Janus hadn’t been around eighteen years ago, and Donati was all too aware that it owed its very existence in large part to what had taken place at the lab he’d been working at back then.
“Doctor,” the sharp voice of a woman began, from the top box on the right side of Donati’s screen, “the purpose of this call is not to rehash your unfounded conclusions from eighteen years ago. Indeed, none of your claims involving the incident at your former workplace were supported by the investigation that followed.”
“That investigation was sanitized, covered up, eighty-sixed, deep-sixed, shoved under the rug. Should I go on?”
“Stick to the present, Doctor,” from Lower Left.
“Precisely, completely, and inalterably my intention, sir, sir, sir, and madam. Except for the fact that the repeat of the same, or similar, pattern is impossible to ignore.”
“You’re speaking of this sequence of naturally occurring phenomena,” said Top Right, the lone woman again.
“That all depends on your definition of ‘naturally occurring.’”
“I wasn’t aware there was more than one, Doctor.”
“Semantics, ma’am. In both cases, today’s as well as eighteen years ago, such phenomena may have been natural, but they occurred as a direct result of outside stimulus.”
“Your report on the laboratory explosion from eighteen years ago made that clear,” noted Top Right.
“The odds of those particular phenomena following the precise curvature of the Earth were estimated at a million to one. The odds of these similar phenomena today following that same pattern are closer to ten million to one.”
Lower Right’s voice grid began dancing a beat ahead of the actual sound. “Which in and of itself does not suggest the kind of hostile action your alert specifies.”
“At least not directly.”
Donati heard the woman in the top right chuckle mirthlessly. “Direct threats, Doctor, were what Janus was created to deal with, not theoretical ones.”
“Unless a particular threat boasted as a harbinger geoplanetary disruption. I’m convinced that such seismic disruptions are due to slight alterations to the Earth’s rotation, as demonstrated by them occurring along a specific line of curvature in both instances, accompanied by drastic spikes in electromagnetic radiation. So small and minor, infinitesimal, really, as to be completely immeasurable.”
“And what,” asked Top Left in a flat tone, “would you say was to blame for such disruptions both then and now?”
“Alterations in the time-space continuum.”
“Not this again,” the woman sighed.
“If you’d read my complete report on the circumstances surrounding the explosion of eighteen years ago,” Donati retorted, trying to stay calm and keep his voice steady, “you wouldn’t take that attitude.”
“But I have read it, Doctor—twice, in fact.”
“No, ma’am, you haven’t. Because the report I wrote back then was never circulated. It was sent back to me with a request to reissue, redacting certain information not deemed appropriate or professional.”
“And what does that mean, exactly?” interjected Lower Right.
“From a ‘scientifically enforceable standpoint,’ I believe was the phrase that was used. I suppose one purpose was to avoid a panic. The other, more relevant intent was to avoid the shuttering of the division that gave birth to Janus in the first place.”
“Am I missing something here?” challenged Lower Right again. “What division are we talking about?”
“Laboratory Z,” Donati said, speaking the phrase for the first time in years.
“We’re well aware of the existence of Laboratory Z,” Top Left reminded him. “The explosion, after all, destroyed it.”
“Laboratory Z’s existence, yes, sir, sir, sir, and madam. But not its true purpose, what it was chartered in total secrecy to achieve.”
“Janus didn’t exist then,” the woman in the top right added. “But we do now. Please speak plainly, Doctor.”
“Suffice it to say,” said Donati, “that our experiments were figuratively based on leaving bumps in the night. Until something bumped back.”
41
LATE FOR PRACTICE
ALEX DREAMED OF SHOWING up at football practice late. In the dream he could see the field, but no matter how fast he ran he couldn’t reach it. Like the world beneath him had turned into a treadmill, making it impossible to get anywhere at all. He kept looking behind him as his legs chugged uselessly, certain each time someone would be there in pursuit, with him powerless to escape them. They’d get closer and closer until they were upon him.
Except there was never anyone there.
The dream then dissolved into a replay of the brutal battle in his house, only his parents were still alive in the end because he had saved them. Then he was explaining to his coach that he was late for practice because he had to fight android-like beings who smelled of burned metal. Only it wasn’t the coach he was talking to; it was a life-size version of Meng Po.