“Ugh, that’s never good,” Flipside said.
Lipton nodded. “Precisely.”
“Unchecked confidence,” Asher said in a matter-of-fact tone to Destiny.
Lipton smirked. “Been a while since I heard that term.”
“Just get on with it,” Asher said.
“What my former colleague is trying to tell you is that they decided to take a few shortcuts without running all the proper sampling and simulations based on the math involved.”
“Oh shit, what happened?” Summer asked.
“They forgot to account for the salinity in the surrounding soils.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Destiny asked.
“Salt.”
“In the soils?”
“Yes. I’m sure you know what happens when you add salt to boiling water.”
“It raises the temperature.”
“Actually, it changes the boiling point, which is called boiling point escalation.”
Summer nodded. “Okay, I get that. Sort of.”
“Everybody with me so far?” Lipton asked.
The group nodded, with the exception of Asher and Nomad.
“But keep in mind that the elevated salinity levels aren’t just from the old standby you call table salt.”
“Sodium chloride,” Nomad replied.
“They’re also a product of other soluble minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, chlorides, nitrates, sulfates, bicarbonates and carbonates, which originate from the natural weathering of topsoil and rock. That’s where the salt in the oceans originates.”
“Let me guess,” Krista said. “They didn’t test the soil for any of that?”
“Nope. Not a lick. Asher over there let his team run amok and didn’t check the calculations thoroughly enough. That’s what he meant by unchecked confidence. Not only with respect to his confidence in his team, but also his team’s confidence in their own calculations. A two-sided mistake that had grave consequences.”
“That’s what sparked The Event?” Summer asked.
“Not exactly. Let me continue, please.”
“Go on,” Destiny said, sitting more upright in her chair and leaning forward.
“When they ran the first test, the pressures didn’t escalate evenly across all the relief tunnels and blowout occurred in three of the shafts.”
“Blowout of what? Lava?” Summer asked.
“No,” Nomad said, stepping forward. He raised his hand and pointed to his face. “Superheated steam.”
“Oh my God. That’s what happened? You were there?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “This wasn’t the only test site.”
Everyone looked at Lipton, who had his eyes turned to Nomad with an eyebrow raised. When Lipton brought his attention back, he said, “Your brother is correct. The government, in their infinite wisdom, decided to take the flawed calculations from Asher’s team and try them in multiple locations around the globe.”
“Why would they do that?” Summer asked.
“Simple math, really. And I’m talking appropriations math. Why convince Congress to spend the money for only one team and one test site, when you can convince them to spend more? A lot more when they don’t know what anything actually costs. So you always double or triple your estimates. In this case, it was four times what they needed.”
“Then bleed off some of it for other projects,” Krista said.
“Now you’re tracking,” Lipton said. “There were only two actual test sites, one of which was here and the other was in Antarctica.”
“Oh shit, that’s what happened in Antarctica,” Summer said. “They set them all off. Those dumbasses.”
“A chain reaction started from a fundamental shift in the pressure ridge that connects that particular cluster of volcanoes together, resulting in a rapid-fire eruption and the near-extinction of the human race. All because the government was in a hurry and your man there, Asher, didn’t check his team’s fricking math.”
CHAPTER 51
“You knew about this the whole time?” Summer asked Lipton.
“Actually, no. I had some suspicions along the way, but a theory didn’t start to form until our interactions with Blackstone on the radio. Then it grew once we had that painfully long group discussion with them at the rendezvous point. However, what actually brought it all together was when I saw Asher walk through the door. That’s when the data points fell into place and I knew the answers. All of them.”
The room filled with silence until Lipton turned in his chair and peered at Nomad. “However, I have to admit that I didn’t foresee your involvement.”
“Neither did I. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Doc.”
“Antarctica?”
“Roger that. Was on cover detail when the blowout happened. Somehow I made it out alive. The rest of my team didn’t.”
“Couldn’t be helped, I’m sure.”
“Actually, I knew something was off, but decided to follow orders instead of doing something about it. That’s on me.”
“And you paid dearly for it, brother,” Summer said, her tone supportive.
Lipton spun back to face the group with his hands laced together on the table and his lips silent.
“That’s it?” Destiny asked. “Because none of that explains what’s going on now in our tunnels. Or what’s happening to Asher.”
Lipton motioned at Asher. “I think it’s best if he takes it from here.”
Destiny turned to her right. “Ash?”
Asher held for a beat. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“Uh, yeah. Like a long time ago. I can’t believe you kept all this from me, whatever this is.”
“There’s no going back once you do.”
“I’m pretty sure we can handle it.”
Asher shook his head. “I don’t know. It happened years before any of you were here. That’s why I didn’t tell you everything. It’s ancient history and it really doesn’t matter now. It won’t change a thing.”
“Quit stalling,” Flipside said. “Out with it, and not the abridged version, either.”
Asher put his lips together in a thin line as he stared at Lipton, the two of them locking eyes in some kind of Brainiac stare down.
Summer figured if this were a cartoon, daggers would shoot out of their eyes and impale each other’s faces in spectacular fashion. “Well? Come on. Spill it.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Asher said before covering his mouth and breaking into a coughing fit. When he was done, he removed his hand and held it up, blood dripping from his palm. “As you can see, I’m sick. And it’s not going to get any better.”
“And we both know why you’re sick,” Lipton said. “So go on, tell them. They have a right to know.”
Asher nodded, pausing before he started again. “When we first began this project, there were hundreds of people here, working the tunneling equipment, taking measurements—you name it. Everything was going along without a hitch until Lipton showed up as part of some public oversight committee, sent in by a watchdog group who’d gotten wind of the massive expenditures underway. Apparently, they’d sued under the Freedom of Information Act and won, getting their hands on the project details and, of course, the money trail.”