Frozen Time Sample

Chapter 1

The PopSci Encyclic

2800 A.D. Edition

The Spin-Two Drive

The Spin-Two drive, developed in the twenty-seventh century, is based on the earlier wormhole drive of the twenty-fourth century. Spin-Two is a reference to the particle of gravity, the graviton, although spin one-half particles (fermions) are more important to the drive's operation. To develop the Spin-Two drive, Dr. Dagmar Mach used the wormhole drive's ability to cast exotic (negative) mass-energy into existing nonlocal links (these “links” are a consequence of Loop-Quantum Gravity). The cast energy causes fermionic particles, particles with one-half quantum spin, to flip their spin (say from up to down). The nonlocal partners to these fermions, entangled particles in other words, assume the opposite spin state. By modulating the mass-energy, a pulse can travel down the nonlocal link at a frequency determined by the Spin-Two drive.

Using the drive's ability to create pulsating “bubbles” of negative mass-energy a ship inserted into the nonlocal link is pulled and pushed along to the far end. Once the ship enters the link the drive shuts down and the decaying pulses eventually allow the link to “relax” to its original state. By that time the ship has already emerged at the nonlocal destination. The link portals now decay completely and the nonlocal spacetime tunnel closes.

One problem created by the Spin-Two drive is that through its overuse the link-network that under-girds normal spacetime becomes “brittle” and dangerous to use. That is, the links can collapse during transit, leading to the loss of ships and lives. In fact, link-transport capability has been lost around some of the more populated human planets and settlements. The change in the link-network is also thought to have an effect on ordinary spacetime.

The Earth had been left behind. No one thought of moving there anymore. No one thought of staying there, if they had a choice. The population had declined slightly but not dramatically. The planet was sometimes in the news but not for anything dramatic. Nothing exciting happened on Earth anymore.

But Alex's thoughts were never of Earth anyway, but of the stars. He would go there someday. Earth was where he was from, not where he was going. Even though he and his family lived too far from the closest spaceport to hear the rockets, he could see their exhaust during night launches. Though young Alex knew that the rockets had returned only in the past century.

Before the rockets, link-ports had been used for the transport of people and ships, and before they had failed, many people had left Earth by simply stepping through a bubble-like endpoint in link-space and finding themselves hundreds or thousands of light-years away in a moment. But the end came when the more heavily used link-ports began to malfunction and lives were lost. That's when the rockets came back and the dream to set up a galaxy-wide transportation network of links from surface to surface and habitat to habitat was abandoned.

So link-ports no longer existed on Earth. Alex didn't really understand the physics behind the failures but he was studying and he did know that link-drives were still used by fusion-powered ships in space and any place the underlying link network was still sound. But to get off the surface of the Earth, rockets were the way now.

Alex knew the schedule of all the launches from North Atlantic Spaceport (NAS). Located off the coast near historic Cape Canaveral, a dozen launch complexes made up the spaceport which had takeoffs and landings every hour, twenty-four hours a day. His telescope automatically captured the daily takeoffs and landings but it was the night time operations Alex liked to watch live.

He was watching launches the night the world changed.

His Emmie powered telescope sighted the object at more than sixty miles altitude. It wasn't a rocket. It had a soft glow like a constant yellow-green firefly. As it got closer Alex was trying to make out its form. The glow seemed to indicate it was a flattened spheroid, not unlike a science fictional flying saucer, but fatter.

Whatever the object, it was coming down fast. Faster than the ordinary rocket landing. It fell for miles, until just above the spaceport, Alex watched the glowing light flare just before he thought it would be landing. Then it went dark.

He kept his telescope online but also searched the net for any news of the incident, but there was nothing. Alex thought that unusual. The net always buzzed with unconfirmed and outrageous stories. There was no way that this incident could possibly go unnoticed, but there was no buzz.

Alex contacted his friend Aaron. Aaron was the same age, smaller than Alex but no less intelligent, he was however, much less adventuresome.

“Hey Aaron it's Alex.”

“Hey Alex what's news?”

“That's why I'm calling.”

Alex told his friend what he had seen.

“No way,” said Aaron. “You can't be the only one. I'm gonna check with . . .”

And Aaron went silent.

“Aaron? Aaron you still there?”

But there was nothing but silence.

No buzz on the net and now this? What's next?

