Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Lucy tried not to look too grossed out by the story. She did
her best to hold a neutral expression on her face.

‘So you became a lesbian because some girl peed on you in
school?’

‘I never
became
a lesbian, it’s just who I am. I just
told that story because it sticks out in my memory. It was not so much a
turning point in my life as more of an epiphany. It was another six years, when
I went to
uni
that I actually had the courage to
fully admit to others who I really was. I guess that I’m lucky; some people
live a lie their whole lives.’

‘Well, just so you know; I’m not...’

‘I’m fine with that; really. The question is; are you?’

‘Of course, I already said I don’t judge you.’

‘That’s not what I mean. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve
only got one bed in here. If we are going to stay with our plan and stick
together, we will have to share it. Are you comfortable with that?’

‘Oh.’

Lucy did not feel threatened. In fact, she was a little
curious and did wonder how it would feel to touch
Emmy
and maybe even kiss her. The problem was that as far as she could tell, it was
simply curiosity that she felt. It would be like going into a cafe and tasting
food without having any intention of buying it. This would not be fair to
Emmy
or herself. She thought of the evening at the station
when Lucas tried to kiss her. She would never have led him on by sharing a bed,
so why would this be any different?

‘You will be perfectly safe,’ said
Emmy
.
‘I can keep my hands to myself and it’s not like I’m a guy. You certainly don’t
have to worry about being woken in the night with a big erection poking into
your back.’

Lucy did not answer. She was too confused.

‘If you prefer, I can sleep on the floor and give you the
bed,’ added
Emmy
.

‘No, you don’t have to do that,’ replied Lucy. ‘I don’t mind
sharing.’

Rather than climbing under the sheets, both girls slept on
top with all their clothes on. Despite her earlier apprehension, Lucy did not
find it awkward at all. She felt secure around
Emmy
and it did not take her long to fall asleep.
Emmy
too, enjoyed her most restful night in a long time.

Chapter 32

Lucas recorded Charlie’s statement first. It did not make
for comfortable listening. The scientist was convinced that the man now in
custody was David
Armareth
. Whilst this tied in with
his theory that the entire town was slowly losing its collective mind, Lucas
was not sure if it was Sammy or his three friends that were the latest to be
infected.

The Aboriginal slept all through the night, but was awake
and alert when Lucas opened up his cell in the morning. The station did not
have the space for an interrogation room so he conducted the interview in his
office. He had known both Sammy and
Davo
well, so
whatever the case, he did not think restraints were necessary.

‘Do you understand why you are here?’ he asked the prisoner.

Sammy nodded.

‘Do you want somebody else to be present to represent you?
It will take time for the State to appoint a lawyer from out of town, but I
would have no problem with somebody else of your choosing being here.’

‘That’s not necessary,’ replied Sammy. ‘I trust you will do
right by me.’

Lucas appreciated his prisoner’s confidence in him and still
could not believe he was interviewing Sammy in relation to murder.

‘In that case, I will begin right away. For the record, can
you confirm if you are indeed Mr Samuel Aubrey
Namitjera
.
’

‘I am.’

Lucas noted that there was no hesitation or suspicion
regarding the question.

‘Are you able to tell me where you were between the hours of
eight and ten o’clock last night?’

This time the Aboriginal did hesitate for a moment.

‘Um, no,’ he replied.

‘Just so I have this clear; are you saying that you refuse
to answer the question or that you do not know where you were during these
hours last night?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘What is the last thing you do remember?’

‘That’s easy,’ replied Sammy. ‘I was telling the blonde lady
she had to leave the observatory. The professor wanted no folks busying him
that day. She would not listen to me. Then Mr
Armareth
came running at the car. After that, I remember nothing except waking up with a
mighty headache today.’

He rubbed the large bump that had formed on the back of his
head where
Emmy
struck him with the flashlight.

‘How well did you know Lieutenant
Schwartzmann
?’

‘I would see him and the other army guy around, but they did
not speak to me. I am sad they died though.’

‘They?’

‘The two soldiers; that is who you are
talking about?’

‘Yes, but only one of them is dead. The captain is still at
the observatory.’

‘If you say so; it’s not as easy for a
fella
to tell the difference these days.’

Lucas did not know whether to let out a sigh of relief or a
curse. Whilst he hoped to find evidence of his theory in Sammy’s answers, it
was still alarming to see the illness spreading.

‘What do you mean by that? Do you see people even when they
are dead?’

Sammy nodded, but looked troubled.

‘Who have you seen?’ Lucas added.

‘The dead don’t have faces.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Lucas. ‘I thought you were having
trouble telling the difference between the living and the dead. How can this be
if the dead have no faces?’

‘I see everyone the same. Whether living or not; the spirit
is the same.’

