"A dig on an island in Central America..."<br/><br/>Zoey rubbed her temple.<br/><br/><em>"Doctor?  Are you alright?" asked the young man next to her.</em><br/><br/>"Yes I'm fine," she said, waving away the imaginary figure, "Just a bit tired, is all."<br/><br/><em>The laboratory was busy and the sound of electricity hummed in the air.  "We're nearly ready to begin the experiment."<br/><br/>Zoey looked at her control panel, blinking lights and numerous readouts showing they were ready to start.  "Begin excitation of the primary laser.  Keep the dam in place until we're at 40 megawatts."<br/><br/>The asian graduate student began adjusting the knob, making sure it read correctly.  Zoey inserted a key she kept around her neck, entering in her personal authorization.  "Excite lasers two and four.  Keep three down unless needed.  Keep them below 10 megawatts."<br/><br/>The hum of electricity grew louder and the sound of fans pulling in the cool Boston air kicked in as well.  Finally... "Pull the dam!"<br/><br/>Three lasers emerged, focused on a single, finely honed piece of diamond suspended in a special cradle.  The lasers hit, and instantly the metal on the other side began to melt, despite no visible source of light.  It continued to do so, with the steel plates melting as if hit with a blowtorch, glowing white hot.  Finally, the laser shut off, and everyone converged.<br/><br/>There, in the center, a perfectly circular hole remained.  "Amazing, doctor.  The X-ray laser worked!  Your idea to refract the laser and use the excited diamond was spot on."<br/><br/>"Yeah well, we're not done yet.  It's only got an effective range of around five meters.  Any further, and it's useless," Zoey said, examining the hole.<br/><br/>"Doctor, come look at this," her graduate assistant said.<br/><br/>Walking over, Zoey looked over her shoulder.  It showed the laser output, mostly a pointless excersize but they liked to keep records.  Except that the normally simple sine waves were off.  Very off.  "What the hell?" she asked, sitting down and looking at the results.<br/><br/>There were three sinusoidal waves moving slowly across the screen as the oscilloscope monitored the power output of the lasers.  Those were normal at 60 hertz, in a three phase configuration.  That was normal and to be expected.  What was unusual was that the third laser's output was different.  Very different.  It was almost a square wave, bouncing up and down, but in strange patterns.  It obviously was outside interference, but from what?<br/><br/>"Are you recording this?" Zoey asked.<br/><br/>A button was pressed, "It is now."<br/><br/>The signal continued for almost five more minutes before it suddenly stopped.  The lights went out for several seconds, before they came back on.  That's when she'd met the Colonel, the one who'd introduced her to this insane outfit.</em><br/><br/>Leaning against the glass, Zoey was tired.  She knew she was tired, she knew she was getting cranky, and the condescending nature of the others was about to get on her nerves.  So she did the only practical thing she could.  She sat down with her back to the wall, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.