The Hammer of Amalynth

by Michael Galloway

  “Am I on speaker phone?”

  “Want me to turn it off?”

  “Please.”

  John thumbed the speaker button on his phone. “Something wrong?”

  “I wish you would tell me these things ahead of time.”

  John peered back at Dr. Ferganut and noticed the man had become pensive with a glint of hope in his eyes. Their eyes met and John sensed the Professor knew more about their chasing than he was letting on about. He turned his attention back to the conversation with Madeline. “What do you mean?”

  “Just…never mind. Are we still on for tomorrow? Great. Talk to you later,” Madeline said.

  “I’ll call you when I…”

  The call ended before he could finish his sentence. He tossed the cell phone back onto the dashboard. He looked back at Dr. Ferganut. “You okay? You look distracted.”

  “It’s just…I haven’t heard that voice in years. Is she still into cult research?” Dr. Ferganut said.

  “How do you know about Madeline?”

  “I still hear about her through her brothers.”

  “Was she one of your students?”

  “Hardly.” Dr. Ferganut pointed at his own chest. “I’m her Dad.”

  John and Captain gave each other a petrified look.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Dr. Ferganut continued. “I knew who you were before I got into the truck with you. Why do you think I agreed to go with you in the first place?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The entire drive back to Dr. Ferganut’s house, John’s mind was an eager whirl of curiosity and confusion. Although he had talked around the subject of marriage with Madeline the thought that his potential future father-in-law was sitting now in the backseat made him lose focus on the threat of getting hit by lightning. Captain said little during the drive back and often only gave one or two word responses.

  When John pulled into Dr. Ferganut’s driveway, he could only see minor damage in the neighborhood. A fifteen-foot maple tree in the yard was split in half, a victim of either wind damage or lightning, although he suspected the latter. The houses on both sides had trees split from top to bottom as if they were torn in half like strips of paper.

  Dr. Ferganut gingerly climbed out but before he shut the door he spoke up. “Thanks for the chase. Brings back memories for me.” He panned around. “Well, the neighborhood looks clear. The rain’s letting up so I doubt I can get the wireflies to track down anything. Did you two want to come inside for a minute? I can show you some of the things I’m working on.”

  John gave Captain a bewildered but hopeful look. “Sure.”

  John and Captain then followed Dr. Ferganut up to the front door.

  “Are you sure you still want to write a paper about me? And are you sure anyone would want to read it?” Dr. Ferganut said, half in jest.

  John could not tell if the man was kidding or not. “Of course I want to write it.”

  Dr. Ferganut let them inside. “If Madeline let’s you. She’s not too crazy about her old man anymore.”

  The living room was the first room they entered. Besides a black leather recliner, a dark brown leather couch, and two chocolate-colored wooden end tables for furniture, the walls were covered with challenging abstract drawings and paintings. There was no television set and on either side of the couch were overstuffed bookcases. The books ranged from computer programming tomes to electronics volumes to studies of medieval literature. Many of the books had worn spines and some books were horizontally stacked on top of the vertically stacked books as if he needed a third bookcase just to hold everything.

  The kitchen was a different story entirely. There, arrayed on the table, was a fleet of metallic and plastic devices whose individual members could fit in the palm of a hand. Some devices were shaped like dragonflies, others like centipedes, and still others like hornets with an extra set of eyes. Despite the impressive display, what drew John’s attention was the overturned mechanical spider in the middle of the table. Without thinking, he gravitated toward it and reached out to pick it up.

  “Oh, be careful with that one. I found that the other week on the front lawn. I haven’t completely figured it out or what it does yet. It looks like it has some type of spinneret but I can’t break it open without wrecking it,” Dr. Ferganut said.

  “I’ve seen this before,” John said.

  “You have? Where?”

  “It was in pieces. In Dr. Amalynth’s lab.”

  “How did you get into his lab?”

