TimeRipper Page 4

  ‘I’m just glad that I’m not this onion,’ she scoffed from behind her mask, holding out the unpeeled stem before her.

  He raised his eyebrows, enjoying the brief levity of the situation. ‘Me too,’ he replied. ‘You best put it down or it’ll have me crying,’ he quipped. Inside he cringed at his stupid joke.

  The onion was the case in point. No one had consciously intended to attempt time travel with an onion, but a magnetically tagged onion had turned up in the lab two mornings ago. It was presumed that it had been sent back, by themselves, a few days in the future. So, in order not to unbalance that future, or the past, they decided to continue their experiment with a large Spanish onion.

  As he injected the purple gas into the collider, Carrie made the calculations at her console to differentiate between time travel and teleportation. They both watched as the gas leaked into the Collider like oil into water. Its tendrils reaching out as if searching for something to engulf. Eventually, they found the onion and wrapped themselves around it, swallowing it within the billowing, purple mass. There was a bright white light, and the onion was gone.

  It was always a marvellous thing to witness.

  Normal protocol stated that during a Higgs Storm event, all personnel were to evacuate the vicinity immediately.

  As the onion disappeared, it was replaced by the by-product, the Higgs Storm. Alarms sounded, and the doors to the laboratory unlocked, allowing everyone inside to leave. The alarms continued blaring around the room as the destructive Higgs Storm began to manifest itself from where the onion had been. There were eight students working on the four Colliders; all of them stopped what they were doing and exited the lab in a hurried, but organised, manner. Several anxious eyes watched the growing, turbulent storm when a whoosh drowned out the alarm as the primary containment field deployed. The storm floated around the lab, contained within the shimmering, yellow, sphere.

  One of the women working on the team, the last one in line to exit, realised at the last minute that she had left her personal pad over on the table next to her station. She turned back and ran across the room to retrieve it. As she did, she tripped over a chair that had been left half sticking out from underneath a table. By the time anyone noticed she was not out of the room, it was too late, the timer on the doors had activated.

  She was locked inside.

  Carrie was the first to notice. She tore the mask from her face and grabbed at the door handle. ‘Gloria’s still in there, Gloria…’ She was shouting as she pulled on the handle. It was a futile gesture as the magnetic lock was protected by another of Youssef’s fields, a third failsafe in case of containment degradation. ‘We have to get her out of there,’ Carrie screamed, all the colour had drained from her face, making her lips look almost blue.

  ‘Relax,’ Youssef said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Carrie dropped her shoulder, attempting to shrug him off in her desperation to open the door. ‘All she has to do is sit tight for an hour. There’re double redundancies in place against the storm. She’s as safe in there as we are out here.’

  Ignoring him, she looked back through the window.

  Gloria was inside, her back was to the door, looking out at them through the glass walls.

  Youssef watched her. He didn’t think he had ever seen anyone look so terrified in his entire life. He activated his communication device, linking it with hers. ‘Gloria, listen to me.’ He paused as the fear in her face piqued. He knew he needed to continue but was worried that the rest of what he had to say would cause her to panic and become irrational. ‘Listen to me. There’s nothing we can do right now. The doors are magnetically sealed. They will automatically reopen once the Higgs Storm has dissipated, and the magnetic field has uncoupled. One hour at most. Please, stay calm, breathe, and wait for the thirty-minute alarm.’ He looked at his wrist device, and then back to her. ‘It’s already been three minutes, only twenty-seven left.’ He smiled through his lame joke and was relieved when she smiled back, relaxing her grip on the door handle.

  He sensed that the smile relaxed Carrie too, but she still had her hands up to the glass, showing Gloria support. Gloria mimicked the gesture, putting her hands to the glass too.

  Everyone in the anteroom, except for Carrie, began to remove their protective clothing, knowing that when the storm had passed there would be no need for protection from the radiation.

  The minutes passed slower than an electron at drift velocity in a copper wire!

  Then something terrible and unprecedented happened.

  A second alarm began to blare through the complex. This was the only time, ever, that this alarm had sounded. It signalled that the primary containment field was failing. Everyone in the room switched their gazes from Gloria towards the purple bubble. Unbelievably, to everyone, but especially Youssef, it was deflating. The billowing, purple storm was seeping from the bubble. It was leaking in-between the areas of the magnetic field that were beginning to decay. A light flashed on a control board, and he sprinted over to the station where it was located. The secondary containment field was attempting to deploy, but due to the spread of the leakage, it couldn’t lock onto one location. For this reason, it too was failing.

  Gloria had been in the room for twelve minutes. She needed to stay away from the storm for another eighteen minutes, at least. Youssef, and everyone else, knew that was a big ask.

  Gloria knew it to, as she began to panic.

  Her screaming, piping in through the speakers, filled the room as she clawed at her mask and began to attack the small box on her hip. She was trying to turn off the magnetic shield around her body.

  ‘Gloria, what are you doing?’ Carrie shouted, her breath against the glass causing a fog. Her voice had risen more than a couple of octaves. ‘Gloria, listen to me, put your mask back on and re—’

  She never finished her sentence.

