Supersymmetry Read Online Free PDF

bet you pulled some crazy pranks when you were growing up together.”
    Alex smiled noncommittally. The truth was, she and Sandra hadn’t grown up together, not until they were fourteen years old. They weren’t even really twins, not in the traditional sense. But that was more than she wanted to explain right now. To change the subject, she said, “My brother’s stationed in Poland. Everyone says that’s where the war will break out first, if it comes.”
    â€œArmy?”
    â€œMarines. Force Recon, actually.”
    â€œOoh, a real man,” Tequila said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Can I meet him? When does he come home?”
    Alex elbowed her. “He has two months left in his tour of duty. But that won’t make any difference if Turkey attacks. Two months might turn into two years. Or he might never come home.”
    The speakers crackled, and all eyes turned. A Lockheed Martin functionary stood at the podium, kicking off the day’s events and introducing Lockheed Martin CEO Linda Staker. Staker stood to light applause. Tequila said, “Good luck—you’ll be great,” and squeezed Alex’s shoulder. The two of them took their places on the lower level of chairs.
    Alex sat next to Vijay Bhargava, their development team lead, who knew more about the nanocircuitry in their product than any other two of them combined. Vijay was resolutely pessimistic, a glass-half-empty-and-probably-poisoned-anyway kind of guy. “And our fearless CEO takes the stage,” he said. “I’ve never heard anyone talk as much as she does. She could put a class of five-year-olds to sleep on cupcake day.”
    Alex grinned and elbowed him. “She’s not that bad.”
    â€œShe could out-filibuster a senator,” Vijay said. “She could bore a snake to tears.”
    â€œI get the idea.”
    â€œGet it? Snakes don’t have tear glands, so she’d have to be really boring to bore them to tears.”
    She raised her hands in surrender. “Yeah, okay. I got it.”
    The room was large enough for a NASA convention. It was decorated like a war zone, with burned-out buildings and rubble. A special stage had been built at one end to seat the VIPs, with leather chairs and attendants to bring drinks. This was where Ryan Oronzi sat, along with the Lockheed Martin executive staff, NJSC chief Stanley Babington, two congressmen, the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of Defense Jared Falk with his security detail. On either side of the stage were the rows of folding chairs for everyone else: the NJSC scientists, the reps from the military and intelligence communities with their science aides in tow to explain the technology to them, the Lockheed Martin executives and business managers.
    True to Vijay’s prediction, Staker droned on for a good ten minutes, spouting platitudes about the importance of all the people working there at Lakehurst, their dedication to excellence, ability to work together no matter their employer, and the importance of their efforts to national security. Her speech was upbeat, inclusive, patriotic, and desperately dull. Alex had nothing to do but dwell on her role in the coming demo, and the various possible ways she could botch it. At the end, Staker introduced Secretary Falk, and Alex cringed, expecting him to give more of the same.
    But he didn’t. He took the podium and said, “You all know what happened in Philadelphia last night. Whether Turkish terrorists were to blame or not, we live in dangerous times. The world covets our wealth and power and wants to destroy us. What we see here today might be just the edge we need to preserve our way of life for the next generation. Let’s begin.”
    Staker nodded to a vice president, who nodded to Alex’s boss, and Alex and Tequila and their team stood. It was time.
    Music started, a marching drumbeat with horns in the background, probably lifted from some old war film by