City Of Phase

by George Willson

  “That was brilliant, by the way,” Perry told Hector. “Perfect plan.”

  “How was I to know?” Hector attempted to justify.

  “You mean besides the fact that it sounded completely insane? Not everything is some big government secret.”

  “You saw what we went through to get here.”

  “There really is no point in going over it,” Blake said. “He was right about Halloway but wrong about Velata. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Might as well be,” Perry said. The stairs from the top floor led from the outside wall to a center corridor of the building where they circled all the way down to the first floor. They had passed the next two floors in silence before Perry asked, “So what are we going to do now?”

  “Sit on the first floor for a moment, dry off, and try to sort it out,” Blake answered. He was not sure what would happen for certain, but he had an idea of what probably would.

  “I am sorry,” Hector said, still cradling his arm.

  “Forget it,” Blake said. To be fair, Hector was only doing what he thought was right and acting on what he was told. He honestly had no way of knowing that he was wrong about it all without pursuing it, and Gerard had kept them all out by Carburast this entire time. It was likely that any time they had come to see Velata, Gerard was in charge, and made sure to fill in any gaps Velata left with whatever propaganda he needed to keep going. Considering that Hector had already taken a bullet for them that he still needed removed, Blake could hardly fault him much.

  They reached the first floor which had a large foyer between doors leading to the residents’ homes. They spotted a bench near the front door that would seat them all and decided to wait there for a moment. Blake figured the solution would present itself fairly soon.

  They had hardly set themselves down when a short man in his forties with a horseshoe head of black salt and pepper hair popped his head of his door dressed in a red bathrobe and slippers.

  “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

  “A dry place to sit,” Perry said, stating the obvious.

  “What do you all think this is?” the man asked. “A place to sit and dry off?”

  “What do you think it is?” Perry asked.

  “Unless you’re the guest of a tenant, then move along.”

  “We were guests of a tenant,” Blake said, “but we were on our way out.”

  “Well, then go wait with your friend,” the man barked. “Like I told the last bunch of you, that bench isn’t for sitting.”

  “Then what is it here for?” Hector asked.

  “Don’t ask me stupid questions,” the man said. “Leave off.” Perry stood and walked over to the man who drew himself up to his full threatening height of at least a foot shorter than Perry.

  “Or what?” Perry asked.

  “I’ll show you what,” the man started, but Blake stood and cut him off.

  “Or we’ll go voluntarily,” Blake assured him. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “That’s all we’ve gotten since we arrived,” Perry said.

  “And I’m not eager to make any more,” Blake said walking to the door. “Good day, sir.”

  Hector stood and followed Blake and Perry, as the man got the last word in behind them, “That’s right. You better run. You all just can’t come around here and push me around. I don’t care who you work for. I’ll show you who’s in charge.”

  They exited the building into the pouring rain outside and hunched their shoulders. They walked close to the side of the building to block what they could, but it did not help much. They reached the alley on the opposite side of the building from where they started and ducked into it to allow the closeness of the buildings to block the rain.

  “This could be my old neighborhood, I swear,” Perry said. “Same neglect. Same people. Same stupid rain.”

  “Bipedal species develop similar means of living since they’re all designed the same way,” Blake said. “Not surprising really.”

  “Some places are so different though,” Perry said. “You tell someone they’re going to an alien world and bring them here, they’ll think you’re lying.”

  “Because some places aren’t different at all,” Blake said. “Including how people act.”

  “That dude with the bench was a jerk,” Perry said.

  “He did like his bench,” Blake agreed. “Of course, it did seem as if we weren’t the first ones he kicked out today.”

  “I can’t believe Velata wouldn’t help us,” Hector lamented, bringing them back to their problem at hand.

  “Oh, let’s see,” Perry said quickly. “We shoved our way into his home, attacked his guard, who also happens to be his friend, and then demanded he help us with the thing he hates the most. I can’t imagine where we went wrong.” Perry’s rant was ineffective as Hector did not look up or respond.

  “He didn’t know,” Blake said.

  “Which one? The good doctor or this guy?” Perry asked, jerking a thumb to Hector who continued to stare at the ground and hold his arm. His face showed that the arm was not getting any better. They really needed to tend to it.

  “We’re no better off than we were,” Perry went on. Blake leaned against the side of the building and crossed his arms.

  “I don’t know,” Blake said trying to brighten the mood a little. “Things just might turn out all right.” Perry wasn’t convinced.

  “Oh, gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face?” Perry asked.

  “I’m not asking you to burst into song,” Blake said catching the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk beside them. “Just wait.”

  “For what?” Perry asked.

  “Gentlemen?” a familiar voice asked beside them. Blake smiled.

  “People are remarkably predictable,” he said and turned to see Doctor Velata dressed in a long raincoat and holding an umbrella standing beside them. As opposed to the angry expression they had seen earlier, this time, he looked very interested in them. Hector, in particular, looked beyond relieved to see Velata and appeared to be on the verge of joyful tears.

  “I didn’t expect you to come after us,” Hector gushed.

