Arthur stared at him for a moment. "Give me a demonstration. Impress me."
Mike mulled it over and let a few ants loose. "When I pulled into the parking lot, there were four cars parked in the s.p.a.ces closest to the front office. A yellow Volkswagen Beetle, California license plate 2GKD627. A blue Hyundai, Oregon license plate CK96668 with a Darwin fish on the pa.s.senger side of the trunk. A black Dodge Durango, California license plate 4OCE815."
"That"s mine."
"Are you a LOST fan?"
"No," Arthur said, "but I"ve been told about the significance many times."
"The last car was a blue Mini Cooper, in desperate need of a wash, California license plate 3FKM864. It had a license plate frame with two eight-pointed stars and the words KHARN NEVER MISSES. It"s a reference to a character from the game Warhammer 40,000, used in an army called the World Eaters. There was also a decal on the side window of an Internet cartoon character called "the Cheat.""
"Impressive, but how do I know you didn"t-"
"The day we met in Washington, you were wearing a silk tie with fractal geometry patterns on it. The Lyapunov set. It was available in the two thousand nine Christmas catalog from BBC America. Dr. Johansson had a sterling silver pen in his shirt pocket, and I know his tie was a clip-on because one of the plastic strips was showing under the left collar. Miss Parker was carrying a knockoff Louis Vuitton purse. The print pattern didn"t line up on the seam, that"s what gave it away. A woman I work with has a real one she got as a Christmas gift three years ago. All three of you are right-handed, by the way. So is everyone I"ve met here except Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k and Anne, the receptionist."
Arthur stared at him for a moment, then slowly closed his mouth.
"Sorry," Mike said, "but I can keep doing this for hours. I try not to. It"s kind of a hazard, actually, once I get on a roll."
The project leader shook his head. "No need. I think I understand why Mr. Magnus is so eager to get you on his staff."
"Great. Think you can explain to him why I want to be a high school teacher?"
"I"ll see what I can do." A smile, a real smile, crept up on Arthur"s face. "Well, Mr. Erikson, you"ve shown me what you can do. Now let me show you what I can do."
EIGHT.
The control room was almost level with the top of the rings. A line of windows angled out over the huge lab, offering a perfect view. A half dozen stations dotted the room, with banks of humming computer towers, flatscreens, and monitors. Jamie kicked her chair along from station to station as she checked levels and paused to tap a few keys.
Mike watched Neil, Olaf, and Bob scurry around the device down on the floor. From up here he could see the wide white lines that marked out a clear path up to the rings. "It takes this many people to run it?"
Arthur shook his head. "It takes this many people to monitor everything. Olaf and Jamie are the only ones operating the system, and even she"s doing more monitoring than running anything."
"Says you," she snorted. "Try running this place without me."
"We also designed it as a safety system," said Cross. "There need to be at least two people present in order for the Albuquerque Door to work. One up here, one on either side. Any combination of two works."
"Why"s that?"
"Because that"s how we set it up," said Jamie. She leaned in to the microphone. "Ready in four."
"No, I mean, why set up a safety system at all? What do you need it for?"
Arthur"s lips twisted into an unfamiliar shape. Mike realized the man was almost smiling. "It cuts down on joyriding," he said. He leaned his cane against his body, pulled his gla.s.ses off, and polished them on his tie. "Once we"d established the Door was safe, more than a few team members decided to try it." He gave a pointed look at Jamie.
"Just once," she said. "Don"t act all high and mighty. You did it, too."
Mike smiled.
Down in the chamber, red safety lights flashed over every door. One was just beneath the window. The men stepped back, clearing a s.p.a.ce around the rings. A series of relays clicked around the room, followed by a buzz, as they activated the device.
Down on the floor, Olaf set a finger against his flatscreen. His voice echoed through the speakers. "Sasha"s on the other side. Power is good. Flux density is steady."