  Gloria began to scream at the top of her lungs. For some reason, instead of staying as far away from the gas as she could, she ran towards it at full speed. As she did, she must have realised what she was doing, and where she was going, and attempted to change direction. By then it was too late. She tried to stop but her momentum carried her on, into the cloud. She tried to dodge it, but it was no use. As she bent to escape the purple mass, her face skimmed the edge of it.

  Unfortunately for everyone behind the glass, and for Gloria, the rest of her body completed the turn, and she ended up facing the window.

  The result was hideous.

  As a reflex action, everyone stepped backwards, and a collective gasp filled the room. Nobody had the foresight to turn off the speakers, so the blood-curdling screams continued to squeal through them, filling the shocked silence of the anteroom. The scientists who hadn’t been mesmerised by Gloria’s half face held their hands to their ears, attempting to block out the noise. The others were rewarded with the worst thing they would ever see in their lives.

  The cut across the woman’s face was smooth; but bloody. Thick, pink liquid dripped from where her temple and right eye had been. The grey-white matter of her lacerated brain had mixed with her blood, her melted skin, and her liquified bone.

  The cloud had, in simple terms, erased half of her head.

  Staggering like a drunken sailor in a children’s song, she lurched towards the wall of glass. Her nervous system had not had time to realise that half of its messaging system had ceased to exist, and she must have seen the glass as a means to escape the lab, and the horrors within it. She hit the glass at full speed. The contents of her exposed head lurched forwards, with force, leaving an ugly, smeared, pink smudge across the once clear surface.

  Everyone had no option other than to gawp as her body ceased functioning. She looked like she was deflating. Blood was flowing freely from her nose and mouth; the dark red mixing with the viscous, ugly pink, as her body shrunk.

  Carrie was the only one left at the window, and she still had her hand up, offering it to her friend. But, by the look on her face, Youssef guessed th
at she was repulsed too by what was happening and must have known Gloria was already dead. His heart went out to the brave woman. She had decided that showing her stricken friend she was with her right until the very end was the best course of action.

  He hadn’t been anywhere near as brave as Carrie. He’d had to turn away, mostly to stop himself from vomiting, but part of him knew it was also to stop himself from seeing anything more. He didn’t want to remember anything more, he needed to prevent this… what? This hideousness, from reoccurring in his dreams. He swallowed the saliva that had built up in his mouth, a precursor to vomit, and braved a glance over towards Carrie. There was a distant, vacant, look on her face. It was as if she were watching what was happening on a view screen rather than in real life. The only telling sign it was real in her world was the slow shaking of her head and the slight tremor in her hand, the one still on the window.

  Gloria’s body took at least another minute to realise it was dead. Once his nausea passed, Youssef marvelled how someone, with only half a brain, could last so long.

  Gloria Hartigan died at the exact same time as the Higgs Storm began to dissipate.

  He pondered on how much one onion could shape a person’s fate.

  ~~~~

  From that day, Carrie Millwood changed. She became different, mostly in relation to her work, but her personal habits and sense of humour changed too. Prior to the accident, she had always been open and social, always the first to volunteer for a night out; but after those events, a different Carrie emerged. Theis one was serious, brooding, studious, singular, these were just some of the words her peers began using to describe her. She became blinkered in her experiments, preoccupied with the Higgs Storm almost to the point of obsession. She spent every free moment studying anything she could find regarding the phenomenon. How it was created, better ways to contain it, what happened in its aftermath. She had a strange theory that it could be harvested, its life prolonged. She asked to be removed from the initial time-travel and teleportation project to be allowed to head up a team solely set-up to study the Storm.

  This request was denied.

  Her attitude changed again.

  She began coming in later each day, she stopped wearing the authorised uniform, and her reports of the experiments she was tasked with became shoddy and brief. All she would talk about was the Higgs Storm, and every time she did, it was in reverence.

  She related to it as if she was a high priestess to its deity.

  She also began to influence other members of the team. They would hold secretive meetings during lunch breaks and spend time with each other during the weekends. Carrie had attempted to coerce Youssef into her passion, but he had not wanted anything to do with it, thinking it was folly, especially when there was so much else to be learned from the particles themselves, not the by-products.

  One thing he had to concede was that the unauthorised research the team conducted was fantastic. Every day and every night, they were gathering more information regarding the phenomenon. He managed a brief look at a document they had produced relating to how the Storm could be utilised, used as a Genesis particle to reset land back to a baser form; basically, starting again.

  It was chilling reading, but he was secure enough in the fact that it was only theoretical.

  Finally, and almost inevitably, the day came when Carrie walked into the laboratory headquarters and handed her notice in to the lead scientists. She walked out the very same day. Another five members of the team, all of them women, did the same.

  Youssef heard on the gossip train that they had managed to secure funding from somewhere to set up their very own lab where they could spend their days worshipping the Higgs Storm.

  Once again, on the gossip train, he heard that they had created their very own ‘pseudo-religion’ and were now calling themselves The Quest.

  ~~~~

  For a few years, that was all anyone ever heard of them, except for the odd scientific papers they produced regarding their findings.

