Boston, MA - Early 2037
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Amezyarak
Jacqueline Stein had thought that assassinating a president and fighting in a civil war would be the hardest things she’d ever do in life, but it turned out those were small potatoes compared to her doctoral thesis in Nodal Science. A field that had only existed for twelve years, four of which she was participating in the rigorous academic studies of, there were no old bodies of work to research extensively and write a dissertation on. To earn her degree she had to make a new discovery of her own that could place her among the ranks of eminent names in the field like her advisor, Dr. Antoine Beckett, or her former friend Dr. Elizabeth Schrieb. Not only this but she would have to surpass any of their work, as she and her extremely small graduating class would be the first three Nodal Science PhDs in the world.
She had earned her bachelor’s in quantum physics, and a supplemental associate’s degree in electrical engineering and another in computer science before applying to the first ever Nodal Science academic program, spearheaded by Dr. Arnold Drof of the National Nodal Array Administration, formerly of the USA’s Nodal Task Force, formerly of NASA. The program was using resources from a number of institutions around the United New States, but was based primarily in the Massachusetts National Public University of Technology, formerly MIT in the USA days. Basically the entire program’s coursework was hands-on professional collaboration with NNAA researchers as well as some international experts on nodal research. There was very little to teach Jacqueline and her peers that they hadn’t already learned on their own, aside from active projects and some undisclosed research and discoveries. After the first two years of the program, each student paired up with an established researcher to advise them on their thesis, which they would work on extensively for two full years. Jacqueline’s classmate Gertrude Vaughl was working with Dr. Drof himself, as his recent work was concerned with her area of interest, Anthropological Node science, and their other classmate Benjamin Eudarice was working with a Dr. Vanessa Wolff, who Jacqueline hadn’t heard of at all before the PhD program. Apparently their research was concerned with artistic and cultural applications of nodal science. Jacqueline herself and Dr. Beckett were focusing their efforts on the intersections of climate research, energy, and the nodes.
Early on, back in the NTF days, a handful of the node classes were established to have an aptitude for energy transfers, and though these were quickly weaponized in the second American Civil War, technologies were developed during the reconstruction period that allowed the energy grid to be converted to a nearly lossless node transfer based system. This had cut emissions measurably on a national level, but many other developing technologies used enough energy that conversion to a completely green power grid was stalling, and climate change certainly wasn’t. Jacqueline and Dr. Beckett had spent the better part of their two years of research trying to find a node class with a reliable aptitude for energy transfer that could have additive properties like Ramiel nodes have for visual transfers. They finally found one, the apparently rare Amezyarak class, only months before Jacqueline would have to present her thesis in order to earn her Doctorate.
Which brings Jacqueline back to the here and now, she had gotten lost in thought for a moment as she and Dr. Beckett were setting up their next phase of experimentation.
“Okay, Jacqueline, where do you want this new Amezyarak transferred to?” asked Dr. Beckett, looking up at her from behind an array of monitors and keyboards.
“We should probably be placing it in the auxiliary building, having both of them too close together probably won’t be great.”
“Probably this, probably that. You’re as much the expert here as me, you know. It’s your thesis, make the call,” he gave her a bit of a stern look, though his tone was more encouraging.
“Right, right,” Jacqueline furrowed her brow as she focused on her decision. “Yeah, transfer it to the auxiliary building, lab 6A should be open.”
Dr. Beckett gave a salute before looking back down at his screens. “You got it.”
Colleagues in France were doing their own research using Amezyarak nodes, but had recently located an additional one in someone’s old garden shed outside of Paris. As they wouldn’t be needing it for their own research, the Grenoble Institute had agreed to transfer the node to MNPUT. Jacqueline and Dr. Beckett had both been shocked at how willing the French were to share their node, but that was a testament to how much more open the world was in this new era of nodes and people-centered politics. In any case, actually transferring the node was much harder than agreeing to do it. The Grenoble Institute and MNPUT had to mutually seek permission from the EU to do an international, transatlantic Armaros transfer, as the Amezyarak in France was not arrayed with the French National Array and couldn’t be arrayed directly to the National Array in the UNSA.
Frankly, much of the politicking and back and forth of setting it all up had been beyond Jacqueline, but now with everything in order, the final, climactic instant of the transfer came down to a press of a button on her keyboard
"Okay, coordinates are all in order, and Grenoble has confirmed their Armaros nodes are primed. Initiate the transfer at will," Dr. Beckett's voice snapped her back out of her thoughts again.
Jacqueline was finally learning she had such a tendency to get lost in memories at momentous occasions such as this. As she extended her hand to press the Enter key in front of her, time seemed to slow. Would the result of this singular button press have the impact of that same moment in her parents' shed all those years ago? Or would all the work that brought her here prove fruitless, leaving her without a conclusion to her thesis? The only way to know was to do it and see what happened.
Jacqueline Stein pressed the button.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She watched the CCTV feed for lab 6A in the auxiliary building with the same baited breath as she had watched the president's live stream so long ago. Suddenly that moment felt so close, like she had assassinated the man only yesterday; she almost could have laughed at how much she felt eighteen again if she hadn't inexplicably been filled with a deep-seated sense of dread as she watched the Amezyarak node instantaneously appear on screen.
