A Ten Page Part Chapter

A ten page part chapter of a sci-fi novel.

The scent of rain swept in through the open window of a dank and
dingy, two bedroomed apartment.  The walls had been painted in white
industrial strength corporation paint, but had gradually become dirty
yellow as tar and condensation mixed, then ran down the walls in a
dense liquid.  The television had been left on all night as he hated the
silence but now the monotonous drone of the news reporters voice
began to ring in his ears. 
 

He stood up straight, lifted up his head and angled his chin rebelliously, 
then walked over to the television and switched it off.  "That's better",
he thought to himself, now he could finally hear himself think.  Tired
and expressionless he glanced across the table, to a haze of stale
smoke which was beginning to build up in the corner of the room.  He
squashed his cigarette into the ashtray and shook his head. 
Yesterdays discarded clothes were left in an untidy pile on the floor, he
began to sift through his dirty pile, seeking out the cleanest ones and
scrambled into them, coughing insessantly.  His chest wheezed like
one of those party whistles, he clutched tight at his left clavical as the
violent, involuntry actions pulled the muscle throughout his body. 
Letting out one final pathetic cough he then began to utter blasphemies
to himself, his lips barely moving as he went on through gritted teeth.
The noise of sirens could be heard from police cars as they chased after
the spillout from a local bar.  Pulling back the dreary curtains, the evening
sunlight rested just above his shoulder and faded as the clouds gathered. 
The greying sky began to shimmer like a giant pool of mercury, he let go
of the curtain letting it fall gracely back into place.
.Pieces of broken circuits lay across the room and his only ornamental
features were a Jupiter globe and several planetarium models.  
He had a senseless fascination for taking things apart, old tellies and
radios, all the while knowing in his heart he would never get around to
actually finishing any single one, simply because he was far too busy
with his work.
 

In the distance, he could sense a faint aroma, he recognised the smell,
but couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
His fists tightened as he tried hard to reflect, but it was no use.  In the
cabinet, were some old photographs of his mother and father on their
wedding day.  His father was a sergeant in the navy, he died shortly after
Williams seventh birthday, having never fully recovered from injuries sustained
during the war.  The one thing he recalled mostly about his father was he was
a very strict man who liked everything to be in the correct order... always. 
For the very first time in his life, suddenly he understood why, when he reflected
on his own life style, ashtrays full to the brim, clothes strewn about the apartment.
In many ways William wished he could have been more like his father.
He paused his step for a few seconds to glance, the photograph had white
lines running through the middle were he once tried to fit it into his pocket.
He was three years old when this photograph was taken, he wore a white
short sleeve shirt, black tank top and a pair of grey kneelength shorts, sat
with legs crossed reaching his hand up to his mother offering her a toy
aeroplane. He could remember the day almost in colour.

 

-Mummy

 

-Yes darling, she said with a smile

 

-I want to play aeroplanes, he replied as a boeing 247 unsilently
made it's way across the blue sky.

 

This was the most vivid memory in his mind, the day this photograph was took.
.
He went into the airing cupboard, put on his plastic blue mac and began to
make his way to the lab.  Catching his jacket on the torn end of a periodic
table which was stuck precariously on his wall.
He strode patiently through the street, his long, dark overcoat buttoned
in the middle, frayed at the edges and blowing freely in the northerly
breeze.
 

His hair was a single whispy strand of silver and grey combed back from
his furrowed brow.  His eyes were tired yet passionate and his body
trembled slightly whenever he stood.
 

The sky was pitch black, if you were to look on from the distance the
only thing which could be seen was the orange end of his cigarette and
the occasional spark which blew from it in the wind.  Litter adorned the
cobbled streets, crisp packets and loose leaves of newspaper flapping
like butterfly wings against the footing of the old building. 
 

He stomped out his cigarette onto the icy pavement and let out a
loud sigh.  Not many people actually understood William, most thought of him
as rather an odd person.  In fact the only person who really understood William
was himself. 
 

