Hero Born: Project Solaris (2 page)

My phone buzzed again, so I fished it out of my jeans with a sigh. It was probably another recruiter. They swarmed like locusts, and the cloud was thickest around engineers. Especially mobile engineers, even ones with next to no experience, like me.
 

"Hello?" I said, the phone somehow having found my ear.
 

"David?" a woman's quavering voice asked. Her tone was frantic. "They're coming again."

I was silent for a long moment, still reeling from what had happened in the intersection. I couldn't deal with this, not today. Not after what had just happened.

"Hi, Mom." I tried to force a smile I didn't feel. I was still shaking. About a third of the crowd veered into Starbucks. I kept going, struggling to find words as the rest of the crowd filed up the street. A jackhammer pounded in the distance, overpowering the smattering of car horns. "Listen, now isn't a great time. I'm about to head into work. Can we talk later? Tonight, maybe?"

"There may not be time, David," she said, pausing to quite audibly exhale a lungful of smoke. I could picture the haze blanketing her living room. Just thinking about it made my eyes burn. "I know how you feel about what happened, but you have to listen, okay? Promise me you'll hear me out."

"All right," I said, suppressing a sigh. I'd heard it all before. Grey men. Taken. Not safe. Come home.
 

I turned into the Specialties at the corner of Howard and 1
^st
, joining the back of the line. A cute brunette behind the counter waved at me. She fished a cinnamon roll from the display case and started boxing it. It paid to be predictable.

"David, you need to get out of the city. Now. Not tonight. Not this weekend. Now," she said, voice firm, and carrying more authority than I could ever remember.

"Mom, I can't just drop my life because you're worried," I replied, more loudly than I'd intended. Heads swiveled in my direction, more than one person frowning. I'd broken the cardinal rule, showing any form of emotion in public. In the city, the rule was
keep your head down
; spilling one's business in plain view was an unforgivable sin. I lowered my voice, avoiding eye contact as the line moved. "Where do you expect me to go? I can't just quit my job."

"I need you to come home," she said. I heard a familiar tap-tap-tap in the background, her nails on the green ceramic ashtray that had dominated the coffee table for my entire life. "I have a lot to catch you up on, David. There's so much you need to know. I finally have answers. It's time, son."

"Mom, hold on a sec," I said, lowering the phone as I approached the register. I gave the clerk an apologetic smile. She slid my boxed cinnamon roll and a large coffee across the table.
 

"Five dollars and ten cents," she said, tucking a plastic fork and knife into the edge of the box.

"Thanks," I mouthed, waving my phone over the payment pad. She smiled again as I retrieved my breakfast and shouldered my way out the door. "Okay, I'm back."

"David," Mom said. Her lighter flicked in the background. "I know you think I'm crazy, and for good reason. You don't trust me, and you think I'm paranoid. This time it's different, believe me. You have to get out, and you have to do it now."

I closed my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. Then I opened them and continued up the street. The buildings were run down here, two and three-story brick affairs that hadn't been renovated in decades. It was a stark contrast to the skyscrapers behind me. These buildings belonged to the baby startups, those that hadn't gotten enough funding to afford good internet or air conditioning. Startups like mine.

"Mom, I love you," I said, bracing myself. "I know you care about me, and you're just looking after my safety. Let's just say I'm willing to believe in the grey men, and let me be clear that I'm not saying I am. If they
are
coming, what will leaving the city do? If they want to find me, they will. You taught me that. There's no running."

"But David, this time--"
 

"Mom," I said, cutting her off. "I have to go to work. I will take tomorrow off, and will come home for the weekend. That's the best I can do. I'm sorry."

I knew it was rude to hang up on my mother, but if I'd let her she'd have turned this into a forty-five minute rant. I didn't have time for that. Today was an important day, and if I screwed it up my boss would eat my heart for lunch with a side of kidney beans. I tried to calm myself as I reached the battered three story building where I worked.

