Ark (5 page)

Jim and Kas sat silently looking at Gene, trying to think of something to say.

“That was at least five years ago,” Gene continued. “I realized after she was gone that she cost me most of my friends. I guess I shouldn’t say this but she wasn’t the friendliest person.”

Jim and Kas seemed stunned by the news, but Gene put up his hand. “It’s okay. I really didn’t want to discuss her,” he said. “The friend at the university is connected to the computer sciences department. We’re going to try the simulation there. Tonight maybe. Wanna come?”

Jim looked at Kas. “Well, it’s a week night. Tomorrow is ...”

“Drive me in and leave when you want to,” said Gene. “It’s only around eight right now.”

#

“Awesome,” said Jim, peering into a room full of giant beige consoles as he followed Gene into Penn’s Comp Tech Department, “What the heck are those? Crays?”

A glass door slid to one side and a guy in an unbuttoned plaid shirt and bleach stained blue jeans stepped forward and held out his hand to Jim. The man was taller than Jim, and when he held out his chubby hand Jim noticed his T-shirt had a portrait of a happy face, with a bullet hole between its eyes.

“Nice shirt,” said Jim.

The man glanced down at his shirt. His pearly teeth gleamed through a wiry gray beard. “Yeah,” he nodded. “When I saw it I bought a dozen. Now they’re mostly all worn out, though.” He examined his chest for a moment, fingering a small hole that had formed directly in the bullethole part of the graphic. Some reddish chest hairs were poking through. His squinting eyes returned to Jim. “So you’re Gene’s artist friend. People call me Mr. Megabyte. You can call me Earl, though.”

“What do you feed these, Earl?” said Jim, pointing to the computers.

“Anything they want,” said Earl. “So what’s the deal, Gene? Is that the disk?” He snatched the floppy disk that was protruding from Gene’s shirt pocket. “Let’s have a look-see.”

Gene seemed startled by the man’s brashness, but he politely asked, “Don’t you have to load some software?”

The man chuckled and went over to a large ancient leather chair positioned by a console. It made a loud creaking sound as his dumped himself into it. “Naw. These babies take care of all that shit.” He fingered a few buttons on a keyboard and shoved the disk into a slot to his right.

Jim expected a screen to be full of data when the monitor came on, but it showed only a single image, the classic painting Jim recognized as The Raft of the Medusa. When Earl moved the cursor on the various people who languished aboard the raft, their heads lit up. After several clicks the screen went black and the words “ARK PROGRAM 0001” appeared. Then they waited. After a few seconds the disk popped out of the console and the image of the famous painting returned to the screen.

“That’s what happened at Columbia,” said Gene, shaking his head.

A few more clicks of the mouse yielded an onscreen analysis of the program.

COMMAND: <
RUN PROGRAM ARK 0001>

PROGRAM: <
RUNNING>

RUN: <
PROGRAM>

COMMAND: <
END PROGRAM>

COMMAND: <
DISK EJECT>

Then the screen changed the messages in a foreign language. “Swedish,” explained Earl with a devilish grin. “Tomorrow it’s French. Spies everywhere, you know.” He looked up at Gene and shrugged. “It ran your simulation, but it took only a microsecond. Results inconclusive.”

“That’s nuts,” said Gene. “Russell himself wrote the program. It has to run.”

Earl’s left eyebrow arched. “I guess you didn’t hear me. I said it ran.”

“Okay,” said Gene. “Let’s run the program again. Can’t you slow it down so we can see it?”

“I don’t think so,” said Earl, sucking on his teeth. “There was no display as far as I can tell. Not even a frame.”

Gene seemed angry. “Why would that happen?”

“Maybe the Crays couldn’t display the results,” said Earl, scratching his crotch. “It’s like they saw an error.”

#

Driving home, Jim thought about what he’d seen. Mr. Megabyte had tried to explain it to them but even Gene, with all his years of technical experience, had trouble understanding. Finally after several reruns Gene had become visibly shaken and decided to leave. “I’ll get a cab, Jim,” he said, then turned and walked to the door, forcing Earl to chase after him to give him back his floppy disk. Gene gave Earl a polite handshake and a thank you. Then he was gone.

Jim had remained with Earl for a while, mentioning what his friend Dan had said about the microwave properties of the ark. Earl seemed interested but subdued. Obviously the mystery of the Crays was lingering in his mind. Finally Jim and Earl exchanged business cards and parted company.

