For a moment, nobody said anything, and I was already halfway convinced that all of them would accept my idea.

Naturally, I was wrong in that. Gorden remained polite and just sighed while shaking his head.

Jason was… less cordial.

“Ridiculous! I thought you were somewhat educated in physics. Why do you propose such a nonsense idea?”

I could only stare at him in a bit of shock, not understanding why he so vehemently denied the idea, but before I could formulate an answer, Gordon explained, much calmer, what both of them seemed to think.

“I know, it sounds good, but it is impossible.”

I was ready to light into him but then realized that he just stated the facts as he knew them, as calmly and rationally as possible.

“Why do you think that?”

Gordon opened his mouth trying to answer, but Jason was, sadly, faster.

“Because Sokolov has proven beyond the possibility of a doubt that there is no ‘other place’. There is no multiverse, there are no higher dimensions, no other planes of existence, no hyperspace, nothing of the sort.”

He crossed his arms in an ‘I have spoken’ gesture that downright exuded his smug superiority in the topic. Not that I was all that convinced that he actually was superior, mind you.

“Who?”

The corners of his mouth contorted in a smug smile, and you could literally feel how he was enjoying knowing something I did not. Yeah, as if I knew everything. But whatever, he finally had basked enough in it and deigned to answer me.

“Aleksandr Sokolov. Russian physicist. Around 100 years ago, he proved that there can be no other plane of existence, no other universe. We are all there is.”

“Oh… yes. I think I know who you are talking about. He was a cosmologist, right?”

Still having his annoying smile on his face, Jason nodded.

“Yes. For somebody who supposedly studied physics, you should know about him.”

I raised an eyebrow and steepled my fingers.

“Cosmology… you know, the specialty that is not quantum physics? The one that is almost the diametral opposite of said quantum physics? The quantum physics I specialize in?

You mean that cosmology? So, pray tell, why the heck should I know a rather obscure scientist who as far as I know only produced some knowledge in a field that I have, or had, no contact in?

Despite what you seem to think, he is not part of the general physics studies, and he is unequivocally not part of quantum physics.”

He literally sniffed and looked down his nose at me.

“Humph. Anybody should know Sokolov, and especially any physicist.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah sure. If you think so.”

He turned somewhat redfaced and leaned broodingly forward.

“Young lady, I find your attitude straining. Just accept that you don’t know everything.”

That was… so unexpected it took me a few seconds to react.

“You think that I think that I know everything? Are you fricking serious? Of course, I don’t know everything. I just told you that I don’t know Sokolov’s ‘proof’.

The thing is, until I do, and had some time to look it over, I can’t tell if it is true or not.”

By now, I had stood up as well, and while my stature was somewhat less imposing than the nearly a head taller Jason, I did not cower but instead was as far into his face as I could manage.

The effect was meager though, and I don’t think that Jason was particularly impressed. He just rolled his eyes.

“Face it, your scheme will fail. Sokolov is a known fact. He proved that alternate realities, or planes, or universes simply don’t exist. This is all we have.”

I heroically held back from rolling my eyes as well, and instead only posted the burning question.

“How?”

That seemed to confuse Jason somewhat, as he looked at me bewildered.

“How what?”

I sighed.

“How did he prove it?”

And the smug grin was back.

“With math. You should try it sometime. Helps magnificently in your understanding of physics.”

I tried. Honestly, I tried, but I could not keep the snark out of my answer.

“Oh, I know. Who of us two actually had enough math education to not only understand the Seeberger equation but also use it not once, not twice, but three times to figure out new aspects of our reality?

Oh right, it was not you. So, how about you talk about knowing math when you understand Seeberger enough to figure out how to entangle atoms and molecules?”

Then I took a deep breath and continued a bit more civil.

“Now, it is obvious that he used math. Anything beyond the most basic insights into physics requires math. That made your answer singularly unhelpful. What I wanted to know is how exactly he proved his idea.”

Jason rolled his eyes again, but thankfully, Gordon answered me.

“He had a series of six equations that together exclude the possibility of any other modes of reality.”

I frowned. That… could not be right.

