Instead, they went with Liam’s straightforward plan. Since Liam was a theoretical physicist, he suggested that he ask to speak to someone inside. He had thought that they would listen to him.
But Liam was wrong. Apparently CERN thinks anyone who shows up at their gate claiming there’s a terrorist inside their compound is either a loon or a terrorist themselves.
Why the guard gate went for option #2 when approached by a middle-aged guy and two teenagers from Chicago, one can never know. They weren’t sent away, but they weren’t allowed in either. Instead, they were escorted to a separate building by military-type security guards.
Liam felt like he was being hauled to Guantanamo Bay. Branded a potential terrorist meant CERN could throw them in a room without windows, no one phone call, and pretty much hold them there was long as they pleased.
“This is crazy!” Fanny yelled when they were finally alone in their ‘hospitality suite’.
“Shh! You want them to hear?” Jake scolded.
“I don’t care if they hear. They’ve got their heads up their butts so far they’re probably hearing bowel sounds. Oh, sorry Mr. Adams.”
“It’s okay Fanny. I have to say I agree with you.”
“I don’t care where their heads are, we gotta’ get out of here,” Jake whispered.
“Captain Obvious, as usual,” Fanny replied. “And why are you whispering?”
“’Cause, Einstein, this place is probably bugged like crazy.”
The three looked at each other silently.
“Jake’s probably right,” Liam whispered. “If you think you have terrorists in your custody, you’d want to spy on them while you’re giving them your ‘hospitality.’”
That’s what the guards called it. They said, “Please enjoy our hospitality while we check out your credentials,” then they locked the door of the small tin can of a building. It had only one room filled with four bunk beds and a small bathroom.
The situation seemed so improbable to Liam. What kind of credentials are two fourteen-year-old kids supposed to have anyway? Their reality hit Liam like a ton of bricks. He was harboring two runaways, one of who faked a passport (federal felony) and both of who recently robbed an ancient grave of a protected antiquity (an international crime).
“What was I thinking, bringing you two here with me? I was trying to keep you kids out of trouble. I may have just gotten you into even bigger trouble,” he said.
“It’s not your fault, Mr. Adams,” Jake offered.
“Yeah, we came ‘cause we wanted to,” said Fanny. “We’d have followed you here even if you said we couldn’t come.”
“But this isn’t your fight. It’s mine now.”
“Wrong. It’s our fight. We promised Em. We’re not going to abandon her now,” said Jake.
“Yeah, we’ve come too far to be dealt out,” said Fanny.
“Well, now I don’t think you could be ‘dealt out’ even if you wanted to be.”
“If only they believed us,” Jake said.
“Yeah, ‘cause if they don’t, then they’re going to get an unwelcome surprise.” Fanny made a slashing motion across her throat.
“Gee, Fan, no wonder we were thrown into this tin can. You’re going around making threatening statements and talking smack.”
“I’m not threatening. I’m just saying we told them the truth. If they’d bother to remove their head from the dark place it’s in, they might investigate and find out there’s a guy in their facility that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. And if they’d only check they’d see he doesn’t quite add up.” Fanny raised her voice to make sure any listening ears would be sure to hear her.
“You’re probably right Fanny,” Liam said.
“But what’s he going to do here, Mr. Adams? And if he’s here, how’d he get in. As we’ve seen, security is high.”
“My guess is he faked credentials to get inside.”
“Prolly killed someone,” Fanny offered.
“Now why would you say that? You’re so melodramatic.”
“You heard Hindergog’s story. This guy’s like evil incarnate. He killed plenty of people back then, in Saorla’s time. You think he wouldn’t kill some wimpy scientists dude and steal his cred to get in here?”
“You’ve got a point,” Jake conceded. “Okay, so maybe he could find a way in. But then what? I mean, how could he open a portal? For Em to cross over, she needed to be at the portal at the Sacred Grove and she had to have the torc and say a magick spell.”
Liam had pondered Jake’s question nonstop since they’d left Dublin. He felt close to an answer, but it was still hovered just outside his reach.
The three sat in the bunkhouse for several hours before Liam gave in to exhaustion and stretched out on one of the bunks and dozed off.
Liam slept fitfully on the hard cot and dreamed. He was jolted wide-awake by the words ‘pulsed resonant frequencies’ repeating in his mind. It was as if someone had shouted the words into his ear and woke him up.
Fanny and Jake were asleep. Liam bolted up and shook them both awake.
“I’ve got it. I know how he’s going to do it,” he nearly shouted.
“What? How?” Jake asked sleepily as he yawned.
“By pulsing resonant frequencies,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Fanny and Jake looked at Liam as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head.
“Huh?” asked Fanny.
“The giant magnets of the LHC. That’s why he’s here. If he pulses the frequencies of the magnets at an extremely high rate of speed … It might just work.”
“I don’t get it,” said Jake. “What would that do?”
“Well, it has been largely theoretical you see. The Philadelphia experiment and other more fringe stuff is based on this principle. It’s theorized by some that if you rapidly pulse and focus really large electromagnetic frequencies, you could transport an object to other places instantaneously.”
“Or people?”