That night Jim had a dream about the ark that disturbed him. He awoke in a sweat, but when Kas asked him to describe his dream he drew a blank.

The next day Dan called Jim and they arranged a meeting with Gene at Jim’s house. Dan arrived early, and Kas kept him company with a cup of tea while they waited for Jim and Gene to arrive from town. Dan said he was being interviewed for a position with the Signet Group in Philadelphia. He confessed that he didn’t know where he wanted to settle but he was tired of Colorado.

“You’re still with AT&T, aren’t you?” Kas asked.

“For the last twenty years. Lived all over the place. I spent the last seven years in Spain and Portugal. My folks died about three years ago. I came back to the U.S. then and everything was different. I couldn’t wait to get out of the country — back to Spain.”

“Well, isn’t Spain a good place to live? Why not stay there?” asked Kas.

“I don’t know,” said Dan, sipping his tea. “I’d always be called ‘the American’. Besides, this is home.”

At that moment Jim, Lou and Gene arrived, and before long the group was sitting in Jim’s living room full of small talk.

It was Kas who brought up the subject of the ark. “So is this a kind of religious gathering?” she said slyly. “Are we going to tell Bible stories?”

“Maybe we should,” said Gene. “After last night I get the feeling that God just isn’t on my side.”

Jim explained to Dan what had happened when they’d tried to run the ark simulation at the university.

“Well, if it didn’t work at Columbia then why try at Penn?” asked Lou.

“More powerful computers,” Gene offered, “and Earl Copeland is the best hacker at Penn, but he can’t figure out what was wrong with the program either. I called him less than two hours ago and he’s still in the dark. Not a clue.”

Jim protested. “You know that’s not true. The program ran every time, always the same way, in a nanosecond. It always ended with the same report.”

Gene smiled. “Yeah. That shook me up a bit, and I think it disturbed Mr. Megabyte, too, but I suspect he’s dismissing it as a disk problem.”

Lou shook his head. “Mr. Megabyte. Yeah, I’ve heard of that guy. He’s the best. Shit, Penn’s got the best equipment. If HE can’t figure it out, why are you wasting your time second guessing him?”

“I’m not,” said Gene. “I even tossed the disk.”

Jim frowned. “I don’t think the disk was the problem.”

“I agree,” answered Gene. “It could be the program, but, you know, it’s strange. When I talked to Earl today he seemed different — subdued.”

“Of course,” said Kas. “Probably hurt his pride, not being able to help.”

“Perhaps,” said Gene. “However, I have a feeling that there’s more to it than that. He copied the disk file.”

“He did? I didn’t see him do that,” said Jim.

“He didn’t say so,” replied Gene, “but before he finally ejected the disk, I saw him do something. I’m pretty sure he was making a copy.”

Dan had been listening quietly. Finally he spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about your ark story for a while. I want to stay on top of it. That is, if I’m invited.”

“Of course you are,” said Jim. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Can I get copies of these sketches?” answered Dan.

Gene looked at Dan. “You’re with the military, right?”

“Used to be,” Dan replied. “Civvie now. Been living overseas, but now I’m looking to resettle in Philly. My interest in this is strictly personal, not professional. Since I looked at Jim’s drawings I’m hooked, I guess you could say.”

“It’s compelling,” said Gene, nodding adamantly, “but after last night I have some misgivings.”

“Care to elaborate?” asked Dan.

“Not right now. I still have to talk to my friend at Columbia University.”

Jim picked up the Xeroxed drawings. “Okay, let’s regroup,” he said. “What do we know?”

For the next hour they ran over every detail while Jim made notes. Finally he put down his pen. “Well, we have a lot of info, but we know nothing. That’s a good place to start.”

Lou got up and walked to the window. “If you ask me, this is a goddamned waste of time.” He stared out at the pines in the front yard. “If what you’re saying is true about this ark, I can’t believe that we’re the first ones to try to figure this out.”

“Perhaps,” responded Gene, “but Jim might have discovered something, and I’m compelled to see this through.”

“Why?” asked Lou, turning to face Gene.

“Because now there’s money at stake. That lawyer I told you about is serious. He wants to build the ark and he is paying me a lot to get some answers.”

“Trouble is,” said Lou, “there are no answers.”

“I don’t know, Lou,” Jim said, “we now have two verifications of the resonator theory.”

