"<What do you mean, all extra-Soviet flights are grounded?! That's ridiculous!>" Alanna fumed. She was normally quite good at keeping a cool head; but this crossed the line.
"<I'm sorry, ma'am, that's how it is,>" the woman at the airport said meekly. "<Please, you have to understand, it's for security reasons.>"
"<Security reasons my ass! If I'm going to be held prisoner in a foreign fuckin' country, at least be honest about the reasons,>" she shouted.
"<L-look, miss, there's nothing I can do. There are no planes. Shouting will not change that,>" the poor girl stammered, practically cowering.
"<Christ! Just unbelievable,>" Alanna cursed, storming off.
Her rational side knew that the woman was right. If all flights had been ordered cancelled, no amount of shouting at the lady selling tickets was going to change that. And more depressingly, there wasn't anything she could do about leaving the country at all, likely. If they were seriously making an effort to lock down the border, there wasn't anything that she, one woman, could do.
By the time she'd gotten in a cab, headed back to the hotel, she had calmed down and had turned from furious to just plain sulky. How long are they going to keep it that way? she wondered. Probably for as long as this war lasts. She didn't like that thought. No US-Soviet war had ever been short, and German wars didn't exactly have historical precedence for being wrapped up quickly, either.
Just to be sure, she tried calling out with her cell phone; sure enough, a female voice informed her that "<We are currently unable to connect your call to the United States due to an American-lead communication blackout. As we have no control over American affairs, we are unable to promise when international calling will be available.>"
She somehow had difficulty believing that. She was unsurprised, but certainly worried; she had been in Russia all the time, sure, but now the first world wasn't just a flight away. Nor did she have anyone to call to get advice from, or take orders from, or... anything. Her safety net was gone, and she was alone now.
"<Are you okay, Miss?>" the cab driver asked.
"<Huh?>" Alanna was confused, until she realized she had started to cry a bit. "<Oh...,>" she rubbed her palms against her eyes, drying them. "<Yeah, I'm fine.>"
"<If you say so,>" he shrugged.
Two days in the Moscow hotel and Alanna was a wreck. She knew that her
money wasn't going to last forever; certainly not nearly as long as her stay
in the country was. She spent the two days drinking and listening to the
radio. On the third day, she stopped bothering to listen to the radio; it
was obtusely propaganda, straight up, and while she doubted most Western
stations wouldn't have their own heavy spin (at least, during this stage of
the war), she couldn't stand it.
She decided against the drinking, too. She knew, she needed to do something. She wasn't really weak, she reminded herself, stuck in a shitty situation over her head or not, she was still a talented journalist with connections. And more importantly, she told herself, I've still got a job to do. And a Pulitzer to win.
She dumped out the contents of Alexander's box on the bed, digging through them to figure out what she should do next. A disc in a case with foreign writing on it, a diary full of insane ramblings, a series of sketches with diagrams and scientific equations on them. It was most indecipherable mess imaginable; all equally incomprehensible, for completely different reasons.
"Focus," she told herself, looking over them all. Nothing will ever make that diary make sense, that's right out, she thought, but I can get a linguist for the case, and a scientist for the sketches. Furthermore, as she thought about it, she knew exactly what her priorities had to be. Given Yazawa's ancestry, she was certain that the writing on it had to be Chinese. She had no idea where to find a Chinese translator, but she did know where to find a physicist.
She packed up the CD and diary, and dumped them right into her purse, before neatly folding the sketches into her computer's paper tray, so they wouldn't get damaged.
Alanna left the hotel room and hit the streets, opting to walk, rather than rent another car. Given that she was disconnected from the rest of the world, she knew that she had to be careful with her money. There was no more just phoning in for a money transfer now, so the car was the first luxury to go.
She took down the streets slowly, following the directions that the hotel receptionist had given her, to an address she'd had written in her notebook but never actually visited.
Travelling on foot was a whole new experience for her. Downtown Moscow suddenly seemed a whole lot bigger, in an intimidating sense. Everything around her was big and imposing, from the architecture, to the several lanes of traffic zipping by. And it hadn't quite clicked in with her until she'd walked a good half a block: it was really, really, fucking cold.
