Evacuation (The Seamus Chronicles Book 2) (9 page)

The morning meeting today is going to be awful. My ears are still ringing a little and I think there is literally a bug in my tooth from driving home with no windows. How could we have been so stupid? This is not some LEGO set we should be throwing together. This is the most advanced technology ever created by humans and we tried to build it in a day.

After the meeting, we need to spend the morning understanding the failure and how to prevent it in the future. If that happens when the unit is attached to the space plane, we could all die. Dying because you are trying something extreme to live is one thing. Dying because someone rushed through manufacturing something that should be perfectly safe is different altogether. If we all wind up dead, it will not be because of a failure in the warp unit.

I know that Mom and Jane are pissed because of how animated they were while their lips moved at us. My ears were ringing so loud that I didn’t hear a thing. As usual, Dad is less pissed but there to clean up the mess. He led Cassandra and I away to get cleaned up and then handed us a note that instructed us to go home to bed. I think that if I had fought him on going to bed, he would have started to get mad.

Liam hopped into my room after I got there and said something. I told him I couldn’t hear and he would have to write it down, but he just left. I’m not sure if I yelled that at him or if I whispered. I waited up awhile, hoping that Sofie would come by to check on me. She didn’t. Grace never stopped in either, which was a little surprising. Maybe Sofie told her what happened with Cassandra and Grace is mad at me for that.

Now I just lay here thinking about the failure and what could have caused it. I have a couple of hours before the meeting, but going to the lab won’t help. I need to work this through in my head. If it had been the gate controller, we would have seen the warp prior to the explosion. That means it must have been the containment field. Perhaps my efficiencies were not as well-planned as I thought. Or Cassandra did something wrong with the Tantalum cage, causing an unsustainable build-up of electrons that just happened to vent through the side of the unit.

With only fifteen minutes until the morning meeting, I need to get out of bed and put on some pants. I didn’t realize how sore and stiff I would be this morning. No complaints though; I’m sure no one would be too sympathetic. A coffee and Pop Tart and I’ll be good to go.

Jane and Cassandra are the last to arrive at the meeting, again except for Sofie, who has sent word with Grace that she won’t be here.

“Before we begin, I would like to apologize for the event yesterday,” Cassandra says. She is speaking, but her mother’s hand is resting on her shoulder. “We were a little too enthusiastic and I’m sorry if the event caused any fear or undue concern for all of you.”

We did not talk about apologizing. I wasn’t going to do it. What is the point in raising a flag and telling the whole world we screwed up? They know we screwed up. The explosion was pretty evident; the windows of the Maserati shattered and two physicists were temporarily deaf. It’s not a race to the discovery of a warp device, but there is no need to show weakness.

“There are two other groups working on very challenging problems.” Mom has actually risen from her seat to respond. “Each member of those groups is documenting tasks and progress. They communicate development and behave like not only adults but like highly skilled professionals. The two of you, on the other hand, act like a couple of spoiled brats. No documents, poor communication and almost no regard for the other people here with you.”

Why don’t we get credit for doing the test at the end of the runway? We have amazing documentation; it just happens to be in thousands of lines of computer code that she wouldn’t understand. What do they expect to have communicated? The amount of mass from the electrons just before the warp? Shape and spacing of the holes in the Tantalum cage? This is just the scared mother lashing out because she almost lost her son.

“I’m partially to blame,” Jane says, trying to deflect the anger from Cassandra. “I should have been spending more time in the lab with these two, enforcing some level of rigor.”

“Thank you Jane, but I have to disagree,” Mom says, not letting us off the hook. “I can deal with the lab being a black box and not understanding how you come up with these devices. What I refuse to deal with is these two tearing down the runway at one hundred miles an hour and throwing out a test of
WARPING SPACE
whenever they damn well feel like it.”

I suppose telling people that we were going to conduct a test would have been prudent. Not sure what the problem is with driving fast on the runway though. No point in taking extra time to get to the end if that’s where we have to go to conduct our tests.

“Moving forward, you have one-hour test windows at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.,” Mom says, sitting back in her seat. “You need to honk your horn twice before you get on the runway. That will let us all know you are conducting a test. There will be some safety protocol followed; if it’s just ear and eye protection, that’s fine, but if you need a bunker or something more, please take the time to set it up.” A long pause. “Jane, I would like you to review their startup procedures. There must be some safety checks we can build into the system so that catastrophic failures do not occur.”

