Divisions, James Gerard [simple ebook reader .txt] 📗

tell you that he had to attend an urgent matter, but do not be disappointed.  He asked me to deliver a message to you.”

 

“And what is that young man?”

 

“It’s time Doctor Hatford.”

 

“Time for what?”

 

The young man hesitated to respond.  Paul looked at his face and could see a sadness.  He also heard a tone in the voice that sounded of disappointment.  He could not be sure what could crush the youthful exuberance, but whatever it was, the circumstance was probably connected to a fragile mind so easily bruised by life’s cruelty.  

 

“Augustine will contact you very soon Doctor Hatford, but before he does, it is time to visit the second floor.”  The boy removed something out of a pocket.  “Here, you need this to unlock the door.”

 

Puzzled, Paul reached out and took the item from the young man and stated, “What do you mean visit the second floor?  Your great grandfather knows I have already done so.”

 

“He said would you understand Doctor Hatford.”

 

“I don’t….”

 

“Please Doctor Hatford, it is imperative that you find out the little secret we are hiding.”

 

“Secret young man?”

 

“Once you have witnessed what you will see,” the young man continued, “Augustine will then invite you to witness firsthand the success of our work.”

 

“I need to….”

 

“Doctor Hatford,” the young man interrupted, “I do not have any answers for you.  Please, do as my great grandfather says and the questions will be answered.”

 

“My patience is growing thin,” Paul said.  “Now, where is your great grandfather?”

 

The boy stood and walked away.

 

“Stop right there,” shouted Paul.

 

“After all,” the young man turned and shouted, “if it were not for you we may have never reached a solution.”

 

“You….”

 

“Just before starting the process, you will have the option of stopping what is about to occur.  To the right of the panel, just underneath, there is a button.  Press it, and failure will follow.  Do not press it, and the project will be successful but at a cost you may not fully appreciate.  Do you understand?”

 

Before Paul could respond, the boy ran off then turned around one last time and shouted, “You are nearing the end of the book Doctor Hatford.”

 

Paul wanted to run after the boy, but the old and tired legs had long ago ceded to the hands of time.  Before long, the young man had vanished in the flurry of activity within the field and with it the opportunity for understanding.

 

Perplexed at what had just occurred, Paul sat down and examined the item.  “Oh yes,” he whispered as it was recognized.  “Well Jeffrey, what are you hiding?”

A Cold Touch of Suspicion

 

In broad daylight, Paul sat in the car contemplating whether to enter the second floor by way of the front entrance to the research facility or to bypass it by the directions of Jeffrey.  He stared at the entrance hoping to catch the sight of Lien or Augustine entering, for the right opportunity to confront either as to what Jeffrey wanted him to uncover, but perplexing doubts over their reluctance to reveal the truth persisted.

 

Confused as to how to proceed, he could not help but to think why Jeffrey had sent his great grandson to deliver the access key.  It was such an important matter that he wondered how any such task would not require his personal attention.  The mere fact that he left to a child the responsibility of delivering the message was rather odd.   Beyond that, it was not so much that he handed him the access key that Jeffrey had intended to do himself at a later time, but it was something about what the young boy had said.

 

“The end of the book?” he whispered while making a loose connection with the message someone had written long ago.  Fresh in the memory, now the message took on a new meaning.   As if he had been unwittingly transformed into a Doctor Frankenstein archetype, Paul dwelled on the idea that he had been tricked into doing that which the fictional madman pursued: the regeneration of dead flesh which would be the concluding chapter of an autobiography that boasted of such skills.  But the idea was quickly dismissed in that their goal, as it had been a lifelong objective of his, was the revitalization of neurons and synapses damaged by any number of diseases and traumas.  It just did not make sense.

 

But the need for secrecy, and the needto enter though a hidden door instead of confronting Augustine directly, was also puzzling.  After all, Jeffrey and Augustine apparently were co-collaborators on a project that aimed to restore the functions of a malfunctioning brain.  Jeffrey, however, seemed to be acting independently from the partnership.

 

“And what exactly am I to discover in any of the rooms on the second floor?”

 

He had come to suspect some experiments that extended past the line of human decency, but now the curiosity was blossoming.  And if the answers came way of entering through a back entrance, then so be it.

 

The street empty of traffic, Paul decided to leave the car parked where it was and walk over to the gate of the abandoned warehouse.  Suspicious, yet somewhat expecting his movements were being monitored by someone inside the facility, his path from the time he exited the car to reaching the entry point around the corner was carried out with cautious steps and senses alerted to the slightest hint of foul play.