  Then, almost from out of nowhere, The Quest became big news. They emerged as the only group ever to challenge the Earth Alliance on a serious level. Over the course of a few years, they had grown from the initial six women who walked out of the Earth Alliance to a count of almost six million in their ranks.

  They began to publicly challenge almost every viewpoint that the Earth Alliance held. Freedom of religion: they wanted religion banned and for science to be revered. They wanted freedom of rule, they wanted one central government, i.e. them, to control all the governments of all the countries on Earth. They thought they had the ‘new way,’ and they wanted to enforce it on everyone.

  Carrie Millwood and her cohorts became the darlings of the news. There were always bulletins regarding them doing this or attending that, but they never once gave personal interviews.

  They saw themselves as a democratic unit, there was no one ruler.

  In reality, everyone knew that it was Carrie who was in charge, everyone else was in her thrall.

  They built a lot of credibility with their initial mandate, but as their demands began to become more erratic, the public started to see them as a joke.

  That was when the violence started.

  There were a few attacks at EA facilities around the globe. No deaths were ever reported, just chaos and mayhem. They were seen as coincidental accidents at first; before they began to turn nasty. Specific EA facilities were their targets, and during this campaign, there were deaths, many deaths. Next were the science and research facilities, and once again, death followed them.

  The Quest became a constant, and legitimate, thorn in the side of the EA.

  They had also become a public nuisance.

  All public events were now heavily guarded, and security doubled, tripled in some cases, and once or twice, even quadrupled. Intercontinental transport security was reinforced too. Instead of influencing the public and winning hearts, they were beginning to irritate. A few times they threatened a ‘major’ incident, but nothing ever materialised.

  Then, with no warning, they disappeared. Nothing was heard of them, and it had been assumed they had given up their ‘Quest.’

  That was until now…

  5.

  Orbital Platform One: 2288

  YOUSSEF WAS STANDING before the gathered crowd and the display units. The room was silent. Everyone present, including the other Orbital Platforms and London, had absorbed every word of the tale he had just relayed.

  ‘The last I heard of Carrie; she was continuing her research into the Higgs Storm.’ He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts, before looking up into the eyes of everyone, looking back at him. ‘I want to show you some footage of the phenomenon caught in the primary containment field.’

  The holographic device blinked again. It displayed an image of a Hadron Collider laboratory. The image zoomed in on an object that was sat on a plinth in the middle of what looked like a miniature racetrack.

  ‘What we’re seeing here is a typically small object that we are about to send back in time.’ There was a mumbling from the audience as they digested the information he had just divulged. He ignored their initial shock; he’d deal with questions later; this information was more important. 'First, the object, in this case an apple, is magnetically tagged.’

  The scene changed to show a syringe being inserted into the skin of the apple, the pinprick glowed purple for a moment.

  ‘Then the collider is started. It takes roughly five minutes for it to get up to speed. For the interests of brevity, I’ve moved it forward a little.’

  Another syringe is seen inserting what looked like nothing into a tube.

  ‘This is the hydrogen being added into the mix.’ Another solution is added, this one is purple. ‘Next, the serum is prepared. This is genetically altered hydrogen… it was actually found by accident. Now watch this…’

  The visual panned back out to show the apple sitting on the plinth suspended above the Collider. The long turr
ets of the track began to glow. ‘The glowing is normal, we’re speeding the hydrogen around the track to almost the speed of light,’ Youssef explained. ‘Then the apple is lowered onto the track.’ He could feel the anticipation in the room, almost as if it were a physical thing.

  Nothing happened.

  The track continued to glow.

  ‘We then add the modified hydrogen particles into the mix.’

  Suddenly, the apple disappeared in a bright flash. In its place was a large purple cloud, expanding into a bubble. Inside the bubble, a violent magnetic storm was raging.

  The silence in the auditorium was complete.

  Youssef’s voice broke it after a few, long seconds. ‘This storm, ladies and gentlemen, is currently the most destructive force known to man. It eradicates all life; it leaves behind it total and utter devastation.’

  An excited mumble rippled through the audience.

  ‘Unfortunately, I believe that this is what has happened on the planet below us. At present, I don’t have any evidence that The Quest are behind these attacks, but all indications are steering me towards that conclusion.’ He stepped away from the microphone for a moment, mopped his brow, and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ he asked eventually.

  The room was silent for a long time, before one person from the back spoke in hushed tones. ‘Excuse me, Youssef, but… is this the end now? I mean of life on Earth. Has the whole planet been attacked?’

  He swallowed and exhaled a long sigh. ‘The short answer is we don’t know. We do know that London is still functioning, and from some sketchy reports, it looks like most of the British mainland has been untouched. As for anywhere else, at this moment in time, we can only hope.’

  ‘What about the future?’ someone else asked.

  ‘Well, our early research, and some of the research we managed to glean from The Quest, suggested that the storm doesn’t completely kill the nutrients in the ground. It looks like it, kind of…’ Youssef paused, searching for the correct analogy. ‘…resets it,’ he finished. ‘Almost like a reboot. We think, hope, and believe that life can, and will, eventually resume in the affected areas.’