Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) (30 page)

“At exactly the appointed time, I will press that green button and then put in the code you’ve typed for me here, hit enter and then sit back and watch all hell break loose.”

“If all goes right, yes, you’ll have quite a show. Hundreds of crazed humans going nuts all at the same time! I’m only sorry I’ll miss it.”

“If all goes right, you’ll be through the portal and on your way. But Dughall, the portal – if this works. . .”

“What do you mean if? My calculations are exact. It will work.”

“Yes, well when it works. . . what will happen here? I mean, won’t the portal you create be tremendously unstable and rip the fabric of space time?”

“That’s the idea my dear Macha.”

“But what will happen to it? I mean, will it grow? Or collapse on itself?”

Dughall had expected this question and was a bit surprised that it had taken Macha this long to ask it. She was an annoying flea of a faerie at times, but she was exceedingly bright for her kind. The tiny remnant of humanity still hidden somewhere inside Dughall had some unpleasant feelings about what may happen to Macha when he created the anomaly.

The truth was that there would be a mighty explosion that would destroy the machine the humans had spent so much money and time to create. But since it would occur a mile underground, it likely would have no effect on the folks up top.

But that wouldn’t be the end of the story. And he couldn’t bring himself to tell Macha the truth. If creating the portal took the life of Macha –as well as all the others at CERN – that was of no matter to Dughall. It was a sacrifice that he was willing for them to make.

55. Stuck Inside a Tin Can

“We can’t stay in this tin can forever,” whined Fanny. “We have to do something.”

“How long do you think they can legally hold us here?” asked Jake.

“I don’t think they’re concerned with the legality of holding us,” said Liam.

“Look, we’ve got to come up with a plan to get out of here. These idiots are not going to stop Dughall. We’ve got to do it,” said Fan.

“Do you have any ideas Fan? Because the last idea I had got us into indefinite detention,” Liam said.

“Well, first we gotta’ escape this place. And I’ve been laying here looking up at that vent and thinkin’ I can fit into that. It’s got to go somewhere.”

“And what about the cameras up there watching us Fanny?” asked Jake as he pointed to the security cameras mounted from the ceiling.

Fanny took that moment to thumb her nose directly at the nearest ceiling mounted camera.

“Nice, real nice. We’re in serious trouble here, and you’re being a smart ass! Are you trying to get us sent to prison?”

“Well Jake, you’re the genius. You come up with a way to divert their attention or something while I shimmy my butt through that vent and I can try to find a way to get the two of you out.”

Jake and Fanny’s bickering became like a background buzz to Liam as he concentrated on the potential of Fanny’s plan.

“Hey, you two stop arguing for a minute. The cameras don’t move”

“Yeah, so?” asked Jake.

“So, that means that we can move them. Then, when none of them are focused on the vent, Fanny can get into it without being seen.”

“Brilliant Mr. A,” said Fanny.

“I don’t know about brilliant, but it’s worth a shot.”

Liam boosted Jake up so that he could adjust all the cameras, taking care not to be seen while doing it – no easy task! After about a half an hour, they were ready.

“Ready Fan?” Liam asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. What should I be looking for?”

“A room without anyone in it would be nice,” Jake said.

“I know that nub! I mean, any particular kind of room you can think of?”

“If you can find a supply room or equipment room, that might be a safe bet,” Liam offered.

“Okay, the man with the plan, that’s what I’m talking about. Well, here goes.”

Jake and Liam boosted Fanny up to the vent. She easily opened the vent screen and hoisted herself into the airshaft.

“Yuck! This place is disgusting!”

“Oh please, it can’t be any worse than your room,” said Jake.

“Shut it nerd.”

That was the last thing they heard Fanny say. Jake and Liam sat quietly and listened to Fanny’s body banging the metal airshaft as she shimmied along. After about five minutes, it was once again silent as Fanny disappeared into the bowels of CERN. All they could do was sit and wait for Fanny to return with a key so they could escape their tin can prison.