“Yes, or people. At least that’s what some have theorized. But it has been fringe science, not something that anyone with credentials has worked on.”
“Okay, you lost me at the word pulse,” said Fanny sleepily.
“Shut up Fan, this is serious.”
“Don’t get your tiny pants in a twist Jake. I don’t follow all you’re saying Mr. Adams, but if you think you’ve got it, I believe you.”
“Thanks Fanny. But I don’t know what good any of it does us when we’re stuck in the hospitality suite.”
54. DUGHALL AT CERN
As Liam, Fanny and Jake tried to find a way out of their situation, in a room littered with dirty coffee cups and half-empty Coke cans, a bored young security officer listened to the idle chatter of his American ‘guests’. He spoke very little English so he didn’t see the point in him being the one assigned to this task. These people must not be much of a threat or else they would have assigned someone else. He was low man on the totem pole so he always got stuck with the cession de merde.
Little did the three American ‘guests’ know that they needn’t hush their voices or whisper to keep secrets. They also didn’t know that loudly emphasizing a point wouldn’t help either. For all intents and purposes, their communication was completely unmonitored, a fact which proved to be a helpful turn of events for Dughall.
Mr. Ted Schaeffer’s hands worked feverishly as he typed the coded instructions to make the machine a mile underground perform as commanded. The instructions were highly unusual and Ted Schaeffer knew it.
Most of the experiments at CERN were straightforward enough. Power it up, cool it way down, and when everything was a go, accelerate particles, collect the bits of stuff created by the collisions, then send all the data to a huge conglomeration of computers around the world to crunch numbers.
An immense and complex machine but a relatively straightforward idea. Spin, collide and collect.
But the experiment that his strange new supervisor handed him was unlike anything
else. He would have gone over Mr. Dughall’s head too if it weren’t for the nagging feeling that his life depended on his fingers quickly and accurately entering the codes commanded by his new boss.
Ted Schaeffer wasn’t a physicist so it wasn’t his job to know all the intricacies of the reason for an experiment. But he was an engineer, and he knew the machine. And because he knew the machine, he knew that oscillating the frequencies of the magnetic energy created underground in the collider as rapidly as requested by Mr. Dughall could have disastrous effects.
But the guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was so sure of himself. Maybe I’m wrong. Ted Schaeffer cast his doubt aside and typed like a madman.
Even at the feverish pace that Mr. Ted Schaeffer typed, it took days for him to enter the complex instructions required to order the machine to perform as Dughall required. Dughall’s impatience almost got the better of him. It took extraordinary self-control, not to mention a swift kick from Macha, to keep Dughall from strangling Ted Schaeffer a few times.
“Remember your prize,” Macha said. Her tiny body delivered an amazingly strong kick to Dughall’s behind just in time to stop him from putting his hands around Ted Schaeffer’s neck and squeezing the life from him.
It took weeks of work at CERN, not to mention over a millennium in the Umbra Nihili, but finally the day was at hand. All was aligned. Finally, Dughall would triumph.
“Macha, repeat to me the instructions one more time so that I am sure that your tiny faerie brain gets it right,” hissed Dughall.
“After more than a thousand years of putting up with you, I still do not know why I do, you awful piece of rotted human flesh,” Macha retorted. “I will repeat your instructions though even a faerie with half its wits would find it no harder than beating their wings.”
“Just tell me woman. We have only one shot.”
“All right, all right. It is simple. In one hour, you will make your way down to the accelerator and drink the potion I brewed for you. Remember, the protective effect will last only five minutes at most, so you must be right on the mark. If you are there any longer, you will freeze instantly.”
“I know that Macha. You are telling me my part. What I am concerned about, my little gnat, is that you remember your part.”
“At exactly the appointed time, I will press that green button and put in the code you have typed for me. I will hit the enter button then sit back and watch all hell break loose.”
“If all goes right, yes, you will have quite a show. Hundreds of crazed humans will go insane with fear at the same time. I am only sorry that I will miss out on the fun.”
“If all goes as planned, you will be through the portal and on your way. But Dughall, if this works … ”
“What do you mean if? My calculations are exact. It will work.”
“Yes, well when it works, what will happen here? The portal you create will be tremendously unstable. It could rip the fabric of space time.”
“That is the idea my dear Macha.”
“But what will happen to it? Will it grow? Or collapse on itself?”
Dughall had expected her question and was surprised that it had taken Macha so long to ask it. She was an annoying flea of a faerie at times, but she was exceedingly bright for her kind. The tiny remnant of humanity still hidden somewhere inside Dughall had some unpleasant feelings about what may happen to Macha when he created the anomaly.
The truth was that there would be a mighty explosion that would destroy the machine the humans had spent so much money and time to create. But since it would occur a mile underground, it likely would have no effect on the humans up top.
But that wouldn’t be the end of the story. And he couldn’t bring himself to tell Macha the truth. If creating the portal took the life of Macha as well as all the others at CERN that was of no matter to Dughall. It was a sacrifice that he was willing for them to make.
55. STUCK INSIDE A TIN CAN
“We can’t stay in this tin can forever,” whined Fanny. “We have to do something.”
