The Trinity Paradox Read Online Free

skittered across the sky, backlighting the scene with a silver and white glare. Jeff had a studied look on his face as he brought the sledge down ...  
    Her eyes barely had time to react to the explosion belching along the metal cylinder as everything blew up around Jeff. Blue-white afterimages mixed with the purple splotches blazing from inside her eyes. She couldn’t hear a thing—it all happened so fast. A wave of distorted force swept over her, like a gigantic fist hurling her out of the universe—
     
    2
     
    Los Alamos June 1943
“History again and again shows that we have no monopoly on ideas, but we do better with them than other countries.”
    — J. Robert Oppenheimer
“At present we can see no practicable technical method of producing an atom-bomb during the war with the resources available in Germany. But the subject, nevertheless, must be thoroughly investigated to make sure that the Americans will not be able to develop atom-bombs either.”
    — Dr. Werner Heisenberg
    Daylight again. It had to be—nothing could be that bright with her eyes still closed. But why did the light seem to come from inside her head?
    A splitting headache ran from the back to the front of Elizabeth’s skull. Her side ached, and she had trouble breathing. She felt giddy, as if she were spinning on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Her eyes wouldn’t work. What frightened her most was that her body wouldn’t stop twitching, as if every fiber had been stretched on a rack, and the nerves kept misfiring.
    At least the ground was soft. She must have been thrown clear of the concrete pad when the MCG … exploded. MagnetoCumulative Generator ...  
    Everything fell into place. The explosion, the lightning, Jeff standing with his sledgehammer held high like Conan the Peace Activist.
    She had to get up. She had to move. Someone must have seen the explosion. She and Jeff had to climb back out of the canyon, hide from the security guards. They had to run, to get out of the storm.
    She couldn’t even manage to open her eyes. But it felt like sunshine warming her skin.
    As Elizabeth drifted back to unconsciousness, she still couldn’t tell what exactly had happened....
     
    Elizabeth woke with a start. Try it again. She had no idea how much time had passed.
    She forced her eyes open and saw that she lay on a slope, her feet pointing uphill. She wondered if Jeff had dragged her away from the MCG site, into hiding. One arm flopped behind her head, numb with the ice prickles of impaired circulation. She tried to move, but her muscles felt so tired they hurt.
    The ground smelled damp. The storm had passed by, but clouds still covered the sky. Whatever had happened must have knocked them both senseless. She couldn’t hear Jeff beside her.
    The implications hit her at once: the Los Alamos scientists would be returning with the guards. They would find their test apparatus ruined. Security should have been here already.
    “Jeff—” She coughed from the dust in her throat. Where was he? She tried to turn her head, but black fuzz obscured her vision. As she lifted her left arm she yelped in pain. She flexed her wrist—the arm didn’t seem to be broken. She pushed up on the opposite elbow. Her eyes wouldn’t focus properly.
    “Jeff!” Elizabeth sucked in a breath, and at last her vision cleared. Her heart skipped a beat at what she saw.
    Jeff lay crumpled on the ground thirty feet away. Not moving.
    Elizabeth struggled onto her hands and knees. It took a second for the dizziness to pass, but she focused on Jeff and crawled over to him on all fours. “Jeff?” She slowed as she approached, then stopped a yard away, ready to retch.
    His legs beneath the knees were ... missing; but no blood flowed from the wound. His legs looked as if they had been fused together. He lay at the lip of a shallow crater ten feet across, as if he had been caught at the edge of an explosion, too close to the fury that had knocked her senseless. His red-rimmed