The bank of monitors spitting out live feed data reflected in Jacquelyn's glasses. Her puffy eyes struggled to stay open. With a yawn and a blind grasp she lifted her tea. The last cold, gritty, bitter dregs filled her mouth. She shuddered in disgust after she swallowed it down, but found few things better for keeping her awake.
And awake she needed to be. She couldn’t afford to lose this internship, no matter how boring the work turned out. It paid above minimum wage, was quiet, had little human interaction, lead to opportunities to actually do research, and the work was a cinch. It consisted of only three steps: look at the monitors, write down any findings, and report any anomalies. In practice, she only needed two steps in her entire time at the position.
The feed showed the same thing it did every night. One thousand four hundred eighty nine remote probes spread throughout the greater London area. All transmitting real-time data, displayed in sparkline form, like a grid of heart rate monitors. If the heart rate monitors were flatlined, that is. Each probe’s value varied less than a fraction of a percent. And that was only due to the so-called egressions. Those nodes, of which scientists had discovered thousands over the last years, acted as wells of the Asvesta-Bartosik Field, named after the two discovering CERN scientists.
How much did the data visibly change minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour? Nada. Zilch. Squat. The levels literally looked flat unless if you used a time span in the months range. Doing so would give the insight of the values always increasing. Slowly, constantly, up.
To a layman, that might not seem like such a terrible realization. Plenty of things are constantly going up: the prices of goods due to inflation, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the number of cat pictures on the Internet. But to a physicist? That’s like the gravitational constant constantly increasing every day. Or, in even plainer terms, like gravity was increasing without mass or distance changing. Because that’s what the AB Field was, a new fundamental property of the increasingly complex universe. And it was growing stronger without discernible source or consequence. It took one look at thermodynamics and laughed. Something from nothing? It didn’t mind that at all.
Sure, some theorized that the extra energy was coming in from elsewhere through a method people just lacked the ability to detect. Some kind of leak in the membrane of the universe allowing exotic non-matter to diffuse in. That way perpetual free energy didn’t actually exist. The universe would make a modicum of sense again. Jaq hoped that was the case.
Pushing the existential threats aside, Jaq’s mind wandered back to her job. She wasn’t entirely convinced her position couldn’t be easily automated. She had asked a programmer friend, Jamie, at uni because surely a computer could look for outliers. Jaime went into a long spiel about unknown unknowns and process control. Jaq wanted to ask a question for clarification, but ended up just asking ‘so, is that a no’. Jamie wasn’t particularly happy about her jibe, but that was her fault for introducing so much jargon.
That was certainly one of Jaq’s pet peeves: jargon. Jargon ruined so much of education for her. From an objective standpoint it made sense. Language became specialized as the depth of knowledge increased. Jargon allowed efficient communication between parties versed in it. But from a practical sense it acted as a gatekeeper, excluding those not ‘in the know’ from participating. The sheer snobbishness people could exude when asked to speak plainly really ticked her off. Jamie didn’t come off as snobbish, though. She just didn’t even seem to realize she had slipped into using jargon at all, just completely oblivious to all the specialized computing terminology she spouted.
In truth, it wasn’t just the jargon. Even in current year the chances of being denigrated for lack of knowledge seemed at least doubly likely as a woman in science. Women were just expected to know more than their male counterparts. Any slight misstep, lack of insight, or missing knowledge was instantly pointed out as proof they didn’t belong in the “boy’s club” of STEM.
Jaq vehemently rejected this injustice. She ignored the sneers when she asked questions in class. She gained immunity to eyerolls. She reveled in the exasperated sighs. Such pettiness wouldn’t stop her from learning. And what she really wanted to know more about was the AB Field.
