Forever on the Non-Event Horizon, Part 1

Written in response to: What was meant to be a great bonding vacation turns sour when an uninvited guest tags along.... view prompt

0 comments

Science Fiction Fantasy Historical Fiction

This story contains sensitive content

May be deemed CIA conspiracy.

Historians cite Socrates saying, "Wisdom begins in wonder." and Khalil Gibran saying, "Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge." "Know Thyself" predates them and was inscribed at Delphi. 

Alice Wunderkind grew up in an artificial community of scientists and engineers on the grounds of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her grandfather worked there on the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s and both her parents Leo and Lane had careers that involved migration among various cyclotron, synchrotron, linear, and other accelerator facilities in the high energy physics network. When her mom took a yearlong sabbatical at CERN in Switzerland, 17-year-old Alice opted to join her for a change of pace in Europe.

Immediately envisioning layovers in exiting cities like New York, London, or Paris, she was brought down to Earth when Lane told her, "We won't be in any city long enough to leave the airport. Trust me, you'll just want to get there." Still, the mundaneness of switching planes in Denver and DC was quite a jolt for her, but at least this route let them stay with the same airline.

At first, she intended to bring her pet rabbit Bunsai along, but the rigors of travel and quarantine seemed too much to put him through so she entrusted his care to Leo and printed detailed instructions for him. Recalling his scientific absent-mindedness, she asked her classmate friend Abby to periodically check on Bunsai's welfare. 

Of all days to leave, they were scheduled to depart Albuquerque 7:10am 21 August 2017, total solar eclipse day, and wouldn't arrive in Geneva until 7:40 the following morning. If they were to see the eclipse at all, it was likely within an hour after they leave Denver. For just over 90 minutes the Moon's darkest shadow would race across America, revealing the Sun's corona to 5 state capitals (flights: 7:10a-8:29a, 10:55a-4:19p, 5:30p-7:40a ; totality: 10:17a PDT - 2:47p EDT ; 5 state capitals: Salem OR, Lincoln NE, Jefferson City MO, Nashville TN, Columbia SC). 

Their first flight left on time and arrived in Denver about 8:30 with over 150 minutes until their next leg. Lane was preoccupied with emails to colleagues so Alice said she'd wander around. "Just make sure you're back in time," was all she was told.

Monday morning was quiet at Denver International Airport which Alice renamed "Dead In Arrival" with its airport code DEN rechristened "Dead Extraterrestrial Nexus." None of the duty free shops were open yet so she meandered thru the terminal until she found a short vacant hallway and an unlocked door. A well-lit stairway led down several flights to a cavernous space flanked with large machinery she couldn't identify and a steady hum of power generation. 

Little did Alice know that a 2004 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed "that United Airlines, Inc. is involved in a DOD Air Transportation Program likely connected to COG [Continuity of Government]. This contract would allow United Airlines to fly VIPs, sitting Senators, Congressmen, and top-level officials to-and-from the main COG hub located on DIA grounds." 

DIA is infamous for its artwork which fuels conspiracists: "Blucifer," the Murderous Mustang; unnerving "Vorticity"; "Interior Garden," said to cover an Illuminati bunker; multi-paneled "Children of the World Dream of Peace" filled with Freemason symbolism including a machine-gun-armed soldier impaling a dove; "In Peace and Harmony with Nature" contrasting bountifulness and diversity of natural life with extinction of animals and cultures; "Balustrade"; gargoyles, and more. 

Alice was woefully unprepared for what she saw next. Door BE64B opened onto an illuminated sleek Maglev rail platform whose tracks vanished in the gloom beyond. Signage was plentiful, but arcane, abstruse and resembled nothing with which she was familiar. It felt otherworldly alien. Where did it lead and for whom was it built? Parts of Alice didn't want to know. She meandered onto the platform and peered at the map sign, which vaguely looked like a cross between a flowchart and a ragged spider's web. Did it symbolize a subway network? she wondered. If so, where were the other nodes? What could be the main trunk wove from lower left to upper right with dozens of branches in all directions. Suddenly, an insight clicked. Was this an underground U.S. map? The idea sent chills running up and down her spine. 

Just then, a Humvee rounded one of the platform's structures and sped in her direction, its high beams penetrating her surrounding zone of comfort. Time to retrace her steps pronto! She ran to the spot she entered this level. On its inner side the door read T-47 M and she began leaping up the stairs 2 and 3 at a time. How many stairwells had she descended? She didn't know. 

