Lexi thought of her house—unburned. She saw Gramps standing on the stoop, waving goodbye as she left for school. Memories. The past. Could it be the key?
The September that had begun with a gentle snow was now mild, and as she drove west to enter Batavia it started raining, slow at first but quickly whipping up into a spirited deluge. Despite the fear of what Dorl might be planning and her role in it, what concerned her most at that moment was whether or not the new paintjob on her truck would hold.
Fatigue set in as they turned onto Harvester Ave. Lexi parked in a stone lot littered with pallets and piles of misplaced pavement. “Wake up,” she punched Lewis’ bicep. “We’re here.”
“What the f—” he lifted the fedora and looked out on the dreary world, snorting and hacking out the window. Lexi turned aside and told him to give her the hat. “What for?”
“Don’t they train you FBI guys in manners? I don’t want to get my hair wet.” Quietly, she mumbled to herself, “What do you care anyway, you’re bald.”
He handed her the fedora and watched with raised eyes as she tapped five drops of cologne on the underside of the brim. “So what’s supposed to be here? This wasn’t the facility my Gramps said Dorl used to run in Batavia, right? He said it collapsed.”
“Leslie discovered inexplicable power surges and power drainages from this site. He suspected the Tower was conducting electron dispersal and communication experiments here.”
“And we’re here to what . . . shut it down?”
Lewis’ eyes wandered up to the top of the crumbling structure that was once the site of Batavia largest employer. “Not exactly. Something happened here. The readings all dropped off suddenly. The Tower was forced to leave something precious behind.” He returned his gaze to Lexi. “Those were Leslie’s words, anyway.”
“What’s precious to the Tower?” Lexi asked as she placed Satan in the cab and before following Lewis across the lot.
“No friggin clue.”
They carefully stepped over the jagged cross ties and slippery rails lying in front of the entrance. Once under the overhand above the doors Lexi handed the hat back to Lewis, who donned it and then proceeded to pick the lock. A few moments trickled by. Something clicked and the door creaked open an inch. Lexi could feel Lewis’ body tense. He drew his gun.
She had realized from the first that he would be carrying, but she’d figured it would be a .9mm semi-automatic like Simon’s, but his was bigger; thicker handle, wider barrel.
“What kind of gun is that?” She knew what kind of gun it was.
He looked down as though inspecting it when he answered, “A .38 special. Come on.” He limped into the dark hollows with Lexi in tow. The weak light from outside was all that lit their way—so the door remained open. Lewis stuffed his left hand, the bionic one, into the deep well-pocket of his trench coat and, with a combination of intense focus and elbow grease, managed to withdraw a small yellow flashlight.
If Leslie’s factory in Ashford Hollow was cavernous, this place was positively Morian; a manufactured world in which a dwarf would have felt right at home exploring. Some of the wide thick planks making up the floor creaked while others squished, sinking wherever a shoe or boot presumed to step. Rain tinkled on the roof, water seeping through in some spots and pattering down into musty puddles. The ceilings were near Sistine level, so these drizzling puddle-making drops echoed in eerie vibes. The light from Lewis’ electric torch seemed no more substantial here than a pinprick in the vastness of Alpha Centauri.
“We’re never going to find anything,” Lexi sighed. “Let’s come back in the morning.”
But Lewis proceeded to the second level on cement steps, his footfalls blessedly quiet. The second floor stretched on for what seemed miles, into a black hole. As Lewis took the first tentative step, Lexi gave a start. “I’m going back to the truck. If you want to play Roland to the Dark Tower comes, be my guest.”
“Fine,” he mumbled. “Good luck finding your way back without the light.”
Lexi harrumphed but followed him into the black. A slight scuffling sounded to their right. Lewis brought the light to bear on baseboards so fat with ages of paint that they must surely be more lead and latex than wood. A rat, fat and sleek crawled into the beam. Lexi gave a quick “Eew!” in reflex. But Lewis moved towards it.
“What are you doing? It probably has rabies.”
