Creation- The Auditor’s Apprentice

by Frank Stonely

  ‘Got it,’ she called back.

  As he turned back he glanced down at the pilot case, ‘You work round here?’

  The Gatekeeper paused, and then took a chance, ‘Yeah, I work for one of the subcontractors that supply NASA. I’m on my way to a meeting, I just came in to get out of the wind and have a coffee.’

  ‘No kidding! I started there last week.’ The corporal thrust his hand across the table, ‘My name’s Joe, Joe Mackay. Nice to meet you.’

  Orion’s rise through the ranks had been meteoric and, now as Colonel J. Mackay, he was in sole charge of delivering the Military Equipment Pod, MEP, that would be carried aboard NASA’s Solar Explorer probe. The project had been given an SCI security ranking which, in theory, was so top secret that nobody at NASA should have been aware of it. But it was obvious to the engineers designing the spacecraft that it contained six, rather than the publicised five, payload bays. The frustrated engineers would quiz Colonel Mackay at the weekly mission meetings trying to extract the smallest clue as to the purpose of the non-existent military payload. But they didn’t succeed. His answer was always the same, only divulging the module’s dimensions, weight, power and telemetry requirements and, even then, only after they had signed an updated non-disclosure agreement. During the press briefings, which were becoming more frequent as the launch day approached, the Military Equipment Pod was only mentioned once when a TV journalist, who had been tipped off by an aerospace subcontractor, asked the colonel directly what the military were going to use the sixth payload bay for. Before he could reply the director of NASA's Langley Research Centre stood up and replied for him. She was a short, rotund woman, with a fiery Texan accent, ‘We are not here to answer questions about spurious rumours. Now, please, can we have a sensible question?’ The embarrassed journalist, who subsequently met an untimely death on her way back to the TV station, sat down.

  Orion had allocated himself a small workshop, set in the corner of the building that housed NASA’s Materials Research Laboratory. The only access into the room was via a single door, which was guarded around the clock by two armed U.S. Marines. Inside, the room was divided by a long workbench, to the side of which, beneath three tall narrow windows, all obscured by white opaque film, was an office desk with a laptop computer, printer, and telephone on it. Orion was floating above the workbench, examining the component he had manufactured the previous night; it was a titanium matter injector, about the size of a cigarette lighter, one of four needed for the trihadronite exciter sub-assembly. The component was levitating in front of him, slowly rotating this way and that as he examined it for any imperfections. In addition to inspecting the exterior, his non-physical form slid into the component’s millimetre-wide galleries, allowing him to examine its interior in detail. Not requiring sleep, the poltergeist made good use of the Virginian nights, visiting engineering workshops around the complex to manufacture the two-hundred and forty-nine precision components required to build Anubis’ trihadronite bomb. The time difference between CERN and Virginia had proved very useful and he would regularly speak to Anubis during the night, reporting his progress and discussing any issues that had cropped up that day.

  Apart from dragging the TV journalist’s car through a red light into oncoming traffic, Orion had managed to suppress his mischievous urges. He was considered by the other engineers to be one of those oddball military loners seconded to NASA, someone who would disappear, never to be seen again, once the project was completed. Nobody knew who he really was, or where he lived, and nobody cared.

  The only other person to have access to the workshop was Chief Warrant Officer, Natalie Green, a middle-aged U.S. Marine Corps technical officer who had been seconded to the project at the colonel’s request. She was thirty-eight and was coming to the end of her career having served nineteen years with the Marines. She had been side-lined following an accident that had left her limping heavily, almost having to drag her left foot as she walked. The injury had been self-inflicted. She had stupidly been working on a gas compressor while it was running, and accidently dropped a spanner into the gearbox inspection hatch, where the huge torque of the cogs shredded it into bullet-like shards. Whilst recovering in hospital she had been given the option of either working out her time at a desk job or facing a court-martial for reckless endangerment.

