by Andy Ritchie
I pulled the goggles up and looked around me. Nothing but the cables.
I pulled the goggles down again and the oozing, quivering mass re-appeared.
I did it again to be sure.
Without the goggles, it was not possible to see them, but with the goggles, they were everywhere.
Tentatively, I walked across to where some of the tendrils reached out across the concrete. I bent down next to them, studying them as, like the others, they seemed to move almost like a snake, but very, very slowly, in a way, almost hypnotically.
I stared at them for many long seconds, mesmerised a little by the way the black tendrils moved both as one and yet independently, like a writhing group of eels.
In spite of myself, I tried to touch one of them, but I couldn’t feel anything at all. As far as my hand was concerned, there was nothing there but empty space and, when I pulled the goggles away from my eyes, that’s precisely what I saw.
Nothing.
How was that possible?
Was I seeing another one of the Researcher’s memories?
No, this was now, this was the present...
And yet, as if bidden to appear, a memory surfaced into my mind of the Researcher, equally astonished, equally excited, reaching out and plunging its hand into the swirling mass of black, right up to the elbow, trying to feel, trying to make itself aware of a sensation...but experiencing nothing.
‘It follows them, you know,’ I said.
‘The Researcher?’
I nodded.
‘Yeah. It looks at a schematic or something on its SICPad and it decides to follow the cables because that’s where the black stuff goes.’
Tukaal seemed about ready to hurry over to the conduit, but he hesitated.
Then he turned to me and said:
‘I know it’s probably not the appropriate time to mention this, but I’ve noticed how you keep referring to the Researcher as ‘it’.’
I have to admit that I hadn’t actually realised that I had.
‘Is it a problem?’
Tukaal’s expression seemed to suggest it was.
‘The Researcher was a tri-male, and it would...honour his memory if you were to refer to him as a ‘him’, as opposed to an ‘it’. The way you use the word ‘it’ makes him sound like some kind of animal.’
I was, I confess, speechless.
‘Do you mind, Jeth, doing that for me? I haven’t offended you, have I?’
I shook my head, still a little dumbfounded at Tukaal’s sudden sensitivity.
‘Excellent.’
And with that, Tukaal hurried over to the conduit.
I just stood there bemusedly for a moment or two before wandering over to join him.
His expression was now that of someone who was worried, and when I looked at what he was looking at, I could understand why.
The three cables, each of which must have been almost two feet in diameter, were stacked on top of each other on a sturdy metal frame. This metal frame ran down the centre of the conduit, leaving barely eight or nine inches clearance on either side. Just enough room for a man to inch his way, side-on, into the darkness.
‘You’re sure he went this way?’ Tukaal asked.
I nodded again because in my mind I could see (and more disconcertingly, feel) the memory of being inside that claustrophobia-inducing space. Following in the Researcher’s footsteps down this particular rabbit-hole was not a prospect that filled me with joy, principally because, when viewed through the goggles, the entire conduit, every square inch of it, was packed with the writhing black tendrils.
To go through there would be to immerse oneself fully in them and, even though I knew it was not possible to feel them, the prospect still sent a shiver cascading down my spine.
It was also clear that the prospect of going down the conduit did not fill Tukaal with joy either, but for an entirely different reason. He was bigger than me, and both of us were bigger than the Researcher, and I knew how tight a squeeze it had been for him (notice I’ve used the word ‘him’) to force his way along the conduit, back against the rough wall, head clipping the roof, chest catching on the metal frame and the bolts which held it together.
Tukaal took a moment to look down the road tunnel, perhaps wondering whether that provided an alternative route to wherever the Researcher had gone next. Or was he simply wondering what was down there?
‘So what do you want to do?’ I asked, handing back the goggles and trying to dispel from my mind the image of the conduit filled with nothing but black tentacles.
A further moment’s thought. Then a decision.
‘We’re going to follow the Researcher. That’s the reason we’re here. We need to know where he went and what he saw. I guess we’re both just going to have to hold our stomachs in.’
As we moved towards the conduit, I saw Tukaal take one last, almost longing look at the road tunnel. His curiosity had clearly been aroused.
But, as he had said, we were there to re-trace the Researcher’s steps, to find out what it...sorry, he had seen. It was for this reason that, with a deep breath, we began squeezing our not inconsiderable frames into the ridiculously tight space of the conduit, whereupon we proceeded to make our way, with immense difficulty, serious cursing (on my part at least), countless bumps of the head, scrapes of the back, snagging of clothes and catching of knees on unforgiving metal, into the unknown...
Only, it wasn’t unknown, was it, because I already knew what was at the end of the conduit.
