In the previous installment, Dr. Piltdown and a whole herd of al-Zebani's animatronic security robots, larger-than-life raptors in the image of F. Murray Abraham's Salieri (in full-court dress, no less), met their various demises at the hands of Bond and her IMP agents, desperate to find their way out of this seemingly dead-end tunnel.
And another set of IMP agents have arrived at the Allegro Conservatory in Missouri just in time to discover the place completely closed down, not a soul left beyond some highly annoyed students hanging out on the lawn ("a fire-drill, they said"), staring at their phones and finding error after error message whenever they'd try to access the school's website. IMP Agent Wilhelm Streicher has some bad news for them.
Good news for both of you reading this, however: after this one, there are only three more installments before the conclusion of The Salieri Effect!
= = = = = = =
CHAPTER 28
After he'd come back from two rather inexplicable visits, first to the Aficionati's laboratory on the edge of town and, more inexplicably, to the room next door in the year 1983, Dr. Kerr had lots of things on his mind before leaving for his mysterious rendezvous with a piano teacher across the border in Missouri. Unable to reach Cameron and inform him of this plan, Kerr decided he should alert both Arcangelo Collegnano and the IMP about daPonte's letter, stolen only the night before from the Doylestown Historical Society.
Ever since Mr. Vole had called, he'd kept wondering what he should do: wait patiently until the police tracked it down? Instead, he e-mailed Capt. Ritard and asked him to forward this to the IMP's Musical Crimes Investigative Services agents. Since it wasn't officially registered museum property, Kerr admitted it would be difficult to trace.
Beyond that, the best thing was to alert the scholarly community not only to the letter's existence but to the fact it may soon find its way onto the Black Market, and anyone seeing it should contact the IMP's MCIS before it disappeared into the hands of a private collector, its potential significance lost forever. There was far too much of that going on in the world today, unscrupulous collectors, those “financial aristocrats” capable of dropping a cool million just so they could look at something whenever they wanted.
It took forever to find the best wording, and it certainly would've gone much more easily if Cameron had been there to attach his photo of the letter's first page as proof, asking Collegnano if he'd forward this message to any 18th Century scholars specializing in Mozart, daPonte, or Salieri, specifically someone like John Rice. At the back of Kerr's mind, of course, was the possibility Collegnano would want to keep this to himself: the world of musicology, Kerr didn't need to be reminded, was indeed a cutthroat one.
He'd wanted to keep it a secret, revealing it with a scholarly article, but now he needed to preempt the thieves. “Just one more issue to worry about,” he thought, “along with everything else.” Still, announcing his discovery on a musicology list-serve might reach more people in shorter time than some article in a journal.
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
Dr. Collegnano, enjoying the warm afterglow of a pleasant dinner in the company of (mostly) friends, still felt the need to dab his lips, moist from the last of the wine they had shared. It wasn't that late in the evening but the esteemed scholar knew there was no more work to be done tonight. He stacked the books into two piles, one for those he had finished with, another to start fresh in the morning, then sorted through his notes and locked them away in the filing cabinet.
His former assistant, a student named Attwood, always wondered if that was really necessary, but Collegnano knew there were scholars out there intent on stealing his research, breaking into his home, pilfering his library. He'd left Attwood go convinced he'd photocopied some notes and sold them to the highest bidder: one cannot be too careful.
Before shutting down his computer, Collegnano noticed several e-mails came in since he'd left to prepare for the dinner. One from his publisher would be pressuring him for a prospectus on his next book. But did he want to renew his contract? And there wasn't even a hint of an idea for a new book. This correspondence would only get more tiresome until they'd make threats about him returning their advance. Alas, the problem with advances was they tended to get spent on research, this time along the Riviera...
He didn't want to go and ruin the mellowness after an enjoyable meal by poking a stick into that wasp's nest. Then he noticed there was also one from that annoying T. Richard Kerr. With a sigh, Collegnano decided he would definitely ignore that one, most definitely. That one alone would ruin his whole day. It had certainly ruined his whole day last week, whenever it was Kerr had called him, asking about that Speranzani fellow. The presence of such an e-mail was rank with false pretensions of acquaintanceship.
“Just because I'd been lured into speaking with him,” he sniffed, “no doubt he feels we're now on a first-name basis.” The idea of opening an e-mail that probably began “Hey, Angelo” infuriated him. He had no interest in helping the man, whatever it was he wanted; Kerr certainly had nothing that could help him.
