The Dream Cloud, page 10
part #2 of Akropolis Series
“Do you know what I’m referring to?”
“Yes,” she replied, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Refresh my memory…when did this incident occur?”
She hesitated, wanting nothing more than to avoid the subject, but quickly realized that this was part of the interview. “Four years ago.”
“Do you recall the event in full detail?” he probed.
“I’ll never forget a moment of it,” she replied.
“Then tell me.”
“It’s a matter of record, Sir,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands, clasped so tightly the knuckles were turning white. “You can read it in my file.”
The councilman leaned forward, his demeanor suddenly changing, the expression on his face harsh and forbidding.
“If I wanted to read it from your file you would not be here. You can either tell me what happened or get the hell out of my office right now.”
Misao lifted her head, eyes blazing, jaw rigid with anger. Her gaze met the unyielding glare of the councilman. She saw no compassion there. He had dropped the grandfatherly persona as if it had been a thinly veiled mask.
“What is it going to be, Misao?”
The Cloud Chamber was a behemoth of a room, home to the 100,000-qubit quantum computer that oversaw the majority of operations in Akropolis, as well as storing the Cloud profiles of all its citizens. The chamber was a perfect sphere with the computer in the center, suspended in mid-air and inside the world’s most powerful electromagnetic field (second only to the Earth’s), which was in turn encompassed in a giant housing unit that was surrounded by a synthetic gel that acted as a superconducting quantum interference device, essentially eliminating system noise that could disrupt the quadrillion calculations and algorithms that took place every nanosecond.
Separate chambers branched off from the Cloud Chamber, including several cooling chambers that acted as giant quantum circuit refrigerators, constantly cooling off the central computer. These chambers were situated nearly fifty yards away from the Cloud Chamber so that they could be contained in case of a system failure, which could lead to a disruption in the quantum computer.
Misao had only been privy to the cooling chambers of the Cloud once before, to discuss the new calculations that she felt would be more energy efficient without overloading the systems.
She was surprised and more than a little overwhelmed when she had received the invite back to test out her calculations. All the simulations had shown a marked improvement in performance and energy efficiency, but while practical application was their next step, she never dreamed to be given the chance to use the actual system.
Being her experiment, she was given the freedom of using the team that had helped her to create the complex algorithms, four of her classmates that had already been promised positions of prominence based on the work they had already accomplished.
The air surrounding them was one of excitement and eagerness. They had worked on the calculations and simulations for six months and finally they had the chance to see the fruition of their labors, not to mention the prestige that went along with it.
Every wall in the cooling chamber was lined with the oblong refrigerators and next to them huge tanks of liquid helium with hoses that fed into the cooling tunnel. Each refrigerator had a monitor attached to it, which Evans was constantly checking, darting back and forth between them like a hummingbird. Adebayo and Sousa were using the holographic imaging system to feed the calculations into the computer while Franklin hovered in front of the screen that showed the power fluctuation of the grid.
Misao heard a click in her suit comms system, a slight static hiss that told her she was about to be addressed by the senior scientist, Dr. Boyd, in charge of the cooling systems. He and a few others were monitoring the experiment from afar.
“Dr. Egbert?”
“I’m here,” Misao replied.
“We’re ready when you are.”
“Just keep your eyes glued to your screens,” she said with a grin.
Even in their insulated suits, the cold was intense enough to set her teeth chattering. When Misao spoke to each member of her team, she could barely refrain from laughing, partly because of the jittery delivery of her words as well as the nervous energy built up inside of her.
“Do you have those calculations done yet?” she asked the pair by the holographic system.
“Almost there,” Adebayo replied in his deep and slightly accented voice, passed down from a long lineage going back to Nigeria.
“Evans,” Misao addressed next. “What about the cooling system?”
“Everything looks good here. We have all fridges running right now but it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Another five minutes and they’ll start to overheat but for now we’re good.”
“We’ll be done before that,” Franklin said from his position in front of the screen, a wide and squat man whose insulated suit was stretched tight across his shoulders but pooled near his ankles. “Soon as those calculations are in we should see max output for our energy conversion model.”
“Finished!” Adebayo shouted, him and Sousa dropping their hands almost simultaneously now that the upload was done.
He was brimming with excitement. They all were. They were the youngest and most talented that Akropolis had seen in some time, and now they were going to prove they were also the brightest. It was a momentous occasion.
When the alarm blared, Misao froze, the screen pad slipping from her hands and clattering to the floor. Overhead, red and yellow lights flashed, bathing the walls in alternating colors.
“What the hell is going-” the comms voice shouted in her ear, the next burst of the alarm drowning out the rest of the words.
Misao turned to look at Adebayo and Sousa, who were staring dumbfounded at her. A quick glance at Evans showed that he was rooted in place, hands held out as if the gesture would invite an answer. Franklin was the lone team member who was in motion, darting back and forth between two screens.