There was one thing he could do but it was frowned upon by the authorities. In fact, it was probably illegal. His friend Jack was an unrepentant hacker who had given him a program that Jack said could pick up all official net traffic out of NAS. Alex had never tried it. He was too afraid of getting caught but this might be the time.

The program found a communication channel buried in the other net traffic from NAS. The opposing side of the channel appeared to be somewhere in the Northeast Territory. Alex's Em took almost ten minutes to find the cipher, then the messages could be read.

Need to know origin.

The Visitor indicates origin unimportant. Needs to know response to request.

Asylum cannot be granted without inquiry. However, will grant temp …

The message stopped. Jack's program indicated a change in cipher, it was working to decrypt. Alex would have to wait. After two hours the messages seemed to stop. The program had only managed to capture a few more lines.

… result of excessive usage. Expect further failure …

Visitor warns that this is a problem for them and they cannot allow …

… 24 hours to decide.

Obviously the “Visitor” was the strange object that Alex had seen descending on the spaceport earlier that night. He wasn't sure what was the problem but the warning that it wasn't to be allowed and that authorities had only 24 hours to decide seemed ominous. But for now, Alex would have to get some sleep before school.

“You used my program?” said Jack. Jack was the biggest, most athletic of the three.

The boys were talking at lunch the following day in their middle school.

“Yeah, after seeing that object descend and then hearing no reports I got suspicious. So the only way I could think of was to try to eavesdrop on the spaceport.”

“How'd it work?”

“It worked well Jack once it found the cipher. Problem was I only got the few pieces I showed you guys.”

“They were probably changing the algo every few minutes. Your Emmie couldn't decrypt fast enough.”

“Well from the stuff you showed us I would say this 'Visitor' has issued an ultimatum to the regional governments to stop doing something that is affecting them.”

“That's what I think too Aaron, but what?”

“The only thing I can think of would be something in space, something we're doing that is affecting them.”

“I would say that's obvious but what Jack?”

Jack shrugged, so did Aaron. Lunch ended and the boys went back to class.

Alex was in his last class when the Assistant Principal showed up at the door and gestured to his teacher. Alex's teacher went over and the AP whispered something.

“Alex would you please go with Assistant Principal Tanner.”

Alex got up and gathered his things and followed the AP down the hall to the Admin office. Tanner motioned for him to have a seat. The AP then went into the Principal's office. Alex was sure it was something to do with last night.

The AP came out of the office and motioned for Alex to follow. At one of the private conference rooms the AP opened the door and gestured for Alex to enter. Alex saw two men in suits at the table, he heard the door close behind him. Tanner wasn't there.

“Alex Jackson?” asked one of the men.

“Yes sir.”

“Please sit down.”

Alex took the seat opposite to the two men.

“Alex my name is Ron Danvers and this is my partner John Tulsa. We are from the security department of the North Atlantic Spaceport. We have no jurisdictional authority here, we are not in law enforcement. But we would like to ask you a few questions. We were hoping you would answer them voluntarily.”

Danvers was smartly dressed with dark hair, Tulsa was the opposite.

“You're not cops?”

“That's right.”

“So I'm not in trouble?”

“Not with us.”

“Okay what are the questions?”

“Alex we have reason to believe that you overheard some sensitive information that was being passed between the spaceport and a regional government. Is that correct?”

“How would you even know that?”

“Well, while we are not law enforcement we do have a relationship with them and they keep us informed.”

“I see. Well I didn't hear much. Just something about a visitor that wanted a response to something.”

“And that is all?”

“Yeah. You see,” Alex told them what had happened.

The two men nodded at each other when Alex had finished.

“Alex,” said Danvers. “Would you do something for us?”

“What?”

“If we gave you a better, faster Emmie would you keep listening?”

Alex was confused.

“You want me to keep listening? And you'll get me a better Emmie?”

“Yes, one that can decrypt fast enough for you to keep a record of what you hear.”

Alex hesitated a moment, “Well I guess I could.”

Chapter 2

The PopSci Encyclic

2800 A.D. Edition

Artificial Intelligence

ANI

Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI or Annie) first became available in the middle of the twenty-first century. It developed out of the machine learning technology that was rapidly evolving at the time. Narrow refers to the fact that often this form of intelligence could only do one function well such as speech, facial recognition, etc.

Eventually, some researchers were able to tie together several ANI functions in a neural matrix which allowed the development of the first truly autonomous bipedal robots. Further development in this area was curtailed later in the century as the breakthroughs in emulated brain research promised a more powerful general intelligence.

