PROJECT HYPERCANE EXCERPT
Chesapeake Bay, VA: Sept 1, 4 p.m.
Rain lashed the windshield of the Jeep like gravel from a shotgun blast. Captain Cal Mason squinted through the wipers as the DARPA driver swung into an asphalt lot, tires rolling through puddles deep enough to cover the wheel wall.
He’d seen his share of chaos in life. Combat zones, double-crosses, shady informants. But he wasn’t prepared for the sight waiting outside the tall metal lab building set in the back of a vast fenced-in area belonging to the Navy.
A man in soaking jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt stood in the middle of the lot, clutching a rope that climbed into the swirling gray sky. The other end of the rope was tied around several connected metal keys, trailing into the bucket at his feet. Lightning split overhead, crackling close enough to lift the hairs on Cal’s arms.
Halfway between the man’s scuffed sneakers and the angry heavens was a neon-green kite, swooping wildly in the storm wind. When the vehicle moved a little closer, he could see the dented metal bucket was filled with a wet-looking gel flecked with gray bits and gravel-like pebbles, swelling and climbing over the bucket's lip, pooling on the asphalt.
“And what is this supposed to be…?” Cal murmured to himself. He threw the Jeep door open with a fast thanks thrown to the driver, and splashed a few steps toward the kite-flying fellow.
From under the overhang by the door, a young lab technician, clean-cut with wet, sandy hair, short stature, and a white lab coat over his medium build, waved frantically with a clipboard. His plastic poncho flapped in the wind, and his eyes were wide as dinner plates.
“Dr. Babbage! Please come inside! You’re going to get fried out there!”
Surprised, Cal surveyed the doctor he was here to meet. Dr. Daniel Babbage, the groundbreaking, brilliant, unconventional scientist whom DARPA was counting on to solve the growing weather crisis, was jumping around the parking lot in a thunderstorm, flying a kite. And doing a pretty good job of it, Cal had to admit. He guessed the doctor was fortyish, with coffee colored hair plastered flat, except for a single rogue cowlick, and round glasses fogged with rain. The scientist barely glanced over his shoulder.
“Relax, Tuck! You’ll never know the reaction of hydronite, sodium polyacrylate, and silver iodide during lightning exposure if you hide in doorways!” He jiggled the rope experimentally, the kite bobbing higher. “Besides, my father would have done this himself if he had found the time.”
Another bolt of lightning split the sky, close enough that Cal could smell the ozone. Soaking up the rain, the bucket hissed violently, foaming like a rabid animal.
Tuck squeaked and retreated two full steps into the lab.
Cal rubbed a hand over his jaw, water dripping from the brim of his Army cap.
Peters had briefed him on Dr. Daniel Babbage. An eccentric genius working on weather modification techniques that he’d inherited from his father, the result of five years of classified research. But somehow the dossier hadn’t included kite-flying in thunderstorms, tempting a lightning strike.
He crossed the rest of the lot, careful to stop far enough away to keep his boots out of the growing goo.
“Doc, hate to interrupt, but DARPA’s hoping you’ll live long enough to brief me. Any chance we can call off your Benjamin Franklin reenactment and get under a roof?”
Dr. Babbage blinked behind rain-speckled glasses, tilting his head like a puzzled heron.
“Captain Mason, I presume?” He brightened. “Excellent timing. Want to hold the rope?”
Cal stared at the bucket hissing at the scientist’s feet. “Not if it means joining the local power grid.”
Babbage sighed, as though he were the one enduring the inconvenience. He reeled in the kite, muttering calculations under his breath.
“Fine. Inside for now. But I only need one lightning strike to determine the outcome. Computer data can only tell you so much. Sometimes you have to see the reaction to understand the power.”
As Cal guided him toward the lab door, another flash turned the world white. Tuck yelped and slammed the door open for them.
Cal shook his head, water streaming off his uniform. It was going to be an interesting week.
The men burst through the sliding doors, leaving behind a trail of rainwater pooling on the polished floor. Tuck handed them towels and a stack of grey jumpsuits without a word, his eyes flicking anxiously to the security cameras above.
Fifteen minutes later, Cal, dressed in a dry jumpsuit, followed a silent Tuck through a series of stark corridors, the air charged with the metallic tang of ozone. The hum of machinery grew louder with each step, thrumming through the floor like a distant drumbeat.
A security panel beeped. The door hissed open.
Cal pushed through the sliding doors into a blast of sterile white light, and the world seemed to narrow to light, glass, and motion.
