History Shattered

Wormhole: A theoretical entity allowed by Einstein’s theory of general relativity in which space-time curvature connects two distant locations (or times). – About.com Physics (definition of ‘wormhole’)

Some solutions to the general relativity field equations have suggested that wormholes could also be created to connect different times as well as distant space. – About.com Physics (wormholes)

Tyler wasn’t sure if he was conscious. Perhaps he had fainted due to the physical frailty he had been attempting to hide from Monica as the flu increased the toll it was taking on his body. Maybe something had gone wrong inside Station 28, and he had been knocked unconscious by some electrical surge or malfunction of the site’s advanced air filtration system. Was he dreaming? He looked around. He was clearly seated on what appeared to be a dirt road. He was still wearing the Columbia blue high top Converse All-Star basketball shoes, jeans and t-shirt he had chosen this morning. His lab coat wasn’t on the ground nearby. Monica had chastised him for his choice of attire on such a critical day in their lives. Is that what he chose to have posterity remember him as wearing in the photographs sure to be taken after a successful test? He insisted that his lab coat would cover the t-shirt in any photos, and his shoes wouldn’t even be in frame. Secretly, he hoped they would be, and that they would serve as a message to future generations that the scientists of this day were pretty cool.

The tickle in his throat triggered a brief but violent coughing fit, which led him to conclude that he probably wasn’t dreaming…, because why would he dream that he was coughing? He wouldn’t. He also realized that the box of tissues he had left sitting on his console inside Station 28 and the bag of cough drops sitting in the oversized pocket of his lab coat had not accompanied him to wherever ‘here’ was. And wherever Tyler was, it most definitely was no longer inside Station 28. How could that be possible? He must either be unconscious, or… hallucinating, or… dead? Could he be dead? Had something catastrophic occurred and cost him his life? No…, he rejected that notion immediately. If he was dead, he should be reliving the key moments of his life, or looking down on his dead body from above, or staring into a bright light and being called to by dead relatives. None of those things were happening. So he had now ruled out dreaming and death. What else could he figure out? What other options were left? The next thing he was able to determine was that he could stand and move all his extremities. He started walking in the direction he had been facing. Based on the position of the sun, it was either east or west, but he wouldn’t be able to determine even that seemingly simple bit of deduction for a while. He might as well move while he thought. Walking almost always helped him think.

~~~~o~~~~

The team of scientists had reassembled in the giant meeting room at PD’s headquarters building. Skeleton personnel were left at each of the other twenty-seven monitoring sites to keep a watchful eye on the test’s aftermath, but the lead scientists from each site were in the room. Monica was at a podium at the front of the gathering, anxious to get the meeting underway.

“Initial ideas on what went wrong…, anybody?”

“I’m not sure I’d characterize what just happened as something going wrong. The readings are off the chart. This looks more like a spectacular success than some kind of failure. But having said that, we obviously had a containment breach.”

“OK, let’s not get hung up on semantics, and we all know there was a breach. What I’m more interested in is what triggered it, and what the implications are for Station 28. We’ve got a… colleague we can’t make contact with.”

