Authors' note: If some of the prose and dialogue in this story looks familiar, it's probably because you've read Scarlet's Shadow novella "Who Knows What Evil". If it doesn't, well, you might want to go read "Who Knows What Evil" in a new light after finishing this one...S & S
"Professor...Professor...MARK!"
Professor Mark Lachlan looked up from the dusty filing cabinet at the sound of his assistant's voice. "Yes, Paul?"
The younger man, Paul Maxwell, Lachlan's long-suffering lab assistant, sighed and shook his head. "So here you are, Oxford grad, MIT professor, and instead of using the state-of-the-art Manhattan lab that was practically handed to you, you sit here in this stone-age warehouse in the middle of God-forsaken Washington, DC."
"I'm researching classified reports!" protested Lachlan. "Where better to search for them than in the heart of Spy Central USA? And this place isn't stone-age, it's a World War 2 storage warehouse. I was alive when this place was built."
"This is ancient," complained Paul. He held up a piece of paper as evidence. "Look, see! It's an ancient language, inscribed on papyrus!"
Lachlan looked over. "That's my notebook, and that is my handwriting!" He sighed. "I'm close, Paul--I can feel it."
Paul rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, just like last year, and last month, and most of the last decade."
"There's just this one missing element. It's in this warehouse somewhere."
"It's not anywhere," Paul said gently. "The Unified Field Theory was never finished. Einstein never solved it."
"Oh, he solved it!" Lachlan said with absolute certainly. "He solved it, and it was even used in applied theory."
"The Philadelphia Experiment again?" Paul said with a deeper sigh. It was a confirmed fact that all academics were certifiable, but most of them had a successful method in their madness. "O.K., granted, there was an experiment, or so goes the reams and reams of old government memos we found. And O.K., granted, it was relying on Einstein's Unified Field Theory, and granted, it was reported successful in '34 by one report which has enough redactions in it to make it almost unreadable. But if the theory worked, if the entire experiment itself was real, then it would have been in the file you have. You have the clearance to see all that stuff, so why isn't the theory complete?"
Lachlan sighed. "I don't know."
Late into the night, Lachlan rummaged through another file. The Philadelphia file had over 200 hundred pages, but one of them was missing. It was widely believed that the page had been lost between the experiment and the Second World War, when the file was reopened as a possible weapon. The mid-war experiment was a disaster, and the military classified the whole thing, writing it off as unsuccessful.
But it has to work. Lachlan thought to himself. Something on that missing page must have tipped the balance. But where could the page be?
Lachlan knew first hand all the checks that any piece of paper from any classified file had to go through before being destroyed, so it had to have been lost in the shuffle during World War II, like so many things had been in the initial chaos.
To that end, Lachlan had been searching the files for the missing page, and its answer.
Tonight, he found it.
For a long moment, he just stared at it in pure disbelief, amazed that his last year of searching had finally yielded results, and then, began to focus on the equations on the page.
He ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a piece of chalk, and started writing them out. Then he stopped. No, this wasn't it. He'd come up short yet again.
And then something hit him. These equations looked very familiar...like something he'd seen in another pre-WWII incomplete report. He ran across the room and looked through his notes, then pulled a dog-eared copy of a copy of a copy of an old paper on pre-WWII atomic research out of his briefcase. He flipped through the pages, then suddenly realized what he'd really found.
"EUREKA!" he screamed triumphantly. He quickly made a ton of notes on his pages as he was dialing his cell phone. "Paul?" he shouted into it, "Are you up? Why not? It is?" he said in surprise as he looked at his watch. "Get up. Get everybody up. Go wake up thirty people and get them into the lab right now. I know what's happened! I know where it is now! I know where we can find it! We may be on the verge of uncovering the biggest coverup in history!"
Victor Cranston was running late, as usual, but this time he was more distressed by it than usual. It had been three days since Lamont Cranston had suffered a massive heart attack, transforming him suddenly from a relatively robust if aging billionaire businessman into a complete invalid, a sharp mind with enough telepathic power to stop a truck trapped inside a body too weak to lift a cup of water. Doctors had already told the two brothers that there was little that could be done for their father other than "easing his suffering", so Victor and his younger brother Alexander had approved, against their father's wishes, controlled doses of morphine to keep the pain at bay and allow him to move toward a pain-free demise that was coming ever closer as the hours crept by. Now the brothers were trading bedside vigil shifts, each taking turns watching over Lamont, trying to help keep him calm and relaxed and provide his overflowing psyche with an outlet that no one else possibly could.
Alexander was standing outside Lamont's room, looking somewhat confused, as Victor approached.
"How is he?" Victor Cranston asked.
Alexander hesitated before answering. "Acting very strange."
Victor raised an eyebrow. Very little about Lamont Cranston could even be remotely considered "normal", so "strange" was a relative term. "In what way?"
"He asked if I had a girlfriend."
Victor chuckled slightly. "Well, at least he's observant. I mean, it was kind of hard to miss that look you and Marie from Accounting shared yesterday when she brought those flowers..."
Alexander gave his brother a death glare. "I may have to hurt you."
"Oh, come on, Alex, it's not like it's a big secret that you clearly have some sort of attraction to the girl..."
"I do not!" Alexander snapped. Then he got hold of himself. "And besides, that's not the point. Dad would not let up on it. He asked if I'd ever thought about kids, and did I have names picked out!"
"Well, do you?"
Alexander threw a mental slap that made Victor draw back. "Don't push your luck, Victor. I am capable of going toe-to-toe with you.
Victor pushed back. "You and what army?
"Do I have to separate you two?" Lamont Cranston's mental voice echoed through their ears.
Victor and Alexander looked at each other, a look that clearly indicated they would continue this discussion later, then Victor headed for Lamont's room while Alexander left to get some much-needed sleep.
A knock at the door of his study shook Victor Cranston out of his contemplation. "Come in," he called mentally.
Stephen Cranston poked his head in the door. "You sent for me?"
The elder Cranston said nothing, but gestured for Stephen to come in.
Stephen and partner Peter Parker came into the room, both of them looking a little uncertain about why they were there. Victor's message had been strangely cryptic, ordering both of them to drop whatever they were doing and come to Cranston Manor immediately. They'd made pretty much record time crossing the city in Moe's cab, and now just wanted to know what was so important that Victor couldn't give them any details before they arrived.
Victor gestured at the desk, clearly indicating he wanted them to sit in front of him.
"He's not talking," Peter noted. "Not a good sign. Unless you guys are doing that silent-speech thing."
Stephen shook his head. "No think-talking going on here--at least, not on my part."
Victor said nothing, but he placed two crystal snifters before them and poured each of them a shot of cognac.
"So this is at least a one-drink discussion," Peter wisecracked. "Want to lead off this round?"
"You two have been keeping secrets," Victor accused.
Stephen raised an eyebrow. "Well, yes, but that shouldn't be news to you. What secrets have your keen detective skills uncovered this time?"
Victor sighed and pulled out a metal strong box from beneath his desk. "Stephen, before your parents married, Lamont Cranston had a massive heart attack and fell very ill. He became so physically weak that he was never able to do anything on his own again."
Stephen nodded sombrely. "I know."
Victor took a breath and a sip of his drink. "Before he died, he spoke to me privately in the hospital room, and told me about this box." He tapped the sealed box on the table. "He told me where it was--hidden in the wall of all places, in a safe I never knew about--and told me that I was never to look for it, much less to open it, under any circumstances, until noon today. He stressed the date very firmly. And under no circumstances was I to ever tell your father it existed."
Stephen looked at his watch. It was 12:30 PM. "I assume you opened it half an hour ago?" he queried.
Victor nodded. "I did. That's why I called you." He shoved the box toward them both. "Take a look."
Stephen and Peter shared a look and leaned forward. Stephen flipped the latch and lifted the lid.
Inside the box were two thick envelopes, yellowed with age.
On the front of one, written in a smooth flowing hand:
To Stephen Cranston
And the other:
To Peter Parker,
For a full thirty seconds, nobody moved.
Victor broke the silence. "He died a full two years before you were born!" he told Stephen sharply, then looked at Peter. "And five years before you were born! How did he know you would be here? How did he know your names?"
"Wait a minute...the Green Goblin was Norman Osborn?" blurted Sarah Branson.
"Yep," Mary Jane Watson confirmed, fanning her toes to dry the nail polish she'd just applied.
"Then Spiderman did kill him?"
"No. According to Peter, Osborn killed himself. It was an attempted murder-suicide--he was intending to have his glider run Peter through, and Peter got out of the way."
Sarah was rapidly scribbling down notes. "Wow. But Goblin's been dead for three years, so who was that guy that hit Madison Square Garden not that long ago?"
"That was Osborn, too. He didn't really die--we just thought he was dead. Blame Stephen for that one."
"What?"
"Apparently Stephen has an agent in the morgue who called him and told him the corpse he was about to carve up wasn't dead. It's a really long story, one he tells a lot better than I do. When it comes out of his mouth, it actually makes sense."
"Yeah, that's normally the case." Sarah looked over her notes. "So, is Osborn really dead now?"
"We think so. Though it's been my experience with supervillains that they're never really gone for good."
Sarah nodded and kept writing.
"Mind if I ask what you're doing?"
"I might want to write a book one day," Sarah smiled impishly.
"Better not let Stephen see that. He gets really bent out of shape at the notion that somebody's keeping any kinds of tabs on him."
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"Yeah, but The Shadow knows."
