Kulkarni grimaced. “Mr. Grady, if this was so, why do Bose-Einstein condensates follow geodesics? I can drop them in a vacuum chamber, and they fall just like Galileo’s rock.”

Grady grabbed a piece of paper from a table and started making intricate folds as he talked. “Yes, but the deBroglie wavelength of the BEC is on the order of a millimeter, whereas the gravity field wavelength is effectively infinite—which means gravity can move it around. If the de Broglie wavelength can be made longer than the gravity wavelength, we can in principle isolate the BEC from the gravity wave.”

“Okay, but even so, it’s only true for time-varying fields—not static fields like this.”

“Agreed, but I had an idea about that, too.” He held up what was now a paper sphere—handily crafted. He waved his hand around it. “Neutron stars have massive magnetic fields. And superconductors—like this graphene—exclude magnetic fields. But a neutron star like Cassiopeia A—which has a proton superconductor at its core—nonetheless has a massive magnetic field.”

Kulkarni just stared.

“How is that possible, I wondered? It’s because superfluids containing charged particles are also superconductors. The combination has some extraordinary effects. Add a superfluid to a superconductor, and the superconducting boundary shifts, changing the value of kappa and causing truly exotic behavior at the new superconducting boundary.” He slapped the side of the massive assembly. “I had a theory about the distortion of gravitational waves at that superconducting boundary.”

Kulkarni sighed. “Mr. Grady, I don’t see how this could accomplish anything except waste money.”

Grady gazed at the professor. “Right . . .” He turned to the chubbier of the two Asian men. “Raj, bring the power up, please.”

“You got it.” Perkasa chuckled and moved toward the bank of capacitors on the edge of the room. He motioned to the visitors. “You guys may want to step back a bit. I’m about to pump fifty megawatts into this thing.”

Kulkarni snapped a look at Grady. “That could light a small city.”

Grady nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

Before anyone could object, Perkasa raised his hand over a glowing button. “Heads up! And three, and two, and one . . .” With a jab of his thick finger a deep hum settled over the lab. An eerie glow appeared in the sphere as motes of dust were ionized; then the glow faded.

Grady raised his beer bottle to the opening of a long clear tube that snaked down into the heart of the monstrous assembly. “Just watch.” He poured.

All eyes followed the beer as it coursed down the plastic tube and spilled out across the concave platform. . . .

At which point the liquid fell straight up.

Kulkarni removed his glasses and stared, mouth agape. “Good lord . . .”

As the liquid “fell” upward, it passed some invisible point where natural gravity returned, and then it spilled back toward earth again, like a fountain—only to be caught once more in the altered field. Soon the liquid began bobbing up and down, oscillating between ever narrowing high and low points until it reached equilibrium. Before long it was bubbling around like a domed membrane on the edge of both gravity fields, a seething polar “beer cap” on an invisible globe.

Kulkarni put his glasses back on. “My God . . . it’s a flux.”

Grady nodded. “Exactly. Gravitational fields follow the same shape as electromagnetic fields. Just as the flowing electrons in a plasma jet generate a magnetic field, we’re thinking these quantum fields interact with gravitation somehow.”

“Antigravity? You can’t be serious.”

“No. Not antigravity. What I think we’ve created is a machine that’s ‘shiny’ to gravity—a gravity mirror. Or perhaps refraction is more accurate. I’m not sure yet.”

Kulkarni pointed. “This is clearly some form of electromagnetism. Water is diamagnetic, and at these high-energy levels you could probably float a brick given just trace amounts of magnetic material. Surely you don’t claim you’re reflecting gravity?”

“Superconductors exclude magnetic fields, Doctor.” Grady pointed. “And you must admit our test results look promising.”

“But . . .” Kulkarni was speechless for a few moments as he watched the cheap malt liquor bubbling around in midair. “If you could bend gravity . . . it would mean . . .” His voice trailed off.

Grady finished for him. “It would provide compelling support for the existence of gravitational waves. Not to mention gravitons. And a few other things besides.”

Kulkarni groped for a chair, but all the nearby ones were in pieces. “My God . . .”

“It is pretty damn cool.”

Kulkarni started shaking his head again. “No. This must be electromagnetism. Even a nonferrous liquid—”

“You’re quite right to be skeptical. Our lab is open to you.”

“Because what you’re suggesting . . . well, the Standard Model of physics . . . this would create an entirely new form of astronomy. It would mean the Nobel Prize. And that’s just for starters.”

Alcot, Grady, and the technicians exchanged looks.

Grady laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that, Bert.”

Alcot raised his eyebrows. “It was the first thing I thought of.”

Marrano held up his hands. “Whoa! Guys. Hang on a second.”

They all turned to Marrano.

“Just an observation: You’re using enough energy to light a hundred thousand homes—to levitate a mouthful of malt liquor six feet off the ground. That’s about as cost-effective as using a Boeing 747 to clean a throw rug.”

Doctor Kulkarni was starting to ponder what he was looking at as he waved Marrano off. “You’re not realizing the potential significance of this discovery, Mr. Marrano.”

“Significance is great, but it’s not gonna make the economics work any better.”

“If what we’re really looking at is antigravity—or a gravity mirror, as you say, Mr. Grady—and we haven’t yet determined that . . .” Kulkarni started examining the computer screen as he spoke to Marrano. “The potential impact would be enormous, it could reveal . . . well, the warp and weft in the fabric of the universe. It would help us understand the structure of space-time itself. So far, gravity is the only force that hasn’t conformed to the Standard Physics Model. No, this is potentially the most significant discovery of the century. Of perhaps any century. It could unlock untold scientific advances. Even a grand unified field theory.”

The moneymen exchanged looks.

“Okay, and the commercial potential for that is . . . ?”

It was the scientists’ turn to look at one another.

Grady handed the bottle of malt liquor to Kulkarni—who steadied himself by taking a swig. Meanwhile Grady answered Marrano’s question. “Probably not much initially; as you mentioned, it requires huge amounts of energy to induce these exotic particle states—even for just a tiny area. To commercialize it you’d need nearly unlimited energy—”

Alcot added. “Unlimited cheap energy.”

“Yes, unlimited cheap, portable energy. Assuming that, you could create reflective gravity devices. But as you mentioned, there are more practical ways to make things fly—”

Johnson motioned to the bubbling liquid, still floating in the sphere. “So then you’ve created the world’s most expensive lava lamp. Don’t get me wrong—it’s impressive—but at fifty megawatts . . .”

Kulkarni stepped between them. “You’re not appreciating how important this could be to science.”

“We brought you here as the voice of reason, Doctor. You’re starting to sound like a nerdy kid at the museum.”

Grady took the bottle back. “Yeah. I was that kid, too.”

Kulkarni regained his serious bearing. Nodding, he turned again to Alcot. “Bert, prove to me this isn’t simply some form of electromagnetism. Does it work in a vacuum, for instance? Can we rule out ionic lift?”

Alcot leaned on a cane. “We’ve produced the same results in a vacuum chamber and with nonmagnetic materials.” He turned to Grady. “Jon, show Sam the field manipulation experiments.”