Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Giles now had two things to ponder: the magnetic anomaly, and Sandra.

  * * * *

  A week later, Giles reluctantly admitted that Sandra may have been right.

  Exhausted, he disconnected his legs and fell into bed. The occupants of the efficiency apartment on the floor above were playing loud music, even though the clock showed 0215 hours.

  He'd be dead again for work tomorrow.

  For seven straight nights he'd searched a circular area two miles in diameter, centered on the university's campus. Other than Earth's magnetic field and a few stray sources—such as those gigantic speakers in the room above—he'd found the magnetic equivalent of golden silence.

  Suddenly his SQUIB alarm went off.

  Giles leaped off the bed. In addition to the surprising strength of his wiry arms, Giles Bailey had a flexible spine, a concomitant of the congenital condition that had caused his legless birth, tiny ribcage, and the failure of his skull bones to knit properly. With his arms he dragged himself across the floor and clambered up the workbench with the skill of an acrobat.

  “Ah-ha!” he shouted, glancing at the indicator.

  He turned on an old CRT television set. The screen flickered. “Pretty strong interference,” he muttered. This probably wasn't a false alarm, even though his apartment was near a utility substation and was one of the worst places to make such measurements.

  Still, he had to locate the source. But that shouldn't be such a problem—it was strong enough to deviate a compass needle, and with the periodic use of a strong electromagnet he could find the source easily enough. It didn't matter if it was mobile, as long as it was within a certain range; his electromagnet, when turned on, would be attracted to and follow the other magnet like a baby goose follows its mother. Giles attached his legs and gathered his equipment.

  The night was dark and quiet when he went outside. A quick check revealed the general direction he needed to go—toward campus—so he hopped onto his scooter and rested his prosthetic limbs on hooks attached to the frame. He'd customized the scooter so that all the controls were on the handlebars, and a retractable stand could slide out quickly to keep him from tipping over when he had to stop for a red light. The motor purred quietly—he'd tinkered with the engine as well as adjusting the controls—and Giles flipped a switch, which retracted the stand, and then he sped off without waking the neighborhood. The heart of the campus lay a quarter mile away.

  The search proved easy. It ended at the physics building. Lights shone through a couple of third-floor windows.

  Giles pulled out his wireless and consulted the university's web directory. On the third floor of the physics building he found a center devoted to high-intensity magnetic field research.

  * * * *

  Sandra laughed. “I told you so!”

  Giles sank back into his chair. He wanted to close his eyes but he was afraid he'd fall asleep.

  On his comm screen, Sandra's smiling face kept talking. “Admit it—you were hoping for some sort of fascinating natural phenomenon. Like Karl Jansky found when he aimed his antenna toward the sky and discovered astronomical radio waves.”

  Giles sat up. “How do you know about Jansky?”

  Sandra paused. “You think I'm naive about electromagnetic phenomena?”

  “No. It's just that it's pretty off-topic for you.”

  “I know quite a bit more than you think. Such as the probable source of gargantuan magnetic fields.”

  “I said you were right. There's no need to rub it in.”

  “Just making sure you understand. No more all-nighters, okay? I should warn you that Handen noticed. You don't want to start nodding off on the job.”

  “That's funny,” said Giles. His on-the-job performance hadn't slipped in the least—which was why he was so tired.

  “There's nothing funny about it. I'll tell Handen about the physics experiment and he'll raise hell to get it stopped. They're not supposed to work with fields like that without adequate shielding.”

  “You'd think they'd know that.”

  “Of course they know that. Why else would they work so late at night? Hoping to get away with it. But you caught them.”

  “I caught them,” repeated Giles.

  Something bothered him about that.

  Sandra's smile returned. “Before you get back to work, how about coming over to my lab? My TMS offer still stands. What about it, Giles? Want to be free of your inhibitions, if only for a few minutes?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The young postdoc's smile vanished. “I wish I could get you to see how special you are.”

  “Goodbye, Sandra. Comm—”

  Before Giles could finish shutting down his comm, Sandra rushed on. “You have a special ability, and you're a special person. Take Handen's scholarship offer. Stop rebelling against—”

  “Off.” The screen blanked.

  Giles stared at the dark monitor.

  Too easy, too pat. That's the best description of his search last night.

  Suddenly a text message scrolled across his screen. “That was rude. Don't be so paranoid. -Sandra P.”

  I'd like to get you in that TMS machine, thought Giles, and turn off your frontal lobes, Sandra. Wonder what you'd have to say.

  * * * *

  He didn't forget about the magnetic disturbances, but he couldn't afford to conduct any more vigilant night-long surveillance either. So Giles rigged a detector at a good location, remote from most known magnetic sources, about a mile from his apartment. He set up a transmitter on the site to communicate with a receiver he kept with him at all times. After getting a false signal on several occasions because of an overlap with an FAA channel, he tweaked the system's frequency toward the quietest band.

  Then the rumors started.

  U.S.S. was always full of rumors and Giles Bailey had never paid them much attention. Rumors of research breakthroughs and big-money grants proliferated, and students talked incessantly about which professor gave the easiest tests. But now people started looking at Giles with expressions he found unfamiliar. Not pity, but contempt.