  “What happened to your arm, son?” Velata asked, reaching for Hector’s arm, which he willingly offered.

  “We were shot at when I sprung them from Halloway’s base,” Hector said, wincing as Velata looked the wound over.

  “You rescued them?” Velata asked, surprised.

  “Gerard believed in them,” Hector said. “They helped us before, and I hoped they could help us again. I did what I had to do.”

  “Looks worse than it is,” Velata said releasing Hector’s arm back to him and turning to Blake. “Well, he risked his life and took a bullet for you. I hope you’re worth it.”

  “I am sorry again for how we met,” Blake said.

  “Some military men did come by,” Velata said softly, “but I assured them that we would report anyone suspicious. You certainly fit that criteria.”

  “I would agree,” Blake said quite surprised that Hector’s wild theories were turning out to be true. Part of him was concerned that they had just walked out the front door, since they could well have had someone waiting for them. They had dismissed the silly ideas too soon, it seemed.

  “Why should I believe you?” Velata asked Blake in a manner of a skeptic whose mind was being changed.

  “About what?” Blake asked in return.

  “Your temporary immunity,” Velata said firmly emphasizing his complete disbelief in the idea that such a thing existed. “You realize how ridiculous you sound? How can you know this?” It was not only a fair question, but considering what they had learned so far, it was a valid belief as well. If their positions were reversed, Blake would be asking the same things. All he had to offer was the truth.

  “Well, as a point of fact, we turned up on your planet inside Carburast,” Blake said, “and didn’t know we were in danger until one of our party started to phase.” Velata he
ld up his hand and looked around conspiratorially.

  “Come with me,” he said leading them down the street away from his building. “We can’t talk here.”

  “We’re not going back upstairs?” Hector asked.

  “Can you handle a little walk, Hector?” Velata asked. “We can tend to that arm when we get there.” Hector nodded.

  “Where are we going?” Perry asked.

  “My guard is loyal to both me and the country,” Velata explained. “He will report your intrusion out of this loyalty, but out of the same, he will also overlook my exit to speak to you. It allows him to fulfill both sometimes contradictory duties with a clear conscience. For now, please, just follow me.”

  Velata led them down the street for a couple of blocks where he turned to the right down another, wider and busier street where the vehicles passing them gave the distinct whine of electric power. They were of as many designs as the vehicles on Earth ranging from the large cargo trucks to the smaller passenger cars, and to their benefit, none of them seemed the least bit interested in the group of four walking down the sidewalk. Not even anyone on the sidewalk that passed them even showed an interest in Hector’s obvious wound. They had their destinations, and they were bound to reach them.

  After another block, they came upon an entry stairwell for a subway where they descended under the city to a concrete platform crowded with people waiting for the train to come. The more they saw of this world, the more convinced Blake became about its relationship to earth. He knew about the intelligent design of the universe and that different planets seemed to produce the same basic forms of life with the occasional evolutionary differences, but the similarity of these people to Earth along with what he had learned already was absolutely remarkable.

  Velata led them past the swarm of people to a stairway that ascended to a maintenance platform above the subway tunnel tube, but rather than climb up the stairs, he took them to a door underneath them. This door opened to a dingy hall of other doors lit dimly with a line of lights on the ceiling. At a door labeled “Utility Room #3,” he produced a key from his pocket and opened the door inward for them. He waved them all into the darkened room, and without turning the lights on first, he closed and locked the door behind them.

  For a moment, Blake worried that Velata had done little more than lead them into a snare set by Halloway, regardless of how paranoid that sounded, but his fears were allayed when Velata turned on the lights to reveal a large storage room populated only by white file boxes and a large table. Velata hung his coat on a coat rack next to the door, and Blake gratefully did the same with his soaked and dripping wool overcoat. Velata walked to the wall of boxes, pulled one out, and carried it to the table. He removed the lid and rifled through the files inside.

  “What is this place, doctor?” Hector asked, walking to the boxes and looking over the labels. Blake had wandered to the boxes as well and read some of the labels: “Carburast Projects Aa-Ak”, “Phase Shield: Testing”, “Phase Shield: Prototype One”, “The Mirificus Incident”, “Carburast Scientific Community 1524-1530”.

  “Somewhere we prefer to keep you conspiracy theorists away from,” Velata replied very directly eliciting a surprised reaction from Hector.

  “Troublemakers, are they?” Perry jabbed.

  “They can’t handle too much of the truth,” Velata responded with a smile and a sideways glance to Hector. Perry laughed, but Hector scowled. “Lighten up, Hector. Oh, I almost forgot about your arm.”

  “Do you have something we can use to get the bullet out?” Blake asked.

  “Can you do it while I look through this?” Velata asked in return.

  “No problem,” Blake said, and Velata directed him to a medical kit in the corner of the room. Blake picked it up and carried it to the edge of the table opposite where Velata had the file box. He gestured for Hector to give him his arm as he reached for his scanner.

  “You’re going to help us then?” Blake asked while accessing the app to look into Hector’s arm for the bullet again. He opened the medical kit, took out some pre-cut pieces of gauze, placing one on the table, and located a pair of tweezers.

