The Tesla Gate

by John D. Mimms

  I looked at her sympathetically. I could definitely understand her pain. But while I felt sorry for her, I also had my own problems to consider. Seth and I were finally here, but I knew we needed to move because I didn’t know if the batteries would last forever or just a few hours. We needed to take our tour and get back to safety as soon as possible. I also had another issue to worry about: where was Patrick?

  “Mrs.…?” I asked.

  She smiled sheepishly.

  “Cower,” she said. “Andrea Cower.”

  “Mrs. Cower, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Thomas Pendleton.”

  She nodded her head and smiled.

  “Seth and I really need to get going, we came a long way to get here, and I’m afraid we may not have a lot of time. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you luck with your Congressman. Hopefully, this will get better soon.” I didn’t really believe the latter, not after everything I had seen, but one must always have hope.

  She smiled and extended her baby-free hand. I took it and shook.

  “Good luck to you, Mr. Pendleton. Please stay safe and protect your boy,” she said.

  I nodded and took Seth by the hand and led him toward the door leading back into the museum. When we were out of sight of Mrs. Cower and her small family, I picked out a secluded, vacant table and led Seth there and we sat down across from each other.

  “Seth, where is Patrick?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “He said he was bored and was going to go back home.” He frowned. “He said he didn’t want to look at a bunch of stupid old airplanes.”

  “What did you tell him, Seth?”

  “I said they had rockets and spaceships, too.”

  “No, what did you tell him when he said he was going home?”

  He shrugged and said, “I told him he was being stupid and that we would have fun without him.”

  I winced as Seth spoke the words. I knew Patrick was feeling left out and was desperate for my attention since he had no parents, at least none that we knew of. I had intended on trying to make it up to him once we were in the museum, but now that was not to be. I felt sorry for the little guy, I truly did. I hoped he made it back to Mr. Guffey’s safely, and I probably should go after him, but I couldn’t put Seth at risk to do that. Patrick knew where to go for safety and Seth and I were finally here. Maybe it was selfish, but I wasn’t going to let a kid I barely knew upset that. The problem was that I did feel responsible and I did feel guilty. Like it or not, it was going to affect my mood the rest of the day.

  “Okay.” I stood up. “Let’s go have fun,” I said as I took Seth by the hand.

  We walked into the museum hand in hand with little notice from the security personnel. I guess I looked a little more normal with a happy and excited kid in tow. Seth happily skipped inside and made a beeline for the first exhibit we saw, a large-scale replica of Skylab. Once he had perused the inner rooms of the large simulation, I strongly urged that we should take a restroom break. As I mentioned earlier, I had drank too much coffee that morning and now my bladder seemed to be stretched to its limit. The cold air in the museum didn’t help matters, either. I also knew that in the course of my conversation with Mrs. Cower, Seth had taken several more sips of my chocolate shake. I guided Seth into a stall where he could squench privately while I took care of my business.

  We had the best time over the next hour. We decided to go upstairs first and then work our way down. Seth was as bright-eyed and happy as I had seen him in a long time. As I watched him go from exhibit to exhibit with sheer joy and ecstasy etched in his small face, my eyes welled up with tears of regret. Why had I put this off for so long? He was not just excited about seeing the cool airplanes and space stuff; his occasional looks of glowing admiration were all the confirmation I needed that he was happy to be here with me. He was happy to be here with his daddy.

  We were just about to leave an exhibit containing moon rocks and meteorites when we heard a loud commotion downstairs. The continuous droning noise of a buzzer echoed through the museum. I peered over the railing overlooking the downstairs where we had an unobstructed view of the front door. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the red light on top of one of the walk through metal detectors, someone had set it off. My first thought was that someone must have forgotten their Coke money or their keys, or perhaps it was a smoker who had forgotten and left his lighter in his pocket. Those theories were quickly dashed when I saw a group of no less than six security guards sprinting madly in our direction from below.

  My heart jumped into my throat because I had the disturbing notion that they were coming for us, but if that were the case, why was the metal detector going off? That idea was replaced with a cold hard truth as I looked below me and saw the subject of their pursuit. My heart sank down from my throat and slid into my gut like a block of ice. Fear and regret filled me like a poison when the certainty of what was happening had sunk in. The guards were pursuing Patrick, who had evidentially bolted through the metal detector. My first thought was to hide, but that thought had come too late because Patrick had spotted me and was heading for the stairs.

  I took Seth by the hand and started to walk toward the stairs on the opposite side of the museum, but it was no use because everyone in the museum had stopped to look as I heard Patrick pointing in my direction and yelling.

  “Daddy, wait!” he screamed frantically as he bounded up the stairs.

  I found that we had but one option. Running away would not be effective because I was reasonably certain we would have been stopped and questioned before we made it out of the museum. No, with attention now focused in our direction, plus a crazed Impal kid bearing down on us, we had no choice but to stay put and hope for the best. Hope was not on our side today.

  The logic of children has always escaped my comprehension, possibly because there is rarely any actual logic to it, only a kid’s view of how the world operates. What they desperately want to be the truth often becomes logical facts in their minds. I understood what Patrick was trying to accomplish, as horrible as it may be, but that didn’t make the situation any better. I was filled with a bizarre mix of shock, rage, terror, and pity that had me frozen in place, unable to react, unable to stop it.