At a certain point in her ascent, the stairs felt different so she knew she was back at the terminal concourse where she started. Mixed jog-walking over to the TSA booths, she strode up to the one for passengers without carry-on luggage and handed the agent her ticket. He gave it a quick once-over, then waived her through. A couple of minutes later she found her mother, much like she had left her. "You look flushed. Are you OK?" Deciding now was not the time to reveal what she had witnessed, she just nodded and slumped into a nearby seat. The minutes passed slowly and eventually their flight to DC was announced ready for boarding. 

While taxiing, a flight attendant demonstrated seatbelt operation and pointed out the exits, but who really pays attention? Soon they were airborne and the captain did his cursory welcome with weather report and announced they would fly through both the penumbra and umbra moon shadows. Because of their Eastward speed, they would experience totality slightly longer than those on the ground. He said to enjoy the twilight effect and cautioned not to look at the sun at all, which was unlikely unless the plane banked because the sun and moon would be nearly overhead. Great, thought Alice. A solar eclipse of a lifetime without even seeing it. Lane pulled out her tablet and accessed NASA's Live Stream of the event and they watched it together.

The sky darkened slowly and then suddenly it was twilight with a few stars and planets visible for about 2 minutes before the process reversed. Alice experienced the oddest feeling of her young life and clung close to her mother. Later, the captain mentioned they were flying over the nexus of the Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers, which looked like greenish-brown ribbons from 35,000 feet. Alice dozed for a while and then they began the descent into DC's Reagan airport. Lane pointed out various landmarks that Alice was seeing for the first time. 

Rested and with a couple of hours to kill, Alice again opted to stroll around. DCA she quickly repurposed as Dunce Cap Actor since Reagan was said to not be very bright. This time the duty free shops were open, but she soon grew bored of them and found herself people-watching. She wondered how many were politicians and imagined conversations she might have with them. At one point a phalanx of Secret Service agents, quite obvious by their suits, shades, and earpieces, hastened by with merely a glance Alice's way. It didn't appear they were accompanying any VIP, but she thought she glimpsed 2 of them momentarily shape-shift, yet she couldn't be sure. She tried to nonchalantly follow them, but a fierce rearward glare from one of the 'shape-shifters' nixed that idea.

Despite the aura of jetset elite, airport terminals were universally bland and tedious. Some tried to liven up the experience of waiting for flights with flashy artwork, but that technique was marginally successful at best. A display describing the city's prominent monuments next caught her eye so she dawdled there awhile. The Masonic symbol graced the bottom of the text with its distinctive capital G inside a compass opened to 47° and a builder's square, signifying both the 47th Problem of Euclid on basing a square and the 47° arc of the tropics, 23.5° North and South of the Equator. She noted that the Washington Monument, the largest stone obelisk in the world, was 555 feet, 5 and an eighth inches tall. "There are 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, and 6 levels to accommodate all the people who live in, work in, and visit the White House. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 7 staircases, and 3 elevators."

Stifling a yawn, Alice returned to where she left her mom, but Lane wasn't there. Restroom was her first thought so she waited a few minutes, then went off in search of her. Reagan was a big airport in which to locate someone. She found her at a bank of windows with a partial view of a departure runway. In single file jetliners awaited their turn to throttle up and take to the sky. They watched together silently until soon it was time for theirs. 

Settling in, Alice had the window seat so after takeoff, as the skies darkened for the 2nd time that day, the myriad of lights reminded her of star clusters. Haze prevented her from seeing more than 100 miles or so, but that was enough. Dinner and beverages were served, then the movie began, Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2. It was just OK. Green, blue, metallic, animal, and insect characters, meh, but Baby Groot was kinda cute voiced by Vin Diesel. 

Alice awoke from restless sleep not long after Europe was visible below. A CERN driver met them in baggage claim with a cart so they only carried what they wished and walked with him to the lot. The drive to CERN's campus was quiet and Alice pressed her nose to the window eager to see her new surroundings. 

"CERN is built on the former site of a temple to Apollyon, who is referenced in the book of Revelation as the king of the horde of the 'bottomless pit'. Scripture says the key to the pit will be given in the end times and when it is opened something terrible will come through. There is documented evidence that CERN seeks to open doors to other dimensions, they openly admit it. They have also released videos which indicate these intentions, along with other occult messages, as well as erecting the statue of Shiva (the destroyer) who is synonymous with Satan (according to occult scholars).

