The Fire and the Anvil

by Michael Galloway

  “She should be here in a couple hours,” John said. “Why? Who was that?” His voice cracked.

  “That, John, was Julius. Julius Minton.”

  “What was that nonsense about finding the flag?” Captain said in a mocking voice.

  “It’s a Stratego reference,” Dr. Ferganut said. “Remember what I said about him obsessively keeping track of games?”

  “Yeah, but he said you’re holding back on inventions,” John broke in. “What’s he referring to? Is he after something of yours?”

  Dr. Ferganut did not answer.

  “Did you show us everything in the lab?”

  “Well, no, not everything. I do have a downstairs lab and a testing area. I’m not sure what he’s referring to, really,” Dr. Ferganut looked away and returned to the kitchen and fixed himself a cup of coffee.

  John did not buy that last statement. He hoped in time Dr. Ferganut would open up about whatever invention was in his downstairs lab, even if he could not take pictures or write about it. He moved toward the door that led to the basement. He froze when he saw it was protected by a keypad for a lock.

  Dr. Ferganut reentered the room and stared on at the spiders Captain dropped onto the coffee table. On all the devices the legs were missing. He smirked as he picked one up. “Nice. How many of these did you find?”

  “A half dozen,” Captain said.

  John took a deep breath, walked over to the end table by the recliner, and pulled out the Stratego game again from the bottom shelf. He lifted the top off the box and pulled out the four-part folding game board. He placed the board onto the coffee table. He flipped over the plastic tray full of pieces and set up the red pieces on his end of the board. He turned to the others and said, “So who’s up for a game? In the name of research of course.”

  Chapter Six

  After two rounds of Stratego with Captain, John turned his attention back to interviewing Dr. Ferganut. This time all three of them lined up on the couch with Dr. Ferganut in the middle. Dr. Ferganut opened his laptop computer and set it onto the coffee table before them in between John’s and Captain’s laptop computers. Dr. Ferganut brought up years worth of storm data that he collected using different versions of his sensor pellets. He also brought up his notes showing his hypothesis for a general equation that could reasonably predict when a particular storm was going to change direction or become tornadic. Across the title of his notes read the phrase, “The Ferganut Hypothesis”.

  John copied Dr. Ferganut’s equation and barely kept his eagerness in check. “Could you send me some of those graphs? Before we go, I’ll give you everything I’ve collected over the years.” He desperately wanted to plug in the data from last year’s Wick tornado to see if it worked in the equation. He could sense the professor was on the verge of a breakthrough, but he wondered if it would take a supercomputer to crunch through all the data in a reasonable amount of time.

  “The problem, as I see it, is that I need more data from the earlier stages of a storm,” Dr. Ferganut said. “Before the wall cloud forms. What would be really great is if I could get big sets of data from a storm that didn’t go on to produce a wall cloud or a tornado. Then I could build a more general hypothesis,” Dr. Ferganut said as he paged through his notes. He reached into a drawer underneath the coffee table and withdrew a clear plastic box full of Ferganut sensors. These sensors were pea-sized and he held one in the palm of his hand for John to examine. “I meant to show you this one earlier. It’s the latest update. I don’t think I can make them any smaller. But the next time you are out in the field, would you mind unloading some of these? It’d give us a bigger data set.”

  John took the pellet and rolled it between his fingertips. It was made of hard, black, shiny plastic and as heavy as a real pea. By his estimation, he could at least double or triple the number of sensors that he could load onto a single rocket. He dropped the sensor back into the plastic box and took the box from Dr. Ferganut.

  “What I would really like to do is deploy a net of sensors,” Dr. Ferganut continued.

  “You mean like a cargo net?” John said as he took notes.

  “No, I mean like drop hundreds or thousands of them into a thundercloud. But I’m afraid that would take a lot of rockets or balloons.”

  “Maybe a drone would work better,” Captain said as he looked up from the laptop screen.

