“I captured a video update on a thumb drive this morning from a program I wrote. Would it be possible to see it on the display?”
Some of the group chuckled, and a couple of men who knew of Merlin from the country club rolled their eyes and looked at one another with dubious grimaces.
“Gosh, I don’t know. Let me find out,” the tour guide responded. She then walked to the two technicians and conferred with them quietly for a few seconds. Merlin saw one of their heads nodding and then the other. He took quick, shallow breaths. The tour guide stepped away from the technicians and motioned to Merlin, smiling.
“They say to bring them the thumb drive—as long as it doesn’t have any viruses on it!”
The group chuckled again, but Merlin was already on his way toward the technicians, twirling the drive between his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger in his left front pocket. He handed the drive to a NASA employee, who plugged it into a slot on the official NASA laptop from which he was working. Merlin asked, “May I drive?” and the technician made a faux gallant “be my guest” gesture with the sweep of an arm. Merlin sat at the computer and clicked away. All the screens went black for a moment.
Razor-like flashes of red arcs describing ley lines raced across the screen and pulsated in the background as multicolored eddies of light whorled on a section of the globe that included Europe, northern Africa, North America, Central America, and northern South America. Every few seconds, whooshes of lavender and violet blew across parts of the map. Merlin looked up and took in the view with amazement, but he quickly realized that he needed to make the most of his time. He clicked on a tab that read “Houston Center Morning Update” and the next screen was a map of the Greater Houston/Upper Texas Gulf Coast area. There were similar red hash marks, whorls, and eddies on this map, but the most intense action seemed to be right over the city itself. He zoomed in tightly and enlarged the map to include downtown Houston. It comprised an area as far east as the ship channel and as far west as West Loop 610.
Now the intensely colored, counterclockwise rotating whorl was flashing, indicating it had stopped over the exact location of the energy event. It looked to Merlin like it was in his neighborhood or maybe over Memorial Park, so he made one final close-up zoom. He was so astounded that he stood, left the computer, and approached the giant central high-resolution screen. He stood directly in front of it, and the sinister gyre whirled in place near Buffalo Bayou, but not on the north bank in Memorial Park. The eye of the storm had targeted a spot just behind the sixteenth green of the golf course at Bayou Boughs Country Club. Merlin took in the whirling image as if in a trance, and then, just below it on the screen, in numinous white letters and numerals, the message appeared. It read: “Event Time Coordinates: Friday, August 13, 23:33.”
The other members of Merlin’s tour group continued to laugh uncomfortably and make comments under their breath, but Merlin did not pay attention to them. Here, in the newest, most awe-inspiring chapel of the cathedral of manned spaceflight, he stood enraptured at the beauty and majesty of the Agglomerator’s work, and at the ominous event it so definitively and precisely foretold.
• Forty-five
Eating lunch at his desk, Junior Trust Officer Curtis Bumpers scrolled down a screen of his favorite fishing website. A boldface headline read “Record Spec Confirmed!” He scrolled until he saw a photo of an oversize human holding an enormous speckled trout. Picking up a pencil with his left hand, he drummed it nervously on the surface of his desk. He lifted his right hand from the mouse and held the pencil in both hands as he read the caption: “Angler Merlin McNaughton of Houston, Texas, Catches Record Trout in Waters Near Spirit Lake, Louisiana.”
Bumpers looked at the name in disbelief, then his eyes went to the face of the large man in the photo. He was wearing round-lensed wire-frame glasses and a mop of unruly hair bushed out beneath a long-brimmed fisherman’s cap. Bumpers’ face flushed bright red as his lips drew into a tight thin line of pure ire. As he broke the pencil he was holding in half, he inadvertently jammed the sharpened lead into his palm. He threw the pencil pieces across the room and then looked at his punctured hand. He could see a piece of lead under his skin, but there was no blood.
