The Man From Taured (14 page)

Shaw was more confused than ever now.

"OK, so, what do you want me to do?" Shaw asked.

"Keep up with your experiments," Whitten replied. "Just keep doing it. If you keep it up and can stabilize a portal, maybe travel between dimensions can be a reality. Right now the technology only allows travel to the space between dimensions and punching through requires finding a rift or weak spot. However, all of this is probably too much to throw at you right now. I'd love to meet up with you and talk about this. There is a lot that some of all already know. There is a lot of information that I could give you."

"Y-yes, yes, that makes sense," Shaw said. "When can you meet? Are you in the Chicago area?"

"No, I'm in Washington state, near Seattle, but I can be there the day after tomorrow," Whitten replied. "Can you meet up then? Maybe get some time off from Gemini?"

"I'm sure that I can," Shaw said. It was true. Gemini was generous with vacation days and he had been granted four weeks worth when he signed on. He had yet to use any of it. He hadn't even had a sick day and employees got three weeks worth of that, too. "Just call me when you have a flight and we can arrange to meet."

"Yes, that will work out fine, keep your phone lines clear," Whitten replied. "I'll be in touch. I cannot say for sure, but others might also be in touch."

"OK, thanks," Shaw said.

The line was already dead. Whitten was gone.

Shaw looked down at the phone as if he felt that looking at it might cause the person at the other end to come back. Then, after a moment, he put the phone down on the coffee table and sat back down on his couch.

"What the fuck is going on?" he whispered.

Then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The hallway to his left was dark, filled with shadows. One of those shadows moved. There were red circles floating in the middle of the darkness.

Shaw let out a scream and attempted to crawl over the back of the sofa. He felt his bladder nearly give way.

The shadow moved towards him. Shaw backed away from it, his mouth opening and closing and his voice making inarticulate noises.

"Stay away!" He cried, finally. "Stay away from me!"

The shadow broke away from the darkness of the hall and now a fully-formed shadow man was standing in the living room. Shaw could make out the broad shoulders, arms and hands, the head. It was also wearing some kind of wide-brimmed hat and what appeared to be a long coat. It was this realization that made Shaw suddenly stand up and step toward the figure.

"Is that you Ezekiel Clay?" Shaw asked.

The figure reared back as if surprised. It did not become more solid, but both hands splayed out in front of itself. Then the shoulders squared off and the figure advanced again. Something about the way it was walking, there was menace in its demeanor, the way it was approaching that made Shaw back up against the wall.

"Who are you?" Shaw whispered. "If you're not Ezekiel, who are you?"

The eyes glowed a brighter red and it seemed to get even taller. How that was possible, Shaw couldn't imagine, but it was as if the figure was pulling in the darkness, surrounding itself with more shadows.

"Are you Ezekiel Clay?" Shaw asked again.

Now the figure was towering over Shaw, looking down at him. He could feel the red eyes burrowing into his head, into his brain.

"No," the voice said. It was barely a whisper, harsh, weak, as if whoever had spoken it had used up all of its energy just to utter that single syllable.

Then the shadow man was gone.

Just gone.

The air was empty. The light was normal. There was a slight stench of ozone or something burning, like a wire burning, but that was it.

"This is getting out of fucking control," Shaw said as he shakily got to his feet. "This is out of fucking control."

Shaw took a tentative step forward, expecting the air to suddenly burst into life. He thought about running down and checking the front and back door. Instead, he decided he just wanted this day to be over, so he ran down the hall, through the bedroom door, slammed it and locked it. A moment later, he dragged the dresser across the door. After that, Shaw ran to the window, double-checked that it was locked.

He was closing the blinds when he froze.

There was another shadow man standing outside. It was near one of the trees, close to the street, staring up directly at him with its red eyes.

Shaw gasped.

"Right," he whispered. "That's it. I'm calling the police."

Shaw walked around to the other side of the bed and picked up the handset. He pressed the button to get a dial tone.

He got silence.

Then, after a moment, he realized that it wasn't exactly silence. There was a noise at the other end.

Breathing.

"Who's there?" Shaw whispered.

There was just breathing. It had a strange quality to it, as well, sort of metallic, like someone was using a respirator. In the distance he heard a siren, perhaps from a cop or an ambulance. Shaw wished that he could send up a flare and get that cop or ambulance to stop by here. He was trapped. Trapped in the house and he had trapped himself further in the bedroom. In fact, it sounded like there were two sirens.

"Wait," Shaw whispered.

