Split Second by Douglas E. Richards Page A

afraid that’s
all I know.”
    They were nearing the mountain
and Blake pulled off the road and into a gas station, wanting to fill the tank
so they wouldn’t have to bother for the return trip. He bought a large orange
Gatorade and Jenna bought a twenty ounce bottle of, fittingly enough, Palomar
Mountain Spring Water, and they resumed their journey, and their conversation.
    “Could it be that Nathan
discovered what dark energy really is?” asked Blake after he swallowed a large
mouthful of orange liquid.
    “Yes. I guess it’s possible.”
    “What if he found a way to harness
this energy? That would have to be the holy grail.”
    “Absolutely. The energy is everywhere.
Finding a way to use it would usher in an absolute revolution. Early man had no
concept of electricity and no way to tap it. Think about how much harnessing
this previously invisible source of energy changed civilization. This would do
the same. And then some.”
    “So maybe that’s what’s on your flash
drive.”
    She shook her head. “Can’t be.
Nathan told me he wasn’t sure of the real world uses for his discovery. If he
learned how to do this the practical applications would be obvious, and
immense. Nathan told me that physicists were making some progress identifying
this energy, but he was certain there would never be a way to use it. You could
tap in—maybe—but even if you managed this, Nathan’s calculations, and those of others,
showed you’d never be able to control it. It would be all or nothing. Drinking
from a fire hose. Tap it and the minimum energy you would release would be more than enough to vaporize the Earth,
possibly the entire solar system.”
    Blake nodded, clearly
disappointed, and continued driving in silence, finally beginning the ascent up
the mountain.
    In Jenna’s opinion, while this
had been a necessary exercise, they were right back where they started.
Scratching their heads.
    “I know you were in the back of
a semi,” said Blake finally, changing the subject, “without any windows. But
any guesses where your truck left the road?”
    “I’d say about fifteen or twenty
minutes up the mountain from where we are now.”
    “Okay, but let’s both start
searching for it in five or ten minutes, just to be sure.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll be able to
find it on my own. You can keep your eyes on the road. Believe me, when an
eighteen-wheeler becomes a toboggan, the aftermath is impossible to miss.”
    Fifteen minutes later they heard
the unmistakable sound of chainsaws ripping through the otherwise still air. Blake
turned to Jenna and raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting.”
    As they came closer to the
source of the intermittent roar, Jenna continued to study the downward sloping side
of the road, while Blake’s eyes were constantly on the move.
    Moments later his eyes stopped
moving and focused on the physical pavement ahead. His instincts told him
something wasn’t right, but it took a few seconds for him to put his finger on
what: the approaching section of road appeared just the slightest shade lighter
than the rest of the pavement they had been traversing.
    Someone had scrubbed it. And for
this to be even a little bit noticeable they must have used industrial strength
power washers, obliterating any skid marks from any semis that may have braked
so hard their cargo compartments had fishtailed into the woods.
    Blake slowed as he approached
this stretch of road and followed Jenna’s line of sight. Six men appeared on
the slope below. Four of the men were hustling about—one with a rake, several
with chain saws, and one shoving brush into a heavy nylon sack—while two of the
men appeared to be taking a break, their eyes turned up toward the road.
    A large swath of the forest,
from the roadside down to where these men were positioned, had been laid bare,
with several of the felled trees still in evidence. Each man wore a bright
yellow shirt and white hard-hat, and they had patches on their