by RJ Johnson
Withdrawing his elbow from Alex’s gut, Scott grasped the paper firmly in his hands.
“Ahem,” Scott said, “Your stone is made up of the element…” Scott stopped, rereading the piece of paper in his hands. “Well, now that’s interesting…” He muttered to himself.
Alex’s interest was piqued. “What is it?”
“The stone is made out of an element that doesn’t exist in nature.” Scott said examining the tray as he took it out of the Spectral Analyzer. “Do you know what you’ve got here?”
“Yes, I’ve totally set this whole thing up as a gag. Smile; you’re on Candid Camera.”
Scott ignored him. “You remember your periodic table of elements, right?” Scott asked, jutting his thumb towards the diagram hanging on the wall, familiar to all tortured high school chemistry students.
“Just the basics, really; number equals atomic weight, the symbols, hydrogen’s first, that sort of thing.” Alex said scratching his head. “What does that have to do with the stone?”
Scott raced over to the periodic table and pointed at the last few elements on the table. “See these? Because the electrons orbit so far away from the protons and neutrons the make up the nucleus – the glue that holds atoms together, of course – the strong nuclear force is overcome quickly, and the element becomes unstable.”
“Radioactive decay, sure; that’s why we don’t use plutonium metal to build houses with.” Alex motioned for Scott to continue.
“Close enough.” Scott said, rolling his eyes. “See these last few elements?”
Alex looked at the table and read the various names on the chart. Some were named after the people who discovered them; Lawrencium, Mendelevium, Rutherfordium. Others appeared to be just nonsense words, with exotic names like ununoctium, ununseptium, or ununbiem.
Alex looked at the familiar chart on the wall. “That chart doesn’t even go past 118.”
Scott snorted, “Right; that’s because up until now, the only elements that are stable enough to hang around for the lifetime of the universe are numbered 1 through 92 up on that chart. Anything higher than that is subject to radioactive decay. No one’s been able to find any stable isotopes in nature.” Scott slowed down a bit; his friend may have been a wiz on the football field, but he was never much with chemistry.
“It is theorized that these elements can be created, though. The elements belong to a group called the Island of Stability.” Scott’s eyes shone with possibilities. “And if you were able to synthesize some of those elements, the properties they would have are just mind-boggling.”
Alex shook his head. He hated it when Scott went ubernerd on him.
“Scott, slow down and try again,” Alex said. “Dumb it down a little. What are you talking about?”
“The rock you’re holding should not exist. The technology that could create that element is, at best, two hundred years away. And yet…” Scott said wistfully, his excitement palpable, “here you are holding onto it, using it, healing yer wounds…” Scott stopped himself and took a deep breath. He looked up, serious at his friend. “What it comes down to Alex, is…I’ve got nothing.”
Alex’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure the test was accurate?”
Scott's voice was confident. “If there’s one thing I take care of in my lab, it’s my instruments. The test wasn’t wrong.” He handed the paper to Alex. “Take a look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Toootally.” Alex said sarcastically, jerking his thumb back towards the ruined laser as he examined the paper in front of him. Well, solving what it was made out of didn’t help much. But at least it’s a start, Alex thought grimly to himself.
“So we’ve solved what it’s made out of; any way we can figure out where it came from?”
“Only if we wanna ruin another three-million-dollar laser. There aren’t many more tests I know how to do that I want to risk trying with that stone, after it turned my best piece of lab equipment into scrap metal. There’s no telling how it might react to any other tests,” Scott replied sadly. He stared at the stone in front of him woefully. “This is some seriously advanced alien stuff right here.”
Alex whirled around and looked at his best friend, a smile spreading over his face. “What’d you say?”
“I said we probably can’t do much more with this unless we want to ruin another…”
“No, not that,” Alex cut him off. “The thing about aliens.”
“Well,” Scott said, confused, “I was just thinking about how that element isn’t supposed to occur in nature, and really the only way you’re going to be able to make…” Scott waved his hand at Alex’s stone, “whatever the hell that is… You’d need some pretty serious technology...” He trailed off, “I dunno, I was just making a joke is all.”