He looked down at the handset.

No, not two sirens. It was the same siren. Only he was hearing with his ears in the real world and over the handset. Whoever was on the phone was standing outside.

"Who are you?" Shaw said into the phone. "Goddammit, who the fuck are you?"

"I warned you, Dr. Shaw," the voice on the phone said. Shaw recognized it right away as Ezekiel Clay. "You have to stop. Things are only going to get worse."

"Was that you inside my house just now?"

"No. That was someone who works with me," Ezekiel said. "We're watching you, Dr. Shaw. We have to stop you."

"Is that a threat?" Shaw asked. "Are you threatening me?"

"No, Dr. Shaw, but the man you spoke to tonight is very dangerous," Ezekiel said. "We can work together. I've spoken to my colleagues and they've agreed that you'd make a great addition to the team."

"What are you talking about?" Shaw said, his head was pounding and the world felt as though it were spinning out of control. He was sure that he was just going to fly off the planet and into outer space at any moment.

"Dr. Shaw, there are many things at work here," Ezekiel said. "We have lots to discuss with you."

"Whitten said you'd try to derail my experiments."

"He's been corrupted, Dr. Shaw. He has been for a long time. Don't you fall down that hole. There's no coming back from it and then we'd have to use extreme measures to stop you. We waited too long with Whitten, and that's my fault. I won't let that happen again."

"You're talking in riddles!" Shaw cried. "Stop it. You're confusing me. I can't think straight."

"You've had a rough day, Dr. Shaw," Ezekiel said. "Get some rest, but tomorrow, we'll talk more."

Just like that something washed over Shaw. It was like an anesthetic had been administered. He tried to step forward to the bed, but succeeded in only making one step and then the floor came up to meet him.

Darkness took him then.

The next morning Shaw opened his eyes and he was in bed, on his back, still in his clothes, on top of the sheets and blankets. Above him a ceiling fan spun slowly. He raised his head and was shocked at how much lifting his head three inches caused bolts of pain to shoot from the back to the front of his skull. He had never had a hangover before, but he imagined that this was what it was like.

"Ohhh," Shaw said, holding his head and sitting up slowly.

Had last night actually happened? He had had one lousy beer and now he was sitting there with a pounding head, dry mouth and upset stomach. Also, lots and lots of images of nightmarish things in his house and strange phone calls.

Shaw got to his feet, felt the world wobble unsteadily beneath them, and then headed for the bathroom. He barely made it before hurling whatever was in his stomach into the toilet.

Once he was done, he actually felt better. Shaw studied his face in the mirror. His skin was pale and the dark circles beneath his eyes really stood out. He ran a hand through his hair and was dismayed when he saw several strands come away in his fingers.

"This is what going crazy looks like," Shaw told his reflection. "This is what insanity looks like."

After he was showered, shaved and dressed he decided he looked a little bit better. He went downstairs and into the kitchen. When he turned to face the fridge, hoping that he still had some milk that he could put into his coffee, he froze.

There was a small white dry erase board on the fridge door where he wrote down reminders to himself and made little shopping lists. It had been blank last night, but now there was writing on it. It was a simple message.

STAY AWAY FROM WHITTEN.

"Jesus," Shaw said and felt his stomach rise again. "I do not need this in my life. I do not need this."

He grabbed his coffee and bolted for his car. He did not look up or around for fear that every shadow would have a figure hidden in it or red eyes staring at him. The drive to work was tense, his fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard his hands cramped, afraid to look into the trees or on the side of the road.

The Gemini Corporation was surrounded by trees and woods. The campus was huge, with one very tall building right in the middle that, seen from the side, looked a bit like the letter "A." The rest of it was low buildings hidden by trees that were, in turn, surrounded by fields. Most of the work was done in those smaller buildings, with much of the administrative stuff done in the A-building.

Inside that building were a few labs, including the one that Shaw called home. The interior lobby was like walking into a rain forest. On either side, rising up toward the peak of the A, were offices and floors and doors and labs, but the middle was open and airy and there were large windows that let in lots of light. This allowed large trees, shrubs, flowers and bushes to grow in what amounted to a Garden of Eden as the first thing you saw once you walked into the building. It was something that Shaw looked forward to when he got there in the morning.

Shaw walked into the building and was immediately met by Frank.

"Dr. Shaw," Frank said. "Your lab is still too dangerous for you to work in. So, we have you set up in a new lab. We'd love for you to get back to work on the food project. We are waiting for your specs on the other thing. So you can get that to me and let me know."

