Off The Grid Read online

  “Sorry about that,” Luke said, using both hands to heave the woman to her feet.

  “That damn alarm has been going off all morning. Some sort of reorganization, it changes your security clearance. But the system is buggy. So each time one of you scans in, it freaks out.”

  “Freaks out?”

  “That’s the official term as far as I know,” she said, punching in a code on her keypad. The siren stopped whooping. “Just head over to HR, that’s where the others went. They’ll straighten it out.”

  Luke again apologized for bumping into her.

  “No doubt it’ll be the highlight of my week,” she said with a smile and barked at the next employee in line. “Let’s go people, I don’t have all day.”

  ***

  The Human Resources office was located on the second floor of the main administration building. The receptionist handed Luke a stack of papers, blank access badge and a small cardboard box, then directed him to another room. A security guard was set up in an empty conference room. He cross-referenced Luke’s image on his badge and took his orange lanyard and ID tag. The guard inserted the blank ID card into a machine to create a new ID tag.

  The new tag had Luke’s name and picture, just like his old one. The plastic card was a few millimeters thick with a metallic gold colored rim. He affixed a gold lanyard to the card and handed it to Luke.

  “You are required to wear this ID tag at all times when you are on campus,” he said. “If you are in the Green Levels of the building without your tag, you will be escorted out and not allowed back in.”

  “Where are the Green Levels? I’ve been all over campus and never seen a Green Level.”

  “It’s your new home,” the guard said, handing Luke the tag.

  Printed below his name in black lettering were the words, “Associate, Research and Development. Development Floor.”

  He was in.

  Chapter 20

  Of the three buildings on campus that Luke had yet to enter, the smallest one was the Dev Floor, at least from the outside. He carried his papers and cardboard box to Building 5, passed through moderate security at the entrance and was directed down the hallway to the bank of elevators. He stepped inside. The elevator sprang to life, dropping him 25-stories under the ground.

  The elevator opened up, revealing a massive underground compound in front of him. It was one gigantic cave shaped like a silo. The floor space was larger than a football field and a few hundred feet tall. Dozens of people were buzzing about or having heated conversations. Large machines in the center of the room were erupting with sound. At least that’s where he thought the sound was coming from. The noise was deafening. Luke wanted to cover his ears, but was still holding his papers and box.

  A man in a lab coat noticed his struggles and handed him a small plastic bag with a set of pink ear plugs in it. Luke put them in and got immediate relief from the machine noise.

  “The plugs block out the high frequency sound, but lets you hear low tones like voices. It takes a while to get used to them. We don’t normally do these tests with so many people around,“ he said. “Your group is over that way.”

  He pointed to the other side of the space where a number of people were inside a conference room. He set off in that direction.

  In the center of the cave was a laboratory that was sunken down from the rest of the floor by 15 feet. Spaced evenly on four corners of the lab floor were full-scale transmission towers that looked very similar to StuTech’s towers. A physics lab sat in the middle of the area. The lab was comprised of devices holding swinging magnets, calipers, measuring instruments and other devices atop rows of narrow tables. Several employees were hunched over stools at various points around the lab.

  Encircling the edge of the laboratory on the main floor, where Luke was standing was a ring of workstations separated by cubical walls made of glass. Some of the walls were frosted so Luke couldn’t see inside, but the majority of them were clear and open. The first ring overlooked the lab directly. Two more rings encircled the first, separated by short walkways. On the far side of the room was a bank of conference rooms, again with glass walls and no ceiling.

  Inside the conference room, Amir was chatting with some of the other candidates.

  “It’s a natural formation,” said the shipbuilder, William Yong. “These caves are all over the Pacific Coast, carved out naturally over millions of years by water.”

  “Lets hope somebody plugged the hole then,” Amir said. “I didn’t bring my water wings.”

  The cave was an impressive sight. MassEnergy had obviously gone to great lengths to conceal it from the outside. Given what was stored inside, it would have been an enormous eyesore sticking out of the ground causing questions to be asked about what they were developing and giving StuTech more of a reason to view them as a threat. Besides, if the size of the building wasn’t in question, the sounds emanating from inside would have been

  A bright light flashed, which indicated the testing was over. Everyone removed their earplugs.

  Kathryn Tate entered the conference room, followed by four more candidates. In all, 12 candidates sat around the table. Amir and William were the only other members from the Orange pod.

  “Welcome to the second stage of the candidate program,” she said. “Your recent work has been evaluated by our top engineers, statisticians and physicists and in some cases it has helped in our current research. You’ll have to forgive the blind nature of the work, we needed to fully vet each of you before allowing you into the cave.

  “I’m a bit disappointed that more than half of my candidates failed to make it this far. Those who didn’t make the grade have been cut loose. I said it before, but you should be proud to have made it this far.

  “You will now be assigned to a project focus area and become part of our development teams in your area of expertise. Your assignment work is waiting for you at your desk. You have one week to present a solution for the problem you’ve been given. I have every confidence you will succeed. Your workstations are in the third ring of cubicles. Get to it.”

