Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) (30 page)

Chapter 34

Lucas waited in his office whilst Charlie was outside
speaking with
Emmy
on his mobile. He was still
feeling disturbed by his earlier interview with Sammy and hoped the scientists
had found something he could use. The photographs taken from the scene of Bradley’s
death were on his desk and to pass the time he picked them up and thumbed
through the pile. Sammy was caught red handed, yet Lucas still felt that the
Aboriginal was not responsible. Nor did he believe
Emmy’s
theory about David
Armareth
.

The first picture he looked at was a full body shot of the
deceased. Bradley was barely recognisable with his face completely covered in
orange dirt. The sand filled the dead soldier’s mouth, nostrils and was caked
around his eyes. Lucas turned to the second photograph. This was another full
body shot, but taken from a wider angle. Something was missing from the
picture, but he could not place exactly what, so he turned to the next.

Then it hit him; if Sammy was burying the body, where was
the shovel?

He picked up the statement that he had taken from Charlie.
The scientist told him that Sammy’s fingers were covered in dirt when they
found him. With no shovel to be found, this implied that he attempted to bury
the corpse with his bare hands. Then there was the gun. Charlie told him that
Lucy had taken it from the corpse. Again, it made no sense to bury the gun
along with the body when he could have taken it and used it.

Lucas realised that Sammy was not burying the body at all.
He was digging it up.

The phone on his desk rang.

‘Hello,’ he said, instinctively picking it up on the first
ring.

‘Lucas,
it’s
Dr Bailey.’

‘Hi, doc.
Is everything okay; you
sound a little anxious?’

‘It got worse – a lot worse.’

‘You’ve had visions?’

‘If only it were that simple, Lucas. The problem is worse
than we originally feared. It also seems that the longer the symptoms take to
show, the quicker they deteriorate when they do come. You cannot have much time
left. I have recommended all of my patients to sedate themselves. It may pass,
but if not, we will just have to try and wait it out until help arrives. I have
put a call through to the hospital in Alice, but there is no telling when they
can get to us.’

‘I’ve yet to experience anything. I am with Dr Nguyen, from
the observatory, who seems to be immune. His blood is clear.’

‘In that case, Charlie may be able to help people, but you
have to try and stay away from any potential harm. The best thing is to take a
sedative and try to sleep.’

‘You know I cannot do that.’

‘Lucas, please, you do not realise what you are letting
yourself in for.’

‘Sorry, doc, but I
gotta
go.’

He replaced the receiver, as Charlie came back into the room
looking extremely agitated.

‘Charlie, what’s wrong?’

‘I just spoke to
Emmy
. She thinks
she has found the cause of the radiation and we may even be able to reverse
it.’

‘Well, that’s good news, right? Why do I sense that you do
not seem too optimistic?’

‘It’s Mike.
Emmy
thinks he was
behind the professor’s death. She’s coming here, but as long as the captain is
in control of the observatory, we cannot get near the equipment needed to
reverse the radiation.’

‘In that case, I will go there now.’

‘Are you going to arrest him?’

‘I don’t know what I am going to do. I just know there is
still something about this case that does not add up and if
Emmy
thinks Mike is involved, that could be the missing link.’

He picked up his gun belt and quickly checked that his
weapon was primed and ready for use. In ten years on the force, he had not once
fired upon a human being. He had a bad feeling that this run was soon to be
broken.

***

Lucy had no intention of becoming a prisoner for a second
time. As soon as Mike entered the room she attempted to push past him, but he
was ready for her and grasped her by her forearm. It did not appear that the
soldier was squeezing her tightly, but she felt an intense pain run up her arm
as if it was on fire.

‘You’re hurting me!’ she shrieked, but the soldier refused
to loosen his grip.

Emmy
could not stand back and do
nothing. She stepped forward and slapped Mike hard across his face. This got
his attention, but it did not make him angry. He released Lucy and she quickly
backed away from him, holding her still burning wrist in her other hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I do not know what came over me. All
I want is to make sure that you girls are going to be okay.’

His appearance had been worsening since Lucy arrived, but
she could now see that the soldier was actually wasting away. His skin was
pallid and hung loosely over the sharp angles of the skeletal frame beneath.
This deteriorating condition was also noticed by
Emmy
.

‘It’s not your place to worry about us,’ the scientist said.
‘You would do better to take a look at yourself. You’re ill, Mike; you need
help. If you let us leave here, we can get it for you.’

‘There is nothing wrong with me. I have not felt this strong
in over twenty years. There is nothing that I cannot achieve; I need help from
nobody.’

‘No, you do need help. I know what you have done – to
Bradley, to my grandfather, but right now I do not care. All I want is to
reverse the mess I have helped make of this town. You have to let us go.’

‘I’m sorry, but I cannot allow that.’