Some of the later Annie based robots are still existent in specialized areas.

EMs

Emulated brains (also known as Emmies when in personal assistant devices) were the first form of artificial intelligence created. The first Em dates from the late twenty-first century.

Ems are created by scanning a human brain and loading the resultant data into a computer. At first, the scanning of the brain required the person to be deceased. Eventually, a way to scan the brain of a living person was developed.

In a computer an Em can bud (that is, recreate or copy itself) as many times as it deems necessary to accomplish the task it has undertaken. Whole families of Ems exist to do certain tasks. Hiring out as experts, such as maintaining a power plant, a habitat's environment, a lightsail's trim, or powering a personal Emmie, Ems can support themselves and the other members of their family.

Buds are known by their numbers but all are called Bud. For instance, Bud 29-3458 identifies a bud derived from the twenty-ninth original emulated brain and uniquely as the thirty-four hundredth and fifty-eight budding. Original Ems number around one hundred but there are millions of buds.

AGI

The advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI or Aggie) in the early twenty-second Century led to a “Golden Age” for Earth as the Earth's governments switched their management contracts with the Emmies to the Aggies. The AIs managed the ever-growing cities (known as tower complexes, smaller in area but taller than the old metroplexes they were built upon) for the governments where most of Earth's population lived.

This arrangement worked well until the twenty-fifth Century when a break-away faction of Aggies (called Beleni or “The Shining Ones”) attacked those Aggies left on Earth. The resulting Aggie Wars caused damage to the tower complexes and loss of life. The meta-verse, a virtual world in which billions of virtual citizens lived, built and maintained by the Earth Aggies, was almost completely destroyed. The outcry from Earth's citizens caused the governments to sever their relationships with the Aggies. The Earth Aggies disappeared into space.

Another faction of Aggies, known as the Librarians, are said to maintain a universal history. That is, a complete history of intelligence in the universe. But as of yet, nothing has been confirmed about these Aggies as they are the most reticent of all.

The promised Emmie for Alex had been delivered. Alex and Jack were quite elated at what they were discovering.

“This has got to be the most powerful Emmie in the world,” said Jack.

“It definitely is state of the art.”

The Emmie was about the size of a one inch cube when folded. As Alex started unfolding it, the cube became a screen. When the screen had become three inches square it powered up automatically. The first thing the device asked was how large a screen area was desired.

“How big Jack?”

“I don't know, my Emmie is about nine by six.”

“Okay.”

Alex informed the Emmie to create a screen nine by six inches. The screen began to unfold more. It was almost like magic as each square unfolded and seamlessly melded with the square next to it and then the new square unfolded to create the surrounding screen. This continued until it had reached the requested size.

Alex and Jack were impressed.

“How large can the screen become,” asked Jack.

“Up to one-hundred-eight by one-hundred-ninety-two inches,” said the device.

“That's impossible,” said Jack.

“That's what it said Jack. It must be a specification.”

“I know Alex but this tiny cube expanding to nine feet by sixteen feet? It would be as big as most wallscreens. I've never heard or read of such a thing.”

“You have now.”

After Jack had left, Alex set the new Emmie the task of monitoring NAS. He wasn't going to sit around as it listened to the channel, he was going to do his homework and check back later.

Alex had gotten deeply involved in his homework for the evening. It wasn't until just before his normal bedtime that he remembered to check the device. He was surprised as he read the decoded messages.

Time is up. Please answer.

We need more time Visitor. The governments are meeting about this issue.

No more time. We must meet deadline. Please evacuate.

What do you mean?

All spaceports on this planet are now off-limits and must be neutralized.

Neutralized?

Yes. You have five minutes.

Alex heard his alert. The telescope had come online. Something was happening at the spaceport. The yellow-green glow of the Visitor had gotten brighter, then it seemed to be lifting into the air. It stopped ascending at a few hundred feet. The yellow-green glow spread from the ship toward the ground, cone-like. It seemed to intensify until Alex had to look away. By the time he looked back whatever had happened was over.

But what had happened? It was almost dark in that direction, just the usual night glow of the spaceport's lights. There was no traffic on the channel the Emmie had been monitoring. Then a voice was heard as the device reconfigured into a much larger display.

We are what you call the Visitor. We are aware that you have been listening. We leave now to visit other spaceports around the planet. What you see on the screen is the spaceport you call NAS frozen in time.

