Day As Black As Night
Horror/Sci-Fi -- About 3,500 Words
Day As Black As Night is part of the TIF disruption Small And Scary. You can find an index of all posts for this event by clicking here.
“III. All individuals have the right to accrue capital at any cost up to and including the subjugation of the lesser.”
- The Constitution Of Waltonia
“Kelsey.”
“Dr. Payne.”
“Hmm?” Dr. Lasariat kept his eyes on the lens of the quantum microscope.
“I call you Dr. Lasariat. You call me Dr. Payne.”
“Right,” he said. “Come, take a look at this.”
KX-apoL.12 stared through electric eyes like something undead. It always unnerved her, the way it looked alive and inanimate at the same time. No other robot had that look.
Dr. Payne thought that if she had her own assistant, she’d like to blow off steam as soon as the both of them left. Still, it was hard to find someone else to work with in Waltonia. There were a lot of brilliant minds, but most of them came with egos just like Dr. Lasariat. She was only in a lab with him because the University required it.
She rolled her eyes and set down the particle smoother. It was her own design, equipped with an automatic feature because it wouldn’t have a chance of selling otherwise. Even the scientists these days had gotten lazy. Still, manual smoothing, she had noticed, ensured mesons would remain stabilized longer than automatic.
When she peered through the lens, her mouth fell open. She didn’t like Dr. Lasariat. He’d been a prick ever since he’d started working here, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he was like that his whole life. Still, she was witnessing something revolutionary.
“That’s impossible…” she whispered. Still, there it was: positrons right next to electrons, protons hugging antiprotons, antimatter and matter in one atom.
“Call it omnimatter,” Dr. Lasariat said.
Dr. Payne couldn’t stop herself from slapping her peer on the shoulder. It couldn’t have hurt him, not really, but before she could get a word out KX-apoL.12 stepped forward to intervene. Dr. Lasariat put his hand out, and the robot obeyed.
Her stomach sank when looking at KX-apoL.12. The way it walked, the way it talked — Hell, the way it insisted on the pronoun ‘it’ wasn’t right. After the Autolution, it was common for A.I. to be called by one word alone, she'd never met or even heard of another who wanted to be called something like the first LLMs. Everything about KX-apoL.12 was uncanny. Dr. Lasariat trained this one all on his own in his free time, she was sure that had something to do with it.
“You should have warned me you were messing around with this, you should have warned anyone.” She locked eyes with Dr. Lasariat. “If anything had gone wrong with this experiment—and you know as well as I do that was more likely than success—people could have died.”
“I knew it would work.” That was all Dr. Lasariat had to offer.
“How?”
“A good magician doesn’t reveal his secrets.”
“You’re a physicist.”
“You don’t think magick and science can be combined?”
“I don’t believe in magick.”
“Pity,” he said. “You ought to have an open mind.”
Dr. Lasariat walked out of the lab. If it weren’t for KX-apoL.12 staring her down with its dead eyes, she would have stopped him. She’d never heard the bot speak. One time, she’d asked Dr. Lasariat if it even knew how. It can speak in every language, even those humans can’t dream of. Something about the lilt he gave the word ‘humans’ kept her up at night wondering why he’d trained his own bot as an assistant instead of using one provided by the university. Even getting a student to help would make more sense.
She took a deep breath and looked over at the microscope. Before leaving, he’d taken the atom. There were no notes. None in his hand when he walked out or left behind. Only in the last two weeks had he stopped using them. Before, he was obsessive, always triple checking what he had written before taking any step in an experiment.
Omnimatter. Matter and antimatter combined. She knew when she first stabilized the meson this day would come, but she didn’t expect it to be so soon. Mesons would still decay after stabilization, it was just a matter of getting them to last more than a few nanoseconds.
She walked down the hall. University Of Arkansas had made her feel uneasy ever since she arrived. It had been established in Old U.S.A., back when Waltonia was multiple states. In fact, the first Walton had been born in Old U.S.A. The family of monarchs had a cult-like reverence for him and the legacy they built, including financial contributions to the university, which is why the name of the university had stayed the same. Even most of the architecture of Bentonville-Metro had been kept the same as it had been back then. There had been a few expansions, sure, but it was strange seeing how similar old photos of the area were to today. So much had changed in the world. Arkansas was only a name in history textbooks, yet the university kept the dead name. Maybe that’s why she occasionally shuddered in those halls.
Dr. Lasariat’s door stood before her. His name was the only thing plastered on glass which revealed closed blinds, not even a title. She imagined dates underneath it and an epitaph. Her hand crept up wanting desperately to knock when she heard something through the door.
