The Breach (13 page)

Can no longer handle the smell. Graham and I have volunteered to take the body out into the hallway at least, maybe farther toward the chamber. Majority have voted to leave the door open for a while after that, let the room air out if that will even happen.

Light is a bit dimmer now, and purple, projecting ripples in the hallway like you see on the bottom of a pool. Have to admit I’m afraid to go out into it, just don’t know what it is, what is out there in the chamber.

But curious, too, no doubt about it. We’re going now. Dave.

ONE HOUR AFTER LAST ENTRY

The interacting point at the center of the chamber is gone. The whole assembly, and the magnets too, just gone like they were never there. Some amount of the floor they were sitting on is gone as well. There’s a kind of crater in the floor, not blasted there, but more like machined there, like a giant with a disc sander honed it out. It’s maybe a foot deep in the middle, shallowing out to the edge at a radius of, I don’t know, twenty feet.

Above the crater, perfectly centered where the interacting point used to be, is what I can only call a rip in midair. The rip is an oval, some ten feet wide, maybe three feet tall in the middle, purple and blue light filling it and curling like flame at its edges. When you look into the rip and move back and forth sideways, you realize you’re looking into a depth, an opening. It’s like looking in through the hatch of a deep coal furnace.

Graham and I just stood and looked at it for I don’t know how long, after we took the body down to the chamber. Then Graham went around the far side of the rip, and called out for me to follow. I went, and here’s where it’s craziest of all, you can’t see the rip from the other side. As soon as you go past it, it’s gone, you just see the empty air over the crater. Edge-on, you see those blue-purple flames licking out of the opening, but a step farther back and there’s nothing.

The sound is still there, too, different now, like the light is different. I still have no good way to describe the sound, except . . . it’s like voices. I mean, it’s not, but that’s what comes to mind. Voices singing from out of the opening. There’s something bad about the sound. It does something to your mood. Not sure what it is, but it makes you feel very wrong, in a lot of ways. Graham felt it, too, and when we got back to the room, the others had changed their minds about leaving the door open. They wanted to shut the sound out, even if it meant keeping the smell in. I agreed.

Since then I’ve been sitting here just trying to come to terms with what we’ve created. What the hell is it? I keep thinking of all the concepts I thought were five hundred years down the road, Einstein-Rosen bridges, that kind of thing. Not even going to guess, though. I’d just look stupid later. It has to be studied by experts in a range of fields, measured, tested. Data first, theories later. Wow, though. Wow squared, Ruben would say.

I just realized I can still hear the sound, even with the door closed. Maybe it’s because I know what I’m listening for now.

HALF A DAY OR SO AFTER LAST ENTRY

I woke up in the hallway, down at the end where it widens into the chamber. I did not remember walking out there, and would never have chosen to. I was shivering hard when I woke, could feel the sound from the opening, like it was going right through my body and making my bones hum. Got up fast and saw that Graham was out there, too, and the fat guy who works for him, Kurson, I think his name is. Both asleep. I woke them and they were as surprised as me to find themselves there.

Back in the room with the door shut, could not seem to relax. A woman from DOE, someone’s assistant, spilled a few Cheez-its and tossed them in the trash, and I blew up at her, seriously thought I would physically attack her until the others calmed me down. I apologized later.

What the fuck is up with someone coming to get us? What is it, a couple days now? I don’t even know. This is bullshit. When this is over someone’s getting an earful from me and probably legal action. Seriously, what the fuck?

QUITE A FEW HOURS AFTER LAST ENTRY

I sat next to Ruben a long time and read to him from a paperback he had in his desk, in case he can hear somehow. Maybe I just did it to try blocking out the sound from the chamber.

Then, I don’t know why, but I got up and went out there, out into the chamber. Stood staring at the rip/opening. It’s beautiful, and you know what else? When you’re looking at it, the sound is not entirely bad. I’ll probably tell Graham to try it for himself, I think he’d be able to appreciate it.

I GUESS A DAY LATER

Pretty bad tension among the people down here, I guess it is to be expected with us all crammed in like this. I am not fitting in with the group much at all. I can’t wait to get out of this place and never see these people again. Another bad argument a little while ago (the third or fourth one) this time with me against almost all of them, except Graham and Kurson.

A few of the guys teamed up and tried to demand that we stop going to the chamber to listen to the sound up close. They are saying that it does something to us, and that we’re causing grief as a result. But we aren’t causing ALL the arguments, I don’t think. So nice try, but you guys can fuck off. I shouldn’t get pissed like this.

