The Zero Game

68

“Hold on,” I say. “You’re telling me people could smash some neutrinos against some…”

“Neptunium…” Minsky says.

“… neptunium, and suddenly create a batch of plutonium?”

“I’m not saying they’ve done it — at least not yet — but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was working along those lines… at least on paper.”

He’s speaking with the calmness of someone who thinks it’s still theoretical. Viv and I know better. We saw it with our own eyes. The sphere… the accelerator… even the tetrachloroethylene… That’s what Wendell’s building down there — that’s why they wanted to keep it so quiet. If word got out they were trying to create plutonium… there’s no way it’d make it through the process.

“But no one can do that yet, right?” Viv asks, trying to convince herself. “It’s not possible…”

“Don’t say that in these halls,” Minsky teases. “Theoretically, anything’s possible.”

“Forget whether it’s possible,” I say. “Assuming you could do it, how feasible is it to pull it off? Is neptunium even accessible, or is it just as hard to find?”

“Now that’s the vital question,” Minsky says, knighting me with his paperclip. “For the most part, it’s a rare earth metal, but neptunium-237 is a by-product from nuclear reactors. Here in the U.S., since we don’t reprocess our spent nuclear fuel, it’s hard to get your hands on. But in Europe and Asia, they reprocess massive amounts.”

“And that’s bad?” Viv asks.

“No, what’s bad is that global monitoring of neptunium only began in 1999. That leaves decades of neptunium unaccounted for. Who knows what happened during those years? Anybody could have it by now.”

“So it’s out there?”

“Absolutely,” Minsky says. “If you know where to look, there’s lots of unaccounted-for neptunium that’s there for the taking.”

As the consequences hit, I squirm in my seat, wiping my sweaty hands against the sides of the seat cushion. Minutes ago, I was pretending to be uncomfortable. I’m no longer faking it. Whatever branch of the government Wendell Mining really is, the news isn’t gonna be good.

“Can I just ask one question?” Viv says. “I heard what you said — I know it’s possible, and I realize you can get neptunium — but for one second, can we just talk about the likelihood? I mean, studying neutrinos — that’s a small field, right? There can only be a handful of people who are even capable of putting something like this together… So when you add that all up, and you look around the neutrino community, wouldn’t… wouldn’t you know if something like this were going on?”

Minsky again scratches at his beard. His social skills are too off to read Viv’s panic, but he understands the question. “Have you ever heard of Dr. James A. Yorke?” he finally asks. We both shake our heads. I can barely sit still. “He’s the father of chaos theory — even coined the term,” Minsky continues. “You’ve heard the metaphor, correct? — that a butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong can cause a hurricane in Florida? Well, as Yorke puts it, that means if there’s even one butterfly you don’t know about, it’s impossible to predict the weather on a long-term basis. One tiny butterfly. And, as the man says, there’ll always be one butterfly.”

The words collide like a sack of doorknobs. I talked Matthew into flapping his wings… and now Viv and I are swirling through the hurricane.

“It’s a big world out there,” Minsky adds, staying with Viv. “I can’t possibly account for everyone in my field. Does that make sense, Miss — I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“We should get going,” I say, hopping to my feet.

“I thought the Congressman was on his way?” Minsky asks as we head for the door.

“We’ve already got what we needed.”

“But the briefing…”

It’s amazing, really. We just dropped poorly hid hints about a government project that could create plutonium, and he’s still worried about face time. God, what’s wrong with this town? “I’ll be sure to tell him how helpful you were,” I add, whipping the door open and motioning Viv outside.

“Please send him my best,” Minsky calls out.

He says something else, but we’re already up the hallway, running for the elevators.

“So where’re we going?” Viv asks.

The one place Janos thinks we’ll never go. “The Capitol.”