“This is a private elevator with only three stops — here, the floor below, and The Particle entrance foyer,” Padman explained to Ryder. “Lord Braighton had it designed into the plans so that the volunteers and staff would have easier access to the lab. It comes in most useful when you want to bypass reception. You’ve seen how busy it can get.” He turned to Isabell. “Do you have your security pass with you?”
She looked through her handbag.
“I do somewhere. Ah, here it is. It’s always hiding in the bottom.” She looked up at Padman. “Give me a call when you want me in next. Like I said, I’m available every day next week and the deadline for my book is miles away, so I won’t have my agent pestering me for pages.
“It was very nice to meet you, Ryder. I hope to see you again. Don’t get scared off by all the craziness around here.” Isabell grinned as she entered the lift.
“Thanks. I’ll try not to,” Ryder replied, smiling, as the doors closed.
As the lift descended, Isabell looked in the mirror.
“Look at your hair, girl,” she muttered to herself. “When was the last time you got it cut?” She tried to coax some volume into her hair but was unable to achieve the look she was after.
The elevator doors opened and she walked through the foyer of The Particle and outside into the morning air. A gust of wind hit her in the face and forced her eyes closed.
“Issi, I know you’re lying. I know you’re sleeping with someone behind my back and this is the only way I can make sure you never cheat on me again.”
Isabell’s eyes shot open. She was strapped down and bound into the passenger seat of a moving car. Her mouth was taped and she was struggling to breath. Terrified, she looked around her, immediately recognising the driver. She knew she was about to die.
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When he saw his mother for the final time, she was lying in a coffin, dressed in a high-necked blouse to hide the rope marks. Ryder was overcome with emotion. She looked still and peaceful and, for the first time since Ryder was an infant, she actually looked like a mother. A tear slipped down his face and landed on her cheek, making it appear as if she were crying, too. He bent down and kissed her forehead.
“I forgive you, Mum, and I love you. I hope you finally find peace.”
After the funeral, Ryder had taken a few days off to sort out his mother’s belongings before heading back to the army, all without a word to his grandparents. He blamed them for her death as much as he blamed himself for not being with his mother in her last few months.
He decided that work would take his mind off everything, but he couldn’t concentrate on his job. The more he tried to put the thoughts of his mother to the back of his mind, the more they resurfaced and distracted him from his work. Work which put his life and the lives of a hundred cadets at risk.
It was this lapse in concentration that had almost gotten him killed when he drove his Jeep into an area covered with landmines. Luckily, no-one else in his battalion had been near the blast and he was the only person injured.
Doctors told him that he was lucky to be alive, but Ryder wished he wasn’t. The army was his life; all his friends, his colleagues and his future had been taken from him that day. Now, he was doomed to live out a new, unwanted existence. Ryder’s legs would never work again, and he had no training or experience that didn’t involve them. The pay-out from the army was decent for a thirty-five-year-old, but he hadn’t counted on his disability restricting him as much as it did.
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“And you think he’s trapped us in here out of spite or something?” Isabell asked.
“I can’t say I understand his motives, but the system logs show he was the last person to enter this room before today. Until we have more information, that’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
“What do we do now? Just wait until someone lets us out?” Jake asked.
“I’m afraid that’s not an option. The nearest washroom is on the other side of that locked door, along with the kitchen, so we have no food or water. The next person with access to Archeus won’t be on duty until six a.m.”
“You’re saying we have to hold our bladders for another six hours?”
“Sorry, I meant six a.m. on Monday.”
“What?” Isabell, Jake and Ryder cried in unison.
“And that’s assuming we’re reported missing and they come to check Archeus.”
“That’s insane. How are we going to manage that long?” Isabell asked.
“That’s not even our most immediate problem.”
“What do you mean?” Ryder looked hard at Padman.
“I can’t access the main network on the computer, but I was able to search through the folders specific to this room. In the system logs is a live-feed measuring the air quality. It’s dropping. I checked why that might be, and I believe the air circulation system has been manually switched off. This is a vacuum-sealed room and as you can see, there are no windows to crack open.”
“How long do we have left?” Ryder asked.
“There are stores of air to feed this room and as long as we —”
“How long do we have, Padman?” Jake asked nervously.