  “Or several drones. Can you keep the cost down on the individual sensors?” John said.

  “It’s tough. And because they are so small I have to manufacture them differently. It’s painstaking work to try and do it under a magnifying glass. My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. If you got any ideas on how to automate the process, I’m all ears,” Dr. Ferganut replied.

  John checked the time on his cell phone. Wondering where Madeline was, he dialed her number. She answered on the second ring.

  “How far away are you?” He asked.

  “I’m just leaving Valentine now. I should be down there in a half hour. How’s it going on your end?” She said in a hopeful voice.

  “Just be careful on the last stretch of highway. Your dad got a call earlier this morning from Dr. Minton.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not. It went on for a couple of minutes. He talked about finishing a game with your dad. And finding a flag, which I think is a reference to something your dad is working on in his lab. And we also found robotic spiders on the front lawn. Like the ones we found at the carnival last year.”

  “The ones Dr. Amalynth used? I thought he was locked up.”

  “Somebody deployed them around the yard here while we were out looking at the storm yesterday. We found dozens of carbon nanotube lines running all over the yard this morning. Your dad sent out his mechanical centipedes to cut all the lines.”

  “How do you know it was Dr. Minton?” Her tone was inquisitive and less critical than it had been in the past when it came to this subject.

  “Remember the guy that rode up in the parking lot of my church last year? His voice matched.”

  Madeline remained silent for half a minute before speaking again. “I still want to see your notes. All of them.”

  “So do you still think Dr. Minton is a phantom?”

  “John, that call could have been staged.”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know. One of his colleagues.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a long time to drag out a charade like this?” John said as he peered over at Dr. Ferganut.

  Dr. Ferganut let out a sigh and collapsed the window on his laptop screen with his notes.

  Madeline continued. “I don’t want to go in circles with you. Is he in the same room with you?”

  “He’s right next to me. Want to say hi?”

  “No. I’m almost there.”

  “How’s the weather anyway?”

  “There are storms building up behind me. I think I’ll make it before they get here. Why?”

  “Keep me posted. We’ll talk more when you get here.” John ended the call and stared on at the Stratego board again. He suppressed the urge to play out a few more scenarios to get ideas.

  He was conflicted because so far the interview with Madeline’s father was going well and he saw no signs of instability. At the same time he wanted to get to the bottom of Dr. Minton’s threats. Instead of assuming he had just been part of a charade on Dr. Ferganut’s part, he began to question Madeline’s assumptions and those of his own. It unnerved him to think that perhaps Madeline was the unstable one and that this past year of getting to know her could unravel in the span of an afternoon.

  He hit a few keys on his own laptop and switched to a radar image of the region. As expected a narrow line of thunderstorms developed in southern South Dakota and was inching its way toward Valentine and north-central Nebraska. He switched to a page that displayed atmospheric soundings for the area. Despite the unremarkable dynamics there was an uneasy feeling in his stomach that he could not
shake as if this meager line of storms was ready to explode into something violent.

  “See something?” Dr. Ferganut said as he leaned over to look at the screen.

  “Just watching this line of storms dropping south.”

  Dr. Ferganut stood up and put his hands on his hips. “How far away is she?”

  “She just left Valentine.”

  Dr. Ferganut excused himself from the room and returned a minute later with a handful of wireflies. He opened the front door and lofted each one into the air one by one. He then sat back down on the couch and typed in some instructions on his laptop.

  “Think he’s going to pull something?” John said.

  Dr. Ferganut’s gaze was intense. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Chapter Seven

  After her call with John, Madeline continued south on Highway 83 out of Valentine. The traffic in front of her began to slow and although there were orange road construction signs up ahead she hoped it would not delay her arrival much longer. The white Subaru Forrester in front of her slowed down to less than fifteen miles per hour and within minutes it came to a complete stop. Up ahead she could see light gray smoke drifting skyward and before long the smoke cloud grew in breadth and height. It soon appeared in multiple locations on the hills around her.

