frozen within time

Chapter nine - the ampex

Alex knew this wasn't possible. there was no way he could travel back in time. But he couldn't suppress a shiver as Karl led him back down into the vault for the third visit that day. they had hastily finished their food and were now descending the metal rungs once more.

Karl jumped the last few feet and was away down the corridor and opening the first chamber door before Alex and Kristen and holly had reached the bottom rung. They followed him into the main sitting room and saw him fiddling with one of the boxes of izal toilet paper in the metal shelving to the right of the door.

'Dont worry,' quipped Kristen. 'The curry wasn't that hot!' But Karl didn't pay her any attention. Now he was twisting something in the wall behind the cardboard packets and then he grunted with satisfaction. as there was a hollow rattle and the entire shelving unit swung towards him. Alex and Kristen gaped as a bright glow shone out in a fattening column in the wall behind the shelving. it was a hidden room.

'Good. light still works,' said karl.

'Karl,' said holly, doubtfully. 'Father said we weren't to go in! We weren't allowed!'

'That,' said karl, 'was before he froze us and disappeared for fifty three years. I reckon he would have let us in by the time we turned sixty. and I'm sixty six.'

Holly shrugged and followed him into the brightly lit chamber. Alex and Kristen looked at each other.

'Should we get uncle j?' Breathed Kristen. 'Shall I get him?' She gulped.

'If you like,' said Alex. 'But I'm going in.' He stepped into the room behind is and holly. It was small. About the size of a garden shed, with grey walls and more of the green swirly carpet. there was hardly any dust in it. Set into one of the walls was a small rectangular screen----perhaps fifteen centimetres across and rounded at the edges. it was dark green; showing nothing. beneath it was a monstrous machine of grey metal. It was the size of a piano, but bulkier and had large buttons and stubby black sliders on it. On the top of the machine, in a black spindle, Sat a large reel if what Alex recognised as d oxide tape in a metal wheel----the kind of thing early reel-to-reel tape machines hard; much bigger than the little reels in the recording machine which had greeted them in the other room. at the front of the machine the proud letters ampex stood out. Beneath them more letters read: Mark IV VTR.

Alex peered at it. Fascinated. He thought he might have seen something like it at the London science museum. 'Is this . . . . Is it a . . . . Video recorder?'
Karl looked round, his hands resting with excited reverence on the buttons and faders. 'Yes! It is! Isn't that amazing?'

'It certainly is,' came a voice from the door, and uncle John drifted in, yet more amazement on his face (a look which threatened to burn into his features for ever after today, thought Alex). 'How on earth did your father get hold of this? These weren't even commercially available until the autumn of 1956! And they cost an absolute fortune!'

'Oh well, father had a lot of connections,' said karl, greedily. 'He was a good friend of lodge----the man who helped develop this for CBS. This was a prototype. He only got it last month . . . .' Karl turned his attention go the Many ducts and wires that fed into the back of the huge machine. 'I think it's still connected up----I wonder if the camera still works.
Probably not.'

'Do you mean to tell me that your father set up a video surveillance system?' Gulped uncle John. 'His own CCTV?'

Karl blinked. 'CCTV?'

'Closed circuit television! His own camera----recording something around here?'

'Well----yes. that was what it was for,' said karl.