Threshold (Old Version)

Chapter Eight

Footfalls echoed around me, paired with the unevenness of my breath. The security door clicked shut behind me, but I didn’t slow. Up the grand staircase, to the end of the hall, up the spiral staircase, finally stopping when the library door shut behind me. The musty sent of old books and a space rarely disturbed filled my nose. Heavy curtains covered the windows, only a vague, shadowing spattering of shapes being visible. I felt my way around the edge of the room, pulling away the thick fabric to reveal a quaint study.

I weaved around the chairs and desk and tables, scanning the bookshelves as I went. I’d fun across the files an era ago, and my brain wasn’t willing to pinpoint where, or where they’d ended up. It was like swimming through a pool of molasses memories. I focused my search in the corner opposite the main body of windows. I dug away binders, boxes of photos and even a picture album. For the first time the thought of my mom’s pictures couldn’t distract me. I shuffled through a pile of documentations, abandoning it to the side to continue my frantic search.

Charts, articles, logs, even a medical record, but none of the files I wanted. The papers slipped by in a blur, my eyes frantically trying to find a recognizable sketch, or familiar journal entry, or anything, any of the remains of my grandfather’s research.

Our legacy. My father had said that it was my family’s legacy.

I couldn’t believe that it could be true. I wouldn’t believe that it could become my legacy too.

A dark spot appeared on the paper in front of me, then another. I hurriedly wiped the tears off my cheeks and turned to the next case of papers. My hands shook as I read the first line. It was dated fifty two years prior, one February the 3rd, with a watermark reading Hawke and Blackwell Sciences.

I flipped to the next page, then skipped to the back of the section, landing on a journal entry dated September 22nd.

New designs coming together nicely. Eliot still worries about overloading the containment system, but energy hasn’t seemed too uncontainable so far. Should be ready for a preliminary test tomorrow, granted the involuntary harvesting prototype can be finished in time. Once again struck by the possibilities of converting the ethereal energy contained in Eliot…

The scrawling script continued down the page, ending with the signature of Rodger F. Blackwell. I set the journal entries to the side, carefully opening a manila envelope. A pile of sketches and engineering notes and schematics fell into my lap. The top piece was startling familiar. A diagram filled half the page, depicting a metal contraption, a mess of tubes and wires, fashioned into a sort of cuff.

The same device was no doubt clamped to Malachi’s arms at that moment.

I hastily read through the notes, in my grandfather’s same script, describing the energy harvesting device, an attached paper discussing the limited success they were able to manage. Occasionally a foreign handwriting would occupy a section of the paper, talking about the aftereffects of the device.

At the bottom of the page big block letters pronounced experimentation with the particular device “Ceased until further notice.”

One block of text caught my attention. My grandfather wrote about how Eliot was willing and eager to continue the trials, although cautious of the energy’s true power. How losing the energy rendered dream travelling a much more difficult task, although he was willing to brave the depletion. I knew of Eliot. I’d spent enough time with my paternal grandmother to hear stories of her husband and his best friend. Eliot and Rodger had been friends since childhood, and worked together until the day they died, in a tragic accident at their lab.

September 23. That had been the day they died. I always remembered because it’d been the day before my grandparent’s anniversary. My grandma also dedicated the two days as a memorial.