  Just then a shimmering swarm of bugs blocked out the rear window of her Volkswagen Beetle like a black cloth. The swarm swept over her car, dipped in front of her windshield, and ascended into the smoke. Startled, she put both hands on the steering wheel and inhaled deep through her nose.

  In her rearview mirror the leading edge of the storms crept closer. Although lightning flickered high above the slate-gray shelf cloud on the front side, within minutes jagged bright white streaks of lightning struck at the ground a mile behind her. The lightning strikes arced away from the shelf cloud like illuminated tentacles and there was an unnatural tempo to them as if they were being controlled by a manmade metronome.

  In that moment, she recalled Dr. Amalynth’s rocket-triggered lightning strikes. She thought twice about calling John but hoped to make it to her father’s house before the smoke or the storm overtook her. Up ahead, the smoke darkened and filled the spaces in between the hills like a smothering blanket. She clicked off the air conditioner in her car and rolled down her driver-side window a few inches.

  When the smoke choked out the view of the highway in front of her she panicked. As she reached for her cell phone, a motorcycle roared to life up ahead on the highway. She looked up to see a figure clad in black leather and wearing a pair of amber-colored goggles, black gloves, and a pale blue bandana over his mouth.

  The rider slowed his motorcycle to a stop on the left-hand side of the highway near Madeline’s driver side door. He slipped down his bandana to reveal a thin white beard and mustache. He revved his engine and motioned for her to roll down her window further.

  Madeline felt an intense urge to turn her car around and stomp on the accelerator. In that instant she knew it was the same man that confronted her and John in the parking lot of St. Andrew’s Church in Sioux Falls the prior year. Despite her best arguments, she now knew Dr. Minton was a phantom no more. Unsure of her escape options she rolled down the window only halfway and put one hand on the transmission shift lever.

  “Well, well, look what got caught in the net,” Dr. Minton said as he gave her a half-cocked smile with his thin lips. “Quite the butterfly aren’t you? Do you remember me dear?”More lightning strikes pummeled the ground less than a half mile behind her. The thunder made her car windows buzz and the air became a nauseating mix of ozone, smoke, and car exhaust.

  “What do you want from me?” Madeline said. Her voice shook with anger and fear.

  Dr. Minton leaned back on his seat and chuckled. “Oh, dear, hasn’t your father told you anything? Perhaps your father should listen better. Or you should listen better to your father.”

  Just then a pair of wireflies fluttered by her car and hovered on either side of Dr. Minton. He swatted at them with angry fists but they darted about just out of his reach. He waited for them to approach again and then snapped one of them up his gloved hand. He crushed the wirefly and threw the metal fragments into the ditch in disgust.

  “I’m not afraid of you. He’ll come for me, I know it,” Madeline said.

  Dr. Minton laughed again. “Oh, dear, you really have grown into quite the feisty one. His little bugs won’t save you from what’s to come. Tell your father this is a game I intend to finish.” A wall of flames erupted ahead on the highway. The flames towered fifty feet into the air. Drivers and passengers fled their vehicles and ran toward the ditches in an effort to find cover.

  “What? If you think you can scare me with your hammer of judgment like Dr. Amalynth, you got another thing coming.” She did not believe half of what she was saying and was petrified he would call her bluff. Despite the wirefly scouts that hovered about, she knew in her heart her father would not come and rescue her. Her hands shook as she dropped the cell phone onto the floor of her car.

  He leaned forward and glared at her with an intensity that horrified her. “A hammer of judgment? Well, then, I’m the anvil.”

  In the distance she could hear the approach of emergency vehicles. In her rearview mirror a police cruiser crept up the left side of the highway at low speed. Its red-and-blue flashing lights pulsated and lit up the surrounding smoke to the point it made her eyes ache. Dr. Minton flipped up his bandana and turned around. He revved his engine and drove headlong into the roiling smoke in front of them.

