Empire Of Salt (26 page)

"Let's get this over with," the Mad Scientist said. He turned and sat on a stool. His hands shook slightly where they rested in his lap. He wore a white, unbuttoned lab coat over shorts and a
Mork and Mindy
T-shirt. He didn't look scared, just defeated.

"Get what over with?" Veronica asked.

"Him. I know why he's here." He shook his head. "Just know that I was never a part of what the project has become."

All four of the newcomers exchanged glances.

"Project? What project?" Derrick asked.

"Him. His project." Gudgel pointed at Metzger.

"I'm not sure I get what you're saying," the soldier said. "The astromechs?"

The Mad Scientist frowned. "Is that what they're calling it these days? Where did they tell you that they were taking you?"

"To a project that would get us straight and teach us how to work in space."

"I suppose none of that was a lie. Of course, it begs a lot of questions... especially why a space program would be hidden on the coast of this horrid inland sea. Did any of you ask yourself that question?"

Metzger shook his head.

"Clearly you don't know as much as I thought you did." The Mad Scientist sighed. "Tell me why you've come."

"We thought you would show us the hand," Natasha said.

The Mad Scientist blinked for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"We saw you," Derrick said.

"Ahh. So it was you on my roof the other day." Gudgel shook his head and laughed. "I convinced myself that it was a bird."

"So what about it?" Metzger asked. "Can we see it?"

When Andy hesitated, Natasha added, "It's not like we don't know about the creatures. We saw them. Hell, they almost killed Metzger."

The Mad Scientist visibly deflated, all fight gone from him. Without a word, he went to a refrigerator towards the rear of the trailer, removed a covered stainless steel tray, and brought it back to where everyone stood. He set it on the table and removed the metal lid, revealing a shriveled green hand that twitched and moved of its own accord.

"Oh my God!" Metzger stepped back into Veronica. "I thought you were kidding."

"Easy, big boy. It's only a hand," Veronica said.

"Man, oh man, oh man." Derrick looked around, excitement and fear racing across his face.

Using stainless steel prongs, the Mad Scientist grasped the hand and held it to the light. The fingers tried to grip the steel holding it, but couldn't get enough purchase. The sight of the hand so close to Natasha's face sent a shiver up her spine.

"Is... is... it alive?" Derrick stuttered.

"It's as dead as the sea outside."

"Then how is it... why is it
moving
?" Natasha said.

"It's not the why of it, but rather the how. I've been trying to reverse engineer what we started twenty years ago."

He offered the prongs holding the hand to Metzger. "Here, hold this."

Metzger grabbed it. Once it was in his hand, he remained still as a post, staring fearfully at the thing writhing in the grasp of the tongs.

Meanwhile, as the other three waited, the Mad Scientist went to the refrigerator and returned with a stoppered test tube half-filled with a glowing yellow substance. He placed it in a wooden stand and regarded it with reverence.

"This is what it's all about. I've been able to extract this over the years, but I'm still trying to find out how they did it. When I was part of the program, we were still banging our heads against the scientific wall, but so much has been discovered or invented since then. Not least the modern computer; calculations that used to take days or weeks now take seconds." Gudgel sighed and shook his head.

"Hey, can you take this?" Metzger asked, his eyebrows raised as he held out the green hand.

The Mad Scientist took the hand and put it back in the tray. He bade his guests sit and told them what he knew about the green hand, where it came from, why it existed, and why he remained behind to discover what was going on.

"It started during the Kennedy Administration. Two initiatives were created, the Apollo Program and the Hadrian Outpost Project. One would take man to the moon, and the other would keep him there. But because of the sensitivity and the fear of the Soviet Union, the second project remained hidden in plain sight, on the edge of a once famous resort now abandoned for the glitz of Palm Springs. Despite the secrecy, the program was well funded and made great progress from the start.

"The idea was to make it possible for humans to work in space. It was one thing to plant a flag, but another thing altogether to take possession and build upon that first step. Hadrian's Outpost was named after the Second Century Roman Emperor who conquered and held far-flung reaches of land on the very edge of Roman civilization. For the project to work it would require that humans develop the ability to function in low-gravity, zero-oxygen environments; something that wasn't possible without the use of vacuum suits.

"Terminally-ill prisoners in federal custody became willing test subjects when their families were promised significant sums of money. With nothing to lose, those in their last days signed up... and died, one after another. For the first four years, there was little advancement except for an understanding of virus delivery mechanisms and the affects of ionizing radiation on cells.

"Through the Nixon Administration the project continued, and it didn't hit a glitch until Ford came into office. President Ford learned about the project and insisted on a visit. He was appalled at what he saw and tried to pull funding. But Ford had little power and only succeeded in redirecting the budget from NASA to the Department of Defense.

