The Alchemist
Aug. 21st, 2009 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyrrhiccomedyTitle: The Alchemist
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pyrrhiccomedy
Rating: PG
Characters: America, Richard Feynman.
Premise: One quiet morning in the New Mexico desert, America becomes a superpower--and something more.
---
White Sands Proving Ground: Socorro, New Mexico. July 16, 1945.
America had never heard of J. Robert Oppenheimer, or the Los Alamos Research Center, or the Manhattan Project, before General Groves called him out of bed at eleven o'clock at night and told him to get to New Mexico as fast as he could.
He had a guess as to what it was this was all about by the time the bus dropped off him and a dozen uneasy soldiers in the middle of the empty pre-dawn desert. He upgraded that guess to 'a pretty sure thing' when some baby-faced kid took him by the arm and introduced himself with, "Hi, are you Alfred Jones? You're with me. I'm Richard Feynman--I'm actually a physicist."
"You don't think I'd believe you?" America grinned.
"Most folks don't," Feynman chirped.
Everyone milled around for a while, and then the two of them got onto a different bus. Feynman explained about 'the device' on the drive out to the test site. There was a lot of stuff about heavy neutrons, and compression detonations, and America didn't understand any of it.
"Look, just make it simple for me," he cut in. "How big an explosion are we talking about?"
Feynman hesitated. "Well, nobody's too sure. That's why we're testing it. We've got a pool going, actually. Some of the guys put money on it not working at all."
"Uh-huh."
"Then, you've got bets that go from two, right up to eighteen kilotons of TNT. That's equivalent yield, obviously."
America blinked. The bus pitched and yawned over the cracked desert peat. "…Eighteen tons--"
"Kilotons," Feynman corrected him. "Then, you've got a couple guys saying that we're gonna blow up the whole state of New Mexico." America inhaled. "I don't know why they bothered to bet, I mean…if they win, it's not like they're gonna be able to collect the money, right?" he snickered.
America gaped at him.
"And then there's one or two bets that we're gonna, uh. Incinerate the, well, the atmosphere, and destroy the entire planet."
America looked down into his hands, and then out the window. Pre-dawn light raised a blue halo around that wide expanse of desert nothing.
"But we've run the numbers plenty of times, and we figure that's really unlikely," Feynman added.
"Oh," America managed. "That's good."
The bus stopped a while later at a small bunker, and everyone got out. One of the scientists checked the radio. New Mexico was cold at four AM, even in July. America stamped his feet and listened to the crunch of parched earth. Most of the other passengers clustered around the radio. America stayed a bit apart, and Feynman stood next to him.
"It seems like there should be more people here," America commented.
"They're mostly up at the other observation bunker. It's closer, only ten miles from the device. We're seventeen miles out."
America grimaced and squinted off into the darkness. "Are we gonna be able to see anything at seventeen miles?"
"If it works?" Feynman grinned. "Oh, yeah."
The radio crackled to life. Everyone tensed. Oppenheimer's voice came over, tinny and small, to let them know that the test had been delayed an hour on account of the weather. Thick cotton clouds hung low in the sky, pregnant and cupped by weak, reflected light. The group lapsed back into fidgeting, pacing, murmuring to each other.
America shifted from foot to foot. "How long have you guys been working on this?"
Feynman scratched the back of his neck. "About three years, I guess. Well, longer than that, really, but we've been living out at Los Alamos for…about a year and a half."
America peered up at the sky. "I never heard about it."
"That was the idea," Feynman agreed.
They waited for a while.
"What is it you do, if I may ask?" Feynman inquired.
"I work for the President."
"Doing what?"
"…It's kinda complicated."
Feynman waved it away. "Forget I asked. We hear a lot of 'it's complicated,' 'I can't really talk about it,' 'that's confidential' around here."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
They waited some more. Feynman offered him a cigarette, and they shared a smoke while they waited for the clouds to be driven off. Dawn quietly ascended, turned the blue desert red. Someone came around with a box full of dark goggles and handed a pair to each of them. America looked at his in consternation. He held them up to his face, lowered them again, turned them around, and tried to work out how he could put them on over his glasses.
