Writer's
Note: Please read Invisible Threads--Prologue and Chapters One
through Six before reading this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gary was trying to
dig in his heels. "We can't just go barging in."
"Better us today
than the Superstar camera crew tomorrow." Cherie thought that she
was maintaining her professional calm. She was wrong.
"That's
tomorrow?!"
"I don't know.
It might be. They haven't called yet. But it's going to be this
week."
"Lecki's going
to go ballistic."
"He'll go less
ballistic if we talk to him in advance. Like right now. He's in his
office, right?"
"Yes, his office
hours are from two to four. He's always alone since none of his
students would dare walk in there."
"Then, let's do
this." She headed toward the hallway.
He didn't follow.
She stopped and
turned back, "Gary, I am beginning to get less calm."
"I'm coming. I'm
coming."
She led him down to
a closed door with a smoked glass panel. On the glass were the words
Malcolm
Lecki, PhD, Physics.
"What's the protocol here? Do we knock?"
"Come in!" a
voice bellowed from inside.
Gary stepped past
her to enter first. "No, I guess we stand at his door and talk
loudly enough for him to hear."
She could hear Gary
mumbling under his breath as he opened the door into a small and
cluttered office. Two walls were dominated by white boards with faint
marks that would never erase mixed with brighter, newer overlays. The
other two walls held a window and the door. A large desk dwarfed the
room with freestanding bookshelves on either side of the window and
two file cabinets that apparently were too full to close properly. In
the cliched tradition of academics, every flat surface was covered
with scattered papers.
"Richardson. What
can I do for you?" Lecki looked up over the top of his reading
glasses that were perched down on the end of his bulbous nose. This
forced him to keep his head tilted slightly down while looking up
with his faded, blue eyes. The toupee he wore no longer matched the
color of the hair above his ears.
As Cherie entered
the office, Lecki removed the glasses and adjusted his face upward.
"Okay. What can I do for you... two? And you are?..."
"Cherie Chandler.
I'm from Northwestern." She figured to start with academia and
work up to Superstar.
"They have a good
department. Our biophysics people work with them a lot. Do you know..."
"I can pretty
much guarantee that I don't. I'm a theater major."
He became wary,
"Well, that's unexpected. What can I do for you?"
Cherie smiled her
headshot smile, "I'm helping Gary prepare for the next round of
Superstar..."
"The television
show!" He switched his gaze to Gary. "Oh God. Did you actually do
that?
Gary's hands
bunched into fists in his lap. "I told you I was going to."
"Do you understand
how embarrassing this is for the University? Do you know how
embarrassing this is for me? I'm still dealing with the fallout of
your going behind my back. All for a foolish practical joke."
"If it's a
practical joke, explain it. Tell me how I do it!"
Cherie had never
seen Gary so vehement. It was startling.
"I can't. And I
can't tell you how a magician saws a woman in half. That does not
mean he really does it."
"Professor Lecki,"
Cherie interrupted in her calmest voice, "however we got to here,
here we are. Gary is a contestant on Superstar
and had a very successful opening round."
Lecki's wariness
increased. "What does that mean and what do you need from me?"
"Are you familiar
with the show?"
"Not at all." He
was going to make this as hard as possible.
"Well, in the
opening round, they single out some of the most promising acts and
they send out a film crew to get some background on them so that the
audience..."
"Oh, dear god!"
Lecki sighed, dropping his forehead into his hands and almost
unseating the toupee. "A film crew? Please tell me they don't
want to come here."
"Well..."
"No. Unacceptable.
Out of the question. Can you conceive of how embarrassing that would
be for the department to be associated with a magic act?"
"I was notified by
Superstar
this morning that it was cleared by the university. They specifically
said that you would be participating."
"Me? Why?"
"We requested it.
You are Gary's faculty advisor. That is as close to family as we
can get. His mother is ill, and his father passed."
"I am aware of his
family situation but that changes nothing, I will not be associated
with this."
"Are you sure that
the university hasn't notified you about it?"
"I've had my
phone with me all day."
"What about
e-mail?"
He turned back to
his computer screen and his increasingly bulging eyes flicked down
the scrolling e-mails. His visage froze while the mouse clicked three
times. He was silent for a moment, reading. His shoulders slumped.
He glared up at
Gary. "I've been told that I am to support you including
appearing on camera if so requested." He looked to Cherie. "When
is this planned to take place?"
"Tomorrow
sometime. They are kind of like the cable company, they get here when
they get here."
"I have two
classes tomorrow and Gary has a lab. I will not reschedule the
students around this nuisance."
"That is
completely understood."
"And another
thing," He returned his gaze to Gary. "I will not say that I
support this nonsense and I will not dignify it by referring to it as
science. I will not have my reputation further sullied by association
with your asinine pranks."
Gary spoke, "What
do I have to do to prove it to you?"
"There is nothing
you can do. Impossible is impossible."
"Dr. Lecki, tell
me what you want me to move. Something in this office. Something
outside. Anything at all. No weight or size limit."
"Right now, I
would like to remove you from my office."
