Chapter Twenty-One
1976
October 26. 9.34 P.M. 1976. Ancient Era.
Château Rouge. Vienna, Austria.
Night covered the city like a dark cloak. The amber lights of the street lamps flickered dimly, creating long shadows that crept furtively through the streets. No one seemed to pay particular attention to the limousine in front of the luxury hotel. The valet opened the door and the first occupant of the vehicle stepped out. The man in the black tuxedo got out first and looked down both sides of the street, where passersby were walking oblivious, and he gestured into the vehicle.
He was a man of medium build, short dark hair and a bird-of-prey look in his gray eyes, although from his appearance he must have been barely in his thirties.
At the man's signal, Jack Piersons stepped out of the car, also dressed in formal attire, though in white, and looked at the luxurious building in front of him, while the valet parker held the limousine doors open. The long, red-carpeted steps gave Jack the impression that he was a movie star, which was far from the truth and why he was really in that place with the others.
It was a classically designed building, at least twenty stories high, with a richly decorated facade that took up almost the entire block. Above the entrance it read Château Rouge.
Château Rouge was one of the most elegant and prestigious hotel chains in the world. Regardless of country, or city, the name Château Rouge had always been associated with important meetings for business people. Many of those meetings were held in VIP rooms or with private reservations in the restaurant rooms of the chain's hotels. These had excellent cuisine, and had to be booked at least two weeks in advance.
However, in the previous weeks, the name Château Rouge had become associated with more than prestige, due to a certain incident that had occurred at the hotel in France, and had had repercussions in the other hotels of the franchise. The Château Rouge in Paris had had to close the doors of its restaurants due to a problem of espionage.
The owners of the franchise had protested vigorously, claiming that their restaurants were not a nest for spies to carry out their work. And, for several weeks, the Château Rouge restaurant in Paris had hung a sign on the doors of the restaurant, which was clearly intended to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the situation.
Our restaurant is closed due to international espionage problems. We apologize for the inconvenience, our service will be back in the next few days. That was what the sign said.
Of course, the countries involved in the incident had to respond by apologizing and those involved had been deported. But, even so, the targets of those spies who caused the accident were not caught, but the incident had still upset the agenda of all parties involved.
Carl Scott got out of the limousine and looked both ways just as the first man had done. He was also in full dress, although he had his coat in his hands and the color gray predominated in his manner of dress, with the exception of his white shirt, vermilion tie. His gray vest also had a diamond pattern.
The years had passed for him, what was once a handsome young man with a straight face when he entered the agency, had become a more muscular looking man, albeit with a somewhat more relaxed gesture. The years had not passed in vain for him since he first met Jack in 1959. On the other hand, Jack barely showed any gray in his hair even though he must be in his late fifties.
The man who had come down first then approached the open door again and offered his hand. He had wiped the serious expression from his face and put a smile in its place.
"MyLady," the man said with a gentle bow.
"So gentlemanly. It doesn't suit you," a feminine voice replied.
The man simply smiled wider, stifling a chuckle.
A feminine hand rested in his and the fourth person in the entourage stepped out of the car. The valet closed the door and the car drove away, turning the corner into the parking lot of the luxury hotel.
The woman who had just gotten out was a girl much shorter than the man, but who stood out for her beauty. Her hair was dark and long to below her waist. The hairstyle covered one of her eyes. She had Asian features and long eyelashes, her eyes were green and shone like a precious stone. She had a mole on the lower right side of her lip.
It was difficult to tell her age, perhaps she was in her early twenties, but one could not be sure. She was wearing a long dark colored dress, which had a piece of transparent fabric at the top of the dress that covered her cleavage. It gave her an air of charm, without the need to show too much. The heels she wore made her look taller than she really was.
But there was something that no one could notice about that woman, because the hair on both sides was a bit tousled and that gave her a slightly disheveled look of beauty. But, even if it was messy, it fit her style. Hidden by that hairstyle were two pointed ears.
"Are you all right?" the man asked to the woman.
"Yeah, I'm not dizzy, don't worry," she replied.
They both stood next to Jack and Scott, and the four of them looked up at the building.
"Well, here we go again," Carl Scott snorted and, looking at the other three, the group started up the stairs.
