The Forgotten Room

35

It was one p.m. by the time Logan returned to his office cum apartment on the third floor. He’d spent the latter part of the morning restlessly wandering the grounds under a gunmetal sky, the violent beating of the Atlantic against the rocks a counterpoint to his own inner frustration. He’d considered, and then dismissed, a dozen ways to wheedle, cajole, or threaten Olafson into opening his private safe. In the end, he’d put the question aside and determined to get back to work, at least for the time being. Lunch was now in full swing, but the last thing he felt was hungry.

He looked around the office, then picked up the phone and dialed Kim’s extension.

“Mykolos,” came the reply.

“Kim? It’s Jeremy.”

There was a brief pause. “Yes?”

“I wanted to apologize for my outburst last night. It was uncalled for, and you didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end.”

“Apology accepted — if you’ll explain what caused it.”

Logan sank into the chair behind his desk. “I haven’t been feeling myself lately.”

“Yeah, you’ve been looking a little peaked, to say the least. But I’m guessing it’s more than that.”

“You’re right.” He hesitated. “Kim, those devices we found in the secret room last night — I think one of them was the cause of Strachey’s death.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Are you sure?”

“Almost positive.”

“How?”

“You mean, what do they do? I don’t know. But I do know this: it was Strachey’s discovery of the room that indirectly led to his death.”

“Jesus.” There was a silence in which Logan could practically hear the gears turning in Mykolos’s head. “Um, I almost don’t want to ask this, but…if that’s the case, why are we still alive? Why haven’t we wigged out and killed ourselves, too? I mean, we’ve been messing around in that room, as well.”

Logan had been afraid she would ask this question. He’d been wondering the same thing. He decided to give her the easier, less alarming reply. “I don’t think the killer thought we’d discover the secret room — at least, not so quickly. But now that we have, and now that Olafson knows what’s going on — yes, he does — I think the killer has gone to ground. But if you’d rather back off from the assignment, I understand completely—”

“No. No way. But you have to let me do something, for a change.”

“Agreed. And that’s the second reason for this call. I want you to go ahead and research one of the devices we found last night. Pull it apart, put an oscilloscope to it, reverse engineer it. Try to find out what makes it tick, what its relationship is to the Machine. I know it’s a job and a half — after all, somebody removed all the operating manuals. But you’re much better suited to it than I am. And, Kim — you must be extremely, extremely careful. Document everything with the camcorder. Work slowly. Treat the thing as if it were a live bomb.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. In fact, I’ve had some ideas about that.”

“Like what?”

“You know those hulking suits, hanging from the back wall of the room? The ones that look almost like armor?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I think they are armor. I think the operators of the Machine put those on before firing it up.”

In retrospect, it seemed so obvious. “What led you to that conclusion?”

“Did you ever look at one up close? See the wire mesh set into the glass of the visor?”

“I noticed, yes.”

“Well, it got me thinking. About microwaves.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Didn’t you ever look at a microwave that was heating something, stare in at the steaming food, and wonder why you weren’t getting cooked along with it?”

“I always assumed there was some kind of barrier.”

“Exactly. The reason you weren’t harmed by the energy inside the microwave — one of the reasons, anyway — is the wire mesh in the faceplate of the window. It acts as a Faraday cage.”

“A what?”

“A Faraday cage. An enclosure made of a conductive mesh that ensures the electrical voltage on both sides remains constant. It also blocks certain electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves. Anyway, I think those suits act like reverse Faraday cages, keeping the radiation — and I’m sure we’re dealing with some kind of radiation here — out, rather than in.”

Logan considered Kim’s words. “I’m just a historian. Still, it sounds plausible. I’ll feel better knowing you’re protected. But be cautious nonetheless. And keep the power level to a minimum, please: you may be wearing a Faraday cage, or whatever, but the rest of us here won’t be.”

“It’s a deal. I’ve got plans tonight, but I’ll get started first thing in the morning. I’ll let you know how I make out.”

Logan hung up the phone and was about to turn away when he noticed that the small red message light on its base was blinking. He picked up the phone again and dialed voice mail.

There was a single message. “Jeremy? It’s Pam. Listen, I’m really looking forward to our dinner this evening. And, hey, I’ve been digging deeper into my great-grandfather’s papers, and you won’t believe what I’ve found.” A pause. “Just kidding! I haven’t found anything else. But I did find the business card of that creepo who showed up on my doorstep last winter. Turns out I hadn’t thrown it away after all. I’ll bring it with me. Anyway, the reservation for Sub Rosa is at nine thirty. I know it’s kind of late, but if I hadn’t been a local, we wouldn’t have gotten in at all. It’s a great place, you’ll love it. And after dinner, maybe we can have coffee at my place?” A shy laugh. “So why don’t you pick me up at quarter after, okay? I’ll see you then.” A click as the phone went dead.

As Logan hung up the phone a second time and rose from his desk, the world rocked briefly around him. He grabbed for the chair back in order to steady himself.

Over the past forty-eight hours, he’d been feeling steadily worse. The headaches were almost constant now, and strange new whisperings in his head — along with the demonic music — threatened at times to overwhelm him. Just the night before, he’d found himself sitting on the edge of his bed, playing with the penknife from his medicine kit — blade open — and unable to account for the last fifteen minutes.

Something would have to be done.

Taking a pillow from the bed, he placed it in the middle of the floor, then sat down carefully upon it in the kekkafuza, or full lotus, position of zazen.

In times of great agitation or emotional unrest, Logan relied on Zen meditation, along with his skill as an empath, to calm his mind. He had never needed it more than now.

He pulled out the amulet and looked at it briefly. Then he let it drop gently onto his chest and lowered his hands to his lap, palms up, right over the left, in the dhyāna gesture of meditation. He began breathing very slowly and deliberately: inhaling, exhaling, clearing his mind of all extraneous thought, focusing on nothing but the breaths themselves; imagining that, with each inspiration, he was taking in pure, cleansing air and that with each expiration he was ridding himself of physical and emotional poisons. At first, he counted the breaths; after several minutes, this was no longer necessary.

A sense of calm began to steal over him. The headache receded, along with the whisperings. But the music — the unsettling, devilish music — remained.

Now he tried isolating the music in his mind, compartmentalizing it, so that he could study it simply as a phenomenon, rather than as an intruder to be feared. With effort, he managed to slow it down until only one note sounded at a time. As each note sounded, he mentally introduced another, opposite note of his own creation. One at a time, as each new note intruded into his consciousness, he quite deliberately added another, attempting to cancel out the first.

Logan did this for perhaps ten minutes, trying as he did so to retain the sense of inner stillness at the heart of zazen. It was not a perfect process — he did not have the mental discipline for that — but when he rose again, his headache had temporarily receded; the whisperings were stilled, and — most mercifully — the music was quieter.

He tossed the pillow onto the bed; slipped the amulet back into his shirt; paused to take one more deep, cleansing breath — and then, picking up his satchel from the desk, opened the door and exited his rooms.