Mike. That was one of the most incredible sights I’ve ever seen, man.” Before I had a chance to reply, his eyes closed and he began to snore.
I grinned. “Lovely. Well, sleep tight.” With that, I regarded the envelope next to me and realized it was a good time, as my younger parishioners might say, to ‘get my read on.’
A Knife Worth Having
Three years passed quietly, or as quietly as time ever passes in my Family. Henri died shortly after my introduction to the Voice, choking on his own vomit after one of his customary heroic bouts of drunkenness. His death was so cleverly arranged that I could hardly believe the twins had done it.
When Julian II and Philip died a year later, their fishing boat capsizing in the Gulf of Bothnia, I realized that Burke had been a very naughty boy indeed. Those deaths certainly hadn’t come at my hand. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Burke wanted Julian to think that it was I who provided the three with their exits so that when I met with an untimely death, Julian would have to turn to him as the next Family patriarch. I felt the big DayGlo bullseye reappear on my back and heightened my vigilence.
When I turned eighteen, Julian, in a demonstration of paternal pride at my survival and my apparent ‘terminal dismissal’ of my siblings, put me in charge of a small underground research facility outside of Livingston, New Jersey, where nothing of great note had ever been produced. Run by an abhorrent little scientist by the name of Gillan, it provided me the perfect shelter from Burke’s machinations, at least for a while. I’m not ashamed to admit that he scared the shit out of me.
My job was to make the facility productive, a test of my abilities and I wanted, no …
When Gillan called and informed me that one of my projects had paid off, I immediately drove from New York to the lab. After I arrived at the complex (located beneath the Commonwealth Water Company Reservoir Number Three) I parked at the Cedar Hill Country Club (Family owned and operated) and entered the complex, where I dismissed the staff for the evening. I’d taken a golf cart down a steeply sloping tunnel to an elevator that was the main entrance to the compound. The three-story re-enforced steel facility had been started, and, nearly forgotten by, Julian. For me, however, it offered a glimmer of hope.
The first, and smallest, floor-the apex of the complex-consisted of offices for the researchers and myself. Floors two and three were larger-floor two almost three times as large as one and three almost five times larger than two-so the whole complex was shaped much like a ziggurat. Floor three housed the particle accelerator, used for our more esoteric research. Shiny white walls and floors echoed my footsteps as I exited the main elevator to find the fat doctor waiting for me. I don’t know if it was lack of imagination or one of Julian’s peccadilloes, but the entire lab looked like the set of a bad sci-fi movie … all white on white with exposed metal gleaming silver in the harsh fluorescent light. Gillan led me to the lone conference room, a small space with a black table large enough to seat eight and a computer terminal the size of a flat-head V-8. Once the door was shut, he produced a small object from his pocket and handed it over.
I held the item up to the light. “Very nice, Dr. Gillan, very nice indeed. What is it? A mini Lightsaber?”
Dr. Gillan gingerly took the six-inch silvery cylinder from my grasp, an oily smile on puffy, bearded face. “Not quite, sir. It is molecular thread, or a molecular knife, if you will.”
Excitement surged through me. Molecular thread! Previously it had existed only in the imagination of science fiction writers … a chain of iron molecules that could cut through almost anything. Leaning forward, I gazed avidly at the cylinder. Less than an inch across, mostly constructed from titanium, one end appeared to be made of a glassy substance with a minute hole in the center. The body gleamed, having been polished to a mirror finish with a small, round, black button a couple of inches from the glassy end. “It doesn’t look like much, Gillan,” I remarked.
“The body of the cylinder, sir, contains twenty-five yards of molecular iron thread, to replace any that happen to break.”
I gave him a look that brought sweat to his florid cheeks. “It breaks? Molecular thread is supposed to be able to cut through anything.”
“Almost, sir. However if you move the thread too quickly through a hard material, such as a brick of iron, it will snap, which, of course, is why there is more thread, spooling out to replace the broken piece.”
“What’s the blade length?”
“One inch.”
“One inch?” I blurted and sat back. “Only that?”
The fat little scientist licked his thick lips. “After an inch the magnetic bottle becomes unstable.” A feverish light shone in his hazel eyes. “But just think, sir, the applications of just one small inch!”
I considered Dr. Gillan a moment. He was a rotund American with three chins, small eyes and curly, sandy- brown hair cut short and shot through with gray. An able scientist and wholly my creature, thanks to generous donations of young women to slake his unsavory lusts. It was not hard to find his weakness and exploit it, giving him the girls he craved, his vice placing him firmly under my thumb. An odious creature, but
“The specs?” I asked.
His smile could have lubed a Volvo. “Downloaded from the drive to a disk for you, sir.”
“And the Crystal Drive?”
“On Floor Two,” he said with an oily smile.
The desire to delouse right then and there nearly overcame me, but I fought the impulse, forcing myself to mirror his slick grin. The owner and CEO of the largest American computer firm must have been shrieking in anger at the loss of his precious Crystal Drive (an invention light years ahead of its time), the device and all data related to it having been stolen by my agents right out from under his nose. The developer, a man named Chandrahaskhar, now resided in our facility in Sweden. The device had cost-oh how it had cost-but in the end had paid off. It was my ‘get out of jail free card,’ as the Americans would say and I had jealously guarded the secret of its existence.
I took the precious knife back out of his hands and placed it in the inside breast pocket of my charcoal Brioni suit, ignoring his look of shock. “Give me the Crystal Drive, Gillan.” My tone warned him not to argue, so he scuttled off to do as I asked. Once he was out of sight, I concentrated furiously, weighing the pros and cons of an idea that had formed once I’d laid eyes on the precious molecular knife. Flipping a mental coin, I decided to take the risk.
With no time to waste, I entered his office, logged onto the lab computer and began erasing all traces of the molecular knife. Something like the knife was far too valuable to let Julian get his hands on and there was no way I would let Burke have a shot at it, considering his capabilities. No, this would be mine and mine alone. Within a matter of minutes all hard drives were wiped.
“Here you go, sir,” Gillan puffed as he entered, a small black rectangle the size of a domino in his hand. “There is no other computer out there but the one we have here that can utilize this device.” He handed the drive over and once again I was surprised at how heavy it was, not to mention slick from his sweaty palms.
“How about our other projects, Gillan?” I asked, not looking at him.
“Nothing has borne fruit, Mr. Deschamps, only the molecular knife. Why?”
“Where are the disks you mentioned?”
The fat scientist wordlessly opened the top right desk drawer, revealing a plastic bag containing a dozen three and a half inch floppies. I scooped the bag up and added the Crystal Drive to the small plastic squares.
“Thank you Dr. Gillan.” I met the man’s shifty eyes. “And the specs on the Crystal Drive?”
“On the drive itself. May I ask, sir, what is going on?”
“Only two projects have paid off, the molecular knife and the Crystal Drive-which we have successfully reverse-engineered-and there is only one other computer, my personal machine, that can accommodate the Drive. Everything else looks to be a wash-out, so I think it’s time to close up shop.”
“But, sir, why? We have the potential to do so much more!” Spit was collecting at the corners of his thick lips. He definitely did not want to give up his hot and cold running party girls. “Will you please give us some more time?”
Ignoring his question, I continued. “Do you realize, Gillan, that the girl delivered two weeks ago died of her injuries? Did you know that?”
