by Paul Edwards
Chapter Four
I met Frank and Jack that night in the courtyard of the headquarters building, I saw the assembled spell paraphernalia on one of the large bench's in the courtyard.
"Ok let's get this over with," I looked at my watch.
Frank held a foot long piece of palm tree trunk in both hands, Jack picked up an electric saw and spent a few minutes cutting two inch and one half slices off of it. He took the second slice and then used a small axe to cut a cube from the center.
"There it is a cube two fingers by two fingers," Jack held up the cube.
"Hippopotamus," I said, nothing happened, "Ok we're done let's do the next one," I said impatiently.
"Wait... wait... maybe you have to say it in ancient Egyptian," Frank said.
"Whatever... ," I said hippopotamus again, this time in ancient Egyptian.
A bright white pinprick of light appeared about a foot above the wooden cube, I heard Frank and Jack gasp in surprise.
I furrowed my brows and looked at them with suspicion.
"Is this is a trick? You guys are trying to fool me..." I said with a hint of anger.
"No... god no... this is impossible... my god..." Jack mumbled.
They both stared at the light dumbfounded.
"This is ridiculous, it's a laser beam or something," I stretched my hand out and waved it through the light.
"Oww!" I yelled, I pulled my hand back making sure they both saw the little red burn mark on my palm.
Jack and Frank took pictures of the light with a camera, it light flickered out after about three minutes."
"Damn... we should have brought a prism... got a spectrum," Frank said.
"How do you say Hippo in Egyptian again?" Jack asked.
I said it aloud slowly, so he could get the pronunciation, the light reappeared, not as bright this time and it disappeared in a little over thirty seconds.
Jack said Hippopotamus one more time, a dim light flashed for a few seconds, after that the cube no longer worked.
"This has to be a trick... it has to be," I said with a desperate tone.
"Let's try the next spell," Jack said.
Frank held a coffee cup in his hand, he put a pinch of sand and natron in it, then he shook it.
"How do you say Osiris is great in ancient Egyptian," he asked me.
I said the command words slowly so the two of them could get the proper pronunciation.
The cup filled with water, so much so it flowed over the rim causing Frank to drop it in surprise. I stepped back and then slumped dramatically onto the bench, an expression of disbelief on my face.
"This can't be... it can't be," I said softly.
Frank licked the side of his hand, "it's water alright," he said.
"Third time's a charm," Jack said as he prepared the final spell, he put a small grain of copper and lead beside each other on a small circle of heavy paper, he then used a lit candle to drip hot wax onto them. He clapped his hands together.
I saw a little flash of orange light, I looked at the circlet of paper and saw a small burn mark, there was a tiny speck of gold in the center of it.
Jack lifted up the paper and studied the tiny fleck, "it looks like gold, gonna have to put it through a spectrometer to be sure."
"Well... so much for being rich we'd have to do this hundreds of times just to get an ounce of gold," Frank said.
"I guess that makes sense... otherwise they woulda made tons of it in antiquity... it would still be here," I said hesitantly.
"Well this is a strange turn of events," Jack said.
"I still don't believe it," I said defiantly, "this has to be lab tested, there's dozen's of brilliant people here... one of them probably just created an elaborate joke."
"I'll start the testing tomorrow, they've given us a lab," Frank said.
I had rented a room at one of the nearby hotels next to the beach, I returned to it after I had finished the spell testing with Jack and Frank.
I took off my uncomfortable clothing and laid down naked on the large bed. I was quite happy with the way my plan was progressing.
I looked out the rooms large window and saw only one or two pinpricks of light in the dark sky, I missed the night skies of the City of Magic, there I could see thousands of stars.
I felt like flying.
I had constructed a magic suit a few months ago that negated the use of a flying craft, I had grown quite fond of soaring over the desert at night under the stars.
What could it hurt? I thought to myself, the suit was made of a dark black material so it would be nearly invisible, and the moon had set, so once I got above the city lights I would not be able to be seen.
I used my bracelet to make it appear, I pulled it on then zipped it up and tightened the various buckles. I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked vaguely like a cat burglar from the movies.
I slid open the glass door to the rooms balcony and cautiously poked my head out to see if anyone was watching, there was no one.
I had brought a towel from the bathroom, I tied it onto the sliding doors exterior handle, I would need this to find my room again. I pulled my goggles over my eyes and then took off straight up.
I was soon about two thousand feet up, the city stretched below me for miles, I spread my arms out like a bird and then flew towards the mountains to the east of the city. My suit could fly incredibly fast but I feared hitting something unseen so I generally kept it below fifty miles an hour.
I was soon flying over the mountains, I saw a cars headlights moving down the road below me. I flew lower about fifty feet above the car and then used it for navigation.
