Emily's House: Book 1 of the Akasha Chronicles

Chapter 54: Dughall at CERN

Chapter 54: Dughall at CERN

 As Liam, Fanny and Jake tried to find a way out of their situation, in a room littered with dirty coffee cups and half-empty Coke cans, a bored young security officer listened to the idle chatter of his American ‘guests’. He spoke very little English so he didn’t see the point in him being the one assigned to this task. These people must not be much of a threat or else they would have assigned someone else. He was low man on the totem pole so he always got stuck with the cession de merde.

Little did the three American ‘guests’ know that they needn’t hush their voices or whisper to keep secrets. They also didn’t know that loudly emphasizing a point wouldn’t help either. For all intents and purposes, their communication was completely unmonitored, a fact which proved to be a helpful turn of events for Dughall.

Mr. Ted Schaeffer’s hands worked feverishly as he typed the coded instructions to make the machine a mile underground perform as commanded. The instructions were highly unusual and Ted Schaeffer knew it.

Most of the experiments at CERN were straightforward enough. Power it up, cool it way down, and when everything was a go, accelerate particles, collect the bits of stuff created by the collisions, then send all the data to a huge conglomeration of computers around the world to crunch numbers.

An immense and complex machine but a relatively straightforward idea. Spin, collide and collect.

But the experiment that his strange new supervisor handed him was unlike anything else. He would have gone over Mr. Dughall’s head too if it weren’t for the nagging feeling that his life depended on his fingers quickly and accurately entering the codes commanded by his new boss.

Ted Schaeffer wasn’t a physicist so it wasn’t his job to know all the intricacies of the reason for an experiment. But he was an engineer, and he knew the machine. And because he knew the machine, he knew that oscillating the frequencies of the magnetic energy created underground in the collider as rapidly as requested by Mr. Dughall could have disastrous effects.

But the guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was so sure of himself. Maybe I’m wrong. Ted Schaeffer cast his doubt aside and typed like a madman.

Even at the feverish pace that Mr. Ted Schaeffer typed, it took days for him to enter the complex instructions required to order the machine to perform as Dughall required. Dughall’s impatience almost got the better of him. It took extraordinary self-control, not to mention a swift kick from Macha, to keep Dughall from strangling Ted Schaeffer a few times.

“Remember your prize,” Macha said. Her tiny body delivered an amazingly strong kick to Dughall’s behind just in time to stop him from putting his hands around Ted Schaeffer’s neck and squeezing the life from him.

It took weeks of work at CERN, not to mention over a millennium in the Umbra Nihili, but finally the day was at hand. All was aligned. Finally, Dughall would triumph.

“Macha, repeat to me the instructions one more time so that I am sure that your tiny faerie brain gets it right,” hissed Dughall.

“After more than a thousand years of putting up with you, I still do not know why I do, you awful piece of rotted human flesh,” Macha retorted. “I will repeat your instructions though even a faerie with half its wits would find it no harder than beating their wings.”

“Just tell me woman. We have only one shot.”

“All right, all right. It is simple. In one hour, you will make your way down to the accelerator and drink the potion I brewed for you. Remember, the protective effect will last only five minutes at most, so you must be right on the mark. If you are there any longer, you will freeze instantly.”

“I know that Macha. You are telling me my part. What I am concerned about, my little gnat, is that you remember your part.”

“At exactly the appointed time, I will press that green button and put in the code you have typed for me. I will hit the enter button then sit back and watch all hell break loose.”

“If all goes right, yes, you will have quite a show. Hundreds of crazed humans will go insane with fear at the same time. I am only sorry that I will miss out on the fun.”

“If all goes as planned, you will be through the portal and on your way. But Dughall, if this works ... ”

“What do you mean if? My calculations are exact. It will work.”

“Yes, well when it works, what will happen here? The portal you create will be tremendously unstable. It could rip the fabric of space time.”

“That is the idea my dear Macha.”

“But what will happen to it? Will it grow? Or collapse on itself?”

Dughall had expected her question and was surprised that it had taken Macha so long to ask it. She was an annoying flea of a faerie at times, but she was exceedingly bright for her kind. The tiny remnant of humanity still hidden somewhere inside Dughall had some unpleasant feelings about what may happen to Macha when he created the anomaly.

The truth was that there would be a mighty explosion that would destroy the machine the humans had spent so much money and time to create. But since it would occur a mile underground, it likely would have no effect on the humans up top.

But that wouldn’t be the end of the story. And he couldn’t bring himself to tell Macha the truth. If creating the portal took the life of Macha as well as all the others at CERN that was of no matter to Dughall. It was a sacrifice that he was willing for them to make.