She knew that Russian winter was bad, as sort of an academic point. Everyone knew that land invasions of Russia were always doomed to fail because they could just hold out until winter, where the invaders would invariably freeze. That much, she was familiar with. But it was just a bit of academic knowledge, not something she had experienced first hand; so it had never really dawned on her that it also meant that even in autumn, she needed a heavier coat than what she had now.
She could not get over how absolutely freezing it was; she kept on walking, though, since she knew there wasn't any alternative. It took her an hour of walking in the cold for her to reach her destination, with no thanks to her terrible sense of direction.
Alanna stood in front of the storefront at the address she had written down; it was a bakery. Shrugging, she walked in. It was small inside, and thankfully, very warm. There was a cooler with drinks to one side, but the that aside, every shelf and wall was filled with baskets full of pastries and loaves of bread. It smelled great.
"<Can I help you?>" an middle-aged Russian woman behind the counter asked.
"Ah," Alanna snapped back to reality, walking towards her. "<Hi... I'm looking for Dr. Simon?>"
The woman turned hostile instantly. "<Who? There's nobody named that here,>" she said immediately, completely unconvincingly.
"<Look... you can trust me,>" Alanna tried saying. "<He's in hiding, right? I'm not going to turn you in.>"
"<I don't know him. Leave. Now,>" the woman said, glaring at her.
Alanna stared back at her, angrily. She didn't need this.
"<Leave where?!>" she shouted, slamming her hands against the counter in front of her, letting go of any restraint she may have been showing over her accent. "<I'd love to just pack up and take off to the nice warm safety of my home, but in case you hadn't noticed, they're stopping foreigners at the border. What, you think I'm going to go to the militia if you tell me he's here?!>"
"<Yes,>" she said without raising her voice, not intimidated at all.
"<I'm not. Jesus, I don't fucking believe it!>" Alanna snapped. She was in no way calm, but it was all she could do to stop from breaking down entirely. So she might've handled things a bit differently, a bit more rationally, if she was calmer; she might've thought of some way of convincing the woman she was harmless that was safer. But right now she was beyond that, so she didn't give it a whole lot more thought.
"<Every single person seems to think I'm some sort of American spy. Certainly the whole Soviet thinks so; I can't travel, I can't have money transfered, I can't communicate with anyone outside the country! But you-- no, of course not. You're the only person who doesn't seem to think that I'm secretly on the CIA payroll, out to undermine the stability of the government in a time of war,>" she snarled.
"<Well, you know what? It's true,>" Alanna said, furiously. "<Everyone else is fucking right about me. I really am an evil, American spy, here to gather information and report back to Washington. Except I can't do that, because amazingly enough, their dragnet actually worked and I am stuck in this country, cut off from all ties to the US. I'm being perfectly honest here because I'm fucked, totally, proper fucked; either someone really will catch on and I'll get shot and thrown in some unmarked grave, or I'll just end up dying of exposure in the winter when the money runs out.>"
The woman hadn't backed off, but she didn't say a word. Alanna took a deep breath.
"<So,>" Alanna said, trying to keep herself together, "<do you still think I'm going to turn Dr. Simon over to the militia?>"
The woman stayed silent for another good moment.
"<That's an unbelievable story. You're not crying,>" she said at last. I'm god damned close to it. That's it-- she doesn't believe me because I'm not fucking crying? Alanna thought, but the woman continued. "<If you were really here to betray us, you would have a more plausible story and a more emotional display. I believe you.>"
Alanna was about to shout back that it was bullshit, and that of course, it was the truth-- then stopped, her jaw dropping a bit in disbelief, as she realized that the woman did believe her story. The woman behind the counter smiled just a bit.
"<I will take you to him. Come with me,>" she said. She walked around the counter to the front of the store, and after flipping around a sign in the window, she threw on her heavy jacket and lead Alanna outside, locking up behind her.
They walked around into the alley beside the store, walking around back to a large storage shed. The woman opened the lock, and after moving a few things inside out of the way, opened the trap door in the floor, leading Alanna down a flight of unsafe seeming stairs; barely more than wobbly planks of wood nailed in, really. At the bottom of the stairs was a dead end, with a wooden door on one of the walls. The woman knocked.
