Brian Keene (3 page)

And he had helped to turn the key.

The room bore a strong resemblance to Afghanistan, the cumulative effects of three months without janitorial service. Dingy ceramic mugs, encrusted with the fossilized remains of freeze-dried coffee. Papers, books, and diagrams strewn haphazardly about the room. A trashcan long past the point of overflowing, its contents

21 now spilling onto the floor. In the far corner, a dark stain where the fish tank had spewed onto the carpet.

He shuddered when he looked at it.

Experimenting with the fish tank had been Powell's idea. At that point, they'd lacked a specimen, their research amounting to only speculation without anything to actually study. The three of them, Powell, Harding, and Baker, had closed themselves off from the rest of the complex after the few remaining staff members had fled. They gathered together in Baker's office, venting their frustration and wondering if it was safe to go above even without the all-clear message.

Powell had suggested, jokingly at first, that they try it out on one of Baker's prized tropical fish. Laughter and derision had quickly turned to scientific seriousness when Baker agreed. They netted one of the brightly colored pets, watching with cool detachment as it flopped and gulped in the smothering oxygen. Baker held it in his palm until it stopped quivering. Then they placed it back in the tank, where it floated on top of the briny water just as a dead fish was supposed to. Its behavior was surprisingly-and depressingly-normal.

It wasn't until ten minutes later, after the other scientists had retired to the common room for their tenth viewing of old Jeopardy reruns on video, that the fish started swimming again.

Baker was only dimly aware of the splashing at first; his attention focused on the game of solitaire laid out before him on the desk. When the splashing became louder, he looked up.

The water had begun to turn red; tiny scarlet clouds swirling amidst the brightly colored pebbles and plastic castle, as the dead fish began to hunt and devour its brethren. At first, Baker could only stare in amazement. Then, gathering his wits, he dashed down the empty corridor
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and burst into the common room, gasping for breath.

22 The slaughter was over by the time they crowded into the office. In the few minutes it had taken him to summon the others, the fish had killed every living thing in the tank. Innards and scales floated amidst the carnage.

"My God," Harding gasped.

"God," Baker spat, "had nothing to do with this!" He thrust a finger at the tank. "This was mankind, Stephen. This was us!" Harding stared at him in silence, his mouth working noiselessly, just as the fish had done. Powell sat in the corner, softly crying. The fish noticed them. It stopped swimming and stared at them with clear contempt.

Baker had been fascinated at the intelligence the fish displayed.

"Look at that. It's studying us, just as we study it."

"What have we done?" sobbed Powell. "Jesus fucking Christ, what have we done?"

Harding snapped. "Get it together, Powell! We need to learn as much as we can from this thing if we expect to undo-"

His reprimand was cut short by another splash. The fish thrashed around, stirring up the muck on the bottom of the tank; obscuring their view. It vanished, hidden by a swirling cloud of blood and feces and slime.

"Somebody get the camcorder," Baker shouted. "We need to be documenting this!"

Before they could, the entire tank stand moved. Water spilled over the top, running down the sides in crimson rivulets.

The fish retreated and then burst forward again, slamming itself into the front of the tank. Again and again it charged the glass, heedless of the damage it was doing to itself.

Baker noted the calculating malevolence that filled its dead eyes. A network of cracks spread throughout the glass,

23 spider-webbing up the sides. The stand toppled over, crashing to the floor. Glass exploded, showering them all with glittering shards and brackish water.

The fish flopped onto the carpet and began to wriggle towards them.
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Shoving his books aside, Baker leaped onto the desk while Harding retreated into the hall. Powell collapsed, shrieking and clawing at the carpet while the thing closed the gap between them.

Above Powell's terrified cries, Baker heard the noises the fish was making as it neared the scientist's outstretched legs.

The fish was talking.

He couldn't understand what was said, but the patterns were definitely intelligent speech.

