13: Chaos’ Theory
There was an awkward moment during which Philip said thanks sarcastically and a response wasn’t forthcoming from Noah. Now the silence was becoming unbearable.
“Should we adjourn to my room?” Noah asked, relieving the tension between them.
They made their way to the door, only to meet someone blocking their way.
“Isn’t it rather inappropriate for a teacher to be taking a student to his room?” Cary asked, smartly.
“Yeah, hilarious,” Philip replied, trying (and failing) to push past her.
She stood resolute, “You don’t exactly keep quiet when talking about your secret lives. Not that anyone would understand a word you two say, English or otherwise.”
“As you said, no one would understand what we were saying,” Noah pointed out.
“Doesn’t mean they couldn’t mark you as crazy.”
As the bigger person, Noah found it easier to push the girl aside, “Well we’re going on our way. Was there anything you wanted to say or shall we go?”
Not waiting for an answer, Noah walked off towards the staircase. Philip made to follow, but Cary put her arm out.
“You realise you can’t keep us out of it, me, Jimmy and that girl, don’t you?”
Philip sighed, “And do you realise that I don’t give a damn about you or Jimmy? You’re an inconvenience, and if you get hurt, it’s your fault for coming along.”
Cary had never been one to give up in an argument, but since she’d met Philip, she’d not been able to do anything else.
This time they were in Eve’s room. She couldn’t exactly leave and wander around with the other students, and she was getting lonely. But was being bored really better than being lonely?
“So what is it?” she asked again, still not taking in what she was seeing.
Noah moved the phone nearer to her face, “It’s a record of all the machine’s preliminary tests, and their results, since they plugged it in just after we arrived. There’s also some information that could lead to its true purpose.”
“And have you come any closer to working out what that is?” Philip pressured him.
“I’ve made some headway, yes.”
“That was fast,” Eve remarked.
“Well it was all laid out for the reader in the database.”
“A lack of encryption just strengthens my point about being wary,” Philip reminded him.
Noah waved the words off with his hand, “Ah, what’s the worst they could do?”
The phone pinged, causing them all to jump.
“It seems the search didn’t stop at the file,” Noah smiled.
“Initial maximum energy output...” Philip read off the screen.
“I may only work with cars and helicopters, but that’s a hell of a lot of power,” Eve breathed.
“Enough to fuel the US power grid for a year, probably more,” Noah calculated.
The three of them looked at each other.
Noah continued, “Something that powerful can’t be used for anything good, a weapon, perhaps. Whatever it is, it’ll have to be destroyed.”
“Whoa, hang on. That machine could be used to solve the world’s power problems,” Philip exclaimed.
Noah turned back to him, “You want to save the world from a power war, fine. You have the plans on the phone. But right now, I’m trying to save the world from five biblical doom-bringers whose sole intent is to bring our world to ruin.”
“Fair do’s,” Eve shrugged.
Philip glared at Noah, but didn’t take the argument further as the blueprints of the machine reopened on the screen. Noah zoomed in on the lower section of the picture, where the human and alien technologies were fused by a transformer.
“Look here,” Noah indicated small cylinders running alongside the human-made pipes and around the transformer. “Those are coolant tanks. The amount of energy required to sustain that thing must be astronomical. The piping which supplies the machine with energy would surely heat to melting point, even if they don’t have to give full power due to the transformer. Without the coolant, the entire operation would either shut down or explode. Whichever, we win.”
“An explosion?” Philip repeated, stunned. “Won’t that take out the Collider as well?”
Eve shrugged, “We’d just have to hope they’ve put in safety measures.”
Philip went back to glaring, this time at Eve.
They spilled out into the Place des Cinq-Continents car park from the minibus they’d taken yesterday, milling around once on the level ground. Next the teachers descended from the vehicle, pulling out the registers as they joined the students on the tarmac. All were there, as they should be, so this coach-side assembly took no longer than it had to. Like in CERN, the students were split into groups, each with a respective tutor (or in one case, Noah). They had some time to explore the town centre before they had to regroup by the coach, when they would be entering the Théâtre Forum.
