He shook his head and lacking conviction said,
“No, I don’t think so.
After a careful inspection she drew a conclusion.
“It’s the same diameter as the one in the table and in a direct line from it.”
She saw his puzzlement and asked,
“How deep do you suppose it goes?”
“Who the hell knows? I should imagine if it was some sort of laser beam strong enough to penetrate a solid steel table it probably goes pretty deep.”
She pointed and asked,
“What’s beyond this concrete floor?”
He understood the jest of her question and said,
“No way has it gone beyond the concrete floor. This is the bottom of the compound. There is eight feet of solid concrete under us as well as a webbing of crisscrossing reinforcement bar designed so that anything attempting to cut through would run into at least five bars per foot. No, it cannot be very deep. This whole lab is a floating bubble of concrete. If need be it could withstand a direct hit from an atomic bomb and in case of an earthquake, will float. This lab is impenetrable.”
Both got up and stood beside the table and reflected on what could possibly have caused those two holes. He said,
“I stand by my claim that there are no penetrating lasers in this lab.”
As he suffered her stern look, she asked,
“What do you want to find out first, what caused it or how deep it is?”
After a quick thought he said,
“I guess it would help if we knew how deep it was. That would be correlative to its strength I suppose.”
She tried to trap him into confessing that it really was a laser hole by quickly asking,
“Strength of what?”
It was not a great security secret or earth shattering experiment on lasers that he was trying to keep from her. He really did not know what could have caused it and honestly admitted,
“Of whatever made the hole.”
It took only a few minutes to sneak around the lab furtively looking for something that could be pushed into the hole. He came back with a spool of copper strand wire as thin as thread. Both again ducked under the table and as Lynda held the spool he pulled about five inches through his fingers and straightened it out. With all the concentration of threading a needle, he pushed one end into the hole. It was with some relief to Whelan that it stopped after only about a foot deep.
However, Lynda was not willing to accept defeat so readily. She remembered an old trick the snake hunters used at home. They took a rope and pushed it into the burrow of a snake. In order to get the rope in as far as possible they twisted and pushed at the same time. Eventually, and if they got lucky, the snake got mad enough to strike at it. When it did, the snake hunter simply pulled on the rope and out came the snake still biting down hard on the other end.
With a nudge of her elbow, she awkwardly managed to jostle herself in front of Whelan. Before he knew what was happening she was holding the wire and he had the spool. She said,
“That’s a useless effort, how about you let me try.”
After being so rudely jostled out of the way he wondered why she even bothered to ask.
Taking the wire, she started doing just that, twirling it between her fingers and gently pushing down at the same time. To Whelan’s great surprise, it went deeper into the mysterious hole. After a few minutes of patiently feeding the wire downward, Whelan was compelled to ask,
“Jesus, just how far do you figure that is?”
She was annoyed at the intrusion and blurted out,
“Shut up will yea, I’m counting.”
“Counting what?”
She stopped, looked up at him and said,
“I’m feeding in about three inches with every push.”
“So, how many pushes so far?”
“Forty- three.”
As she turned again to her tedious task, Whelan was taken back by the measurement. It only took him a second to multiply forty-three by three and convert it to feet. He knew there had to be something wrong with the calculation. Surely, it was just doubling up in there or plugged at about the three-foot level. Regardless, it was impressive enough considering the strength of whatever penetrated that deep into reinforced concrete. As far as he was concerned, everything so far was impossible. Yet, here she was still twisting pushing and counting.
After a few more pushes, she paused, looked up and saw his bewilderment. She said,
“Almost eleven feet.”
He shook his head in disbelief. How could the hole possibly be deeper than the eight feet of concrete under them? She must be at least three feet into the dirt under the concrete. He could only think of one word.
“Impossible.”
After another minute she suddenly snapped,
“Crap, I lost track.”
He looked down at the wire and discovered there was only about a foot of strand left. He started to pull the wire up and coil it back onto the spool as quickly as he could. She grabbed him by the hand and whispered,
“Not so fast. To make sure it all went straight down without buckling I need to see if there are any kinks in it.”
He slowed down and she inspected every inch. There were no kinks in the wire.
Still on her hands and knees, Lynda again curiously looked at the hole in the floor. Before Whelan had coiled all the wire back on the spool, she suddenly said,
“Wait. Give me that wire again.”