“How long do you think they can legally hold us here?” asked Jake.
“I don’t think they’re concerned with the legality of holding us,” said Liam.
“These idiots aren’t going to stop Dughall. We’ve got to do it,” said Fan.
“Do you have any ideas? Because the last idea I had got us into indefinite detention,” Liam said.
“First we gotta’ escape this place.”
“Good luck with that,” said Jake.
Fanny ignored Jake’s remark. “I’ve been laying here looking up at that vent and thinkin’ I can fit into that. It’s got to go somewhere.”
“And what about the cameras up there watching us?” Jake pointed to the security cameras mounted from the ceiling.
Fanny thumbed her nose directly at the nearest ceiling mounted camera.
“Nice, real nice. We’re in serious trouble and you’re being a wise ass. Are you trying to get us sent to prison?”
“Okay, genius, since you’re so smart, why don’t you come up with a way to divert their attention while I shimmy my butt through that vent so I can try to find a way to get us out of here.”
Jake and Fanny’s bickering became like a background buzz to Liam as he concentrated on the potential of Fanny’s plan.
“Hey, you two stop arguing for a minute. The cameras don’t move”
“Yeah, so?” asked Jake.
“So, that means that we can move them. Then, when none of them are focused on the vent, Fanny can get into it without being seen.”
“Brilliant Mr. A,” said Fanny.
“I don’t know about brilliant, but it’s worth a shot.”
Liam boosted Jake up so that he could adjust all the cameras, taking care not to be seen while doing it. It wasn’t easy, but within a half an hour, they cameras were repositioned so that none of them looked directly on the vent Fanny planned to climb into.
“Ready, Fan?” Liam asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. What should I look for?”
“A room without anyone in it would be nice,” Jake said.
“I know that nub. I mean, any particular kind of room you can think of?”
“If you can find a supply room or equipment room, that might be a safe bet,” Liam offered.
“Okay, the man with the plan, that’s what I’m talking about. Well, here goes.”
Jake and Liam boosted Fanny up to the vent. She easily opened the vent screen and hoisted herself into the airshaft.
“Yuck! This place is disgusting.”
“Oh please, it can’t be any worse than your room,” said Jake.
“Shut it nerd.”
That was the last thing they heard Fanny say. Jake and Liam sat quietly and listened to Fanny’s body banging the metal airshaft as she shimmied along. After about five minutes, it was once again silent as Fanny disappeared into the bowels of CERN. All they could do was sit and wait for Fanny to return with a key so they could escape their tin can prison.
56. DUGHALL’S PLAN IN ACTION
With the help of Macha’s enchantments, Dughall was able to slip past any watching eyes and into the elevator shaft. He rode the elevator for many minutes as it made its way a mile underground to the belly of the giant collider. Dughall had synchronized his watch to the collider’s clock many times. He’d waited over a thousand years to achieve his goal. He wasn’t about to let a stupid mistake stand between him and the portal.
Patience was not Dughall’s forte, but the task required precision. He could wait a few minutes.
As he stared at his watch, it seemed as though time moved backwards. He waited by the door to the collider corridor for the right moment to down the draught Macha had brewed for him. He stared so intently at his watch that it almost hypnotized him. Dughall nearly missed the exact moment to drink the potion.
It is time. Dughall chugged the vile and viscous liquid down in one big gulp. Macha made this taste foul just to spite me.
As planned, Dughall waited exactly one minute then detonated the explosive he had planted at the door hinges. The small explosion was enough to blast open the time locked steel door. It was time to test whether Macha’s potion worked or not. At -271°, if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t have time to think about it.
Dughall pushed the door off of its blasted hinges. He knew as soon as he did that Macha’s potion had worked. If it hadn’t, the deep chill of the collider would have frozen him nearly instantly. Instead, it was as if there was an insulating bubble around his body that protected him from the deep freeze. But Dughall had not a second to spare. He raced down the interior corridor of the circular collider as fast as his legs could carry him. He knew that it was about a quarter mile to the five-story high mega magnet that he was looking for. He had timed himself and knew that if he ran as fast as he could, he could make it there in about two minutes.
Dughall didn’t need to search for the magnet. Dughall knew as soon as he saw it that his plan had worked. He had reached his destination. He could see the portal and there was no one to stop him.
Though he had only about one, maybe two minutes to spare, Dughall couldn’t help but stare at the tremendous sight. The giant superconducting magnet was itself enough to inspire awe. Though built by human hands, it was a masterpiece of technology and had a beauty of its own. Miles of wires, circuits and electronics bound together in a colorful symmetry.
But topping it by far was the extraordinary beauty of the portal that lay before him. In the center of the giant magnet was a small hole, no larger than a small child, dwarfed by the size of the magnet itself. A silvery mist poured from the hole. It was both ethereal and majestic. Dughall also heard a faint hissing sound, like electricity flowing through power lines built by humans to conduct electricity from one place to another.
In the few seconds that he had stared at the portal it grew twice its size. He knew that he had less than a minute before it became unstable and was gone forever. I must act now or lose the opportunity I have waited so long for.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 24