His calligenous breath glowed in the cold night air, illuminated by street lights
which lined the pavement.
He glanced down at his watch then made his way back to work, gazing
beyond the skeletal wooden fence which was raised hastily above the ground.
A freshly raked crop field, it looked like a scene on a Martian horizon with
scattered sanstone rocks and now failing daylight.  It seemed as though hours
had passed as he drifted by slowly questioning everything which came into his
line of vision.  He carried on walking snatching a foil wrapped meat sandwich out
of his pocket and taking a bite out of it.
 

William Gartshore was a proffessor of quantum mechanics at the university of
Chicago.  They had sent him to work on a project to help seek out extra-
terrestrial lifeforms, the university wanted to keep it top secret so they
chose him and a small group of others to study molecular structure and biology.
Their first experiment was to determine at what temperature and speed
would certain properties become excitable.
He remembered doing this experiment when he was first working toward
his proffesorship but since then technology had changed and this time they
wanted to see all of the results.
They came up with the idea of creating several mini biospheres in which to
test out their experiments.  These experiments, they hoped, would allow
them to predict which planets would be likely to store life, either at present
or at some time in the future.
The second experiment was to be with weathering systems this was a much
more complicated experiment which required the information to be precise,
as any slight mis data would result in them possibly having to start the whole
thing all over again.
 

There had been an argument in the lab earlier between him and one of
his colleagues.  Will could hardly believe his ears when they told him they
would be working together as a team.  There had been a few harsh words
between them in the past during the more portentous years of their lives
when William had a fling with one of James' girlfriends, it didn't last and it all
blew over when William went to work for the research institute.  It was
a shame really, they were very much alike which was probably the reason
they never saw eye to eye in the first place. 
 

James Adams was a meteorologist, he had always had a fascination with
the weather even as a child.  He could often be seen litrerally with his head
in the clouds as he studied their structure and flow.
He and William grew up together on the same estate, they even worked at
the same university for a short while until it was shut down in 19.. due to
a lack of funding.
William was very much against the research, he felt it was a waste of time,
effort and money, especially if they were going with the sole intentions of
finding life out there. 

James disagreed however, well he would anyway if
William said the sky was blue, James would argue it was red.
It was ridiculous, William wondered whether he should actually just give up
now and say it was too much for him to deal with, on the other hand he
quite enjoyed the idea of proving them wrong.  'How would he know whether
extra-terrestrial life existed in our galaxy, there could be aliens who lived
there which were green with yellow spots and purple blood.' 
 

How would he know indeed! 
 

He glanced down at his watch then made his way back to the lab. 
Arriving at the footpath of the building Jmes was stood in the doorway, his
shoulders were broad and his head hung in a cowering position.
He had short, black hair which was closely cropped to his face, strong
facial features with irregular slight patches of stubble. 
Unlike William who one would think had never even heard of a razor, James
was slightly more organised at least in his appearance.
He had the brightest blue eyes anybody had ever seen.  His eyes said it all,
how he was feelingor where he had been.  He was extremely sensitive like that.
The one thing he and William had most in common was the passion for their work.
Athough he and William never got on they did acknowledge each other however
uncomfortable the situation and William dreaded the thought of having to pass
him in the doorway. 
 

