The Zero Game

Moving quickly for the door, I give the latch a sharp pull. It opens with a pop. The frame of the door is lined with black rubber to keep it airtight. Inside, running perpendicular to us, the room is long and narrow like a two-lane bowling alley that seems to go on forever. At the center of the room, on a lab table, are three hollowed-out red boxes that’re covered with wires. Whatever they’re building, they’re still not finished, but on our far right, there’s a ten-foot metal sculpture shaped like a giant O. The sign on the top reads, Danger – Do Not Approach When Magnet Is On.

“What do they need a magnet for?” Viv asks behind me.

“What do they need this tunnel for?” I counter, pointing to the metal piping that runs down the length of the room, past the magnet.

Searching for answers, I read the sides of all the boxes that’re stacked around us. Again, they’re all labeled Lab. A huge crate in the corner is labeled Tungsten. None of it’s helpful – that is, until I spot the door directly across the narrow hallway. It’s not just any door, though – this one’s tall and oval, like the kind they have on a submarine. There’s a second biometric scanner that looks even more complex than the one we just passed. Instead of flat glass for a handprint, it’s got a rectangular box that looks as if it’s full of gelatin. I’ve heard of these – put your hand in the gelatin, and they measure the contour of your palm. Security’s getting tighter. But again, wires are everywhere.

As I fly toward the door, Viv’s right behind me – but for the first time since we’ve been together, she grabs my sleeve and tugs me back. Her grip is strong.

“What?” I ask.

“I thought you’re supposed to be the adult. Think first. What if it’s not safe in there?”

“Viv, we’re a mile and a half below the surface – how much more unsafe can it get?”

She studies me like a tenth-grader measuring a substitute teacher. When I came to D.C., I had that look every day. But seeing it on her… I haven’t had it in years. “Look at the door,” she says. “It could be radioactive or something.”

“Without a warning sign out front? I don’t care if they’re still setting up shop – even these guys aren’t that stupid.”

“So what do you think they’re building?”

It’s the second time she’s asked the question. I again ignore her. I’m not sure she wants to know my answer.

“You think it’s bad, don’t you?” Viv says.

Yanking free of her grip, I head for the door.

“It could be anything, right? I mean, it didn’t look like a reactor in there, did it?” Viv asks.

Still marching, I don’t slow down.

“You think they’re building a weapon, don’t you?” Viv calls out.

I stop right there. “Viv, they could be doing anything from nanotech to bringing dinosaurs back to life. But whatever’s in there, Matthew and Pasternak were both killed for it, and it’s now our necks they’re sizing the nooses for. Now you can either wait out here or come inside – I won’t think less of you either way – but unless you plan on living in a car for the rest of your life, we need to get our rear ends inside that room and figure out what the hell is behind curtain number three.”

Spinning back toward the submarine door, I grab the lock and give it a sharp turn. It spins easily, like it’s been newly greased. There’s a loud tunk as the wheel stops. The door unlatches from the inside and pops open slightly.

Over my shoulder, Viv steps in right behind me. As I glance back, she doesn’t make a joke or a cute remark. She just stands there.

I have to push the door with both hands to get it open. Here we go. As the door swings into the wall, we’re once again hit with a new smell – sharp and sour. It cuts right to my sinuses.

“Oh, man,” Viv says. “What is that? Smells like a…”

“… dry cleaner’s,” I say as she nods. “Is that what was in those canisters out there? Dry-cleaning fluid?”

Stepping up and over the oval threshold, we scan around for the answer. The room is even more spotless than the one we came from. I can’t find a speck of dirt. But it’s not the cleanliness that catches our eyes. Straight in front of us, an enormous fifty-yard-wide crater is dug into the floor. Inside the crater is a huge, round metal bowl that’s the size of a hot-air balloon cut in half. It’s like a giant empty swimming pool – but instead of being filled with liquid, the walls of the sphere are lined with at least five thousand camera lenses, one right next to the other, each lens peering inward toward the center of the sphere. The ultimate effect is that the five thousand perfectly aligned telescopes form their own glass layer within the sphere. Hanging from the ceiling by a dozen steel wires is the other half of the sphere. Like the lower half, it’s filled with thousands of lenses. When the two halves are put together, it’ll be a perfect spherical chamber, but for now, the top is still suspended in the air, waiting to be loaded into place.

“What in the hell?” Viv asks.

“No idea, but I’m guessing those things are the photomultiplier-”