***
The second floor of the restaurant was filled with tables full of people enjoying their food, and the sound of soft music accompanying the chatter, and the ephemeral clinking of glasses.
The soft murmur of whispered conversations filled the air, while diners of impeccable demeanor savored exquisite dishes served with culinary mastery. The gentle clinking of crystal glasses and the brushing of finely crafted cutlery created a sophisticated symphony that enveloped the space.
The intoxicating aroma of gourmet cuisine intertwined with the subtle perfume of the guests, creating an unmistakable and seductive fragrance. The maître d', impeccably dressed in a black tuxedo, moved gracefully among the tables, ensuring that every detail was perfectly orchestrated.
Walls adorned with gilded mirrors reflected the opulence of the place, multiplying the feeling of spaciousness and sophistication. Paintings by renowned artists hung framed in their panels, adding a touch of artistic distinction to the room.
But that was the second floor only. On the third floor of the restaurant at that moment everything was quieter, and only three voices spoke accompanied by soft jazz music.
Everything was much quieter there, but still the speaking voices had a pleasant tone. A far cry from the liveliness and opulence of the second floor.
There were dim lights, and a large crystal chandelier in the center of the room illuminated most of the place, while the far corners were in semi-darkness. The three people were seated at a round table, arranged for seven people, at which the food had not yet been brought, because they were waiting for the other four people who were arriving at that moment.
One of the speakers was a man who must have been in his sixties, dressed in a smart bow tie. He had a tanned face and a white beard and whiskers. His untidy hair made him look much older, although his brown eyes sparkled and almost gave him a much more childish air, as if they had not lost the sparkle of their former youth.
His name was George Bender and he was a professor of archaeology from Miskatonic University.
The other man who spoke was also dressed for the occasion, in an elegant black Swiss cut suit, but he had one of his arms in a sling. It was Ishida Yanagida. And he had left his wife at the cinema before coming to the meeting.
Both George Bender and Ishida had only arrived a few minutes ago. But they had known each other for weeks. They also knew the third person since weeks but because of the accident in Paris the talk had been cut short and everyone had fled. Ishida had been the only one injured on the occasion, to the horror of his wife who had been present on the occasion.
The third person at the table stood out, because he looked out of place to anyone who had seen him at the time. No matter how someone looked at him, he was simply a boy who must have been about ten or eleven years old, given his small stature. But, in spite of that, he had white hair like an old man, over his childishly shaped face. In spite of his youthful features, it was his eyes and hair that were the most striking feature of his image. His dark blue eyes had a gleam almost as sharp as that of the dinnerware knife resting on one side of the still empty plate.
It was a calculating and somewhat somber look, something that was not meant to be present in the face of a child. If indeed he really was.
Hidden in the semi-darkness of the restaurant floor, there were five other people standing with earpieces in their ears. Two of them, closer to the windows facing the street, were surveying the surroundings as if they were expecting something might happen at any moment.
"Certainly," Professor Bender spoke, "ancient civilizations are treated as if they had been nothing more than mere fools. The whole planet is a gruyere cheese of civilizations, and what we could learn from them is a lot ... but I think your friends are a little crazy if they believe that ancient civilizations would have achieved such an advanced level to create something like a time travel machine. It's one thing if they believed in magic or made mirror boxes, it's quite another if they played with space time."
Ishida replied. "I didn't believe it either. But Jack and Mr. Scott have been doing it for the last few years more than anything else. And they're not the only ones. The Soviets, Chinese, Argentinians, Australians and even a group from Brazil and Peru have joined forces looking for parts of the machine. Luckily we've been quicker."
"Not because they knew," spoke the white-haired boy with a dry tone, his voice like ice. "This all happened because of the same person who stole your family's dagger. If he hadn't photographed parts of Satou Nobuyama's diary before running away, this trouble wouldn't have happened. Now there are people running around, looking for something they don't even know exists."
"But they do exist... yet, time travel... I don't know." Professor Bender hesitated. "That all sounds very fantastical and I've seen some weird stuff, believe me."
"Welcome to the club," said the boy smiling, somewhat cynically.