“Will do.” Jane has been in this type of meeting before. The less said, the better.

“As far as I am concerned, we need no further update from Leave The Planet team,” Mom says, reading her screen and moving on. “Paddrick, what’s the story on nuking the planet?”

“I think Randy can give the best update.” Dad is looking towards the new leader of that team. “If I can make it to Antarctica and back, I can fly pretty much anything. I would like to leave this afternoon to track down the space plane they need for the building the warp craft.”

“How long will you be gone?” Mom asks, typing in a note.

I’m surprised she is not more anxious. For us, this is a dangerous task. Dad could easily crash on the way to getting the space plane or on the way home trying to fly it. Mom should be worried about losing him.

“Depends. If it’s in New Mexico, I could be home this afternoon. If I have to go to Florida, it could be a few days.” Dad does not seem worried either.

“Fine. Please let us know before you take off.” Another note and Mom moves on. “Randy?”

“We think we have identified launch sites and codes. I am concerned that there are safety mechanisms in place,” Randy says, surveying the faces in the room. “To prevent a large-scale launch by a terrorist organization, they have separated the control networks for each installation. We are trying to figure out how to launch all warheads remotely here in California.”

“And when do you think that effort will be complete?” Mom asks, staring at him.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t look promising,” Randy says, now looking down at his screen. “Plan B is not pleasant and I would like to save it for a future meeting.”

“Fine.” Mom is not happy but is willing to concede. This is one of the groups that had been doing things so well a few minutes ago.

“Response protocol?” Mom asks, already on the next team.

“Continuing with sample collection and building seedling starter packs,” William answers. “We have excellent bio-diversity and I’m confident we can make an impact on both rebuilding earth and creating a habitable environment on a distant planet” He is very proud of himself, his team and their progress, and he should be.

“Fantastic. I hope you are focusing collection efforts on edible growth?” Mom asks, probably thinking about her garden of the future.  

“Yes. Over 80 percent of our samples are plants that can be used for human sustenance,” Grace says. We may need an eclectic cookbook, but we will be able to eat what we grow.” She has a big smile. There may be some inside joke here.

“Okay everyone, let’s get to work,” Mom says, and closes her laptop, signifying that the meeting has ended.

While the others get up to leave, I remain in my seat. I’m angry at being called out and scolded in front of the whole group. I am angry that Sofie is avoiding me again today. I am angry that our warp device failed and did not result in the expected outcome. Mostly I am angry that I made a mistake, or more pointedly, more than one mistake.

Mom is leaning back in her seat with her hands locked behind her head. Her stare burns a hole in my heart. My instinct is to push back and yell at her. She’s not being fair; people make mistakes. Does she understand that the work we are doing is extremely advanced? Is she waiting for me to speak first or does she have something to say?

“Mom, I’ve made a few mistakes the past couple of days, and I’m sorry,” I start after the silence goes too long. “I don’t like making mistakes and I’m sorry if my attitude bothers you.”

“Give it a rest, Seamus,” Mom says. It looks like she is not going to rush in to make me feel better. “Mistakes are fine. Your disrespect for the rest of us is what I am so upset about. Dad would never tell you, but they almost crashed the other day when you conducted your first test. You are making an incredible discovery, I get that. But please stop being so selfish about it. We all need your warp drive to work.”

“I also screwed things up with Sofie,” I say. Now I’m looking down at the floor. “Besides telling her I’m sorry and giving her space, how do I fix things?”

“You need to slow down.” Mom is up and walking over next to me. “Take your time with the warp unit and get it right. As of today, we are all okay and there is no need to kill us with a half-baked spaceship. And don’t rush Sofie. If she is going to forgive you, she will when she’s ready.” Her hand is on my shoulder and I guess this is how I get comforted as an adult.

“What if she won’t forgive me?” I’m standing and getting my things to leave.

“Then you get to claim the first intergalactic broken heart,” she says with a smile.

I don’t think it’s related to Mom suggesting I slow down, but instead of going to the lab I head over to the dining room for a good cup of coffee. When I walk through the door, Dad is at the machine filling his cup. He has his “go bag” at his feet and I can see the bulge of his gun under his shirt.

“Hey Dad,” I say, walking to the cupboard for a mug.

“Seamus my boy! How are ya?” He’s smiling and truly glad to see me. Then he takes a long sip of coffee.

