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  CRUX

  James Byron Huggins

  WildBluePress.com

  CRUX published by:

  WILDBLUE PRESS

  P.O. Box 102440

  Denver, Colorado 80250

  Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

  Copyright 2019 by James Byron Huggins

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

  ISBN 978-1-948239-84-4 Trade Paperback

  ISBN 978-1-948239-85-1 eBook

  Interior Formatting/Book Cover Design by Elijah Toten

  www.totencreative.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  To See A World

  CRUX

  To Learn More

  An excerpt from Dark Visions

  An excerpt from Hunter

  Other Books By James Byron Huggins

  For Deborah and Herb

  Though lovers be lost love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Dylan Thomas

  “And Death Shall Have no Dominion”

  May 1, 2014

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

  And Eternity in an hour.

  William Blake

  1803

  “Auguries of Innocence”

  A bolt of lightning shattered the Observation Room, but even in the deafening thunder Blanchard heard horrified screams and glimpsed a scientist scramble under equipment that was obliterated by a blinding blue streak.

  Blanchard did not think of the machine. He did not think of his job. He did not think of his life.

  All he knew was horror.

  Someone—it would only be later that Blanchard realized it had been him—ripped open the Observation Room door and then Blanchard half-sensed blurred images flying past his head, the world rolling away beneath his feet. Screams faded, but his horror remained vividly on fire as he staggered, gasping, through another chamber of the facility.

  And another, and another …

  Magenta lights revolved in every corridor and corner as Blanchard stumbled, screaming, across the main lobby of the facility and onto the black grass beneath white moonlight surrounding the Circle of Shiva—the Hindu goddess of destruction and death poised in the Tandava, the Dance of Destruction, that stood upon the bronze body of a demon, in front of the facility. Then, sweating and breathless, Blanchard awkwardly pitched forward and scrambled across the yard in the desperate crawl of a man seeking to escape the attack of some great predatory beast. Finally Blanchard realized he was lying motionless on the wet grass and, with difficulty, he was still breathing.

  Shadows rushed this way and that in the surrounding half-light, but Blanchard noted them with only the dimmest awareness. The whole of his mind was still fleeing down corridors past motionless bodies and white sheets of paper floating lazily through the air. Then Blanchard groaned as he pushed himself up on a single elbow.

  He gazed back at the facility.

  Inside the expansive windows the bluish-purple magenta alarms were still circulating with a calm steadiness that almost mocked the unashamed horror expressed by every face and form. Then uncountable sirens were silenced at once and screams ruled the night.

  Blanchard’s face twisted as he wiped tears from his cheeks. Then he took long, steady breaths. He swallowed and blinked rapidly, finding his vision clearing. At last he gazed about and his higher logic measured the situation by scientists and engineers staggering as if they had been struck with news of their own deaths.

  Blanchard gasped, “Good god!” Awkwardly with visible unsteadiness he finally straightened to stare upon the neon-lit center. He shook his head as he heard someone shout, “What happened!”

  “What?” asked a woman standing nearby.

  “What!”

  “You asked me what happened!”

  Blanchard realized that he had asked the question although he had not directed it to anyone. Larger groups of white-coated personnel were now pouring out of the doors, all gathering on the ground surrounding Shiva, most holding hands or embracing; the eeriness of the scene reminded Blanchard of the horrible, final moments of victims trapped atop some kind of towering inferno who chose to leap to their doom rather than perish even more horribly in the blaze.

  Sensing a presence approaching, Blanchard turned to see a beefy security guard from the division that carried weapons. His pistol was in his hand, but his face was white and pasty as if he was utterly unarmed and there was no means by which he might defend himself against what had been unleashed here tonight.

  “Mr. Blanchard?” the guard asked coldly.

  Blanchard nodded once.

  “You’re needed inside, sir.”

  “Are you crazy?” Blanchard stepped back and pointed at the facility. “I’m not going back in there! Not until the place is secured!”

  Clearing his throat, the guard said, “Sir, your area is secure. And this is an order from the Director-General.”

  Drawing a palm across his sweat-slick face, Blanchard bent his head for a moment. Then he nodded slowly, “All right. Just … give me a minute … to pull myself together. Tell them I’m on my way.”

  “He meant right now, sir.”

  Blanchard straightened. “I know what he meant! Just give me a damn minute! Okay? I just saw a bolt of lightning tear through that room like we opened the gates of Hell!”

  The guard frowned.

  “Maybe you did this time,” he said.

  ***

  At least a hundred people crowded the corridor so that Blanchard stopped recognizing the color of security badges or even the yellow-white vests worn to distinguish the Emergency Medical Service from the maintenance engineers and physicists. As far as Blanchard was concerned, they were all trapped in this horror and both rank and station had become equally meaningless.

