Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (4 page)

***

Stormhaven:

The building looked like an abandoned Quonset hut. Rust on the inside of the walls, gave the metal shell a patina of age even though the objects cluttering the floor looked like they had teleported in from the future.

“This is my old workshop,” Cole said, helping Danielle down the stairs. “It’s mostly obsolete crap.”

The tables and benches were crammed with gear that any college lab would have given a year’s budget to have, but a closer examination showed a fine layer of dust that covered everything and lent truth to his claim.

“Come on, let’s get you settled in,” he said, leading her to a muddy EUV parked outside. The overhead door closed as they pulled out and headed across the open prairie. The sky was light enough that the sparse features of the landscape became amorphous dark shadows.

“Where are we?” she asked. The rutted road pounded her against the shoulder strap.

“Sixty miles northeast of St. Johns, almost in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s about as remote as you can get within the Continental United States. Nobody comes sticking their nose into our business.”

“They’d have to know where to look,” she said.

“They could find us if they wanted to look,” he said, nodding out the side window. A huge concrete vault spread along the bottom of a shallow valley. It stuck up over the ridge as a gray smudge against the shadows around it, but would have been very visible in daylight. “That’s one of our fabrication buildings.”

Topping another ridge, the road smoothed out and they turned into a driveway between several more vaulted arches. A door opened into a garage full of cars as they approached. “Welcome home,” he said, slipping into an empty parking space.

She followed him down a hallway and through a set of double doors. Outside, the world had resembled Mars, but the air that washed over her was warm and smelled like a jungle. Walking up to a railing that cut across in front of her, she peered over the edge into a tree-covered canyon. A faintly luminous artificial sky arched overhead. It matched the morning sky outside. If it weren’t for the lack of stars she might not have noticed.

“We call this the Biome,” he offered. “It’s basically an enclosed park. I should have warned you, but I tend to forget about how startling this is the first time you see it. You’ll get used to it.”

“This is Stormhaven’s corporate headquarters?” she asked.

“It is,” he confirmed. “The Corporation of Stormhaven is pretty much what you’d expect. We’ve got offices here, and all over the world, but this is also the
community of Stormhaven
. Most of our engineers and scientists live and work here. It’s a modernized version of a company-town, but rather than mining, our stock-in-trade is creativity.

“On this side we’re standing in the administrative area.” He pointed across the canyon. “Over there are labs and prototyping shops and on both ends are residential and social areas.”

“This is unbelievable,” she said.

“Nah, that comes later,” he said, winking and leading her toward the stairs.

Descending toward the floor, lush vegetation and enormous trees rose overhead. She followed him along a winding path that headed toward one of the residential areas.

“Other than food, most of what we need to survive comes from outside sources,” he said, “so we’re not really self-sufficient here, but as a policy we buy controlling interest in any company that supplies something we need. The Corporation itself is almost self-sufficient and this place is just the top of our food chain.”

“I don’t follow,” she said.

“It’s a bit complex but, you can do some catching up once we get you settled in,” He said. “Mica will get you any info you want at the console in your apartment.”

“Mica’s your secretary?” she asked.

He laughed. “Yeah, it answers the phones too, but Mica is actually an acronym for Massively Integrated Core Array. It’s our main A.I. System.”

“So it’s a computer?” she asked.

“Loosely true, but way short of reality,” he said. “Mica was designed to replicate the synaptic architecture of a human brain. Its quantum circuitry actually reconfigures on the fly, so it adapts and evolves. Like we do.”

“Even being quantum based that’d have to be a gigantic processor,” she said.

“Not really, under 500 cubic feet. You can look up the specs once you get to your room,” he said.

“I can?” she asked. “Without some kind of security clearance?”

“We’ve got no secrets here.” He held up a hand, stopping her before she could ask the next question. “I know that flies in the face of conventional thinking, but it works.

“Let me give you an example. A month or so ago one of our botanists was working on a hybrid strawberry. He needed to pick this strawberry, but the plant had developed long thorns, he said it was something to do with the rose bush he’d crossed into its DNA.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he was having a problem picking them. So he was out on the patio one day complaining about getting all cut up, and one of our robotics engineers overheard him talking. A few minutes later they were brainstorming a tree-climbing robot that could also figure out if a strawberry was ripe.

“Last week we applied for the patents for an autonomous fruit-picking robot, and yesterday Mitsubishi signed a manufacturing deal,” he said. “If we were paranoid about keeping secrets, that never would have happened at all.”

“But aren’t you afraid of industrial espionage?” She asked.

“Nope. We make sure everybody here has
everything
they could want. Where’s the advantage in selling us out?”

“Everything?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s not’s really that big a deal. Nobody could possibly ever spend all the money we make. We have thousands of patents paying royalties. I don’t even know how much money we’re making, let’s just say it’s a lot.”

Starting up a set of stairs, he added, “Someone told me the other day that we’re the third largest economy in the world, but I think they were kidding.”

It was a staggering concept to have that kind of intellectual freedom, and the money to do something about it.

“Here you go,” he said, stepping out onto a balcony. “Mica, set up a voice lock for Dr. Cavanaugh, and make sure she has access to everything she needs.”

“Yes, Mr. Taylor,” the computer said. The door opened inward with a slight click.

“You’ve got all the basics in there, including clothes,” he said. “If you need anything else, just ask. Mica will make the arrangements.”