Ishida shrugged. "The truth is, nothing can be done about that, Gehirn. I'm referring to the subject of the photos."
"Look at it this way," said the boy named Gehirn sighing. "From my point of view it happened like this. The diary photos were in Germany for some time and then got lost among the hundreds of papers that went around after the war, and ended up in East Germany, when it came into the hands of Russia. Nobody paid any attention to those papers until Scott and Jack started moving around the world looking for parts of the machine. That was the trigger for other countries to want to know what they were planning as well."
"Basically, if they hadn't moved, no one would have paid attention..." mused Professor Bender. "But is it all true?"
"Honestly, I think if this whole story is true, the stone is probably in a loop," Gehirn said, wrinkling his lips as he ran one of his fingers across the red tablecloth.
"Loop, you say?"
At that moment, four people began to peek out of the stairway leading up to the place.
"It was time," Gehirn said, which left Professor Bender puzzling over what he had to say.
Jack stepped forward and walked over, leading the group in a theatrical tone. "We're sorry, we're sorry. But we did a few laps before we came, to make sure the same thing didn't happen as last time."
Scott, meanwhile, glanced sideways at the guards around. They had not been present at the last encounter.
The woman with her companion also approached, but they did not seem very intimidated by the guards. Seeing her, for the first time that night and day, Gehirn smiled sincerely and rose from his chair and walked to meet her. He walked past Jack who stood with his hand in the air.
Damn runt! That's the second time he's done that to me, Jack thought, remembering the first meeting where Gehirn had done the same thing and ran first to greet the fey girl.
"Hisui..." Gehirn said as he opened his arms.
Hisui though she was five feet four inches tall had to bend down a bit to receive the hug from the boy, who was barely five feet tall.
"It's only been a few weeks," she said.
"Yes, time flies, even for us." Gehirn politely rubbed the woman's back and turned away without wiping the smile from his face and turned to the man. "Quincy, always a pleasure to see you again!" Gehirn said offering him his hand.
Quincy shook Gehirn's small hand more solemnly but smiled. "Mr. Schmidt, it's a pleasure again."
"Is it true then?" Gehirn Schmidt asked and turned to Hisui again, and then to Quincy.
She blushed and smiled. "Yes, it's true. I'm about two months now."
"Wow..." Gehirn ran his hand over her stomach. "I don't know what to tell you honestly."
"It's a little early to be cheerful, you know. But I'm taking care of myself now. I won't do anything crazy anymore."
Gehirn took Quincy's hand again and shook it warmly. "You'd better take care of this woman and this baby. You guys still should have told me sooner."
"We found out last week," Hisui said.
While Gehirn had continued talking to the couple Scott and Jack meanwhile took the opportunity to say hello to their old acquaintances, Ishida and Professor Bender.
A few weeks ago the group formed by Jack, Scott, Hisui and Quincy, had contacted some people close to Gehirn, to let him know if he would be willing to have a meeting to discuss a topic of high importance.
Hisui had known Gehirn for some years, because he had hired her for almost six years to be his bodyguard. The two had become close friends in that time and, beyond the professional relationship that existed, they were almost like family. She had left the job because she had developed a relationship with Quincy, whom she had met at work, because he had been hired by Gehirn in another job.
Quincy Quiver was a mercenary.
Although they had kept a low profile for some time, the situation had changed a year earlier due to a failed mission in Algeria. Both were hired by the Agency to which Carl Scott belonged, to protect the latter and Jack Piersons.
Since then, the four of them had been traveling around the world. Although that was about to change next year due to Hisui's pregnancy. Carl Scott and Jack had already assured the pair that for sure by next year there would be no more movement and in case they wanted to they could work as part of the project security. In the place where the pieces discovered by Carl and Jack in the last few years had been moved.
Professor Bender had only traveled with Jack and Scott once four years ago but, since that time, he had become a consultant to both of them on archaeological matters. Thanks to his invaluable help on the trip where he went with them, they found one of the pieces that had given Jack and Scott the most headaches. An intact original mirror box, so old that it was not even known which culture had created it.
The professor had a professorship in the United States Kingdom, but he had credentials issued by the Department of Defense that accredited him to be there that night. Professor Bender had no real regrets about not participating in the group's adventures, as he had a family and even a beautiful sixteen-year-old granddaughter.
