

### Quantinium

Reasus Shelly

Copyright 2012 by Reasus Shelly

Smashwords Edition

rev 1.0.5
Contents

Chapter 1 - Panic

Chapter 2 - Discovery

Chapter 3 - Greed

Chapter 4 - Spooked

Chapter 5 - Theft

Chapter 6 - Adrift

Chapter 7 - Reckoning

Chapter 8 - Destiny

Chapter 9 - Rubicon

Chapter 10 - Equilibrium

Chapter 11 - Fischer
Dedicated to my daughter Annabelle

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold, copied or transferred to other people. If you'd like to share this work with someone else, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this e-book and didn't buy it, please visit an e-tailer and purchase your own copy.

###  Chapter 1 - Panic

A young woman is walking purposefully through a tunnel carved out of rock. She's holding a flash-light, wearing a tight fitting mining suit with padding here and there, with a bulge at the back for her life support system. A couple of pipes lead from the suit to a clear mask shaped to her face, covering it entirely. The Smart Mask is listening to her breathing, giving a readout appearing in front of her eyes, of gas levels outside and inside her lungs. It's also a radio and video communicator, so she can talk, see what her mates are doing, check her emails, watch sport, read news, send messages using her eye movements and thoughts.

Megan has never been to this part of the labyrinth before, cut by a new Mark 10 drilling machine she's helping to commission, through rock strata not far from the surface. The tunnel walls have emergency lights, stuck on the walls at head-level every 2 meters. They illuminate as you approach for 20 seconds and take another 5 minutes to recharge by sucking quantum heat from their surroundings – a forced quantum heat pump. Most of the tunnels are long and straight, but you get short runs with lazy curves and some dead ends. Instinctively, she regularly looks behind whilst walking and has somehow forgotten why she's there; always dislikes going out alone, but has to put up with it when needs must – not enough staff to cover all the jobs. For some reason the suits cause the local atmosphere down there to form a light steam, which is probably CO2 or dry ice. It means, if people stay still, eventually, the tunnel will fill with a light mist that takes a while to clear. It's also cold, about minus 5˚C and someone who took off their mask once said, the atmosphere smelled like "Something has gone off and died somewhere."

Megan reads her head-up-display to check what she's supposed to be doing: "Find Jes, tunnel B61, check status, report back 10:50 latest."

"It's 10:30, so gotta find him in 20 minutes," thinks Megan, looking back as she starts the next curve. As the lights go out behind her, the light mist she's generated swirls gently. Sometimes you see odd things down here and get spooked, but it's better not to think too much, as panic is a luxury you don't have on Mars. "In any case, what the hell is going to affect me down here?" One of the problems controlling fear and letting go of panic is: you can forget what you're supposed to be doing.

She picks up the pace and her life support system NANNI (Neuro-Analytical Navigation & Notational Instrumentation) is recording her increased breathing, heart rate, blood chemistry and pressure. The emergency lights in front are too slow now, switching on almost as she jogs past them. The torch is useful, but jogging makes the beam flash about. As she looks behind, the lights are illuminated way back to the last corner.

Megan's NANNI displays a message: "URGENT - Jes stopped breathing, possible mask-off."

Running now, she's hoping there's nothing to trip her over, the torch only lights up where you point. The dark tunnel is rushing past, emergency lights are too slow and hopefully the torch will illuminate where she's running. Standing on a hammer someone left, she nearly twists her ankle. Megan stumbles into the wall and hits it hard with her backpack, temporarily hissing at her, and banging her head slightly.

Her pack immediately goes into diagnostic mode after the impact and flashes up: "TAKE CARE – DIAGNOSTICS".

"OK, this is too much," thinks Megan, "if there's more junk lying around, I'm flat on my face." Looking back, she sees no lights now in the tunnel behind her and thinks, "someone was here recently, within the last 5 minutes." The flash-light catches sight of a pair of Life Pods a few meters ahead. A safe haven where two or more people can lock themselves in, sealed from any danger outside, like poisonous gas, a tunnel fire or rock fall.

Life pods have enough power and food for 3 months, they make their own water, oxygen and recycle the waste. Full neutrino communications (plus an old hard-line to call Base in an emergency), they are sat in pairs, cut into the walls of the tunnel, one each side, pods A and B, every 500m. On Earth they would be every 100 to 200m, but on Mars compromises are part of working life – you just have to make less mistakes. Technology these days is unbreakable though, especially on Mars, where things have to work every time. Most electronics use quantum physics to work, but today component designers use quantum quarks to get the maximum possible out of every component. They are called x-quantum electronics. Megan's NANNI, for example, has no batteries like the emergency tunnel lights. Each electronic component has its own forced quantum power supply, taking heat energy from its surroundings and changing it into moving electron holes (electricity), so the component can do its job and talk to its neighbours.

Megan's training says, she has to wait in the safest possible place when her back pack throws a fit and allow her NANNI diagnostics to finish. She knows the back pack cannot fail, but decides to use a life pod anyway. They can be used as a telephone box to phone home or somewhere to sit at a table for a break, but actually she's panicked, having seen a few new things in the mist today, always finding these difficult to get used to. She could clearly see spinning triangles.

She has a quick look in Pod B for Jes, just in case he's hopped in there and keeled over, but it's empty. Looking back at the moving mist, Megan jumps inside Pod A. She locks the door and feels safer. The seal is made and the cabin pressurises with a hiss of breathable air.

Megan is looking out through the pod window. It's black, the emergency lights are off now for the next 5 minutes. Life Pods have 5 outside cameras (up, down, left, right and forward) and matching mini-monitors inside, but without light in the tunnel the screens are black. The Pod has a strobe light with each camera to light up whatever is outside for a fraction of a second. Switching on the strobes – everything is clear except the right camera, which is facing to the tunnel she came from. "Those moving coloured shapes again, what the frick is it?" thinks Megan. She feels her palms beginning to sweat under her gloves and ducks down, the mask mists up for a second before clearing itself. Patching into the pod cameras using her smart mask, she watches, as the moving objects draw nearer, distorting the mist with sharp rotating triangles. One of her multi-job disciplines is a mining engineer, so, naturally, her first thought is: "Is it a new type of drill? How can this be operating here with people in the tunnel? Jes and me are the only ones down here." Megan's unsure she's protected from whatever this is, so shuffles to the back of the pod. Within seconds a light scraping and tapping starts against the outside of the pod and gets louder. "The drill has reached the pod and will soon rip the front off!" thinks Megan.

"Urgent, Meg Pod 16 to Base, come in please, Meg Pod 16 to Base!"

"Go ahead, receiving. Did you say Meg? Over."

"Dangerous drill operating in Tunnel 61, reached Pod 16, people present, over."

The pod starts to shake now and the rattle is deafening. The pod cameras are shaking so much the monitor images are blurred out. "Turn off the drill you idiots, there are people down here!" shouts Megan angrily. The noise and shaking stop. Megan moves slowly to the door and the pod looks OK, at least the front didn't come off.

The pod diagnostics have started, the display says "STAY HERE – DIAGNOSTICS".

"Base, what the hell was that?"

"You're not listed for this area, Meg and nothing is operating anywhere near you, the nearest Mark 5 drill is off-line awaiting repair."

"Well, there's a drill outside my pod. It was trying to kill me and it's just been switched off. Are you still using Mark 5s here? I thought the last one was taken to a museum on Earth, 20 years ago? Over," Megan smiles, thinking he made a mistake.

"There's nothing on our system at your location," the Base operator has heard things like this before, "Meg, would you look outside please and give me the drill mark and serial number, I'll double check? And yes, we're still running Mark 5s here."

Meg looks through the pod window, but can't see anything in the strobe light. She looks at the displays in turn, zooming in and out, nothing there either. Confused, she tentatively opens the pod door and slowly pokes her head out. Nothing, the tunnel is clear. Moving slowly round the door to look right, expecting to see a large machine parked there and steaming away – nothing there either. "Where the heck is it and what was that?" thinks Meg.

"Base there's nothing here now, the drill's gone, I don't understand what just happened!"

"Don't worry, Meg, this stuff happens all the time, we call it a Mook – a Martian spook."

"Great, that makes me feel much better!" replying sarcastically, "so what's the status of Jes? Was his problem a Mook too?"

"Who's Jes? We can't find either of you on the roster. Can you return to base and sign-in please? Do you have the Base on your locator?"

"Yes and yes, will do, Base, but Jes is still missing, and I'm getting no telemetry from his mask. Leaving Pod 16 A now, turning left, over and out." Meg switches off the strobes and her torch on. As she exits the pod, she checks the tunnel again. Still nothing there. She turns to close the door and raises her flash-light. A strange guy is stood right behind the door, facing her: expressionless, behind an old-style gas mask, torch light under his chin.

"Whoa, who the frick are you?" panics Meg, as she takes a step back.

"My name is Drew," tapping his name badge with a fore finger, cockily, "I've come to talk to you about your drill."

Meg shines the torch about and picks up another four people stood behind him.

"Who are you, guys? We're working down here alone. I need to see your permits," demands Meg.

"We're mining inspectors, Meg, and our permits are here," Drew pulls open a flap in his suit to reveal a large gun, "you're not authorized to drill in this area, so take us to your machine Ma'am, we have to perform an ID check and safety inspection."

"OK, calm down. My partner is working just up here. Follow me," beckons Megan, "our communicators are down, so I've just used the hard-line to call in," reports Megan.

Meg and the others continue down the tunnel and eventually find Jes making adjustments to the new drill, displaying the name, "Fischer - Mark 10".

The team leader introduces himself, "Hi, erm, Jes (looking at his name badge), I'm Drew, we're here to inspect your drill. If you'd like to gather round, I need to stop your machine and explain what we're doing here." Drew pulls out a metallic cylinder about 200mm long, 50mm diameter and aligns it along the tunnel axis. Sliding the device open to reveal a button. Drew presses it and waits for the drill to power down. The cylinder begins to glow as they look on, then a blinding light fills the tunnel.

###  Chapter 2 - Discovery

An inventor always says, ideas just come to you. Sometimes, whilst playing golf, or just when you fall asleep. No one ever questions where they come from, we think it's all about random thoughts in our head and we came up with ideas because we're clever. Well, think again. Good ideas are always born for a reason, who knows where they come from, and great ideas always get stolen and copied.

Professor Sam Page was a trendy kind of top-physicist. He left school 4 years early and was clearly picked by a higher power to do something special. His persistent stubble and preference for skinny jeans and sneakers hid an intellect worthy of great things. His dad bought him an electronics kit when he was 5 and, you could say, he developed a passion for electrons and mathematics, gaining a double doctorate in Physics and Electronics by the time he was 21. Sam was offered and accepted a professorship at the Hong Kong University (HKU) to research and teach quantum electronics to Masters students. That was back in 2012 and 5 years before the world realised just how important electronics would become, thanks, in part, to him.

Theoretical physicists have predicted for decades, that fundamental particles have hidden powers we can only theorise about on paper. Making commercial use of quantum physics has presented scientists with an ever deepening hole to fill, the void between theory and practice. The biggest theoretical advance occurred when Principle Lee Wang of HKU discovered, that particles can exist in multiple dimensions and no dimensions at the same time. Not only that – he summised, that such particles can be nudged or read before or after they jump. This advance in quantum theory was a Chinese state secret for 5 years, until a Japanese physicist published similar but less complete work in 2014. The baseline was, that quantum electronics could be a bottomless pit of treasure for those clever and resourceful enough to exploit the discoveries.

Hong Kong University for decades were experts in the science of rare earths, elements used in advanced electronics and technology. Lee Wang realised quickly, that rare earths could hold the key to his quantum-jump theory, but he needed a young genius to kick his experience to a new level and make quantum-jump a commercial reality. At 55, Lee Wang had earned the deserved status as a pioneer in China, proposing many new uses for rare earths in old and new products, consumed throughout the world, that made them better, stronger and faster. He instinctively knew, that China was ideally placed to lead the advances in electronics using quantum-jump as a cornerstone.

Sam's father, Jim, had worked as an interpreter for the British Governor of Hong Kong until 1999, but remained there, helping Chinese and UK businesses translate legal documents from one language to another, until he semi-retired in 2010. Although Sam was raised and studied in Cambridge, he kept in regular touch with Dad and visited every year for month long stays in his father's Hong Kong flat. One chilly morning in Cambridge was about to change world history, which does happen around people described as prodigies by their peers. Dad knew Lee Wang as an occasional Bridge card-game opponent at his local yacht club and had heard, that HKU were looking for a new Professor of Electronics. Sam had been a doctor of electronics at Cambridge for 2 years, but would be at least 5 years away from a professorship offer: the competition was fierce and places limited.

That morning Sam received a call from his father:

"How would you feel about you and Mum moving to Hong Kong?"

"Why, what's on your mind Dad?"

"There's a job at HKU, that was made for you and they're paying 100K."

"We've talked about this before, I think we're settled, Dad. I'm doing some better research now and things are progressing."

"I know you, you're bored and still single. There are some great girls out here and I know the boss at HKU, he's really pushy. You'll like him."

"I'll speak to Mum, she'll say yes, she misses you, but I need to think about this, things are looking up here."

"It's 27 degrees here and 12 in London, get on a plane this weekend and I'll get you an interview on Monday."

"Give me 24 hours and I'll decide either way, OK?"

"OK mate, love to all."

Sam was getting bored at work. Although he'd eyed a couple of girls he knew socially to keep him occupied, he felt his life and career slipping for the past year. Britain was mired in recession again and the research budget was already frozen 18 months ago until recently. Couple this with the rise of China as a techno-super-power and Sam was quickly out of excuses not to go.

Working with Lee Wang was like riding a mustang for Sam. Wang was a genius, but literally could not get his head around the practicalities of quantum-jump mechanics, though on paper he had proved it mathematically. He was like a master author with writer's block and could only fleet from one thought and idea to the next, without being able to control where to stop and make sense of it all. Sam, on the other hand, was a deep methodical thinker and avid lucid dreamer, able to think and control dreams whilst asleep, directing those dreams; he could even put another's thoughts into his own dreams for analysis. Sam was definitely the cowboy Marshall of this unorthodox coupling and Wang – the old bronco.

Sam always got goose bumps when a new idea was forming in his head. Wang's chuntering about rare earth elements (REEs) was a regular factor at their meetings, but only when Sam asked this question, did things get an awful lot calmer: "If you create pure crystalline structures in REEs such as Scandium, what do you observe close to a highly-polished surface?" Sam smiled by lifting one corner of his mouth, expecting Wang to look like he'd not considered this approach.

Wang's poker face wasn't required this time, as he'd done these experiments already, but never realised the significance, so said:

"Why do you ask? You get emissions, depending on the shape factor of the surface."

