by Ray Deeg
Esha peered down the hallway and then made a beeline straight down. After the three Indians had passed the entrance to the first diorama, Tom quietly opened the small door. As he turned his head to the left, he could see the backs of the three men moving away from them. He grabbed Gwen’s hand, and the two tiptoed out of the service hallway.
When they were out, they sprinted from the Hall of African Mammals toward the gems and minerals exhibit. They stopped at the museum store to examine the door as a possible escape route, but it was locked. This door had a metal guard plate. “Even Visa can’t help us here,” Tom said as he peered through a small window at the center of the door. He saw an illuminated Exit sign in the back of the store, but there was no way inside. “Let’s keep moving,” he said.
They continued running down the main hallway, which spanned the length of the building and emptied into the front rotunda. After reaching the main rotunda, the two stopped to catch their breath. Tom peered down the long hallway they’d traversed to check for their pursuers, but it was clear. The rotunda was more brightly lit, and the opulence of its three-story atrium was breathtaking even under the circumstances.
Tom took note of their options. There was a stairwell on the left, leading to the second floor. Just below the stairwell was a fire alarm. To the right was another hallway and the Hall of Asian Mammals. Tom’s mind turned, processing the two options. Gwen, still holding their prize, appeared more relaxed, and Tom was grateful for that. She’s cool as a cucumber.
“I’m thinking we pull the fire alarm,” Tom said. “Then we run upstairs and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Or we might even find a window or fire escape up there.”
Gwen looked back at the stairwell. “Bad idea,” she replied. “We’d be cornered, locked in. Same thing to the right; it’s a dead end.” Gwen looked around. “There are more than two options,” she said. She removed the oscillator from the red cloth bag and handed the coil to Tom. She ran to the stairwell on the left and stopped at a display case, where she snatched several museum pamphlets and crumpled them into the red bag. She placed the bag so that it rested toward the top of the stairs, visible from the main hallway.
Tom stared at Gwen in admiration. “How’s that gonna work?”
“It’s a brain bomb. It’ll buy us more time, confuse them.”
“Like a diversion?”
“A brain diversion.”
“But it looks staged. And when they discover the pamphlets, they’ll know we just planted it.”
“I’m counting on that. They’ll suspect one thing but quickly realize it could be another—but not before they overanalyze it. In a crisis situation, it’s only natural to focus on a narrow set of possibilities by attempting to find a truth that cannot be known.”
Tom’s face lit up. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “They’ll wonder whether we planted the bag to make them think we went upstairs when we really went right—or vice versa.”
Gwen nodded and then shared the rest of her plan. Tom agreed that it was brilliant.
When they heard faint footsteps running up the hallway toward them, Tom walked to the fire alarm on the left and pulled the lever down. A ringing noise started immediately, and Tom and Gwen disappeared into the darkness.
Esha, Chandran, and Ashok were jogging through the gems and minerals exhibit when the fire alarm rang out. Chandran checked the door to the museum store, but it was locked. “These doors can only be opened by guards; they are locked in here with us,” he said.
Esha gestured down the hallway, and the henchmen nodded. As the three Indians entered the main rotunda, Esha quickly surveyed the area and gestured to the right.
“Wait, over there,” Ashok said, pointing to the discarded red bag resting on the stairwell to the left. He ran up the steps, snatched the bag, and removed a handful of crumpled flyers while the other two watched. He peered up the stairwell. “I think they went up here.”
Esha crinkled his face and then spoke. “Why leave something on the top of that stairwell letting us know precisely which way they went? They know we’d suspect them of planting the bag, in which case we would ignore the clue, believe they didn’t go upstairs, and look for them to the right. In that scenario, they would have gone upstairs anyway and are now up there searching for a window or fire escape.”
Chandran pointed up the stairs. “I think they went up there, too,” he said.
Esha gazed down the hallway to the right. “You have a fifty percent chance of being right, which means there is a fifty percent chance they’ll get away.” Ashok walked back toward Esha with the empty bag.