“That seems a bit farfetched. And if I understand you correctly, it would run contra to Seeberger.”

Jason snarled.

“Seeberger, Seeberger, nothing but Seeberger. Get a grip, girl. Not everything is explained by Seeberger. Yes, his equation seems to work nicely for some fringe applications, but it does not impinge other, more important aspects of physics."

I was, honestly, taken aback. Was he seriously still not understanding the epochal importance of the Seeberger equation? So it took me a few moments to be able to answer him.

“You… seriously, you still do not realize it? For real? Jason, the Seeberger equation is the fricking Theory of Everything! It does explain everything. It does impinge on every aspect of physics.

That is the reason why it is such an unwieldy, awe-inspiring monster of an equation. Any other equation in physics can be derived from it. So yes, if Sokolov’s ‘proof’ goes against Seeberger, then it can’t be true.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, shaking my head slowly.

“Not to mention that if Sokolov was true, then empirical evidence tells us that the second law of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy are wrong.

So either reality says that two of the most fundamental laws, laws humanity has ascertained over centuries of observation are wrong, or a wholly theoretical ‘proof’ of a single person is wrong.

I don’t know where you stand, but my money would be on Sokolov being wrong.”

Oh, nice, now Jason began to sulk.

“You think it has to be one or the other? That they contradict each other?”

I sighed.

“Reality contradicts one or the other. Fact is, fusactors work, and they violate the laws of physics as they stand now.

Either they reduce entropy and create energy, which is simply impossible according to our understanding of physics, or they shove the heat, and with it, the entropy created by the fusactors somewhere else, and pull energy from somewhere else, which would, if I understand you two right, violate Sokolov.

If those characteristics of fusactors were purely theoretical, I would say that both could be right. But as those characteristics are empirical, observable, measurable facts, it has to be either – or.

And I can’t see Sokolov being right over fundamental laws of physics. Especially if Sokolov violates Seeberger as well.”

He threw up his hands in a huff.

“Fine. Then prove it to me.”

He materialized a whiteboard, but before he even could project the equations on it, Rose shouted.

“Enough! Stop! Both of you sit down! RIGHT NOW!”

Followed by her physically shoving us apart.

When we both were way too shocked to react immediately, she shouted again:

“I SAID RIGHT NOW! Sit the fuck down!”

Honestly, I scrambled back to my chair and planted my behind in it before I even realized that I had done so.

Rose should not have been that scary. Heck, here in cyberspace, she should not have even been the slightest bit scary to me.

I’ve faced bleeding-edge hunter-killers. And still, here I was, being scared of a woman not much bigger than me.

The only saving grace was that the quite a bit bigger Jason reacted exactly the same. And so we both sat there like scolded schoolchildren, while Rose was visibly agitated.

“I’ve had it with you two. We get it. You are passionate about it. But how about you two think about us others? Do you think we want to be kidnapped into realms of math that drive grown physicists insane? In case you don’t get it, NO, we do not want that. You can have your little math off when we are finished with the meeting, understood?”

I tried to crawl deeper into my chair. Fortunately for me, Jason threw caution to the wind and dared to protest:

“But… but this is important.”

Oh yeah, Rose was, of course, impressed by his whining. She was so quick in his face that it nearly seemed as if she teleported.

“DON’T YOU DARE! Yes, we all understand. You need to ensure that Vivian is put into her place. If it weren’t that sad, it would be hilarious. For the very first time in your life, you’ve met somebody who is genuinely better than you in virtually anything you base your self-worth on.

Damn it Jase, you need help. Professional help. But don’t try your campaign to pull Vivian down here in our meetings.”

I was almost ready to relax a bit. Sadly, too early, as she whirled around and faced me, though not as aggressively as she had lit into Jason.

“And you! Yes, I understand it. This is a puzzle for you to solve. I understand that you need to solve it. But most of us here are only marginally interested in the innermost workings of the universe. Show some consideration and keep those kinds of arguments to a minimum, please.”

Then she grinned.

“Not that I have any doubt that in two weeks, Jason will come crawling in here and complain how you ripped him a new one and his nice safe worldview into shreds. But do it after this meeting.”

