“Have you heard of the Shelved Projects Branch?” she asked. “We’ve managed to keep it out of the papers, but it’s where we store… Well, you’ve probably never worked with a Cog before…” Actually, Sullivan had, and now considered two of them friends, but she didn’t need to know about his Grimnoir associates. “Cogs are very rare. Heck, even low-level Fixers are hard to find. What most people don’t realize is that sometimes those bursts of magical inspiration can take a Cog down some very strange paths. Shelved Projects is where EGE stored those experiments. Some of them are downright unnerving.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
Hammer nearly left some of the Ford’s paint on the bumper of a truck that hadn’t heard the sirens. The driver honked and shook his fist at them. “It’ll be easier to explain when we get there.”
Menlo Park, New Jersey
They arrived in one piece, though there had been a few close shaves. Hammer drove like an unhinged maniac. The Hyperion was said to be the fastest factory car ever produced. Safety advocates had declared that the Cogs who had designed such an infernal machine must surely have been driven mad with a desire to kill other motorists. After this particular ride, Sullivan was inclined to agree. Hammer had decided that Cowley’s police escort had been too slow, and had zipped past them once they got out of the city. It was the fastest that Sullivan had ever ridden in an automobile, and that was saying something, since there was an inch of snow on the ground.
There was a faded ege sign and a No Trespassing warning on the fence of the industrial park. “This is the place,” Hammer said as they coasted through an open gate and came to a stop in front of a rather plain warehouse.
“Where’d you learn to drive like that?” Sullivan asked.
“Riding horses. Same fundamental principles.”
“No. No, they’re not,” Cowley said, a little green around the edges and glad to be alive. “I can assure you.”
“Sure. Give it the spurs when you want it to go faster; close your eyes and hang on for dear life when you need to stop in a hurry… same thing.” She shoved her door open. “Come on.”
Sullivan shrugged and followed the strange woman into the night.
The warehouse was bland and innocuous. For something that was supposed to be housing a bunch of wild Cog inventions, it didn’t look like much. Maybe that was the best protection of all. There were a lot of automobiles parked under a nearby cover. The place was busy tonight.
There were two men in thick coats waiting at the entrance and both had new Pedersen auto-rifles slung over their shoulders. Their hard faces told him that they certainly weren’t regular security guards. Cowley stopped. “This is as far as I go. I’m not cleared for this particular conversation… And believe me, I’m glad about it.” He held out his hand and Sullivan shook it. “Good luck, Jake.” The agent turned and walked away like a man who was very glad to be going.
That was ominous. The guards nodded at Hammer as she passed and gave Sullivan the once-over. “This the guy, Hammer?” one guard asked.
“That he is, Arthur.”
“Thank goodness. Every time that thing rings, it scares the piss out of me.” Arthur shivered. “I’m telling you, it’s the work of the devil.”
The other guard spoke. “Unnatural, I say. Mr. Edison should have burned the evil thing when he had the chance.”
Hammer took a small automatic out of her coat and handed it to Arthur. “You packing, Mr. Sullivan?” she asked.
“Of course,” Sullivan said.
“You’ll have to leave it here. Company policy,” Arthur said.
“Your policy stinks.”
“Trust me, buddy. It’s for your own safety. There are some things in Shelved Projects… Well, let’s just say that you don’t want to have any big metallic objects on you in case the alarm goes off. Some of our other guests disagreed, too, only they had fancy badges that told me to mind my own business.”
“They’re going to feel mighty stupid if the alarm goes off,” Hammer stated.
“That’s what I told them, but what do I know? I just work here. I’m not a top government man.” Arthur snorted. “I promise I’m not just yanking your chain. It really is for your safety.”
Sullivan pulled out the enchanted M1921. 45 that Browning had given him and passed it over. “Careful. It ain’t loaded with sofa pillows.”
Arthur put the pistols in a lockbox next to the door and closed it. “Well, come on in.” Arthur opened the door for them. “You don’t want to keep Satan waiting.”
They entered the dark warehouse. The door closed behind them and locked. “What was that about?” Sullivan asked.
“You believe in ghosts, Sullivan?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
She groped around on the wall until she found a switch. “Well, apparently they believe in you.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“Good. Nervous is healthy. Nervous keeps you alive,” Hammer said. The lights came on, revealing a wide space, filled with shelves covered in dust and cobwebs. “This way. We keep it hidden downstairs. Safer that way.”
“I’m not moving another foot until you tell me what’s going on.”
She folded her arms. “Why, Mr. Sullivan, we both know that’s not what’s going to happen. You’re an intensely curious man. You try to hide it. You may act like a palooka, but you just can’t help yourself. You’ve got a dying need to know what’s going on, so you’re not fooling anyone. Now that we’ve lost our Bureau chaperone, I can give you the straight scoop.” Hammer didn’t even wait for his response before she started walking across the warehouse.
The EGE woman certainly had his number. Sullivan sighed and trailed along.
“Have you ever heard of Edison’s spirit phone?”
“Who hasn’t? He said something in passing once, some reporter took it out of context, so a bunch of spirit mediums and frauds started claiming to have one so they could swindle suckers into thinking they were talking to their dead relatives.”
She just smiled and shook her head. “That’s what we want the public to think.” Hammer stopped at the back wall and opened an innocuous fuse box. “Now which one were you? Ahh, there you are.” She played with a few switches and there was a loud click. She placed her hand on the wall and pushed. A secret door hinged smoothly open. “After you.”
There was a flight of steep metal stairs disappearing into the floor. Sullivan climbed down until he found himself at the end of a plain concrete hallway. Two more men were stationed there, and they just nodded politely. Apparently the first guards had called ahead. He noted that these were only armed with wooden truncheons instead of firearms.
Hammer grabbed the rails, slid down like a sailor, and landed lightly.
“Lots of security around here.”
“And you’re only seeing the first layer. People would kill to get their hands on the things behind these doors.” Hammer led the way down the hall. “Mr. Edison was a skeptical man, you know. It started as a lark, an experiment to silence the quacks and charlatans. The reasoning was that if he built a machine sensitive enough that a ghost could talk through it, then surely, if ghosts were real they’d make themselves known. Then that Cog magic got fired up while he was working on it, and he ended up fiddling with it for three straight weeks, hardly stopping for food, sleep, even water. When he finally dropped from exhaustion, it had nearly killed him, and his Power was burned out for a year afterward, but it worked.”
“How?”
“Science isn’t my area of expertise. The thing is, it worked, and we could call out, but nobody ever called in. It was a one-way street. EGE’s best minds don’t know why. We could make a call and occasionally get… something from the other side, but it usually didn’t make any sense. Edison had done it. He’d found a way to contact ghosts.”
