King of the Dark Mountain (8 page)

“And what goals would that be?” Hez asked grimly.

“It can scarcely be put into words,” Saunders replied in a very dry tone.

“So Ellie wants to be a part of all this?”

“Naturally, why wouldn’t she? You know she went wandering the earth searching for something. She didn’t find it anywhere because no one had developed it until we took the lead. We usually find that our test subjects have explored many avenues looking for this gift that we offer them.” The man’s face became more animated. “We believe that whatever it is that gives them the power to perform well also creates the desire to accelerate it. It’s a synchronistic convergence between their talent and our ability to amplify that talent.”

Hez shook his head, “Can I see Ellie now?”

The image faded on the wall and the man stared at the blank space for a moment, then stood up and confronted Hez. “We understand your desire to look after your sister. It’s highly commendable, but we cannot let personal influences derail our research. When her first trials are over, we will arrange for you to see her then.”

“And when will that be?”

“Our methods are precise, but we don’t have rigid schedules. They can’t be applied to this type of research. I am not trying to make this difficult for you, but there is no way I can give you that information. We have to see how she progresses and what ensues afterwards.”

“This is just nuts. It sounds like she’s just a lab rat to you people.”

“No, no it’s a matter of expectations, Mr. McCane.” He took a deep breath, “It’s similar to the problem of giving you the name of our organization, or describing anything about our work. It arouses primal fears because of mistakes made in the past by other agencies. Similarly you will regard our research as dehumanizing because of how research was done in the past. We are developing something beyond those old nineteenth and twentieth century models. We are taking into account the value of subjective experience. We understand that your emotional attachment to your sister is something that exists in its own right and has value in its own right. That’s the reason we found you on the trail and brought you in to explain the situation to you. We want you to feel better about your sister’s status, so that in the future you can be supportive of her in her new role.”

“What do you mean?”

“Try to think of it as a career move. That’s probably the closest we can come to making you understand what it involves. If your sister had found her ideal job, with excellent pay and benefits you would surely be supportive of that change in her status, isn’t that right?” Hez shrugged. “So if all goes according to plan, she will be spending her life in a very rewarding way, both financially and otherwise.”

“I didn’t come all the way up here to talk her out of anything. I just came to make sure that she’s alright and nothing is going on that she isn’t okay with, okay?”

“Yes that’s all very good. We’ll try to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’ve arranged for you to get a tour of the facility and someone to answer all your concerns.” He started moving towards the door and motioned Hez to follow. He did so, feeling somewhat like a lab rat himself, or at least a bit of a fool “Good luck to you, Mr. McCane,” Saunders said and shook his hand. A woman appeared as though on cue and led him to an elevator.

“Can I go see my sister now?” he asked her in a weary voice.

“I’m sorry, that’s not on the immediate agenda,” the woman said brightly. She reminded him of a flight attendant. She was attractive in the way he often found flight attendants to be. Gran had told him that when she was a girl she dreamed about being an airline stewardess, as they were called back then.  She explained that it was considered a glamorous profession for women. They were selected for good looks and then given tips about make-up and wardrobe.

Maybe that was the reason most of them still were fairly attractive. It had started a tradition that was still adhered to, if only subconsciously. He wondered if professions could develop subconscious tendencies. If they could, that made them seem more like living things, but that wasn’t a pleasant thought. If you imagined companies as living things then they would be monstrous in comparison to a human being. He did not like things that dwarfed the human, unless it was a tree. It was one of the many reasons he did not live in the city. 

“So what is on the agenda?” he asked

“We’ll go have lunch in the cafeteria and then I’ll show you the kind of research Eleana will be involved with.”

It made him a little uncomfortable to hear Ellie’s name mentioned by this stranger. “No one ever calls her that.” he said

The woman looked at him. “Would you prefer that I refer to her as Ms. McCane?” He shook his head. He realized that it didn’t matter what they called her, because to them she was someone completely different than who she was to him. Of course that was the case with her doctor and dentist as well, but something about this whole set up in the middle of a New Hampshire mountain just made it alien to everything he and Ellie had ever known. Maybe because of her esoteric studies and wide range of travels it would be less alienating to Ellie. Maybe she would find in it the ideal career path that Saunders had talked about, but the funny thing about it was, he doubted Ellie would ever regard anything about this set up as a matter of mere employment. Even Saunders had described that as merely a metaphor to help him understand her status in this place. What he wondered was it really all about? He was almost afraid to speculate.

“You’ll love the food here, we grow it ourselves.”

“Why do you do that?” he asked, his professional curiosity piqued.

“It’s research, like everything we do, but it is research that produces immediate dividends. When something works we put it to immediate use,” she said with a brilliant smile.

He liked the way her voice caressed the last two words. I am going to think of this as a social occasion, he thought. Only for lunch, after that I’ll be on my guard, but this very attractive woman is going to have lunch with me and I’m going to enjoy it. And he did.

Chapter Seven

Ellie and Ted ate salads in silence. They were in a small café style area, separated from the larger cafeteria, which had many rows of tables where very few people sat. “You would think there would be more people around,” she said, after she finished her meal.

