by P. W. Child
“I’ll share a secret. Nikola Tesla, as you may know, was a Nazi sympathiser. But what always eluded Himmler was Tesla’s design and notes on the theories of the death ray. I stole it from Himmler and his dogs by engaging Helmut but when I had to get back to 2013 I had no time to collect the notes from where I stashed them before my time window closed at the time, you see?”
“My God, Lydia.”
Dave, do this for me and I will give you a 20% allotment, a share in credit and profit from any successful patent. Besides, once I am dead, my executors would still make sure you get yours. I’m good for it,” she promised.
Dave Purdue had every reason to breach the law and rules for her. Financial gain was the least of his cares, but if he was part of the most monumental discovery in history, his name would be up there with the masters – Einstein, Planck, Galileo, Freddy Mercury, Archimedes, Elvis....
His addition of the musicians was just his whimsical whimsy, for fun.
“Purdue!”
He snapped out of it, “I’m in.”
Chapter 7
No more than twenty minutes after Sam put away his recorder, he found himself inside the compound where the detectors were being assembled. It was break time for most of the engineers, so they did not pay much attention to the unfamiliar face that walked with Albert Tägtgren.
“Don’t look so worried, Sam. There are so many multi-nationals working on this experiment that new faces are common around here every now and then,” the engineer smiled. He had Sam decked out in a coat and had hat, complete with a clipboard and pencil, the reason for which escaped Sam completely, but he was not about to complain being smuggled into a section that was not marked with an ‘8’.
“If I get discovered…” Sam whispered.
“You won’t, unless you act like a journalist or something. Right?” Al reminded him. “Now follow me as if you have been here before. Mind the third step. We all here know the third step is narrower than the others, and now you do too.”
“Right-o,” Sam replied, and loosened up a bit.
They headed toward the Alice detector, said a few hellos to the rival teams of scientists, with Al stopping occasionally, pretending to discuss circuits or concrete density with Sam. Along the main lines they moved until they entered a small space between the wall and the power boards. Sam could still smell it. The nauseating stench of the electrical fire permeated around them, that awful rubbery residue that settled in one’s throat.
“This is where it happened?” he asked Al.
The engineer nodded seriously, checking that they did not draw unnecessary attention.
“This is where the fire stopped. It started somewhere inside the tube. What is baffling is that the actual experiment is only due to start later this year, but what we saw was,” he swallowed hard and frowned, “not normal. I don’t want to sound like one of those people on UFO documentaries, Mr. Cleave, but I saw a man catch fire and then he was gone.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sam exclaimed, feeling distinctly spooked by the imagery Albert conveyed to him. He placed his hand flat on the engineer’s chest and shook his head profusely. “Just…run that by me again. Slowly.”
“Off the record.”
“Aye, off the record, but don’t leave out anything,” Sam urged.
“I was one of seven engineers and electricians who came to inspect the two new installations we did that day. You see, we must make sure the wiring that the electricians lay are properly secured in the casings and supported according to the weight and dimension requirements,” Albert started in his hindering English. Sam was dying to move him along, but he did ask for detail, after all. In his pocket, his finger had pressed down the record button on his audio recorder, but his expression remained unchanged.
“And then?” Sam pressed.
“We heard a loud clap and then the sound of currents, electrical currents, a few meters down the tube. There was a separate slice lying on its side. I’ll show you now. Come, let’s go,” he told Sam, pulling him by his sleeve deeper into the damaged tube to where the blackened steel remains of a pod-like structure lay sprawled like a giant dead spider.
“See? There. That was a container that carried and stored a lot of generators and conductors, copper wiring and capacitors. But when we saw lighting currents come from it we raced to see what was happening. Arcs of blue lightning shot from it and when we came here, see…?” he pointed to the open side of the semi-circular container, “…we saw a human figure that was, what’s the word? Alight? Alluminated?”
“Illuminated,” Sam corrected him.