“A little over an hour.”
Panic set in for Isabell and Jake, whose eyes were now darting around the room, searching for an opening of any kind. Ryder maintained more composure.
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“Only one, and I would use it in a heartbeat, but —” the doctor turned to Isabell “— your cat being here terrifies me more than the thought of us all suffocating to death.”
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Padman brought up the floating screen over Arturo, and began interfacing with it.
“What this console does,” he said, addressing the audience while working on the screen, “as well as accessing Arturo’s brain, is also enhances the apparitions and enlarges the images we see. Using a combination of the brain’s own electricity and our newly designed systems, we can now do this . . .”
The doctor brushed his hand over the screen, clenched his fist and drew it away from Arturo, pushing it towards the grid beneath the cannons.
A mass of gathered light and data swam around in a jumbled mess. As it darted around the room, it combined together, steadily growing in size, assembling and ordering itself, until creating an apparition ten times larger than it had been before.
As the image settled, it formed a life-size man, who stared at the audience. Still in a wispy, dream-like state, the only movement produced was by the smoke-like texture, waving and weaving.
“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Carlos,” Padman announced with glee. The surrounding grid of lights began to move and change colours. Lights darted over the apparition, checking for size and consistency. Once the lights had settled, the cannons came to life. All four moved around the apparition, shooting a steady stream of gaseous molecules. In front of their eyes, the body began to fill . . . First a foot, then a hand, an eye, a leg . . .
Padman watched the percentage of the gauge rise as the cannons automatically controlled the flow of each precise molecule being added to the apparition. When it reached one hundred per cent, the cannons stopped, retracting back to the ceiling.
Everyone held their breath, staring at the fully formed man in front of their eyes. No-one spoke, for what seemed an eternity, waiting to see what would happen next.
The man collapsed to the floor.
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About the Book
Title: Refraction
Author: Terry Geo
Genre: Science-Fiction
If you could dream anything into existence, what would it be?
Join Abby, Ryder, Jake and Terrell in an epic adventure that spans this life – and the next. Uncover the secrets hidden within all of us, and set your imagination free.
Welcome to Silicate: where dreams become reality.
From the back cover:
Most stories start at the beginning; this one begins at the end. At least for Maria. Her sudden death sends shock-waves through her family and pushes her grieving mother to the very brink of insanity. After exhausting every avenue conventional medicine has to offer, Maria’s father, Henry, brings together the world’s greatest minds in the hope of carving out a new path. Months pass, and as Henry watches his beloved Elena slowly drift away, he begins to lose faith. It is only then that a solution presents itself. A discovery so momentous, it saves Elena and reveals the most important scientific and technological breakthrough in modern history.
Silicate is founded; a privately funded facility which delves deeper into the human mind, able to discover answers to questions we are yet to ask. Securing Silicate’s secrets becomes of utmost importance; even after treating hundreds of patients, the public are still unaware of the wonders and terrifying reality Silicate has unearthed . . .
The world you know is only half the story.
Author Bio
Born in Derbyshire, raised in Yorkshire, resides in London, Terry learned from a young age that he was different from his peers. He preferred the company of girls over boys, didn’t like sports and would write at every opportunity. He was bullied throughout his school life both physically and verbally and had to deal with the cruelty of others from an early age.Terry Geo wrote and directed his first play at age eleven. At sixteen, he started work in television, writing scripts and becoming the youngest director in the country. Terry applied for a job while taking his final exams and started work in television the week after he finished school. For the first time in his life, he found a world where he could shine and be accepted for who he was. He came out as gay to his parents the following week and never again hid his sexuality from anyone. At seventeen he became the youngest director in the country, producing a light entertainment show for Yorkshire Television. After a short stint in a boyband, Terry went back to writing, editing two national publications. He toured the world as an actor, moved to London and in 2017, wrote and directed a musical for the London stage. A year later, Terry married Ken, the love of his life, in London. After their honeymoon in Thailand, he returned to a book he had started some years before. In January 2019, his cat Megara sadly passed away. This hit Terry hard and in memorial to her, he wrote her into the book he was writing. She is now a part of Terry’s debut published novel, Refraction.