Feynman placed a hand on his wrist. "Don't bother. We can just go sit in one of the trucks."
"But I thought--it's to protect your eyes from the light, isn't it?"
"Bright light can't damage your eyes." Feynman nudged his hair out of his face with the back of his hand. "What's dangerous is the UV radiation, and ultraviolet light can't go through glass. We'll watch it through the windshield."
America didn't know about any of that, but Feynman sounded confident, and he was (apparently) a physicist. So he nodded.
"If this thing works, it's going to change everything," America mused after a pause. It was an obvious thing to say, but it felt important to say it, out loud, before it became a matter of history.
Feynman shrugged. "I guess."
America supposed he was more interested in neutrons than politics, which was kind of refreshing, actually. He thought that maybe he should spend more time with scientists.
The radio seared to life, and Oppenheimer's voice piped through again. "We have just begun our one minute countdown."
"Jesus," Feynman swore, and grabbed America by the arm. The nation spun around as Feynman dragged him towards a truck. "You'd think he could give us a little more warning."
America let Feynman push him into the passenger's seat of a military truck. The seat was cold, and America's breath clouded the air. His heart was hammering, all of a sudden. It slammed into his ribs, and he didn't know why. He shut the door--as if they were going somewhere. Feynman, sprawled in the driver's seat, left his door open. They didn't say another word, or exchange another look. Outside the truck, everyone else fumbled for their goggles.
It was almost five thirty in the morning. It was still half-dark. America leaned forward on the dashboard. He wondered if they'd really be able to see--
Able to see--
Light
Light
Light pounded the breath out of his lungs. It was every color--golden, purple, violet, gray, blue, wild and sudden and spilling out all around them. It lit the entire valley; it exposed every peak, crevasse, and ridge of the distant mountain range. It bloomed, and bloomed, and unveiled the world before his eyes, seared open every detail. It was a world without shadows, a world in every color, and he could see every tree--every flake of sand--
America felt something lunge in his chest. Nothing had ever been so beautiful.
And then the sound hit them. It ripped over his ears and cracked the air. He trembled, and gripped the dashboard, and the breath heaved in his lungs. He braced himself into that sound, and rode the crescendo until its mad conclusion.
A cold and ringing silence spread over the desert.
The others started talking, all at once, but America was still. He stared into that fading pillar of smoke and fire.
Something had changed.
He thought, faintly, of alchemy.
He'd never tried it. Alchemy was from before his time. He'd always thought it was a stupid idea; you couldn't turn one thing into something else. That was magic, not science. He couldn't believe that England and France and all of the rest of them had wasted so much time with it.
He looked through the sand-burned windshield and fixed his eyes on that dim horizon. Wild thunder still resounded in his bones.
America thought to himself: I am an alchemist.
I can turn iron--
(I can turn carbon--)
I can turn anything I want--
(Anyone I want--)
...Into gold.
He knew, of course, that the bombs were evil. He also knew that he had to use them. For the war--absolutely, for the war. But...that wasn't all.
Magic had to be performed.
+++
-- The Trinity Test took place at 5:29:45 AM, July 16, 1945, unleashing an explosion equivalent to twenty kilotons of TNT. It was the world's first detonation of a nuclear device, and marked the beginning of the Atomic Age. You can find Richard Feynman's (very readable and entertaining) first hand account of his time spent on the Manhattan Project, and the day of the detonation, here.
+++
Please read our Rules & FAQ before posting. / Пожалуйста, прочтите Правила и FAQ прежде чем комментировать.
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.
Author:
pyrrhiccomedyRating: PG
Characters: America, Richard Feynman.
Premise: One quiet morning in the New Mexico desert, America becomes a superpower--and something more.
---
White Sands Proving Ground: Socorro, New Mexico. July 16, 1945.
America had never heard of J. Robert Oppenheimer, or the Los Alamos Research Center, or the Manhattan Project, before General Groves called him out of bed at eleven o'clock at night and told him to get to New Mexico as fast as he could.
He had a guess as to what it was this was all about by the time the bus dropped off him and a dozen uneasy soldiers in the middle of the empty pre-dawn desert. He upgraded that guess to 'a pretty sure thing' when some baby-faced kid took him by the arm and introduced himself with, "Hi, are you Alfred Jones? You're with me. I'm Richard Feynman--I'm actually a physicist."
