Guardians of the Gates - Part 3, The Osiris Gate by Jeff Schanz (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

took in the main gist and tried to ignore the rest. Jude was in roughly the same position. Both men turned to each other and shook their heads occasionally. Justin was starting to wonder what the hell the three of them had to contribute to this conversation. But noticing Valentine’s casual smirk, they had the notion that this was Valentine’s game. Whatever was going on, Valentine believed he was about to play some big part.

The conversation eventually steered to the grid pattern that Justin discovered (though he didn’t know why it was significant). The next scientist then proceeded to describe that machines were being stationed across the globe using Justin’s grid pattern, and how the energy from the rift would be directed throughout those stations, like electricity through circuits. Another scientist alongside the speaker then proceeded to argue that the grid wasn’t designed to do that, and the rift energy couldn’t be directed over such vast distances, to which the first scientist argued that the stored energy at each station attracted the incoming energy, and the pull was great enough to transfer the energy flow, to which the second scientist argued it still would not be enough, and that the stored energy would doubtful be used for that. There was a very distinct debate on whether this elaborate network would even function in any capacity at all. Perhaps it was simply a failed design that posed no real threat. They argued more on the hypothesized purpose of the stored energy, agreeing in general that it mainly had to do with mutating the humans in the limited area of its influence.

And once again, Justin and Jude would’ve liked to dive into that discussion, but they had no new information to offer, and wondered again why they were included in this heated exchange. Through it all, Valentine remained quietly confident, looking like a student who had found the test answers in the trash.

When one of the scientists asked Justin a direct question, it was as if electricity jolted Justin’s body.

“Wha?” said Justin, shaking away the daydream haze in his brain.

The scientist who was arguing in favor of the networked devices functioning as a conduit was staring directly at Justin. Justin hadn’t heard the question, or why it would be directed at him. Presumedly, the scientist was finding his side of the debate inadequate to squash his associate’s arguments, then figured Justin was his best (and pretty much only available) option.

The scientist sighed with a little frustration, then repeated, “I said, don’t you agree that the structure of the network is adequately stable enough to draw the dimensional energy through it? With each station focusing its stored energy to both attract and repel, it should increase the speed and power enough to offset the inherent loss of source energy due to distance.”

Justin felt he had a partial grasp on this concept, but only partial. His knowledge of rift energy was limited to what Sebastian told him in the car the first day he had joined.

“Well, uh, the design is a pretty standard web, so in theory, its design is the same as stuff that is built for stable energy transfer and flow.”

“Right, that’s what I was…” started the first scientist.

“But,” broke in Justin, “we have no gauge for the strength and frequency of the kind of energy from the, uh, source, so it may die long before it gets to the following points outside the source generator.”

“See?” said the second scientist.

Justin stammered, “But, I, uh, don’t really understand the rift and dimensional stuff much. Sorry. I could be wrong.”

The first scientist sighed again. He gave his colleague a conspiratorial glance, complete with eye roll that seemed to say, “See, we told our superiors these guys don’t belong in our discussion.” Despite the dis, Justin was beginning to suspect that for all their bluster, credentials, and experience, these guys knew just about as much about the real nature of rifts as Justin did. They could carry on like they had the answers, but on the whole, they were just guessing. Guessing pretty darned well, but still guessing. These rift things were supernatural and nonsubstantive, producing nothing to scoop up and place in a Petri dish for study in a lab. That meant a whole lot of theory, hypotheses, and chalkboard debate. They could be as confident as they liked that their theorems were solid because testing the theorems was nearly impossible. So, even though they couldn’t be proven right, they also couldn’t be proven wrong. To these particular scientists, that seemed to mean that they were free to claim themselves as winners of the debate.

Justin was about to slump into his chair when Valentine decided to break his silence.

“Hey, dudes. I think I can clear this up,” said Valentine.

The two arguing scientists arranged themselves in front of their webcam, obviously interested. One scientist had a scowl. The other scientist squinted and drew his arms behind him.

Valentine stood up. “Ok, first – you’re both right and you’re both wrong.”

Both scientists blanched at that remark, but stayed tuned to Valentine’s floor show. The three other scientists gathered in a little closer. Whatever individual fields they were each expert in, this subject was at least entertaining in its argument.

“It’s a magnet pulling the force through, and yes the energy will not only travel all the way through, but past.”

Scientist number one smirked and was about to elbow his comrade.

These guys actually give a shit what Valentine says? For real?

“But,” said Valentine, milking his pause and beginning to pace, “it has nothing to do with acceleration or flow. It won’t move conventionally.”

Scientist number two seemed momentarily satisfied, then stared at the screen with an inquisitive face.

Valentine worked his hands like an infomercial salesman. “That rift wasn’t chosen because it has the most energy. It was chosen because of the shape of its dimensional plane, and that plane’s position relative to our world.”

How the hell would Valentine know the shape of the dimensional plane? And what the hell is a dimensional plane?

Valentine continued. “It’s in the document, guys. Back page which discusses the physics of the plane. Our dimensional plane is concave, and the nearest one is convex.”

