Swan Song

The last time John had seen the Board of Education was through the sight of a submachine gun.  He wasn’t sure what his reaction to seeing them again would be, or what theirs would be to seeing them.

“John!  You look presentable…for a monster truck rally.”

John turned to come face to face with the Superintendent.  His disheveled rags were gone.  Now he was decked out in a waist coated tuxedo with tails, obviously tailored to his measurements.  Kid gloves, top hat, and a monocle completed the look.

“Superintendent!  If I didn’t know better I’d swear I was looking at a monkey butler serving dinner to Mister Magoo.”

They shared a mutual sardonic laugh.

The synchrotron had been removed and sold.  The proceeds went towards renovating the gymnasium in gold and blue.  An elevated stage had been constructed at one end of the gymnasium.  Rehired faculty, students, and political dignitaries formed a dense crowd at the entrance.  They were kept away from the red carpet that had been rolled out by a black-armored CUSD tactical division.

There was a surge in the excitement as the Board of Education arrived in a stretched jet black van with dark tinted windows.  As the van stopped, the noisy throng immediately quieted down in an awed hush.  Only the few that stood closest to the streets would catch a glimpse of the grand potentates of the education system they attended.  The van was escorted by a team of four police motorcycles.  A second van—less austere than the first--followed close behind and stopped some distance away.  Ten attendants in matching white nurse’s uniforms disembarked from the second van and took their places.

The area had been deemed secure, and one of the motorcycle cops opened the sliding door of the long stretched van.  Wisps of frigid air curled out from the opening.  Inside, the van was sterile and antiseptic with cooling units along the floor and ceiling.  Someone pressed a button and a wheelchair elevator folded out.

The first member of the Board to emerge was the president.  John didn’t know how it was possible, but the man looked even older and frailer than he did almost a year ago.  All the members of the Board of Education sat in wheelchairs and were wheeled about by their attendants.  There were eight of them in all--four men and four women.  The youngest looking of them seemed to be well over eighty years of age.  The men wore identical black tuxedos and bowties, the women wore severe-looking formal gowns.  All of them had sparse white hair that shot out at odd angles.

Their eyes grew wide with panic as they were brought out of the refrigerated van’s interior and some began to make frightened vocalizations and gestures.  Their aides tried their best to calm them, but with little success.  Some Board members began to sweat—not normal salt water sweat though, but a viscous amber colored substance that oozed down their skin like motor oil.

The Board’s panic grew until an odd looking machine was brought out.  It was eggshell white and had a small panel with switches and gauges on it.  The largest gauge had an analog gauge with a needle that hovered in a green “safe” area.  Exactly what the machine indicated was safe was unknown until John noticed a condensing coil ran along the outside of the machine.  It was a portable refrigeration unit.  The needle indicated the temperature of whatever the machine held within it.  Whatever it held, it was at its safe temperature, though just a little bit of movement in either direction would move the needle into a yellow caution area and then into the red.

Tubes that ran from the machine were plugged into intravenous units that each Board member had on his or her wrist.  An aide flipped a switch and a pump started.  Fluid the same amber color of the sweat on their faces flowed from the refrigeration unit and into intravenous units on each of the Board members’ wrists.  Some had additional intravenous bags that dripped life-sustaining nutrients into their bloodstreams.  They were all hooked up to heart rate and vital sign monitors clamped to their wheel chairs.  John got the impression that most of them were being kept alive through unnatural means.

Once the amber fluid found its way into their bloodstreams, the panicked Board members calmed down.  They passed by John and the Superintendent as they were wheeled into the school auditorium’s side entrance.  Neither they nor their nurses gave so much as a glance to either of the two men or the crowd that had gathered.  In fact, the Board seemed like it was completely unaware of its surroundings.

The gymnasium was filled with the din of hundreds of different conversations.  As they spoke to one another, a string quartet sat in a pit before the stage.  Every seat was occupied by either a student or a parent.  The press and VIP’s had their own sections.  Low tones of tuning instruments provided background for the scattered noise.

