All previous chapters - CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3 - CHAPTER 4 - CHAPTER 5 - CHAPTER 6 - Chapter 7 - CHAPTER 8 - CHAPTER 9 - CHAPTER 10 - CHAPTER 11 - CHAPTER 12 - CHAPTER 13 - CHAPTER 14 - CHAPTER 15 - CHAPTER 16 - CHAPTER 17 - CHAPTER 18 - CHAPTER 19 - CHAPTER 20 - CHAPTER 21 - CHAPTER 22 - CHAPTER 23 - CHAPTER 24 - CHAPTER 25 - CHAPTER 26
Previously on “The bomb in the shed…”; When Arthur can’t get Elizabeth to appear Fitzpatrick hurts him badly, causing her to return and speak through Arthur, controlling him. Then Fitzpatrick triggers her memories of the day she died
And here we go with CHAPTER 27…
Chapter 27
New Mexico dessert - 2003
Elizabeth answered her phone on the first ring. “Bear? Oh my God, I’ve done it.” It was frustrating he hadn’t called back straight away. She’d been nervously pacing the lab, burning to share the news and cursing him every two minutes. But now he was on the phone all was forgiven.
“What are you talking about?” he replied.
“The scaling problem, dummy. I know how to solve it.”
“How?”
“Get your ass down here. I’ll show you.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Arthur.
It was a fair question. He hadn’t been back to the facility since they’d reduced the team to a skeleton crew.
“It’s ok, I’m alone. Everyone went home hours ago. Besides, no one’s going to care once they found out what we’ve done.”
She rang off before Arthur could argue with her. He’d be there. It would take him a while though, ninety minutes maybe at that time of night. Such a long time to have to wait with all the pent up excitement inside. She went back over to her desk and kicked her chair aside (she was too excited to sit), dropped the phone and pulled up the test results on the screen again. She’d never get tired of looking at them. A small part of her worried that something might have changed in the meantime, that what she’d seen was some kind of digital mirage. But there it all was, as before. Proof her new theory was right. It had come to her in a flash of inspiration, the breakthrough. Though in reality it wasn’t a pure eureka moment. It was the natural conclusion of her and Arthur’s work together, bouncing ideas off of each other, reaching higher and higher.
Arthur would freak when he saw it.
She knew he would.
“Who were you talking to?”
The voice rang out loud over the quiet hum of the lab. Elizabeth whirled round, heart in her mouth. It was Fitzpatrick standing right behind her, an odd look on his face. How had he got up so close? She hadn’t heard a thing.
“Jesus, Robert, you made me jump. I thought everyone had gone home.” She said it with a nervous laugh.
Fitzpatrick didn’t smile back. “Who was it?”
He was staring at the phone on the desk. It was the pre-paid cell phone she’d bought for the sole purpose of speaking to Arthur. To make sure their conversations stayed private. She’d only ever used it outside the lab until now, but today she couldn’t help herself.
“It’s personal.” What business was it of his who she called?
Fitzpatrick studied her for a moment, it was uncomfortable, but she held his gaze. He was standing too close to her, his breath sour with alcohol. A bottle of bourbon was always close to hand somewhere in his office. He’d offered her a glass that night all those years ago.
“What’s this?” He’d turned his attention to Elizabeth’s screen
It was a relief to change the subject, she didn’t want to talk to Fitzpatrick about Arthur. She didn’t particularly want to get into the test results either though, Arthur should see them first. The two of them needed to work everything through properly before announcing the news. Right now all she needed was to get Fitzpatrick out of their hair.
“It’s nothing, just going over some interim tests.”
Fitzpatrick shook his head, a look of weary disappointment on his face. Like he was dealing with a child who’d just failed a simple test. “Don’t lie to me, Elizabeth. I’ve been monitoring everything you’ve been doing for days now. Tell me what’s going on.”
Monitoring her? As if their relationship wasn’t creepy enough. Did he have access to her computer and calls? Had he seen the test results already? She had to come now, what choice did she have?
“Ok, I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. But I think we’ve made a breakthrough.” She couldn’t keep the thrill of excitement from her voice. Even though Fitzpatrick was the last person she wanted to be telling right now. “I reckon we’re close to a fully functioning pure fusion prototype. Maybe only weeks away.”
“Show me.”
Fitzpatrick’s voice was dead pan, her sense of excitement clearly not contagious. She began talking him through the results. It really was beautifully simple, once you could see it. Even he’d be able to understand.
“Ok. I get it.” Fitzpatrick cut her off, holding his hand up like a cop stopping traffic.
“There’s a lot more.” She’d barely got started, but he didn’t seem interested. If anything he looked sad.
“Elizabeth, you have to stop.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I said you had to walk away from this and pretend it never happened, could you do it?”
He was looking at her like he always did when he thought she was going crazy and was deciding whether he could talk her down. She let out a nervous laugh, incredulous. Couldn’t help it. He had to be joking, right? Why would she walk away from something she’d been working years of her life to achieve.
Then she stopped laughing.
He looked deadly serious.
Which made her pause and re-evaluate the situation. It was the same sixth sense that had kicked in that night all those years ago. A red flag, awareness of imminent danger. He’d propositioned her. When she’d told Maria all about it her friend had thought what he’d done many degrees worse than that. And there had been other red flag episodes since. Rare and isolated, but moments Elizabeth had felt really uneasy in Fitzpatrick’s company and had been careful to navigate her way out of difficulty. Tonight it was late, they were alone and he’d been drinking. Perhaps this could be one of those situations.
