Supersymmetry by David Walton Page B

like doors unlocking and swinging wide. “Not any three-dimensional ones, anyway.”
    â€œYes, that’s where I’m thinking, too.” Her father gave her an approving nod, a gesture that had usually been reserved for Alex. Sandra felt a small thrill of approval.
    Her father attacked the data furiously, shifting and expanding it with flicks of his eyes as he applied new sets of equations. Then he stopped. “Here we are,” he said, his voice soft and awed. “Supergravity, in ten dimensions.”
    Something like a vortex appeared in her vision. The globe view of Philadelphia was now twisted and wrapped in on itself. The lines connecting the seats from their points of origin were now complex curves forming a multi-dimensional tornado.
    â€œIt wasn’t multiple blasts after all,” her father said. “Just one simple equation.”
    Sandra didn’t think “simple” was probably the right word. “Does this mean the seats traveled out of normal space before landing back in our normal three dimensions?”
    Her father shook his head. “The other dimensions are paper-thin. It’s not as much that the chairs themselves travel through other dimensions, as that the energies do, bending the lines of force to blast the chairs in unexpected directions.”
    Sandra let that go. Ultimately, she didn’t care about multiple dimensions or how they worked. What she cared about was that this destruction had come from a single source, but not a traditional one.
    â€œCould a person have done this?” she asked. “Or a government?”
    Her father raised his hands in an expansive shrug. “Not with any technology I’ve ever heard of.”
    â€œBut it’s possible?”
    â€œAnything is possible.”
    They traded looks, both of them thinking the same thing but unwilling to say it. As if by speaking the word varcolac out loud, they would conjure it into the house and repeat the horror of fifteen years ago. As horrible as this act was, it had been better when she could think of it simply as the result of human ingenuity and hatred.
    She nodded. “I have to show this to my lieutenant.”
    â€œOf course you do.”
    â€œYou should come with me.” Her father started to shake his head, but she pressed on. “I’m not sure I can explain it, or that they’ll believe me even if I can. I need your credentials to back me up.”
    â€œI can’t, sweetheart. I need to stay here.” His manner was odd. Evasive.
    â€œWhy? I don’t understand.”
    â€œYour mother needs me to stay. I can’t just run off again, after she came so close to losing me.”
    He was lying. Sandra didn’t know why, but she knew he was. She studied his face, trying to decide whether to call him on it. “I need you,” she said.
    He sighed. “Look. There’s something else here, something I need to study. It’s going to take me a while, but it’s important. Can you come back this evening?”
    â€œI have an all-night shift.”
    â€œTomorrow, then. Come back here to sleep again, and I’ll tell you everything when you wake up. I’ll make sure Alex comes, too; it affects her as well.”
    â€œAlex won’t come if she knows I’m here.”
    â€œShe will if I insist.”
    Sandra narrowed her eyes. “Why wait? Why don’t you come along with me now, and you can tell me in the car?”
    â€œI have to do some research first. Confirm what we’re looking at here.” His eyes slid to the left, then purposefully came up and caught her gaze. “You can handle this. After all, you thought of the multiple dimensions angle. I’m proud of you, Alex.”
    He must have seen the scowl on her face, because he backtracked immediately. “Sandra, I mean. Come on, darling; it was a slip of the tongue. Forgive an old man some scrambled brain cells.”
    â€œFine,” she