"Who?"
Both women laughed.
Just then, MJ's cell phone rang. She answered it. "Hello?"
"The sun is shining," Peter's voice said.
MJ rolled her eyes. "But the ice is slippery. I take it the boss is listening in?"
"Is Sarah with you?" Peter asked, ignoring the question.
"Yeah."
"Good. By the time you get downstairs, you'll have a cab waiting."
MJ sighed. "I take it this means we aren't going Christmas shopping today?"
"Nope."
"Fine. See you soon." She hung up and rapidly fanned her nails once more.
Moments later, Sarah and MJ came out of MJ's apartment building to find Moe's cab waiting for them. The rear door opened, and Stephen stepped out to allow the ladies to get into the backseat.
"Full house," MJ noted as she gave Peter, in the front seat, a kiss on the cheek.
Stephen climbed back in the cab and closed the door. "First things first," he said. "Sarah, give me the notepad."
Sarah gave him an innocent look.
Stephen glared.
Sarah sighed and handed it over.
Stephen leaned down, popped the compartment drawer, and slipped the notepad into his cloak. "Good. Now, we have a new mission. Mark Lachlan."
"Never heard of him," Sarah said.
"Well, you're about to become his new best friend."
"Who is he?" MJ asked.
"I don't know," Stephen replied.
"What does he do?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know."
"Then why are we following him?"
"I don't know."
MJ and Sarah traded a long look. "Well...," MJ said finally. "That explains everything."
"Trust me, you really do not want a full explanation," Peter stated.
Stephen nodded as the cab pulled to a stop in front of the Hall of Records. "Now then...two teams." He handed two slips of paper to Peter and Sarah. "You two will start here. Find anything and everything you can on Lachlan. Basic vital stats are on that sheet. Meanwhile, MJ, you and I will get started on finding out what he's been up to and why he'd be in danger."
"Is he in danger?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know."
Long silence. Finally, MJ spoke. "Stephen, do you just pick names randomly out of the phonebook, or is this one of those weird psychic things I'm not supposed to understand?"
"If you knew why we we're looking for this guy," Peter interjected, "you'd have a headache just like mine."
Stephen gestured with his head toward the building. "Off you go. First one to find Lachlan wins."
"Do I want to know what first prize is?" Sarah asked.
"No," Stephen answered.
"All righty then," Peter replied, and he and Sarah exited the cab.
MJ waited until Moe accelerated out into traffic again. "So why didn't you want Sarah with you?"
"Because she doesn't know about the Sanctum yet, and that's where we'll be doing our searches. Besides, when there's a mission involved I find I have to keep you and Peter separated, otherwise neither of you would ever get anything done."
MJ snorted. "Jealous?"
Stephen pretended to ignore her.
There was a carefully measured silence. "Is the Policeman's Widows and Orphans' Holiday fundraiser tonight or tomorrow?" MJ finally asked.
"Tomorrow."
"At the Cobalt Club, right?"
"Right."
"You should take Sarah."
Stephen realized that pretending to ignore the comment was likely not going to deter it. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not going."
"Why not?"
"Because you don't go to these events by yourself."
"Then you should take Sarah."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not going."
"Ah." MJ shook her head. "You have this way of making everything sound so logical."
Stephen smirked. "I'm good at that."
The rest of the ride went by in silence.
"O.K.," Sarah said to Peter as they took a seat at the microfiche tables. "Are we just going to sit here and pretend these instructions make sense, or are you going to tell me what's going on?"
"I am long past pretending they make sense," Peter replied. "I find it keeps me much saner to just kind of go with the flow."
"How have you not killed him over the past three years?"
Peter slipped a microfiche into his reader and adjusted the viewer's focus. "There have been moments when the thought has crossed my mind."
Sarah followed suit. "And?"
"And then I remember two things."
Sarah looked at him. "And they are?"
"That I owe him my life...and that good friends are hard to come by."
Sarah nodded her agreement.
The two of them returned to studying.
Back at the Sanctum, Stephen sat down at the console of his command center. "Burbank."
Burbank's face popped up on Stephen's viewscreen. "Yes?"
"Any new information on Mark Lachlan?"
"Currently awaiting a response from an agent at the Pentagon."
"The Pentagon?"
"Yes, sir. Lachlan was recently granted a security clearance for an unknown project. Awaiting further details."
"Good. Keep me posted." Stephen snapped off the screen and turned to MJ. "Interesting turn of events."
"It'd be more interesting if I knew exactly why you found that interesting," MJ, leafing through a folder on Lachlan that Stephen had handed her, replied from the sitting room.
Stephen smiled mysteriously. "Trust me. You really do not want to know yet."
MJ rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
Further conversation was cut off by the ringing of her cell phone. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the incoming number. "What's up, hon?" she said into the receiver. "Yeah, he's right here. Yes, he's giving me the evil eye. Yes, I'll tell him you said to stop that."
Stephen shook his head. "This is why you two are working apart."
"I'm sorry, hon, can you repeat that? Motormouth over there keeps whispering in my ear." She listened for a minute, then took down some notes. "Got it." She looked over at Stephen. "Peter says they found a bunch of transcripts from Lachlan's college days. He went to Oxford on a physics scholarship. Pretty highbrow stuff, except for the parts where he got disciplined for a bunch of anti-nuclear proliferation protests in the '60s."
"Him and about a gazillion other college students from that era." Stephen considered. "Ask Peter where he went from there."
"Did you get that?" she asked the receiver. "Yeah, I'll hold."
The console buzzed, and Stephen gestured for MJ to lower the volume on her conversation. "Report."
"Requested information coming across now."
"Good work."
Burbank cut the connection as the pneumatics hissed. Stephen took the paperwork out of the transport tube and started to go through it when he noticed MJ at his desk. "Yes?"
"Peter wants to talk to you." She handed him the phone.
Stephen looked confused for a moment, then spoke into the handset. "Yes?"
In the Hall of Records, Peter smiled mischievously. "MJ says I should tell you to ask Sarah out."
Sarah looked up from her work and felt her jaw drop open.
Stephen gave MJ a look that would freeze lava, then returned his attention to the phone. "Is Sarah there?" A pause. "Put her on."
Peter handed the phone to Sarah. "Boss wants to talk to you."
Sarah took the receiver and gave Peter a nasty glare. "Hello?" She listened for a moment. "No. Yeah, as if. Yeah, he is. What? You're sure? All right."
Peter's spider-sense suddenly gave a sharp tingle, and he ducked millimetres aside from the slap Sarah aimed at the back of his head.
She growled at missing him, then tossed the phone to him. "Message from him," she retorted.
Peter watched her walk a few paces away to cool down. "Your aim is slipping," he wisecracked to the phone.
"Where'd Lachlan go after he got done studying and protesting at Oxford?" Stephen asked in a complete change of subject.
Peter returned to consulting his notes. "According to this, MIT."
"Well, he's not there any more. He's doing classified work for the Government."
"Interesting."
"What's more interesting is this file number that Burbank dug up. Meet us at the manor in fifteen minutes. It's time I told you three a few things about an old Shadow case from long ago."
Peter felt a slight chill as he hung up.
MJ and Stephen arrived back at Cranston Manor moments later and were greeted at the door by Andrew, Victor's loyal majordomo. "Where's Victor?" Stephen asked.
"He left rather suddenly," Andrew answered. "He wouldn't tell me where he was going. But he looked...um, rather unnerved."
"He's not the only one," MJ noted.
Stephen shot MJ a glare. "Andrew, give Victor's office a call and see if they know where he might be. Meanwhile, Peter and Sarah should be here any minute. We'll be in the drawing room."
"Yes, sir." Andrew headed off to make the phone call.
MJ plopped herself on the overstuffed sofa in the drawing room as Stephen headed for the sidebar to fix himself a drink. "You know something?" she asked him.
"I know many things," Stephen's Shadow voice replied cryptically.
"If you and Sarah got married, her name would be 'Sarah Cranston'." She fished through her purse for her nail file and casually leaned back to buff her nails. "You wouldn't even have to get your towels re-monogrammed."
Stephen gave MJ a look reserved for a lab technician that had accidentally released smallpox on the world. "You have been hanging around Peter too long."
"Yeah, yeah. And 'denial' is just a river in Egypt."
Stephen started to fire off a retort when Peter and Sarah came into the room.
Peter assessed the tension quickly. "You making a pass at my girlfriend?" he asked dryly.
"Sit down," Stephen replied in answer.
Sarah plopped herself on the sofa next to MJ.
Peter slipped off his shoes and took his customary seat on the wall.
Stephen finished his drink, took a deep breath, and picked up a Manila folder. "Have any of you ever heard of the Philadelphia Experiment?"
"I thought that was a myth," MJ said.
"So is The Shadow." Stephen poured himself another drink. "O.K., here's the popular rumor. During WW2, the U.S. military used an experimental device to try and create a cloaking field for one of their destroyers. Invisible ships would have been a big advantage with the majority of the fleet blown up at Pearl Harbor, but the experiment was a bust, the results were catastrophic on the ship and the crew, and the whole thing was scrapped and swept under the rug."
"Yeah, that's the popular story all right," Sarah replied. "But I presume there's more to the story that meets the eye."
"You presume correctly. The prototype was in fact built long before that, at least five years before the war started, but for an entirely different purpose. The experiment was based on an unproven theory of Albert Einstein's called the Unified Field Theory."
"The what?" MJ asked.