The scientific community was, and continues to be, focused on studying the AB Field that appeared out of seemingly nowhere seven years ago. Well, nowhere if you believed the current scientific consensus of bafflement mixed with unsubstantiated theories. The Internet had its fair share of nut jobs proposing their own more, let’s say, flavorful interpretations. The thousands that had vanished on that fateful day? Obviously, they were a sacrifice to the Eldritch Lords in exchange for a climate change solution. The Doomsday criers got one more piece of ammunition towards their “we’re all done for, time to prep” nonsense. Conspiracy theorists latched onto alien technology. Jaq had her own personal hunches, but nothing to back them up.
Mug-in-hand, Jaq rose out of the squeaky office swivel chair. Her lower back complained of her perpetually poor posture. It wasn’t her fault it felt natural to sit with her feet on the chair, hunched over like some kind of goblin. With a groaning stretch she gave the bank of monitors one last once-over.
Technically, leadership discouraged the data from ever not being monitored, but seeing as she was the only one on this shift and preventing her from going on breaks would be illegal they couldn’t exactly stop her. They wanted it monitored 24/7? They could hire more people.
Goodness knows grant money materialized in huge piles when it came to the AB Field. After all, if there’s just free energy everywhere, then why not use it to power something. Most wanted to replace the need for batteries. Americans wanted to shoot it from their guns, of course.
The amount present paled in comparison to the typical solar radiation. But if it kept going up at the current pace? And the new field proved to be able to actually perform work? With materials that weren’t too exotic? Then say goodbye to needing the electric grid anymore. Space itself would be teeming with enough energy to power most small tech. Not enough for something huge like a car, but an AB bike? That could be the future.
Energized with a fresh hope for a future that she sought to help craft into reality, Jaq turned to the cold, uncaring lens of the security camera recording the lab. She gave it a cheeky smile before going to the door. A high-pitched whine accompanied the door to the lab opening. Only after shutting it did the shrill trill abruptly stop. Only authorized people could get into the lab. The noise acted as a deterrent to leaving the door open for convenience’s sake. Simple, annoying, but effective.
The hall outside of the lab was empty, a typical sight. Not many went into this wing and floor of the university on a weekend. The linoleum flooring reflected the harsh florescent bulbs above. Upon the off-white plaster walls hung dozen upon dozens of news article headlines containing discoveries made by alumni working at this very university. Jaq wondered if one day she, too, would join them.
A normal metal key unlocked the door into the faculty break room. She put down her mug, filled the empty kettle, and started it. While she waited for it to come to a boil she took her phone out of the storage nook. Phones weren’t allowed within the lab. Something about potential contamination and dangerous distraction. No notifications greeted her, but that wasn’t surprising. Jaq wasn’t exactly the most popular of people. Between work and school she didn’t make much time to socialize. And most people had lazy Saturdays anyways.
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The magnetic lock buzzed when Jaq put her keycard on the scanner. Once again the security system’s whine made her hurry to get through the threshold. She closed the door, expecting the gentle whir of computer fans to greet her. Instead, the landline phone mounted on her desk rang. Jaq nearly dropped her tea. Any semblance of sleepiness evaporated in an instant from a jolt of adrenaline.
Oh, fuck. She remembered the landline was something special. They told her about it during job orientation, but it had never come up again. She had forgotten its actual purpose. The phone had always been completely silent, just an antiquated dust-collecting decoration upon her assigned desk. Up until this point she didn’t even know if it was plugged in properly.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
She sat and stared at the constantly ringing phone, warring with her nature not to pick up calls from unknown numbers. That might work for her personal cell, but work was different, right? For all she knew she had already been fired for not picking up immediately. Jaq took a deep breath and held the receiver to her ear.
“AB Field Lab, who’s calling?”
“London lab?” a masculine voice on the line asked. A furious amount of keystrokes from a mechanical keyboard came through as background noise.
“Yes?” Jaq hedged.
“We need ground probe confirmation on satellite readings.”
“Who’s asking?”
“Ken McKayle, MI5 agent.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” the words came out of Jaq’s mouth before she even thought. Her anxiety ratcheted up a bit higher. They can’t arrest me for that, right?