  “We tracked him to it. Or maybe he led us there. It was in the basement of an abandoned church.” John turned the spider over in his hands a few times and then handed it to Captain for further analysis.

  “That’s how I found out about Dr. Minton,” he continued. “His name was a written on a scrap of paper. With a phone number.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t call that number,” Dr. Ferganut counseled.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  John noticed a Mason jar full of Ferganut sensors on the table. Next to it were devices that resembled black-and-gold fuzzed honeybees. He picked up one of the honeybees and held it up for Dr. Ferganut to see. “This doesn’t make honey, does it?”

  “Oh no. That represents years of AI research. They all work together as a swarm and learn from each other. Want to see a demo?”

  “I’m allergic to bee stings,” Captain said.

  “Oh, they don’t sting. Watch.” Dr. Ferganut picked up a small black box off of the table. The control box was the size of a deck of playing cards and had a joystick along with a tiny video touch screen. He thumbed in a few instructions into the control box and stood back as a dozen electronic bees lifted off simultaneously from the table.

  “Put your hand out, John,” Dr. Ferganut instructed. “With the palm side up.”

  The electronic bees gathered together and hovered like a real swarm just above John’s hand. Their mechanical wings were a humming blur and remained stationary until Dr. Ferganut spoke up. “Go on. Move your hand around.”

  John lifted his hand high and then swung it out to the side. The bees readjusted their altitude and followed his movements perfectly. He felt like the conductor of an electronic orchestra.

  Dr. Ferganut then punched in a few more instructions. “Now try to grab them.”

  “You serious?”

  Dr. Ferganut urged him on.

  John attempted to grasp the swarm with his hand but they dispersed and regrouped at a point higher than he could reach. When he held out his hand again they swarmed back to hover just above his outstretched palm.

  Dr. Ferganut then turned to Captain. “Wanna give it a try?”

  “No, no thanks,” Captain said as he backed up several steps toward the living room. “I might catch them.”

  Dr. Ferganut then directed the swarm away from John’s hand. They flew past Captain’s face and then spiraled back down onto the table. Captain backed away and nearly tripped over his own feet. The bees returned to the exact same formation as before and their wings fell silent the moment their metallic feet touched down.

  “So how about it?” John said. “Are you going to let me interview you so I can write up a paper?”

  Dr. Ferganut set the control box back down onto the table and smiled. “It could be argued that you two saved my life today. Maybe I owe you one. Before I agree to it, let me ask you a question. I noticed a Bible in the backseat of your truck. Do you read it much?”

  John shrugged his shoulders. “I try. But I’ve been getting stuck lately in Leviticus.”

  Dr. Ferganut laughed.

  “Why does everybody laugh when I say that?” John said, feeling irritated.

  “Maybe you should try Matthew or John first.”

  John smiled. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  Dr. Ferganut circled the table and picked up the jar of sensors. “About those rocket launches. I wonder if there’s some way we can get more sensors up there.”

  “We’ve tried bigg
er motors. More rockets. All sorts of things.” John glanced over at the wall clock. Evening was fast approaching and he knew if he stayed much longer Madeline would have a fit in the morning. He turned toward the door. “But we better hit the road. It’s a long drive back to Sioux Falls.”

  “Oh, before you go,” Dr. Ferganut called out. He reached into a cardboard box underneath the table. “Here. Take a few of these. In case you see any carbon threads dangling around. Maybe they can track down the source. And take this. It plugs into your laptop.” The professor handed John and Captain a half dozen wireflies. A wirefly was an electronic device the size of a dragonfly that had a range of many miles and a miniature electronic camera onboard. He also handed John a flash drive the size of a stick of gum and an antenna for tracking. On the flash drive was the software needed for tracking the devices.

  “I’ll bring these back where we’re done,” John said. “And about the paper. I won’t forget.”

  “Sometimes I wish others were as enthused about this as you are. Some days I wonder if anybody will remember a thing I’ve done. If you do get through more of the Bible let me know. Maybe we can even have a Bible study during some downtime.”