"Unified Field Theory," Peter replied. "Sometimes called the 'Theory of Everything'. It's the notion that all known and unknown scientific phenomena can be tied together to explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy in existence. In physics terms, a 'field' is an area under the influence of some force--gravity or electricity, for example. A unified field theory would reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of various field theories to create a single comprehensive set of equations. Maxwell proposed the first field theory for electromagnetism in the mid 1800s. Einstein's general theory of relativity, the first attempt to really explain gravity since Newton and the apple, was the second field theory. Einstein coined the term 'unified field theory' as part of his attempt to prove that electromagnetism and gravity were different manifestations of a single fundamental field that included space and time. The problem is that quantum theory kind of throws a huge monkey wrench into the whole thing. On a microscopic level, it explains everything, but on a macroscopic level--the stuff you can see when you view scientific phenomenon--it doesn't fit with the other two. That's why scientists have been chasing this for years--it's like the Holy Grail of physics."
"Which brings us to the Philadelphia Experiment," Stephen concluded. "The Philadelphia Experiment was not an attempt to create a cloaking device. It was, instead, a time machine."
"Say what?" Sarah blurted.
"And it worked," Peter added.
"So why haven't we heard about this a thousand times?" MJ asked.
"Because after it worked," Stephen explained, "it was sabotaged."
"By who?" Sarah asked.
"Lamont Cranston. The Shadow."
"Your grandfather," MJ commented.
Stephen nodded.
"Wait--how many generations have been at this?" Sarah asked Stephen.
"Three. Lamont Cranston was the first, starting in the late 1920s. He sabotaged the machine."
"Why would he do that?" MJ asked.
"His records don't say. Which in and of itself is very unusual, because Lamont Cranston kept extremely detailed records of everything he did, and how he did it, in case he ever ran across something where some aspect of what he'd done in the past might be useful. But for this one, he left almost no records, except for the fact that it was working, a twelve digit file number, a notation that he had indeed sabotaged it, and two words: 'Reliable Intelligence'."
"Any idea what he meant by that?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out. For some reason, he really wanted to make sure no one found out about this. He even went so far as to find the Philadelphia Experiment file and misfile one of the pages, so that the prototype couldn't be rebuilt. And that was that until the war, when the government tried to recreate the experiment out of desperation, without that page, and after that the truth sticks pretty close to the rumor. The program was scrapped and fell through the cracks after the war ended like so much else did."
"What has this got to do with anything?" Sarah asked.
"Well, that was the end of the story right up until noon today, when my uncle carried out instructions my grandfather gave on his death bed--to retrieve a metal lockbox, which had been hidden in the wall for almost seventy years, and not to be recovered, until this exact date."
"What was in it?"
"Two letters."
"One addressed to me, the other to Stephen, by name," Peter added. "Written by Lamont Cranston, seventy years ago."
Long silence.
"Wow...," MJ said to finally break the silence. "I felt that chill go up my spine."
"Tell me about it," agreed Peter.
"What did the letters say?" Sarah asked.
"They said roughly the same things, excepting the names, of course." Stephen pulled his out of his pocket. "'If you want to live to read this, you need to find Mark Lachlan immediately.'"
"Also in the box was a key--a modern key, the kind you use on modern security locks, nothing like the early thirties," Peter added, holding up a small blue-toned metal key.
"And a 3x5 card with a twelve digit file number," Stephen finished. "Identical to the file number listed in The Shadow's chronicles."
"Mark Lachlan's project file at the Pentagon." MJ said, suddenly getting it.
"No question about it, Lamont Cranston somehow knew that Lachlan would be working on reviving the Philadelphia Experiment, and he wanted us to know," Stephen concluded.
Long silence.
Sarah said it first. "How could he have known?"
Stephen smiled mysteriously. "The Shadow knows."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Oh, please."
MJ traded a look with Peter, then turned her attention back to Stephen. "So we have to find Lachlan?"
"Yes, and he has to be found today. Granddaddy didn't pick this date out of thin air. He wanted us to know today. So time is obviously a factor."
"Then we need to get to work," Sarah said, getting up from her seat on the couch. "Where do we start?"
"Washington, DC." Stephen reached into the Manila folder and tossed an envelope across the room. "In there is everything Burbank could find on Lachlan's whereabouts since he got granted his security clearance. Also two e-ticket confirmation receipts for a flight to Reagan National Airport that leaves in less than two hours. I've alerted agents in the DC area to rendezvous with you at the airport to help your search. You ladies track the man, we'll track down the project. First to find him wins."
"You still haven't told us what happens if we win," MJ said, mostly to herself.
Stephen smirked lightly. "Very well--the winner gets to pick another conspiracy theory and find out what really happened. Roswell, the grassy knoll, the Apollo landings, Ruben vs. Clay in American Idol...your choice."
MJ and Sarah stared.
"Victor's got a whole list of 'em," Peter added.
The ladies next gave him a you've-got-to-be-kidding look.
"Seriously, you now know as much as we do," Peter admitted. "I'm not going to pretend to understand it. I just know we've got to do this."
"Then let's get to it." Sarah gathered her briefcase and headed out of the room.
MJ and Peter shared a quick kiss, and then she followed Sarah.
The moment they were gone, Stephen grabbed his partner by the collar and yanked him close. "All right, which one of you put the other up to all of that?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Peter wisecracked.
"I'm not playing games, Peter. The Policeman's Ball, the towels getting re-monogrammed--whose idea was it?"
"Come on..." Peter paused. "But you know, if you and Sarah got married you wouldn't have to get your..."
"That is it!" Stephen growled. "SARAH!"
"What are you doing?" Peter asked.
Sarah reappeared at the door, MJ right behind her. "You roared?"
Stephen calmed himself, but just barely. "Sarah, Peter is of the opinion that we would make a good couple."
"MJ too, apparently," Sarah said, glaring at Peter and his lady love.
"What do you think about that?" Stephen asked her bluntly.
Sarah felt herself blush. "Well...don't take this the wrong way, but you're...very high maintenance, and I'm not into high-maintenance relationships."
Stephen nodded, not at all offended.
"Well, she's right," Peter observed, "but methinks the lady and the gentleman doth protest too much."
Stephen frowned. "All right, let's lay it out in the open." He turned to Sarah. "If we were a couple, would you have a problem taking orders from me if it seemed that I was just protecting you?"
"Yes, because I don't like taking orders I don't agree with," she replied. "Would you have a problem ordering me into danger if we were a couple?"
"Yes, which is why a personal relationship with an agent is a very bad idea. If you were forced by your job to take on a story, mission or role that would bring us personally into conflict as we work at opposing papers, would your judgment be clouded by the personal connection, even if it meant jeopardizing your career?"
"Probably. Would you hide things from me when I have every right in the world to know, just because you think it best?"
"Almost certainly. Do you squeeze the toothpaste from the middle or the bottom of the tube?"
"Middle. Do you have a problem expressing affection in public?"
"Most definitely. Favorite ice cream?"
"Ben and Jerry's. Favorite flavor?"
"Chocolate. Favorite food?"
"Italian. What's your view on children?"
"They taste good with ketchup."
Peter had been looking back and forth at them like he was watching a tennis match. There was a beat of silence as the two psychics considered.
Sarah spoke first. "So, that's that."
Stephen nodded, nonplussed. "Indeed, it is."
Sarah turned on her heel and left the room.
Peter and MJ traded a look.
Stephen didn't miss it. "Anything else you want to say?"
Peter started to speak, then changed his mind. "No."
"Me either," MJ added.
"Good. Then let's get going." Stephen led the way out of the room.
"You're not fooling anybody, you know," MJ said to Sarah for the third time in three hours as the plane touched down at Reagan National.
Sarah swung her bag at MJ.
MJ ducked. "All right, all right. Let's not get arrested in the airport. That would not go over well."
"You're right about that." Sarah looked around oddly for a moment. "An agent is supposed to meet us, right?"
"Yeah, but nobody not actually getting on or coming off a plane is allowed back at the gate any more, remember?"
"Yeah." Sarah sighed. "Still not used to the 'agent game' yet."
MJ laughed. "You'll get used to it." She rubbed her eyes. "What a day. I have such a caffeine headache."
"Me, too." Sarah looked around. "Well, we've got a minute or ten before our luggage gets unloaded, so I'll grab us a couple of lattes from that stand over there."
"Cool. I'll give the boss a call and see if he has any new details for us." MJ pulled out her cell phone and headed for the windows to see if she could get better reception while Sarah headed off to get in line at the espresso booth behind a host of other travelers.
The line was long. Sarah grimaced. She hated long lines. She decided to pass the time by playing "Name that baggage designer" as her line mates fished through purses, fanny packs, and briefcases for money to pay for their overpriced coffee drinks.
A young man pushed his way through the line trying to get to someone near the front.
Sarah started to get offended...and then heard the name the man spoke.
"Professor Lachlan?" the younger man asked.
The man in front of her turned around. "Yes, Paul?"
Paul Maxwell handed him a piece of paper. "Here--this was everything I could find about Dr. Reinhardt Lane online."
Lachlan studied the page. "I was right. His papers are at the Science and Technology Ventures facility at Columbia University. They were hiding in plain sight all these years."
Sarah realized the entire answer to what was going on could be right in front of her. She steeled herself, then collapsed to the floor, upsetting the contents of her purse right between the two men.