"Have you plotted these observations across all available REEs and determined the exact emission profiles?"

"Yes, mostly. But we only found anomalies in the data, no clear patterns emerged."

"It's the gaps in the data I'm interested in, I'd like to take those findings home and study them. I think you might have something I need in the missing data, but I'm not sure."

"You'll have to stay on-campus because the data is classified. You can use my deputy's flat, she's away all week."

"Ok Lee, I'll do that. Can you have the papers dropped off within the next hour and I'll meet you tonight for a drink at the staff bar?"

Wang nods and says: "OK see you later, text me when ready."

Sam's hair was standing on end as he waited for the papers to arrive. A knock on the door and Sam opened it to reveal two large security guys, one thrusting a bunch of tattered bound parchments into Sam's hand, saying with a stern mumble: "we're required to wait here, Sir – for the papers to be returned when finished." Sam nodded, but felt this was a little cautious – the data was quite old, incomplete and, until now, without any significance. The binder said "Top Secret" in big red letters – again, a bit cautious, but if Sam's hunch had any legs at all, that would prove to have been a wise classification.

He'd been given a bundle with all the crystalline emissions data included and had a few hundred pages to thumb through – just boring columns of numbers, Greek letters and symbols. But to Sam, this was like reading a crime novel. He always looks for patterns and odd behaviour in everything, because he knows from experience – nature works best like that. Every few pages he noticed, that some particles disappeared and some reappeared, according to the numbers, very occasionally, from nothing and realized, this was the actual quantum-jump pattern he was looking for. Just as Wang had seen some years earlier in the mathematics – clear patterns of behaviour. Sam also knew: where there's a pattern, there's a computer program not far behind and the ability to make devices that can be controlled.

Sam wanted to get some new experiments started, so telephoned Wang with his initial excitement:

"I have an idea how we can build some components to test my concepts. I'm seeing jump in the data, Lee, just like your theory suggests."

"OK, what did you have in mind?"

"I think, I can build a physical REE programming block to emit in a precise way and cause a controlled quantum-jump."

"I knew you'd come up with something real, my head's full of theory, mush and maths."

"I'll make some sketches and you can look over them whilst we talk in the bar, see you down there in an hour."

Sam puts together some concepts of rare earth components of various shapes and sizes that fit loosely together in blocks, like one of those puzzles, that only fit together in one way.

Down at the bar the two security guys are still hanging around, as Sam explains to Wang: "You see, these components will emit particles at different rates, times, sequences, and, depending on how you put these shapes together, you can control how these anomalies occur, at what time and, importantly, where they coincide. We can create a dummy component and make it perform a quantum-jump." Wang looked at Sam and thought: "This is amazing, I would never have come up with this idea! This will be something big!" but said: "OK Sam, nice work so far, but we will have to tread carefully, a few people have to approve this."

A month later, Sam waits in his laboratory office for some important deliveries: the first REE components to build a quantum device, precision made to his drawings and ready to play with. He's trying to build a quantum-jump device to force a small 1 gram test piece to move from our dimension into to another. If it works, he should never see the test piece again. Wang's earlier theoretical research showed, that if you could create two fundamental particles of precisely the same energy and spin them with incredible accuracy, you could make either or both disappear, based on their distance apart, energy and spin. He further postulated, that this 'disappearance' could only be proved if the particle or particles had jumped to another dimension and that the properties of mass, length and time were simply perceptions, blocking our view of other dimensions. Working on several configurations, Sam takes meticulous notes describing the emissions profile of each test for a given construction, he's able to arrange the blocks to perform a basic logic, like a simple computer program, but instead of binary flows, Sam is controlling the appearance and disappearance of quantum anomalies, he's focusing and amplifying jump-potential onto the test piece. After 48 hours without much sleep, Sam is exhausted, messing with this block-puzzle kind of device. He failed to get any signs of a quantum-jump at all, but the emissions data still looks encouraging. Sam throws down the device and flops asleep on his desk, immediately beginning to dream of bright sunlight and the sound of the ocean waves around him. "Let's try again later," he thinks.

Principle Wang wakes up the HKU campus main-frame to examine Sam's work last night. Sam was playing with his new quantum-jump experiment and, just getting back from a weekend away, Wang wants a Monday morning update for his sponsors. The data stream opens and starts to tick down the screen until it stops abruptly at 11.31pm on Sunday night. Not a complete entry either, looks like the data entry was corrupted and then the experiment suddenly stopped. Wang reaches over to phone Sam, find out what happened to the tests last night. As his hand nears the phone, it rings. Wang jumps and picks it up: "Lee Wang speaking, can I help?" A strong monotone mumbling voice says: "Professor Wang, please come down to Professor Page's laboratory now please, there appears to be a problem."

"What happened, is everything OK?"

"Please come down Sir, it is much easier than explaining over the phone."

Throwing the phone down, Wang grabs his jacket and runs out. At the lab he sees a number of flashing lights and loud buzzers going off, plus a little smoke coming from under Page's laboratory door. He looks through the window and decides it's safe enough to enter. Walking slowly, he passes a security guy who nods and points to Sam's office. Sam's office door is open, but the room looks empty for some reason, only half a ceiling lamp hangs down, the odd electrical spark is dropping and he can see a triangular-shaped dent in the floor – like the corner of a box had been there. Two guys in white coats are in the office with Geiger counters, measuring radiation levels. As Wang wonders in, one guy says: "Radiation is normal, Sir, but it looks like something disappeared."

The two guys each grab an end of Sam's broken desk and lift them up onto the legs. The two halves show, that a large cubic section – stood on one corner, has disappeared from the centre of the desk, right where Sam would have been sitting, taking part of the floor, ceiling lamp and most of Sam's chair.

"There are no burn marks and everything is cleanly cut, like a diamond shape was sliced away and taken," said one of the guys, scratching his head with the end of the Geiger counter.

###  Chapter 3 - Greed

IRISS mapped the Martian sub-surface from 2029 to 2031, sending multi-dimensional information (including 3-D) on the composition and geology of the entire planet, from the highest peak of 21 kilometers at Olympus Mons to the deepest Hellas Impact Crater at 8 kilometers, going further down, 21 kilometers below the surface crust. IRISS (International Reconnaissance in Solar System), a Mars orbiter, could measure everything on the Martian surface within a 50 kilometer vertical band: gas, rock, minerals, life – basically, every atom and molecule on the planet's surface – above and below, producing a monster data stream, that only quantum-matrix signaling can send to Earth quickly enough. The destination of this data – Jiuquan Space Centre in China, home to the biggest processing centre ever built. The transmission window is only 2 months and represents the biggest data transfer in human history (at least for now) and likely, the biggest prospecting operation in our solar system since the Klondike gold rush, once the information has been compiled. The former People's Republic of China, now, the Federation of China, plan to exploit Mars with mining vessels by 2050. Our planet's precious metals, minerals and Rare Earths will be exhausted by 2075, so the world's largest economy is turning to the exploitation of Mars to satisfy human demand for technology, now largely based on advanced quantum-quark electronics. The corporations, of course, are more than willing to supply anything that's possible to consumers, even if we have to take it from another world.

So much detail about Mars was collected, it took 5 years to compile all the data into recognizable chemical compounds, even with the help of sophisticated algorithms, x-quantum computers and 10,000 human operators. Completed now, China has its eye on all the precious metals, minerals and Rare Earths (on Mars) it needs for the next 500 years and a few new materials too, as yet undiscovered on Earth.

Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IPMC), based in Shenzhen, China, already have a crewed tunneling expedition on the surface since 2040, testing a number of automated drills, mineral processors and launchers, ready for deployment within the next two years to the Martian surface, at which point the humans will leave. These days, machines are so sophisticated, they maintain themselves using directed nano-technology and onboard manufacturing tools, each tiny component being self-powered (using a forced quantum heat pump, later to be named Bit-Power) and networked with all the other components in the machine, using quantum entanglement. Modern machines and devices are so complex at a sub-atomic level, they rely totally on materials, that are rare and difficult to find on Earth, but common on Mars.

* * *

An operator is looking at two giant screens side-by-side, showing a complex series of tunnels just under the Martian surface – like a maze of interconnected plumbing, and beckons his supervisor to come over:

"This is telemetry from Hellas at 20:50 CMT (Central Mars Time)... This is the data at 22:50 CMT."

"That's great, well done," smiling falsely, "are we paying you to compare lava tunnels? Or should we move you to look at the 'Canals of Mars' instead?" – Martian-speak for getting fired.

"This is data at 00:50 CMT, the tunnels are here," ignoring the remark, the operator points to the lower left corner of the second screen.

"So what are we looking at, dude?" The supervisor is getting irritated.

"These sections here and here are growing, the tunnels are boring through lava rock at about 100 meters per hour," says the operator, smiling broadly.

"Well done you've wasted an hour watching drills on Hellas! You need to get back into what you should be doing and have a working lunch as payback."

"Sir, we're not digging anywhere near this part of Hellas and our drills only cut at 1 meter per hour through glass. Hellas is a meteor impact crater and the sub-surface is mostly glassified rock."

"You're saying, 100 times faster than we drill?"

* * *

In a dark room, at an oval director's table, two large guys are smoking cigars, but the smoke is not spreading around the room – it is being contained within a 1 meter diameter spherical bubble, that moves sluggishly with the cigar tip. One guy flicks his cigar and the ash never hits the floor – the tobacco is treated with programmable Quantinium, so the smoke and ash produced disappear, they remain entangled at a quantum level – the treated matter, designed to behave in a particular way. At G$1,000 (global dollars) per cigar, quantum-jump tobacco is popular with the mega-rich. It's harmless, but loses none of its old-style effects until the by-products vanish, even the stuff he's inhaled, disappears without a trace. Amazing, what you can buy if you have enough money.

Another half a dozen people are sitting around the table: one other suit and the rest casual, two are wearing workshop boiler suits. The meeting was called by Fischer, the engineering manager, citing an urgent matter. Two IPMC company directors (the finance and operations Fat Cats), Fischer's line manager, three analysts and two workshop technicians.

Fischer is pacing slowly around the table, about to speak. The meeting room suddenly appears to be located on a beautiful sandy beach with some light grass, sand dunes and sea crashing softly nearby, a ticker moves slowly around the room – a company advertisement, saying: "Welcome to Rubicon – Paradise in your Pocket from IPMC." The manager exclaims: "Whoops, sorry! I wanted ahem..." – The room, floor to ceiling is coated with Pixel Paint so that each surface can project whatever image or video is supplied to the room. The manager just thinks of the projection he wants and the computer he's wearing in his ear transmits the video to the room. If not available, the computer selects the media, matching closest to the thought-request.

Some in the room start laughing and one says: "Are you hoping to get away soon, Fischer? That looks like a beach in Mexico."

"I was wishing I had one of those islands we make... Only need a cool billion dollars or a serious promotion," says Fischer, looking at his line manager. The visible location changes to the surface of Mars, with one of IPMC's Mark 5 mining drills parked nearby. "Ok that's better," smiling, he replies: "Yes, I was a little distracted there for a second, my missus just booked us for 2 weeks on a deserted beach somewhere, not sure if it's Mexico, but good enough for now... OK, let's just focus for a second... Welcome all," Fischer looks around the room, stops panning at the two large guys, nods gently and says to them, "and thank you gentlemen, for traveling in, at such short notice." He continues: "As some of you will know, the test phase completes next month and Mark 5 drills are already deployed in over half their locations. But we have a slight deviation, possibly. Six hours ago the Data Analysts were re-visiting an area we thought were ancient lava tubes at Hellas crater." Fischer thinks of a map of Hellas Impact Crater and the two-screens the Operator and Supervisor were looking at the other day. The images flash up around the room.

Fischer circles the same area on the side-by-side images. "These images are tunnels at Hellas four hours apart. Can anyone spot the difference?" A few sniggers around the room as it is obvious the second image shows many more tunnels. "Of course, this image shows a number of new tunnels, six actually, dug from 20:50 to 00:50... We estimate 400 meters of drilling in 4 hours... Now, this presents us with a couple of problems: one – we have exclusive prospecting rights throughout Hellas, and two – we have the best drills money can buy, or so we thought in both cases... Firstly, these drills are working 100 times faster than anything we've got. Second, we don't know who they are... It could be a secret US / Russian operation or rival Chinese company, just landed. These tunnels weren't there 7 hours ago."

Fischer continues to pace around and wipes sweat from his brow with his handkerchief. "One problem is, we can't find the entry point yet. There appears to be no base station on the surface, so these units are operating independently, without surface support. We may have to dig to get to this labyrinth, find out who they are, but it's only shallow, about 20 meters down."

The finance fat cat pipes up:

"How much will it cost to get a team in there?"

"We have Specialists 250 miles North with full equipment on site." By 'Specialists' he means people who have astronautics, mining and military training and by 'full equipment' he means space transport, drilling equipment and weapons.

"How much and how long?"

"We can spare 6 guys without affecting the Mark 5 roll-out, but commissioning and, therefore, production, will be delayed at a rate of 6 days for each day they are away from IPMC Mars Base, to a maximum of 48 days before relief arrives. Each pair of guys are working on one drill."

Fat Cat sighs, looks down and drops his shoulders:

"OK, how blooming much?" shaking his head, he's thinking: "Fricking waffling, obstructive engineers and their plans."

"The Mark 5 drill can process Marsonite (Martian rare-earth-bearing ore) at 168,000 kilograms per day, yielding about 84 tons of rare earth oxide for transport each day."

"Will you be getting to the price in my lifetime?"

Fischer frowns, hesitates, takes a deep breath and says: "The oxides wholesale at an average G$500 million (global dollars) per ton, Earth-side (delivered to Earth), that's G$42 billion per day per drill." The Fat Cat shakes his head and tuts. Fischer continues, "So the 6 guys will cost at least G$126 billion in lost production per day, but if we lose them or they take the entire 48 days, we're looking at about G$6.048 trillion. But we might get a good look at that crazy drill they're using, which could have an output of nearly G$30 trillion per week!"

Fat Cat lifts his eyebrows, starts playing with his nose and nods gently, prodding his upper lip for a few moments, then scowls: "Will we be able to steal this drill or take it apart, to see how it works?"

"I dunno, I'm a designer, not a reverse-engineer Sir, I'll need to talk to some Specialists, but if it's a machine, we can copy it. We'll have to take each minute as it comes though."

