We stepped through the door and into the vault. The room was completely bare, with off-white walls and ceiling, and a fine carpet of a pleasant light blue shade. Mounted into the wall directly across from us, and the only thing of note in the whole room, was a small safe door directly adjacent to a keypad.
Dr. O’Lewis stepped forward towards the safe and beckoned me to follow. She spoke in a somber tone, breaking the tense silence that had hung over us since entering the facility.
“It’s in here. Listen, Dr. Sternman…”
“Just James is fine,” I said.
She paused and sighed heavily, contorting her face into a concerned grimace.
“James. Things have happened. With the other researchers. Unexplained things. Horrible things. If you want out, this is it. After this, there’s no going back.”
She winced and looked down. I spoke with what I hoped sounded like conviction.
“I’ve already made up my mind. I want to help with the research any way I can.”
After a brief silence, she nodded and reached out, typing a strikingly long string of numbers into the keypad. Her hand trembled briefly, and then steadied as she reached out and opened the safe door.
My heart jumped and my hands shivered as I stared at the object- if it could be called that- that was inside. On a small black pedestal, stood a sort of silhouette. A silhouette of what I can only describe as a profound nothingness. It was not black, nor white, nor was it simply invisible to the eye. It was nothing. Like a small gap in what was real, what was understandable and quantifiable. I was transfixed, staring there at this unknowable thing, unable to remove my gaze. My hands and feet had become cold and my heart was beating heavily in my chest. There was something there, and it was nothing. Beautiful, terrible, perfect, horrific, awe-inspiring nothingness.
Dr. O’Lewis shut the safe door and I shuddered violently, caught off guard.
“Fascinating and terrifying, isn’t it?”
She spoke with a greater sense of calm than I would have expected, possibly drawing some relief from my reaction. I didn’t answer right away. I shut my eyes and tried to picture what I had just seen, but could not. I could picture its shape. It was only slightly larger than a fist. Its lines were mostly straight, as the outermost outline of a complicated and irregular polyhedron. At the top, a curved section of sphere or ellipsoid connected to the object forming a sort of rounded cap. I could picture all this and yet the object itself could only be black, or white, or any other color, or even a sort of translucent wisp. But never what I had just seen.
I opened my eyes and turned toward Dr O’Lewis.
“What… Is it? How. How is it like… That?”
I struggled to articulate the aggregate of questions forming and writhing and growing in my head like some demented vine.
“What does a blind person see?” She glanced at me, the apparent excitement of scientific research and study and discussion beginning to overshadow her fear. I drew a sharp breath of air and exhaled slowly. Nothing. A fully blind person didn’t see anything at all. Not whiteness or blackness or anything in between. But the same sort of nothing that a sighted person would “see” out of the back of their head, or their elbow.
She nodded and half-grinned as she saw the beginnings of understanding in my face. It seemed as though the tension from before had mostly left her. She seemed more apt to talk about what we had seen than to look at it.
“So, how does it… do that?” I still struggled in forming questions surrounding the object.
“We don’t know. Some of the researchers think it messes with the way your eyes communicate with your brain. Others have posited that it emits some as-of-yet unidentified kind of particle that your eyes can only see as, well, that.” Despite the underlying unease, she was clearly passionate and excited about learning more. I began to relax as well; reducing the intensely foreign nature of the object to a series of plausible, rational theories was comforting.
“Have we gotten any readings from it? Heat, radiation, anything? Has anyone tried to photograph it?”
As I spoke, the excitement in her demeanor began to diminish considerably.
“Nothing… works.”
I raised an eyebrow. She elaborated.
“Technology. It doesn’t function correctly in this room. It acts unpredictably, or sometimes simply won’t so much as power on. Geiger counters, thermal scanners, EMF meters, cameras, digital and otherwise…”
She trailed off and let out an exaggerated sigh.
I tried to give her a comforting look. “Well can you… Can you touch it?”
She tried to hide it. I could tell. She tried to remain some semblance of calm and collected. But as the color began to fade from her cheeks and her pupils unmistakably dilated, I knew she was afraid. She spoke one word, quietly, decisively.
“No.”
