The Prophet of Queens Page 18

“Ariel and I are staying home today,” Tia announced, closing her laptop. “Not feeling well.”

  Max gave Stan a knowing look. “Synchronized menses.”

  Stan choked on his coffee.

  The men bulldozed through breakfast, dumped their dishes in the sink, and left, and Tia gave Ariel the all-clear, ordering, “Grab your purse, we’re going to town.”

  Ariel poked her head out her door. “What for?”

  “To get you ready for the festival tonight.”

  It was the weekend of the Talawanda Township annual Summerfest, first chance the four had to check out the local social scene. Max was especially keen on it, TPC short on women who met his criteria.

  Ariel started to object, but Tia reminded her of her oath. Biting her lip, Ariel grabbed her purse and followed Tia to the car.

  “What’s the festival have to do with this?” Ariel asked as they drove off.

  “You’ll see. We’ve got a busy day ahead.”

  A makeover was daunting for any woman, much less one who appeared to have just awakened from the 19th Century. But success tonight hinged on Tia’s Pygmalion project…

  Five hours later, Tia and Ariel were on their way home, backseat filled with boxes, Ariel’s metamorphosis well underway. The girl kept gaping at her reflection in the visor mirror as if she’d never seen herself before. Certainly, she’d never seen herself like this. Her white-gold hair, likely uncut for a decade or better, was now shoulder length and smartly styled by Tia’s favorite hairdresser. Parted on the right, it swept across her brow in a peek-a-boo, dropping in soft curls.

  Ariel had resisted at first, but bound by her pledge, and perhaps secretly longing for a change, she’d relented. She looked stunning. And that was her reaction. Stunned.

  She looked at the world differently, too. Tia had taken her to an optometrist to be fitted for contacts. The poor thing was obviously near-sighted, the way she squinted at distant objects and held books close. Also, astigmatic. But correcting her vision wasn’t Tia’s main objective. Those piercing silver lasers were now a soothing blue—the most transformative change Ariel would undergo. She stared wide-eyed out the window as if seeing everything for the first time.

  Tia told her, “Now everyone else will see you in a new light, too. Townspeople. Coworkers.”

  “Max?”

  Tia grunted, “One mountain at a time. How do you feel so far?”

  Ariel blinked at her reflection. “Lightheaded.”

  “About a pound lighter, I’d say. You don’t like it?”

  “I-I, I don’t look like me anymore.” Dropping her gaze, Ariel scrunched her mouth. “You’re sure this will work?”

  Even in unfinished form, she was a compelling package.

  “More than ever.”

  Ariel turned to regard the stack of boxes in the backseat. “And what are those?”

  While Ariel was having her hair done, Tia had made the rounds to boutiques in town, picking out dresses, accessories, and other considerations for tonight. She grinned. “You’ll see.”

  “But-but I can’t afford all this.”

  “I told you, today is on me, no argument.” Tia could not deny she was enjoying herself, the most fun she’d had in years. And if it worked, worth every cent.

  They arrived home on schedule, well ahead of the men, ferrying the boxes to Tia’s room, piling them on the bed. Tia had Ariel change into a robe, and locking the door, she sat her at her dresser faced away from the mirror. Then grabbing a makeup brush like a maestro addressing her orchestra, she declared, “Now to complete the transformation.”

  Tia was no cosmetologist, but she had skills. She’d been doing her own makeup since twelve. Yet, she’d never faced anything this challenging. While Ariel possessed wonderful features—large eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose, full lips, clean-cut jaw and chin—each lacked definition, lost in a whiteout of pale skin, brows, and lashes. A blank canvas. It would take an artist’s hand to bring out the girl’s natural beauty.

  “Are you allergic to cosmetics?”

  “Don’t know, I never used any.”

  Tia began with foundation, and quickly Ariel’s attributes took form. Like a photograph developing. Tia applied foundation to Ariel’s entire neck as well, needing to cloak all telltale evidence of her identity. A touch of blush to the cheeks, and on to mascara.

  Astonishing. Lashes all but invisible bloomed long and thick, petals of a morning glory unfolding, stark against the brightness of her now-sapphire eyes. A touch of eyeliner.

