Refraction, p.1
Refraction, page 1
Refraction
Wick Welker
Demodocus Publishing LLC
Novels by Wick Welker
Medora
The Medora Wars
The Medorean*
Refraction
Dark Theory*
Needle Work
NeoSF*
*Forthcoming
Contents
Timeline
Prologue
I. Voices
1. September 1, 1986
2. September 1st, 1986
3. September 2nd, 2098
4. April 23rd, 1988
5. September 4th, 2098
II. The Dreamer
6. 2154, Earth Reckoning (ER)
7. January 8th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
8. September 4th, 2098
9. February 8th, 1988
10. January 10th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
11. October 11th, 1988
12. September 4th, 2098
III. The Phantom of Mars
13. January 11th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
14. February 15th, 1989
15. September 5th, 2098
16. January 20th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
IV. The Copperhound
17. September 5th, 2098
18. January 22th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
19. November 9th, 1989
20. September 9th, 2098
21. January 24th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
22. November 29, 1989
23. September 29th, 2098
V. Helianthus
24. March 21th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
25. September 29th, 2098
26. November 30th, 1989
27. March 21th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
28. December 1st, 1989
29. March 21th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
30. March 24th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
31. March 24th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
32. April 27th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
Epilogue
Afterword
Reviews Matter!
Sneak Peek
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Other Books Available From Demodocus Publishing
About the Author
Refraction
By Wick Welker
Copyright © 2021 by Demodocus Publishing LLC.
All right reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations within critical articles and reviews. For information, contact the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Published by Demodocus Publishing LLC.
ISBN: 978-1-7355374-5-0
PO Box 7235
Rochester, MN 55903
Cover art by Damonza; Timeline by Swerklstudio
For my baby girl on the way…
Refraction
Prologue
The terraforming of Mars brought harmony to the atmosphere, but not to the inhabitants of the planet. A decade after geosynchronous orbiting mirrors evaporated carbon dioxide and water vapor into the atmosphere, discord raged among the rival colonies. The communities were nestled along the Telephus Mountains, creating territorial disputes, trade wars, and old-fashioned frontier violence. After several years of strife, a council sought to unify the people of Mars into something more noble than themselves:
A utopia.
Each colony elected a representative to attend the first grand council of Mars. The twelve delegates met at a single spot in the Martian wilderness as a symbol of their goals—to forge an unsullied society on fertile ground, liberated from humanity's past mistakes of poverty, starvation, and war. Forming a semi-circle around an enormous bonfire, they sat cross-legged in the rust-colored soil.
The council argued.
Tempers flared, accusations flew, and motivations were questioned. They mutually suspected collusion, spreading distrust like a wildfire. After days of fruitless bickering, the council was on the brink of disbanding. They prepared to return to their colonies and ease back into their prejudices about one another.
On the final evening of the council, an old man appeared from the horizon.
He knew things about the council members. He knew… everything about them. He addressed them openly, uncovering their suspicions. He exposed that there was collusion—back door agreements between council members. He revealed the truth about the council, that every member intended to take advantage of their neighboring colony. The dream of establishing a utopia on Mars was a pretense for self-interest.
Trust evaporated.
The council was destroyed.
And the old man was never seen again.
The next morning, however, the former council members reconvened in an impromptu assembly. With their secrets exposed, they found they were free to speak—no longer hindered by their suspicions. The truth that the man wielded had thrust them back on equal footing.
They drafted a new government in half a day.
The original colonists concluded their first successful assembly and commissioned a tapestry to be woven. It depicted Mars woven in bright red over the black of space. Earth—in the past and relegated to history—was a small circle in dark blue. The council agreed on a mantra and stitched it into the tapestry:
Live on, Our Hope of the Risen Red.
The city of New Athens was born.
Part I
Voices
Chapter 1
September 1, 1986
Before Timothy Straus could save the worlds, he first needed to teach his class. The auditorium at the Georgetown physics department filled quickly. Students cut their chatter and stuffed their bags under chairs. Straus glanced at the front row curiously—the seats had been left empty. Before he could complain about the vacancies, several burly students stuffed themselves into the flimsy seats.
Straus eyed them skeptically. “Does the football team reserve seats now?”
A square-faced student shrugged. “We just like being up front. You’re a… really good teacher.” His fellow teammates nodded in unison.