Everyone in the room knew of her relationship with Tyler. They had made no attempt to hide it. There was a pair of scientific teams rotating in and out of the facility at sixty day intervals. Underground, there was a vast campus, complete with dormitories for the scientists, multiple dining facilities, a scientific library and even a coffee shop, a concession to the effects of both caffeine and Starbucks on the scientists employed there. The two teams were tasked with different scientific agendas, and they took their respective two month intervals away from the facility to spend time with their families and to attend conferences and enjoy other recreational pursuits. But when a team spent twenty-four hours a day in a confined environment for two months at a time, there was no point in attempting to keep a relationship which was obvious to all around them under wraps. This team of scientists might be a bit nerdy, even eccentric, but they were all brilliant and possessed superior powers of observation. Plus, essentially they were all family. That was how the team members viewed one another; one big, somewhat dysfunctional nerdy family.

Monica’s statement hung in the air for several moments. In some ways, because they were all in the room together, it was even more awkward than the silence following her radio call to a silent Station 28 a little more than an hour earlier. Finally, Pat Edmiston, another PhD physicist working on the team, broke the silence.

“There had to be an electromagnet failure. That’s the only thing that could’ve triggered a containment breach that would’ve created an enormous energy wave without simultaneously triggering a massive radiation leak.”

“Pat, are you guessing, or do you have some hard data to support that?”

“Well, we know for sure that there wasn’t a massive radiation leak or else several of us wouldn’t have made it to this meeting. As for the electromagnetic containment failure, I’m guessing. But in my time away from here last month, I was doing some research in my lab at UCLA and was able to simulate electromagnetic failures in instances where the power surge was extremely large. When the power numbers get really large, they overwhelm the functionality of the magnetics. It was theoretical, of course. It was one of those theories that examines what occurs when we get near quantum boundaries. There was no way to produce a power surge large enough to test the theory.”

He hesitated for a moment before adding, “At least until today.”

“Any other ideas?”

As Monica asked the question, she realized that only about a quarter of the scientists in the room were qualified to make a suggestion. The rest of them were all experts in their particular fields, and all those fields were related to some aspect of the project…, just not the part which had gone so horribly off course this morning. Once again, the room failed to offer a response. It was quite unusual for there not to be a plethora of competing theories and an instantaneously lively debate breaking out. Evidently this morning’s test had heavily impacted them all.

“Alright then, Pat, put together a team of your choosing to begin trying to prove or disprove your theory. And let’s try to get the big answers pretty quickly. We can fine tune the details somewhere down the road. I’ll authorize a temporary break in security protocol if you need to consult with any of your UCLA research colleagues. Also, if you can, see if you’re able to project the implications of such an event on an enclosed space like Station 28. And for those of you in the room who don’t normally burden yourselves with such information…, Station 28 is essentially an atomic fallout bunker, encased in lead and equipped and stocked to function in a quarantined scenario for up to a couple of months. For now, I want us all to assume that Tyler is alive and OK. We need to assess what’s happened to him and how to get him out of there safely. We’re gonna treat this like a rescue mission.”

Monica’s voice caught in her throat. The emotion was too raw, too visceral for her to continue for a few moments. Her assistant, Ashley, made a move to approach her, but she held up her hand.

“I’m OK…, I’m OK. Now, if any of the rest of you has a theory about what happened that you didn’t feel like sharing in this forum, I want you…, no, I need you to find me after the meeting and share it with me. I don’t give a crap how far out you think it might be. I wanna hear it. The rest of you, if Pat doesn’t select you to work with him, then you’re working with me on trying to figure out what the hell may be going on inside Station 28. Any questions?”

She knew there wouldn’t be. “Then let’s get busy.”