  When Patrick reached us, he turned on Seth with venomous fury, knocking him to the ground.

  “Get away from him, Impal!” Patrick shouted.

  I started to move toward them, but it was too late. Patrick had voided Seth’s pocket of the batteries and they went rolling across the floor and under the railing, dropping with loud metallic clangs as they hit an airplane a couple of stories below.

  Patrick sat up triumphantly and turned to look at me with a huge smile as if seeking approval and praise for what he had just done. I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I fell to my knees and clambered toward them. Patrick’s full attention was now fixed on me as his smile grew bigger, splitting his freckled face from ear to ear. His attention diverted, he did not notice Seth’s shimmering hand moving toward his pocket until it was too late. Seth scooped the batteries out of Patrick’s pocket and, in one fluid motion, flung them past the railing, pelting the same airplane again.

  Patrick turned on Seth furiously and they both started to roll about like a large glowing ball as they scuffled. I moved to break them up but just as I grabbed Seth’s arm, I felt two pairs of strong hands grab me by each arm and pull me backward. I landed squarely on my back, expelling every ounce of air from my lungs. As I gasped and tried to roll myself over to get up, I heard a sound that filled me with terror, the loud clanking of iron.

  I pushed myself up, still sucking desperately for a breath, but in some ways I wish I hadn’t. I saw the sight that had filled my nightmares ever since I saw that first Impal girl in the Army truck. Patrick and Seth had iron collars around their necks and were being pulled rudely to their feet. Patrick looked stunned while S
eth wailed inconsolably; silvery tears disappeared through the carpet just in front of his Spiderman tennis shoes. What the hell had I done?

  With every ounce of strength I had left, I lunged forward trying to take Seth in my arms, trying to hug him, to console him, to tell him everything would be okay, that Daddy would make it better, to tell him that I love him … but that was not to be. Before I could scarcely move I felt a blinding white pain on the back of my head, and everything went black.

  Seth was left alone.

  CHAPTER 33

  The Shredder

  “Genocide is an attempt to exterminate a people,

  not to alter their behavior.”

  —Jack Schwartz

  I didn’t see how Hell could be any worse than what I had endured. I had been shut away in a hole that seemed every bit as dark and joyless as the void in my heart, a void that refused me sleep, refused me an appetite, and refused me happiness. How could I be happy when Seth was gone and I had no idea where he was or what they were doing to him? My head had healed rather quickly after my incarceration, but my soul was damaged beyond repair. After all, this was my fault. I could have kept him safe, kept him hidden, but as Lincoln said, “What kind of life would that be?” I didn’t know the answer to that, but I did know that we would probably still be together, and to me that seems like a pretty damn good life.

  My first inclination was to blame Patrick, but really how could I? I mean he was just a kid, a kid with no parents and a desperate desire to have that connection again. I could tell by the brief look I had at his face shortly after the iron collar had been slapped on that he realized he had made a mistake, but it was too late.

  I did some really stupid things as a kid, like trying to get Cindy Carmichael to like me. We were both five-years-old at the time, and for some reason I got the idea that the best way to get her attention was to dump a bucket of minnows over her head. That didn’t have the desired effect, and I probably had an expression on my face similar to Patrick’s after Cindy brained me with the aluminum minnow pail before marching home to tell her folks. No, I couldn’t exactly blame Patrick, but having no one to blame for the situation did not make me feel better, so I blamed myself.

  I have had a long time to think about what happened that day in the museum. I haven’t seen the sun since then and my watch was confiscated, but, judging by the frequency of my room service, I would guess that it has been at least a month. Room service in this case is a tray filled with what seemed to be grisly leftovers shoved through an opening in the bottom of the iron door separating me from freedom. There were no windows in the room except for one small one near the top of the door which looked out into a placid white hallway. The only items in the room were a worn out old cot, a toilet, a sink, and a tiny table with two small chairs. The table was so small that two grown men could not have sat across from each other with their elbows on the edge of the table and not touched. I could be anywhere, but no one was talking, not even my usual cordial visitor.

  I had received just two visitors since I had been imprisoned, not counting the faceless person or persons that shove my food through the door. The first was General Ott Garrison himself. He came under the guise of collecting information, but I think it was more of an attempt to gloat since we had eluded him so embarrassingly when we escaped through the tunnel. He acted as if he did not recognize me, but I could see the look in his eye, a look of hateful recognition. He didn’t divulge any information, and I did not give any since he would not answer my one simple question as to what they had done with Seth. That’s all I said to the man, and I don’t care to say any more.

  My usual cordial visitor did not start coming until a few days after General Garrison’s first visit, but he has been coming about every couple of days since then. He would never give me his name, requesting that I refer to him simply as Sarge. He was a middle-aged man, maybe late thirties or early forties. His normally brown hair was cut in a typical military buzz, and his pale blue eyes exuded trust. He always wore standard Army camo with no name and no rank insignia. He was a very nice man, and always listened with polite interest to my stories about Seth and our trip to Washington.