I slid my phone into my pocket, then juggled my coffee and cinnamon roll while tapping in the key code on the pad next to the big iron door. A buzzer sounded, and I rushed inside. I only had a few seconds to reach a second door and get through before the buzzer stopped, or I'd have to go back outside and try again. Break-ins were common in San Francisco, and building managers had all sorts of elaborate but ineffective methods of protecting their tenants. The second door was glass. Wouldn't thieves just shatter it?

I hooked the door open with my foot, careful not to let it slam on me. I'd spilled my coffee doing that once. Getting through the doors and onto the elevator was a delicate dance, but also one I'd performed dozens of times during my internship. This morning was no different, and I mechanically stepped into the elevator, stabbing number three. The elevator reluctantly closed, then groaned its way up with a truly frightening series of jerks.
 

My coffee sloshed, spilling a little through the glorified sippy cup Specialties had thankfully provided. I did my best to clean coffee from my hand as the door opened and I made my way up the hallway. The carpet was frayed and stained, and whatever its original color, it was a flat yellow now. I left a trail of muddy foot prints as I followed it to the last door on the left, keying in another code as I fished my keys from my pocket. The door required both to open, the only sensible security we had in the building.

I reached instinctively to flick on the lights, but they were already on. I was used to being the first person there, because mornings were the only time I could get any real work done. By nine or ten o'clock the office was buzzing with activity, which made concentrating nearly impossible. The room was lined with rows of desks, which management referred to as a 'collaborative workspace'. What it really meant was that our office was one step from a call center environment, and that engineers had to hunker down and wear headphones if they wanted any prayer of cranking out the volume of code demanded by management.

"Jesus, what the hell happened to your clothes, David? I told you to dress professionally, and you come in looking like a bedraggled dog," Dick called, dickishly. He hurried up to me, straightening a tasteful red tie. His suit was impeccable, contrasting oddly with the peeling walls and hoodie-wearing engineers like myself. "Come on, we're pitching investors, and I want you to babysit one of their liaisons. Don't fuck this up, because if you do I won't just blacklist you. I will murder your career, David. Then I will have the body made into hamburger, and I will eat the fucking corpse. Do you understand me?"

Chapter 3- Initech

"Uhh," I replied, falling into line behind him. I was a half a cup of coffee short of a witty reply, so I just followed him through the office to the front conference room. We had two: one in the front, and one in the back. The back one was nicer, but I couldn't hear myself think, because they were building the Transbay terminal right outside the window. The front conference room had thick concrete walls which cut off internet access. Not good when working for an internet-reliant startup.

Three people, only one of which I recognized, were seated around our conference table. The two on the right were an odd pair. The first was an elderly man, who's posture was stiffer than iron. He wore a black suit that had probably cost more than my Civic, and his snowy hair was artfully styled. A black cane topped with a golden scarab rested against the table next to him. He met my interest with piercing green eyes that somehow seemed younger than the rest of him, weighing me silently as I averted my gaze. The second figure was much more interesting--a beautiful blonde in her thirties. She wore a blazer, and flowing pants that looked both professional and comfortable.

Across the table sat the person I did recognize, Suresh. There was no official engineering manager at Initech, but if there had been it would have been Suresh. She was both the smartest person I'd ever met and the best programmer. I'd learned a ton in the few months I'd been working with her, and had the sense that she was just scratching the surface of what she could teach.

Instead of her usual jeans and flip-flops, Suresh wore a floral-print skirt and pumps. She'd even worn a muted red lipstick that matched her dark complexion. Her usual ponytail had been abandoned, letting her thick, dark hair spill down her shoulders. That drove home the severity of the meeting. If we were working this hard to impress investors, it could only mean that Initech was out of money.

"Now that David is here, we'll get started," Dick began, sliding into the seat next to Suresh. I took the seat next to him, giving a weak smile to our guests. "Before we get to the demonstration, do you have any questions?"
 