• Forty-six
Of any of the days it was fortunate for both Merlin and his fellow humankind that he did not drive, this one was right up there at the top of the list. His stunned reverie stayed with him through the rest of the tour and the remainder of the day. He was not so engrossed with it as to not think of lunch, however, prior to his departure from Space Center Houston. Crowding in on his visions of the energy event were visions of multipattied hamburgers and enormous piles of battered, thick-cut onion rings. He had heard that Spookie’s had an impressive new location near the channel from Clear Lake out to the bay, and he asked his Alles driver to spirit him there tout de suite. Spookie’s, in fact, had bifurcated into two restaurants after the last big hurricane—a seafood café north of the bridge and a hamburger place south of it near the Kemah boardwalk. Merlin had put the correct address into the Alles program for the driver, but he made certain to clarify that it was the burger joint that was the object of his lunchtime desire.
As they crossed the bridge, Merlin took in his first good view of the opaque greenish-brown waters of the strangely named Clear Lake to his right and then a longer, sweeping view of Galveston Bay out to his left. He considered what a different perspective of the bay it was from what he experienced on that auspicious day when the Airmadillo crew flew to lunch at Stangaroo’s on Bolivar Peninsula. The car exited the bridge on its southern side and made a quick left to arrive at Spookie’s Burgers. Merlin entered the green-and-yellow-painted building and took a seat at the bar, which was directly in front of him.
He ordered a spicy Double Trouble Spookie Burger with cheese (“It’s scary good!”), Aunt Bertha’s oversized “dungeon ring” onion rings, and a large Dr Pepper. He took the laptop computer from his messenger bag, opened it, and inserted the thumb drive. The same graphic that had filled the giant screens of Mission Control now appeared on a thirteen-inch screen, but it still enraptured him. He looked at various metrics surrounding the event while trying not terribly successfully not to drip burger juice and sauce onto the keyboard as he ate and considered the imminent event.
Just like tropical cyclones in the northern hemisphere the whorl signifying the negative energy event rotated in a counterclockwise fashion. Was the incoming energy cyclone also somehow subject to the Coriolis effect? He wondered for a moment but didn’t have time to ponder the possibility even though the energy gyre had bands and an eye like a hurricane. He noted that the place where the Agglomerator predicted it would stop and intensify behind the sixteenth green of the Bayou Boughs Country Club golf course was a relatively small patch of earth.
As he took another bite of the massive burger and sauce oozed and dripped onto the computer’s edges, it was clear to Merlin what he must do. Concentrated counterclockwise energy required concentrated clockwise energy to neutralize it. He would design and construct a compact but powerful clockwise particle accelerator. Come hell or high water, he was determined to have it functional and in place on the quickly approaching August night.
• Forty-seven
Over the following days Merlin focused almost all of his attention on his energy reversal project. He also became increasingly agitated and absentminded. His first challenge was constructing his portable particle accelerator. After an angst-laden day or two, his brain fog burned off, and the answer appeared. He would call Angus McQuirkidale, the owner of Hephaestus Tool and Machining on North Shepherd Drive a few miles beyond the North Loop.
Merlin had met Angus at a gathering of the Houston Medieval Swordsmen’s Association. They had also participated in demonstrations at the annual Renaissance Festival northwest of Houston between Magnolia and Plantersville. Merlin had asked him about his work and Angus had been very forthcoming with him regarding the company’s clients and the capabilities o
f Hephaestus. Angus told Merlin of the over-hundred-year-old behemoth drill presses and metal-bending machines that were a part of the company’s arsenal, along with metal lathes and brushing and finishing equipment. Merlin admired the old-school way McQuirkidale approached his vocation as he spoke with a kind of reverence toward his brawny old machines dating from an era when America was a heavy industry manufacturing powerhouse.
Merlin also sensed that McQuirkidale might actually comprehend the work of the Agglomerator and the exigency for constructing something that might counteract the concentrated negative energy of the event it predicted. What this really meant, although Merlin wasn’t fully aware of it, was that Angus McQuirkidale might listen to him, and, most importantly, not make fun of his ideas the way most everyone else did.
