Split second, p.36
Split Second, page 36
This got me to thinking. Maybe I should put my novel, Wired, online, and see if anyone would read it. Boyd Morrison was living proof that good things could happen, so why not? Believe me, I would never have done this if I had not read this note. In 2011, I was barely aware that e-books even existed (although I was filling my house with physical books so quickly I was running out of places to put them).
Less than six months later, Wired became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and my writing career was off and running. But if I hadn’t gone to the bookstore at the exact time I did, or if I hadn’t happened to notice this particular book, or if . . .
Octa-nitro-cubane: This explosive is real, although the hyphens are not. I added these for ease of reading, since I stumble over the word, octanitrocubane, every time I see it. These cubes of carbon do represent the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man, and it is true that this substance is nearly impossible to produce, requiring forty chemical steps to synthesize. In fact, as I note in the novel, there has never been enough of this made to even test (as far as I know).
Taxol and Hard to Synthesize Drugs: The information provided about Taxol is true. I’m not sure how many other drugs are out there that work wonders but can’t be made in sufficient quantities (scaled up), but I suspect they exist.
I was once Director of Biotechnology Licensing at Bristol-Myers Squibb, the company that developed Taxol. For many decades the Pacific yew tree could make this drug, but humans couldn’t.
While at BMS, I negotiated two collaborations with companies specializing in what is called natural products chemistry. One tried to discover cures from chemicals found in microbes, and one from chemicals found in sea creatures, and I was quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal about one of the deals, saying, “Nature is the world’s best chemist.”
This is very true. Nature can produce chemicals that we can’t hope to match, and a significant percentage of all drugs now in use were first produced in nature (aspirin was first derived from the bark of the willow tree, there is a diabetes drug derived from a chemical found in the spit of the Gila monster, an anti-coagulant used for many years was derived from leech saliva, and so on).
With respect to the shell company formed by Lee Cargill to duplicate difficult to manufacture cures, this would never work in real life. The FDA requires a precise knowledge of every step in the manufacturing process before they will approve a drug, and need to be able to audit manufacturing sites to be sure they are up to standards. Alas, a mystery process (time travel) would never fly with them, no matter how pure the end product.
Faraday and Maxwell: The information about these two icons is accurate. For my plot to work, I needed someone to have invented time travel without fully understanding the theory behind it, and the Faraday-Maxwell comparison worked perfectly. To learn more about these amazing figures in science, I recommend the book, Faraday, Maxwell and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics, by Nancy Forbes and Basil Mahon.
Polygraph Tests: My research suggests polygraph tests are fairly unreliable, and that testers do try to fool subjects into making mistakes. The strategy for beating the test that I put forth is real, although the improved polygraph test in the novel is fictional (it doesn’t exist in real life or even in the novel, as it turns out).
UCLA Steam Tunnels: There is no Kendall Hall at UCLA, but the steam tunnels are real, and my description of them is more or less accurate. The Welcome to Hell graffiti did exist at one time, according to my reading.
Originally in the novel, Dr. Dan Walsh was a professor at USC. I knew that many older universities had tunnel systems, and I thought having Aaron Blake use them to bypass surveillance would make for a fun scene. The only problem is that USC doesn’t have any tunnels, so I moved Dan Walsh to UCLA :).
Fairly recently, the school’s newspaper was offering tours of the tunnel system. Here is an excerpt taken from their website:
“UCLA’s underground tunnel system, site of late-night forays by adventurous students and a subject of campus folklore, plays an important role in keeping the university running smoothly behind the scenes. Official tours of the underground tunnels can be arranged with Leroy Sisneros, UCLA Facilities Management’s Director of Maintenance and Alterations. Those touring the tunnels should wear closed-toed shoes and be advised that the tunnels are very narrow and hot in some places.”
In researching UCLA, I read one reference to a campus joke that UCLA stood for Under Construction Like Always. I didn’t go to this school, so I have no idea if this is something familiar to most students or not, but I thought it would be fun to include.
Lake Las Vegas: There really is such a place, and while Knight’s island doesn’t exist nor do his armaments and security, the early history of the resort, its dimensions, the fortunes spent to develop it, and the vast size of the dam that was built to create the lake are all accurate.
This resort came up at a dinner party I attended. A few of my friends were reminiscing about how they had flown out to see it long ago, when it was under construction, but had been unable to invest. At the time they had kicked themselves, but they grew to learn they had dodged a bullet.
When they described the magnificence of the resort and its checkered history, I was absolutely fascinated, especially since I had visited Vegas any number of times and had never even heard of it. I’m still amazed that there is a giant man-made lake in the middle of the desert, surrounded by world-class resort hotels and other properties.
At that moment I knew that this location would have to be a setting in one of my books someday.