But when the stage lights went on and the Board of Education was wheeled onto the stage, an awed hush fell over the auditorium.  The Board sat ramrod straight and their aristocratic faces were identical in their austerity.  Their skin stretched so tight over their faces it looked like it would crack of they ever broke into a grin.  Not that they could ever find anything amusing.  John wondered what these people did when no one was looking.  They were an act, alright.

The lights began to dim, and the orchestra performed a medley of classical favorites.  Pieces by Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and others were represented.  The Board had spared no expense and had hired only expert musicians, and their performance reflected this.  There were no missed notes and, despite the lack of a conductor, they kept tempo from each other perfectly.

When the auditorium grew dark, the quartet segued into Thus Spake Zarathustra.  As the piece built in intensity, the stage lights came on and slowly brightened.  Every conversation, every noise, every sound was hushed when the lights on stage revealed a table.  On the table sat the reason for the evening.  The Device was shrouded by a curtain woven from gold.

Thus Spake Zarathustra reached a stirring crescendo.  At its peak, some members of the audience shedded tears from the raw emotion of the piece.  When it finished, the musicians stood with their instruments in their hands and bowed to the audience.  There was a moment of passionate applause from the audience.  Then, though no cue was issued, the acclamation stopped all at once and became silent.  The quartet resumed their seats with their instruments held rigidly on their knees.

The President of the Board of Education was wheeled to the stage.  His attendants—tiny women in immaculate white nurses’ coats—helped him stand at the lectern and supported him as he prepared to speak.  The skin on his face was like parchment and it crackled with every minor shift of his features.  His nose was tiny and almost nonexistent, and his inhumanly red lips were drawn backwards into his toothless mouth.  Like his peers, the fringe of hair around his head was white and shot out at odd angles.  There was almost no musculature on his limbs and when he spoke, his voice was high, almost piercing.  Before he spoke, a curtain behind the table opened to reveal a gigantic video monitor.  When it was turned on from some unseen location, the President’s visage was projected on the screen, larger than life.

“Today, we are assembled to honor a man who has attained a level of personal excellence that renders all of our pathetic, hopeless lives meaningless by comparison.  A man that has done more this morning than most will do in their entire lives.  A man of dedication, commitment, and efficiency.  Of  course, I speak of…”  He turned and gestured at John with his hand.  “…Mister John Maximillian Steiner.”

A spotlight came on and shone directly down on John.  Every pair of eyes in the packed auditorium was on him.

“And here, on this night, we shall bear witness to the penultimate glory of human intellect, of supreme achievement of science and technology, and the crowning of humankind as master of all it surveys.  Tonight will be…glorious!”

The gold curtain was lifted and the Device was presented in its glory.  The crowd gasped in awe.  Somehow, the bland humility of its appearance lended to the austerity of the momentous occasion.  The President and the Board were wheeled away to the front of the VIP section.  The CUSD tactical team flanked them on both sides.

John took center stage beside the Device while the students of the Junior Achievers’ Physics Club assembled behind him in perfect, straight formation.  He raised an index finger while absolute silence filled the auditorium.  His eyes scanned the audience, then finally rose to meet those of the President.

A brief moment passed.  A tiny smiled formed on the President’s lips.  He nodded, and the most important button in all of existence was pressed.

And not one damn thing happened.

The crowd waited with hushed anticipation.  Every eye was locked on the bland little instrument and the man who stood beside it.

Still nothing happened.  Someone coughed.  People started whispering.  John showed no emotion but moved his eyes a tiny bit to the President of the Board of Education.  The smile was still on the tiny, ancient man’s face.  If anything, it had grown larger.

Across the auditorium, people whispered, some laughed, fingers were pointed at him and his useless little box.  Camera flashes ignited and reporters worked at their laptop computers.

Was this it?  Was this their plan?  Was this was his punishment for his sins against them?  What was supposed to be the greatest technological achievement in history had become the most colossal, most expensive, most widely displayed fuckup in all of creation!  And it was all centered on him.

Inaudible whispers grew into outright cries of derision.  The outrage spread among the audience until it coalesced into a single organism of contempt.