  Ariel reacted to Tia’s smile, begging, “Let me see!”

  “Not till I’m done. Hold still.”

  Strokes of an eyebrow pencil brought out graceful arcs tapering to fine points. Crimson gloss ripened full, luscious lips. Tia stepped back to admire her work, keeping eager Ariel at bay. A stunning transfiguration. The woman bore no resemblance to the girl.

  From outside the house, footsteps clumped on the porch, screen door banging. Ariel tensed, and Stan’s voice called softly in the hall, “Hey, how you guys feeling?”

  “Better,” Tia called back.

  “Want to join us for dinner at the festival?”

  “No thanks, we’ll eat here. Maybe we’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Righto. Hope to see you there.”

  The men fuddled around their rooms for a time as Tia fine-tuned. Then the front door slammed, and silence again.

  “Please let me look,” Ariel pleaded.

  Tia wanted to add accents of jewelry first. But relenting, she turned Ariel to the mirror and asked proudly, “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

  Ariel’s enormous eyes grew larger still. “Oh my God.”

  Tia beamed. “What do you think?”

  “I, I, I don’t know what to think. It’s not me. I don’t know this person.”

  “It’s another facet of you. And importantly, no one else will recognize you, either. Tonight, you’ll greet the world as a new woman.”

  Ariel’s eyes glistened, and Tia grabbed her shoulders warning, “Don’t cry, you’ll streak.”

  To see this sweet, repressed girl enter the Twenty-First Century was immensely rewarding—

  The sound of tires crunching ravel stirred Tia from her thoughts. They’d arrived home, their night of celebration over.

  Chapter 42

  Monday, October 8, 3:10 pm, Talawanda

  The team skipped both runs today. Instead, they spent their time in the living room on their laptops, researching inter-dimensional singularities. While Ariel’s experiment with the force field yesterday had ruled out the threat of black or white holes, their path forward still wasn’t without risks. If, in fact, the vortex opened into an aneurism rather than the wormhole they were hoping for, their plan to launch test items into the hole could have grave consequences.

  So far, however, Ariel’s research had turned up nothing useful, and she feared they’d hit another roadblock. One she might not have an answer for this time.

  But as they worked, Max helped take some edge off her frustration. She was pleased to see his euphoria from last night continued. He kept things lighthearted, laughing, joking. It reminded her of when they first dated, how fun he could be. She felt like the four of them were true collaborators now, relationships refreshed, rinsed clean of grudges and games. The family Ariel had always longed for. She would have welcomed another of his “looks,” but it didn’t come.

  Not that she would have responded to it.

  At length, having exhausted the research sources she’d been assigned, she told the others, “I hope you were more successful than me, I came up empty.”

  Her friends reported faring no better.

  Everyone mulled the quandary for a time, then Max said, “Well, we can’t just sit around sucking our teeth. What’s our next move?”

  Tia offered, “How about we go public with what we’ve got? It’s still a great story.”

  “It’s no moon landing,” Max replied.

  “It’s a singul
arity with something inside it,” Tia said. “That will get attention.”

  Max sighed. “You’ve got no head for publicity. What we have is a moon landing in the dark. It won’t last one news cycle. We need visuals. The answer is to mount a camera on a pole, stick it in the hole, and record whatever the hell’s in there. Plant a damned boot on the lunar surface.”

  Tia looked like she wanted to plant a boot somewhere else. “That’s the scientific method they teach at Harvard?” she snapped, referring to Max’s alma mater. “Give in to your impulses?”

  Whether or not it was a crack at Max’s bipolarity, he surely took it that way. He went fire red, stood, and stormed out of the tent.

  It seemed the team’s interlude of camaraderie was over.

  Uncertainty hung heavy in the air at dinner. Tia and Max sat tight as coiled springs, the silence between them fierce. Ariel had no appetite. As team leader, she felt feckless. There was one positive note, however. From Max’s perspective, at least. He announced he’d been successful in selling Tia’s Honda, and at asking price. It put them back in the black for the time being.

