by E. R. Mason
The day of transfer was gray overcast and cold. The specially designed van sent for Markman looked state of the art with video monitors in the driver’s compartment, satellite-linked to the hospital. The team of three EMTs handled the sleeping patient as though he were the president; their journey precisely mapped out beforehand using carefully selected routes. Cassiopia sipped coffee from a cardboard cup by the loading area, waiting to follow.
The trip was uneventful. When they arrived at the Leadstrom Institute emergency entrance, a security guard prevented Cassiopia from following, directing her instead to visitor parking around front.
Inside, the private hospital was so clean and modern it resembled an art museum. Beyond the reception area, advanced electronics was everywhere. Staff was present at every turn. They seemed friendly but not very approachable.
A receptionist wearing a blue-green collared shirt and dark slacks found Cassiopia in the hallway. Her brown hair was very short, and she did not seem to have a smile. She wore a big white badge on her breast pocket. Markman would be cared for on the fourth floor. Cassiopia followed her to an elevator, and together they stood silently for the ride up.
He looked no worse for wear. There were fewer attachments on his body, though the room contained twice as many electronic devices. The bed was much more modern, the room quite large. There was a window overlooking a park. City lay beyond it. After a brief wait, no less than three specialists greeted Cassiopia. They were working the case together. There was to be much testing. She should not hope for rapid results. If his condition did not digress, that would be good news. Her presence would always be considered beneficial. There were no visiting hours in these cases. She could come and go as she pleased, although at times he would be away for testing or therapy.
The days following became instant replays, each one a blueprint for the next. Cassiopia resumed her work through the internet and spent hours trying to coax Markman awake. A week passed with no encouraging signs, although his condition remained stable. There were occasional signs of increased brain activity, but never anything consistent.
Three weeks into the ordeal, hotel life began to be unbearable, and a routine visit with one of the neurologists left Cassiopia feeling deprived of hope. Yes, Mr. Markman was doing okay. No, there were no signs of improvement, but that could be expected at this stage. No, there was still no way to gauge if this would be short or long term.
Cassiopia’s mind began to work. No longer emotionally depleted from thoughts of the crash, the analytical processes in her psyche were in full swing. Markman’s legs had healed almost completely. There had been no permanent damage to the brain. He was perfectly healthy. The only thing wrong was that he was not awake. She wondered if it was time to start hitting the medical books to find something the doctors had missed. She could focus on the most recent articles addressing head trauma. She could learn their language. She could speed read faster than most people could count. Still, that didn’t seem like a good answer. The doctors on Markman’s case were no amateurs. They were masters. If she could do anything, it would have to be from another direction, another point of view. Cassiopia went to her hotel room window and looked out at the blue sky. She glanced down at the sill where a card from her father stood. It was signed, ‘The absent-minded Professor.’
Cassiopia froze. A radical idea suddenly flashed in front of her and dominated her mind completely. The thought of it frightened her.
The phone at the Cassell residence began to ring. In a coincidence more rare than a total eclipse of the moon, the Professor was upstairs and willing to answer. He raised the handset, suddenly wondered why he had, and spoke cautiously. “Yes?”
“Father, it’s me.”
“Cassiopia, is everything alright?”
“There’s been no change. It’s not worse, but it’s not better.”
“I’m sorry. How are you holding up?”
“Okay. I’m coming back for a few days. I need to talk to you about something important. Will you be there?”
“I have only a chemistry class left this week, an affair I fear more than death itself. There are two football hulks in the class who have managed to set fire to their workstation twice in the past two weeks. Once more and I fear the university will require me to have a fire marshal present for the classes. I do not know how these jocks have managed to survive this long. I can only assume that women are intervening and keeping them alive.”
Cassiopia stifled her laugh. “Father, your note said the Tel was fine when you got back. Is everything else okay?”
“The robot? Oh yes, the robot. The blasted thing has opened the neighbor’s fence gate and brought the dog into the house. I have told it to take the animal back, and it acknowledges, but never does. I am at a loss as to what to do about it.”
“I’ll help when I get there. Don’t worry.”
After making sure the hotel desk clerk understood that she was not checking out, Cassiopia secured a seat on the first available flight to Orlando, a red-eye that would arrive at 6:05 A.M. Her mind became so completely engaged that time-of-day and changing geography were of little interest. She did not sleep and was barely aware of her travel until the taller buildings of Orlando came into view. With her rental car secured, she headed straight for her father’s.
He was sipping tea in the den when she barged in. She tossed her only bag on the living room couch, and in the den paused briefly to admire the shiny, silver Tel robot at rest in its favorite spot in the corner. She plunked down in the seat facing her father’s desk, leaned forward and spoke with resolve, “Father, I want to use the SCIP doorway.”
Her father had opened his mouth to greet her. He coughed, spilling his tea into the saucer, struggling and fumbling to regain control of it. “Cassiopia!”
“I know it’s badly damaged. If we work together, we can bring it back fairly quickly. I’ve been working the problem in my head. I know what to do.”
“Cassiopia!”
“We can use safeguards against the previous problems we’ve had. I would only need it for a short time. You would be there monitoring everything. It’s exactly what we need.”
The Professor stared down at his desk, carefully placing his recovered teacup down. “Cassiopia, the three of us agreed that blasted device should never be used again.”
“Yes, but the situation has changed.”
“Oh dear. I see where this is going.”
“Yes. I can bring Scott back.”
“You are grasping at straws. What you propose would be extremely dangerous, and unlikely to succeed.”
“No. It is just what we need.”