He gave them a sidelong look. “That’s new.”
Straus looked over the auditorium, arms crossed, shaking his head. He tapped his watch and said, “Time is knowledge.” He scribbled equations on the chalkboard. “Who recognizes this formula?”
A hand shot up from the back. Straus continued to write as though he’d forgotten about the question. “Dr. Straus?” the student yelled.
Straus whipped around, strands of black hair falling in his eyes. He pointed at the student. “Yes?”
“Is it a Hamiltonian Wave Function?”
“No,” Straus said, pleased that his trap had been sprung. “But I can see why you may have thought that. It does look like the Hamiltonian but there is one slight deviation that makes this wave function take on a completely new behavior. Does anyone see it?” He grinned, anticipating they would mirror his enthusiasm.
They stared back, eyes glazed with disinterest.
“No one?” He waited—only a muffled cough in reply. “You see this line integral right here?” He pointed at a symbol. “This single alteration here, if it existed in nature, would completely alter our reality.” He let this last part hang in the air. “If that one variation changed, all of our atoms—every single particle that makes up our universe—would pause in their natural decay.”
The audience was unmoved.
“The elements would never cease to exist but time would still progress. If time progresses without nuclear decay, it means that the matter would travel outside of time. Time would become an irrelevant variable.” He lifted a hand with a flourish and looked back at the auditorium.
Someone said, “Pretty neat.” A squeal of laughter erupted and then died.
“Yes, yes,” Straus surrendered. “Looks like we don't have anyone here interested in real physics. Let’s get to your homework.”
The students pulled out enormous calculators as Straus provided solutions prompting many confused faces. A girl raised her hand and waved it. “Dr. Straus?” she finally chirped.
He looked out over his glasses. “Yes?”
“Can we go over question twelve? A lot of us aren’t understanding—”
“Of course—” His words cut off as a bolt of pain clapped through his head. He grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself. “I—” His mouth went dry.
Please, not now!
A chorus of voices swelled within him.
The voices scrambled together, pushing out the rest of the auditorium, the students—the world. The seams of reality split wide open, ushering a hurricane of voices flooding from a thousand worlds at once. The voices washed through him, pushing him to the ground.
As if rehearsed, the front row football team rushed to Straus as he faltered over the lab table. They clung to his limp hands as he sank to the floor.
And then it was over.
Lucidity returned.
He stood and straightened his tie. “I’m fine. I’m just having a very bad headache. You can take your seats, gentlemen.” He adjusted his skewed glasses.
The football team gave one another furtive glances. “ Are you sure? That was… was that a seizure?”
“No. Everyone, I think we’ll cut class a few minutes short today. I’ll see you on Wednesday.” After a pregnant pause, there was a mad dash for the doors. As students streamed out of the lecture hall, Straus saw the rotund chairman of the physics department coming down the steps.
“Dr. Van Wert,” Straus addressed him mechanically, collecting papers into his briefcase.
“Tim…” Van Wert furrowed his eyebrows.
“Yes?”
“Do you have anything to say about what just happened?”
“Did you ask the football team to sit in the front row today?”
Van Wert feigned surprise and then sighed, “It was just a precaution.”
“An unneeded one. It was just a headache.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t… the other thing?”
“No, I haven’t had those—that—in a while.”
“It looked a lot like the same problems you were having a few months ago. I only asked those students to sit there to prevent you from falling. And I’m glad that I did.”
“I don’t have those issues anymore. I’ve been on some new meds that have worked perfectly.” Straus winced at having brought up his medications.
He patted Straus on the shoulder. “I wanted to talk to you about something else…”
Straus looked at the clock. “I’d love to talk but I’m due back in my lab.”
Van Wert continued, “I’ve been observing some of your classes. I’m worried about how you’ve been… running things.”
“It was just a migraine,” Straus said, frustration growing.
“No, I’m not talking about your… episode just now. It’s your material. You’ve been teaching things that are way above these students’ heads. Half the things you put up there, I don’t even understand.”
“I just like to have a little fun with them. It’s important to show that you can get creative with physics.”
“Matter traveling through time? I know you’re teaching quantum mechanics but you’ve got to at least stick to the books. These are undergraduate physics students who can barely even grasp the basics.”
