Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > SF > The Alchemist, the Angel and the LHC Part 5
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1273 guests online and 2 members online |
Science Fiction and Fantasy
| print friendly version | |
| The Alchemist, the Angel and the LHC Part 5 | |
| By John_O | ||
| 15 September 2008 | ||
|
So we reach the end. The End for the LHC? Telling the two assistants that Helga had died was unexpectedly painful for him and he sent them home for the day as much to ease their loss as to remove their presence from number 11 for they only served as reminders. He rang into his office and informed them that he would not be going to work due to his bereavement. The autopsy would not take place until late morning and he would not be able to take possession of her body until that formality was complete. Leaving the roadster in the basement Jonny walked out of the house a little after nine o’clock and caught the tram down to the lakeshore. There he found a quiet spot and made the necessary phone calls, alerting his solicitor here in Geneva, a funeral home, her parish priest and lastly a stone mason. Helga had a place reserved for her in a Catholic cemetery; she had chosen it herself and taken him there once. “Lay me here Jonny.” She had told him. When he had asked her why she did not want to be returned to her native Germany she had shaken her head. “It does not matter where the body lies, only where the soul resides.” He sat on the bench and closed his phone. “Where the soul resides.” He said softly and felt the awful ache of loss. Artemesia felt it too but her love for him radiated undimmed and he was grateful for her support in that desolate moment. For three days he only appeared at the office for a few hours in order to keep the paperwork torrent in check and perhaps hold a single important meeting, but the rest of the time he was arranging the funeral details and preparing for the final goodbye. The service was well attended by Helga’s friends and a good many came to the interment and the gathering at number 11 afterwards. Jonny felt buoyed by their presence and when they had all departed he knew that he must go to the LHC and check that all was well on the floor even though it was now early evening. He stood in the big experiment hall and gazed around, the clutter of the builders had given way to the slightly more ordered clutter of the scientists and technicians as they prepared for the first experiment. “How you doing?” A familiar voice asked from behind. “Surviving Klaus.” He replied. “Anything you need?” The Texan enquired as he stopped beside him. “No thanks, you guys have been giving me the space I needed and fielding most of the crap.” “Least we could do.” “Are we still on schedule?” “Yup, three days and we’ll re-create a little bit of primeval history right here.” Klaus said with a sweep of his right hand. “Little bang.” Jonny quipped lightly. “Big as we can make it.” Klaus chuckled. “Big enough.” Jonny looked down at his companion. “Thanks Klaus.” He held out his hand. “You’re welcome Jonny.” Klaus responded warmly, gripping the hand. After Klaus had left him Jonny ‘listened’ carefully for a moment. Under the hum of electronics and the hiss of ventilation ducts he could ‘hear’ a harsher motion, his little surprise, and he nodded his head in satisfaction. “Bring it on Gabriel.” He murmured and felt Artemesia’s unhappiness. He felt strangely calm in the hiatus. His own workload dropped away as the last checks were completed and the LHC was prepared for its first experiment, a simple collision at only 90% full power. There was an expectant tension building in the complex, some of the men and women on site had worked for many years to bring this experiment to fruition, they were as tightly wound up as a spring. Jonny became less a commissioning manager and more of a diplomat as he welcomed leading scientists from the worlds other major accelerators and led tours for the ministers of the many countries who were footing the awesome bill for this enterprise. On the day itself he saw that all the dignitaries were comfortably in place in the visitor facility with plenty of food, wine and pretty hostesses whilst he sloped off to chat to the scientists who had gathered for the accelerators equivalent of ‘first light’. Then he quietly excused himself and went back to his own office and locked the door. “Drishnark.” He summoned the demon to him. “Master.” The vile creature said obsequiously with a bow as the choking mists about it dispelled. “All is ready?” “It is master.” “Go, take your place.” “Master.” Drishnark said gleefully and gave Artemesia a smile of wicked delight before he faded from their