July 1899 - Colorado Springs

TWENTY THOUSAND SOULS, any of whom could be the creature’s next meal.  Grayson imagined the mayhem that would follow if it ever got loose, its insatiable appetite chalked up to some strange disease or serial killer as it slowly and steadily terrorized the population.  A vision of a young man’s face, frozen in a shrunken, twisted mask of agony and fear haunted his dreams.  He’d buried the box from the cave shortly after finding it, but since digging it up after Cara’s death he was aware of at least three human victims. The losses he experienced in his herd through the years had followed a similar pattern. The recent feeding, though unfortunate, was the only reason Grayson risked bringing the curse near so many people.  He figured they were safe for at least a couple of months.  Hopefully long enough to get some answers from the wizard who set up shop there earlier in the spring.

Grayson applied gentle pressure on the reins, cueing the horse with his left leg to take the less-worn path uphill, toward a low wooden barn-like structure.  The place hadn’t been hard to find---it was the only building in the foothills east of town with a metal tower coming straight out of the roof, looming at least a hundred and fifty feet high over it and topped with a copper sphere.  The horse pawed the ground in front of it and exhaled loudly as they approached, giving a nervous snort that made its nostrils flap.

"Easy girl," he said, laying his hand on her neck settle the horse. He might have said it more to reassure himself, as he dismounted and looked for a place to tie up next to the strange place.  A rustle in the brush caught his attention and Shade trotted up from that direction, having taken a different route up the hill. On the trail, he often disappeared only to rejoin Grayson a few hours later looking quite satisfied with himself. "Did you find a snack, buddy?"  Shade sat for a moment, then began licking his paw and using it to groom his whiskers.  Clearly he had.

As he approached the building, he noticed a wooden sign on the door with black hand-painted lettering that read "GREAT DANGER - KEEP OUT".  His boot thumped loudly on the front step as he stamped the dust off.  More than being polite, he wanted to make enough noise to announce his arrival.  No one likes being sneaked up on, even if expecting a visitor. He raised his fist to rap on the door when it opened from inside, and he was greeted by a face set with dark, intelligent eyes.

"You have brought the device you wrote about?" inquired the man.  He was supposed to be from New York, but based on his voice, Grayson figured he must have come over from Europe before that. His dark hair was parted in the middle, long on top and slicked back as if a hand were run through it regularly.  His black mustache twitched slightly as though he were about to sneeze in the dry mountain air.

Grayson considered the question, no longer any doubt he was in the right place. "Well, I wouldn’t call it a device, exactly," he replied.  "It’s really just a box.  There are no moving parts or anything."

"We shall see." The man looked a bit skeptical, but opened the door wide enough that Grayson caught a glimpse of the unfamiliar equipment inside. "Bring it into my laboratory and we will conduct the tests."

A little put off by the man’s brusque nature, Grayson retrieved the pack from his horse and returned to the open door. The scientist, or whatever he was, had disappeared inside.  Grayson pushed into the dark room, leaving the door cracked until his eyes adapted.  Since the bite decades before, his low-light vision had improved dramatically, but coming in from the harsh daylight still required some adjustment period. Unfortunately, his color vision had deteriorated almost as fast as the color in his now-gray irises. But those were the least disturbing changes he had noticed.

After a moment, he saw the man huddled over some kind of equipment in the corner of the main room and approached, determined to make a proper greeting. He set his pack down on the wooden floor and removed his right glove. "I’m Grayson," he said, extending his hand toward the oddly-dressed man.  Well, odd this far outside town anyway. 

He was wearing a dark suit and a white, high-collared shirt with a narrow black tie. He returned the pocketwatch he’d been consulting to his vest pocket and paused as if considering how to respond. Finally, he reached out and grasped Grayson’s hand, giving it a single firm shake.  "Yes, of course. That is how you signed your letter. You may call me Nikola."

Satisfied, Grayson released his hand and took a good look around to size the place up.  Not that he sensed any threat, but it was always smart to know where to take cover or make a quick exit if needed.  The room was littered with electrical equipment, large coils of copper wire looping between them. A cylindrical wooden structure filled the room, about fifty feet across and nine feet high. It reminded Grayson of a round corral for training horses, but with copper straps circling the ring spaced every inch or so along its height. Cables crisscrossed the room, all connected to the tower he saw earlier poking up through the roof, as if he were inside a giant metal spider web.  Grayson shivered, imagining for a moment what could have spun such a web, but it couldn’t be much worse than what he brought into the room with him. A table nearby had an empty space, the metal gadgets and wiring pushed off to one side, which he figured had been cleared for Nikola’s experiment. He opened his pack, set the box on the table, and backed away to give the scientist a better look at the thing.

"Fascinating," Nikola said quietly, in a voice that would have been lost in the wind if they were outdoors.  He slid his hand along the side of the box, letting his fingertips trace the crude scratch-like markings etched in rows and arcs on the stony metallic surface. "Do you know what this writing is?" he asked, and the question seemed genuine.