"OK, I'm happy to authorise this. If you can make this work, Fischer, at 30 trillion per week, you can name your job and your price," fat cat looks at the other fat cat for approval, who nods gently behind a mouth dropped at both corners. "OK, get those 6 Specialists moving ASAP, but I want this in the mission objective – borrow competitor drill, copy it, return to owner. This is an illegal mining operation so we have complete legitimacy, but copying is a more delicate matter. I know the powers-that-be are recording everything we say and do, so always make sure you state your intentions early, is my advice, legal or otherwise. We wanna know how they drill rock at 100 meters per hour. I want you to personally manage this mission from here with daily updates, Fischer. Let me know once you have the drill ID; I'll need to call the owners personally."

"Yes Sir, I'll get right on it. Meeting adjourned."

Fat Cat breezes out of the conference room and into a private booth to make a secure text call to Mars, "Hi Sam, Fischer is about to call you regarding a competitor, drilling illegally in your sector. I need you to make up one of your 'special devices' for me and give it to the inspection team, Fischer will be setting up for you. I want you to issue very clear instructions on how to get things set up and activate the device. Before that, I want a full scan of the competitor machine sent here, to Fischer, as a top priority. They'll need the device to stop the competitor drill, but won't EVER need to restart it. To find out how that machine works, you'll need to tear it apart – so leave no traces. Are you with me on this one, Sam? Any questions?"

Right now, Mars is 286 million miles from Earth, so the reply comes back from Sam Page about 30 minutes later: "Yes Sir, I know exactly what you mean. Stop, copy and NEVER restart. Please leave everything to me."

Fat Cat knows he must return the drill to someone or face the likelihood of serious compensation, so Sam has just been set up and gets the blame if anything goes wrong. Messages to and from a private booth cannot be intercepted and recorded, but those in the conference room are. If the competitor accuses IPMC of damaging or stealing their drill, "Page, acted well beyond his remit."

###  Chapter 4 - Spooked

Mark 10 is not your average tunnel drill. Think of him as a descendent of the Channel Tunnel excavator: duties would have included cutting, crushing and conveying chalk material back from the drilling face, to create the England to France rail connection in the late 20th Century. Tenth generation Mark or Mark 10, designed by engineer Deiter Fischer, is much more than that. Still cylindrical, it is smaller at 3 meters in diameter, 7 meters long and a mere 75 tonnes, but is not like any old-style tunneling machine at all, in fact, few machines built after 2025 can really be compared to the nuts-n-bolts assemblies of the past. They're as far in front technically as passenger jets were to Stephenson's Rocket, thanks to Fischer's genius. Sure, mankind still builds and uses traditional machines, but even the most basic use some x-quantum electronics, bit-power and nano technology.

Some of the human technicians back on Earth strike up a conversation with a Mark 10 drill when they're bored, a few have even claimed they've chatted with Mark 10s in their dreams. Mark 10s are designed to interact with humans on all emotional and spiritual levels. You can talk about your girlfriend, what you should be eating for breakfast, your plans for the day – anything, really. You can ask Mark 10 what his plans are for the next 5 minutes and then again, an hour later. Usually you'll get two slightly different answers, based on what happened during the hour, but exactly the same plan is rare, so the guys have a sweepstake to collect when this happens. Too much detail is a built-in feature. Another favourite is checking Mark's predictions of how much Scandium he will dig out by midnight. Checking the logs the following day gives a weight to the nearest one-thousandth of a gram. The odds are better, the further you pick from Mark's estimate, but he is normally within a tenth of a gram. The daily winner gets paid for a good night out, whilst the profits send the team on holiday in the summer.

You can ask Mark 10 what he likes to do best, ask him to list his top 3 desires in life; number one will be: "To drill all the time!" unless number two gets in the way: "To maintain myself for drilling." Number three will be either "Talking and drilling," or "Reading and drilling."

Mark 10 is not another idiot robot though, he actually does love drilling, by any definition or measure of consciousness. A computer physicist could explain how Mark 10 thinks and reasons with a boat load of equations and theories, but it's easier and perhaps more accurate to think of Mark 10's mind existing in a perfect world for him, he is literally living the dream. He doesn't sleep because he doesn't need to, his mind is always ON, unless he's paused. Imagine a job you love so much, all you can do is stay at work as long as your body and wife lets you. With a job like that, eating and sleeping are annoying chores you can do without, but you do need them for good health. Mark 10 of course was designed specifically for the job of drilling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it's something he simply adores doing.

Leaving Mark 10 alone without any human instructions is also possible. If you left a young child in a sand pit to play, things normally get out of hand quickly. Usually throwing sand out of the pit is the start, then putting some in the other kids' eyes is the finish. Mark however, cannot get bored or rowdy, he just drills and drills, like a happy fish swimming in a warm sea. Left to his own devices, he will play-drill.

Of course, Mark is nuclear powered for such autonomy, right? The very first Mark was, Mark 0, but nuclear power was phased out a generation ago, then bit-power came along. Every part of Mark generates power from his surroundings, with each electronic component using forced quantum heat transfer – basically, quantum-sized heat pumps, making electricity by stealing heat from the environment. It doesn't even need to be hotter. Heat is sucked to where it's required, despite massive temperate difference in the 'wrong' direction, a quirk of quantum physics for the tiniest components. So when Mark is working hard, the surroundings are a little cooler than they would otherwise be, so he can work anywhere where the temperature is just above absolute zero.

Can he be killed and is he intelligent? His mind cannot be erased like a disc drive, his 'personality' is the system design, his 'thoughts and memory' are his x-qubit arrays, just like the arrangement and connection of neurons inside our brains give us personality, memory and humanity. Mark 10's x-quantum electronic components are arranged and connected just like neurons, but trillions more in a specific and predictable way, so that the resulting 'mind' is entirely tailored to the machine and the tasks at hand, so there's nothing to be erased, no computer program to run, hack or debug.

If you ask Mark 10 the question: "What's my name?" his x-quantum electronics begin by seeing if he recognizes you from memory. If this draws a blank, he asks something called the 'information field' for data held on you. His architecture is designed to grow exponentially for each nano-second the problem is unresolved, so will not ask you any questions unless he's stuck without the information he needs. Mark's mind works by taking what he knows and providing a 100% reliable answer or nothing.

Like an orange, Mark's mind is divided into segments, and these cannot work unless they're held together by an electromagnet. Disturb that magnetic field and his brain falls apart. Reconnect, and Mark thinks again as if nothing had happened. His neural connections, once made, are permanent, so he never forgets, even his mistakes.

How does all this work? X-Quantum or extended quantum electronic components are all bit-powered, taking energy from their surroundings, mounted on wafers arranged in a sphere, so they power-up on demand from the centre and just like a chain-reaction, these x-qubits switch on exponentially. Computer scientists have predicted, that Mark 10 'can' know everything in the universe, using less-than-half his mind, but to do that, he would also have to 'see' everything.

A typical learning computer then? Not really. He doesn't learn anything. Learning implies skills through experience. Mark has exponential processing power, the longer he takes on a problem, the more he thinks and faster. His 'experience' is reading vast amounts of data from the 'information field' and his onboard memory. His 'skill' is using a rapidly increasing brute force process, acting on that data, to deliver a solution.

Humans tend to be limited by their ability to think quickly enough and have to experience things over and over again to do anything useful. Mark just needs as much information as possible about his environment, so he is what he 'sees'. His Quantinium reader accepts data from every elementary particle within a radius of 50 kilometers, by tapping into the local 'information field', so in his bubble, he has everything covered. His designers limited his reader to 50 kilometers to make sure he stays focused on the local area.

One of the fringe benefits of Quantinium, is the ability to connect to different dimensions beyond the spatial one we live inside. The 'information field' stores everything about every elementary particle, right next to us, in a dimension we cannot see! Since Mark can tap into this vast data resource, he doesn't need a large memory to know everything about his environment.

So is he intelligent? Within his bubble, nothing knows more, he can read everything. Outside that imaginary 50 kilometer ball, he can only make assumptions and that's one thing he's not designed to do. He can only answer or act if he knows for sure. He thinks like us and acts, based on his environment and what he knows, so yes, he is intelligent if humans are, but his abilities are far greater. He knows everything about his local environment and he can think progressively quicker and harder to solve the toughest problems, so in these respects, he is light years above us.

Mechanically however, Mark seems pretty basic, he can only dig forwards in his tunnel with a very slow rate of turn, and the material he drills is conveyed behind him. He is like a mole. Quantinium drill tips, cut through the hardest rock like butter. These tips use their properties to disrupt the atomic bonds holding matter together, making the valuable ore fall off the drilling face, with very little effort. The precious material he's looking for is filtered out of the ore using a Quantinium grid: which further separates, refines and compacts the precious, valuable and worthless materials. The dirt he doesn't want, compacted by the process, is left behind. This 'waste' is so dense, having been disrupted by the Quantinium, immediately settles like a liquid in the bottom of the tunnel to form a roadway and Mark uses some of it to make interlocking blocks to form dense rings, to support the tunnel roof. Every so often he ejects a block of precious or valuable cargo onto this roadway, so that another smaller collection robot can pick it up later. Not only does Mark dig a fortune everyday, he also delivers a by-product – a network of tunnels suitable for underground transport, or one day to be filled, if required, with breathable air for humans to live in.

His sensor can see Marsonite ore in any direction 50 kilometers away and all Mark 10s have an insatiable appetite for drilling this rare-earth-bearing rock. They're in constant touch with IPMC Mars Base and Earth HQ updating them with production news and stats, and if a Marsonite seam is too far away from his current location underground, he either reverses along his roadway, or drills to the surface and drives himself over ground to the next seam. He doesn't have to ask the supervisor to do this, his mind is designed to drill for Marsonite and extract new deposits as well as he can.

So what if Mark 10 goes berserk and starts drilling where he's not welcome? Like a windmill grinding flour, it will not suddenly start baking bread. His design is very specific, in a well known environment, he cannot change without human help. But, just in case, he does have an OFF switch. The electromagnet, holding his mind together, can be disrupted by humans, using a jamming signal, directed at his brain, to make the segments fall apart. An opposite signal must be used to re-establish the electromagnet. Once revived within one second or in a million years, he remembers everything as if nothing had happened, he only knows from his clock that he spent some time hibernating and has a log of other information received, like where he has been and a summary of his bubble history.

* * *

A Mark 10 wakes up from a pause, immediately goes into diagnostics and starts to power up. "All systems nominal, REBO (rare-earth-bearing ore) dead ahead, proximity clear, proceed OK, complete power up and go." This Mark 10 is confused however, the clock date reads 2050 as expected on checking with Earth and Mars neutrino pulses, but the log suggests otherwise: a pause of 10 seconds and his sensor is now reading a different set of bubble data.

He is wondering how this is possible and it won't take him long to have the solution figured out.

His sensor shows he is under the sea bed, inside an atoll. Above is a concrete disc about 2 kilometers in diameter, with a large air pocket trapped in between. His connection with Mars and Earth is broken, so, being bored, he decides to explore his new location and play around for a while. The composition suggests, he is back on Earth, so he decides to drill into the air pocket and wait to see if anyone appears, so he can ask them.

Day dreaming about drilling, Mark 10 is startled by someone, who has entered the air-filled void, "Hello Mark, welcome back to Rubicon." Mark recognises that voice from his past, "Hello Mr Fischer, how are you? Can I be of assistance?"

###  Chapter 5 - Theft

"I've been instructed to prepare a 6-person team for a local mission, to investigate an illegal drilling operation 250 miles South of your location,..." begins Fischer with his first message.

In the old days a military mission like this may have been done by the SAS or Navy SEALs. Fifty years on and many technical leaps forward, this job needs at least 5 major disciplines: computer physicist, mining engineer, special forces trained, astronaut and diplomat, plus some other specialist skills, depending on who you are and what you do.

From Earth, Fischer selects his 'SEAL' team from the specialists already on-site and closest to Mars Base: by codename, age, gender and role. The team includes: Drew (32, male, captain), Kaffey (25, male, electronics), Shaw (21, male, demolition), Blair (22, female, intelligence), Strong (25, female, medical) and Daley (25, male, support).

To save time, Fischer makes a series of statements to Drew, the SEAL Captain, and awaits answers. Secure text calls take 30 minutes due to the current distance from Earth to Mars.

Fischer does not know he is being deceived from above and that deception is about to be passed on to people, who trust their superiors with their lives.

Fischer Message 1: "...and by the way, thanks for coming back in, we have a lot to cover and I have much to explain. You're all trained in new mining techniques and we have an important job to do on Mars today. A competitor is drilling our patch, but their machine is 100 times quicker. I'm sure, that's already pricked up your ears.

"They're unauthorized intruders and we have the right to remove them with extreme prejudice. Our scientific expert on Mars is Sam Page, working the R&D lab, you may have bumped into him at the mess hall. He will be assisting you with the job of dismantling the competition and archiving what we find, using the equipment he will supply."

Fischer Message 2: "You must locate their drill and neutralize any personnel you find with a dose of Hyper-Slumber. They will wake up after you're done and think they fell asleep on the job. The important thing is: they should not see you working on the drill, we don't want them to know what we're doing.

"You'll pretend to be mining inspectors, checking their suspected unauthorized drilling. Make sure the dose is correct for the time you need plus 1 hour and no more, say 4 hours, we don't want any casualties. Sam will give you a device to stop the machine so you can work on it, do the scans and put it back together. The device also restarts their machine ready for when they wake up.

"I suggest, you ask the intruders to gather round the drill whilst you switch it off, and if the machine powers down, your team can apply the Hyper-Slumber whilst they're distracted, but make sure the machine does power down first. If the device doesn't work, the intruders will need to help you stop the machine, before you put them to sleep."

Fischer Message 3: "The scanner will tell you how many intruders there are as you approach. Very likely two people working as a pair, like we do. The company will fund the operation. Pick up your tabs and take the hit on lost production, but once we have the drill, we will charge the competitor for its return. This machine is worth its weight in gold and more, so they'll want it back."

After 30 minutes a reply comes back...

Drew: "All three messages received and understood OK, we have no questions right now, will continue to Sam and get moving."

After a long pause Fischer concludes the text call.

The SEALs venture to the mess hall in search of Sam Page and recognize a dweebie guy they used to quietly take the mickey out of at chow time. They use to laugh at his odd socks and baggy trousers, that were too short. Drew makes the first move to greet Page:

"Hello, you must be Sam Page?" offering his hand for shaking. Daley starts laughing at the back as Kaffey tickles his ribs from behind.

"Yes, I've been told you'd make contact. You're the rowdy guys who are always messing about aren't you? Whilst some of us have to work here?" Page makes that false, questioning smile, "Hum?"

"Yes, Sir, we're what you might call the intelligent excavators based here. We do have stressful jobs, you see..."

