As Joseph stuffed the note back into the envelope, Whelan asked,
“So, what is the mystery over there?”
Joseph’s smiled. He now outranked Whelan and seemed to be enjoying it. Retaining the smirk, he said,
“I’m sorry Mister Christenson but because of your retirement and subsequent removal from the Apple Jack security levels, that information is not available to you. Please accept my apology for insisting on rule 37, paragraph three, on page 763.”
It was only Terri and Lynda who laughed. Whelan looked very annoyed.
As the Chopper lifted off the ground, Lynda looked out the side window and waved goodbye to lover and daughter both standing on the porch waving back. It was a posh interior. The six leather seats each had a small table in front. Joseph offered her a gin and tonic. She remembered her grueling drive through the mountains on the wrong side of the road when first going to Roads End. She sat back, sipped her gin and decided this was a much better way to get there.
At least on the outside, she was trying her best to project an air of nonchalance about the request to come to Roads End. Inside she was bursting at the seams wondering why she was asked to come. What on earth had Professor Quagmire been up to now?
Chapter 36
Professor Quagmire’s Gate
From high above the mountains, Lynda was absentmindedly gazing down at them through the small side window. Although she had been to Roads End before, she saw no landmarks below reminding her of a direction or location. They could be half way to Australia by now for all she knew.
After about two hours of staring at White Mountain tops and Green valleys, she jolted alert. Below was the mountain road she drove so long ago. She followed it along and there it was. Just as its namesake implied, at the end of the road was the Institution that Professor Quagmire called home.
Looking down into the compound, she noticed four choppers lined up in typical military fashion. Looking beyond the fence, she saw people aimlessly scattered in small groups on the mountainsides searching for something or somebody. Many of the searchers had dogs on leashes.
Judging from the twenty or so cars scattered throughout the compound she understood that whatever the Professor had done was serious enough for people to drive the great tedious distance in cars. As the chopper circled, looking for a safe place to put down, she saw Nurse Maggie standing in the distance more than likely waiting for her.
After a smooth landing, Lynda put her head down and ran from the chopper as quickly as possible. The idea was not to get her hair tangled in the whirling blades or better still, what the hair was attached to. As she approached Nurse Maggie, she, in her usual brisk manner simply pointed to a building, turned and expected Lynda to follow. When the roar of the chopper had diminished somewhat, Maggie said,
“I’m glad you agreed to come Doctor. I really didn’t know what else to do but call you.”
“You said you had a mysterious note from the Professor for me.”
After a furtive glance over her shoulder Maggie said,
“Let’s get to my office where we can talk in private.”
The main building was swarming with men wearing white lab suits seemingly discussing the results of whatever they were investigating. There were pockets of private conversations aplenty. As they walked past some of them, they were so intent that they either did not care or notice the two women.
Once inside Maggie’s office she closed the door and sat at her desk. Lynda, anxious to learn what was going on, sat at the chair across from her. Maggie leaned forward and whispered,
“They have disappeared.”
Confused, Lynda asked,
“What do you mean they have disappeared?”
“Just that. The Professor and his partners have disappeared. Didn’t you know?”
“No. I’ve been contently living on my ranch with Whelan trying to put all this behind me.”
Surprised, Maggie sharply interjected,
“You are living with Whelan Christenson?”
Not thinking it that big of a deal, Lynda only nodded. However, for some reason it was a big deal to Maggie. With what could have been a pout and a touch of sadness she said,
“Good for you.”
If there was jealousy in Maggie’s hollow congratulations, Lynda missed it. Lynda’s confusion about the disappearance was obvious and so Maggie explained,
“It all started when he came back from Deep Lab 6. He and the others all huddled together and started getting very secretive. They never used to care if I saw what he and Professor Eldridge was working on, not that I understood those chicken scratches on his blackboard any way. Well, when he came back they all got cagey and very careful that nobody, even me, saw those stupid equations.”
Lynda was confused. Why did she vaguely know who this Professor Eldridge was? Maggie explained,
“You know, the strange one who claimed he was on the ship that disappeared in the Philadelphia Experiment way back who the hell knows when.”
Now she remembered and said,
“Yes, of course, the time continuum theorist, the one who was trying to figure out a formula transporting him back to his own time.”
Lynda knew something was wrong, that something else was going on here. This was far too big of a search operation to justify a meager handful of missing scientists. With a stern eye, Lynda demanded,
“What’s really going on here Maggie? A handful of missing scientists cannot possibly justify such a massive operation.”