The chair coasted by, carrying the blonde to another monitor. "Ready in three," she announced into her headset. She grabbed a pen from the console and spun it twice around her thumb before shoving it behind her ear. Her fingers danced over the keyboard and she pushed the microphone a hair closer to her mouth. "This is Jamie Parker, it"s June twenty-second, twenty-fifteen, and this is run one-sixty-eight. Traveler is, for a change, Olaf Johansson." She pulled the pen back out from her ear, and jotted some quick notes on a clipboard.
A hiss of steam echoed up from the main floor as the heavy hoses frosted over. The buzz became a full hum, shaking the air. Mike watched the set of double rings and waited for them to light up or spin or do something impressive.
"We still get power spikes sometimes," Jamie told him, shifting her attention for a moment. "They don"t affect the Door once it"s open, but they play h.e.l.l with the components, especially up here. Every spike costs us about four days of work and something like fifty thousand in replacement parts. Ready in two."
"Closer to a hundred thousand, actually," murmured Arthur.
Mike peered down at the rings. The s.p.a.ce between the twin circles seemed to shift and ripple like the air over hot pavement. He took a step to the left and confirmed the effect was only within the rings.
Arthur nodded. "It"s also one-sided," he said. "You can see the formation of the Door here, but if you were on the other side of the rings you wouldn"t see anything. Perfectly clear."
"Really?"
He nodded.
The ants filed it all away with quick notes and first impressions.
The computer screen in front of Jamie stopped scrolling and flashed a string of numbers. "We"ve got a solution. Ready in one."
"Power is good," said Olaf down on the floor. "Flux density is good. Opening the Door."
A faint crackle of light raced around the rings, a sparkling St. Elmo"s fire. There was a crisp hiss that reminded Mike of a fresh gla.s.s of soda being poured, and the sound settled to the constant bubbling of carbonation. Then the sparkle of light faded and the rippling air between the two off-white rings grew still.
"Field has cohesion," said Jamie. "The Door is open."
Two timers appeared on a screen close to Jamie. Each one extended to hundredths of a second, where the numbers flew by in a blur. One counted up from zero. The other counted down from ninety-three seconds.
Nothing happened. Mike stared down at the lab, waiting for a flash or a crackle or a bang. The rings seemed as inert and lifeless as they had when he first saw them.
Olaf stepped away from his station, and Bob slid in to take his place. He walked up to the expanded steel pathway, stood between the two white painted lines, and gave a curt nod up to the control booth. Then he marched up the ramp and through the rings.
And vanished.
"No way," breathed Mike.
Arthur smiled. "Three years now and I still love watching that." He punched an extension number on the phone, tapping the speaker mode b.u.t.ton at the end. "Have him, Sasha?"
"Of course." Olaf"s sneer echoed over the phone.
"Yeah," said Sasha"s voice. "Without a hitch."
Arthur pointed at a bank of monitors. "He"s over at Site B, on the far side of the property. You can see him there."
Mike bent to the screen. It showed Sasha in the foreground at another workstation while Olaf stood by an identical set of- On screen, it wasn"t a pair of rings. It was a trio. Behind Olaf, through the three-ringed Door, Mike could see Neil and Bob working at their own stations.
Mike looked down through the window at the two men. He could clearly see two rings on the main floor, but if he craned his head to look through them, he could see the base of a third ring.
He looked at Arthur. "Where does the third ring come from?"
"It doesn"t come from anywhere," said Arthur. "There are two rings at each location. You"re seeing the point where the sides of the Door connect."
"How far is Site B?"
"About a quarter mile away. The rings are sixteen-hundred and three feet apart."
"Is that significant?"
"No. Just where they ended up."
Mike pointed at the monitor. "This is real time?"
The older man nodded. "You can talk to them through the G.o.d-mike, if you want. They"ll hear you in both labs."
Mike leaned into the microphone. "Olaf, could you raise your right hand?"
