by Tim Wheat
Time seemed to resume normal speed, and Angela had fallen where Ahiga could reach her. Chase watched as the weeping man pulled his love close. Her mouth struggled to take in air, blood continued to pour from her neck, and despite the six gunshot wounds to her chest, it seemed she was attempting to speak.
“Sssssssssssss. Ssssssssssssss. Ssssssssister.” She managed. “Ssssssserrrrreeeeeeen.”
With that, she convulsed and all pain disappeared from the body of Tricia Sarff. She felt the undulations occurring, but had no control of her functions. Her mind drifted as she gazed into the desperate eyes of her sister’s lover. Angela had described him to her in great detail, but he was even more magnificent in real life. As the darkness closed in Tricia managed a smile and recited a prayer she had learned from her mother when still an innocent little girl. Drifting into oblivion, her childhood voice mixed with her mother’s.
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed that I lie on. Before I lay me down to sleep, I give my soul to Christ to keep. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John…”
***
Ahiga lay on his side, cradling the head of his beloved. He noticed the slight smile come across her face, and then she left. Thirty seconds lapsed as he grieved, but as suddenly as it had come, it passed. With an icy glare he focused his attention on Dietrich Hoff.
“I promise you, your death will not be so quick.”
Chase watched as Hans delivered a boot to the ear of Ahiga, and his body collapsed next to his beloved. The weasel then kneeled next to George’s unmoving form, removed a syringe from his cargo pants, and plunged it into his neck.
“I’d like to deliver that same promise to you, Hans” Chase said. “Your death will be unpleasant.”
Hans finished his task, returned the syringe to his pocket, and stood. His face was a mask of hatred as he approached Chase. Stopping a foot away, but safe on the other side of the energy field, the two men exchanged menacing stares. Dietrich Hoff broke the silence.
“Play nice boys. We have plenty of time for unchecked aggression and hatred. Tell me, young Chase. How well do you understand the science I have shown to you today?”
“I assume I understand it better than your scientists,” Chase’s eyes never left those of Hans. “You won’t get away with what you are planning. We aren’t the only ones on your trail.”
“Do you mean young Robert?” Chase’s eyes averted to Hoff, but the venom of his stare remained as Dietrich continued. “I’m afraid your friend Bobby Poppen met a beautiful young associate of mine a couple of days ago. I assume she left a lasting impression, before stealing his work and sending it on to me. I now hold the only copy of that work in the world.”
Chase’s face showed pain at the death of his close friend. He cursed himself for endangering Poppen, and a wave of grief passed through his body. Steeling himself, he replied in a foreboding voice.
“I’d like to extend the promise I made to Hans to you as well.”
“Well, you’ll have to fight your friend for it” Hoff joked as he rolled Ahiga over with his boot and spoke in an admiring tone. “It’s quite remarkable how he dislocated his thumbs like that and pulled the cuffs over his hands. That is if no consequence now, however. In a short time the cuffs will no longer be necessary.”
“You’ll never find anyone who can understand the mathematical complications involved with using the E8 computations. You’ve killed the only man who could.” Chase took some solace that Hoff hadn’t kidnapped Bobby. That he had solved the E8 problem was remarkable, but wouldn’t be usable for years to come.
“He doesn’t know. Hans, he doesn’t know” Hoff mused, and the smile on Hans’ face reflected the tone in Hoff’s voice.
“Doesn’t know what?” Chase asked.
“Your friend Poppen didn’t just solve the E8 problem,” Hoff explained. “He wrote a rather simple proof explaining it as well. I’m afraid my men are quite able to understand and learn from it.”
His heart sank as Chase struggled to control his anger. He knew what the exact ramifications were, as Hoff explained it to him anyway.
“This submarine you now find yourself a passenger upon is just one of the incredible inventions on which we are working. I was hoping to have full function of this vehicle before departing later today, but my wishes could not come about fast enough. When her engines are finished, however, this vessel will be able to travel at hundreds of miles per hour, through all mediums, “ Hoff preached at the two men who remained. “We will be able to rise from the depths of the ocean, and ascend to the moon…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, surrounded by a protective magnetic field and at speeds which could be projected beyond the speed of light,” Chase interrupted. “You’ll be able to fire massive weapons, travel through time, and destroy all of your enemies. This is boring, and I’m hungry. When’s dinner?”
“I almost forgot.” Hoff smiled as he addressed the young Rex Chase. “You are a physics genius, and your father and Doctor Sarff might have clued you in a bit. You’ll have to forgive me. I sometimes get excited when speaking about my reign.”
“The only thing you’ll rain over is the ocean as I cut hunks of flesh from your body and feed it to the sharks.”
Hans met Chase’s insult with a sharp right cross. He hadn’t been expecting it, and his face snapped with the punch. Recovering in a few moments and showing no ill effects, the corner of his lip curled as he spoke.
“You’re losing it, Hans. My grandma punches harde…”
This time, Chase was ready for it. As Hans threw another cross, Rex moved his body backward with incredible speed, caught the arm in his right hand, and pulled Hans through the field. He could see the look of shock on the weasel’s face as Chase took the smaller man to the ground with ease. Wrapping his left arm around Hans’ neck, and securing it with his right, Rex withstood the feeble man’s arms flailing at his face. As the life ebbed from the first man he had ever intended to kill, he heard a disturbing noise. Hoff had retrieved a pistol, and now had it cocked against Chase’s temple.