"I'm sure we'll have many questions after the demonstration, but I'm eager to see if your technology does what you claim," the elderly man said, his voice strong and deep. It bothered me that no one had introduced me properly, but I was just an intern, after all. "Show us, then we'll talk about whether Mohn Corp is willing to fund you."

"David, will you escort Ms. Summers and Mr. Usir to the back conference room?" Dick said, eyeing me critically. It wasn't a request.

"Of course," I said, suddenly aware that I was still clutching my boxed cinnamon roll and coffee. I set the box down with a sigh, but decided there was no harm in keeping the coffee. "If you'll follow me."

I left the room, threading through rows of desk back to the rear conference room. I was a little surprised Dick had chosen to use it, given the noise, but I understood immediately when I opened the door. Suresh's accelerator had been set up.

"What am I looking at?" the blonde-- Ms. Summers asked. She moved into the room, crossing her arms as she frowned at the accelerator.

"That's our light accelerator," I explained, moving to stand next to her. She smelled heavenly, though any attraction I felt was smothered by the terror of messing this up. "It's a vacuum tube. You see the mirrors on either side? The laser broadcasts light modulated at a certain frequency, and we measure the amplitude and speed using the distance between the two mirrors," I explained, trying to make it as understandable as possible. That was harder than you might think, because I didn't fully understand how the thing worked.
 

"And this thing somehow allows faster-than-light transmission?" she asked, giving me a skeptical look.

"Not yet," I said, darting a look at Usir. He stood at the back of the room, utterly relaxed in the same way a cat might be. His cane was cradled in his right hand, without resting any weight on it, and I realized it was merely a prop. "We're close, though. When we pull it off, satellites will be able to broadcast signals far faster than today's internet. We'll be able to transmit near-limitless data anywhere in the world-- instantly."

"And how exactly do you circumvent the speed of light?" Usir asked, raising a snowy eyebrow. "Einstein believed that was impossible."
 

I glanced through the doorway, but Suresh and Dick were talking quietly together about midway through the office's main room. Looked like I'd have to field this myself. I walked to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. "You're right about that. So far as we know there is no way to break the speed of light barrier."

I drew two ovals, labeling one
normal space
, and one
different space
. "The thing is, the speed of light might not be constant. Some areas of space have different characteristics, and those areas allow light to move faster."

"
Ahh
," Usir said, giving a chilly smile. "If you can simulate the same characteristics of this 'different space,' then you can, in essence, trick the light into going faster."

"Sounds pretty hand-wavy to me," Summers said, her scowl still firmly in place. "If you haven't achieved it yet, what exactly are you demonstrating today?"

"We'll be showing you how different space works," Suresh said, striding confidently into the room. Dick filed in behind her, moving to stand next to Usir. "My accelerator measures the relative speed of light. This demonstration will show you the speed of normal space, then show you the speed we can achieve using the special modulation I've created."

She moved to the far side of the accelerator, and fiddled with several switches. The machine hummed to life, and a thin green light shot from the laser at one end of the tube. "The normal time for light to beam from a satellite to earth is .12 milliseconds in perfect conditions. Atmospheric interference usually raises that to .15 or .16."

A digital readout at the base of the accelerator flared to life. The numbers flickered for a moment, then settled in to a steady .13. Suresh adjusted her glasses, her gaze sliding between Summers and Usir. "Any questions before we begin?"

"None," Usir said, raising a hand to silence Summers when she started to speak. "Begin your demonstration."

Suresh nodded, turning a dial on the far side of the accelerator. The light flared brighter for a moment, then began to pulse in an odd cadence. The brilliance hurt my eyes, so I focused on the readout instead of the demonstration. It was spiking upwards to the .012 level, which was now a typical reading for us.

"Watch this," she said, tapping another dial. The pattern began to change. "This is my first attempt at the new modulation. I doubt the speed difference over the normal speed of light is even measurable, but if we can find the right algorithm we could dramatically increase the speed. That's where Mohn Corp comes in, of course."