  Her position with the colonel had two main tasks; the first was to operate the laptop computer, printing out the e-mailed drawings sent by Anubis almost every night. The second, and by far the most important, was to deal with any inquisitive eyes trying to find out what was going on inside the colonel’s workshop. Having spent almost twenty years working with testosterone-charged Marines of both sexes, keeping a few NASA technicians at bay was a walk in the park. But, just in case, she was always armed. Her thirty-eight Special, with its pink frame and two inch stainless-steel barrel, was tucked into the belt of her service uniform, hidden from sight under the tailored tunic.

  Natalie came into the workshop carrying a DHL parcel that had arrived at the mailroom that morning. As the door opened Orion snatched the injector out of the air and reincarnated himself as the colonel. ‘The fixings you ordered have arrived, sir,’ she said, ripping open the package and pouring the contents onto the workbench. ‘They’re getting really impatient over in the Assembly Hall, Colonel. That little guy, Rogers, ambushed me in the car park again, said we’ve got to have the MEP ready for environmental testing by next Wednesday. I told him we were going to start assembling it today. He said he’s going to get clearance to come over and see the pod for himself, said he’d be here about three this afternoon.’

  As Natalie was speaking, the engineers in the Assembly Hall were manoeuvring the twenty-six ton assembly rig into position. It was suspended from the gantry crane which had lifted it from the twenty-four wheel low-loader used to transport it from the manufacturer. The crane slowly traversed the hall with the operator bringing the load to a halt with millimetre precision. Then, looking down from his cab, he waited while the assembly hall engineers aligned the locking pins and gave him the all-clear to lower it into position. As he pushed the hoist control forward there was a loud crack as one of the support chains snapped, allowing the rig to swing to one side like a pendulum. It pinned Rogers fatally against the wall, conveniently cancelling that afternoon’s visit to Orion’s workshop.

  At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening Orion tightened the last of the screws securing the cover of the detonation sequencer and then stood back to admire his handiwork. Sitting in the centre of the workbench was what looked like a large stainless-steel food processor, built exactly to Anubis’ design. All that was now required to turn this impressive-looking device into a temporal bomb capable of imploding a star, was sixteen kilos of trihadronite.

  The angel Rampel was like a tethered pit-bull being poked with a stick. He could feel the presence of Spiro and Orion on the blue planet but, after the incident at Wall Street, Those-on-High had forbidden him from taking any further action. He resumed his interrogation of Tanka with increased vigour, applying some of his less subtle techniques. Like all torturers, the angel was convinced he could get the truth out of his prisoner or, at least, the version of the truth he wanted to hear. He just needed to apply a little more temporal pain. It was the angel Gabriel who eventually brought the inquisition to an end, convincing Rampel that Tanka would be of far more use to them if he was returned to the blue planet, where he could spy on the unfolding events.

  At this stage of his interrogation Tanka would have agreed to anything so, when given the option of spending eternity trudging through the dust-strewn corridors of the Grand Depository vaults, against spending it in Purgatory with Rampel as his jailer, he immediately agreed to the former. The conditions for his release were simple; he would be returned to the blue planet to re-join Anubis, informing Rampel of any significant activity. But, on no account, was he to divulge who he was working for.

  Penny gave a satisfied sigh as she returned the videophone hands
et to its cradle. She had spent the morning finalising the director’s retirement party and had just placed the last order, for the table decorations. She looked up and was initially speechless at what she saw. Hedrick stood, dishevelled and expressionless, staring down into Penny’s face. He spoke with a tremble in his voice, ‘I cannot save them, Penny. Amy and Daniel… they are going to perish.’

  ‘But… why, Director? What’s gone wrong?’

  ‘The angel Haamiah has started to extract their universe. The blue planet will be destroyed… along with everything on it.’

  ‘There must be something we can do?’ Ignoring the question, Hedrick turned and walked into his office. Penny followed, a lump growing in her throat. Hedrick slumped into his captain’s chair and stared up at the ceiling. Penny swallowed hard trying to hold back her tears, ‘How do you know, Director? Did Haamiah tell you?’