I swallowed heavily, and nodded, not trusting my voice right this moment.

For the remaining meeting, we all remained cordial, but there remained a certain tension. Sadly, the mood had already been ruined.

I vowed to myself that in the future I would try to not drift off into science all that hard.

After some minutes of trivial small talk, Danny decided to get something done.

“Uh, Rose, do you monitor Project Revitalize?”

Rose tilted her head.

“Where does this question come from? But yes, I do. Why?”

“Well, I… was so captured by my work that I did not look into it. I just wanted to ask how Batch N1 is working out so far?”

Rose snorted.

“Quite well. We have begun to use BOUs for it as well, though so far we have only gotten around 55 percent of the testers seeded with it. But the results are very promising. The last stand was that 94.3% of the women in the batch with a BOU were confirmed pregnant.

By the way, Vivian, the BOU is a marvelous thing. Why did you not market it more?”

The question came out of nowhere.

“Huh? Sorry, but I am not responsible for marketing. It honestly did not even occur to me that this might be something that could be sold.”

“And how are the numbers in NYC? About your test?”

I shrugged.

“A bit less. 93.4% had implantation.”

“Well, those are nice numbers.”

I shrugged. If she thought so, who was I to disagree?

“The BOU shows us that 88% of the ‘failures’ have other medical problems that made either the ovum or the sperm non-viable. For the rest… it was either a matter of bad timing or in a few cases, the woman skipped ovulation. Again, the BOU makes it quite easy to figure that out. Seriously, could you not have released it earlier?”

“No, not really. As soon as one of the big corps got their grubby fingers into one of them, they would have realized how the NADAs work. And beaten us to patenting it. While we could not patent and release it until we had sufficient strength to defend it from some… less friendly attempts of aquiring it.”

“Hmph. Whatever. I just wish we had it earlier and more of it. But okay, we have it now, and that has to be enough. We were able to do early genetic testing on the zygotes. So far, there has been no indication of any defects.”

“So there will be no repeat of the K4 fuckup?”

Nadia’s question hit right below the belt. And not just for me. Everybody winced.

“It is still too early to say that. Keep in mind that we still have a hard time finding the difference between us and non-functional K4. And it is only marginally easier to find the difference between any K4, and a C3.

Humanity is a mess. The great war has done insane damage to us as a species. The Folly is just the most damaging of the bioweapons used. It will take generations to stabilize all that damage.”

After that, the meeting became even more awkward. We all tried to keep the conversation going. Well, not necessarily that conversation, but any conversation.

Nonetheless, I was not the only one breathing in relief when the meeting ended. Strangely, besides Gordon, Kelsey and Tamara also stayed behind with Jason and me. Gordon was somewhat expected, but the two girls were a small surprise. It shouldn’t have been. Kelsey specialized in grav-tech and Tamara in electrical engineering. Both disciplines were based hard on physics.

Strangely nobody had bothered to remove the whiteboard, and without Rose being present, nobody prevented Jason from projecting the equations of Sokolov’s third proof onto it.

It was, as Gordon had already said, a group of six fairly complex equations. Oh, well, considering the fact that all six of them fit onto a single, double-sized whiteboard, fairly was the operative term here.

Almost immediately, something in the back of my mind began to protest. I ignored it for the time being. Knowing me, it was just the fact that these equations prevented me from getting the elegant solution to our fusactor problem.

Not that I could fully appreciate the equations anyway. Jason, naturally, was of a different opinion.

“So, what do you make of that?”

I sighed and crossed my arms.

“As it is now? Nothing.”

A triumphant “Ha” escaped his lips, and he turned to the others.

“See. Not so smart after all.”

I shook my head.

“You know, if you actually had included the description of what the variables mean, I might be able to make sense of it. Oh, sure I recognize some of them. The Planck’s constant for example, or the gravitational constant. But the majority need some explanation of what they represent.”

I turned to him.

“As is usual when writing an equation somewhere so that people can evaluate it.”

“What? You are bragging that you have a knack for math. Why don’t you figure it out?”

