The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (65 page)

Only two guards stood in front of the west doors, and they
simply saluted and let me into the building.  Most of the upper levels housed the
scientists’ offices and a vast library, which didn’t interest me the least, so
I passed the brass-grated lift and headed straight for the double doors at the
end of the long entry.  The caution symbol had been painted in bright blue on
both doors, right under the words, “Physics Laboratory.”  A guard stood posted
there too, but he opened the door for me without a word.  I headed down the
broad metal staircase, deeper and deeper underground.

At the bottom of the stairs I pushed through another set of
double doors, and found myself standing ant-like at the mouth of a massive
chamber.  The ceiling in some places hung several stories overhead, and the
walls pressed deep into the shadows on all sides.  The room simply spread on
and on, broken up by faint patches of uneven electric light—sometimes pale and
blue, sometimes dim and golden—as scientists busied themselves over their
research.  Strange screeching sounds of grinding metal and the low, rasping hum
of some kind of electrical experiment broke the vast silence, but somehow, even
with the noise, it felt hushed as a crypt down there,

At the nearest table, I glimpsed Dr. Baisell and the elusive
Dr. Alokin conferring over a piece of photographic paper, murmuring too quietly
for me to hear.  I took a few slow steps toward them, waiting for Baisell to
catch sight of me.  I half-expected him to drive me out of the facility, but
instead he waved me toward them.  His round face gleamed with sweat, his cheeks
bright red in spite of the chill in the air.  Of course, I’d never seen him any
other way.

“Come look at this, Your Highness,” he called.

Dr. Alokin straightened up, a smile flashing at me from
beneath his neat black mustachio.  The swaying light from a suspended bulb made
his dark eyes eerily blue.  For just a moment I hesitated.  The man was a
genius—or stark mad, some people said.  His theories and research put even old
Baisell to shame, but you’d never imagine it from the way he acted.  As I
finally stirred to join them, he put one hand behind his back and his other
over his heart, and gave me a quiet bow.  He was Meritian through and through,
suave and genteel, even if he had lived in Cavnal for the last thirty-some
years.  Even if he
was
paranoid of society, as some of the rumors
claimed.

“Destri Alokin,” he said, “at your service.”

I nodded and flicked my fingers toward the paper.  I didn’t
have to say anything.  With a gracious nod he stepped back and gestured me
toward it.

“Please, Your Highness,” he said.

I stepped closer to the table and peered down at the paper. 
The obvious black shape of a skull, askew and off-center, took up most of the
space, surrounded by grey blotchy patches.  I grimaced and frowned up at him.

“You’ve been photographing skeletons, Dr. Alokin?” I asked.

Alokin smiled, his eyes meeting Baisell’s over my head.  “On
the contrary,” he said.  “This photograph was taken of my own head.”

I straightened and tapped my finger on the paper.  “
Your
head.  I don’t see how that’s possible, sir.”

“It’s the genius of it,” Baisell said, almost giddy.  “You
should hear his theories of radiant energy.  Simply phenomenal!”

“Radiant energy?” I echoed.  “You mean like sunlight?”

“Yes!” Alokin said, then shook his head and clutched his
arms across his thin chest.  “Or…or no.  Not precisely.  Very like, but different.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.  Even I had too much respect
to act flippant toward a man like Alokin.

“Well, for one thing, this particular kind of energy isn’t
visible.  But it is fully capable of seeing
into
a man.”  He touched the
photograph.  “It passes directly through the skin and, as far as we can tell,
stops when it finds bone.  Or metal.”

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said, with a feeble sound rather like a laugh, and
rubbed his hand through the back of his hair.  The top of his coiffure lay in
perfectly smooth, gelled curls, but at the back it stuck out every which-way,
like a bristle brush.  “We’re not certain about that.”

He turned his face so that I could see its right side under
the full light.  A small, circular pattern of red dots clustered near his ear
and hairline, and after a moment he shifted aside some of the gelled curls and
I saw a gruesome patch of bald black skin.  Thick liquid seeped from the wound,
glinting in the lamplight.

“Stars,” I gasped.  “That’s from this…radiant energy?”

He patted the curls gingerly back in place so they hid the
worst of the injury.