Lucas was unprepared for such cryptic answers. He had at
least heard enough to believe that whatever was affecting Jimmy, and caused
Wally and
Davo
to kill, was also influencing Sammy.
He decided to postpone further questions until he knew more about what he was
dealing with.

After returning to his office, he picked up his phone and
dialled the doctor’s number. There was a dial tone, but no response, so after
giving it forty five seconds, he hung up. Almost immediately it began ringing
at his end.

‘Hello, Officer Black speaking.’

‘Lucas, it’s me. I heard your call, but for a moment I did
not think that it was real. I have been hearing strange things recently; voices
when nobody else is around, phones ringing when nobody is on the line. My only
conclusion is that I too have become infected.’

‘So, you found a link?’

‘That’s right; there are traces of an unknown compound in
the blood samples I took.’

‘You mean from Walter and
Davo
?’

‘From everybody; even my own and I would be willing to bet
yours contains the same too. It’s just like you feared; the whole town is
infected.’

‘Do you know the cause?’

‘That’s what I cannot understand. It appears to be
radioactive in origin, though thankfully not carcinogenic. The problem is where
the radiation is coming from. We are completely isolated here; there are no
power plants or such within a thousand kilometres.’

‘Well, send me whatever you have and I will get Charlie to
take a look at it. He is going to be helping me out for a few days.’

‘Okay. I’ll e-mail it right away.’

Val phoned in sick, so he had to open up the e-mail
attachment himself. Luckily, Charlie was on hand to make sense of it all.

‘This is excellent,’ said the scientist, as he looked over
the data. ‘I’ll load it into my laptop and cross reference it against the data
the professor and I had on that snake of yours.’

They both sat in silence whilst Charlie worked. After five
minutes the scientist appeared to have made a breakthrough.

‘It’s the same,’ he said, ‘but I have found one exception to
the poisoning. Well, two actually. The professor took samples from both
Emmy
and
myself
last week; both
are showing negative to signs of the radiation.’

‘Could it be they were taken too soon?’ asked Lucas.

‘I doubt it. A sample from the professor taken on the same
day shows positive. As do samples from Mike and Bradley, although with much
lower concentrations of radiation, which makes sense since they arrived later.
Wait a minute, that’s weird.’

Charlie frowned whilst his fingers worked the keyboard,
trying to find fault with what his eyes were seeing.

‘What’s weird?’ asked Lucas.

‘There’s a second sample taken a day later. Bradley’s is the
same, albeit with a slightly higher concentration of the radiation showing, but
Mike’s is completely clear. This makes no sense. All I can think is that the
samples were somehow mixed up.’

‘What about
Emmy
and yourself?’

‘He didn’t take another sample. That’s not a problem - I can
test mine here. I brought a few things down with me.’

Lucas watched on nervously as the scientist stabbed himself
in the arm and withdrew blood into the syringe. Charlie then took a second
syringe and beckoned for Lucas to roll up his sleeve.

‘Do we have to do this now?’ Lucas asked.

‘You’re not scared, are you?’ replied Charlie, with some
amusement.

‘Of course I’m not scared. I just don’t like needles. When
you’re a cop these things carry much more negative connotations than they do to
a scientist, that’s all.’

‘I can assure you I’m not going to pump your veins full of
class A drugs, if that’s what you are worried about.’

‘Can you guarantee that what you take out won’t contain
something a lot worse?’

It took only a few minutes for Charlie to get the results. A
rich benefactor and a government research grant bought much more state of the
art equipment than the local GP could afford. The results were as they
expected.

‘So I’m infected?’ asked Lucas.

‘I wouldn’t say that “infected” is the right word to use.
This is not a virus that can spread between people. You’ve been exposed to some
kind of radiation; the effects of which we cannot begin to guess. If what you
told me about Jimmy is true, this may even be a blessing. Just imagine what a
cop with super powers could do?’

‘After seeing what Walter and
Davo
were capable of; I would rather not. The doctor also implied that his symptoms
were not pleasant. These are certainly not super powers we are talking about. I’m
glad I’ve not experienced anything yet. Do you know why that is?’

‘I don’t know. The samples taken from you and the doctor are
no less concentrated than any of the others. In fact, yours is slightly higher.
Since the reported
effects
all seem to be neurological,
I am guessing it is purely a question of will. A weak mind would be more
susceptible, which explains why this started in animals.’

Lucas took a small amount of comfort knowing that his level
headedness and strong willpower, which had often been a source of mockery, had
protected him.

‘What else have you got?’ he asked.

‘That’s it,’ replied Charlie. ‘I think there must be more to
the professor’s research than this, though. He is the most meticulous scientist
who ever lived. I’m guessing that whatever he had was too sensitive to store on
a shared drive. I would need access to his personal files back at the
observatory to find more.’

‘Is that going to be a problem?’

‘I don’t know. It depends on the level of encryption. If we are
lucky,
Emmy
may be able to gain access. He will have
made sure that she would be able to access anything she needed should anything
happen to him.’