“No, miss.”
Is this actually legitimate? Jaq scanned the bank of monitors but nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first glance. “Could you be more specific?”
“Is it not obvious? We got a brief pulse reading off the charts. North west London suburb about seven minutes ago.”
Jaq fiddled with the timescale parameter applying to all the graphs. History replaced the real-time stream. The abrupt flash of a redraw brought her attention to the probe that changed. A previously gray box once again contained a sparkline. The sight made Jaq’s skin frission with goosebumps. Anomaly. But what the hell do I say?
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give information out without my boss’s permission.” Jaq’s heartbeat sped up. Why did I say that?
“Miss, this is important for national security.”
She hoped the consequences of her current actions wouldn’t land her in hot water. Her mind raced, trying to keep up with the proper half-truths. “And me following my workplace rules is important for me to keep my job. It’s not like I can confirm your identity.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes.”
A weary sigh came through the receiver. “What’s the number of your superior?”
“I have no idea. Should be on the university website though. Doctor Thalm. That’s T-H-A-L-M.”
“Right. I’ll be in touch soon, miss…”
By his tone Jaq knew he was fishing for her name. Nope. “Bye.”
Temptation to use his name before hanging up just to rub it in lured Jaq. But she felt she could spend her capital of luck on something else. She clacked the receiver down.
“Fuck me. Why did I do that?” Jaq said to herself. With a jolt she remembered where she was, giving a not-very-subtle backwards glance to the camera currently trained on her. Maybe talking to myself isn’t a good idea.
But Jaq already knew the answer to her rhetorical question. She stared at the data in front of her. A probe had stopped transmitting, but before it burnt out it detected a spike of at least a hundred times background level. There could be a perfectly mundane explanation for that, like a software glitch or an electric short. But two more still-operational probes jumped to fifty times for a small moment but abruptly reduced back to near normal.
She selected the three anomalies, then switched to geographic mode. The view went from a grid of sparklines to a map of greater London. It looked like a weather map, green highlighting and all, except instead of rain levels it displayed AB Field readings.
Eleven stars marked the known egress points around London. The egress points were actually the main argument towards a more insidious nature to the AB Field. They weren’t randomly distributed like expected from a natural phenomena. No, they clustered, mirroring the human population distribution. Some argued that high electromagnetic fields in dense cities may have attracted the egress points somehow. But simply noting the lack of points bunched around power plants and substations debunked that notion.
Three small circles had joined the stars, indicating the probes Jaq chose. One overlapped an egression. The two others were nearby, all of them together lying on nearly the same line. The probes as a whole didn’t have a uniform distribution either. That simply wasn’t possible with the sheer amount of private land. When feasible, egress points were prioritized for probing. Coincidentally this particular egress point lay in an undeveloped section of forest near the suburbs. So not only did a probe sit relatively nearby, but many other probes also scattered the area. It was one of the highest fidelity areas on the map.
An animation looped over her time range. A sea of dark green coated the London landscape. A sudden splotch of dark red marred the scene. Moments later, one after the other, a goopy olive green midtone flickered through the remaining highlighted points. Jaq tightened the time range and zoomed in on the affected area.
Chills went down her back. The video showed it clearly. A powerful spike in the field that traveled in a line. It didn’t slowly dissipate and diffuse in the area. No, it was concentrated and targeted, unlike every other observation she knew about. Higher levels than she had ever heard.
There’s no telling what a reading that high would do to a person. There’s nothing like a hazmat suit for the AB Field. It mostly ignores any barriers and permeates everything. Even solid lead barely slows its propagation. Would it rip my cells apart? Would the pain be worse than radiation poisoning?
Jaq’s harrowing thoughts danced around the scariest one of them all. The one that made her tempted to sprint out of the lab immediately. She wanted to pioneer a breakthrough on the AB Field, but not like this. Why does the line point directly to my parent’s house?