Again, Maggie furtively looked about her office as if afraid there might be cameras or bugs spying on her. When her shoulders slouched, Lynda knew something had snapped and she was about to reveal a great secret. She held her breath and Maggie whispered,
“I guess it doesn’t matter much anymore given what has happened here. What the hell, news is going to leak out anyway and given your Apple Jack security clearance you might as well find out from me.”
Lynda realized this was not the time for honesty. Overwhelming curiosity to learn what had become of the Professor prevented her from confessing that her Apple Jack security was revoked when she and Whelan accepted the Shut Mouth retirement package and purchased the ranch. Would it be a breach of contract to remain silent about it? She reasoned that the signed conditions of the Shut Mouth contract implied just that, ‘keep your mouth shut’.
Maggie then went into her desk, scrambled around for something and pulled out a container of pills. She opened the capsule and poured a few into her hand. Without even counting them, she tossed the fistful into a gapping mouth and forced them down a dry throat. Maggie saw Lynda’s expression of amazement and felt compelled to explain.
“Migraines.”
One or two must have been stuck in her throat and so Lynda waited for her to struggle through facial contortions trying to force them down. Finally, in response to Lynda’s demand to know what was really going on here, she said,
“Everybody here is a genius in their own field. Yes, it is true that fatigue and pressure to exceed mental capacity caused psychological breakdowns. That is what we do here in this secret institution. We look after those who have lost capacity to function normally.”
Maggie then leaned forward and whispered,
“That is only the official reason they are here but not the real reason. Although it had always been denied there was once a project afoot to gather brilliant scientists into a medical facility and enhance their intelligence through artificial means.”
Lynda was quick to understand and blurted out,
“You mean drug induced intelligence?”
With pursed lips and a hand motion, Maggie indicated for Lynda to speak softly. She continued,
“That’s right. Fifteen to twenty brilliant young people, men and women alike were subjected to drug experiments to further increase their capacity in their individual field.”
Lynda was mad and not soft in her response,
“So they are not here because of mental fatigue. They are
here because the mind enhancement drugs they were subjected to turned them into zombies.”
Maggie quickly objected,
“We don’t know that yet.”
Apple Jack or not, Lynda was not going to let this inhumanity be buried in an institution far into the mountains. She made a mental promise to expose this inhumanity.
Maggie continued to expose what the government wanted kept secret.
“The only pills and injections we gave them were intended to enhance at least some semblance of a normal life, some compassion and perhaps compensation for the cruel things once done to them.”
Lynda asked,
“Were all these scientists subjected to mind enhancing drugs? Even Professor Quagmire?”
“Yes, all of them. Oh, I know he didn’t take his full dosages but he was smart enough to take the ones that kept the headaches away.”
Lynda then got a strange one-eyed look from Maggie and she said,
“He is the leader of this group of plotters you know. He’s the one who organized them and set the escape plans into motion.”
The only response from Lynda was a condescending smile. Yes, she knew he was trying to escape, to get himself and the others out of here. Where could they go? Where could they live a life free of this institution and the terrible conditions imposed on them? Those questions are for later, for now she wanted to know more of why she was here. She asked,
“Are you telling me the Professor somehow escaped?”
Maggie’s answer confused her.
“Missing might be a better word for it.”
Maggie again reached into her desk and brought out a note.
“This is the note the Professor wanted me to give to you. He said it would explain everything. Before handing it to her, she darted her eyes back and forth making sure nobody else was in the room with them. Maggie then said,
“Try not to let anybody see you read it.”
The note was handed over. It was in the Professor’s handwriting and she read aloud,
“Do not worry about us. We have jumped out of the fish tank and can breathe.”
Putting the note down, she looked across the desk at Maggie who expected an explanation.
She handed the note back and with great care, Maggie put it back in the desk. After another furtive look about the office Maggie whispered,
“What does that mean?”
Although Maggie was openly sharing secrets, Lynda did not feel compelled to reciprocate the trust. She hoped that the Professor and the others were now in a better place, a place they deserved to be and she was not willing to jeopardize that. She shrugged her shoulders and asked a question of her own.
“I don’t know. Why do you think I should?”
Maggie continued to whisper.
“Because the day before the Professor disappeared he asked me to make sure you got this note and that you would understand.”
In support of the Professors ‘better place’, Lynda shook her head.