Alex smiled, “Not just a joke, my friend, but a brilliant suggestion. Who do we know that’s spent her entire life looking for aliens?”
Scott thought for a moment, and his face fell. “Alex, you can’t be serious. She…”
“She’s the only one besides you left out there I know I can trust with this kind of information.” Alex said firmly. He grimaced, thinking of the implications. “It’s also about time she knew I was alive.”
Scott nodded. “I’ll back whatever play you want to make. I’m just saying I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you alive for the first time…” He trailed off. “I have no idea what seeing you is going to do to her.”
Alex considered what he was saying. Unfortunately, he knew, Scott was right. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Alex put the necklace holding the powerful stone back around his neck and grabbed his jacket. “Come on buddy! Time’s a-wasting!”
Alex moved to the door on the other side of the lab. Scott shook his head and got up from the chair. “This is the part where I’m supposed to say this is a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“Well, you already know I’m not gonna listen, so why bother? Let’s go!”
Scott hung his head as he pressed the button, opening the door to the lab and back towards the elevator. “Is there any way I can resign my post as sidekick?”
“You have no sense of adventure,” Alex replied, a smirk spreading across his face. “Just imagine what’s out there for us! Eh?” He jabbed an elbow into Scott’s gut, as his friend forlornly stared at the ruined remains of his formerly shining lab.
“Adventure, explosions, gunfights with evil billionaires…” Scott replied sarcastically, “I didn’t know I was signing up be in a summer blockbuster.”
The doors slid shut, and the elevator moved up towards the surface. The adventure was coming, whether Scott liked it or not.
Chapter Eighteen
Rupert Kline peered around the corner looking into a dark and dusty hole that had been quickly dug into the side of the mesa only a few hours before. He had shed the expensively tailored London suit for clothing more suited to the hot Mojave Desert. Now, Kline wore khakis, a modest brown shirt, and a long overcoat to protect from the night’s chill. The sun had set long ago, and with little vegetation to hang onto the day’s heat, the desert cooled quickly.
The only illumination on the site came from several large halogen spotlights connected to a noisy diesel generator. All the artificial light created a halo-like glow to the entrance of Kline’s newly dug mineshaft. Smaller lights wound their way down the long tunnel, hooked precariously on lines the pneumatic drills had quickly stamped in.
Kline dodged two men exiting the cave entrance, hauling away more rock and dirt in a large portable mine car. The mining cars were squat, holding two tons of rock and dirt in a long and deep carriage as they ran along on their six heavy duty tires. Kline smiled at the two working men and gave them and their cart full of rubble a wide berth. The two men kept their heads down, not looking to start any trouble. They were paid well, but no one said they had to be friendly with the boss.
Kline wandered down further into the hole. They were making good progress, but he had heard o
ver the radio that the drill team had hit a snag. Not one to let things lie, Kline had immediately left his desk to find out exactly what was the problem was.
He sniffed the air, scrunching his nose as he did so. There was a sickly-sweet tinge to the atmosphere, vaguely smelling of sulfur, sweat, various other offensive body odors, and finally, like whipped cream on top of hot chocolate, the unspoken, unnatural fear of being buried alive under several tons of unmovable rock. It was this last smell that made Kline smile. He closed his eyes and inhaled as deeply as possible.
Throughout the world, and every race of people, fear never discriminated. A Homo Sapiens’ body, through years of evolution and conditioning, learned to contract muscles, activate danger sensors, and ready itself for fight or flight at the slightest hint of danger.
Kline had a healthy respect for fear. He believed it had been fear that brought mankind down from swinging through the branches and into its greatest achievement: technology. With sharp stone tools to protect and outsmart the fearsome might of nature, man evolved to control nature, sadly without learning how to control himself.