  “I have some serious reservations,” Velata admitted, “but no one has ever claimed what you have with such honesty. Actually, no one has ever claimed immunity to the shield, period. Though I have many faults, I am an excellent judge of character. Never been wrong. I looked into your face as you spoke, disbelieving every word, but as I looked beyond your eyes, I saw that you believed everything you told me. And I was surprised.”

  As they spoke, Blake found the bullet in Hector’s wound, and using his scanner, he dug through the bullet hole for it with Hector wincing the entire time.

  “Sorry,” Blake told him.

  “I’m fine,” Hector lied through clenched teeth. Velata had paused his rifling through the box and looked at Blake.

  “Whoever you are,” Velata continued, “you have wisdom beyond my years, and that is saying something. You are not what you appear to be, I am certain. You claim to be an alien, and my scientific mind believes you to be a lunatic, but my intuition tells me otherwise. There is nothing a good scientist loves than the opportunity to be proven wrong. Especially one like me who has learned much of what his world has to offer. I think you might be able to do just that.”

  Blake gripped the bullet and worked to dislodge it from the bone eliciting some more spirited groans from Hector. Finally, he got it, and held it up for Hector to see.

  “See there?” Blake said. “Not so bad.” Hector looked nauseated at the sight, so Blake put it on the gauze he had placed on the table. He found some antibacterial ointment, covered the wound with it, and then bandaged it. Hector felt of the finished work.

  “You all right, son?” Velata asked.

  “Much better,” Hector nodded and turned to Blake. “Thanks.”

  “Care for a souvenir?” Blake asked, handing the gauze wrapped bullet to Hector. Hector took it and stared at it for a moment, not sure what to do with it. He glanced at his trousers briefly as if he were assessing his pockets before he shrugged, wiped the bullet clean with the gauze, and dropped it into a pocket.

  Velata reached into the file box and pulled out a very thick file.

  “The file on Carburast?” Hector asked.

  “Carburast?” Velata laughed. “Nearly every one of these boxes contains files on Carburast or concerning something we were doing there.” He pointed to the group of boxes directly behind them. “This wall alone contains information about nearly every iteration of the phase generator, and its controls through various generations of testing. But this is all you need.”

  Blake moved the medical kit to the side, and Velata opened the file on the table. Blake, Perry, and Hector stood around the other three sides looking at what Velata spread before them.

  “This is the file containing operational layout for the phase shield control panel,” Velata explained. “You asked me how to turn it off. This is how.”

  Velata removed a thick, folded square of paper from the file and unfolded it to nearly the width of the table. On it was a schematic for a panel and its various wiring diagrams to make it work which Velata positioned so that the panel diagram would be the same orientation that they would see the actual panel in Carburast, and off the edges of the paper, it had labels showing that the page would connect to other papers either within this file or others. Velata referred to one of the levers shown in the diagram on the far left.

  “I can be no more specific than this,” Velata explained. “This should be close to what the final controls look like sitting in the phase shield control center right now. Flip this lever, and the shield comes down. I’m not sure how heavy the resistance will be, but once that lever goes, it’s off.”

  “Simple as that?” Perry asked in disbelief.

  “Hypothetically, this was still the prototype, so there wasn’t any other security installed that I’m aware of,” Velata said.

  “So there is a
possibility that the final design may have changed?” Blake asked, concerned that they might not be able to handle this as quickly as required when they got there.

  “Scientists love to modify something to make it better, so it is entirely possible that they completely changed it between this design and the final,” Velata said. “I don’t know why they would have though. This was supposed to be the final prototype of the panel.”

  “So pull the lever down, and it’s done,” Blake clarified.

  “And if there’s more than one, I suppose,” Velata continued, “pull them all down.”

  “Sounds easy enough then,” Hector said as Blake nodded. “Well, for you two anyway.”

  “So to speak,” Velata said. “The shield prevents you from getting close enough, of course, which I presume is what you people can get past. Your problem, like everyone else’s, will still be getting close enough without phasing. Do you know how long your immunity will last?”

  “No idea,” Blake said. “It isn’t absolute to be sure, but I was thinking about that. Is there a map of the underground sewer system in here somewhere?”

  “Where’s the value in that?” Hector asked.

  “Our underground escape from Point Light exited into the sewers under Carburast,” Blake explained recalling the revelation he had made on their way to the power plant. “Gerard and Dorin acknowledged as much once we reached the wooded area around the city.”

  “You believe the sewers will protect you for a time?” Velata asked skeptically.

  “Seemed to,” Blake said. “Our guides had no problems at the time, and they never knew anyone to disappear in those corridors via that secret exit before.”

  Velata seemed to consider this for a moment before he finally replied, “Give me a moment to look.” He walked to the boxes around the walls of the room and studied the labels one at a time. It was clearly something he never considered before, so he did not know which of the myriad would provide this information. At the same time, he seemed certain it would be here somewhere. While Velata was looking, Blake turned to Perry and Hector.