“I wish there were fewer than there are. The more people who know about this project, the worse as far as I’m concerned. If it gets out, and attracts attention, it could throw everything off. I was guaranteed top secret clearance of all personnel, but sometimes I wonder if some of these people are really that cleared.” He shook his head.

“So do they live on site?” she gestured around them. 

“Most of them have signed on for a six month stint that will end shortly. After that time, we should have enough information to go to the next level.”

“What happens then?”

“That’s what you and I are going to be working on. We hope that we will have figured out how to deal with the energy efficiently.”

“Makes me feel like a battery.”

“It is more like you are a step up transformer, though that’s not really it either. We want to couch it in its own terms, but those are still being worked out.”

“What will it feel like? Will it hurt?”

Ted said, “It hasn’t seemed to hurt other subjects who’ve undergone the tests.”

“There were others? Where are they? Can I talk to them?”

“They’re not on-site any longer. It’s not the same anyway. We got some preliminary measurements from several pairs, mainly to work out the bugs. With your input we will get to another level.”

“Which will lead to the level after that. Sounds like a long term commitment of time and energy,” she looked around at the somewhat sterile environment and shook her head.

“Think of your surroundings as the frame, the real thing will take place in the crystal square you noticed. Although in fact that is another frame as well. It’s what your mind, your imagination, linked with mine can generate that is the real thing.” He smiled at her, “That doesn’t sound so bad does it?”

“I guess not, though if your imagination is like mine, it isn’t all sweetness and light.”

“I will guide us through the channels so that any disturbances will not become a hurdle.”

“Really?” she sounded less than convinced.

“Really,” he said and patted her hand. “I think once we get started you will become totally committed to the project. Until that happens, you’re going to naturally have misgivings.”

“I wish I could talk to Hez about this. He can always see things I miss.”

“You don’t think he might miss the finer points?”

“I’m the one who misses the finer points.” She laughed. “When do we start?”

“In a few hours. You can have water in the meantime, but don’t eat anything else between now and then. It seems to work best when a little fast is involved. Tomorrow, we will continue the experiment immediately after we wake up, before breakfast.”

She nodded, “Do cell phone work in this place? I want to try to reach Hez again if possible.”

“No, at least not to make outside calls, I’m afraid. If all goes well, we’ll be finished in a day or two and you can call him from my house.”

“That’s not the impression you gave me before. I thought I would be able to get in touch with him soon. You must have landlines or something in here to keep in touch with the outside.”

“It’s under a kind of black out status, due to the top secret nature of the proceedings. In answer to her exasperated expression he added, “There are reasons for the precautions, Ellie, the data is still coming in, but we think the people working at the other site may have an agenda that might create serious problems as I told you before. If they get the information first, then it would be terrible for everyone.”

“You make it sound like an arms race.”

“It is. I know you think of that expression as mere window dressing for bloated military budgets, but sometimes, it is necessary to enter such races.”

“So that other organization you mentioned is in competition with this one?”

“We’re uncertain about their goals. There’s evidence that they have deliberately misled us about them. We have cooperated with them to learn more about them. At first we thought they were going to be a great help, but now it looks like we may need to re-think our relationship with them.”

“So you started out as allies?”

He nodded. “They were a great asset when we first started exchanging information.” He lowered his voice and leaned towards her across the table, “We now think they’re interested in the Theta Paradigm for its applications in creating some type of super man.”

“You know George Bernard Shaw was interested in that idea?”

“Which shows how even brilliant and well-intentioned people can be fooled by that type of thinking.”

“How close do you think they are to reaching their goal?”

“There was an explosion at a site last month, which they think is connected to that organization. Something they were doing set off an inferno. It got presented in the media as a volcanic eruption. Of course what gave it away was that this was from a non-volcanic mountain.”

“How did they explain that detail?”

“No one checked, but if they had I’m sure they would have claimed it was from such a long dormant volcano that it was not known to be volcanic. There are always ways to explain things ‘scientifically.’”

“Could that happen here, you know we all get blown up or something?”

“I don’t think so. There’s nothing combustible in our design. It makes us wonder if they’re tapping into energy forms that we don’t even know about in order to set up for the main event.”

She shook her head, “Haven’t you done that? I mean the gadget you showed me, how is it powered?”

“That came about from a peripheral bit of research that is related to our main project here, so maybe they’re advancing on side projects as well. We haven’t given them information about that or some other prototypes we’re working on, but we still have a formal partnership with them.”

“Sounds like you might need to re-think that relationship.”

He nodded, “If my worst fears about their peripheral research are correct, then we definitely need to do that. The problem is that everything is changing so fast, that it’s hard to keep a handle on it. I mean it’s tough enough to think through the ramifications of new technologies we’re developing, let alone having to figure out what they’re developing and its long-term consequences. If we miscalculate on either side, it could have tremendous repercussions.”

Ellie stared at him in amazement, then said, “And not just for this planet, maybe even for this whole galactic arm.” Suddenly the situation that had seemed so obtuse became clear. “Was it worry about all of this that drove you to write your recent novels?”