But because of the importance of the matter, he had first traveled to France and, after the incident, had remained with Ishida Yanagida.
Ishida Yanagida did not participate much in the matters of the group, and had only met a few times in the last few years to know how everything was going and how the investigations and collection of objects by Carl Scott and Jack were progressing. Although he had become friends with them, at the same time, he tried to know that they were taking care of the stone that he had given not only to them, but the other half also to Father Verneti and DiMati with their research in Rome.
Both groups had different approaches and purposes for the parts of the stones they owned, so they had kept only sporadic contact.
It looked like everything was about to come to a climax in the next year for Jack, but there was one last missing piece of the puzzle and that's why they needed Gehirn's help. Although for some years there had been espionage problems regarding Jack and Scott's adventures, due to certain photographs that had alerted other intelligence agencies.
During the Paris incident, they discovered spies a few tables away from them, who were listening in, and a third group also intervened, who were on the other side of the table watching them.
The spies had been discovered because Dr. DiMati had alerted Jack and Scott to certain people who had been snooping around Rome, and DiMati had identified them because he knew them from the KGB. Fortunately for DiMati and Verneti, they didn't get out of Rome much and had the private security of a certain intelligence group within the Church known as La Entita.
For Jack and Scott this was not the same, because very few people were aware of what they were doing and they were not to be discovered. Ishida had been the bait so, that after the incident, the press talked about a Japanese businessman being wounded in a brawl between spies. But the group he had met with that night had left the scene clean and no newspaper had been able to guess who they were.
In the commotion inside the hotel, Ishida Yanagida had also discovered a new and totally different side of his wife, Masako Yanagida. In his eyes had been forever engraved the image, somewhere between frightening and comical, of his wife furiously knocking down Russian spies with her purse and that image would never leave him again.
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The venerable professor had also surprised everyone, taking care of a spy by stabbing him in the cheek with a fork and sending him off for a nap with a good hook to the stomach. Both had projected an image completely out of character.
During the greeting, Jack took it upon himself to recall the scene by asking about Masako, which did nothing more than stir the memory in Ishida.
In any case, they all hoped that there would be no repeat of that and that was the reason why Gehirn had reserved the entire floor that night for the meeting only.
The group ordered food and drinks, and simply ate while the conversation moved on to topics of what had happened at the last meeting, and how they had evaded Parisian security, and their own counterintelligence systems, to get out without causing too much of a fuss.
By the second dish, the conversation had taken on a different tone. Gehirn had tried to ask a few questions about Jack, but Jack had responded with evasive and ambiguous answers, if not outright lies.
The truth was that Jack was a mystery to Gehirn and he had tried to find out who he was, but there was almost no information about him, although he could not shake the feeling that he reminded him of someone.
At that point, the truth was that Jack had warned Scott and Ishida not to reveal who he was, and so they had not argued about it. They both already knew how he had come to be, even though he never revealed too much of his past.
Professor Bender, Hisui and Quincy had not inquired too much about Jack, since given their association with Scott, they simply assumed that they were both part of the Royal Agency.
Without attempting to probe further, the group had simply begun to discuss the matter that really brought them to the restaurant.
"On the other hand we have the creatures he called the Chronophages, which is supposedly the origin of the stone," Ishida pointed out. "And which in turn are parts of what he called the Furactosu."
"They sound like Fractus," Gehirn corrected.
There were so many concepts going around the table that it had become a mess and Hisui was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the chatter.
"Don't forget the savitronic cycle," Jack pointed out.
"We have no way of knowing about the savitronic cycle yet, at least until better particle detectors can be built. The calculations may be correct, but we don't know if they are right until they can be detected," Professor Bender said.
"Let alone create tokions artificially in a laboratory." Gehirn began, after sipping from his glass of Chardonnay. "By Nobuyama's calculations, they involve the Planck scale. We're seventy or eighty years away, maybe even more, from being able to build accelerators to handle those magnitudes. I was just about to say that when you arrived."
Gehirn took a napkin and wrote something on it and then put it in the center of the table. While everyone present knew what he was talking about, he decided to put the pieces in order in courtesy to Hisui. While she had no more than a secondary role of protection, along with Quincy.