Straus shrugged. “It all makes sense mathematically. The math is perfect, check it yourself.”
“I can’t. I have no idea about half the stuff you’re talking about up there. No one does, it’s all conceptual… speculation.”
“Really, I can show you the math…” He picked up a piece of chalk as if ready for another lecture.
Van Wert put up his hands with a chuckle. “I’m sure you can. But please, stick to the curriculum and pay attention to student questions.”
Straus nodded, “I understand. Anything else?”
Van Wert looked at him, hesitating. “I heard about your grant running out soon.”
Straus chased a worried look from his face. “I’m optimistic I can renew it with a few tweaks—”
“If your projects were more stable, you might get more sustainable funding. But you’re always onto some new pet project before you finish the previous one. A year ago, you were working with a free radical engine and now you’re onto this Casimir thing?”
“Casimir Drive,” he corrected. “And it’s not just a pet project. It’s something else—something big. I think it’s something that could change the world.”
Van Wert stifled a grin and patted Straus on the shoulder. “Of course, Tim. Of course. I would advise you to at least try sticking with this project for more than just a year.”
“That won’t be a problem. The Casimir Drive is the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on. It will define my career and, hopefully, much more. It will connect all people together over the planet and maybe even beyond our solar system.” Van Wert offered a weak smile that Straus assumed he reserved for himself and perhaps his five-year-old niece.
Without another word, Straus picked up his briefcase while Van Wert watched him exit the classroom. Straus weaved through mazes of lab benches and into the catacombs of the physics department. After a few flights through dank stairwells, he came to his laboratory door. Sliding his badge, he entered and found his graduate student, Duke, bent over a row of black grids that spanned the length of the lab. It looked like someone had gutted a dozen metal filing cabinets and placed them on their backs.
“How did it go?” Straus asked, looking over the grid.
“Bad. The whole thing is heating up.” Duke reached for a wrench.
“Not surprised.”
“No idea where all this extra heat is coming from,” Duke said, stretching his arms to the ceiling. The back of his shirt clung with sweat.
“I don’t see it when we run the numbers.” Straus sat down and flipped through a notebook. “Doesn’t add up. We shouldn’t be generating this much heat. We’ll need to get money to transfer the whole lab to the super-cooled rooms.”
“Great, we probably won’t get those funds until after I graduate.”
“Assuming we can renew the grant—” Straus saw an unfamiliar girl hovering around the doorway.
Duke stood. “Dr. Straus, this is Chou Jia. She just had her interview for one of our graduate spots. I thought I would show her around the lab.”
“Very good.” Straus, still halfway across the lab, shot his arm out at her unceremoniously. “It’s nice to meet you, Chou Jia.”
“Oh!” the girl said, surprised at Straus trying to shake her hand from across the room. She dashed to him and took his hand.
“What makes you interested in the lab?”
“Well,” she said, settling her nerves. “I think you have the best labs on the east coast. Georgetown will definitely be my top choice. What’s that?” She pointed to the rows of black grids.
“Duke, our trap has been sprung. She wants to know about the Drive. Are you familiar with the Casimir effect?” he asked her.
She bit her lip, “Vaguely.”
“The Casimir effect is a phenomenon that occurs when you place two neutrally charged plates extremely close together, which creates negative energy in the space between them. Basically, energy out of a vacuum. What we’re doing here,” he motioned to the rows of grids, “is exploiting the negative energy produced between subatomic fluctuations.”
“Uh-huh.”
“There are more quantum fluctuations happening on the outside of the plates than in between the plates, so there is a tremendous amount more of quantum bubbling going on outside of the plates, which pushes them together, creating energy… seemingly out of nothing. We’ve designed a grid system of plates that are one atom thick and with a space of only one atom wide—extremely small spaces. The smaller the space, the greater negative energy comes out of it. We believe by stacking the atomic plates together, you can create an enormous amount of energy in a very tiny space.”
“And what will that do?”
“Ever see Star Trek?”
Duke rolled his eyes as if tired of his overused explanation.
“Of course,” Chou Jia said.
“I predict that focusing that amount of energy into such a small space would effectively bend space. Like a warp drive.”
“Really?”
Straus simply nodded.
“I’ve never heard of the Casimir effect doing that,” she said.
“No one has… yet. Assuming our funding doesn’t run out…” he sighed, souring the mood.