"<Dr. Simon? I've brought you a visitor,>" she announced. "<Don't worry, she is safe.>"
After a minute, there was a noise of something heavy being moved, and the door opened. Alanna had never seen the face of the man standing just inside the doorway before, but she was completely unsurprised. Dr. Simon was a small, old Jewish man with funny hair and a white coat; exactly as she had imagined him as looking to a T.
"<Come in,>" he said pleasantly. He had a bit of an accent, but she couldn't quite place it.
"<Take care, Doctor. I have to get back to the shop now, but I'll be by later,>" the woman said, turning away.
"<Bye!>" he waved.
"<Thank you,>" Alanna said to her. The woman smiled and disappeared back up the stairs.
"Please, do come in," he said. It was comforting to hear someone talking in English again; it gave her just a bit of grounding that she needed, after suddenly being completely cut off from the English speaking Western world. "If Ani says you're trustworthy, then that's good enough for me."
"Thank you, Dr. Simon," she said, following him inside.
"Please, just call me Jacob," he told her, closing the door and putting the metal bar back across. As he lead in inside, he asked, "I'm sorry, I don't believe I've been told your name?"
"Alanna Cassner," she said. "You've probably heard of me, but hopefully not my name. I'm Lilian Knopf's agent."
"Really!" he exclaimed. "I've heard lots about you; it's wonderful to finally meet you... although I don't suppose it's a good thing for you."
He lead her inside, walking into a small room with full whiteboards covering the walls, the little floor space filled with a drafting table, a wide desk, an old, but comfortable looking office chair, and another chair in the corner that looked like it was from a kitchen set. The desk was an absolute mess, papers and mugs littered all over the place.
"No... it's not," she said with a sigh. "It's awful."
"I know exactly what you mean," he replied, and she knew he did; he probably had it worse, even, since at least the militia wasn't specifically looking for her yet. "Do have a seat," he said, sitting down in the nicer chair. She pulled up the kitchen chair and sat across from him.
"So how can I help you, Alanna?"
"There's a couple things," she said, it occuring to her that he could help her in multiple ways. "My local contact network's totally shot, ever since the Embassy scandal. Everyone I know personally was either arrested, mysteriously vanished, or fled the country... and I can't contact Washington at all."
He paused, thinking.
"Well, I can't give you addresses or numbers... but the local opposition group has sort-of weekly meetings. The location and day of week change constantly, but I can tell you where the next will be as soon as I find out," he promised.
"Thanks," she said.
"So what's this other thing?"
"It's what I really came for-- I don't know if it's within your field or not, but you're the only scientist in Moscow I know, so I figure it's worth a shot," she started.
"I've been told I'm pretty smart," he said with a smile. "Try me."
"Okay. What's an atomic bomb?"
"A... what? An atomic bomb?" he seemed surprised and confused.
"Yeah. I mean, I know what atomic means... but do you know what an atomic bomb is? I don't think it's anything that any military actually actively uses right now, if that helps," she explained.
"No," he said, a puzzled tone to his voice. "No, of course not. It's because there's no such thing."
"There's not?" she asked, wondering how he could be so sure; she asked.
"I've only ever heard the term used in a science fiction story," he answered. "The idea was it was a bomb that used nuclear power, only instead of using the energy to heat water, it expands outwards, vaporizing everything in the blast radius, and irradiating all its surroundings. A single one could destroy half a city."
"Wow," Alanna said, "that's incredible."
"Well, yes. It is quite literally incredible," he replied. "It's not real, it's science fiction. No single bomb could ever really be that powerful, it's not possible."
Alanna took a moment for that to register, imagining what a single weapon with so much destructive power would mean. It blew her mind... a single bomb, half a city?
"You could destroy a whole country with an arsenal of them," she said, an amazed look on her face.
"That was how the story went, yes, but... it's not really possible. What the author didn't realize was that nuclear plants are absolutely enormous," he said, gesturing with his hands. "It'd be impossible to make a nuclear weapon that powerful. I mean, it's a critical misunderstanding of why nuclear power is impressive; it's not the energy output, it's the cost. But... you can't just take a nuclear reactor and put it into a bomb and expect it to output energy the same way. Splitting uranium just doesn't work that way. It's ridiculous."