"This is how I see it, and I barely had time to read the paper when I was in Tokyo a couple of years ago when your father invited me for business. Let's see." Gehirn began pointing to various words he had jotted down on the napkin, in a very refined cursive handwriting. "First we have Satou Nobuyama, who got his vision in 1880, but it wasn't until his teenage years that he started writing everything down in the diary. Let's take out the parts that talk about creatures and stuff, and focus on the blueprints of the machine. According to what he put in the diary, he said that the machine was parts of ancient civilizations, but he didn't see any ancient civilizations, he only saw into the future. So, if his visions were correct, it meant that the information he got from those parts were basically part of the future, not because it was something from the past. So the parts of the machine may have come from ancient civilizations, but the information that they came from ancient civilizations came essentially from the future."
Jack swallowed what was left of the salad bowl and spoke. "So... the visions he got were because we somehow got them?"
"I'm still not sure, I'm just speculating. This isn't my area after all."
"But, he was saying that the information from his visions came because of the stone. If that's true, we haven't traveled with the stone around the world."
"But assuming that the stone might have a way to access the information when you are nearby? What about that?"
"What?" Scott asked, surprised.
"The phenomenon of knowledge stones, capable of storing information is very old. If what we're talking about here is really something that can transcend time and carry information over time, why not a stone?" Ishida asked.
"While this is all very strange to me," the professor said, "I must admit that there are indeed legends about it, and I'm not just talking about information carved in stone. There are legends about stones that could transmit knowledge and store it."
Gehirn nodded. "If we move on assuming that, it would not be uncommon that every time you meet at the place where you have your part of the stone stored, it would access the information because you talk about it. That way it could carry the information into the past and at the same time Satou Nobuyama would transmit it in his journals."
"By osmosis?" Jack asked with a laugh.
"Isn't that a paradox?" asked Scott.
"No, it's a loop." Gehirn explained. "Paradoxes as such do not exist. They are simply improbabilities. If not look at myself. I am not a fey, but my age is frozen due to the alchemical experiments carried out when I was a prisoner in the concentration camps. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. Now I am an old man trapped in a child's body that does not age. Immortality is an improbability, not a paradox."
The group said nothing. Gehirn had a past that was known to those present, even though they knew that he himself did not like to talk about it too much.
"So, putting everything in order now would be like this." Gehirn continued with his explanation. "First we have these creatures, which we are going to assume that, since Satou Nobuyama found the stones in the past, it means that these creatures called Fractus come from there. Do we all agree?"
"If such creatures have existed," said Professor Bender, "I think it would be most correct to think that they are the same ones from ancient grimoires, which speak of creatures from dimensions with non-Euclidean geometry or perhaps with invocation geometry perhaps.... I remember reading a lot about that when I asked for access to the secret Miskatonic Library. Although the boys at the Armitage Foundation have been keeping an eye on me ever since."
"It's likely," Gehirn agreed, but went on with his explanation. "These creatures have different types and one of them are chronophages, and from them come the stones, with their Jikanium material and the most important thing inside them, the tokions, which are activated by detection of the savitrons emitted from the sun. We can assume that there must be other stones around the world besides Satou Nobuyama's two, which is the reason for all this fuss among other countries looking for them."
Quincy nodded. "No intelligence service would attack the Vatican and want to run the risk of the world press turning against it."
Carl Scott spoke with his mouth full. His turkey breast was delicious, but he couldn't let that point go. "You can't be sure about that. There are rumors that the mafia and secret groups have infiltrated the Vatican, especially certain families with interests in the Vatican Bank and related to money laundering."
"Be that as it may, through these stones, and always heeding what Professor Nobuyama was saying, they only store the memory of a time when the stones have been present. It means that if he really saw something like a time machine, it would be easy to assume that it could be a memory of something from the past... or from the future."
"What about what he called the Savitronic Cycle?" asked Ishida.
Gehirn snorted. "Well, that's another thing that's related. Nobuyama just conjectured that it must be the key to the jikanium working and activating the tokions inside the stone."
"How so?" Hisui asked. "I mean the order."