“That’s true,” said Dan, nodding. “The configuration that Jim came up with, the parabolic shape of the cherubim, is new information. No one’s ever described them as parabola.”

“New to us,” said Gene. “Perhaps. But I recall reading Erik Von Daniken's
Chariot’s of the God
s at least twenty years ago and he said it was a radio for talking to God.”

“So did Indiana Jones,” said Lou and Kas almost simultaneously.

Gene smiled and nodded. “You know, before I came down here to visit I surfed the web under the words ‘ark of the covenant’ and ended printing out over a hundred pages of related material.”

“Did any of it indicate a parabolic shape to the cherubim?” asked Jim.

“Not a one.”

Jim shrugged. “Then it follows that we’ve discovered something important.”

Gene frowned. “We may never really know the answer to this riddle. I’d venture to guess that we’d have to live a lot longer than a mere seventy years to find out how important our contributions will be. But like I told you before, I’m in this for the long haul. I’m hooked on it.”

“Try drugs,” said Lou. “More rewarding.”

“You ought to know.” Kas said with a grin.

Lou feigned being struck by a bullet and tumbled onto the floor.

Dan laughed and slapped Jim’s knee. “I can see you still have the same interesting and entertaining friends, Jim.”

“Yeah,” replied Jim, glaring at Kas. “I even married one of them.”

Lou remained down on the carpet. He squinted at Kas’s knees. “Gee, Kas. A no-panties day, I see.”

Kas shrieked and left the room, leaving Lou to awkwardly explain that he was kidding and it was only a lucky guess.

Dan and Gene roared with laughter, but Jim stared coldly at Lou. “They should have drowned you with the rest of the litter.”

“I was just too cute and cuddly,” replied Lou, getting up and seating himself on the sofa. “I guess I should go find Kas and apologize.”

“Good luck,” said Jim.

While Lou and Kas were out of the room, Gene asked Dan some technical details about microwaves. Most of it was over Jim’s head. Finally he said, “In English, please?”

“Well,” said Gene, “my program, the simulation I ran, was based on two frequencies. One was the equivalent of twenty-seven inches and the other was thirty-three. That’s in the FM band. So assuming the Egyptian royal cubit was the standard, and not the Babylonian cubit, then the wavelength was ...” Gene looked at a sheet of paper in his lap. “About .8 meters at 32.5 inches. And at 52.5 inches the frequency is around 1.3 meters.”

“Did you try it to the size everyone else seems to think it was?” asked Jim.

Gene looked down at the paper again. “Yes, at 27 inches it’s .7 meters, or at 44 inches it’s a little over 1 meter.

“We have two scales to examine for each variation, one based on width and the other by depth. That’s why we need the computers to model this thing.”

Lou reentered the room, looking depressed. Jim was sure Kas had lit into him. He was about to say something comforting, but Lou had heard what Gene was saying about the uncertainty of the sizes.

“That’s why I think you’re barking up a dead tree,” said Lou, perking up a bit. “You’re talking mythology here. It’s like you’re trying to figure out what size pants Zeus wore.”

“Come on, Lou,” said Jim.

“No, you come on, Jim. I’ve heard enough, thanks. See you at the studio tomorrow.” Lou grabbed his coat and left.

“What’s he going to do?” asked Gene. “He doesn’t have a car.”

“There’s a bus. He takes it all the time when Claire has the car.”

“He’s your best friend, Jim. Aren’t you going to find out why he got so angry?” asked Dan.

“I know why,” said Jim. “It has nothing to do with the ark. He embarrassed himself with Kas.”

#

The next day, Gene went to New York and Dan left to visit some family in California. For a few days Lou and Jim didn’t mention the ark and things got back to normal. A large project had come in that involved them both. On Friday they were in Jim’s car, headed for Harrisburg to tour the famous Three Mile Island facility. With the subject of radiation not far from their minds, the conversation inevitably led back to the ark.

“So you’re sticking with this ark thing?” asked Lou.

“No need for you to be concerned about it, Lou,”

“No need to be nasty, Jim,” retorted Lou. He chewed on his lip for a moment, then added, “I don’t know why but I feel threatened by this ark thing. I guess I have a bad feeling about it.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Lou. This is my gig!”

“If it brings you down, then it’s OUR problem.”

“Brings me down?” said Jim. “What are you afraid of? This is just a research project. Hell, I’m just assisting Gene. This is his gig. So what’s the danger?”