Ark (21 page)

GRAVEN IMAGES

Jim leaned over his eggs, oblivious to the busy mess hall activities going on around him and also trying to be oblivious of Gene, who was acting downright perky. Why that should be Jim had no clue, since they’d both had the same amount of sleep.

Gene gobbled up his toast, and seeing Jim wasn’t interested, picked up a piece of bacon off Jim’s plate and examined it like a lab specimen. He put it back and wiped his fingers with his napkin. “How can you eat that stuff? I’m kosher but I wouldn’t touch bacon even if I wasn’t. God knows what they preserve it with.”

“I didn’t eat it, did I? If I had eaten it, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to handle my food. Think of how sad you’d be.” Jim forced a smile.

“Gee, Jim,” said Gene, “no need to get snippy. I was just commenting on the bacon. Wondering why it’s not kosher.”

“I wouldn’t jump at a gefilte fish sandwich either, kosher or not,” Jim muttered.

“But before we get into a fist fight over our food, Gene, I’d like a bit of a better explanation of what the General meant when he used the word ‘containment’. Is he suggesting that the ark could explode or become radioactive?”

“Well, you know about the University of Chicago experiment, don’t you?”

“If you mean the early problems with chain reactions, I once heard there is a contaminated wing where nobody goes. A friend once told me they had a nuclear accident .”

“No, John’s Dad said to read the material they gave you,” said Gene. “One of the confidential files in there talks about the first time they built the ark. I thought it was just one of those urban legends, but apparently it’s true.”

“They built the ark before?” asked Jim, waking up a bit.

“That’s really when Operation Thunderbolt really began. Enrico Fermi recognized the radio properties of the ark. They built just the ark, so the story goes, and when the lid went on the electricity went out and nobody could get near the thing. Sparks flew everywhere. That’s why they called it Thunderbolt.”

“Come on. I researched the ark but never heard that.”

“It’s all in the brief. Three were killed trying to dismantle it even though protected by rubber gloves and hip boots. Nobody could find a way to approach the thing.”

“So that’s what the General meant by containment,” Jim mused, wide-eyed. “Why wasn’t this in the news? And what happened to the ark?”

“I think the answer is obvious. It had to remain secret until we understood what was going on,” said Gene. “Think of what the world ... the clergy ... would make of it.”

“So what happened to it?”

“The brief said that it’s still there, in a closed wing at Fermilab. It’s in a bricked up, lead lined room, just sputtering away, I guess, all by its lonesome.”

Jim was now fully awake. “That changes everything. It means that the ark
works
!”

Some people at a nearby table looked at them, then returned to their meals.

Jim lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “So that’s why everybody got excited by the simulation. It proved that my design for the ark was the right one.”

“Nothing’s proven, Jim,” insisted Gene. “At least not yet.”

Jim pondered what Gene had told him about the ark at FermiLab. “So they did try it before,” he said. “I wonder if they haven’t tried to go back there and try new things, or go in with robots to dismantle it. Maybe even blow it up.”

“Part of the brief goes into that. It said they weren’t able to get at it. Machines couldn’t be brought in without major renovations that would bring unwanted attention to the project, and it wasn’t cost effective to dismantle it. In they end they kept expecting someone to come up with an easy solution, since they didn’t really understand what was going on with the ark. It was producing only mild levels of radioactivity so, well, they just finally gave up on it.”

“That’s amazing,” said Jim.

“I guess it was so weird,” continued Gene, “that the military just didn’t really want to deal with it. So they just wrote it off, gold and all.”

“You said they just built the ark. They didn’t build the whole Tabernacle?” said Jim. “That’s like building a nuclear reactor without putting it in a containment building.”

“Again, that’s why the General said ‘containment’. It’s why we’re a quarter mile underground,” answered Gene. “Even if we’re wrong about the ark the walls of the Tabernacle -- covered with double layers of gold -- should protect us.”

“Makes sense to me,” Jim admitted. “So on the Mercy Seat of the one they built ...” he continued, “Were the angels ... I mean the cherubim ... were they sculptured or flat gold?”

“Sculpture, just like the one in the movie.”