  Tia rose and excused herself to watch the news, taking her plate to the sink untouched, and one by one, the others followed. Max entered the living room last, switching on the overhead. It flickered. A common issue with the old house. He toggled the switch to no avail, swore, went to the fireplace and grabbed the shepherd’s staff off the mantle. Giving the fixture a thump, he got it working and carried the staff to his chair just in case, using it to pry off his shoes and scratch his toes. Ariel watched Tia grind her teeth.

  On the news, Republican Roger Filby was at a whistle stop in Ohio, on the steps of the Cuyahoga Falls Library bloviating to a crowd. A caption read: Filby Smashes Smasher. The man pointed a forefinger at the horizon, and Max upped the volume.

  “…You know what else they’re hiding from you up there, folks, deep underground, all across that valley?” His voice was smooth and folksy. “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the miles of tunnels an’ fancy machinery they got buried there. I’m talkin’ ‘bout things you can’t see ‘cause they’ll never be. I’m talkin’ ‘bout hospitals, schools, highways an’ bridges left on planning boards, an’ the jobs lost with ‘em. That’s what that white elephant’s costin’ you, friends. An’ ever’ time they run their collider, it’s smashin’ a new school bus, ambulance, fire truck. That’s the trade-off. Just so a bunch a lab coats can poke around inside atoms.”

  “If it weren’t for us lab coats,” Max snarled, “there’d be no TV to broadcast your bullshit.”

  Filby continued, “Stand by me in November, give me a majority in Congress, and I pledge I’ll end all the techno-pork. I’ll stop the waste. I’ll take that money an’ put it back where it belongs—rebuildin’ our country and armed forces.”

  The crowd loved it. Filby quieted them with a hand.

  “One more thing ‘bout that collider, folks—and this can’t wait till election.” Dramatic pause. “You’ve heard talk ‘bout black holes an’ radiation leaks an’ explosions. TPC says it’s all bunk. Well, I asked the U.S. House Committee on Science to look into it…”

  “Science Committee, my ass,” Tia growled. “Run by fools who think the world’s six-thousand-years old.”

  “Turns out the threat is real.” An anxious murmur swept the crowd. “In the interests of national security, I’m callin’ on Congress to get their butts back to Washington an’ halt TPC’s tests. An’ I’m callin’ on you, my friends, to contact your representatives and make sure they get the message.”

  With TPC now a pawn of presidential politics, its future was indeed in jeopardy.

  A grimness settled over the room. The news moved on, and Ariel said, “I don’t understand. The election’s just weeks away, why the urgency to close TPC now?”

  Stan said, “Filby saw the InstaPolls turn against TPC, and he hopped the bandwagon.”

  Max added, “He and Thornton created the bandwagon. They spent years gunning for the collider, now the prize is in sight.”

  Tia agreed. “Kill TPC, they drive a stake through the heart of Big Science.”

  Max and Tia on the same side. If anything could bring this group together, it was their loathing of the anti-science movement. No doubt Thornton and Filby were colluding against TPC. Thornton had a murky history of political shenanigans.

  “But why the rush?” Ariel asked. “Why risk the political capital?”

  “Because even if Filby wins,” Tia said, “the GOP fears they’ll lose the Senate. The Dark Agers want TPC dealt with now while they still have control.”

  Max said, “Long as the polls favored TPC, Filby held off. No sooner do they turn, he’s all in. No doubt he and Thornton planned the black-hole scare from the get-go.”

  Thornton, as head of a tax-exempt church, was prohibited from officially contributing money to politicians. Or collaborating with them politically, in any way. Or even supporting them publicly. Meaning that if he and Filby cooked up the black hole controversy so Filby could take the reins now, it was illegal.

  Everyone fell silent. Then Max banged the butt of the shepherd’s crook on the floor, startling the others.

  “While we dither,” he cried, “the noose tightens. For godsake, let’s stick a camera in the hole and get on with it!”

  Tia whipped around at him. “We’ve still no idea whether it’s wormhole or aneurism.”

  “Something repelled those salt crystals,” Max countered, “and it’s no damned aneurism. I’m not asking you to risk your necks. Stay outside the Horizon, I’ll do it alone.”

  As if the Trapping Horizon would protect them if Max ruptured the membrane.

