Twistor

by Cramer, John; Wolfe, Gene;

  Circling around through a parking lot on Tenth Street, he entered the Broadway Arcade by the rear entrance next to the Washington State Liquor Store fronting on the parking lot. He climbed the back stairs to the upper level, a balcony mezzanine containing vacant shop space relieved by a record/video store, a hair stylist, a travel office, and a law office. At midnight these were all closed, and he was able to look down unobserved on the Pizza Haven at the first-floor rear of the Arcade.

  His sister wasn't there, but neither was anyone who looked like Megalith muscle. Flash settled down in a shadowed doorway to wait. The pizza smells from below pulled at his empty stomach, but he dared not go down to buy any. He "sat listening to the exotic sounds from the arcade video games just below him and for a while imagined that he was playing the games himself.

  He was really worried about his sister. After his mother had died of cancer when he was ten, Vickie had been the closest thing to a mother he'd had. He should have taken care of her. Those Megalith guys were nothing to mess with, and if they had snatched Sis . . . He shuddered. He was responsible. He had known they were trouble, and he should have talked her out of her crazy idea. But instead he fell in with the game of cracking their system like some little kid playing a video game. And now they had Sis. His mind whirled, constructing absurd baroque schemes for heroically rescuing his sister, for destroying the Megalith Corporation. He wiped a bit of moisture from the corner of his eye. This was real life, and he was just a kid. What could he do, really, except run away and hide out? He felt very low, depressed.

  When his sister had not appeared at the Pizza Haven by one A.M., Flash decided to give up. His head felt like it was filled with mud. He walked to the opposite end of the arcade's balcony and waited by the big upstairs window until he could see a number 9 bus at the traffic light two blocks to the south, heading north toward him along Broadway. Then he sprinted to the pay telephone in the corner near the men's room and dialed 911.

  When the emergency operator answered, Flash said, 'Please don't interrupt. My life's in danger, and I can't give my name. I have information that people working for a Mr Martin Pierce of the Megalith Corporation have kidnapped Victoria Gordon, a UW physics graduate student, at about six P.M. today. This kidnapping is related to the disappearances of Dr David Harrison and the Ernst children. Please notify Agent Bartley of the FBI, Seattle office. Goodbye.'

  He hung up and ran down the stairs and out the front of the building, stepping onto the bus just as the door was closing. He showed his bus pass and scrunched low in a seat as the bus headed north, wondering where he could spend the night. In the past six weeks as a new kid at Roosevelt High he hadn't made any friends whom he knew well enough to ask for help. He had many good friends on the boards, but he didn't know their addresses or even what they looked like.

  The bus angled downhill beside and under the I-5 freeway to where Eastlake crossed the Ship Canal, then halted at the University Bridge as the red-and-white barriers went down. The bridge operator, who Flash could see in his little brick tower, was raising the bridge for boat traffic. The span began to lever upward.

  Hey, David lives around here, Flash remembered. He walked to the front of the bus and asked the motherly bus driver if she would please let him off, that he'd fallen asleep, missed his stop, and would have to walk a long way back. Looking straight ahead, she explained that Metro regulations did not permit passengers to exit between bus stops. Then she looked across at him, smiled, and the door opened. 'Oops, must have hit the wrong button,' she said.

  Rash smiled, waved his thanks, and exited. He threaded his way to the walkway through the stalled traffic waiting for the bridge.

  He walked south along the bridge walkway, watching the sailboats go past, and then turned east to walk down through the parking lot of the Red Robin hamburger place next to David's apartment. Circling around back, he climbed through the steep brushy slope to David's well-remembered deck that faced north across the Ship Canal to the U-district. As he'd expected, the deck door was locked.

  He removed the long wire-thin Allen wrench that he always carried in his billfold and expertly picked the lock of the sliding glass door, letting himself into David's apartment. It was dark in the apartment, but he remembered the layout from their visit last month. He headed for the small kitchen.