"First there are the Fractus, inside a subspecies called the Chronophages, then the nucleus, called Jikanium or Tokihedron, but tokihedron is only related to the crystalline geometry of the object, the most important thing is inside. The hypothetical particles called tokions that could carry information through time."
"Is that what makes it work?"
Ishida interjected at that point and explained. "That part is confusing in his diary, but, from what I understand, the savitronic particle thing is related to the Sun. Supposedly at each emission of those particles, that's when the stone works, and the tokions are activated. Verneti and DiMati have been the ones who have experimented the most with the stone so far, but they haven't obtained results either, so it's possible that what my uncle wrote is true and they only work when those savitronic particles are emitted."
"Yes," nodded Gehirn. "The savitronic particles would be like a detonating clock for the stone. But it doesn't appear that the cycle of these particles obeys anything we know. It's not associated with sunspots, although it's a little bit associated with coronagraphic mass discharges apparently. Assuming this is correct, and considering that it speaks of some ancient civilization, there is a possibility that there is some relationship to the path that photons follow into the sun. If an ancient civilization had somehow obtained knowledge of the future, they could put it into oral traditions hoping that it would somehow reach this time. If this is correct, what if the Savitronic cycle had been generated millions or thousands of years ago within the Sun and the emission was now occurring that could activate the tokions?"
A bead of sweat ran down Scott's cheek. "Excuse me, but how is that possible?"
Gehirn sighed. "Some particles within the Sun do not have straight angular momentum. This occurs because thermonuclear forces within the Sun bifurcate the path they would have to follow from the core to its exit. From there the light from the Sun only has to travel eight light minutes to reach the Earth, but inside the Sun this is not the same. Although there is also the issue of the lifetime of such particles. I find it curious that some of his journal entries mentioned that savitronic particles could be generated during the proton-proton chain, but after the production of Helium-3. If that is true then we are talking about emissions that occur before the initial positron emission at the beginning of the chain, but before the emission of protons and neutrons that will participate in the formation of the Helium-4 nucleus. Of course, from what we know about solar reactions, these savitronic particles would be something completely new and ignored until now. We cannot reproduce a proton-proton chain yet, so we do not know if it is true or if it is a phenomenon that can only occur on rare occasions."
Gehirn took a sip of his wine and continued. "It won't be known for some years if what he proposed is correct. If the calculation is correct, it means that at the time he received what he called that storm of memories from the stones, there was an emission of those particles from the surface of the Sun. And from what he predicted in his calculations before he died, in his last notes, another one of those emissions occurred in 1952, another one in 1959, and another one should occur in…"
Gehirn fell silent and looked at Jack, Scott and Ishida. At the sound of 1959 Ishida involuntarily kicked Jack under the table and Scott stood with a fork in the air and looked sideways at him as well.
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Gehirn smiled. "Is this what this is all about? The emission that's going to happen next year?"
No one said anything at the table.
It had come to one of the crucial points of why they needed Gehirn.
"I don't know what you have heard from me. But building such a particle detector is still several years behind my funds and resources, let alone activating the tokions, that would require a large particle accelerator or an incredible expensive fusion laser."
"We don't want that," Jack said.
"What is it then?"
"We need to know where he is... one of your acquaintances."
"Who?"
"The shinigami. That black raven who saved you in the concentration camps."
Gehirn frowned. "Shin? What do you want with him?"
"We've been gathering data and we think he knows about the last part we need for what we're building," Scott explained.
"What exactly are you trying to build?" Jack and Scott remained silent. "It's not something as stupid as a time machine, is it?"
"It's stupid?"
"One thing is an object that could belong to a culture or species capable of seeing back in time and sharing information..." Gehirn looked back at the pair. "We're talking about information here?"
There was silence once again.
So that's it... information? I suppose it would make sense if American intelligence was involved after all, Gehirn thought. "What are you looking for from Shin?"
"The table. We think he knows where it is," Scott said.
"The table? Are we talking about that same table?"
Scott nodded. "There are rumors that in World War II a certain archaeologist passed the information to Shin about that object in Montsegur, and then that archaeologist decided to commit suicide before the information fell into the hands of the Nazis. Shin traveled to Spain and took the object with the blessing of the families who had guarded it for hundreds of years and then the trail was lost. The Vatican initially wanted to use Verneti's machine to find out if it was real. But of course, they didn't understand that it was very different from what Verneti and DiMati are trying to accomplish."