Lucy felt her muscles contract with fear. She looked to
Emmy
, hoping her new friend had some sort of a plan to get
away. The scientist subtly turned her gaze to something at the foot of the bed.

It was Lucy’s rucksack, which contained the urn. She was
unsure what she was supposed to do. She toyed with the idea of using the bag as
a weapon. If she swung it with a wide enough arc, it could deliver a reasonable
blow. That was not it, though.

She remembered something that
Emmy
had told her earlier about her father being bound to her. When she thought of
him in the field; he was there and when she did the same in the lab; again he
came to her. She quickly squatted down and reached her hand into the bag in
order to grab the urn.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked Mike, moving forward
to restrain her again.

‘Back off,’ growled
Emmy
. ‘She
only wants the urn.’

‘And what do you propose to do with that?’ asked Mike.

Lucy was unsure herself. She looked to
Emmy
for support.

‘Nothing,’ said the scientist. ‘We’re just taking it with
us. Go on Lucy, you can go. He cannot stop you.’

Lucy nervously made a move for the door and Mike let out a
cruel, arrogant burst of laughter.

‘I admire your spirit, but enough is enough.’

With speed that completely belied his physical condition the
soldier darted forward towards the girl, only to be repelled by an invisible
force, which sent him flying through the air where he careened into the far
wall of the room with a thump.

‘Now run!’ screamed
Emmy
.

The scientist grabbed hold of Lucy’s free hand and pulled
her along the corridor. When they got outside they jumped into
Emmy’s
car and drove away from the observatory at speed.
Halfway to the town they saw Lucas’ truck coming the opposite way. The two
vehicles immediately pulled up next to each other.

‘Where is he?’ Lucas asked.

‘In my room,’ replied
Emmy
. ‘He
just took a blow, so if you are quick you may catch him off guard. Be careful;
he murdered Pops.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Certain – I have all of the evidence on file. Be careful
though, I think he is infected by this madness my grandfather predicted.’

Lucas did not mention to her that the captain’s blood sample
had been clear.

‘I’ll take care of him,’ he said. ‘You two should get back
to town as soon as possible. Do not wait for me. Just get in your car and go.’

They both nodded their understanding and then got back into
their car.

‘What now?’ asked
Lucy.

‘Lucas will take care of that creep, but there is still the
problem of the radiation affecting the townsfolk to deal with. Your father
seemed to know something about it as he said that he could see a growing mist
covering the land. Unfortunately, until we regain access to my lab there is no
way to contact him.’

‘So where does that leave us?’

‘It leaves us having to turn to the one man I never imagined
I would ever ask for help from. We need to speak to David
Armareth
.
He was there last night and I will get him to reveal himself again. He no
longer fully belongs to this world and like your
father,
he may just be able to see what we cannot.’

Chapter 35

Lucas withdrew his gun as he entered the observatory. He
had never seen the place so deserted. There were no sounds to be heard except
the sound of
his own
breath. The place had an air of
abandonment. The only door along the main corridor to be open was
Emmy’s
.

He knew the layout of the room, although not in a familiar
way, but he was at least confident of having a clear line of sight once he made
his move. His approach was cautious, with his back pressed tightly against the
wall to eliminate the possibility of a shadow forming and giving away his
position. Then once he was in range, he quickly side stepped into the doorway,
turning and crouching low as he did so in order to make as small a target of
himself as he could.

The room was empty.

He stepped fully inside and cautiously made his way to the
far side whilst keeping his eyes focused in the direction from which he had
come. He was all too aware that he now risked being ambushed in the same way he
planned to ambush Mike. There were no signs of a disturbance in the room and
the only abnormality he could see was a small puddle of blood in one corner.
The blood was not the crimson red that pours forth from a fresh wound, but
black and rotten. The fact it was mingled with saliva suggested it had been
coughed up and the wound that bore it was internal. It was now obvious the
captain was in danger of losing more than just his mind.

Lucas left the bedroom and slowly made his way along the
corridor, systematically checking each door as he did so. The final door he
came to was the one to the main laboratory. This room used to house the old
telescope, but he knew the professor had removed it some years earlier to adapt
it for another use.

With such a large and unfamiliar space facing him, he
decided against using his previous tactic of a surprise attack. Instead, when
he was close enough to push the door ajar, he called inside, hoping to persuade
the soldier to simply give himself up.

‘Mike, this is Lucas. I know you’re in there. You and I need
to talk. There needn’t be any trouble.’

A silence lasting twenty to thirty seconds followed and then
Lucas received his answer from within. He heard the sound of metal scraping
against the floor and then saw the butt of a handgun as it slid against the
crack in the door.

‘How do I know this isn’t a trick?’ he asked. ‘I’m not fool
enough to think a soldier would possess only one weapon.’