~~~~o~~~~

Tyler guessed he had walked over a mile. The scenery was beautiful, but there was nothing resembling the rolling terrain of this countryside anywhere around Dallas. It was too lush, with the hills a verdant green, very different than the brownish hue of non-irrigated land in the middle of a drought-stricken Dallas summer. The temperature was also far more temperate. His t-shirt would’ve been sweat-soaked after walking a mile in Dallas, especially if he was sick. Now, he was barely perspiring. This had to be some kind of out-of-body experience. That was the only conclusion his mind could come up with that seemed to him even remotely logical. Whether it had been induced by his illness or as a byproduct of the test was an interesting side issue, but he was convinced he must be in the midst of some delusion.

Rather than be upset, Tyler chose to embrace the madness. He might as well see what he could find in this strange place. The more he could experience, the better stories he’d have to share later. As a virologist, he hoped this was a symptom of his flu that had somehow been triggered or enhanced by the particle collision. That wouldn’t just make for some fascinating tales, but it might also have some additional scientific or medical value. As he looked ahead, he saw the figure of a man on horseback headed in his direction. This would seem to be an excellent opportunity to begin enjoying this…, this…, this whatever it was.

As the man approached, Tyler was first struck by the man’s attire. It looked as if he was dressed as a peasant of some kind from a costume party with a Dark Ages theme. Upon closer inspection, the man appeared to be caked in dirt and sporting quite a growth of facial hair, almost suggesting that he had neither shaved nor bathed in quite some time. The horse had a crudely fashioned halter and no saddle, the rider instead being seated on a blanket with a coarse texture. As the man approached, he waved and the man raised a hand in return.

“Hello.”

The man looked at him questioningly, and responded with a Latin greeting. It was Tyler’s turn to offer a questioning look. Tyler had been raised in a Catholic household and had been fascinated by the Latin that was still sparingly used in a few of the religion’s ceremonies and rituals. When he had made the decision to pursue an academic career in the sciences, he had been offered a choice. He must study a foreign language and his choice must be one of Russian, German or Latin. For him the choice had been easy, and learning Latin had come easily to a mind that was also quite adept at mathematics and science. To have a strangely attired traveler speak this long dead language just reinforced his belief that he was in some subconscious state. He began conversing with the man in Latin. He was surprised at how easily it came back to him after having not practiced speaking it for a while except when horsing around with Monica. Once a halting dialogue had begun, the man dismounted and embraced Tyler in what appeared to the scientist as some kind of traditional greeting. Tyler, unaccustomed to being embraced by a male stranger, was taken aback, but since he believed this was simply part of a subconscious event, he went with the flow and leaned into the embrace.

He learned that he was within walking distance of the Crimean town of Caffa and that the town was currently under siege. This once again reinforced his belief that he was enjoying a delusional episode. He reasoned that this particular fantasy was drawing from all the reading he had been doing regarding the recent Russian and Ukrainian conflict in which Crimea succeeded from the Ukraine and was assimilated into Russia. At the same time he was pondering this connection to recent events he couldn’t help but also wonder how it was that he was able to have these analytical thoughts if he was in the midst of some delusional event which had him speaking Latin. He didn’t think such a dichotomy was likely, and yet he was doing exactly that. The subconscious mind must truly be a fascinating place. After Tyler experienced another coughing fit, from which his new friend sharply recoiled, the man remounted his horse and moved on. There was no farewell embrace. The man seemed unusually troubled by Tyler’s cough. Tyler headed in the direction of Caffa, eager to see how this bizarre delusion would continue to unfold.

He suddenly wished he had spent more time paying attention to history and geography while a student. What did he know about Crimea? Outside of the portion of his Master’s thesis in which he followed the origins of the world’s most infamous pandemic, The Black Death of the Dark Ages, he knew little about the region. Since his thesis was the sole basis for his knowledge of that part of the world, he began trying to recall what he could remember of the research he had performed regarding Crimea, even if it was the Crimea of the 14th Century A.D.

Crimea was situated along the Silk Road, the sole major trade route between the Far East and European merchants. It was located immediately to the south of southern Russia. The settlement called Caffa was the easternmost trading outpost for Italian merchants. It was believed to be the departure point for the delivery of the Black Death into the European continent. It was commonly accepted by both modern scientists and historians that the origins of the Black Death pandemic were in China. It was the Silk Road trade route that provided the pathway for the disease’s migration to Europe. This would be the perfect destination for a virologist’s delusion, the point of origin for the worst pandemic in the history of the world.

The Black Death pandemic was actually the bubonic plague. The plague was transmitted from mammal to mammal through bites from black rat fleas, which possessed a natural immunity to the disease and served as its carriers. They were carried along with the rats they lived on in cargo shipments from China along the trade routes. Whenever a host died, the fleas would find a new mammal to hitch a ride with and impart the disease to. There were multiple outbreaks of the plague on the Asian continent in the centuries preceding the Black Death including the Mongolian region near Crimea.

In the autumn of 1346 A.D., the Mongolians attacked Caffa. The invaders were already sick with the plague which was passed to the settlers during their siege of Caffa. There were even accounts of them launching plague-carrying corpses over the walls protecting Caffa during their attacks, which persisted through the winter. Upon spring’s arrival, the Italian merchants fled from Caffa on their ships, carrying merchandise and, unknowingly, the disease with them. Their route home triggered the initial European outbreaks of the plague in the area around the Black Sea, and then the disease spread outward to the rest of Europe from there. Every attempt to run away from the disease only served to promote its further spread.