“So maybe I stumbled on to the right configuration,” Jim said thoughtfully. “That really surprises me. It seems obvious that beaten gold isn’t sculpture, and of course there’s that little matter of the second commandment that everyone who’s ever reconstructed the ark has apparently chosen to ignore. Everyone but me, that is.”

“Second commandment?”

Jim quoted the second commandment,
“You shall not make for yourselves any graven image, you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”

“Well, you think the problem is building sculpture. I see the problem as worshipping it,” countered Gene. “I’ve thought about that since we first discussed it and I think it would have been okay for the Israelis to build the ark with sculptural angels. They were allowed to make one thing to worship and that was the ark.”

Jim thought for a moment. “I know,” he said finally. “We’ve been all through this before, and I still feel that’s a gross assumption. Sculptural angels would be heavy and hard to make do what the cherubim were said in the scriptures to have done; cover the Mercy Seat with their wings. My design was directly from the text, covers the ark completely and uses less gold, and it uses cherubim that aren’t sculptural.”

“Don’t try to convince me,” Gene replied, sounding a bit annoyed. “John’s Dad and everybody else in Thunderbolt are already convinced. The simulation rested your case.”

“But you still have doubts, obviously.”

“I always have doubts,” replied Gene, “until the thing flies.” He drank the rest of his coffee and pointed to the clock on the wall. “Come on, Jim, it’s nearly ten. We’re supposed to meet the General.”

Getting around the complex was easy. There were more elevators than one might find in the biggest hotels, and the housing area of the underground facility was kept as a unit with the mess hall, laundry and other services. During one of their strolls Jim even noticed an FTD office for sending flowers by wire.

They met the General at the entrance to the tramway. This took them directly to Thunderbolt, which seemed to be quite far from their room, although judging distances was difficult for Jim in the unfamiliar layout of the place.

“Is this the only tram that leads to Thunderbolt?” Jim asked the General.

“This is one of three trams, Mr. Wilson,” said General Wilcox, “but it is the only one that leads to housing.”

“How far is Thunderbolt from housing?” asked Gene. “I’ve been down this tunnel many times and I still can’t tell how far we ...”

“Two kilometers, give or take,” replied the General.

“Takes forever,” Gene grumbled. “Can this thing go any faster?”

“No.”

Gene had reason to complain. The tram tunnel was plain white with an overhead light at regular intervals that provided barely enough light to read by. Every few hundred feet or so they track took a bend.

Gene asked the General why there were turns in the tunnel. “Seams in the rock?” he guessed.

“No,” said General Wilcox. “It’s so we can contain any explosion that might occur. We don’t want the trams to become bullets, now do we?”

“I guess not,” said Gene.

By the time they arrived at their destination Jim had lost count of the turns the tram had taken. The car passed through an automatic door into the lighted cavern, and as Jim’s eyes adjusted to the light he could see that very little had changed since the previous day.

“You’ll be coming here every day to observe with other experts,” the General said when the car came to a halt. He got out first and stretched. Jim and Gene followed and did the same. Jim took a deep breath and noticed that the air smelled clean. “Fresh air,” Jim remarked. “Must be an illusion caused by the painted backdrops, but I’d swear we’re out in the open air. There’s even a bit of a breeze.”

“Good ventilation,” said Gene.

Jim nodded. “Which brings me to something that has been bothering me since I heard you were building underground.”

“What is that?” asked the General, overhearing the question Jim addressed to Gene. He’d seemed to be absorbed in paperwork, and his intrusion caught Jim off guard.

“Well, Sir,” asked Jim, “I can’t help wondering how valid a test we can do underground when it’s radio waves that presumably activate the ark.”

“I know the answer to that one, General, if I may,” said Gene.

“Be my guest,” grumbled the General as his eyes returned to his paperwork.

“We’re presuming it’s radio that activates the ark, but we don’t know that. We decided that if we assemble the ark and the Tabernacle underground it would eliminate most radio sources, for one thing.”

“The other reason is to see if any type of radiation other than radio activates the ark,” added General Wilcox. “If we can assemble it without problems then we can take her up top for Phase Two.”

“General,” said Jim. “I really just have one more question.”