“Let him go.”
Chase released his grip, tossed Hans across the invisible barrier and watched Hoff retreat as well.
“Why not just shoot me?”
“I thought about that, but it occurs to me that you could be quite valuable as an asset. I think I’ll keep you and your friend around for a while. Brilliant minds don’t always land on my doorstep.”
Hoff helped Hans to his feet, and the two moved to exit the room.
“Wait. What did you do to Chief? He doesn’t look well.”
“Don’t worry,” Hoff said. “It’s a simple mild sedative. It’s the same thing we’ve been using on you for days. It will wear off in short order and he will be just fine.”
Then the two most evil men he had ever met left the room. Chase went to George, pulled his entire body back across the barrier, and checked his pulse. It seemed to be strong, and his respirations were normal. Looking up at the structure of the room, Chase started focusing his mind on the next move.
“My first trip to jail and it has to be the most technologically advanced structure in the world,” he spoke to the ceiling. “It’s too bad for them I understand their system better than they do.”
*******************
55.
George Ahiga groaned and rolled to his side as Chase sat next to him, trying to devise a plan. His friend proved a distraction a number of times, but his resolve stayed strong, and he persevered. The world needed him to develop a strategy to stop Dietrich Hoff, even if it didn’t know that yet.
Operating under the assumption that scalar energy was omnipresent, Chase wished he had seen the proof Poppen had devised. Like the key to a map, with it, everything would make much more sense.
As he sat staring at the ceiling, Chase thought about the hardback he had read by Nicholas Sarff. Scalar Waves In Nature had been an enlightening read, and he had paid it more attention than most, reading it twice. Now, that intuition served him wel
l. In the book, Sarff had given a brief reference to ancient cultures and their possible connection to scalar energy. One line had even referenced the Navajo.
During their long flight, Chase had asked Ahiga about the Navajo connection, and he had weaved a fantastic tale. The Navajo had an ancient myth revolving around a Great Chief. The Great Chief eradicated his foes by shooting lightning bolts from his hands, and destroying entire villages. Now, a light flipped on inside of Chase’s head. Picking up one of the cuffs Ahiga had shucked from his body, Rex stood and studied the wall where the force field terminated.
He tested the boundaries of the field, and noticed at certain points along the wall a tingling sensation in his wrist seemed amplified. Remembering the story of the Great Chief, he touched the cuff in his left hand to a point on the wall. A sharp pain traveled through the left side of his body and he jumped as he retracted the cuff.
“Interesting,” he muttered to himself, devising his next plan of action.
Placing the cuff on his left leg against a hot spot on the wall, he felt a sharp tingling in his body. He put a tight grip on the cuff in his right hand as he mustered the courage to inflict the pain he assumed was coming. Looking across the room as he touched the cuff in his left hand to the wall, Chase could feel the energy pass through his body. It jumped from the cuff on his right wrist, to the one in his hand, and a steady, focused beam of energy began to cut a hole in the opposite bulkhead.
Chase aimed the beam at points on the parallel wall which he had deduced were antenna for the scalar radiation. Hoff’s men had devised a simple jailing system, but had not understood the science to its fullest extent. The equation had made them leap without looking, and now, wherever an antenna existed Chase could tap into the cosmic energy, and use it as a weapon. In theory, if they had tuned their invisible shields to the precise weight of the cuffs, all other objects not of equal value would pass.
Chase finished destroying the antennae on the opposite wall, and decided to test some of his hypotheses. With a gentle touch, because his wrists and ankles were still sore from running into the barrier earlier, Chase tested the field that cut the room into two sections. Destroying the receptors on the other side had dropped the shield and he proceeded to the doorway. He attempted to penetrate the threshold with one of the cuffs. It, however, held firm and that answered his second hypothesis. Hoff’s scientists had not connected the many antennae to a larger source.
He felt nauseous as he picked up the body of Angela Sarff and propped her against the wall. The blood covering her body had dried, but some still transferred to his clothing. Using his newfound power, Chase removed the cuffs from her corpse and tossed them to the side. Once again moving her lifeless form, he approached the doorway, and with great trepidation, lowered her legs through the opening.
He felt no resistance whatsoever, and repeated the cuff removal on himself, then Ahiga. Moving with great purpose, and with speed, Chase stepped over his test subject blocking the doorway, and proceeded to check the doors in the hallway. To his amazement, no one had locked them. Rex smiled that Hoff’s arrogance had been so complete. Finding a maintenance room, Chase procured two short iron pieces of pipe, meant for gas or water lines. He tossed one at the doorway and it passed through the invisible field, making a racket in the hallway.
“That was stupid,” he said out loud as he scooped up the iron rod, collected a sheet he had scavenged, and returned to his former jail. “Next time you should just get on the loudspeaker and tell everyone you’ve outsmarted them.”
