Chương 177: The Untethered Object (10/24/2015)

DATE: Tuesday, October 24, 2015 LOCATION: San Diego Arcology, CA | The Executive Penthouse LOCAL TIME: 08: 00 AM PST Steve Wozniak sat at the end of the long obsidian table, his fingers dancing over a transparent interface. To the world, he was the retired co-founder of Apple. To Fractal Systems, he was the foundational architect of the Sutra Code.

"You're late, Chad," Woz said without looking up.

"I've already found three security holes in the Helendale schematics JAY sent over. Their encryption is cute. Like a bicycle lock on a bank vault." Amy and Dr. Sterling sat to my left. Across from them were Bob Lazar and Brad Sorenson. Lazar reached out, his hand trembling slightly as he passed it through the holographic render of the ARV hovering above the table, staring at his palm as if the light had physically shocked him. In the center of the table, a high-resolution holographic beam flickered to life.

Elon Musk appeared, rendered perfectly from his command suite in Brownsville.

"I'm here," Elon said.

"The Moon factories just finished the latest drone batch. I hope this is more than a logistics check."

"It's about the sky, Elon," I said.

"Lazar and Sorenson have seen the physical layout. Woz built the bridge, and you manage the foundries. We're here because the military is using a sledgehammer, and I want to build a key." I tapped the table, expanding the image of the ARV Flux Liner next to the sleek alien Sport Model.

"Brad, you saw the ARVs at Norton. How do they work?"

"It's a giant electrical pressure cooker," Sorenson explained, gesturing to the heavy capacitor banks.

"They pump high-voltage electricity through a column of mercury plasma."

"High-speed rotation of liquid metal to create a localized gravitational shear," Elon interrupted, his eyes narrowing.

"It's brutal. Inefficient."

"And loud," Woz added.

"The military is trying to clear a room by blowing out the walls. The alien ships don't punch through space. They negotiate with it." Lazar nodded slowly, still staring at the hologram.

"The reactors on the Sport Model didn't emit heat. No wiring. They created an A-wave that pulled space-time toward the ship. You don't travel to a destination; you bring the destination to you." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"No propulsion," I said.

"They untether from the fundamental forces. Gravity, friction, electromagnetism. The ship just becomes a null-object. A hitchhiker." Woz's eyes went wide.

"You untether from everything except the specific field you want to follow. Instant acceleration with zero G-force, because you aren't actually moving through the medium."

"JAY, pull up the 2017 projected deep-space intercepts," I said.

"Show them 'Oumuamua." A long, jagged, cigar-shaped object appeared above the table.

"In two years, the world is going to call this a rock," I said.

"But it's an untethered object. An anchor. I want to intercept it. Elon, retool the Lunar Foundry. No engines, no fuel. Just a carbon-fiber chassis and a patched transmitter. We're going to ride that anchor out of the solar system." Silence fell over the boardroom.

"But we can't build the escape vehicle while the warden is still watching the yard," I continued. I swiped the map away. In its place appeared a jagged, dark object tumbling in a polar orbit.

"The Black Knight Satellite. The master router. We have to take it off the board."

"Then we move it," Elon said instantly.

"I'll divert two of the high-impulse asteroid tugs from the Venusian project. We intercept, clamp on, and launch it at Venus to bury it in atmospheric chaos. Richard, have your Red Cell team board it to secure the rockets."

"JAY, run the kinetic simulation," I ordered. The holographic display flickered. The digital tugs locked their clamps onto the satellite and fired millions of pounds of thrust. But the Black Knight simply blurred. [JAY TELEMETRY: KINETIC EVICTION FAILED | TARGET UNTETHERED]"It untethered," Woz whispered, watching the physics engine fail.

"The second the tugs applied kinetic pressure, it unhooked from the local inertial frame. The rockets aren't pushing a satellite. They're pushing against a hole in the universe."

"It's a ghost," Elon realized.

"My tugs could burn for a thousand years and never move it." I looked at Marcinko, who stood quietly in the shadows of the penthouse.

"Cancel the boarding party, Richard. Your team touches that hull, they get untethered right along with it into a void they can't breathe in."

"So we spoof it," Woz said, smiling as a new angle hit him.

"We use the grid to broadcast a feedback loop. Flood its sensors with biological noise until it goes blind." I shook my head.

"That's temporary. It re-establishes connection once the noise drops. We need it gone. If these things can untether at will, how did the military knock one down in '47 at Roswell?"

"Radar," Woz realized, his fingers flying over his interface.

"The 509th was testing high-gain pulses that accidentally hit a harmonic of the 7. 83 Hz frequency. It broke the handshake. The ship's OS lost its frame of reference and defaulted to 'Tethered' mode."

"The air became a wall of lead," Amy added.

"It crashed because it suddenly had mass and friction again."

"Then we replicate the glitch," I said.

"The Black Knight is pinned by the tension between Magnetic North and the Sun. We use the North American grid as a tuning fork, grounding a phase-shifted pulse down in Taos."

"Shake the Earth's magnetic string until the handshake fails," Woz said, awe in his voice.

"Its safety protocols will kick in," I finished.

"It tries to re-tether to keep from being flung into the void. The second it becomes a physical object again, Elon's tugs latch on and drag it. Woz, Amy—run the math. Elon, get the tugs in position."