“I see now,” Esha said. “They staged this riddle to waste our time. We will sit here guessing whether they have gone up the stairs or to the right. Remember that all physically probable events, from a leaf falling from a tree to the shaping of a galaxy, have already happened in every possible configuration inside our multiplicity of branching universes. In one branch, these two go right. In another, they go up the stairs to the left. In still another, one of them goes right and the other left—and vice versa. These branching universes contain countless copies of every atom, every human, in every possible scenario, configuration, color, shape, size, and variation. But one scenario continues to happen more than all the others because of its very design. Each possibility always contains one most likely branch.”
“Then this can be likened to the measurement problem,” Ashok said.
“How so?” Esha asked.
“You’re both wasting time now,” Chandran interrupted.
“We’ve already been here, Chandran, many times,” Esha said. “I wonder how many times you rushed us, causing us to choose the wrong path? This cannot be the first time we’ve been at this fork, yet you rush us without making a single conclusion. Ashok, the measurement problem—go on.”
“The double-slit experiment has application here. In its expanding wave form, an atomic particle can move through space-time in a multiplicity of directions and with an infinite number of outcomes. And we know this is how the universe behaves when no conscious being is looking. But we also know now that when we observe the particle, when we measure it, we find that the possibility—the wave form—is halted. The particle becomes solid and appears in one specific position. Our mind, the act of the conscious observer, halts the possibility of anything further and creates this firm, tangible, and measurable reality.” Ashok stomped his foot on the floor to demonstrate solidity. “And every moment we make an observation, we too split into numerous copies of ourselves, in each of those countless universes, all observing the same particle with a newly observed possibility, a slightly different future version of now.
“So, did they go right, or did they go left? Well, slight differences in our paths can add up over time: seconds, minutes, years. The longer the passage of time, the larger the possibilities become, and the deeper the differences because of those variations over time. And each of these infinite parallel universes branches again and again, each one as real as the next. In one version, Esha has already gone up the stairs, found Tom Hartger, and recovered the oscillator. In another, we have failed and are forced to relive this moment again and again. When you think about the nature of time and possibility, it becomes easier to understand the path we are creating right now.”
“Ashok, what is the answer?” Chandran asked impatiently.
“There are two paths, but there are three of us. We do not need to choose. We go both ways, and then are not forced to choose one over the other.”
“Well done, Ashok,” Esha offered in a congratulatory tone. “Ashok, you are the strongest, so you will be the one to go alone. You will go left and up, and do whatever is necessary to obtain the oscillator. Chandran and I will go down the hallway to the right. We have logic and destiny on our side—now go!”
The three men split up. Their footsteps echoed in the main rotunda for a moment, and then the room fell silent and still.
“That worked much better than I thought it would,” Tom said
to Gwen in a whisper as the two emerged from behind a small security booth. “The brain bomb,” Tom said enthusiastically, staring at Gwen in admiration.
Gwen chuckled as the pair ran back down the hallway toward the museum store they had passed earlier. As they reached the door, Tom removed his shoe and placed it over the small glass window. “I hate doing this.” He allowed the shoe to drape vertically over the window, dangling it with his left hand. With his right arm, he landed an elbow blow to the shoe, which made a cracking sound and splintered the window. With another short blow, the window shattered shooting glass—and Tom’s shoe—into the museum store. “I’m sorry. I promise to make a generous donation to cover this,” he said out loud. Carefully, Tom placed his arm inside the window and unlocked the door. After entering the store and retrieving his shoe, the two ran toward the illuminated emergency exit sign. A large metal handle was draped across the exit door: Emergency Exit Only—Alarm Will Sound.
“Here goes nothing,” Gwen said as she pushed the menacing red bar with both hands. As the door opened, an ear-splitting siren erupted, and a bright white light began pulsing above the door. She glanced at Tom with a look of disbelief now that a second, even noisier alarm bell was sounding.
The emergency exit opened to a small sidewalk surrounded by grass, trees, streetlights, and the silver dome of cotton clouds shining overhead. Cool night air filled their lungs as they ran across the lawn. “To the park,” Tom said between strides.