It was yet another concrete room, but not a big one, maybe only a hundred feet square and fifteen feet high. On the face of it, it looked like yet another sub-station, the three cables coming in and then connecting to an array of circuit-breakers, transformers, switches and bus bars, along with an entire bank of control panels with flashing lights, display screens, knobs and switches. But the equipment in this place was not the same as that we had seen earlier. No, this looked...different. For a start, there were none of those bushing things, and...and...Christ, it’s difficult to pin down what was not right about it...the cables were different and...I have to say it...some of the equipment looked alien. I can’t really remember any of it too well because I never really studied it once I got there...and neither did the Researcher.
Oh, and there was also a door...but I had no idea what was beyond the door because, in the whirlpool of the Researcher’s chaotic memories, there was no recollection of him ever opening the door. In fact, the only memory I have of the door was accompanied by a feeling of general disinterest in it.
Of course, that could be because his interest was focused on something else, something far, far more impressive than a door.
*
33.
That’s how many minutes it took us to edge our way along the conduit, squeezed between the wall and the cables.
It was one of the most unpleasant and uncomfortable 33 minutes of my entire life, and whereas I had earlier worried about my legs and back ever recovering, this time I was really worried about my neck.
If the culvert from the field to the manhole had been bad, then this was a hundred times worse.
While we’re talking numbers, here’s another:
57.
That’s the number of times I banged the top of my head on the ceiling of that tiny fucking tunnel.
396.
The number of spider's webs I felt brush across my face or my hands...fortunately, I didn't see any spiders but I'm pretty sure there were a lot of them as well.
Oh, and then there’s 8.
That’s the number of times my clothes snagged on the metal frame carrying the cables.
Finally, there’s 2,652.
That must be the number of times I swore.
Eventually, though, we did emerge from the conduit, battered, bruised, sweaty (at least I was) and covered in cobwebs and muck.
We found ourselves in a dingy room maybe twenty feet square, dominated by the cables we had been following, but also containing
some pipework and a small display panel with the usual confusing array of dials and switches. The place looked like it had not been disturbed in years, given that everything seemed to be covered in yet more of the cobwebs that continued to brush against my hands and face. I also noticed footprints in the dusty floor - mine, Tukaal's, and what could only be the Researcher's, as all seemed to originate from (and in the case of the Researcher, return to) the conduit.
Tukaal said that we had covered quite some distance and descended quite a lot too. He reckoned we were somewhere under the power station, something he confirmed when he investigated the array of pipes that ran across the ceiling to the door I had seen in the memory, which was on the far side of the room.
‘Steam, water, condensate,’ he said, following the pipes to the door, which he then began to inspect.
I, however, like the Researcher before me, had no interest in the door. Instead, I was interested to see whether, when I put the goggles on, I would see what the Researcher had seen, so I took the goggles out of the duffel bag which Tukaal had placed on the floor near the conduit exit, and, after powering them up, I put them on.
At first I thought they weren’t working because I couldn’t see anything at all, so I took them off again and checked that they had not been damaged during our struggles through the conduit. There was no evidence to suggest that they had.
So I put them on again.
Still nothing.
The display was annoyingly black.
I cursed silently under my breath, taking them off for a second time and eyeing them angrily.
‘Try turning it off and on,’ Tukaal shouted across the room. ‘That’s what I do when something technical doesn’t work properly.’
It was probably what every male of every species on every planet does when faced with a piece of technology that stubbornly refuses to do what it should.
So I did, watching the blue hue fade from the lenses and then re-appear again.
I put them on again.
Still nothing, only darkness.
I was about to take them off for a third time when something happened.
I’m not exactly sure what it was that caught my eye in the goggles display; it could have been a momentary glimpse of light, or perhaps a fleeting shape; whatever it was, it made me hesitate, made me look more intently, more keenly at the blackness that I could see...
And then I realised...the goggles were not broken, they were working perfectly. They just happened to be sat on the head of someone who was totally immersed in a seething mass of black tendrils that completely engulfed this room.
The realisation of this was both exhilarating and frightening, both for me and for the Researcher who, having already figured this out, was almost overcome with excitement.
In my mind I could see the memory of him taking the goggles off so that he could look around for something, anything that could get him higher, could perhaps lift him above the seething mass. He found it near the conduit, where the metal framework supporting the cables, which had been such a hindrance during my journey from the sub-station basement, now provided the perfect vehicle by which to get up higher.
I, like the Researcher a week earlier, clambered excitedly up the framework towards the ceiling.
It was like breaking through the surface of an ocean covered in oil.
Twelve feet deep.
That’s how many of those...things there were in this room, so many that it covered everything, every control panel, every piece of equipment, everybody and everything in a constantly moving sea of living tentacles.
I’m not sure what I said when I finally got myself perched (somewhat unsteadily) on the framework and looked around through the distorted vision of the goggles.
I’m sure there was an expletive or two in what I uttered.
Tukaal, who had finished his thorough examination of the door and had retrieved the duffel bag, joined me on my high perch and asked if he could take a look.
Grudgingly, I obliged.
‘What the fuck is this stuff?’