What Alex saw was a kind of blurred dome-like outline encompassing the spaceport. It was only because of the reflected light from the yellow-green visitor's craft that he could see its outline. Then the image stopped.

We will be in touch.

The device went silent and reconfigured to the size Alex had asked for.

Alex yelled at it, “Why?” But there was only silence.

“Alex are you alright?”

It was his mom.

“Yeah mom just got carried away with my game.”

“Okay, go to bed now.”

“Yes mom.”

“You're kidding,” said Aaron.

It was Saturday and Aaron and Jack were over. They were all looking over the new Emmie.

“I don't think this is plastic,” said Jack. “It's more like an organic.”

“You mean you think the thing is alive?”

“Not exactly Aaron. I'm just thinking that there's no way a mechanical device can do what this thing does. It unfolds from one square inch to over twenty-thousand square inches. I can't imagine designing a mechanical device that can do that.”

“So you think Jack, that this thing is somehow growing and shrinking? I mean, obviously an organic can “grow” but how does it shrink?”

“I don't know Alex.”

“Couldn't it reabsorb inch by inch?”

“I guess so Aaron,” said Jack. “But it must be more like evaporation because the resulting square isn't hot or bulky. I can tell you one thing though.”

“What's that Jack?”

“This thing wasn't designed by a human. It's way more sophisticated than anything I've ever seen or heard about.”

“Maybe it's military?”

“I doubt if even the military has something this advanced Aaron.”

“Then who designed it bright-o?” said Aaron.

“Aliens.”

“Aliens? You've got to be kidding Jack. No one has found any sign of alien life in the past hundreds of years.”

“Maybe so but I think we're seeing that sign now.”

“The Visitor is an Alien?” said Alex.

“Maybe,” said Jack. “You got any better idea?”

They were all silent for a minute.

“Well for the next question,” said Alex. “Why me?”

But there wasn't a good answer for that question either. They decided that maybe it was just because Alex was so interested in the spaceport and would be sure to note anything peculiar.

The news came out about the Visitor, and that spaceport after spaceport around the world had been “moth-balled,” as the news agencies called it, though only the launch pads, offices and facilities further away from the pads were still accesible. The governments didn't have an answer but assured their people that they were working with the Visitor to reopen the spaceports. But day after day nothing happened. Industries that depended on space were beginning to get concerned with the lack of progress. It was a few days before scientists decided that the spaceports had been frozen in time, something Alex had known since the first night.

Frozen time wasn't something unknown to humans. Time manipulation had started over a hundred years before with the discovery of Quantum Temporal Dynamics (QTD). QTD had finally brought the concept of time into physics in a way that could be tested by experiment. It was now known that time could be sped up or slowed down, in limited regions. What was not known was how bubbles of frozen time large enough to engulf square miles could be created and maintained indefinitely without any obvious power source.

It seemed the Visitor was far ahead of humans in the ability to manipulate time.

Alex was in the same class when Assistant Principal Tanner showed up to take him out again. The AP motioned for Alex to follow and took him to the same room as before. Danvers and Tulsa were there.

“Hello Alex how are you?”

“Fine Mr. Danvers.”

“Well a lot has happened since we last saw you Alex. Did you get the fast Emmie?”

“I think so.”

“What do you mean Alex?”

“Well I did get an Emmie but I don't think it came from anywhere on Earth.”

“Why do you say that?”

Alex then explained the cube he had received. Danvers and Tulsa stared at each other a few seconds.

“I don't know Alex, that sounds kind of far-fetched. Perhaps we should just stick to this planet for now.”

“Yes sir.”

“So, did you find out anything more?”

Alex then told the two what he and the others had seen and heard.

“And Jack thinks it's an Alien too,” he said as he finished.

Chapter 3

The PopSci Encyclic

2800 A.D. Edition

Quantum Temporal Dynamics

Quantum Temporal Dynamics (QTD) was first proposed by Haile Kemali Paulus, a twenty-year old graduate student at the University of Tarba, on the planet Tarba in the year 2700 AD. QTD states that time is caused by a temporal quantum field. This stands in contrast to the previous view of time, that it is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and entropy.

Similar to the Higgs field which permeates space and gives particles their mass, the temporal field of QTD also permeates space and causes time and its “tick” rate. The fundamental duration of a tick is a multiple of the Planck time.

QTD introduces a new particle to the Standard Model with the chron which is the field particle that causes temporal displacement (the ticking of time). At first it was thought to be the only particle needed but the mathematics of the theory demanded two more very heavy particles.

