Ellipse

Chapter seven

The train that led out of the city was not the nice train. Yet the nice train always departed at a nice time, which was quite annoying for the people who often traveled at night. It was only a few passenger carts, and even though it usually departed at night there was no place to rest one's head.
Mildred, Enoch and Adelaide sat across from Gladys, Roland, Monroe and little Peter. Peter was not happy, and in all honesty neither was the rest. Peter was unhappy because he had been woken up when he was not supposed to be. Monroe was unhappy because he did not understand the situation completely and did not know why the crazed man tried to kill them. Adelaide was unhappy because she had absolutely had no idea what was going on, but she knew her father was upset, and from the snippets she heard from their conversations whatever was happening had to do with life and death. This was also a fact that all of them knew for sure, some more serious than others. Gladys was unhappy because she knew what was going on, but it seemed to her that Enoch knew more about it then he had told her. And she did not like it when people kept secrets from her, especially when it was her own husband.
Enoch was unhappy because he knew what his brother had done was stupid, not only stupid but careless, Enoch could not put into words, not even in his head, what Mildred had done. Enoch could not even be mad at more, it was against his nature to be mad for long, what he was feeling now was a deep disbelief that his own brother would put him and his family into such danger for the sake of his own gains.
Mildred, of course had to be the most unhappy of the group, mostly because he knew exactly what was going on, and it was much more serious than everyone else perceived it to be. And in the moment he had an even greater wave of unhappiness roll over him when he realized that he had to tell them what was going on, but he could not tell them everything; and this was a troubling thing to organize in your head.
And lastly, Roland was unhappy because he could not focus on the unhappiness that he should be feeling, for his stomach had been kicked about like a football, both from the trauma, and the ride to the train station. And he couldn't do anything but stare at the dirty red carpet and inwardly moan.
Within all of this unhappiness, and most of them at least knowing a little, there was a great silence. The silence was followed by Enoch clearing his thought loudly, but no one looked at him as he did it. Everyone's attention was set primarily on Mildred.
Mildred's dark brows shaded his eyes, he knew he had to tell them. But the question was how much should he tell, and how much he should leave out? The problem with him leaving things out, is that Enoch somehow knew more then Mildred thought he did. But Mildred didn't know how much Enoch knew.
Mildred looked around at all the faces in the room, his eyes landing grudgingly on Monroe, who's fault all of this was and yet Mildred had the reckless impulse of saving them. And he realized with just a little regret, that if he hadn't gone to save him, he and his family would most likely not be in danger.
But he did have a heart, even if it was small and cold, he did have one. And more guilt was the last thing he needed, he already had enough to begin with.
In the silence of his thought, he began to notice how everyone was watching him intently, ready for what he had to say. Even Peter was looking at him, perhaps the baby had some questions of his own to be answered.
"There is a chance," Mildred finally said, "that we may get over this all in one piece."
He was trying to be optimistic, but then he realized that none of them knew it was as bad as it was.
"What do do you mean there is a chance?" Adelaide said baffled at her uncle's choice of wording. "And what do you mean all in one piece? I seem to be the only one in the dark about all of this."
"You are not the only one in the dark Adelaide," said Enoch, "just be patient and hear what Mildred has to say."
Again all attention was on Mildred, he began to twist his mustache. "Do you think it would be wise to speak of this matter as exposed as we are?" He said looking at Enoch, Monroe turned his head to look down the isle, the only person there was a very old woman sitting at the very end. She probably couldn't hear them even if she wanted to.
Enoch took his glassed off and gave Mildred a piercing stare.
"Fine, fine!" Said Mildred, "I suppose I can't delay this any further. I will start with-"
"Tickets?" Mildred turned sharply to the conductor, who leaned forewords waiting. They gave them their tickets, he punched them, and moved off towards the old woman at the end. Mildred heaved a sigh, "I will start with," he said again, "the ellipse."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Said Adelaide.
"just listen!" Mildred Snapped, Adelaide sat back in her seat setting her mind to staying quiet.
"The Ellipse as all of you know well is a powerful thing, it heats at movement, it gets hot enough to boil water, start fires and cooks things. But what if there was a different type of ellipse, one that did not need energy, but was energy itself. An object that could revolutionize the entire world, something that could change everything. What if there was something that was pure power?"
Monroe began to drum his heel against the floor, what was Mildred talking about?
"There is such a thing," Mildred continued, "this thing is called the dark ellipse."
Enoch put his glasses back on, he knew it.
"The dark ellipse is the key to the changing of our world, the beginning of a revolution."
"But what does it have to do with our situation?" Asked Adelaide forgetting to be quiet.
"Be patient," Mildred said patiently, "I'm getting there."
He took his hat off and looked around at everyone's faces, and then continued. "There is an organization (which is the only word I can call it at the moment) that has been in secret, studying the dark ellipse. They are very rare to find, in fact there is a limited number of these dark ellipses. When found they are hardly more than a small source of energy, yet a very rare source of energy. Once found, they must be contained in a machine, a stabilizer, when the source of energy is in the machine it must be fed regular ellipses. They need to be stabilized and fueled as it were to reach their full potential of power."
Mildred stopped and made sure everyone was following. Adelaide looked as if she had a question, but she stayed quiet. Monroe was most excited about this, what Mildred was explaining was extraordinary. He was so excited about it, that he almost forgot about the murderer who had been chasing them around just a few minutes earlier. Almost.
