The Einstein Equation

20 Family Ties

Kasper ran into his home and locked the door behind him. After a double shift, he was completely drained, but there was no time for fatigue. Time was catching up with him and he was still unable to speak to Purdue. The genius explorer had an airtight security system and kept himself firmly out of the public eye most of the time. Most of his liaison was done by his personal assistant, but that was the woman Kasper thought he spoke to when he spoke to Lilith Hurst.

A knock at his door stopped his heart for a moment.

“It’s me!” he heard from the other side of the door, a voice that dripped a little heaven into the bucket of shit he was in.

“Olga!” he gasped, opened the door quickly and pulled her inside.

“Wow, what are you on about now?” she asked, kissing him passionately. “I thought you were coming over to my place tonight, but you did not answer any of my calls all day.”

In her gentle manner and soft voice, the beautiful Olga carried on about being ignored and all that other chick flick nonsense that her new boyfriend really could not afford to suffer or take blame for. He grabbed her firmly and sat her down on the chair. Just for effect, Kasper reminded her how much he loved her with a proper kiss, but after that, it was time to explain things to her. She was always quick to grasp what he tried to say, so he knew he could trust her with this exponentially serious matter.

“Can I trust you with very sensitive information, honey?” he whispered hard into her ear.

“Of course. Something is driving you nuts and I want you to tell me this stuff, you know?” she said. “I want no secrets between us.”

“Great!” he exclaimed. “Fantastic. Now, listen, I am insanely in love with you, but my work is becoming all-consuming.” She nodded quietly as he proceeded. “I’ll keep it simple. I have been working on a top-secret experiment, building a chamber shaped like a bullet to do the test with, right? It is practically completed and just today I found out,” he swallowed hard, “that what I have been working on is about to be used for a very evil purpose. I need to leave this country and disappear, do you understand?”

“What?” she shrieked.

“Remember the asshole that sat on my porch that day after we came back from the wedding? He is in charge of a sinister operation, and, and I think… I think they are planning to assassinate a group of world leaders during a meeting,” he explained hastily. “The only man who can decipher the correct equation has taken possession of it. Olga, he is working on it right now in his house in Scotland, soon to crack the variables! Once that happens, the asshole I work for (this was now Olga and Kasper’s code for Tuft) will apply that equation to the device I have built them.” Kasper shook his head, wondering why he would even bother laying all this on a pretty baker, but he had only known Olga for a short while. She had a few secrets herself.

“Defect,” she said plainly.

“What?” he frowned.

“Defect to my country. They cannot touch you there,” she repeated. “I come from Belarus. My brother is a physicist at the Institute of Physics and Technology, working on similar fields as you. Maybe he can help you?”

Kasper felt strange. Panic gave way to relief, but then clarity washed it away. He was mute for a minute or so, trying to mull around all the details along with the astonishing information about his new lover’s family. She kept quiet to let him think, grazing his arms with her fingertips. It was a good idea, he reckoned, if he could escape before Tuft realized it. How would the head physicist of a project just slip away without anyone noticing?

“How?” he voiced his doubts. “How do I defect?”

“You go to work. You destroy all copies of your work and you take all their project records with you. I know this, because my uncle did that many years ago,” she apprised.

“Is he there too?” Kasper asked.

“Who?”

“Your uncle,” he answered.

She shook her head nonchalantly. “No. He is dead. They killed him when they found out that he sabotaged the ghost train.”

“The what?” he exclaimed, quickly put off all over again by the dead uncle business. After all, from what she was saying, her uncle died exactly because of the thing Kasper was about to try.

“The ghost train experiment,” she shrugged. “My uncle did much the same as you. He was part of the Russian Secret Society for Physics. They made this experiment with sending a train through the sound barrier or speed barrier or whatever.” Olga giggled at her ineptitude. She knew nothing of science, so it was hard for her to correctly relay what her uncle and his colleagues did.

“And then?” Kasper pressed. “What did the train do?”

“They say it was supposed to teleport or go to another dimension… Kasper, I really do not know about these things. You are making me feel very stupid here,” she interrupted her explanation with an excuse, but Kasper understood.

“You do not sound stupid, honey. I do not care how you say it, as long as I get an idea,” he coaxed her, smiling for the first time. She was really not stupid. Olga could see the strain in her lover’s smile.

“My uncle said the train was too powerful, that it would disrupt energy fields here and cause an implosion or something. Then all the people on earth… would… die?” she winced, looking for his approval. “They say his colleagues are still trying to make it work, using abandoned train tracks.” She was unsure of how to end her relation, but Kasper was elated.

Kasper wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up, holding her suspended from the ground while he planted a myriad of little kisses all over her face. Olga did not feel stupid anymore.

“Oh my God, I have never been so happy to hear of human extinction,” he jested. “Honey, you described almost exactly what I am struggling with here. Right, I have to get to the plant. Then I have to get to the news people. No! I have to contact the news people in Edinburgh. Yes!” he carried on, pacing with a thousand priorities darting through his mind. “See, if I get Edinburgh papers to publish this, not only does it expose the Order and the experiment, but David Purdue will hear of it and cease his work on the Einstein Equation!”

Terrified of what still had to be done, Kasper felt a sense of liberty at the same time. At last, he could be with Olga without watching her back for nefarious followers. His work would not be corrupted and his name attached to a worldwide atrocity.

While Olga made him some tea, Kasper grabbed his laptop and searched ‘Edinburgh best investigative journalists’. Of all the links presented, and there were many, one name stood out prominently and this man was remarkably easy to contact.

“Sam Cleave,” Kasper read aloud to Olga. “He is an award winning investigative journalist, honey. He lived in Edinburgh and is freelance, but he used to work for several of their local newspapers… before…”

“Before what? You are making me curious. Speak!” she cried from the open plan kitchen.

Kasper smiled. “I feel like a pregnant woman, Olga.”

She roared with laughter. “Like you know what that is like. You have definitely been acting like one. That is for sure. Why do you say that, love?”

“So many emotions all at the same time. I want to laugh and cry and scream,” he grinned, looking stacks better than a minute ago. “Sam Cleave, the guy I want to give this story to? Guess what? He is a famous author and explorer involved in several expeditions led by the one and only David fucking Purdue!”

“Who is he?” she asked.

“The man with the dangerous equation I cannot get hold of,” Kasper explained. “If I have to tell a reporter about the evil plan, who better than someone who personally knows the man with the Einstein Equation in his possession?”

“Perfect!” she chimed. As Kasper rang Sam’s number, something in him changed. He did not care how dangerous defecting would be. He was ready to make a stand.