Dark Oracle

by Alayna Williams

  “We’ll file our report with your office.” She nodded at him as she spoke (yes-yes-yes), giving him the impression of agreement. “Formalities.” She kept her posture low, looked up at him with an expression she hoped he took as submission.

  He squinted at her. “Fine,” he snapped. He gestured, and a petite woman in another white suit materialized beside him. “Dr. DiRosa will assist you. She worked with Magnusson. Keep it short. We have work to do.”

  “Thank you, Major.”

  “Ma’am.” He turned away from them, back to his laptop. She and Li were dismissed.

  DiRosa gestured and walked back toward the ruined machine. “This way.”

  Li let DiRosa get a few steps away. Seething, he yanked Tara’s elbow, started to say something, but she held up her hand.

  “You can chew me out for emasculating you and kissing Gabriel’s ass later,” she hissed. Her fear made her impatient, and she could feel her empathy draining right out of her, with the cold sweat trickling down her shoulder blades. Breathe.

  “They are taking our evidence,” Li snarled.

  “And you can either be quiet and gather some information, or throw a tantrum, and get nothing.” Tara’s eyes narrowed. “Now, promise to play nicely with the other kids, and perhaps they’ll let us play with their toys.”

  Li’s brown eyes blazed in wrath. She’d pushed his buttons, and he was ready to ignite. She didn’t have time for this kind of rigidity. She trotted off after DiRosa, letting Li stomp along in her wake.

  “Dr. DiRosa.” Tara kept her expression soft, neutral. “What can you tell us about this?” Her gloved hand sketched the hulk of the particle accelerator.

  “It blew up yesterday night at 2343, ma’am. Security logged Dr. Magnusson entering the site at 1945.” Though she had been introduced as Magnusson’s colleague, DiRosa’s speech cadences were pure military. Gabriel had turned them over to someone who would handle them perfectly. Tara looked at her sidelong through the shiny plastic mask. Her almond eyes were bloodshot and puffy beneath the careful makeup and salon-highlighted blonde hair. She knew Magnusson. She liked Magnusson. Despite her words, his disappearance had rattled her. Tara could use that to her advantage.

  “Was he alone?” Li’s voice strained through gritted teeth. To his credit, he was swallowing his anger and moving forward. Good man.

  “Yes.”

  “Where was he last seen?”

  “Security cameras caught him entering the accelerator room at 2210. He stayed in frame until approximately 2330.”

  “Did he turn on the machine?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need a copy of the tape.”

  “Of course.”

  Tara didn’t hold out hope they’d get it. From what Tara could discern beneath the white suit, DiRosa’s body language was tense and unyielding.

  “What was Magnusson working on?” Li asked, forever direct.

  “That’s classified, sir. I’m sorry.”

  Tara’s eyes roved over the remnants of the machine. “What exactly do machines like this do?” That was a broad enough question that DiRosa should be able to answer.

  “It’s a particle accelerator. An atom smasher, colloquially. The idea is to force an atomic particle, like an electron, to collide with the nuclei of other atoms at nearly the speed of light.”

  “Is this a typical device for this purpose?”

  “No. Most accelerators are linear or circular, which require substantial real estate to accelerate the particles. This variety is. . . was. . . an experimental type, a spiral accelerator based on an infinity loop design. It accomplishes appreciable amounts of acceleration, but in a much more compact space. Essentially, it uses a three-dimensional array of electromagnets to spiral particles to the collision at the center.” Tara could see her posture loosening as she talked about her research. The cadence of her speech quickened and became more fluid as she spoke. “The drawback is an excess amount of synchrotron radiation, which is difficult to filter out, but the advantages in design and material elegancy render that a manageable issue.”

  “Have there been any other accidents with these types of devices?”

  “Not at this site.”

  “And other sites?”

  “That’s classified.”

  Tara stuck to the topic. “Do you know what caused the explosion?”

