Ghost Guard 2: Agents of Injustice (18 page)

Chapter 23

Morris didn’t mind being slugged in the gut so much. Abdominal pain was tolerable to a point, and contusions he could handle. He didn’t care that they hit him in the face, either. His cheeks were swollen and one eye was going to be blackened. They even threatened to break a kneecap if he didn’t cooperate. But none of that mattered because no amount of bodily harm, no amount of humiliation could compare to what they were doing to his statmag emitter.

They weren’t destroying it per se, or wantonly tearing it apart with no purpose. They were tearing it apart all right, yet with a clear design on how to replicate, rebuild, and repurpose it in their sick and twisted agenda. One man with heavy magnifier lenses on his glasses peered into the circuitry, poring over the technology Morris had been nurturing along for years, technology he had inherited from the master, Emile Petrovic. He knew the man in the coke bottle lenses recognized the handiwork. He also knew this man was ancient.

“Vat eez zis?” the man spoke with a distinct German accent, indicating the quantum spectrometer. It was a crucial component of his statmag emitter, one that he noticed The Singulate was missing in their soul snare technology. The old man, seeing Morris had no intention on talking, stood rather quickly, his ruddy jowls quivered and reddened. “I said vat eez zis!” he swung his rigid arm and immediately a large goon, previously standing by, drove his fist into Morris’s solar plexus. For the third time in the last twenty minutes he had the wind knocked out of his lungs.

When he came to his senses, the flabby old German was dabbing Morris’s mouth with a warm cloth. Then he gave Morris a sip of pleasant green tea with lemon and honey. It was a taste of luxury Morris knew had all the earmarks of a pleasurable enticement, as opposed to the excruciating alternative. The tea was the carrot, the beating was the stick, and Morris was supposed to be smart enough to choose the former.

The problem was he knew his cooperation with these people would be the death nail to the whole operation. Not only the failure of their mission and the end of them all, but quite possibly the end of the balance of power in the supernatural world forever. Morris had an apercu of the highest order. In layman’s terms, he got it. The Singulate was after Ghost Guard all along. They wanted Ghost Guard to come. And they wanted Ghost Guard there for one reason—Morris.

They wanted him. They wanted his professional acumen. Most of all they wanted his intimate knowledge of Petrovic’s technology. Probably, he conjectured, they had been watching him for some time, though how he had no clue. When someone wanted something and had the money to get it, that money talked. Bribery and corruption knew no bounds when enough cash was at stake. And The Singulate had money. If there was anything they had besides an insidious desire for power, it was money.

“Vee can be nice, or vee can be not so nice. It’s all up to you.” The giant, ruddy Rheinlander affected a change in temperament that could have won an academy award. He was playing the part of the good cop
and
the bad cop and was doing a fine, if not schizophrenic, job of it. “If you vish to cooperrrrate (he rolled his r’s like a BMW 320i) and be nice to us, zen vee shall be nice to you. That’s the vay it verks avound here, and that’s the vay it vill be, ya?”

Morris had a hard time keeping a straight face. In the heart of a madhouse, beset by maniacal scientists, with his friends facing their ultimate demise, he felt the compulsion to laugh out loud at this throwback from when Operation Paperclip was in full play. Back then the US was stealing as many Nazi geniuses as possible and smuggling them out of Germany on the eve of the Third Reich’s collapse. This man fit the description perfectly. As old as dirt, as creepy as they come, and sinister to the core.

“Do you find zomezing amuzing, Mister Crafton?”

It didn’t surprise Morris that they knew his real name. It was just a matter of time before someone with the resources and the connections was going to slither into the system, corrupt it for their own nefarious needs, and come after Ghost Guard. They were at the frontlines of the real war. If the general populace only knew.

“No,” he straightened his face. “Not at all.”

“Good. Zen vee have an understanding. You listen and I vill talk and you vill zen tell me zee answers to vat I vant to know. AND YOU
VILL
TELL ME!”