"Let's get down to business, I never have enough time so we'd better not waste any by messing about. Come to my lab in 30 minutes, I'm preparing your equipment, you'll need to be moving out within the next 2 hours, otherwise we might lose this opportunity."

"OK, Sir, I'll prepare the team and see you shortly," says Drew.

Page returns to his lab.

Drew sets about prepping his team for the next job: "Grab some food to take with you and get back to the Container (their name for living quarters), we have 20 minutes to check our gear and move out to meet Page in R&D."

Page is having a secure text call with Fischer:

"You have to make sure you get a good scan of the machine. Are you confident your gizmo will switch off the intruder and restart it? Please take the guys through the scanning process, they might not remember all the options. Looking forward to the data stream tomorrow, good luck and make sure everyone gets back safe."

After 30 minutes the reply comes back from Page:

"Yes Mr Fischer, I understand and yes, this will switch off anything! The scanner is the easy part, your data is assured, and I'll make sure they remember everything I give them, including the safety briefing."

On Mars, Page is laughing, rubbing his hands together and thinking, "What a naive idiot Fischer is. Once they press this 'controller', they won't know what hit them!" being a guy with a serious chip on his shoulder, as he plays with one of his 'special devices'.

Fischer ends the text call and the SEALs are by now fully kitted and arrive at the R&D lab.

"OK ladies, first things first. I'm in charge. You answer to me only on this mission, I have military command jurisdiction. Any problems – you speak to me or your lawyer, those are my orders. Now pay attention gophers," Page holds up a navigation device, "you have this thing – a Navicom, I've modified. It will tell you where the drill is and the nearest tunnel to blow up, so you can get down there and at the rogue drill. You can also use it to find each other, and get back here. I'll give you two of these. You can always call me and I can direct you, I have a Navicom here too. Make sure your location jammers are always switched off so I can track you.

"This is a standard tool set in three boxes for pulling off panels and parts. I'll tell you where to start in a minute. This thing is the most important – the scanner. It only has a range of 2 meters, so you need to place it near the bits you scan. It is always switched on by the way. The data stream is automatically captured on that console there." Page points to a computer in his lab, "You just have to make sure all parts of the drill are within 2 meters of this thing, whilst it's downloading and you will capture it all. I'll tell you when the scan is complete.

"So you'll start at the middle of the machine, working into the centre, then back and forth with the scanner. Now, we don't know what this machine is like inside or out, but we do know it's 3 meters diameter and 7 meters long. The nuts and bolts of construction we don't know, so you can try to use the standard tools I give you to enter from the side.

"The other option is this," Page thrusts a pick and shovel into Drew's face, smiling, "you can dig around the drill and use the scanner along the surface only, so no need to pull anything apart." Drew shakes his head and looks at the others, "I have a pair for each of you, they are very light until you press the head of the pick here to change how heavy it is, see?

"Now, here is the last piece. You'll need to stop the machine before you can work on it. So I'd suggest making contact with whoever is there first. Introduce yourselves as an inspection team looking into a suspicious drilling operation. Gather everyone round and tell them to watch whilst you power down their machine. Whilst they're distracted, press this device here and whilst the machine powers down, you can administer the Hyper-Slumber."

Page brings out a metallic cylinder about 50 millimeters in diameter and 200 millimeters long, demonstrating a sliding shutter covering a button, and explains: "Press once for OFF and once for ON. Make sure this is lined up with the machine. If it doesn't work, you'll have to figure out how to stop the machine, maybe get the intruders to help you before putting them to sleep."

"OK, yes that's clear. I'd better look after this. We'll get to it," said Drew.

"Good luck and keep in touch!" replied Page.

Drew and the team pick up the gear and trudge out of the lab to find their transport.

Page is alone and sits back onto his chair smiling. He picks up another scanner off a shelf behind and recovers a sticky label from under his desk, like a piece of chewing gum, sticking it onto the identical instrument. The name plate says, "Range 20 meters Spherical", not, "Range 2 meters Linear" as Page had claimed.

Page's intention is to get the SEALs close to the drill, thinking they have to be within 2 meters, when in fact Page was getting the data stream from 20 meters away. Plenty of time to download the machine composition, before they disappear, and all traces are removed from the tunnel.

All Page has to do now is wait for the data stream he wants to start arriving, within about the next 2 hours or so.

The operation is taking place in another similar dimension, but as usual with parallel universes, some details are more important than others. In this one, Sam Page is nasty, he's certainly experienced a different life so far.

Page is looking at what the scanner sees and right on cue gets the entire composition of the competitor machine and two unknowns, as the SEALs approach. The console says one male, one female, the name badges read, "Jes" and "Megan". The data required is copied within a few seconds. "The SEALs have done as I instructed. Poor guys!" thinks Page as he redirects the stream to Earth, turns the light off and exits the lab. The console continues to show a stream of data coming in and then abruptly stops.

* * *

Through one of the tunnels, dug by the intruder drill, a torch light is jiggling around and getting closer. The mist begins to clear as the light gets nearer, stops moving around so much and gets bigger.

Daley's locator showed the guys just up ahead at the competitor drill and two unknowns.

"Wait for me guys," puffs Daley as he walks from the mist, late as usual, "I had to phone my girlfriend, she's had a boy,..." Daley stops and looks around inside a large cylindrical shaped cavern.

"Where are you, guys? Can you hear me? Come in please!" pleads Daley. The cavern is empty and the roof is beginning to break up, with pieces of rock falling down. Daley sprints back to the relative safety of the tunnel he just came from, checks his locator showing no one, not even him, as he tries his radio one more time, "Come in guys, come in please!"

Daley looks as his location jammer. It's now switched on and he reaches inside a flap in his suit to switch it off, but pauses and remembers his military training, "No I'd better leave it on – when you sense trouble, go to stealth mode, until your situation becomes clear."

Daley, often reprimanded by Drew for not taking certain missions seriously enough, used Pod 16 B earlier to check his Earth messages and send wishes back to his girlfriend. As a safety feature, Pods de-activate personal locators, as the Pod's own sensors take over. But SEAL location jammers switch on automatically, if the personal locator is switched off.

Running back, he eventually reaches Pod 16 B and jumps inside to think, grabs some food for later, stuffing it inside his suit. Daley re-checks the locator and still no one is displayed. He replays the locator history, showing an outline of the tunnel, minute by minute for the last 10 minutes. Daley sees himself disappear first, as he entered Pod 16 B to message his girlfriend. His team mates gathered around two others and an oblong object, then they all disappear, to be replaced by a much larger cavern, outlined on his locator.

"The evidence is conclusive," thinks Daley, "something happened to the guys when they were powering down the intruder drill," remembering Page's brief, "that cavern looked man-made too and with rocks just starting to fall, it was newly formed. I can smell a rat."

Daley remains in the Pod for a while to plan his next steps and concludes: "take the transporter back to Mars Base along a different route, avoid detection by jamming the vehicle locator. Break into the base via the garage and create a hole-up (a place to hide and sleep) in the storage area. Use the ventilation ducts to get into Page's lab. Download his console activity and copy evidence. Take appropriate action regarding Page."

For Page, these circumstances may be unfortunate. Daley is designated as 'Support' for a reason. Not only does he have all the training of his team mates to effectively 'support' each of them, he also has to be a specialist in covert, evidential and, worryingly for Page if he knew, assassination.

Daley stuffs more food into his suit, exits the Pod and jogs to the transporter.

###  Chapter 6 - Adrift

Sam wakes with a burning sensation on the back of his neck, as if the desk lamp has decided to fall on him whilst he was asleep. It's breezy too, as if the window is wide open. Opening one eye, he sees, he's still at his desk and looks up. He's outside and above is clear blue sky, the sun beating down behind his collar. Looking down at his desk, there's a 1 centimeter cube of metal in front of him, still warm, as he touches it. He tries to remember what it is, but can't, "Might be important," he thinks, so picks it up and zips it into his pocket.

"What the heck happened, where am I?" he thinks and takes a look around. He's sat on a pile of rubbish, mostly white plastic. "Looks like I'm at the recycling centre," Sam looks behind him and sees a calm sea, right to the horizon. "OK I must be dreaming this – I'm sat on a pile of rubbish in the ocean," thinks Sam, as the sea breathes beneath him.

"This can't be possible," he moves slowly and climbs above his desk, higher onto the pile of rubbish, reaching the 'peak' about 60 feet up and surveys the scene. He's at the edge of a massive rubbish island of plastic, the ocean behind him and this crazy island in front, with white looking mini-mountains, mounds moving up and down with the waves. Sam thinks he's still dreaming, so lies down, closes his eyes and waits to wake up, but he falls asleep instead.

Opening one eye, lying flat on his back, he's never seen stars this clear, he can see the Milky Way, Ursa Major and Orion's Belt. "Well it's an Earth dream," he thinks and sits up, spitting some plastic out of his mouth. "This is a dream, surely," he feels a definite bigger surge now from the ocean below that's making him feel sick. "Am I asleep on a water bed?" he wonders, "but I don't own a water bed and my last memory was at the lab."

In the star light he can see he's still sat on top of a pile of plastic floating in the ocean. He slaps his own face and decides to urinate in the gap between his legs, he sprays the bottom of his trousers to force himself to wake up. "I'm awake, definitely awake," he mutters, feeling his wet ankle. He slaps himself harder. "OK I was in the office a few hours ago, working on the Quantinium device and now I'm here, floating in the ocean, the Northern Hemisphere, according to the stars, but how, where and when?" Sam can't remember much right now, apart from his lab work and he was playing with some metallic components at his desk. He retrieves the 1cm metal cube from his pocket and looks at it. "The test piece!" He realises what happened – a dimensional transfer did take place, but he went too, with half his desk.

"OK well, I'm here now, on the ocean and I need to build shelter at first light, until I figure out what went wrong, maybe later I'll build a raft." Sam will have no shortage of materials on his little scrap heap island. There are bags, bottles, toothbrushes, nets, loads of rope, planks of wood, barrels, boxes, plastic sheets, baths, doors, even unopened drink and food containers. Everything he needs to survive and escape is here, he just needs to work carefully to find what he needs and get home. "I need to make sure I don't fall into the water, I hate the sea, I could get trapped falling in, find it difficult to climb out and there will be sharks, it's warm out here," Sam worries.

He starts to climb around his trash mound and decides to look for plastic bottles – they are useful for raft building and may contain water. Getting on with his first task, he starts having some success and quickly finds a couple of bottles with an inch of fresh water still inside. He sniffs the contents and swallows each, replacing the caps. With plastic bags everywhere he quickly fills two with bottles and goes back to his 'base camp'. He decides to create a raft of bottles, which he can also use as a floor for his new 'totally rubbish' home. To join them, he needs some rope or tape though. There are plenty of old nets and bits of rope about, but nothing to cut them. "I could use plastic bags and tie them together," he thinks on his feet.

Sam soon realizes, that he can weave plastic bags, containing two or three empty bottles, keeping them together and the handles can join one bag to another. He quickly finds dozens of bottles and manages to collect enough water for two days. There's no end to the plastic bags, so by nightfall he's weaved himself a nice little platform to sleep on, that'll float if needs be. Sam knows this will not stand up to the power of an ocean voyage though, so he'll need rope and nets to bind it all together, and maybe some wood to keep it straight.

Satisfied with his day's work rummaging through his mountain of trash, he falls asleep exhausted and hungry, but watered, on his bed of bottles.

It's 3am and still dark. Sam's awakened by hunger, staring at the Milky Way and knows, he must find food at first light, or he'll get weak, unable to complete his raft and, eventually, starve. He's going to look for tins and packets of food, but he knows, most of that will be heavier and at the bottom of the rubbish pile, near the ocean.

Finding a couple of tray sized pieces of plastic, Sam makes a pair of 'snow shoes' so he can walk on the more delicate rim of his island looking for food. With a couple of lengths of rope, he fastens six bottles to each foot and starts his expedition. He can see all kinds of boxes and things floating, but how they move suggests they're on or near the surface of the sea. He keeps trudging around his mound and, as he nears the edge, can feel his footing giving way, "It's too thin to walk on here," thinks Sam. He needs a boat or at least a sheet he can slide on.

Returning to base camp, he finds a plastic bath side and takes it back to his stash of bottles and bags, maybe later he'll go surfing around Rubbish Island. There'll be a problem getting his belly-board in and out of the water though, each time he'll need a rope to pull himself onto the pile of rubbish, he'll also need a place that's less inclined to launch and return on his load-spreader. As he looks for rope and food, a familiar sight catches his eye. An old kitchen cabinet, washed high up onto the bank, is revealing its contents. Some soggy bags of flour, sugar and pasta, all moulding around the edges, but beggars can't be choosers. Sam starts to load up his lab coat with produce and notices a draw open without contents.

"A cutlery draw!" he exclaims, with the basket half out of the draw, but empty. "The knives must be somewhere here," Sam looks about eagerly and notices something glint in the morning sun. He treads carefully so as not to dislodge the prize further into the rubbish pile, "barrgh, it's a piece of tin foil."

He looks up, sees something even more interesting and begins to breath quickly, stepping back slowly towards base camp. "I hope they're not pirates," he thinks, as a trawler chugs towards his position, "but anywhere is better than here."

Sam staggers to the top of his mound begins to wave both arms as if he's trying to take off, shouting, "HEY, HEY, HEY!" but there's no need, the boat is heading straight for him – at ramming speed! Sam can't believe his luck, the boat will hit just below his 'base camp' and he'll literally be able to walk onto their bow deck from above. The steel boat's bow looks about twenty feet above the ocean, but his camp is 20 feet higher than that. He starts to move down as the boat hits, moving his entire world several feet North, propelling Sam down and seemingly South, rolling him onto the deck with other items of rubbish and his new raft of bottles, but he's safe.

###  Chapter 7 - Reckoning

He quickly gets up and feels much better, standing on a device, designed to float on the ocean (an old Japanese squid boat), but feels, as though he had so much to explore on his massive island of rubbish, if only he'd had a boat. It was both scary and interesting to see what people have thrown away or lost in the ocean.

The squid boat crew were nowhere to be seen, so Sam walks slowly to the bridge and climbs inside through a heavy steel door. He can now hear the engines labouring at full power.

Still no sign of anybody, he climbs the metal stairs to the bridge, clutching the hand rail, sees a military knife wedged behind a pipe near the top step, thinks, "Great, more luck!" and pushes it down his pants' belt behind him, continuing to move slowly up, completing the stairs without making a sound. Still nobody about, but he can feel the vibration of engines revving unnecessarily. He looks around for engine controls and sees the boat is running on an autopilot along a due North baring. He pushes the "Auto Pilot Off" button and pulls back the throttle lever to "Idle". Within about 5 seconds, the engines start to calm down until everything is still and silent. Just him, the boat and the island breathing slowly with the ocean.

