THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  Completed, they prepared an empty Petri dish, smearing the underside with the material before attaching the cables.

  The dish flew into the air and, freed from the electrical current, fell back to the table again.

  The twins looked towards one another, “Shit,” they said in absolute union.

  September 20th

  Professor Rolle was a sprightly man in his sixties and head of Astrophysics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University.

  Professor Rolle’s wife often described him as an ox in a paddy field; plodding and seemingly morose, and yet totally reliable, adored by those who knew him well and displaying a power that few could resist. And just like the ox, he fulfilled a vital role in his world. Professor Rolle wasn’t aware of the comparison, and nor would Claire Rolle have approved of her husband learning of her thoughts, even if she felt certain he would have agreed with her.

  Students attending his classes thought him a bore until he stood at a lectern to talk about his field. Once there, there were few men in the world who could match Herbert Rolle, not only for the breadth of his knowledge, but for the impassioned way in which he shared it.

  On this particular day he was in his office in Cavendish Laboratory tidying his books after one of his classes when the Howard twins knocked on his open door and entered, each looking to the other as they waited for the other to take the lead.

  “Come on boys, out with it!” Rolle demanded, smiling at the pair of bright individuals. He missed their presence in his classes, where their observations had always added a little more interest to the subject; a new perspective.

  “We have something,” Thomas, but it could have been David, said to him, watching him with a new alertness.

  “But we don’t want to go commercial with it,” said the other twin.

  “Not even a patent?” he asked the lads.

  They shook their head emphatically, their seriousness enough to gain the professor’s complete interest. He stopped trying to find the best way to sort his books and leant back against the wall to better stare at his two visitors.

  As he did every time he met the lads, the professor tried to find some difference between them, something on which he could hang their name. As always, he found nothing.

  “So, what is it?” he asked, a hand absently pulling his hair back.

  The twins glanced once more towards each other, and then began.

  “As far as we can tell, we’re able to produce a gravitational field governed by an electrical charge through a new chemical compound,” he was told.

  “My word!” the professor exclaimed, swaying as he thought of the implications.

  “Got a name for it?” he asked, and got a synchronised shaking of their heads.

  “The compound can be used to either propel an object away from external gravitational forces, or to produce an independent force within a very specific field of influence.”

  “As far as we’ve been able to test, while the substance has a small degree of decay caused by use, it is phenomenally low given the power generated. So, a reasonable application of the compound used to raise a one metre cubed object weighing one tonne, one metre from sea level, should last approximately 250 years.”

  “Approximately,” the professor teased.

  The boys took a breath, then saw the intended joke and smiled as they nodded.

  “And power consumption?” the professor asked.

  “Low,” the twins told him. “We’ve been using AA batteries for our testing, but we’ve only raised 5 kilos so far,” they explained. “Mathematically, we’ve extrapolated that a two kilowatt source should provide sufficient for most transportation needs.”

  The professor breathed out as he imagined the applications for the chemical, his eyes widening as the list grew and grew and grew. He recognised he was privy to a life changing discovery, and the thought made his heart pound, his knees growing weak while his hands shook. Very soon, the world would change, and how it changed would depend in part on what advice he could offer the two students in front of him.

  “We’ve also tested for exhaust gases, radiation, and every other pollutant we can think of, and so far it is clean,” one of them told him, it could have been either Thomas or David, the professor could never tell.

  “Would you like to see a demonstration?” they asked him.

  “What, here, now?” Rolle asked. “Just like that?” he queried, astonished by the simplicity of what the twins were telling him.

  Smiling wickedly, one of the twins picked up his paperweight from the desk, an old telescope lens that weight about 3 kilos. The other twin took a small jar from his pocket and used the brush attached to the inside of the lid to paint a small square on the glass.

  “Is that all?” Rolle asked with incredulity, watching as the jar was returned to the pocket, and a battery was pulled out, a red and a yellow wire twined about it. In just moments the connections were made, and right in front of Rolle’s eyes, his heavy paperweight rose effortlessly into the air, falling down again as the wire was pulled from the painted surface.

  “My word!” Rolle murmured, astonished. “And there’s no limit to how high this stuff will work?” he asked.

  The twins shook their heads while also shrugging their shoulders. “We launched a small radio transmitter,” one of them explained.

  “As far as we can tell, it’s still travelling out of the solar system. We turned off the transmitter once it got to 50,000 kilometres out,” the other twin finished explaining “We didn’t want too many people wondering where it came from.”

  “You see the fix we’re in, Professor, don’t you?” they asked of him while one cleaned their substance from the glass.

  “You’re not going to last two minutes under the weight of everyone wanting a piece,” Rolle told them.

  The twins agreed, this time nodding in time with each other. “We thought perhaps, with your help, we could use it secretly within the university; launch those experiments the university is always trying to get launched or sent to the International Space Station.”

  “We need time and space to investigate the properties of this substance. Launching small experiments into space seem to us to be the best way of doing that,” they explained.

