An Unbound Soul

The physicist Doctor Harry Withermark was a firm believer in science. That didn't imply he held any expectation of science making sense; his introductory quantum mechanics module had thoroughly disabused him of that notion back in his first year of university. Nevertheless, he was convinced that somewhere, behind it all, the universe could be broken down into numbers. Numbers that followed rules—however unintuitive those rules might be—and didn't just make stuff up as they went along. One plus one should continue to equal two regardless of who did the adding, or where, and if the answer really insisted on being dependent on the phases of the moon, it should at least be consistent, and give the same answer on every waning crescent.

When he'd graduated university, PhD in hand, he'd decided to dedicate his life to proving it. Research not to line the pockets of some faceless corporation, but research to increase understanding of how the universe worked in the most expedient manner possible. Normally, that would have meant a postdoctoral position in a university somewhere, but his timing had been poor. A new, more conservative government had just been voted in, and of course, the first thing they'd done was cut back on extraneous spending to prove to their voters how wonderfully conservative they were. As ever in such cases, their definition of extraneous was rather broad, with the result that research grants had become few and far between. The competition for placements was fierce and, with his lack of experience, Harry found himself on the losing side.

His PhD mentor had suggested he speak to an acquaintance, who in turn put him in touch with a friend of theirs who had a sister that worked as a researcher somewhere called the Blue Skies Institute. The place set off more than one alarm bell in Harry's mind. Plenty of groups wanted to keep information confidential for reasons ranging from commercial interests to national security, and it wasn't unheard of to need to sign a non-disclosure agreement just to attend a job interview. A job interview where there was no NDA simply because no-one would give any details whatsoever on what they were working on, though, was something he'd never heard of before. How was he expected to accept a job blind? If not for the sister of a friend of an acquaintance of his mentor vouching for the place, coupled with a touch of desperation, he never would have bothered turning up.

He'd been interviewed by a pair of people. The first was a greying, older man who headed up the research team there, and had focused his questions on Harry's PhD research and motivations for wanting the job. The second was a younger-looking man in a top hat, who had been somewhat... eccentric. Interrupting a complex conversation about ways of modelling molecular conductivity to ask if Harry believed in souls or reincarnation, or his opinion on gods, or regaling him with a ten minute, utterly irrelevant story about an interesting tree he'd seen. He'd never explained what his role in proceedings was, but the look of frustrated tolerance on the team leader's face every time the younger one opened his mouth strongly suggested he was on top in the pecking order. Harry was an intelligent man, and could put two and two together. The funding for the place had to come from somewhere. If that was the person who would be paying his living expenses, he could tolerate his antics too.

When the job offer came, still with no explanation of what he would actually be doing beyond 'fundamental, non-military research', he was sorely tempted to toss it straight into the shredder. Were it not for their explicit denials about being some sort of secret weapons lab, he probably would have. If he'd had any other options, he certainly would have. But they promised they were engaged in peaceful research that would one day shine a light on the nature of the universe, and he had nowhere else to go. With a non-zero amount of trepidation, he'd accepted the post.

On his first day, they finally had him sign an NDA, and a small group proudly presented to him a big metal ball. He looked around the room in case he was missing something, but no. It was just a ball, with a bunch of rods stabbed into it and a lot of cabling.

"Okay, I assume this is some sort of highly complex equipment, but I can't tell what it does just by looking. What is it?"

"It's the future!" exclaimed one of his tour guides, and Harry would have facepalmed at the cheesiness had he not seen the smirk.

"At least you have a sense of humour. Now what is it really?"

"At the moment, the world's noisiest and least efficient light bulb. In ten years' time, the solution to all of Earth's energy needs."

That conversation had happened over twenty years ago. Surprising no-one, solving all of Earth's energy needs turned out not to be trivial, and the process had a rather uncooperative attitude towards roadmaps. It had become a running joke among the research team that they were in an inverted race with the more mainstream nuclear fusion projects to see who could come last.

Harry had proven both his intelligence and worth, rising to become the new leader of the research team after his predecessor's retirement. Unfortunately, while it was nice to feel useful, not to mention the larger pay-cheque, it did mean more time spent dealing with him.