John had spent months in isolation, fearing a death that was not to come.  No, their intentions for him were far, far worse.  They were never going to kill him.  They were going to let him live.  Live with this.  Live with the laughter.  Live with the scorn.  Live with the greatest failure in history.

Or maybe they wouldn’t.

John closed his eyes until the rising tide of contempt disappeared from his ears and became just a faint ringing.  When his eyes opened, the Board’s armed phalanx had disappeared and his eyes locked with President’s.  The smile on the creature’s face had grown even more.

It was time to finish what he started so many months ago.  He didn’t care about death anymore.  Not his or anyone else’s.  His eyes narrowed, his fists balled, and was about to rush the decrepit thing and pound it into oblivion.

But something else happened.

First there was the Project.  Then the Device.  Now the Event.

A deep, throbbing pulse swept through the auditorium.  No one could hear it, but everyone felt it.  The effect was like a bass note from an enormous speaker.  Like a note that was too low to be heard but was felt through the entire body.

The shouts and cries ended immediately and silence once again ruled.  No one moved.  Outside, on the streets, cars came to a halt as their drivers were swept with some unidentifiable force.  Animals, far more sensitive than people, howled as they were overcome by an overwhelming sense of dread.  It was as if everything had …shifted.

Seconds ticked by and a sense of relief settled.  People made nervous smiles at one another.  A baby cried.  John’s eyes were still locked with the President’s, but his rage had settled.  He cocked his head to one side.

What is this?

Conversations sprouted out among the audience.  Mothers worked to settle their crying infants.  There were all sorts of speculation about what had just happened.  But there was agreement on only one thing—that whatever had happened was because of the mysterious object that had just been activated.

Another pulse hit.  This one was harder.  Silence fell again as people looked around in apprehension.  People closest to the exits got up and hurried to the doors.

A third wave washed over the room.  This time, there was no silence, but cries of fear.  The windows lining the top of the gymnasium crashed.  A man screamed at John to turn off the device, but he did not hear him.  The President then did something that, to John, seemed amazing.  The tiny man rose from his chair and stood on legs that were little more than sticks of wood.

A fourth pulse hit.  Then a fifth.  Each one was felt harder than the one before it, and they were rising in frequency.  Like a frightened herd, people rushed to the exits, towards some imagined safety.  It was like every molecule in the body was being violently shaken.  The exits became clogged with those trying to escape.

There was no escape anywhere.  Not in the school, not in the district, not on the entire planet.  John’s eyes were locked from across the room with the President’s.  The President smiled.  He seemed almost gleeful.  John’s face was a blank, pallid mask.

Let it happen.  Whatever this is.

The pulses quickened and all in creation was shaken to its core.  Living things succumbed as they were literally rattled to death.  John looked to his hands and found them completely intact.  Whatever was happening, he seemed immune to it.  He turned to the students that he had led to create…this.  But they had fled and joined the human throng, desperate to save their own existences.

The frequency of the pulses accelerated into a piercing whine that tore apart everything it touched.  All around him, people and objects were dissolving into nothingness.  The building crumbled around him, but John felt and heard nothing.  He looked to the Device.  His device.  From an infinitely small space inside, unbridled quantum energy—the building blocks of an entire universe--spewed forth.  A new universe that would either build upon, or supplant, the old one.  Or wipe them both out entirely.

John looked back to the President.  The entire Board now stood with him, each one reveling in the swirling chaos and destruction that spun around them.  John stood at the very eye of that destruction.

Anger.  Hatred.  Confusion.  Dread.  Now, nothing.

The President clapped his hands together in simple, saintly joy.

“Bravo, John Steiner!  Bravo!”

All that ever was and ever would be collided with the quantum energy that spewed from the device that he had created, spinning off into unattached particles.  Nothingness.  The world, all worlds, stars, nebulae, was dissolving. John’s last image was of the President dancing with unbridled joy in the chaos that now ruled the universe.

“You motherfucker.”

An instant later, John was whisked away, leaving his shattered universe behind him.