The flight from Cambridge, Massachusetts arrived in Vancouver, BC at 4:47, Pacific time. Scott and a driver was waiting with a black Crown Victoria by the time Jonathan was at the arrivals gate. The sky was overcast, and Jonathan mused about how the autumn chill that was setting in was mild compared to the weather in the east coast. They climbed into the car, and headed into the city. He watched the somewhat familiar buildings and streets in the city where he grew up go by as the car drove to downtown, and pondered about the frailty of human memory.
“Good to see you,” Scott said, “Welcome back, even if it is just for a few hours.”
“It’s a nice break from the studying,” he replied.
A thought about how he wasn’t going to be able to study for his matrices quiz tomorrow crossed Jonathan’s mind, but then he pushed that thought out of his mind with slight laugh. It was good to see Scott, and soon the others, again after months of being away. He always felt that, even in the world of telecommunications and the Internet, nothing replicated the efficacy of face to face conversation.
“So what happened?” Jonathan asked.
“Did you see it on the news? Dick Cheney was assassinated in Switzerland this morning.”
“That must be why there’s heightened security at the airport then. People were talking about something like this but I was thinking about something else.”
He knew he needed to pay attention to the events of the world but he never felt like he had the mind for the day to day. Between school, long term Organization plans, his first forays into AI, and Josephine’s health, he didn’t have time for the news.
“There’s been some unsettling developments for us in the midst of all this. You’ll be briefed fully once we arrive. In the meantime, how have you been?”
“Been alright, just keeping busy. You?”
“Same shit. And been running around all day after what happened. But we’ll save that for later. I heard from Trevor you’re working with him on something new?”
“Yep. We’re trying to make an adaptive AI that will outperform humans in a simulated strategic combat environment.”
“You mean you’re trying to make a bot that will beat humans in StarCraft?” Scott chuckled.
“Hey,” Jonathan replied with a laugh, “it will eventually have real-life applications.”
They arrived after some 25 minutes. The destination was a tall but nondescript office building, rectangular with a surface of blue glass. Jonathan thought how aesthetically unfitting it was for the operations of the Organization, though he figured it would serve to keep their offices discrete. The driver dropped them off and they went inside with a security detail, to a conference room on the fifteenth floor. Abigail and Mr. Miro were already inside, wearing severe and tired faces, along with several other people when they arrived.
“Thank you for joining us on such short notice, Jonathan,” Mr. Miro said as they sat down around the glass conference table.
“No worries,” Jonathan replied, “what’s the situation?”
“The situation,” said Abigail with a frown, “is that the vice president of the United States was assassinated today in Bern while on a state visit. I trust you have heard already on the news.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Do we have details of how it happened?” he asked.
“Yes,” Abigail said, clearing her throat and leaning forward on her chair, “At thirteen-hundred hours Central European time, the vice president’s motorcade was passing by a crowd on a diplomatic visit Bern, Switzerland, when a miniature nuclear device was detonated from inside the crowd. The president, his entourage, and the surrounding crowd were killed immediately. Neither Swiss security forces nor the secret service were able to prevent the use of the bomb on-site, or to indict the plot beforehand.”
“Do we know who is behind the attack?” Jonathan asked.
“No group has claimed responsibility,” Abigail said, “the current working theory is that it was the work of one deranged lunatic.”
“Again?” Scott grumbled, “Explain to me again how you figure that.”
“It is incredibly simple,” Abigail sighed, “Terrorist groups always claim responsibility for their attacks, especially one as high-profile as this. You should already know that it is a well-documented aspect of their operating standard. In any case, we are chasing up leads but the Americans and Swiss will do that well enough on their own. Priority one is to prevent any escalation in the diplomatic situation.”
“And how do you think one deranged lunatic got his hands on a briefcase nuke?” Scott asked.
“Well,” Jonathan said, “there are a lot of them floating around in the black market.”
“So you buy the one-deranged-lunatic theory as well?” Scott said.
“No,” Jonathan said, “I agree that seems unlikely.”
“Further supported by the fact that there is some evidence coming to light as we speak that the bomb had entered the country under the watch of certain members of Swiss intelligence agencies,” Scott added.
“Yes, I know, and that is being dealt with,” Abigail said, “Like I explained, the American and Swiss governments will find out who the perpetrator is. Enough of this, we need to focus on not letting the situation devolve to the point where it will hinder our goals. Frankly I don’t even know why you’re all here.”
“And you don’t think knowing the who was behind the bombing is relevant to that?” Scott said, “Yeah, I don’t know why we’re here either, with how you always want to run policy yourself anyways.”
There was a thump on the table.
“Please,” Mr. Miro said, “enough. Perhaps we should take a look at the video in the brief time we have.”
“Yes,” Jonathan agreed.