  When he opened the refrigerator door the light inside came on, and he could see that David had a good supply of food. He selected a butter plate, half a carton of milk, a package of salami, a jar of dill pickles, and a chunk of sharp cheddar cheese from the shelves, then turned to put the food down on the kitchen table behind him.

  He almost dropped the load of food when he saw the thing on the table. It was a white paper, official-looking with a seal and 'FBI' in bold letters across the top. Putting the food down carefully, he studied the paper in the pale light streaming from the open refrigerator. The document stated that the apartment had been legally entered and searched by agents of the FBI in pursuance of an authorized investigation. It said that they might return, and it gave a telephone number to call for more information. Spaces for the code number of the search warrant and the case number were filled in with blue ball-point at the bottom of the page, and the document was signed by one Agent Cooper.

  Flash felt scared. This was the one place he'd considered safe, and it had already been searched by the FBI. And they might be back. His mind raced. Would they come back? Only if there was reason to believe they'd missed something, or if there was something new to look for. It was probably OK for him to stay here, at least for a day or so. Until the food ran out. He made himself two sandwiches, ate them quickly along with three of the pickles, and finished off the milk.

  He used the toilet without flushing it. Then he flopped on the bed still wearing his clothes and was immediately asleep.

  Vickie came suddenly awake. Where . . . Then she remembered the phone call from William and the men who'd been waiting outside the door of the basement workroom. Her head hurt, and there was a bad taste in her mouth.

  She opened her eyes and looked down. She seemed to be trussed up in a straitjacket. She wiggled erect and put her legs over the edge of the bed. Well, she could still kick. She studied the room. Bare, hospital-like, with a table, chair, and bed. The room had a window, a doorway to what looked like a bathroom, and another closed door. High in one corner was a small box. She wondered what it was.

  She eased off the bed. A bit shaky, but she could walk. She went to the window and nudged the curtains aside with a knee. She saw barred windows and a frosted pane circled by aluminum alarm tape. She considered whether it was possible to break the window and saw through a strap with broken glass before the alarm brought interference. Probably not.

  She moved her arms inside their canvas cocoons. How was it stage magicians were always able to escape from these things? She had seen it done, tried to remember how. Loosen one arm, put it over the head, same with the other, then shrug out of the thing. Trouble was, the magician always tensed his body when he was being strapped in. She'd been unconscious and fully relaxed, and the straps felt tight. Still . . . For the next ten minutes she worked to develop some slack in her right arm. Not much progress. She walked to the bathroom and looked in. There was a toilet and a wash basin. Her clothes were hanging from a hook on the wall, undies and all. She looked in the mirror over the wash basin. Below the canvas edge of the straitjacket, she could see she was wearing a hospital gown. Those bastards, she thought.

  She walked over to the closed door. Leaning a shoulder against the wall, she turned the knob slowly with her bare foot. The knob felt cold between her toes. It turned freely, but the door didn't open. Locked from the outside.

  Then she heard approaching footsteps. Quickly she got back into the bed and tried to simulate an attitude of unconscious sleep. She heard the door open and footsteps entering the room. She kept her eyes closed.

  'No use playing possum, Miss Gordon,' a voice said. 'We've got a Doppler sensor on this room, an
d it showed you moving around. We know you're awake.'

  Shit, thought Victoria. She opened her eyes. A man wearing a ski mask was looking down at her. 'Must be cold out there on the slopes to make you wear that thing,' she observed. 'Is there much powder on the runs today?'

  He laughed. She noticed that another man was behind him, also wearing a ski mask. The missing hand was unmistakable. He was the big one she'd kicked in the groin. She wondered now if that had been wise.

  'Miss Gordon, we're here on a matter of national security,' the first one said. 'We work for a special agency of the federal government. It would be very dangerous for you to know too much about us. That's why we've concealed our identities with these masks. It's for your own protection.'

  'Of course it is,' Vickie said sweetly. 'You're very special federal agents who just happen to go around kidnapping people whenever Mr Martin Pierce of the Megalith Corporation gets on his computer and tells you to. Is that the story you want me to believe, Mr Mandrake?'