"So, learn anything new about the nature of the universe this month?" asked a youthful-faced man in a top hat. While Harry didn't exactly have a photographic memory, and only irregularly met him in person, he could have sworn the guy hadn't aged a day since their first meeting at the job interview two decades earlier. His fashion sense certainly hadn't changed; Harry couldn't recall ever seeing him without his hat. He even had a cane. It was a small mercy he wasn't wearing a monocle.

"Yes, actually," Harry answered. "A whole new fundamental law, in fact. It turns out that every time I get into a new TV show, it's immediately cancelled regardless of any previous plans for additional seasons."

His financier snorted, appreciating the humour. "I shall have to compile a list of things you're banned from watching, then. Not that it'll be long; I never really got into this whole TV thing. Just give me a good book."

"I'm sorry to say that beyond that, there's been little progress. Efficiency is still increasing, and we haven't hit any bottlenecks, so we're sure we'll reach the break-even point one day. It's just that any attempts at predicting when seemed doomed to failure."

"Slow and steady is fine. I'm a very patient man, Doctor, and believe me when I say the success of your work is inevitable. The only question is whether that success comes sooner or later. Nevertheless, you're close to something. I can feel it."

As much as Harry was thankful for the patience, he had to wonder why. Not so much today: with their experimental setup on the border of breaking even, they'd be certain to get enough money to swim in if they showcased it. Yes, they'd been treated like a bunch of crackpots after finally convincing their sponsor to let them go public at the last renewable energy conference, but that wasn't a surprise after coming out of nowhere with a completely new, unheard of energy source; he still hadn't let them give actual demonstrations. If they'd shown up claiming to have a functional cold fusion reactor while showing no evidence, they'd have been treated the same way. Showing off functional equipment would have shut up the naysayers instantly. At least, those capable of recognising how it worked.

No, Harry could understand funding the place now. The bit he couldn't comprehend was why anyone would pay for it twenty years ago. Or thirty to forty, even; they'd got going long before Harry had joined the project. His predecessor's notes indicated that it was only shortly before Harry had been hired that they even realised energy generation was a possibility; it was the reason he'd expanded the team. So before then, their sponsor had been paying for what, exactly?

That wasn't the only thing niggling in the back of Harry's mind. If this place had been running for forty years, why had no-one else come up with similar ideas? Technology had moved on in that time. The equipment simply used a particular pattern of magnetic fields and EM pulses of specific frequencies, and what was the cutting edge of laser technology forty years ago could be cheaply ordered by anyone with internet access and a credit card these days. Anyone could do it, as long as they could get their hands on a suitable gamma-ray source, which was the only part of their setup that was restricted in any way. All they needed to know was that something was there.

Harry tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice as he chatted away. Suspicion that the person knew far more than he was letting on. That he'd basically paid a bunch of people to fire lasers at other lasers knowing that something interesting would happen. Besides, what sort of cosmetic surgery and how many barrels of hair dye did it take to look like that despite being old enough to have funded this place for decades? Where did he even get the money?

Harry knew he was being silly. Some people were just plain eccentric, and plenty of people attempted long-shots. Almost none of them went anywhere, but there was always the one in a million chance. It was selection bias in action; had this place not been that one in a million, it would never have been looking to expand the research team, and hence he'd never have been hired. He was here because it had succeeded, thus being surprised at its success was silly.

Alas, logic rarely worked as a means of assuaging the worries of a human brain.

"Tell me Harry, have you ever woken up one morning and known—really known—exactly why you were born and what your purpose in life is?"

Yes, some people were very eccentric. "I can't say I've ever been certain, but I've long since had a pretty good idea."

"Ah, you have my pity, then. Certainty is a wonderful thing, and I was born certain."

"And what is it that you're certain about?" asked Harry, exploiting the opening in an attempt to learn more of his enigmatic sponsor whilst trying to ignore the weird inflection the man put on the word 'born'.

His sponsor, Maximilian, smiled a weirdly gentle smile, his eyes unfocused on anything. "Me? My purpose is simple, really. I just want to grow some more lilies."