Mr. Miro gestured towards a technician sitting beside him, who took out a remote control and pushed a button. A screen lowered at the front of the room, and an overhead projector turned on to show a video.
“This video,” the technician said, “was taken moments before the detonation of the nuclear weapon. It was captured by the live feed from one of our remote cameras that was overseeing the motorcade’s passing.”
Jonathan leaned forward as the silent video started. There was a street, with a crowd on the sidewalk held back by low barricades. Swiss police stood at intervals, keeping an eye on the road and the crowd. The motorcade came into view around a bend, slow moving police motorcycles, patrol wagons, then several limousines. Jonathan narrowed his eyes as he noticed a shift in the movements of the crowd, a commotion. A man holding a briefcase breaks from the crowd and jumps over the barricade, as police officers soon move in to subdue him. As they close in, a burst of light appears and then the video goes blank.
Jonathan slumped back into his chair.
“We suspect,” the technician said, “that was the perpetrator and the bombing itself caught on video.”
“Well,” Abigail said, while checking the time, “I’m sure various government investigative bureaus will find this very informative, and I look forward to liaising with them in the upcoming weeks. However, again, let me remind us all that the diplomatic situation should be at the forefront of our current focus. Anyways, Mr. Miro, I think it is time for us to go to our teleconference with the Secretary of State.”
“Yes it is,” Mr. Miro said, “We must go do our part in the diplomatic process, but perhaps you can uncover some more information here.”
Aibgail and Mr. Miro quickly stood up and left the room. Jonathan noticed Scott scowl behind their back.
“Good riddance, right?” Scott muttered, “Anyways, what kind of camera was used for that video?”
“It was one of our proprietary DX-17s,” the technician said.
Jonathan leaned forward again.
“Then it should have some extra features,” he said, “It must have picked up electromagnetic radiation beyond the visual spectrum.”
“Yes,” the technician said, “Nobody requested it and Abigail didn’t seem interested, but I went ahead and did a full spectrum visualization before this meeting. Let me bring it up now.”
He pushed another button on the remote control, and a still image of a 3D graph appeared on the screen. It was a colored graph generated automatically by the analytical software, showing the time in the video on the y-axis, the radiation frequency on the x-axis, and the radiation intensity on the z-axis. It showed the change in radiation intensity for the duration of the video, from radio waves, to visual light, to gamma rays.
“What is the spike in gamma radiation at the end?” Jonathan asked.
“I imagine that would be from the detonation, before the camera was knocked out” the technician said.
“It looks somewhat inconsistent,” Jonathan remarked, “Can you zoom in on the last 5 seconds of the graph?”
The technician pressed another button. The graph showed almost a flat plane for radiation above 10 exahertz in frequency, until the end where rises exponentially in only a few microseconds. This made sense to Jonathan – low levels of background gamma rays until the massive radiation burst of the nuclear device. However, a rise and then a fall, a bump of up to approximately 13 mega-electron volts, occurs only a few video frames before the detonation.
“There, that,” Jonathan said, “that’s not consistent with a normal nuclear weapon.”
“Is it not the conventional explosive trigger?” the technician asked.
“That seems unlikely,” Jonathan mentioned, “given that the bump doesn’t correlated with any changes anywhere else in the spectrum. It’s also not a sign of a two-stage device either. The fission of a single U-235 nucleus produces 200 mega-electron volts of energy. But it might be representative of radiation burst detonator. I saw a demonstration of one in June.”
“A radiation burst detonator?” the technician asked, “Where in the world would someone get one of those?”
“Nowhere in this world,” Scott said, “It’s extraterrestrial. We thought we had the only ones, recovered from the Callao crash site.”
“So we can hypothesize about the mechanism of the bomb,” Jonathan said, “but what does it mean?”
“The Israelis made a briefcase nuke in the 70s,” Scott said, ” without alien technology. There’s no technical reason to use such a detonator in that bomb. Whoever planned this, I think it was meant as a message.”
“To who?” the technician asked, “the Americans? The Swiss?”
“No,” Scott said, “I think it was for us. They must know we’re the only ones who’d detect the detonator.”
Jonathan paused.
“So what does it all mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s as good of a place to start as any,” Scott said while he gestured towards the technician, “What is your name?”
“Mark Samson,” he said, “I’m an analyst from Group Five Subject D.”
“Excellent,” Scott replied, “How about you work with us on this? We trace where the detonator came from, and maybe we can find out who’s behind this.”
Mark nodded.
“My flight to MIT is tonight,” Jonathan said, “Once I’m there I can run some tests to determine if we’re right about the detonator. Mark can help me with those.”
“Good,” Scott said, “I’ll see if we trace where the source of uranium, now that it’s scattered all over the city block. I’m sure it will lead us in the same direction. Be careful though. If we’re right, things will get messy.”
“Hey,” Jonathan laughed, “we said no going back right?”
