Chapter 6 – News

Monday, October 5

I listened to the morning news absently as I drove to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I’d achieved my dream of becoming a nuclear research scientist four years ago when I graduated with my physics PhD, but I still had to wrestle with traffic each morning—and office meetings. I had one this morning to finalize our project plans for the coming year. I glanced at the clock. 7:55 AM. I’d barely make it.

The radio station broke for news. “The spate of politicians’ and reporters’ garments catching on fire has abated. It seems the fires are connected to something they say. No one has given an exact cause, but reporters and politicians are being very careful about what they say.”

“Huh, that’s weird.” I thought these garment fires were caused by some prankster, but the reports had been coming in from all over the globe for the past day. That was a puzzle I’d have to solve in my after-work hours. Today, I will be busy researching possible means of improving nuclear fusion. I had an interesting reaction using boron that might be effective.

I couldn’t listen any further. I pulled into the parking lot and ran into the building. It would be close. My tablet bounced against my side in my leather purse. I pulled out my security card to unlock the door, looking at my bad picture as I read “Katherine Garcia”. Why are my pictures always so ugly? My eyebrows looked as thick as caterpillars under my black bangs and my expression looks like I’m sucking on aspirin. Maybe next time I’ll make a duck face.

I trotted down the hall and saw my boss, Herman Scholl, waiting outside the conference room door for me. His face looked grim below his receding hairline. “Get on in, Katie. Everyone’s here.”

Uh-oh. Was I in some trouble?

My boss’s boss, Smita Vuppuluri, and the director of Oakridge Labs, Winston Williams, were in there, and all of my co-workers. We sat down and my boss began.

“After yesterday’s accident, President Lopez directed us to look into these odd fires starting all around the country and the world.”

“What accident?” I tended to interrupt people when I had a question. It was probably a fault, but my urgent need to know made me burst out.

“Didn’t you hear? Yesterday, he gave a speech to the National Board of Teachers, and his pants caught on fire. It was on all the news media.”

I didn’t watch the evening news, nor did I follow social media, but I remained silent rather than confessing ignorance. I was reading a romantic fantasy book last night. Then I said, “I hope he’s okay.”

“Yes, he’s under observation in Bethesda Naval Hospital. His Secret Service agents got the fire out quickly.” Herman cleared his throat and continued. “We’ve identified over one thousand publicly documented incidents of spontaneous combustion in politicians, lawyers, and car dealers in the past twenty-four hours. There is anecdotal evidence for thousands of others. And that’s just in the United States.”

“We have another eight hundred cases on video from around the world. Then there are several thousand on social media.

Then Smita Vuppuluri spoke, “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this. The President has called in us, the National Science Foundation, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and any other organization that can help investigate.”

“We’ve already divided the evidence into eight groups for the eight of you. You are the best researchers we’ve got. I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of this phenomenon.” She handed each of us a thick binder and said, “This is your paper copy. You’ll have the electronic version in your email. Good luck!”

Whew! I hefted the weighty binder and glanced at it as I walked to my desk. Color-coded pages divided the binder into Facebook posts, news stories, TikTok links, Tweets, and Viewtube links. At the back, I found an appendix with printed newspaper articles and the Wikipedia page, just published yesterday.

Skimming through the paper tome, I saw hundreds of links and references. How should I attack this?

At my desk, I doodled on my memo pad, drawing a fire. That’s a result. What preceded it?

I searched through the electronic document in my email, and I saw in every case, someone was talking, always publicly. I drew a picture of a stick figure talking and linked it to the fire with an arrow.

Something must have caused the fire. I made an ‘X?’ and a vertical arrow to the result arrow.

I could start by trying to reproduce the fire. But I had a hunch I needed more on the conditions. Public speaking goes on daily worldwide with billions of people. A quick count of my electronic file showed six hundred and fifty-three cases. Times our eight researchers, that’s roughly fifty-two hundred cases.

I wonder what the time span of the cases is? Glancing at the time stamps, I saw they were already arranged chronologically. The first event occurred at five after six pm Eastern time. There were two politicians in a debate. Both of them burst into flame after their opening statements.

Curious, I examined their sentences and played the linked video. They spoke normal political palaver but with dire consequences. I winced. Wearing burning pantyhose was no joke. Burning pants couldn’t be fun either.

Where was I? Oh, the time span. The last time stamp seemed to be twenty-four hours later, in Australia. That was Australian time. Converting it to Eastern time, it was twelve fourteen after two am. Huh. Do the episodes stop after two?

I called my fellow researchers. They all confirmed their latest episodes had stopped after midnight on the East Coast. The latest episode was two twenty-one am in India, EST.

I got the time stamps of all incidents from my fellow researchers. I plotted the times around the world.

