Читать книгу The Adventures of Anna Atom - Elizabeth Wasserman - Страница 15

Chapter 11

MR AMSTERDAM MEDDLES SOME MORE

It seemed as if Mr Amsterdam was going to burst into tears at any moment. His holographic image once again hovered in front of Professor Sabatina’s chair.

“Impossible! This cannot be happening!” His face had turned an even paler shade of grey. “You should have acted sooner, Sabatina. You should have realised yesterday what was going on. If what you say is true, every moment brings us closer to disaster!”

Sabatina glared at him, wishing she could throw something at him, but knowing it would simply pass through thin air – the real Mr Amsterdam was sitting thousands of kilometres away, safely out of reach.

“It’s true that time is of the essence, Mr Amsterdam,” she said, “which is why I’m asking you to let me and Max work through the problem in peace. We are making progress.”

“Progress? What progress? This curtain of red algae that you can so clearly see on the Environator is smothering all life in the Pacific. The dead fish washing up on the west coast of America are causing such a stink that the American president has just called me – personally! – to demand action. You can be sure that headlines will soon be announcing an international emergency!

“And for good reason,” Sabatina said. “Max reckons that the storm currently raging in Mexico is a direct effect of the algae bloom. The change in biological activity in the ocean has affected the atmosphere above it, causing a high-pressure system that is currently on the move.”

She pointed to the holograph image of the earth, where angry clouds swirled over both North and South America.

“We now know how the bloom was caused,” Sabatina continued. “I suspect it was an act of sabotage – environmental terrorism. The damage originated from an artificial acoustic wave signal generated from the bottom of the sea, right over there!” She pointed to a flashing red dot that marked the place where the Environator had first detected the strange waves. “Max established that the strange waves we detected yesterday exactly match the frequency that will stimulate the growth of algae.”

“Nonsense!” Mister Amsterdam proclaimed. “Quite frankly, that sounds like scientific gibberish.”

“Let me show you.” Sabatina rose and walked to a different section of her laboratory. The semi-transparent holographic image of Mr Amsterdam floated behind her like a grumpy old ghost.

The professor sat down in front of a selection of bright fluorescent light-illuminated beakers and test tubes and a shelf of intricate electronic equipment. She adjusted her glasses and lifted one of the larger test tubes to the light. She inserted the tube into a clamp of one of the instruments, adjusted a dial, and flicked a switch.

“This test tube is filled with sea water with a small amount of algae. I am now bombarding it with a sound wave, inaudible to our ears, but at the same wave frequency that we detected in the South Pacific. Look what happens!’

The machine emitted a soft beep, like a microwave that has just finished heating a meal. Sabatina took out the test tube and held it to the light.

It looked exactly like it did before.

Mr Amsterdam snorted. “Were you really expecting me to believe you can make algae grow by playing some music?”

Sabatina was also losing her patience, and silently cursed the technology that allowed her boss to pop up in her laboratory whenever he wished.

“Professor Sabatina, you are wasting my valuable time. We have no option but to allow the military to proceed with their solution. They’ll spray the whole of the Pacific Ocean with weedkiller. Much more sensible.”

Sabatina almost fell backwards from her chair. “Weedkiller! Have you all gone completely mad? That would be a disaster!”

“You leave us no choice! This has already gone too far. It’s turning into a natural disaster worse than any we have known.”

“Natural disaster?” Sabatina exclaimed. “Nonsense! This disaster is as man-made as the experiment I am showing you now!” She pushed the test tube right under Mr Amsterdam’s holographic nose.

The water in the test tube was transparent no longer. Instead, it had turned into a murky red mass of growing algae.

Mr Amsterdam gasped like a landed fish.

“Give me a chance,” Sabatina pleaded. “Max and I can find a better solution, I’m sure. One that won’t kill off all oceanic life forever.”

Mr Amsterdam reflected a few moments before answering. “You have eighteen hours, Sabatina. I can’t hold off the military any longer than that. The algae is spreading at such a rate that we simply cannot afford to wait.”

Sabatina discarded the contents of the test tube into a yellow bucket, where it gurgled and fizzed as chemicals killed off the algae.

This is what will happen to the world’s oceans if they don’t stop the military in time, she thought.

“Meanwhile,” she said aloud, “someone should get working at finding out who or what caused those waves in the first place. Because this was no accident.”

When she turned back to the Environator, Mr Amsterdam’s image had disappeared. “Max, you can come out now. He’s gone.”

Lights flickered on the dark walls of the laboratory. “I not likes that man,” Max said.

“I know. But he and his organisation pay for your plutonium batteries. And the scientists of US generally do a lot of good in the world. So boot up, and let’s get back to work!”

“I has having two interesting conversations while you be chattering with nasty,” Max said.

“Really, Max! Now is not the time to flirt with your girlfriends in cyberspace. We have an environmental catastrophe to deal with!”

“Well, one of these ladies be your daughter, Anna, with an interesting problem. And the other is none of your business … But she be a supercomputer almost likes myself, and she knows about biobooms.”

“What?” Sabatina exclaimed, so interested in the last bit of information that she paid no attention to the mention of Anna. “A supercomputer well versed in biobooms? How can that be?”

“Ah! She be lovely – so gentle, so clever … and very progressives in her software.”

“Max, stop drooling! I need to know what she knows and, above all, why does she know about biobooms? Who does she work for?”

“Oh, I does rather not say. It be not right, even for computers, to discloses information about the people that they owns.”

Sabatina didn’t try to correct Max. One day soon, she thought, computers may very well own us. Even now, she relied heavily on Max’s superior intelligence.

“This darling dear friend of mine,” Max continued, “confirms what we has already concluded about the biobooms. She does not talks too much about it, and therefore I suspects she be more involves than she likes to admits. When I asks if she can contacts the processors to send waves towards the algae at a specific frequency and amplitude, she brokes her communication with me. Now she no talk to Max no mores!”

“What specific frequency and amplitude, Max?” Sabatina asked.

“The ones I has figures out to signal the algae to die. Surely you knows too what they are, clever human professor?” Max asked.

Sabatina sighed. This was not the time to be irritated by the supercomputer’s sarcasm. Max might just be on to something.