Reanimatrix

by Pete Rawlik

  Amidst this slice of country life and the dozen or so old buildings and worn shops was a queer and new addition to the landscape, a thoroughly modern building in the art deco style, marked with an ornate sign that identified it as the Tillinghast-Yutani Radio, Electrics, and Light Laboratory. This was where Alfred Tillinghast had, on our behalf, commissioned his staff to rebuild his son’s machine, based on plans McGarrigle and I had liberated from the evidence locker in Providence. Those plans were not for the original machine, the pieces of which were lost along with its blueprints during an estate sale of the furniture and contents. Instead we were working with designs prepared by Crawford for an improved version for the next phase of work. Thus the engineers at TYRELL, which is what those who worked there called the lab, were working to create something that no one, not even Crawford Tillinghast, had ever seen before.

  Despite this, the scientists seemed sure that the design for the resonator would produce the sonic waves specified, though they admitted that they could not guarantee that they would have the same, if any, effect on the sensory perception of a human subject that Crawford described.

  The lead engineer on the build was a man named Henry Annesley, a former professor whom the firm had lured away from Miskatonic University to head their new venture. The Tillinghasts had made their money in real estate and construction, but Alfred Tillinghast was looking forward into the future, and what he saw there was the infiltration of radio, electronics, and optics into the everyday lives of ordinary people. Annesley was assisted in his work by Doctor James Xavier, a medical man, also from Miskatonic, who was researching a field called biophysics, the reaction of biological systems to various forms of energy including heat, electricity, radiation, sonic vibrations, and light. Together, Annesley, a short, rotund man with receding hair and hornrimmed glasses, and Xavier, a British subject, tall and debonair with a commanding voice, were determined to revolutionize the future and fill it with electro-mechanical marvels to benefit all of mankind. According to Xavier, X-rays were just the beginning of the future; a universe of electro-mechanical and chemical miracles were waiting to be discovered or invented. All this explained why they were working on rebuilding the Tillinghast Resonator, or at least allowed them to justify why they were working to do so.

  “Would you look at that?” McGarrigle whistled at the resonator. It was large, taking up the majority of a fifteen-by-fifteen room with a dozen metallic prongs, essential electric tuning forks, and the equipment that allowed for their control and manipulation. Above the forks was suspended a large copper ball pierced with abstract shapes that seemed intuitively linked to the concept of sound propagation. Bulky cables ran from the steel boxes to a control room, a cinder block cube with a small window comprised of thick glass. Annesley had said the room was soundproof, a precautionary measure that he hoped wasn’t truly necessary, though it had been in the past.

  “We’ve been experimenting with various botanical extracts and preparations from South and Central America,” explained Xavier. “And the chemists have isolated some interesting compounds that might be useful for treatment of psychosis. There’s a drink they make, Ayahuasca, that contains a compound we’ve designated ‘dimethylytriptamine’ which has some very interesting effects on human perception. We thought at first it was a psychedelic, but after reading the Tillinghast report, we suspect that it and the resonator both stimulate the pineal gland in similar ways. We built the box after several experiments that left the researchers feeling unsafe with the test subjects. We thought they were just paranoid, but we’re reconsidering that position.”

  “How does a real estate and construction tycoon become involved in research on hallucinogenic plant extracts?”

  Annesley seemed suddenly nervous. “The corporation is in the process of diversifying their interests. They are currently building a radio tower, and are researching various other applications of that technology. The broadcasting of voice and music is likely just the beginning. We’re experimenting with static images, books, documents, and photographs, converting them into patterns that can be broadcast and then reassembled. We’ve found that some individuals are sensitive to these transmissions and can detect them without any equipment at all.”

  McGarrigle was incredulous. “You’re saying that you can turn a photograph into a radio signal, and that some people can see that image without any kind of receiver?”

  Annesley fidgeted nervously. “Not exactly, we’re still in early stages of study here. We can broadcast the image, and in controlled studies some subjects are able to tell us when that is happening, and DMT seems to improve those results, but as for what that image actually is, no, they can’t do that. Not yet, anyway. At least not in any way that makes sense. Then of course there were the accidents.”

  My eyebrows rose, but before I could say anything Xavier cut in. “As I’ve said, some of the test subjects made the research team nervous. Their behavior can sometimes be extreme, and to the untrained it can be unnerving. Some of our more reactive subjects have incurred injuries, died, or just simply disappeared. Given the current economic troubles I’m not surprised that some of the men have drifted away.”

  “Disappeared,” mumbled McGarrigle, “just like Tillinghast’s servants.”

  I put a hand on my partner’s shoulder and he took my meaning. We had stumbled into something here, but whether it was Bureau business or not would have to wait for later. Right now our focus was on the resonator. I steered the conversation in a new direction. “Are you ready to demonstrate whether this thing works or not?”

