by Glenn Cooper
“I cannot fathom what may or may not happen in a world I do not understand,” Suffolk said with some irritation. “Tell me what this has to do with me?”
“I have no illusion as to my own circumstances,” Trotter replied. “I won’t be going home. We’re not going to escape from here. I’m the only one who’s a fighter, not an egghead. They’ll figure out how to wall off the connection between our worlds. I’ll be trapped here until the day I die.” His mouth twitched and he added, “And maybe forever.”
Suffolk seemed to understand and chuckled.
“So, for my own benefit, I need to back the man whom I think will replace Henry. It’s pretty clear to me it’s a two-horse race.”
There was a knock on the door and the manservant poked his head in. Suffolk told him to serve the food and when the plates were full and they were alone he had Trotter continue.
“As I see it, Cromwell is a good political type. He’s clever but he’s a thinker, not a doer. A king has to be a man of action and in your world that means a military man. You’re a soldier. You’re decisive. It’s obvious to me that you’ve got a lot of support in the court. That makes you the man to wear the crown. I want to help you get it.”
Suffolk speared a whole bird and delivered it to his mouth at the end of his knife where he chomped on it. The oozing grease stained his white beard.
Speaking while chewing he said, “I rather thought you were Cromwell’s toadie. Why should I trust you?”
“You don’t have to trust me. You only have to see if I deliver on my promise.”
“What promise is that?”
“To send Cromwell to the rotting room.”
“How would you do that?”
“If you can provide me with poison, I’ll make it happen.”
“He has tasters. Not so easy to accomplish. Believe me, I have considered this.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll find a way that doesn’t implicate you. It’ll seem like a disease and when he’s destroyed, well …”
There was another knock on the door. This time the young manservant was empty-handed.
“Chancellor Cromwell asks to see you on a matter of great urgency.”
“Is he here?” Suffolk asked.
“He is in his rooms,” the man replied.
“I am having my supper! Do you know why it is so urgent?”
“His man tells me he is in his bed, my lord, quite ill.”
Suffolk pushed back his chair and began buttoning his tunic. “Trotter, remain here. I shall return. Our conversation has, perhaps, been prescient. I may not need your special services after all.”
With Suffolk gone, the manservant stood against the wall with his hands folded at his waist.
“It’s all right,” Trotter told him. “Go about your business and let me eat in peace.”
With the servant gone, Trotter removed a vial of clear liquid from his pocket and emptied it into Suffolk’s wine glass. Then he tucked into a very tasty game bird.
Trotter was undressing in his quarters when the door opened and Cromwell swept in unannounced.
“Tell me,” he asked. “Is it done?”
Trotter put his trousers back on. “I put the poison in his wine and he drank all of it. Now we wait. Did he believe your story?”
“He had no reason to doubt it,” Cromwell said. “I told him my body was racked with pain and burning with fire and I begged him not to commit me to a rotting room should I lapse into decrepitude. He could hardly contain his joy. This poison of yours. When should we see its effects?”
It was not a poison in Cromwell’s arsenal. Trotter had given instructions on its manufacture. The product was methanol, a distillate of fermented wood shavings.
“He’ll be fine for a day and then the problems will start,” Trotter said. “Abdominal pain, headache, vomiting, blindness, organ failure, and coma. He’s already gone but he doesn’t know it.” Then Trotter added two words that wiped Cromwell’s perennially dour expression away. “Your Majesty.”
Two days later, without warning, armed guards entered the women’s dormitory and yanked away one of the young scientists, Kelly Jenkins, and for two days they had not seen her.
It was evening when a servant knocked on the door of Trotter’s new, fancier rooms, and told him that one of the Earthers, Karen Smithwick desired an immediate audience. He agreed and soon she was escorted in.
“Have a seat, Karen,” Trotter said. “I assume you’ve eaten already. Some wine?”
Smithwick looked around at the paneled walls, good furniture, and plush animal skins draped on the settee. She could hardly contain her contempt. “We heard you were back, Anthony. Nice of you to come by and see us.”
“I’ve been busy. Why don’t you sit and relax?”
“I’ll stand. Where are the men?”
“Still in Richmond, beavering away.”
“Yet here you are.”
“I have been given different work.”
“Is that so?”
“It seems I’ve climbed the organizational ladder rather quickly. Cromwell has made me chancellor.”
“I thought he was chancellor?”
“I suppose you didn’t get the memo,” he said. “Suffolk took ill, rotting-room ill, and Cromwell is now king. I got promoted to his old job.”
“From stooge to bigger stooge.”
“How unkind.”
“You’ve become quite the Quisling, haven’t you?”
He stopped playing verbal games. “What do you want, Karen?”
“Kelly Jenkins has been taken away. Do you know where she is?”
“Refresh my memory. Which one is she?”
“Dark hair, pretty, but I’m sure you know that.”
“That one. Who took her?”