To Rupert Kline, fear was exotic cologne with which everyone sprayed themselves on a daily basis. Using this innate ability to correctly guess what people feared most in the world, the billionaire was able to deduce a man’s greatest fear, like an experienced wine steward choosing the best bottle to go with a good piece of fish.
Kline sniffed the air around him several more times, experiencing the aroma as if enjoying a particularly fine vintage. He smiled grimly to himself as he continued down the dank hole, hoping to find the man in charge looking for Kline’s treasure.
Walking several hundred more feet down into the mesa, Kline walked into a pocket of open and exposed rock. The drilling team had stopped, waiting for orders, as their portly foreman screamed insults and curses into his radio.
“I don’t care what that limey Kline says! If we keep drilling, we risk blowing this entire damn mountain up, and no one goes home happy!” The foreman’s face was red from the effort of yelling into the compact radio he held in his massive hands. “Find me that pansy Englishman and send him down here if he wants to deal with me himself.”
The impatient man threw the radio down in a fit. Kline looked on with amusement. As with all his employees, Kline had ensured a thorough background check. His name was Red Howell, a graduate of MIT in the mid-seventies with an above average GPA; he had landed a cushy government job right out of graduate school with several perks — among them, his boss’s new wife.
After the scandal had ruined Red’s chances in government service, he settled comfortably into the private sector, doing odd jobs for various corporations around the world. Red had been highly recommended to Kline because of his thoroughness, foresight, and most important, the ability to bring in any job on time. Plus the little portly man made Kline chuckle to himself with the way he set his jaw. It was uncanny how much the foreman resembled how his prize-winning English bulldog looked while passing a bowel movement.
Kline watched the foreman, with his huge underbite, chew on his bottom lip in frustration. Adjusting the lantern on his hat to give himself a better view of the plans in front of him, Red didn’t sense Kline looking at the plans over his shoulder for a full two minutes.
Kline coughed slightly, and Red, still hot from his exchange with the crew above ground, turned and yelled, “What?” His face slackened as he rolled his eyes, seeing the meddling boss below ground.
“I understand you’re having some problems with the drilling,” Kline replied politely.
“You could say that.” Red brushed Kline aside as he approached the large drilling vehicle currently parked up against the wall of the cave. “Get this drill changed out pronto,” he barked to several assistants, who were busy pouring water over the machine’s gears. The drill ran incredibly hot, which in turn, heated the surrounding area inside the cave to a toasty 120 degrees. The cold water was one of the few ways the workers were able to stay cool this deep underground.
“Well,” Kline said, following the man like an eager puppy, “what exactly has my money bought me so far?”
“So far?” The foreman pushed the plans into Kline’s hands. “So far, you’ve stumbled upon one of the biggest natural gas formations I’ve ever seen. This, this is just…” He paused, catching his breath. “The table of gas we’ve stumbled upon here is easily worth billions.” The foreman glanced suspiciously at Kline for a moment. “You know, I didn’t expect to find a whole lot out here; I was on the original survey team that looked at this area in the 80’s.”
“Well, if you didn’t expect to find anything, why’d you sign on?” Kline asked tilting his head to one side.
“Money’s good. By the way,” the foreman slapped a yellow helmet into Kline’s chest, “you need to be wearing a helmet.” Red moved off as Kline wondered exactly what kind of magic was contained within this piece of plastic capable of protecting his head against a ton of rock and rubble should the tunnel collapse. Kline tossed the helmet to the side as he moved to catch back up with the foreman.
“I’ll keep it in mind. Say,” Kline grabbed the fat man’s shoulder, “I’ve noticed that you’re not drilling anymore. Why is that?”
The large man looked back at the billionaire as if he couldn’t decide that he was crazy or just plain stupid. “Mr. Kline, there’s several atmospheres of pressure made up mostly of natural gas contained within some sort of cavern about another twenty feet on the other side of that rock. Now…” The foreman raised his sweaty and hairy arms to demonstrate drilling through the rock standing in front of the drilling machine.