“That’s right. It was so quick, but we all saw it. When the capacitors ran out of energy the arc stopped and the figure caught fire. But Sam, it was a fire like we have never seen! It looked like a space shuttle’s reentry into the atmosphere, a sort of burn through. The next thing we knew the body had vanished into the fire, like he stepped into thin air!” Albert exclaimed, hardly realizing that his relation was growing louder. Sam hushed him.
“And then the place caught fire too?” he asked Al.
“Yes. That fire around his body vanished with him into thin air, just like that,” Al said, motioning with his hand in front of his mouth and blowing it away. “But them the fire came back, I swear to God! It just came right back out of the nothingness and spread like an explosion. All we could do was run for our lives! By the time we reached the other side of Alice, the whole section was burning like a wildfire.”
“Jesus. Did anyone get hurt? The media reported that this happened during a late shift, fewer people…” Sam asked.
“Yes, it was late. But our superiors did not want the true nature of the blaze to come out in the media. You know, we have enough crap with the protestors and local opposition groups about what we are trying to accomplish here, you see?” Al rambled as the pungent smell got the better of Sam.
“Can we get out of here? I’m getting sick from this smell,” he asked the engineer.
“Sure. Sure,” Al replied, leading Sam back out from the hideous black scene, “but you won’t leak this, right? Remember, if it comes out I’ll know who leaked it.”
“Really?” Sam marveled as he used his coat to cover his nose and mouth. “Really? You still have time to deal me a threat?”
Albert shrugged, “It’s a very serious issue. I just had to tell someone. I don’t know why I trust you. I know I shouldn’t.”
“No, you shouldn’t. But I’m not a complete bastard. If this comes out…IF…no-one will ever know where it came from. There were seven of you. It could be any of you, right?” Sam reminded him.
“You are going to tell this?” Al shouted, exasperated at the journalist’s betrayal.
“Relax! No, I’m going to use your information to figure out what really happened,” Sam reassured him.
“I just told you what really happened!” Al persisted.
Sam calmed him down and pulled him aside. In a hushed tone he told Al what he meant. “Look, I know what you saw, but I need to know why this happened and who the man was that caught fire. Where he is now and who he worked for, what he did to make this happen – all that. That is what I am here to address. So stop fretting. Your identity is safe.”
Sam’s explanation seemed to calm the nervous engineer.
“Nothing strange has happened since, right?” Sam asked.
“No,” Al replied, at once seeming dead tired and worried. “Nobody has come near that mess since they extinguished it. They are waiting for the marshals to submit a report to see if it was arson or an electrical fault before our people are allowed to clean up and write up the cost of the damaged.” He looked to the ground and shook his head. “Fucking millions lost,” he sighed.
“I don’t suppose you will let me take pictures of the container,” Sam appealed to Albert’s favor.
“No,” the engineer summarily dismissed the request out of hand. “There is no way. Telling you the story is one thing, but pictures would be actual proof, actual ev
idence. I’ll get fired.”
“Alright, alight,” Sam yielded. “Well, thank you so much for the information, Al. It was good of you to trust me with your story, but as I said, please don’t worry about me leaking this, alright?”
“Okay,” Al replied, looking a bit more relieved.
“Um, I know my way out, but I just have to pee. Can you direct me to the nearest men’s room?” Sam asked.
“Of course. Sure,” Al said and took Sam to the Section 4 area rest rooms before he said goodbye.
Sam rushed into a cubicle in the empty rest room. Inside he quickly drew the recorder from his pocket and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans. From his satchel he took his GoPro, fully charged the night before.
“Who said size matters?” Sam jested as he wrapped the tiny video camera in his palm. “Can’t believe he actually thought I would leave before getting footage. Super intelligence does not make you smart, does it, old Al?” Sam smiled as he reinvented his scientist look, complete with his fake spectacles. The hard hat he would have to steal from one of the stations, but with night drawing near it would hopefully be easier.
