I stared at him. That answered my two-months-back question to the entryway guards of what was causing eye irritations in Blue Heaven. It also explained the oily roads, and indicated that not all the grime on the surfaces of the buildings was from fireplaces or wood-burning stoves.
I was trying to get it together and ask pertinent questions but my thoughts were scattered and the question I came up with was probably not very relevant but was all I could think of at the moment.
“Er, so, why is the place called Semptor Labs? Do they have a lab, and do they actually develop anything there?”
“They don’t have a lab. As near as I can tell, Henderson called it that because he liked the way it sounded. Perhaps the name is similar to something in his language.”
I was unable to think of what to say to that, so I nodded as though it made sense.
This was not anywhere near how I’d thought things would go after getting Morgan away from Talbert.
I ordered my jumbled thoughts. I supposed the doctor could provide an answer on why the neighborhood was so damned hard to navigate, but now I thought of the question in which I was most interested. What produced the thing that killed half the world?
“Okay, you said they didn’t cause the Event but that you know what did. You want to elaborate on that?”
Morgan gasped and leaned forward. She hadn’t heard that part, either. “What? You know what caused it?”
The doctor nodded and said flatly, “Yes, I do, and the epicenter of the interaction was right here in Blue Heaven.” He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankles. “On the day of the Event, I stepped out on my front stoop preparing to take my morning walk when suddenly, the sun, well, it flickered. I looked up to see what appeared to be a small gray dot about the size of a dime from my perspective. I ran back inside to get a camera, and rushed back out to take pictures but the camera wouldn’t work so all I could do was watch. It grew larger and began spreading across the sky.
“It quickly grew to cover everything from horizon to horizon. I could see the gray covering wasn’t a fog, though it appeared to settle to the ground as a fog would. I could see people walking around and at the onset, because of the obscured lighting, I thought them to be some of my neighbors.
“That is I did until one came down the sidewalk and walked through my mailbox while crossing my yard, and continued through the large camellia that grows on the side toward my next-door neighbor. At that point I realized that whatever they were, they weren’t solid.” He made a huffing noise and shook his head. “I don’t mind saying that I was downright frightened. Though I felt fine, it even occurred to me that I might be having some type of ischemic episode, such as a stroke, and might be hallucinating but at that point, someone began screaming and I rushed down my walk to see what was going on. I got across the road to see my neighbor, who usually walked with me in the mornings, staring at something on her lawn. I went up to it and it was a body.”
He peered at me then at Morgan before continuing. “I don’t suppose I have to describe the condition of the poor fellow. I’m sure you’ve either seen it or heard it before. I didn’t know the man. He was a complete stranger. My neighbor and I tried to call for help but you know what happened with that. I won’t go into other gruesome details of that day, but here is something that I’m sure not many outside of Blue Heaven knows: no one who lived here died that day.”
That was shocking. It wasn’t anything I’d ever heard before. Someone in every neighborhood within the city died; in some, like my parents’, all of the residents had.
I frowned. “Sir, what of the man on your neighbor’s lawn? Where did he come from?”
He nodded. “Yes, you would think he lived here; however, he didn’t. Neither did any of the others found in that condition in Blue Heaven. Their being here was an effect of the Event. For a while, it warped space and time – which, by the way, is why it’s easy to get lost here. Because of the wedge, a small bit of that influence remains. Not much, just enough to make it difficult to find one’s way within this neighborhood, and to cast those shadowy figures seen at night. Those, I believe, are simply images – shades if you would – from another time, past or future, or it could be both. They are not distinct enough to make a determination. In either case, they are not aware of us at all.
“The blighted patches that appeared are also an effect of the wedge, caused by an emission. I believe them to be the displaced products of a different dimension or a universe other than ours. Fortunately, whatever is in them seem to be restricted to those areas.
“There weren’t many bodies found here but they were all from surrounding communities, not from here. It was a while before I became aware of the fact that no one who actually lived in Blue Heaven perished that day. Some have since moved away and as in other communities, there were a number of suicides but the Event didn’t kill anyone here. It was a factor that I couldn’t understand at first but have since deduced what happened.”
My mind couldn’t help but race to the thought that had the Event occurred at a later time, say six months to a year later, Zoni and I might have been living in Blue Heaven and… I shook my head. It wouldn’t have saved the rest of my family, or my friends, and all the other shit since would’ve still happened but deep within, my soul wished it had come later because in that case, I would still have Zoni… It was a hollow wish and I pushed the thought away.
“Okay. So, what caused it? Was it a black hole or what? And how do you know it was centered here?”
He shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure of what it was, son, other than it was a type of energy, but I am sure it was not a black hole. As to what caused it, I’m getting to that. At one point in my life, I was an astrophysicist, and even though I retired, I still dabbled. I even have a telescope built into a skylight in my attic. This is not the best area in the state for sky watching, as there is too much artificial lighting around – well, there was at that time though not so much now – but I only put it in for hobby use, you see. My main computer connects to it, and there is a video camera attachment and a device for picking up different frequencies.
“Since this was something close by, when I ran to get my camera that morning, I also activated the power to the telescope, as I wanted to get a shot with it and, if possible, readings from the phenomenon. The first thing I did, of course – once the power returned – was to see if the telescope picked up anything. It had, and even recorded a few impressions before it lost power, but it wasn’t anything I could understand, not right off.”
He sighed. “It took me two years to learn what was captured; exactly what it was I was seeing. I ran tests, did numerous calculations, and I could show you everything including the original readings but unless you are a physicist or mathematician, most of it wouldn’t mean much to you.” His eyes gleamed. “But I can show you something.” He turned to the nearby computer on the desk and turned it on. He smiled. “My telescope was faster with its camera than I was with mine and it picked up an image. This is what it saw before the power cut out.”
Morgan and I leaned in to see. The computer slowly powered up and the doctor moved the cursor on the mouse to open up a folder. He clicked on an icon and a video sprang up. We watched as a gray dot appeared surrounded by what seemed to be a faint, slightly darker gray grid.
“Watch the grid,” he said.
The grid twisted and turned as it rode the edges of the dot, which spread to encompass the screen. Parts of the grid appeared to separate from the dot as it continued to grow, and faint lights appeared briefly that flickered a couple of times before steadying and then gradually fading away as the gray thickened.