I looked at him annoyed. Did he seriously try to play those kind of games here? Whatever, I had access to the matrix, I had Warden, who already had looked up the proof. I was just going to add the definitions myself when Gordon angrily stormed forward.

“Quit those fucking games, asshole. Yeah, we get it, you think you are the shit. Newsflash, you are a shit, nothing more.”

And he added the definitions. Jason on the other hand was, again, in a snit. I seriously started to dislike the jerk.

“What the fuck, Gordon. She always tells us how smart she is, and how good at math she is. Let her figure it out.”

I ignored him and looked at the equations. And still, something was not right. Something was missing. I could not put my finger on it, but… it just did not click with me.

After a few seconds, while I tuned out Gordon and Jason arguing loudly, I went to high compression and looked at the equations more carefully.

It helped that I tasked Warden with number crunching, but it only took me around half an hour to find part of what I was looking for. For the others, who by now all four were arguing, mostly Jason against the other three, less than four minutes had gone by.

I was not done, mind you. That was just the preliminary evaluation, and I had Warden look further into it. Nevertheless, I surfaced up to 30:1. Just in time for Jason to smugly turn to me after the argument had wound down.

“So… do you now see how your silly idea is impossible?”

I cocked my head, still looking at the equations.

“Honestly, I see no such thing.”

I heard snorts from the three in the cheap seats, while from Jason I heard a piercing:

“What?!? How can you not see it? Do you even understand this proof?”

I turned to him and smiled sweetly.

“Do you? Because if you did, you would not try to bring it on as a definitive proof.”

He spluttered for a moment, and Gordon, who had slowly moved forward again, asked, way more politely than Jason:

“Uh, not that I like it, but the asshole is right this time. This is the proof that there is no ‘somewhere’ that the heat vanishes into and the energy comes from. I am really sorry.”

I chuckled.

“No… it is not. I guess nobody did the work and looked at the individual equations.”

Gordon furrowed his forehead and looked at the equations incredulously.

“Uh… seriously?”

I nodded.

“If they did they would see that this is the possibility of a proof. Nothing more. Yes, full understanding will take a bit more work, I fear, but I can already tell you that either Sokolov did not really understand the equations, or he was biased enough to cherrypick.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is simple. The first equation? From the top of my head, I can see that it has at least three solutions. All equally valid, mind you. The third equation has five that I see. As far as I can tell right now, the ‘proof’ depends on those specific solutions.

If any of the others are chosen, the proof goes poof and is gone.”

“So… you mean that…”

He stopped.

“There is no proof that the specific solutions Sokolov has chosen are the ones accurately describing reality. They might, I give you that. But if we take the fusactor problem into account, it is unlikely.”

Jason had just stared at me, and the whiteboard for some glorious blessed moments in silence. Sadly, it couldn’t last.

“You… you are you fucking serious? Three solutions? Five? Do you really think we will simply accept you pulling some math out of your ass? And even if you are right, that does not mean that the proof is invalid.”

I took a deep breath and counted slowly to ten.

“You are aware that this is exactly what it means? If one or more of the equations have more than one solution, we can not assume that the one specific one you like is the real one. Which turns the proof into a hypothesis.

Until we have taken all the possible solutions into account, we can not…”

It was at this moment that Warden had finished the next crucial step, and projected the answer into my vision.

“Oh wow. Belay that.”

That seemed to let Jason perk up somewhat.

“So… you see now that you are wrong?”

“No, I see now that this solution set is wrong. Not possible.”

“What the fuck?”

“It is so simple that everybody who actually did the work could find it out. Do you see this constant θs?”

Jason nodded.

“Yes, Sokolov’s constant. What of it?”

“Did you ever look into its value?”

“No, of course not. Why bother? It is canceled out in every equation that it appears. So not important.”

I smiled again.

“Only in those solutions to the equations. And it is important because it is not a constant at all. It is a variable.”

He frowned but remained silent. Gordon on the other hand, interjected.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Solve the equations for θs and you will notice it. If you solve the first equation for it, you get θs equals 3.4478 x 10-23, while if you solve the third one you get θs equals 7.734 x 10-26. Those two solutions are incompatible. You can either have this specific solution for the first equation or this specific solution for the third equation, not both. They are mutually exclusive.”