  ***

  At his desk, Luke leafed through the papers he’d been given. Included inside were standard forms for medical insurance, short-term disability and 401(k) investments. In the back was a confidentiality agreement that detailed his clearance level and consequences if he was found to be making confidential company information available to the public. Lunsford had told him that most of those contracts weren’t enforceable, but just a scare tactic to get people to keep their mouths shut about what they were working on. He filled out the paperwork and fed it through a high-speed scanner and punched in a code to transmit it to HR.

  Inside the cardboard box he’d been given was a small hard drive, which he connected to the workstation’s data port. A note engraved on the top of the drive warned that removing it from the Dev Floor would erase its contents.

  The files on the drive were meticulously prepared, labeled in sequential numbers and then by subject. He had to read through one before gaining access to the next. The first set of files showed designs for transmission towers and basic range, distance and strength equations that related to neighborhood distribution networks of electricity that Luke had created when he was at StuTech. The files were simply a report on the work and read like an instruction manual. Do this, then that. Standard stuff. But the level of detail was astounding.

  The next batch of files included a detailed schematic for towers and stubs. The plans for the tower looked almost identical to the towers positioned on the lab floor. Luke stood up to get a better look at the tower. The only obvious difference between the towers that were in use all over the world and the one detailed in the plans in front of him were the devices affixed to the top. The StuTech towers included dishes on all four sides that emitted radio waves. The MassEnergy tower eliminated the dishes in favor of a singular ring that surrounded the top dome. It definitely looked more elegant than the bulky dishes.

  Luke cli
cked on the third and final set of files on the drive. At the same time the glass walls of his cubical became frosted. He closed the file and the walls became clear again. Clearly this was a security measure to keep whatever he was looking at out of the public eye. It also meant that someone was watching him, probably recording his use of the program.

  As he read through the file and studied the diagrams, he began to realize that he was looking at a set of files meant for someone else.

  Chapter 21

  Luke had studied a little physics at Stanford, but it was certainly not his favorite subject. The basic understanding of physics is the study of matter and its motion through space and time. The forces imposed on matter are the basic building blocks of energy and electricity, so he endured lessons on the fundamental theory of these elements as they related to his engineering degree.

  Luke had the basics down. All particles known to man can be explained through the quantum field theory, referred to as the Standard Model. At its core, the model detailed 17 species of elementary particles known as 12 fermions, 4 vector bosons and 1 scalar boson. Hundreds of composite particles are formed from these elementary particles.

  How these particles interact with each other, under certain conditions form our understanding of nature and how the physical world works. At its most basic, it was like looking at thousands of parts in an car, down to the last screw and bolt. Everything under the hood and chassis works in unison toward a common goal – making the car move. Those interactions could vary greatly depending on the make up of the engine, exhaust system, drive chain and so on. Physicists attempt to understand how everything works together – thus the aptly named Theory of Everything.

  Inside the file was a mathematical formula describing how electricity was conducted wirelessly. What little information Warren Evans had released to the scientific community, called his basic findings, was included in the file. Yet there was one area of Evans’ work that he wouldn’t share, his personal creation and the source of his monopoly – ARC, the material that made wireless electricity possible. The Advanced Analytics group at StuTech had the market cornered on this information, which is why Luke had tried to get into the group since his first week at StuTech. If he wanted to know everything about StuTech, he had to be in Advanced Analytics, but he had been rejected five years straight.

  The final pages of the file included a lengthy list of particles, minerals and chemical compounds, showing their interactions. Luke had never seen a comprehensive list of the make-up of ARC – it was simply amazing. Its actual make-up had been bantered about in the scientific community since its inception, but it had never been replicated. The equations flowed together rather simply, but Luke was quickly lost. He clicked on a video file that showed basic particles and mathematical replications of their interactions with each other. The models showed collisions of particles in the Standard Model: quarks, leptons, Higgs boson, glutons and photons. They flew across his screen, combining and dividing along the way.

  The video concluded with a large equation, labeled S.A.R.C., drawn sequentially across the screen, but missing several variables. It ran through once, highlighting the missing pieces, then pulled the missing pieces out into their own formulas, noting several other missing areas.

  The formula wasn’t complete. If this was supposed to be his area of focus, he was doomed. For the rest of the day he stayed in his frosted cubical studying the final pages of formula. Maybe something would pop for him. And then something did.

  ***

  “MassEnergy is trying to make a synthetic ARC, or S-A-R-C.,” he said.

  “We aren’t trying, we are making it. But it’s still under development,” Kathryn said.

  “No one has successfully made ARC except StuTech. They claim it can’t be done by anyone else. Its practically a scientific law.”

  “You can’t be so accepting of their explanation. They claim that their proprietary process creates the ability to efficiently transmit electricity through the air. But we also can’t examine the components that make it happen without damaging them. That’s the trick.”