“If we continue to drill, we run the risk of igniting the gas pocket and blowing not just your profits in this strike, but also my men, your equipment, and half of Joshua Tree along with it.” He stopped and placed the map on the wall to emphasize his point.
“It’d be the single greatest natural disaster to happen in modern times.” He shook his head thinking of the possibilities. “Luckily, what I can do is run a bit through that rock, get it in there, and siphon off some of that gas slowly. Give me a few weeks and we’ll have your operation up and running 100%.”
He turned looking uncertain at the billionaire whose face was losing its smile. He continued nervously, “I can get us pumping probably within 48 hours or so, but…” He trailed off; Kline’s face definitely indicated there was something wrong.
Kline pursed his fingers onto the bridge of his nose. If Mr. Tate’s men and their incompetence at the Sheriff’s station hadn’t moved his timetable up, this wouldn’t be a concern. Now, they had to work against the clock. Joshua Tree was a desolate place, but eventually, someone was bound to notice a Sheriff’s station burned to the ground. Kline wasn’t sure how long that bloody scene could go unnoticed, and he had every intention of having his equipment gone before anyone found out what he was up to in the middle of this godforsaken desert.
“Drill around the natural gas. If you pop off any chambers, seal it and cap. Get me to the coordinates I’ve specified. That’s your only job right now, Mr. Howell. You have 24 hours,” Kline decided as he turned on his heel, walking back up the tunnel to his office trailer.
The foreman shook his head. “Nuh-uh, no way…” Kline ignored him as he continued up the tunnel. “Hey, Kline!” the foreman cried out running up after him, “I can’t do 24 hours.”
Kline stopped and shrugged. “Fine. How’s twelve hours?” he asked. “But not a minute more,” he smirked, wagging his finger.
“You’re not understanding!” Red yelled at the retreating Kline, his portly face reddening from the effort. “If I rush this, I’ll blow us all to hell!”
Kline continued to ignore him, walking back up to the top of the Mesa where his office trailer waited, the air conditioner running full blast. Red’s frustration boiled over as he grabbed Kline’s sleeve, holding him back.
“You idiot!” he screamed as he looked into the Englishman’s eyes. “You want to ge
t us killed?”
Kline turned back to the foreman and began to chuckle. For a moment, Red thought he might’ve gone too far, but Kline was laughing, and after Kline approached within inches of his forehead, Red began to nervously laugh along with Kline.
The billionaire smiled, turned quickly on his heel, and walked a few feet over to a yellow and red cooler full of water, which was attached firmly to the rear of the monstrous drill by canvas straps. Kline paused, looking for an empty cup near the canteen.
“Ah, here we are,” Kline muttered to himself as he grabbed an old grey cup, once designed for a commuter’s coffee. Putting the metal cup underneath the spigot, Kline filled it and walked back to the foreman, who was still waiting, confused at Kline’s reaction to his outburst. Kline smiled broadly and drank deeply until half of the water was gone.
Kline smacked his lips loudly and looked with disdain at the foreman. He paused, looking at the cup of water in his hand.
“Did you know that comets are responsible for most of the water on this planet?” Kline mused thoughtfully.
Confused, Red didn’t reply, choosing instead to stay silent. Kline looked back to him, annoyed by the lack of response. “Come now, Mr. Howell, I’m sure that wall of degrees in your shiny office stood for something, did it not?” Kline continued, his contempt becoming clear. “Or are they all illusions? Simple pieces of paper, worth only what the frame could fetch from a pawn shop?”
Red bristled at the implication, “I’m no liar, Mr. Kline. I earned those degrees.”
“THEN ANSWER THE QUESTION!” Kline screamed, throwing the cup to the ground at Red’s feet.
“Yes!” Red snapped back. “Yeah, I remember reading something like that back in high school.”
Kline’s attitude frosted over once again, “Well, I’m glad to see American public schools are up to the challenge.” Kline bent over, grasping the metal cup off the ground, and walked back over to the cooler.