"No," Grayson replied.  "I’ve never seen anything like it." He hadn’t shown the box to anyone other Cara before, but now that Nikola mentioned it, the markings on the outside did seem to resemble writing of some kind. He had the idea this riddle was just beginning to unfold. 

"It is no matter," Nikola said with a newfound confidence.  "I can discover its secret."

"Good luck.  I’ve checked that thing inside and out.  There doesn’t seem to be much to it."

"Mr. Grayson," Nikola began slowly, as he carefully measured the height, depth and width of the box with a wooden ruler. "Are you familiar with the work of Faraday?  Or Maxwell?"

 Where was this conversation going?  Was Nikola trying to show off?  Grayson tried not to read into the man’s question.  "No, I’m afraid I’m more familiar with raising cattle."

Nikola picked up a set of calipers and began checking the thickness of the box, continuing at several places along its open edge as though he hadn’t heard Grayson.  Or, maybe he already knew the answer and had tuned out Grayson’s voice completely, lost in his own thoughts. "There are things in this universe that cannot be seen directly, but are real nonetheless."  Nikola’s eyes had an intensity now, a focus Grayson hadn’t noticed before.  "These things can be measured.  Used for a purpose if harnessed correctly."

"I’m not sure I follow," said Grayson, trying to make sense of his statements. "I mean, I believe in God.  Angels, spirits and things."  And demons.  Definitely demons. "But these things can’t be measured, can they?"

He responded with a slight chuckle, then paused to write some numbers down before answering.  "My father was a priest. I know of what you speak."  Quiet for a moment, he continued, "But I am talking about science."  He clamped a pair of heavy cables to either side of the box, and a small incandescent bulb on the table nearby began to glow. Then he muttered something Grayson couldn’t quite make out about "conductivity", whatever that meant.  He removed the clamps and the light went dark again.  He put aside his tools and crossed the room to retrieve a framed photograph, which he brought over before continuing his explanation.

"What do you see here?" he asked, handing Grayson the photograph.

The bones of a man’s hand were clearly visible, reminding him of the body he found after the birds and animals had picked away the flesh on its arms and face. "It’s a hand," he replied, trying not to recall any addition details.

"Yes.  In fact, it is my hand." To accentuate the point, Nikola held his hand palm down and placed it over the image.  "This picture was taken using invisible Roentgen rays, which pass harmlessly through the body, leaving a shadow of denser materials such as metal and bone."

Grayson still didn’t know where Nikola was going with this, and he worried the man might go on for a while before getting to the point. Best to nudge him back on track. "So, what does this have to do with the box?"

Nikola turned his attention back to the workbench.  "I believe this device is a cavity resonator.  Its shape and size determine the frequency of resonance, which I have already calculated."

"Resonance?" queried Grayson.  This conversation was way over his head.

"Yes.  Similar to a musical instrument, which resonates with sound when it is played, this box will resonate with energy when excited with electromagnetic waves at a specific frequency.  Unfortunately, it is incomplete.  The open side of the cavity must be sealed with a conductive plate of the same material.  Is there perhaps a lid to your box?"

Grayson had often wondered the same thing. "Unfortunately, this is all I have."

"It is a small matter.  I will use a copper plate to close the cavity, and perhaps we can still discover its purpose."  Nikola paused to jot a few more numbers down in his notebook before turning back to Grayson. "I have made the necessary calculations, but before we begin, you will want to move your horse away from the building.  The noise and sensation of electrical discharge through the ground will frighten it."

Grayson wondered if he was serious.  "She’s pretty sturdy. I’ve taken her hunting, and we’ve been in a couple of shootouts, so I don’t think the noise will bother her too much.  How far away do you think she needs to be?"

"About a kilometer should be safe enough.  At least one half-mile."

Half a mile?  This was going to be interesting.

It was close to evening before Nikola had everything set up for his tests. From the top of a ladder, Grayson peered over the nine-foot wall of the large corral-like ring.  Inside, Nikola had set up a wooden stand with the box mounted to it.  Several cylindrical coils of wire about a foot in diameter of varying lengths were also positioned within the ring.   Nikola made some final adjustments to the test stand and climbed up the ladder, joining Grayson outside the ring.

Choosing his words carefully, so Grayson could understand as much as possible, Nikola described the experiment. "When I close the circuit," he began, placing his hand on a giant switch, "these coils will be energized with many thousands of volts. The smaller coils will resonate at a specific frequency, driving the larger coil, and producing electromagnetic waves."

Grayson traced the cables from the switch over to a large metal box stamped with the label "Westinghouse" on the side, which had additional cables snaking out of it to various equipment in the lab. "Ok, I’m following so far," lied Grayson.  He had no idea what was going on.

"Once the main coil is powered, I will tune the exact frequency by adjusting this smaller coil on the bench here," he continued, indicating a glass cylindrical apparatus with wire spooled around it, connected with copper cables to a larger set of glass jars and metal boxes on a nearby table.

"Right," replied Grayson.  No point in letting the man continue his explanation.  "Ready when you are."