  Suddenly and awkwardly aware of how his usual professional comportment had been totally abolished by his horror, Blanchard took a moment in an attempt to straighten his rumpled appearance. Although he usually wore one of his ten-thousand-dollar woven wool suits to accent the very few physical advantages he possessed with his short, stout shape, he had completely forgotten all semblance of dignity as he hastily swept back his short black hair and wiped soot from his face with a torn and blackened sleeve. Then Blanchard, aware of an imposing presence approaching him, turned.

  A tall, severe figure appeared in the doorway of the open, smoke-filled Observation Room.

  “William!” he shouted.

  It was Director-General Antonio Francois.

  William Blanchard stopped before Director-General Francois, gazing up. Although Francois was intellectually superior to everyone at the facility, he also had the physical advantage of an Olympic athlete and often used it for no other reason than base intimidation; he was well over six feet tall with a deep chest and a woodsman’s arms. His torso and legs were long and muscular like a champion skier. Still, even his dominating presence did not overshadow the aura of his phenomenal intellect, which had contributed significantly to the present engineering of the Large Hadron Collider in which they stood.

  “Yes?”
Blanchard answered tiredly. “What is it?”

  “What is it?” Francois repeated the words as if he’d never heard them. “I want to know what the hell happened in here, William!”

  Blanchard shrugged, palms uplifted, shook his head and said, “I’m gonna need time to figure it out.” He glanced into the Observation Room. “Did any of the hardcopy survive? I know the computers are fried but …”

  “Everything, and I mean every single piece of electrical machinery in this entire seventeen-mile facility, is fried.” Francois pointed at the smoking Observation Room. “I want to know what happened to your crew!”

  Blanchard blinked. “To my crew?” He paused, “I thought they were dead.”

  Francois solemnly shook his head. “Not all of them, no, but some are dead, certainly.” He gestured widely. “The others are scattered like sticks all over the compound. And we can’t locate seven of them.” He stepped forward. “Seven of them!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Blanchard. “They weren’t killed?”

  “As I told you, William, they were not all killed.” Francois’s expression was remarkable in that it was the perfect embodiment of belief, disbelief, suspicion, and contempt. “Nor do I presume that they were vaporized. Not when every stitch of clothing they were wearing is on the floor at their workstations. So the critical question remains, ‘Where is the rest of your crew?’”

  Blankly, Blanchard stared around the room.

  Francois leaned forward. “I want a report on my desk in one hour. And it better make sense, William, because I am not going to report that we’re missing seven physicists! I’ll say seven of them were killed in an explosion! I’ll be glad to tell them that! But I’m not going to tell the committee that seven of our physicists vanished into thin air!”

  Blanchard found it painful to blink, “But what about Swiss Protective Services? Don’t we have to notify—”

  “Absolutely not,” responded Francois, half turning. “Neither the Swiss Protective Services nor the Ministry of Defense will be told anything about this event until we know what happened here and what we’re dealing with.”

  “But protocol requires—”

  Francois sprung upon him like a lion. “To hell with protocol! I want answers for the committee! Then I’ll follow protocol!”

  Blanchard was staring at crumpled clothing strewn across the Observation Room’s tile floor as Francois moved past him muttering, “Get on with it, Mr. Blanchard. You have exactly one hour.”

  After a moment Blanchard was aware that he was still standing in place. He took a heavy breath and released. Then his face twisted into a grimace as he entered the now silent Observation Room.

  ***

  “How the hell is any of this our problem?”

  Walter Whitaker, general counsel to the President of the United States, leaned back in his black leather chair in what was loosely referred to in times of peace as “The Situation Room.” But in times of alarm it was called “The War Room.”

  In fact, unbeknownst to the public, and most of those working in the White House, this particular war room is located seven hundred feet beneath the White House. And it is only one of thirty war rooms scattered across North American. Even the three-billion-dollar Air Force One, a virtual flying Pentagon, is equipped to serve as an eternally moving war room. But this particular war room was also Whitaker’s formal office and home away from home as he lived here at the president’s beck and call 24/7.

  Major General Atol Jackman, smoking a cigar, rested a hand on the table as if content to wait forever for an answer he damn well knew he’d never get. Whitaker gestured vaguely and said, “I’ll explain that to you in a minute, Atol. But rest assured. This is our problem. Mike, would you please distribute the files?” He shook his head. “I hope you’re a big fan of science fiction, Atol. Except this isn’t fiction. This is as real as it gets.”

  Black manila folders marked with a red Eyes Only warning were distributed. Then Whitaker motioned and said, “All right, Mike. Play the tape.”

  The room was darkened and a projection blazed to life.

  Ignoring the folder, General Atol Jackman leaned back and chomped down on his cigar as he muttered, “Creature features.”