  As John led the way out the door, he wondered if Dr. Ferganut had made a similar deal with his other students in exchange for knowledge. Did he give the same challenge to Dr. Amalynth?

  John and Captain returned to the truck. Dr. Ferganut stood out in the driveway but looked over at his porch and shook his head.

  “Something wrong?” Captain said.

  Dr. Ferganut leaned over and examined his barbecue grill but acted as if something was missing. “Last night. I thought I heard a noise. But I figured it was a raccoon in the garbage again. But it looks like someone swiped the propane canister off my grill.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was eleven-thirty in the evening when John arrived at his home and after all of the day’s events he knew exhaustion would hit him in minutes. He set his Bible onto the nightstand and rubbed his eyes. He crashed onto his bed without another thought until he remembered he promised to call Madeline when he got home. He dialed her phone number, closed his eyes, and waited for her to pick up.

  “Hello?” She said on the third ring.

  “I’m home.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “That he’s your Dad?”

  “You’re not still going to write that paper are you? Can’t you pick a different topic, John?”

  “I think it’s awesome that he’s your dad. Why are you so ashamed of him?”

  “I’m not ashamed. You’re obsessed.”

  He opened his eyes and sat up. “Oh, I get it.”

  “No you don’t. You didn’t grow up with him.”

  “No, I do get it. You’ve got a grudge against him.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Care to explain?”

  “Not tonight. So how was the chase? Since that’s all you seem to want to talk about.” Her voice was full of irritation.

  “It was great. We got good data. We would have gotten more but we figured your Dad was a target.”

  Madeline scoffed. “When is he not a target? He’s been using that line for over a decade, John.”

  “Madeline, I watched the streamers drop down around his house! We almost got hit several times in the truck. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I heard you. So there was a bunch of cloud-to-ground lightning.”

  “Not any old lightning. I threw a canister out of the back of the truck. It was hit about a minute later.”

  “Seriously?”

  “What’s more is that your Dad knew Dr. Amalynth.”

  “John…” She let out a loud sigh. “My Dad is…unstable. There’s lots of reasons why Mom divorced him,” she snapped.

  “But how do you explain the streamers? They weren’t coming in on rockets. I’m thinking he’s using drones now.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Your Dad gave me a bunch of wireflies so I can see if we can track down where the streamers are coming from.”

  “Oh, good grief. He doesn’t stop. I’m going to bed. John, don’t waste your time with him.”

  “He asked about you.”

  “I’m sure he did,” she said dismissively. There was a hint of concern in her voice despite her efforts to conceal it.

  “We even talked about the Bible.”

  “If you only knew the real him. Good night.”

  Before he could respond she ended the call. He sprang out of bed and rushed into the office to sit at his desktop computer. He loaded the day’s chase data from his laptop computer and then fired up the software he used for recording his chase logs.

  He spent the next fifteen minutes composing an entry for the day’s events, complete with radar data, upper air maps, and a data dump from his sensor tracking software. He then shut the system down and wandered back into his bedroom. He picked up his pine-green colored Bible off the nightstand and began to leaf through its contents until he arrived at the Book of Matthew. His eyes were sore but he had just enough of a renewed burst of energy that he figured he could knock out a chapter or two before dozing off.

  He worked his way into and through chapter two with ease. Just as he was about to start chapter three, he heard a clunk sound on the roof. He sprang up from his bed and snatched the flashlight from a drawer in his nightstand. A short sprint later and he was at the front door. The sky was clouded over and although there were storms to the west and south overhead it was quiet.

  Outside, he stood in his bare feet on the dew-topped cool lawn. He swept his flashlight at the roof and scanned the edge of it. He then scoured the grass. He then searched the air just above the roof for signs of suspended threads dangling down from above but found nothing. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was another pinecone dropping off the row of trees along the south side of the house.