"You don't think I'd believe you?" America grinned.
"Most folks don't," Feynman chirped.
Everyone milled around for a while, and then the two of them got onto a different bus. Feynman explained about 'the device' on the drive out to the test site. There was a lot of stuff about heavy neutrons, and compression detonations, and America didn't understand any of it.
"Look, just make it simple for me," he cut in. "How big an explosion are we talking about?"
Feynman hesitated. "Well, nobody's too sure. That's why we're testing it. We've got a pool going, actually. Some of the guys put money on it not working at all."
"Uh-huh."
"Then, you've got bets that go from two, right up to eighteen kilotons of TNT. That's equivalent yield, obviously."
America blinked. The bus pitched and yawned over the cracked desert peat. "…Eighteen tons--"
"Kilotons," Feynman corrected him. "Then, you've got a couple guys saying that we're gonna blow up the whole state of New Mexico." America inhaled. "I don't know why they bothered to bet, I mean…if they win, it's not like they're gonna be able to collect the money, right?" he snickered.
America gaped at him.
"And then there's one or two bets that we're gonna, uh. Incinerate the, well, the atmosphere, and destroy the entire planet."
America looked down into his hands, and then out the window. Pre-dawn light raised a blue halo around that wide expanse of desert nothing.
"But we've run the numbers plenty of times, and we figure that's really unlikely," Feynman added.
"Oh," America managed. "That's good."
The bus stopped a while later at a small bunker, and everyone got out. One of the scientists checked the radio. New Mexico was cold at four AM, even in July. America stamped his feet and listened to the crunch of parched earth. Most of the other passengers clustered around the radio. America stayed a bit apart, and Feynman stood next to him.
"It seems like there should be more people here," America commented.
"They're mostly up at the other observation bunker. It's closer, only ten miles from the device. We're seventeen miles out."
America grimaced and squinted off into the darkness. "Are we gonna be able to see anything at seventeen miles?"
"If it works?" Feynman grinned. "Oh, yeah."
The radio crackled to life. Everyone tensed. Oppenheimer's voice came over, tinny and small, to let them know that the test had been delayed an hour on account of the weather. Thick cotton clouds hung low in the sky, pregnant and cupped by weak, reflected light. The group lapsed back into fidgeting, pacing, murmuring to each other.
America shifted from foot to foot. "How long have you guys been working on this?"
Feynman scratched the back of his neck. "About three years, I guess. Well, longer than that, really, but we've been living out at Los Alamos for…about a year and a half."
America peered up at the sky. "I never heard about it."
"That was the idea," Feynman agreed.
They waited for a while.
"What is it you do, if I may ask?" Feynman inquired.
"I work for the President."
"Doing what?"
"…It's kinda complicated."
Feynman waved it away. "Forget I asked. We hear a lot of 'it's complicated,' 'I can't really talk about it,' 'that's confidential' around here."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
They waited some more. Feynman offered him a cigarette, and they shared a smoke while they waited for the clouds to be driven off. Dawn quietly ascended, turned the blue desert red. Someone came around with a box full of dark goggles and handed a pair to each of them. America looked at his in consternation. He held them up to his face, lowered them again, turned them around, and tried to work out how he could put them on over his glasses.
Feynman placed a hand on his wrist. "Don't bother. We can just go sit in one of the trucks."
"But I thought--it's to protect your eyes from the light, isn't it?"
"Bright light can't damage your eyes." Feynman nudged his hair out of his face with the back of his hand. "What's dangerous is the UV radiation, and ultraviolet light can't go through glass. We'll watch it through the windshield."
America didn't know about any of that, but Feynman sounded confident, and he was (apparently) a physicist. So he nodded.
"If this thing works, it's going to change everything," America mused after a pause. It was an obvious thing to say, but it felt important to say it, out loud, before it became a matter of history.
Feynman shrugged. "I guess."
America supposed he was more interested in neutrons than politics, which was kind of refreshing, actually. He thought that maybe he should spend more time with scientists.