"I," said Mildred pausing despite himself to add effect, "found a dark ellipse," he twisted his mustache again, "the organization found me, promised me this revolution to be a part of. Wondrous things were about to happen, hundreds of people were in part of this. Building the machines, feeding thee great sources of power. I had to keep it a secret, and I agreed to reckless consequences." He said glancing guiltily at Enoch.
"But I wasn't going to fail, in fact the dark ellipse reached its full potential of power last night. Everything was going well, smooth sailing as you might say." Mildred stopped and sighed resting his chin in his hand.
"May I ask," said Roland, "what happened?"
Mildred gave a sick smile, an angry smile, more of a gnashing of teeth. "I don't know, I wasn't there. But I would ask your fool of a brother, he was."
Now everyone's attention was directed towards Monroe. Under all of the excitement he had hardly even thought about the fact that it was he who had destroyed the machine. From all of those inquiring gazes he had an awful feeling of numbness in his hands and feet.
"What did you do?" Roland asked, which he was hoping that he would finally get the answer to the question he had been asking all evening.
"Well," Monroe said, he suddenly felt a loss of words to say. He thought for a second, and then looked directly at Mildred. "I switched it off," he said finally, "I had no idea it would explode, if you had wired it correctly it would have turned back on when I flipped the switch."
The expressions on everyone's faces seem to lean in on what he had said.
"It exploded? What exploded, the machine?" Asked Adelaide, who Monroe was sure she was going to fall off her seat in the train, she was leaning so hard on it.
"It seemed the dark ellipse exploded from inside the machine, thus destroying it." Said Monroe.
"You shouldn't have even been there," Mildred snapped, "I can't have employees snooping through my office,"
"I wasn't snooping, I just came back for my hat,"
"You left it in my office?"
"No,"
"You're fired,"
"I figured." There was a silence, Mildred stared at Monroe angrily, Monroe looked at his shoes, and Roland slumped in his chair and sighed.
"Why were you in Mildred's office?" Adelaide asked Monroe.
"He left the door open and I noticed a strange light coming from it."
"You should have left it alone, it was none of your business."
"My business?" Said Monroe in defense, "I built the machine,"
"He did," Enoch put in.
"You built it?" Adelaide asked.
"Yes,"
"But why didn't you build it?" Gladys asked raising an eyebrow at Mildred. Mildred opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something in his defence, but he closed it. That was true, Monroe did build the machine when Mildred was supposed to. But Mildred knew that he had very little skills in machinery and if he had built it then it would not have worked, Mildred was no good at following directions.
"It doesn't matter who built the machine and who destroyed it," Enoch said, "what I'm most concerned of is the danger we are in. I want to know what kind of danger this is, and who is causing it."
Everyone's attention was back on Mildred, who took his hat off and put it on his lap, his face fell into a great seriousness. "There is a man who is in control of most of this, he doesn't give his name, we are supposed to call him General X, that's what he calls himself. He is a dangerous one, no one sees his face, no one knows his name. his identity is completely concealed, at least to any of us who are working on this.
'he collects people who are both willing, and able to find and activate the Dark Ellipses (I of course was the one who found him). But this work is on eggshells, if anything about the Dark Ellipses was to escape into the public everything that had to do with this organization would completely crash to the ground. And more then just progress and money would be lost if it did.
'So they made me pledge, and the pledge was to keep to the plans. They said that if I followed the plans I would succeed, but if I didn't and I failed... well there would be consequences."
The train whistled and slowed down to a stop, the elderly woman sitting at the very end of the coach stood, and slowly made it to the door.
"What..." Adelaide said, stopped, swallowed and continued, "what were the consequences?"
"This man told them to me in person, he did not exactly specify what they were in detail. But what he said was that if I failed, me and the ones who were closest to me would be destroyed. At first I thought he wasn't entirely serious, but that was before Gregory Pitts."
"Gregory Pitts," repeated Roland, "wait, that's the man who died in a construction accident!"
"No," said Mildred, "not a construction accident, the general X himself rid of him. You see Mr. Gregory Pitts was getting suspicious of the whole affair, he didn't like the fact that it was underground. So he Began telling people, but he didn't tell many, for before he had the chance to he was cut off. Or in this case, cut up."
"Hold on," said Monroe, "you mean the man who was chasing us was general X?"
"Yes, and both you and your brother would have ended up the same way as Mr. Gregory Pitts, if I hadn't come in to save you."
"But we didn't have anything to do with it," Roland said, "sure Monroe had built the machine, and had destroyed it. But he still knew nothing about the Dark Ellipse."
"It does puzzle me," Enoch said, looking up from the floor from his thoughts. "Don't you think you should have been his first target Mildred?"
"Yes, undoubtedly."
"Then why the Cliftons?"
It was a question that was on Mildred's mind, why Monroe and Roland first? They weren't going anywhere, but Mildred was. Why not Mildred first? There was only one answer to this question, but Mildred decided to hold it back from everyone else.
"This is all rather dreadful," said Gladys stroking snoring Peter's hair, "and the only question I have is what are we going to do to get out of this?"
Mildred sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his thinning hair, "that is my question as well, and I can imagine it is the one that is most important. I need some time to think."
The train stopped sat the town of Conk, where they got off the train.