Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (novel24 .txt) 📕

around Henrietta, reaches up to the top of the plasma glass, and uses gentle downward pressure to trigger the electronic telescoping of the mount so that the screen is more easily within Henrietta’s reach.

“Merci,” Henrietta says.

The soldier smiles in acknowledgment of the discrepancy in their heights, then steps down out of the box, turns, and, with the slow-motion double action of the thick plastic door, seals Henrietta inside.

The air pressure in the room changes, and although she was not aware of it being especially noisy before, she is now hyperaware of the complete absence of sound. Her own breathing startles her, and she can even detect her quickening heartbeat. The metal grating in the floor is warm from what Henrietta suspects is a layer of hardworking, signal-suppressing electronics.

When she turns back to the screen, the insignia has already been replaced with what she came here to see. In the top left-hand corner is a digital clock, the first few precious seconds of her extremely limited time already ticked off.

Henrietta directs herself to remain calm; wills herself to focus; refuses to allow her breathing and heartbeat to become a positive feedback loop propelling her toward panic. This could prove the most important two minutes of her life, and she knows that she will not get a second chance.

The prologue of The Static is pure text, and she begins skimming and scrolling, spending just enough time to grasp the gist.

…ability to send messages across time…critical this technology does not fall into the hands of authoritarian regimes…must be brought to the attention of the United States government…perform a live demonstration…possibly the most significant experiment in history….

The language here is very clearly meant to attract the CIA. Henrietta thinks back to Allard’s various theories. If the motive were simply the destruction of intellectual property or a test run for a much larger attack, there would be no need to have federal officers in the vicinity. In fact, drawing a task force would be a reckless liability. The only theory left that makes any sense is an incredibly elaborate assassination attempt. Of course, definitively identifying the target is key. But Henrietta knows something Allard doesn’t: Moretti would have sent Quinn Mitchell to Station F instead of her husband had she not been on medical leave.

Ninety seconds left.

The next section contains the schematics for the device. Henrietta can see that it is not all that complicated—that it could probably be assembled in a garage by any competent undergrad out of readily available parts and materials. A few diode arrays and optical elements removed from laser cutting machines or electron beam welders. The insides from about a half dozen discarded microwaves. A handful of rare-earth minerals easily extracted from any number of recycled electronics, melted, compressed, and then fired into ceramic superconductors. Anything that can create and maintain a reasonable partial vacuum, and a way to generate a moderately strong electromagnetic field. A small amount of liquid hydrogen. A couple of aluminum plates, some copper refrigeration tubing, and a handful of valves, couplings, and seals available from any hardware store.

But Henrietta knows that it is not the device itself that matters. It is the equation of the reaction the device catalyzes. If she can understand the fundamental nature of The Antecedent, she is confident that she can train any number of neural networks to rapidly and elegantly reverse engineer it.

So she blots her palms on her dress once again and rapidly flings the last of the schematics off the screen. And then, right before the end, there it is. The entire equation. Expressed in dense and elegantly reduced-function notation. Everything she needs to understand The Antecedent. To reverse engineer it. To figure out how to build devices that leave massive divots in spacetime. All mocking her because it is impossible to memorize in the fleeting time she has remaining.

But there is something about the final section of the document that instantly changes the game. It is rendered in colors that Henrietta has instinctively learned to avoid—magenta text on a bright-green background—the exact combination that triggers her chromatic illusory palinopsia. Without her metaspecs to continuously shift the spectrum through more neutral tones, she is susceptible to irritating and persistent afterimages being burned into her retinas. Which, for the very first time in her life, is exactly what she needs. So instead of squinting or blinking or avoiding the glare of the plasma glass, Henrietta cranks up the brightness and contrast, centers and zooms, then stares.

She does not want to risk interrupting the process by glancing at the clock, so she remains fixated until the document is gone and the owl is back. And now a new countdown begins. Afterimages caused by her CIP can persist for as long as twenty-four hours, but text stays sharp enough to be legible for only a matter of minutes.

The key will be to move quickly and blink as little as possible. As soon as the door has been swung back on its hinge, Henrietta steps down out of the box and keeps walking. It is comparatively loud on the outside—air blowing through overhead vents, the cumulative din of the offices around them—and the soldier says something behind her that Henrietta cannot hear. The double doors are already opening into the waiting room, and she steps from hard marble onto soft silicone tile without breaking her stride.

“I need to go,” she says without looking at the clerk.

The door to the security room is unlocked, and the two guards watch as she presses her thumb against the black glass pad, pops the locker, swings the door back, and hangs her bag across her body.

“Où sont les toilettes?” she asks as she shimmies a dainty foot into a white, self-cinching sneaker. She knows she must look distraught and wild-eyed.

“Straight down the hall,” the woman replies. “On your left.”

“Merci,” Henrietta says without looking back.

The men’s room is first, and Henrietta sees that the ladies’ room is still several paces away, so she decides to take a