Legacy of a Mad Scientist (37 page)

The manager noticed their quandary and dutifully came
over, inquiring as to their state of being.

Stanwood asked if Mr. MacPhail was still on the
grounds.

The manager replied in the affirmative, a reflected
look of fear and panic giving way to one of calm serenity, which he
clearly favored. He briskly led the stupefied Stanwood and Von Kalt
to another section of the clubhouse and introduced them to a
completely different cranky old miser. The two men actually looked
a bit alike, but Von Kalt suspected that had to do more with their
shared age than genetic similarity.

“You’re Angus MacPhail?” Stanwood asked.

“Have been all my life,” he replied.

“Did you schedule a tee time this morning, sir?”

“I did. Damnedest thing though, came down with a bad
case of indigestion last night after dinner.”

“That’s cause you were up all night jawing with that
fellow from the old country.” A woman interjected.

“I’d like to ask you sir, do you know Doctor
Fox?”

“Well, of course I do. It was him who kept me up till
the wee hours playing cards and swapping fish stories.

“He even mentioned that you fellows would be joining
him for a swing of the irons and asked if I’d like to join him. I
was already feeling a mighty bit uncomfortable, so I begged off.
Even gave him my slot. I think he was right behind me, so it was a
small matter.”

“Doctor Andrew Fox?” Stanwood asked.

“Alexander,” MacPhail replied. ”Andrew is his son.
The boy lives out your way, if I’m not mistaken. Real shame.”

“Yes. I’ve heard, a right shame what happened.”

“A million people, in one afternoon. That’s gotta be
the most heinous atrocity I think I’ve ever heard of.”

“The latest estimates put it at one point three.”

“What a shame. It wasn’t just the Fox boy, that’s for
certain. The culture is to blame. Most folks feel the Republic has
taken a dark turn.”

“Is that so?”

“It is son. Listen here; ever since you folks
introduced those Gates of Citizenship, well, Europe thinks you have
gone a little bit crazy. With the labor farms and the executions,
and all that nonsense.” MacPhail scowled and turned away from the
younger man.

Stanwood rolled his eyes. “At least we still believe
in private enterprise. Europe’s slow submersion into socialism and
bureaucratic control is nauseating, and I work for the
government.”

“I’ve heard all that sonny. I think it’s time for you
and your manservant to push on.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner, sir. Excuse
me.”

Stanwood and Von Kalt promptly returned to the cigar
parlor.

“That wasn’t Andrew’s father,” Stanwood said.
“Alexander Fox died ten years ago.”

“You’re sure?” Von Kalt asked. “He looked like he
might be.”

“I was at the funeral,” Stanwood answered.

“So, if it wasn’t his father… Uncle? Brother?
What?”

The chest remained on the silver cart, right where
they’d left it.

With a growl and a curse, Stanwood flipped the latch
and threw open the lid. There were three items inside the chest. A
key tied to a red ribbon. A small gift-wrapped box and a card.

Stanwood reached in and lifted out the card. He read
the front aloud. “
What’s the Secret of the Midway?
”

He opened it. “
Preparation
.”

Von Kalt laughed, “What?”

Stanwood lifted out the key, on its red loop. A card
on the ribbon read USS Midway: Forward Hold.

“And finally,” Stanwood lifted out the small
gift-wrapped tin. He peeled the paper back to reveal the image of
smoked herring. “Manx Kippers: red herring, hysterical.” Stanwood
dropped it back into the chest.

“I wouldn’t eat those, if I were you.” Von Kalt
smiled.

At sunset, the government cruiser arrived at the
Republic’s maritime museum in the Virginia sky. Dozens of ancient
warships had been repurposed as tourist attractions, outfitted with
anti-gravity drives and anchored in celestial airspace over the
east coast shipyards that spawned them. Von Kalt suspected that,
sooner or later, these relics would be ground up and recast into a
terillium alloy.

The Midway stood between the Enterprise and the
Constellation. Von Kalt thought the ships looked small, relative to
some of the urban sprawl of the new terillium age. The east coast
of the republic had long ago become the equivalent of a patchwork
quilt, draped over what was once, long, long ago, pristine
shoreline.