As they walked down the hall toward the Professor’s room, Lynda turned and looked into Eldridge’s room and saw the strange formulas and equations scribbled on a blackboard. She stopped and peered in. There on the large slate she saw what could have been the same equations as before but then how could she possibly know for sure.
What was different about the blackboard was that somebody had taken a blackboard eraser and swiped it through the numbers and equations in a giant ‘X’ pattern. Only about half of what the esoteric man had been working on was visible. She got the impression that somebody had tried to quickly eradicate a secret or at least keep a discovery from unfriendly eyes.
Standing in front of the partially obliterated equation were five men, three in white smocks and two in black suits. They had their backs to Lynda looking quizzically at what was left of an obvious secret formula. Pointing to an empty space between the formulas, one turned to the other and mumbled something. The other man listened and seemed to be contemplating something but eventually shook his head and returned his attention to the numbers. Silence and slouched shoulders was the clue that none understood what they were looking at.
Looking at the enigmatic equations, Lynda too had no idea but did have one advantage over the confused men. She knew it had something to do with time-lines and dimensions. Maggie said,
“They are trying to figure out the formula. Somehow they think it might have something to do with the disappearances.”
As Maggie turned leaving them to whatever the cryptic scratches meant she asked,
“Do you think they’ll ever get it?”
Implying whose side she was on, there was a tinge of certainty in Lynda’s answer.
“Not a chance. Not unless they kidnap some other poor genius and give him the same mind enhancing drugs. There is no way a normal brilliance is going to ever unlock that weird stuff.”
Professor Quagmire’s room was much as she remembered it except his desk was now neat and free of the reams of papers that once cluttered it. She understood that this was not like the Professor at all. He suffered the typical absentminded Professor syndrome of messy and forgetfulness. Or did he?’Lynda turned to Maggie and asked a question she already suspected the answer to.
“All the scientists held here are now gone aren’t they.”
Maggie nodded and Lynda continued,
“And you have no idea where, do you?”
She shook her head.
“There are no signs of them leaving is there, like jimmied locks or a hole in the perimeter fence or anything like that at all is there?”
Again, Maggie shook her head.
“It’s like they disappeared into thin air isn’t it.”
Maggie nodded.
Maggie then opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small box wrapped like a birthday gift, ribbon and all. On the tag it read, ‘A gift for Doctor Lynda Gray’. As Maggie handed it to her, Lynda suppressed a smile and simply put it in her pocket. Surprised, Maggie asked,
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“No, said Lynda, “I already know what it is.”
With nothing else to do or say, both walked out of the office.
Lynda felt a surge of power as the chopper lifted off the ground. Looking down at the disappearing Roads End compound, she finally understood what all the people were doing there and why there was desperation in their quest. Obviously, there was urgency to find them before news of the true intent of the compound leaked out. It would be a great unexplainable embarrassment to the government if the public learned that they once forced mind enhancement experimentation on the most brilliant minds of the time.
As the compound got smaller and smaller, she accepted the dread deep inside her. It was a desire never to see this place again. It could fall off the face of the Earth for all she cared. Another deep question kept surfacing to demand and answer. However, she did not want to address it right now. Something else was heavy on her mind.
As the Roads End Institution disappeared behind the mountains, again she absently looked down on the mountain range. After a few minutes of staring out the window, she drifted into silent deliberation. Let them look all they want but she knows, there is no place on Earth Professor Quagmire and his fellow scientists will ever be found. She understood what the partially obliterated formula on the blackboard was all about. She knew that the Professor returned to Roads End with the bell and somehow formulated that unique acoustic vibration into a workable mathematical equation. Somehow, he and his coven of conspirators had discovered a dimensional fingerprint, turning it into a doorbell that contacted something or somebody on the other side, to open the door. She now understood the letter, ‘We have jumped out of the fish tank’. Although not understanding how, she hopes that the missing scientists are now in a better world, wherever that might be.
Chapter 37
The Truth
That night Lynda pulled the bed covers up tight and cuddled into Whelan. He was still awake and unfortunately forced to listen
to the events over at Roads End. She attempted to explain the dimensional gate and how the vibrations were a key to opening it. He yawned at the metaphor of certain sounds being capable of crossing some barriers and that was why a church might have a choir. She eventually recognized the apathetic barrage of ‘Yes dear’ and ‘no dear’ and fell silent. Not likening it but understanding his indifference to what was exciting she too fell silent. However, her thoughts were loud.
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