3:40 hours
Every time he heard that low frequency
mumble, he would start sweating and on occasions he even blacked out. He had
learnt to live with it but he never hid his desire from the voice-he wanted a
life free from it. Despite the crippling nature of the voice, he had never let
it get the better of him. He initially thought it was some kind of
communication. Probably from someone from outer space who wanted to credit him
for his endeavors to identify intelligence in the vast emptiness of space.
Whatever that was, he never found out and with time, he had learnt to listen
beyond the voice.
Emanuel had always lived a life worth
envy. His surname commanded respect and right from his young age, he had got
what he had wanted, at least almost. He was blessed intellectually. Some of the
most bizarre dreams in his childhood probably accounted for the mild
eccentricity with which he was associated. His father was influential and had
fought the Second World War. It came as no surprise when Walter Emanuel Junior
fought the Vietnam War and was decorated on return. He spent close to a decade
in the Warfield or rather the skies above it before being one of the last
members to leave the belligerent field. That, he was sure, was the longest
stretch he had gone without the voice disturbing him.
Back in the United States, he sought to
join the intelligence and years later he got his desired move-he became a part
of the paradise ranch. Getting into Sector 51 needed more than just scientific
credentials. It needed acumen to tackle with meticulous caution, the questions
lesser mortals asked. Area 51 had fascinated him ever since his childhood. He
fondly remembered and told anyone who would listen about his very own
conspiracy theories. That was before he rose rapidly through the echelon and
learnt that a few of the “conspiracy theories” were more than just theories. He
did his best to keep the secrets the way they were before he took over. He
enjoyed every moment of it.
No joy comes without a price. The voice
had insidiously occupied a greater part of his time which made things
difficult. He had consulted psychiatrists who were baffled as they were sure he
was absolutely normal. He convinced himself it was probably the pain of having
lost his mother early in his life. His inexplicable disregard for women meant
he had remained a bachelor all his life. Having busied himself with his job, he
enjoyed the importance hard work earned him. What he did not know was that
every movement of those who worked in Area-51 was closely monitored by the NSA.
Another fact he was ignorant of was the
cause of disappearance of one of his workers-the man had brought to his notice
an abnormal reading. Emanuel knew it was about with elevated cobalt levels in
the sky, something he had tried to account for, but success eluded him. He had
not shared the information about cobalt with the missing man.
The voice had made him an insomniac and
he was thankful for that. The most ingenious ideas occurred to him in these
hours. While he was gleefully lost in thought, the telephone rang.
***
3:41 hours
The stillness of the woods was
disturbed by the low rumbling noise of the posh car. Glazer was a proponent of
the notion that luxury asked too much from those whose who sought it. Van
Guerin remembered his tutor once lambast Agnew for the latter’s liking of
meaningless stuff others thought was cool. It was now evident how Diablo-a
sports car had found its way into the sheds of a scientist. He instantly
thought of the altercation between Lamborghini and Enzo Ferrari. Van Guerin
wondered if the hostility between Agnew and Glazer had originated from a
similar dispute in the past. They sped past the place where Van Guerin’s car
had refused to move. It was obvious that the butler had noticed a look of
surprise in Van Guerin’s face.
“Your car has been sent to the
mechanic. You’ll have it by dusk tomorrow”
“That is kind of you”
“Oh it is not me whom you should
thank.”
“Maybe...Tell Dr. Agnew that it has
been an honor.”
“I certainly will.”
“Your master is a very kind man indeed.”
“You are wrong. He can be a cruel man
if I fail in his errands.”
Van Guerin did not know what to say.
“Can you guess what my latest chore
is?”
“No idea”
“Master has always wanted to have his
own way. You must know that he refused the Nobel just because he had to share
it…”
“…share it with Dr. Glazer. The two men
loathed each other”
“That I do not know. But master hates
sharing honors.”
He continued
“The
life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”
Van Guerin knew what was going to
happen next.
The car screeched to a halt in the
midst of the woods. A mild thud followed a muffled bang as the man fell down
dead.
The car sped off to the manor after the
body was dumped in the woods.
***
3:42 hours
“No abnormal movement you know of? Are
you sure you aren’t lying, Walter?”
“So what if I did”
“Too bad all these years have not
taught you manners”
“Shut up Agnew. You are nothing more
than a lunatic well past his heyday.”
“Maybe… Maybe not... Why don’t we talk
about your stakes at United Petrochemicals?”
“Still going great… Too bad I mentioned
it to you. I thought you were alright then”
“What would happen, imagine, if we are
able to use Cobalt to light New York?”
“It still astounds me how well informed
you are”
“Does it? Then I’ll tell you what is
going to happen. Check your mail box. Call me back if you find anything
interesting.”
The line went dead.
***
3:45 hours
Walter Emmanuel was not impressed at
all. He had enough issues to break his head over. There had been a sudden rise
in Cobalt’s level in some parts of the country and the select few who were
aware of it agreed it was nothing a human could have done. If it was indeed the
aliens were behind it, it was his domain.
He had always refused to accept in
public that non human life forms did exist. There was sufficient evidence, such
as this one, that supported the theories of many men world over. But then,
everyone knew what would happen if people were told that crop circles were
possibly the random acts of some raving lunatic from outer space. More than the
panic, he would lose his job. He loved his job where he reported only to The
President.
He decided to check what the old man
was talking about. The mail was long and it mentioned something like a kind of
device which absorbed energy and amplified it. It did little to astonish him.
There was then another part which showed plenty of complexity. But he was able
to make out what it meant. If the equations worked in more than paper, the old
man had just won a Nobel and the world had its most reliable source of energy.
The issue of finding cobalt in such quantities to enable a feasible energy
extracting operations would be circumvented with the amplifier-which had an
element of oddity about it.
The output data seemed odd to be coming
out from an amplifier. There were signals which seemed familiar but he was
unable to interpret it. Then it hit him finally. The device could also communicate with the aliens. Clearly the
output matched the data obtained from random readings taken from the cosmic
outbursts. That meant the old man had developed a technique to interact with
aliens and he would possibly perfect things.
Emanuel wondered what Agnew’s bargain
was all about. Was he so sure that this technology would work that he sensed
that United Petrochemicals’ stocks would plummet down? There was only one man
who could afford to fund a new procedure such as this-Norman Landau.
***
Same time elsewhere
“Damn
it”
He
was angry for his ally’s apartment
was locked. He could have banged the
door open. But that would enable his
enemies detect him with ease. He would never make it easy for them.
Waiting here would be a pathetic idea as they might suspect this location to be
on his agenda. He also had to protect his ally. For, without him, his actions would be futile. It was his friend who had the list. The list would
enable him locate his target. That would be easy with the
code he was given by the oracle. The
old man met him when detained. It
was indeed a close call. Had they taken
him to the prison, it would have taken another comrade and a lot of time to
free him.
He
decided to leave a note to his
friend-one that no one else could decipher, so that when his mate returned, he will know what task awaited them. He left the building in the taxi which
still housed its driver’s lifeless body.
***
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