Watching Lewis approach King Rat, Lexi wondered how she had gotten to this place, this dark world with a rogue agent, looking for something she couldn’t possibly understand. The path seemed full of holes, just like how Gramps had described his quest for the Tower countless times in her youth. She recalled the character Sam Becket from Quantum Leap, how he’d described his journey as giving him a Swiss cheese brain, full of holes through which memories have fallen.
Lewis fiddled with something metallic. As she watched, enthralled, he was suddenly surrounded by a vague halo. A sharp cry rang out and lights crackled to life along the second story. Three bulbs burst in tiny pyrotechnic explosions while the rest cast sad shadows in the corners and illuminated tents of light.
Puke-yellow shelves stood in columns along the moldering walls, piles of water-slogged ceiling portions littered the floor, the planks of which were pitted where planogram’s had been bolted down once upon a time. Stout wood columns supported the ceiling while depressing the floor at their bases. As Lexi and Lewis walked to the far end, it became clear that there was nothing to be found, so they turned around.
“Did you hear that?” Lewis said.
“Probably King Rat’s brood. Let’s go.”
He walked back to the far edge, avoiding the puddles and creating mini dust bowls with every step. Lexi followed him, not wanting to be left alone with the rats. Lewis slid his hands along the wall like a lover slowly caressing his girl. She watched him with narrowed eyes and closed her coat tighter. He smiled and pushed on the wall. It gave under his hands.
A door flush with the wall opened a few inches and, with gun ready, Lewis swung it fully open. Its unseen hinges were silent. The beam from the flashlight settled on a man lying on his back. Lexi moved in past Lewis. He tried to grab her. “He looks familiar, doesn’t he?”
Lewis stared down for a moment before finally agreeing, “I think that was the servant at the factory, the one who brought the Mickey Finn’s. Get up!” kicking the ancient man.
Lexi maneuvered between them. “Stop. He’s helpless. Help me bring him out into the light.” Lewis holstered his gun and flashlight and they dragged him out and set him under one of the dull tents of light. The old man moaned in defiance, his wheezes painful to hear.
“What happened?” Lexi asked.
“The device,” the old man spoke so softly that even in this sepulcher Lexi could barely hear him. “It’s not ready. God help us if Dorl doesn’t complete the device before it comes.”
“What device?” Lewis interrogated. “Tell us about it or we’ll leave you here to rot, to be sure. What’s coming?”
Lexi glared at and waved Lewis off. “Please, tell us what happened. We want to help.”
Stalking off, Lewis kicked a rat that stupid enough to cross his path.
“Wormwood.” The old man sounded delirious. His emaciated form trembled as he hacked. A gaggle of words, many incomprehensible, tumbled out of his mouth. “It is not ready . . . wrong converter . . . Arfion . . .” Dark crimson sputum dribbled out of his mouth and then he lay still on the dusty floor.
“What did he mean?” Lexi looked up at Lewis who was standing with his arms crossed, a wretched look creasing his face.
“I know that word, ‘Arfion’. It’s a place in Nevada, I think. Saw something about it once when I was going over the Tower files. Those particular files disappeared the next day.” He limped into the room where they had found Silas and said, “Come look at this.”
She did. “What is it?”
An apparatus of near translucent material stood in the dark corner of the room, b
lending into shadows and casting none of its own. Instead of landing on it, the beam from Lewis’s flashlight splashed right through it; but the most startling aspect of the device was that it was incomplete, seemingly sliced in two, as if an adamantine knife had passed clean through it.
Lewis ran his finger along the seared edge. The act drew blood. “Damn. This almost looks like it was cut with a plasma device. Whatever it was, it didn’t even hesitate when it cut through the solid metal bars here and here. Look.”
Lexi took some pictures of the device before making her way downstairs, shuffling along through the dark first floor at a sedate pace. At the entrance again, Lexi was pleased to see the rain had stopped. “What do you think happened to that thing up there? What could’ve cut it like that?” she asked, climbing into the passenger seat and holding Satan in her lap.
“It has been theorized that plasma welders could be augmented, with the right engineering and funding, to be outfitted as weapons.” Lewis recited. “That’s what it looks like happened to the device. And if that’s the case, then the Tower is even further along than we thought. But if a plasma weapon was used on that device, then what the hell—”
“—was the device?” Lexi finished for him.