It would have been perfect for Noah if those in his group were Philip and Eve alone, but fate was cruel like that. And as it happened, so was Dr Radcliffe. But really, what were the chances that in his group would be that damned girl Cary?
But it looked like there were some smart teens in his care (well, they were on a science trip, they were going to be intelligent...which didn’t exactly explain Cary, but when is there not an exception that proves the rule?); they could take care of themselves.
Making their way into the streets of the town, Noah handed one of the boys the tourist map, before stepping aside with Philip and Eve.
“Are you sure you can remember your way around the facility?” he checked with Eve for one last time.
“Spend a few days in the same few rooms and you get to know them. Yes, I can remember the way.”
“Do you have the plans?” Philip asked Noah.
Noah patted his pocket. They looked over at the group, and saw they were following their set path. Then there was Cary.
“Do you ever stay with the group?” Philip sighed.
“They’re boring,” was her response, nodding her head towards the huddle of students, peering momentarily at the map. “Won’t they notice you’re gone?”
“We told them we were called away to help Dr Radcliffe with something,” Eve explained. “They can follow the recommended route by themselves easily enough.”
At these words, Cary’s ears pricked up, “As you said, they can get along just fine by themselves. I can come with you.”
“All the times I explain to you that I don’t care if you get hurt, do you just hear noise and take none of the words in?” Philip moaned, burying his head in his hand.
“Obviously you didn’t hear the part where I said my coming here wasn’t solely about our damned school assignment.”
Philip turned to Noah, begging for help with his eyes. Thankfully, Noah took over.
“You’re completely sure you want to come with us?”
“Yes...” Cary pleaded.
Once again, the Mancynns looked at each other. Smiling, Noah extended his hand slightly in Cary’s direction. At the same time, Philip took a hold of Eve’s jacket and Noah’s sleeve. Eagerly, Cary made to touch Noah’s hand.
She was alone in the street with her group walking away.
She looked around, screaming, “SON OF A...”
*
Philip fell on the grass, laughing with a smile stretching from ear to ear. Noah too was smiling, but not to the same extent, more marvelling at his own split-second, if not cruel, joke. Eve gave a nervous chuckle, feeling she should join in, yet not fully understanding what was so funny.
But soon the laughter subsided. No amount of trivial humour could mask the thought of what lay ahead. No one had seemed to have heard the hysterics going on outside, so they weren’t interrupted by anyone in uniform. No one saw the three disappear into thin air.
“This way,” Eve whispered in their ears.
Though they were out of phase, she at least was unsure if they could still be heard.
She led them down a side corridor, different to the one Mr Dobrowski had taken them along the day before. But despite the difference in direction, the passageways were almost identical. Yet Eve appeared to know every twist and turn, the multiple routes evidently burned into her memory. Keeping contact with her, Philip slipped the stone from his pocket. It was useful to see a whole map of the complex, but it showed no clear route. That was where Eve came in. Then he realised something.
“If you know your way around these corridors, then you must have been here before. Why didn’t you escape when you had the chance?” Philip frowned.
“I heard some of the workers talk of a teenage boy who had perhaps learnt how to work the machine. I was hoping that it was you. I had no idea where I was, what would I do once I got out? Ask for a ticket on the next flight back to Auyantepui?”
At these words Philip’s heart rose slightly. She had stayed for him, when she could have fled. But then he reminded himself that when last they had met in Venezuela, she had held a deep contempt for him, and it was more likely that she waited for him because she knew him, not for any other emotional reasons.
“Your parents mentioned that you were coming here on the second day hike, after...you know,” she elaborated helpfully.
