Burn Out the Day by Daniel Bautz

Author:Daniel Bautz [BAUTZ, DANIEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

The back of the old man’s neck looked like an eleven between the cuff of his jacket and the silver mane tightly cut. Edwin stood waiting for the man’s attention to rise from the printout of data, expense reports, and photographs. The bony, slender liver-spotted phalanges worked from page to page, then came back to the microwaved husk that was Alex. The elevens tensed. Erasmus Hawthorne chuckled. He set the photo back in front of him.

“I hope you can have prints made of these.” Erasmus licked his lips as he studied the picture of Alex. “Sit down and explain to me why you are still in Indiana. Then tell me why our crew is down two, the one who deserted and the other, how do you describe it, crispy.”

Doctor Bellew found a seat a few seats from his boss. “Crispy is an accurate description of our past tense crew member in Indiana. It's a very abnormal condition. In fact, I’ve yet to uncover anything like that in science to describe exactly how that incident unfolded.”

“Convection. Crispy outside and moist inside. And I hope, now, they are destined to be an always open case of a missing person.”

“Above my head, that one. Don’t want to know and not willing to entertain speculation to that end.” Doctor Bellew paused. The lopsided smile and glimmer in Hawthorne’s eye gave him that pause. He felt the gooseflesh begin to rise and his hair stand on end. Fight or flight response was triggering. “Back to the data and to the anomaly. That’s why we are still in Indiana. We have been at this for several years now. Yet we have only put theory into practice for just under a year. While we’ve been collecting energy from purported haunted locales, nothing ever suggested any truth to that hypothesis. In my mind, unexplained natural phenomena are still natural. There is no intelligible consciousness to it.”

“Yet?” Erasmus folded his hands with his elbows on the table. His overgrown white eyebrows perked up over his sunken dark eyes. “This doesn’t fit your worldview. Well, I hope you can find a way to tackle that issue forthwith. Time is running short. If we can, harness this more powerful phenomenon.”

“I’m working on it. I created a prototype that was twenty times the capacity of the original. It is now toast.” Doctor Bellew walked over to the paper in front of his boss and fished out a single sheet. “Look here. This is how much thermal energy was expounded before my equipment stopped working. This was almost equivalent to an atom splitting, but focused.”

“Then harness it.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’m not talking about just a narrow aperture when I say focused. The heat was enormous, and it radiated. But just one crew member died. This isn’t just anomalous. It is not some amorphous paroxysm or flashes deep inside of nowhere. This is focused. Intentional. Intelligent.”

Erasmus looked from the corner of his eyes. Edwin met his gaze. They sat without word. The air conditioning blowing into the room was all that could be heard.

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