Authors: Zachary Rawlins
Alex frowned, and Michael could see he wasn’t buying it, at least, not yet. But he was thinking about it, so that was a start.
“Okay, but every time we talk about my protocol, you start talking about the Ether...”
“Right,” Michael said, nodding, “but it isn’t actually the Ether that you manipulate. You punch holes in reality, Alex, in whatever separates our universe from the Ether itself. Depending on how you do it, that creates a vacuum on one side or the other. When the vacuum is on our side, Etheric energy comes rushing over into our world to fill it, thus, the catalytic effect. When you create the vacuum on the Etheric side, matter and energy from our universe is pulled into the Ether, like water down a drain, or a hole in the side of spaceship. If the hole you punch is small, only energy can escape, and that creates extreme cold, and eventually kinetic stasis, on our side. A bigger hole and matter will be pulled through it. A big enough hole…”
“And the whole universe goes down the drain?” Alex asked, trying to sound contemptuous, but looking a little worried at the possibility.
“I don’t think so, but let’s not tempt fate, okay?” Michael said mildly. He had to give Alex time to wrap his head around it, he reminded himself, even if it meant going slower than he would’ve normally liked to. This wasn’t like teaching the kid to square his shoulders when he threw a punch, after all. “Besides, I think that a small hole, a little pinprick, might actually be more useful than a big one. I think even a tiny breach will be enough to pull most of the radiant energy, all of the heat and motion, out of the surrounding area. Do you know what happens when absolute zero is reached, Alex?”
“It’s impossible,” Alex said, with surprising firmness. “Anastasia told me so. You can only get so close, and then you’re always a fraction short. You can reduce the fraction, but you can’t make it go away.”
Michael covered his alarm with an indulgent smile. Why, he wondered, was Anastasia talking to Alex about absolute zero?
“True. But, if it was possible, do you know what would happen?”
While Alex considered it, Michael’s mind was elsewhere. Could Anastasia somehow already be aware of Alex’s affinity for the Absolute Protocol? Was that even possible? Rebecca’s notes, circulated only through the upper levels of the Academy’s staff, should have been the only source for such information. But, how could Anastasia have gotten access to those kind of documents?
From a staff member. That was the only way.
“Um. Everything would freeze…?”
Alex guessed more than he stated, not willing to fully commit to his answer, frowning and wrinkling his brow.
“Well, yes,” Michael said hastily, putting aside his suspicions. “More importantly, however, everything would
stop.
Alex, absolute zero is a completely non-energetic state – no motion, even on a molecular level. So, potentially, you could freeze things in more ways than one.”
Alex nodded slowly, but looked doubtful at best. That was alright with Michael, though. Everyone had to start somewhere.
“Okay, so, what do I do?”
Michael smiled encouragingly, doing his best to put aside his concerns about Anastasia.
“Rebecca already implanted the Absolute Protocol in your mind. Do you remember how to activate it? The routine?”
Alex nodded slowly, clearly going over something in his head.
“Okay, then let’s try it. Go ahead and focus on that end of the quarry,” Michael instructed patiently, pointing at the opposite side of the depression, close enough to see, far enough to be safe. “You don’t need to do anything fancy. Let’s see how far you can reduce the ambient temperature.”
Michael wasn’t sure what the activation routine Rebecca implanted was – they varied, after all, depending on the protocol and the Operator involved. His own routine was loosely based on some Tai Chi movements that he found helpful when he was trying to focus. Whatever it was that Alex did, it was subtle. All that happened outwardly was that Alex sighed, shook out his hands, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again, took a couple deep breaths, and squinted at the rock face on the far side of the quarry as if it were very far away.
He was prepared to wait. Protocols were tricky to use, and even with the hypnotic routine implanted to make them easier, students often struggled for weeks before they got the hang of doing it on command. Alex apparently did not have that problem. Michael was considering saying something encouraging, maybe suggesting a second try, when he noticed the frost sparkling in the sun; a light, uniform coating, glistening across the dull face of the rock.
“Excellent, Alex!”
Michael almost shouted, he was so excited, but Alex didn’t even appear to notice. He just continued trying to bore a hole in the rock with his eyes, and all around where he stared, the rock creaked and moaned while the air filled with a sound like tiny bells ringing. It took Michael a moment to realize that he was hearing the water in the air spontaneously freezing and then falling to the ground in crystals that shattered on impact.
“Okay, Alex, that’s good. Shut it down.”
Michael waited for a moment, but the kid seemed to be unaware of him, locked into his bizarre staring contest with the wall of the quarry. Amazingly, Alex seemed to be gaining ground, as the scree slope made ominous settling noises, and then parts of it started to give way, small rivulets of gravel and sand running down channels in the stone as the wall itself shifted to accommodate ice crystals forming where water had been trapped inside the stone.
“Alex, stop. Stop now.” Michael hoped that his voice sounded firm, not worried. But whatever it sounded like, he was fairly certain that Alex didn’t hear it. Michael reached for the boy’s shoulder, meaning to shake him, but his hand stopped of its own accord halfway. He looked closely at the wall, trying to confirm what he thought he’d seen.
The rivulets of sand and pebbles, the streams of earth that had threatened only moments before to become a small avalanche had halted in mid-air, halfway to the ground, hovering uncertainly, each fragment slowly rotating in midair as it was caught in the impasse between two opposing forces. Even though he knew immediately what was happening, it took a moment for Michael to process it.