  Annesley nodded and the four of us made our way inside the control booth. I had expected Alfred Tillinghast to be there, but apparently he and his business partner, the enigmatic Daisuke Yutani, were away on business in Costagauna. This was a common state of affairs, and I suspected that while Tillinghast’s name came first on the masthead, it was Yutani who was really in control. I knew that such situations never sat well with the Bureau, which, while willing to use immigrants and recruit foreign agents for its own needs, was generally unhappy when American corporations became dominated by those same people. It was unnatural, or so the internal screed went, foreign control of corporations was a parasitic relationship, and one that was alien to the conservative thinking of those in power. The more McGarrigle and I dug into the people surrounding this case, the more I disliked it and them. In the back of my mind I was already building a case for a return trip to investigate the finances and practices of this little operation that Tillinghast and Company had hatched in our midst. That, however, was to be future business; this day I was still trying to figure out whether Crawford Tillinghast was a genius, or a madman, or perhaps a little of both.

  The control booth was cramped, and I was forced to stand behind and above Annesley, who was giving off an odd odor, a combination of sweat, grease, and ozone that made my nose wrinkle in annoyance, if not quite disgust. For some reason, it reminded me of a week I spent stationed on Erin Island. He had that kind of salt air, dead fish, working class stink to him. It was the kind that never washes off, the kind of stink that tells people where you’ve come from, the kind of stink that keeps you from moving up in the world. He was methodical in his movements, going through a checklist of preparations that confirmed that a series of circuits, circuit breakers, fuses, and the like were all in working order. Xavier was equally methodical, working through his own list of recording devices and esoteric sensors. A whole series of recording pens jumped to life and began tracing lines on rolls of paper that turned off spindles and slowly folded into trays. The room was filled with humming electricity, the whirring of wheels and gears, and the chattering of machines.

  “Here we go,” announced Annesley as he flipped a switch. The lights in the room dimmed as most of the power was shunted to the resonator. The weird machine jumped to life and the great forked prongs began to vibrate, each in its own specified way. “We can control the amplitude and frequency of each of the rods from in here. It will take us a mo
ment to reach full operation.” He tapped a dial and watched the needle waver and then steady. “Everything seems nominal on my end—James, how are the recorders?”

  “Fully operational and ready to proceed when you are.”

  Annesley nodded and began resetting levels on a series of knobs. “According to his notes Crawford was achieving his best results by blending three distinct harmonic frequencies into a single sympathetic vibration, while at the same time layering in a series of subharmonics.” He turned a dial and the air in the room suddenly changed, grew more electric. “He called this arrangement the Zann modulation, though why, he never says. It’s not a single, sustained sound though; rather, it’s a progression. Once established, the harmonics and subharmonics tend to interact in an odd way. The individual parts of the resonator still put out the same frequency and amplitude, but as they progress through time they move in and out of phase, changing the way they are perceived by ourselves and any sensors.”

  Xavier ripped a sheet from one of his recording devices. “We’re progressing through the first series; if this is going to work we should be seeing something soon.”

  McGarrigle leaned forward and searched the room for some sort of response. He stretched and craned his neck, pressing his nose up against the glass. “I don’t see anything.” His breath left a fog on the surface and as it spread I felt something needle-sharp spike into the space above and between my eyes. I wasn’t the only one, for we all seemed to be reaching for our foreheads. I winced and bowed my head. I wanted to leave it down and let the sudden pain disperse, but McGarrigle cursed, “Mary Mother of God!”, and I snapped my head back up.

  They were in the air, swimming like jellyfish and eels and fish, but they weren’t any of those, they were something else, something not of this world, something never meant to be a part of it. We could all see them as they moved through the spaces around us, and it instantly became apparent that they could see us as well. They moved at the booth, but whatever weird properties allowed us to see them were negated by the walls and glass. Annesley and Xavier seemed to take comfort in this, and I too seemed to accept our security, but McGarrigle didn’t. I could see him becoming more and more nervous. Beads of sweat were forming on his head and his eyes became frantic. I reached out a hand to steady the man, but as I touched him something snapped and he screamed. He pushed his way through the three of us and threw the door open and ran into the lab, screaming.

  “Shut it down!” I yelled as I went after my fellow agent.

  “It’s not that simple,” shouted back Annesley. “We have to cycle down, it’ll take time.”

  I didn’t stop to argue with him, but instead followed McGarrigle through the lab and down the corridors to the front door. I careened through the reception area, knocking over a dark, curly-haired man and his bald assistant. I had no time for apologies. Whatever Tillinghast’s machine had done to us had obviously affected McGarrigle more than me. I had hoped, or at least thought, that the effect of the resonator would have been confined to the laboratory, but alas I was mistaken. All around me the strange creatures swarmed and darted in great shoals of unearthly colors and weird, unnatural pulses. Larger things, obviously predators, whirled and arced in pursuit of extradimensional prey. I myself dodged and weaved past a congress of weird spherical things that pulsed and twisted in response.

