Chapter 10
Vince awoke in a cold rank sweat to a scatter of disjointed thoughts. The chilling stickiness drove deep into his empty zone, his absence of anything. The night time, that time when the unconscious ruled all and when anything went. When there was no one home, but you. Alone. With all focus disabled, dream space was exposed as an easy target. A dream had rushed him directly at cliff face, but without smashing there he had been stopped abruptly. By what? He swore under his breath. A theory of relativity moment maybe—he frowned—he didn’t do physics. The nuclear world since Einstein had an alternate power source but people also dropped bombs and entertained Cold Wars.
He blinked at the dim ceiling, gradually tuning in to the air fan whirl.
This project was pure engineering, no theoretical science or was it? If not research the design tests were certainly attempting something. For Preliminary, they had effectively manufactured an artificial mini volcano. In effect, they had released a sunshine shield, a parasol to cool one tiny part of the planet. A sulphur dioxide release to atmosphere for Initialize could be classified as first trial of a major release process. They were certainly running their tests out of lab in a country with minimal atmospheric restriction.
He needed focus, on engineering. An infogram brief had reminded him sulphur dioxide could be bulk sourced from oilfield operations, anything like a refinery or gas processing plant. You sprayed emissions gas with sodium hydroxide or soap to wash the sulphur out of gas form, and the sulphur gas was then stored as a low pressure liquid. Sulphate gas had industrial uses, like a PH controller or a heat transfer refrigerant. Most produced in Alberta was simply released to atmosphere, and what was captured was shipped out of province.
His mind drifted to picture that cliff face, one of those fractal dreams. His fractal angel. A warning of danger, or message hope? From God?
God. How could there be a God, there had to be gods. One god put together the laws of physics, the rules that held the universe together, but those laws did nothing to fill his emptiness. All that scientific evidence for a creator, and even one with vested interest in those created. He needed a personal god, not just a belief or so-called faith, but a real angel helper. A friend on his side. He needed a peace of mind god, or even the god of that much lauded love. Dream on, he thought, affection maybe, but he would settle for peace of any kind. But, rational thinking suggested a god might use assistants, angels, perhaps his angel had kept him from collision.
A designed universe needed be bigger than physics. There could be help for humans. Maybe. Take the whole story of energy. Just when people deforested Europe, they discovered coal, and then oil and gas, and other hidden energy sources like nuclear. People believed in their own ingenuity of course, but take the ozone crisis timing and now the carbon dilemma. Had the time been allowed? Allotted? From what he was learning about climate change, maybe there was help-along design. If most proven hydrocarbon reserves had to stay in the ground—he had missed that International Energy Agency report a couple decades back. To stay below two degrees. But a lot of high profile decision makers knew. So, were people being gifted with a soft crisis, an attainable adjustment? A meteor or an all out nuclear conflict would end it all in a flash. But to be given a time frame along with technology allowing awareness, well, that could be guidance. The timing was Goldilocks, just right, allowing people a chance to cooperate and even bring on one of Brad’s positive scenarios.
Was there a global fractal angel guide? Focus, engineering.
People needed to play around with what they knew like they always did and see if they could find an easy way out. An easy chemistry fix in this case. Their project release was to upper atmosphere, the stratosphere, that he now knew was very low pressure and very cold. But there, once dumped, the SO2 mixed with naturally occurring water to form sulphuric acid. Which then gradually formed into an aerosol. Which diffused some sunshine, and like these historical volcanic emissions, cooled the planet. Temporarily.
He sat up to grasp the water glass from the bedside table.
So what was he doing here? He had a feeling a big decision was coming on, and he would be the one deciding not just on the sulphur supply.
The optimal scenario for his engineering task of setting up the sulphur dioxide supply was pretty clear. They’ll be releasing three tons that morning, the Initialize phase, but they've been completely stocked for that by whoever had been there before. If they continued, next was Phase I. Now for that he would need to have a lot of tonnage in place. But basic engineering, he would reverse calculate to supply side and ramp up the Initialize. He took a drink and sighed.
His mother had always chided him on his sensitivity, his indecision, and on being so slow to grow up. The tears came so easy to him, for any sad song, any touching moment, so easily influenced by the needs of those around—he needed a thicker skin, a rhinoceros hide. That never happened yet, if anything with his daughter now around, the reverse. But there had been a couple times, in traumatic moments when everyone else was freaking out but everything for him became fractal and calm and the best path to take was crystal clear.
All that said, was his math angel attempting a calculated reality check? Was his math angel an engineer?