They rounded a corner to find themselves on a walkway, which spanned across a myriad of machinery, different magnets, detectors and calorimeters. Peering below through the slats, Philip could see workmen moving about on the floor, making adjustments to the complex equipment. On the wall beside them was a door and keypad, just like the one by ATLAS. Coming back into phase, Philip indicated the door with a slight motion of his hand. They understood, and began clambering over the metal barrier. They figured they had to be in phase to make their descent, but this meant they were visible to those below. If one of them were to slip, if one of the workers was to for whatever reason look up into the higher mechanisms, they would be discovered. Their secrecy depended on such events not happening, breaking the delicate balance. And it was just as this cruel reality was dawning in Eve’s mind that something of the unfavourable sort occurred. As she lowered herself onto one metal pipe in particular, the skin on her hand rapidly inflamed, feeling as if it had been thrust into fire. She screamed. She let go. Noah swore. He dropped after her. With the air rushing past them, Noah grabbed a hold of Eve once more, and took a short trip into transit.
On the solid floor they rematerialised. To stop the girl’s panting and screaming Noah clamped a hand over her mouth, though it took much self control to hold back his own pained groans. Next to the pair appeared Philip, balancing on his feet, rather than falling to the floor.
“Why in God’s name was teleporting not Plan A?” Eve murmured.
Before saying anything to either of them, Noah turned to check the workers had not caught a glimpse of their momentary shift in space. But they were still staring up into the workings of the LHCb, perplexed as to what had made the mysterious noise.
Philip ushered Noah and Eve onto their feet and around the walls of the room to the door. Glancing once again in the direction of the workers, the trio phased out. Walking through the wall, Philip thought he noticed one solitary scientist turning in their general direction. But what did it matter, they were invisible.
On the other side, there was a circular stairway, just like the one beyond ATLAS. This was all very familiar, a continuous experience of déjà vu. But this time, as they reached the base of the stairway, instead of coming out onto a balcony overlooking the cavern, they walked straight onto the white pipes leading from the Collider to the ancient machine in the centre. A number of the computer terminals every few hundred metres were unmanned today, whether there was some meeting or if their mere arrival had triggered the emptying of the room, allowing them to walk into a trap, they couldn’t know. But from the moment his foot touched the piping Philip was bombarded with the feeling that he was being watched.
“Is that a lift?” Eve whispered the question, though there was no one but themselves nearby to hear it.
A short distance to their right, there was indeed what looked like an elevator.
“Bloody typical,” Noah said.
Of course, the fact that many of the terminals were abandoned didn’t mean they were alone in the cavern. There were still some scientists away at work on the giant apparatus, so the trio still had to move stealthily, keeping out of phase. Progress could have been slower, yet they were not moving at lightning speed. The unnerved Philip was one of the reasons for their impeded speed. He was constantly looking around for the source of his discomfort. That being said, they were about to cause a lot of damage to a massive device whose full potential was yet to be completely understood, a device which was surely treasured by a being who was a hair’s breadth away from killing at least one of their party.
There were no disturbances all the way up to the machine. Up close, it was a lot more menacing. From a distance, they hadn’t felt the ominous presence it brought to the room, the dominating persona it emanated over the lower life forms, the cogs of alien material turning slowly, patiently. At the base, the intricate transformers hummed gently, their non-stop chatter boring into their skulls, growing in intensity as they crept nearer. The heat was becoming more and more noticeable as well, the pipes by which they walked heating up the air around them.
Now they were within touching distance of the machine. Its inner workings thudded away methodically, almost a timepiece in their regular beats. Noah knelt by the transformer, comparing it with the diagram on the phone. Satisfied they were of the same design, Noah put a sparking hand up to the transformer. The sound of bolts turning and locks clicking came from inside, and one of the surface panels came off, dropping into the Mancynn’s hand. Putting it down softly, he looked up at the teens.
“This shouldn’t take too long. It’s a basic energy inductive coupling, not that hard to tamper with. You two keep guard while I disconnect the coolant.”