“Exactly.” Lewis was quiet for awhile. When he spoke, his tone was firm, confident. “We need to get to Nevada.”
Chapter 22
“Damn it!” Lewis barked. “I thought that old fool tuned this up.” He was trying unsuccessfully to start the truck. “What the f—”
“Yeah, it’s never liked the rain,” Lexi said. “You have to get out and disconnect the battery terminals and then reconnect them.” She handed him a ½ inch wrench from the glove compartment, then waited for Lewis to get out and do her bidding.
Scowling, he jumped back inside the cab.
“So what do you think that device was for?” Lexi asked. He gave her his best ‘it’s a complicated pisser’ look. She reciprocated. “More secrets, fine.” She stroked Satan and turned her head away.
As they left Batavia heading south on 219, Lexi perused the now digitized file of Gramps’ trove on her laptop, eventually stumbling on a letter from Howard Hughes. This one boasted a reference to Arfion. She could almost feel the neurons and synapses firing and forging infinitesimal connections as the letter sparked a memory. She knew what to do.
The web offered the location of an excellent Carnegie research library.
“We need to go to Pittsburgh.”
“Negative,” Lewis muttered, fatigue mottling his baritone. “Once we’re out of New York we’ll head west. Judging from what that old geezer said, there’s no time for sightseeing.” His lethargic manner was infuriating.
“You think I don’t know how serious our situation is?” she slammed the laptop shut. “They-burned-down-my-house. My grandfather died and his house is probably gone too now thanks to you. And my friend was murdered. I know better than anyone that we need to stop this damned Dorl! That’s why we need to go to Pittsburgh, for research.”
Lewis said nothing.
“Damn it. I thought you FBI guys were all about knowledge. Knowledge is power and all that?” She grunted. “Linnux said that the key to understanding Mr. Dorl was searching his past. So we are going to Pittsburg and that’s it.” Lexi grabbed Lewis’ bionic pinky and twisted it up and back.
Lewis flinched. “Hey!” he snapped the bionic hand into a mighty fist balled around Lexi’s fingers. She whimpered. Lewis, seeing that he had full dexterity, released her. “I’ll be damned,” flexing it over and over again, smiling.
“Now,” Lexi said with all the calm reserve of a psychologist. “You would still be pissing and moaning with a useless right hand had I not helped you. You owe me.”
He grunted. “Fine, Pittsburgh it is. It’s on the way anyhow.”
Six hours later, the Dakota rumbled through the Liberty tunnel and entered the City of Bridges. There she crept through traffic, belching the refuse of spent gas. Fifteen minutes later she maneuvered into a parking spot that was free and legal, infinitely proud of herself for having discovered such a rare prize in Steel City.
It was nine in the morning when Lexi and Lewis walked through the large glass door entrance to the Carnegie Library in the Oakland district. The staid aroma of coffee and old paper struck them. After buying her a cup of vanilla nut cream coffee at the cafe, Lewis said, “Be quick about whatever it is you’re looking for. And don’t ask for help unless you can be vague about your query. We don’t want anyone remembering we were here.”
He sauntered off—probably to look for Guns and Ammo magazines, Lexi mused.
She found a reference librarian and asked if the library had microfilm on file. “Of course,” said the librarian. Lexi followed her, hypnotized by the three long braids weaving from side to side. She had never seen this style on such an old lady before and it made her wonder if the lady was a plant by the FBI. She waved aside this ridiculous thought, chalking it up to too much time spent with an agent and a paranoid grandfather.
“This is it,” the braided librarian said.
Lexi sat down at the lone terminal on the second floor loft, staring at a patchwork screen of numbers. The braided lady explained how to operate it, speaking in mock tones as though to a child. “Thank you,” Lexi said to the braids as they disappeared down the stairs. The system of electronic newspapers was filed according to year, going all the way back to the American Revolution.
Despite Linnux’s claims, she still considered the idea of an immortal terrorist absurd.
She began at 1941.