sight. “Don’t.” Jonny held up a hand to her before she could voice her objections. “You know that I am right, Gabriel can not be allowed to cause so much death.” She gazed back at him and lowered her eyes. “Yes Jon. But the price is high.” Jonny reflected on her statement, perhaps it was, but he thought too of the Old Testament and Abraham’s bargaining with God over Sodom. “I trust my Lord will not be angry if I speak once more: perhaps there will only be ten. I will not destroy it. He replied. For the sake of the ten.” He gazed back at her as he spoke. “There are more than ten good men in Geneva Mesi, I will not stand by and let them die.” Then he turned to his computer and activated the suite of programmes that he had carefully inserted into the control mainframe, shadow routines that could take control at a keystroke. “Guard the door Mesi, I think Gabriel may want to settle a score with me personally.” He caught a reflection in the monitor, she had laid aside her angelic form and clothed herself in a huge and aggressive demon carcass, that would give the Arch Angel pause for thought and buy them both a few precious moments. He would have prepared the room more carefully had he been facing a demonic threat but no alchemist had ever devised protections against angels and it was far too late to start now. The screen lit up with figures and graphics as the accelerator approached the target power level and two beams of protons silently screamed around the huge circle at just fractions less than the speed of light. The countdown began, five minutes. He felt a stirring in the fabric of the complex around him, forces being readied. Four minutes. The room filled with harsh light as Artemesia unsheathed her unholy blade of fire. Three minutes. A low moaning sound reverberated in Jonny’s head and it began to spiral higher and higher, the angelic battle cry. Two minutes. A new light reflected in the monitor as a cold angelic presence insinuated itself into this dimension and there was a sound of surprise. “Welcome Gabriel.” Jonny said turning around to see the Arch Angel warily sizing up the huge demon that confronted it. One minute. “Thou may delay thy end but this place is forfeit.” Gabriel said with terrible certainty. “Drishnark.” Jonny said in reply and all hell let loose. The legions of angels that had stealthily entered the world all around the LHC ready to trigger the cataclysmic earthquake suddenly found themselves under assault from equal numbers of their foes. “I brought a few ‘friends’ to the party Gabriel.” Jonny said with a grim smile. “Hope you don’t mind.” “Fiend!” Gabriel snarled and rushed away to marshal the hard beset angel legions. Monitors in the control room registered strange signals as the angels and demons clashed in silent and unseen carnage all about them and the fighting inside the main experiment hall detection chamber was leading to aetheric energy spillover that was being picked up by the sensitive detectors. “Showtime.” Jonny murmured and let his finger fall on the enter key. Instead of a single planned collision event, streams of protons collided in a near constant series of impacts sending newly created particles and hard radiation spewing out of the empty aether. There were screeches of surprise and pain from both sets of combatants as the hail of creation and annihilation strafed them; they broke away and fled the battlefield. The fight had lasted for less than ten seconds, there had been many losses on both sides but the LHC still stood and the gulf between heaven and hell was as wide and unassailable as it had been at the dawn of time. “Gabriel?” Jonny questioned the air. “I am commanded to restrain my hand.” The Arch Angel’s voice said without emotion. Jonny shut off his computer and stood up to stretch, there would be a meeting, probably tediously long, to discuss the glitch in the system that had fired the experiment off early, but hey, glitches happened. The harsh light of the demon sword was extinguished as Artemesia returned to her angelic form with tears rolling down her cheeks at the loss of so many angels in the brief apocalyptic battle. Jonny knew that no words could assuage her grief, only his love would do that. “Come to me my love.” He bade her softly. In the dark recess of number 11 Alchemiestrasse that was the walled off laboratorium, a louring light briefly illuminated the alembics and retorts then faded away. All seemed undisturbed, unchanged, but a dark shadow now sat hunched upon a stool. Drishnark brooded evilly upon its wounds then raised its vicious clawed hand to lick the angelic essence from the talons as it savoured its conquests.
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||
Next item
|
|---|