Extinction Machine

Chapter Sixty-nine

Hadley and Meyers Real Estate

Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 11:27 a.m.

“How’s this actually work?” asked Aldo.

“I thought you took the tour … Didn’t Dr. Hoshino go over it all?”

“Yeah, she went over a lot of bullshit science. The woman is a supergeek. Doesn’t know how to talk to real folks. She couldn’t explain the concept of chewing gum to a kid without making it sound like Star Wars.”

“It’s simple,” said Tull. On the table were ten tiny components laid out on a long piece of red velvet, each piece separated by a block of rubber. “These are miniatures of the D-type components used in the Device. The stabilizer, the red generator, the green generator, the clock, the interface, the mother board, the master circuit, the slave circuit, the iridium heart, and the central switch. When President Truman authorized Majestic Twelve and Majestic Three, the initial goal was to rebuild the alien craft from Roswell. That was an immediate failure because the ship was too badly damaged. So, M3 began researching other crashes around the world, and when it began clear early on that there have been many crashes, Truman directed M3 to obtain as many D-type components as possible in order to cobble together one complete craft. All devices have these ten. The miniatures were made to run simulations, but they’re actually too dangerous for that. We blew up a couple of labs before we figured that out.”

Tull took two of the components. “Take any two of the—like this slave circuit and this green generator and put them in close proximity and look what happens.”

He set the two pieces down within five inches of each other. Immediately they began trembling and suddenly they flew together. At first they merely collided, but as Aldo watched the components continued to tremble and turn until they finally reached the point where a tab on the green generator slid into a slot on the slave circuit. There was a flash of white light and when Aldo blinked his eyes clear the pieces lay immobile but completely connected. Tull handed it to him.

“They look like they’re welded together. I can’t even find a seam. Jeez-us.”

“It’s called charismatic magnetism. The pieces know they’re supposed to be together and given the chance they’ll always connect. Rubber blocks work pretty well, but for today we’re going to coat one piece in ionized gel. The charge in the gel will be fed by the motors in the pigeon drones. Once in place, we shut off the motors and the gel gradually loses its charge, eventually allowing the last component to be pulled into place.”

“That’s some scary shit,” said Aldo.

“You should see your face,” laughed Tull. “It’s not magic, man, it’s just science.”

Aldo grunted. “What was that flash? Nearly blinded me.”

“Ah, well … that’s the reason they stopped building the little ones, and it’s the reason they’ve had so much trouble with the big ones. When the components connect they emit a strong burst of energy. No one quite knows why. Almost every previous attempt to construct a complete Device—or a synthetic Truman Engine—has resulted in such a massive energy discharge that it’s been like dropping a nuke.”

“Yeah, I heard some bullshit rumors about that. Did we cause Mount St. Helens to blow?”

“Sure, they had a geothermal research lab that was part of a clean power project. The governors of M3 at the time thought that the big turbines and batteries they’d built to store all that geothermal energy would be enough to contain the discharge.”

“That didn’t work out so great, huh?”

“Not the first big mistake, not the last.”

“You’re telling me that every single one of these engines is a potential disaster waiting to happen.”

“Right,” said Tull.

“So…,” Aldo said slowly, “why the f*ck are we trying to build ten of them right here?”

Tull grinned. “When you were a kid, didn’t you ever tie a firecracker to a cat’s tail?”

“No, when I was a kid I was sane.”

“Well, the man who taught me about the Device used to blow up cats.” He paused and picked up another component. “I even tried it. So much fun.”