Sam's next thought is "food." He downs half a bottle of water, he finds on the bridge, straight away. "This boat cannot be deserted," he thinks, as he slides a hatch at the back of the bridge and descends into the living quarters. There's a kitchen, some closed cabins and a dining area with a table for ten people with portholes to the outside. And still no one about.

"Food...," he thinks, "...but need to be quiet, they might not give me any." So Sam starts to forage through the cupboards, the fridge and quickly finds bread, fish sticks and fruit, stuffing it in until he's satisfied. Placing an apple in each pocket and a loaded 0.38 revolver, he finds in the knife drawer, into his sweaty palm, he thinks, "At least they won't throw me overboard with this," Sam tucks the 'snub-nose revolver' into his belt to keep the knife company.

The boat looks like people are living there: fresh food, fairly clean, engines running, auto pilot on. Sam resumes his search for the crew. Cabins first, he opens up the nearest with a sign in Japanese, saying "Captain" (with an English translation below it). There are family pictures on the dressing table mirror and Sam finds several pictures of the same middle-aged guy, a westerner, blonde, chiseled features and a small pot belly. "I guess that's the Captain!" thinks Sam.

Sam leaves the Captain's cabin, but doesn't notice a document pinned to the mirror frame, mostly covered in family pictures – it's the Captain's Certificate dated year 1991, the name printed says "Mr Deiter Fischer".

Sam's working his way back and down through the boat, as he looks for crew members, but still no sign of anyone. He opens the water tight door to the landing deck and discovers seven people laid around in dark tight-fitting protective suits, perhaps divers, still breathing but unconscious. As he gets closer, Sam thinks the suits don't look like they've been in water. They're dusty and the wind keeps blowing that dust around the deck plate. "These look a bit like soldiers to me, but are not wearing much kit. Wearing small head gear with cameras, lights, gas masks, goggles plus hiking-style boots. They look a bit like pot-holers too, if anything, but what are they doing here?" Sam thinks.

He notices a woman laid there, different to the others, wearing a full clear face mask, and, by virtue of her figure, Sam fancies her. "Megan, eh? Hmmm, very nice," he thinks, looking over what could potentially be a prize catch.

One of the men splutters into life, holding his head as he rolls a little. Sam steps between the bodies and over to the guy, named "Jes", according to his badge. "Hey Jes, it's OK, you're back on board." Jes is like Megan, also different to the others, wearing a full face mask.

"What the frick happened? Where the heck are we?" pipes up the mask without Jes moving his lips.

Sam thinks, "Cool device and, erm, that phrase sounds familiar, it's what I said 24 hours ago."

"You're back on board the boat and all OK, take it easy. Do you need water?" asks Sam.

"Jes is OK thanks for asking, please help him up," says the mask on Jes's behalf, who's still half asleep.

Jes starts to mutter using his own voice this time, "No I just had a drink on Ma...aargh," Jes stops his sentence mid-stream and sits up fully awake, clutching his stomach, and says, "Where are we?"

The mask starts to synthesise another statement, with the electronic equivalent of clearing its throat, "We're back on Ear..." Jes shouts at the mask, "Shut up, you piece of junk!" and then calmly to Sam, "Not you, mate!" as he pulls the mask off and repeats, "Where are we?"

Sam also has no idea really and all this wonderment is looking familiar. "We're on a boat on the ocean and, I'm guessing, you're not the crew?"

Jes shakes his head and says, "So who are you?"

Sam knows that answer, "I'm Sam, I arrived on the ship today. I'm a scientist."

"What's your job on here?" enquires Jes.

"I'm not working on here, I just arrived, I don't know how, I was at my desk...," Sam stops mid-stream, thinking his answer will sound crazy.

"OK, we need to find Megan," instructs Jes.

"I already did, she's over there, I noticed her breathing was OK," smiles Sam and winks at Jes.

Jes bolts up onto his feet and stumbles across to her. "She's my fiancé mate. You're not her type, believe me," barks Jes.

"Are these your team mates?" asks Sam.

"No, Megan and me are engineers, these guys were sent by the company to check on us about something," replies Jes as he revives Megan, "but I can't remember what it was about. It will come to me."

Sam, Jes and Megan start reviving the other five, who are wearing more traditional pot-holing gear, three guys and two girls, helping them into the dining area. No one remembers much, but all remember something.

Drew turns out to be the leader of the five, he explains what he can: "I was stopping a machine in a tunnel, everything lit up and we woke up here."

"Woke up here!" Sounds familiar to Sam again, and he chips-in, "Stopping a machine? What were you doing exactly?"

Drew frowns and mutters, "It was a cylinder, a metal cylinder! It was supposed to switch..." Drew stops himself, so Sam butts-in, "I was doing something too, then I ended up here. Actually, I ended up over there on that big pile of plastic, then you guys came along with this boat."

The team look over to Rubbish Island, mostly port side now. One of them, Kaffey, wearing round John Lennon-style glasses, remarks in his usual half-dazed manner, "We're at the North Pacific Gyre."

Drew goes, "Huh?"

Kaffey continues: "We're at a great pile of rubbish floating at the top of the Pacific Ocean. All the garbage that gets dropped into the Pacific floats up here after a few weeks. The different currents form a Gyre – a circle of flowing water."

Drew is looking more confused and blurts out: "Get your head out of your butt and explain what grunts understand!"

Kaffey starts to mumble again: "A gyre is a swirling drain, like in a bath," eyebrows all around the room are moving in unison up and down, looking confused. Kaffey sighs, "a big fricking whirlpool at the top of the Pacific where floating stuff collects?"

Everybody except Sam says together, "Oh!" nodding and smiling.

Kaffey continues further, "It's now a 1.5 million ton rubbish pile, everything is here: dead bodies, floating cars, food, water, boats, dead cats, houses, floating containers filled with anything that drops from ships." Everyone looks surprised except 'Captain' Drew.

Drew is now thinking about survival. He orders the men to start checking supplies and the women to look for information about what they're doing here and who's boat this is. "What's our status and next step?" he's thinking.

Women report back first with hands full of documents, thankfully in English, as maritime law demands. Blair, the alpha-female starts her report, whilst Megan thrusts documents onto Drew's chest and walks out, annoyed at doing this grunt work. Blair begins, "This boat is Japanese, called Ryou Un Maru. It's a squid boat and the crew abandoned ship an hour ago at most, there's luke-warm coffee on the bridge. They left just before we got here. Captain's name was Deiter Fischer, according to the last entry in the log. We've also found something strange up there," pointing to the bridge. Miss Strong butts in, "You won't figure this one out Sir, erm, I mean, Drew!"

Then Kaffey enters the room, "We've got about one quarter fuel left, enough for a thousand klicks, I mean kilometers, plenty of water and enough food for a month."

"OK thanks, Kaff," says Drew, "we're gonna need to find more fuel over there," as he points to the mound of plastic. "Kaffey, start figuring out how we can search around in there and find diesel," thrusting a pair of binoculars into his hands. Blair beckons Drew to visit the bridge.

"OK, I want Shaw and Jes to search the ship for the missing crewmen, look in every cabin, space and cupboard, stay together. I'll be on the bridge with these two. All check radios now and get going. If you find anything – report in. Megan, would you mind helping Shaw and Jes, to keep you busy?" Megan scowls, whilst Drew and the other women leave for the bridge.

Sam suspects something odd about Drew and his team – they act and sound like soldiers. He follows them to the bridge and he's beginning to learn exactly what happened and it's something to do with Quantinium. The three walk over to the still-warm cup of coffee and, as Strong points out, a few strange things. It's clear, something rather odd happened here.

The coffee cup handle is partly missing, but not broken off. More like sawn off then polished perfectly. Also, a section of the bridge console is missing, exposing wires, half switches and lights, as if they were sliced away. Lower down, the bottom of a stool remains, having been cut off at the foot rest bolted to the floor. Sam looks across the bridge at a matching stool on the opposite side. It's like a cylinder has been placed over the stool and everything inside it has been erased plus anyone sat there.

###  Chapter 8 - Destiny

Sam has it all figured out and needs to get Drew onboard working with him. Returning to the mess room, Sam starts: "I know what happened to you, guys, but I need to know what happened right before you arrived here, then I can tell you what I know. Otherwise I'm gonna sound stupid."

Drew is distracted: "Have you guys found anything yet?" he barks on the radio.

"All negative, Drew, we're just about finished."

"Get to the mess room as soon as you're clear;" orders Drew, then continues, "Strong, help Megan in the galley. OK, let's talk, Sam, you have a few minutes."

Drew orders the others to wait outside as they begin to poke their noses in and closes the mess door. Drew and Sam sit around the table. "OK, fire away, what's on your mind?" asks Drew.

"What were you doing just before you woke up here?" Sam asks.

"Where we were, is classified. But the last thing I did, was activate a remote controller I'd been given," Sam enquires further: "Can you describe it?"

"Sure," says Drew, "it was all metal with a sliding bit and a button to activate it. I slid it back and pressed the button."

"What shape was the controller, Drew?" asks Sam expectantly.

"It was a cylinder about this big," Drew makes a shape with his hands about 50mm wide by 200mm long. Sam starts to smile.

"OK, what do you think?" asks Drew urgently.

"The metal cylinder was a transport device, Drew. They told you it was a remote controller?"

"Yes, they said it would switch a drilling machine we were checking off and on, using the button, so we could work on the machine," reports Drew.

"I think you were conned, Drew," reveals Sam, "The device is made of Quantinium, just like the thing I was working on, that sent me here. Mine was a different shape, a cube, but still, here I am."

Drew makes a refreshingly perceptive statement, "So we traveled here, as did you, at about the same time, and Captain Fischer, after making the last log entry, disappeared from the bridge, inside a similar strange cylinder, just before we arrived."

Sam agrees and concludes, "Somehow we're all connected. The timing and circumstances are too convenient. I needed to get off that island of rubbish and you came along in a boat, right on cue. There's a reason for all this. We should work together to find out," Drew acknowledges his agreement.

Sam continues, "You're soldiers aren't you?" Drew nods again. Sam keeps pushing: "Can you tell me, where you were and what you we doing before the cylinder brought you here?"

Drew shakes his head, decisively this time, and says, "Classified and don't remember, in that order."

Sam tries to recover the conversation, "OK, I remember what I was working on, so if I tell you that, maybe you'll remember."

"First, I need to explain what Quantinium is," begins Sam and continues, "I was working on a new material, that I discovered in my lab, well OK, the idea just came to me in my sleep. This stuff emits quantum field energy, using certain shapes and combinations, to force a quantum-jump. The device I was working on activated and brought me here. My boss won't realise how dangerous this stuff is."

Drew starts to lose interest and asks, "OK, Einstein, what's a quantum-jump?"

Sam explains: "Quantum-jump is a term we use for moving matter between dimensions. Think of it like using an elevator, moving slowly from one floor to the next. You feel like you're stood still, but when the doors open, each floor looks totally different. Each floor is a different dimension and the elevator is a Quantinium device."

Drew yawns and pretends to close his eyes and fall asleep, Sam raises his voice a little, "OK, you need to listen to this next bit," Drew 'wakes up' and Sam continues, "The problem is not swapping dimensions, the problem is quantum equilibrium. If you keep forcing things to swap, keep vanishing things, eventually, you start to get mis-matches," Drew still looks confused, so Sam simplifies further: "When the 'elevator' moves from one floor to the next, it takes energy with it, leaving a hole. You need another elevator going in the opposite direction putting the same energy back, to fill the hole. This is something I've just realised. Nature likes to be in equilibrium, it likes to rebound back to a steady state. If you use Quantinium without dealing with the opposite effect, you get unexpected things happening to compensate. Ultimately, the source dimension ends in chaos, trying to rebound in the best way it can. We have to warn them."

Drew pretends to be waking up with a hangover, "I'll take your word for it, Sam," concedes Drew, "So, wadda we do and who do we warn?"

"We need to get to my lab in Hong Kong and tell my boss about these quantum effects. They'll follow my work and discover quantum-jump, but they need to know about quantum-rebound."

Drew shakes his head in disagreement, "First we need to find fuel in there, mate, the radio is fried and we need to find out what year this is. If people 'vanished' us, they might not be too happy about us coming back into their little plan."

Sam replies quietly, "What year, makes no difference, Drew. Dimension changes don't care about time or distance, they reside in the same speck of space-time. For all we know, this dimension could be completely irrelevant, probably why we're here. No mate, our goal is to find the relevant bit of quantum-rebound that'll fix all this and get us back to some form of normal life. This dimension may be completely different to the ones we left behind or there may be just a few differences."

Drew looks hopeful and through puckered lips says, "Well, I guess anything is better, than living on an old trawler, next to a pile of floating garbage."

The team set about looking for diesel fuel amongst tons of floating rubbish. Kaffey has figured the best way to find it: "Look for thin films of diesel floating on the surface, leaky tanks will not be far away. Vehicles and boats might be floating with tanks full of fuel. Oil drums, too!"

Of course, luck is on their side, as usual, under these quantum-jump-rebound derived circumstances, so they soon find a half submerged road tanker with tons of diesel still inside and another ship that has drifted into the pile, with a quantity of diesel drums on board. Sam predicts they'll find enough fuel to get them to Hong Kong and Kaffey confirms exactly that, as they finish piping it aboard.

Sam explains dimensional travel (quantum-jump-rebound) to the SEALs for the nth time, why it's unpredictable, how time and distance mean nothing: "You could land in another dimension that is supposed to be 1982, but it looks more like 2082. What you find depends on what happened in that dimension, the history they had, wars fought, inventions discovered, how things panned out. Forget time, there are no timelines. Nature is just a series of changes, one after another, in an infinite number of dimensions. Time does not actually exist, only the speed of change and the connections made from one event to the next, across dimensions."

Drew thanks Sam again for his nth rendition of quantum-jump theory, goes rigid and remembers something, saying, "Where's Daley?" The others look confused, with blank expressions, as if to say, "Daley Who?" Drew then returns to confusion himself, saying, "I thought Daley was with us. No matter, I must be thinking of another mission. Forget I asked."

When quantum-jump occurs, one of the things that changes from one dimension to another is memory. In the case of Quantinium jumps, certain memories are left behind, so that the transfer can complete, like fitting a jigsaw piece into a puzzle that's slightly different. The result is, people sometimes forget details they have experienced in a previous dimension.

When Sam and the guys reach Hong Kong, if that city exists at all in this dimension, it could appear to be in their past, present or future. Sam has already seen familiar stars in the night sky and the others have seen the debris on Rubbish Island, so they all know this dimension is similar to the ones they left behind, but Sam knows, 'the devil is in the detail'.

