Chapter 38: Re-Cycle
Timeline: 13:00, Monday
Location: Greyson Textile Factory (Sub-Basement B)
The next three hours became a grueling exercise in logistics. We hauled the heavy capacitor bank down the narrow stairs one piece at a time. It took all three men to maneuver the main housing. I stayed below, prepping our makeshift lab and making a list of things still needed.
I set up a folding table near the entrance of the tunnel. I unpacked the sensors: laser interferometers to measure spatial distortion, thermal cameras to track the entropy field, and magnetic field detectors.
I worked methodically. While Alex and Marcus built the power grid, I built the observation area. By the time the capacitor bank sat reassembled and humming quietly next to the rusted generator, the air in the cavern felt different. The damp cave had transformed into a (very strange) workspace.
"Okay, everyone. The circuit is live," Alex announced, flipping a breaker on the makeshift panel he had constructed. "The frequency is 60 Hertz and harmonic distortion is below 0.1 percent. That's as clean as it gets, Lonna."
"Good," Julian said. He stood by the fissure, holding a laser measure. "Lonna, let's see what our new mesh is telling us."
At the folding table, I connected the main data cable to the laptop. The screen immediately filled with data. The "Dave Suite" filters kicked in, scrubbing what little noise remained.
"I can see it," I said. "It looks uneven," I whispered. "Look."
Alex and Julian came over to look at the monitor. The wireframe rippled. It moved like the surface of a slow-moving ocean. Peaks and valleys formed and dissolved in slow motion.
"It looks fluid," Alex observed.
"Is it growing?" Julian asked.
"I think that's just perception." I checked the perimeter measurements. "According to this," I said. "It remains contained within the rock fissure. The event horizon looks stable to within a millimeter. But…"
"But what?"
I pointed to a spike on the graph. "Doesn't it look like it has a repeating cycle?"
"Is something leaking through?" Alex asked, concern sharpening his voice. "Is the containment failing?"
"No," I corrected quickly. "It's not a mechanical failure. It looks like a resonance frequency. Every twenty-three seconds, the entropy field expands by point-zero-one percent, then contracts."
"We need to stress-test it," Julian said.
"No," Alex and I said in unison.
Alex looked at me, then nodded for me to continue.
"It appears dormant, Julian," I said, standing up. "From a physics standpoint, it's in a low-energy state. If we poke it with the Active Emitter right now, we risk adding energy to the system. We could push it into a critical state."
"We need to know what 'critical' looks like," Julian countered.
"It could look like a singularity," I argued. "Or a vacuum decay event. If that field expands beyond the rock, it could consume the factory. Have you never heard the expression 'Don't poke the bear'?"
"She's right," Alex said, his voice carrying the weight of the engineer responsible for the structure holding us up. "The load-bearing capacity of reality in this room is already strained. We are here to monitor, Julian. Not to detonate."
Julian looked at the fissure, then back at me. He held my gaze for a long moment, calculating. "Fine," he said. "Passive monitoring only. For now."
He checked his watch. "We have the baseline. We have the power. Leave the systems running. We'll monitor remotely from The Barn."
"We're leaving it?" Marcus asked, looking at the millions of dollars of equipment sitting in a damp cave.
"The door uses biometrics," Alex said. "And I have a security team at the gate 24/7. It should be safe."
I started unplugging my laptop. As I coiled the cable, I felt a presence at my shoulder.
Julian.
"You defended your position well," he said softly, so only I could hear.
I kept my eyes on the cable. "It seemed like the logical conclusion."
"Logic is good," Julian murmured. "But fear acts as a useful variable too." He leaned in closer. "You're afraid of it," he whispered.
And now he's acting like a playground bully calling the new kid a scaredy cat.
"Aren't you?" I asked, finally looking at him.
He smiled. His expression lacked the usual predator's edge, replaced by a darker curiosity. "I want to see what's on the other side, Lonna."
He straightened up and walked away. "Let's go," he called out to the group. "I'm hungry."
Typical of this team I mused.
He wanted to break the wall. Alex wanted to reinforce it. Marcus wanted to build a better wall. And me?
I looked at the wireframe ripple on the screen—the slow, hypnotic cycling of a hole much bigger than my pinhole theory. Yet, it wasn't pulling the buildings, the coast, nor the continent into it.
I just wanted to know why it cycles.
I closed the laptop and followed them up into the light.
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Timeline: 17:00, Monday
Location: The Barn, Agonwood R&D Campus
Back in the safety of the lab, the mood felt lighter. The heavy, oppressive atmosphere of the factory sub-basement faded once we hit the fresh air. And now, the comforting white noise of the servers and the smell of solder and coffee.