The two men immediately stopped their conversation and bent down to help her. "Are you all right, miss?" Lachlan asked.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she said, gathering her purse's contents...and knocking over Lachlan's briefcase in the process. "Oops...clumsy me..." She quickly moved to separate her items from Lachlan's...taking a second to read the receipt for Lachlan's e-ticket in the process.
Paul quickly helped gather the professor's papers again, then helped both of them to their feet. "Professor, are you all right?" he asked.
"Fine," Lachlan sighed, checking his briefcase to make sure nothing was missing.
"I'm really sorry," Sarah continued in her best ditzy tone. She dusted herself off, then extended her right hand. "Thanks for helping me...uh..."
"Mark," Lachlan answered, shaking her hand.
Sarah took a long moment to make sure she studied him enough that she'd recognize his presence again in her clairvoyant vibes, then released the handshake. "Have a nice day," she said, getting out of line quickly.
Lachlan shrugged. Just a momentary diversion on the way to scientific greatness. He turned back to the front of the line. "One caramel mocha latte, please..."
MJ looked confused to see Sarah running toward her, sans lattes. "What's up?"
"Who are you on the line with--Peter or Stephen?" Sarah asked.
"Peter--why?"
"Is Stephen with him?"
"Yeah, he's asked questions through Peter a couple of times now..."
"Good." Sarah flipped open her own phone and dialed quickly.
MJ heard Stephen's phone ringing in the background. "Don't ask," she told Peter.
Sarah waited for an answer. "The sun is shining."
Stephen's voice sounded confused. "But the ice is slippery. And I think this may be the most complicated cell phone conversation in history."
"History may be the problem. Does the name 'Reinhardt Lane' mean anything to you?"
In the Sanctum going through Shadow case notes, Stephen turned ghostly pale. "My great-grandfather."
Peter, on the wall across the way, looked confused. "Stephen looks very freaked out," he told MJ. "I did not think that was possible."
MJ looked over at Sarah. "You freaked Stephen out. Congratulations."
Sarah rolled her eyes and beckoned MJ to come over to listen in on her phone so she could hear both sides of the conversation. "You're not the only one who's freaked out. I think we may be in the wrong city. I ran into Mark Lachlan at an espresso booth here at Reagan National. Some kid--looked like an assistant, first name 'Paul'--gave him a piece of paper with information on a Dr. Reinhardt Lane, and Lachlan seemed excited at the idea that his papers at the Science and Technology Ventures facility at Columbia University have been 'hiding in plain sight all these years'. Please tell me you have some idea what he's talking about."
Stephen's mind ran through a million Shadow case facts trying to make them fit into this scenario. "Reinhardt Lane was a physicist with the War Department in the 1930s. He inadvertently invented the basic mechanisms for the atomic bomb in 1933...another fact that Granddaddy went to great lengths to conceal."
Peter, who'd now moved to the ceiling and was hanging upside down to put his ear closer to Stephen's phone so he could hear all sides of the conversation, looked surprised. "Wait--that's why everything started happening so fast for nuclear physics in the 1930s?"
Stephen nodded. "Unfortunately, some of Dr. Lane's research into particle acceleration and its use in implosive devices had already been published by the time The Shadow figured out what it could really be used for."
"Well, Lachlan's very interested in seeing Lane's papers," Sarah continued. "He apparently thinks there's a clue there. What kind of clue I don't know, but he's headed back your way."
"I've still got that Cranston Enterprises credit card you gave me a few missions ago--I can get us tickets back to New York," MJ offered.
Sarah looked around for Lachlan, realizing he'd left her sight and even her clairvoyance wasn't detecting him. She checked the departure board for the flight number she'd seen on his e-ticket. "Dammit, he's already on a plane--it just left."
"If that's the case, then stay in DC," Stephen said. "Meet my agent outside baggage claim. He's got some contacts you can use there to find out why Lachlan thinks he needs those papers. Meanwhile, we'll see if we can find the missing papers first. Let's get moving--time's running out." He hung up his phone.
Peter did the same.
MJ heard the line go dead. "I think we won the prize," she said. "But I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing."
"I don't think it is," Sarah agreed. "So let's try and trade for a better one."
The ladies headed off for baggage claim.
A few minutes later, Stephen and Peter were back at Cranston Manor, once more greeted by Andrew. "No word on where your uncle has gone," the majordomo noted. "He hasn't been at the office all day, and he hasn't come back here yet."
"Dammit." Stephen frowned. "I really need him to answer some questions for me. Call the private jet hanger and see if by chance he's taken the plane anywhere."
"Yes, sir." Andrew hurried away.
"Didn't Sarah say that Lachlan was interested in Dr. Lane's papers at Columbia?" Peter asked.
"Yes," Stephen said as he headed for the drawing room.
Peter followed. "Then why are we not at Columbia?"
"Because I can't shake the notion that we're still missing a vital piece of this puzzle." He turned on the light to the drawing room. "It's the time factor. Victor was supposed to open the box today. The messages had to be given to us today. The letters stress finding Lachlan immediately. The Shadow's network may be intricate and obfuscated, but something tells me Granddaddy didn't mean for us to spend days or even hours seeking an answer that needs to be found today. Which means he'd put it some place where we could find it fast, but also some place where someone not looking for it wouldn't be able to find it. This is an answer meant for us, not Victor, and certainly not my father--Granddaddy apparently stressed that point to Victor when he told him about the box in the first place--so he meant for us to be able to use our knowledge of Shadow history to find it. We've been through the Sanctum, so it's got to be here, probably in, around, or behind something we'd overlook as a hiding place--hidden in plain sight." He looked around. "But for the life of me, I can't think of where. I can't even imagine where Granddaddy would have put a secret safe in the first place. When I was a kid, I made a game of mapping out the locations of every single safe in this house, and practiced my safecracking techniques by breaking into every one of them. There's not a safe in this house I don't know about...or at least, I thought there wasn't." He sighed as he started looking behind paintings and portraits. "I should have asked Victor where this safe was; we could at least start there."
Peter thought for a minute, then hopped up to the ceiling.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting a different perspective on things." Peter made his way to the edge of the ceiling and carefully moved from one end of the room to the other, looking down on every single item mounted or hung on the wall, trying to see if any of them had been recently disturbed. Then he stopped. "This wouldn't happen to be a picture of your great-grandfather, would it?"
Stephen looked over where Peter was pointing--at a wedding photograph of Lamont and Margo Cranston with Lamont's uncle, Wainwright Barth, on one side and Margo's father, Reinhardt Lane, on the other. "Son of a gun..." He pulled the picture off the wall.
Behind it was a safe.
"Jackpot," Stephen noted. He leaned in toward the door and started to turn the combination lock, listening for the tumblers.
Peter gestured for Stephen to step back. "Allow me." And with that, he reached down from the ceiling and ripped the safe door off with one hand.
"Victor's not going to be happy about you tearing up his house," Stephen remarked dryly.
"Tough luck," Peter retorted. "No time for niceties."
Stephen looked inside the empty hole. "He's really going to be mad now--there's nothing in here. Should have known Victor would already have checked that..." And then it hit him. "Hidden in plain sight," he whispered, then picked up the wedding portrait and tore the paper covering off the back of the frame.
A brown envelope tumbled out of it.
Stephen opened the envelope and leafed through the papers. "It's all Greek to me," he sighed, then handed the papers up to Peter. "Here, Einstein--translate this for me."
Peter read through the notes, frowning. "It's an excerpt from a larger work. I can't tell what all this is supposed to be without seeing the surrounding work..." And then he stopped. "Except that right there is Cockcroft and Walton's formula for turning hydrogen plus lithium into helium and energy through particle acceleration, the first practical application of Einstein's Emc2."
Stephen's eyes widened. "Which one would presumably use in an implosive power generator."
Peter flipped through the pages and quickly recognized more notations about early studies in nuclear physics. "What if, in order to hide the secrets to both the Philadelphia Experiment and the Lane Implosive Generator, your grandfather took pages from one and put them into the other?"
Stephen's mind began to spin the pieces together, creating the framework of a more than slightly frightening whole. "Because the Philadelphia Experiment page wouldn't make sense out of context..."
"...but these might, because they contain just enough information about the basics of fission reactions that a physicist would be able to piece together Dr. Lane's discoveries." Then Peter thought about it for a moment. "But don't classified documents usually have page counts?"
"That they do."
"Then how did he do this without someone figuring out there were pages missing?"
Stephen thought for a moment. "Are those pages consecutive?"
Peter studied them again. "Two of them are. But there's a number gap between those two and the one that follows..." And then it hit him. "...because that's the page number needed to replace the one in the Philadelphia Experiment file."
Stephen raised an eyebrow. "O.K., try this one on for size. You've got two reports you need to keep secret. One has a lot of data that when read together is extremely dangerous. One is also very dangerous as a whole but has a crucial step that if left out causes the whole project to fail. One should be classified but isn't because you've been able to keep it out of the spotlight. One already is classified and version checked and everything else but is way too dangerous even kept under the classified banner."
"So you pull out enough from one to make it hard to connect the dots..."
"...and then pull the lynchpin page out of the other one and make a substitution of a page that doesn't work. Doctor the page up, smear the writing, maybe a page number stamp that looks like the page number imprints on all the others, etc., all in the name of hiding it in plain sight just in case you might need it later." But still something didn't make sense, and Stephen's brain once more spun the pieces around trying to create a coherent whole. "But what if somebody in the government got the same idea..."