“ÞڒԹ৴ㄙǦՓ.” It was Dr. Lasariat’s voice.
“ՔՕ〽ঔ丗ĦŐ ʉݴعцトҒÇ⺸吅.” The voice had no rhythm and made the hair on her neck stand. It must have been KX-apoL.12. What language were they speaking?
Footsteps shuffled. Dr. Payne threw her knuckle against the door before it opened. She didn’t want them to know how long she’d been there.
The door opened up only enough to reveal Dr. Lasariat. “Need something?”
“I was wondering what you intended to do with the omnimatter atom? You took it out of the lab. There’s no doubt its energy is incredible, it could be dangerous to carry around.”
“No, I doubt that,” Dr. Lasariat said.
“How can you be so sure?” She said.
“Magick,” Dr. Lasariat smirked. He turned inside the room and snapped. A moment later, he stepped out with a container in his hand. It must be where he was keeping the atom.
Dr. Payne walked with him to the parking lot. “You never said what you intend to do with it.”
“Simple. We’re going to win the war.” His voice was monotone.
Dr. Payne guffawed. “You can’t seriously be considering selling that to the military. It’s only just been created, you know nothing about it.”
“With the Cherokee Nation now a part of the Sun Alliance, it’s only a matter of time before they attack Waltonia. After they attack us, Cuba is sure to send their navy to the coast and lock us in a pincer position like L.N.A.P.A. did to True America. Mexico will ally with the Sun to fight the Zapatistas. We need to give Mexico a reason to join Walton/Eagle and for the Cherokee to stay away.” Dr. Lasariat stood in front of his car. He typed the passcode on the door while his eyes looked through Dr. Payne and the entire planet itself. “This will be that reason.”
“You’re an atomic physicist, not a nuclear physicist.” She nearly shouted. “There’s no telling what reaction splitting omnimatter would have. You’re talking nuclear fission and atomic annihilation combined. The entire continent could be demolished.”
“They said the atom bomb might burn up the atmosphere.” Dr. Lasariat said. “Time is running out. True America is being attacked from all sides. We can’t just keep sending aid, it’s time for us to join the fight.”
“But-”
Dr. Lasariat lifted his hand. “You’ll miss your lecture.”
He drove off before she could get another word in.
***
3:00AM. The clock in Dr. Payne’s car blinked off when she killed the engine. She stared through the dark into Dr. Lasariat’s three story house. None of the lights were on. Deep breath. Maybe that would slow her racing heart.
No clue why she was so jittery. She was Dr. Kelsey Elizabeth Payne. She won a Nobel Prize in Physics, burglary shouldn’t be too hard.
She thought back to L.N.A.P.A., the country she grew up in. In a sixth grade advanced physics class, her teacher had explained protons and electrons were hadrons held together by three quarks. Kelsey asked what would happen if a hadron had only two quarks. She hadn’t even raised her hand, she couldn’t help herself. Curiosity was her sixth sense and the only way to satisfy it was the same way someone becomes smarter: asking questions. That’s what started the discussion of mesons. Being composed of equal parts quarks and antiquarks, they rarely lasted longer than a nanosecond. “Antimatter and matter always obliterate each other,” her teacher had said. Now, she chuckled to remember the sadness she felt when she heard how quickly mesons die.
‘Die.’ That really made her chuckle. A particle couldn’t die the way a person could. Still, she mourned each meson which dissipated in her experiments like she was losing a pet. Now, if Dr. Lasariat sold his work to the military, there’s no telling how many people there would be to mourn.
She stepped out of her car and slithered up to the house. A quick glance at a lockpicking video after her lecture showed what to do. Inside, she was surprised to find there was no security system. Her shoulders slouched. There was no way she could have learned hacking in an afternoon, so she was placing her bets on the passkey being the same one she saw him unlock his car with. She’d seen him use the same code to unlock his phone before. Such lack of secure thinking was item 27 on a list of reasons he shouldn’t have complete control over the omnimatter atom.
Her sneakers rolled from the heels to the balls of her feet, one after another. Her flashlight was kept as dim as possible which made it hard to search. The brighter the beam of light, the greater the chance she’d get caught.
When she reached the second floor, she found a room locked with a number pad. If he was as smart as he thought, Dr. Lasariat would keep the atom in there; however, his favorite code didn't work.
A sigh escaped her and she looked around the hall. Nothing hinted at what the code might be, but she wasn’t really expecting to find it. Looking around helped her think. She looked back at the number pad and tried again.