“Palace guards. Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re too plugged in.”
“I’m sorry you don’t. Tell you what. I’ll make some inquiries in the morning.”
She pressed on. “I want you to tell me what’s happened to Kelly.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out. Best I can do.”
Smithwick aimed an accusatory finger at him. “I swear to God, Tony. I’m going to do everything in my power to ruin you.”
He opened the door, summoned a guard in the corridor, and whispered something to the man. “Good night, Karen,” he said. “By the way, lose the attitude. You’re no longer a cabinet minister.”
Trotter went into his bedchamber and unlocked an adjacent door.
The young, black-haired woman manacled to the bedframe, stared at him with hateful eyes. One of her cheeks was swollen and bruised.
“Hello, Kelly,” he said, “Did you miss me?”
32
What was strangest was its familiarity.
From their vantage point across the empty parking lot, the MAAC complex looked as it might on an ordinary Sunday. Emily had come into work on so many Sundays when she was alone or nearly alone at her workstation, and for the briefest moment, she felt like it was one of those days. Loomis broke the spell. Shielding his sensitive eyes from the sunlight he said, “We’re really back, we’re really here.”
“Come on,” she said, scouring the surrounding area, “there could be Hellers around.”
“You’re standing next to one.”
They ran across the parking lot and up to the main entrance where they found the doors locked. Emily couldn’t find anything nearby to break the glass and she declined Loomis’s offer to kick through telling him she didn’t want him to cut himself. They decided to try other doors.
All the entrances were locked but just when they were deciding to use a rock they came across a shattered lower pane in the door across from the tennis court.
“There could be someone inside,” Emily said, crouching to crab-walk through. “Keep an eye out.”
The windowed hallways concentrated the sunshine. Loomis could hardly stand the brightness. He follo
wed Emily through the seemingly empty complex until they reached her office, an interior space without windows. She switched the overhead lights on.
“Can you shut those?” he asked, squinting in pain.
“Sorry. I wanted to see if the power was on.”
She booted up her desktop computer and checked the telephone for a dial tone.
“I’m glad you got my old office,” he said, sitting down and looking at the walls that were covered in mementos of her life, not his.
She sighed.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now you start talking, Paul.”
“I’d like to see my children first.”
He seemed genuinely taken aback by the fury of her reaction. She sprang up and stood over him, her fists ready, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you fucking dare! Men have died so I could get your information. You have strung me along for days. You are not going to string me along for one minute longer.” She reached for a brass letter opener. “I will hurt you, Paul. I swear to God, I will hurt you.”
She heard him wheeze and the wheezing turned into a paroxysm of coughing. There was a half-filled bottle of water on her desk from the last time she’d been there. She handed it to him and he drank thirstily.
He gave her a little smile and she tossed the letter opener down.
Calmer, she said, “Honestly, Paul, please start talking.”
He finished the water and said, “Here’s the thing, Emily. As soon as I tell you what you want to hear, I’ve lost all my leverage. I need some assurances first.”
She sat back down behind her desk, suddenly exhausted. “What assurances?”
“First, as I said, I want to see my children.”
“You know how this works, Paul. We’ve talked about it. Once we’re in the hot zone we stay in our dimension. If we leave it, we won’t be able to get back to the MAAC. We’d cross to the other side. You tell me if I’m wrong but we’re going to need to do things inside the collider.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“And your children can’t come here for the same reason.”
“Of course. We have a videoconference facility here,” Loomis said. “I’d like for them to be taken to a videoconference facility so I can see them. After I clean up a bit.”
“Let’s do this once work on a fix is underway,” she pleaded.
“I want to do it now,” he insisted.
“All right,” she said. “There’s something new since you left. It’s called Skype. It allows videoconferencing between any two devices. I’m sure your kids have it on their phones or tablets. I’ll make a call, try to make it happen, but it’s going to be traumatic for them.”
“I’m aware of that but I want to do it anyway.”
“All right, is that it?”
“One more thing. I want to stay here until I die again. I’ll gladly remain in prison. As long as I can see my children periodically.”
She started to boil over again but she dialed it back and managed to say with equanimity, “That’s not a decision I can make.”
“I’m sure not. I want it in writing from the prime minister, whoever that may be.”
“A letter from the prime minister,” she mumbled. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s everything.”
She tried to run her hand through her hair but it was too tangled. Searching her desktop she found Ben Wellington’s business card and dialed his mobile.
“Wellington.”
“Mr. Wellington, this is Emily Loughty.”
There was a long pause on the line. “Christ,” he finally said. “You’re calling from a number inside the MAAC, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Did you find Dr. Loomis?”
“He’s sitting across the desk from me.”