  “We can give you very good rates,” one of the twins told him causing both to grin. “How does 5,000 Euros per lift sound? Anything up to 50 kilos and one metre cubed.”

  “50 kilos? Is that weight significant?” the professor asked.

  The twins were quick to shake their heads. “Mathematically, we can lift any weight. Frankly, we just looked back to see what was the heaviest package the university had lifted in the past, and added 10 kilos.”

  So much for the scientific approach, Rolle conceded. “We’ve got to be careful though,” Rolle murmured, as much to himself as to the twins. “One hint of this and it’s likely to be stolen from you,” he pointed out.

  “So what do you suggest, Professor?” the twins asked of him.

  Rolle considered, his eyes fixed on the heavy glass lens while his hand once again rose, this time to remain in his hair. “Let me think on it,” he said. “I know someone better versed in subterfuge than I am. Let me find out if he’ll help you, and then we’ll take it from there. Yes?” he asked.

  The twins agreed and departed, and Professor Rolle sat at his desk to draw an old phone book from the back of his top drawer. He hadn’t needed the number for quite a while and wasn’t even sure it would still work.

  October 12th

  The platform at Cambridge rail station was a long and narrow band of asphalt gleaming wetly in the sun after an autumn shower had passed from west to east. Scattered grey showers raced after it, tail enders to a very long marathon.

  The station was a fusion of Victorian, Edwardian and 2011 styles; red brick, limestone and the graceful curves of steel girders with the added cleanliness of glass. It had looked good as a designer’s model, but for some unfathomable reason failed in real life. It
may have been just the competition that it was up against in Cambridge. But no, in all fairness it would have failed in any city.

  Professor Rolle squinted against the painful sunlight while trying to look beyond the platform to where his London bound train would arrive. Like the platform in front of him, the rails gleamed as they diminished into the distance, no train in sight.

  His bulky jacket added to an already stout frame, its vivid blue colour pointing him out for the two discrete gentlemen he thought might be following him. Otherwise, the professor would have merged into the crowd, for there was little outwardly that differentiated him from other individuals.

  He glanced right and left and, licking his upper lip, ran his hand through his thinning hair, an instantly recognisable trait to anyone even slightly acquainted with the Head of Astrophysics at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. As he meandered along the platform, he noted how the camera on the opposite platform slowly followed him, but that could have been a normal trace. Truth was, the elderly professor was not used to skulduggery and was in principle against it. However, on this occasion he could see the need for it.

  That should do it, he thought, but just for good measure he entered the buffet bar and bought himself a medium cappuccino, wincing at the extravagance, and a copy of the Times newspaper, one of the few that still published in its paper format, and charged for it. The little Asian woman behind the counter insisted on serving him without a glance, and the professor had to fumble overly long for the right change, and drop a few coins on the floor for good measure, before she would look at him. Then, laden with the burningly hot paper cup and the newspaper, he stepped back onto the platform and tried not to look at the surveillance cameras while he performed for them.

  The train arrived, and the professor queued with half a dozen others while those on the train disembarked. He then got on and sat down, his eyes scanning the platform for the men he’d seen earlier, his heart hammering at the thought of what he was doing. He couldn’t see the men, but that would mean little to him. They had the means to remain hidden while he, with his limited experience, could only guess at where they might be.

  The train doors closed with a warning sound and the train slid away from the platform. The professor opened his newspaper and began to read old news, pretending absorbed interest while wondering how many eyes were upon him.

  He knew the risk he was taking. Michael Bennett had retired from the security forces many years before, but the professor knew that his phone and email accounts would still be routinely checked and any unusual contacts followed up on. He just had to hope that their relationship would be noted and the call assumed to be just family business. After all, Michael was also his son-in-law.

  The train was a semi-fast service to London and would stop at a couple of local stations before then speeding into London without any further stops. It had been chosen for that reason.

  The train slowed as it came towards its final stop before London King’s Cross Station. The professor stood and took his un-drunk coffee with him along the passage to the next carriage, slipping into the toilet that was just beyond the communicating doors while his heart renewed its hammering.

  He locked the door before putting down his purchases to take off and reverse his jacket. The bright blue was turned inside and a practical grey replaced it.

  Pulling down and straightening his collar with one hand, he took a realistic looking moustache from his pocket and, carefully peeling off the protective membrane from the back, waited patiently for the train to come to a complete stop before gingerly attaching it to his face. He looked at himself in the reflection of the polished steel mirror and patted the greying hairs of the false moustache firmly into place before testing it with a twitch of his lip. He could hear the shrill warning to stand clear of the doors as he unrolled a slender dark tie from his pocket and tied it loosely about his neck, as if having been worn for too long already.

  The coffee went into the wash bowl and was flushed away, and the rolled up paper was placed to one side for the next person to read. He hoped someone would appreciate it more than he.