"No. I'm going
to prove it to you again. With something even you can't ignore."
He sat back into his chair, stilled his breath, and focused his mind
on the memory.
Cherie maintained
her reasonable voice: "Gary, I think we accomplished what was
needed here. Gary?"
Gary sat among the
threads. Dr. Lecki remained sitting in front of him looking angry.
Cherie was talking. He heard her but was focusing his mind on the
threads running through Lecki's desk. Moving the entire thing out
in the corridor... What was that?
Behind Lecki, there
was an area devoid of threads. It was as if something was there, but
he could both see it and not see it. Like in the lab with Cherie. He
tried to bring it into focus. He turned his head to the side and
tried to get an image from his peripheral vision. It almost took some
shape but, when he looked full on, the sense of it faded.
But there was
something. He continued to focus on the area trying to use his eyes
to bring his other senses to bear. It was as if... as if...
It hit his chest
like a hammer.
Cherie was beginning
to worry. Gary had a perplexed look on his face and his mouth was
working as if he were chewing or talking but there were no sounds
coming out. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Gary, are
you all right?"
Dr. Lecki sighed.
"Seriously, Mr. Richardson, I am very busy here and have a mountain
of papers to review." To make his point, he spun in his chair to
the paper-jammed credenza behind him, showing his back to Gary and
Cherie.
And then, Gary
disappeared.
"Gary!" Cherie
looked at the empty chair unable to process what had just happened.
Dr. Lecki swung his
chair back, jumped to his feet, knocking a pile of papers to the
floor, and erupted, "Richardson! Is this more of your
shenanigans?!".
A loud crash came
from the hallway outside. Then, "Ow!" It was Gary's voice.
Cherie and Dr. Lecki ran out into the corridor where lines of heads
were sticking out of the doors like prairie dogs attracted by the
sudden noise. Gary was flat on the floor covered in books from the
shelves that lined the corridor. Two of the shelves lay toppled
around him.
He looked up at her,
"What just happened?"
Cherie shrugged and
shook her head. "If you don't know, I don't know."
Dr. Lecki stepped
forward to tower directly over Gary laying on the floor. His voice
was cold. "Mr. Richardson, I am tired of these stunts."
"This isn't a
stunt. I don't know what happened."
"This obsession of
yours is now getting dangerous. If my reputation and that of the
department would not suffer so much, I would declare it an experiment
just so that I could shut it down." He pivoted on his heel and
returned into his office.
Cherie picked up two
books from Gary's chest and laid them aside. "Are you hurt?
Anything broken?"
"Two bookshelves
just fell on me. Yes, I'm hurt."
"Should we call
911?"
"No, I don't
think so." He rolled over and pushed himself to his knees.
"Is everybody all
right?" The question came from the first head sticking out of a
door down the corridor. Gary knew the face but not the name. He
looked farther down the hall and saw all of the faces directed at
him.
"Everything's
fine. I... uhhh... tripped. Sorry for the commotion."
That seemed to
appease the crowd who found their work more interesting than a clumsy
physicist.
"Are you sure
you're okay?" Cherie looked legitimately concerned.
"Yeah, I'm fine.
We ought to put these shelves back up." He lifted the first of the
two shelves and leaned it back against the wall.
"Fine." She
reached down and grabbed the second shelf. "But while we're doing
that you need to explain how you disappeared."
"I didn't
disappear. I could always see me."
"You were in
Lecki's office... and then you weren't."
"Yeah, there's
that."
"Yeah, there's
that? There's what? What happened?"
"I was trying to
move Lecki's desk out into the hallway. I guess the thread that
went through the desk went through me, too and I didn't notice. So,
when I tried to move the desk, I went instead."
"You teleported?"
"Not really
teleported. It was more like..." No words came to mind that matched
what had just happened.
"It was more like
what?"
"It was very
disorienting. My stomach is a little queasy. And a bunch of books
fell on me."
"Did you... did
you sense motion? Could you see yourself passing through the wall?"
"No. I was in the
office. Then for a split second I was in the office and the hallway.
Then I was in the hallway. And then the books fell on me."
"Why are the books
so important?"
"Because they
hurt."
"Do you think you
could control it and do it on purpose?"
"I don't know.
It scared me."
"What if we tried
it in a big open area where you could see where you were going?"
"Things fell on
me."
"Yeah, yeah, I got
that. But if you could teleport... right on stage... that would be
huge. It would be water cooler talk that would shut down whole
offices!"
"I don't know..."
"This is next
level stuff. No, this is beyond next level stuff. This stuff creates
its own level. Now let's finish getting these books put away so we
can figure out how to fit this into your act."
"My act? This is
more important than just the act. I have to figure this out."
"We've been
through this. In order to figure it out, you need money. In order to
get money, you need notoriety. Notoriety comes from winning
Superstar.
Your words, not mine."
He nodded.
"Good. And we have
a new rule. We speak of this to no one except each other."
"What about
Lecki?"
"You heard him.
He's not going to tell anybody. This is going to be your big grand
finale. We will build an act completely around it."
"What I just did
isn't enough?"
"No, of course
not."
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