  He circled the yard twice. He stopped for a moment to listen to the calls of a barn owl down the street. He switched off the flashlight, went back inside, and considered himself fortunate that for tonight, he was not a target.

  At least not yet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  John first picked up Madeline at her apartment and then swung by her mother Evelyn’s house in the town of Wick. Together they drove to the nearby elementary school where the Spirit of Grace Church now held their Sunday morning services. After the storm that leveled half of the town including the church, the congregation regrouped and moved forward despite losing several key members due to departure, defeat, or death. The remaining members reestablished services in the school gymnasium. In some ways the church ended up back where it started—as a ragtag group of people with shared beliefs but no place to call their own.

  The cushioned chairs were replaced with folding chairs, the altar was replaced by a cloth-covered wooden table, and the sound system was replaced by portable speakers. On the table was a propped-up cross and two flowerpots full of gold-and-rust-colored marigolds. The giant screen behind the podium was no more, replaced by a view of a basketball hoop and backboard. The carpeted floor was replaced by wooden boards with black and red lines and above cold fluorescent lamps shone down. The worship band was long gone and replaced by a man with an acoustic guitar and a young woman seated at a synthesizer.

  John sat next to Madeline and her mother, yet he had a difficult time getting comfortable in the folding chair. He surveyed the crowd but noted that many associates of Jared Wyckham were gone. There were no signs of the worship leader, Alicia Benning, or the former chief of police of Wick. Like the altered landscape of the town, even the shuffled structure of the service felt foreign yet familiar.

  The first surprise came in the form of readings from Scripture. The first reading came from the Book of Deuteronomy, the second from Ephesians, and the third from a passage in Matthew John read the night before. Reading from Scripture was a practice the
Spirit of Grace Church alternately abandoned and embraced during Jared Wyckham’s time here as if mirroring his own personal struggles with such things. Instability aside, Pastor Dennis Anbusch remained on as the lead pastor and today he gave the sermon.

  The pastor was over six feet tall, wore a pale blue dress shirt and tie, and black dress pants. His wiry glasses exaggerated his beady eyes and his hair looked whiter than before. His weathered face gave the impression of years of accumulated wisdom, but John knew better. The pastor held the sides of the wooden podium like an arrogant captain at the wheel of an unruly ship.

  For the sermon, the pastor locked in on the reading from Matthew chapter three, about the arrival of John the Baptist. He then tried to draw a connection to the arrival of Jared Wyckham but meandered off topic a half dozen times before he ended up discussing the benefits of raw honey.

  Madeline leaned over and whispered into John’s ear. “Sorry, he’s really struggling today.”

  At that, John opened up the church bulletin. Below the weekly calendar was a list of announcements which held John’s interest for a minute or two. Just as he was about to turn the page, he spotted a note for a carnival at St. Patrick’s church on the south side of Sioux Falls. He had not attended a carnival in years and the thought of mini-donuts caked with cinnamon and sugar stirred his appetite. He held out the bulletin in front of Madeline and pointed to the announcement.

  She grinned at him and he interpreted that as an affirmation of his idea. He then pulled out his cell phone and checked a handful of computer model forecasts. The carnival was a few days out but he thought he would check anyway. He knew of a stalled frontal boundary south of the region but the storm motion forecast along with the upper level winds being parallel to the front indicated the potential for heavy, slow-moving, training thunderstorms rather than tornadoes. According to the latest public forecast, there was only a slim chance of any of it affecting the carnival event. That, of course, could change in a day or two. Even if anything did move in, he thought, a little rain never hurt anyone, right?

  As soon as the sermon ended, a hymn was played, followed by the prayers of the church. Pastor Anbusch began the process. “Lord, we thank you for our friends and family and your ability to preserve a remnant faithful to your cause. Help us all to be John the Baptists in our homes, workplaces, and our travels. Help us not to forget the fallen and those that have gone before us and remind us that they look down on us from above as we courageously rebuild on the foundations they so bravely built for us.”