  “That’s unknown. The off-site recorder recorded normal power-up, but an unusual power surge crashed the instruments. We expect it was an accident.” Her voice was firm, but she bit her lip, telegraphing her unease with the decision “we” had made.

  “Have you found any remains?” Li’s voice was expressionless, but he leaned forward to hear the answer.

  DiRosa hesitated before she shook her head. “We found a contact lens and some textile evidence. We’re looking for DNA. As you can see, much of the structure is destroyed. If Magnusson was standing behind the radiation blast shield. . . here. . .”—she pointed to a blistered pile of rubble—“. . . there may be very little to find.”

  It was then Tara realized there was very little actual debris. She’d seen the aftermath of car bombs and IEDs. There was always wreckage left equal to the amount of the original structure. Nothing ever disappeared completely. That was simply a basic fact of the universe.

  Tara’s brow wrinkled. It seemed wrong. Half a building was destroyed, but there weren’t enough bricks, dust, and scraps of metal to make up the difference. Very little was actually vaporized in an explosion. Here, there was very clearly missing mass, tons of it, which meant missing evidence. She thought of the ants combing over the wreckage. The material had to have gone somewhere. Did they take it? Why?

  Li and DiRosa continued the interview dance, and Tara walked to the rubble she’d pointed to. The camera clicked in her hand, as she aimed it toward the ruined particle accelerator. She looked up at the hole in the roof open to the plastic sky. She imagined sky, imagined escaping this prison of plastic, then forced her thoughts back to earth.

  Breathe.

  This could be the last spot Lowell Magnusson had stood. Tara turned on her heel, trying to imagine what this place would have seemed, humming and whole, orderly. This place would have been close to him, familiar as his own home. The machine must have been sterile and imposing; he would have needed an office area. She saw no wood debris, no suggestion of file cabinets, no broken chairs, no detritus of computers. He must have had somewhere to analyze his data, some space for him to sit in a chair and think, to spin out his theories and compare them with the invisible realities he set in motion in the heart of the machine.

  “Did Dr. Magnusson have an office in this building?” she asked.

  DiRosa hesitated. “Yes. But there’s not much left to show you.”

  TARA FOLLOWED LI AND DIROSA THROUGH THE ARTERIAL halls of the structure, through the haze of dust and dim emergency lights. Only part of the power seemed to have been restored to this area of the complex. Flashlights shone under doors, and silent strobe alarm lights cast harsh, angled shadows along the walls. Where they walked, industrial green tile was speckled in dust and footprints, illuminated by caged utility lights daisy-chained to orange extension cords. In the churning darkness, Tara could hear the buzz of a generator, the snap of plastic, and the filtered echo of voices. Her heart still trip-hammered in her mouth. She hoped the other two would not see how tightly her fists were clenched. The darkness served only to amplify her claustrophobia, stirring it with dark, unseen hands. She walked behind Li and DiRosa, the plastic of her helmet squeaking like a dog’s toy as she hyperventilated.

  This was too much like before. Like suffocating.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Card readers glowed with dull green eyes studding each door still important enough to be fed by sparse emergency power. DiRosa slid an ID badge through one reader, keyed in a code on the door lock. The stainless steel lock whirred and opened, suggesting some heavy machinery at work in th
e walls.

  “That seems pretty low-tech for this kind of installation,” Li commented. “I would have expected biometrics—palm and retina scanners, that kind of thing.”

  DiRosa’s bow mouth twisted in a frown. “We don’t have the electricity to run them now. That part of the grid’s toast.” She gestured them through the door, unhooking a utility light and snaking its orange tail behind her.

  “This is it?” Li stared at the blank white room. It looked like a set piece from an existential film: white walls, steel desk, ergonomic office chair on wheels neatly tucked under the edge. The blotter stretched pristinely blank across the desk, unmarked with any notes, phone numbers, scribbles.

  Li yanked open the industrial green file cabinet. Drawer after drawer gaped empty. He turned to the two large flat-panel computer monitors perched on the desk. He reached under the desk to power the computer on, only to grab a handful of dangling cords. The PC case itself lay strewn in pieces on the cold floor, shattered open in a broken mass of technological spaghetti.

