The Return

by Joseph Helmreich

  At Shawn’s signal, Rachel submerged the lower halves of the hanging plates into the ethanol, and then Shawn turned a switch and activated the shake table upon which the basin rested. Small waves began to form on the ethanol’s surface, and soon the two plates were moving closer and closer together.

  “So what’s new here?” Rachel asked, her eyes on the plates.

  “Nothing yet,” answered Shawn. “But if you keep watching, the plates are gonna start making out.”

  Rachel didn’t respond or even smile, just kept staring at the plates. In the little over a month since their nighttime walk to the river, their relationship had not progressed as Shawn had expected it to. If there had been any change at all, as far as he could tell, it had been solely on his end. He was now all but consumed by her, while she treated him with pretty much the same aloofness as before. If anything, she had become even colder in recent weeks. He was mystified by this and just a little bit crushed.

  “I don’t get it,” she said, turning away from the metal plates to Shawn. “Are we just running through a typical Casimir analog?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “What for?”

  “I thought it was a good place to start before we move on to the next step.”

  “You mean the next ten steps? You already know that our last team was knee deep into CPA lasers and magnetic fields when they failed to produce a billionth of the EM we would need.”

  “Well, we’ll be going in another direction, won’t we?”

  “Not if we can’t find one. What do you have for me, Shawn? What can you give us to work with here?”

  Shawn turned off the shake table and let the plates drift back to their default positions. “I’ve gone over my moving mirror theories with you.”

  “And I’ve told you that they’re good for turning powder into sea monkeys. We’re trying to build Jurassic Park.”

  “I’m working as hard and as fast as I can, but this isn’t gonna happen overnight.”

  “Maybe it won’t happen at all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She paused, looked at him. “I still have faith in you, Shawn. But the shadows above me aren’t sure the work you’ve been doing is leading anywhere.”

  “So, what, they’re going to send me home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, of course they won’t. With what I know, they would never let me leave here alive. We both know that.”

  Rachel didn’t answer. Shawn left the lab and walked back to his dorm alone. In the hall, as he made his way to his room, he heard what sounded like a party coming out of one of the other rooms. The door was open a crack, and he peeked in and saw Ravi, Megan, and several other of the younger scientists involved in a lively round of cottabus, an ancient Athenian drinking game where players attempt to fling masses of wine from goblets into small bowls without the liquid losing its bulk in the process.

  “Care to join us?” Rosen, an astronomer from MIT, called out.

  “No, thanks. Gonna hit the hay early.”

  But lying in bed, Shawn struggled to fall asleep. When he closed his eyes, all he saw were equations. What was being required of him was pure alchemy. He needed to find some way to produce exotic matter from thin air and to create enough of it to yield an actual warping of the space-time continuum when the most exotic matter anyone had ever produced, outside of the Casimir effect, was exactly none. Even a promising theory he had recently been exploring, that negative energy could be achieved via a rapidly accelerating mirror, had severe limitations. Though Rachel was receptive to the idea, he hadn’t the faintest clue of how to create a system that could accelerate a mirror fast enough to create any exotic matter, let alone the quantities required here.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the industrial ceiling fan spinning above him. Only a few months ago, he had been a graduate student at Columbia, kicking back in its storied lecture halls by day and sneaking through its even more storied underground tunnels by night, like on the night of his ill-fated pilgrimage to the famed cyclotron. The ceiling fan actually kind of reminded him of that spectacular machine. Just barely, if he looked at it the right way. In the wide, cylindrical motor above the blades, he could see the cyclotron’s similarly shaped, gleaming electromagnets. In the down rod that connected the fan to the ceiling, he saw the thin iron poles affixed to the cyclotron’s arch. And in the fan’s overall spin, he saw the swiftly spiraling charged particles within the cyclotron’s vacuum chamber, accelerating to ridiculous, unimaginable speeds …

  He bolted upright, his heart racing.

  Was it possible?

  He jumped out of bed, threw on a T-shirt and pair of shorts, and dashed off to the physics lab.

  It was some three hours later when he knocked on Rachel’s door. After a few minutes, she answered, looking as out of it as she got, which wasn’t much at all.

  “What?”

  “Come with me.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were standing in the physics lab before a whiteboard, onto which had been scribbled thousands of barely legible equations and diagrams and rough sketches.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  “You asked me to give you something to work with. Here you go.”

  She stepped up to the board and stared at it for a few minutes. Then she began to move around, zeroing in on certain parts. After about fifteen minutes of careful examination, she walked back over to where Shawn was standing. He looked at her expectantly.

  “Well?”

  She turned to him. “How long have you been down here?”

  “Since about one.”

  “You take any uppers?”

  “What?”

  “Speed, ice, meth.”

  “Jesus, no. I don’t use any of that stuff.”

  “Three hours is nothing for the output on this board. And from all the chicken scratch and smudge marks, I’d have thought you spent even less time. Shawn, did you look at this even once before coming to get me? Did you check any of it over, make sure there were no contradictions or incorrect substitutions or other random mistakes before coming to my room, dragging my ass out of bed at four in the morning, and showing me all this?”