In the dead silence of the cavern, Philip half suspected Noah’s voice to carry into every nook and cranny, no matter how quietly he spoke. He frantically checked each worker in turn, but none showed any sign that they had heard any part of the plot. He turned back to Noah, and got a pinch from Eve, who indicated to him that he should be keeping watch. Behind them, Noah was fiddling with the coolant pipes, feeling for a weak point. Compared to the boiling air around them, the freezing fluid came as a welcome reprieve. His fingers fumbled over the slippery surface, both with anxiety and because the material itself was icy smooth. Subsequently, reaching down into the machine, he grabbed a hold of the largest of the pipes. With a sudden surge of increased strength he ripped them away from the electrical conduits, turning them back on themselves. Immediately, the conduits began burning up with the amount of energy running through them. His work done, he stood up and began pushing the teens back towards the elevator. Once again they had to be stealthy, but the other added complication now was the time element. Getting faster and faster as they neared the doors to freedom, the trio got desperate. Noah had calculated that they wouldn’t have long to get out of there if they didn’t want to be caught in the blast.
Too late…
The machinery erupted in a ball of writhing flames, shrapnel incinerated before it had a chance to leave the blast radius. But at that very moment, the explosion became encaged, not in anything tangible, it just stopped expanding, like it had reached an invisible wall.
But the explosion had already done its damage. The three had become separated, falling over the white pipes covering the floor. As quick as they could, they got back up, continuing their race to the door. However, Philip was drifting further and further behind. Noah and Eve were ploughing ahead, not noticing he had slowed, having twisted his leg. Not that this impeded his determination in any way. He kept moving, running one step at a time. Yet now he felt as though they were not in fact fleeing from the danger, but heading towards it, even with the CERN scientists now chasing behind them.
Noah and Eve got to the wall and straightaway began pressing the button which called the lift down. It was not long before the metal doors ground open, allowing them admittance. Once inside, they turned, staring at Philip, egging him on.
He was but a few metres away. His friends were stretching their arms out to meet him. The doors were closing. He could see them no longer.
‘No matter’ he thought to himself, phasing out to jump through the wall into the rising lift.
Whack. Philip was sent flying back off his feet. Breathing heavily, he looked up into the face of the immortal skeleton.
“Do you really think I would give you an ability that I myself couldn’t counteract?”
“Live in hope,” Philip glared.
And without warning he leapt to his feet, phasing in mid-jump. And once again he was flung aside like a discarded doll, his limbs twisting around him as though he had no bones. When his body finally crashed into the ground further along the wall, Philip was bruised, scraped and probably bleeding. His bones cracked terribly as they reformed. There was no sign of Gryal, he seemed to have disappeared. He twisted his head to see a pair of shiny black shoes completing their descent on the steps down which he himself had come. Up from the shoes was a pair of smooth trousers followed by the top half of a smart, trim suit. Topping this figure was a head covered in short, curly hair and pale skin.
Gauthier spoke in a condescending, patronising tone, “If I were in your position, I would not so casually squander my gift.”
“What the hell are you talking about,” Philip managed to say.
“You have been granted the right to powers which put you above the rest. You are royalty among men, a mortal god. Yet you use your gift, not to rule as you are meant to, but to rival the Immortals who blessed you with the gift of being the Mancynn out of all the regular humans. They gave you all the knowledge and power you needed. The insolence...”
During all this, Philip had been slipping the stone out of his pocket, painful though the arm movements were. Unfortunately, Gauthier noticed.
“Give me the keystone,” the man said, slowly and measuredly.
“Gryal’s asked you get it, has he? Sent you out like a dog to fetch his stuff?”
Philip continued enlarging the image on the stone, focussing on the elevator shaft. The lift was rising with increasing speed, racing out of control.
“You cannot fight us. We number many across this world, influencing countless governments. They must be found and only by him,” Gauthier’s level tone was wavering, until, “GIVE IT TO ME!”
“Yeah right.”
Gauthier lunged at thin air, his arms wrapped around nothing.
*
Obviously Philip wasn’t done being smashed around, or at least that’s what the elevator thought as it came up to meet him appearing in the middle of the empty shaft. The wind rushing past his face, Philip rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling above him. He was in a lot of pain, but occupational hazards aside, he had to prevent himself from being squashed to death. There was only one thing he could do, and it wasn’t without risk, not to him or his companions in the lift under him.
Inside the small, metal box, Eve jumped back against the railing as a body came back into phase and landed on the floor. Recovering from the shock, Eve quickly went over to check if Philip was okay. He didn’t move. He didn’t think he could. The most he could do was swivel his eyes to see Noah working desperately at the lift controls.