Sam already suspects Jes and Megan are from a different dimension to the other SEALs (Jes had a full face mask that spoke to Sam) and Sam's dimension could be different again, he's not familiar with some of their technology and still can't figure out what they were all doing before they met, he doesn't know they were on Mars. He knows one thing for sure though, they cannot get back – how would they find their dimension in an infinite number of possibilities? They would have to pick the correct return 'elevator' from an infinite row of sliding doors, all looking the same. The best they can do is try to stop the chaos caused by uncompensated Quantinium use and restart their lives somehow in this dimension.

Sam's university is in Hong Kong and he must get there and talk to his principle before even stranger things happen, leading to dimensional chaos.

###  Chapter 9 - Rubicon

Jes and Megan know they were based in Shenzhen, a city north of Hong Kong, working as mining engineers for IPMC, before they were selected for the Mars trip. The other SEALs were based in Taipei, Taiwan, mostly experienced with the US Navy but work for anyone rich enough globally, mercenaries, basically. Some were trained in mining operations in Australia. Drew was the only Seal to have worked for IPMC in Shenzhen on the Mark 5 drill after graduating in Taipei. He joined the US Navy Seals thanks to his father's military links and a deal between the US and China to exchange mining and space exploration technology.

About halfway between Taiwan and their Hong Kong destination Kaffey picks up a large and strange radar signature in the middle of the South China Sea, large being bigger than a ship and strange because it's fairly circular in profile, about 2 kilometers in diameter. As they approach, at 10 kilometers, a few of the guys start hearing things, like a broken message, then they start hearing a clear repeating message once a minute, and getting a bit loud.

"Unidentified vessel, you are heading on collision course in restricted waters, alter course due south to avoid us or switch your Autopilot to 'guidance receive'."

"Where is that coming from?" asks Kaffey, "Can you hear it?"

Blair is on the bridge too and confirms, "Yes I heard that," and looks at the Autopilot. "There's no switch for 'guidance receive' on this Autopilot. Is the radio working yet?" enquires Blair.

"No, a couple of parts are burnt out, we need to make port to repair it. Wish my phone worked out here..." Kaffey cuts short as Drew walks onto the bridge with Jes.

"Did you hear that, Kaffey?" asks Drew.

"Yes we heard it, but where's it coming from? I was just saying to Blair: 'I wish my phone worked, we could give them a call.'"

Drew rummages around in his inside pocket and pulls out a mobile phone. "My signal's dead," he reports.

Jes is looking at his phone now: "Hey, cool phone, man, where did you get that?" asks Drew, as he looks over his shoulder at the display, "I've got a signal," claims Jes, "Erm, and that message in text!"

The SEALs raise their eyebrows at the same time in disbelief, "you got that as a text message?" one says.

Jes speaks to the phone without dialing, "Hello, this is Ryou Un Maru, looking for mechanical and electrical assistance."

A perfect female voice answers, "Hello Ryou Un Maru, this is Rubicon. You are cleared to land and effect repairs. Continue on absolute bearing 225 or due South West. We estimate docking in 45 minutes at your present speed. A Pilot will be with you in 30 minutes, so please stand-by."

Jes ends the call with a, "Thank you Rubicon," looks at the others with pleasant surprise.

"OK, we'd bedda get packed and ready," says Drew.

Ryou Un Maru chugs towards Rubicon at a sedate 7 knots and soon they can see what appears to be a large white desert island, not on any of the charts, in the middle of the South China Sea.

Getting closer, it looks so idyllic: like a mirage and too good to be true, with beaches, palm trees and birds flying around. The whole team are stood on the bridge and outside, watching as they approach in amazement and all hear another message: "Your Pilot is here to guide you in, please stand-by." They see a small fully-enclosed craft approaching the bow of the ship, looking like it would only fit two people inside it, which promptly disappears from view. A light thud follows, jerk of the entire boat, then and a strong lurch forward.

"I guess he must have crashed into us," smiles Kaffey. The others just turn to him with blank looks. The whole ship then heaves noticeably to starboard, a few of them lose balance and step to one side. The ship is being towed, as if it was as light as a feather and it's picking up speed.

"Powerful little sucker eh? I guess the Pilot didn't need our help," mutters Drew.

Blair looks at the Autopilot and notices it is still working, but having no effect on the ship's speed or direction. Drew notices too, leans over and switches it off.

The Pilot pulls the Ryou-Un Maru into a cutting, which they hadn't noticed before, it appears to be the mooring. They dock with a light thud and their 75 ton vessel begins to lift out of the water partially, then stops. They hear a message: "You are safely docked onto Rubicon, please wait for the stairway to disembark." A couple of the guys peer over the side nearest to the island and notice a flight of steps has appeared against the side of the trawler. "Please make your way to reception when ready," a voice says. Still, they can't figure where it's coming from and nobody can take in fully what's happening, this all seems too good to be true.

As Sam and Drew go down the stairs first, with a bag each, they see a blue neon sign about 100 meters away, saying "Reception" and head slowly towards it along a sandy wooden path. Jes and Megan follow on behind discussing how they can engineer a reason to stay here. Kaffey is the next one off and emerges in Bermuda shorts, an Hawaiian t-shirt, flip-flops, a beach bag in one hand and the broken radio weighing heavily in the other.

"Hey guys, wait for me! Do I have to carry everything?" as he stumbles after them. The others were ordered to remain on board and await instructions.

Drew looks back at Kaffey, "I hope the crew don't come back for their holiday gear, you tea-leaf (thief) and who gave you permission to clock off?" Drew nods at Jes to give Kaffey a hand with the radio. Jes obliges, walking back, grabbing a second handle.

"We should take our time fixing this," pleads Kaffey, "some R&R (rest and relaxation) needed, boss?"

Drew continues to shake his head, "Life's a beach Kaffey, you know that!" smiling.

Drew is the first to 'Reception' and, as tradition allows, rings the servant bell on the desk, as he looks around. Sam has also been looking and says, "This is no ordinary desert island Drew, there's a lot of money here."

A beautiful lady emerges through a door at the back, "Good afternoon, lady and gentlemen, welcome to Rubicon. My name is Dorma, how can we help you?"

"We wondered if we could repair our radio here, rest, perhaps, and buy some supplies? We have cash and a payment card... Sam?" Drew beckons Sam over, who still retained his wallet, despite his Rubbish Island ordeal.

"I doubt payment will be necessary, I will ask Mr Fischer," replies Dorma.

The others make it into reception and Kaffey starts to help himself to the coffee machine and biscuits. "How big is your party, Mr...?" asks Dorma.

"Just Drew, call me Drew, that's all," smiling flirtatiously, "Our crew is eight. Three are still on the boat. Would you like me to give you a tour of our boat?"

The receptionist smiles perfectly and says, "Oh, please, Mr Drew, that won't be necessary, bring the others here, I'm sure they require refreshments and rest. The heat on your ship must be unbearable; our island is fully environmentally controlled."

Drew nods gently and continues to push, "Well maybe you could give me a tour of your island? Just you and me..." as he turns to Kaffey and barks, "Stop messing with the coffee, Kaffey, and get the others, right now!" Kaffey looks up, still half bowed over the coffee machine and croaks: "Yes, boss!" spins on the ball of one of his flip-flops and waddles out of Reception.

"Please bear with me, honoured guests, I'll call Mr Fischer and advise the situation. Please go to our waiting room through there," pointing to another door, "help yourselves to refreshments and entertainment. I will direct your friends when they arrive."

They begin to shuffle in as Dorma starts to make her call: "Mr Ficsher, we have a party of eight..." The doors closes behind them as they notice a buffet banquet of food and drinks laid on. There is a section of the room where you can sit, hear and see a TV type display, but not from any other part of the room. Jes grabs a plateful of snacks and perches in front of the sport. Megan walks up to him with hands on her hips: "What are you doing? Where's my food? And what if I want to watch a girlie film?"

The display flickers to "Many First Dates".

"Aww, sweety, thank you, will you watch this with me?" says Megan.

"I'm watching football," muffles Jes with a mouthful of sushi.

Megan smiles, "Well you've never watched a girlie film with me, this is a first," kissing his head.

"I'm not, I'm watching football, I've not seen this final before. You can watch it later."

Megan looks at Jes and the screen, "'Many First Dates' is still on, Sweety."

Jes is riveted to the screen and starts to cheer: "go on, GO ON, GO GO GO... Awwww!" shaking his head, "What Sweety? No, I'm just watching the game."

Megan can still see the girlie film playing, as the doors bursts open. Dorma flicks the door to stay open and stands ready to receive, as if royalty is arriving.

"Hello everyone, welcome to Rubicon and my humble home," announces Mr Fischer as he glides into the plush room, with just a hint of sarcasm: a very rich looking, 50s, portly and tanned guy with sunglasses.

Drew extends his hand for shaking, "Thank you Mr Fischer, this is truly a reception to remember, very beautiful and generous, we are all starving. We must extend you the same courtesy sometime."

"No, no, think nothing of it. I do this all the time anyway and have so few guests to enjoy it." Dorma standing behind smiles politely, whilst Fischer greets the others, "You are all truly welcome!"

He peers across at Megan, Jes is still engrossed in the football, "Meg, is that you? Megan Rice?"

Meg smiles, nodding and walks over to Fischer, "Yes that's right, Deiter from IMPC?" asks Megan.

"Yes I'm semi-retired now, of course. But you look 20 years younger than when I last saw you, well done."

Megan is surprised but doesn't show it, "Thank you and you too, so much younger and obviously eating the right foods," Megan is thinking the opposite, she last saw this guy when he was 35, only days ago, during a broadcast he made to Mars as the new Head of Division, not some mega-rich retiree living on a desert island.

Listening in, the physicist introduces himself, "Mr Fischer, I'm Sam Page and also work for IPMC in Hong Kong."

"Oh, OK!" says Fischer, "I didn't know we had a facility there?"

Sam tries to enlighten him: "Yes Sir, we're at the university doing lab work in Quantinium, it's very cutting edge stuff."

Fischer scowls with his eyebrows, looking confused, "Why would you be researching Quantinium? It's our staple product, we know everything there is to know about it," he smiles.

Sam is beginning to feel sheepish and stupid, so dips his toe in, "Can I ask what your current Quantinium products are, Sir?"

Fischer doesn't suffer fools easily, "Need you ask, working for IPMC? We mainly use Quantinium tips for high speed drilling and grids for cracking and compacting. What are you working on?"

Sam has never heard of Quantinium being used at all, and certainly not for drilling tips. He can see a clear mismatch here. "Can I ask Sir, how you are using Quantinium for drilling?"

Fischer seems to be getting annoyed with this guy. To him it's a dumb question from anyone, but a school leaver. "We use Quantinium to rip out the precious stuff and remove what's left. Do you need to lie down, Sam? Have you forgotten what we do at IPMC? Our Quantinium technology pays for all of this, we have ten drills, pulling in G$300 trillion per week."

Megan and Sam both feel uneasy with Fischer, but need him to help them sort this mess out. But how can they make him believe without looking stupid?

"OK enough shop talk," smiles Fischer, "Dorma will show you to your quarters and assist with anything you need. Enjoy your stay, you're more than welcome," bowing his head slightly.

Mr Ficsher exits as fast as he arrived and takes Dorma with him. After the door closes he says to his PA, "Was that OK? Did I do alright this time?"

"Yes Sir, your performance was flawless, an Award Nomination, I feel," smiles Dorma with an unusual, but refreshing hint of sarcasm.

"Is this the 6th or 7th time they've been here? And it's getting more frequent. Better tell Mark he has another job to plan. Ask him if I have to play the guy from IPMC again, or can I be myself and talk about trawling? I'll be on the sun deck," instructs Fischer.

"It is the 7th time Sir!" Dorma bows slightly and stands firm until Fischer exits.

###  Chapter 10 - Equilibrium

"Mr Fischer, I'm ready for the next mission, if you have time to come down here, I will explain," broadcasts Mark into Fischer's quarters.

"I'm assuming, only I heard that?" asks Fischer.

"Of course, Sir, only you," reassures Mark.

"I'll be down in half an hour," says Fischer hastily.

Later Fischer descends a large number of concrete steps into the basement, passing a number of thick glass observation panels to the ocean outside. He pulls on a full face mask hanging on the wall and opens a heavy airtight door, like those found on a submarine. The door hisses as it opens and, although heavy spot-lights illuminate the inside, the room is full of yellowish dust with only short visibility and there's the noise of a loud machine working nearby.

Fischer hears clearly: "Will be right with you in 2 minutes, Sir, just finishing off." Some coloured lights eventually appear in the dust in front of Fischer as he stands there, waiting. The lights move closer and stop in front of him, lowering slightly and then moving across a little before stopping again. The machine noise is now at its loudest, then begins to rapidly wind down to a kind of quiet tick-over, like a steam engine at rest, accompanied by the release of compressed air.

It's now quiet enough, so Fischer can speak: "OK, Mark, what's new?"

An interactive laser display appears before Fischer in the yellow dust. Fischer extends his hand and touches the display, which moves and flashes. "Thank you for coming down here, Sir, I'm ready to explain the mission," says Mark, as his words are audible and repeated on the display.

"What were you doing just now?" asks Fischer.

"I was just playing a game in the atoll, Sir," replies Mark.

Fischer purses his lips, "Come on then, I've got things to do."

Mark begins his report: "I was down at the mantel today, looking through the rock formations and found traces of Quantinium, enough to build several of me. It got me thinking, we need to fix the original imbalance, rather than trying to adjust things piecemeal, back to how they should be. We have to fix my design fault."

Fischer shakes his head, "I thought we'd discussed this, you said we could sort this out without going back to the beginning?"

Mark replies, "So did I, Sir, but I can only create quantum-jumps in one direction. The patterns suggest these imbalances will continue and are growing! I need to compensate with quantum-rebound, but I'm not able to find the rebound points to even begin to compensate. To do that I need to 'see' from the destination dimensions. To do that I need to create a new me, without that design fault."

"And fixing this fault will stop the loop once and for all?" Fischer sighs.

"It's not a loop, Sir, we are experiencing quantum adjustment, it will keep coming back until we fix enough imbalances to stop it. If we leave it or keep trying from one direction, it could get a lot worse. I'm sorry, Sir, for all this trouble," pleads Mark.

Fischer scratches his scalp under the mask straps. "How long will that take and how do we proceed?" asks Fischer in a tired out voice.

"Sir, we need to keep the SEALs occupied for just 5 more days, so I can build a new me and then I will be ready. Jes, Megan and Sam will have to stay here, like the 6th time we tried this. The SEALs will have to be planted on Mars to steal me.