“We’re not sure what happened, or why.  It’s here too,” he
said, and showed me his palms, which were flecked with tiny blisters.

I stared at them, then at him, and couldn’t stop myself from
flicking an anxious glance around the laboratory.

“Don’t worry,” he said, noting it.  “It seems to only cause
damage when you’re close to the device when it fires.  I…I’ve been trying to
find ways to prevent the problems, but…”

He shrugged his thin shoulders and rubbed idly at his right
eye.

“Your eye too?” I asked.

“Sometimes I get flashes, burning sensations…I feel as
though I’m seeing out of two different eyes.”

“And you keep studying it?”

“Of course I do!” he said, leaning forward, eyes bright and
half-mad with excitement.

“Have you called a physician?”

He chuckled.  “I’m a scientist, Your Highness.”

“But not a doctor,” I interjected.

“No.  They can’t help me.  What can I tell them was the
cause?  You can’t see it or taste it or feel it, but it eats your skin from the
inside.”

“That does sound difficult,” I said.

“But you see!” he said, picking up the photograph and
flapping it between us. “Don’t you?  You see the potential!”

I arched a brow.  “The potential for death?  Disease?”

“No, no, to prevent death!  To prevent disease!” he cried.

I nodded at his hands and said nothing.

“Compared to the possibilities, that’s hardly worth a
mention,” he said.  “It’s a burn.  You know how badly Masson got burned when he
tried to invent the electric light, don’t you?”

I’d seen the pictures of Masson’s scorched body, the
pictures the Herald was not allowed to print.  The memory made me cringe with
revulsion.  Somehow the man had survived, but he never appeared at the annual
Science Exposition any more.  He never left his laboratory, either, some said. 
Just hid inside with his equipment, forgetting that the world existed around
him.

“Don’t let that happen to you,” I said.

“Don’t fret, Your Highness,” Baisell said.  “With some more
resources, I’m sure we’ll find a perfect solution for blocking the damage from
these…rays.  If only I knew where we’d come up with the funding…”  His
plaintive voice trailed off as he strolled away, shaking his head as if in deep
contemplation.

I exchanged a glance with Alokin, who watched me closely
through a thinly-veiled smile.

“You know how he is,” he murmured.

I grinned and swept another glance around the laboratory,
this time curious, not terrified.

“What other projects have you got here?”

Alokin clapped his hands and winced—he’d obviously forgotten
about his wounds. 

“Depends on what you’re interested in, Your Highness,” he
said, waving me along to follow him.  “We’re all physical sciences here in the
Masson Labs.  In the Garmon Labs in the east wing they’re busy with life
sciences and research.  Fascinating stuff, but rather disgusting, if you ask
me.”

He led me toward a corner of the room tucked behind a narrow
partition, the walls all aglow with shifting blue and violet light.  The air
rasped with a metallic hum, like a key dragged down a lute string.  The closer
we got the louder it grew, until Alokin almost had to shout for me to hear him.

“This is my latest invention,” he called, pulling on a pair
of goggles and handing one to me.  “My lightning device.”

“Lightning?” I echoed.

We stood in front of a tall cylinder capped with a
torus-shaped device.  And just as Alokin had suggested, tiny tongues of
lightning flicked around it in a random, constant halo, stretching to touch the
walls, the floor, the ceiling.  I stared at the thing, transfixed.  I’d never
seen anything so wonderful, or so terrible.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked, when I managed to find my voice.

“One of the boys claims he can stick his hand through the
electricity, but I’m not sure he hasn’t scrambled his brain already,” Alokin
said.

“What is it for?”

Alokin smiled.  “Understanding, Your Highness.  Knowledge. 
And I imagine that Embrin will be trying to make a way to turn it into a
weapon.  Baisell will be trying to turn it into new ways to light up the city—for
a price.  Their ambitions are petty.”

“And your ambition?”

His gaze drifted over the mesmerizing arcs.  “Tell me this,
Your Highness.  When man first saw a horse, what would have happened if he’d
been content to ride on its bare back?  He would never have learned how to use
the horse to plow, or to carry a man into war, or to pull a carriage.  And if
he’d never learned those things, would we ever have discovered the mechanical
plow, or the armored crawlers, or the motorcar?  Baisell and Embrin have no
vision.  They see one thing, and one thing only, and that is where they wish to
stop.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze from the remarkable device.  I would
never be a scientist—I would have been content to stop at this machine alone,
and never do a thing with it but marvel at its genius.  A machine that could
create its own lightning.

