Siege by Mark Alpert

Author:Mark Alpert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2016-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

12

DeShawn is pretty clever with names, and he came up with a good one for our new laser. He calls it the Portable Over-Energized Weapon, or POW for short.

The latest prototype of the laser sits on a lab table in a big, windowless building that’s usually a hangar for cargo planes. The soldiers have hauled away all the aircraft to make room for our computers and machine tools and welding equipment. DeShawn hasn’t fitted the POW prototype into a steel case yet, so I can see all its parts on the table: the pump source (which supplies energy for the laser), the long slender resonator tube (where the laser beam is created), and the output coupler at the end of the tube (which aims the beam at its target). This is the first time I’ve seen the new POW, but I can tell right away that it’s different from all the prototypes DeShawn has built before. In fact, it’s completely unlike every other laser on Earth.

I point a steel finger at the device. “Okay, I give up. How the heck does it work? What’s the energy source?”

DeShawn shrugs, lifting his Einstein-bot’s shoulder joints. “The design is pretty simple, actually. The laser’s pump source generates positrons. You know, the antimatter versions of electrons, positive charge instead of negative, blah, blah, blah. Then the device shoots the positrons into the resonator tube, where the particles spin around ordinary electrons to form atoms of positronium.”

At first I have no idea what he’s talking about, but then I retrieve some of the databases in my memory. I’ve downloaded tons of information about particle physics and antimatter from my dad’s scientific archives, and it takes me less than a millisecond to analyze the files. When I’m finished, a bolt of wonder surges through my wires. “Whoa, wait a second. The positronium atoms are unstable, right? And you can trigger all of them to collapse at the same time?”

The Einstein-bot nods. It has a patient, serene expression on its plastic face, a replica of how Albert Einstein must’ve looked when he explained his theory of relativity. “Yes, that’s the basic concept. When the positronium atoms collapse, the electrons and positrons annihilate each other and produce a burst of gamma rays. All I did was synchronize the annihilations so that the gamma-ray energy comes out as a laser beam. It’s no big deal, really.”

“Are you kidding? It’s a huge freakin’ deal! Gamma rays are the most powerful radiation in the universe!”

“Yeah, true that. But the big question is how far the laser will reach. It won’t be much of a weapon if it can’t destroy anything that’s more than a few yards away.”

I retrieve some more files and do a little more analysis. “Are you worried about penetrating power? You think the laser beam will lose energy as it blasts through the air molecules between the weapon and the target?”

DeShawn nods again. Then he points at the POW’s output coupler, the laser’s firing end. It’s aimed at the steel wall at the far end of the hangar, almost sixty yards away.

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