They crossed Central Park West, narrowly avoiding a charging taxi, and then leaped over a small stone wall into the park. They followed a path for about twenty yards and then took cover behind a large tree. They stared at the main entrance of the museum, waiting for something to happen. Gwen didn’t appear scared at all. On the contrary, she looked more alive than ever.
It was quiet, and Tom could see the spark in her eyes. They glowed a trusting shade of emerald green, with hints of orange and gold around the edges. Tom’s sense of fear dissolved as he stared into those lovely windows. His sense of impending doom was gone. He thought about Ashok’s words as they had listened from behind the security desk. And he too realized that this experience—that existence itself—was unique, unrepeatable. She was equally unique, and deserving of a most profound act. It was as if he had found an interpreter for his thoughts, and words were no longer necessary.
With the exception of a nearby cricket, the park was quiet. And the silence, Tom realized, was OK. He decided this moment might be the most perfect he’d known. I’ll never look away. Gwen appeared to be equally satisfied just to stare in the silence behind that tree in the darkness of Central Park.
The sounds of sirens began echoing from nearby buildings and could be heard approaching from both sides of the museum. Two police cars and a large fire truck approached on Central Park West. The flashing lights illuminated the neighboring buildings in shades of red and blue as they passed. All three vehicles stopped in front of the museum, and police and fireman emerged and began surveying the area. Suddenly, the large front door of the museum swung open. Two uniformed security guards emerged from the museum, supporting a third man in between them. All three men were coughing uncontrollably and pointing inside. Tom stared in disbelief.
In perfect English, Esha addressed the oncoming police and fireman. “Museum security. There are two PETA protesters inside—something about animal fur. Don’t let them get away!”
“Where did they get uniforms?” Gwen asked, smiling in spite of herself.
Esha, Chandran, and Ashok sat down by the fire truck. All four policeman and two fireman ran inside. A lone fireman remained outside, offering oxygen to the three men—whose coughing seemed to subside the moment the coast was clear.
“It’s time to leave,” Esha whispered to the henchmen through the oxygen mask.
“I don’t get paid enough for this,” Ashok confided to the firemen as he took a hit from the oxygen mask.
“You’re telling me,” the fireman replied solemnly.
And with that, Ashok dropped the mask, and the three men sprinted away, leaving the fireman alone and confused. Moments later, two nearly naked men emerged from the museum’s entrance. They were handcuffed and argued vociferously with their captors. “We’re security, you morons!”
The lone fireman watched the sideshow unfold as the oxygen mask, now lying abandoned on the sidewalk, hissed out the good stuff into the cool night air.
Tom sensed the night was winding down. They had what they’d come for and were now one step closer to their goal. “Show’s over—let’s go,” he whispered.
And with a feeling of victory, Tom and Gwen disappeared in the darkness.
CHAPTER 33
“TIME TO SAY good-bye,” Conrad sang in unison with Andre Bocelli as he prepared a tea service in the kitchen. He stirred the honey briskly—when he removed the spoon, he noticed the small funnel whirling inside the mug and stared. “Tea is served,” he declared as he lifted the tray and moved to the living room. “So you were looking for the thing inside the gorilla’s cage?” Conrad said, staring at the strange object now resting on his mother’s coffee table.
“Not a cage, a diorama,” Gwen replied. “And there it was, inside the leg of the gorilla—just as Loomis described. First the safe in Tuxedo Park, and now this.”
The object sat on the blue coffee table, sparking, practically calling out to anyone whose eyes came in contact with its hypnotic copper shine.
“Is this what causes the machine to function?” Conrad asked.
“That’s a great question,” Tom replied. “I think the four of these work in harmony to create some type of magnetic field. We’ve all heard about the Higgs boson; we know it enables energy to give rise to matter. The Higgs field gives energy its mass—its instructions to be solid, to become matter.” Tom tapped on the coffee table with his knuckles. “Working together, I think these can disrupt the Higgs field and create a window free of the confines of this plane: solid matter, gravity—any laws of physics that can be measured here.”