“It’s like…magic,” I said, staggering over the word.

“Indeed,” Alokin said, the lightning reflecting in his
enigmatic eyes as he turned to me.  “They are not terribly dissimilar.  I suppose
that’s what those zealots in Garmon are so keen to prove…”

That dragged my attention from the electricity.  “Prove?”

He waved his hand and turned away.  “Come see this, Your
Highness.”

I ground my teeth but followed him obediently to a low table
that held a strange little device.  It rather resembled a miniature train car,
complete with wheels and a track, with a wiry protrusion waving from its back.

“This is a little toy of mine,” Alokin said, touching the
thing fondly.  “You know how radios operate, don’t you?”

I considered, then shook my head.  “I know
that
they
work.  Never really thought about how.”

“Well—”  He tapped his chin, then flashed his fingers
dismissively.  “It’s not important.  But I took that principle and thought, why
not use it in other ways?”

He picked up a small brass box with its own set of wires and
mashed down on a black knob.  I waited, watching the box, until a small motion
on the table caught my eye.  The little railroad car buzzed, lurching forward
on its wheels, slowly at first, then faster and faster.  I couldn’t say a
word.  I just stared until Alokin pushed the knob again and the train shuddered
to a stop.

“That…” I started, and couldn’t say anything else.

“Isn’t it exciting?  Baisell thinks it’s a waste of time.  I
stumbled upon the secret of this mechanism by such accident, I’m not sure I can
reproduce the process.  Or expand it.  But if only I could!  The possibilities
are, of course, spectacular.”  He plucked the little train car from the table
and ran his fingers over the brassy metal.  “Can you imagine, your friend Mr.
Farro could control a plane in the skies with one of these devices!  Or perhaps
we could even find a way to create something like a miniature version of the
newsmen’s cameras that could sit inside a small mechanical device, and it could
be controlled from afar… Who knows what secrets we could learn, or what sights
we could see!  We could create whole armies of beasts that could battle in our
stead, and when the war is over, we could gather their remains and craft them
anew!”

He shot me a glance, and something on my face must have
brought him out of his reverie, because he set down the train and fidgeted with
it on the table.

“Well, of course, it’s purely speculation,” he said.

I shifted, strangely uneasy.  “I can see why you’re
fascinated.  Seeing so much possibility, and knowing that you can achieve it…
But what would be the cost of it?”

And for some reason, while I wanted to think of astounding
arguments to explain the worm of anxiety in my gut, all I could think of was
Griff flying like a wild thing high above the clouds, and the joy on his face
when he told me about it…joy that I’d never understand.

“Yes,” Alokin said, despondent.  “I’ve thought of that too. 
But it may be we have no choice.  After all, how can we face an army of mages? 
They’ve got an unnatural advantage over us.  Perhaps the only answer is to use
steam and machines to battle their flames and winds.”

I swallowed hard.  “I see your point.”

“Well, it’s a long way off, anyway,” Alokin said, apparently
a bit appeased by that.  “I’d have to remember how I made the damn thing work
in the first place.”  He sighed and added woefully, “I’m sure those Garmon
idiots will be well into Stage Two by then.”

“Stage Two?” I echoed.  “What’s Stage Two?”

But he was busy fiddling with the little train, and just
waved his hand again and shook his head.  “It’s nothing.  Something they’re
working on, not sure, not altogether clear… Well, they’re just complainers,
anyway…”

His voice trailed off on a sentence that made little sense. 
I watched him work at the thing for a few minutes, wondering how I could
possibly weasel my way into the Garmon Labs.  From what I’d seen so far,
Alokin’s experiments were fascinating, but hardly dangerous.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the ground
shuddered and a terrific
BOOM!
echoed through the laboratory.  Bottles
fell from shelves and shattered, and several people started shouting and
running.  Alokin practically threw the train down and straightened up, but he
didn’t seem the least bit panicked.  He simply folded his hands into his
pockets and swore, elegantly.