All of this combined with other prophecy being fulfilled in modern times is an overwhelming sign of the times. People need to do a little digging and open their eyes, no need to take anyone's word for it, the evidence is all there.

Unfortunately most just scoff at the idea of anything beyond their well-programmed existence, they trust in the 'wisdom' of men and science. They put their faith in what they can see but don't realize that most of what they see is manufactured deception, making them blind to the truth.

The LHC will not generate black holes in the cosmological sense. However, some theories suggest that the formation of tiny ‘quantum’ black holes may be possible. The observation of such an event would be thrilling in terms of our understanding of the Universe; and would be perfectly safe.

As far as we know, we live in four dimensions, three of space and one of time. But experimentalists at the Large Hadron Collider are looking for evidence that the universe contains more than that. The existence of extra dimensions could explain some puzzling properties of the universe.

Physicists know about four forces that govern the way particles interact: electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. Gravity is by far the weakest. Think about sticking a magnet to a refrigerator door. The magnet can respond to the electromagnetic force that attracts it to the door. Or it can respond to the gravitational force of the Earth below. If you let it go at a short enough distance, it sticks straight to the door, ignoring the entire planet beneath it.

Physicists wonder why gravity seems so much weaker than the other three forces. One possibility is that we’re only experiencing a fraction of it. It could be that the gravitational force acts partially in another dimension, or many extra dimensions, that we can’t perceive. Knowing more about gravity could help physicists seeking to form a so-called theory of everything, a theory that combines the four forces into one.

Extra dimensions would not necessarily consist of alternate worlds, as depicted in science fiction. They could simply be too small for us to see. To understand how this would work, imagine walking along a tightrope. You are able to move only forwards and backwards without falling. In this situation, it is almost as if you exist in just one dimension of space.

However, an ant walking along the same tightrope has a different point of view. The ant is able to move forwards and backwards but also around the tightrope. To such a small creature, a tightrope exists in two spatial dimensions instead of just one.

Even if extra dimensions are small, they can still have an effect on how we experience the world. Scientists think that finding evidence of extra dimensions could help answer some of their questions about gravity, still one of the most mysterious forces in the universe.

Finding evidence of extra dimensions could also give credence to theories of physics beyond the Standard Model. Models of string theory, for example, require the existence of at least 11 dimensions.

Discovering extra dimensions could give scientists clues about the mysterious workings of gravity and could help them to unify the forces or determine the validity of string theory. It could also raise more questions about ways other dimensions shape the world around us." from mydailyinformer.com. 

Lurelena Klerwing grew up ever in the shadow of her famous TV actor cousin and it drove her crazy. He played the "Fonz", ultra-cool, vain biker bro and babe-magnet with his trademark "Heyyy", but it was all a façade. In reality, she was a chic whiz MS, while he was just an NYC Jewish mama's boy, who couldn't ride a motorbike without crashing it. She felt like she had to overachieve to prove herself, with dual doctorates in nuclear and computer engineering to get recognition. As a post-doc she worked in high energy physics laboratories, currently as CERN Data Centre Director responsible for server farm evolution. This too was a stepping stone to overcome Fonz envy.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQc9L2RbQkw

Arrival day for Lane and Alice at the main Meyrin site was fortuitous because the proton beams had been aligned and were ready for collision. The ATLAS detector was conducting an experiment. "A search for the direct production of charginos and neutalinos in final stages with at least two hadronically decaying tau leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb^-1 recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the Standard Model background expectation is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of..." Alice was delighted to discover her namesake "ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)...a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring" for detecting "quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter thought to have formed just after the big bang." 

The anomaly occurred just as engineers were incrementally raising luminosity to 14 TeV. Lights flickered and the steady hum of the ring subsided. Dismay played upon the visage of several technicians. Something was wrong. Later they'd learn that tachyons had interrupted the beam with quirky consequences. It'll take those gomers days to be ready again for my services, Lurelena mused. Might as well pack some lederhosen, go climb Jungfrau, and hone my yodel. In her cross-dressing family, she donned the pants while Heinrich wore skirts. She also preferred indoor work environments where she could see her breath, what she called her Deep Freeze. In Nerd Labs Land she was known as the Frigid Witch with a Kelvin Switch. They tended to avoid her Deep Freeze zone as much as they could, which was just as well with her. 

September 03, 2023 03:50

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

0 comments

RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. 100% free.