Peter quickly caught up with him. "...and decided to make sure the crucial page from the Philadelphia Experiment got 'lost'..."
"...except they 'lost' the page that was already switched out. And somehow Lachlan's stumbled onto the switch..."
"...and he's headed to Columbia to find the missing page..."
"...the real one. The one Lamont Cranston switched around sixty-plus years ago."
"If that's the case, we need to beat him there fast."
Stephen nodded. "Let's go."
"What do you think about children?
The question caught Victor Cranston off-guard. Lamont had been lying in his hospital bed very quietly, drifting in and out of sleep for most of the past hour. Remembering his brother Alexander's concern about being questioned about girlfriends and children, Victor decided to answer with a joke. "They taste good with ketchup.
Lamont laughed slightly, his mental chuckle still sounding shadowy. "You have a better sense of humor than your brother.
"The question hits a little too close to home for him.
"Ah, yes. Marie from Accounting. Cute girl.
"He might hit you for saying that.
"I might hit back." He smiled. "I remember what it's like to deny you're in love. He does realize she's psychic, right?
Victor looked surprised. "She is?
Lamont shook a frail finger at his son. "You need to work on your telepathic sensing skills. And your brother needs a crash course on the subject immediately. Girl's a latent projector, for pity's sake. I'm about the least receptive person on the planet right now and I figured it out thirty seconds after she entered the room.
Victor gave his father a mock-scolding glare. "You know, you're not one to talk. As I recall, Mom said you were in the middle of dinner on your first date with her before you figured out she was receptive.
"Your mother was prone to exaggerate things." He gave a wistful smile at the memory, then looked out the window. "Do you ever think about the future, Victor?
Alexander was right; Lamont was acting different from normal. "As little as possible. It does no good to live in the future when the present is still here.
"Practical. I taught you well." He sighed. "Maybe too well.
"What do you mean by that?" Victor asked.
Lamont closed his eyes for a moment and winced in pain.
"Dad?" Victor asked, concerned.
Lamont gave a small dismissive gesture with his hand, then let out a sigh as the pain on his face eased. "That's the third one today.
"Heart flutters?" Victor guessed.
"'Flutter' implies something light, easy. Mine shudders. Like an earthquake.
Victor sighed. "Do you want me to call the doctors?
"What are they going to do for me, Victor? Tell me my heart is failing? Fill me full of even more drugs that make it impossible for me to think, much less keep rein on this telepathic maelstrom inside my brain? No, thank you. I'm not stupid, Victor. I hear you and Alex talking to the doctors. I already know I'm one extended arrhythmia away from checking out for good, and there's not a damn thing that can be done about it. So keep those quacks away from me and let nature take its course.
"Fine." Victor got up from his chair and started to leave. Bad enough his father was about to die, but to spend what little time the man had left on this plane of existence fighting with him was not useful at all...
"Wait.
Victor sighed. "What?
"There's something I need to tell you. Something you need to know.
Victor turned around and smirked. "The will is in the master safe, it splits the money equally between Alexander and me, there's a few million stashed away in a trust fund for whatever Cranston grandchildren ever happen to come along, and I get the house and all the Shadow stuff. We went over this already.
Lamont glared at him. "Sass back to me one more time and I will throw you out that door head first." He mentally pushed the bedside chair toward Victor as a warning. "Now sit down and listen.
Victor looked uneasy but pulled the chair back toward his father's bedside and took a seat.
"Mr. Cranston?"
Victor came out of his musings at the sound of the driver sitting in the front seat of the Humvee taxi that had ferried him up the mountain from Frost Valley. He looked around.
The entrance to the Temple of the Cobras, hidden from a non-adept's view but visible to adepts able to penetrate the protective fog, was just ahead. "This is far enough, Sanders," he told the driver. "Thank you."
"You sure you don't need any help?" the driver said as he watched Victor gather his belongings.
"No, thank you. I'm used to the hike." He tipped the driver, placing a $100 into the man's fire-opal-adorned hand.
The driver smiled. "Thank you, sir."
Victor gave a nod in answer and climbed out of the cab.
As soon as the cab pulled away, Victor strode into the fog ahead.
The fog lifted from his mind and the temple became visible.
Victor headed for the entrance...determined to speak to the one person in the world who knew his father's secrets better than he himself did.
Peter led the way into the records room of Columbia University, and was greeted with a heavy smell of dust and aged paper. Strangely, sitting at the desk was not the aged professor type that he'd expected, but rather a kid in a Star Trek t-shirt. "Help you?" the kid said without looking up.
"I need to find the files of one of your professors," Stephen explained. "From a long time ago--early to mid 1930s. His name was Reinhardt Lane. Professor of Physics."
The young man scribbled the request on a post-it note. "Lane--L-A-N-E?"
"Yes," Stephen replied, slightly amused that the boy apparently knew how to spell "Reinhardt" but had to spell-check "Lane".
The kid reached across the desk to retrieve a card file box and began flipping through it. "Lane...Lane...here we go." He scribbled the number on the card onto the same post-it note where he'd written Dr. Lane's name, then headed back to the rolling storage shelves, returning a few minutes later with a box, which he handed to Stephen.
Stephen opened the box. There were several items. Pens, a green mug with dried coffee stains still visible, a photo of Lane with his daughter Margo, and several files labelled with the U.S. Government seal and the Department of War logo.
Stephen handed the files to Peter, but never took his eyes off the photograph. "1932," he whispered, checking the picture's date stamp. "The year before they met." He cast a light suggestion to make sure the Star Trek geek wasn't watching, then slipped the picture into his pocket.
Peter closed the files. "It's not here."
Stephen looked at him. "You sure?"
Peter nodded. "Positive."
Stephen looked back at the clerk. "This can't possibly be all of it--where's the rest? Equipment? Notes? Theses? Textbooks?"
The clerk shrugged. "A lot of the really old records aren't preserved in collections very well--the equipment went back to the science department, the theses and textbooks and practically every piece of paper that looked like it contained reference materials ended up at the library..."
Peter and Stephen looked at each other. "The library!"
Lachlan was on the phone as he came out of LaGuardia airport. "So the lab's ready? Yes. We're just on our way to get the last part of the formula. We'll be there within the hour."
Paul was scribbling down the address.
Lachlan hung up the phone and exchanged the cell phone for the address, then jumped in the nearest taxi, Paul right behind him. "Columbia University--Science Department," he instructed the driver.
"Come in, Victor."
Victor Cranston stepped into the Buddha hall of The Temple Of The Cobras at the sound of that powerful and omniscient voice, the voice of The Marpa Tulku.
The doors closed behind him, pushed shut by unseen hands.
"Practicing your telekinesis?" Victor noted sarcastically to the teenaged boy in elegant pink and gold robes who was meditating silently on the altar.
The boy opened his eyes, the wisdom of twenty-three generations of Tibetan psychic masters behind those eyes. "It is good to see you, too."
Victor nodded, acknowledging his disrespect of the master, then stepped forward to the altar. He knelt and bowed more respectfully to the latest incarnation of the Tibetan monk who'd saved his father's life nearly eighty years earlier. "Sorry. I'm a little out of sorts lately."
"I would imagine you would be. You received quite a surprise at noon today."
Victor immediately snapped his gaze up to the boy's face. "You knew about this?"
The Tulku's eyes twinkled mysteriously. "I know a great many things."
"What do you know about this?"
The Tulku gestured for Victor to take a seat at the foot of the altar.
The elderly Cranston fought arthritic aches and fatigue to sit on the steps.
"Not long after your father first relocated us from Tibet to this place, he told me a story of something that happened to him seventy years ago. I thought when he first described it that he had experienced something your language calls 'astral projection', a blend of clairvoyance with either precognition or retrocognition--precognition, in this case--into a single experience that transcends both space and time. Which was unusual, because as you know, neither precognition nor clairvoyance were your father's strong suits."
Victor actually allowed himself to laugh slightly for the first time in several hours. "That's for sure. He often told me that he'd trade some of his projective energies for just a little clairvoyance during some of The Shadow's missions. And of course, knowing the future would definitely have come in handy on more than one occasion."
"He said the same thing to me when he related some of his many adventures." The Tulku smiled wistfully. "It was not until years later, when your father was long gone from this plane, when your brother and his wife brought their newborn baby here, a boy that they had named 'Stephen', that I realized what had really happened."
"What did happen?" Victor pressed.
The Tulku sighed, wondering how much to tell, and how to even begin to explain. "I was not there, Victor, and I do not know exactly what occurred, but something happened to merge past and future into a common present. Nothing in this life happens by accident, Victor. I could go through the usual parade of events in your family's life that have linked together to create the here and now, but I will not. Instead I will tell you that the moment I first met Peter and realized that he and Stephen had struck up a working partnership, the last doubts about your father's story disappeared in my mind. Right now, the two of them are involved in a mission that literally affects the entire world as we know it. And all you and I can do is to keep our minds open and our hearts prayerful. It is all we can do to help them now."
"But what are we praying for?"
"For things to stay the same. For all of those involved to face their destinies, which have now become intertwined. And they must all do so without altering anything that would destroy their here and now."
"Tell me more, Tulku. I have to know. Please."
The Tulku took a deep breath, then let it out. "Relax your body and your mind, Victor, and I will tell you what you want to know."
Victor sighed, then allowed his mind to relax and forced his eagerness to submit itself to the will of his patience. Then he looked over at the ancient master. "Tell me."