‘You always were too cautious,’ replied Mike, ‘too afraid to
take a chance. That’s why you never left this town. It’s why you never will. I
assure you that my hands are empty.’

To prove the point, a continuous rhythm of staccato
handclaps echoed out from the laboratory. Retaining a steady grip on his
firearm, Lucas cautiously entered the room. Mike was unarmed as he had
promised, standing to the side of what looked to the policeman like a cross
between some sort of hospital scanner and a transporter array from Star Trek.
The soldier seemed alert, but his body looked frail and weak as if he had just
emerged from a long internment in a prisoner of war camp. It did not make
sense. The man’s blood was clean and as far as Lucas knew, the radiation did
not bring about such radical physical changes anyway.

‘You know nothing about me,’ said Lucas, fixing his sights
on the soldier’s chest.

‘Do not be so sure,’ replied Mike. ‘I know more about you
than you could possibly imagine. I know that you secretly long to leave this
town, but lack the guts to actually do it. I know that you have designs on that
pretty little bimbo from out of town. I also know you will not pull that trigger.’

‘Do not be so sure. If I have to; I will kill you.’

The soldier laughed.

‘I’m afraid it is much too late for that. I died a long time
ago. As for your Captain Peters; I already beat you to that. He was the first that
I killed. And you know what; I did not feel one iota of remorse. You see, I’m
better than he was. I’m better than you too. That is why I will have no regrets
about taking your future as well.’

Lucas no longer felt so sure about what he had to do. His thoughts
began to feel heavy as if his synapses were smeared with treacle. He glanced at
his hand holding the gun and was unable to focus on the weapon. In fact, he
struggled to focus on anything. His entire field of vision became blurred, like
two identical images placed on top of one another, but not quite matching up.
He was running out of time.

‘Who are you?’

The soldier laughed.

‘I think you already know, Lucas.’

There was a delay of about a second between the movement of
the soldier’s mouth and the sound of the words being heard. It was like a badly
dubbed movie playing out in real life. Lucas realised that what he saw was a
vision of the future, albeit just seconds ahead, but what he heard was played
out in real time. His mind and body were no longer in synch with each other.

‘Professor Fox?’ asked Lucas, hardly able to believe that he
had posed the question.

More silent moving of the lips.

‘Very good,’ replied the voice after a delay. ‘Your talents
really are wasted on a rural town like this.’

‘Why? How? I mean, you are dead – I saw the body with my own
eyes.’

The soldier laughed again.

‘Now, now, Lucas, you must know by now not to trust your
eyes. Tell me, have the hallucinations started yet?’

‘The radiation – Charlie told me that you guys created it here.
Is this why – so that you could steal the body of a younger man?’

‘You think this was planned from the beginning?
Unfortunately, not even I could have dreamed up such a scheme. The position I
now find myself in is owed entirely
to
good fortune.
It was only when you brought me that remarkable reptile that I realised the
full potential of the research we had been conducting. It was then that I
discovered the radiation. It embarrasses me that I had not anticipated it. I
mean, any piece of electronic equipment emits radiation in some form, be it
microwave ovens or cell phones. Of course, the effects of our baby are much
more interesting.’

‘Interesting? – People are dying. You will destroy
everything; the people, the animals, this town – everything.’

‘Not everything. The animals will be fine. You have
witnessed for yourself how they have benefitted. You are correct in thinking
that the people will not survive though. Animals are incapable of reason and
therefore immune to madness. Humans, on the other hand, will be unable to
rationalise and cognate their experience of this altered consciousness. Only a
genius could retain control under these circumstances or ironically, a complete
simpleton whose brain was free of clutter. Since you are neither, you know as well
as I that you are running out of time. Coming to the epicentre of the cause
will only speed up your demise.’

The professor was right. Lucas had to act quickly and he had
only one option. He prepared to squeeze the trigger when his ears were filled
with a piercing scream causing him to fall to his knees. He shut his eyes,
focusing all of his attention on the pain until he could feel it no more.

When he opened his eyes the room had changed dramatically.
It was filled with soldiers, except it was not. The translucent negative of the
future had jumped ahead considerably. Lucas could not spot the former body of
Mike Peters amongst the ghostly images of the future. He was experiencing two
timelines at once and his mind could not take it. His inner thoughts returned
to the advice of the doctor to take a sedative and try to sleep through it. He
did not require a sedative. He simply passed out.

***

It was the first time
Emmy
had
been back to the town since the night of the fire. She felt a twang of guilt as
she drove past the Sly Fox. The upstairs window was still boarded up, but aside
from that there were no obvious signs of the damage on this side of the
building.

Main Street was empty, which was unusual at this time of
day, even for a town as small as Jackson’s Hill. There were few signs at all
that the town was even populated. She sensed something was not right. There was
an atmosphere of impending disaster in the air and she could begin to see why
Lucas was so worried. Charlie met her and Lucy as they pulled up outside of the
station.