  “Right,” Luke said. “Once ARC is removed from its casing and exposed to air, it loses its strength. The compounds inside the material breakdown. When you examine the material, you can’t replicate its characteristics.”

  “How convenient that the one thing that keeps StuTech on top, can’t be reverse-engineered,” Kathryn said.

  “That’s why they’ve never filed a patent with the U.S. government on it, once they do that, it legally bars anyone from replicating it, but they would have to disclose how it works publically and lose the rights to it after a period of time.”

  “You’re forgetting the bigger picture about ARC. StuTech doesn’t just control the process that creates its characteristics, it also controls the only known source of the root material.”

  The root material was found only in the Rocky Mountain Range, in a place called Pueblo Bluff. Warren Evans had served as a volunteer on an archeological dig at the base of the mountain range in the summer of 1995. The dig was attempting to uncover a long forgotten Native American encampment. The land was just outside a national park and was up for sale. A large benefactor for Cornell University by the name of Barbara Meyers owned the land and wanted to dispel any rumors that it had a historic value, which could bar development. The dig was meant to prove that no encampments had ever existed. Had there been evidence of an encampment uncovered, the land could not be developed and would sell for much less, if it sold at all.

  The dig found several historical artifacts that were carbon-dated to match the era in question, just enough in fact that the ski resort developer who wanted the land, abandoned the idea, fearing lawsuits if he attempted to build. Meyers was furious and so was the university president who was hoping the sale would make a nice addition to the school’s endowment.

  Evans was a physicist, but also an amateur archeologist, fascinated by the hidden world around him. He often volunteered himself to work on digs throughout the world uncovering ancient relics or animal bones. Before gaining tenure at Cornell, Evans was reprimanded by the dean of the Physics Department for not devoting enough time to the science of today. An ironic twist in Evans’ story, if there ever was one.

  Throughout the summer Evans had taken mineral samples inside deep-water wells and examined what he found in his personal lab later that fall. He kept the findings to himself. The minerals, when treated and refined became what he later called ARC. The name ARC was in reference to a lightening bolt, or “arc” that forms when electricity is passed between two objects and visible to the naked eye for a split second.

  In 1996 Barbara Meyers sold the land to a corporation that claimed its intent was to make it a nature preserve. No one paid any attention until eight years later when Evans announced that he had found a way to efficiently transfer electricity without wires. His discovery was traced back to the land in Colorado and its newly uncovered minerals. The site was now a secure facility, controlled by Evans that barred outsiders with razor wire and armed guards.

  Evans was chastised by the academic world for his underhanded dealings regarding the land. Yet with some success he argued that the land had no greater value at the time it was sold because he didn’t fully know the value of what he found there until after his corporation had purchased it and done extensive testing.

  By the time the university and Meyers realized the deception, Evans had already monetized his creation and had endless financial means to fight any legal battles. He made a significant donation to Cornell’s endowment with the stipulation the funds went toward arts, not sciences, a final poke at the university president and his former dean, whom he didn’t care for in the slightest. Meyers also reached an undisclosed settlement. The argument over control of this new precious material was all but settled. Evans had deceived, cheated and won.

  ***

  “The search for additional sources of ARC is pretty well dead,” Luke said. “No one has been able to
locate additional deposits.”

  “That’s naïve. You don’t really buy into the meteorite theory do you?” Kathryn asked. “To think that millions of years ago something hit that specific segment of land and embedded a material that has these ‘magical’ properties. It’s just ludicrous.”

  “Yet plausible. As glaciers pushed the Rocky Mountains up into place, the material was forced deeper into the earth, making its discovery one of simple chance.”

  “Chance, right. Why was Evans at the site in the first place? He didn’t have any credentials to be there.”

  “You’re saying that he knew what he was looking for,” Luke said.

  “Exactly. And he became the world’s finest actor for playing it cool for years until he was certain about what he found and then he reaped the rewards.”

  “So he’s got some secret knowledge of pre-historic meteorite crash landings? What makes him so special?”

  “OK, so maybe chance plays into it a little bit,” Kathryn said.

  “Chance and luck. Since ARC material is only found in one spot, the meteorite explanation is the widely accepted one until someone can prove otherwise.”

  Kathryn looked at the towers in the center of the Dev Floor. Massive paperweights at the moment. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

  “I’m not a physicist or an engineer, so I won’t be making the scientific discovery that will give MassEnergy the ability to provide the world with access to efficient power,” she said. “I’m a mercenary. I know how people talk about me. My job is to provide the company the tools and employees to get the job done. And thus far it has been a failure. Which is why your candidate class is so important.”

  “But not just to you though. You know the reason why this research is so important, right?”

  “I do, people are suffering, blah, blah and all that. I saw the documentaries. But if we can’t solve some of our major issues, or at least show progress, then this venture is done. I’ve never failed to turn a company, but this is bigger than me.”