Before she could disappear inside, he stopped her. “If you don’t mind, I’ll need that disk, so I can get on with business.”

“Of course,” she said, amazed that she’d almost forgotten her reason for being here. Pulling the microdisk out of her pocket she dropped it into his hand.

It was now his problem. She felt an overwhelming sense of relief at not having to carry it any longer.

***

Chapter Three:

Bouncing a Reality Check

Washington:

The Office of the Presidential Advisor on Science and Technology was normally a casual environment, like most of the President’s Administration, but today, the usual atmosphere had been replaced by chaos.

Al Stanley shook his head, wondering how so much energy could come from a bunch of clerks. Although most of them had credentials to qualify as an expert in any branch of science or engineering, they spent their days reading and sorting reports. It was work dull enough to fossilize even the most enthusiastic mind.

Even before he’d finished his meeting with the President, someone had pieced together the situation and word had spread through his staff like a malevolent plague. When he returned, he found his people waiting for instructions, but needing no explanations.

“First thing we need to do is assess the previous work,” he said, only to find a document on mitigation strategies being slid across the table.

“That’s a summarization of every scientific study on asteroid mitigation since 1960,” Donna Jacoby said. She was a mousy woman in her early thirties with doctorates in physics and electrical engineering. She stepped back trying to disappear into comfortable obscurity.

“What does it say, Donna?” he asked, shocking her by knowing her name. He knew all their names, even if they weren’t aware of it. He also knew she was too smart to let fade away.

“Uhm,” she said, clearing her throat. “It says we’re pretty well screwed. There’s been no formal work in the field since congress dried up the money for asteroid detection. Nobody wanted to work on it.”

“Not even NASA?” he asked.

“No sir,” she said. “After your testimony on the probabilities of an asteroid impact being virtually zero, they diverted their funds into other more lucrative areas.”

“Yeah, that was my bad,” he said, trying to make light of the fact that he’d been wrong.

“Has anyone looked at which of these old ideas might be workable today?” he asked.

“The problem is that we’ve got two decades of technological specialization since the last time anyone gave it consideration,” a man said from the back. The bodies parted as the stranger stepped forward. An imposing gentleman glared his way through the crowd with him.

“Dr Stanley, I’d like to introduce Dr. Carter Anthony,” the glaring man said. The speaker was obviously the DHS Field Agent he’d sent to retrieve the astronomers. “As of now he’s officially in your care.”

Al Stanley recognized Carter. He’d been the scientist sitting beside Colton Taylor at the Spaceguard hearings.
This just keeps getting better
, he thought, wondering if he could pop a nitro without anyone noticing.
Probably not
.

“Dr. Anthony,” he said, offering his hand. “Seems you were right, and I was ... uhm, not.” He shrugged, hoping the astronomer would accept it as an apology.

“We all make mistakes,” Carter said, “and sometimes we have to live with it. Let’s hope this isn’t one of those times.” He took Dr. Stanley’s hand and shook it, smiling.

“What do you mean by ‘technological specialization’?” Donna Jacoby asked.

“Technology tends to become more specialized as it advances,” Carter said. “It becomes much less versatile, a lot like how the education process works. As we go higher in our training, we know more and more, about less and less. We become specialists in the smallest possible area of our field, so that we can be considered expert in something that no one else knows about.

“Our engineering does the same thing,” he went on. “With the exception of personal-use electronics, which now resemble a Swiss Army Knife, everything else designed in the last forty years is built to do one job.”

“That’s not true,” Jacoby murmured, her puzzled expression showing she was having trouble finding an exception.

“I see your point,” Al said. “NASA’s boosters can go the distance, but the military doesn’t have one that can get past Low Earth Orbit. And none of their stuff works together.”

“More than anything, that’s what we’re up against,” Carter said.

***

Stormhaven:

Cole liked coming out to the cavernous barn of the Fabrication Center. He stood watching the machines working on their tasks, almost like they were alive, nimble dancers moving to the driving rhythm of the presses and additive printers.

It was noisy and the air smelled of plastic compounds, but it was the place where the dreams of Stormhaven became realities. To Cole this was where the magic really happened.

Leaning over the railing, staring down at the assembly line, he could see the latest product of his vision becoming reality. It lay, almost completed, at the far end of the building.

The
Dancing Star
.

Daryl Creswell walked up beside him. “Checking on
Colton’s Folly
I see.” The fabrication systems engineer stood almost a head taller than Colton, and half again as wide, but in the thundering cacophony of the Fabrication Center he’d startled Cole.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Cole said, ignoring the jab. “Wondering how much longer it’s going to take."

“Sophie’s out there working on the harmonic tuning sequencer,” he said, nodding toward the
Dancing Star
. “It’s giving her shit-fits.”

“Damn,” Cole said, turning his back on the line and leaning against the railing. “I was really needing good news.”

“For my part,” the big man said, sticking his thumbs into the folds of his jumpsuit in a satire of a farmer wearing bib-overalls, “I’m more than a month ahead. Probably six or eight weeks and it’ll be airtight.”

Cole’s face fell another level, the disappointment in his expression deflating Daryl’s pride.

“Ok what’s up?” he asked, staring into the inventor’s eyes, trying to pull an answer out of him.

“That’s too long,” Cole said so quietly that he couldn’t be heard, but after years of working in this environment Daryl had learned to read lips.