The calm, magnanimous old man disappeared, replaced by his polar opposite. It was becoming more and more clear that if Morris didn’t cooperate, his own health was at risk. With a deep breath he pondered it, and decided it was worth it. He could never do this. He could never give anything that could further their evil plans.

“Do to me what you want,” Morris winced. “I’ll never help you.”

The ancient scientist widened his eyes with a flash of rage, then, slowly, affected his other persona, smooth and calm and cool and sweet as pie.

“Oh, but you vill. You see, vee have zumzing you might be interested in. Vee have your frrrriends. But more zan zat, vee have your idol, your god, a man you describe in your journals as your mentor.” Morris’s stomach churned with anxious bile. The scientist saw the concern in his eyes and came aglow with malicious glee. “Vee’ve been vatching you. Vee know everyzing zere iz to know about Ghost Guard. Vee are The Singulate. Vee have more money than God. And more power…earthly power. Soon Vee vill have more unearthly power. And zat’s vere you come in, Mister Crafton.”

“I thought as much,” Morris examined the array of specs, blueprints, working models, and random parts. “I see what you’re trying to do here, but your methodology. It’s all wrong,” he stepped back from his harsh assessment for a broader approach, and this time it did impress his creative side. Though the spirit snare technology was a rudimentary variation of Petrovic’s designs, he saw the genius in the alterations and the direction they were trying to go. “But I must admit to a bit of envy on my part. You do have a brilliant idea. I mean, the hybrid design has its advantages. It’s just the Petrovic coils. You have them incorrectly aligned. But the use of the technology
is
impressive.”

“If you sink zat is impressive, zen you might like zis,” the rotund scientist motioned toward an area of the prodigious work table Morris had previously not noticed. There was a large white tablecloth covering a square device, and when the old man pulled the cloth away, Morris lost his ability to breathe.

The aged scientist snapped his fingers in front of Morris’s eyes. That did the trick, bringing him back to reality from that inspired dreamland where the unthinkable becomes thinkable, the unreachable becomes reachable, and the unattainable comes true. That feeling of euphoric inventiveness had another side. A price was to be paid. Morris winched with the cognitive dissonance of pure joy at such a technological marvel, and at the same time utter terror over the use of such a strangely and potentially devastating device. Right away he knew the implications…and didn’t care. He thought of the Manhattan Project, and how drunk with mad ingenuity those men were, and how that intoxication was an irresistible elixir.

Morris didn’t want to look. He turned his head and averted his eyes, yet had no choice but to turn back. It was a force much stronger than fear or disgust. It was his intrigue. He had to know, had to see how this devastating contraption was put together, and, most of all, had to discover if it was the machine he thought it was.

One glance and it was confirmed.

“You did it. You actually built one. I’ve read about them. Petrovic even postulated about them, but never had I even dreamt of building one myself. It’s insane. It’s unwholesome. It’s an abomination. It’s—”

“It’s a miracle of science,” the old German said. “It will give us zee unparalleled ability to control zee forces of darkness. Demons and jinn and all other manner of evil beings all at our disposal.”

“I-I…”

“Let me guess, Mister Crafton. Never in your vildest imagination did you dream it could be done. Vell, it has been done…
and
it hasn’t.”

Morris cocked his head and squinted, his glasses fell on the bridge of his nose. He pressed them back up. “Explain please.” His mind yearned for input.

“Vat I mean is zat zee machine needs your inventive and crafty touch, pardon the pun.”

“So this was the reason for your ruse? You need me to finish your Controller.”

“Precisely!” the scientist’s eyes took on the shape of half-moons. “Only you’re half right. Vee vant you to finish building our Controller, yes. But you were wrong about your friends. Vee vant zem as well. You see, a spirit, or ghost, is nothing more zan a collection of energy. And ze more powerful ze ghost, ze more energy it contains. The Singulate is in possession of many of history’s most powerful souls, either in creativity, in talent, in intelligence, or in strength of will. Zeese souls are people you might have heard of.”

“What does that mean?” Morris demanded. “You’ve been holding the spirits of luminaries and leaders?”

