Gross Domestic Product: 19

Chapter Nineteen.

The car pulled up outside Baird’s house about twenty minutes after Connor’s bizarre meeting with the little girl and woman. The couple that emerged were both young, both in their late twenties, early thirties at the oldest. The woman, a short plump redhead nodded his way. “Yeardley? I’m Evelyn Stirling, I hear we might have a class four?”

“Yes, hello. It’s in here.” He said gesturing toward the Baird residence.

She nodded as her partner, pulled out what looked like photographic equipment cases from the back of the car. The young man smiled. “Could you give me a hand with this ontoscope by any chance?” he asked.

Ontoscope? Connor didn’t recognise the word, but got the general gist of its function. “Sure,” he said and helped pull one of the cases from the back seat.

It was heavy.

“I’m Ernie,” the young man said. He seemed nervous, excited.

“Yeah,” Connor replied. He walked back towards the gate where Evelyn Stirling was standing. She was staring at the house, analysing it and then rapidly jotting down her impressions in a small notepad.

“So, what’s the plan here?” Connor asked.

“We take readings. Try to figure out if there is a shape behind this, and if there is, identify it.” Evelyn replied. “Though just by looking at the sheer amount of leakage, it’s obvious were not dealing with something trivial. Look at the plants by the walls.” She said, her index finger drifting forward.

It had been a cold winter, but even that did not explain the warped rot that had infected the plants. Connor hadn’t noticed that and was annoyed with himself, it was exactly the sort of thing he should have noticed.

“Right, in we go then.” Connor suggested and pushed through the gate. The others followed. Evelyn was still speaking.

“The Department said you’ve had actual experience with… ‘them’,” she said.

Connor always found that the best name for such entities, they bore little in common with each other, certainly not enough to categorise them by anything other than threat level. “I have,” he answered, realising how crazy such a confession sounded, even to him.

He caught Evelyn and Ernie’s eyes glance at each other for a second, a flash of worry, of uncertainty. They doubted his answer but at the same time were concerned about the ramifications of it being true. He got all that from a single look. He got more too. They were boffins. These guys were scientists, not field agents. “So first time out in the real world?” he asked, politely, without mockery.

Ernie gave a laugh but Evelyn nodded. “Yes, it’s all theoretical to us.”

Connor liked that, diplomatic, neutral. The young woman was smart. In his time with Department 23 he’d met a few sceptics, most of who had been either driven insane or met untimely deaths. It paid to have an open mind.

They’d reached the door, Connor went straight through into the hall, if anything the smell of rotten flesh was even more pungent. Both Evelyn and Ernie winced as it hit their nostrils. “I don’t even what to know what the fuck that is.” Ernie said.

“The owner. He’s through there on the left, all over the room to be precise.” Connor said. It wasn’t meant as a dare but Ernie, seeming to take it as a challenge became emboldened and steadfastly marched in to cries of “don’t” from both Connor and Evelyn.

Ernie stood in the doorway and said nothing he just paused there, stood motionless for a second and then said. “Fuck. I- Jesus Christ,” He then turned away from the room shaking his head, the blood had ran from his face, as if terrified by what it saw. “I mean, fuckin’ hell.”

Connor patted him on the shoulder. “First time, eh? Don’t worry, we’ll get you through this.”

“Ernie, start setting up the ontoscope I’m going to go check upstairs for places to put the receivers.” Evelyn said and hopped up the stairs, quickly, like she was putting distance between herself and the savagery below.

Ernie looked at Connor, guiltily. “Sorry about that, I just didn’t expect...”

There was a yelp from above. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Both men instinctively dashed for the stairs. Connor was up them before Ernie, at the bottom had shouted “Evelyn, are you alright?”

She was, shocked but otherwise fine. She had a furious look on her face and once again pointed with her index finger. “In there,” she growled, “why the fuck didn’t you warn me?”

Connor was bewildered by this until he looked into the room she was pointing at. On the floor, bound to the bedstead was the naked corpse of a young man. “Christ,” He gasped. “I didn’t check upstairs. Sorry, I was told to leave and wait for you two.”

She shook her head in dismay. “Real house of horrors this is. It was mentioned that there may be a second site?”

Connor nodded. “Maybe, let’s concentrate on this one first,” He was glancing at the body, it was intact. That puzzled Connor, was it disturbed in some way, did it have to flee the scene before it got to work on this victim, or was something else afoot here? “How long will this take to set up?”

“Fifteen minutes or so.” Evelyn replied. “Ernie knows his stuff.”

They walked back downstairs and explained what had happened to Ernie, who was less unsettled by that than by the bloodbath he’d witnessed. He went back to sorting all the equipment. Connor watched with fascination and occasionally asked questions and was given answers that were incomprehensible to him. Which led to more questions. Eventually it dawned on Ernie that he wasn’t talking to someone with the knowledge he had and so he simplified his explanation the best he could.

“It’s like this,” he began. “Everything that has happened since the moment of the big bang, is a chain of events caused by the big bang. It’s like one of those domino-toppling record attempts, each domino is knocked over in a sequence and keeps going until the final pattern emerges, right?”

“Right,” Connor said, he understood that much.

“So we’re in the midst of all this cause and effect, that’s what spacetime is, time acts like the momentum that ripples through the dominoes which are space. The others are outside of it. Imagine them like some mad audience member or crew, deliberately able to influence or sabotage the sequence. These alterations, their very presence, changes the sequence in a perceptible manner, and through the Ontoscope we can begin to map what it is.”

“Got you.” Connor said, liking the analogy of the dominoes. The machines all seemed to be ready and connected.

“See these small boxes?” Ernie said, lifting one to display it.

“Yeah,”

“They’re receivers, I need you to place one in each room.” He threw it at Connor who caught it, just, after it bounced between his palms. It was a featureless grey metal cube.

“Does it need connected? Is there an on button or something?” Connor asked.

Ernie grinned. “First time, eh? Don’t worry, we’ll get you through this.”