“We have a system overload! What the hell happened with those calculations?” he screamed at Adebayo and Sousa over his shoulder.
“W-what?”
“Misao!” Franklin shouted, finally breaking her from the paralysis.
She stumbled forward, her legs stiff and uncooperative. One foot caught behind the other and she fell to her knees. She cursed as she struggled to regain her feet, and then Franklin was at her side, tugging on her arm until she was upright.
“The tanks are breaching!” he screamed in her face, pushing her towards Adebayo and Sousa. “Get them out of here!”
Misao went with the momentum of the push and reached the pair at the holographic imaging system. They were still staring at her, not having moved an inch since the alarms had started blaring. She didn’t bother with words, instead grabbing them by the loose folds of their suits near the arms and yanking them towards her as she staggered backwards, heading for the exit. They seemed to finally understand their peril and began to move of their own volition, feet shuffling across the floor, but too slow, way too slow.
A burst of static in her ear and she heard Dr. Boyd’s voice come through incredibly loud over the comms.
“You need to seal that room!” he screamed at her.
She could hear the panic in his voice and it caused her to move faster, nearly wrenching her shoulders from their sockets as she half-drug half-jerked her two colleagues across the threshold of the doorway. The last heave she gave them sent the two tumbling to the floor.
Misao turned around to see that Franklin had reached Evans and that they were both halfway to the exit.
“Move!” she shouted so vehemently that something inside her throat seemed to break.
Just then one of the tanks by the wall blew, the explosion and resulting fireball knocking both men from their feet, the flames pouncing on their backs like a wild animal. She could almost hear the crackling of their suits as the material blistered and withered beneath the onslaught.
“SEAL THAT GODDAMN ROOM NOW!” Dr. Boyd screamed in her ear.
Misao’s hand hovered over the button for the containment door. She could see that Franklin was stirring despite the back of his suit being melted to his skin and the several pieces of shrapnel protruding from his body. His groans were loud and clear over the comms. They prompted her to step forward, with what action in mind she did not know, but as she did, a hand snatched her ankle from behind and held her tight like a vice.
She looked down and saw Sousa staring up at her from the floor, the woman’s face a mixture of panic and horror.
“Please!”
Misao stepped back across the threshold and slammed her palm on the button. The door slid closed, sealing the cooling chamber.
It was just in time. More explosions began to rock the room, dull thuds that could be felt through the walls. Each boom made Misao flinch and gasp, and the rattling sounds that followed as the shrapnel slammed against the containment door was like rain on a tin roof.
After a few more seconds the safety measures finally kicked in as the room released a stream of dry chemicals that began to put out the liquid hydrogen fires, though over the next half minute smaller explosions could still be heard going off like tiny fireworks.
Behind Misao, Adebayo was mumbling something about how he didn’t understand what had gone wrong while Sousa was making incoherent sounds that might have been words mixed with sobs.
“Dr. Egbert?” came the voice over the comms. “Dr. Egbert, are you there?”
There was no panic in Dr. Boyd’s voice now, just concern.
“I’m here,” Misao murmured.
There was a sigh of relief.
“Our readings show that cooling chamber 12 is sealed and contained,” Dr. Boyd continued. “The Cloud Chamber shows no disruption from the explosions. Is your team okay?”
Misao glanced down at Adebayo and Sousa, both still in deep shock, only silent now and doing the deep stare into nothingness. She felt her knees buckle and turned to put her back against the containment door, even as her legs gave out and she began sliding to the floor.
“Dr. Egbert? Can you hear me?” Boyd’s concerned voice came over the comms. “Dr. Egbert? Misao? Misao…”
“Misao?”
She looked up at the councilman, whose face no longer looked harsh and unforgiving but almost emphatic, as if the demeanor he used to prompt the recollection had been the true guise.
“Can you tell me what the initial report found?” he asked of her in a manner that was gentle compared to before.
“Yes…um…” she floundered for the words, still trapped in the memory of the tragedy. “The…the investigative team found that the problem was mechanical.”
“Explain further, please.”
“The, uh, the power fluctuation caused an overload in the system, making the generators overheat too quickly…the liquid hydrogen we use wasn’t cooling the conductors fast enough which formed installation blisters in the hoses…when the seals popped the hydrogen mixed with the near pure oxygen in the environment and…and…”
“Go on,” Talbot prodded her.
“The database recorded a surge of electrons caused by the overload. It’s what created the spark that initiated the explosion.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“That seems to match up with what I’ve read in the report as well,” Talbot said. “It also states that there was no way your team could have known that the hoses wouldn’t hold up; a combination of old equipment and bad luck.”
Talbot looked to his screen pad, seemed about ready to dismiss the subject until Misao spoke.
“That’s not true,” she murmured.
“What?”
She took a deep breath and let it out, knowing full well that this was most likely the end of her political aspirations, but also knowing the truth was more important when lives had been lost.
“We considered the option of upgrading and replacing the hoses early on before we had access to the cooling chamber.”