The Tulku looked down at the older man, who was so much like his father Lamont Cranston that at times it was uncanny. He smiled mysteriously. "It starts with a search for the answer to a question that has been puzzling physicists for generations...a secret contained in two separate but inextricably intertwined scientific studies that your father ensured would stay buried for seventy years. A secret that your nephew and his partner are anxiously trying to uncover by going back as close to the source as they possibly can...at least, for now..."
As The Tulku related his story to Victor, Stephen and Peter were doing their part to make it come to pass at Columbia University's library. Stephen was searching the textbook shelves, while Peter was balanced precariously on the ladder above him reading a bound collection of theses.
"They aren't here," Stephen said finally. "The oldest textbooks I've found are copyright 1956, and Dr. Lane was long dead by then. Anything in the theses collections?"
Peter shook his head. "Nope. None of these are on the Unified theory. Heck, practically none of them have anything about nuclear physics, despite the fact that some of the earliest nuclear research went on here. Are you sure your great-grandfather's papers even still exist?"
Stephen nodded. "It has to be here--if it was destroyed, Granddaddy would have done it himself long ago...oh!"
"'Oh'?" Peter asked.
"I think I know where it could be..."
Twenty minutes later they were back at Cranston Manor. "Didn't we just leave here?" Peter wisecracked.
Stephen ignored him as he led the way into the mansion's vast library. "According to my grandfather's notes, Reinhardt Lane spent the last year of his life here after he was diagnosed with cancer. When he moved in here, everything in his house came with him--including a collection of his books and writings, many of them from his days as an energy researcher at the War Department."
"So all this time, the Holy Grail of Physics has been in your family library?"
"Quite possibly."
"Destiny," Peter commented.
Stephen allowed himself a wry smile as he scanned the large bookcase-lined walls with his eyes. "I don't believe in destiny. If I did, this job wouldn't be nearly as much fun. I'll start down here, you start up there. Top shelf."
Peter jumped up and hung feet first from the ceiling. "I don't know, Stephen...some of these books don't look old enough..."
"Keep looking." He walked around the room, examining areas of certain shelves trying to see if anything caught his attention.
Andrew came in and raised an eyebrow at the two men searching the room. "Is there anything I can help you with, Master Stephen?"
"Not unless you know where the Holy Grail might be hidden," Peter remarked dryly.
"Still no word from Victor?" Stephen guessed.
"No, sir. But one of the Cranston Enterprise private planes has been checked out of its hangar."
"Where is he going?" Stephen wondered quietly.
"The flight plan was for Frost Valley."
Stephen looked confused. "He's going to talk to The Tulku? Why?"
"It's not here," Peter reported.
Stephen looked up at his friend. "What?"
"It's not here. There's nothing on these upper shelves science-related. There's a ton of books on gemstones, on politics, on military history, and Asia, but there's not a physics book among them."
Stephen frowned. "It has to be here somewhere. This was where every book in the Cranston family that wasn't directly related to The Shadow's mission ended up. The more boring the subject, the more likely it was to end up on the top shelves."
"Physics isn't boring," Peter protested. "It's far more interesting than those creative writing classes that pass for requirements for a Journalism degree."
"Spoken like a man who's inhaled too many fumes from Chem Lab," Stephen responded.
Peter hopped across the ceiling to double-check books on the other side of the room. "Just because decided you'd rather pick up an easy B.A. in Birdcage Liner Writing is no reason to disparage those of us who pursued real majors..."
"Birdcage Liner Writing? That's rich coming from a tabloid photographer who got minimum wage to photograph himself in tights..."
"For your information, I got..."
"If I may, sirs," Andrew interjected.
"Yes?" Stephen said.
"When your parents died and you came to live here, your uncle cleared many of these shelves to make room for any books you might acquire over your academic life."
Stephen frowned. "But it's not like my uncle to dispose of anything family-related. Where were the extra books stored?"
"Over at the condos where your father and uncle lived after they had moved out on their own. Mr. Cranston used to use his own to store a number of things after he moved into the mansion on the chance that someone might have been able to use them, and he continued to use those places as storage facilities after you moved in here."
Stephen thought for a moment. "That was what was in those boxes? I remember Uncle Victor gave me my choice of the condos when I was ready to move out on my own, but both of them needed to be cleaned out because neither had been lived in for close to fifteen years..."
"Oh," Peter suddenly said.
Stephen raised an eyebrow. "'Oh'?"
Peter looked a bit unnerved by the realization of where the missing papers might indeed be. "You wouldn't happen to have put the boxes that were in your condo into mine, would you?"
"The one that became yours? I might have...why?"
"Well, MJ might have it."
"Me?" MJ said disbelievingly into her cell phone.
"In a box of old hardcover leather bound books," Peter told her.
"Oh, yeah," MJ said. "Now I remember."
"How did you get it?" Sarah asked her cell phone disbelievingly.
"The theatre troop I did a couple of shows with was holding a white elephant sale," MJ said. "I asked Peter if he had anything he wanted to donate for the sale."
"And I said I didn't have anything of my own, but there were a gazillion old books in boxes in my condo that I was pretty sure Stephen and his family had forgotten all about," Peter continued.
"No...don't tell me...," Stephen moaned into his own cell phone.
"Yes, indeed, I gave away the Holy Grail of Physics for a theatre troop's charity sale," Peter replied.
"Wait...is one of those books 'An Introduction to Theoretical Physics'?" Sarah asked.
"Yes," Stephen responded.
"Oh..."
"'Oh'? What 'Oh'? We didn't even know you then!" Stephen practically shouted.
"Well...see...my couch broke..."
Standing side by side in the Cranston Manor library, listening to each other's cell phones, Peter and Stephen traded a look. "I can't wait to hear this one," Peter remarked.
"Neither can I," Stephen agreed. "So start talking, Sarah."
Sarah knew she was going to sound like the ditzy chick that she played so well, but she couldn't think of a better way to explain this story. "The leg on my couch broke, and on my way to the antique store to find a replacement leg, I ran across this flea market. So I'm thinking, maybe somebody's got an old couch they're trying to get rid of, so I went inside, and the first table I saw was this theatre troop's flea market table. It just so happened that there was a stack of college textbooks on the corner of the table that was the perfect thickness, and everybody knows those old college books were practically made out of iron. So I bought the entire stack. And the book on top of the stack was your missing physics book."
"Wait--that was you carrying around a broken couch leg?" MJ said disbelievingly.
"I know...isn't it weird?" Sarah laughed slightly. Then she looked at MJ incredulously. "Wait...you were the redhead at the other end of the table bagging up a bunch of costume jewelry for somebody?"
"Wow." MJ shook her head. "I mean, you could almost call this..."
"...destiny," Peter whispered in awe.
"Stop saying that!" Stephen's Shadow voice hissed in Peter's ear.
"Should we be heading to New York so I can let you into my apartment?" Sarah asked.
"No," Stephen answered aloud. "I had a key made. Keep up with your searching--we've got to find out how close Lachlan really is to figuring out the whole puzzle. I'll be in touch." He hung up his phone.
Sarah looked at MJ. "He has a key to my apartment," she deadpanned.
"Well, if it makes you feel better, he's got a key to mine, too," MJ replied.
"What?"
"I cannot believe you have a key to her apartment," Peter remarked as they went up the steps of Sarah's apartment building.
Stephen rolled his eyes, amused that Peter would find any aspect of his well-demonstrated obsession with information unbelievable. "Well...for that first month after she found out who we were..."
"Which, as I recall, you told her," Peter reminded him.
"...I did periodic sweeps of her home, her computer, her office, her phone records, that kind of thing," Stephen continued, ignoring Peter's pointed remark. "Here we go. Apartment 3G." He unlocked the door and gestured for Peter to go inside.
"There it is." Peter walked over to her sofa and lifted up the rear left corner, under which had been stacked a number of old leather-bound textbooks.
Stephen picked up the top book off the stack. "An Introduction to Theoretical Physics..." He opened the book and read the book plate inside the front cover. "From the personal library of Dr. Reinhardt Lane, 1933." Then he just shook his head and laughed. "What are the odds? I mean, really, what are the odds?"
Peter found himself laughing as well. "Seventy years, hidden by your grandfather in one of your great-grandfather's books, stuffed in a box, put in two separate condos, put up for sale in a flea market, and it ends up under Sarah's couch. Wow."
Stephen started flipping through the pages. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves...it might not even be in here..." And then he stopped as a yellowed envelope appeared between the pages of a center insert of the Periodic Table of the Elements.
"Destiny," Peter remarked.
Stephen looked at him. "I may have to hurt you if you don't stop saying that."
"Promises, promises." Peter set down the couch. "Shall I?"
Stephen handed him the envelope.
Peter opened it and read it. "Wow. I really and truly mean, wow, as in, this may be the most amazing piece of physics work I've ever read." He looked at Stephen. "This isn't your great-grandfather's work. But I'm pretty sure this is the missing piece of the Unified Field Theory."
Stephen took it back and quickly put it into his jacket pocket. "Now we need to get to Columbia and stop Mark Lachlan."
The two of them headed out the door.
For the second time in as many hours, Stephen Cranston and Peter Parker were on their way to search the research stacks at Columbia University...but this time they were looking for a person and not missing papers. "What makes you think he's here?" Peter asked, doffing his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack outside the stacks.