It took only another twenty minutes before I was past the mountains and into the desert beyond. I saw what looked like a large airport to my left it was next to a huge salt flat.
I approached it cautiously, wary of aircraft. I saw two small planes take off from one of the runways, they had long orangy blue flames coming from their engines.
I realized almost immediately that this was some sort of military base, these planes were one of the many horrific weapons that had been developed in this era. I shuddered for a second, wondering what people capable of building weapons like these would do with sorcery.
The two planes roared off towards the north, I contemplated following them but thought better of it, it was getting late. I turned west, increased my altitude and flew back to the city.
It was easy to find my hotel, the odd shape of the Rand building made it a wonderful landmark.
I was soon back in my bed sleeping soundly.
When I walked down the hall to my office the next morning, I noticed Frank through the open doors of an elevator. He was removing a key from one of the elevators panels.
Frank put the key in his pocket as he entered the hall.
"The elevators ignition key?" I asked Frank as I walked by.
"Huh... um... no... um... it's the test key for the... um... alarm.... system... " he stammered.
Frank was a horrible liar, if he had just laughed benignly I would have been none the wiser, instead he had ignited a fire of curiosity.
"The alarm system huh?" I said as I stared at him.
"Um... Kem... how would you like to go out for a drink tonight?" Frank asked, hope in his eyes.
"Well, I got a meeting tonight.... you know Frank, I used to be like most girls... go for the good-looking guy... but I've changed, now I go for guys who impress me... what can you do to impress me."
"Um... you know on the internet when you put your mouse pointer over a picture and it gets slightly bigger... I wrote the software for that," he looked quite smug.
"That's interesting... but I was looking for something more substantial... that key for instance, it must be a huge responsibility to test the alarms... maybe you could show me how you do it."
I looked at Franks face, from his expression I could see there was a violent battle going on in his mind, one between common sense and desire."
Fra
nk's expression changed to one of grim determination, "Ok... do you have a security clearance?"
"Oh ya... NATO Cosmic," I said. I really did have it, being a sorcerer had its advantages.
"Really?" Frank looked slightly relieved.
"You can look it up."
"You must not tell anyone what you're about to see, follow me."
Frank poked the down button beside the elevator, he and I entered when the doors opened. Frank then put a key in a keyhole on the control panel and turned it, the doors closed and the elevator started to descend.
The elevator went down three floors below the ground floor, there was a parking garage below the building we must have gone just below that.
The door opened into an enormous curved hall lined on one side with dark green cabinets full of electrical equipment. The cabinets had no doors on them and the equipment inside looked very old, I could see many rows of glass tubes and large metal canisters that resembled food cans with the labels ripped off.
We entered the room.
"The Newfellow machine," Frank said dramatically.
"What is it? It looks old."
"We're not sure... we think it's some kind of quantum computer, it was built in the nineteen fifties."
"What's so great about it?"
"It's hard to explain... it can sorta calculate infinity."
"Is this thing the reason the building is built the way it is?" I asked.
"It was starting to show up in IR when modern spy satellites passed overhead, the building was constructed to hide the heat signature."
"How come it hasn't been modernized," I said as I examined the components in one of the cabinets, I could smell oil and dust.
"We tried... we just don't understand it, we can't even upgrade the input output equipment... it still uses stacks of punch cards."
"Why didn't you just ask the people who built it?"
"It was designed by one person, and he also supervised the construction, he wouldn't say how it worked."
"Newfellow?"
"Jon Newfellow, the greatest computer scientist who ever lived."
"Hmm... never heard of him."
Frank sighed, "ya... everyone says that... his memory was so good he could recite everything he had ever read."
I felt a jolt of envy, this skill would have been very useful, when I first started practising sorcery I had to constantly refer scrolls I had written, I was forever misplacing them, I eventually wrote a spell that enabled me to consult to them more conveniently.
"What happened to him?"
"Died of pneumonia in nineteen fifty eight, he was still very young, in his thirties... he knew so many military secrets that they had a security detail around him when he was in his sick bed... they didn't want him to reveal anything when he was under the influence of medication."
"To bad, so what do they do with the machine?"
"We use it for all kinds of things... I'm the chief programmer ," Frank actually puffed out his chest.
"Really," I started walking down the length of cabinets looking at the electrical components, there was no rhyme or reason to it, each cabinet was different.
"I'll show you the input and output machines," Frank said.
I followed him for about thirty yards until we stopped in front of a huge panel covered in parallel rows of lights and switches. There was a large wire bracket holding a four foot high stack of punch cards.
"That's our latest program, the answer will come out here," Frank pointed to an empty wire bracket positioned in front of a slot on the panel.
"We write the program with a modern computer, then we compile it into punch cards."