I wonder if there is a genetic marker for liking coffee. Dad and I like coffee in a way that is different from how the others drink coffee. It’s sad to think that Grace and Liam don’t have the chance to see genetic relatives and wonder if that is where they get some of their habits and tics. Sofie knew her parents well, but even she no longer has the chance to look at them and see how she will look when she grows older. 

“I’m okay. Which plane are you going to take to New Mexico?” I’m not sure what to say to him. I hadn’t expected to see him and I wasn’t really sure he was leaving this soon.

“I’m going to take the Pilatus PC-12. It’s relatively easy to fly and I read in a magazine the other day that it is one of the fastest single engine aircraft ever built.” He loves “making good time” and any facts that make that possible.

“Cool.” I’m not sure what I can do with this information I asked for. “Are you leaving soon?”

“I think I’ll make one more pit stop and then head out.” He bends over and picks up his bag. “Mom was pretty tough on you this morning.”

“Yeah. I think that...” I’m cut off when Dad holds up his hand.

“Not interested. She was totally right. We don’t have to rehash things, but we both know you have to do things better.” He’s serious and I am not used to this side of him.

I walk with him to the door. “I know. I will.” There’s a long pause before we push through to the outside. “I’m going to miss you Dad. Please be careful,”
I say.

“No worries. I’ll be back in a couple of days and you’ll have your new space plane toy to play with.” He’s off to the hanger, which is in the opposite direction of the lab.

I cross the street and head over to the lab. Cassandra and Jane are not going to be happy with me for “flaking out,” but I don’t really care. It’s doubtful that they have much need for me anyway.

“Hey Seamus,” Cassandra says when I enter the lab. “We can’t let this mistake screw up the way we have been working. We made a big mistake, but we also did some pretty great stuff in a short time.”

“I know. I’m sorry for going off to coffee without saying anything.” I’m not sorry, but it feels like this is what I am supposed to say. “I made a modification to the logic for the field generator and the electron gate. I should have told you,”
I say.

“I tightened the spacing on the cage.” She’s not pleased with herself. “I should have told you.”

“Well, I guess we know how we screwed that up.” I give my nervous laugh. “Let’s run a few simulations with our changes and see if we can reproduce the explosion.”

“Good idea.” She is already walking over to the computer to make the needed changes.

“Hold on, you two,” Jane says, standing in front of the computer. “We need to talk about launch protocol and failure scenarios. Even if you both made changes, the system should have shut down before it got to the point of exploding.”

“Right.” I need to get her out of the way so we can go back to something interesting. “Which is why we need to run the simulations so we can see what the parameters were that caused the explosion.”

“You should be able to pull those numbers from your data logger,” Jane says. Apparently she is not going to just roll over for me.

“Ummm, we lost the data logger in the explosion,” Cassandra says and turns a little red; she seems embarrassed.

“How?” Jane asks, looking at her daughter with surprise.

“Well, our laptop was right beside the unit. Turns out it was directly in the path of the energy release.” I’m getting better at admitting to mistakes.

“Don’t tell me your control unit and your data logger were on the same machine,” Jane says, looking at Cassandra, who is looking at the floor. “Darling, you should know how important data collection is. Seamus basically came out of a cave, but you have been doing this for years.”

I see a tear trickle down Cassandra’s face and then she runs out of the room. I’m not sure what that’s all about. If this is the sternest talking to she has ever received, I’m jealous.

“Jane, I’m sorry,” I say. “I love data as much as the next guy and I should have thought to keep the machine a safer distance away.” I need to deflect some of the criticism from Cassandra; it’s not all her fault, anyway.

“Seamus, one of the hardest things to teach young developers, engineers and scientists is to build something for other people,” Jane says. She is not angry or harsh; she’s teaching. “Whenever you build something, you need to realize that someday you will not be available to work on it or answer questions about it. Therefore you need to build things that other people or even teams of people can break down into discrete parts. Rarely does the entire system fail. It’s often one component.”

“Yeah, I get it.” I don’t want to be too dismissive but I don’t feel like sitting through a lesson. “The thing is, we’re a little short on time, so I was hoping to keep some of the extra work out of the plan. When we have more time, we can build a version with more production quality.”

“And there is the number one excuse,” Jane says. “‘We don’t have time, we’ll do it later.’ It’s given by all junior developers.” Jane is ready to take me to school. “What if we lose you on the first jump? What if we claw and scrape to survive for ten years and then you die just before we get to the right planet? Someday Remmie may need to service your warp unit or your reactor. Will he be able to do that? Or are you happy to let everyone else die once you do?”   