"Hm," Alanna said, thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not a scientist, that's why I came here. But... what would you say if I told you I had what a KGB agent sincerely believed to be the plans for an atomic bomb?"
He paused. "I'd say he was crazy. But you've certainly got my interest... go on," he said after a moment.
"Just a second," she said, taking the sheets out of the computer, handing them and the notebook over to him. "Can you tell me what you make of these?"
"Sure," he said, flipping through the pages. "I'll look right now, in fact."
He put on a pair of reading glasses and spread out the sheets across the drafting table, starting to examine them. She waited patiently; she couldn't gauge his reaction at all.
He turned around on his chair to face her again.
"Excuse me," he said, "But since you're just sitting there anyway... could you please be a dear and make some coffee?"
Alanna blinked. She couldn't think of any reason why not-- well, aside from the fact that she had no idea how, but she had no desire to admit that. "Sure," she said.
"The kitchen's just around that corner," he pointed. "There should be a tin out on the counter already. Double cream and double sugar, please."
"Um, alright," Alanna said, taking her bag reflexively and going into the kitchen. Oh, god, she realized in horror, I'm picking up Sachiko's mannerisms now.
"Thanks!" he called out from the other room. Alanna looked around, trying to figure out what the hell she was doing.
The kitchen was about the size of a closet. All it had was a tiny fridge, a counter that had a sink on one side, with several cabinets above, and an old microwave and coffee maker on the other side-- with barely half a metre of space between the counter and the wall behind her. The microwave looked like it was straight out of the '60s, and the coffee maker may have actually been an antique. She wondered dimly how safe a microwave oven from the 2060s could even be; they weren't nearly as concerned with radiation safety back then as they were now.
But sure enough, there was a tin of coffee grounds sitting on the counter. She poked around with the antique coffee maker for what felt like a good ten minutes, in perfect silence. It was odd; she'd never been anywhere so quiet before, not even on the open road, where there was the sound of birds and the whurring of the car ever constant. She only broke the silence to pour water in, hoping desperately that she was doing it right.
After another five minutes of awkwardly trying to figure out what to do, she walked out triumphantly, with two mugs full of coffee that could only be described as a rather sickly shade of brown. She wasn't sure if that was her own fault or just the beans-- well, actually, she did know exactly whose fault it was, but pretended otherwise-- but told herself that it was the best she could do under the circumstances anyway.
Dr. Simon was standing up, scribbling frantically on one of the whiteboards.
"Here," she said, trying to catch his attention. He turned around, looking very excited; and took the mug from her.
"Thank you! This is-- this is incredible," he waved at a series of numbers he'd written on the board. "I don't know if it quite all adds up yet, but... these notes are so detailed and it all seems right. I... I've got to check some things, I'll need a computer to model it-- but... well, I think this may actually pan out!"
"Really," she said, surprised. She'd never seen a man so excited in her life-- never. "But I thought you said just a while ago that an atomic bomb was just science fiction."
"Right, I did... because causing a sustained fission reaction in uranium is incredibly difficult. It requires the use of a neutron moderator, such as deuterium oxide, otherwise it'll just absorb faster than--" he explained giddily, stopping as he realized that Alanna was looking completely confused.
"Sorry," he said. "What I mean is... basically, the way nuclear power works, is that a uranium atom splits apart, then the split parts fly off and split other atoms, and so forth, causing a huge chain reaction. Right?"
"That I get," she nodded.
"Okay. But-- what I was trying to say is, it's not really that simple. Basically... uranium doesn't lend well to it. You can break a few apart, but then they start to slow down too much to break others; it's hard to keep that chain reaction going. That's why it's impossible outside of a heavy water nuclear reactor," he explained, dumbing it down. "Right?"
"I'll take your word for it," she said. "That much makes sense to me."
"Alright. That's what modern nuclear science says," he continued. "But... suppose you had an atom where splitting it apart really was that simple. It breaks apart, but then its pieces start to go so fast, they can split apart others, too."
"So...," Alanna said, absorbing that, "You can make the chain reaction without needing reactor conditions."
"Exactly!" he exclaimed, excitedly. "It's still highly controlled, of course, but it means the reaction's incredibly more powerful-- enough to make an atomic bomb a possibility."