Finally he was satisfied that he looked the part for blending in and slipped out towards the restricted section they had come from.
‘Thank God I have a keen sense of direction. This fucking maze would confuse anyone who doesn’t work here every day,’ he thought as he navigated his way. He checked his watch. It was late already and although they worked around the clock, the people who had seen his face already were all about to knock off from their shifts. He was pressed for time nonetheless. Soon the security guards would be alerted that the visitor was still in the facility and over his time limit. Not to mention that he was about two kilometers away from the only section he was allowed in.
Sam moved with groups of people, staying just far enough behind them to look like he was part of the section, but not too close. He did not want them to discover him before he could at least get some sort of evidence to feed Penny Richards and her foundation. Besides that, he was intrigued about Albert’s story, but whether he was completely convinced of the authenticity of the story was still a matter for consideration.
After a nerve wrecking trek through strangers who knew one another in corridors that all looked the same Sam finally recognized the place where he and Al greeted the scientists and engineers. They were scattered now, dealing with their respective problems in the construction and assembly of the giant machines. Sam pretended to check some circuits while glancing towards the Alice detector’s damaged section, planning his next move to advance. Some of the plumbers and maintenance personnel gave him suspicious looks, but they were uncertain of their judgment. Maybe he was just a new scientist from one of the more obscure countries involved in the project. They did not have the time to make it their business anyway.
When Sam checked the charred section behind the tape barriers again he saw something move right there in the vicinity of the container. His heart jumped. With all this talk of men disappearing into thin air he was caught between fascination and skepticism, yet there was an inkling of possibility to it that kept Sam interested – and foolishly brave. If caught he could face serious charges, including espionage or sabotage and that would certainly have costly consequences for him.
Again there was some movement behind the circuit boards just short of the one opening on the container. Sam darted quietly towards it, his camera activated to capture whatever was there. As he crossed the tape barrier he knew he was onto something. There was a shape moving in the blackness. Sam snuck around the side of the pod to see when a mighty blow to the head struck him down, sending his camera sliding across the concrete.
His eyes burned and his skull felt as if it was mounted on roll bolts, stinging into his neck from the harsh impact, but he was conscious. Two figures stood over him, blurred and mumbling. When his vision improved through his fake glasses he caught his breath.
“Purdue?”
Chapter 8
Lydia drew in the marijuana vapor, filling her lungs leisurely.
“Hmm, home grown is best,” she groaned in her hoarse tone, smiling to herself.
Her eyes rolled back in their sockets as she did, and the silence of the house loomed over her like a fast approaching stalker with no good intentions. Her mind raced with ideas, consequential concern, old memories, regrets and somewhere among the rush of her mind, the date of her death. It was an enigma, yes, but she knew it would be soon.
In the privacy of her own bedroom she waited for the men to return with that one elusive component she needed. She would have sent Healy, but the man was a soldier, a mercenary, not a scientist. Purdue, on the other hand, not only possessed the necessary aptitude for what she needed, but he had a passion similar to hers. Truth was that Lydia saw Purdue as her stuntman, her stand-in now that she could not even take a piss by herself without great pain and discomfort.
Healy was her only employee, save for the maids that came in twice a week. To them she was just another well paying client. They pitied the temperamental lady for her terminal condition and that was just the way Lydia wanted it. Only her butler knew what was really going on and he was the only person in Lyon she trusted. Now he was one of only two people she entrusted with her secrets, the other being old friend Dave Purdue.
Her room was quite different from the rest of the house, although it still featured the sheeting. Without these special walls she would perish from even the slightest fluctuation in sound, yet this was not something she could tell Purdue yet. It could spook him into abandoning his loyalty for fear of what could happen - the same thing that happened to her before. Facing her hideous reflection in her dressing table mirror, she slowly removed her head scarf and surveyed the surface of her scalp. Her hands lightly probed at the cotton wool patches of what was left of her hair, drawing a flood of silent tears from Lydia.