He never forgot how as a boy he heard his father talking to his uncle. They were drinking late and dad talked about his experience. That one time he had seen all in calculus. “You look at something moving and you see freeze frame pictures. Fractals. You have no choice, you see everything defined by pi,” his father told Uncle Lou. “Then you start to love everyone. Too much for me.” He got another beer. But Vince never forgot—‘cause it explained what he had seen as a young man. More than once. When he saw a rainbow from time to time he literally looked into the geometry of the number pi. His pi angel. And his empathy level intensified until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Pi was the root of everything mathematical, his fractal angel. Pi turns up everywhere, in the formula for the period of a pendulum, or the force between two electric charges, or the power of a shockwave. And that’s only the beginning. Not that he could talk to anyone about it.
Images flooded in of the meeting in Calgary with that foreign service company. Whatever name they used, their front had been first contact on this project. The specs they supplied were limited and the project rationale vaguely specified. The extensive non-disclosure agreements were business overhead, but the pay and the sequence of potential contract extensions brought bonus sparkles to his father’s eyes. He signed a confidentiality agreement with a Nigerien government department—he hadn’t heard of the High Impact Consortium before arriving in Niamey. He had covered GeoChem sideline government contracts in the past classified as atmospheric. His father knew of his interest, and had perhaps made the business decision calculating in the extra thrill to hedge keeping him in the family company.
He needed an angel, but more than just math vision. His default feelings had ever been programmed negative, his dreams endlessly crashing into solid wall endings. Optimism was a choice; just focus on happy thoughts the psych people said. Brad had that wired in solid. Theoretically, he had heard, it took as much energy to hate as to love. But how do you quantify either of those? One could, through fierce determination, control how they thought and then influence how they felt. In spite of it all he had never had any option but to struggle to escape, always an uphill struggle, slipping and sliding. His target unfairly was Brad’s natural setting. With pitted endeavour, he achieved brief forays into the foreign wilderness, glimpses of happiness beyond that cliff wall.
He remembered now, this dream had been a train, rushing at the painted image of a non-existent tunnel entrance. Yet the train had transitioned in a flash of light, and the light became more German than math angel. He had made that decision in Frankfurt, or had the decision been made for him? The Calgary client left that promo Hologram, timed to peep him at Starbucks. Come to Vauban Holo-characters danced and sang of a bullet train ride at triple highway speed. No cost. And he had gon
e. With nothing in mind but more distractive focus, he boarded the Intercity Express, that ICE train to Freiburg, mesmerized by the outside zipping past. Whatever got him on that train, the focus transitioned to what he could now picture. Citizens well dressed, living in fine housing, certainly with at least a Calgary lifestyle. But so many differences. The sidewalks were crowded, there were streams of cyclists and the cars buzzing about the streets looked so miniature. Not one SUV, certainly no four-wheel-drive, not one dual axle ton-and-a-half like he saw in Calgary streets. What every southern Alberta cowboy minus a horse needed. He had wondered, as he found needed distraction in the pamphlet tour of houses. Producing more energy than they consumed, net zero the Hologram repeated. A message of hope, but fear too—not good for Alberta energy companies. He felt deeply peaceful in Freiburg, and after eating checked in for a shower and five hours sleep. But on the train back to Frankfurt, his gripe list of his wife’s spending habits set back in, extra intensified.
He could picture his daughter living a good life in that German city. Maybe that god of angels sent his fractal messenger to get him on that train.
At times he had invited whatever was out there to help fill his emptiness. Fractal angel visits were sporadic. At other times he screamed at it, loudly. Whatever god doles out in unconditional love to his inner being.
What path you choose, you can always justify. That much he knew from listening to his father and watching other people. If a big choice came up he could make it and then come up with a reason. A reason that felt right and one he had discussed with his imagined angel. Could this Brad guy be another angel messenger phase? The guy knew math. He would understand that nothing does not break down into pi. He would get it that pi was an irrational number and could not be expressed as a function.
He just needed bide his time focused on this project. Back to engineering. So then, the chemistry. At ten degrees below Celsius and at normal air pressure, sulphur dioxide condensed. But when compressed to just over car tire pressure the gas would condense at thirty degrees above. So you move sulphur product in bulk by the tonne which required railcars or tanker trucks. Once transported you stored it under low pressure in liquid form. He felt the relief of his focus. To keep his mind on one topic, that was meditation. Like a standard twelve foot diameter vessel seventy feet long held two hundred and sixty tonnes. So a storage yard contained horizontal cylindrical vessels easily holding hundreds or thousands of tonnes.
He needed to get enough sulphur available in storage for whatever phase came up. Setting that engineering calculation task solid in mind he dozed off.