We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 5: Chapter 27: Positive Results

Book 5: Chapter 27: Positive Results

Bill

October 2337

In Virt

“We got something.” Hugh waved a piece of paper at me from his video window. Still no in-person appearances.

It had been months since the Skippies had shut down their borders, and there was no indication of any progress or any timeline for going back to normal. Hugh wouldn’t even discuss what was going on, other than to repeat platitudes about “excess of caution” and “taking baby steps.” Still, the downside of being too casual about the situation was presumably far worse.

I materialized a coffee and sat down in my La-Z-Boy, drawing out the moment. Unless Hugh was talking about something entirely different, I was about to receive the first positive news about the possibility of FTL in almost a hundred years.

“Hit me,” I said, gesturing with my coffee.

“Well, it’s not that dramatic. A working wormhole didn’t just pop out of our printer. But the numbers are converging on a solution that doesn’t generate infinities.”

I frowned, a little disappointed. No solution just yet, apparently. “So how long until we have something I can use?”

“You can use this, Bill. It just won’t work very well and will probably not produce much more negative energy than a classical Casimir generator. Or it might blow up, taking you and your entire star system with it. But it’s enough for you to get started.”

I glared at Hugh. He was probably kidding about the blowing-up part. I hoped. On the other hand, that would be a lot of energy … “Okay, Hugh, but you’ll continue running the series, right?”

“Sure, right up until we converge on the optimal solution. Upper management seems to have bought into this project, and everyone’s rubbernecking. I bet a solution won’t be much longer, either. You should start building your hardware.”

“Heh. I’ve long since done that. Everything except the gray box where the negative-energy generator goes. Send me what you have. Meanwhile, I need to contact Garfield.” Hugh nodded just as I terminated the connection.

*****

Garfield’s manny sat up and blinked. “This isn’t your regular lab,” he said.

“No, this is a space station out in the Oort cloud, spinning for gravity. I’ve always felt there was an element of danger with this project, given the forces we could be working with, so I did some preparation.” I smiled briefly. “I don’t mind blowing up a few million cubic kilometers of floating ice balls, if it comes to that.”

Garfield nodded and stepped out of the manny pod. “How close are you?”

I gestured for him to follow as I headed for the door, and he hurried to catch up. The door hissed open in front of us.

“I’ve been on this project for almost a century, Gar. I’ve done all the engineering that I could. I borrowed shamelessly from all the human research that I’ve been able to find. I’ve even built several versions of some items. For instance, there were at least a half dozen theories about how an Alcubierre drive could be built, depending on how you would go about generating the warp field. I’m ready for any of those possibilities.”

“Warp-drive generator goes here,” Garfield interjected with a laugh, pointing a finger at midair.

“Yeah, like that. Anyway, I think we need more than just a source of negative energy for that project. Some theoretical work is still required. Like one of the versions still needs a sub-light drive to move at all. Another one instantly departs at FTL speeds as soon as it’s turned on. Several of them will kill the passengers in various spectacular and painful ways. At least one fries your destination as you arrive. And so on. On the other hand, I’ve finally made progress with wormholes, so I’ll start there.” ?á????Š

“Just like that.”

I stopped and turned to him. “Ninety percent of the theoretical work was done before Original Bob died, Gar. It was always, ‘All we need is exotic matter,’ or ‘All we need is negative energy.’ So now we have that. Or will, soon. I’ve been able to generate microscopic wormhole pairs from the quantum foam for about twenty years now. I told you that before. But now, maybe I can make them useful.”

“Here’s something I’ve been worrying about,” Garfield said to my back as I resumed walking. I slowed to let him catch up, and he continued, “What if Thoth wasn’t really depending on you not being smart enough to make use of its hint? What if it wanted you to figure it out, knowing the results would be disastrous? Maybe we activate the FTL drive, and it blows up the entire spiral arm.”

“I thought of that. I think the principle of mediocrity applies here, though. Someone else, somewhere else in the universe, would certainly have tried this before us, and we’d have seen the results by now.”

“Like fast radio bursts, maybe?”

I opened my mouth to retort, but stopped. FRBs were some of the most energetic energy discharges in the universe and still didn’t have a good explanation. They were random, seemed to come out of nowhere, and …

“Nope,” I replied. “Some are periodic. What kind of engineering fail would give you an ongoing explosion?”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

I glanced at him. “We’ll know soon, Gar.” I stopped and gestured to a heavily armored set of doors, looking something like a bank vault. “I hope you brought your lead underwear.”