56. Dughall’s Plan in Action

With the help of Macha’s enchantments, Dughall was able to slip past any watching eyes and into the elevator shaft to ride a mile underground to the very belly of the collider. Dughall had synchronized his watch to the collider’s own clock many times. After this long, he wasn’t going to let a stupid mistake stand between him and the portal.

Patience was not Dughall’s forte, but this task required precision. He could wait a few minutes.

As he stared at his watch, it seemed as though time was moving backwards for him. He waited by the door to the collider corridor; waited for the right moment to down the draught Macha had brewed for him.

He stared so intently at his watch that it almost hypnotized him. Dughall nearly missed the exact moment to drink the potion!

Down it went. Dughall thought maybe Macha made it taste especially awful just to spite him. But he had no time to consider recriminations.

Dughall waited exactly one minute then detonated the explosive he had planted at the door hinges. The small explosion was enough to blast open the time locked steel door. Now was the test of whether Macha’s potion worked or not. At -271°, if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t have time to think about it.

Dughall raced down the interior corridor of the circular collider. He knew that it was about a quarter mile to the five-story high mega magnet that he was looking for. He had timed himself and knew that if he ran as fast as he could, he could make it there in about two minutes.

He didn’t need to search for the magnet. Dughall knew as soon as he saw it that his plan had worked. He had reached his destination, the portal had opened, and there was no one to stop him.

Though he had only about one, maybe two minutes to spare, he couldn’t help staring at the tremendous sight. The giant superconducting magnet was itself enough to inspire awe. Though built by human hands, it was a masterpiece of technology, containing a beauty in itself. Miles of wires and circuits and electronics bound together in a colorful symmetry.

But topping it by far was the extraordinary beauty of the portal that lay before him. There, in the center of the giant magnet, a small hole, no larger than a small child, dwarfed by the size of the magnet itself. And pouring from this hole was a silvery mist. Ethereal and majestic. He also heard a faint hissing sound, like electricity flowing through power lines built by humans to conduct electricity from one place to another.

In the few seconds that he had stared at the portal it grew twice its size. He knew that he had less than a minute before it became unstable and was gone forever. It was now or never.

If anyone else had been in the corridor with Dughall at that moment, they would have seen something truly rare – and a bit disturbing. Dughall smiled.

57. Escape from a Tin Can

Fanny had been gone only about half an hour when Jake and Liam heard what sounded like a large clap of thunder.

“What was that?” asked Jake.

Liam quickly walked the five steps to their tiny barred window to look outside. Not a cloud in the sky.

“There’s no weather out there. It must have been an explosion,” he said.

They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Both knew that what they had heard was an explosion and they knew who had caused it.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Jake.

“If you’re thinking that that clump nugget is trying his best to blow this place to smithereens, yes, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“And are you also thinking that we can’t sit here one more minute?”

“Yep, I’m right with you. We may have a chance now. With the explosion, they’re probably distracted. Old Dughall might have given us the diversion we’ve been waiting for.”

“Right. But we’re locked in here.”

At just that moment, they heard a scratching and thumping noise from overhead.

“You’re not locked in anymore nub,” said Fanny as she jumped down from the air vent.

“Fan, it’s good to see you and all, but you were supposed to unlock us from the outside!”

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot Jakester, I’ve got the keys. We can unlock it from the inside. I didn’t want to be seen coming in that way.”

All three ran to the door. Fanny’s fingers were shaking as she tried to work the keys to find the right one to unlock the door.

“Hurry Fan,” said Jake.

“I’m going as fast as I can man. There’s like 20 keys on this thing! Hey, did you guys hear that explosion?”

“Yes,” answered Liam.

“You guessing it’s that butthead Dughall?” Fanny asked.

“That’s our guess.”

“Yeah, so hurry Fanny. We gotta’ get to the control room of this thing and make sure they’re shutting down everything before the whole place blows,” Jake implored.