On the eastern seaboard, entire stretches of the
actual earth had not seen sunlight in over a hundred years. It was
a well-known fact that you could walk from Virginia Beach to
Boston, without ever touching the ground, if one were so inclined.
Von Kalt thought it inevitable that sooner or later, every last bit
of metal would be incorporated into some sort of gravity-fighting
metallic-mixture.

Some likened mankind’s discovery of anti-gravity
technology to the hatching of butterflies. But butterflies are
still flies and flies still come from worms. The more cynical
members of society lost no time connecting man’s continued
pollution of the skyline with the metaphor of pestilence.

The rotting derelicts had been consigned to a slow
death, fit for nothing more than the fleecing of those poor saps
with excess revenue and deficits of intellect. Von Kalt sighed.

The deputy director had arranged for the management
personal to meet them, and they were escorted to the locked doors
of the forward hold, in a section of the ship that was off-limits
to the regular tours.

Stanwood asked the ship’s crew to leave before he
approached the hatch. There were two locks on the heavy metal
hatch. Stanwood swiped his hand across the digital unit’s sensor,
activating it.

“Secret of the Midway?” the display blinked.

Stanwood typed “Preparation” into the terminal.

The digital lock’s indicators switched from red to
green.

Stanwood fished the key from his pocket and slipped
it into the second lock. He turned it. Nothing happened.

He reached out and took a hold of the large wheel at
the center of the door, the heavy-duty knob that, once turned,
would open the storage area beyond. He turned it slowly and
gently.

The door hissed as the pressure equalized, then the
seal popped and the metal hatch swung outward, toward them.

Stanwood pulled it fully open, triggered the overhead
lights and stepped into the hold. Von Kalt followed. The space was
filled with office-style storage boxes.

Stanwood pulled the cover from one and fished out a
random file. “The aggregate cost of over fishing in Alaska, circa
2245 - 2279.”

Von Kalt opened a box. “Diabetes and your Pet. Oh,
this looks good, The Continuing Fight against Copyright
Infringement Behind The Great Wall. Smells like more Manx
kippers.”

“What the hell?” Stanwood said. “Why would he go to
all the trouble?”

A loud ping ripped through the hold and a hissing
sound filled the empty space that had earlier been only
silence.

“What was that?” Von Kalt asked.

Two more Pings and the hiss rose to a dull roar. The
room at the very front of the ship was shaped like a triangle. The
point, directly opposite them was at the prow of the ship, but well
above what was once the waterline. The room had been designed for
the feeding of supplies, deeper into hard to reach forward sections
and the outward swinging doors of had been pinned over a hundred
years ago. If it hadn’t already been dark out, a seam at the center
of the far wall would have become visible, where boxes didn’t
obscure it.

“Oh shit.” Stanwood turned and scrambled for the door
behind them.

Von Kalt also realized what was happening, but they
were both too late.

The hatch leading to that section had been closed and
locked for who-knows-how-long. The ship had been an ocean-going
vessel and designed keeping water out. It had not designed to be
pressurized from the inside, for service at higher elevations. The
aircraft carrier had been retrofitted somewhat, to accommodate
civilian tourists, but Stanwood’s foray had not been properly
prepared for.

Neither man had the opportunity to appreciate the
irony of the password, before the Virginia sky corrected the
pressure imbalance and ripped open the hold, venting its contents
into the purple evening sky.

Earlier on Sunday, July 26, 2308

Geoff set himself up on the couch in front of the TV.
From the look on his face Ash could tell he wanted to talk.

Finished with the Mossberg, she sat next to her
brother on the couch.

"What do you want to watch?" she asked.

His answer came quietly, almost hollow, "I don't want
to watch anything." His eyes were vacantly glued to the dark
screen.

"I saw what happened to dad," Geoff said. "You
thought I didn't, but I did. And I heard mom scream before we got
very far from the house.”

"You heard her?”

"Didn't you?" Geoff asked.

“I don't think so, no. I was running," Ash said.

"You were pulling me really hard.”

"Sorry," Ashley said.

"It's okay.” He looked her in the eye. “Who was that
woman?”

“Captain Snow?”