  Li yanked at its green guts, pulled out the cracked motherboard. “The hard drive’s gone.” He looked up at DiRosa accusingly. “This was your people.”

  DiRosa shook her head. “We found it that way.”

  “You have backups somewhere?”

  “We’re trying to pull them now.”

  “I need copies of all his correspondence, reports, memos—”

  “We’ll give you the ones we can, after they’ve been cleared.”

  “So you’re going to give me a pile of paper covered in Magic Marker redactions?”

  “Agent Li—” DiRosa began, and Tara heard the crack in her voice. “Please understand we must follow procedure.”

  “I understand that you want us to look, not touch.”

  “What I want doesn’t matter.” Her voice tremored.

  Li leaned on the edge of the desk. Now that DiRosa was outside Gabriel’s earshot, perhaps she would open up. Tara heard his tone soften as he switched tactics and tried to dig into the soft flesh of the man’s personal life. “How long did you know Dr. Magnusson?”

  “I’d worked on this project with him for six months.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  DiRosa blew out her breath, fogging her visor. But not before Tara could see her blinking back tears. “He’s. . . brilliant. And entirely aware of that fact.” She tried to rub her nose through the radiation visor, succeeding only in smearing a string of snot around.

  “He was your mentor?” Tara drew the conclusion based on their ages.

  DiRosa nodded. “It’s like trying to run after a racehorse. You know you’ll never catch him. . . but you surprise yourself by how fast you can run, trying to keep up.” Tara noted her unconscious use of the present tense. DiRosa didn’t believe Magnusson was gone. It was too early to tell if it was denial.

  “Had Magnusson changed his behavior lately? Any changes in his hours or habits?”

  “He’d seemed preoccupied. I thought. . . I thought maybe he’d finally climbed out of his shell and found himself another. . .” She stopped herself, corrected. “A girlfriend. Or discovered the internet.”

  “How long has he been out here?”

  “Six months.”

  “Any friends or associates you know of?”

  “He kept his personal life separate from work.”

  “Introverted?”

  “You could say that. The word I would use is intense.”

  “Intense. . . Did he make any enemies?”

  DiRosa paused. “Magnusson had some issues with working within the chain of command. He was more. . . accustomed to working as he had in academia, without such close supervision.”

  “He didn’t play well with others?”

  “Not really. He could be pretty damn abrasive. He could be. . . impatient with people who couldn’t keep up and see his vision. I think. . . I think he wanted more freedom in his work, and I would have been surprised to see him stay much longer.”

  “Why did he come, then? I can’t see an academic playing nicely with guys like Gabriel.”

  “The government has the deepest pockets for the best toys. Ours are shinier, faster, and more expensive than the ones even Cornell can buy. He wanted to get his hands on them, pursue some of his own interests.”

  “I can’t imagine you’re too amenable to that, here.”

  “We’re not.” DiRosa’s voice tightened.

  Tara listened to Li work on DiRosa while she rummaged through the desk drawers. She hoped the activity masked her shivering; the sweat had begun to dry, and she could hear her suit rattle if she held still. Her fingers riffled through blank notepads, unused pens, sets of screwdrivers still in their blister packaging. If not for the destroyed computer, the scene looked like an advertisement for an office supply store. None of the lead in the pencils had been worn down to an angle. All the erasers were perfect. She thumbed through a yellow legal pad, one after another. All the perforations were still intact.

  She ran her fingers over the keyboard. There were no crumbs, no worn letters on the keys, no residue of spilled coffee. It looked new.

  Whatever Magnusson wanted others to think, he did no work in this office. . . if it was truly his, and not a set piece provided for their benefit.

  She knelt down in the debris of the computer, felt the USB ports. They were loose with wear. Bringing them out from under the desk, even in the weak lighting she could see scratches on the terminals.

