The Remarkable Palingenesis of Shelley E.

Chapter Five: The Test Results

The downpour returned, thick droplets pounding the thin canvas walls of the ambulance, soaking Ellström's legs and naked feet.

The sky rumbled and shattered. The ambulance clattered along the cobblestones knocking up buckets of water and justifiable curses from pedestrians.

"Bad night to be out," murmured Uriah and smiled tightly. Ellström grimaced in agreement.

"Stay with me, Uriah. I just have to get to the lab and shut it down."

"I'm not going anywhere, Shelley."

The carriage arrived at Ellström's home. Bits of broken glass from her previous escape crunched and popped beneath its wheels.

Uriah leapt to the ground. "Let's go then!"

"No - wait," said Ellström, touching his arm. "A two-pronged attack. You go to where the power comes in at the back of the house. Try to yank it free. You'll have to climb to it. I'm better off inside the house. I know exactly where to go."

Uriah lowered her down onto the ground where he held her for a moment "Keep your eyes peeled, Shelley."

He turned and sprinted towards the back of the house.

Ellström ran to the door and unlocked it. She gently pushed it open, but the door suddenly slammed back.

"Dammit!" she cried in surprise, just barely able to yank her fingers out of the way. Ellström looked over at the window she had smashed to bits during her escape. She threw Uriah's thick coat over the broken glass of the window frame and crawled through.

Inside the house, all was dark and still.

Ellström paused for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. She then quickly moved past the banister but stopped cold as something small and dark stirred at the base of the newel post. From the shadows, the strange little girl who had disappeared through her wall stepped towards Ellström.

" Well, what do you want? -What!" said Ellström, feeling the frustration mounting in her.

The girl jutted her little chin.

"I ...want...my ...whirligig!" she repeated with emphasis.

Ellström edged around her and started down the hall but yelled in agony as the girl grabbed her arm. Ellström stared, astonished as the girl began pushing her arm into Ellström's chest. "My...whirligig!" screeched the child. Ellström cried out and swatted her aside. She raced madly through the kitchen, knocking stacks of plates to a shattering finish while clutching at where the girl had touched her. She faltered and collapsed against the cupboards, staring back at the horrific little thing.

The girl, glaring, then quickly began to move towards her. Ellström with pain shooting through her chest managed to stand, but not before the small arms again plunged into her body.

A lightning bolt shredded the sky.

The power in the house flared, surging the machinery in the parlor. The power levels on the mushroom-shaped nodes dropped but did not go out.

At that moment, the child suddenly lost solidity and Ellström fell forward through her. The girl stared confusedly at her own phantom arms which then became solid once more as the power level of the nodes returned to normal.

Ellström seized the opportunity, throwing herself through the parlor doors and bolting them shut from within. She instinctively took a couple of steps back from the door and was instantly batted to the ground by a violent hand.

The rabbit headed thing called Hobbs loomed threateningly above her. Behind Hobbs, the ominously whining test nodes blasted off several wild arcs of energy and died.

Hobbs roar of fury was abruptly silenced as he vanished from the room.

Behind Ellström's unconscious form, the window revealed a disconnected power cable which spat forth angry sparks.

* * *

Ellström groaned and rolled to one side away from the sunlight that was streaming through her bedroom window. Suddenly she remembered the night before, and her eyes snapped open. Ellström nervously surveyed the room. Looking up, looking down, peering under the bed, then quickly darting her gaze back as she heard the door open.

Uriah smiling but concerned, eased his head into the room. "I have some breakfast if you'd like," he offered.

Ellström exhaled in relief and slumped back on the bed.

She noticed she was still wearing her hospital gown and quickly strode across the room, grabbed a crumpled lotus patterned dressing gown and covered herself in it.

Uriah moved into the room with a tray of black coffee, toast, boiled egg and a newspaper retrieved from the steps. "Are you feeling quite alright? I carried you to your bed. Don't worry about the others, I think that they must be gone. The machine is dead, so they shouldn't be here - correct?"

Ellström thought for a moment. "They were different here, in the house. They wanted something...me?...my body...?"

Uriah sat down beside her on the bed.

Ellström continued pensively. "The one in my room at the asylum said to me that she was real, just not alive."

"Souls must pass into the next life... Perhaps the machine is confusing them?" said Uriah.

"...or giving them the power they lacked to make their next life here amongst the living. They were at their most determined when they were nearest the machine!" observed Ellström.

"It's said that the dead shall rise again. Perhaps you're doing God's work, Shelley."

Ellström smiled "Perhaps...Or maybe the dead are just like everyone else...They want a second chance."

Uriah nodded at this thought and handed Ellström the coffee. Her tremulous hand raised the black roborative to her lips.

Late afternoon found Shelley Ellström asleep on her bed. A prodigious moth pounded furiously at the window from the outside. Ellström rolled over and looked at the remains of her breakfast. She frowned, pushing plate and cup aside to see the photo on the newspaper.

She sprinted from the room knocking the tray to the ground. The newspaper settled on the carpet.

On its front page a photo of a thin man identified as Nikola Tesla standing before an immense mushroom-shaped tower at the Wardenclyffe property on Long Island. The headline stated in bold letters:

Wireless transmission of power -Long Island, New York to Newark, New Jersey

BIG TEST TODAY!

Outside Ellström spied the horse-drawn ambulance of the previous evening. She sprang up into the driver's seat, cracked the whip, and set off down the street at a foolhardy gait.