“She looks like her and mom could be sisters.”

“They sure do,” Ashley said.

"Do you think what Major Ross said is true? Mr.
Dunkirk killed those cops?” Geoff asked.

"Bobby sure thought so.”

"And he said it was because of the Micronix thing?
How did he know about it?” Geoff asked.

“He was there,” Ashley said. She pulled the rectangle
out of her pocket and held it up.

"Did you know what dad could do with this?" she
asked, setting it on the table in front of them.

Geoff picked it up. For a moment, he closed his
eyes.

Then he opened them again and spoke. "He could use it
to talk with the computers, directly, with his brain. He invented
it. That's why they're after him. That's why they killed him.”

Ashley took a breath. "Why didn't he just give it to
them?”

"He tried to. That's how you got it. A lot of people
really didn't want it. They said it killed people.

“Sometimes, the first time they touched it, they
died. Then, also, there was a big explosion out in the desert.

"Remember what happened when it fell. Remember how
everything was frozen?" Geoff asked. "Did you think it would kill
me?”

Ashley shook her head. "It's just a chunk of metal.
Until you hit the button and pop out the knife, you can't hurt
yourself with it.”

"What do you see when you pick it up?" Geoff
asked.

"What do you mean?" Ashley said. "I just see it. In
my hand.”

"I don't know what it is, but it's not a knife. Who
told you that?”

Ashley didn't answer.

"You don't see anything? When you hold it?" Geoff
asked.

"Hit the button," Ash said. "It's a knife.”

"It's a power button, but it doesn't turn it on.
Contact turns it on.”

"Hit the button," Ashley said again.

Geoff pressed down on the button. Nothing happened.
He pressed again. Still nothing. "It doesn't do anything.”

"You're not pressing hard enough," Ash said, holding
out her hand.

Geoff gave her the metal rectangle. Ashley pressed
the button, hard, with her thumb, and with a loud crack, the black
metal blade snapped out.

"Damn," Geoff said, with mock amusement. "It's
probably not even sharp." He reached for the blade.

Ashley let him take it from her.

Geoff ran the knife over the back of his forearm and
watched as the blade shaved all the short hair from his arm.
"Whoa!! Wow!" Geoff said.

"Be careful with it," Ashley said.

"Okay, okay. But that's nothing. Nothing at all,
compared to what it can do. Listen, did you know all the cameras
have a dormant network IO?" Geoff set the knife on the table.

"Io?" Ashley asked. She picked up the dark blade and
hit the button again, retracting the edge.

"In, out. And okay, what about this..." Geoff closed
his eyes and paused for a moment.

The video stream on the table across from the couch
clicked on. The monitor changed streams until arriving on one of
Geoff's favorite cartoons. A moment later the lights in the room
clicked off. Then, in truly immature fashion, the lights clicked on
and off over and over again.

"Okay, I get it," Ash said.

Geoff smiled and opened his eyes.

"Could you turn the lights back on now?" Ash
asked.

Laughing, Geoff got up and crossed the room,
switching on the lights.

"Why walk, why not just think it?" Ash asked.

"Ha! I don't know. It's easy to get out, but takes a
while to get back inside the systems," Geoff said.

Ashley stared at her little brother.

"What?" he asked.

"What do you see?”

"It's like having a computer in your head." Geoff
answered.

"Can you see it right now?" Ashley asked, holding the
device.

"No." Geoff looked at the interface in his sister's
hand.

"Do you have to be holding it?" Ashley asked.

"I don't know. Let's see." Geoff closed his eyes. The
lights went off.

"So, no." Ashley said.

In the dark, Geoff opened his eyes. "You have to
concentrate."

Ashley set it back on the table. "You can have
it.”

"I want to try something." Geoff closed his eyes. A
moment later he said, "Okay, I'm in. I want you to take it way over
there." Geoff pointed to the furthest part of the basement.

"Okay," Ashley answered. She picked up the device and
carried it across the basement. She didn't rush, she walked kind of
slowly, prepared to stop whenever Geoff might object, but he
didn't.

When she set the device down, Geoffrey screamed and
jumped up. Ashley ran back over to him, the device forgotten.