Cheyenne Mountain & Other Settings: Cheyenne Mountain is real and in use. My description of the main facility is accurate, although I created a fictional expansion of the base because I wanted more room. Here is a link to a short documentary about the facility: Science Channel Short Documentary on Cheyenne Mountain
Palomar Mountain is real. When my kids were little, I used to take them hiking in the woods there, and they loved it. The Palomar Observatory and Hale Telescope on top of this mountain are also real.
The underground military base at Palomar is purely fictional. In the first draft of this novel, I included some historical information about other underground facilities the government and military had used, but left this on the cutting room floor.
Since I find it interesting, I thought I’d restore a few paragraphs of this deleted section below:
For the most part the Manhattan Project, which led to the world’s first nuclear bomb, had been done at secret above-ground sites, but the first ever nuclear reactor was constructed underground, at a small site below the bleachers at Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, and aptly named Chicago Pile-1.
Unlike most reactors built since, this pile had no radiation shielding and no cooling system of any kind. The brilliant physicist, Enrico Fermi, had convinced those in charge that his calculations were reliable enough to rule out a runaway chain reaction or an explosion. Later, the official historians of the Atomic Energy Commission would point out that while the gamble had paid off, these men had conducted "a possibly catastrophic experiment in one of the most densely populated areas of the nation.”
This passage is accurate, and a little scary. After receiving my master’s degree in molecular biology, I attended the University of Chicago to earn an MBA, and lived just a few blocks from this site. At street level is a sculpture and a steel plaque that reads, “On December 2, 1942, man achieved here the first self-sustaining chain reaction, and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy.”
The Torrey pine is an actual tree, and Torrey Pines is a famous golf course. I know the Torrey Pines area well since my children both graduated Torrey Pines High School (as did X-games superstars Shaun White and Tony Hawk, interestingly enough).
The information about San Ysidro is accurate, at least to an approximation. The number of border crossings, and even highway lanes, can change from year to year.
Finally, Schriever is a real Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, and it really is home to the 50th Space Wing.
Science Fiction: The science fiction novels and stories referenced in Split Second include The Weapon Shops of Isher, by A.E. Van Vogt, The Chronology Protection Case, by Paul Levinson, and A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury (the one having to do with the possible repercussions of killing a single mouse many millions of years ago).
In an earlier version of the novel I included an excerpt from a haunting story called The Weed of Time, by Norman Spinrad, used to exemplify what a block universe would be like if our perceptions allowed us to experience any point in time, instead of just now. Here is this deleted passage:
[Walsh speaking] “I read a science fiction story about this concept as a kid, called The Weed of Time, that haunted me for weeks after I read it. Basically, this guy ingests an alien weed that frees him to see time as it really is. He is able to see, live, experience every moment of his life, from birth until death, over and over again—any moment he likes. Like being able to visit any frame of a movie, but still unable to leave the reel. In the earlier movie frames of his life, so to speak, people come to believe he knows something of the future.” Walsh smiled. “Which he does, of course, since he can experience later frames of his life. But he explains that this will be of no use to anyone.”
He gestured to Blake. “You asked about free will in a block universe. I found this the ultimate, most depressing expression of lack of free will I’ve ever read. If you have a tablet, I’ll try to find it.”
Blake handed him one of several he had nearby, and after a few minutes of searching through cyberspace, Walsh found the passage he was after and began reading:
“‘On April 3, 2040, I am born. On December 2, 2150, I die. The events in between take place in a single instant. Say that I range up and down them at will, experiencing each of them again and again and again eternally.
‘For me, time as you think of it does not exist. I do not move from moment to moment sequentially like a blind man groping his way down a tunnel. I am at all points in the tunnel simultaneously.
‘I know that it is no use trying to tell any of them that knowledge of the future is useless, that the future cannot be changed because it was not changed because it will not be changed. They will never accept the fact that choice is an illusion caused by the fact that future time-loci are hidden from those who advance sequentially along the time-stream one moment after the other in blissful ignorance. They refuse to understand that moments of future time are no different from moments of past or present time; fixed, immutable, invariant. They live in the illusion of sequential time.’”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Douglas E. Richards is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of seven technothrillers, including Wired, Amped, Mind’s Eye, BrainWeb, Quantum Lens, Split Second, and The Cure. He has also written six middle grade/young adult novels widely acclaimed for their appeal to boys, girls, and adults alike. Douglas has a master’s degree in molecular biology (aka “genetic engineering”), was a biotechnology executive for many years, and has authored a wide variety of popular science pieces for National Geographic, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Earth and Sky, Today's Parent, and many others. Douglas has a wife, two children, and two dogs, and currently lives in San Diego, California.
Douglas E. Richards, Split Second