The fear and frustration mingling in my head began to incite a churning sensation in my stomach. My mind was suddenly very tired, like I had just worked a long day tediously organizing complicated data. The atmosphere in the room had become uncomfortable. I suddenly became acutely aware of the dryness in my mouth and swallowed. The churning grew as the silence persisted, until Dr. O’Lewis broke it.
“Let’s go. You have to meet the team. We’re supposed to have lunch in the cafeteria soon, I’ll show you the way.”
The team. Lunch. The facility’s cafeteria that we had passed on the way to this room. These thoughts grounded my growing unease and the churning faded. Dr. O’Lewis smiled as she noticed me relax.
“C’mon,” her voice was considerably cheerier, “let’s go introduce you to your colleagues. They’re a great group of people. And the tomato bisque the caf’ has…” She clicked her tongue and held her right hand up to form an “okay” sign.
I smiled. I loved tomato bisque.
-———————————————–
The next day, I woke to the sound of light rain against my bedroom window.
I yawned and sat up. Groggily I fished for my phone, unlocking it and checking the time. 7:14 AM. The thoughts in my mind began to accumulate as my brain revved itself into gear after a long night’s sleep. I had plenty of time to get ready and be at the facility by 9:30. I could get up slowly, make some coffee. Drink it as I made something for breakfast. Yesterday had been fun, I had really liked Dr. Jeffords. Peter, he had asked us to call him. My neck felt a little funny. I must have slept awkwardly. Oh, and I needed to pick up some…
My mind trailed off and I froze. The slurry of tired thoughts all dispersed as my mind focused intently on the one that had just entered it.
The rain was tapping out a pattern. Intricate, impossibly nuanced rhythm. Something almost musical, deliberate, dense with information. I focused intently for several seconds, as a deep sensation of unease overtook me.
I shook my head and tossed the blanket off my lap. No. I was just groggy. That was just what rain sounded like, right? I had wanted to stay in bed longer, but I felt fully awake now. Coffee. It was time for coffee.
-———————————————–
I arrived at the facility at 9:12 AM. I parked, and walked towards the entrance. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day, 24 degrees or so, and sunny with a light breeze. I fiddled in my pocket for my lanyard, and swiped my card at the entrance doors. A pleasant sequence of tones and a subtle mechanical click sounded as the light above the door flashed green. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Good morning James!” It was Peter. He had a warm and welcoming smile. “Can I get you some coffee? We’re meeting in the briefing room in about fifteen minutes.”
“No thanks, I had some this morning. Could go for some hot tea, maybe?”
“Yeah there’s some in the break room. And O’Lewis brought bagels! Come on, this way!” He gestured for me to follow him, his smile still warm and inviting.
I felt a sense of comradery and contentment as I glanced around the break room at the handful of men and women in white coats with lanyards around their necks. I pulled up on the red colored tab on the water dispenser, sending hot water trickling into the styrofoam cup in my other hand. Peter handed me a tea bag.
“We’ve got a lot planned for today,” he looked in my direction and I opened my hand to accept the tea bag. “Around half the team is new, so there’s going to be a lot of review as to what we’ve done so far.” He walked over to the toaster on the counter a few feet away. “Bagel?” he asked as he popped two of his own out of the toaster and began to smear them with butter.
“No thanks, tea is fine. Made myself some eggs and bacon this morning.”
“Suit yourself.”
As I sipped on my tea, Dr. O’Lewis entered the breakroom.
“Alright everyone, briefing room, two minutes. Chop chop!” She seemed to be in a good mood.
We made our way to a spacious, comfortable room down the hall with a large elliptical table in the center, and sat around the edges. There were twelve of us in total. Dr. O’Lewis took a seat at one of the vertices. She greeted us and pulled several thick manilla folders out of her briefcase.
“So we’ve all seen the anomalous object, and we’ve all met each other. Let’s get all of you caught up on the research so far.”
A researcher spoke up. He seemed nervous. I had met him yesterday but did not remember his name. “Are we going to be studying the machine at all today?”
There was a long silence. It occurred to me that I had not had any idea what the object was, and yet hearing that… hearing ”machine”… I realized it could be nothing else. Of course it was a machine.
A wave of puzzled faces washed around the room.
“How did you know it was a machine?” Dr. O’Lewis spoke up.