"If what they say is true then he never told me, but I know the story. Yet he's not here to corroborate it either."
"Where is he? Can you contact him for us?" Hisui asked.
"You don't know, do you?" Gehirn asked, scanning the table with his gaze. Everyone looked at him without answering.
"Shin disappeared about two years ago over the Indian Ocean. No one has seen him since."
"What happened to him?" Quincy asked. Of all those present, he and Hisui were the quietest.
"I don't know, people in his group, TF, have been looking for him but haven't found him. They think he may be in some secret investigation. But honestly, I don't know."
Jack scratched his chin in frustration and Scott pursed his lips, he had set his fork down next to the empty plate finally. "If he had hidden it, where would he have done it?"
"He has many safe hiding places, but if we're talking about something that's as powerful as the table, then he probably put it in some evanescent land."
"Rumor has it he went to Africa," Jack pointed out.
Gehirn looked at him and simply came up with the first thing that popped into his head. It wasn't as if even if he knew of the object they were looking for he was going to reveal where it was. At least not without first discussing it with his friend, who really had been missing for two years. "I don't know then. Who knows. Maybe he put it somewhere like Al-Madinat Al-Majhula."
"Ilrem? The city of pillars?" asked Professor Bender in surprise. "Does such a place really exist?!"
"I'm just speculating. There are plenty of places to hide something like that."
Jack scratched his chin again and removed the napkin from his neck. "Well, then what about creating one?"
Gehirn's face showed a cynical smile at hearing that and Jack continued.
"You said it yourself. If the information Satou Nobuyama obtained is correct, then it doesn't matter how you look at it. Either we get the missing part... or one could be built. We already have a prototype."
"We have the schematics my uncle left behind," Ishida said, smiling.
That was the second point why they had contacted him, if the first attempt to find Shin didn't work.
"You guys realize what you're asking me to do? To make a duplicate of something that can connect spacetime and has not been seen before? If the legends are true the table only serves as a television to tune into certain spaces. Something that can distort space and time is something very different."
"But is it possible?"
"We know you are trying to create an organization that brings together concepts of science and magic for technological development," Scott commented.
"Magic and science are two sides of the same coin. Magic is just science waiting to be explained. It is merely an evolution of the universe. There is nothing really magical, only limits to the complete understanding of a phenomenon. The same goes for what is now beginning to be called paranormal phenomena, or Dark Events. Before they were magical events, ghosts, fairies, feeric beings, angels or demons, today they are Dark Events, phenomena from other dimensions, feys, extraterrestrials or UFOs. It is the same phenomenon that evolves according to the society of the moment".
"A folklore in gestation," affirmed Professor Bender.
"And what would be my benefit in this scenario?" asked Gehirn and took off his napkin and drank some more wine.
The truth is that for Gehirn, all this talk of time machines and stones and visions was nothing more than a mental exercise. Interesting, no doubt, but not practical for his purposes. If they really wanted his help it was because they must have had something else in mind. He seriously doubted that the whole meeting had been done without more practical intentions and short-term benefits, from a strategic point of view. Many organizations and governments had approached him in recent years and he had heard all kinds of stories and nonsense. Time machines or lost pieces of antiquity were not the most unusual things he had heard of people approaching him, with intentions of borrowing his knowledge and personnel.
"We have some rumors that your company project is already thinking of expanding territories," Scott said.
Gehirn smiled. That's what I wanted to hear. So this is going to end up coming down to a business deal after all.
"If you could help us create the missing piece it would be very useful for the near future. It would lay the groundwork so that...say, if you were thinking of opening a technology company on U.S. soil, it would be easier to get the support of the right agencies and political support needed."
"Really?" Gehirn asked sardonically.
"For example as a contractor, whose development projects could be subsidized by the defense departments. We know that you have been trying in recent times to recruit the best materials technicians and engineers from U.S. universities."
"I see... in case I decide to say yes. What is the status of the prototype you built?"