“Look I’m tired,” she said, trying her best disarming smile. “Why don’t we talk about this in the morning.”
Elizabeth closed down her screen, grabbed her bag. It wasn’t just what he had said that was freaking her out. It was the way he said it, a hint of desperation, the alcohol stronger on his breath than she’d first realised. She could call Arthur from the car, meet him at their bar instead. She needed a drink.
“Elizabeth?” Fitzpatrick had a gun in his hand, pointed right at her.
“What are you doing?” It was all she could think to say. It was such a shock. Meanwhile a voice in her head was screaming for her to run, to hide, to do something. But her feet were rooted to the spot.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
She heard a muffled bang, like a firecracker going off or a car backfiring, and felt a thump in her stomach that sent her staggering backwards. She stumbled against her desk then fell and slumped into her discarded chair, rolling back a couple more feet on its wheels. Her hand went to the wound where blood was already staining her blouse, flowing freely.
“You fucking shot me?”
All she could think of was the absurdity of it all. Normal people don’t shoot each other in a lab. They were scientists for Christ’s sake. Fitzpatrick was staring at her, as if he couldn’t quite compute what had happened, even though it was his gun, his trigger finger. He walked over, bent down so his face was just an inch away from hers. Instinct and nausea would have had her flinch and pull away from him, but she couldn’t move, she was still prone on the chair. Her nostrils filled with the smell of Fitzpatrick’s stale sweat, and cordite.
“Robert, you need to get me to a hospital.” Her voice was weak and she could hear the pleading in her own voice. Hated herself for it despite the situation. But she didn’t want to die here in the lab hundreds of meters below ground. Alone with him. “We can sort this out. Just get me to a hospital.”
He didn’t move. Just looked at her. Then he reached out with his hand and stroked her hair. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She was feeling weaker with each moment that passed. Why was she in a chair? She didn’t remember sitting down. All those years in the lab she’d hardly ever sat in a chair. Better to stand, perch on a desk, or lie on the floor even. She never liked sitting in chairs, now it looked like she was going to die in one.
“Why are you doing this?”
Still he didn’t respond.
His hand dropped to her face and he gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
“You were supposed to fail, Elizabeth.” He said finally, in a whisper. “We were meant to fail.”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
A long lingering kiss.
Despite the searing pain from the gunshot wound all that Elizabeth’s foggy brain could process in that moment was the loathsome feeling of his lips pressed against hers.
She wanted to struggle, to break away, to be free of him.
But was too weak.
Then she thought of Arthur. He would never know what they had achieved together and that filled her with an infinite sadness that blotted out everything.
And then there was nothing.
---
When Fitzpatrick finally pulled away Elizabeth was unconscious. He thought she might have died already, but a quick check of her pulse confirmed she was unconscious but fading fast. Perhaps it was for the best, that she was spared any further pain. There was nothing he could do for her now. It was all so unnecessary. How the hell had she done it?
He left the lab without looking back, wanting to remember Elizabeth as she was, the scientific firebrand marching into his office to chew him out about something that had gotten her riled. Her barely contained passion for her work and for her team. He didn’t want to remember her slumped awkwardly in a chair, her blood splashing onto the tiles of the floor. Elizabeth wasn’t the first person he’d killed. There had been many, but they were soldiers and it was in the heat of battle, this was different. She was a woman, and that meant something too. But it wasn’t just that. Their lives had been intertwined for so long. It had never been the relationship he’d wanted. But it had meant something.
Back in his office Fitzpatrick ran a check to make double check it was just the two of them in the facility. Then went to his safe, opened it and took out the briefcase. One he’d placed it there all those years before, convinced he’d never need it. A failsafe for an impossible situation. He took one last look around the office that had been his home for so many years, then left.
The journey in the elevator up to the surface made him sad, soon all of this would be gone. What would he do with his life after this? At the surface he passed the antennae array on the way to the car park. There were two night guards stationed at the entrance to the facility, one of whom waved Fitzpatrick through as he raised the barrier. He’d seen them both many times before. One was called Juan or Jose. Perhaps the other was Pablo? He wasn’t sure which was which, he’d never taken the trouble to get to know them. Probably for the best given the circumstances.
Once he had driven far enough away, he pulled into the diner. From here he had a good view of the lights of the facility away in the distance. The little silver key from his keychain unlocked the briefcase to reveal the panel and screen within. It powered up, the signal good and strong. Pass code entered, he armed the device then flipped the eight trigger switches from green to red one by one. He placed his hand on the final switch, paused, took a deep breath, then gave it a quarter turn to the right.
Nothing happened.
For a moment he thought the system had failed. Then the lights of the facility winked out, and a few moments later he heard the echoing boom and felt the vibrations of an explosion deep underground.
He’d done what he had to do.
That’s it for Chapter 27, I hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to more. Chapter 28 will be out the same time next week, Friday at 4:00pm UK time.
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Anything you like about the story, characters, plot and writing. Any questions…
Want to share the love?…
If you know anyone else who might like the book, share via this link…
Or send them this link to Chapter 1 - https://justbeyondordinary.substack.com/p/chapter-1-is-live
Thanks!