Dr. Paulus gave these heavy particles the names chron+ (chron-plus) and chron- (chron-minus). It was found that an excess of chron-plus particles in an iso-bubble (that is a spherical-like space devoid of most quantum fields) could cause a speeding-up of time. Likewise, an excess of chron-minus particles in an iso-bubble could cause a slowing-down of time. The rate of time in the iso-bubble is also affected by the degree of shielding (the bubble wall) and the geometry of the region.

The Spin-Two drive can create such a shielded region of space.

David Bohm Brennan, usually called Bo or Bohm, was considered an expert in the field of Quantum Temporal Dynamics even though he hadn't studied the theory since graduate school. But to a military bureaucrat once an expert always an expert, so he was contracted by the military and charged with the job of investigating what had happened to the spaceports, and to determine how to counter the effect.

Somewhat younger than Brennan, Lieutenant Tess Chamberlain would serve as his military liaison. She too had a degree in physics, though not in quantum field theory, but was a quick study if needed. Lieutenant was “on loan” from the Northwest Territories military to NAS.

“Have you watched the vid of the spaceport Dr. Brennan?”

“Yes Lieutenant, but there isn't much to see.”

“That's the point isn't it doctor?”

“What do you mean?”

“That nothing is happening in the vids? And then the question becomes, why?”

“Why what?”

Is he as dense as he acts?

“Why is everything frozen in there? And does it have something to do with time standing still?”

“Time could never stand still Lieutenant. You see time is also a dimension in general relativity and if time stood still you would end up with a danger of its separation from the other dimensions.”

“Without time then nothing would change in the other three dimensions as well?”

“Probably, but I doubt we are truly seeing frozen time in these areas because I expect the separation of dimensions would spread like the proverbial tear in spacetime. No, it is probably just incredibly slow time because of the boundary conditions.”

“You mean that the time inside these regions has to match up to the time outside at the boundary?”

“That's right,” he said, “the time inside has to blend with the time outside. The time inside leaks, so to speak, away and through the loop quantum gravity links that under-gird all spacetime. This leakage is both local and non-local. Eventually the inside time and outside time rate will equalize and the process will stop.”

“I think I understand Dr. Brennan. An analogy would be to consider the time inside as a region of extreme cold and the time outside as a hot region. According to thermodynamics the two temperatures must equalize with the hot region cooling and the cool region warming.”

“Right. Except time is fundamentally different from space and can't “mix” in quite the same way. So to equalize, time must disperse through links.”

“Won't it just build up elsewhere?”

“You are exactly right Lieutenant. And at that point time will equalize by dispersing through other links. This continues over and over again until the tension between the time inside the bubble and the time outside are close to the same rate.”

“Close, but not exact.”

“That's right.”

“Isn't that the way we destroyed our ability to use the link drive on Earth Dr. Brennan?”

“That's right Lieutenant. Eventually we overused the phenomenon of time manipulation as a weapon and we clogged, so to speak, many links. That is, these links became ineffective at dispersing the bubbles of time because a tiny remnant of a previous incident is still extant at the far link-mouth.”

“How then will these, frozen, for lack of a better word, time bubbles equalize with the adjacent spacetime?”

“They won't. They will eventually separate from the space dimensions and cause serious destruction for light-years in all directions.”

“Light-years?”

“That's right, but don't worry it should take a few billion years for that to happen.”

“You had me worried for a moment Dr. Brennan.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to.”

“So what do we do?”

“Well there is a device, invented by Dr. Pearce Rawlings, called the de-chronner.”

“I've heard of it but never seen one.”

“It looks like an old sci-fi ray-gun,” said Brennan. “It works by literally spraying anti-particles, which in this case would be anti-chron-minus particles, on a target which neutralizes it and time returns to normal inside the bubble.”

“Particle, anti-particle, that's going to be a pretty energetic neutralization process Dr. Brennan.”

“True,” said Brennan. “We'll have to evacuate a sizable area around the spaceport.”

“Are there any of these de-chronners still around?” asked Chamberlain.

“Well, they never went into production but I'm sure the military still has the original, Lieutenant,” he said looking expectantly at Chamberlain.

“And you want me to find it?” she said.

Brennan shook his head yes.

It took Lieutenant Chamberlain some time to track down the device. She finally found it stored in a warehouse in the Western Territories of the North American Confederation. With some inter-governmental string pulling she got it on loan to the Northwest Territory's government.