Merlin e-mailed Angus, who got right back to him with unvarnished enthusiasm, suggesting they meet at Hephaestus the following day. Merlin went to work researching and sketching a rudimentary design for the contraption, which he dubbed the Vortexan Cyclonic Reverser. He was so enraptured with his planning that he didn’t even leave the observatory to feast, instead opting for home delivery from a nearby Thai restaurant. He opened and arranged large white Styrofoam containers on the desk at his workstation. The cold dishes like Nam Saad glistened in their clear sweet and tart sauces, while the hot dishes like Pud Prik Thai and Tom Kha Gai in its own special soup Styro disgorged themselves of massive amounts of steam, like an incense offering to the Buddha.
The desk at Merlin’s workstation featured angled sides that corresponded to the two angled screens flanking his main computer monitor and the way he had his lunch set up. It kind of resembled an edible drum set, except, instead of drum sticks, he wielded chopsticks and swiveled in his chair to take a bite of something on his right and then reach across his keyboard to snag a morsel on his left side from a dish a couple of boxes deep atop a thick catalog, like he was hitting a hi-hat cymbal to punctuate the hook of a top-ten pop song. Except, instead of a percussive pop, the chopsticks were nearly silent pincers grabbing food and sending it with a muffled kerplop into his greedy mouth. During this noontime exercise, he was actually wearing earphones and listening to music, which made his performance all the more reminiscent of famous drummers like Gene Krupa, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and perhaps even one of his idols—Neil Peart.
As he consumed his Asian delights, he ingested a massive amount of information from the Agglomerator and myriad websites regarding cyclones, anticyclones, vortices, and particle accelerators. He was beginning to visualize the Vortexan Cyclonic Reverser, but his boots needed to be on the ground at Hephaestus to determine the fearful symmetry of his device and proceed apace with its fabrication.
• Forty-eight
This time it was Assistant District Attorney Jim Atlas who checked the clock before placing a transatlantic call. It was midmorning in Houston, so he reasoned he might catch Mickey McNaughton at the end of his workday or perhaps at the onset of the brief but reliably daily Dutch workweek happy hour.
His conjecture paid off as Mickey was seated at the bar at Arendsnest Proeflokaal, the Amsterdam temple of on-tap artisanal Dutch beer. Although there was no denying the place was in a pretty touristed part of the city, it was equally irrefutable that the breadth and quality of its brews was without equal. The bartender had just scraped foam from the top of a glass of a highly recommended farmhouse saison. He placed it on a paper coaster in front of Mickey, whose phone rang as he was taking his first blissful sip. He drank with his left hand as he pulled the phone from his pocket with his right.
“Hello?”
“Mickey?”
“Yes! Jim?”
“Right you are. How’s the afternoon?”
“Bright like midday. It’s still summer in northern Europe, right?”
“Well, lucky you.”
“How’s H-town?”
“Like a kitchen full of steamers in a Cantonese restaurant.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Well, something else looks to be getting warmer.”
“Our PI is turning over some rocks?”
“Yes, and he appears to be finding lizards and bugs under them.”
“Do tell. I’m all ears, right?”
“Okay. He saw a lot of comings and goings over several nights. He saw a couple of fair-size trucks—kind of like small moving vehicles—drive past the gate of the place and leave a few minutes later.”
“Okay.”
“After this happened a couple of times, he decided to follow one of them at a discreet distance. It ended up at the port of Houston at three in the morning and drove past an electronically controlled fence gate toward the docks.”
“So that’s a little odd, right?”
“Yes, I think that’s a little odd.”
“Okay, carry on.”
“He followed another vehicle a few nights later, and it went all the way to Galveston, to the cruise ship terminal. Same program—entered past a security gate in the middle of the night.”
“Wow! So what do you make of it?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I do think it surpasses the strangeness barrier sufficiently to tell my boss and see if we can get the official authorities on it.”
“Great work, counselor.”
