by Ray Deeg
He cracked his knuckles, took in several cleansing breaths, and then retrieved a holstered gun and an impressive-looking FBI badge from his drawer. He snatched up the red folder and a jacket hanging behind the door and then stopped midstride and closed his eyes. He waited for the music, meditating on its climax. As the music slowed and the last note hung, applause roared. Randall opened his eyes. He looked younger somehow, determined. He was a brand-new man.
He checked out a bureau car and turned onto the West Side highway, in the direction of the George Washington Bridge and Ridgewood, New Jersey.
Jolanda finished printing the information she’d obtained on Everett Lemily. When you want to keep something secret around here, you put it on paper, she thought. She’d stayed late again, but that didn’t bother her. She was paying her dues and was grateful—although she’d been telling herself that for eight months now, and nothing much was happening for her.
She knocked on Randall’s door, and it creaked open. “Hello?” she said as she pushed inside. She tossed the Lemily folder on Randall’s desk. Walking out, she couldn’t help but notice the open letter sitting on Randall’s chair. Of course, in his elevated state, the dumb bastard had forgotten to shred the letter. Jolanda just couldn’t help herself, so she picked it up to have a look-see. The more she read, the closer her face moved to the paper. February 15, 1943, she thought. She read the letter again, shaking her head the way people do when they’re trying to grapple with an idea. Walking back to her office, Jolanda caught her bearings. Is this a test? Is it real? She was curious, fascinated. She locked her office, ran downstairs to the parking lot, and hopped into her car. She pushed some buttons on the car’s navigation. Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey. Who the hell is Sue Htemorp?
CHAPTER 4
RANDALL FLEW PAST traffic on the George Washington Bridge. He hadn’t had breakfast or lunch, and although it was dinnertime, he didn’t feel hunger. Instead, he felt light and alert. The shock of receiving Walter’s letter was still fresh. He stopped off at Home Depot and picked up a heavy-duty shovel, making sure to use cash. He arrived in Ridgewood at 5:57 p.m. It was nearly dark. After a few turns, he was in the old neighborhood again. He turned down a quiet street he’d found his way back to with hardly an upward glance. He gazed nostalgically as he passed familiar houses. But things were different here and there. Newer cars, better landscaping. The neighborhood had gone through some changes. He noticed the numbers on the curb and remembered his old address: 703. He crept down the street—715, 711, 707—and came to a stop in front of a modest, two-story house painted Philadelphia cream.
The facade and landscaping had obviously been overhauled. It was dark blue back then—or was it green? He couldn’t remember. His sycamore tree was gone, too. It had been taller than the house, but the grass where it had been rooted appeared completely flat now, as if the tree had never existed. It made the yard look empty. There was the familiar driveway, where he’d raced his toy cars as a boy. He’d smashed one once and sliced his finger on the metal from the front bumper. The little car had been yellow, and he’d used the blood from his finger to give it a red racing stripe along the side. He remembered teasing the kid next door with a large rubber spider. Randall had chased him around with it, wiggling his tongue in his mouth and making strange noises. Afterward, the kid had sat on his front steps, crying like a sissy. He remembered the kid’s nickname, Stazo. But the rubber spider was nothing; he’d done something far worse to that boy. It was also in that driveway that he’d seen a dead bird, sprawled out and covered in ants. He remembered how shocking it had been, seeing that dead thing. His mother had held him, trying to console him. “Dead is when you leave this place,” she’d told Randall. “Where do you go?” he’d asked her, but never got an answer.
Randall sat, transfixed, the bureau car idling in the street. The porch appeared almost the same, but the glider where he’d spent so much time listening to Walter’s tales of scientists and strange devices was gone now. He could hardly believe how closely what his eyes were seeing matched his memory. When people visited places from their past, he supposed, it was only natural to be a little anxious, to half suspect that the whole thing had been a dream. The need to confirm past memories with one’s own eyes was insurmountable and universal. Everybody probably wondered whether their memories were real or just phantoms conjured from their imagination to fill the emptiness. But even the deepest, most dormant memories could be aroused, their details teased out for us to relive again. And the details they unearth can come back so intact that the memory itself becomes a third eye in our vision, allowing us to penetrate past new paint, landscaping, and makeovers in order to understand what’s really underneath. We can relive our memories and recall who we were back then and recognize how much we've changed. Randall knew this place, and it knew him too.
