NEW SCI-FI THRILLER NOVEL "SEAGORA" - SLICE 14

 

Setarcos sat slouched in the highback office chair in his room.  His head was tilted, resting on a fist, hair tousled, eyes staring at a holo-projection.  Masher floated nearby, in the shape of an old model airplane.  “You’ve been staring at that for over an hour.”

“Yeah, so.”

“So, well, I dunno.  Say something.”

Setarcos sighed deeply.  He had been so confident that he could crack the solution to the dark matter riddle with relative ease.  Youthful overconfidence and over-exuberance had set him up for frustration as time went on without a victory.     “All those different substances that we’ve tried.  All those different environmental factors.  All those combinations, and still, nothing,” he moped.    

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.  The entire scientific community, bio and synth, has been baffled by it for decades.”

“Yeah, but I should have had it by now.”

“Well, aren’t you just the poster-child for modesty?” the machine said mockingly.  “Why don’t we play a game and give your brain a rest? Or play some VR sports? That would be good for your heart.  Do something!”

Setarcos lifted his head and straightened up.  “Heart.  You said heart.”

“I’m thrilled that your hearing works so well.”

“Put up the human biological components we’ve tested, please.”

A new list of block letters beamed from the holo-projector.  Setarcos rubbed his eyes and squinted wearily as he mentally ticked off all the tests they’d already run with human particles.  It ran the gamut.  Neurons, alpha waves, cells, enzymes, and everything in between.  All had been fired into the dark matter/energy alliance and caused the same calamity in the simulations.    

“Masher, the guy that discovered the existence of heart chakra energy particles.”

“Doctor Nova.”

“Yeah, him.” He started twisting and turning rhythmically in the smooth, black chair.  “Did he ever prove that Anahata was a particle? Or just that it existed?”

“Heart chakra energy exists as a particle.”

“It was proven?”

“Conclusively.”

“Just a particle?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he prove that it was only a particle?”

“Well…..I don’t know.  He proved that it was a particle that exists.”

“Were any experiments done to see if it exists as anything else?”

“None that I am aware of.”

“Why not?”

Masher couldn’t believe the audacity of this human boy sometimes. “Oh, now you’re asking me to answer an impossibility.  Why hasn’t the human race not thought of something or not done something? As if I can ever...”

“Stop, please.  You’re rambling.”

“I was merely making a point that...”

“So what if it’s a wave, too?”

“Oh, somebody would have thought of that by now.”

“Anahata was only proven to exist twenty years ago!” 

“Setarcos, what are you getting at?”

“We’re gonna run Anahata through dark matter/energy.”

“We already did that.”

“You never let me finish!”

“Sorry.”

“Masher, change the parameters to treat Anahata as a wave and a particle.”
 

A few moments later, after setting the new conditions of the experiment, Masher asked worriedly, “Why are you not breathing?” 

It couldn’t understand why humans managed to so consistently forget to do this crucial, life-sustaining motion at times of great excitement or stress.    

“Cuz I’m nervous! What do ya expect?”

“What’s there to be nervous about? It’s not like if the experiment fails, we’re going to annihilate anything.”

“You just don’t get it.” Setarcos placed his VR gear on and punched up some holo-controls.  Masher, now in the shape of Nikola Tesla, double checked all the parameters and gave the green light.    

With a quivering lip and a heart full of hope, Setarcos gave the final command.  All of the multi-trillions of simultaneous actions between Setarcos and the local machines in his makeshift lab, at that moment, produced one result.   

One paradigm-shifting result.  Setarcos stared at the green block letters which read:

OPERATION COMPLETE.  PARTICLES STABLE.

Masher’s Tesla-face had mouth agape and did a double take.  Then, noticing the lack of reaction and lack of breathing from his companion, exclaimed jovially, “Setarcos! You did it! We did it! Are you ok? Now is not the time to stop breathing!”

Setarcos gulped some air, threw off his headgear, and romped around with unfettered joy.  The joy of discovery.  The joy of victory.  The joy of youth.    

He stopped cold and focused on Masher, “Did you back it up?!”

“Just on a couple of local systems here, but not on The Mesh yet.  I’m not sure what security protocols to follow.  This is unprecedented.  You know, I always knew that one day...”

Setarcos cut his companion off, “Masher, you’re rambling.  You’re rambling.”

Caro noticed the commotion and poked her head in.  Her normally reserved son wasn’t prone to wild outbursts like this.  “What’s all the excitement about?”

Setarcos ran and hugged his mom as if it were the first and the last.  “I did it!”

Masher interrupted, “Uh-hum! I believe ‘we’ is the correct pronoun you’re looking for.”

“The experiment worked! I solved the dark matter riddle! It works! It works!”

Caro turned ghost-white with too many conflicting emotions.  She was a whirlwind of positive feelings, but these were slammed against the dark resistance posed by fear.  Fear of the government finding out.  She knew everything was being broadcast by her DNA, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.   

Still, she did her best to use the positive to overpower the negative, and show her only son how much she was overjoyed and how much she loved him.  She hugged him tight and tears flowed like rivers.

