Chapter One

July 2000


James Yargon, Special Projects Coordinator of General Dynamics, was increasingly frustrated by the growing bureaucracy in the research department. Special projects were becoming more of a chore as the years went by with the ever diminishing budget appropriations.

"Damn the government!" James barked from the terrace of his second floor master bedroom.

"Relax honey. You're not at work now." Alice said. "Perhaps Patrick is just trying to show you he is capable, by expressing his ideas to you, James."

"How? By pressuring me to use his elaborate schemes to speed the testing of the Blackhole Theory on earth without due consideration of life? He has no idea that if conditions aren't absolutely perfect anything can go wrong. But then of course when I don't agree with his foolishness he reports to my supervisor that the blackhole process is being delayed because I am overcautious. The project was top secret until somehow news leaked to the media last week about the progress of the Blackhole Theory and they just happened to mention my name and Patrick Jenson's. I know Patrick is trying to make a name for himself, but at everyone else's expense. Of course he denied the allegations. It’s just that...I don't trust him, Alice," he turned to meet her eyes. He could feel her lack of concurrence in his anxiety, or simply what she considered him to be over-reacting. Nevertheless, he could almost mimic her next words.

"James, I'm...I'm really tired. Can we talk about this in the morning?"

"Huh?" James questioned, looking out into his dark backyard. He had already turned away from her. "Oh, yeah. I'll just be out here a few more minutes, okay?"

The wind had kicked up a little, and the sway of the treetops caught the moonlight as it tried to inch its way through the leaves rustling in the breeze.

"All right," Alice said tiredly, kissing him on the cheek and then slowly turning and heading towards the bedroom.

The smell of her cold cream lingered on his check and then dissipated with the swirl of the wind.



It was a warm day, not unlike any other day in the month of July, for as long as James Yargon could remember. The weather in San Diego is always so consistent, perhaps one of the few things James thought he could still depend on.

"Dear, I don't mean to interrupt, but you really should be on your way now. I need you to drop Nancy off at school this morning. I need to be here if Beachwest Elementary calls me to substitute today. I know you've been coming home late, but please try to spend a little more time with Nancy. She misses you so. She's already going on here first date."

"What?"

"Dad."

"Who is this boy who thinks he can steal my daughter away?"

"Daaaad."

"What kind of grades does he get? Does he do drugs?"

"Mom!"

"James, they're just going to the early movie, and I'm driving them," Alice said.

"Mom?! We we're..."

"If you want to go, I'm driving."

"Suddenly I'm feeling a little bit better about this date," James stated facetiously.

Nancy became frustrated and grabbed her lunch, then waited by the door for her dad.

"You know I used to love getting up in the morning, going to work and spending the rest of the day getting paid for something I would gladly do for the rest of my life without any monetary compensation. What the hell happened?"

"You're just going through a phase, James. Now cheer up! And don't let them push you around so much. Maybe you can invite Patrick over for dinner sometime. Being single like he is, I bet he would appreciate it."

"Have him in my home!" James snarled, walking out the door with Nancy. "When snowballs fly in hell."

"James!"

"Sorry. Come on, honey. Let's get you to school," James said.

As he dropped his daughter off at school, James contemplated the simpler times in his life. Watching Nancy being greeted by her friends at the front entrance of the school knowing that all that was on her mind were the friends that she had, the course work that lay ahead and well...the boys that she may meet.

James had contemplated for years about having children...needing so desperately to duplicate his dad's efforts in giving every ounce of time to them as his dad had done for him. Something happened though, unexpected in his life that no one could ever warn him about. James had a passion for his work. James loved his family dearly, but devoted much of his time to something that he desperately had desired his whole life without even realizing it. Even through college, while studying for his aerospace engineering degree and his doctorate in physics, James kept second-guessing himself as to which particular career path to follow. But it only took one day working as Assistant Projects Coordinator at General Dynamics to know that his well thought out career path was the best decision of his life.

James had been working for years on one special project in particular that the government had been secretly financing. More than any other project, Washington D.C. kept a close watch on this one; The Blackhole Project known as Mission One. For twelve years straight James had to submit a weekly report if only to prove that he had shown up at work. Nonetheless, James would always present much more. Completely and undeniably committed to his project, James would spend a minimum of seventy hours a week hovering over his theoretical equations, continuously contemplating the breakdown of the different forces of the universe. It was gravity, though, that would ultimately dictate the formation of the blackhole. James was literally obsessed with the fact that these forces had been defined only in their most elementary form.

It would take the equivalent of a world population of four billion scientists 1,728 years completing one mathematical equation a day, to equal what was possible for James in an 80 year lifetime using one supercomputer completing one million equations per second. James, however, had ten computers working for him around the clock, each completing that many iterations for the past three years. Having fed the computers every possible variable known about blackholes for the past fifty years and with James' own research inclusive, James was starting to realize that the perfect equation may not exist within the mathematical boundaries currently known.

James was desperately rethinking his approach to the problem as he had done for the past three years.



"Good morning James." said Patrick Jenson, U.S. Army chemist on special assignment.

