UnAlive by Kevin J. Fitzgerald

Author:Kevin J. Fitzgerald [Fitzgerald, Kevin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-23T05:00:00+00:00

Anyone listening would have heard REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” play loud and clear.

In the booth, there were growls and snarls and the sound of ripping flesh.

But there were no screams. Jeremiah Jones was already dead.

When the song concluded, only the sound of static came over the ham radio.

PART II:

HOPE

CHAPTER 32

6:01 PM EST – TODAY:

Dr. Thomas stopped the digital voice recorder and looked around the war-room. Everyone was silent. Susan Grey bounced a pencil up and down between her fingers. General Grady stared at him, his lips pursed tightly. They had just finished listening to a number of Dr. Thomas’ audio-logs supporting his pronouncement that the world was ending.

“Dr. Thomas,” the General said slowly. “Just how the hell is any of that possible?”

“Well,” Thomas said and went to a nearby whiteboard. “This may take a while, but…” He drew an equation and pointed. “The second law of thermodynamics. Which states that the entropy of an isolated system will never decrease, because isolated systems always evolve toward a state of maximum entropy. Entropy being that thermodynamic quantity representing a lack of order or predictability.”

“For instance,” Susan looked around the room. “Heat always flows from a region of higher temperature to lower temperature, and never the reverse.”

“Right,” Thomas said. “Or friction will never produce any positive work. Any time there is friction there is always a wearing away, and never a building up.”

“And this is a theory?” a gruff, white-haired man asked—Colonel Harding.

“No,” Thomas said quickly. “The second law of thermodynamics is an empirically validated postulate. That’s … why it’s a law.” He continued: “So in essence, entropy speaks of a gradual decline into disorder—or decay. And according to this law,” he pointed at the white-board again, “it will never decrease.”

“I don’t understand,” another man broke in—Commander Earnest Preston. “This seems to fly in the face of evolution.”

Dr. Thomas leaned over the table and smiled. “That’s a conversation for another day.” He took the spinning-top Sallah had given him and spun it on the table. “If I were to take my son’s spinning-top and spin it on the table, it would eventually stop spinning, right? In fact, the only way to keep it spinning would be to constantly keep applying energy. This is known as perpetual motion. Perpetual motion describes motion that continues indefinitely without any external source of energy, which is impossible, because friction and other sources of energy will always wear out, unless they are artificial.”

Susan added, “It’s a scientific consensus that perpetual motion is unachievable because it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics.”

“What about the planets?” Harding said. “Last I checked they were still spinning.”

“Ah!” Dr. Thomas held up his hand. “Cases of what we call ‘apparent’ perpetual motion do exist in nature, but they are not truly perpetual. For example, the rotation of the planets—excellent example—may appear perpetual, but they are actually subjected to many exterior forces. Such as solar winds, gravitation, thermal radiation, electro-magnetic—”

“Where are you going with all this?” Grady said.

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