(Page 1 of 2) Zero-Point Pandora by Michael Aaron
 (3 ratings)
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SUMMARY: October Flash Fiction entryI flick the switch, and it's on.
A deep hum of electric muscle shakes the control room, gentle but persistent. After a minute I notice Professor Evison is holding my hand. She turns to me, her face radiant.
"We've done it. It works!"
It seems right to kiss her. I don't know why.
#
The first thing the money wants to know is what it looks like.
"We're thrilled about this, really we are," the first suit says. Like Evison and me, it's a boy-girl team.
The second suit smoothes her skirt and adjusts her glasses. "Absolutely. As soon as I heard you'd done it, I felt this sense of...what was it I said?"
"Goodness," he says. They both laugh.
We take them to the facility. They mutter appreciatively as I reel off stats: megawatts of energy; megaliters of liquid helium; the nano-scale precision engineering.
"All this," I say, "for nothing."
They stare for a second, then get the joke. I see they're holding hands, and I'm filled with cheer. I'm sure it's my imagination, but everybody seems to be happier now.
"Absolute nothing," Evison says, opening the door to the control room. "No matter, no energy and, crucially, no quantum vacuum fluctuations. Inside this container is a region of the universe, of a kind that has never existed before."
The container is an amazing construction, but not much is visible to the naked eye. Through the polycarbonate window we see a giant shiny ball, covered with pipes, tubes and scaffolding. I show them the real-time computer animation of the electromagnetic field doing the real work. Wavy lines snake over the surface, pulsing, connecting, caressing. The suits giggle and point like newlyweds. Evison and I join in.
"So when can we see this nothing?" they ask.
"Well, that's the thing," I reply. "It's not really possible. Obviously there's all the machinery in the way, there's no room for a camera. The primary container has to be completely sealed to maintain integrity." They look a little sad. "But even if we could somehow open it up to take a peek, there really is nothing to see, in all seriousness. No energy means no light. It would just be black, complete darkness."
"It's like a black hole?" asks the woman. Evison answers her with a reassuring smile.
"Nothing like it. It's a vacuum, pure and simple. Completely safe."
The man nods. "And you say it's generating energy? How?"
"That's the best part," I say. "Just like a cleaner uses a vacuum to suck up dirt, energy of all kinds is sucked in to fill the empty region. It can't get past the containment field, so it gets converted to heat, which gets sucked back in, and so on. Most of what you see here is for cooling. With the right design, we can make a self-sustaining power source. Its output would be limited only by size."
"Are you saying this is a free-energy device?" he asks.
I smile. He smiles.
"Good god," he says. "Good god."
#
I walk home with Evison. Lots of people out, all happy and talking. I tell her it's funny how the world always seems to reflect your mood. She squeezes my hand.
I pick up a paper and browse the news.
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