatory capabilities would be effectively neutralized. The advantage would belong clearly and irrevocably to the party which launched first.”
“Project Placebo,” Bane said slowly. “Metzencroy discovered a means to send thirty-six MX missiles whirling into the vortex. The Russians would never know what hit them.”
Von Goss nodded. “Now we come to the real problem. Metzencroy uncovered the same flaw in the theory that Einstein did, though by a different route.”
“And it all comes back to the disappearing 727.”
“Just as Einstein’s problems began with the Eldridge. The business with the 727 was a tangent phase of Vortex, wholly unnecessary really, but Chilgers wanted a detailed study of exposure to Metzencroy’s version of energy fields in contrast to Einstein’s regarding the effects on people. Something went wrong with an engine in midflight, though, and the Vortex timing mechanism was thrown off, so when the jet disappeared, it was in full view of the runway. This turned into a disaster because it ultimately drew you into the operation but it had nothing to do with the flaw Metzencroy uncovered. That was based first on a flutter, a bubble — a discontinuity — in space.”
“A bubble?”
Von Goss nodded again. “A bubble which followed the same principle as the kind you’re more familiar with, only this bubble occurred within the gravitational line where space folded over itself, actually within the fold itself. It was slight in size and virtually nominal in duration but it bothered Metzencroy and he checked into it. What he found led him to plead with Chilgers to call off Project Placebo and Vortex, and when he failed he contacted me.” Von Goss’s voice became distant. “Einstein said that the Unified Field Theory was better left alone, that man wasn’t ready for the potential it offered and probably never would be. After twenty years of work, all Metzencroy could do was prove him right.”
“What did he find out?” Bane asked, finding himself dreading an answer he had sought for almost a week now.
“It all came back to the bubble. On a wider scale, a larger one, when burst, would carry the potential to rip a hole in the fold, creating a tear in the fabric of space.”
“Like a Black Hole?”
“Worse because potentially it would be in motion, creating an open seam right across the universe. Metzencroy ran some tests and determined that the bubble had appeared when the second jet engine — the one that had failed temporarily — kicked back on as the pilot started his descent and your friend in the tower made brief visual contact.” Von Goss leaned as far forward as he could without slipping off his chair. The fire was dancing madly about his face now, its crackling accentuating the twisted rhythm with his words. “Follow me closely now, Mr. Bane, because we’re coming to the end of our scenario and none of it is pleasant. The sudden starting of a jet engine is not unlike a mininuclear explosion, though the release of energy is only one-billionth that of a fusion bomb. However, we will be facing three hundred and sixty such bombs in Project Placebo, ten per missile. Now, add the same factor to that scenario that Metzencroy did.”
“Space folds back on itself allowing all thirty-six missiles to disappear and be transposed onto the other side of space in another dimension.”
“Go on.”
“The Russians would never know they were on the way and all standard abort and fail-safe features would be rendered useless because the missiles wouldn’t be anywhere where the procedures could reach them. The three hundred and sixty warheads would reappear over their targets, thus taking the Russians totally by surprise in the ultimate first strike and …” Bane felt himself gripped suddenly by a shudder. The sensation was akin to vertigo. He felt as though he were falling from his chair, dug into the arms for support. The sight in his mind clouded his eyes, brought first mist and then wet tears of shock he was afraid to wipe away for fear of losing his grip altogether. “Oh my God …”
Von Goss looked at him, nodded. “I think you’ve hit on the essence of our problem, Mr. Bane. The three hundred and sixty warheads, each traveling in its own fold, will have to return back to the other side of space before triggering, except the folds will not have time to close completely prior to detonation. Sort of like a door that stays open just a crack. But a crack is more than sufficient. The detonation of three hundred and sixty hydrogen warheads in the megaton range will cause a monstrous tear in the fabric of our universe, actually a series of three hundred and sixty individual tears that will eventually link up. But only one would be needed to start a process that might conceivably feed off itself until the dimensions converged on each other with nothing left to separate them. Understand I’m speaking purely theoretically here, but we could end up with the Big Bang theory in reverse … and the total obliteration of our world.”
Bane just sat there.
“At the very least,” Von Goss continued, “all the Earth’s precious gravity will slip through the tear in the dimensional fabric. All air would naturally follow it through. The waters of every lake and ocean would rise toward the sky. Buildings would be ripped from their foundations, people popped like balloons. A vortex would be created in which our entire world would be turned inside out.” Von Goss paused. “The other, far less dramatic possibility is that gravity will pour through from the other side of space, crushing the Earth to a gravity point source, a singularity, an infinitely small point.”
Bane felt his body drift backward against the chair. Von Goss was describing what The Vibes had shown Davey: the future, the world coming to a sudden and violent end. But could it be changed?