“Hey, it’s our PI. And there’s another tidbit that might be of interest to you. The ship in port at Galveston was from a Dutch-American cruise line—headquartered in …”
“Amsterdam.”
“You got it, Sherlock.”
“Damn!”
“Is that a joke?
“No. Just processing, right?”
“I’ll blow up your cellie when I know more.”
“Right! Thank you, brother.”
“You got it.”
Mickey closed the call, shook his head in disbelief, sighed, and quietly uttered a single word: “Merlin.”
• Forty-nine
At Tellicherry on a steamy deep-summer morning, Lindley Acheson was drinking an equally steamy cup of masala chai as she answered e-mails, browsed a few gardening websites, and waited for a prospective client to arrive. She heard something and looked up as the restaurant’s large and weighty glass and steel door opened. A small, sharp-featured woman with a leashed Chihuahua at her heels was on the way out with a to-go cup of masala chai. From Lindley’s vantage point she couldn’t tell who was on the inbound side of the doorway, but she did hear the little dog yapping. She leaned out just in time to see the incoming customer was Merlin and the officious, sunglassed woman’s pet was nipping at his ankles from all sides like a relentless canine mosquito.
The dog’s rapid-fire attempts to bite were enough to knock Merlin off balance, and as he tumbled earthward like a mouse-besieged elephant, the paper-stuffed clipboard he was carrying sailed upward and descended to a loud, clacking crash on the polished concrete floor. A few sheets detached in midair, and when the clipboard hit the floor, everything it was holding popped loose and scattered across the entryway. Immediately after slamming into the concrete, Merlin scrambled to retrieve the sheets of varying sizes, colors, and thicknesses, some bearing pencil scribbles, some with writing in firm dark pen strokes, and a few with what looked like multicolored pencil drawings and diagrams.
The woman with the Chihuahua sniffed and jutted her chin skyward in disgust. Her stiletto heels clicked their disapproval as she gathered up her snarling pet and made an imperious exit toward her red Mercedes convertible. Merlin gathered the sheets and held them against the clipboard with one of his paws while he made his way to the counter to order. Lindley’s initial concern that Merlin might have broken a bone or twisted an ankle was assuaged when she saw him rise unscathed and approach the register, but she was still worried.
Merlin started to pass her table with his eyes trained on the banquette at the far end of the restaurant where he could hide behind a tall gauzy curtain, await his breakfast, and attempt to gather himself like he had gathered his papers. Lindley arrested his progress by calling
to him, and he almost did a repeat performance of the confetti parade of a paper storm that the aggressive houndlet had precipitated at the entryway.
“Oh, hi, Lindley!”
“Hey, Merlin! Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes, just a mishap on entry.”
Lindley’s prospective client had entered and approached the table. Lindley stood to greet her, and Merlin shuffled off with an “Okay, good to see you.” During her meeting with the new client, Lindley glanced Merlin’s way from time to time. She could see that things were not okay. He seemed very disturbed as he studied his notes while he cradled the top of his head in his hands. As Lindley left with her client, she noticed a paper scrap Merlin hadn’t retrieved, picked it up, and put it in her satchel. Final goodbyes with the client ensued, and she forgot to take the piece of paper to Merlin. When she arrived at home, she saw it as she pulled her laptop from her commuter bag. It was folded closed, but she opened it and read: “Event Horizon 8-13 @ 23:33 hrs CDT.” Beneath this line was what looked like latitude and longitude coordinates. Something inside told her she needed to keep this scrap.
• Fifty
At Hephaestus Tool and Machining, Inc., the following day, Angus McQuirkidale scrutinized Merlin’s drawings and notes in his office in front of the big warehouse of a shop. He asked a few questions but didn’t raise any red flags about the project’s feasibility.
“So, four two-foot-by-two-foot sections?”
“Yes,” replied Merlin.
“Each with a quarter-circle conductive metal arc?”
“Yes.”
“And one electromagnetic accelerator per section?”
“Yes,” responded Merlin again, barely able to contain his excitement.
Merlin of the Magnolias Page 21