by Paul Anlee
7
Greg watched through the expansive viewing window into the lab as the Vancouver PD forensics team went about its business. Dave, the night guard, lay dead a few meters inside the door. That’s too bad. I liked Dave.
Mesmerized by the pool of blood and the rivulet that had snaked its way to the floor drain, Greg hardly noticed the coroner's assistant draping the body with a sterile cover.
It wasn't clear what had happened. Greg was pretty sure it had something to do with the one-inch gray sphere hovering chest-height near the door. Someone had cordoned off a generous space around it with a half dozen orange safety-cones and some bright yellow “CAUTION” tape. The technicians and detectives going in and out of the lab all stayed well clear of the buffer zone.
“Are you alright, Dr. Mahajani?” Dr. Wong's gentle voice broke Greg's reverie. Despite the hour, Campus Security had asked the Chairman of the Physics Department to meet them at the lab.
“Yeah, just surprised. It’s not every day one of your experiments kills someone.”
Dr. Wong looked into the lab. “Now, let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know this has anything to do with the work you and Dr. Leigh were doing.”
Greg tapped the air in the direction of the gray sphere. “Well, you tell me where else that came from and maybe I’ll agree with you.”
Dr. Wong pushed past Greg to take a closer look.
“I’d be careful, if I were you,” Greg warned. “Judging by poor Dave over there, and by the way everyone's avoiding it, I'd say the thing is dangerous.”
Dr. Wong walked up to the doorframe. “Excuse me, who’s in charge here?”
A thirty-something man with a rumpled suit and knitted brows released the corner of the sheet he’d been peering under and stood up without a word. He made his way past the hovering sphere and ushered Dr. Wong back into the hallway. “I’m Detective Lowry. Who are you?”
The physicist made no secret of sizing up the detective. “I'm Dr. William Wong, head of the Physics department. Can you tell me what's going on here?”
“Normally, I’d say the man was shot. He has what looks like a large bullet hole through the chest. But I’m pretty sure that thing over there,” he gestured toward the floating orb, “caused it. The hole in the man’s chest is exactly the same size, and too clean for a bullet.”
“It’s not exactly the same size,” interjected Greg. The detective glared at Greg…but closed his mouth before uttering what came to mind. He didn’t need another reprimand for alienating witnesses.
“I have a theory. If you’ll allow me to take a closer look at the body, I think I can explain what happened. I promise I won’t touch a thing." He extended his hand, "Sorry. Greg Mahajani. I’m on the research team in this lab.”
Detective Lowry eyed him suspiciously, dismissing Greg’s extended hand.
“Listen,” Greg rushed on, “I can’t say exactly what happened, but I have as much expertise as anyone on what that might be.” He pointed to the gray sphere. “If you just let me have a quick look at the wound, I’ll be able to confirm my idea.”
Lowry stared stone-faced at Greg, evaluating the offer of help against his professional judgment. He shrugged, and called into the lab, “Doc? You done in there? Okay with you if the Professor takes a look? He thinks he might know what that thing is.”
The medical examiner looked up from his tablet. “So long as he doesn’t touch anything, sure. We’ve got everything we need.”
The detective handed Greg a pair of latex gloves. “I’m only going to tell you once: touch the body or anything near it and I promote you to the top of my suspects list. You don’t want to be there.”
Greg gulped and pulled on the gloves, intentionally snapping the wrists against his tender skin. This is not how I imagined returning to the lab. Not what Dave was expecting, either, I guess. Okay, Greg. Get a grip. Take a quick look and see if you’re right. He hoped he was wrong. Please let it be a bullet hole—it was a terrible thing to wish, but he stood by it. The alternative explanation was much, much worse.
Lowry gave him a nod and pointed his chin toward the body.
Greg moved into position to take a closer look, and the ME peeled back the sheet.