"He's looking for the same thing we were," Stephen reminded him, also shedding his black leather jacket and hanging it next to Peter's. "And if Sarah was correct about him flying out of the airport not long after they got there, he should now be on the ground and looking for the same thing we were in the same place we thought it would be. So let's start looking for him here."
The two of them headed into the stacks.
Two aisles away, Lachlan gave up and closed the bound volume of theses. "It's not here. I don't understand."
Paul nodded sympathetically. "It's been seventy years, Mark. The trail's just gone stone cold."
Lachlan sighed. "I know...I just...I was sure it had to be here after what we found."
"Maybe we don't need it," Paul suggested. "We've got everything else, and thirty of the smartest people on the continent. Maybe we can make it work."
"Nobody has been able to make it work without the missing page," Lachlan sighed.
"Let's get back to the lab," Paul urged. "When was the last time you slept?"
"Sleep?" Lachlan joked as he grabbed his leather jacket off the coat rack and followed his assistant out the door. "I vaguely remember that."
A half-hour later, Peter and Stephen were still searching the library. "What I wouldn't give for clairvoyance right about now," Stephen sighed as they made their way through yet another empty aisle.
"Your clairvoyant side is in Washington, DC," Peter remarked.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't mean anything other than a statement of fact," Stephen retorted, then rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to call Sarah and see if they've found anything new."
"Sure that's all you want?" Peter joked.
"I am definitely going to hurt you after this is over." He reached for the pocket where he'd stashed his cell phone, then rolled his eyes. "Where did I put my jacket?"
"Same place I did." Peter led the way out of the stacks.
"Oh, right. I need coffee."
"You're buying," Peter remarked as they reached the coat rack. "I'm broke."
"Yeah, as if." Stephen reached for his jacket, then stopped. "I thought I hung my jacket to the left of yours, not the right."
"If you're asking whether I remember that, you're out of luck, my friend."
Stephen frowned as he picked up the black leather jacket on the hook next to Peter's. A glance at its garment label told him what he already suspected. "This isn't my jacket." Then his eyes widened as he patted down his pockets. "Dammit..."
"Tell me you didn't put those papers in the jacket pocket," Peter said, feeling a chill run down his spine.
"I thought I didn't, but I must have. Which means whoever really owns this jacket now has them. Which means we need to find him and them, and fast." He felt down the jacket and found a wallet in its pocket, then flipped the wallet open to find out who might have inadvertently taken his jacket instead of their own. "Oh, my God..."
Peter looked at the licence Stephen had pulled out of the wallet...and his own eyes nearly popped out of his head.
The name on the license read "Mark Lachlan".
The silence stretched as the two men suddenly realized that in trying to alter the course of history, they had actually set the events they were supposed to prevent in motion.
"Destiny...," Peter finally whispered.
"Stop it!" Stephen hissed. He searched the jacket for additional ID...and then nearly dropped the jacket when he found one.
"What?" Peter asked, not liking the look on Stephen's face.
Stephen handed him the ID badge.
Peter felt his own heart skip several beats. "'Reliable Intelligence Research Facilities'."
"Reliable intelligence." Stephen could barely bring himself to voice the words aloud. "Reliable intelligence. That's what he wrote in the record." He looked at Peter. "I need your cell phone."
Peter handed it to him.
The pair raced for the door as Stephen dialled the phone. "Burbank," he said into the receiver. "I need a local address for Reliable Intelligence Research Facilities, and I need it now."
Across town, Lachlan reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet to pay for the cab ride. Then he patted down his pockets. "My wallet's gone!"
"What?" Paul asked.
Lachlan reached inside several pockets, then made a stunning realization. "This isn't my jacket!"
"You must have gotten the wrong one off the coat rack," Paul said, paying the cab driver.
The pair got out of the cab, and Lachlan was still searching through the coat for some idea of whose coat he might have grabbed as the cab drove off. "No wallet, no identification. Cell phone, though..." He kept searching, handing the contents to his assistant as he did, finally pulling a piece of paper out of the inside pocket. He unfolded the page...and his eyes fell upon a page of strangely familiar equations. "Oh, my God..."
Paul looked over his shoulder. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Is that..."
"I think it is," Lachlan whispered, scarcely able to believe it himself. "Mother of mercy, I think it is."
"Whose jacket is this?" Paul asked.
"Does it really matter?" Lachlan felt a smile spreading across his face. "We've found it. This is it. I know it is."
Paul flipped the cell phone open and arrowed up and down the phone number menu. Two items on it immediately caught his eye...both of them labelled as numbers for Victor Cranston. "Oh, my God..."
"What?" Lachlan asked.
Paul flipped the phone shut. "Nothing. I'm just...wow. This is it. I can't believe it."
"You'd better get us inside," Lachlan pointed out, "because I'm missing my ID now."
Paul nodded and pulled his ID card out of his pocket.
10:32 PM--Washington, DC
Sarah Branson wandered into the Reliable Intelligence Research Facilities' DC headquarters building with her best clueless look plastered to her face.
"Can I help you?" the guard asked.
"Which way to the coffee machine?" Sarah asked.
The guard stared at her.
Sarah pointed back out the door. "The guy in Professor Lachlan's office said it was in this building and just down the hall, but I think I took a wrong turn between the buildings, and if I have to go back and ask for directions again, I think he's going to be really ticked off...can you help me?"
The guard was unmoved. "I'm sorry, miss, I can't let you past this point without authorization, identification, or orders."
Sarah turned up the helpless look. "I'm going to lose my job." Tears started welling in her eyes. "I'll just be a minute--it's right around the corner, right?" She started to walk past him.
The guard grabbed her by the arm. "Ma'am, I'm really sorry, but you can't go that way, and if you keep this up, I'm going to have to call the police." He turned her around and gave her a subtle-but-firm push toward the door.
Sarah let the tears flow down her cheeks as she left the building.
A few steps around the corner, MJ emerged from the shadows where she'd been waiting. "See, this is why Jennifer Garner is more dangerous than James Bond."
Sarah wiped the tears out of her eyes, then produced the card key she'd lifted from the guard. "Let's go."
10:35 PM--New York, NY
Stephen scanned Lachlan's ID card at one of the external access points of Reliable Intelligence Research Facilities' Manhattan laboratory and opened the door. He gestured slightly with his eyes for Peter to follow.
In one smooth motion, Peter leapt into the air, twisted his body to slip in the small space between the top of Stephen's head and the top of the doorway to avoid triggering the ground-level motion sensor that stopped multiple people from slipping through on a single card scan, then flipped to the ground next to his partner after Stephen had made his own way into the hallway.
"Smooth," Stephen commented dryly.
"I'd like to see you do it," Peter remarked equally dryly.
Stephen gave a chuckle. "One of these days, I am going to apply myself to learn enough telekinesis to even try." He grew silent as he looked down the hallway toward something that could conceivably tie together the past, present, and future.
Peter noticed the expression. Very little truly unnerved Stephen, so when something did, Peter took notice. "You scared?"
"Would it matter?" Stephen responded.
"Not really."
"Good." Stephen took a deep breath, then focused his gaze resolutely ahead of him. "Let's go find the lab."
10:39 PM--Washington, DC
MJ scanned the card Sarah had snagged from the guard and snuck into the warehouse, Sarah right behind her. "What are we looking for?" she asked the reporter
"Some clue as to how far Lachlan's gone with his time machine," Sarah answered.
"Any idea what a time machine looks like?"
Sarah shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"O.K." MJ looked around a room filled with crates, stacks of books and huge amounts of yellowed paper. "So, let's start over there." She pointed to the desk.
10:42 PM--New York, NY
Stephen flicked the switch on his camera jamming device and clipped it to his waist, then swirled The Shadow's cloak around his shoulders and pulled his scarf up over the lower half of his face. "All clear," he silently told his partner as he gave a peek around the corner.
"Good," Peter said, doffing his shirt and pulling his gloves on. "Any idea which way we go?"
The Shadow ripped an evacuation plan off the wall and checked the map against the layout of the hallways around them. "Looks like there's a large lab down this hall."
Spiderman was about to finish stuffing Peter's clothes into the backpack he'd been wearing when he suddenly realized something. "Let me see that map."
The Shadow held the map up for his partner.
Spidey reached into Peter's pants pocket and pulled out the key that was in Lamont Cranston's mystery box. "This way," he said, pointing at a door in the opposite way.
"Why?"
Spiderman pointed at the etchings on the key's surface, then at the map.
The numbers on the key matched the numbers printed on the map's image of the doorway behind them.
The Shadow's eyes widened. "No way."
"One way to find out." Spiderman hopped across to the door, then put the key into the lock and gave it a gentle turn.
The door unlocked instantly.
"Destiny...," Spiderman whispered.
The Shadow's eyes darkened as he glared at his partner. "Stop. Saying. That."
"I'll stop saying it when these things stop happening," Spidey retorted. "Now, shall we?"
The Shadow swirled into darkness and swept through the doorway.
10:44 PM--Washington, DC.
While the men were moving past their locked door issues, Sarah and MJ were still thwarted by theirs. Neither woman could get any drawers in the desk open. They were all locked, and Sarah couldn't find a key anywhere in the myriad combination of compartments and coffee cups on the desktop. Sarah considered what to do next. "You got your compact?"
"Since when do you care about your looks?" MJ asked without thinking.
Sarah stared at her disbelievingly.
"On a mission, I mean," MJ back-pedalled.
"Just because I'm not a glamour queen doesn't mean I don't care." Then Sarah looked up at the straggly bangs falling into her face. "Does it?"