  ‘She did not have to, Technician Mohammed could see it in the drone data.’

  ‘But, he could have made a mistake. There could be one of those bugs in his workstation.’

  ‘Let us hope that you are right, Penny,’ Hedrick replied. ‘Do you think we could cancel our lunch date? I need time to think things through.’

  ‘Of course, Director, that’s not a problem,’ Penny said, realising that her one chance of dining at the Director’s Club had just passed her by. The awkward silence was broken by the sound of Penny’s videophone starting to bleep. She gave Hedrick an unconvincing smile and returned to her desk, closing the door as she went.

  Hedrick sat mulling over the situation. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, especially at losing his temper in Mo’s laboratory. After all, he was the director of auditing and, he wasn’t about to let himself be intimidated by an angel, even if she was a pack leader. He glanced down at the dried blood on the back of his wrist, and scrubbed it away with the claws from his other hand. He might only have a few days left before his retirement, but if necessary, he was going to go out with a bang!

  An hour later the office door opened and Hedrick strode out; tall, confident, and now immaculately dressed. He was a reinvigorated creationist, determined to regain control of the situation. Haamiah might have all her heavenly powers, but he had control over the production of Dark Matter and, for Those-On-High, that was the main agenda. The time had come for him to challenge the angels. He had lost a daughter, he wasn’t about to lose Amy.

  He walked up to Penny’s desk and addressing her as though nothing had happened, said, ‘I have got to go out, Penny. Look after things while I am away.’ As her eyes followed him down the central isle of the auditing office, she wondered what would happen on Monday morning; Hedrick would have retired and, with Anubis definitely out of the frame, who would be his replacement. She watched as Hedrick stopped at Ravi’s cubical and then, after only a few seconds of conversation, he continued towards the elevator station.

  Taking her compact from her bag, she examined the fur around her eyes, checking to see if the tears had stained her makeup. It wasn’t as bad as she had expected and a few careful dabs of fur tint restored the look she had created that morning. She snapped the compact closed, and turned to find Ravi standing next to her desk with a slightly confused expression on his face, ‘The Director said you wanted to see me?’ he said.

  ‘He did? Yes… I do… how are you feeling, hun?’

  ‘I was a bit dizzy to start with and I had trouble getting my balance back. Humans don’t have a tail, it makes walking really difficult, but I’m okay now.’

  ‘Good!’ Penny said with that look in her eye. She walked around the desk and, taking Ravi’s hand, whispered in his ear, ‘Come with me.’ She led him into meeting room two and, closing the door, wedged one of the chairs under the door handle. She turned to face Ravi, and without warning pushed him against the wall, clamped his muzzle closed between her jaws and started to unbuckle the belt of his kilt.

  35

  Atlas Three

  At CERN, Dr. Bingham was standing on the gantry overlooking the completed Atlas Three detector. It was two-thirty in the morning and the cathedral-sized chamber was empty with the exception of the catering staff scurrying about like ants, setting out the tables and chairs in preparation for the inaugural switch-on that afternoon. Axel put his arms around Brian’s waist and cuddled up against him, ‘None of this would have been possible without you, darling. I’m so proud of you.’ He raised his head from Brian’s shoulder and placed a tender kiss on his cheek. The couple stood in silence, enjoying the moment.

  Anubis’ decision not to break Axel’s neck had been inspired. His timid demeanour made him invisible, everybody ignoring the gay technician as he silently passed, head bowed, staring at the floor. He was able to gain access to virtually everywhere and Anubis would send him foraging for the most obscure of technical items, which he always managed to find. Mounted on the chamber wall behind them was a brass plaque commemorating the life and untimely death of Professor Williams, latterly of the High Energy Physics Group at Cambridge University. Professor Williams had died following the first Atlas Three team meeting. Dr. Bingham had been showing Williams around the tunnels that housed the Large Hadron Collider, when a faulty bolt that secured the flanges of the super-cooled dipoles snapped, releasing tonnes of liquid helium, instantly turning the professor into an ice sculpture. As he was washed away by the torrent of liquefied gas, the professor’s body shattered into pieces as it struck the dipole supports. It took the cleaning staff four days to recover all the mushy body parts but, even so, when a technician was upgrading a control unit two years later, he found the professor’s desiccated finger, still wearing its wedding ring, wedged behind the unit.