‘So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll call
Emmy
and with luck, she can find a way to stop this thing before it gets out of
hand.’

Chapter 33

She lay for what must have been an hour just staring at
Lucy’s sleeping face. It was a long time since she had last woken up next to a
girl. It did not matter that nothing physical happened between them. It was the
intimacy that was important. Being able to share her innermost thoughts and to
feel accepted was worth a thousand sexual encounters.

As Lucy finally began to stir,
Emmy
got up and went to the kitchen to prepare them both a brew. She hoped her
absence would do a much greater job of arousing the other girl’s curiosity than
her presence surely would.

After flipping on the kettle, she leaned back against the
table and for the first time she dared to hope that the ordeal was finally over.
The killer was safely in custody and proving his guilt would be easy. If
needed, she could record a testimony from the victims themselves. Her invention
could yet prove to be the ultimate deterrent to murder. Now that would be a
legacy for her grandfather to have left behind. Perhaps he may even be awarded
a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.

Any hopes of a stress-free morning were dashed when a call
came through from Charlie just after she sat down with her drink. He seemed to
think that Lucas and he were close to making a breakthrough, but he needed
access to her grandfather’s personal files. She tried to deflect him as even
she did not know the password, but when the phone was handed to Lucas, she
could no longer resist the pressure being placed upon her.

‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll give it a try, but I cannot
promise anything. You’re asking me to guess the password of a genius.’

‘Is everything okay?’ asked Lucy, as she entered the
kitchen.

‘It’s nothing that we need to worry about. I will have to
leave you for a while though, whilst I check out something for work.’

‘What should I do if, you know...’

She tilted her head in the direction of Mike’s room.

‘I forgot about him. Perhaps it is best if you come with me
then. I’m only going to Pops’ office.’

They picked up their drinks and went straight to the study.
Emmy
took a deep breath as she passed over the threshold.
So long as she kept busy, she hoped she would not think about what happened in
that room. Her hopes for the future may have lifted, but it would be a long
time before she would fully come to terms with her recent past.

She powered up the computer whilst Lucy took a look around.
It did not take the other girl long to locate the “ego” wall.

‘Wow,’ was her simple response.

‘It’s not intended to impress, believe it or not. Pops
rarely allowed visitors into this room, so it was purely for his own
gratification that he displays all of that.’

Lucy looked more closely at one of the certificates.

‘He was an athlete too? Brawn and brains; it must have been
hell for him to be in a
wheelch
...’

She broke off when she saw
Emmy
watching.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s okay. Even with his disability, he achieved so much.
All of that equipment I showed you yesterday would never have been possible
without him.’

The computer came on and presented her with the password
entry screen. She would be a fool to think she could second guess such an
intellect, but when it came to passwords, even the greatest minds tended to
stick to common patterns. Personal secrets can only be protected by a word or
phrase that is also of equal personal value to that which it protects.

She started with the obvious; mixing names of family members
with birthdates. When that proved fruitless, she progressed to names of eminent
scientists and athletes.

Still nothing.

‘I knew this would be impossible,’ she said.

‘Could he have written it down?’ suggested Lucy.

Emmy
could not help but smile at
the other girl’s naivety. Jackson Fox possessed one of the sharpest minds the
world had ever known. He could recite lengthy paragraphs of complex scientific
theory word for word after reading it only once. He was not the sort of man
that was likely to forget his own password.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Pops had a photographic
memory. When I was just five, he demanded that I be able to recite the entire
periodic table by heart. It was Hell, but I eventually managed to burn it into
my memory. I don’t think he ever understood how other people never found
learning as easy as he did.’

‘The periodic table; I had trouble enough with my times
tables at that age.’

‘Well, that was Pops. He used to test me every morning
before breakfast. Not just on the names of the elements, but also their atomic
value too.’

As the memory travelled along her synapses, an idea started
to form in its wake. She returned her hands to the keyboard.

C-B-M-g-F-L-
i
-F-C-a-M-n

Nothing.

S-
i
-P-T-
i
-B-A-l-H-e-B-A-r

Nothing.

She was sure that she was onto something. This had to be the
key; all she needed was the exact code. She glanced back over to the “ego”
wall, which Lucy had commented on earlier. Amongst the various degrees, science
awards and athletics honours it was obvious that her grandfather really did
love himself.

That was it!

She made one final attempt at entering the password.

N-e-H-L-
i
-N-a-K-P-S-
i

‘I’m in,’ she said, as the screensaver gave way to a list of
all the professor’s private folders.

‘How did you crack the code? I thought nobody could second
guess such a genius.’

‘The periodic table,’ replied
Emmy
.
‘Remember how I told you that he made me memorise it from such a young age. The
password was simply his name; Jackson, written out with the chemical code for
each element in place of its requisite letter of the alphabet.’

