He waded back out and walked along the wall to the far side of the floor, opposite the gas pipe. The flame shot out under the low basement ceiling toward a large opening in the floor above. Then it flowed upward and disappeared. Randall pointed the spotlight toward the opening but couldn’t make anything out. Leaves and debris flew through the air into the end of the flame from all directions.

He walked back to the stairwell and opened a closet under the stairs. He fished around and found an extension cord and a push broom. Holding the spotlight between his legs, he wrapped one end of the cord around the broom handle and tied it off, then walked back to the open area. He clamped the other end of the cord in a workbench vise, left the spotlight on the workbench, and turned to face the flame. His left hand held the beacon and a few loops of the cord. He tossed the broom up and caught it near the end of the handle with his right hand. Then he heaved the broom and cord toward the center of the room. The wind caught the broom and he lost sight of it, but saw the orange cable fall back into the water. He went back to the workbench and dragged the cord in. The handle came up with the broom head missing. He held the end of the handle in the spotlight and saw a perfectly smooth, clean white surface, cut at a slight angle to the handle. He studied this for a moment, then untied the cord, walked back to the stairs and carried the handle up and out of the building.

  
  First Response to 8-14 Incident
  17 August ____

  _____ called in the early morning of August 14th about an explosion in a 
  isolated building located at 40.______, -74.______. It appeared to be an 
  industrial accident. Property records showed a warehouse at the address. 
  Three agents were killed during the initial investigation. No radiation, 
  pollutants, radio noise or magnetic activity were detected. Metalworking 
  tools, supplies and equipment appropriate for a chemical laboratory were 
  found on site. A majority of the equipment associated with the blast was 
  destroyed or incinerated, leaving little evidence. No human remains were 
  recovered, nor has anyone associated with the address been located.

  A spherical void was seen in the building, approximately 180 centimeters 
  in diameter, its center approximately two meters above the cement floor. 
  It acted as a kind of sink, absorbing atmosphere and anything carried by 
  the considerable suction it generated.

  In the open at standard pressure, some 4000 cubic meters of air would be 
  absorbed per second. The remaining surrounding structure obstructed flow
  enough to reduce this rate. Flames and solid objects were observed being 
  absorbed without any effect. Apparently the three agents lost as well as 
  any present at the time of the explosion were sucked in. In daylight the 
  void appeared completely black. 1000-lumen spotlights and a 5W laser did
  not produce any reflection.

  Below the void, a circular stack of metal blocks, each about 30cm x 20cm 
  x 15cm, was arranged on the concrete floor. Assay showed 0.9999 bismuth. 
  The stack was approximately two meters in diameter. The top of the stack 
  had a concave profile. The outer edges rose to a height of approximately 
  80 centimeters, at the center the height was roughly 50 centimeters. The 
  blocks on top of the stack were fused together, presumably melted during 
  the explosion and fire.

  Containment was the priority. Thousands of gallons of water were sprayed 
  into the building and disappeared with no clear sign of vaporization. To 
  seal a leaking gas line, several truckloads of concrete were poured in a 
  window until the window was blocked. A bulldozer, remotely operated, was 
  then used to open a hole in the wall. It succeeded unexpectedly well. As 
  soon as the wall was breached, the bulldozer was sucked through. It flew 
  past the void and came to rest against the wall on the other side of the 
  building. A large circular section was carved out of the blade, cab, and 
  engine, as if with a giant ice cream scoop.

  A 3-meter diameter tunnel segment was effective at last. This was hauled 
  into place by helicopter. The concrete cylinder, about five meters long, 
  was lowered through the hole in the roof and set down carefully over the 
  void. After the cylinder was in place, a square 4-centimeter-thick steel 
  plate was hoisted to cap the cylinder. As it was lowered to the cylinder
  top, the suction caused a 10,000-pound breakaway coupling to snap. After
  the lid covered the top, most of the suction was contained. Approach was 
  possible and a complete seal was achieved with sprayed foam insulation.
  

31 October

Since I am lucky enough to be stationed at the nearest field office, Blake recommended me to figure out what this thing is and how to deal with it. I could have gotten a worse assignment. I could have been Hadley. The void is pretty well contained now, so I have to figure out how to experiment on it. It was hard enough to secure the site.

Once they trapped the void in a can, they demolished the outer building and built a secure structure on the foundation. A hermetic containment room, about four meters on each side and five meters tall, was completed first with airlock passages on two sides and a door on top. I call it the kaaba. Then a larger building, the sarcophagus, was built around it. Ambient air was evacuated from the kaaba, then a robot drilled a peephole through the concrete cylinder and installed a camera. As far as we could tell the black sphere inside remained unchanged, just floating there in the dark. As before, we detected no radiation or emissions of any kind.

Next they sent two junior agents in with pressure suits to remove the steel top using a small overhead crane. Then they demolished the concrete cylinder bit by bit using electric hand tools. Each worker was tethered to an anchor point near one of the airlocks on a line too short to reach the center of the kaaba.

A small crowd pressed up against the viewing windows as the sphere gradually became visible. I kept my distance, watching as the video feed revealed a dull black disc while the interior of the container brightened with ambient light. The sense of unreality was heightened by the silent, smokeless action of the impact drills, pouring showers of dust and grit to the floor. A perfectly sharp, curved edge of blackness appeared through the gaps in the concrete, behind a rebar grid. It brought to mind memories of the eclipse in Munich, that hole in the sky.

The demo team reduced the container to a rebar skeleton, and then dismantled the skeleton without dropping even a piece of wire into the sphere, somewhat to our disappointment. Most of those present had not witnessed the aftermath of the original explosion, and none of us knew what to expect. It will be my job to annihilate matter in a controlled, scientific way.

7 November

I start with some bolts and coins. Tossed from arm’s length, they disappear into the void like pebbles dropped into a bucket of ink. An array of cameras on the ceiling watch my every move, and a few thousand watts of lights all around keep me half blind inside my spacesuit.

Looking into the void is bizarre. It isn't just dark. It isn't just black. It just isn't. It makes my eyes squirm, trying to find something to latch on to. I want to put my nose up against it, let it fill my field of vision. Long ago, on a summer break, I hiked Mount Huashan and got a local to photograph me leaning out over the abyss, nothing but a flimsy harness strap holding me back from certain destruction. Now, the tether is kevlar, rated for five tons, and keeps me at least a meter away from danger. I lean against it, pointing my face toward the emptiness, trying to see to the other side. It makes me queasy.

The suit is rated for up to twelve hours of total comfort, with all physical needs accommodated. The best part of my job is the silence that descends over me during the minute or so of decompression, while the knocking of the vacuum pump slowly fades out. Asked to explain the anomaly, I do what I can think of to collect data. No response to magnets. Infrared thermometer gets no reading. No light penetration or reflection (with other lights out, a 500W spotlight directed straight into the sphere from one meter away leaves the chamber in spooky total darkness). Wood, plastic, iron, mercury, silica, ice, hair, paper, everything is absorbed into the abyss without a trace. There is no resistance to inserting a long object, and its weight diminishes in proportion to its consumption. I carefully passed the end of a ream of printer paper into the void and the sheets, each one with a perfectly sharp, slightly curved cut, became popular handouts. Somebody determined the radius is 94.60 cm, saving me the trouble of making an outsized caliper.

part 3