  Tia was livid. “Let’s put it to a vote.” She looked to Stan and Ariel. “You willing to stake everything on his hunch?”

  Ariel wasn’t. And Stan seemed uncertain.

  Max pulled himself up with the staff and thumped down the hall to his room.

  Chapter 43

  Tuesday, October 9, 8:23 am, Talawanda

  Last night, Max had emailed everyone an obscure article he’d uncovered on the theoretical stability of cosmic membranes. He managed to gain some traction with Stan, but Tia and Ariel held the swing vote, and they weren’t budging. This morning, Max had skipped breakfast to pout while the others sat over coffee discussing “safe” ideas for wresting new data from the hole. All they’d come up with so far were more items to toss inside.

  “We haven’t tried organics,” Stan suggested. “How about fruits and veggies?” He laughed. “Maybe they’ll come back cooked, we’ve yet to test for temperature.”

  Tia said, “I like the idea of things with soft or absorbent surfaces. If they rebound, the skins could bear impressions and traces of what they struck, giving us clues.”

  They devised a list of small-to-progressively larger test items, working with things at hand. Finished, Tia asked Ariel, “Can I borrow your car? I want to hit the bank when it opens, make sure this clears.” She held up the check Max had gotten for her car last night.

  “I’ll drive you,” Ariel said.

  Not that she minded lending her car, she was concerned about Tia in town alone.

  Leaving Stan to prepare the experiments, Max to brood, she and Tia grabbed Newton and departed in Ariel’s old, rusted Buick.

  The car was a high school graduation gift from Ariel’s late Nana. Nana was Ariel’s only family to stand by her after she revealed her college plans, Mom and Phil averse to secular schools. Big car, small engine, bad mileage. But preferable to Stan’s truck, a stick-shift no one else could drive. And Max wouldn’t let a dog in his Mercedes.

  Tia shared the passenger seat with Newton, his head out the window, black and white fur swept back, tongue trailing like a scarf as they headed down the road.

  Talawanda was fifteen minutes north of the farmhouse, a town of about 3,500 on an upper stretch of the valley where plains bumped into foothills. Modest but well-kept homes, steepled churches, town square in the colonia
l style. A nice place to raise a family, Ariel always thought. Locals were welcoming to TPC employees, even now with the controversy. The collider brought prosperity to the community, and the community brought common sense to its conservative principles. Ariel had never seen a townie among the protesters.

  She drove down Main Street headed for First Federal of Talawanda, a brick building also in the colonial style. Two drive-thru lanes, both open, and busy.

  Ariel pulled into the left behind two cars, and suddenly Tia hissed, “Shit,” and ducked behind Newton. “Don’t look—those guys in the orange truck, they’re from the picket line.”

  Ariel couldn’t help it. In the right lane a car ahead were two men in a hulking, safari-rigged Dodge Ram. Gun rack with rifles in the rear window, Georgia license plate reading Born2. The man at the wheel was huge, red beard, bare arm stuck out the window and covered in Celtic symbols. Ariel gasped to recognize the protester she and Max faced that last day at TPC’s gate.

  She threw her car into reverse, but a car had pulled in behind, blocking her. Then of all the luck, the car ahead moved up, vacating a space directly beside the truck.

  Ariel felt paralyzed.

  “Do it,” Tia said. “Quick, before someone honks. Keep your head down.”

  Shrinking till she could barely see over the wheel, Ariel crept forward, stealing sideways glances. The men hadn’t noticed, engaged in conversation.

  Luckily, the car ahead wasn’t long, and Ariel scooted up to the window into the shade of the overhang, feeling less conspicuous.

  Tia thrust her check at her. “Make it fast.”

  Ariel slapped it into the outstretched drawer, but the teller recognized her, chirping into the speaker, “Morning, Ms. Silva.”

  Ariel winced. “We’re in a hurry, please.”

  The woman obliged, dropping a receipt in the drawer along with a doggie treat. Ariel had forgotten about the treat. Not Newton. He jumped into her lap barking, leaving Tia exposed.

  Ariel knew before she looked. The truck was at the station next to her now, men staring.

  Tia muttered in a panic, “Get us the hell outta here!”