Interlude I
April 2005, Hannover
Professor Rubens dashed from the shelter of the Bäckerladen's awning and splashed his way across the street, more mindful of protecting the bag of pastries that he clutched to his chest than he was of his own well being as he dodged between the oncoming traffic. So heavy was the downpour that he was drenched in moments, the rain streaming from the brim of his hat before his eyes.
When he reached the pavement opposite, he again sought cover beneath the canopies of the shopfronts, darting from one to another until he reached the corner of Roscherstraße. From there, it was a matter of a determined stomp through the puddles to Eckhart's side entry, and then to the doorway of their rented basement premises.
Reaching the sanctuary of the building did little to improve his outlook. The dampness had long ago permeated its lower level, the air constantly tinged with a musty odour, testament of the wet rot which was steadily working its way upwards. The rainwater that ran from his coat onto the concrete steps would certainly do nothing to accentuate the problem. As he descended, he clutched onto the rickety wooden handrail, the fixings of which had worked themselves loose in a number of locations. Shortly, he reached the bottom of the staircase and, still mindful of the delicacies which he was transporting, began to fish through his trouser pocket for the key to their makeshift laboratory. Before he found it, however, he heard another key click in the lock's mechanism, and the door opened before him.
"Greta!" he admonished, "I've told you not to open the door without checking. I could have been anyone!"
"Father," Greta replied with exasperation, "I could hear your cursing whilst you stood there hunting for your key! And anyway, I'm too hungry to wait any longer. Whatever you've brought, I hope you've kept it dry."
"I think so," he said as he stepped through the doorway, turning to watch her lock the door behind him, keen to ensure that it was secure.
Greta tutted to herself. As used as she was to his foibles, she could not help but be annoyed by them from time to time. "Don't worry," she assured him, "its locked, for what good that is. If someone really wanted to get in here, that old wooden door wouldn't last long, would it?"
She regretted her words the moment she saw the concern creep across his face. Now she'd given him something else to worry about.
"I've made a fresh pot of coffee," she stated, changing the subject. "Let's eat together, and I can tell you what I was working on last night."
"You should sleep more," Rubens told her, as he took off his coat and hung it on the stand where it continued to drip water onto the floor. "I can see it in your face, you know. You're working too hard. You'll end up making yourself ill."
"Nonsense," she scoffed, "I'm fine. I know that we're getting close now, that's all. I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. Not when there's so much still to be done."
"Patience can be as great a virtue as hard work, Greta," he said, as he unwrapped the parcel on the corner of his workbench. "One mistake could mean us starting over, you know? We must always be methodical in our approach."
"You've been methodical for thirty-five years, Father." she replied, removing the jug from its hotplate and pouring the coffee. "At some point there always has to be a leap of faith. History tells us that."
"History tells us a lot of things. And faith can be misplaced, this very nation is testament to that. But I do not wish to talk semantics. I merely want you to look after yourself." He beckoned her to join him. "Come and sit down. These are still warm."
Greta brought the coffee over and sat down beside him, resisting the urge to groan as she did so - the back-ache had come on overnight, doubtless as a result of the hours she had spent in various uncomfortable positions beneath the apparatus. She reached across for the Äpfel pastry, knowing that he had bought it specifically for her, aware that it was amongst her favourites. She bit into it, savouring the delicious combination of its flaky golden surround and the sweet fruit filling that oozed from within.
Knowing all too well that her Father's curiosity would quickly overcome him, she feigned nonchalance whilst nibbling around the edges of the pastry, her attention seemingly focused solely upon it.
Rubens tinkered with his coffee cup, aware of the fact that he was being played by her and quite sure in the knowledge that he would be the one to crumble. Whilst Greta may well have been brimming with the exuberance of youth, he was conscious that his own thirst for knowledge had never waned - if anything, it had grown stronger in these latter years, counterpoised as it was against the handful that he might have remaining to him.
"Well?" he conceded, "what have you done this time?"
She glanced up at him with a merry twinkle in her eye. "Nothing," she mumbled, around a mouthful of the Äpfel.
Rubens shook his head, unwilling to be drawn into her game to such an extent. He knew full well that she was itching to impart something to him. If she'd have been up all night and accomplished nought, she would be sullen and disinterested this morning.
"Come, now." he said, with a knowing smile, "I can tell that that's not the case."