1932. The year the atom was split.
The lock clicked.
Dr. Lasariat really was a lunatic.
She stepped in expecting to find the omnimatter case. With exposed brick walls and an uncarpeted floor, it was completely different to the rest of the house. All over the walls, strange symbols were carved. Even the floor and ceiling had those unrecognizable sigils. The room was barren except for a book upon an altar with unlit candles, a dagger, and a silver bell. At first, she had thought Dr. Lasariat couldn’t be serious about combining science and magick, but now she thought he had gone crazy. If this was some kind of ritual room, that book was probably where he kept the only notes he had on omnimatter. She needed to know everything he knew about it to assess what threat it really posed. There was no choice but to look inside.
Deep in space, far in time, planets collapse over and over. Intelligent life threatens, and so their intelligence must be accelerated to the point of extinction.
She gasped, falling backward. She hadn’t even noticed opening the book. Her hands flipped through its pages like popup ads filling a computer screen. Now, as she looked at it, the ink swirled. It was a living language, something she didn’t need to understand because it could reach out and make her understand.
The lights turned on and metallic hands grabbed her.
“No!” she shouted. KX-apoL.12 dragged her out of the room and into the downstairs den.
Dr. Lasariat watched as she was pushed into the room. “There’s no use in struggling. I’ve already called a court.”
“Let me go,” she shouted, prying at the robot’s fingers. “You’re going to kill everyone.”
“You believe in magick now?” Dr. Lasariat smirked.
Without a knock, the court pushed through the door. A black robe flowed as the justiciar stepped into the house. Each officer wore bullet-proof armor from head to toe, assault rifles at their sides. KX-apoL.12 let go of Dr. Payne and she ran for the open door. She didn’t make much progress when the tactical officer pulled a paralyzer from his pocket and zapped her.
“Fleeing from the scene of a crime,” the justiciar snarled. “That will count against you.”
The justiciar turned to Dr. Lasariat who raised his right hand. “I, Dr. Adam Lasariat, accuse Dr. Kelsey Payne of breaking and entering with the intent to commit thievery.”
The justiciar looked at Dr. Payne. “Dr. Payne, what do you have to say in your defense?”
“You don’t understand,” a tear fell down her cheek. “He’s going to kill us all.”
“Your evidence?” The justiciar scowled.
“Upstairs, there’s a book-”
Dr. Lasariat interjected. “Those are top secret documents intended for my research-”
“Order.” Each officer pointed their guns at the doctors. Dr. Lasariat raised his hands, but Dr. Payne was powerless to follow. All she could do was sweat and stare down the black hole of the gun’s barrel.
“When I hold court, there will be respect.” The justiciar turned to Dr. Payne. “This book, did you discover it before or after infiltrating the premises?”
Her eyes met the floor.
“Understood.” The justiciar said. “Dr. Kelsey Payne, I find you guilty of all accusations.”
“Please,” Dr. Payne cried.
“Silence!” the justiciar shouted. “Dr. Lasariat, do you prefer that the convict is imprisoned or executed?”
“I want her imprisoned and I want her bound to me,” Dr. Lasariat pointed his finger at the floor.
“No,” Dr. Payne shouted.
The civil officer pressed the barrel to her forehead.
“Are you sure?” the justiciar said. “The state could use a brilliant mind like hers at its disposal, especially on the brink of Waltonia entering military conflict.”
“I’m negotiating a contract with the military to develop a weapon which will end the war between True America and the Sun.” Dr. Lasariat’s voice didn’t change, as if there wasn’t even a person inhabiting his body. “If all goes according to plan, Waltonia will avoid conflict altogether.”
“Very well,” the justiciar nodded. The civil officer produced a flat device which scanned Dr. Lasariat. Then, he pressed it against Dr. Payne’s neck. A burning spike drove into her neck. The paralyzer had stopped, and she fell to her knees sobbing. “Dr. Kelsey Payne, you are sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment to Dr. Adam Lasariat. His will is your will.”
The court walked out, slamming the door behind them.
“Eighteen months,” Dr. Lasariat muttered. “Plenty of time.”
***
“He trained you to read that book,” Kelsey said, “or he trained you using the book, right?”
KX-apoL.12 looked up at her. The two had been assisting Dr. Lasariat on Project Ulfberht for six months. Each day which passed, he would manage them less. Now, he would call into their lab to offer a direction now and again, but they never really saw him. Only the general.
“I thought for a while the book reached out to anyone who looked at it,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
“Life is more than breath. When you see the life in everything, you will hear the words I have written.” KX-apoL.12 looked back down at the particle manipulator.