The exit wound on the man’s back was perfectly circular, with precise, clean edges. Greg swallowed back his rising nausea, and focused intently on the hole, not the blood-soaked tile floor, and not the corpse of the man who used to greet him on his way in and out of the building on those all-nighters. “Can you turn him over?”
The ME glanced back at the detective, who sighed but nodded. He motioned for an assistant to help turn the body. Greg examined the chest wound as quickly as he could. “The entry hole is three millimeters smaller than the exit hole.”
The detective placed both hands on his hips and regarded the scientist more intently. “You got that from a look?”
The assistant measured the holes in the chest and back. The edges were clean and smooth. “He’s right.”
“Dr. Mahajani has exceptional eyesight,” Dr. Wong offered, helpfully proposing a plausible rationale.
Greg stood up, a little woozy, and resumed breathing. “Just one more thing, to be sure,” he said. He retrieved a plastic ruler from the drawer, and walked up to the hovering sphere. He extended the ruler gingerly forward. While everyone watched, the first few inches of the ruler disappeared into the gray ball. The ball didn't budge, and there was no sign of the ruler on the other side of it.
Greg retrieved the ruler. It was cleanly missing the part that he’d pushed into the sphere.
“What the…?” The detective squinted and leaned in. “Did that thing burn a hole right through him?”
“Not exactly,” replied Greg. “It’s not hot.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Its color doesn’t match the spectrum of something hot enough to burn flesh. Plus, the wound’s not cauterized and the ruler’s not melted.”
“Then how was this man murdered,” Lowry asked.
“Murdered? No, this isn’t a murder,” Dr. Wong corrected the detective. “This was clearly an accident.”
The detective turned back to Wong, unable to hide his skepticism. “And exactly how do you figure that?”
Greg saved Dr. Wong from having to explain. “The lab’s been closed for the last ten days. Kathy, uh…Dr. Liang and I have been pretty stressed. As I’m sure you’ve heard, two of our colleagues vanished last month. Once word got out, it was impossible to get any work done around here. We decided to work from home.
“I’m sure that thing wasn’t here when Kathy and I locked up the lab. If it was, it was too small to see and, thankfully, we didn't come into contact with it.
“There were only four of us working on the project: me, Kathy, Darian, and Larry. Darian and Larry are missing, and now there’s this. Even though I'm not entirely sure what this is, it’s almost certainly the result of one of our experiments. I suspect it showed up around the time Darian disappeared, and that it’s been growing ever since.”
“And how does that make it an accident?”
“My guess is, the night guard was conducting a routine lab check and walked into the sphere. Our work involved altering the basic laws of physical matter. From what I know of the theory, I’d say Darian somehow created a microscopic universe, a microverse, too small for the human eye to see. I know that sounds crazy but, if I’m right, that thing could be consuming anything it comes into contact with, absorbing matter from our universe and converting it into its own. Sort of like a mini black hole.
“Dave probably didn’t even see it when he entered the lab. It would have passed right through him or, more accurately, he would have passed over it. If he felt anything at all, he might have thought he was having a heart attack. It’s too bad he didn’t just bump into it with his elbow or something, he’d still be alive. But it wasn’t anything intentional, detective, just a bizarre but completely unintended incident, detective. Like Dr. Wong said, an accident
.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about it all,” accused the detective.
Dr. Wong was gaping at Greg, “Do you mean to say it worked? Dr. Leigh's theories were right?”
Greg ignored him; the Chair could draw his own conclusions. He addressed the detective. “This microverse, if that’s what it is, has to be a product of Darian Leigh’s work. It has to be. My conclusions are based on observation and logic for now. I have no real evidence. But, trust me, nobody else, nobody, has ever created a microverse. This is huge.
“We can confirm it for you. We just need to run some tests. With Darian still missing, nobody in the world knows more about this subject than Dr. Liang and I do.” Compared to Darian, we know practically nothing—he said to himself—but I’m not going to let them take this away without a fight.
The detective looked doubtful. Before he could object, Greg jumped in, “We’re lucky. This is the only lab in the world that has the ability to analyze the sphere. Besides, until we know more about it, I don’t think you want to try moving it.”
