John Cramer - Einstein's Bridge

“Okay,” said George, “lock the laser cutting beam in the ‘on’ state and hand me the Bridge detector. Then move back.”

She activated the cutting laser in the Bridge detector, carefully pointing the intense blue beam down the tunnel, and held it out. George’s remote took the device from her and extended its jointed arm to the stalagmite, using its other arm to hold the mouth of the liquid helium-filled dewar just below the point that she had indicated. The bright blue beam began to slice into the limestone, making white sparks. Suddenly a blinding green flash overwhelmed the blue of the laser. Alice was flung back by the shock wave.

“Shit!” said George’s voice. “The thing was booby-trapped.” As her eyes readjusted, she could see that both of the remote’s arms had been burned off, the detector was gone, and the dewar lay broken and steaming some distance away. “It’s a trap!” said George. “The Hive Mind is conscious. Get out, Alice! Run!”

As she backed out of the tunnel, she could see that the insectoid forms along the wall were beginning to move. Outside the opening she grabbed the hose of the liquid nitrogen tank and shoved it into the hole, cranked the valve to full open, then tore off her respirator hood. Should she shed the rest of the suit? Her eyes caught movement from the tunnel. She glanced around for another possible weapon, but saw none. George’s last word finally connected with her legs and she began to run for the elevator.

Halfway there, she turned for a quick look. The scene evoked images from a Hieronymus Bosch painting she’d once seen in Madrid. Emerging from the tunnel were a hellish variety of shapes and forms that walked, flowed, squirmed, flew, rolled, and slithered from the opening. Prominent among them were large black insectoid forms with sharply spiked bodies and large cruel pincer jaws. Somehow she knew that these were Hive Soldiers. They ran toward her on six legs, with two smaller legs extended forward, grasping strange tessellated objects. Another remote with George’s image on the headscreen darted out from a charger bay and tried to intercept them. One insect grasped the machine in its jaws and tossed it sideways. The remote hit the wall with a loud crash and was still.

“I can’t believe this,” Alice she said to herself. “This isn’t happening.” She kicked off the clumsy boots of the cryo-suit and ran barefoot across the painted concrete floor.

She had almost reached the sanctuary of the open elevator door when the Hive Soldiers caught her.

WHEN GEORGE HAD RECEIVED ALICE’S MESSAGE, he, Roger, and Iris had rushed to the LEM data analysis room so that he could connect to an SDC remote and they could watch. Now Roger tore off the glasses and stared at the others in horror. “My God! They’ve killed Alice!” he said.

“Yes, she’s dead,” said George. “There was nothing I could do.” He put his hands over his face.

Roger straightened slowly, struggling to calm himself after the grisly spectacle he had just witnessed. He walked across and placed his hand on George’s shoulder. “We understand, George,” he said. “We were watching. There was nothing more you could do.”

Iris walked over and put her hand against George’s cheek. Roger wondered if she was doing something to calm him. “The Hive Mind was just reaching sentience,” she said. “We almost succeeded. It’s a tragic loss, George, but only the first of many millions. We Makers were naive to assume that we had a year to prepare before the Hive arrived. They modified their tactics, probably in response to our previous successes. On your planet, we have failed to stop the Hive incursion. The Hive will now assimilate your world.”

“We need to warn people,” said George, taking out his cellphone.

“That would be futile,” said Iris. “The entire human race will be dead by tomorrow. Warning your people would have no effect.”

“But surely there must be a way to stop it,” said George. “Suppose a hydrogen bomb were detonated at the SDC site…?”

“It would have little effect,” said Iris. “A Bridge is a typological defect in space itself, and it represents a Planck-scale concentration of energy. It cannot be removed by some minor energy discharge at the nuclear scale. Moreover, by now the Hive Mind has surely dispersed itself far enough to withstand any local act of destruction.” She paused, her head cocked to one side as if listening, then spoke slowly and deliberately. “There is one further thing we can attempt that might stop the Hive. We had expected to have more time. We’ve made no preparations for it, and it is at best a desperate measure. It will require a very large electrical power source.”

“How large?” asked George through gritted teeth. He was crying. Roger fished a handkerchief from his backpack and handed it to George, frustrated that this was all he could do.

“In your units of energy flow, perhaps two hundred megawatts at a bare minimum,” said Iris. “We have studied the design of the SSC and have determined that there is such a power source associated with it.”

“Yes,” George said in a choked voice. “That’s about the size of the magnet power supply for the injector synchrotron.” He wiped his eyes with Roger’s handkerchief, blew his nose, and sniffed.

“Then we must go to it immediately,” said Iris. “The Hive tends to ignore mechanical infrastructure in its initial attack, but we must get there while the power supply is still operating.” “The problem is,” said George, straightening, “we’re here on the east campus of the ring and the injector is in a tunnel at the west campus. We’ll have to drive across.”

Roger shouldered his backpack and led the way as they walked quickly to the lobby of the LEM building. His car was just outside in the parking lot. But before the wall of glass in the building lobby he halted abruptly. Looking south toward the SDC building, he saw that the air around it was a dirty gray. In the distance large dark shapes were moving. Outside the glass they could see small metallic-looking flying insects landing on the concrete and shrubbery.

“Pandora’s box has been opened,” said Iris. “The Troubles are abroad in your world. Those creatures are Hive Flyers. The assimilation of your world is beginning. Their touch brings instant death.”

“Could we make it to the west campus in my car through that?” asked Roger. He doubted it.

“No,” said George, suddenly alert. “I have a better idea. Come on.” He led them to the building’s deep elevator. Inside the car he pushed the button that would take them down to the LEM detector itself, two hundred meters below the surface. “We can reach the west campus through the ring,” he explained.

“But that would take all day,” Roger objected. “The circumference of the ring is eighty-six kilometers. Halfway around is forty-three kilometers, a good day’s hike.”

“Yes,” said George, “and because it’s so far they have a fast little monorail system to take the engineers and technicians and hardware around the ring when the beam is off. We can use that.”

The doors opened to reveal the LEM detector. George’s access card got them through three security doors and into the SSC tunnel itself. Not far away a yellow vehicle, like a wheelless pickup truck, hung from a siding rail mounted on the ceiling. They climbed in, and George engaged the drive mechanism and swerved out onto the main railing. The vehicle began to move backward, truckbed first and passenger area behind. It accelerated until it was backing up at about 70 kilometers per hour.

“We’re going by the north side of the ring, in the direction that avoids the SDC detector area,” George said.

Roger nodded.