He hadn’t turned around to look at Philip, but still he said, “Good, you’re here.”
He got up from the controls, throwing the wires aside.
“Well that’s never going to work again. Are you up to transit?”
“Just do it,” were the words Philip forced through his tight lips.
“Get up then,” Noah instructed, holding out his arm for support.
Thinking of the impeding crash which surely faced the mechanical box, Philip forced his limbs to move, pulling himself up on Noah’s arm. Eve came in close as well, adding support to the weak Philip. Out of the corner of his eye he saw himself distorted in the partially reflective wall. Huddled in a group, the trio moved straight up, through the earth and beyond.
*
The CERN building was spherical, which meant landing squarely on the top was a difficult stunt to pull off. As it happened, it was Eve that lost her footing, only to be grabbed by Noah. Now holding both the teens upright, the Mancynn looked around at Meyrin. All was normal in the Swiss city. The occasional car drove past along the main road, the odd bird crossed the ceiling of cloud, but besides that, nothing out of the ordinary. If the group they had left behind were keeping to the timetable, they should be somewhere to his left, among the sea of buildings which ranged in height and shape.
“Do you think you could sit yourself down?” he asked to either of the teens.
They mumbled agreements and he carefully set them down on the metal dome. He too was feeling weak, but continued to stand resolute as a look out.
Looking at Philip’s watch, Eve commented, “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the group soon?”
“If you are able to take us into transit, then sure, be my guest, neither of us is strong enough to do it,” Noah said blankly, as if not registering that his comment could be construed as rude.
Seeing her downhearted face, Philip quickly added, “Not that you would have known. We don’t expect you to remember every detail we tell you.”
“We’ll just have to wait until we’ve recovered,” Noah rationalised, gazing into the distance.
“And hope no one looks up,” Eve finished.
*
It was a little while later when the bored-out-of-her-skull Cary heard the rippling of air in a side alley. Slipping away from the group, something she had been wanting to do for a long time, she wandered silently over to the alley entrance where Noah, Eve and Philip were emerging, looking around for their fellows. By choice rather than by mistake Philip walked straight by Cary and up to the member of the group holding the town map, Mick Lockwood.
“Running on schedule,” Noah both asked and stated, coming up behind Philip.
“Yes Mr Mason,” Mick confirmed, “We are just on our way to the Théâtre Forum.”
“I know, that’s how we found you.” Noah looked around, “D’you get this lot to learn much?”
Mick raised an eyebrow in the direction of Cary, “Mostly, sir. But, can I ask, why is she here? She hasn’t shown any interest in anything we’ve seen.”
“I have absolutely no idea what goes on inside that girl’s brain,” Noah replied, watching her storm up and slap Philip across the face.
*
“You were a fool, Gryal, to ever think that was going to work,” Warren growled across the table.
“Had you come up with a better alternative...” Gryal began.
“Better than entrusting a human with the control of advanced alien technology?” Mordrin scoffed.
“You be silent!” Warren snapped, before turning on Gryal once again, “You have to put a stop to these ludicrous plans of yours. Without the advice of the rest of the Council, you have no idea where to stop. The more you work on your own, the more you endanger the cause.”
Gryal leant back in his throne, his fingers tips pressed together, his piercing yellow eyes drifting over the pitch black surface of the table to the red form of Warren Marz.
“Are you suggesting that my judgement is somehow...clouded? Or is it that I’m just plain weak?”
“I’m suggesting that you’re reckless,” Warren snarled. “This all started with Mierdi. I thought I told you to break ties with her?”
“You forget, since she rejoined our number...”
“Your number.”
“...I have been formulating and putting into action more stratagems than we had done in countless years previous. Yes, not all of them were successful, but there were always failsafes. I had the foresight to put plans within my plans. Many are still in place, and not even you saw them.”
“Well you are going to tell me what they are and I will take over from there.”
Gryal tilted his head back, staring into the dark sky beyond the glass roof.
“Give me control, Gryal,” Warren repeated.