  In contrast to Whitaker’s tailored, professional appearance, Jackman exuded the burly presence of a Grizzly bear. His head resembled a block of granite with short-cut white hair and a sunburned scarred face. And although most career Army officers cultivated a reputation for remaining in poster-boy shape, Jackman was the living image of a Depression-era street fighter. His chest was as deep and wide as a beer barrel and his long arms were heavy and powerful with hulking, intimidating forearms. His hands were large, deeply tanned, and marked by wounds he never mentioned. Yet, despite his barbaric frame, Jackman’s uniform was spot-on and squared away with the commitment of a perfect professional soldier.

  Seated so closely together, Whitaker looked like a grade-school goodie-two-shoes poised beside a silverback gorilla.

  Suddenly on the wall an image of a room was displayed—one not unlike the mission control center at Fort Canaveral. There were thirty-seven physicists at individual workstations not separated by petitions. All were equipped with microphones and headgear but they could communicate directly to one another just by raising their voice. In front of the group was a ceiling-to-floor display that resembled the control panel of a nuclear reactor. There were dozens of small screens, each dedicated to something important since each was monitored by two or three personnel.

  For a moment there was no movement in the room. Then a single physicist screamed out what seemed like a warning and every screen spiked into what was commonly referred to as “the red zone.”

  The soundless video was electrified in cobalt blue and a bolt of lightning crossed the room exploding computers and flinging bodies into the air. Personnel were blown to pieces as others were thrown into the air. When they landed on what appeared to be a tile surface, they began beating at the flames consuming their clothing as still more physicists charged out of the Observation Room without seeming to realize they were on fire at all.

  “That’s enough,” said Whitaker dismally.

  Lights were restored and the screen went blank. For a moment no one spoke, then General Jackman focused on Whitaker with, “Okay, Whitaker, the idgets blew themselves up. I figured it was gonna happen sooner or later. And so I reluctantly repeat, why on God’s green earth is a bunch of dumbass eel heads blowing themselves up our problem? We’re not even official a part of their supercollider society or whatever it is.”

  With a grimace Whitaker said, “The problem, general, is that there were thirty-seven physicists sitting in that room when they turned the Large Hadron Collider up to full power. And when they turned it off, there were only thirty. You understand? There were only thirty physicists remaining.” He stared. “It’s true, some were blown to pieces. Killed deader than a wedge. We counted all of them. And some ran off. We counted them, too. But seven couldn’t be found anywhere on that compound. They weren’t found that night and they haven’t been found to this day.”

  General Jackman chewed his cigar. “So?” He lifted a hand to the darkened screen. “Some of ’em got blown up. Clear as day. And the rest, well, I woulda’ been makin’ tracks, too, if I had bolts of lightning splittin’ the crack of my ass.”

  “But that’s not what happened, Atol. When I imply that seven physicists were no longer in the flesh, what I’m saying is that they disappeared into thin air. But all their clothing, their jewelry—wedding rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces—even their porcelain fillings were recovered at their workstations.”

  Jackman stopped chewing.

  “You see the problem?” asked Whitaker.

  It was not a question.

  Jackman shook his head. “It ain’t our problem, Whitaker. Somebody’s been warning those fools for a hundred years t
hat they were gonna open up a black hole or the gates of hell or whatever you wanna call it and half of ’em were gonna get sucked up like Spam in a can.” He chomped down hard. “Well, they got what they were looking for. Adios. Arrivederci. Sayonara. I’ll call your folks for ya. It’s their problem.”

  Sitting forward, elbows on the marble slab, Whitaker calmly said, “Well, Atol, the president considers it our problem, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because these physicists obviously opened some kind of portal to another dimension,” said Whitaker. “Or something like that. The science is beyond me. In any case, they let something into our world that walked away with stuff that didn’t belong to it. Therefore, the president suspects this situation could mushroom into a problem for him in the very near future. And, as you gentlemen very well know, our president dislikes problems as much as he dislikes surprises.” He folded his hands. “Gentlemen, we cannot have mad scientists destroying the world as we know it. That is not acceptable.”

  General Jackman retorted, “So what does the big guy want us to do? We didn’t build the damn thing. I personally don’t even know who controls the place, but it definitely ain’t us.” He looked around the table and saw mostly shrugs before he lifted a hand. “You see that? Nobody knows who controls that place! It’s like its own political fiefdom with the biggest, most expensive, most dangerous machine in the world under its control and those clowns turn that thing on and off like it’s a light switch. Now,” Jackman pointed, “if you want my boys to disable it, that’s a hat with some dynamite under it.”

  “I don’t think it would be that easy, Atol,” stated Admiral Jason Waters, seated like the ultimate executive officer in white at the far end of the slab. “It’s the most powerful machine in the world and it’s guarded more closely than the Federal Reserve. To get a strike team in there will take an act of God.”