  We had visited about four times in the past month and on his last visit he had promised to check on Seth. He showed up a day earlier than expected with urgent news. He didn’t relay the same calm and collection as he had on his visits before; he seemed very troubled.

  “What is it?” I asked him as he sat down at my tiny table with his hands folded before him as if in prayer.

  “It’s ready,” he said so distantly, as if his voice were coming from a faraway crypt.

  “What’s ready?” I asked. I didn’t like the tone of the conversation, and it began to feel like icy fingers were massaging my spine.

  He blinked as if he had just awakened from a trance. He looked at me for several long moments before he spoke.

  “The—the Tesla gate,” he said with the same haunted voice.

  “Tesla gate? What is that?” I asked, starting to worry.

  He blinked at me then took a deep breath, sidestepping my question, at least for the moment.

  “Mr. Pendleton, I have two kids, two girls. They are the whole world to me. I’m sure you understand.”

  I nodded. That was the one thing he had said so far that I did understand. I understood it very painfully.

  “I would do anything to protect them … anything,” he said.

  He stood up and walked to the door, staring blankly through the small porthole. He rubbed his nose and I could have sworn I heard a faint sob from the man.

  “My grandfather is in one of these detention centers in Arizona. He passed away when I was just nine-years-old. I never got to see him after this phenomenon started, not till he was rounded up and chained in a room like a criminal.”

  He let out a small bark of a laugh that sounded more like a wounded animal than anything remotely humorous.

  “He told me he loved me, can you believe that? He told me he loved me even though I was a part of the people that had done this to him. Can you believe that?”

  “Yes, I can,” I said. “He’s your granddad.”

  “Do you think your son would still tell you that, Mr. Pendleton?”

  I looked him square in his eyes, which I could now see were swollen with tears, and answered without hesitation.

  “Absolutely.”

  He looked at me searchingly then slowly started to nod his head.

  “I hope you get that chance, Mr. Pendleton, because I know where Seth is.”

  “Where?” I asked with every muscle in my body, including my heart, taut with anticipation.

  “You are in a military detention center in Quantico, Virginia,” he said, then pointed at the wall by my cot. “Seth is about 150 yards that way.”

  I turned stupidly as if I expected to see him standing there smiling his goofy kid smile, but all I saw was the dull gray wall of my cell.

  “Chained?” I asked as my stomach knotted.

  Sarge nodded and swallowed hard.

  “Yes, but not for long.”

  When I first heard this statement, my first thought was he would be released soon, or at least unchained. The optimist in me jumped for joy, but Sarge’s tone didn’t suggest a celebration was in order, actually quite the opposite.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He sat on my cot and put his chin on his knuckles.

  “Rounding up Impals and locking them up was only going to work for so long, they knew that. That’s why they have been testing this—this Tesla gate. Some of the less sensitive among us have nicknamed it ‘The Shredder.’” It sounded like the last word caused Sarge a lot of pain to utter.

  I wasn’t 100-percent sure why, but the name seemed to cause sharp ice to slide down my throat and into my belly. I could feel fear and worry starting to gnaw at me like a nest of hungr
y rats.

  “What is the Tesla gate?” I asked.

  He looked at me stony-faced for several moments before he answered.

  “It’s supposed to get rid of Impals, puts them back where they belong.”

  “How does it do that?” I asked.

  Sarge shrugged.

  “I’m not a scientist, but as near as I can figure, it switches their energy signature back to the way it was before the phenomenon started. Puts them back in the dimension or realm or other level, whatever the hell you wanna call it … it puts them back where they were, or should be.”

  “Have you seen them test it?” I asked, the fear and worry taking bigger bites of my soul with each passing second.

  He nodded.

  “I have.”

  “Did it work?” I prodded.

  Sarge shrugged and then stared at the floor for several long moments. I think he started to cry again, but that was the least of my concerns. I only wanted one thing—Seth.

  “I don’t know for sure, they disappeared and didn’t come back. We couldn’t detect any sign of them afterwards.”

  “How do you know it didn’t kill them?”

  He blinked at me and started to state the obvious, that they were already dead, when the meaning sunk in; he stared at his hands. Could a soul be destroyed? I didn’t think so, but before this phenomenon started I didn’t think ghosts existed.

  “I-I don’t, I guess it’s possible,” he said rubbing a fist under his nose. “Oh, Jesus, we have to move and move today. Oh God, oh Jesus …” he repeated over and over again.

  I agreed, we needed to move today because if they were about to start feeding Impals into the Tesla gate, or the shredder, Seth didn’t have much time. Even if this damned machine did exactly what they claim it does, the best case scenario is that Seth would be back where he was, alone in a world that is invisible to me. If there was any chance at all, I had to act and act fast. I tried to push my fear and worry firmly down and concentrate on what Sarge and I could do. As it turned out, it was quite a bit considering his clearance and access. It was hard for me to trust anyone in the military, but I realized I had little choice if I wanted to save Seth. Besides, after a month of consideration I already had my own plan in mind—a plan that would require Sarge’s help, but not his knowledge or consent. There was only one thing I could do to help Seth and Sarge was providing me with the means to do it.