"Oh, but it is," she insisted, "I've done nothing at all. Well, nothing different to what we've already tried a hundred times, anyway."
"Then why so smug?"
"Because," she beamed, "I got a different result."
Rubens eyed his daughter, doubtfully. "What do you mean by different, exactly?"
"A response. I got a response."
The Professor chuckled. "That's not possible Greta. Tell me, how did you set up the inverter?"
"Like I said," she replied, frustrated by his unwillingness to listen to her, "the same as always - that is, the same as we have had it configured for the last month or so."
"And the waveforms?" he queried, "are you sure that they were constant throughout?"
"Completely, yes!"
"Then explain to me what precisely you mean by 'a response'."
"I've got a better idea," she grinned, "why don't I show you?"
20 years before......
The Westergard invitation had been as unexpected as it was mystifying. Rubens' research had reached a dead end which, although he could not bring himself to face the reality of it, had more to do with the loss of his wife two years hence, than it did with his capabilities as an experimental physicist.
It had been far from easy, that time. A drawn out and lingering process, cruel in its nature. Not parting them suddenly, but rather, separating them from each other bit by bit, piece by piece, over a period of eighteen months. The deterioration of his own mental state had seemingly strove to keep pace with her worsening physical condition. She had remained brave and resolute for as long as she could, outlasting the doctors' expectations by a factor of three. In the end, though, they had become strangers to each other, both of them altered immeasurably, one by an uncompromising and immutable disease, the other by a deepening depression born out of uselessness.
Only little Greta was unaware - not unaffected, by any means but, at a mere six years of age, still young enough to be ignorant of the pain and anguish that had befallen her parents. She was passed from pillar to post, between the remnants of family that remained to them in the vicinity of Zurich, where they had resided these past eight years, and various friends and acquaintances (some of whom, admittedly, had been barely known to them) who would deliver her to and from the infants' school and ensure that she was sufficiently clothed and fed. Good people, he was sure, but, when it was over and only he and the small girl remained, he could not bring himself to thank them, or even to permit them their continued aid and kindness. Even to see another face and the pity that would have inevitably been written upon it, was a further torment that, in his state, he could ill afford. They were two, now, and they must survive together.
Only Greta accepted him for what he was and what he had always been - a father. And, gradually, her cries for her lost mother became fewer and further apart, and life, such that it was, resumed.
His laboratory, when he eventually chose to return to it, was dusty and damp. The one tiny window, which used to catch the morning sun, had become covered by the dense undergrowth without, and a slick black mildew within. He had sat down at his workbench and begun to pore over his notebooks in an effort to re-acquaint himself with the several investigative theories which he had been in the process of progressing. What he found there, however, was nonsense - the immature and absurdly optimistic ramblings of a deluded stranger, someone that he could no longer recognise, either on the pages which had been spread open before him, nor in the mirror each morning when he awoke.
He attempted to start over, to go back to the origins of his most recent postulations in an attempt to re-construct some semblance of order out of the aberrations wrought by his former self. He had found it quite impossible, however, to get away from the very distinct impression that the enterprise was completely pointless - that he had only ever flattered himself as being an exponent of the newly emerging sciences and that he had already been left far behind in the wake of those who were pushing the boundaries ever forwards. Certain, he'd been, that he was unable to keep up - even if he had possessed the wherewithal to do so.
Turning once more away from his work, he had found comfort in the presence of his child. His focus had become fastened upon her, overcome as he'd been by the need to repair any wrongs that had been done to her, to redress the neglect that she had been subjected to and to ensure that she would grow up contented and self-assured. He had been quite convinced that that must now become his primary function. Accordingly, he had begun to seek out some form of part-time employ that would allow him to put food on the table and keep a roof above their heads, whilst spending as much time with his daughter as he possibly could.
Two months later, he had found himself perched before their small gas fire, reading and then re-reading the Westergard letter which had so mysteriously appeared upon his doormat.
He had been completely unaware of any recognition which he might have achieved within the wider scientific community. One of his erstwhile colleagues must have put his name forward in recommendation. But surely there must have been a thousand candidates better qualified than he to fill the position that was seemingly being offered to him.
Officially it was no more than an invitation to an open discussion and a viewing of their facility. The letter had been extremely thorough, however, regarding the benefits that were on offer - accommodation, attractive remuneration, child-care facilities for those that required them, and the opportunity to continue his own personal research in their state of the art laboratories.