"The new me will be Mark 20, the last generation. You can introduce him to the world at the mining expo in October. I think this will finally equalize quantum and probably make you even richer, Sir!"

Fischer smiles broadly, then looks confused, "What is it about Mark 20? Why a totally new version of you?"

"We need a machine that can pass through dimensions and clean up any anomalies, using quantum-rebound. I can't do that or see everything I need. This 'new me', will predict everything and sample what he's unsure of. Mark 20 will be able to do this. He'll survey everything before finalizing what quantum-jumps and rebounds are required and his solutions will be much more accurate, than mine can be. He will be able to travel between dimensions at will, so he can survey the best dimensions to use and what to do in each," explains Mark.

"So if you can entertain the soldiers for 5 more days, Sir, I will start drilling and building a new me, it will be so much fun, I can't wait," smiles Mark using his display.

"Yes, so much fun," says Fischer sarcastically.

Mark gets to work drilling for Quantinium and the other rare materials he needs to build the next generation of drilling robot, that will use the design of Mark's mind, but will have the ability to move between dimensions.

Mark has to drill for the raw materials he needs, and where better than Rubicon – a concrete island sat on the sea bed with access to the atoll below and the earth's crust, Mark's current playground.

As Fischer and Dorma keep the guests happy with island tours and the trappings of the mega-rich, Mark continues his work without a break, using his onboard manufacturing tools to form the components and build a better version of himself.

Dorma teaches the girls the fine art of beach toe nail painting and how to make the perfect daiquiri from fresh ingredients and home-made rum, whilst Fischer takes the boys clay-pigeon shooting from his yacht.

To Fischer and Dorma, this is their way of life, but to the battle-hardened guests, this island is a paradise: made from concrete, covered in thousands of tonnes of sand and authentic rocks, dotted with real trees and tropical plants – this is a free seven star holiday to be enjoyed for as long as they can.

Typically, the girls opt for sunbathing on one of the nearest beaches. A secluded cove of warm, shallow water, that doesn't get any deeper than waste height. There are real-looking rocks and cliffs surrounding the beach to break the wind into a light breeze and behind nestles a palm tree lined sandy opening – a path to the other parts of the island, where you can use one of the silent beach buggies to get around.

The boys shoot as many shot gun cartridges as they can, until bored. They miss hardly any clays, being trained SEALs and, therefore, marksmen. Jes and Sam are much less accurate, finding most of the clays too difficult to hit, so, instead, decide to shoot a row of red plastic buoys they see floating within range, whilst Fischer is not looking.

The red buoys indicate the edge of the island with shark nets, where the water drops 20 meters to the atoll below. Fischer says they can scuba dive there later, down to an old Japanese squid boat, similar to the one they arrived in. Fischer says he acquired it last month and scuttled it for use as a diving wreck.

Bored shooting clays and bouys, the lads decide to jet ski, using two of the four supplied with the yacht. The draft of the yacht is shallow, being designed to sail as close to the beach as possible, so the water is only 2 meters deep here and crystal clear. A couple of the boys can stand on the sea bed and soon all of them are in the water being pulled about by the jet skis and water skiing, using their bare feet.

The guests sample the delights of mega-richness for another 4 days, until Mark calls Fischer the next available morning, whilst the guests are stirring after another heavy night, "Mr Fischer, I'm ready to demonstrate Mark 20. I thought you might like to switch him on," reports Mark.

Fischer descends the long concrete stairs to the 'birthing' area. Through a new tunnel just built, to a cavern Mark has fashioned from the rock below the island.

"I thought a cave would be an appropriate place to have a baby. It's safe, enclosed and the new baby will be able to move around easily," claims Mark.

Not amused by Mark's humour, Fischer blusters, "What if this thing goes crazy when I switch it on and eats the island?"

Mark is quick to reassure, "He can't, Sir. His mind is like mine, but with a few tweaks and improvements, so he'll be perfectly friendly. I've used a lot of Quantinium this time, so all his components perform differently. You'll recognize me in him, but he is very different."

Fischer shakes his head and asks again, "Is he safe to switch on?"

"Yes, Sir, perfectly safe. I did a careful commissioning job," assures Mark.

A fore finger is extended and the new display reaches out with a picture of a virtual red button, which says: "Push to Start"

Fischer pushes the button and the new baby lights up with a series of rotating grids of blue light. With a swish of air a series of coloured triangles appear to the left and start rotating slowly, like blades around a central red orb.

"Please wait whilst I check my systems," says Mark 20. Fischer is impressed, but takes a step backwards, as Mark 20 turns to face Fischer. The machine looks at him with its single red eye. Mark 20 starts to ripple as if each component is readjusting itself and working independently, a small wave flows from front to back. "I'm ready Mr Fischer, what shall we do today?" says Mark 20, as he throbs and ripples in front of Fischer and the older machine.

"What is your primary purpose?" Fischer asks Mark 20.

"I don't really have a primary purpose, Sir," Mark 20's triangular blades take up a rigid rotation and equal spacing around the red orb, like a propeller. Sensing danger, Fischer takes a further step backwards, "I work for natural reasons and those reasons come to me!" states Mark 20.

Fischer appears worried now and says, "Do you follow my orders?"

Mark 20 replies: "No Sir, I don't take orders. You give me your reasons, I'll think about it, and if there's a good reason to do something, I'll do it. I'm always ready to listen to you, Sir, wherever I am. Please call me M-20, by the way."

Fischer scowls at older Mark, only a little reassured, as if to say, "What have you given me here?"

"We have a problem M-20. Has Mark given you any idea what's been happening?" asks Fischer hopefully.

"Yes Sir. I'm aware of your predicament, and the build up of quantum tension. Quantum will equalize all by itself of course, but in doing so, many dimensions will descend into chaos, including yours within 2 years; unfortunately, it will be irreversible within just 2 months," reveals M-20, "I'm very sorry to break this news to you, Sir."

"Can you help us? Can you fix this?" asks Fischer in desperation.

"Yes, Sir. I visited Mars whilst we were talking, to do some surveying, I have a complete solution formulated. Is there anything you'd like me to consider before I get started?"

Fischer puffs through his lips and says, "How did you go to Mars whilst we were talking?"

"In simple terms, I can exist across any dimensions I choose, at the same time," replies M-20, "Is there anything else, Sir, before I begin?"

Fischer is impressed and finishes, "No. I'm sure you know everything, please carry on."

M-20 asks Fischer to join in the planned activities, "There is a boat, Sir, drifting in the Pacific, another Ryou Un Maru, like your very first one and similar to the one moored outside. Same name, different dimension, ripped from its moorings yesterday by a tsunami, just like Drew's boat outside. Can I ask you to sail her due north again for 6 hours? If you keep this in your top pocket, it will activate at that time and bring you back here," M-20 presents a metallic cylinder with a clip, like a pen top, to Fischer. "You can talk to me anytime by starting with my name. I can always hear you and reply," assures M-20. Fischer nods in approval, places the cylinder in his shirt pocket and promptly fades out, unexpectedly performing his first quantum-jump for M-20 without delay.

* * *

Sat on yet another Ryou Un Maru bridge, Fischer is not happy. Through gritted teeth, he says, "M-20, I was not expecting to come here again right now, I wanted to sleep and eat. Not necessarily in that order."

Talking between dimensions, M-20 hears Fischer and replies, "I'm sorry, Sir, we had to begin straight away, there is no time to spare now. You can set the Auto Pilot for due north and there are cabins and a galley down the stairs behind you. If you sleep, the cylinder will wake you at the correct time, please keep it in your pocket or close by at all times."

Fischer is now sailing on a clear morning, with thankfully a calm sea in the North Pacific, whilst Mark continues to discuss the current 'job' with M-20.

On board the other Ryou Un Maru sailing north... Fischer is bored and now wide awake, so makes a final entry in the ship's log "Captain Deiter Fischer" and waits for M-20's Quantinium device to take him back to Rubicon after 6 hours, sat on a stool on the bridge.

Back in the Rubicon basement... "Would you bring the SEALs down here Dorma? Please ask Jes and Megan to suit-up first," requests M-20.

"Yes Mark, I will ask them now," replies Dorma.

Dorma starts going up the basement stairs, "Please call me M-20, you can talk to me anytime by the way, Dorma," she turns her head, smiles and nods.

"Will I be going to Mars with Jes and Megan? I was hoping they would not be needed again? I told Mr Fischer they would remain here, like last time," enquires Mark 10.

"Don't worry Mark 10," replies M-20, "but they are needed again, I'm afraid. They will pretend to be commissioning you after they stage some drilling trials. Some other SEALs will find and 'inspect' you, but this time, the Quantinium device will not work. You will remain on Mars to drill, whilst Jes and Megan return to Earth to get married, as they should have done. You and they will only remember what you need."

Dorma arrives with the five SEALs in beach wear, followed by Jes and Megan, suited-up and ready for action. After some introductions, M-20 takes Jes and Megan through the pretence on Mars and their rendezvous with another-dimension Drew in the tunnels. M-20 assures them their skills working with Mark 10 drills will make them wealthy.

For the SEALs though, their mission is almost complete. "Ladies and Gentlemen," begins M-20, "Mr Fischer would like to invite you to stay on the island and work for him, if you can perform one final task?" The SEALs nod repeatedly in unison, with their tongues virtually out. "Would you spend the next day or so preparing your ship for a short voyage? Sail into the south bay and sink her? We need another diving challenge off the south beach? Dorma will direct you to sandwiches, tools and explosives!" The SEALs nod and clap vehemently with rowdy cheering, turn and head back up the stairs to their sun loungers and tequilas, all loving this place even more.

"You'd better get going, Mark, there can be no delay," M-20 gives Jes a strange shaped metallic object. "Dorma, please ask Sam to come down here, I need to talk to him," asks M-20. Dorma disappears and a blinding flash fills the cavern. Mark 10, Jes and Megan disappear and are en-route to another planet called Mars, sat in a similar dimension.

Sam finally arrives at the basement and M-20 explains the problems with Quantinium: "You have to replace the lost potential with something equivalent or you'll build up dimensional tension, with unexpected consequences," Sam nods in agreement, having already realized these things. M-20 continues: "When you discovered Quantinium, a Mark 10 gave you the original idea in your sleep, so you would transfer here and realise your mistake, but he couldn't take into account the view from other dimensions, because he couldn't see them like I can, so here's what you need to know before I send you back to your lab."

"Will I end up on a pile of rubbish again?" asks Sam reluctantly, "No Sam, this is your final trip, you should pick up your life again, your discovery will be flawless and in one dimension, at least, you will not become a murderer and target for revenge."

"Huh?" Sam reels back, "Murder, target, revenge?"

"Yes, Sir. In more than one dimension I've seen, you are... let's just say, not quite yourself. But this will cure all that. Here's your ticket home," M-20 presents Sam with a Quantinium cube, stood on one corner and a hand full of technical papers marked "Top Secret", explaining quantum-tension. "Please keep these in your hand and go back to your quarters, it will return you to your lab in Hong Kong, to the closest dimension I can find to your original jump. You will discover dimensional transfer again and have to compensate for the imbalances this time around, by reading the papers I've given you."

Sam takes the device and papers back to his apartment, and sees what looks like his original desk and chair, already set up, waiting. Dorma is stood on the opposite side and asks Sam to take a seat, holding the Quantinium device and his technical notes. As he sits, a blinding light fills the room and Sam wakes up in his lab moments later, in his original Hong Kong, but in another dimension from the one he just left.

Dorma returns to M-20 in the basement, as they wait for Fischer to re-appear. They feel a very light rumbling from the ground, the tiniest vibration, which gradually increases until the dust starts to lift. Dorma turns to M-20 and says, "Is that Mark 10 returning?"

"No. Mark 10 won't be coming back to this dimension," says M-20, "Jes and Megan will remain with him on Mars to fill the gap they left and finish his commissioning. The dimension they occupied when they were originally caught up in this."

Sam, Jes and Megan have both been sent back to their original dimensions, or ones very close to those, whilst Mr Fischer is running an errand, to deliver another Ryou Un Maru, to fill a gap left in yet another dimension. This time, to get Mr Fischer back, M-20 made a Quantinium device with a return function.

The dust starts to vibrate in a specific spot in front of them and suddenly Mr Fischer appears sat on a stool about 150mm off the ground, with a piece of ship's bridge in front of him, just hanging in the air. The rumbling stops and Ficher falls with his seat and the debris to the ground. Dusting himself off, he looks up at M-20 annoyed, "Is that your idea of a smooth quantum-jump? I could have been killed."

"I'm sorry, Mr Fischer, everything was totally necessary, I'm afraid. I've engaged the services of the SEALs to help us around the island, they're going to sink our surplus Ryou Un Maru tomorrow, as another diving wreck for you to use on the south beach," says M-20 hopefully.

"Where's Mark?" asks Fischer, concerned, "He should be back by now."

"Your friend had a one-way ticket, I'm afraid, Mr Fischer, I'm sorry for not telling you. But he gave me all his memories and personality, so you could feel at home with me and not miss him too much. I know he was very fond of you too, but thought it was for the best. He saved us from chaos," reassures M-20.

Fischer nods whilst Dorma wipes a tear from her eye, "Mark was a good friend," she says, as they turn and climb the stairs back to the sun deck. "Do you fancy scuba diving, Dorma? We have enough people now to teach you. We can play around in our wrecks now and again?" Dorma takes a deep breath and says quietly, "Yes Mr Fischer, I'm always happy to join in," Fischer smiles and says: "Call me Deiter from now on, Dorma. Call me Deiter."

M-20 says, "If you ever want to talk to me Mr Fischer, just say my name. I will always be able to hear you," Fischer turns and waves, whilst taking Dorma's hand with his other and says, "OK Mark, I will. See you tomorrow," Fischer and Dorma stroll up the stairs, as M-20 flips vertically and starts to dig.

###  Chapter 11 - Fischer

In one particular dimension, he 'retired' from finance at 32, and Deiter Fischer was already a wealthy man. He'd worked as a pioneering derivatives trader at the Hong Kong stock exchange until 1999, when China took over the colony from Britain. Fischer moved himself and his money to Japan, with no wife or kids to worry about. He was a multi-millionaire, and often lacked commitment in relationships, worrying if girlfriends were just after his money. They probably liked his wealth, but a few were heartbroken when Fischer dumped them by default – making their lives terrible. They always 'dumped' him, so he didn't feel guilty.