The thing shot towards Powell's groin. He screamed as it brushed his khakis. Baker leaped to the floor, slamming the computer monitor down on it. Blow after repeated blow, he smashed the creature until there was nothing left but a viscous smear among the shattered glass. He'd been unaware that he was yelling until he felt Harding's hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other, the full enormity of what they had unleashed upon the world bearing down on them like an airplane. That night, Powell hacked his wrists open with a butter knife from the cafeteria. They'd found him a few minutes later, when they stopped in to administer a sedative.

Baker looked away from the stain on the rug and closed his eyes. Slowly, he ran a hand through his graying hair and quietly wept. Down the hall, the thing in Observation Room Six continued ranting. Baker fumbled in the congested ashtray, finding a partially smoked cigarette. Still weeping, he brought his lighter up to the ragged butt and thumbed it.

Nothing. No flame. Not even a spark. The nearest lighter fluid was a half-mile above him in a world

24 belonging to the dead.

He threw the useless lighter across the room, where it struck a glass frame hanging on the wall. The newspaper that had been so proudly displayed inside fluttered to the floor.

Wearily, Baker walked over and brushed away the broken glass. Shaking the paper in his hands, he began to laugh. The article was dated from earlier in the year.

By Jeff Whitman/Associated Press

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A nuclear accelerator designed to replicate the Big Bang has drawn protests from a group of international physicists, politicians, and activists because of fears that it could harm the Earth. One theory even suggests that it could form a black hole, cause 'perturbations of the universe' , or even *rend the fabric of space and time' . Havenbrook National Laboratories (HNL), one of the American government'

s foremost research bodies, has spent ten years building its $985

million Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, a rural area near the New Jersey state border. A successful test was held this Friday and the first nuclear collisions are expected to take place within the month.

Last week however, Stephen Harding, Havenbrook' s director, set up a committee of physicists to investigate whether the project could go disastrously wrong. Harding was prompted by warnings from other physicists that there was a small but real risk that the machine had the Brian ftene/24

25 power to create "strangelets"; a new type of matter composed of sub-atomic particles called "strange quarks." The committee is to examine the possibility that, once formed; strangelets might start a chain reaction that could convert anything they touched into more strange matter. The committee will also consider the less likely alternative that the colliding particles could achieve such a high density that they would form a mini black hole. In space, black holes generate intense gravitational fields that suck in all surrounding matter. The high density formed by the colliding particles could also, in theory, break down the barrier between our dimensions and others.

Inside the collider, atoms of gold are stripped of their outer electrons and pumped into one of two 2.4-mile circular tubes where powerful magnets accelerate them to 99.9% of the speed of light. The ions in the two tubes travel in opposite directions to increase the power of the collisions. When they collide they generate miniscule fireballs of superdense matter. Under these conditions, atomic nuclei evaporate into a plasma of even smaller particles called quarks and gluons. This plasma then emits a shower of other particles as it cools.

Among the particles that appear during this phase are strange quarks. These have been detected in other accelerators but have always been attached to other particles. The RHIC, the most powerful machine yet built, has the ability to create solitary strange quarks for the 26 first time since the universe began.

HNL official Timothy Powell confirmed that there had been discussions
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concerning the possibilities. William Baker, a professor of nuclear physics who is the leading scientific director for the RHIC, said that the chances of an accident were infinitesimally small, but that Havenbrook had a responsibility to assess-them before proceeding. "The big question, of course, is whether our planet would vanish in the blink of an eye or perhaps the possibility of rending the fabric of space and time. It is astonishingly unlikely. We are not seeking to 'rip holes into other dimensions' as you put it. We are seeking to understand more about the universe and our place in it. The risk is so minuscule as to not even be considered."

Baker crumbled the paper in his fists.

Down the corridor, in a sound-proofed room reinforced with twelve inches of steel and concrete, the thing that had once been Timothy Powell shouted in Sumerian. Each syllable echoed through the empty underground complex, drifting up to the dead world above them.

Baker rubbed his eyes. The tape recorder sat on the table in front of him. He sighed, pressed the record button, and turned on the intercom.

"Powell," he began timidly. "C-can you hear me?" Powell's corpse lay slumped in the corner of the room. It raised its head, staring at the glass. Baker saw intelligence reflected in that stare. A terrible intelligence-and something else.