  The man paused. Vickie watched the masked face closely. Gears seemed to be spinning just behind the wool covering. He hadn't expected me to confront him like that, she guessed.

  'Miss Gordon,' he said finally, 'we're well aware of your brother's criminal activities in illegally gaining access to certain commercial computer systems. He's in custody now and has made a full statement. We'd like you to cooperate also.'

  Vickie blinked. Did they have William? Should she believe them? Probably not. If they said that they had him, it probably meant that they didn't. Now it was her move. 'Yes, of course, Mr Mandrake,' she said in a sarcastic tone. 'You clowns have probably also kidnapped the whole physics department and the UW women's volleyball team by now. Right?'

  It was Mandrake's turn to blink behind the ski mask.

  'Come on,' she continued, 'let's stop playing these silly intimidation games, shall we? I know exactly who you are and why you kidnapped me. Kidnapping directed across a state border is a federal crime, you know. Now just why is it that you and Mr Pierce are willing to risk the consequences of something like that? Just what does the Megalith Corporation have to gain that makes the stakes so high?' Vickie looked closely at the man. Perhaps her strategy of forthright challenge was paying off. He was still off balance.

  Mandrake sat heavily in the chair beside the bed. 'Miss Gordon,' he said, 'you're clearly a highly intelligent person. I'm sure you know what my employers, whoever they may be, want. I take it from your tone that you might be willing to cooperate, if the price is right. Just what is your price.'

  She looked directly into the eyes behind the mask. 'You've been listening in on us all week, Mandrake. You know the score. My colleague David Harrison and I have made a marvelous discovery. It's something that might happen to a physicist only once in a lifetime, if she was very lucky indeed. But because of your meddling, David and two innocent children are either dead or in a life-threatening situation. My price? My price is that I want to be able to follow up on our discovery without any further interference from you and your goons. I want to try to get those three people back. When that's accomplished, I'll be glad to tell Megalith anything they want to know about the twistor effect, provided I can tell the rest of the world at the same time. What you and Mr Pierce already know ought to give you a head start in exploiting the effect, and that should be sufficient. On the other hand, if you don't let me go, you'll never be able to learn enough to even recoup your losses. So that's my price, Mandrake. Let me go now and stay the Hell out of my way.'

  Mandrake stood up. He unbuckled the straps on her straitjacket. 'You can take that off now,' he muttered. 'It was only to keep you from doing something stupid. You're on your honor not to try to escape. You couldn't anyhow, but you could cause us some trouble. I'll communicate what you've said to my employer. I don't know if he'll buy it, but I'm willing to treat it as a legitimate offer and try.' The two masked men left the room. The door clicked shut, then there was a second click from outside.

  Removing the straitjacket, Vickie hurled it angrily at the box near the ceiling. It missed the box and fell to the floor with a klunk. She felt very alone, very vulnerable.

  Something was bothering her. Why had Mandrake unbuckled the straitjacket, she wondered. Was this really a process of rational negotiation? Was it some kind of good-guy/bad-guy trick? Or was it only that this way they avoided having to assist her in eating meals or using the toilet? She moved toward the bathroom. Perhaps she'd feel better wearing her own clothes, she decided.

  Mandrake, still wearing the ski mask, returned after a few hours. 'Sorry,' he said, 'no deal. You're not, as you seem to think, holding a winning hand. My employer instructs me to make you aware of certain facts and techniques.' He described the drug neurophagin and its effects on the nervous systems of those to whom it is administered. He explained that they would have to use it on her unless she elected to cooperate.

  'That's a frightening and disgusting story,' she said. 'But I don't believe a word of it. It's just another technique from your bag of interrogation tricks. If it were true, you wouldn't tell me about it unless you planned to kill me sooner or later.'

  'It leaves no traces,' said Mandrake, 'and no one would believe you. Any doctor would testify the syndrome was a premature case of Alzheimer's. But you do have a point. It would be pointless to tell you about neurophagin unless we could demonstrate its effects.'