‘Obvious, really,’ said Lucy, the irony heavy in her voice.

Emmy
searched through the folders
that had been updated most recently. She found an analysis of the blood samples
that her grandfather had taken alongside a comparison to the blood of a
reptile. Several of the specimens contained what was referred to only as “x”.
She cycled through a few pages looking for more references to this mysterious
and unknown quantity.

The professor had put together a theory of the time that “x”
took to display its effects in a host body against species. First the reptiles
and small rodents would be infected, followed by poultry and household pets
then larger marsupials like kangaroos, and finally humans would be the last to
succumb.

She moved to the next page, which featured a basic diagram
of the infection area with the observatory at the epicentre. The intensity of
“x” varied at different times of day. A graph showed several spikes where the
readings were off the chart. Something about the times and dates was eerily
familiar.

‘I have to call Charlie,’ she said, motioning for Lucy to
pass her the phone.

She quickly dialled and her colleague answered after the
first ring.

‘Hi,
Emmy
, please say that you
have something for us.’

‘I have, but it’s not good news. I’ve found the source of
the radiation; it’s us.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly what I said.
When any
transfer of energy takes place, there is always a percentage of energy that is
lost, usually as heat. In this case, when our consciousness has separated, the
loss has been in the form of some kind of psychic energy that radiates
outwards, mutating the synapses of every being it touches. Prolonged use of the
machine has given you and
I
, and maybe Mike too, an
immunity to the effects. From what I have managed to gather from Pops’ notes,
these effects boost activity in otherwise dormant parts of the brain. He was
unable to test on a human subject, but his notes allude to many forms of ESP
being possible; telepathy, telekinesis, even the ability to foresee the future.
This makes the work that we have been doing look like kindergarten stuff.’

‘He knew this and did not tell us?’

‘Yes, I’m finding it all hard to take in. It gets worse.
From what I have read, Pops did not think that the general population would be
able to cope with the mutation. He predicted that eventually, all infected
would succumb to madness. What if this is linked to the murders; that would
mean we are indirectly responsible? He could have prevented it and he never
even warned us.’

‘There is no time for regret. Lucas has been finding more
and more cases of people who are infected. It has already taken over the town.
The professor was right in thinking that our minds are not equipped to deal
with this kind of activity. It’s only a matter of time before everybody goes
crazy. We may still be able to do something about it, though. Our little
machine may have caused this thing, but it could also provide a cure.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘We may be able to flush the madness out. Perhaps we can
amplify the device somehow, in order to give everyone immunity like we have.’

‘You mean by inducing a mass-scale astral projection
involving the entire town?’

‘Have you got any better ideas?’

‘No - how soon can you get back up here?’

‘If I leave now, I can be with you inside half an hour.’

‘Do it – no, wait.’

The title of an incoming e-mail flashed across the bottom of
the screen; catching her eye. She clicked to open the document. It was from a
bank based overseas. At first she thought that it was simply spam, but
something about it seemed genuine. It referred to the completion of a funds transfer.
She opened up a new window and logged onto her grandfather’s online banking
service using the same password.

It turned out that on the morning of his death her
grandfather had transferred five million dollars into an offshore bank account
set up in the name of Michael Peters.

‘Charlie, are you still there?’

‘Yes, you went quiet for a moment. What’s wrong?’

‘There is a problem. I’m changing the plan; I will come to
you.’

‘What aren’t you telling me; you sound scared. Are you in
danger?’

‘There is no time. I think Mike was the one behind my
grandfather’s death. Don’t ask me how I know. I will be with you soon; I’ll
explain everything then.’

After ending the phone call, she attached whatever files she
felt were important to an e-mail and sent it to her own account. She then
logged out of the machine.

‘We have to get out of here - fast,’ she told Lucy. ‘Mike
planned this whole thing. He was behind Pop’s murder and it was all for money.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m positive, now let’s go.’

The pair made their way back to
Emmy’s
room as silently as possible, to grab her car keys. They did not see Mike on
the way, but as they were leaving he was waiting for them. He stood in the
doorway, blocking their exit.

‘We aren’t planning on leaving, are we ladies?’ he asked, in
a calm, emotionless tone of voice.

‘No,’ replied
Emmy
. ‘Not we; just
Lucy. I’m giving her a lift back into town. Lucas does not need her in his
investigation and it is time that she went home. I’ll be right back after I’ve
dropped her off.’

‘Why the hurry?’ asked Mike, still blocking the doorway.
‘It’s been so long since we talked. I really think that we should take the time
to talk before you go.’

‘We can talk when I get back.’

No,’ he told her, in a much more commanding voice. ‘We will
talk now. You had time to talk to Mr Nguyen just now. So you will now find the
time to talk to me.’

With that, he stepped into the room and closed the door
behind him.