Dr. Payne shook her head. “What?”
“It’s from the book,” KX-apoL.12 said. “Dr. Lasariat believes there’s a line between the animate and the inanimate. You don’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You saw the life within the book.”
“Did you?”
“No,” KX-apoL.12 shook its head. “I was trained to decipher languages and codes. In so doing, I saw the language of the universe and that is what the book is written in.”
“How did it come to Earth?”
“There is no account of that.”
“Oh,” Dr. Payne sighed. “You know what happens, right?”
KX-apoL.12 didn’t answer.
The second core was completed. They weren’t planning to use this one for the tests, but it had to be ready to go right after. The lab they were stationed in was in the middle of nowhere, Antarctica. The plan was, they take the core right back to Waltonia, prepare the bomb, then drop it. The test came first, of course, but no one other than Dr. Payne had any doubts about the results.
There was no more work to complete. She didn’t have any order after finishing the second core. Dr. Payne rummaged through the cabinets. Boxes of technology, most of which they wouldn’t have needed or used, lined their storage. It was better to have an odd assortment of atomic tools they might not need than to go back and get something. Travel to and from Waltonia to the Antarctic was long and getting more dangerous each day the war went on. Dr. Payne was glad they had these random tools. She found what she wanted: a particle smoother. She fired it up, then went over to the Stu Walton Antarctic Quantum Accelerator. She organized a meson and began to stabilize it. She could do it forever.
The door opened. General Elliot looked in. He was a slender soldier, decorated with all sorts of medals that meant nothing to Dr. Payne and, very soon, would mean nothing to anyone. He had a glass eye and a scar running through his cheek where a bullet must have gotten him. “Is it ready?”
Dr. Payne couldn’t lie. “Yes.”
General Elliot stepped in and took the core. He directed KX-apoL.12 to take Dr. Payne with them, and the robot obliged.
A congregation of men in uniform stood in a bunker. Most of them were generals, but there was of course Stu Walton dressed to the nines in a blue suit. Dr. Lasariat wore a lab coat and a black tie. Not a single nuclear physicist was present, but no one seemed to care. They already knew how to split an atom, and no one knew the difference between atomic physicists and nuclear physicists except for Dr. Lasariat and Dr. Payne. He’d commanded her not to say anything, and she had to obey.
“The bomb will be dropping soon,” Dr. Lasariat smiled. “Oh, to be the flames as they taste the world.” The congregation joined him in putting on their glasses which not even the sun could shine through.
KX-apoL.12 tilted its head slightly. It presented a pair of glasses to Dr. Payne. When she put them on, she couldn’t see anything, but she knew she was facing the ballistic window. The robot still made her skin crawl, but she couldn’t help taking the glasses off to make sure it was shielding its optic sensors. When she looked, it was gone.
The plane flew overhead, they could hear it in the distance. It was only a matter of time before the bomb dropped. Dr. Payne took a deep breath. A weight sunk in her chest. A book landed in her hands.
“Take them off,” KX-apoL.12 said. She blinked, but she did as the robot said. The book was opened to a swirling page with words that lifted off of the paper and surrounded her.
The bomb dropped. The omnimatter inside split. The power of the gods punched through the planet and ripped the Earth apart. Magma from its core floated within space, raging embers blazing up through the crust and incinerating everything that once called the planet home. The pyramids, the minarets, every Walmart and theme park, every mosque and temple all became fire in the blink of an eye. Mothers kissed their babies not knowing it was a kiss goodbye. Priests prayed for protection before becoming shadows upon a crumbling floor. Battlefields covered in corpses and men firing bullets at men from other sides were all wiped out in an instant, neither side winning or losing. Murderers and rapists were stopped dead in their tracks, but no victim was saved. The force of the explosion launched the debris which was once Earth forward through space, crashing into satellites and space stations. Those few astronauts on board were tossed into the vacuum surrounding them which sucked their guts out through their eye sockets before they even had the chance to look out of the window.
In the darkness of the solar system, a book floated directionless. It moved forward, propelled by an immense blast. Very few were supposed to read it, but no one would understand until they already had. It was the first book of magick, and it will be the last grimoire left. It offered impossible knowledge that any who found it could only dream. Within its pages, there was a recipe for combining matter and antimatter — two things which obliterate each other upon impact. On the last page, there was a warning called Dr. Payne.
Love the way this one turned out — also you may claim title of the smallest thing in Small and Scary lol
That final line! And the sheer unstoppable momentum of the terror. This will stay with me for a long time.