Nikola threw the switch, with a little more drama than Grayson thought necessary, closing the contacts to power the equipment.  Immediately, Grayson felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end.  There was a smell in the room that reminded him of that thunderstorm a few years back, when he was a little too close to a lightning strike that ended up killing a few of his cattle.  "Are we safe here?" he asked, more than a little worried.

"Yes," came the curt reply. "I have done this many times."

In spite of the rubber-soled shoes Nikola had provided for safety, Grayson wasn’t convinced.  He stumbled a half-step back, his eyes wide as sinuous blue filaments of light began radiating from different coils throughout the laboratory. A bright flash lit up the room, followed by what sounded like a gunshot, as a finger-thick spark jumped from one of the larger coils to a copper ball on a pole several feet away.  Grayson felt like he should duck behind something, but taking a cue from Nikola he stood his ground.

"Excellent," he said with a grin. "Everything is working as it should," he continued, making some fine-tuning adjustments to the equipment.

Grayson could just see the box above the wall of the main ring, perched high on its test stand.  An eerie blue glow had formed around the edge of the makeshift metal lid, almost like something powerful inside were trying to escape.  He wondered if the leather straps used to secure the lid would hold.  With no other indication of activity, he turned to Nikola, raising his voice over the noise of the crackling electricity. "What’s going on?"

Nikola was deep in his own mind, his hand scrubbing the late afternoon stubble on his chin. "I think the lid is allowing much of the resonating energy to escape.  It is a different material than the rest of the box, and it is not perfectly compatible." He paused, as though turning the problem over and over in his head.  "We need more power. But, unfortunately it will be dark soon."

Confused, Grayson asked, "Does this only work during the day?"

Nikola seemed amused by the question. "No.  At night the city will also want use of the electricity."  He made some adjustments, and the sparks from the copper ball began flying with increased intensity.  Grayson tried counting them, but they were now snapping twice as fast as the ticking clock Cara used to keep on the fireplace mantle. He thought about how she wound it every evening before coming to bed.

Without warning, Nikola ran across the room to a separate piece of equipment which didn’t seem to be part of the experiment as far as he could tell. The man’s excitement was infectious, and Grayson couldn’t help but follow him over.  He was staring at a device with a small glass vial that looked like it contained metal shavings, either end plugged by a metal cap.  It was attached to a wooden disk with copper pads evenly spaced around the edge which was rotating by itself, repeatedly overturning the glass vial and tipping the shavings from end to end like a very fast hourglass.

"What is this machine?" Grayson asked, afraid Nikola would just continue staring blankly at it if he didn’t bring him back from the void of his imagination.

Nikola blinked, as though something clicked inside.  Without taking his eyes off the machine, he explained, "This small vial is a coherer.  It detects radio waves.  Each time a radio pulse is received it needs to be reset, so I designed this machine with an electric motor to tip the vial over after each new signal."

Grayson had never seen any sort of automated machine before, and was fascinated by its movement. He noticed the rotating disk seemed to tip over a few times in a row, followed by a short pause, then continued, but never exactly the same way.  It was almost like the device beat out the rhythm of some complicated song. "Is it supposed to stop and start like that? It doesn’t seem very regular."

"No, it isn’t regular.  But it isn’t random either.  There is definitely a pattern.  There is some information here, almost like a coded message."

Information!  Now there was something Grayson could understand.  "So, is this related to the experiment?  You mentioned these radio waves earlier.  Are they generated by your machine?"

Nikola continued thinking for a few moments, as though he were considering is next words very carefully.  "This is not from the equipment. Or your device.  The signals we are detecting come from much farther away.  If they were transmitted after we established a resonance within the box, based on the timing of when we started receiving them, I would say..." he stopped to scribble some numbers down in his notebook, then continued, "...possibly as far away as Mars or Jupiter."

Mars? Or farther?  In spite of all he’d seen, Grayson had trouble comprehending what that even meant.  He focused on the part he understood. "You mentioned there was information in the radio signal.  What information?"

Nikola retrieved his pocketwatch from its home in his vest and thought for a moment. "If we can precisely measure the time between pulses, we may be able to decode the signal." He replaced the watch before continuing, "But I need to increase the power.  The signal is very weak."  He returned to the main coil control station and turned a few dials, ramping up activity in the power-hungry machine.

A huge spark leaped across the room, connecting the copper ball to a nearby coil before running along the rafters and up through the opening in the roof, connecting with the tower outside.  Grayson ducked and covered his ears at the booming thunder that followed and decided there wasn’t much he could do to help anymore. He decided it was best to put some distance between himself and the laboratory, so he stepped through the door and made his way downhill to check on his horse.  The sun was well behind the front range now, lighting the sky with an orange glow that silhouetted the peaks. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw bolt after bolt of man-made lightning, each with a peal of thunder that echoed off the mountains across the valley.  Grayson was just beginning to wonder if Nikola might be mad to create such an event when the building, and the entire town, went completely dark.

Next Chapter: Chapter 6