Conspiracies

"Good job, Frayne," Melanie said as Canfield squatted beside her like a dog. Jack almost expected her to pat Canfield's head. Instead she turned toward Jack. She was positively beaming now. "It would have been so much easier if you'd chosen to climb down the hole."

Jack ignored her and calmed himself. He wasn't Houdini, but he could get out of this. Lots of options ...

He tugged on the chain. The links were made of eighth-inch steel, and welded closed. He wrapped his hands around the column and tugged—not even a hint of give.

"Don't waste your time," Melanie said. "That column is a cement-filled steel pipe, set into the cement floor and bolted to a six-inch beam above. It's there to stay."

She was right. The column wasn't going anywhere. What about the cuffs, then? Top-grade Hiatts—a heavy-duty hinge model. If he had his pick set, he could have them open in thirty seconds. But the set was back in his hotel room.

Okay—he'd have to shoot himself free.

As he reached for the Semmerling he remembered it was in his jacket ... out of reach on the couch across the room.

Jack's mouth went dry. He felt the entire weight of the house pressing down on him.

Trapped. He looked at them.

Canfield's eyes shifted away. "Sorry, Jack," he said. "It's not personal. Actually I kind of like you. But Melanie's calling the shots here."

"Is that so?" said a voice from the top of the stairs. "Since when?"

Jack recognized the voice, but it was Canfield who announced him. "That sounds like Professor Roma! Professor, I've been trying to reach you all day!"

Melanie, however, was suddenly agitated. "He's not Professor Roma." Her voice dropped to an almost reverential tone. "He's The One!"

Canfield sucked in a breath. "The One? He's The One?"

Jack turned and stared up the steps to where Roma stood in the doorway, his monkey perched on his shoulder as usual.

"The One what?" Jack said.

"The One who will soon be lord and master of this world," Melanie said.

"Oh, brother," Jack muttered.

Roma said, "You have not answered my question, Melanie."

"This man is wanted on the other side, sir," Melanie said. "Some entities there feel they have a score to settle with him."

Jack didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Do they?" Roma sounded like a chef who's just been told that some of the customers think he 'should add more chocolate to his mousse.'

"Yes, they—"

Her reply was cut off by terrified shouts, then gunfire—half a dozen pistol shots—echoing up from the hole. Above it, the dome of the mini-tower was beginning to smoke.

"What's happening?" Jack said.

Roma said, "I imagine James and Miles have found the answers they've been seeking ... and they don't like them."

More shots. Jack noticed the rope ladder begin to vibrate. The shouts turned to agonized screams ... and then the ladder was still.

Above the opening the Tesla device's legs and struts were beginning to glow. Jack could feel the growing heat.

"They've also learned the painful truth," Melanie said, staring at the opening, "that the Otherness has no use for ordinary humans." She turned back to Jack. "Except for you."

Jack yanked futilely on his chains, diluting his fear with anger. "Why, damn it! I never even heard of this Otherness crap until last week!"

"Yes," said Roma—or The One. "Why?"

"The Otherness creatures—they were known as rakoshi, rakshashi, and various other names. They were children of the Otherness, and events were manipulated to have them brought here, to New York, to have them at your side for the Time of Change, but this man killed them. Certain entities in the Otherness went to great lengths to create those creatures, and now they want him brought across so they can do to him what he did to their creations."

"Why was I told none of this?" Roma bellowed, obviously angry now.

Melanie took a step forward but was careful to stay beyond Jack's reach. She bent and looked up the stairs.

"I cannot say, sir. One such as myself cannot contact The One. But I told Frayne and he was supposed to—"

"I couldn't find you!" Canfield blurted. "I searched all day and—"

"Never mind," Roma sighed.

Melanie said, "You see, sir, though I am part Otherness, it is only a small part. Not enough to be welcomed as a lost member of the family. I have to buy my way in. And Repairman Jack is my ticket."

"You mean our ticket," Canfield said.

"Yes." She turned and smiled down at him. "Ours."

"Have done with it then," Roma said—he sounded impatient. "I am going outside to wait."

"Yes, sir," Melanie said, all but kowtowing. "Thank you for your patience."

Jack glanced up at the now empty doorway, then back to Melanie.

"Your ticket?" he said, holding up the cuffs and chain. "I don't think your ticket is going anywhere."

"Don't worry. The Otherness will take care of that. All I had to do was get you this far. You see, while I was on the other side I learned my own painful truth—that I could not stay in the Otherness unless I earned my place there. So I contacted Lewis and told him to hire you. But I didn't tell him why. The plan was to draw you in through the assembly of the Tesla device, to lure you here to help reopen the gateway to the Otherness. In a way, you helped build your own gallows."

Jack ground his teeth in frustration. So goddamn stupid! How had he let himself get hooked and reeled in like this?

Melanie's smile broadened. "You might even say, Repairman Jack, that you are the victim of ... a conspiracy."

Jack tugged again at the chain as she and Canfield grinned at each other.

"Why kill Olive then?" he said.

Their smiles vanished.

"She's dead?" Canfield said. "How do you know?"

"Don't give me that," Jack said. "You had a couple of your men in black mutilate her back in the hotel, then make her body disappear."

Melanie shook her head as Canfield stared up at her. She looked worried. "I don't know anything about men in black. Whoever they were, I doubt they were from the Otherness. But then, there's so much I don't know. What did—?"

She cut off as the Tesla device began to vibrate. The whole thing was aglow and beginning to drift back toward the floor.

"We don't have much time!" Melanie cried. "Quick! Into the gateway!"

Canfield hesitated, frowning as he stared at the yawning pit. "I don't know ... "

"Trust me, Frayne," she said, beckoning to him with her talon. "You'll see—as soon as you step into the Otherness, all will be made clear. You'll know. You'll understand all its plans. You'll be part of it. You'll feel ... " Her eyes fairly glowed as she looked down into the gateway. " ... wonderful!

"But will ... will I be welcome?"

Melanie was already lowering her legs into the opening. "Yes;" She glanced at Jack. "As long as we have him."

"But we don't have him."

"The Otherness will handle it. And trust me, you don't want to be on this side when it does." Her voice echoed up as she descended below floor level. "Hurry!"

Even as low as Canfield was, slithering on his boneless legs, he had to duck to make it under the descending base of the Tesla device. He wrapped his legs around the rope ladder and slipped over the edge. Before he disappeared, he looked Jack's way.

"See you on the Other side," he said, and was gone.

The device came to rest as Canfield disappeared, the feet of its glowing legs scorching the concrete where they touched down. Almost immediately the legs and struts began to bend like Twizzlers, sinking under the weight of the dome. Slowly they collapsed into the hole. The glowing dome caught on the rim for a few seconds, then it buckled, folded, and disappeared.