He had been well aware of Westergard's operation. They were at the forefront of power generation technologies, having recently completed the reconstruction of the HVDC at Gotland, a several year long scheme which had resulted in the relocation of their headquarters to a nearby location, as evinced by the heading on the piece of paper he had held there in his hands.
It had occured to him next that they must have him confused with somebody else. They had the wrong Rubens - that must be it! He should let them know, telephone them and explain the mistake.
Three days later, he and Greta were on a plane to Sweden.
She grimaced as she once again wriggled beneath the apparatus, the aches and pains in her back accentuated by being forced once more into the position which had caused them in the first place.
"A reflection, Greta," her father spoke to her, as he no doubt watched her legs protruding from the underside of the equipment, "no more than that. What on Earth can you even mean by the term 'response'?"
"Wait and see," she called out, "it'll be re-set in a moment."
She heard him pacing back and forth whilst she re-calibrated the inverter. It used to perform this function automatically as it had been initially programmed to do, but the parts which they would need in order to return that function to working order were well out of their reach.
Eventually she was done and, allowing a mild curse to escape her lips as she extricated herself from the underside of the contraption for what she hoped would be the last time for a little while, she went to stand beside her father at the jury-rigged control panel from which the machine was activated.
Rubens stared wistfully at his creation, understanding it as the object of their joint obsession and also as the reason for their underground existence, living from day to day in constant fear of discovery, scraping together whatever they could in order to further their renegade research. To the untrained eye it was no more than a steel ring (actually titanium), some six feet in outside diameter and about a foot in thickness, supported by guy ropes that were anchored diagonally to the floor, walls and ceiling so that it was as closely as possible suspended in space, equidistant from the surface planes of the room.Its innards, however, contained a myriad of diodes and sensors, each of them painstakingly located in strategic positions during years of trial and error development. Directly beneath the ring, and wired into it, was the squat, steel encased inverter apparatus, the underbelly of which, Greta had just removed herself from. All of their hopes and all of their fears, wrapped up in one big metal doughnut! There were still occasions upon which Rubens detested himself for this predicament which he had gotten himself and, more importantly, his daughter into.
"Are you ready?" she asked, de-railing his train of thought.
"Yes, yes," he replied, quickly, "whenever you are."
He continued to observe as Greta tapped out a sequence upon the keyboard before her, then waited momentarily for an acknowledgement that all was in readiness.
"Inversion in," she murmured, simultaneously hitting the key which would activate the system, "five...four...three... two..."
They gazed together towards the machine in anticipation. What occured next was, whilst being miraculous in and of itself, nothing that they had not expected to see. Initially there was the merest glimmer at the very centre point of the ring's aperture, accompanied by the low thrum, thrum of the inverter, which could be palpably felt as well as heard. Steadily, the glowing speck grew until it was the size of a large coin, seemingly hanging there in mid-air.
And this phenomenon, floating there before his eyes, was the essence that he had striven to harness these many years past. He firmly believed that they were on the verge of piercing the very skin of reality itself. No matter the setbacks that had plagued him, that they were only some small esoteric adjustment away from tapping into the ultimate power source - one that acted as the separation layer between universes. Mock him they had, and that was one of the reasons why he had always kept this particular research low key. His theory was certainly unconventional (some might say fictional), yet he firmly believed that it was well founded - he had even doubted himself in the beginning, yet the more time he had spent focused upon the conundrum the more certain he had become that it could, one day, be more than theoretical - that it could, perhaps, be the answer to the world's needs and an end to its seemingly self destructive bent.
What happened next, however, was completely unexpected. The shimmering disc continued to grow.
"Greta!" he exclaimed, "what's happening?"
"It's okay," she assured him, smiling all the while, "it will stabilise in a moment."
Rubens could only stare as the iridescent anomaly continued to swell until it was the approximate size of a dinner plate, at which point it stopped.
"Is that it?" he could only whisper.
"Yes," she replied, "it stays like that."
"And you have done nothing different?"
"Nothing that I'm aware of, no. Father, you're free to check yourself, of course."