The lab loomed like an ice-white facility. A dome of glass dominated the room, seamless plates curving into a perfect ring that swallowed most of the floor. Inside, there was nothing but black tile, polished to a mirror sheen—no equipment, no movement, nothing to hint at its purpose. Across the glass, data writhed—graphs twisting, numbers streaming, projections flickering in and out like ghosts in midair.
Twenty feet overhead, ceiling lights burned with white light, casting hard reflections. To the left, three technicians hunched over their workstations.
Closest to him, a muscled woman with pink spiked hair didn’t so much as twitch in his direction, her focus locked on the data streaming past. She didn’t spare him a glance. Beside her, a younger woman with a thick ponytail of chocolate curls shot him a quick, almost conspiratorial wave before her fingers blurred back across the keys. At the far end, a red-bearded man with hair like a flare squinted through thick glasses at the glowing display, muttering under his breath. The gray jumpsuits marked them as part of the same crew, but each moved to their own tempo.
Holographic keys shimmered beneath their hands, dissolving and reforming as their fingers struck in rapid bursts. Each keystroke set the displays on the glass walls in front of them rippling like disturbed water. The air was thick with the metallic bite of overheated circuits, and the hum of overtaxed systems vibrated in Cal’s teeth.
In the storm of activity, Dr. Daniel Babbage held his ground, hair still damp but clothes dry, every line of his frame taut with control. His gaze drilled into the nearest large flatscreen, where a vortex of color spun in a tightening spiral, the rotation blurring into a furious whirl as if it might rip itself free of the screen.
“Contain the field oscillation!” His voice cut through the clatter, ricocheting off the glass walls. “If the amplitude spikes again, the containment grid won’t hold!”
A shower of sparks spat from an overhead conduit, the acrid scent of burned insulation stinging the air. Somewhere deep in the lab, an alarm began its relentless beat—low, steady, and heavy as a war drum, marking the seconds before everything came apart.
A sudden jolt rocked the lab. Tuck stumbled, gripping a console for balance.
“Energy spike—up forty percent!” the pink-haired woman shouted.
Dr. Babbage slammed a fist on the console. “We need stabilization, now! Or that wormhole’s going to rip open ahead of schedule!”
Wormhole! He wondered if heard the man correctly. Cal stared at the glass walls as the floor rumbled heavily beneath his feet. He felt the hair on his arms stand up. The air seemed to tighten around him, as though the room itself held its breath.
Deep in the core of the glass chamber, a curved lens appeared, ten feet of gleaming precision. Light rippled across its surface like heat over asphalt. Then—without warning—the white glare of the lab behind it winked out, swallowed whole by a rolling shimmer. Cal drew closer, his nose almost touching the glass walls. He stared as the shimmer peeled away, revealing the lens to be a window of perfect resolution.
Sunlight poured down from a sky so vividly blue it seemed to burn. He saw a city street lined with brick and limestone buildings, their carved facades catching the glow of late afternoon. Signs hung above shop doors advertising tailors, milliners, and the Galveston Daily News.
People moved along dusty streets in crisp shirts, wide hats, and long skirts, faces flushed with the heat. A woman in a pale dress lifted her hem to avoid a puddle, revealing delicate lace-up boots. Men carried crates and called to each other over the creak of wooden wagon wheels. Horses snorted and tossed their heads, harnesses jingling, while children darted between them, laughter echoing off storefront glass.
A steady breeze fluttered the awnings, making the signs swing. Streetcars chimed somewhere out of sight. It was as clear as if Cal could step into the glass bubble and feel the sun on his skin.
And then a surge of static tore across the lens. He jerked back instinctively. Sparks exploded from the workstations. The vision wavered like a mirage, buildings and sunlight fracturing into shards of gold and blue.
Babbage shouted, voice high. “Shut it down! The aperture’s destabilizing!”
Consoles flashed red. A jolt hit the floor like a hammer blow.
Cal reached for the glass panel; eyes still locked on the fading glimpse of the old city.
Then the vision vanished. The lens went black and disappeared. The lab was plunged into harsh, flickering light, alarms still wailing after the scientist slammed his palm on the emergency cutoff.
For an instant, silence hung over the room, and then everyone was talking at once.
Dr. Daniel Babbage locked eyes with Cal, his face pale under the stabilizing lab lights, “That run was nearly flawless. We’re almost there. Get ready, Captain. You’re almost cleared to go through.”