"The data stream is live and stable, so far," Dave announced from his station, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his face. "I'm receiving nearly imperceptible lag in the transmission from the factory. It looks clean. The Dave Suite appears to be working, so at least we aren't getting any more dirty noise from the grid. Please hold your applause."
"Good," Alex said, leaning against the edge of the central conference table. He looked in my direction. His expression said that he had something to say.
"Lonna, do you have a moment?" Alex asked.
The Barn was an open-concept cavern designed for collaboration, not privacy—but he had commandeered the large rolling whiteboard near the back of the room, creating a makeshift wall between him and the rest of the team.
"Of course." I walked over to where Alex stood. He had cleared a space on the workbench next to the whiteboard and laid out a series of schematics.
"I have been thinking about the backpack unit," Alex said. "The portable sensor."
"We proved we can't power it efficiently," I said, leaning against the bench. "The batteries required to run the vapor chamber and the emitter are too heavy. It would be an anchor, not a backpack."
"I have an inspection in two weeks," Alex continued. "It's not at the factory. A high-rise that I recently acquired."
"Oh," I said, already thinking.
"We can't drive the SUV onto the 14th floor, and running a cable up the stairwell isn't feasible without alerting every tenant in the building."
"If it's your building, an IoT mesh should be doable." I hesitated, thinking back how Marcus responded when I first proposed using IoT. "Or, maybe just to prevent privacy concerns, make a new one of just devices you own?"
"I think the bigger concern is distinguishing absence from failure," Alex lamented.
"Dave recorded the Unit 6 anomaly profile," I said, thinking out loud. "Why don't we make some dummies?"
I paused and looked at Alex before my imposter syndrome ramped up. "I'm an idiot. Why haven't we made those already?"
Alex reached out and put his hand on my collar bone right at the base of my neck. His touch was warm and comforting. He stepped closer. "I'm fairly certain that blame lands squarely on the engineers in the room. You're always so eager to learn and pitch in, I think we forget that your roots are theory and ours are practice."
"But I like that," I protested. "I'm learning so much. And then it leads to new ideas. Everything new that I get to try is like another data point I can reference later…"
I was rambling. I had a sense of panic because I realized that Alex's thumb was where Julian had marked me. But if I acknowledged it, it could change our dynamic.
He must have seen the panic and worry on my face, because he pulled me into a gentle hug and whispered, "There's nothing to worry about. I intend to keep you inspired." He leaned back with a smile for me, but I could tell mood wasn't reflected in his eyes.
"Then, Alex?" I asked, clearly leading to something more. "Would you… like to build some dummies with me?"
That's when the smile reached his eyes right before he looked down as if he was resetting from where his mind had been. His eyes raised before the rest of his head and, for a moment, he looked more like a young boy, both lighter and with a hint of mischief. "Lonna, I never thought you'd ask."
"I hope you'll still be glad later," I giggled softly. "I'm imagining custom modules and we probably will have to look at different methods because we can't manually make a perfect zero-noise device that will be picked up by the mesh. We'll probably need some more patches in the 'Dave Suite.'" I started looking around the work area. "Uhm, I should be writing this down."
He shook his head. "I know you feel pressured to do it quickly. But I am going to suggest that you get out of your head first. We can brainstorm about it together tomorrow. Yes?" Alex searched my face for a response, but I couldn't help feeling like I should be working if everyone else is.
Annoying.
"I'm not sure why everyone keeps insisting that I rest. I'm not even tired. And I'm far from sleepy." I pouted. The constant order to 'rest' only made me feel like a fragile piece of glass.
Alex considered my response and said, "Rest isn't just about sleep. It's about not thinking about work. And I know you're not tired because you're running on caffeine and nervous energy," he said and paused. "Though, I suspect that if you didn't keep some form of caffeine nearby, you'd probably fall asleep on the spot," he added as an afterthought.
"I'm not that bad. I get in the zone and I want to keep going. I'll take a break later."
"But you won't," Alex teased. "You'll forget to eat, sleep, function, stay conscious…"
I sighed. "Fair."
"You should go," he said, nodding toward the door where the sun was starting to dip. "Go have dinner with your friends. Just hang out and relax comfortably."
I blinked. "You're… kicking me out?"
"You could say that," Alex said with a grin. "You did good work today. The makeshift lab is exactly how I would have set it up. And you handled the pressure in the basement, including our quirky team dynamics."
"Yes, but…" I was ready for a full-on protest.
Alex's tone was suddenly much more serious. "Lonna. Let's walk."
"We're taking a walk to brainstorm," Alex announced as he gave a gentle shove so that I would go ahead of him. "Lonna won't be back today."
I couldn't quite see Julian's expression after Alex made his announcement. But it was probably because I was afraid to look in his direction.
Alex walked ahead of me to The Barn's smaller side-exit.