“Political leaders, leading thinkers, authors, scientists, ze best minds exude ze most power. You of all people should know zat.”

Morris began calculating the energy reserves in a spirit, and how that could be converted into practical electricity. The thought both chilled him to the bone and excited his intellectual properties to the point of overload.

“That’s right, Mister Crafton,” the scientist seemed to see the revelation in Morris’s eyes. “Vee can convert a spirit into serviceable, safe, and clean energy. And not just energy, but supercells capable of powering our controller for years and years. Zee more powerful the spirit, the more energy vee can get from it.”

Morris took no time with his assessment, an unequivocal, “You’re insane,” which may have been a little too hasty, given the fact that as soon as he said it, he got another haymaker to his midsection.

“Nine,” said the scientist. “Vee shall not be busting the young man’s chops any longer. He can and vill make up his mind on his own,” the man seized upon the moment and achieved severe eye contact. It seemed the Jekyll/Hyde transformation had taken place once again, and the good guy was taking over. “You vill make the right decision, von’t you?”

Morris breathed in softly, folding his hands over the spot where he’d been stricken. He swore a rib was cracked, but that was nothing compared to what would happen to him if he didn’t cooperate fully. He didn’t know for sure, but whatever they had in store must have been horrible.

He surveyed the challenges laid out before him. Even if he wanted to help these crazy people, he wasn’t sure if it could be done.

“You have to understand,” he explained. “What you’re asking…it’s like asking a painter to redo the Sistine Chapel, improving on Michelangelo. I just…I’m not entirely certain it can be done.”

“Mizter Crafton. Vee have been trying zis for almost a century. Believe me when I tell you, no one understands the complexities and the vagaries of Emile Petrovic’s verk more than vee do. Certainly this type of endeavor is challenging—”

“Challenging,” Morris laughed sardonically. “That’s what it is. Challenging.”

“Nothing verth doing is ever easy, Mister Crafton. I didn’t think I had to resort to speaking the obvious, but there it is. I know zis…when you finally do crack the code, and ven you perfect the Controller, you will be heralded as the greatest scientist ever. Tell me, Mizter Crafton, do you yearn for that magic cup? Do you seek the Holy Grail? I can see it in your eyes. I can sense it in your voice. I can feel it in your soul. You have zee spirit of an inventor, a man of ingenuity. You love a challenge. You cannot tell me zat you haven’t yearned to take the Petrovic technology to zis extreme. You cannot tell me zat zere isn’t a burning, even raging inferno inside of you as seeker of knowledge and understanding of zuh spirit verld zuh way I do.”

“Oh, is that all it is? Just curiosity? Not power?”

The madman glanced around, shaking with some kind of inner turmoil about which Morris could only conjecture. What was it that drove this man to senseless extremes? Boiling mad at one point and then a second later bursting with hilarity. Morris didn’t know what to expect now, happy or angry. Jekyll or Hyde.

He got neither.

Instead of striking Morris with extreme violence, instead of happily delineating his point of view, the mad scientist did the one thing Morris wished he would never do in a million years. He left the room. Morris could have taken another beating. He even could have withstood another session of intense brainwashing and interrogation. What he couldn’t stand was to be left alone with some of the most sophisticated prototypes ever dreamt up by man.

It was too great of an enticement, the thrill of discovery. And when it came to Petrovic technology, that desire, that drive, that thrill became intoxicating to the point of addiction. Like heroine it drew him in, hooked him, and moved him to the same type of madness he saw exhibited in the old scientist’s demeanor. The terrible and inevitable truth hit home—it must have been his lust for knowledge, his insatiable thirst for information that was just out of reach, the holy grail of para-science.

Everything in creation was affected by the tidal shifts between good and evil. Over the long tableau of history, even before mankind’s blip of existence, there was the dark and the light, and the omnipresent balance between the two extreme opposite siblings. Good and evil. Yin and yang. Heaven and hell. The conceptual frameworks all point to the same dichotic relationship, a duality of oneness, two parts of the same whole, one never getting more powerful than the other, at least not for long.