Something inside the rock face, something Alex was doing, had created a force powerful enough to counteract gravity, and the forces were balanced perfectly enough that the dirt dislodged from the rock face was held in suspension between them, waiting for the situation to resolve itself, equally pushed and pulled. And then, almost as soon as he put a name to what he was seeing, the equation unbalanced, in favor of the force Alex was generating, and the dust began to drift upward, back toward where it had fallen from. The complaints of the rock face itself grew louder and more urgent.
“Alex, stop this right now!”
Hoping to break the visual contact and disrupt his protocol, Michael turned Alex around forcefully, grabbing him by the shoulder. But the boy almost fell over when he put pressure on him, and the eyes that he turned on Michael were blank and unseeing, rolled so far back in his head that only the whites were visible. Michael lowered Alex carefully to the ground, then turned back to the slope, in time to see it draw in on itself, the rock fracturing like glass and then disintegrating into sand. It was drawn to an invisible core somewhere within the rock, draining down into itself, and then disappearing. All around the collapsing quarry wall, frost had taken hold, expanding out to cover half of the quarry with a furry white blanket. Michael realized with a certain inevitable horror that he could see his breath, despite the warmth of the day.
Michael grabbed the boy by his shoulders, shaking him violently, and shouting at him. Alex’s head rolled back and forth like a rag doll, but he didn’t seem to notice. Michael wasn’t even sure what it was he was shouting. Michael thought desperately, weighing his limited options. He was seriously considering knocking the boy unconscious, but he was afraid that might not stop the reaction, but rather make it even more out of control than it already was. The protocol had gone Black when Alex operated it, Michael was certain, though he didn’t understand how that had happened. Rebecca would never have deliberately implanted a Black Protocol, but some protocols, including Michael’s own, could turn black in the right (or wrong) Operator’s hands.
The dilemma was interrupted by the rock face. It didn’t explode, though he felt the ground shake beneath him and there was tremendous noise. Rather, the whole slope imploded with a whooshing sound, all of a sudden, folding impossibly in on itself and then disappearing, trails of dust falling towards nothing. All around the expanding cavity, the frozen rock bent and crackled, clearly planning on following suit. The air was so cold that it was painful to breathe, and Michael’s hands were red and numb.
Michael said a small, silent prayer, and hit Alex above his jaw on the right side, below his ear. For a moment, Michael was afraid that nothing had happened, and that he would die feeling weirdly guilty for having struck a student who was already lying on the ground. Then, distantly, through the partially-frozen clothing on his back, he felt the heat of the sun, and he collapsed gratefully by Alex’s side. He lay there in the afternoon sun, his head buzzing with frightening thoughts, while his body slowly warmed.
Tung Do shifted nervously in his Aeron chair.
It was the most expensive office chair available five years ago, and something of a status symbol at the time he bought it, even if it was second-hand. They didn’t tend to open up direct retail outlets for things like high-end office furniture in obscure Philippine port towns. But Tung had bought it solely for the mesh back, as it was supposed to reduce back sweat, a source of great embarrassment for him. Generally, Tung liked to blame his nameless American G.I. father and the godforsaken, roasting hot Philippine climate for his tendency to sweat like a pig.
Today, however, he blamed the spreading dampness that had glued his chino shirt to his back on the three people opposite his modern, blond-wood desk.
The Chinese guy hadn’t spoken and refused to take a seat, instead standing behind the two women, wearing what appeared to be a ‘clean-room’ style mask, goggles and gloves. Then there was the Japanese woman with livid red eyes, who didn’t talk much either, but stared at him constantly, with an unnerving intensity. But the woman in black, who did all the talking through an obscenely smug grin, she was the worst.
She’d been the only one to accept his offer of coffee – and despite the fact that it was Vietnamese-style iced coffee, sweetened with condensed milk, she’d insisted on adding several more spoonfuls of sugar to it. Just watching her drink the stuff made him slightly ill.
Tung had heard of Alice Gallow, which meant the other two must be Auditors. And what he had heard about Gallow, well, that was making him very nervous indeed.
“How is business, Mr. Do? It seems like you are doing alright for yourself,” Alice observed, gesturing at the plush office around her.
Tung attempted a modest smile. The Auditors must have activated a translation protocol; whenever Alice spoke, he heard perfect Vietnamese with a slight northern accent, exactly like his own.
“This has not been our best year, I’m afraid.” Tung wanted desperately to shift in his chair, to fidget and fiddle with his hands, and fought to suppress the urge while keeping a calm, unworried expression on his face. “Exports to North America are down, what with the bad financial climate, and it has had a negative impact on overall revenue.”
“Huh,” Alice said, sounding genuinely surprised. “I’d have figured people would be more interested in smack during a recession.”
“Nguyen Exports handles a broad range of products for an array of reputable clients,” Tung sputtered defensively. “I do not appreciate the implication that we would deal in anything untoward. Our firm has operated for decades and enjoys an excellent reputation, here and in Central.”
The woman nodded and crossed her legs. She was attractive, if a bit too pale; even Tung, who wasn’t the biggest fan of Caucasians, had to give her that, with her long legs and lithe figure. Or she would have been pretty, rather, if she hadn’t had that ludicrous smirk plastered on her face.