The radio seared to life, and Oppenheimer's voice piped through again. "We have just begun our one minute countdown."
"Jesus," Feynman swore, and grabbed America by the arm. The nation spun around as Feynman dragged him towards a truck. "You'd think he could give us a little more warning."
America let Feynman push him into the passenger's seat of a military truck. The seat was cold, and America's breath clouded the air. His heart was hammering, all of a sudden. It slammed into his ribs, and he didn't know why. He shut the door--as if they were going somewhere. Feynman, sprawled in the driver's seat, left his door open. They didn't say another word, or exchange another look. Outside the truck, everyone else fumbled for their goggles.
It was almost five thirty in the morning. It was still half-dark. America leaned forward on the dashboard. He wondered if they'd really be able to see--
Able to see--
Light
Light
Light pounded the breath out of his lungs. It was every color--golden, purple, violet, gray, blue, wild and sudden and spilling out all around them. It lit the entire valley; it exposed every peak, crevasse, and ridge of the distant mountain range. It bloomed, and bloomed, and unveiled the world before his eyes, seared open every detail. It was a world without shadows, a world in every color, and he could see every tree--every flake of sand--
America felt something lunge in his chest. Nothing had ever been so beautiful.
And then the sound hit them. It ripped over his ears and cracked the air. He trembled, and gripped the dashboard, and the breath heaved in his lungs. He braced himself into that sound, and rode the crescendo until its mad conclusion.
A cold and ringing silence spread over the desert.
The others started talking, all at once, but America was still. He stared into that fading pillar of smoke and fire.
Something had changed.
He thought, faintly, of alchemy.
He'd never tried it. Alchemy was from before his time. He'd always thought it was a stupid idea; you couldn't turn one thing into something else. That was magic, not science. He couldn't believe that England and France and all of the rest of them had wasted so much time with it.
He looked through the sand-burned windshield and fixed his eyes on that dim horizon. Wild thunder still resounded in his bones.
America thought to himself: I am an alchemist.
I can turn iron--
(I can turn carbon--)
I can turn anything I want--
(Anyone I want--)
...Into gold.
He knew, of course, that the bombs were evil. He also knew that he had to use them. For the war--absolutely, for the war. But...that wasn't all.
Magic had to be performed.
+++
-- The Trinity Test took place at 5:29:45 AM, July 16, 1945, unleashing an explosion equivalent to twenty kilotons of TNT. It was the world's first detonation of a nuclear device, and marked the beginning of the Atomic Age. You can find Richard Feynman's (very readable and entertaining) first hand account of his time spent on the Manhattan Project, and the day of the detonation, here.
+++
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-24 02:32 pm (UTC)I realize he just couldn't help it, and I couldn't help feeling a flash of fear and hatred, you know? More of a fear, actually - one of the most chilling, breathtaking kind of horror that you immediately get ashamed of and want to push it out by turning it into fury and punching something hard.
Gosh, I was really curious how this post would go across with our Russian readers, because you guys must have a really intense set of associations with Trinity and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the whole four year stretch before First Lightning, yeah? Emily and I are writing about Russia's feelings about all this in the Potsdam post, and she's going to do a solo post right afterwards to get into it even more, but after all, all we can really do is speculate.
In America, you know, we have these very different associations with Trinity, and then the actual bombings which took place a few weeks later. Trinity was ominous as shit, yeah, but it was also a massive technological accomplishment, something we're taught to be rather proud of just on its own merits, and it was, I mean, along with economic considerations (America being sort of the only developed country that wasn't fucking burned down during WW2) what earned America that instant "LOL, SUPERPOWER" label after the war. And you know, being a superpower, that's nice, we're into that. So we feel...I don't want to say "positive" about Trinity, and the Manhattan Project, but...there's a lot of respect for it, you know?
But then, you ask most Americans (any educated Americans, I'd like to think) what they think of the atomic bombings during the war, and there's this tremendous regret, this really intense sense of national responsibility. Not "guilt," that's not it, although certainly among some elements, you'll find very intense feelings of guilt and shame for our use of the atomic bomb...but a far greater awareness and sorrow for what an awful thing the bomb is, and how much suffering it brought into the world, both in Japan, and, you know, kind of everywhere as a result of the Cold War.