Because it did not sound like a request, more like an order he did not question the command. He watched as she again inserted the wire into the hole. Looking at him, she said,
“Did you notice that?”
“What?”
“The wire now easily fits into the hole.”
“So?”
“So, the hole is getting bigger.”
He cast a discerning eye to it and had to admit that it was now twice the diameter as before.
As there was nothing else to inspect under the table, both struggled to get out from under and stand. It was not a deliberate act to leave the wire coil under the table, she just forgot about it. What they did not see was that as they stood, small silent sparks invaded the coil. As they stood discussing what they had discovered, like a lit fuse, the copper wire disappeared in a flash of sparks.
Slowly, Lynda looked around the lab and saw other tables scattered about. Some were empty but none had a sheet over them. She asked Whelan why only this table had a sheet on it. When compared to an impossibly deep hole under the table, he saw it as a trivial question and simply shrugged his shoulders.
A female scientist with head buried in her clipboard had the misfortune to come close to Lynda. Lynda stopped her with a tug of her arm and asked,
“Who put the sheet over this table?”
The woman looked hard and perplexingly at Lynda but when seeing the Apple Jack security tag around her neck and recognizing Whelan, she said,
“General Irsthill. He was in here yesterday asking about poor Hatchers workstation.”
Lynda asked,
“Why did he want the table covered?”
She shrugged and replied,
“Who knows?”
Because she was busy and not wanting to be delayed by more useless questions, she quickly continued on her way.
Thinking that it might be important, she asked Whelan a question he was already struggling with.
“Why do you suppose the General didn’t want anybody to see the hole in the table and floor?”
His blank look was an indication that he didn’t know. She then asked,
“I gather we are keeping this a secret for now are we?”
“Yes, I think that might be best. At least for now.”
Just to make sure things were clear she added,
“You do understand that something from this lab made a hole so deep that it penetrated more than eight feet of solid concrete and is slowly getting larger. To top it off the General tried to cover it up, r
ight?”
Surprisingly Whalen casually responded,
“Is that the way you see it?”
She was not polite.
“Yes, that’s the way I see it you dumb Koala! How could it be anything else?”
He said,
“What if it was something from far below making its way up here?”
Okay, she had not thought of that. After some careful deliberation, even though she was not the first to think of it, she conceded that such a thing might be possible. She nodded her acceptance of the possibility and added to that scenario.
“Well if it came from somewhere down there and had the strength to go through all that concrete and steel plus this steel table then where did it stop? Did it stop? What if it came from the surface and shot downward? It might have shot through the ceiling, through poor Hatcher’s hand and then through the steel table to the floor.”
Slowly and as casually as possible, both looked up to the ceiling. It was too high to spot anything way up there. It obviously did not come from the saucer because the outer lip was at least four feet away from the trajectory and four feet from the table. Whelan said,
“Okay, that’s a thought. Because the hole seems to be getting bigger, I will get the lab cleared and a crew down here right away. We have to make sure this desk is not moved. If there is a hole in the ceiling, it can be used to establish the trajectory.”
She surprised him by saying,
“There is no way this table is moving.”
“Why?”
“It’s bolted down.”
She was not finished with him yet.
“And let me confirm my contempt for military toys. It certainly looks like something found a way through this so-called impenetrable defense does it not. And trust me, it’s not some form of biological concrete eating steel chewing bug either.”
It was a slow and silent walk back to the elevator cage. After stepping onto the platform, he pressed the ‘up’ button. There was a slight jerk as it started its upward task. Just as it started to lift, she asked,
“So, what’s the next step?”
“Like I said, I’ll talk to the powers that be and suggest clearing the lab while my men investigate the cause of the hole.”
Because it did not seem exciting to her, she shrugged it off and casually returned her attention down into the lab. Suddenly what she saw, as surely as a rubber band around her forehead had snapped everything fell into place. As the elevator continued to rise, she stared at it.
They were now at the top and Whelan was in the process of exiting the cage when she grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Before he had a chance to ask what the hell was going on, she pointed and said,
“There’s your answer.”
Puzzled, he looked down into the cavernous lab. At first, there was nothing strange to see or any shocking revelation justifying her excitement. He followed her pointing finger toward the saucer. When she heard him utter “Shit!”, she knew he saw it too. He immediately punched the ‘down’ button.