The man joined the rest of us in looking puzzled for a moment, then he responded, “I’m not sure. I guess I just assumed.”
A murmur of agreement went around the room. We all knew it was a machine. Of course it was a machine.
Dr. O’Lewis scribbled some things down on a notepad, then answered the man’s initial question. “We haven’t really decided how to proceed with the…” she paused. “With the machine. We will most likely simply be briefing and brainstorming today.” And with that, she began.
I had learned a lot of what she told us when I was brought on for this project. The machine came into government possession a little over a year prior, though it was apparently “classified” as to where it came from or how it was procured. This facility was owned and run by the government and dealt mostly with research and development for military technology, but I was told often dealt with fringe or unorthodox research projects. It made sense, as we had a lot of expensive specialized equipment here, and the nearest residential neighborhood was only a little closer than my own, around a 25 minute drive.
Over the past three months of research, they had learned very little about the machine. There was a team that came before us, but Dr. O’Lewis did not discuss much about them, or why there was a new team. She did, however, talk about the six researchers who had been replaced over the last week. Three had quit, citing “mental health” or “needing family time.” One had been found dead in his apartment, pending investigation. Two had gone missing entirely. The how’s and why’s were not discussed. Though she presented all the information as professionally and anodyne as possible, we all became visibly uncomfortable during this point in the briefing. We knew coming into this job that there had been issues with the past researchers on this project, and had all agreed to work on it in spite of this. But having previous knowledge of these events did little to ease the feelings of discomfort that arose. The churning sensation in my stomach returned.
-———————————————–
I woke up the next morning in the dark, shivering. It had gotten colder after sunset last night, and the heating in my apartment was subpar at best. I unlocked my phone and checked the time. 5:47 AM. I pulled the blanket tighter around myself and rolled over on my side, hoping desperately that I was not yet too lucid to fall back asleep. The attempt proved futile, and after just a few short minutes of scrunching my blanket around me, I let out an exasperated sigh and climbed out of bed. At least I could make some hot coffee and have plenty of time to myself. Yawning and rubbing my eyes, I walked down the dark hallway into the bathroom and flicked on the light. I turned on the faucet and splashed a bit of water on my face, switched off the lights, and headed into the kitchen.
The pale blue light of the coffee maker was all my eyes had to latch onto in the darkness as I sleepily strolled toward the counter. I looked out my window. The night sky was uncharacteristically barren and I was greeted with only the flickering of the streetlamp halfway up my street. They had all gone out over the years. All except that one, which continued to flicker, as if continuously gasping for breath to fight its own inevitable demise to wear and tear. I yawned, lazily bringing my right hand up to cover my mouth.
I looked down at my hand. Something felt wrong. As though I was experiencing subtle sensation outside the boundaries of my skin. But there was no sensation. Nothing was wrong with my hand. It didn’t hurt. There were no markings on it. But I stared at it in horror, frozen. I raised my left hand to level with my right. Neither hurt. Neither was marked or different in any way. My eyes widened, staring at my hands, and I wriggled my fingers.
I relaxed my hands down at my sides and shook my head back and forth abruptly. Tired. I was tired and cold and my hands were fine. Now, coffee.
-———————————————–
“Good morning team!” Dr. O’Lewis seemed chipper as she had the day before. “Today we will be conducting some tests with the machine.”
My eyes widened a bit and I shot a look around the table. I met the eyes of several teammates. They, like me, all seemed a bit surprised. O’Lewis continued.
“As you’re all aware, we’ve had some…” Her face shifted into a coy smirk, “…trouble… using technology around the machine. This effect seems to be entirely dependent on the machine being “visible” to the equipment. For example, a camera may function perfectly with the machine hidden behind a mere opaque curtain, while x-ray equipment may malfunction. This is why both the vault and inner safe have thick lead walls.”
She breathed slowly, as if reassuring herself, then continued.
“Today, we will be using some less ‘modern’ technology.” She turned and headed out of the briefing room, gesturing for us to follow her. “Part of the necessity for a team of twelve is your disparate areas of expertise, but… It is also important that we limit our exposure to the machine. We still know very little about it. Today, three of you will work with me in the vault. The rest will receive periodic updates with information and tasks to perform. You will be in here today.”