Ted nodded, “You thought it caused me to lose some of my talent?” She shrugged. “It might be. They ceased to be merely creative projects for me, once I grasped the full dimensions of where my research was leading me. I guess it’s the price I have to pay.”

“Don’t worry, maybe it will come back once the dangers are past and we’ve gotten over this hurdle.”

“It doesn’t matter. Naturally, the most important thing is to get to where we’re going. What is mere art, where the fate of the world is at stake?”

“I’ve always thought it wouldn’t be much of a world without art.”

“True, but art isn’t much without a world to exist in. For I tell you the truth, the other side has probably got some peculiar notions about art.”

“I can well imagine.”

“Well, I was never going to be known as a great writer. I think I will probably fade into obscurity, which is perfectly fine by me. I think fame is over-rated.”

“Some of your books are really wonderful and will always be read.”

“Well, not the latest ones, but I think some of the earlier works aren’t too bad. At least, among my Irish fans I might remain a name,” he said softly.

“What more could you really ask for?” she asked and gave him an encouraging smile.

“Yes quite right. Now let’s go find your room. I made them assign you somewhere quiet, with a private bath.”

“It’s alright. I don’t really mind sharing.”

“No, you need to have private time to reflect and feel at peace, the tests will take a toll, so rest is imperative.”

“Okay, I wouldn’t mind lying down for a little while, now that you mention it. “

They got up and placed their trays near the trash can. Ted guided her by the arm through another series of corridors. During this time, she began to feel more and more tired. By the time, they got to the small room with a twin size bed; she was ready to collapse onto it. “I’ll come for you in a few hours, sleep if you can,” he said and left the room.

*

“Ellie just came back from a trip to China about six months ago. She’s been staying with me at our family’s farm. She used to work for Ted back in the day and came up here to renew the acquaintance, I guess you might say.” Hez said.

“And you were worried about her?”

He shrugged, “I had a bad feeling she was in trouble.”

“She’s really in good hands. Ted Griffin is a truly great person. You probably think of him as just a novelist, but there’s a lot more to him than that.” Hez nodded and put his fork down on the plate. He gave her a brilliant smile.

“I have met him a few times, and he seems like a fine fellow. It’s not Ted that worries me, it’s just maybe, this here,” he gestured around them. They were seated in the main cafeteria area, on the far side from the little café where Ted and Ellie had eaten earlier. “It’s a little strange to me that there’s this complex buried in the middle of a mountain. What is all this?” he asked with a little laugh.

Sara smiled, “Hez, it’s not a bad thing. It seems really strange because you don’t understand it yet, but when you do, you’ll realize that Ellie is embarked on an important mission that will have amazing benefits to her and to others.”

“A mission?” he shook his head, “She’s not the type who goes in for missionary work. Her interests are unusual by most standards, which I would imagine would make her of little interest to an organization with a mission statement and secret laboratories buried in mountains, by the way.” 

Sara placed a hand on his arm and spoke gently, “She’s exactly what an organization like ours would be interested in.”

“And what exactly is the name of your organization?” When she merely smiled, he continued, “Okay then what is your mission, can you tell me that much?”

She took a deep breath and replied, “We have several, but the most important of our goals is to make available to everyone on earth cheap, clean, infinitely renewable energy.”

“That’s impossible,” he said.

“It’s not, and we think we’re on the road to making it a reality very soon.”

“But Ellie’s not an engineer. She hasn’t been trained in anything along those lines.”

“It’s not energy as you’re used to thinking of it; or at least it isn’t derived from any usual source. This is something we’ve just discovered, thanks in large part to Ted Griffin’s research.”

“So old Ted found some secret formula for cheap energy in some old piece of pottery buried in a mound somewhere in Ireland, is that what you’re telling me?”

She looked at him gravely, “Not exactly, but he pointed us in a direction that we had not considered. If he hadn’t published his work when he did, we might never have understood where to point our telescope so to speak.”

“So this has something to do with the stars?” Hez asked.

She smiled. “Yes, it’s very complicated. I don’t understand all of it myself. None of us do, but we do understand the significance of what we’re doing. We desperately need the cooperation of yourself and Ellie for just a few days. Given the stakes, is that really too much to ask?”

“Can I speak to her?”

She gave him an appraising look, “I think that is being arranged. It may take a few more hours.”

“Why?”

“It’s just how we have to proceed. We want Ellie well focused on the task when she enters the transformative chamber, and if she sees you or talks to you it could throw her off.”

“What kind of a transformative chamber?” Hez asked evenly

“It’s just a place where her extraordinary mental abilities can be enhanced. It transforms her thought patterns into images that can be shared. We’ve tested it several times already and all of our subjects were able to make their thoughts shine through onto the crystalline panels. None of those subjects had ever been trained by Ted the way Ellie was trained, so we have very high expectations for her success.”

“And you think she will be able to tell you how to produce cheap energy?”

“Once we get the information we need from her, we should be able to use it for that and other purposes.”

“And there’s no risk to any of this? None of your other subjects went schizo or anything like that?”

“It’s just amplifying what’s already there, so how could there be a risk?” Sara said patiently.