He glanced at her with a little uncertainty, "No, no. Let's face it, Greta. After all the long hours you've put in, you are just as knowledgeable as I regarding the operation of this contraption, if not more so." He then quickly turned his attention back to the shining circlet of light, aware for the first time of the faint blueness that was emanating from it. Perhaps this was it, he thought, unable to contain his rising excitement. Just maybe, they had actually achieved what they had been aspiring to for so long.
"I'm not done, yet," she said, with a grin, "watch this!"
She bent forwards to enter a string of commands into the controlling computer and, at once, the shining disc became noticeably concave in form, continuing to do so as if some invisible finger was being pushed into it.
"Careful, Greta!" he warned, "we must take this slowly."
"It's fine, I've done this part before," she replied confidently, "Like I said, just watch."
Once again, she tapped on the keyboard and, this time, the object that hung in the air, tangibly, before him, reverted back to its original even shape.
"Now, wait just a moment," Greta said.
They waited and watched, Rubens not having a clue what exactly he was supposed to be waiting for but, if she really had somehow stumbled upon the key to their success, he owed her at least a little patience.
As he continued to stare into the glistening circle he thought, at first, that his eyes were deceiving him. Then, however, it became quite apparent to him that the disc was transmuting once again, this time in a directly opposite fashion. Its structure now became convex in nature, eventually to such an extent that he received the distinct, yet absurd, impression that it was consciously pointing right at him, an omnipotent finger calling judgment down upon him.
After a period of several seconds, and with no prompting or input from his daughter, the disc contrived to return to its flat plate-like form.
"You didn't ask it to do that." He spoke it as a statement, not as a question.
"No," she said, a glimmer in her eye that momentarily matched the anomaly for brightness, "what would you call it?"
It was a loaded question, and he knew it. "A response," he answered.
The abrupt sound of someone rapping loudly on the wooden door across the hallway returned them immediately to the reality of their situation. For Rubens, it manifested as a wrenching of the gut, deep down inside of himself, a kind of mini-death that diminished him slightly upon each such heart-fluttering occasion.
Westergard's men, his mind jumped to the most fearful conclusion, they had caught up with him again! There was no alternative exit from this basement - one door only, in and out.
He locked gazes with his daughter, could see her mentally fumbling for a plausible explanation.
"Eckhart!" she exclaimed, clutching at the most readily available straw, "here for his rent!"
"I paid him on Monday," he replied, flatly. "Wait here, let me go and see. And don't worry - I'm sure it's nothing." In reality, he was about as sure of this as he was of his ability to perform a series of somersaults on his way to answer the door.
Again, their visitor (more likely visitors, he thought), banged upon the wooden door, this time somewhat more insistently. He reached out to Greta, instinctively, only lightly touching her arm, and gave her a knowing look. It was quite possible that they had been discovered as they were on the very brink of success and it might well transpire that the mere promise of that achievement would have to be sufficient.
At last, he turned away and strode wilfully from the room.
"Okay, okay," he shouted, "can you not wait for an old man to get to his door?"
He entered the hallway and stepped up to the door, key already in hand. As he reached out with it, however, an ear-splitting scream rang out from behind him. Greta!
"Let go!" he heard her shout.
He wheeled about and dashed back to their makeshift laboratory as quickly as he could. Upon gaining the doorway, though, he found himself quite non-plussed. Greta was nowhere to be seen. All the room was on view to him, yet she was not there. He knew full well that she had not followed behind him across the hallway and he was also quite certain that her cry had emanated from the lab. Then where....?
The hammering on the door was even more urgent this time. "OPEN UP, NOW!" came a strident tone from beyond it. The Professor barely heard it, focused as he was upon an elusive thought that was hovering on the very edge of his awareness.
The inverter - maybe she was beneath it once more. He could imagine no reason for her doing so, and yet there was nowhere else. Clutching the door frame, he lowered himself to his knees and then onto his hands so that he could see across the tiled floor beneath the apparatus. Nothing!
It was silent. Why was the machine now silent?
He looked upwards and his gaze centered upon the large titanium ring or, more precisely, upon the empty space that existed at its centre. For that is what it was - empty. The shimmering disc had vanished - vanished along with his daughter, his wonderful, bright Greta!
"Oh, no," he whispered, in disbelief, "what has happened? What on Earth have I done?"
If he was not already on his knees, he would indeed have sank to them at that very moment.
All that followed was the suddenly distressed shriek of splintering timbers as the door was smashed open behind him.