As he approached James stretched out his arms then rolled his eyes upward
towards his head in only a way he knew how.  William almost spoke but kept quiet
as he figured James might have something to say.  " Dr Atkins wants to see you
in his office" he said with a serious look on his face.  This was unual as it sounded
like trouble but James wasn't smiling, in that case, it must be bad... very bad. 
As he approached the office he could feel the tension in the atmosphere getting
even more tense as he neared the doorway. 
He was about to knock on the door but noticed it had been left open. 
"Come in" said a growling voice from behind the door.  William entered with
caution, not knowing what to expect.  He could almost see the smoke coming
from old Atkins' ears as he sat behind the desk.  "Did you do this?" he said,
throwing a top heavy pile of closely packed papers his way on the desk.
"Do what?" William replied in a somewhat squeaky yet defensive tone.  "Don't
ask what" he said, his face reddening further. "Just take a look and then tell me
honestly, did you do it.
William didn't need to go through the papers, he knew what Dr Atkins was talking
about.  He feared this might happen, now he would have to come clean about
the whole thing.  It wasn't going to be an easy task.  He pretended to go through
the papers then buried his head into his hands. 
"I'm sorry" William said with a huge sigh.  "It's a little too late for sorry don't you
think" said Atkins rising from his chair, pacing up and down impatiently and rabidly
scratching his baldy head.  For a fleeting moment everything seemed normal,
until... "How could you do it" he said, slamming his fist onto the table.  "I trusted
you with this and this is how you repay me." 
"Do you know they are thinking of calling off the whole investigation."
" I just felt somebody needed to know, I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen."   
"So you thought you'd leak this to the press?"  "How very clever, you know I
could fire you for this"  he took a few moments to reveiw the situation and
continued to stroke his chin aggitatedly as though he were looking for
an answer, he did this for several minutes then sat back at his chair.
"I'll deal with this, you get back to work, but if you ever pull a stunt like
this again, your a*s will be out the door faster than you can say ....., got
it!"  He gazed at him with an air of astonishment as he let out a loud sigh.
"Sir" replied William obiediently.  "Oh and by the way, there's a meeting
in the discussion room in fifteen minutes, I expect you will be there" said
Atkins finalising their conversation.
 

In the discussion room everybody sat next to each other, and when William
entered they all immediatly looked up.  It was like they expected some
kind of an answer.  However the answer he had for them was not the one
they wanted to hear. 
He sat down at the table and pushed the chair inward with his legs.  They
watched on in eager anticipation and it was clear they all expected him
to start the talk. 
"Ah ahem, I'll begin", said william clearing his throat and organising the
papers against the huge table like a deck of cards.
"I don't believe it is likely that there will be any life in our solar system
other than on Earth, if there is other life out there it will probably be
similar to the life which was and is on this planet. 
Life is formed wherever it is able to and with the trillions of stars in space,
I think it is more probable there will be life on a planet which orbits one
of these.  However I do think there is potential for life on the other planets
in our solar system and I also believe it could be possible that life existed
on Venus before our time.  Like Earth it has a rocky body and is very
similar in size.  The latest research I have suggests that several billion
years ago Venus' atmosphere was a lot like the Earth's is now.  They also
believe it had liquid on it's surface.
"Is this all you have to say?" said Atkins clearly expecting something more
to be said on the subject.  No matter how he rephrased it, the conclusion
was still the same.  The room was filled with utter silence, apart from the
odd sniffle which could be heard here and there.  Everybody had got
their hopes up expecting Proffesor Atkins to find some hole in Williams theory
but it was solid and that was final.  not only did it suggest there is no
possibility of life in the Solar System, but it also suggested that there was
unlikely to be ever.
 

The remnants of the discussion room began to disperse one by one. 
There were no handshakes, no polite exchange of words and the bitter
dissapointment in the now empty room became apparent.
"Fancy stepping outside for a ciggy" asked James who by now was feeling
the full force of Williams tension.  "Sure" replied William in a strained yet
faint voice.  Although he and James never got on, he was greatful for the
comforting 'shoulder to cry on' routine. 
 

