Page 25 of Mastermind

“What kind of EMPs?” I ask.

“Chemical EMPs is what they’re calling them.”

“Interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.” I think for a moment. “I guess it makes sense.”

“How so?”

“Know anyone who was around when they went off?”

“Yeah. Me. One took out our helicopter. We had to crash-land. Why?”

“Just curious. Was there kind of a burned-ozone smell in the air? Maybe something kind of acrid, too?”

“I’d say that’s exactly how I would describe it.”

“Hmm.” I try to imagine how you’d take the kinetic force of the explosion and convert it into electricity. It wouldn’t be terribly efficient, but if I understand it right, once you have the manufacturing down, it would be extremely inexpensive.

“The strands . . . were they toxic?”

“The strands? What are you talking about?” She leans in to study me more closely.

“From the carbon fiber. I assume it was some kind of long-stranded carbon nano sheet rolled into long threads . . . like a microscopic tube?”

“Uh, yeah . . .”

“Wrap that around a cylinder, put an explosive charge in the middle, and when it explodes, they’d create friction rubbing against each other, building up a charge. Hmm. I guess a second wave could act as a kind of compression wave, which would make them all discharge close together. You time that and you control the kind of EMP they generate?” I ask aloud, trying to understand the weapon in my head. Physics was never my strongest subject. I have always preferred biology and computer science, where things were either too complex for me to have to engineer them or else could be reduced to lines of code. I hate that middle area.

She nods. “That’s pretty much exactly how it works. So, hypothetically, if someone wanted to make carbon-based EMPs, where would they get the carbon threads?”

“Good question. I know they’re trying to manufacture something like that in microgravity.”

“Space?”

“Yes,” I reply. “But not at scale. These fibers—they weren’t much longer than a foot or so, were they?”

“Correct. We figured it was because they broke,” she replies.

“Yes. Or it was the maximum size they could manufacture. If you could make them continuously, then that would be something different. This sounds like some kind of failed industrial experiment that they found another use for.”

“They? Who would they be?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It sounds like some kind of offshoot of government-funded research into a supercapacitor. But that’s not my area. Sorry.”

“Okay, but, just guessing: Chinese? Russian? Texas A&M?”

“Could be anyone with the resources. I’d focus on research papers. Basically, anyone who was working on manufacturing carbon nanotubes at scale.”

“And then tried weapons applications?” she asks.

“Maybe. But I was thinking about someone who couldn’t get a job in that field because of a security clearance issue.”

“But not someone such as yourself?” she asks.

“Me? Ha, no. Why?”

“Dr. Cray, do you realize that if some of my colleagues heard you say what you just told me, they’d have you locked up on suspicion of being a coconspirator?”

“Huh.”