  As I broke into the yard I realized that no one else could see what McGarrigle and I could. The brief exposure to the resonator had done something to our perception of reality, but had not impacted those outside of the lab. Still McGarrigle was running, fleeing in terror at what he had seen, and I had to stop him before he hurt himself, or in his panic someone else. He had a head start on me, and I was at a disadvantage for I had no choice but to follow his lead, but it soon became apparent that his mad dash was simply that. He had no destination, he was merely running blind, and I was following. I caught a glimpse of him as I rounded a building and he turned the corner of another in the distance. A flash of light made me realize that his madness had progressed. As I ran I opened my holster and took out my gun and let the word “Please” roll off my lips. I didn’t want to shoot the man, but he had already drawn his gun, and I suspected his madness was progressing in ways I didn’t understand.

  As my feet pounded against the hard ground I heard the sound of men and horses panicking, and picked up my pace. As the blood coursed through my beating heart, I focused on the task at hand, and as my time dilated in response to the stress, the things that stalked and fluttered and banked through the aether around me began to fade. They shuddered as I ran, phased in and out of my view, disappearing from my perceptions and then reappearing until they were little more than shadows cast against a wall fading as the sun rose. At least for me.

  McGarrigle was screaming, yelling at the top of his lungs. “What are ya? Ya filthy . . . God help me! Ya stay right there, ya filthy thing. So help me! Sweet Jesus! Get away from it, old man!”

  I rounded the corner and saw McGarrigle on his knees, cowering and trying to crawl backward across the ground. His gun was out and was pointed at something I couldn’t see, something that the building blocked my view of. He was shaking in terror and crying in fear and madness. I drew a bead on him with my revolver and called out “McGarrigle!”

  He snapped his head at the sound of his name. He saw my gun and that triggered a switch and then his training took over. His arm followed his head, the great big gun in his hand changing its angle, closing in on my position. I saw something in his eyes, just briefly, some flash of rationality, an acknowledgement that something had been set in motion and that neither he nor I was in a position to stop it. His gun barrel was arcing toward my direction and mine was already pointed at him. Just like him, I let my training, my instincts, my reflexes take over.

  I don’t even remember pulling the trigger. I don’t even remember the sound or the smoke or the kick of the gun in my hand. I don’t remember running to him. I only remember McGarrigle lying in my arms, the blood soaking into my clothes, and the ground around me. His eyes were still wild, and as he lay there drowning in his own fluids he tried to speak, tried to tell me something. He pointed at the road and at the horse-drawn cart that was slowly winding away from Tillinghast and Company. The cart driven by the old man and the giant, the only people who had been in the lumber yard when I had shot my partner and brought him down.

  “Not a man,” McGarrigle had whispered, “not a man.”

  Addendum From the Journal of Robert Peaslee

  8th October 1923

  The Bureau cleared me, but made sure I was whisked out of there and sent back home to Florida as quickly as possible. Alfred Tillinghast was apparently pleased with the results, but realized that whatever his son had created, it was too dangerous; he had Annesley and Xavier disassemble it. Then both of the researchers were reassigned, as was most of the staff. I’m told they were dispersed to facilities in either Chicago or Denton.

  I still hear Flynn’s words, and I think about them at night, when I wake in a cold sweat, and the spot above and between my eyes aches, and I have to drink a bottle of rotgut bourbon to get to sleep again. I think about those words and I half-remember the flash of what I saw as I rounded the corner and surveyed the yard. The old man was there, and so was the giant, but those of the air, the things that swarmed around us, were in a panic, as were the great predatory things that stalked amongst them like sharks and eagles. For just for that brief instant, so brief that my conscious mind didn’t acknowledge it, there was something else there in the giant’s place. It was something massive, something monstrous with tentacles and hooves and pulsating gills that flexed and contracted like the wings of a bat. It was an inhuman thing that I saw only for an instant, but McGarrigle, I think he could see it clear as day. I think it drove him mad. So mad that he was no longer a man, but rather a terrified animal capable only of fear. It is a terrible thing, I think, to live in fear.

  I think it is time I stopped.

  CHAPTE
R 6

  “The Reservations of Senator Lowe”

  From the Journal of Robert Peaslee May 27 1924

  Senator Henry Paget Lowe was interred today; the service was closed casket. His long-time assistant will be buried later this week. Their deaths by fire in a hunting cabin near Aylesbury were reported by the press as a tragic loss to the state and his constituency. I, however, disagree. The man was dangerous, and while I may have set in motion the events that led to his death, I regret nothing. Certainly it may have been unethical of me to have used my position at the Bureau of Investigation to my own advantage, to claim a position that was not mine by achievement alone. Of this I am guilty. That Lowe and O’Meara are dead is not my responsibility. Still, some explanation, some record of my actions must be made. So for that reason and that alone, I am making this record, making this account, so that someday if needed, my involvement in these things can be made clear. I hope it never comes to that; there are some things that men are better off not knowing.