"I-I will," Shaw said.

A security guard appeared seemingly from nowhere and led Shaw to his new lab. Shaw jumped at every sound and still tried not to look into any of the shadows. When they arrived, the new space looked very much like the one he had destroyed just yesterday. He thanked the guard and locked the door before collapsing into a chair where he promptly put his head in his hands for fifteen minutes.

The lab was silent. It still smelled of disinfectant from being cleaned overnight. There was a slight buzzing that Shaw took to be from the lights and the clock on the wall.

It was wonderful.

Shaw made coffee, he studied his notes and decided that today it would be best to continue his experiments on food. Yes, that was what he needed. It was boring, it was rote, it was something that he could almost do with his eyes closed.

Sounded perfect.

Then his cell phone rang. Shaw nearly jumped out of his shoes.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Shaw, this is Dr. Whitten," the voice said.

"H-hello, Dr. Whitten."

"You sound exhausted, Dr. Shaw," Whitten said. "Let me guess, you had visitors last night, right? Strange shadow men with glowing red eyes? Did they leave any strange messages in the house for you?"

"H-how did you know?" Shaw realized he was stuttering a lot lately. When he was a youngster he had a stutter and spent years making it to go away. Now, with one night, he was back to it.

"It's what they do, Dr. Shaw," Whitten said and then the man sighed a very deep, exasperated sigh. "I have decided to come today instead of tomorrow. What we have to talk about simply cannot wait
.
I will text you my flight number, any chance you can pick me up at the airport?"

"Y-yes, I suppose I c-can," Shaw said. "Things are really weird, Dr. Whitten. I can't even think straight."

"Just work. Work on that food thing I hear you've been working on. We'll talk tonight and a lot of things will be made clear. Just try to relax. Oh, and if you can, do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Avoid the shadows," Whitten replied and then hung up.

Shaw stared at the phone for a while. His eyes scanned the new lab, for the first time noticing just how many shadows there were in the corners despite the big, bright windows behind him.

"Avoid the shadows," he said. "Right. Sure."

***

Dr. Shaw pulled up in front of the airport Arrivals section later that evening, as the sun was making its descent and the sky was turning from blue to purplish and bright orange near the horizon. The cold sky was quite beautiful, but Shaw preferred the summer months when the light remained until nearly 10 p.m. These days, the fact that the nights were longer terrified him.

Dr. Whitten was a man who stood out. He was tall, very tall, with long dark hair that cascaded down his back, but he was mostly bald-headed on top, as if he were trying to grow his hair as long in the back as possible to compensate. The man also had a ridiculous bushy, handlebar mustache and a pointed beard beneath his chin. If he was going for a Satanic look, he was accomplishing it perfectly. He also wore an old fashioned three-piece suit that included a vest, pocket watch and chain. He waved at Shaw as he drove up to the curb.

"Hello there, Dr. Whitten!" Shaw said, getting out of the car and helping the man with his bag.

Whitten got into the passenger seat and eased the seat back. On his nose he wore wire-framed glasses on a small golden line attached to his vest. The glasses perched on his nose from what Shaw could only determine was sheer force of will. The man looked as if he had stepped out of an illustration from a Dickens novel.

"Thanks for coming out so quick," Shaw said once he was back in the driver's seat and after he had pulled back out into the flow of traffic. "I thought I would go insane."

"That's what they want you to think," Whitten said. "These people are relentless. The business with the shadow men is designed not only to spy on you, but to make you question your sanity."

"How am I even able to see them?" Shaw asked. "They aren't even really there, right?"

"Dr. Shaw, as you have discovered, the universe is like an onion," Whitten said, his eyes scanning the horizon in front of the car. "There are innumerable realities and they fit one on top of the other, rather than side-by-side. The older realities are at the center. We are somewhere, in this reality, nearer the outside. Pioneers like you and me are finding that by altering the frequencies of our existence, we can create portals into those other realms. The men that you are dealing with have discovered something similar. They have discovered that by altering their frequencies they can walk in the spaces between realities."

"There are spaces?" Shaw asked.

"Yes, they are very narrow, but one can walk through those spaces if they find the right frequencies. It allows these men to observe and interact, to some extent, with other realities without actually punching a hole or creating a full portal into them. Those ridiculous outfits you see them wearing with the wide-brimmed hats and red glasses are part of the costume they wear
that allows them to enter those spaces. Most people cannot see them, and they are around us constantly. Sometimes, they allow themselves to be seen, but you and I have now been exposed to the vibrations that have altered our own perceptions. We can now see them because our experiments with those alternate realities have changed us."