Fanny found the right key and the door swung open into a deserted hallway. They ran down the corridor and found the door to the outside. They had been holed up in that tiny room plus a bath for days. All three took a moment to breathe in the fresh air and feel the warm sun on their skin as they stepped into the outdoors. But they knew time was not a luxury for them at that moment.

“This way,” said Fanny. “When I was taking my little trip through the air shaft I think I found out where to go.”

They ran as fast as they could, following Fanny closely. They weren’t the only ones running. People were coming out of every building at the facility, running to exactly the spot Fanny led them.

“By the looks of it, we’re heading in the right direction,” Liam said.

They followed the crowds and, like salmon swimming upstream together, soon found themselves in the thick of command central. It would follow that after an explosion in their facility, that’s when CERN would take up terrorist high alert. Instead, the explosion and the ensuing alarms and shut down protocols made such a huge distraction, the trio was able to breeze right into the main operations room.

There in the middle of it was one poor young guy getting his rear chewed out by a whole gang of scientists. Security guards surrounded his chair as gray-hairs fired question after question at him. He looked like he might vomit on their shoes any minute.

The three fought their way through the crowd to get a closer look.

“You entered these codes, even though you knew that they were likely to cause a problem?”

“Yes, Sir. . . I mean Mr. Dughall. . . well, he ordered it Sir. And I figured he knew what he was doing as he’s the physicist here, not me.”

“You figured? Well you figured wrong, young man. Now we have a class A mess down there. The whole of magnet number two is blown to bits and who knows what else is destroyed.”

“Yeah, it will takes weeks for it to warm up enough for anyone to go down and have a look,” offered another scientist.

“What do you want us to do with this fella?’” asked one of the security guards.

“Probably ought to take him to a holding room until the police can question him thoroughly about this,” said the man who appeared to be the head of the operation.

“Wait,” Liam shouted.

All at once, the grey-hairs turned to see who was interceding in their business.

“Wait,” he said again as he approached the small crowd around the poor chap in the chair. “We have to stop him,” Liam said.

“Stop who? And who is this guy? Hey, you don’t have credentials to be here,” said the head scientist.

“Look, we came here to warn you about Dughall, but your security guards there, they wouldn’t listen to us. We’ve been here. . .how long have we been here?”

Jake looked at his watch. “Two days.”

“Yeah, like he said, we came here two days ago to warn you about this guy and your fellas there, they locked us up in one of your ‘hospitality suites.’”

The head guy swiftly turned his eyes on the security guards and glared even harder at them than he had glared at the poor man in the chair.

“You knew of a possible breach in our security two days ago, and you did nothing!” he shouted.

“Well their story Sir, if you heard it, well we thought they were either kooks or terrorists themselves trying to make a diversion.”

The head guy turned to me. “Who are you?”

“My name is Liam Adams. I'm a theoretical physicist from the University of Chicago. It’s a long story how I got this information about Mr. Dughall, but you have to believe me, that small explosion, that was just the start. We have to get down there to stop him, now.”

“Mr. Adams, I don’t know how you know something that our so-called intelligence here didn’t pick up on, but if you’re a physicist, then you must know that we can’t just pop down there. The temperatures will kill anyone who tries to enter the corridor. And Mr. Dughall, if he tried to go down there, he’d die instantly. So I don’t think we have to worry about him any longer.”

“Well, on that you’d be wrong,” chimed in Fanny.

“Who is this girl and why is she here?” asked the scientist.

“She’s with me. Look, I know this is hard to believe – trust me, I didn’t believe any of this at first either. But this guy Dughall, he’s not exactly. . . human.”

There was a silence in the room so thick you could cut it. Then the small group started with furtive looks at one another. The security guards said, ‘See, we told you he's a kook’, with just their eyes.

“He was human, like a thousand years ago, but now. . . well he’s been brought back from the near dead so I guess you’d call him a mummy. . .” said Jake.

“Or a zombie,” offered Fanny.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this. I don’t need any more distractions. Security, take Mr. Schaeffer here and these. . . American guests back to holding for questioning by the police.”