The General looked him up and down. “I can tell from the way you’re standing that it’s a doozy, Mr. Wilson. Let’s have it.”

“What if it works?”

“Then the tech boys do their stuff,” the General replied. “My job is to build it, not to test it.”

“He means what if events go, you know, biblical,” offered Gene, trying to be helpful.

“You think that’s going to happen, don’t you, Henson?” the General barked, looking at Jim and Gene with a sneer. “Is that what you’re hoping for?”

Gene and Jim stood for a moment with their mouths agape, but the General didn’t seem to expect an answer. He turned toward a group of workmen and yelled at the top of his lungs, “If you assholes don’t have work, see your CO now!”

He turned back to Gene. “You can stow those piss ant ideas, Henson. I expect them from our pal Wilson here. That’s sort of his job, you know.” He gave Jim a saccharin smile, but only briefly. He wasn’t going to let Gene get a word in.

“I expect YOU, Mr. Henson, to stop humoring your liberal friend and put your mind to matters that concern you. You are supposed to assist us.” The General paused to pull a sheet of paper from the folder he was carrying. “Yes,” he continued, scrutinizing the paper he waved in Gene’s face, “it says ‘with special attention to assisting in the design and construction of the ark.’ Is that right?”

“That’s right, Sir,” said Gene.

“And you’re being paid for this, correct?” asked the General.

“That’s right, Sir,” said Gene.

“Well then, I suggest you head for that workshop over there while Mr. Wilson remains here with me for a bit. He’ll be joining you soon.”

Without a word Gene dutifully trudged off toward the row of windows on the far wall where they’d seen Aaron working the previous day.

Once he was safely out of earshot the General turned his back on Gene and pushed his face into Jim’s, so close that he could smell the General’s breakfast.

“I want you to understand some things, Wilson,” said the General. “First, I don’t like you at all. Second, I don’t understand you. I don’t have a single goddamn clue how that thing you call your brain works and, frankly, I don’t give a shit.”

Jim began to get angry. Nothing had happened and nothing had been said that warranted a dressing down for himself or Gene. He had taken about all he could stand of the General’s arrogance and lofty posturing, but before he could muster an appropriate retort, the General continued.

“But fuck all that. In the coming days I want you with me, Wilson. I want you at my side, and I want you to open your mouth and say any stupid shitheaded thing you want, when you want. Don’t let the stars on my sleeve discourage you. Don’t be intimidated by my rank or any other consideration. Speak up.

“Even the money. Don’t worry about that. Hell, you’ll get your share and overtime to boot, even if you do no more than cut a fart in the coming days. Like I told you before, I want your intuition.”

“But General,” said Jim, “you don’t believe in intuition.”

“Who said I don’t?” General Wilcox snorted. “Did you ever hear of remote viewing?”

“Not really,” said Jim. “You mean E.S.P.?”

“More like channeling,” said the General.

“I guess I know what you’re talking about.”

“Bingo,” said the General. “You channel while we work, and when you smell a fart, or even think you smell a fart, you tell us. Is that clear enough for you?”

“Okay,” said Jim.

The General nodded. “Okay then. Go help Gene or whatever. And don’t let Henson do your thinking for you.”

Jim nodded, turned, and walked off toward the door to the workshop.

“Wilson!” the General called after him.

Jim turned. “Sir?”

“Keep your head up,” added the General. Then he closed the folder he was carrying and stepped into the tram.

Jim watched it pick up speed until it disappeared behind the automatic doors. He shook his head, whistled softly, and muttered, “How the hell did I get into this shit?”

#

When Jim entered Aaron’s studio, the smell of hot metal told him that work was in progress. Gene was helping Aaron lift a large semicircular wooden mold up on a bench. Jim rushed over to help them.

“What is this?” asked Jim.

“It’s a form that I’ll use to hammer and shape the Mercy Seat and the cherubim,” Aaron replied, his voice straining from the effort.

“It just came over from carpentry,” added Gene. “By the way, Jim, what’s the old man’s problem? I don’t remember saying anything.”

They brought the heavy form gently to rest without pinching too many fingers. Jim patted Gene on the shoulder. “Peptic ulcer is my diagnosis. Either that or the General is out chasing nuts with the squirrels.”