Invisible Death

GUIDED TOUR - The Inner Sanctum

The headache began discreetly, in the back of his skull, just an annoying presence. It started the moment he stepped out of the small electric car that took them from the Research Center to what their hosts called The Vault through corridors cut inside the mountain, linking caves and openings used for their natural size and protection. In many ways, that place, the facilities reminded him of his own Sanctuary. The principle was the same: make use of what was already there and adapt the huge spaces to fulfill their needs of security and secrecy. Just like Sanctuary, only a natural disaster of catastrophic proportions could threaten the integrity of the caves dug deep into the rock, which was in itself, the top of a gigantic underwater mountain range.

The place also reminded him of a very old movie he had seen as a child, a picture he had never forgotten. Not that he forgot anything, but this one was always fresh in his memory: Fantastic Voyage. An enormous scientific facility dedicated to a miniaturization process that enabled a small u-boat craft and its crew to penetrate a man's blood system, science-fiction at its best. Now, he felt as if he was living it first hand: the security guards, the hallways, the many check-points. And the coffer-like core of the project, the Vault itself, with its humongous, two meter thick stainless steel double doors, computer controlled and needing tracks to slide open.

Oliver St. Clair, obviously beaming with pride, had pointed out that, if necessary, the Vault could be sealed from the inside, protecting the project from intruders for days. According to the silver-haired man, the Vault could not be breached from the outside. "Come in, Sid Alif and Dr. Sharfan. This is my pride and joy."

The party entered a cave easily the size of many football fields. Two silver metal and glass tanks in the middle of the huge room drew their eyes immediately. The one to the left was obviously a sensory deprivation tank, something "Sid Alif" had seen many times before in Stanford, a device used to study the works of the human mind and where volunteers were cut off from all contact with the exterior world for specific periods of time. Those volunteers, many of them psychology students, were placed in a human-like box that floated on lukewarm water and they had CAT scans, magnetic resonance scans and many other readings studied while they laid immersed into themselves, without a single stimulus from the outside world disturbing their concentration. He had once volunteered himself to the experiment, just out of sheer curiosity. He had been placed inside the tank for one hour and, when released, he had vowed never to try anything even remotely similar again for as long as he lived. The imposed inactivity and claustrophobic environment had nearly driven him crazy.

The tank to the right was something else! Its outside appearance was not that dissimilar from the sensory deprivation one, but inside, no water would be allowed and the human-shaped container was quite different from the metal sarcophagus hanging from silver tubes inside the left tank. This one was also in the shape of a sprawled eagled human body, but with an inner lining resembling a fakir's bed of nails, with millions of prickly points. The head apparatus showed phones that would cover the subject's ears, goggles that looked like small television screens and a mouthpiece. At the figure's groin, where the legs intersected, a device that looked like a chastity belt was open and waiting for its next victim.

The visiting couple approached the tanks. With each step, Alif Sharfan's headache climbed up a notch.

"I've seen a sensory deprivation tank before," stated Samihah Shah. "But what is the other tank for?"

"It is a thing of beauty, isn't it?" beamed Ken Harrison. "It is the exact opposite of the SDT. It is a sensory overload chamber. I have a demonstration in the works for you. It will begin in a few minutes. Meanwhile, I'd like to show you my little babies."

Kenneth Harrison, primarily a botanist by trade, closely followed by the ever-smiling Thomasina Hobson, led the couple past rows and rows of computer workstations, control panels, equipment console mechanisms. He carefully explained what they did, what purpose they served. Samihah made comments and wooed over the high-tech gear. Her husband followed closely, not saying a word, but looking closely and paying attention to everything Harrison said. When he passed in front of the subject confinement cells, the gentleman approached one of the frosted glass doors.