He deposited the two rods in a cargo pocket on his pants, and unfolded the sheet. He wrapped the body of Angela Sarff with gentle and neat precision and picked her up. A room two doors away looked to be an empty quarters, and he laid her to rest on a large plush bed.
Chase was about to exit when the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. With the door to the room standing wide open, and a dead body lying on the bed, he was sure to be found. Preparing himself Chase peeked around the corner to better assess the situation. He breathed a sigh of relief when he recognized the sound coming from the other end of the hall. Whoever was coming would not pass by him before noticing his absence from the jail.
Coming closer, three guards rounded the corner at the end of the corridor. Chase could see their machine pistols at the ready as they were now feet from their destination. They were about to force his hand, and without fear or a moment’s hesitation, Chase removed the iron rods from his trousers, and stepped into the hallway.
“Looking for me?”
All three guards moved with lightning efficiency, but Chase was quicker. Touching the iron rod in his left hand to one of the antenna he made a quick circular motion with the rod in his right. He had intended to cut through the men with the focused beam of energy, but instead a circular ball of light three feet in diameter shot down the hallway and enveloped the guards before they could fire a shot, or even utter a word. No trace of the men existed as the ball dissipated against the bulkhead behind them.
“I didn’t expect that,” Chase said to no one.
Holding the left rod against the antenna again he made two circles with his right, and flung another, more powerful energy ball down the hallway. It plowed into the bulkhead at incredible speed, and the entire boat shook. He smiled to himself at his discovery, and wished he had more time to experiment.
Time was not on his side, though, and Hoff had undoubtedly felt Chase’s last energy discharge. He looked around himself, and was happy to see every doorway equipped with antenna. If the rest of the ship were like this he would control it in a matter of minutes.
Chase pocketed his iron rods, and beat a path into the large room where Chief still lay. Blood still soaked the floor, and George lay where he had left him. Strain showed on Rex’s face as he hoisted his best friend to his feet, leaned his own shoulder against him, and lifted the dead weight in a fireman’s carry.
He contemplated dragging him by his arms or legs for a brief moment, but it wouldn’t have been possible to not drag him through the large pools of blood. Chase couldn’t do that to Chief, and instead sweat now poured down his face from exertion. He made his way down the corridor, entered the utility closet, and deposited George on the floor.
Happy his friend was in a safe place, Chase locked the door and stepped out of the small room. Touching an iron rod to the antenna on the far wall for a tenth of a second, he focused the beam of energy into the keyhole of the handle. The hole melted a sufficient amount, and he was certain only George could unlock the door now. Edward Rex Chase turned and bound down the corridor, shouting in a gleeful voice.
“Ready or not, here I come.”
*******************
56.
“Report to the bridge and see that our security interests are in order,” Hoff commanded. “A seaplane awaits our departure at the front of the boat; assure it is ready to operate.”
“Yes, sir,” Hans said. “Are you sure you don’t require my assistance? The bandages on your neck are becoming stained.”
“Do as I say.” Hoff adjusted the collar on his shirt once again. The ship’s doctor had assured him the women hadn’t hit any major arteries , but the wounds continued to seep blood. He pulled his hand away to see the red liquid discoloring his finger. “I wish I wouldn’t have had to kill my surgeon,” Hoff mumbled the words as he moved down the corridor.
As he walked, Dietrich appreciated the German craftsmanship that had gone into his vessel. Every angle was perfect, and every seam met in a flawless display of engineering. It was with great pride he would soon make it his state flagship. Smiling, Hoff fantasized about the day he would be able to cast off the urchins who hung to his coattails.
He had been writing a radio address for months, and a small pain pierced his stomach as he remembered Anelie’s contribution. She had been quite a wonderful wife, but infidelity would not be tolerated from any woman. The pain left him in short order, and he continued to daydream as he reached h
is personal quarters. Checking his watch, Hoff knew it wasn’t quite time to move her yet, and he proceeded the short distance to one of the boat’s many kitchens.
His personal galley contained enough food to last him more than a year. From this boat, with a minimal staff, he could rule the world. This maiden voyage, however, had been earlier than Hoff had first planned, and he scowled to himself as he prepared a turkey, bacon, and lettuce sandwich.
He moved like a robot, his mind consumed with thoughts of power and fame. Fifteen minutes passed as Hoff sat, alone, at a table built for ten. A feeling of solitude crept into his thoughts but he dismissed it as he took a bite of his meal. Soon the world would be his to control, and a fanatical smile once again dominated his face.
All of a sudden, a deep rumble echoed throughout the submarine, accompanied by a noticeable shudder. The entire boat seemed to lurch underneath Hoff’s feet, and his glass of water fell to the floor. Without hesitation Dietrich Hoff dropped his sandwich to the table and was out of the room when an even larger rumble moved through the vessel, followed in an instant by the shockwave moving through the bulkheads. If he didn’t know any better he would have thought they had run aground.
With the agility of a younger man he made his way down the hallway, flung open the door to his personal quarters, and took notice of the room. Angela was nowhere to be seen. The bed sheets remained a mess, the lights remained off, and Angela Sarff had disappeared.
“Aaannngelaaaaa,” he spoke in the voice of an insane man. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