  One day a message showed up at his comm. The university's psychological services had made an appointment for Giles Bailey to receive a “standard evaluation.”

  Giles shook his head in disbelief. He knew people thought of him as a friendless introvert and a technogeek. When did that start translating into a potentially dangerous terrorist?

  Late that afternoon Sandra came into the technician room. Giles was the only tech present.

  “Told you so again,” she said.

  He looked up. “Told me what?”

  Sandra frowned. “Overwork. The strain has begun to tell. People are starting to talk.”

  “They want me to see a psychiatrist.”

  “I know. Giles, it was Professor Handen who asked the psych center to make the appointment.” She put her arm around his thin shoulders. “But don't get scared. It's just a formality.”

  “Why should I be scared? I'm not crazy.”

  Sandra gave him a long look. “Other people in your situation would be worried.”

  Giles shrugged. “I'm not other people, as you've often commented.”

  “There are rumors about you swirling around campus.”

  “I've noticed. It's quite possible to insert stories in the university's news feeds if you have the skill. As you well know.”

  “Have you heard the rumor about the physics department?”

  Giles shook his head.

  “They've found a high-temperature superconductor,” said Sandra.

  “When will they publish their results?”

  “The paper may be published soon. Don't you realize what that means?”

  “No. I know what you're saying, all right, but I don't believe it.”

  Sandra sighed. “You're exasperating. How can I get through to you?”

  “I can ask the same question about you,” said Giles, staring at her. “You're a scientist, and a good
one, too. Better than Handen, in my opinion. Aren't you curious about this magnetic phenomenon? Isn't that what drives a scientist? Curiosity?”

  “Sure, I'm curious. But only about things—”

  Giles finished her sentence. “Only about things you can write a grant for?”

  “No. That's not what I was going to say.”

  “I want to learn about this magnetic disturbance, now more than ever. Because I—”

  “Because what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I think I will mind,” said Sandra. “Do you hate us that much?”

  “What? Who said anything about hate? I'm curious, that's all. I think someone around here is hiding something important. And they've got no right to do it. That includes you, Sandra.”

  In a soft tone Sandra said, “You still haven't forgiven your parents for keeping a secret.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Giles, it has everything to do with it. Maybe you don't want to think about these things, but you should. Keeping that secret allowed them to have you—”

  “Secrets are almost always bad. And, for your information, my parents didn't just keep a secret. They not only ignored the gene screen, they forged my mother's ultrasound scans. That's against the law.”

  “Sometimes breaking the law isn't a bad thing,” said Sandra. “If a law is morally indefensible, it should be broken. Your parents thought you were worth the price they had to pay. I hate that inane healthcare cap too, and I think it should be repealed. It's deprived the world of too many gifted people.”

  Giles turned his frail back on Sandra and concentrated on a set of schematic diagrams.

  * * * *

  He paid little heed to the rumor mill, even though he was evidently very much a hot topic of gossip. Giles overheard snippets here and there, some of which claimed he had become violently jealous of certain electromagnetic breakthroughs soon to be announced by the physics department. Supposedly Giles was bitter about the physicists turning down his employment application. Nobody bothered to mention that the physics department had no openings when Giles had applied to the university.

  The appointment with the psychologist proceeded as scheduled. Giles was much more tense than he'd expected to be. But the psychologist, a middle-aged man with a soft voice and a loud suit, seemed friendly. He gave Giles no feedback during the interview, and asked mostly innocuous questions.

  A week passed, and though the rumors hadn't dissipated, Giles heard nothing from the university counseling service. No news was good news.

  One night at 0300 hours, the remote alarm buzzed him. It took Giles several seconds to awaken. He almost shut off the power, but finally decided to drag himself out of bed and check it out. Wearily he attached his legs and rode the scooter into the night, hunting the source.

  This time the trail led away from the university. A half mile from the edge of campus the signal maxed.

  Giles parked the scooter on the shoulder of the road and shined his flashlight. The source was intermittent but strong, and located somewhere in a wooded field roughly ten acres in area. He didn't know who owned the property. There didn't seem to be any houses or structures among the trees, although a three-foot-high fence surrounded the lot.

  Was this too easy again? Another phony? “You're not going to fool me, guys,” said Giles, breaking the silence of the night. But maybe they were hoping to tire him out.

  He decided to investigate anyway. Giles got off the scooter and whirred to the fence. He didn't want to risk damaging his prosthetic limbs while attempting to jump or climb over, so he disconnected his legs and crawled underneath, taking care not to get dust or dew into the sockets. He'd spent a lot of time building his prosthetics and always observed the appropriate precautions.

  Several different paths snaked through the woods. Giles followed one for a while, his whirring the only sound to be heard except for the occasional rustling of a mouse and the whoooo of an owl. The trail dead-ended, so he turned around and took another path. At the end of this path his flashlight illuminated a wooden shack, about six feet tall, which had the appearance of a child's tree house except it was over the roots of a giant elm instead of in its branches.

  A deep voice broke the silence. “Giles Bailey.”

