Calan - The Immortality Paradox

Chapter Fourteen: The Draconian Scientist, Part One

Date: 375, OA19,655

Location: The Starrise Academy, Othello, Hanner Cylch

The access tunnel was claustrophobic. Professor Vanhi Johnson-Mallik was already reconsidering. Dazzling white light radiated from every angle of the cylindrical pathway as he wheezed through. In the distance he could see a dark circle of a doorway, but an illusion appeared to teleport it further away at every step.

Weighed down by his own hyperphagia, the Professor did not allow the pain in his screaming cells to defeat him. Ragged breath scraped through the gas filter across his face and reverberated down the corridor, but he went unfazed. Although he did regret wearing his most formal attire; the mixture of sweat and heat created an unbearable layer of moisture. Under-clothing clung to him like seaweed and his great, manganese violet cloak trawled laboriously behind.

The underground system in the Starrise Academy was a daunting maze that even the most conscientious of jīnshǔ mice would have found a challenge. Ventilation, power lines, transport tubes and irrigation interlaced like the threads of a nanovest. But the Professor had been exploring this labyrinth ever since his first undergraduate degree in OA19,580. After immersive dives into the mysteries of quantum mathematics, Johnson-Mallik would invaribly disappear down an indistinct channel and find himself on a weathered beach on the shores of Othello. Friends would later see him enter the dormitory during sunless hours looking as though he'd fallen into the Infinite Sea. These regular periods of disappearance continued throughout his postgraduate, post-doctoral and professorial research programmes until his habits were as customary as his presence at the Academy. At ninety-three years of age, the Professor had no intention of departing academia anytime soon.

When the circular door finally reached arm's length, he placed a finger on a touchscreen, which was enough for the pressurised metal to shift backwards to allow him inside. Another, perpendicular tunnel presented itself, much wider than the first. A solitary transport capsule awaited his arrival near a short platform. Vanhi heaved himself inside, reclining until his back was comfortably lodged into a cradle and a polycarbonate shield automatically unfurled into place overhead. Thankfully the capsule was air conditioned and he could feel the cool air wash over him. He didn't have to offer any instructions before the vehicle accelerated into a narrow tunnel and made its way deeper underground.

Minutes passed as the Professor nervously checked his criterion link. Flashes of information transmitted onto his retina gave detailed accounts of his colleagues' timetables and their locations throughout the Academy. In addition, heat maps showed the areas where students mingled. As expected, nobody ventured below the ground level apart from those using the Publicway shuttle connecting to the spaceport. No one could interrupt his clandestine meeting.

Within moments, the capsule decelerated and the tunnel opened out into another platformed area. A larger, old-fashioned hatch waited to be opened. After the shield had retracted, the Professor strenuously stepped out of the vehicle and reached for the door. Hands trembled as its weight and the momentousness of his actions overcame him. A makeshift lever needed to be pulled anticlockwise for the door to be unlocked and suddenly a fresh breeze took a lap around the chamber.

Blue-tinged blades of grass lapped at the entrance as the Professor's durable boots stepped from corrugated metal to rugged earth. The bunker opened out into a natural pit where the towers and castellations of the Starrise Academy were obscured behind a bank of saturated topsoil, but the crashing waves of the sea travelled with the lukewarm wind. He was on a familiar pasture northeast of the institution; a peaceful retreat where the Professor had spent hours watching the Gathergulls circling in the sky or listened in solace to the melodies of melancholy music. Renditions of the Ekhmianeba Symphony returned to him like whispers in the wind. It was the ideal location for a secret.