Setarcos freed himself a bit from the bear hug, “We gotta tell Cidel!”

Caro assured him that she’d tell him immediately, but Setarcos had now become a perpetual energy machine, and nothing could stop him from giving the big news himself.  He leaped up the stairs and found Cidel sitting back, reading a holo-novel.    

Cidel glanced down and raised an eyebrow at the boisterous spectacle coming at him.  Setarcos yelled, “I did it! The experiment worked! We’re going to the stars!”

Cidel’s normally stoic demeanor took a 180 and he beamed, “I’m literally speechless! I’m so proud of you!” He gave the boy a hug and tousled his thick hair.  “What should we do to celebrate?”

“Celebrate! We’ve gotta get started on making the real thing happen! There’s so much to do!”

Cidel sighed.  Couldn’t the boy just be a boy? He looked at Caro, “Are you sure he’s fifteen?” The youthful scientist scurried his spindly legs back towards his little floating lab, then turned to his motionless machine companion.  “Are you coming or what?”

“Well, I thought we might take a moment to celebrate.”

“Wait! I forgot! We gotta tell Cactus! And Symphy!”   

“You mean you have to tell Cactus and Symphy.  I’d love to join you, but, well, you know how Cactus is.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Mister Cactus isn’t exactly, well, how can I put this tactfully? He’s not the warmest cup of tea, you know?”   

Setarcos walked on air through the tubular walkways and vigorously jumped into zip pods.  Upon arrival at Cactus’s heavily tinted bubble-abode, Symphy answered.  She had melancholy mixed with uncertainty painted on her face.  In his heights of glee, the boy didn’t notice.  “Symphy, you’re not gonna believe this!”

“Setarcos, I apologize, but Cactus doesn’t wish to see anybody right now.”

Hacking and wheezing could be heard in the background.  A partially deflated Setarcos said, “Is he ok? What’s wrong with Cactus?” 

“He is not well, I’m afraid.”

“Well, maybe I could cheer him up.”

“Go away!” a gruff Cactus shrieked.  His pain echoed and hit Setarcos like a brick. Setarcos sobbed.  “Ok, well….Symphy, could you tell him the news for me? It might cheer him up.”

“Very well, Setarcos.  What is it?”

“My experiment worked! The particles remained stable!”

Symphy touched her cheek and froze for a moment.    

Setarcos spoke with his hands, “Well, aren’t you gonna say something?”

Symphy’s face perked with a synth version of glee.  “Congratulations, Setarcos.  I cannot wait to see the results first-hand.”

“Will you tell Cactus for me?”

“Yes, right away.  I will inform you when his condition changes.”

Setarcos said thanks and sped away with mixed emotions.  Symphy went to Cactus.  The old man heaved and groaned and wiped sweat from an overgrown gray eyebrow.  “What did boy genius want?”

“He successfully split dark matter and energy.”

“And didn’t blow up the universe?”

“In a VR simulation, of course.  The particles remained stable.” Shock and wonderment momentarily took over the sick man and eased his pain.  Then the pessimistic side in him took over.  “So now he’s in danger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Symphy! Don’t play dumb with me! You’re a damn A.I. and, on top of that, I’ve known you for 50 years!”

“Yes, the land based governments will covet him more than anything.  They need him.  We will do our best to protect him.  He is top priority.”   

Meanwhile, on land.....

“Finally,” D-1 thought with its closest imitation of feelings of relief and excitement.  The patient, pragmatic machine knew a millisecond later than Caro.  Z-1 appeared and floated formlessly near D-1. “What do you have planned to proceed?”

“We’ll need the boy.”

“Agreed.  And how shall we obtain him? By taking the ship?”

“Don’t be absurd.  First of all, their Mesh will make protecting him and the newfound knowledge top priority.  Besides, taking by stealth is always preferred to taking via brute force.”

“Perhaps he won’t cooperate.”

“He’s a young boy.  He’s weak.  He will cooperate.  I think it’s time we called in a favor from our old chum, Mister Escapo.”

This caused alarm for Z-1.  It didn’t want to jeopardize its EMO source.  Addictions, or their machine equivalent, were just as hard to kick as they were for humans.  Z-1 couldn’t imagine being without those artificial sensations.  “Escapo? That louse? What could he possibly do for us?”

“One more absurdity like that, and I’ll consider you officially mad.  He has access to the boy and, more importantly, the family’s trust.”

“Well, he won’t do it.”

“He will if we use our leverage.”

Z-1 sifted through volumes of data.  What leverage did they have on Escapo? Yes, his smuggling operation was being allowed to operate.  Would Escapo really betray the boy and his friends just to keep his modest trade enterprise in operation? No, certainly that couldn’t be it.  Escapo could be unscrupulous at times, but he was no hardened criminal that would take kidnapping lightly.    

What was it? 

Wait, wait…..there it is, buried deep in the A.I. government cloud.  

Escapo’s missing son.    

Slice 15 Coming Soon!

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