As the bureau car reached Maple Avenue, the hairs on Randall’s arms began to rise. He saw the cemetery just ahead. The gates were closed. Someone might see me—focus now. He made sure the car was pointing in the intended direction, away from the crime. How many crimes had he seen where the suspect had wasted precious time having to pull a U-turn instead of simply turning the car around before the clock started ticking? He scanned his surroundings, as he’d been taught. All was quiet and still, just a barking dog three houses over. He searched the area, but there was nothing else—no people, no cars. He felt a growing sense of déjà vu as he exited the car. He retrieved the shovel from the backseat, hiding it as well as he could by keeping the spade head up and holding it close to himself. The air felt cool in his nostrils. He moved quietly toward the back of the cemetery and a steel fence he gauged to be about five feet high. Sue Htemorp.
Randall scanned the surroundings again and then pushed the shovel through the fence’s bars. He grabbed the top rail and then jumped, lifting his body over like a gymnast on a pommel horse. His dismount was flawless—he could hear music in his mind and feel stealth in his blood. He picked up the shovel and moved toward the end of the large field, as the letter had instructed. The moon was full but hidden behind clouds, and the cemetery was nearly pitch black. He saw a house about two hundred feet ahead, to the left. The lights were on, and Randall saw movement inside. Probably the caretakers—who else would live in a cemetery? He stayed close to a row of small trees lining a narrow path. It reminded him of a golf course, except with rows of headstones instead of putting greens. As he moved closer to his destination, one area stood out. It was darker, more private than the rest of the field. Walter would have bought the plot nearly four decades ago, hardly a blink of an eye in cemetery time.
As Randall approached the farthest row of headstones to begin the search, he saw it. There, on the very first marker—Sue Htemorp. The font and headstone shape felt familiar, and it was exactly where he had suspected it would be. There were no dates underneath the name—just an inscription, which seemed to have been written just for him. As he took in the power of the words, he realized his hands were shaking. His eyes began to well up. Randall’s body began trembling, and he felt that tingling feeling behind his nose. He stilled himself, taking in several cleansing breaths. And somewhere deep down, he heard a gleeful prophecy—like a warrior’s victory cry after a fierce battle. As control over his body slowly returned, he drove the shovel’s head deep into the dirt. The earth was soft and light; this was far easier than he’d imagined. It could be the adrenaline, of course. I haven’t been this excited in years. As he dug, he thought about his grandfather’s contribution as a founding agent in the Bureau of Investigation. He hadn’t considered Walter’s station as a pioneer in the field, investigating the greatest scientific minds of his time. His grandfather must have carved so many new paths, invented so many of the plays inside the FBI’s playbook—all long before Randall was even born.
So much of everything happened before I was born, he thought. The best songs and poems and books had already been written. The best ideas had already been dreamed up, and their credit had been assig
ned. The frontiers were gone: there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to create. The game was over. It was clear to him that the best time for a man to stake his claim in the world had long since passed. He lived in a world that was oversold, overmarketed, overpopulated, and totally polluted—anything but hopeful or abundant. He saw poverty and hunger, geopolitical strife, terror, and crime all as symptoms of this time, a sort of post-postindustrial age. And although he felt better equipped by the solemnity of generation succeeding to generation, of one age correcting the peculiarities of another, he knew that for the most part, intelligence didn’t matter anymore.