"It's finished physically, but it hasn't been able to work with the other parts. The specialists who are working on it are a small group. There aren't a lot of resources for what we're trying to accomplish."
Still it must be a budget that must be in excess of ten million, Gehirn thought with derision. If they had traveled all over the world, gathered parts from all over to put together with a small team of specialists, however small the budget was, it had to be much larger than the budget other departments were getting.
"So basically you need the part to just work?"
"Exactly."
Gehirn looked at Ishida. "I would need some of my engineering specialists to read the blueprints that Professor Nobuyama left behind."
Ishida raised his hand. "I can provide them, no problem for that. But their team also has copies."
"How long do you think it might take?" Jack asked.
Gehirn shook his head and smiled. "If you have a prototype that doesn't work, with a team of technicians that can't make it work either, I can't give you any assurances. My specialists may be able to make it work in days, or we may need to create an entirely new part. To begin with? What's the purpose?"
"To find out if it works. Just getting the parts alone tells us that there may be something much bigger," the professor explained.
Surely these guys think they can get strategic data or something out of all this. If only it really was something that could look back in time, Gehirn thought. Originally the two stones were one that split. Was the splitting due to Satou Nobuyama finding them? What could they really be looking for?
"We need to create Satou Nobuyama's machine for our own benefit," Jack said.
"For the Agency's?"
"It goes much further than that…"
"I'm all ears."
In that way, Gehirn began to listen to Jack and Carl Scott's story while maintaining a solemn attitude.
The talk went on for another two hours, but the most important topics had already been touched on. Dinner became more relaxed and more bottles piled up on the table. Although Hisui never touched alcohol, she ate opiparently and with a double portion of chocolate dessert. Since the host had paid for the entire evening, they could eat and drink as much as they wanted from the restaurant's excellent cuisine.
It was agreed that next week Gehirn would send four of its best engineering experts to check the condition of the piece. Prior to that they would travel to Tokyo, to obtain more detailed copies of Satou Nobuyama's diary than Scott and Jack's team already had, and of the plans of the machine that was planned to be built.
Gehirn wasn't too interested in whether it would all work, but the reward for him sounded promising.
The group that had arrived last finally got up and were ready to leave. They didn't want to abuse too much of the good fortune they had gotten on the evening from Gehirn's help.
They said their goodbyes and were walking away, when Gehirn said something else.
"On the other hand..." Gehirn turned to Hisui with an amused smile.
She looked at him. "What's wrong?"
"I think it would have been nice if Shin had been here so you could apologize to him."
Hisui made a confused face. "Me? I don't know Shin..." She knew what he looked like, a tall, young-looking fey with dark hair, but she had never seen or spoken to him.
Gehirn leaned back in his chair and said in a sly voice. "To be honest, he does know who you are. You're the one who caught him off guard once without his armor."
Hisui folded her arms and closed her eyes. She tried to remember as much as she could, but no. She had never met Shin as far as she could remember and she widened her eyes and shook her head. "Are you sure you're not getting the wrong person?"
"No," Gehirn smiled. "During World War II you met him."
She tried to recall, but it didn't show up in her memories either and shrugged as she shook her head.
"You shot him in the ass with your sniper rifle."
She had during that time been assisting in espionage work on the battlefield and had fired several times. But then in her memory appeared the image of a man running after her in a trench coat and with some kind of helmet on his head. Throwing all kinds of insults, he had revealed the location of both of them and consequently they were chased by German soldiers.
"That stupid? He's Shin? I almost got killed!"
Hisui had seen Shin's picture, but she could not associate it with what had happened because she had shot him from behind, believing that he was a spy. Then his armor had appeared covering his face, so she never knew what the man who had chased her for hundreds of meters looked like. She left the scene behind and the man had stayed behind, apparently fighting to free himself from the soldiers. Because of the noise he had drawn everyone on him, at which she took the opportunity to flee.
"I would never have guessed it was the same person."
The group finally withdrew and those who remained simply stayed until later chatting about adventures and other topics. After all, Gehirn had to get his money's worth for the night.
Downstairs the chatter was already muffled and the music indicated that it was time to close the restaurant. The few diners never imagined that upstairs a part of history was being woven that almost no one would remember.