“You think you are going to open a door to another dimension, find a single individual, and cause him to wake from a coma? That’s just what we need? Someone must monitor the equipment here. It was insane that you and Scott went in there before without that. So, now you propose to go in there alone?”
“No. I would bring someone with me.”
“Oh heavens! You want to reveal the existence of the SCIP doorway to a fourth person, and take the chance of the world finding out about it?”
“No. This person could be trusted.”
“Who?”
“Ann Rogers.”
“A policewoman? You want to tell the police about the SCIP transformer?”
“I know her. We could trust her. She would understand.”
“Can you see the incredibly dangerous plan you have designed here? Do you see how many fail points there are?”
“Father, let’s go look at the SCIP transformer and talk about this some more.”
The Professor’s expression suddenly became alarmed. “Oh, I don’t think that would be such a good idea. It’s such a mess down there.”
Cassiopia stood as though the decision had already been made. She turned and headed down the hall toward the basement door. The Professor scrambled to get out from behind his desk and chase after her. “Wait now. Wait just a minute.”
The basement
door was already open. Cassiopia charged down the steps as he caught up.
“Really, this is not a good time. We should talk about this later.”
In the basement, Cassiopia switched on the lights and was surprised by what she saw. Most of the basement lab was as it had always been, chemistry bench on the far wall, work table in the center of the room, stacks of electronic equipment piled all around. To her right, however, something was different. The overflowing shelves and large trunk concealing the entrance to the secret lab were gone. Now there was a new wall with three closet doors.
As her father came up behind her, she turned and looked at him for an explanation.
“You see? It’s all sealed off. Just closet space now. It was the best thing to do. All sealed off. Let’s go back up.”
Cassiopia went to the farthest door and opened it. It was packed full of junk. She went to the middle door and opened it. Empty. The third door concealed another closet, also full of junk. With her hands on her hips, she looked suspiciously at her father.
“Satisfied? Now let’s go back upstairs for morning tea.”
Cassiopia gave a half smile and shook one finger at him. She returned to the center door, opened it, and stepped into the closet. She gave her father a knowing smile and shut the door.
Total darkness. She waited. Not more than five seconds passed, and a low light switched on. A small panel in the wall next to the doorknob slid open. A single button lay behind it. She pushed it, and the floor began to descend.
At the bottom, an open doorway offered the familiar cement hallway that led to the secret lab. The last time Cassiopia had seen it, the room was a burned out, charred mess. She moved down the short cement hallway, peered around the corridor and gasped at what stood waiting.
Perched atop a large, blue antistatic base, was an arch-shaped electronic doorway. It was not charred and burned as she remembered, but shiny and new. The porous white material within its frame looked almost polished. Beside it, the four stacks of the Drack mainframe computer that she knew so well, stood glistening and waiting. The breaker boxes on the wall and the large knife switches associated with them looked new and barely used. Cassiopia slumped back against the wall and took a deep breath.
“I never could keep secrets from you, even when they were mathematical,” said the Professor, as he came up behind her and stood admiring his work. “The elevator had to be installed so the robot could get up and down more easily. I didn’t want to leave him upstairs all the time, after the last break in.”
“Father, you gave your word you would never rebuild it.”
“No, sir. I never gave my word. Have you noticed the arch, and how much more access there is?”
“But you said you wouldn’t.”
“No. I said I’d never rebuild it like it was. I said if I ever did, it would be arch-shaped like it is.”
“So this is why you’ve been sneaking around in the basement when we’ve been gone.”
“Well, I didn’t want anyone getting the idea they might use it now, did I?”
“Please tell me you have not gone through it alone?”
“Sent the Tel through once, just to be sure the parameters were the same, that’s all.”
“So it is working?”
“Definitely working, and there are improvements you don’t know about.”
“Please tell me.”
“I can control the secondary, inner door. It can be switched on and off. That’s to prevent anything from coming out that shouldn’t. And, there’s no more time limit for the primary door. It can stay on indefinitely. There’s triple-redundant tracking devices built in to find your way back, also. So now, you can call for the door from inside Dreamland, and then locate it fairly easily, though that part hasn’t been tested.”
“But why? Why did you rebuild it if you weren’t going to tell anyone, and you weren’t going through?”
“There were sections of my formula base incomplete. They would advance string theory beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. The only way to finish the equations was to reopen it. I planned to keep it and hide it forever in case more data was ever needed. I certainly never planned for anyone to risk their life entering it again, especially not the most important person in my life.”
“Well, your timing was impeccable, father.”
“Unfortunately so.”
They returned to the study and sat without speaking for a time. The Professor knew his case was already lost. The tension in the air was finally abated when a small tan and white beagle came bounding into the room and began sniffing Cassiopia and jumping up at her.
“Well hello little one, aren’t you the cutest!”
The dog raced around, greeted the Professor, and began exploring the den as though he owned it. He went to the Tel robot and scratched at one silver foot. To Cassiopia’s astonishment, the Tel lowered its head and a small panel by its waist slid open. With two shiny silver fingers, the robot reached in and drew out a small dog biscuit. In a low machine voice it commanded, “Sit!”
The little beagle sat looking up at the Tel, still wagging its tail. The biscuit was dropped, the compartment door slid shut, and the robot watched as the dog quickly gobbled up the treat. The beagle, satisfied it had completed the transaction, curled up at the robot’s feet and went to sleep.
Cassiopia sat with her mouth open. She looked at her father. “I don’t believe it!”
The Professor raised his arms in frustration and shook his head.
Chapter 12