  Shawn opened his mouth to answer, but she stepped closer to him and put her finger to his lips.

  “Of course not,” she said. “You didn’t have to. Because you’re a fucking genius.”

  She smiled, probably the first real smile since he’d met her, and before he had any idea what was happening, she grabbed his face, pulled him in, and kissed him long and hard on the mouth.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Gothic old church house stood high and imposing in the moonlight, its bat-like gargoyles peering out watchfully from the roof and the wind whistling softly through the bells as two shiny black Volkswagens pulled up outside of it. Diego Sala, dressed in a stylish velvet blazer and jeans, was the first to get out, followed by six men in dark suits. Diego rolled his shoulders a few times as though trying to rid himself of a back itch, then felt inside his inner jacket pocket for his pistol. He turned to his companions and smiled his wide, unmistakable Cheshire cat grin.

  “How we feeling tonight, mis hermanos?” he asked, in his Castilian-accented Spanish.

  “Like stallions,” they answered in unison.

  “Remember. The stories you heard from Norway and South Africa may or may not be true. If they make you afraid, consider them bullshit. If they light a fire under your asses, believe them with all your hearts and souls. Ándale!”

  Inside the church house, in the dimly lit dining room, a meal of caparrones, a bean and sausage stew, was under way. Father Arroyo sat at the first table with Father Reese, Josep, and several deacons, while the rest of the staff and clergy sat at two other tables. Fathers Arroyo and Reese each did their best to pretend as though the day’s earlier tension was completely forgotten.

  “So what happens if you’ve got something that just won’t grow?” Father Arroyo asked, doing h
is best impersonation of someone who cares even a little about gardening.

  “Well, it depends,” Father Reese answered. “You can try adding fertilizer. Often, you might have to dig the whole thing up and—”

  Reese was interrupted as the doors to the room suddenly flew open and Diego and his men burst in, 9mm submachine guns in tow. With loud and gruff demands that nobody move, they aimed their weapons directly at the priests, deacons, and staff members, all of whom stifled their instincts to immediately rise from their seats.

  “Where’s the lights?” Diego asked.

  No one answered.

  “Where’s the lights?” he asked again, louder.

  “The lights are on,” Father Arroyo answered.

  “Can’t see shit in here,” Diego muttered. He turned to his men. “Round them up. Bring them into the chapel.”

  “May I ask what this is all about?” Father Arroyo asked, unsure himself whether his question was genuine. On the one hand, he knew exactly why these men were here. On the other, machine guns and barked orders were hardly what he’d been expecting.

  “You may and you just did, Padre,” Diego answered with a friendly smile. “Don’t again.”

  When the clergy and staff had been brought into the chapel, Diego had them cluster together in front of the stage and the altar. He stared them over for a few seconds, looking at each of their faces individually before finally addressing them as a group.

  “Which one of my holy saints here is Father Arroyo?” he asked.

  “I am Arroyo,” the padre answered.

  “Come forward,” Diego said, beckoning theatrically with his hand like a king to a subject.

  Arroyo stepped out from the group.

  “Where is the American priest?” Diego asked him.

  Father Arroyo hesitated to answer. He had been expecting normal police officers to arrive tonight, men with badges and formality and civility. These men, if they were police at all, were unlike any he’d come across before. He wished now that he had never made the call.

  “Detective Bustelo said you’d told him on the phone the American priest was here. So where is he?”

  “I’m sorry,” Father Arroyo replied, struggling to find his voice. “I believe I must have been confused.”

  “Confused?”

  The padre nodded. “We don’t have any Americans at the parish.”

  He hoped and prayed none of the others would contradict him, that they would have faith in his judgment even if they couldn’t know why he was lying. He also wondered how Father Reese was reacting to all this, but knew that a glance in his direction would surely give him away.

  Diego, instead of getting angry, smiled warmly at Father Arroyo. A nearby statute of Saint Francis caught his eye, and he walked over to it, looked it up and down approvingly. He took a few steps back, stared at it again, and drew in a deep breath of satisfaction.

  “Detective Bustelo,” he said, turning back to Father Arroyo, “has a deep reverence for the church. You see, when we were in juvie together, back in Santa Leticia, there was a priest with whom he was very close. Father Ortega. He had a major impact on him. Inspired him to change his whole life. Me, I only knew him as the maricón who liked to give it to me up the ass every night after lights out. I suppose it’s my dumb luck to be so much more attractive than Detective Bustelo.”

  Diego turned back to the statue and, with a swift release of his foot, sent it toppling over and shattering into pieces on the hard wooden floor. He turned back to Father Arroyo, removed his pistol from his jacket, and aimed it squarely at the padre.

  “Where is the American priest? If I have to ask again, you’ll be answering without your face.”

  Father Reese suddenly stepped forward.

  “My good señor, I am the American priest,” he said, his voice just the slightest bit shaky. “My name is Father Reese. Leon Reese. I am the man whom you seek.”

  Diego looked at him, snorted, and turned right back to Father Arroyo. “Not this gordo,” he said. “The bald man. With the dark glasses and the stick.”

