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Prose Nocturnes: Zero Sum, Summa Cum Laude
Yes, Sir, the final form of the hypothesis was delivered to the military liason this morning, with testing scheduled later today. This theory of the ultimate weapon---a kind of doomsday mechanism for defensive purposes only---operated not by fusion or fission but by exploiting a potential weakness in the bonds of quantum particles, creating a deconsistence far more devestating in sum than a radiocactive detonation.
I had been, ostensibly, the professor's research assistant; covertly, her handler, with direct, personal contact to the chief of staff in the White House and the Secretary of Defense. The theoretical disrelationships she had proposed some twenty years ago as a brilliant graduate student had attracted the interest of military planners, in their intense effort to acquire a weapon providing greater political leverage because of its greater potentital for physical damage.
A call from the White House instructed me to bring the professor at once, to watch, by remote television, the first testing of the device. I found her in the file room behind her office, slumped back in the swivel chair, her throat cut and the razor still clutched in her hand. She had left a note---the handwriting was jagged and shaky.
"I do not wish to see the actual results of my work. The years of bullying---from my earliest memories forward; the names, many profane, that I was called; the inflamatory whispers behind my back and the nasty jokes to my face: these are the justification of the monstrosity I have created. It cannot be, and need not be, tested. The test attempt will be its unleashing, its activation. The process is self-sustaining, and cannot be reversed.
I began to tremble, so much that the notepaper rattled in my hand. We had found a new form of destruction: uncontained and uncontrollable; not just our neighbor, or our neighbor's neighbor, but the very fabric of the world could be shredded.
I have nothing more to tell you, Mr. President, and no solution to offer. Do you hear and feel the vibration? It is in everything: the floors, the walls, the objects on a desk, the wallet in your pocket. In a way, it sounds like a plaintive moan, the final objection of an insulted world, about to be reduced---not just to ash or cinders, or a radioactive cloud . . . but to nothing.