The councilman’s eyebrow arched and he leaned back in his chair, flicking his hand at her.
“Go on.”
“Franklin proposed the idea but after some simulation runs we voted him down.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because…it would have taken another month to manufacture and replace the hoses. We thought the risk minimal and…”
Misao looked down at her hands.
“And we were impatient,” she finished, lifting her head to meet his gaze.
“Why wasn’t that in the report?” Talbot asked, his voice terse.
“I…I don’t know,” Misao confessed, though she had an idea. “I told them about the hoses during the inquiry.”
She didn’t flinch from the cool gaze he gave her. In truth, she felt a mixture of relief with the confession.
“Why tell me now?” Talbot asked. “You know what this does to your chances.”
“It needed to be said. Evans and Franklin would be alive today if I had made the right call.”
“Hm,” Talbot grunted. “You said that Franklin’s suggestion was voted down. I’m assuming by the majority of your team.”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I was the team leader. The ultimate decision was mine, as was the responsibility.”
Talbot leaned over, typed a few words into his screen pad then turned it towards Misao to see. There was a file with a picture of an elderly statesman.
“Do you know this man?”
“I uh,” Misao fumbled. “No…no, I don’t think so.”
“You are a terrible liar,” Talbot said, even as she felt her cheeks blistering. “I guess that is not such a bad thing. This man is Phillip Sousa, head of the Akropolis Board of Inquiry, and father to Rosalini Sousa, a member of the team you headed. It was he who left out the bit about the upgraded hoses.”
“Sir, I am certain that-“
Talbot held up a hand to cut her off before she could come to the defense of her friend. Misao had guessed that Rosa’s father had buried that part of the inquiry so as to spare his daughter being branded and possibly shunned for future positions, but the accident had never been Rosa’s fault. She shouldn’t be punished for it now.
“Sousa came to me with this information. Did you know that?”
Misao was stunned. Her jaw dropped slightly open. This was a revelation she never expected.
“It was I who advised him against including that part in the final report.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Misao said. “W-why-“
“Why would I do that?” he finished for her. “The answer is both simple and complicated. You five were the most brilliant students we have ever had. Even as we speak, Adebayo is pioneering a new Cloud system that would be a sixteenth of the size of our current model while also consuming a tenth of the power. It could even be mobile if we so choose. Sousa, on the other hand, is developing ion drives to replace every propulsion system in Akropolis, which would also solve the electrical issues we run into with the radiation beyond the Wall, not to mention other possibilities.”
Talbot leaned forward, and now Misao thought she could see his true face; the calculating one that weighed every option, each bit of information, and used it to a certain advantage for a specific goal.
“If we had included your, shall we call it, mishap, then it is possible that your whole team would have been shunned or closed off to certain prospects in the scientific community. None of what I just explained to you would have occurred. Would we be lesser for it? Most definitely, and Akropolis would pay the price.”
“But,” and here he held up a finger. “We must also weigh the greater good against our moral obligation to uphold the truth. Unfortunately, Misao, these are not the times for truth to outweigh the greater good. We are a dying race. Our ancestors saw the end coming, which by the grace of humanity, they were able to create these sanctuaries that have saved us from total annihilation. But do not be fooled by the luxuries you see around you. We are always this close to extinction.”
He pressed this point by holding up an inch of space between his pointer finger and thumb.
“This city treads a fine line in being self-contained. One disaster and our civilization would crumble. For three hundred years we have survived, but in that time, the council has had to make some tough decisions, some that you might even label monstrous, but all for the greater good, the survival of the human species, decisions not unlike the one you have made.”
“Sir?”
“You pressed ahead with the experiment because you said impatience drove you, but I know for a fact you had a small window of time in which to complete your experiment. You gambled and took a chance that turned out to be a mistake, and two people lost their lives, but you also saved two lives that day.”
“Evans and Franklin didn’t have revival clauses,” Misao said quietly.
“I know. When you are so young, you never consider it ending so abruptly,” Talbot said. “Their families have petitioned the council several times to bypass these clauses. I am inclined to grant them this clemency but that decision is based upon two things occurring.”
“What is that?” Misao asked, suddenly anxious.
“One, that you accept the position I have just offered to you, and second, when Evans and Franklin are revived, you will be there to greet them.”
She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. The conditions that Talbot attached to the offer weren’t exactly ethical, but then wasn’t that the point he was trying to put across? She thought of all the good she could accomplish with a seat on the council, the plans she could fast track without all the red tape involved.
And then there was Evans and Franklin. She would be, in a way, righting a wrong; their families would have their sons back, but would her friends be grateful or accusatory when they woke? She honestly couldn’t guess, and that was also the point.
“I accept,” Misao finally replied.
There was no hesitation in her voice.
“I knew you would,” Talbot said, emitting assertion rather than smugness.
The councilman pressed his thumb on the screen pad and then took a long moment to get back to his feet. Misao stood as well, sensing that they were done.