While they were on their way up in the elevator somebody down there yelled through the loudspeakers,
“All right, let’s get it back into the recovery position. Everybody stand clear.”
A whistle then sounded alerting everybody that the entire rigging, flying saucer and all was going to turn.
That was what caught Lynda’s attention and lured her to look back down into the lab.
By the time they again reached the floor, the saucer had been returned to its recovery position. Because it was an oblong saucer, the long end was now closer to Hatcher’s worktable. While walking back to it, both mentally asked the same question. How much closer was the saucer to the hole in the table?
With a calculating eye, Whelan projected the angle of the hole in the floor, matched it to the hole in the table and followed the trajectory upward. Lynda did the same. If whatever caused the hole had come from underneath, then it obviously must have hit the very edge of the saucer just inches inside the lip. If however it came from above the lab, the laser beam had to have gone through the saucer, hit the table and then down to the hole in the floor.
It only took an hour to get authorization to clear the lab of all unessential personnel. General Irsthill was not pleased to give this order, not pleased that there might be a smudge on his otherwise exemplary record. Shut the lab down? Had his Security Officer no idea the cost involved? However, a security breach was uncovered and procedures must be followed. He had no choice but to comply with Whelan’s request.
Chapter 10
Two hours had passed since the discovery of the mysterious hole in the floor. Five of Whelan’s top security people hastily made their way through the clean room, into the white lab suits and down the elevator into the lab. The hole in the floor as well as in the table had now mysteriously expanded to the size of a fist. Three men were busy putting together scaffolding under and beside the saucer allowing access to the projected point of impact. Whelan and another man had modified an apparatus to cover the hole in the floor. A laser beam was attached to it and aimed through the hole in the table. This allowed the man up on the scaffolding to locate and inspect where the beam struck the saucer.
Lynda was designated to a corner of the lab and ignored by what she perceived as a SWAT team in action. This was fine with her. She still considered the actions to be no more than games that the big boys play. Although, she had to confess there was a tinge of mystery floating through the air that excited her. After all, what was happening here now made up for all the boring days she had been cooped up in her medical office. Her interest did not lie in what caused the hole, which was certainly Whelan’s concern but rather which way it was going. Did it come from above or below the saucer?
As she stood observing the laser beam projecting through the table and up to the man on the scaffolding, eyes drifted to what she thought should be the contact point on the ship. However, the distance between her and the saucer was too great and the impact area too small to see. From her observation point, the shell of the craft was smooth with no obvious signs of damage.
She watched as the man up there inspected the underbelly of the craft where the beam hit and waited for him to announce his findings. Whelan was not as patient and yelled up at him.
“What do you see up there?”
Standing under the belly of the craft, he took a careful minute to make sure of his observation. He finally yelled down,
“Nothing. There is no hole in the shell.”
Whelan yelled back up,
“Are you sure? It’s important to either confirm or refute with certainty.”
Yes, he was sure. However, to please his superior, he again looked to the impact point of the laser beam and double-checked. There was no hole or any visible sign of damage. He understood that there must be damage or at least a small hole but he could not locate it. He raised his hand to feel for damage but just an inch from touching it, he quickly pulled his arm back. Whelan saw the sudden reaction and yelled up,
“What is it? What happened?”
He turned and yelled down,
“I’m not sure. It looked like the saucer shell was solid enough but just as I brought my hand close, it started to fluctuate a bit.”
Confused, Whelan yelled up,
“Fluctuate?”
“Yes Sir. Oscillating a bit like where the laser hit wasn’t solid or something.”
“Well that’s impossible, we know for a fact that the shell is solid. Every inch of it has been inspected.”
Just to be safe, Whelan yelled back up,
“Don’t touch anything. Let the experts deal with what you think you saw.”
The security officer was going to leave it alone except for one thing, curiosity. When he saw that Whelan had turned away, he took advantage and slowly raised his hand to touch the contact point of the laser beam. It was just a slight tap but it started the waving motion around that spot on the solid surface again. Because of the improbability of
the rippling effect, he was again transfixed to the oddity. It was as if his touch had somehow influenced the hard casing to turn soft, water-like.
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