“So it creates a black hole?” Conrad asked anxiously.
“No, I don’t think so,” Tom replied. “A black hole has dense matter at its core. It obeys the laws of this plane, this universe. What this machine aims to do is pull back the curtain on this plane entirely. All of this is just a construct, and the machine erases that and allows one to see—I suppose to connect with—what’s on the other side. It’s like the absence of this place. I don’t understand it completely and might not have the right words to describe it.”
Conrad lifted the coil from the table. “It erases matter, and it’s sitting on my mother’s Yves Klein pigmented coffee table?” He held it up to the light, and the metal sparkled in his eyes. “Pull back the curtain to find what, though?”
Tom grabbed the coil from Conrad, “I don’t know, Connie. Maybe to see or talk to the man behind it.”
Conrad smirked and then spoke in a mighty voice. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The great Oz has spoken. Tom, are you hearing yourself? This is starting to sound a bit silly. This thing here, Tesla’s notebook, Loomis’s journal, that medal you bought—it’s all very interesting, but don’t go getting your priorities all twisted around. We need you at Empyrean.”
“My priorities?” Tom asked.
Conrad nodded. “You could be putting yourself—and Gwen and me—in real danger. These men are after this thing. According to you, they’ve killed someone, but you’re talking about meeting Oz. And you just broke into the Natural History Museum.”
“We didn’t break in…”
“OK, you broke out. But this is getting weird. Remember when my aunt Iris found that antique necklace…” Conrad stopped talking, and his jaw dropped. “Hey guys! Guys! You’re on TV!”
Tom turned around to see his photo on the screen, along with Gwen’s and photos of the three Indians. Gwen grabbed the remote, and a reporter’s voice sprang to life.
“Monty Palomar, a longtime resident and
antique dealer in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Three men are being sought by authorities in connection with the murder. All three men are suspected members of the terrorist organization All Tripura Tiger Force, a radical isolationist group. Additionally, two US citizens identified as Thomas Hartger and Gwen Peirce are also sought for questioning by authorities in connection with the robbery and homicide. Diana Flanagan for NBC News 10, reporting live from New Hope, Pennsylvania.”
“Thank you, Diana. Excitement is growing in the scientific community as the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, makes final preparations for a record-breaking collision scheduled for tomorrow at midnight—”
Tom clicked the mute button. There was a long silence while the reporter’s words soaked in. “Well, you know what they say,” Conrad offered. “All PR is good PR.”
“Not in my business,” Gwen replied with a heavy sigh. “I can see my patients staring at me over the rims of their tortoiseshell glasses. My partners, too. This is not good.” Gwen stood up and placed her hands on her hips, pacing the room.
“I’m going to clear your name,” Tom said.
“It’s time to go to the police,” Conrad said. “Just get everything out on the table; tell them what you know. Put this behind you, and we can all get back to work.”
“Connie, did we rob that man? Did we murder anyone?”
Conrad shook his head. “No,” he conceded.
“With the exception of breaking a window to save our lives—which, by the way, I fully intend to pay for—we’ve done nothing wrong.” There was a tinge of anger in his voice now. He felt something sharp in his mind, an idea that had so long ago been suppressed that it had hardened like a diamond under time and pressure. It was time for it to come out. “I have a feeling, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s coming on strong, as if I’m being called. Have you ever stopped for a moment to realize that life is finite? Do you ever think about how you’ll look back at the end? You won’t be satisfied by all the sacrifices you made for some empty promise of a career unless you also found a way to do the things that feed your soul, and that can be almost impossible. All the torture we put ourselves through, Monday through Friday, week after week, year after year. And all that time, there was something so much larger waiting, a truth that was hidden. We’re too busy running on our little hamster wheels and listening to everyone else—like that woman on TV. And all of them are operating on bad information. It’s like layers and layers of misinformation and lies; nobody knows what’s real anymore.”