F. Paul Wilson - All the Rage

The dry lab lightened, then darkened again as the door behind her opened and closed.

"Are you a believer yet?"

She turned at Dr. Monnet's voice. He stood behind her, looking as if he hadn't slept last night.

She swallowed. "Tell me this is a trick. Please?"

"I wish it were." He sighed. "You have no idea how much I wish this were some sort of hoax. But it is not."

"It has to be. If you were simply asking me to believe that this molecule alters its structure during the course of some 'celestial event,' I could buy that. I'd want to know how the 'event' effected the change, but I could imagine gravitational influence or something equally subtle acting as a catalyst, and I could handle that. But what we've got here—if we haven't been flim-flammed—is a molecule that not only mutates from one form to another but substitutes its new structure for all records of its original structure. In effect, it's editing reality. And we both know that's impossible."

"Knew," Dr. Monnet said. "That was what we assumed was true. Now we know different."

"Speak for yourself."

He smiled wanly. "I know how you feel. You are utterly confused, you are frightened and suspicious, yet you are also exhilarated and challenged. And the tug-of-war between all these conflicting emotions leaves you on the brink of tears. Am I right?"

Nadia felt her eyes begin to brim as a sob built in her throat. She wiped them and nodded, unable to speak.

"But it's true, Nadia," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Trust me. We are not being tricked. There's something here that challenges our most fundamental beliefs about the nature of the physical world, about reality itself."

And that was what was so upsetting, making her crazy. What if the ability to reorder reality, along with the very memory of reality, were not confined to this one molecule? What if it were happening every day? How many times had she typed or written a word and then stopped and stared at it, thinking it looked wrong, that it was spelled some other way? She'd look it up and find most times that her original spelling had been correct, so she'd move on despite the feeling that it still looked wrong.

"We must know how it works," Dr. Monnet said. "And the first step toward an answer is to stabilize the molecule."

"How can you do that if you can't even remember what it looked like originally?"

He pulled a vial from his pocket and held it out to her. "Because we have a new supply."

Nadia stared at the tube for a heartbeat, then snatched it from him and with trembling hands began preparing a sample of the pale blue powder for the imager. When it was ready she fed it to the machine and waited.

Finally the molecule appeared and she wanted to cheer when she recognized it. This was what had been erased from her brain. Now the memory was back and, disturbing though its shape might be, she felt whole again.

"How… where did you find the unaltered Loki?"

"From the source. It doesn't change within the source, only after it's been removed from it."

She turned to face Dr. Monnet. "And are you still keeping the source a secret?"

"For now, yes."

Nadia wanted to scream at him to tell her. It had to be organic—a plant? An animal? What?

"And the mysterious celestial event? Does that remain a secret too?"

"I only held back on that until you'd seen for yourself the changes wrought by the event. The event itself is common, occurring a dozen, sometimes thirteen times per year: the new moon."

Nadia wet her lips. "The new moon? When was that?"

"Exactly eight-forty-two last night."

The cycle of the moon, one of the primal rhythms of the planet. And the new moon… a time when Earth's celestial night-light was out, blind to what was going on below on the darkest night of the cycle.

A chill ran over her skin.

"I'd like you to get started right away," Dr. Monnet was saying. "We have no time to lose. The Loki source may be… unavailable after this, and then we will have lost forever our chance to unlock its secrets."

"Don't you think we should get some outside help? I mean, if we've only got twenty-nine days…"

Dr. Monnet shook his head vigorously. "No. Absolutely not. Loki does not leave GEM. I thought I made that clear."

"You did, but—"

"No buts about it." His face paled, but Nadia wasn't sure whether from anger or fear. "Absolutely no outside consultation on this."

Nadia wanted to wail that he couldn't—shouldn't—put all this responsibility on a beginner like her.

"You are going to help me, I hope," she said.

"Of course. To save you time, I'll show you all the dead ends I've already explored. After that, I'm counting on you to come up with a new perspective."

Uncertainty tickled her gut. "I don't know if you should count too heavily—"

He held up a hand. "I never told you this, but before I hired you I put in a call to Dr. Petrillo."

She stiffened. Her research mentor during her fellowship—the Grand Old Man of anabolic steroids. "What did he say?"

"What didn't he say! I couldn't get him to stop talking about you. He was overjoyed you were staying in research instead of 'wasting' your talents in clinical practice. So you shouldn't underestimate your abilities, Nadia. I'm certainly not. But as an extra incentive: if you stabilize the Loki molecule within the next four weeks, I am authorized to offer you a bonus."

"Really, that's not necessary."

He smiled. "You shouldn't say that until you hear the amount. How does one million dollars sound?"

Nadia was struck dumb. She opened her mouth but it took a few seconds before she was capable of coherent speech. "Did… did you say— T

"Yes. A lump sum of one million. You can—"

Pat, a middle-aged tech with salt-and-pepper hair, knocked on the dry lab door before pushing it open. Fluorescent light streamed in from the hall.

"Excuse me, Dr. Monnet," she said, "but Mr. Garrison's on the phone."

Dr. Monnet looked irritated. "Tell him I'll call him back."

"He say's it's urgent. 'An emergency' was how he put it."

"Oh, very well." He turned to Nadia. "I'll be right back. Nothing is more important right now than this project."

I guess not, she thought. A million dollars… a million dollars!

The words kept echoing through her head as she waited, fantasizing what she could do with that amount of cash. She and Doug could get married right away, put a down payment on a house, get his software company up and running, jump out of limbo, and start living.

When a good ten minutes had passed and Dr. Monnet didn't return, Nadia stepped outside and signaled to Pat.

"Where's Dr. Monnet?"

She pointed toward the door. "He got off the phone with Mr. Garrison and hurried upstairs."

Nothing more important right now than this project, hmmm? she thought as she returned to the dry lab. Obviously something was. She hoped Mr. Garrison's emergency wasn't too serious or personal.

She stepped up to the imager and began rotating the 3-D Loki image back and forth, hoping the more she saw of it, the less discomfiting it would seem.

I'm going to beat you, she thought, staring at the molecule. Not for the bonus… this is the challenge of a lifetime, and I'm going to show I can do it.

But she wouldn't turn down that bonus. No way.

5

"We've been hacked!" Kent Garrison said as soon as the soundproof door was pulled shut and latcned.

Kent, flushed, suit coat off, crescents of perspiration darkening the armpits of his bulging blue shirt, stood at the end of the table.

"Not true," Brad Edwards said. Dressed in a perfectly tailored blue blazer, he sat hunched forward in his chair across from Luc, twisting his delicate hands over the mahogany surface. "They said they think someone got past the fire wall, but they're not sure."