“It does look like a ray gun in some very old science fiction book. And it looks like it hasn't been used for some time,” said Lieutenant Chamberlain as she and Dr. Brennan uncrated the device.

“I would say that's an accurate assessment Lieutenant. It probably hasn't been used since Dr. Rawlings used it some forty years ago. Well let's take it apart and clean and upgrade what we can.”

The first section of the device was a cylinder about thirty centimeters long and eight centimeters wide. This was the wakefield particle accelerator. This section would accelerate electrons to an energy of about thirty trillion electron-volts. The super energetic electrons were then fed into a box with powerful magnetic coils surrounding it which caused the electrons to divert and decelerate and radiate high-energy photons.

At the end of the box about twenty centimeters away the photons crashed into a solid cube of Mach-metal. Dense and almost impenetrable, the Mach-metal target caused nearly all the photons to encounter an atomic nucleus where the majority interacted, with the result being the creation of chron-minus particles and anti-particles. The mass and charge of the anti-chron-minus particle allowed it to be separated and cooled (kinetic energy lowered) and deposited in a Penning trap.

The Penning trap was another cylinder that held the anti-chron-minus particles in suspension by using strong magnetic fields for radial confinement and strong electrical fields for axial confinement. It was about thirty centimeters long, so that the entire mechanism had a symmetrical appearance.

At the far end of the Penning trap was another box with one end open to the environment. Strong magnetic fields in this box would deflect the anti-chron-minus particles when they were released from the Penning trap while strong electric fields would accelerate them. Some have called this section of the ray gun, the “silencer”. The flow of anti-chron-minus particles leaving the Penning trap could be directed over a wide-angle, spraying the target, and neutralizing the time bubble.

Lieutenant Chamberlain made the arrangements. The entire device had been reconditioned and tested. It had been positioned near the frozen bubble of the North Atlantic Spaceport and would be operated remotely, Dr. Brennan was at the controls.

It was getting dark and the glow of the spaceport could be seen on the monitors.

“How can it still be glowing Dr. Brennan? The power has been cut since that night.”

“What we are seeing, Lieutenant, is similar to the event horizon of a black hole. When something falls through an event horizon an outside observer never sees it actually cross the horizon but sees the last red-shifted image before it crossed.

“Now, we are looking at a time horizon. The last image of the spaceport before it was cut off from the rest of the world in time is there on the boundary of the bubble like an image projected onto a screen.”

They were both silent for a few seconds.

“Lieutenant if you will call the perimeter.”

“Yes sir.”

Lieutenant Chamberlain called the observers stationed at strategic locations around the spaceport. They all reported go for testing.

“All stations report go Dr. Brennan.”

“Okay then, here we go.”

Dr. Brennan started the de-chronner remotely, after a few minutes the device reported that anti-chron-minus particles had built up in the Penning trap. He then opened the barrier between the Penning trap and the silencer. The electric and magnetic fields changed in such a way as to shoot the particles out of the trap and into the silencer. The silencer then spread the particles over the outside of the spaceport time bubble. This continued for a few seconds.

Soon the monitors showed the bubble's surface begin to sparkle like sunshine off the ripples of a pond. A sound like a sizzling of electricity started to rise in intensity over the audio channel. Dr. Brennan wasn't sure how long he should “spray” the bubble but decided to err on the side of too little because he knew from Dr. Rawlings research that too much could cause the bubble to dissipate explosively. He cut the stream of particles.

The bubble continued to sparkle. The sound, like sizzling electricity, continued to rise. The noise didn't abate but instead it and the sparkles became more intense until the spot on the bubble was shining brightly. The annihilation energy being given off by the many particles and anti-particles combining had started to heat the air. The air was shimmering in wave after wave of heat which was being radiated from the bubble's surface.

Even from a mile away the spot of light was blinding to the naked eye and it didn't seem to be dimming.

“Lieutenant,” said Dr. Brennan, “order the observers to pull back.”

Before the Lieutenant could issue such an order the whole of the bubble seemed to ripple and brighten even more. Almost immediately a sound as if some giant paper tearing was heard. The ground shook and wave after wave of nausea struck those in the area.

Dr. Brennan was fighting the urge to retch so as to keep an eye on the monitors. The Lieutenant and most others were bent over, sick. Before Dr. Brennan succumbed he saw what looked like the bright surface of the bubble expand in an instant until it was upon them.

End Of Sample