We had reached a new room, and Dr. O’Lewis gestured us in while she held the door. A long table lined the far wall, topped with a row of expensive looking computers. Along the right wall, shelves contained a variety of metal contraptions, shiny and with precise, machined parts. O’Lewis picked up a scale from the shelf. It was an old-school balance scale design, with a swiveling bar across the top connected to two baskets. Yet it was surprisingly modern, almost futuristic. As the scale lifted from the shelf, its top bar and baskets moved up and down in a smooth, elegant fashion, until the sides reached an equilibrium.
“This scale is about as accurate as a balance scale could possibly be. We will be dropping water into a container, and weighing that on a digital scale later.”
“You can’t even put it on a digital scale?” someone piped up.
“No. The scale we had been using would show an error message whenever the machine was placed on it. ‘Over Capacity.’ It’s a precise scale, and its capacity is only eight kilograms. But the machine only weighs about one, maybe two, based on preliminary estimation.”
“How do you move the machine?” another team member asked. A woman whose name I could not recall, but I remembered that she specialized in quantum mechanics.
“We use a special tool. It’s similar to a pair of crucible tongs, but it scoops up the machine from underneath so as to not potentially damage it. We don’t even know if it can be bent or broken. We also use protective equipment to ensure maximum safety while in close proximity.”
“And it has weight to it when picking it up? Feels like about a kilogram?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have a specific reason for not picking it up with our bare hands?”
Several of us turned to look at her with a look of surprise. It seemed almost a pointless question. Of course we shouldn’t touch the machine with our bare hands. But she was right. Was there any particular reason for that? Did we know that for sure?
The six original team members looked tense. Dr. O’Lewis looked less phased, as though she were prepared for the question this time around. She spoke with a graveness I had not heard before.
“Dr. Jerami Burroughs. Doctorate of neuroscience from MIT. You replaced him.” She glanced towards Peter, then continued. “He began to act erratic. Only a few days after the strange behavior began, during one research session inside the vault, he began staring at the machine with a vacant look. It was unnerving. After a few long seconds, I called his name. And.”
She paused and moved her hands to her temples and scrunched her eyes closed. This story was not one she enjoyed telling.
“And he suddenly snapped. Like he was a rubber band that had been stretched back and held in place for minutes, finally released. He bolted at the machine and lunged for it with his hands outstretched. And he ran. Out of the vault. He looked totally deranged. Like an animal. But Then. He collapsed.” The last words left her mouth with some difficulty, and her voice trembled. “We. We took him to the medical wing. He was. Fine. Still breathing. Alive, by all signs.”
The original six members were all looking at the floor. One woman sniffed loudly then brought her hands over her mouth and nose. O’Lewis continued on, steadier now.
“And then he was gone. We don’t know what happened. The nurse had left for less than a minute to grab something. And when she came back, he was gone. The camera footage from that room was corrupted. We still don’t know what happened, or where he might be. This was four months ago.”
O’Lewis paused and took several deliberate breaths.
“I’m sorry that we don’t have a satisfactory answer yet, Stevie. But we don’t touch it.”
That was the woman’s name. Stephanie. Stevie, she had told us she went by.
-———————————————–
I woke up drenched in sweat after a night of tossing and turning. I had had so many strange dreams, but could not recall any of their details. “Great,” I voiced the thought aloud. “I’ll have to call in sick today.”
And just when things had begun to get interesting, too. The machine had weighed 1.638 kilograms. It felt almost surreal, that our strange roundabout method from the day before had worked. That we had actually collected some concrete data about this unknowable, unimaginable thing.
It was already light out, so I must have slept in. I let out a wry chuckle as I fumbled for my phone. It was dead. Strange. Somewhere I read once that charging your phone overnight wears the battery out faster, and so I never did. But I never went to sleep without a healthy amount of charge; though I rarely relied on it, I always had a backup alarm set for 8 AM.
I pulled my blanket around me and headed for the kitchen. As I entered, I was startled to see the time on the kitchen’s wall clock. 9:52 AM. I groaned in exasperation, and went quickly to plug my phone into the countertop outlet. I would have missed calls. I would have to explain my situation. The colleagues I had worked with so far were all such kind, interesting people, and I didn’t want any of them to think poorly of me.