It took an hour but Ben pulled off a minor miracle, persuading the children’s grandparents, or more specifically, the parents of Loomis’ murdered wife, to have them Skype him from their home in the Midlands. The story he used was going to be congruous with the story Loomis would tell the teenagers: he hadn’t really killed himself that fateful day. He had been held in a government prison in communicado because of the vital national secrets and expertise he possessed. And now that he was being called upon to work on the present crisis he had renewed his long-standing demand to speak with the children. For the sake of the country, could the couple agree to this?
Paul had gone to the washroom and had used up all the paper towels scrubbing the grime from his face and neck and washing his hair. He used a hairbrush of Emily’s to complete the job and returned to her office.
While he was washing, Emily had made her own personal call, to her parents and Arabel. She had told them she was safe and back in Dartford but she deflected questions about her intentions.
“I can’t come up to Scotland just now,” she had said. “I’ve got some things to do down here first.”
“Can you make this better?” her father had asked.
“I hope so, dad, I really do.”
“We’re worried sick but we’re proud of you. We’ve always been proud of you.”
Arabel was at the playground with Sam and Bess. Emily had told her parents to tell her she’d just been with Trevor and that he was well.
“I’ll ring you back when I can,” she had said. “I love you both very much.”
Paul came in and took her seat in front of the computer. “How do I look?” he asked.
“You look fine.”
He didn’t really. He looked like a hollow-cheeked, stooped old man. Since the last time he’d sat at this desk he’d lost teeth. His hair was now patchy and gray. He’d been rather robust and fit. Now he was emaciated.
She checked the wall clock. “I’ll connect now,” she said, bending over and clicking the mouse.
Two scared teenagers, a boy and a girl, stared into the camera of their laptop. It was clear there was no recognition of the man they saw and it was equally clear that Loomis was struggling, reconciling the memories of the small children he left behind seven years ago with the two youngsters on Emily’s screen.
“Is that really you?” Loomis said, the tears running freely. “Harry? Mary?”
The boy spoke first in a blunt monotone. “They said you’re our dad. Our dad’s dead.” In the background Loomis heard his in-laws sobbing.
“That’s what you were told. It was for your own good. I did a bad thing and I’ve been punished for it. But I wanted to see you again, to see what became of you.”
“You want to know what became of us?” the boy said. He flashed a middle finger. “This is what became of us. Fuck off and go back to being dead.”
The boy’s face disappeared but the girl’s remained.
“You killed our mum,” she said.
Loomis could hardly speak. “I wish I could take it back. It was a moment of madness. I’m so sorry, honey.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said angrily. “I’m not your honey. I’m nothing to you and you’re nothing to me.”
The girl looked behind her toward her out-of-frame grandparents.
“Mary, please can we chat for a short while?” Loomis asked. “I just want to hear about your life, your school, what you like to do.”
The girl’s hand approached the keyboard and the picture disappeared.
“What happened?” Loomis asked.
“She disconnected,” Emily said.
“Can you get them back?”
“Perhaps later, Paul. You can see how hard this was on them. Surely you can understand. For their sakes.”
He rose and made some weak, random steps before Emily took him by the arm and sat him down at her conference table.
She had a small electric kettle on her sideboard that she’d filled from the women’s washroom.
“I think both of us can use a cup of tea.”
“Tea?” he blinked. “Yes, that would be marvelous.”
When the
water was hot she poured it into mugs and added teabags.
“I’m afraid I haven’t got any milk at the moment. I can have a tramp around.”
“No, don’t worry.”
“Sugar?”
He eagerly nodded, wiping away the last of his tears.
She watched him close his eyes and savor the moment he tasted the sweet tea.
“They’ll come around,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“In time, they'll want to see me.”
Her desktop chimed with a new email. She clicked on it and sent a job to the printer.
“Here it is,” she said, handing the page to him. “The letter from Prime Minister Lester.”
He read it and put it down to concentrate on his mug of tea.
“Uranium,” he said.
Emily looked up. “What did you say?”
“Uranium. The U-238 isotope, I should think. What we need to do is produce much higher collision energies than lead ions can produce.”
She was already on her feet and at her whiteboard, writing equations as fast as her hand could travel.
“That’s right, there you go,” Loomis said. “You made strangelets at 30 TeV. They’re still resident within the collider complexed with gravitons. To obliterate them we’re going to need to vastly exceed 30 TeV.”
She said excitedly, “Uranium is heavier than lead. I didn’t see this. No one did. We didn’t think about obliterating energies.”
“It’s not just the mass of uranium, it's the shape of the ions,” he added. “U-238 is football-shaped. Uranium-uranium collisions ought to produce a denser quark-gluon plasma than any other ion species. It’s theoretical, of course, but it should work.”
“No, Paul, it’s more than theoretical. The Brookhaven RHIC collider used uranium ions in 2012 and achieved phenomenal collision energies.”
“Unless it’s been vastly upgraded, Brookhaven’s a pygmy compared to MAAC,” he said, “Whatever they achieved should be logs higher here.”
She nodded and continued to scribble on the board. After several minutes she put her marker down and the two of them checked her work.