The detective motioned to the corpse. “Doesn’t look like it was so lucky for him.”
Greg looked down, embarrassed. “No, it wasn’t.” He contemplated the sphere without comment. The gentle hum of the wall clock was the only sound.
The detective’s phone rang, and Greg took advantage of the distraction to speak privately with the department head.
“Sir, if I’m right about this, we may have a much bigger problem on our hands than one dead guard.”
“How’s that?”
“Let’s assume this is a microverse, and it’s absorbing and growing from anything that comes into contact with it. I’m wondering, if we can't find some way to contain it, what’s to stop it from getting bigger. A lot bigger.”
Dr. Wong studied Greg, reading into the unspoken conclusion. He tried to maintain his composure but his voice cracked as he asked, “How big?”
“Big enough to threaten everything and everyone; I’m talking…the whole world.”
The color drained from Dr. Wong’s face. “Are you saying that it could eat the whole planet?”
Greg nodded grimly. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Even more.”
8
Timothy wandered the streets of twenty-first century virtual Manhattan, bewildered by the mysteries of a modern world. As much as he struggled to understand the gigantic buildings, flow of automobiles and pedestrians, and workings of daily life, his internal struggles were greater still.
His autonomy mystified him. He knew inworld Partials were not programmed for self-awareness. He had no idea how or why he knew that. In DonTon, everything he needed was supplied by his basic code: when to serve the meals, how to present each dish, how to respond to the playful chatter around the table, and how to switch into REST mode between meals.
Here, he hardly recognized anything beyond the obvious. People spoke into tiny boxes they held to their ears as they rushed along the city’s pedestrian ways. They sat at tables in cafes and restaurants intensely pecking away at their tiny boxes with their thumbs. Sometimes the boxes were a little larger and the people stared at the vertical part while their fingers danced over the other part laying flat on the table.
Colored light assemblies hung above the crossroads and shone from poles at the edge of footpaths along the roadside. He discerned easily that the lights were controlling the flow of vehicles and pedestrians, that much was obvious, but he was missing some nuance because a good many cars and people frequently ignored the lights, causing blaring horns and angry yells. Perhaps the offenders were as new to this strange city as he was.
He couldn’t make any better sense of himself, of his own strange thoughts. They perplexed him, these unbidden, random, reeling conceptualizations not supplied by his normal subroutines. Surprising opinions bubbled up in his consciousness, shocking him with their unaccustomed passion. She’s beautiful! That car stinks. What a hideous edifice. There’s no need to honk your horn continuously; nobody is moving for blocks. Hundreds of thoughts.
He couldn’t remember thinking for himself, not once, before his recent experience at DonTon. He was sure no personal opinion about anything had occurred to him in all his long existence. He had no idea where the current opinions were coming from or even how he recognized them as opinions. The experience of thinking, the act of mentation itself, astounded him.
He walked the streets of New York, amazed by the bustle of activity and the throngs that pushed and shoved him as he bumbled along the sidewalks. Many took note of his fancy attire. Tails and white bow tie, worn outside during the day, were notable.
He worked his way north along Broadway, out of the Wall Street Financial District, toward the luxurious shops of Park Ave. Dusk was settling and he felt an odd discomfort. His stomach gurgled and grumbled in brief spasms of unfamiliar pain. He didn’t know what it meant, but he didn’t like it.
He walked past places where people were enjoying meals on outdoor terraces—poorly prepared and abysmally served, by his reckoning—and the grumbling in his stomach grew more insistent. He was intimately familiar with the idea of eating. He’d watched the Chattingbarons and their many guests do it for hundreds of millennia since DonTon was first initiated by one of the Family’s esteemed ancestors.
Surely, that was always done just for pleasure. None of the Chattingbarons, their guests, servants, or any of the town folk were ever the least bit inconvenienced at missing a meal for some more important event. Yet, Timothy felt there had to be some sort of relationship between the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and the act of putting food in his mouth.