A cup of coffee and some Tylenol would do wonders, I thought. I wandered back down the hall into the bathroom and flicked the lightswitch. The familiar click did not dispel the darkness, and I impatiently tried several times more. Nothing. I snorted a laugh through my nose at the series of unfortunate events this morning continued to bring. There had been a high wind warning in our area the night prior; a power outage was likely in hindsight.
The small whisper of light that made it into the bathroom from the kitchen windows was just enough to illuminate the medicine cabinet, and I headed back to the kitchen with the bottle of Tylenol. My face contorted into a pained scowl as I glanced over to my lifeless coffee maker. I found a matchbox to light the stove, and put a kettle on to boil. There were enough coffee grounds left in the grinder for one cup, and I would have to make do with that.
The wind howled and I became acutely attuned to the tapping of a twig, or perhaps a leaf, on one of my window panes. A now familiar feeling of creeping dread rose in my stomach. Tap-tap-taaap-taptap-taaaap-tap. A rhythm, a code, a mathematical miracle, each transient of the taps separated by innumerable attoseconds, vast quantities of impossibly small slices of time, precisely chosen. Tap. Taptap. Tap. A symphony. Tap-tap. Taaap.
The suddenly shrieking kettle snapped me away from my rhizome of thought. I turned the flame off, then walked over and opened the window, sending any debris on its way in the gusts. It was a cold, bitter wind, and it felt refreshing in my feverish state. Too cold, but refreshing.
A dark, rich, comforting smell rose into my nostrils as I poured the boiling water through the filter into my mug. I inhaled deeply, thankful my sickness had left my nose runny rather than stuffed up. The smell was different than usual, more vivid. Almost effervescent, somehow. I moved the mug to my lips and blew softly before taking the first sip.
The taste struck me like a sudden jolt of electricity. It was like fire, not in its temperature, but in its complex, dancing, writhing, squirming tendrils of light and strangeness and beauty. I could not stop. I sipped slowly, continuously. A taste so impossibly complex, like a million flavors that had never before graced my tongue, each somehow both individually perceptible and indistinguishable from the whole. A euphoria of tranquil energy seemed to spread through my body as the dark, hot liquid slowly drained from my cup.
And then it was over, and the cup was empty. For a dazed moment, I sat staring down at the mug in my hands. I felt exhaustion sweep steadily back into my body, as though I had finally laid down to rest after a long journey. Blinking and rubbing my eyes, I stood and grabbed the bottle of painkillers. I shook three into my hand, then looked at the bottle. Regular strength. I shook out one more, for good measure. This cold, or whatever it was that I had, was nasty.
That was when I first saw it. Out of the corner of my eye through the kitchen window, across the street. A flash for a brief moment, and then it was gone. A person, or perhaps a large animal, I had thought. But even for that brief moment on the edge of my periphery, there had been something imperceptibly off about it that made my heart skip.
I tentatively moved toward my front door and opened it. The icy air met my skin, and a tingling shiver coursed outward from my core to my limbs. I stepped onto the front porch, wrapping my blanket more tightly around myself, and peered up and down the street. Empty, nothing but leaves and other debris blowing in the glacial wind. I stepped back through the door and closed it, still uneasy.
And then, as I walked back into the kitchen, there it was. Right at my window. Intense, pure, visceral, terror froze me in place.
The silhouette, of what looked to be a human person, was right in front of my window. The silhouette of that same beautiful, terrible, horrible, divine nothingness. It stood in place, making the same gentle movements a human standing still might, the edges of its silhouette shifting ever so slightly. It had something like sparks, or maybe glitter, fizzling at its edge. Thousands of tiny, glistening pockets of nothingness which budded from the figure and dispersed into the air around it, like a sparkler. I knew it was looking at me. No defining features were able to tell me this, and yet, it could not have been more clear.
I stood transfixed for what felt like minutes, before suddenly, the figure began to move. To run. Away from my window, at an uncanny speed which no human could muster. At that instant, the primal fear mechanic in my brain that had kept me frozen relinquished control of my body, and I darted out the door. To this day, I still do not know what overcame me, but I had to follow it. I could see it, up the street, moving at its breakneck pace. Casting my blanket aside, I ran for my car. I turned the ignition, only to be met with a gurgling sputter, fading to silence. The silhouette was getting smaller in the distance.