27 "Hello Bill," it rasped, swollen gray-white tongue sliding across peeling lips. "How's tricks?"

Baker scribbled on his pad. The creature in Observation Room Six was not Timothy Powell. He knew this. And yet, it had identified him. He said nothing. Beside him, the tape recorder hissed quietly.

"Cat got your tongue, Billy-Boy?"

"How do you feel, Timothy?"

"I'm falling to pieces, to be quite honest with you, Bill. Any chance you could get me something to eat?"

"You're hungry? How about some soup? Blue crabs were in season before-well, before this. The kitchen still has some crab soup left. I froze it-"

"I don't want soup. How about your arm instead? Or a few yards of intestine?"

"You can't eat food?"

"You are food! Now how about coming inside here with me?"
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Baker observed in horrified fascination. The zombie shuffled over to the window and sat down, facing him like a prison inmate. Its decaying face pressed against the glass and smiled. No breath fogged the window. Softly, it recited something in a language that Baker didn't recognize. He doubted Powell would have either.

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am. I'm Timothy Powell, Associate Director of Havenbrook Laboratories' RHIC program. I'm your buddy, mi amigo. C'mon, Billy-Boy!

Don't tell me you've got post-stress amnesia!"

"Doctor Powell would never refer to me as 'BillyBoy'," Baker told it matter-of-factly. "You're not Timothy Powell." The thing plucked a loose piece of skin from its thigh. It appraised it in the fluorescent light, and then plopped the maggot into its mouth. Rotted teeth ground in delight.

Baker turned away.

"Don't believe me? Remember when you and I and

28 Weston took that week off and flew out to Colorado? We stayed at Doctor Scalise's cabin in Estes Park, and went fishing. Weston caught a big fucking Walleye, and you caught a cold."

Grinning, the corpse placed a swollen hand against the glass. Baker focused on Powell's wedding ring. The gold band had sunk into the sausage-like finger. Then the zombie removed the hand, leaving a greasy smudge on the window.

"Who are you?" he asked it again, righting to keep the tremor from his voice. "Are you Timothy Powell?"

"Ob," it said with Powell's mouth.

"Is that your name, or is that what you are?"

"Ob," it said again. "And you are Bill."

"How do you know my name?"

"The one you call Tim left it behind in here. He left a great many things behind. Delicious things. Were you aware that he frequented prostitutes? His wife obviously wasn't."

"I hardly see how that..."

"He paid them to sodomize him with a dildo."

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The corpse chuckled, then coughed, misting the glass with bits of itself.

"Really?" Baker gritted his teeth. "And exactly how did you obtain this knowledge?"

"It is in here with me. All of it is in here for me to pick through. Much of it is useless. All that collective knowledge. Humankind has achieved so little. HE must be very disappointed in his creations."

"Who?"

"Him. The cruel one. The one who...never mind. We shall not speak of it. He shall have his day. I imagined it much while I lingered there."

"And where was that, exactly?"

The thing did not reply. Instead, it began licking the red smear from the glass.

"I hunger," it moaned, and began to grin again. 29 "Hungry," Baker said to the cold, gray walls. "I didn't think I was this hungry."

He opened the can of baked beans more on instinct than desire, but after the first bite, he proceeded to wolf them down cold. He longed for a hamburger to go along with them, but the huge walk-in freezer was occupied and Baker wasn't about to enter it. Harding lay inside, with a neat, perfunctory hole in his head. He'd suffered a heart attack, one day after Powell's suicide, and the subsequent imprisonment of his reanimated corpse. Baker had used an ice pick on Harding's dead body, wishing for a pistol during the entire grisly process. But the guns were gone, along with the soldiers who had deserted their posts. The silence in the empty cafeteria was unsettling. He longed for somebody to talk to, other than the thing that called itself Ob. Walking back down the corridor to his office, his feet echoed on the green tile. He was glad for the noise. The lights flickered, dimmed and then brightened again. The power was going. He wasn't sure if the facility was running on public utilities or its own backup at this point. What would the hallway sound like in the dark?