Jude captured a large breath in his cheeks and blinked rapidly. Justin pinched his eyebrows together between thumb and forefinger. Oh – my – God. What the hell are you doing, Valentine?

There was a page at the rear of Ashe’s documents that was a hand-drawn concept sketch of dimensional tension. It was a demonstration of a mathematical effect on the imagined surface tension of the dimensional plane. Dimensional planes were a subject that existed in theory, and not even widely accepted theory. It was represented by two crude blobs, one convex, one concave. An unknown scientist (or someone claiming to be) came up with the concept which was mentioned in other papers in Ashe’s documents. Just because Ashe and his people held the theory in high regard, it didn’t mean anyone else on the good-guy side would. Honestly, no one who had assessed the documents had given the drawings much thought. It seemed poorly demonstrated, fanciful, and factless. Not all of Ashe’s other documents read like well-sourced material either. There were a whole lot of “we think this” ideas. But the drawings seemed to be the weakest part of the packet. And Valentine was brandishing them like he had found Excalibur.

“Uh,” said one of the previously quiet scientists. “You mean those scribbles in the back?”

“Duh. Of course, I mean the scribbles,” said Valentine.

The five scientists as a group turned to look at each other. Several of them grimaced and rolled their eyes. A couple of others held their mouths open incredulously. Again, without saying a word, their body language said, “Why the heck are these lame bloggers even in this discussion?”

Valentine was not blind and easily noticed their frustration with him. His reaction was to smile crookedly and shake his head. “Guys, guys, guys. You may have brilliant minds, but you don’t spend a whole lot of time reading history books, do you?”

Neither do you, Valentine. You watch TV and consult Wikipedia. That’s your counterpunch?

Again, the scientists were lost for words and probably thinking Valentine was wasting everyone’s time. Justin wanted to crawl away from the camera’s range as soon as they turned their backs.

Valentine, however, wasn’t remotely fazed. “Ok, ok, I don’t want to hold you in suspense. Seriously though, you guys are being ignorant.”

While the scientists now changed their frustrated expressions for ones of outrage, Valentine cut them off by hitting a button on the computer driving the conference call. Instead of their angry faces, the image of the simplistic drawing of the two blobby curves and a few scattered formulas took up the screen. Several vague phrases and words were hand-written, none of them making sense by themselves. Words were scrawled like “FLEX,” “TENSION,” “SNAP,” “FORCE,” and “BAR.” The handwriting was in all capitals, and most of the words were encircling the two curved blobs, except for the word “BAR,” which appeared in the lower right corner. The most pronounced formula was a small phrase that made no more sense than “e = mc2” would to the uninitiated. It had no legend or reference for its letters, so it seemed indiscernible.

There was a strange pause where everyone was expecting Valentine to start yammering away, but he waited. And since no one could see the five scientists on the other side of the call, one could only imagine their growing annoyance.

“Just wanted to see if anyone got it last second,” said Valentine. “No? No one’s into history?”

Justin couldn’t stop himself. “History!? All you watch is that conspiracy ancient alien shit on a channel that calls itself ‘History.’”

Valentine looked genuinely taken aback. “You watch it with me, traitor.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but I don’t claim it means something to real scientists.”

Valentine shook his head, disappointed. “Well, the source doesn’t matter as long you learn something from it. Figured you’d get it, Justin.”

“What!? What don’t we get?”

“Bar,” said Valentine. “It isn’t a word. It’s a name.”

Justin cocked his head at the explanation. It didn’t ring a clear bell, but something popped within his memory.

Valentine wasted no more time. “Josef Bar. He was a theoretical scientist back in the twenties and thirties. Totally crapped on for his theories. He was a constant source of both debate and ridicule, but his theories got people thinking. He acted like he knew the things he said, not just guessed. His biggest theory was the existence and intersection of multiple dimensions and alternate timelines. He discussed them like he knew they were there, kinda like he’d seen them. He drew a lot of diagrams like this one, and some of them got put into picture books next to fairies, aliens, Nostradamus, and Cayce. Just because people didn’t understand what he said, he was totally dissed. Anyway, he disappeared during World War Two, everyone assumed he died. He was Jewish, and there were reports he was sent to a concentration camp, but once they were all liberated, nobody found him or his name written on any registers. The rumors were that he was kept in secret to work his experiments for some Nazi bosses. Then once the shit hit the fan for the Nazis, they escaped with him to South America. But no one ever confirmed it, and no one ever saw him again. Occasionally, some new theory or crazy claim would crop up that reminded everyone of his ideas, and made folks wonder if someone was continuing his research. The biggest conspiracy theory is, of course, that Bar actually made it to an alternate universe, or dimension, or something.”

The room was silent. Justin’s own opinions raced back and forth between fanciful curiosity and genuine interest. But no one was mocking Valentine anymore. Not necessarily on board, but not mocking.

Valentine took a breath and spun on his heels, beginning his pacing again. “So, supposedly Methusela Ashe has been working on this stuff since World War Two, and