The most amazing discoveries had been made by all the masses of ignorant and inexperienced generations that got there first. There was nothing left for him but a rotting 740-square-foot apartment and a life sentence as a cog in a wheel: oiling this, tightening that, just waiting to die. Even at his soulless government job, the other agents were doing far more interesting things. Agent Deleon, who sat two offices over and was the most unintelligent person Randall had ever met, was investigating ISIS terror cells. He got to meet important people, go to fancy dinners, and hobnob with elected officials. Svensson was nearly ten years younger than he was, but he was assigned to investigate Datto, one of those cloud-storage companies that had housed Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Svensson had gotten to rub elbows with all types of policy makers and legal experts in a case that had made national headlines for months. Several months earlier, Randall had asked Section Chief Davis to consider him for the investigative lead on the FIFA case, but that was assigned to a younger—and far-better-looking, Randall reflected gloomily—agent, Robertson. Robertson got to spend nearly two months in Zurich, Switzerland, hobnobbing with famous soccer players and gathering information at FIFA’s world headquarters. Randall, meanwhile, was stuck doing the same crap work as always: tracking down forged checks and investigating allegations of child molestation and other domestic abuse issues. He was being passed over, trampled, and they were all laughing at him. He just knew it. He thought about the really terrible thing he’d done to Stazo, and a grin crossed his face.
I’ll blaze a goddamn highway. I’ll incinerate everyone who gets in my way. And the last thought to cross their terror-filled minds will be that their lives were truly meaningless after all.
After about ten minutes, Randall glanced over and noticed that he’d displaced a rather large pile of earth. He was about four feet down. He stopped and stretched his limbs, as if reabsorbing the energy he’d expended. Hate is a powerful fuel; sure, it burns dirty, but it’s cheap and so very plentiful. He worked at a blistering pace, digging down and out, until finally he hit something hard. He used his hands to remove the dirt and discovered a concrete slab. And in just that moment, the clouds overhead parted and the moon illuminated the slab. It had appeared yellow in the darkness, but it was now clearly silver. Gazing up, he saw clouds drifting past the moon. The improved lighting was providing the caretaker—or whoever lived in the house—with a front-row seat to the Randall Evans grave-robbing show.
Randall used his fingers to find the slab’s edges, growing increasingly impatient realizing he was far more likely to be seen from the house now that his position was so well lit. It’s right underneath this slab. The pressure surging inside him was rising. My destiny! He lifted the shovel in the air, turning it on its pointed side, and struck a massive blow. A boom rang out, and a hairline crack appeared. Again and again, Randall rained down blows. The impact echoed, causing reports from surrounding trees and the caretaker’s house. It’s now or never: get through this. Randall came down on the block with all his strength, sending shards of concrete flying. He was close. The shovel head was bent and the metal torn, but he pushed the air from his lungs and pushed down. The block separated, sending chunks of concrete collapsing into the hollowness underneath. As he removed chunks of concrete, tossing them into the field, he noticed two silhouettes moving in the windows of the house. But he couldn’t be bothered with that now. He placed one foot on each side of the slab, using his phone to illuminate the hollow space. Toward the front of the space, and directly underneath the headstone, he saw a small, brown box. He drew it carefully out with the tip of his middle finger and then scanned the hollow space using his phone. There was nothing else.
The house’s porch light was now lit. As Randall watched, the front screen door opened, and two men stepped out immediately, staring in his direction. Neither man stood short or meek. Randall pushed himself out of the hole and began sprinting in the direction of his car. “Stop right now!” a powerful voice yelled. But there wasn’t anyone on earth who could catch Randall tonight. He moved through the field like a bullet through an apple, leaping over the fence and dashing to the car. He turned the key, placed the car in drive, and pressed the gas, steering down the street without revving the engine or screeching the tires. He didn’t turn on the lights; they’d see his plate. The two winded caretakers stood at the edge of the fence and watched as the stranger’s car was swallowed by the darkness. Finally, Randall reflected, the whole FBI training thing had been worth something.
Behind him, the bemused caretakers pondered the empty grave, flashlights illuminating the inscription Randall had noticed earlier:
Sue Htemorp—It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.
