Fix It
It wasn’t really Pierre Dupont’s fault. His problem was that he was stubborn. In fact, his stubbornness had often represented an advantage. A perseverance such as his was a great asset for a scientist in general, even more for a theoretical physicist.
Pierre had spent most of his academic life waiting for his big break. But his obstinacy kept telling him that he would eventually make it, that sooner or later his success had to arrive.
When Pierre received his scholarship at CERN, of course, he saw it as the opportunity he had always been searching for. He spent four years working diligently, day by day making himself indispensable. He managed to lead his own research team.
But something was missing. Could it be that secretly he thought he might one day be honoured with a Nobel prize? He needed something else. The fact that he was in the most important nuclear research center in the world wasn’t enough. Once he reached that conclusion, Pierre pushed bodies aside and pulled strings and was transferred to the LHC.
The Large Hadron Collider. The jewel in the crown of CERN.
The LHC was a technological marvel, and an engineering feat.
For Pierre, it was his chance at fame and fortune.
He made a plan. He knew he needed patience, but that he already had. In his usual fashion, he worked hard, so that his work became more and more essential. Only this time he accepted no transfers or promotions: he usually said working with the LHC was his life’s goal.
Oh but was it.
Few people realized Pierre was also a genius-level hacker. He had kept that part of his life secret. As a scientist, he was an accomplished computer user, but his abilities went way beyond that. Pierre had the opportunities, and he had the skills.
Pierre was cautious. He chatted the sysops up and befriended them. He shared their lunches and paid attention to their conversation, learning from them but not letting it show. He played football with them and went out with them. He even bedded one, for a time.
And so he hacked his way unto CERN’s systems.
Using his access to the servers, Pierre made sure everything was ready. His own team had an experiment set up, but he had changed its parameters to suit his needs. That meant changing a hundred independent subsystems, but he had been ready for it. He had spent months getting ready, in fact.
Of course, once the experiment was underway, people would notice. It was impossible not to: he had rigged the LHC so it would produce the highest energy particle beam it had ever created. Sensors throughout the complex would be able to detect it; engineers would have their readings confirming it.
Pierre was convinced there was something out there, and he had decided the LHC was what he needed to find out.
He had not expected a mistake. Honestly, it wasn’t a mistake because, how can you really expect the unexpected? How could have Pierre known what was going to happen, the moment both super-energized beams collided, going way beyond any frontier the LHC had crossed before?
It blew up.
The explosion tore hundreds of the collider’s magnet coils apart. Helium refrigerator was spilled. The land above the detonation bursted up, killing five people. The whole CERN complex was left without electricity for days, ruining most of the ongoing research.
No one from Pierre’s team survived.
Discarded a terrorist attack, it was thought the LHC had behaved bizarrely. There must have been some error, or some piece must have broken down.
Then they found the letter.
Funnily enough, for a hacker of his time, Pierre had left a message. Hand-written on paper, to be read in case of his demise. Within the message, he talked about how he had managed to reach his objective. It contained no remorse.
The following investigation had a lot on its plate.
*****
Science fiction authors had often given strange, sleek shapes to their spaceships. In contrast, the space liner Glider 55 was utilitarian. It had what it needed to have to do its job correctly: warp engines, crew and passenger compartment, cargo compartment. Space liners didn’t even go atmospheric, so no thought was given to aerodynamics. They had often been called ugly, not without reason.
It would have been better if they had been built with windows for the passengers. As it was, only the pilots, themselves barely a safety net in case the command AI somehow failed, were the ones who enjoyed the spectacle.
The fourth planet orbiting Titawin, or Upsilon Andromedae, had never been given an official name, but it was known as Zarqali. Zarqali was approximately five times larger than Jupiter, and as beautiful as the king of the Sol System. Its surface was crossed by giant storms that swirled in tantalizing, hypnotic patterns.
However, just like Jupiter, Zarqali was a gas giant. More interesting was its largest satellite, which, strangely, had been simply called New Moon. Even though New Moon was just a satellite, it was ten percent larger than Earth, with a gravity just slightly larger than Earth’s due to a lower overall density. It was located far enough from the planet that Zarqali’s immense magnetic field barely affected it.
As Glider 55 approached, the pilots could see that a swarm of ships buzzed constantly around it. New Moon was being terraformed. Already large patches of blue, green and white could be seen from orbit. One day humans would walk freely on its surface, but that day was still a bit further down the road.
Today Glider 55 kept its orbit, until Home Station appeared on screen. At first barely a point of light, a tiny speck beside New Moon’s disk, itself dwarfed by the enormous mass of Zarqali, Home Station kept growing until it filled the liner’s view screens.
Home Station was shaped like a series of four rings. It had been built that way so that colonists could adapt from Earth’s gravity to New Moon’s one in steps, simply changing from one ring to another, since the rings could be given independent rotational speeds. Right now two of the three finished rings rotated at Earth’s gravity, and one was still not operational. Workers on the surface just had to withstand the larger gravity.
Glider 55 docked without problems. Her crew saw their passengers out, recommending them to follow their immigration instructions, as they always did. Families disgorged out of their compartment and walked, wheeled or slid along the corridors following the now familiar signs.
Immigration officials welcomed them and helped them find their apartments. Education started the same day. No matter how well the new inhabitants may had prepared, life on an orbital station is different from anything they may have expected. They were given guides and educators.
Many had children. All of them knew that only the grandchildren of those children would walk freely on New Moon. Still, overpopulation on Earth forced colonists to leave early now. The first ones had had the luxury of waiting for their destinations to be fully terraformed, but that was no longer possible. But then, they thought, living on Home Station itself was already the adventure of their lifetimes.
All newcomers had been gathered in the Main Hall, a large meeting place in Ring One that had been built like an open square, up to giving it the illusion of a glass ceiling by the simple trick of projecting the images from outside cameras on the interior panels. The immigrants observed in awe as first New Moon, then Zarqali slowly rotated under them. And then there was only space.
Glider 76 separated from Home Station, drifting away from its giant hulk, and came into view of those assembled below. The ship floated lazily, with only the occasional spray from one directional engine here and there, subtly making it spin and turn. Finally it pointed away from the planet.
For a long minute, nothing happened. Then there was a flash, and the three large nozzles astern became alive. Glider 76 leaped forward and disappeared in a blink, riding the winds of its Dupont Drive.
It was paradoxical that Pierre Dupont had, by accidentally destroying the LHC, paved the way for the matter-antimatter drive that now carried his name. The same drive that had finally allowed Humanity to reach the stars.
~~~~
This is my entry for this week’s Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: The Fix. The challenge this week: 1500 words based on the theme “To fix something, you first must break it.”
I’m not sure I’ve followed the instructions. It’s not the first time…