“But that would mean that…”

“This ‘proof’ is just so much of fully digested bull fodder, yes.”

“And that means that…”

“The assumption that there is no ‘somewhere’ that explains the peculiarities of the fusactors is at least at this moment highly suspect.”

Jason managed to croak:

“How? How did you…?”

I still felt pretty annoyed by his presence, but I still answered.

“How did I what?”

“How did you get those numbers? That fast?”

“Supercomputers. I have a few. And VIs that run on a couple of them. I tasked my primary assistant VI with solving all the equations, with the solutions chosen by Sokolov, for every variable, and or constant.”

“But… how? How did you determine that the equations have more than one solution?”

I let out a heavy breath.

“I’ve gone to high compression while you argued with Gordon, Tamara, and Kelsey and worked on the equations. It is far from complete, and I would guess that if I put in the work I will find other solutions.

What I told you is just what I figured out in the few minutes I had for it.”

He was clearly becoming exasperated and nearly screamed at me:

“BUT HOW? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just did it. I can’t explain how I do it, why I can do it and others can not. For me it is obvious. Almost as obvious that two plus two equals four.”

After staring at the whiteboard for a moment, his shoulders slumped and he slowly sat down on the ground.

“You… you’ve ruined everything. How can you do that? How can you be so much better in everything?”

I know, I should have just let him stew in it, get over it on his own. I couldn’t though. It was just not in me.

“I am not better than you in everything. You just chose the parts on which I am better to base your self-worth.”

“But why? Why are you better at exactly those things?”

“The only person who can tell you that is you. I can’t decide for you what your self-esteem is based on. Why did you choose those exact characteristics?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know what the irony of the whole thing is? My self-esteem is not based on it. For me it just is. For most of my life, I hid my intelligence. Yes, I am proud that I have figured out the Seeberger equation. At least as far as I have figured it out.

But I couldn’t care less if you, or Gordon, or any of you is better than me. I don’t compete with you. With any of you. Heck, Nate was right. You are the only people I could consider my peers. Why should I try to compete with you?

Why do you try to compete with me? Why do you have to be better than me?”

I shook my head and moved over to Gordon, Kelsey, and Tamara, who were looking at the Equations on the whiteboard.

“I think it is time to end it here for now. If you want, I can send you what I already have figured out.”

Gordon looked at me hopefully.

“So… you will work on this some more?”

I looked at the six equations, sighed, and then shook my head.

“No… I see no point in it. Instead, I will look into what Seeberger has to say about all that. And then I will try to figure out what quantum field of the Kobashigawa coils is responsible for all those problems. Try to figure out how to make them.

If you want to, even without my knack, with a powerful enough number cruncher and what I have done as a starting point you should be able to complete it. But seriously, there is no point. I have sufficiently proven that it can’t be correct. The rest… is unimportant.”

Gordon shrugged.

“Yeah, okay. It… well, this was a very firm part of my understanding of the universe for some time now. It is hard to let it go.”

“Understandable. But… there is nothing more that I can really do with it. It is simply wrong. And as such, of no more consequence.”

“Does that mean you will leave Jason like that?”

Tamara asked with a grim voice.

“Is there anything I can do for him? As I see it, I can only make it worse.”

After a moment of consideration, she shook her head.

“No… I don’t think you can help him much right now. Mind you, maybe this will finally push him over the edge and he will seek the help he needs.”

I shuddered when I understood what help she meant, but she continued apparently oblivious to my reaction.

“Well, we’ll see in two weeks then, right?”

“Yeah, unless you need something?”

“Nah. Have fun then.”

With those words, she logged out. I bid farewell to the others as well and did the same. Well, not out of the matrix, just out of the viron. I had things to do still.

After a quick message to arrange it, I met with Nate again.

“That was quick. I did not think you would need to meet with me that fast again.”

“Yeah. I think I’ve figured out a way to reconcile the fusactor problem with the laws of physics.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“It is actually quite simple. We have to stop treating the universe as an isolated system, and it is no longer a problem.”