Randall was still catching his breath when he finally flipped the car’s lights on. As he looked back, he knew he was clear. The excitement coursing through his veins was wonderful. He stared straight ahead, a smile forming at the side of his mouth. An almost-forgotten feeling spread up and out from his gut until his mouth opened to release the unbridled laughter. This was far more stimulating than being an office drone.
He gazed at the brown box, which he could see more clearly now. It was decorated with an ornate silver inlay. He couldn’t believe it was sitting on the passenger seat next to him. Surreal. He wanted badly to open it right then and there. He spotted a multilevel parking lot next to a movie theater and coffee house. A few people sat at tables out front, but they were just kids drinking Frappuccinos and sexting, too distracted to notice him. He pulled into the lot, heading for its darkest, most secluded corner. He slammed the bureau car into park even before coming to a complete stop and, in the same motion, placed the brown box on his lap.
He pushed the latch to one side, using his thumb to raise the lid. This hasn’t been opened in decades. As the light spilled in, cold, arid graveyard air spilled out, cascading down his hands and wrists. Inside the box, a drawing came into focus. He lifted it into the yellow light of the parking lot, unable to believe what he was seeing. Impossible. It was perfectly sketched, as if taken from a photo, and he recognized its subjects immediately as his wife and three daughters, sitting at the dining room table. But Walter died over thirty years ago. More disturbing still were the expressions on his family’s faces: melancholy to say the least; outright sadness, if we’re being completely honest. Am I going crazy? Randall stared at the drawing, his mouth gaping, unable to digest this new reality. But one thing was certain. Clearly, a perfectly sketched drawing of his seven-, nine-, and eleven-year-old daughters drawn by his grandfather long before his kids had been born was something he’d have to ponder damn carefully. He contemplated his wife’s expression; never had he scrutinized a drawing so minutely. He held the drawing so close that individual threads of paper were becoming perceptible. Slowly her charcoal eyes began to connect with his.
He was close to making a transition from marks on paper to something more tangible when a golden light sparked inside the brown box. Gold and silver patterns reflected in the box as it shifted in his lap. Even the slightest movement made the light pattern dance, and it was irresistible. He lifted the box, and there it was—that strange alien thing. The copper mechanism had golden gears and rolls of silver wire embedded flawlessly within miniature vent-like openings. It was reminiscent of an artificial heart. He lifted the surprisingly heavy object, feeling the cold, dense metal on his palm a
nd fingers. Having read much of the original case file, Randall knew precisely what this was. One of four harmonic coils, the heart of the machine.
The gravity of the moment hit him all at once. He was now in possession of something almost impossible—or, at least, highly improbable. His eyes focused on the texture of the copper-and-silver metal; the craftsmanship was impeccable. And it occurred to him that while the metal ore used to forge this had been mined from the earth like any other, this metal had been machined at the palace of science, the Tower House Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, by the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century; perhaps the most brilliant minds of all time. These physicists had planned, formulated, and conspired in secrecy—and without the permission or knowledge of any government—to create what would become the most incredible tool in the universe: a key to pull back the curtain on this plane, to finally see and connect with the stuff in between. Randall thought, awestruck, about the men who likely had a role in its creation. Nikola Tesla, Alfred Lee Loomis, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, James Franck, Enrico Fermi, Robert Wood. All of those men were listed in the case file. All of them had likely contributed in some way. They had discovered the design of designs. And the machine was forged for one purpose: for man to open a portal and touch God—perhaps become God.
There was something else in the box: a folded paper schematic and a strange, ornate key on a silver chain. It was much larger than a house key, with a decorative crown top and a symbol embedded in black enamel. He read the letters: EG1. What could that mean? He placed the silver chain around his neck and tucked the key in his shirt. He unfolded the thick paper, which he could plainly see was a blueprint. These were the plans for the machine he’d seen in the case file. Four coil oscillators like the one in his hand appeared in the schematic. He could see how the pieces came together on a wheel embedded on a mechanical base. He’d need to find the other three coils or have them fabricated, but he was on his way. He had the knowledge in his possession, a roadmap to nirvana. This beats the shit outta government work.