He pushed his small wire rim glasses up his nose, even though they had already been forced up there several times before. James now understood this to be a nervous habit of his, and knew damn well that Patrick had much to be nervous about.

"Oh, good morning Patrick." James replied as he struggled to maintain a pleasant tone about him.

Patrick watched for a moment as James became settled in to the laboratory.

"James, I hope you don't mind. I reported our findings yesterday to Colonel Briggs, head of special projects."

"I know who he is. Why did you do that?" James’ teeth clenched, but wanting to give Patrick a chance to explain.

"Our discovery of the reduction of the uranium nucleus is fantastic. I...” he was stopped abruptly by a sudden outburst.

"That was a stupid thing to do!" James barked. Damn! I said I would remain calm dealing with this asshole.

"Why?"

"First of all, who's in charge of this operation?” It was a rhetorical question, but the lack of acknowledgment would have been grounds for insubordination had James had the authority. “All of the God damn reporting is supposed to come from me. The reason for that should be perfectly clear to anyone with half a brain. Secondly, despite the fact that the United States Army is funding ninety percent of this project, we have an obligation to the world and to humanity to acquire an understanding for what we discover before we go blasting off our mouth that we're making progress.

Once the dear Colonel reports this to his supervisors, we'll be getting a call from the head of the Special Projects Team asking how long until completion of the theoretical equation, and then the inevitable. How long until it can be made into a weapon? Then finally they'll say when and where in Nevada can we test it? A God damn blackhole! Where in Nevada can we test it?! Just because some stupid army fuck is trying to make waves for me and kiss-ass his way to the top! Don't do that again, ever, without my consent or I'll do something I've never done in the twenty five years I've been here to any of my assistants. I'll kick your God damn ass off this project and don't you think I won't!" Mumbling to himself as James walked away from Patrick, "stupid army fuck is going to get us all killed."



August 2000

As James continued to complete his weekly report to the government, he began to realize just how close he was getting to the answer.

[LOGON...MAIL-SEND...CODE 13492...ENTER.]

TO: SPECIAL PROJECTS FUNDING TEAM

FROM: JAMES YARGON, SPECIAL PROJECT COORDINATOR

RE: WEEKLY STATUS, MISSION 1

TODAY MY ASSISTANT AND I WERE ABLE TO NOTICE A CHANGE IN THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF THE URANIUM ATOM WHICH ACTUALLY REPEATED YESTERDAY'S RESULTS OF REDUCING THE NUCLEUS IN TOTAL SIZE WITHOUT ANY LOSS OF MATTER....

For the first time since James started Mission One, he felt himself pulling back on the amount of information he was willing to divulge to Washington.

What will those war mongrels do once they get a hold of this; just like any other space project ever designed and created by aerospace, they'll turn it into some form of world conquering weapon. A weapon to end all wars, just like the gatling gun, thought to be a weapon to end all wars, but which only conjured up dreams in the minds of ruthless men with hearts of stone and visions of world domination. How meaningless life is to people who haven't any vision of hope. To grow old without realizing your dreams is sad, but to teach the young that they can never be achieved is an unmentionable shame.

Take hope away from the young, and violence becomes their closest friend. Inevitably a few of these children grow up and make their way to Washington D.C., conjuring up fears of hopelessness and despair in the young and old, spreading disdain for people of different cultures, races, ideas and ideals. What's different is wrong and should be feared, they will preach through their bureaucracy and legislation.... The smell of old coffee filled the room. He contemplated for a moment on making another pitcher. It was all he lived on most of the time now.

The clicking of the computer broke the silence as one gigabit of memory was filled with each click. The sound of it rattled off like a silent machine gun in slow motion.

"No, mine is not to judge, but only do as I am paid to do and complete my job, that of which is Mission One. I shall report as I see it for now, but God help the world once the government receives my final theoretical postulation on the theory of the blackhole," James spoke to himself in a voice low enough not to be heard by anyone standing within five feet of him. And uncharacteristically James was tempted to limit the message if only to divulge the least amount of information, however misleading....

...WITH ALL THE VARIABLES CONSIDERED, IT IS MY HYPOTHESIS THAT LIMITING THE GRAVITATIONAL PULL, WHILE TESTING THE ATOM REDUCER, WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE THE TESTING RESULTS.

I AM AT THIS TIME REQUESTING THE FUNDING FOR A SPACE TEST THAT WOULD BE SCHEDULED FOR LAUNCH SOMETIME IN SEPTEMBER 2001, CONSIDERING THE PROGRESS MY ASSISTANT AND I ARE MAKING...[END E-MAIL].

James knew that the testing of the atom reducer on a larger scale would be requested by the military inevitably, regardless of whether James was sure of the outcome.

When the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, not even light can escape the immense gravitational pull of a blackhole.

It occurred to James that if a simulated blackhole was actually created, only the same or greater powers of two or three blackholes surrounding the original blackhole might negate its effects. Perhaps though, creating an explosion close enough to the vicinity of the blackhole could create such a large initial pull that it too would counteract the gravity of a simulated blackhole. Again creating an opposite negating force. James considered these unknowns as crucial knowledge to be learned. For the development of the force without the means to control it could doom mankind.