Annihilation

Chapter 1

 I am about to revolutionize the way the world generates and even thinks about power. Eight years of experimentation and self-taught physics have me days, possibly hours away from achieving my dream -- a dark energy reactor. I just need a little more time and some quiet to cull the final answers from the recesses of my brain where I know they must live.

I have spent half of my life on this invention. I have sacrificed almost everything that matters to most people my age. There have been no homecoming dances, first kisses or game winning goals. Experiments and research alone in my basement lair have consumed my sleeping and waking thoughts.

But I owe it to myself and I think, the world to complete my work. While the goal started out selfishly enough it has evolved as I have grown and matured. I’m sure that no one realizes I am no longer the selfish little boy that doesn’t want to do chores. After all I still fuss and complain like that little boy. But now I complain because I am too smart and my work is too important to be delayed with taking out the trash or emptying the dishwasher.

I no longer need a robot to tackle the mundane for me. I need to fix so many of the things that are broken and not fair in the world. My reactor will allow me to bring power to any corner of the world. Imagine how lives can be changed and improved with unlimited free power. 

After selling or licensing my design I can use the profits to build reactors and travel to the places that will most benefit from the technology. My plan is to start in Ethiopia where my brother Liam was born. Together he and I will travel to the village where his family lived and install the reactor. Refrigeration and electric water pumps will completely change the community. Instead of hours spent each day collecting food and water they will be able to learn and think about the future.

After Ethiopia I’ll travel to China with my sister. She was born in a small southern city but desperately wants to save the entire country. With pollution free electricity we’ll be able to shift the base of control from the cities to the smaller villages and towns. People will flock out of the metropolitan areas where they are forced to wear masks and go days without sunlight due to the smog. They will need to rent or buy from the current occupants and it will be a sellers market.

My plans are big and far from selfish but first I need to deal with my junior year of high school. I also want to keep an eye on this virus that seems to be getting out of control. School I can deal with, even though I irritates me. The virus seems well beyond my control. 

After eighth grade I asked my parents if I could take the GED and start taking classes at M.I.T. in the fall. Mom said yes and Dad said no. There was no doubt that I would pass the GED I’m a genius, literally. There was also no doubt that I would be welcomed at M.I.T. I have been engaged with professors, Ph. D.’s and doctoral candidates since the sixth grade.

Dad claims that he was worried about my emotional development. He says that I wasn’t ready from a maturity level to attend classes with adults. He repeats, way too often, ‘Intellectual preparedness does not equal emotional preparedness.’ I think he was afraid of how much it would cost him for me to take classes.

They fought about it for maybe a week, but then the house needed a new roof and Liam needed braces. Other things came in and left me in my basement lab alone solving not one, but two of the biggest physics questions of our time. Proving the existence of and identifying a safe use of dark energy. All while fighting a daily battle with ignorant school administrators and under educated and disinterested teachers.  

On the other hand is the virus that seems to be sweeping around the world. They are calling it the killer cold and it is an indiscriminate harbinger of death. I noticed activity spiking on Monday. ‘Fluid in the lungs’ was trending as a Google search term and was also spiking on the global news feeds. 

Mention of the killer cold was muted on establishment media outlets but there were references. The reports that were done tried to down play the issue as a local, unfortunate series of unconnected deaths. Even a cursory review of social media topics and trends made it clear that the deaths were connected and not localized. I’m not sure where the virus came from but it is clear to me that no part of the world will be completely safe.

Today is Wednesday and I have survived another day of school. I was able to catch a nap in history class. We had a substitute and she played a movie. The other classes required that I keep my eyes open, but that was about it. There were several kids and teachers absent, but not enough to really worry anyone other than me. 

I wonder if I can convince Dad that we should all stay home for the next few days. Isolating ourselves from other who may be carrying the virus cannot be a bad idea. I’m sure he’ll refuse though and tell me that when I have a temperature over one hundred degrees I can stay home. He probably doesn’t understand that this isn’t a cold and you won’t get better if you catch it. I don’t have the energy to argue though. My reactor is waiting, and once it’s done all of these foolish discussions will come to an end.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have pursued medicine or biology instead of physics. With my intellect I may have been able to cure diseases and save lives. Would I be able to understand and defeat this ‘killer cold’? Could I have made a difference in the world that way?

But I didn’t choose to pursue physics. It chose me. When I first understood dark energy it was just obvious. There were no classes or lectures that taught me how to understand particles, I just knew. I was frustrated that my choices for powering an autonomous robot were limited to tethering it to a wall socket or using AA batteries. My father’s simplistic description of nuclear reactors and cold fusion sent me scrambling for Google.

That was my first all night-er. I will never forget those agonizing hours spent lying in bed waiting for mom to come upstairs. Not nearly enough minutes wait to be sure she was in bed for good and then I was in the kitchen on the family computer. It was as if I was remembering things that I had been taught in a previous life. I knew how each of the reactions were going to play out and more importantly why the worked that way. I scared myself and to this day it sends a shiver down my spine.

Since that time I have been trying to explain to other physicists what it is I see and how I know it works. I’m working on a equation to describe what I know to be true but that is no small feat. I feel strongly that I would rather complete my reactor to prove that what I know is true. Unfortunately not everything is up to me. To get some of my resources I have had to work with people and develop pieces of my equation. Some won awards and others didn’t understand what I was showing them. Those that couldn’t keep up used my work but broke down defending their thesis.