Section F: Fairy Tales & Physicists

Chapter 32

Fields yawned. Not out of disrespect, just simple tiredness. "Yeah, yeah. You know, I might have been wrong about the villain thing, Frankie—you've certainly got the monologue thing going on. Is there a point coming?"

Featherstone raised his gun again. "You want a point, Agent Fields? Very well. The point is that I'm in charge now. So, you will shut that insolent mouth of yours, and you will do as you're told!"

Fields fought down the urge to keep needling the scientist—for the first time, the look in his eyes suggested the possibility he might be capable of pulling the trigger. "Oh, yeah? And what's that?"

"You will take me to Dr Radovic. I will explain my new purpose to him. He needs to see that I have changed." Featherstone swallowed. "And I need to convince him to give me a second chance."

Given the rapid pace of events, Fields had more or less forgotten he and Graham were the only ones who knew Radovic was a charred corpse cooling in the torched wreck of his SUV. And somehow, he had the sneaking suspicion now may not be quite the best time to bring up that particular little nugget of information. Telling a wounded, semi-crazed gunman you'd just barbecued the person he considered to be his only friend did not feel like a move likely to calm the situation. He decided perhaps some digression may be a better option. A little diversion. Possibly with a dash of obfuscation thrown in.

"You know I can't do that. You need to stay right here and shut that portal down. Take care of that, and I'll see what I can do."

Featherstone glanced out at the titanic green maelstrom soaring into the darkened sky, before turning back to Fields, a hint of smugness clearly visible on his drawn, pain-lined face.

"Oh, that? Already taken care of. I told Agent Peregrine I would do my best to close the portal, and that's precisely what I've done. Despite what you might think, I'm a man of my word."

Great. Still a dumb-arse and still delusional. Fields pointed at the portal. "Well, what the hell is that, then? Swamp gas reflecting the light from Venus?"

The smugness turned to puzzlement. "What? No, of course not. The light from Venus would be far too faint, and even if it wasn't, I hardly think the reflectivity of swamp gas would be—"

"Frank! What I mean is, if you've shut down the portal, then why is it still bloody there?"

"Oh, I see. That was sarcasm, wasn't it? I never was very good at sarcasm. That's one of the reasons I'm partial to fairy tales, you know. Very little sarcasm, in fairy tales. Or innuendo. Or irony. Or any of those complicated aspects of social interaction I never really got the hang of. Everything is so straightforward, in fairy tales. Just good and evil, heroes and villains, right and wrong, and always a clear path to follow." Featherstone sighed. "If only real life was like that."

Thinking back over the day he'd been through, Fields found it a little hard to disagree. Not that he was about to admit it. "Whatever. But the portal?"

"Ah, yes—the portal. You may rest assured the process that will result in its closure has been put in place, Agent Fields.

"Er, right." Fields was a little nonplussed, and a not a little relieved. "I see. Well, that's...good, I guess. So, we just wait?"

"Wait?" Featherstone looked shocked. "Oh, no. No, no, no. Definitely not. We must leave. We can't possibly stay here."

"Why the hell not?"

The thin lips formed into a lopsided smile. "I don't think you were really listening to me, Agent Fields. I told you it was time for a clean slate. That I was going to wipe away all of my mistakes."

Fields' relief evaporated, as his blood ran cold. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's very simple, agent. Well, for me, it's very simple. For you, I'm afraid it's terribly complicated. But I'll give you the super-simplified version, shall I? The version suitable for a—what was that charming word you used, before? Dumb-arse, I think it might have been? Yes, that was it. Especially for you, here's the dumb-arse version, Agent Fields.

"As you no doubt see it, the portal is a passage to other planes of existence—to other worlds. In actuality, it is much, much more than that—it's a tightly-structured, complex, higher-dimensional manipulation of the fabric of spacetime—but for the sake of simplicity, let us continue to think of it as a simple doorway.

"Now, most doorways admit traffic in two directions—in and out. Yet our portal appears to be an exception, allowing incoming traffic only. Why do you think that might be, agent?"

Fields shrugged. "Because science?"

Featherstone ignored him. "I'll tell you why. It is because that's how I designed it. I couldn't very well have my creation vacuuming up anybody or anything that came near it, could I? So, I incorporated an Einstein-Rosen gate. A gate that blocks outgoing traffic."

Fields felt some kind of response was expected. "Yay?"

"Yay, indeed, agent. The Einstein-Rosen gate was the only reason I dared activate the portal unenclosed, out on the hangar floor. While I realise that was a mistake, the gate has at least ensured that nothing within the portal's radius has been lost from this world. Until now."

"Um—boo?"

"Save your boos for yourself, Agent Fields. For it was you who deactivated the Einstein-Rosen gate, when you cut that cable. It is you who has consigned everything that falls within the portal's expanding radius to a one-way trip out of this universe. And it is you who has helped me to achieve my clean slate. Thank you, Agent Fields—thank you."

"I...but..." Momentarily speechless, suddenly bereft of his former reckless bravado, Fields stared out at the colossal green column, its tremendous, pulsating girth inching ever outwards. "But you said you'd deactivated it."

"No—I didn't. What I said was that the process to shut down the portal had been put in place."

"Huh? Well, what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, then?"

"It means the process requires activation, Agent Fields." Reaching into a pocket of his lab coat, Featherstone retrieved a smartphone. "Activation provided when I enter a code into this device. A code I will enter, once all evidence of my past mistakes has been erased."

Well, you'd better get yourself down to the morgue, Fields managed to refrain from saying. And looking at that haircut, you should probably pay your barber a visit as well. Despite the constant and repeated setbacks, the day had presented him with, he couldn't help but feel a faint flicker of hope. As bonkers as Featherstone may be, he had the closure of the portal—and therefore, the saving of the world—at his fingertips. Fields just had to keep those fingertips (and the dumb-arse attached to them) on the right track.

"Okay, sounds fair. Now, let's—"

"Oh, I'm not done, Agent Fields," interrupted Featherstone. "I'm not quite finished. There's one more thing I require, before I enter the code."

Fields felt just a little of his waning bravado revive. "For you, Frankie—anything. What's it gonna be, science-boy?"

Featherstone returned the phone to his pocket. "Before I enter the code..."

"Yes?"

"Before I shut down the portal..."

"I'm all ears."

"Before I save the world from annihilation..."

Fields managed to stop his eyes from rolling. "Spit it out, Frank."

The pale, strained face broke into a wistful smile. "I need to see Dr Radovic."

Both bravado and hope vanished, so fast there was an almost audible pop in Fields' head. He sighed.

Bugger.