"Sadly, that was what did the project in. After the unsuccessful Carter Administration, President Ronald Reagan entered office and cleared the books of all old projects. With no representative or senator to stand up for the program it was disbanded.

"At least it was
supposed
to have been. Most of the staff left, but a select group continued to work, funded by donations to environmental research which were funneled by friends in congress to a tiny annual budget called the Salton Sea Desalination Environmental Project. Barely enough money to keep the project going with a skeleton staff, it was still enough to maintain operations, until a more friendly and open-minded administration was able to resurrect the foundering project."

Natasha and the others learned that the Mad Scientist - aka Andy Gudgel - had been one of the head scientists from 1972 to 1981. He'd been a civilian scientist until Ford took office, then was released as part of the downsizing efforts. He could have gone anywhere, but his heart was with the project, so he'd stayed, hoping that someday he'd be rehired and return to the project he'd helped create. Until then, he lived in Bombay Beach on the money he'd banked all the years he'd been working, trying from his trailer to keep up with the scientific advances that were being made behind the scenes.

But he had to be careful. The project had placed two security personnel within the population of Bombay Beach. In all of his years, the Mad Scientist had only found out the identity of one of them - Maude McKinney. And she was always watching him, making sure that he kept his activities quiet and private. As long as he didn't broadcast the truth of the project to the world, she and the others let him live in peace.

When the revelation surfaced that Maude knew about everything, Natasha groaned inwardly. She stole a glance a Veronica. "What do you mean, she knew? She knows about
all
of it? Even the creatures?"

"I'm not sure what she knows about the progress."

"Progress? I saw more than three dozen creatures rise out of the water and kill soldiers. And trust me, the soldiers never even had a chance. Is that what you mean by progress?" Natasha's face was purple with fury.

The Mad Scientist shrugged and smiled weakly. "Actually, yes. What you saw were creatures who should not exist, functioning with cells that can do little more than maintain a power charge. They don't need to breathe, eat or drink. I'd call that an achievement."

"That's just sick," Natasha said.

"They're zombies, aren't they?" Derrick asked.

The Mad Scientist regarded the boy for a moment, then nodded as if the idea hadn't occurred to him before. "Not zombies in the Haitian sense. But semi-mindless, unliving creations that attack everything that moves, yes."

Natasha was only half listening. She was furious that Maude had known what was going on and had never told anyone. All those dead soldiers could have been saved if the woman had spoken out. "So if they were created to work in space, why do they want to attack people? I don't get it." Natasha said, rejoining the conversation.

Metzger nodded. "Yeah. Good question, Natasha."

The Mad Scientist shook his head. "I don't know. I wasn't privy to the trials. If I succeed in reverse engineering the isotope, then maybe I can tell you. Until then, it's all just guesswork, hardly real science. Frankly, I don't care. They were meant to be disposable workers in space. Side effects are bound to occur."

"Can we ask him about the book now?" Derrick held it out in front of him. "Mad Scient - er... Mr. Gudgel. Can you take a look at this for us? I think my grandpa wrote it, but it was in code and we can't figure out what it says."

Gudgel took the book and glanced at the kids. "So they still call me the Mad Scientist, huh?" He shook his head. "I suppose there are worse things. Let me see this." He paged through it, stopping now and then to look closely at a page, or to inspect the margins. "It is indeed a code. What was your grandfather doing, I wonder?"

"We thought he might have been writing about what he saw in the water. Maybe he knew about the project."

He looked up sharply. "Do you think so? Hmm. No wonder Maude was so into him."

Natasha decided at that moment that she was going to have a word with the woman.

"Can you decipher it?" Derrick asked.

"Possibly, as long as the crib is included."

"The what?" Metzger asked.

"The crib. This is clearly a substitution text. It doesn't appear to be Caesar's, although I can't rule that out without checking. Look here, at the end of every odd numbered page, are these same twelve letters. Different books traditionally use different cribs, so this was a way for the owner to keep track."

He held the book out for everyone to see:

GDOQSGHOHWCB

"The fact it appears so often tells me that it has to be the crib, or the key to decoding the text. You decipher these 12 letters and you have the key to the rest of the text. If you can't, then the text is useless. It's probably a simple shift. This was drawn in freehand, so unless he was a genius, then he probably shifted the alphabet so that he could write this easily."

"And when you say shift you mean...?" Metzger trailed off.

"Say you assign 'G' for 'A,' then that means that 'H' would replace 'B,' 'I' would replace 'C' and so on. A simple shift."

"Simple shift," Derrick mouthed, as he took the book back. He opened it and stared at the characters at the bottom of each odd page with wide careful eyes.

"So what's next?" Metzger asked no one in particular.

Nobody answered.