  She smiled. Magnusson had worked here. He’d just taken his work home with him, probably on a portable drive. He wanted no traces of himself, or his work, to linger here. No photographs, no decorated coffee mugs. No substantial part of himself.

  She and Magnusson had something in common. Magnusson didn’t want to be here. The realization of it suddenly lit her brain like a struck match. It meant he’d hidden his knowledge someplace else.

  IT WAS DUSK BY THE TIME THE ALIEN JELLYFISH SPAT TARA and Li out of its plastic gullet. Late-winter sun shone coldly over the brittle grasses as they trudged across the caldera to the access road and the distant line forming at the decontamination center. The low gray clouds had reeled back, spitting a few flakes that drifted through the field. Dust and ash motes glistened in orange light, suspended in the air like dandelion fluff. Tara wished she could feel the saffron sun on her face directly. The plastic visor seemed to warp everything she saw in a circular pattern of fine, rainbow scratches.

  Once they were out of earshot of the jellyfish, Li grabbed Tara’s arm, turning her to face him. “Let’s clarify a few things.” Through the glare of his mask, she could see the anger shining in his expression.

  “This is the part where you tell me this is your investigation, and not to cut you down in front of the enemy?” Tara tried to cross her arms, but Li gripped her elbow too tightly. She narrowed her eyes, gulped in air. Her hands were balled into fists. She couldn’t take any more of feeling trapped.

  “Yeah. This is that part.” Li’s breath fogged his mask. “Don’t you ever undercut me like that again.”

  “Look. I’ll be brutally honest. I don’t particularly care about your ego, your feelings, or your rules. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. If that means eating some crow or petting Gabriel like a purse dog, then that’s what I’ll do.” She snarled the last sentence at him.

  She shook off his arm, hearing a rip in the shoulder of her suit. She stalked away. She’d gotten sick of this kind of ego-driven territory surfing long ago. She didn’t realize how incensed she was until the cool air crawled up her neck and into her face, bracing her.

  Breathe.

  “Oh,” she exhaled. It was the most glorious feeling. She could smell the sunlit ash purely, now. The chill air wrapped its hands around her neck, caressing her face and freezing the sweat on her skin.

  In the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something shining on the ground, a spark of violet and chrome. She bent to look, but the glare from the setting sun obliterated eve
rything in her vision through the damned mask.

  She opened the collar of her suit, pulled off the hood. Cold air washed over her, flash-freezing the sweat glossing her face. Her hair was drenched, and she shivered as the wind tore through it. She breathed deeply, slowly, of the ash and sun. A snowflake brushed out of the molten light and landed on her cheek, dissolving instantly. She felt like she was an incredible heat, meeting cold, pure air. Vapor steamed from the face, as if she’d just stepped out of a hot bath. She reached down for the glint in the grasses. Her gloves felt clumsy, and she was unable to feel anything through the thick plastic. She stripped off her glove, let her fingers comb the grasses, searching. . .

  She could hear Li running up behind her, yelling at her, his voice muffled by the filter. He grabbed her shoulder as her hand grasped the shining thing on the ground. She gasped when her hand closed around it and metal and static electricity bristled through her bare hand.

  She opened her steaming hand to show it to him, as her breath frosted the face of the stainless steel watch, its hands frozen behind the glass.

  THROUGHOUT TIME, ORACLES HAD ALWAYS GATHERED AROUND the four elements. Whether it was the original brazier in the Temple of Apollo burning over the sea, or bonfires before caves through which shamans tossed sparkling powders and cast shadow figures of animals with their hands, the elements always tugged at invisible lines drawing them together. The Daughters of Delphi were no different.

  Her sandals tied together and slung over her shoulder, Sophia walked into the darkness of the dunes. Sand squished between her toes and swirled around the rolled-up cuffs of her jeans. Arthritis creaked in her right knee, but she ignored it. She’d parked her car a mile back on the road, coming to this inaccessible place by foot, climbing dunes and wending her way around the sharp roots of sea oats.