  With a deep breath, the professor stepped from the toilet and continued his slow progress towards the front of the train, a hand in his jacket pocket where it couldn’t be tempted to rise and slide through his thinning hair. London, said the electronic train notice sliding slowly to left from right over the adjoining carriage door, was still twenty minutes away. Taking a seat in the middle of the lead carriage, the professor took out his well used tablet and began to read the latest news from the free feeds, the moustache irritating his upper lip.

  +++++++++++++++++

  The Sergeant at Arms public house was in the old borough of Chelsea, on one of those little side streets that make up most of the borough, crammed between a boutique of extravagant clothes and an antique shop with a very conservative frontage, displaying a sixteenth century occasional table in the window with a price tag well over Rolle’s pocket.

  It took the professor twenty minutes to get there using a mixture of underground trains and taxis, sometimes heading in the wrong direction in his efforts to mislead anyone surreptitiously watching him. It all helped, should there be such an individual. He knew he’d not be able to tell until it was too late.

  The interior of the pub had never looked nicer, he thought, and yet the tension in him increased as he pushed his way through the old swing doors and into a crowded public bar.

  The Free House had retained the old Edwardian interior, and the owners had emphasised the age of the building by decorating the walls with photographs from the period, in black and white and sepia, with the location, in the main too changed to be recognisable. Well-dressed sales personnel from the nearby car, jewellery and art galleries mingled together to talk shop while, in one small corner, a flat-screen TV showed News 24 reporting the latest hostilities in Turkey.

  The professor made his slow and awkward way past the mass of customers towards a small space at the bar, practically under the muted television.

  “A cider please, dry if you would be so kind,” he told the barmaid as she came over with a questioning look. Behind her two others worked ceaselessly to keep their customers’ glasses full. She nodded, smiled, and pulled a glass from under the counter. Meanwhile, the professor eased himself forward onto a bar stool and softly sighed.

  “Can’t be that difficult, Cambridge to London?” asked a voice at his side. The figure that had been slouched over a paper copy of the Times raised his head long enough to take a gulp of the deep amber liquid half filling a glass in front of him, smiled sadly towards the professor, and then returned his attention to the crossword puzzle. It was an angular face suggesting an age of middle to late thirties, the eyes a deep and piercing blue, the brown hair cut short with a view to minimal grooming needs. The collar of his waxed jacket was pulled up hiding his thick neck while the pockets bulged with unseen and incomprehensible items.

  “Like the ‘tash,” he murmured, his attention still on the newspaper, a pencil hovering over the crossword.

  “It stinks. If I’m caught they’ll do me for glue sniffing before anything else,” the professor muttered. The girl returned with a smile and his cider and the professor winced at the cost before pocketing his change and reaching for his wallet instead. His silent companion took another gulp of his beer and winked at the long-suffering barmaid while she waited for her money. She grinned and strode off with a fresh wriggle of her well defined arse.

  “So, you don’t look any better,” Rolle said while looking up at the television. Armed police were using their batons on protestors while the ticker tape travelling along the bottom of the screen spoke of an illegal uprising having been quelled. Were any uprisings legal, he wondered.

  “Thank you, professor,” he was told dryly. Michael then quickly completed a clue on the crossword before hand and pencil rose and hovered once again. “What’s this all about then?” he asked.

  The professor took his t
ime to savour his cider before beginning his reply. On the TV, the latest Chinese space-rocket rose 50 feet from its gantry before suddenly exploding. The ticker tape on the bottom of the screen reminded the reader that this was the third such failure and the Chinese space program seemed certain to be cancelled.

  “I had two post grads approach me the other day, terribly shy and nervous, more so than usual. Not my boys any longer, actually, though they sometimes sit in if there’s something that interests them. They’re both post grads in Astrophysics, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and now studying Particle Physics under Professor Lark.

  “Anyway, they came to see me, clearly clandestinely, and asked if I could act as an arbitrator for them. Seems they know the university is forever putting funds aside in an effort to get their experiments lifted onto the International Space Station, and they wanted to offer an alternative transport system.”

  “I take it they didn’t mean as far as Cape Canaveral?” Michael asked, crouched over the newspaper, his pencil moving again, studiously counting the cells in five down before retracing the line to squirrel in an answer.

  “No,” the professor agreed, peering at the crossword over the other’s arm. “They offered to put any object, up to fifty kilos in weight and smaller than a cubic metre in size, into space, no limit to altitude, and all for five thousand Euros.”

  Michael looked up at the professor, his eyes probing for the truth of the statement. “And you believed them?” he asked.

  “I did. I do,” the professor agreed. “We spoke for a bit, and it sounds as though the two of them have found a substance that either repulses gravity, or negates mass; they wouldn’t elaborate. However, whatever it is, if that substance is controllable, and its obviously affordable, then it will not only change the travel and transport industries, but change warfare quite considerably too!” and he raised his glass to take two deep gulps while staring at the images of Eastern Turkey where fighting still continued, despite NATO’s intervention.