There you have it. A moment of such astonishment for Tukaal that he finally became human and used the f-word in anger. His unexpected use of such colourful language seemed to snap me out of the malaise into which I had fallen with such alarming ease.
‘So,’ I replied, ‘you tell me, what the fuck is it?’
Tukaal shook his head as he panned the goggles around the room, his mouth ever so slightly gawping. Then, with the goggles still on, he bobbed down as if he was immersing himself in the sea of blackness to experience what it was like to be surrounded by it. Then he straightened up again and took the goggles off. His eyes were extraordinarily wide and his expression was one of utter, unadulterated amazement.
‘I have absolutely no idea. I have never seen anything like this before, or read about anything like this before.’
‘But how can we see it, with the goggles, and yet not feel it?’
He studied the goggles with renewed interest.
‘As I said in the camper van, I think these goggles have been adapted to enable someone to look at a very specific spectral phase shift. If that is the case, then what we may be looking at is something that exists in a universe that is ever so slightly out of step with our own. But what the fuck it is, I have absolutely no idea.’
Tukaal put the goggles back on and once more looked around him. For a minute or so, he stood there, balancing on the metal frame, running his hands across the surface of a writhing mass of tentacles that, without the goggles, could not be seen. He looked like a mime artist stroking an invisible dog.
‘So what does the Researcher do next?’ he enquired, looking at me expectantly through the blue lenses of the goggles.
What happens next, I thought.
I simply didn’t know.
The last memory I had, the last memory I could reach, was the Researcher clambering down from the framework and taking out his SICPad.
Then it all went blank.
No, it didn’t all go blank.
I could sense that there was more, that further memories were lingering in the swirling bubbles of images and sounds and emotions.
The problem was that although I somehow knew there were further memories, there didn’t seem to be one of those strands which enabled me to move from one to the next.
The SICPad screen...new shapes...excitement...a voice...the Researcher’s...the conduit again...the sub-station...
Shit, it was so hard to concentrate, so hard to think!
‘I...I...can’t remember...it’s all broken down...all in pieces...’
For some reason I suddenly wanted to cry.
‘Is it the door, Jeth, does he go through the door?’
I shook my head.
‘He’s not interested in the door, he’s interested in this...stuff. Fucking hell, why can’t I remember!!’
I hit my head with the palm of my hand again and again and again, furious at the fickle nature of this ability to look back into the life of another.
You see, I knew that something important happened here, something monumental, I could sense it, could feel the wild excitement, the awe of realisation, the satisfaction of vindication. They were there, just out of reach, hiding in the swirling maelstrom of memories. And if those feelings were there, then the events that triggered those feelings were also there, somewhere.
But I knew I could not reach them, knew that my yearning desperation for those final answers could not overcome the towering waves of fatigue that now crashed over me.
I was exhausted, mentally and physically, unable to summon up the will to once more do battle with my own chaotic mind. I needed...simplicity, something without complication, something which did not require me to think, which did not require me to remember.
‘I can’t make sense of it anymore,’ I said.
Only now did I realise that I had clambered down the framework and slumped onto the ground, and that I was staring disconsolately at the concrete floor. I was
also conscious of tears in my eyes and on my cheeks, and I wiped them away in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.
‘Then don’t even try, Jeth,' Tukaal said, having also climbed down to the floor, 'don’t even try. It’s time to give your mind a rest. You’re brain isn’t designed to deal with two parallel realities. It’s no wonder it’s all become too much. To be honest, I’m impressed that you managed to hold it together for this long.’
He gave me one of his most disarming smiles, and I couldn’t help but return it, though I guess my smile was a pretty weak and feeble affair in comparison.
‘What you need to do is commit to your memory what you can of this place, of what you see here. Then, when we’re back at the van and you’ve had time to recover with some food and a nice pot of tea, maybe then it will start coming together again, what the Researcher did next. Then maybe, just maybe, we will have our answer.’
He grinned again and then slapped me encouragingly on the shoulder.
‘Do you think this...black stuff which we’ve found here, which the Researcher found here, was what Mendelssohn was so desperate to stop him telling you about? If so, why?’
Tukaal shook his head.
‘I don’t think this is what Mendelssohn was trying to keep secret.’
I breathed an exasperated sigh.
‘Then what was it?’
‘I’m not entirely sure, but I’m guessing it has something to do with whatever is on the other side of that door. If you’re in the mood, perhaps we can do a spot of snooping around?’
‘Will it involve me having to crawl or squeeze my way through tunnels full of shit or spiders or stuff like that?’
‘Not to begin with, but I can’t promise that that won’t be required.’
I weakly climbed to my feet and dusted myself down.
‘You’re desperate to see what’s on the other side of that door, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, I already know what’s on the other side of the door,’ Tukaal responded. ‘What I want to know is what’s at the bottom of all those steps.’
‘I think this is an emergency exit, as well as a way to get up to this room.’
I fought the urge to say ‘No shit, Sherlock.’