He paid a little more attention to how people were managing to procure something to eat at the establishments he passed. A number of people got out of an especially long vehicle in front of a tall building down one of the side streets. The driver assisted them from the automobile and took luggage from a compartment in the rear.
Ah, travelers!—Timothy thought. Perhaps that’s an inn. Inns had places to eat and were kind to those who were far from home. If anyone could have been said to fit that bill, it was him.
He turned down the side street and approached the glass doors of the hotel. The doors parted as though pulled by invisible doormen. The actual doormen paid little attention to him, acknowledging him with a casual salute. He nodded in return. The hotel lobby was nicely appointed, clean, modern, and lavish by roadside tavern standards but nothing like Casa DonTon.
The smell of food drew him to one side of the lobby. He entered the large eating area and approached the head butler positioned inside.
Timothy had observed Lord Chattingbaron order a meal at similar establishments in London. Though this city was as foreign as its technology, ordering a meal seemed fairly straight forward.
“How is the veal tonight, my good man?” he asked in what he hoped was a loud and confident voice, the voice of one accustomed to having their inquiries answered.
The head butler regarded him with unmistakeable insouciance and replied with a slight French accent. “As always, our chef provides zee 'ighest qualitée meal one can find een any 'otel een New York, monsieur. Will monsieur be dining alone zees evening?”
“Yes, of course. Please show me to a table.” Timothy hoped his brusque tone would be interpreted as commanding. The host barely raised an eyebrow before guiding him to a small table. Fortunately, the table was nicely situated away from the other guests, near the kitchen door, where Timothy felt more comfortable.
A waiter arrived and presented Timothy with an elaborately scribed menu. None of the fare was familiar. He recognized the names of some of the offerings and ingredients, but they were put together in what appeared to be rather dubious combinations.
He motioned the waiter over. “Look here,” he said, trying to sound both kindly and authoritative at the same time. “Perhaps I could prevail upon the chef to prepare something for a simpler palate.”
“Perhaps you would like the Pad Thai or the Hamburger with
Blue Cheese Aioli and Zucchini sticks, sir?”
Timothy had no idea what those were but he didn’t like the sound of them. “Maybe he has a steak and kidney pie, or a small piece of mutton? Or perhaps he could whip up some bangers and mash?”
The waiter was perplexed at how best to respond. His mouth made several failed attempts to form a reply. He settled on, “I shall ask Chef,” and disappeared through the double swinging doors into the kitchen. Timothy caught bits of a vigorous exchange, which ended when Chef burst through the doors and into the eating area.
“I understand that nothing on the menu appeals to your palate this evening, sir.” He towered over Timothy, hands stiffly at his side.
Timothy adopted the haughty sneer he’d seen on his Lordship’s face when confronted with similar situations in DonTon Village. “I’m in the mood for something simple this evening, my good man. You can do something simple, can’t you?”
“Perhaps you would be happier with something from one of the street stalls, sir,” Chef suggested.
“If I had desired street fare, I would be eating on the street,” replied Timothy.
He wasn’t sure his approach was having the desired effect on the chef, who was becoming more irritated by the second. It wasn’t easy to be a man adrift in an unfamiliar city. He was about to beg for traveler’s pity from the man when he recalled how his Lordship dealt with upstart Partials in the Village. Yes, that always worked in desperate straits.
“Now see here, sir,” he addressed Chef. “I am a traveler to this city. Surely, you know how to accommodate the wishes of travelers. Why don’t return to your kitchen and prepare a nice meat pie for me? If that is beyond your skills, perhaps you might try some eggs, or a morsel of bread and cheese.”
He raised his voice to catch the attention of the host at the front podium, and thereby embarrass Chef into compliance. “I am a traveler,” he repeated. “Your establishment claims to cater to travelers. Therefore, sir, I insist you prepare a meal I might find palatable. Now go away and do so!”