Like, these two things are distinct, separate events in the American psyche, you know what I mean? Trinity was an amazing accomplishment that gave the nation unprecedented power, and we have respectful feelings about that. The bombings themselves were...evil, obviously. Like, necessary? The best choice? (Not the right choice--obviously nothing that involves wiping out two cities full of civilians is the 'right choice.' But the best choice available?) Maybe. Who knows? Nobody can ever say, really. But there is a profound understanding of the horror of the atomic bomb in the United States. I don't want to throw around the term 'war crime,' because that has a very specific and highly controversial definition, but there's no question to most Americans that it was a horrible, cruel thing to do, regardless of its efficacy, or how little anyone understood about the long-term consequences of the bomb at the time.
But I suppose there wouldn't be any sense of that distinction in Russia, would there? It would just be, first day of the Atomic Age, oh fuck, come oooon Soviet atomic project. (By the way, does it have a cool name? Like the Manhattan Project? I can't even find a number designation for it or anything, everything I read just calls it the 'Soviet atomic bomb project.' I sometimes wish the Soviet Union had placed more of a priority on giving things cool names. >_> All the number designations are hard to remember. <_< )
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-24 06:05 pm (UTC)Yes, I think this is one of those points where Big Differences pop out and glare at us with their malicious eyes.
First of all - well, this is pretty obvious, but I just want to remind you that my opinion is not always the same as that of majority of russian population. Second, I don't really know why, but somehow I always felt the existence of that distinction, and this chapter only have confirmed it, painted it beautifully with colors and sounds and emotions. So I commented specifically on the Trinity Test, not on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and stuff that comes after that.
Let me put it simple - I don't like technological accomplishment that takes a form of a huge destructive explosion. I like mobile phones and electric cars, I like new medicines, I like machines that explore in space, but I don't like tremendously big explosions, made by human or not. They contain a sense of danger. But I won't deny that one of the feelings that makes me dislike the whole 'lol superpower' thing is an envy. I'm so contradicted sometimes. 8)
because you guys must have a really intense set of associations with Trinity and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the whole four year stretch before First Lightning, yeah?
Yes, and mostly with Hiroshima. Like, for example, till the end of 80s all kids learned russian song about Sadako; my friend once sang it for me and I don't want to ever hear it again. My other friend told me that they (government->school administrations->teachers) even made 8-years-old children watch 'Hadashi No Gen'. Yes, that anime, uncensored. 8 years old kids. In 80s. So... uh, well... I hope you get the picture. *sulks*
first day of the Atomic Age, oh fuck, come oooon Soviet atomic project
Oh fuck, indeed.
By the way, does it have a cool name? Like the Manhattan Project? I can't even find a number designation for it or anything, everything I read just calls it the 'Soviet atomic bomb project.' I sometimes wish the Soviet Union had placed more of a priority on giving things cool names.
These are atomic bombs. All that stuff was bleak and serious here. Why would they want to give it names? Names are for cuter things like Sputnik and Laika, at the time when we could smile just hearing these words, you know?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-25 02:55 pm (UTC)You always make that easy to keep in mind. Honestly, I'd never have brought this up with anyone else. I know that you're thoughtful, and calm, even if we uncover one of those areas where our cultural backgrounds really makes a difference. So. ♥ I certainly hope I didn't offend you with my speculation, or the direction of my thoughts. You know me--I'm just, well, curious about things. ._. "Hey, nice Russian person I know, what did you guys think about the atomic bomb when it was first invented?" is not one of those questions Americans often get the opportunity to ask, as you might imagine...
Thank you, for your perspective. It's very valuable to me, as always. ♥ Emily is working on a post about Russia's reaction to Hiroshima now, actually, so I'll make sure she sees this.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-25 04:35 pm (UTC)Just for statistic =) I like if more russian say their opinion, beacause it's interesting for me too.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-26 01:33 pm (UTC)*giggles happily* You're a lucky one, then, aren't you?
I'm not offended. Not at all! And I understand everything you say, and accept your perspective as an example of cultural difference that I mark as a 'no-fly zone', just in case.