"I've only done one experiment!" Shaw protested.

"That's all it takes, Dr. Shaw," Whitten replied. "These men are arrogant and full of themselves. They call themselves a kind of inter-dimensional police force and their entire goal is to stop people like you and me. Visionaries who want to break down barriers and discover new things, advance civilization. They persist in believing archaic things like this ridiculous idea that bridging gaps between dimensions will cause the walls to fall and the end of the universe. Hogwash."

"So, they're like cops?" Shaw asked.

Whitten nodded. "That's one way to think of them. They call themselves the Inter-Dimensional Enforcement Agency or IDEA."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Shaw said, his head already getting that funny fuzzy feeling. "How do you enforce inter-dimensions? They'd have to be the Inter-Dimensional Law Enforcement Agency."

"Sure, but then that spells out IDLEA, which is not a word," Whitten replied with an amused smile. "They are much more dangerous than just choosing a poor acronym."

Shaw smiled. "OK, so where should we go?"

"This is your town, not mine," Whitten said. "You tell me."

Twenty minutes later the two of them were at a small restaurant not far from Shaw's home. It was a small, quiet, Italian place that he frequented. The hostess recognized him and put them in a booth near the back where it was quiet and fairly dim. The waiter recognized Shaw right away and was surprised to see that he had a guest.

"I started looking into alternate dimensions back in the 60s," Whitten said, once the garlic bread had been placed on the table. "I had heard about theories of the multiverse, as it is known by some. I began doing research and exploring the idea. I then began looking into what it would take to open doorways into those dimensions. I built some machines that would alter the waves of our dimension and see into others. That was when Ezekiel Clay and his ilk started showing up. They began appearing inside my house, inside my lab, all around me and telling me to abandon my experiments. Then, one day, my lab burned to the ground. My notes vanished. I suspected IDEA, but I had no proof and no one would believe me, anyway. That was when I got a call from Mr. Void."

"Mr. Void?" Shaw asked. "Who's that?"

"Ah, Mr. Void is a man like us. An explorer. He's from one of the older dimensions, a more advanced dimension. He’s worked out ways to reach out into alternate realities, and he very much wants portals and barriers to come down, or at least weaken so that travel between them is easy. He began feeding me information, warned me about IDEA, and I started my experiments again."

"What has he told you, how can he do that and why would someone who has the power to breach dimensions use the phone?" Shaw asked in a flood.

Whitten laughed and then took a deep bite into one of the pieces of garlic bread. Butter dripped from his bottom lip into his beard and he wiped with a napkin.

"I don't ask too many questions," Whitten replied. "I know that Mr. Void is very, very old. He has been around for a long time. For all I know, he might be immortal. As for how he can do what he can do, that I cannot tell you. I haven't really asked and he hasn't bothered to tell me. I can tell you only that he is very powerful, can find rifts between the dimensions and exploit them and reach into these dimensions to influence people. I don't know if his powers are limitless, but they are vast."

"Rifts?" Shaw asked.

"Yes, indeed, Dr. Shaw, there are weak spots and outright holes that exist naturally between dimensions," Whitten said. "The stories and legends of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, monsters, are all examples of things from other dimensions that have reached into our own. Sometimes they are benign, and those become tales of angels. Sometimes they are not and those become our monsters of legend. You can sort of see why some might not want the knowledge of the multiverse to get out. Think of what world religions would do if they found out that heaven, hell, angels and demons were just variations of humanity from different dimensions."

"So, are all of the dimensions populated with people like us?" Shaw asked. He looked down at his plate and was surprised to see that his plate of spaghetti had arrived.

"Well, I have not seen or heard from every dimension," Whitten replied after forking a large mouthful of linguine into his mouth. "I have been experimenting with radio waves, trying to establish communications with them. My resources went into another direction. Working with Mr. Void who has, somehow, managed to provide funding for me and my experiments, I have reached out to others in these universes. There are duplicates, Dr. Shaw. Each of us has variations of ourselves in other dimensions, but not all dimensions, from what I can tell. As I said, the number of alternate dimensions is vast and I could spend lifetimes trying to contact them all. I have managed to reach only about 80 or so. I also spend time trying to find rifts. The weak spots in our reality and see what I can find. It has taken a long time, but I have gathered technology from more advanced dimensions that have allowed me to greatly extend my life."