The sound is pretty soothing now. It’s all that keeps me in my wits down here. When will they come for us?

TIME IS HARD TO FOLLOW LATELY, I THINK IT IS A DAY LATER

I have this weird, shitty hunch about Ruben Ward, but don’t want to write it down.

Also, I have to admit, I’m having a hard time staying focused, and today my right arm was shaking for like an hour when I was out in the chamber. But it’s not from the sound. I really do like it quite a bit.

QUITE A LOT LATER

My hunch is Ruben is faking now. Was really unconscious at first, of course, but faking now so that he can stay out of the arguments and not have to side with me against all of these fucking people. It pisses me off if it’s true. I tried really hard to wake him up just now, hitting him in the face even. Then many of the others pulled me away from him (of course they would if he’s on their side the cowardly piece of shit). Now I am out in the hall by the chamber writing this.

Only the voices from the breach (we started calling it the breach, we like that name for it) make it better.

I will tolerate these people, but I know I would not lose sleep if they all got hit by a goddamned bus.

MANY, MANY HOURS (IT MIGHT BE A DAY OR MORE) LATER

Why? Why are you doing this? You don’t have to be doing this.

Graham and Kurson and I were in the chamber for a long time and came back to find the rest had jammed the door shut with one of the desks. Graham was rightly upset and tried to break in through the glass, but the polycarbonate is very strong.

Not even kidding, I would love to kill all of these people, and Graham is the same. Kurson just nods, I wonder if he is only telling us what we want to hear.

I like the blue and purple there is a dance to it.

HOURS I THINK BUT TIME IS GETTING IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW

Kind of losing the knack for keeping all that stuff straight, hours and minutes. I think I’ve taken for granted all my life how hard time is to keep track of. Quite hard. Quite a trick to it, I think.

STILL DAVE HERE DID I MENTION THAT?

No desire to go back into the room with the others, but just the principle involved drives me mad. I stand at the glass and look in at them, and they won’t look at me, and fucking Ruben you fake coward motherfucker, I swear you are going to pay.

But mostly I am calm. Never been calm like this and I love it.

GRAHAM HAD A VERY GOOD IDEA

he broke off a metal conduit in the back of the chamber (took him forever kicking to break it) and is using the sharp break point to scratch a line through the polycarbonate window in the door. it’s working, too!!! he has carved half an inch into the window on one side, and then this is great, he carved just the shape of the whole square he’s going to cut into it, so those assholes can see what he has planned. he is a very smart man, it makes sense that he is secretary of the department of energy.

we are going to get in there within a couple days and then ruben i am going to mount you like a fucking baboon i swear.

THE BREACH GAVE US SOMETHING

it must have come out a little while ago, a piece of green fabric the size of a napkin, did not see it come out, but I noticed it lying underneath the breach, and it had not been there before. tried to pick it up, but this makes no sense at all . . . it weighs hundreds of pounds, i just cannot lift it. graham and i together were able to slide it, try to smooth it out on the floor, what the hell is it??? i am not going crazy, it really weighs hundreds of pounds, this tiny little thing!

GRAHAM IS AWESOME

he lost it for a while and was pounding the conduit against the door window and then noticed a huge (huge) flap of his palm had torn away and was hanging, and right in front of them watching he took it in his teeth and ripped it free. he is an awesome man

we killed kurson, not really a choice, we just set on him all of a sudden, it happened. no one’s fault really, so it’s fine.

WHO IS IT SINGING IN THE BREACH?

voices are so beautiful please i need to know who it is.

RESCUE!!! HAHAHAHAHA

(graham died this morning, don’t even know how, someone had torn out his throat while he slept.)

later two men in yellow suits and mountain climber gear pried open the elevator doors just like that, no warning, i was able to kill one with the conduit but the other was weasel quick and got away through the top of the elevator cab screaming don’t.

BULLHORN ALL DAY

they are talking from high up in the elevator shaft i don’t care just shut the fuck up, goddamn all of you.

very upset that the window is still intact and these people may survive especially ruben he was supposed to die.

sitting at the breach makes it okay.

it is a day at the breach get it?

i should be fine after all this, if i can stay here.

I THINK I KNOW WHO

ghost little girls. that’s who is in there. that’s who is singing in the breach.

Travis closed the bloodied notebook and caught the end of one of Paige’s calls. The plane was twenty minutes away.