Sobbing softly in the deathly silence she reminisced about her fleeting time and her lost beauty.
“Was it all worth it?” she asked her reflection. “Well, was it?”
Lips moved under the tears of her image, but it lent her no answer. Her eyes fell to the pointless hair brush on her dresser and her heart grew taut with rage. Picking it up, Lydia played with the soft brush between her long lean fingers, nails painted to maintain some sort of vanity where the brittle condition had to be hidden. Even if she knew it was there, she need not see it.
“You’ll see, Lydia. You’ll see that it was worth it!” she shouted in her wicked rasp of defeat. “You will die, yes, but you will die having fucked the science world that rejected your genius!” Her watery, pink eyes grew wide and furious as she raised the brush at the impotent image of her crumbling face, “But are you willing to kill your friends for the glory? What if Purdue does not survive it? What if…” she seethed in her indecision, painfully plucking tufts of useless hair from her scalp.
This was Healy never left her alone. He knew of her emotional turmoil, a natural, but dangerous quality of her illness. “Look at you! You stupid glory whore! Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? You are a dying piece of flesh with a voice, while your brilliant brain is shriveling up like a raisin!” she shrieked so loud that her skull shuddered and ached under the dangerous sound level of her cries.
Lydia caught her breath and held it.
Staring at herself in the mirror, shivering in a vicious rout, brush aloft in an unstable hand. The fading beauty contemplated her next action.
“Will it kill me? Shall we see? It is not like anyone would notice that a has-been bitch is gone. They’ll find the poor little cancer victim on the floor, dead, where she belongs. Pity, pity, pity,” she giggled in a girly voice, a true exhibition of what she had to contain and control in company – the fact that she was already insane.
Without another thought she hurled the hair brush into the large old mirror. It shattered the center of the looking glass, right where her face was. But that was by no means the worst. The crashing s
ound was too much for the plating on the walls to absorb, and the discs on her ears could only dampen some of the intensity.
Lydia screamed in pain as the sound screeched through her delicate brain matter. Her fragile body fell limply to the side from the numbing agony as she held her ears. But even that hurt.
“Oh Jesus! Jeeezussss!” she squealed, partly disappointed that the sound did not kill her instantly. The contact of her hands on the deteriorating skin of her ears and scalp was excruciating beyond her expectations. Her cellular degeneration had a severe effect on her nerve endings, more than she knew.
“It would be better not to fall out of your wheelchair now! No time to be melodramatic, you stupid, stupid bitch!” she growled inside the little space between her face and her knees, where she had buried her face as she writhed. The decibels still echoed in her ears, the pretty and brutal clinks of the mirror slivers falling one by one to the dresser.
When it all passed and Lydia’s environment was quiet once more, she took a deep breath and sat up. Her image was wonderfully distorted in front of her. Lydia smiled.
“Finally your image becomes your fate,” she smiled. Tears dried just short of her jaw line, but her eyes drowned.
Chapter 9
In proper fashion to compliment the gaining madness in Lydia’s mind, aided by the strange empty mausoleum she took residence in, the heavens dressed in grey. Occasionally the flashes of the electrical charges therein lit up Lyon’s buildings and illuminated the beautiful winding Rhône that ran through the old buildings of the French city. She had recovered from her destructive act, but she was out of a personal mirror and had to explain the unholy mess in her room to Healy when he returned.
Lydia oddly felt obliged toward her butler. Yes, she acted as though he was her lackey, her servant and babysitter, but in all honesty she respected him a great deal. It was not that she was afraid of what he could do at all, but his silent and continuous loyalty was something she valued immensely. Often Lydia wondered what kind of lover he was, but she would never tarnish their perfect mutual devotion to find out. Besides, she was not half the alluring stunner she used to be and she would never expect a man like him to ever find someone like her desirable. Sometimes, when she watched him create order in the house from the hidden shadows Lydia wondered if he remembered how beautiful she was before…before the illness came.