"Makeup is very overrated," MJ replied, tossing Sarah the compact. "If I didn't have to look good for a living, I think I'd throw out every cosmetic item in my bathroom and purse."
Sarah flipped open the mirror and started searching under the desk. "Well, I'm glad you haven't done so yet."
"Why?"
Sarah reached under the desk, and MJ heard tape ripping. "The mirror doesn't lie," Sarah said, holding up the key.
MJ smiled. "Guys are so predictable."
"You don't hide keys like that?"
"No." MJ flipped open another compact. "Lockpicks. Birthday gift from Stephen."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I so do not want to know." She started checking the drawers and found a series of files in the deepest one. "Here we go. You take half, I'll take half."
MJ took the stack of papers Sarah handed to her. "Oh, brother. Thought computers were supposed to make paper obsolete?"
"You clearly do not work for a newspaper," Sarah replied. "We have to write our stories so they can be made 'printer friendly' for the web site. Paper is never going away."
MJ rolled her eyes as she finished flipping through one folder and started flipping through another.
"Jackpot." Sarah turned the page in the folder marked "Progress Reports" to face MJ. "That look like a time machine to you?"
MJ looked at the picture and gasped. "No." She held up her own document, marked "Implosive Generator", and showed Sarah the page with an almost identical sketch. "It looks like a bomb."
10:44 PM--New York, NY
Lachlan studied the page of notes that he'd found in a leather jacket pocket, of all things, and compared it with the machine in front of him, meticulously checking every detail, adjusting frequency modulators, adding cross-connectors, and more.
Paul was nervous, getting progressively more so since the missing page was found.
"Sit down, Paul," Lachlan said without looking at him. "You're making me nervous."
Paul was trying, but he just couldn't make himself calm down. "Is that really it...I mean, is it ready, do you think?"
Lachlan was about to answer when conversation was interrupted by the sound of a cell phone ringing. "Is that the phone from the jacket?"
Paul looked over at the coat. "It is. Want me to get it?"
"No," Lachlan said, grabbing the jacket off the chair where they'd laid it and finding the phone in a pocket. The name on the display read "Sarah Branson", a name that meant nothing to him, but it might provide a clue as to who the coat's owner was. "Hello?"
"You're not going to believe what we found here," a woman's anxious voice spoke.
Lachlan stared at the phone. "Who is this?"
A moment of silence, then the line disconnected.
10:45 PM--Washington, DC
MJ, searching through a room full of crates trying to find the matching serial number from the file they'd found, suddenly realized Sarah was looking extremely unnerved. "What's wrong?"
"That wasn't Stephen," Sarah realized. She scrolled through her phone's options to find the last number dialled. "But I dialled it right..."
"Then who answered the phone?"
"I don't know..."
10:45 PM--New York, NY
"Was that your phone ringing?" Spiderman asked.
"Yes," The Shadow realized. He closed his eyes and let projective sight sweep the walls around him, trying to find something conventional visual abilities would miss.
And that was when his thought waves intersected conventional thought waves. "You're not going to believe this..."
"Try me," Spiderman challenged.
"I think we're just outside the catwalk above the lab."
"Destiny..."
"I am going to kill you later..."
Spidey crawled across the ceiling and tried peeking in around the top of doors. "Not now you're not. Found it."
"Through there?"
Spiderman nodded.
The Shadow took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then strode down the corridor to join his partner.
10:45 PM--Washington, DC
"Found it!" MJ suddenly declared.
Sarah momentarily put her concern aside about the strange phone call to see what MJ had indeed found.
MJ pried open the lid of a huge crate labelled Prototype 1933.
Sarah stared. It was a huge burnished silvery sphere, at least five feet across.
"If Stephen and Peter are going to shut down whatever Lachlan's building," MJ noted, "it might be good to find out how this version of it works. Got your camera?"
Sarah nodded and pulled a digital camera out of her pocket.
MJ cleared away some packing straw.
Sarah began snapping shots. "It's a big metal ball."
"Yeah--a ball that looks way too much like that drawing from the other report. Didn't Stephen say something about his grandfather disassembling a bomb based on Dr. Lane's work in December 1933?"
"Yes, he did...so why is it in a crate of stuff listed in that file on Lachlan's time machine?"
MJ felt her blood run cold. "Maybe he wasn't really building a time machine."
"Or somebody connected with him wasn't." Sarah put her camera aside. "Can we get it out of here?"
"You really want to pick up a bomb?"
"No, but I do want a better picture of it."
MJ nodded, and the two women gingerly lifted out the sphere.
As they did, a hinged lock gave way, revealing an inner spherical core.
"Whoa," Sarah urged, and they set the larger sphere down on the floor.
"What is that?" MJ asked.
"Looks like a bowling ball with giant pins stuck in it." Sarah moved in closer to the inner sphere they had uncovered. "Can you see if you can shift it around a little bit? I can't quite get a clear shot of all the connecting wires; it looks like a big blur."
MJ nodded and gingerly lifted out the spherical core. She felt something shift inside, and a low whine filled the air. "Oh, that sounds ominous." MJ remarked, holding the core out as far away as she could.
"Where's it coming from?" Sarah asked.
MJ traced the core wires to numerous anchor points on the interior...except for one section, where they extended to the back of some kind of electronic breadboard. She pulled it out and turned it around so she could see the front.
There was a breadboard of wires, and a bank of vacuum tube numbers. It was an obvious crude timer, and was moving forward in countdown.
There were two hours on the clock.
10:50 PM--New York, NY
The Shadow discreetly stepped through the doorways to the catwalk above the laboratory. Spiderman slipped in right behind him, staying in a perch on the catwalk's railing, trying to stay in the shadows. Below them both were Lachlan and his assistant, making last minute adjustments to a radio-shaped box of some sort, surrounded by large magnetic coils suspended on activator arms.
"Is that what I think it is?" Spiderman whispered.
"If you're thinking it looks just like what's always described in the Philadelphia Experiment legends, you're on the right track," The Shadow answered.
"What now?"
The Shadow sighed. "I don't know. The notes just said that if we wanted to live to read them we needed to find Lachlan. So we've found him. But are we supposed to stop him? Kill him? Blow up his machine?"
"Or maybe just watch him?"
The Shadow looked over at his partner. "What?"
"You've seen Back To The Future, right?"
"That's just a movie."
"Yeah, but every time Marty McFly tried to thwart the time paradox, something in the universe got thrown out of whack. Maybe we've been going at this all wrong. We've been presuming we were told to find him to stop him, when maybe what we're supposed to be doing is make sure he succeeds."
A faint ringtone sounded from the backpack on Spiderman's back.
The Shadow quickly cast a hypnotic suggestion at the two men in the room to ignore strange sounds as Spidey rummaged through his bag. "It's MJ," he whispered as he read the Caller ID display, then flipped the phone open. "Angel, I'm kind of busy right now..."
"We found a bomb," MJ's voice interrupted.
Spiderman's blood ran cold. "And you're taking the time to call me instead of running away...why?"
"Because it's the same bomb from notes we found on Dr. Lane's experiments."
Spiderman reached over and grabbed his partner's shoulder.
"You're going to break my concentration," The Shadow warned.
"MJ found your great-grandfather's prototype atomic bomb," Spiderman hissed in his ear.
The Shadow whipped around and grabbed the phone from Spiderman. "You found what?"
"A big silvery sphere with a bowling ball inside it," MJ repeated. "And we found a copy of notes from Dr. Lane's implosive generator studies to go with it--including diagrams of the inner workings. I think we may have been going about this in the wrong way. I think Lachlan may be trying to build a time machine, all right, but not because he just wants to prove Einstein's theories. He, or somebody connected to him, found Dr. Lane's prototype bomb and restored it to working order, and it's now armed and counting down."
"It can't be. Granddaddy took all the bronzium out of the core when he dismantled the thing--its timer mechanism may be working, but it doesn't have anything in it that will explode, because it was specially designed to break down the molecular bonds of the bronzium for use as a weapon..." And that was when it finally hit him. "...which is why they need a time machine."
Spiderman's spider-sense suddenly went haywire. "Incoming!" he shouted, grabbing The Shadow around the waist and leaping off the catwalk.
Paul Maxwell's gunshots just missed them. The young man raced down the catwalk. "Activate the field, Professor! Hurry!"
"But we haven't tested it yet...," Lachlan protested.
"Do it!" Paul ordered sharply.
"No!"
Lachlan looked up to see Spiderman swinging toward him, dropping The Shadow in front of the disoriented professor. "What in the world..."
"Don't move," The Shadow ordered as he sprang to his feet, drawing his guns and fixing his gaze on Lachlan.
Lachlan's eyes went blank.
"Why are you doing this?" The Shadow asked.
"It has to be done," Lachlan whispered numbly. "It worked once...we have to make it work again..."
"Why?"
"Behind you!" Spiderman suddenly shouted in warning, diving in to separate the men.
As he did, Paul rushed between them, grabbed the control box and tucked it under his arm, then hit the power button on the top of the device.
Four magnetic coils around the room came to life, and a swirling magnetic field caught Paul Maxwell, Mark Lachlan, The Shadow, and Spiderman and spun them through the air like BB pellets in a tornado.
Then everything turned blue and got very bright...
...and then suddenly it was dark again, and four men came crashing to the floor of a room that was distinctly unlike the room they'd just been in a moment earlier.