He made a heavy sigh.

“I hate to tell you, Vivian, but…”

I raised a hand to stop him.

“Jason took great delight in informing me about Sokolov already. But remember what you said? If reality does not conform to your theory?

Reality tells us that either the second law of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy are wrong, or Sokolov is.”

He rubbed his chin in contemplation.

“That… you might be right. But it will be hard to prove that sufficiently to make an impact.”

I shook my head.

“No. That is what broke Jason. I’ve already proven that what Sokolov wrote can not be right.”

I sent him what I already had deciphered.

“It is telling that at least two of the equations have multiple solutions, with some of them not fitting into Sokolov’s neat construct.

But more important, look at θs! The first, fourth, fifth, and sixth equations need for it to be of one value, while the second and third need for it to be another.

However, the proof relies on all of the six equations using the same θs. It just does not work.”

He looked at it with a neutral expression for quite some time.

“I… see. I should have expected something like that. Just brilliant, another fine headache for my scientists. You’ve challenged their worldview way too much already, you know that?”

I shrugged.

“It can’t be helped if the worldview in question is just… inadequate. It does not describe reality, so it is wrong.”

“Hey, I agree. I might not have the high-powered brain that you have, but I try to be open. Well, they will adapt.”

“Hopefully better than Jason.”

And Nate slumped down.

“Ah, fuck. What has that boy done now?”

I shrugged.

“I think he had a nervous breakdown or something like that. Unfortunately, it seems that he based his self-esteem on being the oldest K4, the smartest, the one with the most achievements, and the one coming from the best family of all of us.”

He nodded in understanding.

“And you shattered three of those pillars simply by existing. I will make him get some help. Hopefully, it will catch. But… you are not just here to inform me, are you?”

I smiled ruefully.

“No… not really. I have looked at what I have to do, and in the end, it will be a large series of experiments.

Experiments that might be dangerous for humans. Experiments that could be a radiation hazard.

So, I need a place where I can do those experiments where no humans are around. Preferably a place where I can do nothing to make the environment any worse.

And where, if anything goes wrong, a large amount of rock and soil will prevent the damage from spreading.”

His eyes narrowed.

“You will not do any such dangerous experiments, young lady!”

For a moment I was pretty confused, but then I understood.

“Uh, the no humans around includes me. I will use remote-controlled bots to do the experiments.”

“Oh… ok, that is fine. You know, the best option would be to dig your facility into an asteroid then.”

“It won’t be that dangerous. The quantum fields that I will test out will have already been gone over theoretically forward and backward.

No, the problem is that I will need a neutron source. So there is a realistic danger of some serious irradiation.

So, a hole in the ground would be enough. And would allow me to start the experiments, and have the logistics of it, without waiting months until the interplanetary ship in question reaches the asteroid in question."

He closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded.

“Okay, so nothing too far out of the norm. I can live with that. You would neither be the first nor the last one to do experiments of that level here on Earth.

Did you have anything specific in mind?”

I shrugged.

“Either the deathlands, but there is a certain scarcity of large rock formations there, or some mostly uninhabited part of the Rockies. I personally would prefer the Rockies.

And oh, look, over a century of warfare has turned most of Colorado into a wasteland.”

“Well, yeah, it had. You know what, I can either give you Cheyenne Mountain or have you thought about Nevada? A desert, the population centers were hit hard in the great war, and the lack of a water source ripped it apart even more. So… the other option is Groom Lake. Both have some secure underground facilities, though you would need to rebuild them either way. But the hard work of excavating is already done.”

He was right. Nevada was also an option. But I think Cheyenne Mountain was the better one. For the bunker, it was no difference if it was tasked with keeping radiation out, or in.

And by the time of the great war, it was already so well known that it was almost immediately shut down and evacuated. The big bombs were strong enough to destroy it, even through the mountains, so the new facility relied on secrecy. Something neither Cheyenne Mountain nor Groom Lake could provide anymore.

“I think I will take Cheyenne Mountain. There should be considerably less damage.”