 

An eerie sense of the unexpected was temporarily removed with a padlock securing the outer gate.  Not having clearly witnessed Troy opening the lock with a conventional key that night, he looked to the device wondering if it too served as the key to the lock.  With its odd configuration it did not appear so.  Not wanting to abandon answering a mystery, a hand rattled the lock out of frustration.  To his surprise the lock opened.  Apparently, it had been dummy locked just for him.

 

Looking back to see if someone had been following, the way was clear and Paul went straight to the first door and set the device against the frame of the door.  A series of clicks sounded out and signified the door was ready to be pushed open.  Once inside, the stark interior came alive with sunlight penetrating the cracks.

 

He looked around and noticed nothing about the empty space had changed, but as soon as he approached the opening above, once again the commotion created by a pigeon fluttering out of sight was heard.  With more light available, the tattered beams supporting the roof was the only new sight to be seen.

 

Turning around, Paul stared at the door.  It was the door that Jeffrey wanted him to enter.  He approached it with caution wondering what lay on the other side.  Obviously, he thought, there has to be a staircase leading directly to the second floor of the research facility.  But just as the device was about to be tapped on the doorframe, the hand trembled.  A sneaking suspicion that someone could be waiting, lying in wait to defend the secrets Jeffrey had wanted him to uncover, stopped him cold.  But just as he was about to retreat, he threw caution to the wind and tapped the device to the frame.

 

Instinctively, he threw up his hands to shield the unexpected light that burst into the eyes.  Paul gasped as the heartbeat raced.   Seconds passed before he realized that is was just the opening of cleverly disguised elevator doors that caused the life-saving reaction.

 

Calmness settled back to which gave way to reasoning.   He found it strange that there was more than enough space to accommodate an elevator between the buildings of the research facility and the warehouse.  Even more curious, however, was what was to be uncovered. 

 

Not knowing what was to be expected, Paul stepped into the elevator.  The car lurched upwards and then came to a lurching stop.  The doors did not open, neither did they respond to the jabbing of the buttons.  “What in the world is going on?” he sighed.

 

He surveyed the elevator car’s walls looking for a small door securing a phone to call for outside help, but there was none.  Looking up, he could see the small service door.  Even if by some miracle the strength could be mustered up to jump and latch on somehow to its handle, he knew the door would be impossible to open.

 

“Great,” Paul sneered while thinking about Jeffrey.  “What is his motive behind this?”

 

Feeling like the fool, Paul had enough of the escapade and hit the button for the first floor.  “What now?” he sighed as the elevator was unresponsive.

 

“Of course,” he exclaimed.  A hand retrieved the device from a pocket, but when tapped to the panel again the elevator did not budge.

 

Just as panic was about to set in, the presence of a strange sensation was felt.  A cool draught of air flowing over the back of the neck caught his attention.  Turning around, a long, wide hallway came into view.   The glow from dim lights softly reflecting off its shiny wax floor were the only sign of life within.

 

Paul stood there wondering if he had become confused, had been turned around by frustration’s binding grip.  The visions, what the eyes had seen spying out the empty space seen through the hole in the ceiling, stood in contradiction to what was ahead.  The dilapidated, empty space as seen from below was mere trickery, but he could not understand the purpose for such an elaborate optical illusion. 

 

But as confusing as the situation was, Paul felt the curiosity transforming into intrigue.  Seeking to satisfy the mystery, he cautiously stepped into the midst of the starkness and could see a number of doors on either side.  He stopped at the first door to the left and set palms on its smooth surface and only felt coldness.  An ear gently pressed against the door and only silence was heard.  He then carefully turned the knob.  The door slowly swung open.

 

A low humming was immediately detected.  Sporadic lights from a machine sitting flush against the back wall exposed the presence of six containers, three to the left and three to the right.  They looked to measure eight cubic feet.  An array of wires and tubes ran underneath, over, to the sides, and to the ends of each one, while others ran through the floor and ceiling.  Upon closer examination, Paul noticed while there were no interconnections between any of the containers, he could clearly see that some of the tubes and wires that penetrated the containers were directly connected to the machine with intermittently blinking lights.

 

Coming up to the machine, he assumed the cubes were power generators and the machine a central monitoring station to assure an interrupted flow of electricity needed by the research facility.  But as he stared at the machine, a vague recollection of his days as a neurosurgeon reared up.  Although its configuration was quite different, he had a strong suspicion that the machine had striking similarities to an automated medical monitoring station designed to supervise patients in critical condition in the absence of any medical personnel.  A look back to the cubes brought disturbing thoughts as to what might have been contained in each.

 

He gingerly walked over to one of the cubes and touched the exterior.  It was cold to the touch.  And although there were no labels identifying the various digital readouts seen at