And then, an abrupt and overwhelming sense of peace washed over me. Something like I had felt from the coffee earlier, but deeper, more intrinsic and intuitive, like it was coming from my own innermost essence. I closed my eyes and felt my fingers grasping the key. The key to starting this phenomenally complex piece of machinery, full of its pins and pistons and tubes and bolts. A machine, as complicated as it was, far dwarfed by the complexity of my own personal machine, with its trillions of specialized cells, its electrical chemical pathways, its beautiful harmonic coexistence with trillions of other imperceptibly miniscule beings. My machine took in a quantity of air through its nose into its lungs, and sent a precisely rendered signal from its brain through to its right hand, turning the key.
The engine roared to life, and I opened my eyes. The silhouette had made it almost to the end of the street, far in the distance, and would be out of sight soon. I tore out of the driveway and into the street, full with determination.
Down several miles of road I followed the being, almost losing it around turns on several occasions. It seemed always to be quite far ahead, no matter how fast I was able to go. Finally, around one turn, I could no longer see it in the distance. I had lost it completely.
I slowed down. For a brief moment, I was discouraged, but was quickly reinvigorated when I noticed where I was. Avenida De Las Almas. A street on my route to, and only a few minutes away from the facility I worked at. In fact, this whole time I had been heading down the very same route I took to get to work. I pressed harder on the accelerator and got back up to speed.
I arrived at the facility’s parking lot and cautiously made my way toward the entrance. The figure was nowhere in sight, and the cold wind continued to pelt at my skin. I had not grabbed a jacket, and was still wearing the clothes I had slept in. I shivered as I turned around a corner to the final stretch of walkway leading up to the facility entrance.
And there it was, standing at the entrance, maybe 60 feet away. Dr. O’Lewis was beside it. My heart sank. I was too late.
They had clearly not yet seen me, and I quickly ducked back around the corner. I could just make out conversation over the whistle of the wind.
“Are you okay James?”
My heart fluttered. She was not yelling. She was talking to the figure.
“We were pretty worried about you this morning. Several of us tried to call.”
Silence. A sudden, deafening silence. Even the rapid gusts of wind abruptly ceased to sound. I peaked ever so slightly around the corner. Dr. O’Lewis appeared to be listening. But there was no noise. After a few moments, she spoke again, breaking the perfect quietude. The soft roar of the wind returned behind her voice.
“Wow, I’m so sorry you had to endure that. Glad you could make it today still, even if a bit late. Let’s get you out of the cold.” And with that, they stepped together into the facility.
I don’t know how, but I knew then and there that it was over. The project, the team, the research. I felt a wave of sadness, but also relief. Gratitude, even. No one else would be hurt. I walked back to my car and drove, and drove, my normally racing thoughts now few and far between, until my car was nearly out of gas. I made it back to my house, and collapsed onto my bed.
-———————————————–
I woke up the next morning to a call from Dr. O’Lewis. I already knew what she would say. “Good morning James!” The cheeriness in her voice sounded strained and forced. “Something happened at the facility. We don’t need anyone else on the team to come in today.”
I sat up in my bed, feeling surprisingly well rested. The fever was gone. “Okay. Can you tell us what’s going on?” I mustered through a content yawn.
“The machine went missing. We have no idea what happened, but we’ll keep you updated. Enjoy your day off, but be ready to come in if there’s any developments.” She sounded stressed, and I felt a twinge of guilt. There would be no developments.
“Okay. Thanks.” was all I could think to reply.
“Talk to you later, James. Have a good one!” She tried to end on a cheery note before she hung up.
I got up and began my morning routine.
-———————————————–
The machine was never found. A few weeks after everything that happened, the project was officially closed. We were all still paid the full amount that was offered in the original contract, which was nice. I’ve kept in touch with a few members of the team, but only a little.
There are so many questions I still have. Questions that I know will likely remain unanswered. But I’m certain of one thing. The machine was not made for us. It did not belong to us. And someone or something had wanted it back.