Fascinating. I animated the results. A blaze of fires began in the US, Canada, Mexico, and South America at about 9 am, across all the time zones. Around 9 pm, they began stopping, ending in Alaska and Hawaii. The fires continued in Asia until 2:21 am.

I called my boss. “Herman?”

“Hi, Katie. Did you discover the cause already?”

“No, I’m just curious that the episodes ended about twelve hours later in the US. Have any shown up since about 2:30 AM?”

“Let’s see. That was about seven hours ago. I’ll check with our data collection team and get back to you. They haven’t told me anything since three am this morning when we got the Presidential order and sent me the data. What you guys got was the last data they collected.”

I spent the rest of the morning collating all the statements before the fires. In each case, the politician was “spinning the truth”. Less diplomatically, they were lying. As far as I could tell, this also applied to the lawyers and car dealers. One of the lawyers burst into flame in a courtroom when she said, “My client is not guilty”. A car dealer creating a video for their used car business turned into a burning man image when he said, “We have the best cars money can buy.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

So, lying caused the incineration of clothing. How? I needed to reproduce the effect. I’ll find out the energy source this afternoon.

I mused about how to research this over my lunch outside. Fresh, hot coffee with cream and my homemade peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich. I made my own bread, and my mom made the jam from the bushes in her yard.

I decided what I needed to do. It’d be uncomfortable, but it was necessary for science.

I pitched my lunch bag in the trash and strode to my car in the parking lot. I drove to a paint supply company and bought several pairs of painter's pants. Coming back, I parked and carried my package toward the chemical sciences lab. I knew they had what I needed. I grabbed it and walked to the testing lab. It was explosion-proof, which might be important.

I put on the fireproof pants from the chemical lab and then painter's pants over them. I put safety goggles over my eyes. Bracing myself in the middle of the test room, I held the fire extinguisher. Then I said, “One and one are three.”

Nothing happened.

Hmm. I was afraid this’d happen. Perhaps the lie has to be broadcast. I called my mother.

“Hello, Katie.”

“Hi, Mom. I need your help for an experiment.”

“How can I help?”

“Just watch and listen.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. That’s why it’s an experiment.” I propped up the phone on a chair and waved at Mom.

“One plus one equals three.”

My painter's pants burst into flame.

“Eeee! Are you all right, Katie?”

“Sure, Mom.” I doused the fire with the extinguisher. “I expected this to happen. I’m wearing protective gear.”

“What kind of experiment is this, Katie?”

“I’m investigating a phenomenon. I’ll tell you more when I know more.”

I examined the burnt remnant carefully. They were completely blackened and charred. I fingered them and tore a hole in the pocket. The fabric was weakened, but not completely burned. The inside of the pocket was unburned. Good. I could use them again.

“Can’t you tell me anything?”

“Just a second, Mom.” I wrote down my first lie and observations in my notebook, as well as the time and the GPS location.

“Okay, here we go again. I’m telling various lies. I’m trying to figure out why pants catch on fire.”

“Uh, I thought that was just a saying.”

“It seems to have become real.”

“Here goes the next one.” I put my safety goggles back on. “Politicians always tell the truth.”

Flame on! Extinguisher on!

“I could have told you that was a lie.”

“Right. I’m trying things that I know are lies first. Then I’ll test how far I can shade the truth. It seems I need someone to lie to.”

My phone rang. “Hi, Herman. What’d you find out from the data team?” Herman was used to my abrupt questions.

“The incidents ended about ten pm Eastern time—in the Eastern time zone. If you expand the definition of incidents, they go to about ten-fifteen.”

“Um, what expanded definition do you use?” I had a bad feeling about this.

“Any kind of supernatural or unnatural, or unexplainable event. We’ve had reports of dragons, flying cars, and walking teacups.”

“Dragons? What? Where?”

“In Chicago. It apparently ate several gang members. Then it disappeared.”

“So, non-reproducible. Great. Walking teacups?”

“A couple called in a news reporter claiming they could make their teacup walk. The reporter stopped by and filmed it. It was on the evening news in Cleveland.”

“Ooo-kay. Get me the address. Please.” There. I remembered to be polite.

“I’ve already sent these additional incidents and a new tranche of data to you and all your associates. What do you have for me?”

“I’ve been able to reproduce the pants-on-fire incident. Apparently, you have to lie to another person.”

“Great news! But, er, awkward. I’m in Washington this afternoon, and I’ll report this to the President. I’m not sure he can do anything about it. See if you can get around this effect.”

“Okay. I’ll test it and see what I find out.” He hung up. I didn’t have much hope.

* * *

“President Lopez?” I asked diffidently at the door to the Oval Office.

“Ah. Come in Herman. Tell me all about what the National Laboratory has discovered about these horrible incidents.” He leaned back in his chair. He’d restored Truman’s old desk to the Oval Office and put Truman’s sign there, “The buck stops here.” Other than that, his desk was clear.