“So what are we supposed to do?” I see a massive wall of chores in front of me and our cool warp unit is waiting on the other side. “Is there a library of logging subroutines we can build into the code? Do we have to come up with new recording logic all on our own?”

“Yes and no. We need to break the device into some reasonable chunks,” Jane says. She heads to the whiteboard; she seems to be in her element. “Cassandra, honey, come back in now please.”

Cassandra walks through the door almost immediately. I have never seen this part of their dynamic before. Jane said one cross word to Cassandra, who left to have a crying jag. But instead of storming off home, she stands just outside the door waiting to be called back. There is no apology from either party—just movement forward.

“Let’s start with the three basic chunks.” Jane is at the board drawing circles. “Control, operations and data logging.” She fills in the circles while speaking.

“Seamus, we have unlimited access to machines,” Cassandra says, speaking with no hint of sadness or anger. “We should have built a separate data logger that we could use to monitor the unit from a distance. You have to stop acting like you’re hacking this together in your basement with no budget.”

She’s right. Even though there are storage rooms filled with computers and equipment, I keep recycling used devices. I guess old habits die hard. There’s no need to throw hardware at problems that don’t exist, but I don’t have to piggyback one function on top of the other just because the CPU can handle it.

We spend the next several hours discussing various parts of the warp unit. My thinking has always been about the flow and how the entire system works. This approach of breaking it down into segments is actually quite helpful. I realize now how my change in the containment field was affected by the change in the tantalum cage. I also see where I could have included a fail-safe to shut the system down prior to the extreme failure.

Jane is a pretty good teacher. Instead of continuing to reinforce her point about the need for monitoring and safety checks, she lets me realize these things on my own. A little work today will save us a lot of work tomorrow. To date, we have been going through a cycle of build, test, and destroy that repeats itself, with the build component being the longest part. With the changes Jane has made clear, we can move to a cycle of test, fail, repair. If we don’t keep blowing things up, we don’t have to keep building new ones. It may take us 30 hours to build a unit, but that unit can have a component failure we can repair in a couple of hours and get the whole thing back on-line.

The only problem I see coming out of this is my distraction. Now I want to build a warp monitor. Measuring how big the warp is would be very cool and help us understand how far we can get with a jump. At some point we will need this, but it is not the priority for right now. Besides, I have two other side projects to work on: the solar sail I have been building for Cassandra and the idea I had for Sofie.

The solar sail is now fun and interesting. If I work on that, I can make concrete progress. The idea for Sofie is researching her family tree. A nice thought, but kind of boring compared to particle physics.

I start to compile my code changes that include the logging subroutines. In a rare change of pace, I go against everything my brain is telling me. In a new search window I type “Lange Family Canada.” I’m choosing to do something for Sofie instead of working on groundbreaking scientific research. Dad used to say that doing something nice for someone you love makes you feel good. He was wrong. I’m annoyed and frustrated that she’s ‘making’ me do this.  

After 30 minutes of scanning through links that include her phone number and address, I’m done. There is nothing interesting here. I was able to find the newspaper announcement for her parents’ marriage, but that was about it. Her mother had a sister and her father had a brother. There was no mention of parents on either side. The only remarkable thing seems to be that they were married at seventeen.

Fortunately, my compile is complete and I can go back to working on the warp unit. While my brain was distracted, I came up with a few more ideas for potential failure scenarios. They won’t require new logging, but they do need to throw an event alert when they occur. There really seems to be an art component to this aspect of development.

I want to keep plugging away, but one of the things we need to improve on is communication. I’m due to check in with Cassandra and make sure we are not duplicating efforts. I wonder if she is making progress or if she got stuck in the weeds.

“Cassandra, come check this out,” I call across the lab to her. “I’ve built a subroutine that correlates the percentage open of the electron gate and the strain on the containment field.”

She walks across the lab quickly to check out my work. After a quick scan of the code, she gives me a “Cool,” and then nudges me out of my seat. She quickly switches to her build environment and brings up a section of code that fills the screen.

“Check that out” is all she says, before getting up to leave.

The code is remarkable. Detailed yet simple. Logging is elegantly tied into execution. Not only is she gathering a ton of data, she is including notes and structure to so that it comes out of the system ready to use. I have found Cassandra’s creative release and original thoughts.