  He opened the outer door of the room and led her down the hall to a second doorway. The large man followed silently. Mandrake produced a bundle of keys and unlocked a deadbolt lock mounted on the outside of the heavy door. They entered a room much like the one they had left. On the bed lay Allan Saxon, smiling placidly and talking quietly to himself.

  'There are people coming into my room now,' Vickie heard Saxon murmur. 'Oh, there's Vickie. She's such a pretty girl. Nice legs. I wonder if she fucks.'

  Vickie was shocked. Was this really Allan Saxon?

  He sat up in the bed. 'The trick is to gain control, dominance,' he murmured. 'I'll speak to them in a loud voice, and perhaps they'll do what I want.' He paused. 'Gentlemen, it's time for me to leave! Please accompany me to my car.' He stood beside the bed. Vickie took a step backward.

  'Not just yet,' Mandrake said. 'But soon, sir, soon.' He gently put his hand on Saxon's shoulder.

  'I wonder if he's lying,' said Saxon. 'He always lies, doesn't he. I always lie too, when I can get away with it. Am I lying now? I like to lie to women. I like to lie with women. I wonder if Vickie would lie with me. Should I ask her. No, the men might hurt me again. I never knew that it could hurt so much. But I didn't lie to them. I told them the truth, but they wouldn't believe me. I told them that David had gone to a shadow universe. The shadow knows what evil . . . Poor David. He's only a shadow, now. Just he and his shadow . . . '

  Mandrake looked at Vickie. 'Seen enough?' he asked.

  'I've seen many things,' Saxon said. 'I've seen an atom alone in a trap. I saw a rat in a trap, once, but it was dead. It had yellow teeth and a long scaly tail . . . '

  Vickie nodded, retreating from Saxon, and they quickly left the room. Mandrake relocked the door, then led her into her own room. She sat on the bed. Mandrake sat on the chair, and the big man stood by the door.

  'That's horrible!' Vickie cried, her face in her hands. 'How could you do that to someone?'

  'I could demonstrate,' Mandrake said.

  'Look,' said Vickie, 'you're not thinking this through. You don't need another zombie, you need my cooperation. If I were in that condition, you'd never learn what your friend Pierce wants to know.'

  'I agree with you, Miss Gordon,' Mandrake said, 'but my employer doesn't. By the time he realizes his mistake, it will be too late for you. So your only alternative is to cooperate.' He put a little digital disk recorder on the table and activated it, then asked her a stream of questions.

  She answered the questions truthfully, as long as they didn't reveal certain key techniques needed for the twistor effect. And the questions
were mainly about where the twistor apparatus 'had been taken.' She carefully explained to Mandrake what she thought had happened to the apparatus. She described the physical evidence that supported her views. The questioning took a long time. Mandrake was noncommittal at the end, but she felt that he hadn't believed her. Finally, the two masked men left her alone again.

  About half an hour later the large man came back alone. He had something to tell Vickie, he said through the ski mask stretched tightly over his face. It was about sex. He sat in the chair by the bed, his hands in his lap, and spent a seemingly endless time telling her in great and graphic detail what he planned to do to her and with her. Some of it involved his arm stump. It was almost as if she were not in the room, or perhaps as if he were confessing to a priest. He told her about the prostitutes he'd 'snuffed,' about the things he'd done to them first . . .

  He was clearly psychotic. She wasn't sure that some of the actions he described were physically possible. Mandrake must have sent him in to scare her. He had succeeded; she was completely and profoundly terrified, afraid to even look at the man. Finally he left, locking the door behind him.

  David sat back from the worktable and placed the pistol-grip wirewrap tool on the candle-lit surface. One of the blue flying creatures buzzed near the candle flame, and he swatted at it. Then he examined the object on the table with satisfaction.

  The twistor prototype was done. Mounted on the perf-board surface were a jumble of capacitors, resistors, IC chips, transistors, and diodes. Some of the components were crudely tack-soldered together, while others were enmeshed in many-layered zigzags of pale red wirewrap connections.