  Giles flicked the beam of the flashlight around, but didn't see anyone.

  The voice sounded again. “Walk over to the building.”

  “I don't walk,” said Giles petulantly. “I whir. Who are you? Where are you?”

  “Do what I say, smartass.”

  “Since you ask so nicely...” Giles slowly whirred to the shack. Suddenly a door opened.

  “Crawl in,” commanded the voice.

  Giles hesitated.

  “You've been looking for something, haven't you? It's in there, so what're you waiting for?”

  Another voice came from somewhere. This voice was feminine—and one that Giles recognized. “It's all right, Giles. Go in.”

  He crawled through the opening. The door slammed shut and the floor smoothly dropped beneath him.

  An elevator, he realized.

  Some distance beneath the surface the elevator stopped and another door opened. Giles got out and turned his flashlight off, since there was plenty of light, although it seemed to come from the walls themselves.

  The square room, about twenty feet on each side, held a single object. Mounted on top of wiry scaffolding was a sphere of about five feet in diameter.

  Giles wondered if it was another fake. Was someone at the university investigating something they didn't want publicized? And was this another, more elaborate false trail?

  Running his hand along the surface of the object, Giles felt a coolness and smooth perfection he had never sensed before. He looked underneath. Part of the sphere was hollow, and the inside glowed with the same eerie light as the room walls. He slipped between scaffold poles and gazed upward. The interior appeared forbiddingly small. Briefly he poked his head inside.

  The sphere hummed and both of Giles's legs kicked wildly. He fell to the ground, thrashing and flailing, until a few seconds later all was quiet.

  May have damaged the prosthetic circuits, thought Giles, grimacing.

  If the damage was severe, the precision limbs would take him weeks to repair. The connections between his nerve endings and the servos required electronics you couldn't find just anywhere—not enough demand for them.

  Curiosity overrode the angst about his prosthetics. Maybe this wasn't a fake. Giles disconnected the legs and set them aside; he'd have to test them, but he could do that later. Looking up into the sphere, he saw a beveled edge around the rim. It'd make a good handhold.

  “Can I go inside?” he asked aloud. He might just be able to fit, even though it'd be an incredibly tight squeeze.

  No answer. “Well, if you want to fry me, go ahead. I'm just a cripple, I don't care.” Athletically he pulled his torso into the sphere. There were no handles, but a few vertical rows of rivet-like bumps provided enough of a grip for his agile fingers. To fit inside he had to curl up in a ball, but his spine and minuscule ribcage allowed it.

  Something clanged shut.

  “Huh?” Giles had not seen a door or latch below, but now he was trapped inside a suddenly enclosed container.

  The humming reappeared, growing loud. Giles got warm, as if his insides had begun to cook.

  He panicked. They were really going to kill him!

  He had no room to swing his arms, but with fists he beat against the walls, feeling an unaccustomed surge of emotion—an overwhelming mixture of anger and despair.

  But the warmth didn't grow any stronger, although he began to sweat profusely.

  Soon he calmed down, becoming distracted by the glow coming from the sides of the container. The glow began to display some sort of projection map, and Giles, puzzled, studied it. He barely had room to even crane his neck, and he had to blink the sweat out of his eyes, but he could get at least a blurry view of most of
the interior. Concentrating, it took him about ten minutes to guess what he was looking at, although he couldn't be sure—no opportunity to test his hypothesis.

  Then he fell out of the bottom of the sphere. Getting out of the sphere was much easier than getting in, thanks to gravity and the lubrication of sweat that covered his body.

  Sandra's voice cried out, “Are you all right?”

  She stood over him in the underground room, along with several people whom Giles had never seen before. As they gathered around, Professor Handen entered the room through a sliver of a hatch in one corner. But everyone ignored him and stared at Giles.

  “What happened?” asked Giles, groggy.

  “Don't you know?” Sandra said, gasping. “My god, I don't believe it. I mean, I saw it, but I don't believe it!”

  “Believe what?” Giles tried to stand, then remembered his legs were lying on the floor. He picked each one up and inspected it.

  “I think one of the circuits in the left leg opened,” said a voice.

  Giles nodded. He had no means of conducting a rigorous performance check, but he could tell there was going to be some malfunction. He connected both legs and stood up, though wobbly. “They'll do for now,” he said. He looked at Sandra. “Got a rise out of me this time, didn't you?”

  Everyone chuckled. Giles stared, mystified. “I said something funny?”

  * * * *

  The hatchway led to a small lab. A dozen equipment racks lined the walls, though the racks were all empty. After drying himself with a towel, Giles followed Sandra as she entered the lab and sat down at one of the barren consoles. The rest of the people disappeared, leaving Giles and Sandra alone.

  “I recognize some of these racks,” said Giles, glancing around. “Bet a few have ‘University Property’ stickers on them.”

  “Want some coffee?” asked Sandra.

  “No. I want some answers.”

  “I hope you'll like what you hear,” said Sandra, giving him a sympathetic look. “Otherwise there'll be trouble.”

  “They'll fry me good next time?”

  “No. But your career will be ruined. The process has already started, or haven't you noticed? Giles, try to understand for once—”