‘
Emmy
, thank God you are okay,’
said her colleague. ‘Did you see Lucas?’

‘God had nothing to do with it,’ she replied. ‘As for Lucas,
he is up there now - arresting Mike.’

‘What happened?’

‘There is no time to explain. This town really is in danger
and there may only be one man that can help us make sense of it.’

‘
Who’s
tha
...’
his voice trailed off as he guessed what she was thinking.

‘You know that we have to do this. As much as it pains me to
admit it; David
Armareth
may be our only hope.’

‘How do we even know that we can talk to him? Lucas
interviewed him the first thing this morning and all he got was Sammy.’

‘If he is in there, he will reveal himself to me; you can
trust me on that.’

For her protection and that of her friends she took out a
set of handcuffs from Lucas’ office and used them to bind the Aboriginal’s
hands before beginning the interrogation. Once she was convinced he could do
them no harm, she jumped straight in with her first question.

‘Why did you run?’

It was a straightforward question, yet it would have
elicited confusion from Sammy. Sammy, however, was not the one to answer.

‘I thought the answer to that would be obvious. I am in a
prison cell, after all.’

His voice did not contain a trace of the Aboriginal’s usual
dialect. The tone was unmistakeably that of the former town mechanic.

‘I know who killed my grandfather. What I want to know is
why you ran. If you had stayed, it would have been easier for you to explain
yourself. He was already dead when you found him.’

‘No, he wasn’t. That was why he called me that night and
asked me to come. He wanted me to witness his end. He wanted an alibi and a
fall guy.’

‘What do you mean? He was dead when you found him - he had
to have been. Mike killed him.’

The prisoner slowly shook his head.

‘The soldier is as innocent as I am. Jackson killed himself.
He set me up. I could do nothing to stop him, just like I could do nothing to
save the soldier last night. I can only hope that he crossed over safely.’

‘Crossed over?’

Charlie shook
Emmy’s
shoulder, but
she ignored him, too rapt was she in the words of a dead man.

‘I think you more than anybody know what I mean. I can see
the memories of your Aboriginal friend. He tried to warn you of the danger you
were heading toward, but you ignored him. I never believed any of that
Aboriginal superstition, but it seems he really does have a connection with his
ancestors. Of course, I think you may have had a little to do with that.’

‘Is he..?’

‘Don’t worry - he’s fine. We have...an understanding. I
think he is the reason that I have not ended up like the captain.’

‘Mike - I thought you said he was dead?’

‘Sammy’s main concern is in the danger of bringing nature
out of balance. The way he sees it is that each body is bound to its
corresponding spirit. If I occupied Sammy’s body in place of his own, it would
cause disharmony, but because his spirit remains where it should be, his
physical being is unharmed.’

‘That does not explain how you got in there.’

‘You’re the scientist, not me. One minute I felt a burning
sensation in my back and the next that I was aware I was seeing the world
through another man’s eyes. All I remember in between was a strange mist. It
seemed kind of green.’

She thought back to her last otherworldly encounter with
Lucy’s father. The story seemed consistent with what she had heard before.

‘Tell me more about Mike. What you have said does not make
any sense. He is alive; we just left him not an hour ago.’

‘If there is one thing you should have learned by now it is
that you should know better than to trust your eyes. Tell me; what did Jackson
say about me?’

It was the first time she had heard anyone call her
grandfather by his first name. He had always been known as Professor Fox or
simply; sir. The familiarity seemed audacious and disrespectful.

‘He never talked about you. I know what you did though. You
took his legs away from him. The one thing I could never figure out was why he
let you get away with it. You should have been in a cell long before this one.’

For the first time, emotion began to show through the late
mechanic’s disparate visage. He was smiling.

‘The great Jackson Fox; they said there was nothing that he
could not do. I used to look up to him; everybody did. We all thought that one
day he would cure cancer or at least bring a few gold medals home to Australia.
Sadly, he did neither. His greatest achievement was in giving the world the
most beautiful woman it had ever known. I am talking, of course, about your
mother.’

She felt her stomach tighten, but she knew she had to hear
this.

‘I fell in love with Felicity the moment I saw her. What
amazed me more than anything, was that she felt the same way as I did.’

‘That’s a lie!’ shouted
Emmy
.

‘It’s okay,’ said Charlie, placing his hands on her
shoulders. ‘He wants to make you angry, but you’re stronger than that.’

‘You could not have me more wrong. Jackson really did a
thorough job in poisoning your minds against me. The truth is that he only had
himself to blame for the accident. He could not stand it that your mother
wanted to be with me. There was just no way that his selfish pride could allow
for her to marry what he regarded as beneath her.’