While Lexi clicked in and out of each month leading up to December, piano jazz tinkled out of the dimpled, cream-colored speakers molded into the arched ceiling. For eleven months that year the Tower had warranted no stories, not even a blurb, and its fall merited only a single headline. Nothing about Dorl or the fallen Batavia Primary factory was mentioned after the 7th, the headlines and secondary stories all devoted to the attack on Pearl Harbor and on the war.
Since she had Gramps’ trove, chronicling much of the Tower after 1941, Lexi decided to go back before its fall. This search too proved fruitless at first; the years before ’41 silent on the mysterious man—until a single page-three mention of a philanthropist setting up an industrial facility in Batavia in early ’33. There was the faded, unrevealing photo of Mr. Dorl entering the facility on its opening day. The article mentioned nothing of Dorls’ past, not even on how he had managed to amass his fortune. But one line near the end quoted a man known as Crackpot Carnie. Lexi suspected the quote was included as an addendum to lend local color to the industrialist: ‘Crackpot Carnie has another view however. Carnie claims that this man is the one who stole the Lindberg baby and who also set up a manufactory in Pittsburgh at the start of World War One. According to Carnie, this philanthropist has been going around, turning the hearts of peaceful people against each other for centuries. I don’t know about you, but I like Crackpot Carnie’s theory; it would mean that there is one man to blame for all the atrocities throughout history.’
The blurb reminded her of Gramps’ words ‘There’s always at least a drop of truth in a puddle of madness, Alexis, otherwise everything would be a lie.’ She had never really understood what he meant. She Googled Crackpot Carnie, filtered out the expected music group and Facebook association and found a single facts page on him.
As she read, a chill crept up to the loft; someone had opened a door or a window. ‘Gregory Carnie, known as Crackpot Carnie, was born in 1890 . . .’ Her left leg bobbed restlessly as an echo from the dungeon chastised her for not mourning Linnux. You’re a cold fish, Lexi.
‘—in Buffalo New York. After a tour in Argonne, Carnie returned home, apparently changed . . .’ Her right leg caught the restless nature of her left and the chill crept up behind. ‘—claimed to have worked in a steel mill after the war, in a factory in Buffalo. But there is no evidence that such a place—‘ She turned as the hairs on her neck stood up.
There was wind but nothing more. The cold dungeon whispers grew louder, demanding to be heard, demanding self-injury. Lexi read on.
‘Before he died at a factory strike, Carnie claimed that he had tracked a man named Lord to the start of World War One, believing that Lord was in Sarajevo the day Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated.’
Her heart beat faster as the compulsion to punish permeated her will. You haven’t mourned Linnux yet! Still, she fought on, searching for a photograph of the events of the day of the assassination—and found one. And there it was staring her in the face; the earliest photograph she had yet seen of the Tower. He stood in the back of the photo, looking on as Royal Guardsmen attacked Princip. She squinted. The photo had been taken as though from a great distance; everything was indistinct, the Tower all the more so as he was dressed in what looked like a bearskin cloak with a top hat. He had the blurred appearance moving objects take on in old photographs.
“Nineteen fourteen.” She tasted the decadence of the discovery. How long had this man been walking the earth? But then—logic argued—it might be an arcane family of men with each generation continuing the paternal heritage of political and sociological intrigue.
Her legs were still shaking when a second breeze arrived, a faint whisper of the wind strolling through the loft. She shivered and dug deeper still. On a hunch she searched for other evidence, going back in time to before the daguerreotype. Fingers flew over the keyboard, scanning some years and perusing others, sometimes finding tidbits, vague references and quotes from madmen and wealthy eccentrics alike. She even found a quote by Nikola Tesla, claiming to have met a man who’d helped him formulate his more advanced theories.
Pieces to the million-piece puzzle were finally falling into place.
Lexi realized she was hyperventilating when faint breath-clouds materialized before her. When had it become so cold? She logged off to submit to the dungeons’ demands. Her jeans crinkled as she stood, cold hard denim pressing against her flesh. The bathroom was on the other side of the world, but eventually she did arrive at the ladies room.
The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne Page 13