  The complexity of the Atlas Three detector was no accident. It was so complex that nobody at CERN, with the exception of Anubis, knew how it actually worked. Each sub-group within the project was tasked with producing a specific part of the system and Dr. Bingham’s rigorous workloads ensured that nobody had time to be inquisitive. What appeared to be a minor part of the detector was an element named the Dynamic Temporal Calorimeter. This was Dr. Bingham’s personal contribution and had been funded by NASA’s Solar Explorer project. Its exact purpose was never completely understood, but the funding from NASA had been so generous that Dr. Bingham had been left to build his experiment without any questions being asked. An alcove had been cut into the side of the chamber next to the base of the detector. In this, a secure room had been constructed labelled as the DTC Laboratory. A super-cooled conduit three hundred millimetres in diameter linked the laboratory with the barrel of the detector.

  According to the published programme, NASA’s representative at the switch-on ceremony was to be a U.S. army colonel named Mackay who would be accompanied by his aide, a U.S. marine corps warrant officer named Natalie Green. Having the U.S. military involved with the project had been a contentious issue and had needed all of Dr. Bingham’s diplomatic skills to overcome. However, once the dollars started rolling in, it was amazing how quickly the most ardent opponents softened their attitude.

  Axel released his arm from Brian’s waist, ‘Come on, darling, it’s time to go home, you’ve got a long day ahead of you.’ They walked hand-in-hand towards the service elevator that linked the detector chamber with the control station a hundred metres above them.

  Anubis only managed four hours sleep that night before Axel’s alarm clock started bleeping at seven a.m. He opened his eyes to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom and swung Dr. Bingham’s legs out of the bed. Standing up, he walked naked into the kitchen, desperate for a mug of Axel’s strong Columbian coffee. It was one of the many rituals that governed their lives. Axel would get up just before his alarm clock went off and set the water running in the shower cubical which, for some reason, took an age before any hot water started flowing. He would then fill the coffee grinder with his favourite Columbian beans before setting the percolator on the gas stove to bubble away, while he showered. Anubis smiled at the two mugs preci
sely placed on the kitchen counter. He grabbed the steaming percolator and filled one to the brim. He jumped as wet arms wrapped around his neck, ‘It’s your big day, darling,’ Axel said, kissing the back of his neck. Anubis’ craving for human heterosexual sex had not diminished although, surprisingly, he had come to enjoy his Wednesday night sleepovers with Axel. It exposed an incongruous element to Axel’s personality; the mouse of the CERN corridors turning into a lion in the bedroom. Dr. Bingham’s enthusiasm for the women working on the project had been well noted, especially among the young female research interns, a steady flow of whom had been provided by the participating universities. It was a rare night, except for Wednesday’s, when his bed didn’t contain at least one writhing, young researcher. Axel was pragmatic about his competition. He was in love and, as long as Brian was in his bed on a Wednesday night, he was a happy engineer.

  One of the arms unwrapped itself and slid down across Brian’s stomach. Anubis grasped Axel’s wrist, ‘We’ve no time for that this morning, my love, we have to collect Mackay from the airport.’

  As Axel drove the BMW estate car back to CERN from Geneva Airport, his dislike of the colonel grew. From the minute they had met in the arrivals hall Mackay and Brian had been huddled together, chatting and laughing, leaving him to entertain the warrant officer. Axel was oblivious to Natalie’s attempts to make polite conversation, his eyes fixed on the driver’s mirror, watching Brian and the colonel cuddled up close on the back seat, supposedly studying Mackay’s technical paperwork. ‘How’s it going at NASA?’ Anubis said, thumbing through the pictures Orion had taken of the assembled bomb.