  Father Arroyo peered at him with confusion. “Father McCord? He’s not American, he’s Irish!”

  Diego smiled. “Of course. And he’s blind, too, right?” He turned to his men. “You see, mis hermanos? This is why the Church is so backward. They’re all a bunch of fucking idiots!”

  He turned back to Father Arroyo. “Where is this ‘Father McCord’?”

  “Father McCord is gone.”

  “Gone? How long?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “To where?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “What do you mean nobody knows? You’re the head priest, aren’t you? You don’t make it your business to know the whereabouts of your clergy?”

  Father Arroyo cleared his throat. “Father McCord had said he was going to a conference in Granada. But there is no conference in Granada.”

  Diego stared down at the floor, disgusted. He looked back up. “Where’s his room?”

  “It’s the third one down on the left in the rectory.”

  Diego turned to two of his men, Jordi and Santiago. “Search the room. Tell me what you find.”

  The men went off, and everyone else waited in silence as Diego paced around in circles, occasionally rolling his shoulders again, like a pent-up bull with no outlet for his energy. Father Arroyo didn’t know what to expect and wondered if there was anything he could say to somehow calm the situation. He was deeply out of his depths and knew it. Silence at the proper season is wisdom, he reflected.

  About Father McCord, the padre thought nothing. It was a subject beyond his grasp.

  Jordi and Santiago returned.

  “Gone,” Santiago confirmed. “No clothes, no belongings. Just a wooden cross in the dresser drawer and a small book written in Braille. Bible, I think.”

  Diego nodded. “Well, no need to remind you all of the new policy. Time to enforce it.”

  The men hesitated.

  “Yes, even with men of God, mis hermanos. He has to know what happens when he makes friends, what happens to anyone who helps him, anyone who shelters him. He’s alone in this world, mis hermanos. He needs to always remember that.”

  Diego turned to Father Arroyo. “Dearest Padre, you clearly tipped him off somehow. So what happens now is really your own doing. But don’t worry, you won’t lose any sleep over it. Quite the contrary.”

  He aimed his pistol at Father Arroyo’s heart.

  In his last few seconds, the padre wondered if there was time to perform last rites, if only mentally and if only to himself.

  But there was time only to wonder.

  Diego smiled. “Perdóname, Padre.”

  He fired two rounds, sending Father Arroyo flying backward into the others. Several of the priests, including Father Reese, caught him by the shoulders, but the blood was already pouring out of him, and his eyes were closed.

  Diego looked at his men, nodded, and they trained their machine guns on the rest of the priests and deacons and staff and began to fire away. When they were finished, the bodies of the victims lay collapsed before the stage in a sickening heap. The men stood there for several moments staring, shaken and disgusted by what they had just done.

  Diego pulled out a cigarette lighter and walked over to the stage. He bent down and lit the corner of the top step. Soon enough, all four rows of steps were on fire, and flames were riding up the sides of the altar, as well.

  “A second fire in Anglada Parish,” he mused. “Some churches have no luck.”

  He stepped back and watched as the flames engulfed the entire stage. Then he walked over to the priest’s chair and lit that aflame, as well. He then lit the pulpit and the lectern on fire, too.

  “All right, my stallions. Let’s vamoose before someone in the area calls the fire department. Or we die.”

  Jordi tossed McCord’s discarded cross and Bible into the flames. “You think he’ll get the message?” he asked.

  Diego
shrugged. “If he’s still in Spain, probably. If he’s gone, doubtful. Once he moves on, he moves on. He’ll turn up soon enough somewhere else, as someone else, no doubt about that. Ándale!”

  The men turned toward the exit and froze in place. Standing in the doorway, walking stick in tow, was the priest Father Arroyo had called McCord. He glanced at the small mountain of corpses in front of the stage, but if he had any reaction, it was concealed behind his dark sunglasses. He turned to Diego’s men, who, along with Diego himself, now had their weapons trained on him.

  Diego smiled and addressed the new arrival in English.

  “Welcome, Andrew. You can breathe easy. Your days of running are finally over. Our orders have changed, and you’re no longer wanted alive. We have someone else, you see, smarter than you ever were. He’ll help us, and you can finally have the peace you deserve.” He turned to his men. “Apunten, listos, fuego!”

  The men unleashed a storm of firepower. Amid the unrelenting spray of bullets, the priest raced across the far wall, dove behind the large pipe organ in the corner, and knocked it on its side, walling himself in behind it. The men trained their firepower onto the organ and moved in on it, blasting round after round of ammunition through its mahogany body and lead piping, creating a horrifying music in the process—until the whole instrument suddenly came flying out at them from the corner. Those who didn’t scramble out of the way quickly enough were knocked to the ground and, in at least one case, fatally crushed. The priest leaped out from behind it and, with several fierce sweeps of his walking stick, knocked out the weapons from the hands of those few bewildered men still left standing.

  Jordi, who had been knocked to the ground by the edge of the organ, stared up at the priest and for the first time took in what he was seeing. The man’s clothing was riddled with bullet holes but absent of any blood. He had run through a haze of firepower and remained not only unscathed but strong enough to knock a pipe organ on its side and then hurl it across the room.