"What's this program do?" I asked pointing to the stack of cards.
"Oh you wouldn't understand... um...ahh... I mean, it's kinda complicated..."
"Oh really, well I think this is boring and I want to go," I said, feigning anger, I was thankful Frank's social ineptitude had given me a reason to refuse his affections.
Frank's expression changed to panic, "I'm... I'm sorry Kem."
"I want to leave," I said as I crossed my arms and looked away from him.
I felt a bit guilty as I saw his crestfallen face out of the corner of my eye, I started walking back to the elevator.
I spent the rest of the day in a laboratory with Frank and Jack as they replicated the spells over and over again. Jack had brought in all kinds of scientific instruments to analyze the spells effects.
Frank was annoyingly polite and was constantly asking for my input and idea's, I returned his attentions by being cold and aloof.
"The light appears to be a combination of single spectral lines..." Jack said as he looked at the display of an enormous machine covered in dials and levers.
"That makes sense, could be some kind of electron excitation," Frank said.
"What did you find out about the gold flake?" I asked.
"It's gold alright, we tried to use its impurities to find out where it came from, there weren't any," Jack said.
"And the water."
"Like the gold no impurities, no deuterium either... strange," Jack furrowed his brow.
Through the rest of the day they used every conceivable instrument I could think of to examine the spells effects, even a high speed camera.
They were both still engrossed in study when I finely excused myself for my meeting with Peter, I noticed they had badly hidden expressions of jealously on their faces when I told them where I was going.
It still amazed me the effect I had on certain men, I had examined myself in the mirror many times and I had only ever seen myself looking back, never once a smouldering beauty.
I walked down to the lobby of the building and waited for Peter to show up, it was only a few minutes later before a large pickup truck pulled up, it looked kind of beat up.
I saw Peter climb out of the cab, I walked outside to meet him.
"Aren't millionaires supposed to drive expensive cars?" I asked as I shook his hand.
"Always felt like a weenie driving one around, and they're useless, can't pick up plywood in a Porsche. "
Peter opened the passenger door of the truck for me and I climbed inside, it was clean and comfortable in the cab.
"My factory is only a few minutes from here," Peter said as he climbed behind the wheel.
We were soon bouncing through the back streets of the city, true to his word it was only a short time before we pulled into the parking lot of a large square building.
The building was surrounded by a high security fence which hid it's lower exterior, I saw many security camera's. I climbed out of the truck along with Peter and then followed him to a small shack next to the fence.
Peter held open the door for me and I walked inside, I saw three security guards behind a long counter, two were watching a large bank of monitors showing the feeds from the various camera's outside, the third was watching me like a hawk.
"No problem Bob, she's with me," Peter was beside me.
"Of course sir," Bob said, from his demeanor I suspected he was not a typical security guard.
We walked through the opposite door of the shack and into a large landscaped area surrounding the building. There were hedge's and flower beds interspaced with cobblestoned walkways.
The building itself was strikingly new and modern looking, there were many large windows and beautiful architectural accents. The entrance was a large protruding glass gazebo.
"Wow, this looks like it was built yesterday," I said.
"Just opened it last year, why skimp I say, you need the best tools to build the best products."
I started laughing, "that almost sounded sincere ."
Peter turned to me and smiled," sorry... I spend so much time talking to customers... you start to speak in cliché after a while."
"So what's the real reason?"
"Why the hell not, who cares if I blow millions on some stupid factory, I'll never spend it all anyway."
"You have that
much money?"
"I have so much money that it's become worthless."
"What do you mean?"
"If you have too much of something... it stops having value, whether it's apples or money."
Peter escorted me through the building's entrance, I emerged into a large open area, the floor was covered in expensive carpet, the walls were glaringly white and had many large paintings of all different styles hanging on it.
"Who painted that one?" I pointed to a portrait of a beautiful woman.
"No idea, I had a designer pick all this out, if I did it there'd be a lot of pictures of dogs playing poker."
We kept on walking until we entered the factory floor, I saw acres of gleaming machines and complicated looking robots. I saw only a few people walking around, they wore white lab coats and hardhats, none of the machines were on.
"Where is everyone?"
"Um... we're retooling..." Peter said unconvincingly.
"What's this one do?" I pointed to an incredibly complicated looking machine.
"It's used to calibrate the marzelvanes, it's a complicated process."
"Ya, those marzelvanes can be tough," I said trying to sound knowledgeable.
"It got easier once we retrofitted it with spurving bearings," Peter had an odd look on his face.
"Thank god for those," I replied.
"When was the last time you changed the oil in your car?"
I thought that was an odd question, "oh... I don't drive," I said.
"Let's go to my office... watch you don't hit your head on the dingle arm."
I cautiously stepped away from the machine and followed Peter.