"And there it is," Dr. Beckett's grave tone seemed to match Jacqueline's own mood shift.
Just as gravely, she responded, "let's get to work."
And without hesitation, they did just that. They left the International Communications Systems Laboratory which they had been in for the last few hours finalizing the transfer and walked in palpable silence to the lab on the other side of the building where they had hitherto been working with their previously singular Amezyarak. Walking into the room, Jacqueline paused in the way she always seemed to, simply taking in the subtle shifting of the hovering oval's lavender light. She had always found it peaceful, like the heartbeat of a large pet dog one might lay one's head on for a nap, or like a memory of being in her mother's womb. Now it felt cold, and perhaps ominous: it's beat was more like the approaching steps of some unseen beast. She shook her head, took a deep breath, and composed herself. There was no time for emotional meditations on the nature of the nodes; there was great work to be done.
Jacqueline went to a metal cabinet in one corner of the lab and punched a code in on its little keypad to unlock it. She rummaged through the various pieces of equipment within until she found what she was looking for at the back of a low shelf. She pulled out two wireless earpieces and handed one to Dr. Beckett, putting the other in her own ear.
"Why don't you stay here and I'll head over to 6A and get things in order on the transfer pedestal over there. In the meantime you can disarray ol' Amez here and prepare to single-array,” wouldn't want to risk surging the entire MNPUT internal array if the transfer process worked even better than expected, she thought.
"Sounds good, boss. I'll check which single-array sequences are available and let you know which one to synch to when you get down there."
Jacqueline nodded and with a slight wave, left the lab. She made her way across the sizable Node Transfer Laboratories building, down a flight of steps to the shortcut basement hallway to the Auxiliary Node Laboratories building, through the half-lit and perpetually freshly mopped basement, and back up a flight of stairs to the ground floor. As she was making her way down the hall toward laboratory complex six, Dr. Beckett came over the radio.
“We’ll use sequence Delta Theta Delta for the single-array, we were the last ones to reserve it back in November, so it should be clear.”
“Got it. I’m walking into the lab now,” Jacqueline replied as she unlocked the door to 6A with her keyfob.
As she stepped into the lab, she was caught up for a moment again in wonder at this new Amezyarak node. Nodes of the same class are almost identical visually, but having been looking at the same one every day for over a year, Jacqueline found it very easy to identify differences in the new one. The new Amezyarak’s shade of purple was a little pinker, and on the whole it was just a little larger than the one Jacqueline was well-familiar with. After sufficiently absorbing the presence of her new subject, she went to the transfer pedestal controls and booted up the operator. Once the system was on she entered the sequence, Delta Theta Delta, and radioed to Dr. Beckett.
“Sequence ready.”
“Prime for array,” he returned.
“Primed. Begin arrayment.”
Jacqueline hit the activation key on the control panel in front of her, and as Dr. Beckett did the same back in the main lab, a computer system synchronized both transfer pedestals and in simultaneity fired a photon sequence at both Amezyarak nodes, arraying them together. Blinking the afterimage of the photon flashes out of her field of view, Jacqueline moved from the controls to begin preparing other equipment.
“Arrayment complete, things look good on my end,” Beckett radioed.
Jacqueline paused her feverous assembly efforts to radio back, “Yeah, all good here too. You can take five if you want while I get the lamps set up, just stay close please.”
“Roger roger.”
Jacqueline returned to her task. She was setting up some extremely high wattage lamps to all be focused toward the Amezyarak node. The hypothesis she eagerly wanted to test was fairly simple: most energy transfers are conducted by supplying electrical current to the input node and using a system of copper and nickel plates to receive the power from the output node, but what if instead of transferring electrical power, a more raw form of energy was transferred instead and then converted into electricity at the output point. She would be casting a considerable amount of light into the Amezyarak node, and then back in the main lab, a device similar to a solar panel that she and Dr. Beckett had constructed in the prior weeks would receive the (hopefully) multiplied light and convert it to electrical energy.
By now Jacqueline had finished orienting all her lamps and had them plugged in to a synchronous circuit with generous surge protection. As she moved back over to the control panel, she radioed to Beckett.
“Okay, I’m all set here. You have the batteries hooked up and the backup grounding lines in place?”
“Yes, everything is set on my end, ready when you are.”
“Alright then, prepare to initiate exponential light energy transfer attempt number one.”
Jacqueline pressed a button on the control panel to prime the node for transfer, and then paused to fumble for something in her lab coat pocket with one hand, radioing Beckett with the other.
“You might want to put on some sunglasses.” She found her own, actually welding goggles, and put them on, then flipped the switch on the lamp circuit. “Transfer initiated.”
The lights came on and rapidly increased in brightness until they burned at full power. It was bearable to look at through the welding goggles, but Jacqueline knew it would be like looking in the sun without them. After a second, she flipped the switch back off.
“Transfer concluded.”
Between her two calls there had been a tiny spot of static, but otherwise radio silence from Beckett for several long and deeply concerning seconds. Then finally, with significant background interference,
“It worked, Jacqueline.”
Jacqueline cheered aloud, and was going to radio back, but Dr. Beckett continued:
“The batteries overloaded instantly and the lab’s on fire.”
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