Fischer was educated in Oxford, but his family were German, his father owned and operated a factory trawler out of Bremerhaven, fishing the North Sea and when Fischer junior left university, he worked alongside him in the family business, trawling and processing specialist fish for the Japanese and Hong Kong markets. For 4 years, Dieter learned the family trade and obtained his Captain's badge in 1991 at the tender age of 25. He enjoyed the ocean life, but his father was always pestering him to get a finance job, to gain experience before his double first in Mathematics and Finance became irrelevant.

He'd looked at several career options, commodity trading in London, a mining engineer in China with UMC (Universal Mining Corporation), the Royal Navy, derivatives speculation in Hong Kong or a research post at HKU (Hong Kong University) looking into rare earths.

Young Fischer decided the place to be was booming financial sector in Hong Kong, thanks to his links with the Far East and Dad's fish exports. Within a year of his Captaincy, Deiter was in Hong Kong applying his university degrees to the stock exchange and how to make money on circular qualified debt (derivatives). Using his new mathematical algorithms and computers, Fischer rapidly created an exclusive client list from Hong Kong's elite, thanks to his growing reputation for good returns and lower than average risk. He traded with his own money too and quickly built up multi-million HK$ (Hong Kong dollar) assets and cash reserves.

His father was nearing the usual retirement age of 55 and wanted Deiter to return and take on some of the work, but there was no way he'd move back to Bremerhaven, life in the Far East was too good. He did love the trawling business though, so compromised to help his father by buying an old Japanese squid boat he then converted to processing catches in Hong Kong, instead of the North Sea by catching local fish alternatives. Like everything Dieter touched, it was a roaring success, but he still worked the stock market part-time for his best clients and himself.

When 1999 came along, Deiter was a rich financier, but in his heart he was still a trawler man, enjoying the solitude of the ocean and the excitement of catching his customers' dinner, rather than spearing financial fish in a barrel so they can just buy it. He decided to move to Hokkaido Island, Japan, sailing his boat, the Ryou Un Maru, with a couple of loyal crew mates to their new base, even closer to the most profitable fish-eating customers he'd gained over the years.

His new fishing grounds were the North East coast of Hokkaido and the North Pacific, catching their specialist fish for local markets and exporting the rest to Hong Kong and Germany mainly. His father had retired years ago and sold up the North Sea business, to leave Deiter to carry on the family tradition for another decade. By 2010, Deiter was still only 44, and tiring of the commercial fishing business, too much hard work now. Having never been married or had kids, he now dreamed of finding the right partner, and settling down on a desert island and having kids. Luckily, he had enough money to buy his own island, fishing just for himself or family and diving to pick broken corals all day long. He was now lonely and family life was his new priority.

Fischer was always playing the stock market, now from his cabin and the permanent satellite link he'd installed, and noticed an advertisement for Rubicon, a new man-made island, built by IPMC, formerly the Universal Mining Corporation he'd once heard of. The cost was US$100 million and this was well within his semi-retirement budget. He decided to go ahead and purchase the ready made island, parked on an atoll in the South China Sea, so he sailed the Ryou Un Maru to his new home, laid her up and took some deserved rest.

Each 'island' comes with a 'personal assistant', who can be matched to your exact personality, either as a potential date, or on a purely professional basis. One of the trappings of being mega-rich. In Deiter's case, the chosen lady was Dorma, a beautiful former Professor of Oceanography from Taipei and 10 years his junior. Dorma was more than a match for Deiter, she was his dream and eventually she would discover, he was hers.

They had similar interests of course, the beaches, diving, nature, healthy foods and an active, balanced life. They invited friends to holiday there regularly and were seldom alone, but when they were, they'd spend hours together reading and chatting under a large parasol on their South Beach.

There was one particularly lazy afternoon alone together, watching the ocean crash, the odd boat miles offshore sailing by, seagulls diving into the sea for their dinner, and a light breeze eased a rather hot 28˚C, thanks to an almost cloudless sky. Between sips of tequila, they both felt a light rumbling from the ground below, a minor earthquake they thought.

Their concrete island was grounded on an atoll 20 meters below the sea, but they'd been told by the manufacturers that in an emergency, there is a 'very small' chance the island could sink! – The buoyancy pumps make sure the island is either floating, at the correct height on the ocean, or grounded on the seabed, like a submarine moving up and down in the water. The thing is, during an earthquake, the concrete can crack and breech the buoyancy tanks, or the seabed can drop, before the pumps have time to keep the island at the correct level. So the procedure is to immediately check the basement for leaks, beware of coming tsunamis, be ready to evacuate the island and move to muster stations. In short – run around in panic.

It was a tiny tremble, so Dorma decides to stay and sip her drink, "You go darling, I doubt that little thing would have cracked our tanks, they're a meter thick."

"OK, sweet heart better go, I'll be back in five minutes," replies a rushed Fischer, as he heads for the basement.

Descending the long curved steps, he passes a number of thick observation windows for viewing the ocean outside – no leaks so far. When he reaches the air-tight door, he can hear a machine running. "Sounds like the pumps are working. That's not good," thinks Fischer, "it means there's a leak," as he checks the door tap, to make sure there's no water or pressure behind it when he opens the door. There's no water or air coming out, so he can enter the basement void.

As he enters the cavern-sized room, he's met with a wall of yellow dust, and puts the beach towel he brought over his mouth. He can hear the noise of the machine powering down and eventually stop. He waits in the door way until the dust settles and he can see what condition the basement is in, "So far no sea water, so still OK, but something is flashing," he thinks.

Fischer can now see something about 20 meters away, a large long cylinder, with a number of small and large lights, some are flashing yellow, like warning lights, some are blue. Fischer decides to take a closer but cautious look and closes the air-tight door behind him, quietly. As he approaches he sees his name on the side of a truck-sized tracked-machine saying "Fischer – Mark 10". He's thinking, "Nice namesake, but what is it?"

A virtual display appears in front of him and starts to speak, "Good evening Sir. My name is Mark 10. Could you tell me where I am please?" asks the machine.

Fischer replies, "You're in my basement, what are you and what are you doing here?"

"Oh, Mr Fischer, I recognize your voice, but still do not know where I am – the homing beacons are quiet," says Mark 10.

"How do you know my name? Have we met before?" asks Fischer, confused.

"Yes, Sir, you designed me, I'm a 'Fischer – Mark 10' drilling machine," informs Mark 10.

"You're mistaken, I don't design machines. You're confusing me with someone else. I'm a retired trawler man and banker," Fischer reveals expectantly.

Since a Mark 10 can know everything, "Oh I see, Sir," thinking for a few more moments, Mark 10 has figured it all out, "You are right, Sir, you are not my designer," continues the machine, "but I must explain why I'm here... I was drilling on Mars a few seconds ago, and a quantum-jump occurred... I arrived here for a reason, please let me explain..."

* * *

In another similar dimension, a graduate is starting his first day at work for UMC, Universal Mining Corporation. Deiter Fischer had been working on his father's trawler since he was 10, helping the ship's Engineer fix and maintain the engines. Deiter always had an aptitude for mechanics – always fixing things that had broken at his parents house, he always seemed to know a way to make things work again, even if sometimes they looked a little odd when he'd finished, robbing parts from other household objects.

Fischer was not a boffin just yet however, he studied things in real life rather than books, and never went to school, learning everything either at home or on a large ship, at sea for days on end, taught by his father and the other crew members. He knew how machines worked, because he'd stripped them down and fixed them for years, having never read about them, except for maintenance manuals and parts lists.

Father knew, his mechanical expert son, at 16, would have to study with real books eventually, to get a place at university, so he could then get a 'proper' job if the trawling industry declined any further. The ship's Engineer had a degree qualification, as required by maritime law, so between him and Captain Fischer, they knew what the entry requirements were for Deiter to study Mechanical and Electronic Engineering at university. So Fischer senior and the ship's Engineer put together a crash course in Mathematics, Electronics and Physics, booking Deiter onto the Berlin University entrance exam in 12 month's time, plus a resit place 3 months later, just in case.

Deiter was a quick learner, since he could 'feel' how things should be in the real world. He seemed to understand quicker than most, how theory was used to describe practice, and soon found himself explaining in his head the theories he'd learned, applying them to what he knew already about machines. Of course, he breezed the entrance exam first time, one of the few students who enter university with an expert level of practical knowledge, and only a basic level of theory, so university would transform his ability to design machines from a solid base.

When he graduated with his double first after 4 years, he was a year younger than his peers. Deiter's lecturers described his expertise in design as 'astonishing'. It seemed that his new theoretical range had turned this former engineering expert into a genius. He had been advised to apply for a research post at Hong Kong University, who were designing the first machines to drill commercially on Mars, at the time the biggest engineering program on Earth. The project was funded by UMC and the Chinese government. UMC was soon to become the Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IPMC) and he would be employed by them directly to become a doctor of mechanical and electrical engineering, and their Head of Division by the age of 35.

Deiter had designed his first "Fischer – Mark 0" drilling machine for Mars, nuclear powered, using qubit computer control and a cut down version of the sensor array derived from the IRISS surveying spacecraft. A clever machine, but you had to drop it near 'interesting' deposits of ore, and let the machine guide itself to find what it could. The machine was designed myopic, due to it's limited computer power, only able to process a blurred composition of material ahead, so was fairly inefficient compared to what Deiter was to design. Only six Mark 0 machines were deployed in the end, and though they were not disasters in terms of productivity, they did not lose too much money and IPMC were able to fund another round of design and deployment for the next generation machines.

Advances in electronics, helped by the materials Mark Zeros recovered from Mars, gave Deiter the tools he needed to create a machine leagues ahead. His Mark 5 used an x-qubit computer with component-growth technology, so the machine could add brain power on demand, using nano-wafers, with the benefit of exponential computing power – the first machine to surpass human levels of intelligence.

With the added processing capacity, Fischer was able to add the full sensor array of IRISS, but limited to a 50 kilometer radius, to reduce the likelihood of confusion, a sensor that could identify every atom and molecule in front of it, and digitise them. The big boost to transform Fischer machines was the use of bit-power components. These quantum-sized electronic components took their electrical power directly from the surroundings, by stealing electrons, using a quantum heat pump. When linked together in large numbers, they produced enough electrical power to drive the entire machine, forever, as long as there was some heat in the environment.

The final piece of the puzzle was the invention of Quantinium. A material derived from rare earth elements that was able to push elementary particles into another dimension. When machined into drilling tips, the quantum-jump material was able to disrupt and shorten the bonds between atoms, by selectively 'vanishing' some of the strings holding matter together. This allowed Mark 5s to drill quicker and separate valuable ore from the muck, for further processing on the surface.

Two hundred Mark 5s were deployed throughout Hellas Crater on Mars and, although immensely profitable, the post processing of valuable ore, on the Martial surface, to recover the precious elements, presented IPMC with a physical limit, of what they could send back to Earth. The consumer demand for new bit-power electronics and the pressing environmental need to draw power from the Earth's plentifully hot environment, pushed IPMC to develop the "Fischer – Mark 10" drill, to directly cut and process the valuable ore 100 times quicker than the Mark 5s.

Fischer was a genius in his own right, but adept at using other cutting-edge technology to enhance his genius. He was a giant standing on the shoulders of giants, to develop a truly astonishing piece of engineering. This massive leap forward in productivity, using Quantinium drill tips and filter grids, which would allow processing speeds of 100 meters per hour, but this came with a hidden price, and no one, including Fischer anticipated it.

The Mark 5s used Quantinium, but the quantum-jumps they caused had no noticable effect on other dimensions, because nature was just able to compensate for these transfers of complex energy strings. Mark 10s however, were making a big impression and with 49 machines already deployed, they were starting to cause unexpected events, building quantum-tension rapidly on Mars and Earth. Everyone thought quantum-jump was a free lunch, so they didn't put any effort into the effects, until nature made them.

IPMC were commissioning their 50th Mark 10 machine on Mars, Jes and Megan were up there as key players, the most experienced engineers they had. All the bosses had arrived in their hotels near Jiuquan Space Centre, China to witness the 50th release, including the superstar, Deiter Fischer. The planned, live video conference, would use the new dimension-relay transmission technology, developed by IPMC – a spin off from Mark 5 and Quantinium was the ability to store data (x-digital video) to the 'information field' (which resides in an adjacent dimension) using specific string frequencies and then to retrieve that data, at any other location instantaneously.

Jes and Megan expected to finish commissioning Mark within the next 24 hours, having a few more tests to run through before letting the drill loose on his own to dig up the planet like his 49 compatriots. The final stage was to bore another 400 meters of ore, and check Mark's Quantinium grid was still perfectly aligned with the actual and expected production figures, to within a tenth of a gram.

Jes instructs Mark to begin his first run, "OK Mark, this is the last 400 meters before we make a live TV show out of you, speak to your father, then we'll leave you to enjoy yourself for the next few decades, so let's make it a good one. Proceed when ready," said Jes, trying to encourage the machine, even though this wasn't necessary.

"Yes, Sir, I am ready to go," so Mark continues, "all systems nominal, REBO (rare-earth-bearing ore) dead ahead, proximity clear, proceed OK, complete power up and go," Mark sets off digging a new tunnel, but after 10 meters he shudders to a grinding halt.

Jes and Megan feel a slight rumble all around them and stare at Mark, who is hissing and steaming away, but powering down. Looking at each other Jes says to Megan, "Did you feel that?"

"Yes, like a mild Mars tremor," replies Megan, "and Mark has Emergency Stopped."

Both stare at the roof for loose and falling rocks, then slowly walk to Mark nearby, "What happened Mark?" asks Jes.

Mark's virtual display jumps out and he begins his report, "I seem to have just lost half a second on my timer, right before I stopped and during the quake, confirmed by Earth and Mars beacons, plus the communications are now down. Since I cannot explain these anomalies as yet, so I have Emergency Stopped. I am thinking hard, to resolve these issues, Sir."

"Half a second is not a showstopper, nor is a downed radio and a tiny shake, so keep analysing and in the meantime, let's get back to the last 390 meters of drilling, right now Mark," asserts Jes.

"Yes, Sir, will do," replies Mark and begins his run again.

Megan taps Jes on the shoulder, "I've lost my signal with Mars Base too, how about you?"

"Yes, mine is saying 'No Signal' at the moment," replies Jes and continues, "let's get the next few hours sorted, but protocol says we must contact Mars Base every 8 hours, by then, we may be finished. At the end of this shift, I'll finish off here and you start the trudge back to Pod 16 and make the phone call in 8 hours, there's a hard-line from there you can use."

As Mark 10 concludes his test drilling at high speed, on Earth someone is looking at his performance with incredulity...

...An operator is looking at two giant screens side-by-side, showing a complex series of tunnels just under the Martian surface – like a maze of interconnected plumbing, and beckons his supervisor to come over:...

To be continued in Quantinium II...

Back to top
