Deep Down Under

Epilogue

Two weeks after the Vienna Attacks, Personal Residence, Geneva, 12:01 am

Lucia added a few more coffee beans to the grinder. Gonna need a little extra caffeine. She couldn't get any sleep. She didn't want any sleep.

She had lost too much, her father, Jerome and Benjamin. Loss of loved ones was like a curse latched onto her. That stopped her from making any strong connection with anybody in fear of losing them. She couldn't take the pain anymore.

The machine filled her cup. She recalled the events of that night. Fragments of the pen drive were recovered. The secret had been lost forever.

She was about to make her way to the sofa when she noticed the door to the basement open. She remembered her father used to spend hours in the middle of the night there. Out of curiosity, she walked in, leaving her coffee on a side table.

The lights flickered to life after she flipped the switches. There was nothing special except for a door half-open. The lights in there were on for some odd reason.

How long has it been like that? Weeks? Looks like that's coming out of my pay check.

She peeped in. Sure enough, it was her father's research room. The whiteboard was wiped clean. There was a chart with pictures of scientists and some of them were crossed in a red marker. Newspaper clippings scattered all over. A laptop was there as well, on a table.

She turned on the device and the screen illuminated. The user was password protect. When the hint popped up, it displayed something so obvious to her.

Hint: My most prized possession

She typed in her name. Lucia, she was her father's most prized possession. A search was run under the key words 'research'. There was only one file matching with her search. It was the exact same one inside the pen drive. The secret was not lost after all.

As expected there was a video file; no later, she played it.

"If you are watching this, that means my dear friend has either failed or succeeded in his mission," started Andreas. His voice was in high definition, it felt to Lucia that her father was right there talking to her. But she was looking through a window to the past. He no longer existed.

She controlled the urge to break out tears and watched on.

"I am directly going to skip to the main part. I have found a way to create negative energy. If you are somebody completely unaware of this 'negative energy', imagine matter with a mass less than zero. Negative mass. This energy has profound implications for the future. It is the fuel that could take us to other stars in a matter of weeks, it could-it could...travel back in time."

Lucia was looking at the screen in awe. "Now, according to Einstein's famous equation:, mass and energy are related. Energy has mass and mass has energy. Also, there are four fundamental forces: Strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism and gravity. I'll be focussing on electromagnetism and gravity. Each force has a field which permeates throughout the entire universe, at every corner. Together they form the quantum field. If you excite a particular point in that field with a specific energy level, strange but incredible things start to happen. For example if you agitate the field you will create matter. The term is misleading though; you are simply converting energy into matter," he paused in the video to catch his breath.

"If you focus a certain amount of energy on specific point, you get matter and anti-matter, which is basically having all the exact same properties except for its charge. It is exactly the opposite, for example one is negative then it anti-particle will be positive instead. Now, do the same thing at a higher energy. There is so much energy on a particular point, which collapses in on itself to form a black hole. And this back hole creates positive-negative mass pairs."

That confused Lucia, because that concept had already been thought up of by Stephen Hawking. The flux of negative energy was called Hawking Radiation.

"As you know, this method is quite impractical, due to the low level of our current particle colliders. But, if there are extra dimensions of space-time then it could be feasible in the near-future. All that is uncertain. For I have come up with a much more practical way of doing this. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal it here."

That dejected Lucia; she sunk into the chair and bent her head down.

"Lucia..."

Her head shot up faster than the movement of a fly. "If you are seeing this, I can tell you one thing. Along with Benjamin, you will surely find the answer."

Her heart beated faster, was waiting for him to complete the last sentence.

"Aum is the key to everything."

What the hell?! Now, she had realised why Benjamin Sadowsky was so essential. She had no idea what to do. Sadowsky was a professor of ancient history. Perhaps, there were more like him. She would finally have the power of god with her.

In that moment, sitting with enthusiasm on her chair, Lucia Del Piero felt a powerful upwelling deep within herself. It was an emotion she had never felt this profoundly in her entire life.

Hope.

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