{"id":420,"date":"2020-04-30T13:07:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T13:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=420"},"modified":"2020-05-10T21:52:02","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T21:52:02","slug":"the-science-of-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-science-of-seconds\/420\/","title":{"rendered":"The Science of Seconds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the shortened version. You can read the full version here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is twenty-four years since Contact and I\u2019m drinking coffee while sitting behind my desk in New Scotland Yard. I cleared some space by moving a paper mountain to one side and set my cup down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoss\u201d, declared Detective Sergeant Kieran Mulrooney, as he strode towards me with a memorandum in his fist. \u201cRead this\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet me see.\u201d It was from Intelligence. They were monitoring some scholars in Camden. Hard-wired bugs you understand. We don\u2019t use radio, not since Scrixn\u2019s warning, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The missive was crisp and brutal: \u201cThere is plausible evidence Professor Dexter of the Peace Costs Nothing group is considering using a comms-laser to communicate a peace message to the Drar\u2019ch. Termination is required.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSaddle up, Kee,\u201d I said rising to my feet. I reached into my desk, drew out my Glock and checked the clip. \u201cWe\u2019ve got work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took-off from the roof, navigating a darkened London to the Professor\u2019s home near Camden Market, four miles away, making it in six minutes, and landing without a sound on his veranda. Glancing up, I could detect light emerging from a misplaced blackout curtain, so I signalled Kieron to position himself in front of the window and he levitated up, a faint glow coming from his A-Grav-Plate as he did so. Meanwhile, I entered via the balcony doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door to the room was ajar, and I could hear sounds coming from above. Creeping out, I activated my AGP so I could scale the stairs and not provoke any creaks. The Glock was ready in my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs there sufficient power?\u201d asked a voice. I recognised it as the Professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYesh,\u201d someone responded. It shocked me. I recognised Scrixn, the alien who alerted us to the Drar\u2019ch, a race of automatons, whose sole purpose was to discover intelligent biological life and eradicate it. \u201cYou may proscheed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I snapped the door wide and dropped the alien. He flew backward as slugs hit him in his forehead and the Professor whirled around clutching a gadget that appeared to be a spring-loaded clamp, its jaws wide – two wires trailing from the handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOfficer,\u201d he said with an air of cool nonchalance. He raised his hands as I pointed my pistol at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDrop the device,\u201d I commanded him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He smirked and let go of the clamp; the jaws closed and sparked. A table-top laser hummed, and the drapes parted. I shot him in the face and as he sank to the floor, emptied my clip into the laser\u2019s case. The hum continued to grow, so I lunged for the clamp and levered its jaws apart as the laser fired a two-second ray through the open window. I was too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rushed to the window to watch it, but saw instead the figure of Kieran Mulrooney, dangling lifelessly, a small hole bored into his front armour. Dragging him close, I rotated him. There was no hole in the rear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Earth had survived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the shortened version. You can read the full version here. It is twenty-four years since Contact and I\u2019m drinking coffee while sitting behind my desk in New Scotland Yard. I cleared some space by moving a paper mountain to one side and set my cup down. \u201cBoss\u201d, declared Detective Sergeant Kieran Mulrooney, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,227],"tags":[228,229],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-may-2020-survival","tag-science","tag-seconds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-6M","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}