On the screen, Olaf muttered something the speakerphone couldn"t catch and put his right hand up at shoulder height in an annoyed salute. Sasha chucked, and her tinny laughter bounced around the control room.
Mike glanced down at the floor. "Bob, could you stand up please?"
The redhead glanced up at the booth and pushed his chair away from his desk. On the monitor, through the rings, Mike saw him rise from the chair before Olaf"s body blocked him.
"Olaf, could you lean to the left a bit?"
"No," growled the scientist. "Are we done yet?"
Down on the lab floor, Bob stretched out his arms and did a little dance, rolling his shoulders as he pointed up at the booth, through the Door, and back. On screen, the distant Bob through the rings did the same, but with Olaf hiding him for the most part.
"Forty-five seconds left," Jamie said.
Arthur leaned into the microphone. "Want to do a walk-back?"
"If it gets this over and done with, fine." There was a faint ripple down in the s.p.a.ce between the rings, and Olaf reappeared on the walkway. He marched down the steel ramp and back to his station.
"Wait," said Mike. "One more time? Can he go back?"
Arthur smirked and nodded. "Back to Site B, Olaf."
"What? Are you joking?"
"Come on," said Jamie into her headset. "Play nice for the guest."
"This is ridiculous!" Olaf snarled up at the booth. "I have things to do."
"I"ll go," said Bob.
Jamie glanced at the timers. "Twenty seconds."
"Olaf, please," said Arthur. "Back to Site B."
The scientist shot an angry glare at the control booth and marched through the Door again. On the monitor he barked an order at Sasha and slashed his hand across his throat. The intercom clicked off and he began to vent at her in silence. She studied her instruments and made one or two gestures of casual agreement.
"It"ll take him ten minutes to get back here," said Arthur. "Let"s go to my office and talk, if you"ve seen enough."
Mike stared back at the monitors, soaking up every detail. He gave a nod, which Arthur echoed to Jamie. Her fingers ran across the keyboard and the bubbling noise rose back to a hiss before going silent. Down on the floor the red lights stopped spinning.
NINE.
Bookshelves filled most of Arthur"s office. About two thirds of the contents were old science books on astronomy, physics, and biology. Many of them had faded spines and cracked bindings. Mike recognized eleven of the authors. One of them was H. G. Wells, printed on four black-bound volumes of The Science of Life.
Twenty copies of The History of What We Know formed a bright block at the center of the bookshelf to the left of the desk. Ten hardcover, ten paperback. Ten weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list, too. All of Mike"s fellow teachers had read it and sung its praises.
The rest of the shelf s.p.a.ce was filled with binders, random electronics, and a few framed photographs. On a rare section of exposed wall a large poster showed Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, and other Warner Bros. cartoon characters. An overstuffed Bugs Bunny made of smooth fabric and loose st.i.tching was seated on the bookshelf to the left of the poster.
The laptop on the desk was at least three years old. A stack of dark brown file folders was piled next to it. The only other item was a photo of Arthur embracing a woman with strawberry-blond hair.
Across from the desk was a CAD blueprint of the twin rings of the Albuquerque Door, packed with notes and insert diagrams.
Arthur followed his gaze to the blueprint. "Eidetic memory," he said. "How does that work?"
Mike shrugged. "When I was ten I started having this visual of ants carrying around pictures in my mind, like frames of a film. It"s like having instant access to a time-stamped DVD of everything I"ve ever seen. I can replay it, rewind it, slow it down, freeze frame. The only limit is if I actually saw something or not."
"Ants?"
"My fourth grade science teacher, Mr. Tall, showed a movie about insects in cla.s.s. There was a war between two ant colonies, and I thought, "That"s just what it"s like in my head." Thoughts and memories pouring all over each other in this big, boiling ma.s.s."
"That"s an interesting metaphor."
"Yeah. And I can"t get rid of it because I can"t forget it. Odin has ravens, I"ve got ants." He saw Arthur looking at the blueprint. "Sorry. That"s not really your concern, is it?"