"So why hasn't anyone made one before?" she asked. "Why is he the only one?"
"Well, that atom I told you about? Well, it does technically exist. There's theoretical evidence to suggest that uranium has several long living isotopes that could have those qualities, actually," he answered, writing on the whiteboard: 'Regular Uranium -- U-238, Bomb Uranium -- U-235'.
"Then... I'm confused," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. It tasted disgusting, but she was too busy trying to understand. "I thought the reason why it was impossible was because that atom didn't exist."
"It's not non-existent, theoretically-- just infeasible to obtain. It's never been directly observed, but one of the leading theories to explain one of the nuances of nuclear reactions is that a tiny, tiny fraction, less than a single percent, is this special isotope," he tried to explain. "But I mean, it's an obscure, very academic point. It's impossible to isolate significant quantities of it, so you can't study it.
"But this... this is why these notes are incredible," he continued, grinning. "He's studied it! I don't know if the math quite adds up yet, I don't have the journal that uranium isotope theory was published on onhand... but it seems to fit. But it goes on to explain an observed, fission reaction using it! It's not just a crazy shot in the dark, it's... it's the perfect extension of this solid-but-obscure theory about a bit of nuclear trivia!"
Alanna just nodded. She wasn't quite sure she understood why he was so confident, but she seemed to catch his mood pretty well.
"There's... just one thing I don't understand," he said. "Who wrote this? I can understand why he wouldn't want it published-- think of the destructive power of the US and Soviet Union having atomic bombs-- but... why go through all the studying, report on the qualities of U-235, draw up a design for this bomb... then sit on it?"
"I really don't know," she said. "That's my big question."
"I'd love to meet this guy."
"That much, I know isn't possible," Alanna said, sitting down on the kitchen chair. "He died sometime in the mid-20th century."
"Really now... I wonder," he said thoughtfully, giving pause.
"What?"
"Well, it's just, do you know when the first nuclear research was done?" he asked.
"Uh... I'm not really that big on the field, but... it was the 1980s, wasn't it?" she asked, uncertainly. "Yeah, that's right, 1980s-- there was a brief detente, then the Canadians basically ended it by revealing their new type of power plant that didn't leave any waste; that was what caused that whole spy-counterspy shitstorm that started the Three Year War."
He looked surprised. He wasn't actually expecting an answer. "History buff, huh," he said.
"Well, it's my job."
"Still." He blinked. "Anyway, still, that's not really quite right; the first nuclear development was really in the 1940s, during World War II. The Manhattan Project was started to research the feasibility of nuclear weapons; that isotope had been theorized at even that point, but they concluded that atomic weaponry wouldn't be practical, because regular uranium wouldn't do it, and even if that isotope existed, there was no way of refining it. Then government scientists were too distracted with the Space Race to revisit fission as a means of generating power until the 1980s."
"Huh, you don't say," she said.
"It just got me thinking, when you said mid-20th century... he must've been pretty much contemporary to the Manhattan Project scientists. I wonder what he got that they missed."
"I wonder," Alanna repeated.
He sat down, finally taking a sip of his coffee. Alanna watched in terror, but fortunately, he said nothing after concluding it had "Gone cold," and put it to the side.
They chatted for a while, neither having any more ideas as to the mystery of the atomic bomb notes. Every so often the Doctor would have a thoughtful look on his face, but it lead to no epiphanies each time.
"So," he finally said, changing the subject. "What are your plans now? Seems like you're stuck in a bad position."
"I don't know," Alanna answered, frowning. "I've got a hotel room, but money's going to run short for that incredibly soon, and then I'll have no way of getting out of the city.
"Also, I don't have a winter coat," she grumbled quietly.
He nodded. "Well," he said, "You should talk to-- actually, I'll do it for you. She likes me a lot, she'll help you out if it's me asking. Getting accomodations should be no problem, if you don't mind helping out with some things."
"Sure," Alanna answered, smiling. "I'm no freeloader, and I can both sweep floors and make C4."
"Really?" he said, laughing. She mouthed 'no', and laughed too.
"Well, it's the thought that counts," he concluded.
Alanna checked out of her hotel room that night.