I turned my gaze to the President’s dark, piercing eyes. Their sharpness was in contrast to his pleasant, affable expression and tone. I could tell he was eager for anything I could tell him about the phenomenon. I also knew he wouldn’t like what I said.

“We’ve discovered that lying to another person causes that person’s pants to ignite.”

“Woah! That’s a problem. I’m surprised there haven’t been more incidents.”

“We’ve documented thousands of cases. It seems it requires the lie to be broadcast via video. We’re researching the limits of the effect now, using our best researcher.”

“I wonder if we record a speech and then dub it over a video? Maybe a deepfake?”

I make a note of this. “We’ll test that. We’re also investigating how we can shade the truth without triggering these fires.”

The President shook his head. “Tell the truth? That’s out of the question. International diplomacy alone would founder, let alone domestic politics. Everyone knows we slant the truth—neither party is fooling anyone. Politics is like poker—you can’t play the game without bluffing.”

“We’ll run a full set of tests and tell you the limits of this fire problem.”

“Good. Accelerate your research. Give your findings to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and any other alphabet agency I might have forgotten. We want to get on top of this and make a nationwide announcement by tomorrow. How about you give me another report at this time tomorrow?”

“Yes sir. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

I glanced at the clock. Two AM. I’d been at these experiments for twelve hours. I’d sent out for a sub sandwich at dinner. My mom had to get up at four to get dinner ready. I dragged in some of my coworkers to help and then when they went home, I drafted the second shift janitor, Mike Peete.

“My shift is up at 2 am, Ms. Garcia.”

“That’s fine Mike. I’ll get the third shift to help. One more test please.”

I’d put on a copper sheath, like a skirt, over my fire-proof underwear and attached it to a steel drum. I wondered it’d conduct heat away fast enough.

“I think all politicians are truthful,” I lied. I braced myself.

Nothing happened. Why was that?

“Whew. That’s something.”

“Nothing happened.”

“That’s what I mean. Why would that happen, er not happen?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got to go. My son’s got a Little League game tomorrow.”

“Sure, Mike. Thanks for your help. Tell the third shift security guy to stop by when you see him.”

“Will do. Good night to you.”

I sighed. I was tired but satisfied. I’d discovered a lot. Everything was black and white with this phenomenon. Even shading colors from blue to green, I couldn’t call aquamarine blue or green without triggering the fire effect. I had to call it ‘blue-green’ or ‘aquamarine’ or ‘turquoise’. And it didn’t matter if I used another language. If I believed the color was one thing and I said something else, fire burst out on whatever I was wearing.

If no one was listening there was no effect. If I recorded my voice on video and showed it, as soon as another person heard it, I went flambé.

I’d burned myself several times. The worst case was when I tried aluminum pants. They melted and splashed on my feet. Ouch.

The temperature generated wasn’t constant. It was hot enough to burn whatever I wore—on top. My fire-proof underwear protected me, mostly.

“Hello, Ms. Garcia? Mike told me you wanted to see me.”

“Hi, er Cliff.” I read ‘Cliff Edwards’ on his security tag. We hadn’t met before. “I wonder if you could stop by my lab once an hour for your shift. I’m doing some experiments and I need an audience for them to work.”

“You don’t need anything else? Just to have me listen?”

“That’s it.”

“No problem. See you in an hour. Bye.”

I typed up my notes and emailed them to my colleagues and boss. I was stumped. I wonder if the effect would re-appear?

“Hi, Ms. Garcia. This is your three am check-in.”

“Hi, Cliff. Here we go. One plus one is three.” I looked at the lab coat I wore over my underwear. “Nothing happened.”

“Was something supposed to happen?”

“I don’t know. I’m still learning about what’s going on.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A reason why people’s clothing catches on fire if they lie.”

“Liar, liar, pant on fire?”

“Literally. At least until two am. That’s when the effect stopped.”

“Huh. I wonder why?”

“Me too. I’ll check every hour until it comes back. Or until I collapse.”

I collapsed about eight in the morning, as the other researchers came in. I dragged myself home, threw myself into bed, and immediately fell asleep.

I often have vivid dreams and I got a doozy after my crazy night. I was in outer space, watching the Earth rotate. My dream was on time-lapse apparently and I saw the sun’s terminus sweep across the globe, from the US east coast to the west. It continued across the Pacific and then on to Asia, then Africa and Europe. The Atlantic Ocean swept by and then the east coast again.

I woke abruptly. I looked at myself with disgust. I was still wearing my work clothing from yesterday. Had I worn it for twenty-four hours? No, it was one thirty. That was about thirty hours. Yuck. I could smell myself. I didn’t even have to sniff my pits.

I threw my clothes in the hamper and myself in the shower. I wondered about the dream. It seemed significant, somehow. I’d take a different tact today with my research.