They both stepped outside, the darkness was now hindered by a bright
full Moon.    James took a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and
sighed, looking at William sternly through one
eye he flipped open the lid on the cigarette packet and waved it towards
William.  It was almost as though they had some kind of phsycic thing going
on between them, as though each knew what the other were thinking.
They both stood, puffed out torsos gazing up at a clear patch of pure black sky,
swapping silent insults while acknowledging each others stupidity.
"What's that?" cried James pointing over to something which was lying at the
side of the road.  "It's probably a dead rat or something" replied William,
his mind clearly on other things.  "Whatever it is, it's not dead replied
James, it's still moving.  He walked over to the side of the road where the
as of yet indeterminable object lay.  As he got closer he grew even more cautious
as the determination of the species lying in the middle of the road became
even less clear. 
He turned it over with the side of his foot.  "It's probably a rabbit or something,
just leave it to die" shouted William.  "Shh" said James loudly as he took an even
closer look.  "Over here" he requested yet again in a loud, fading tone. 
"Quick here."  A concerned William walked over to where James was stood
and took a glance at the dying animal.  "How the hell did that happen?"
asked William backing away. "I don't know" answered James, "and I don't think
I wanna hang around to find out either."  The creature appeared to be a
large brown hare.  Innocent enough one would think, but as they got
closer, they could see it's eyes had been removed.
"Shall we take it into the lab and find out what happened to it?" asked James. 
"I've kinda got more important things on my mind right now other than
messing around with a dead rabbit" replied William hastily.  "It's probably just
been run over or something, just leave it to die."
James agreed and they both went back inside.  Once inside the lab they
immiediately got back to work. 
 

The first experiment was to create a mini bio atmosphere to discover the
pressures and properties under which would be possible for extra-
terrestrial life to exist.  They did this via a huge pressurised vault which
had several valves, so pressures, even gravity could be manipulated.  This
enabled them to cultivate many different atmospheres and very often the
results were astounding.
 

He stood back and and assessed his own theoretical structure. Something
was definately amiss.  He noticed that as the volume level increased, the
heat began to decrease, yet it changed with the variation in properties
used.  This totally threw his whole theory out of the window, all of this
just to find nothing but chaos at the end of it.  This was the part where
classical mechanics came to an abrupt halt...  the odds of a coin landing
on it's side, the scattering ebb and flow of the ocean, or the patternless
structure of clouds spilling across the sky.  These were all examples of
chaos and it was hard to find stability within something which appeared
to have no discipline whatsoever.  He tried it again and again, until
eventually, after a number of experimental observations, he noticed a
pattern begin to emerge.  This was good news for the project but it didn't
do much for Williams present theory.  At least it would let Atkins off the
hook when confronted by the blood thirsty press. 
 

William had to hand it to Atkins, he was usually right when it came down
to this sort of thing, which was slightly annoying to William at times but
Atkins was aware of this and very often curbed his own enthusiasm so as
not to squeeze the life out williams, because despite his mainly arrogant
faults... Atkins felt, he was a good student, keen and ambitious.  It could be
said that Atkins looked to William as more of a son.  Atkins had no children
of his own, not even a wife.  His career took up the majority of his time and he
was very much married to his job.  He never had any regrets about his desicion
not to start a family, not really anyway.  There was no way, he felt, it could have
been possible to have carried on with his studies whilst having to look after
children.  Not that he disliked children, far from it, he loved them which the more
he thought about it seemed to make even less sense. 
Despite his strict disiplinarian features, Atkins was really a p***y cat.  At
least that's very often how other people would describe him.  That's not to say
of course he was a man which could be messed with, he was not!  William dialled
the main office from the laboratory telephone and informed them of the latest
developments. 
 

The sighs of relief could be felt throughout the entire building.  This was no
longer a laughing matter... not that it ever was in the first place.  It's just now
things had suddenly become a lot more... urgent.  What was to happen next was
very odd.  Suddenly there was a phone call from the main office.  It was Proffesor
Atkins. He said everybody should pack up immiediately and go home.
William knew it wasn't like Atkins to allow such a thing, usually they were kept
there right until the very last minute... Or perhaps he was just in a jolly mood
because of the latest revelations.  He questioned no more and began to rinse
the ..., putting them away neatly into the ... cupboard.  The building was almost
empty.  The only people left in there were the cleaners, Atkins himself, and James
and William. 
William jiggled the lock in the door of the laboratory brushing shoulders with James
as he passed then began walking down a huge flight of stairs.  The way home
always seemed like the longest part of the day he thought silently to himself,
going out of the building and rushing past Gaitesworth Avenue. 
Cold winds rustled through the trees and rain fell down hard in dribs
and drabs, forcing an orchastrated tune on a tin can blowing in the wind
alongside of the kerb.