The history of the Dark Ages was something of a blank page, due in large part to The Black Death and its toll on the population of Europe. It was estimated that between seventy-five and two hundred million people were killed in Europe as the pandemic cut a devastating swath through the European continent. History suggested that somewhere between thirty and sixty percent of the population was killed and that the European population would not return to pre-plague levels for over one hundred fifty years. It was further suggested that twenty percent of the entire world population was killed, although it was also believed the plague had virtually no impact upon the population of India and also left the African continent virtually untouched.

While Tyler found all of that history fascinating, unless he could find a flea infested rat from the fourteenth century and the appropriate lab equipment to examine it and conduct tests, all of this historical information would seem to offer little additional support in his current situation, about which he was still completely perplexed. Rather than becoming clearer as he continued to gather input, the waters of his present dilemma seemed to grow steadily murkier. Perhaps the missing clarity would return when he reached Caffa. Surely he would be coming upon a paved road soon. The shabbily dressed traveler had indicated Caffa was just beyond the next two ridges.

Another explosive bout of coughing hit him as he crested the final hill. Why hadn’t he been wearing his lab coat? Then maybe he’d at least have some cough drops in this delusion. He knew he was feverish. He was alternating between experiencing chills and feeling both on fire and near exhaustion as he had continued walking. It was amazing at how real his H2N2 virus felt in this altered state. Why, if this was a delusion, was the Bird Flu being such an active participant? He looked downward. The settlement below couldn’t possibly be Caffa, could it? It was surrounded on all sides by high walls, barriers clearly designed to keep invaders out of the town, if it could be called that. The entire settlement occupied less space than the above ground portions of the PD campus, and 98% of that facility was underground. There were no paved roads anywhere, and he could only see two large gates which appeared to serve as entrances to the settlement. It looked as if it was a scene straight out of his fourteenth century research. That made no sense at all…, or did it? Wasn’t this a delusion? What else could it possibly be? Whatever it was, Tyler was definitely beginning to think it was kinda cool!

His mind flashed back to a few of the more esoteric conversations he and Monica had enjoyed while talking about theoretical physics and what might be learned through their research efforts with the particle accelerator at PD. He remembered laughing at some of what he believed to be the more outlandish physics theories she put forth. He particularly now recalled her comments about wormholes, as she tried to give him a basic understanding of what they were.

“Think of them as passages between two seemingly distant points, Tyler…, shortcuts between far away locations. Maybe those far away points are two very widely separated points in space, or they could just as easily be two points in time that may be centuries or even eons apart in time as we know and measure it. If we accept the space-time constructs in Einstein's theories on relativity, and realize that there are more than one such theory, then wormholes could provide us with an opportunity for travel to the far reaches not just of the galaxy, but of the universe and for time travel as well. Just think of the implications of both of those. Now, suppose we could produce a reaction, or in the case of our work here at PD, a particle collision with enough power to create a wormhole, and further suppose that we could learn to control it or aim it, then theoretically, we could find a way to go anywhere in the universe or visit any time in history.”

Tyler had just laughed at the notion. If he couldn’t touch it or examine it under a microscope, he would simply play the role of skeptic.

“If it’s something as cool as that, then why does it have such a crappy name? I mean why would someone ever choose a term like wormhole?”

“I’m not sure I have the story completely right, but the researchers trying to prove Einstein’s theories noted how worms would pierce through the skin of an apple and then burrow toward the middle and eat their way straight through to the other side. That straight line approach between the two distant points on the surface of the apple rather than travelling the distance around the circumference of the outside is how wormholes came into the physics lexicon.”

“Wow…, I never realized worms were that smart. I’ll have to show a little more respect the next time I dissect one.”

Monica had laughed before responding. “You can be a real dick sometimes.”

“Speaking of dicks…” It was Tyler’s turn to laugh as he had pulled her toward him.