  She cranked up her driver side window and swallowed hard. Her eyes burned from the smoke and rubbing them did not help. She picked her up cell phone again and despite fumbling with it several times, she was finally able to dial John’s number. As the call connected another wirefly descended out of the smoke and landed on the hood of her vehicle.

  Chapter Eight

  “John, can you come and get me?” Madeline said in a panicked voice.

  “Where are you on the highway? What mile marker?” John said.

  “What’s a mile marker? What are you talking about? I can’t see anything. Just hurry.”

  John frantically pointed at Dr. Ferganut’s laptop screen. On the screen was a hazy black-and-white picture of Madeline’s car from the viewpoint of the hood. He made a gesture with his index finger to have the wirefly circle around the area. First, he wanted to verify the wirefly landed on the right car and then he needed to pinpoint her location on a map.

  Dr. Ferganut typed a few commands and the wirefly responded. The wirefly lifted off the hood of the car and flew up to the windshield. Through the windshield it became evident it was Madeline behind the wheel. The wirefly circled the car before ascending one hundred feet into the air to assess the situation.

  A flash filled the laptop screen and temporarily blinded the wirefly’s camera. When it came back online the resolution was not as good as it was before.

  “I wonder what that was?” Dr. Ferganut said.

  “Hurry. The lightning’s hitting really close to my car,” Madeline said.

  “What is that in front of you?” John said as the wirefly brought a view of a brush fire into focus. From this angle the fire burned in a straight line between the hills and perpendicular to the highway. The wirefly spun around to face the oncoming shelf cloud. Along the leading edge, a handful of tiny, black, box-shaped objects hovered in midair and were strung out like beads on a necklace.

  “The lightning…” Madeline said while gasping for breath. “It’s not normal. It’s coming down in huge arcs. Every thirty seconds or…” The line suddenly went dead.

  John stood up from the couch and announced, “We gotta go. She might have gotten hit.”

  A moment later his cell phone rang. It was Madeline again.

  “I think I have to run. It’s like it’s trying to hit the cars on the highway,” Madeline said.

  “No. Don’t run,” John counseled.

 
“I have to. God please help me to find shelter,” she said in a frantic whisper.

  John threw his hands in the air and glared at the ceiling. “Madeline, there aren’t any trees or caves or houses or places to take cover. Stay in your car.”

  On the other end of the line Madeline coughed. She mumbled something about the strong smell of smoke and her eyes burning.

  Dr. Ferganut rose up from the couch and hobbled into the kitchen. He returned to the living room with another cardboard box and motioned for John and Captain to follow. “Let’s head out. I got a reading on her location.”

  “What’s in the box?” Captain said as he reached the front door. “More wireflies? Centipedes?”

  “Bees,” Dr. Ferganut said in a calm and confident voice.

  “Bees? How are they going to help?” John said.

  “There’s something funny going on with those lightning strikes,” Dr. Ferganut said. “On the camera. There were little black boxes floating in the sky. I’m going to check them out and if necessary take them out.”

  “I thought you said the bees were only good for scouting.”

  “Individually, sure. But in a swarm…” Dr. Ferganut’s voice trailed off. He flashed a fleeting smile.

  To John, the thought of sending a swarm of robotic bees out only to be destroyed appalled him. He knew there had to be a better way to rescue Madeline. “But what if Dr. Minton’s only trying to drain your resources?”

  Halfway to John’s truck, Dr. Ferganut stopped in his tracks. “That’s my daughter out there, John. I can make more bees but there’s only one of her.”

  Madeline spoke up on the phone line. “John, I’m making a run for it.”

  “No, don’t. We’re on our way,” John replied. He felt like his heart was going to burst inside his chest and so he clenched his right fist.

  On the other end of the line all he could hear now was the sound of feet running through tall grass. A minute later she spoke up again. “Okay, you’re right, there’s nowhere to go. I’m heading back to the car.” Her comment was followed by another tremendous crash.