Even if their association went back several years, now – decades, most likely – limited to that one time they'd met in Boston (his first American lecture tour, which soon led to his big break in those years of struggle), that was no reason to presume they were on the same level either professionally, academically or socially. Americans were so naïve, assuming just because one taught at some insignificant small town New England roadside college of no consequence, one was therefore on the same level as someone who taught in Vienna.
Then something about the attachment caught his eye. Did he see that right? He stopped his finger inches above the touchpad. Could he open the attachment, a photo, without having to read the e-mail? He looked more carefully at the file-name: what had caught his attention stood out like fine print highlighted in bright colors.
DaPonteLetter-1.jpg.
Wasn't that what Kerr had been talking about, some letter written to Lorenzo daPonte from this former assistant to Salieri? He sent him the letter? He sent him a photograph of the letter?
This reached a whole new level of naïvety. Not only was Kerr no music scholar worth consideration, degree or no degree, he was even stupid enough to send one of the two leading Salieri experts in the world a copy of it.
If nothing else, Collegnano thought, it might be worth a laugh or two.
It wasn't so much a laugh as a chortle of delight: “What luck!” Collegnano read, then re-read the e-mail and smiled. It turned out Kerr claimed this “letter” was stolen as he announced to the world, the theft aside, he had no more proof of its existence than the attached photograph of the first page. And what level of moron, even one with a PhD affixed to his name, would seriously buy such a simple-minded story – especially the bit about circulating the news while hoping to “keep it secret”? Even if he relied on this mythical “professional integrity” of the musicological community, he must know the feeding frenzy he'll create among those collectors who employed some of the less ethical members of that community to scour the world for undiscovered treasures, specifically ones associated with the likes of Mozart or Beethoven, much less Salieri.
Collegnano sat back and contemplated the possibilities while ruminating on its infinite potential, the pleasure of it coursing through his blood, nourishing him even as his body digested the remains of a fine meal. Was Kerr driving the price up before he'd bring the letter out (“oops, found it!”) to sell to the highest bidder? He got up, turned the light out and retired to a small room, devoid of books but filled with technological equipment. The ghostly light of the tablet coming to life danced across his glasses.
Passwords and encryption did not make this the computer-of-choice for his internet research or social media (most of which he detested). It was fun to troll his friends with a completely anonymous, untraceable identity bringing a little havoc to their lives, but this little device was his “hunting computer” and it had only one purpose. In this day and age, it might seem strange he would hack into his own computer, the one in his library. But that's what he did, then transferred Kerr's e-mail to his “dissection table.”
After saving Kerr's original photo to a secret file, he proceeded to “edit” it with special software which allowed him to alter the text of an old document yet maintain the integrity of the handwriting, the ink quality, and general authentic appearance. When done, there remained a clever forgery – except for one, rather glaring problem.
Collegnano very neatly typed in a whole new text full of early-21st Century slang and pop culture references, back-translated into the original late-18th Century Venetian dialect which any scholar familiar with the language would immediately notice, if he'd only read the letter: presumably, Dr. Kerr was either unfamiliar with the language or hadn't read it. The question would be, did Dr. Kerr (Doctor in asinis causa) think he was creating a fraud he could get away with or was he the butt, witting or unwitting, of a musicological hoax?
Unable to tell the difference between his forgery and the letter writer's own handwriting, Collegnano saved his changes to the photograph and decided he would forward it to a number of his scholarly friends. It was child's play to make it look like it came directly from Kerr; Collegnano even included himself on the routing.
He then closed his tablet, dubbed the iHacker2000, locked the door behind him and, as he returned to the library, hummed bits of Trofonio's aria, Spiriti invisibili, from one of his favorite Salieri operas. Yes, there it was. He opened Kerr's e-mail, saw his edited hoax – “invisibili, indeed!” – and knew it wouldn't be long now.
The destruction of whatever was left of Dr. T. Richard Kerr's infinitesimal reputation would soon be complete. Let the innuendos begin!
“But first,” he said, settling back comfortably, “I must make a phone call...”
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
Yetzer Haradov, well-intentioned but down-on-his-luck Israeli scientist who'd collaborated with evil because evil always paid better, realized evil must be destroyed: he pleaded with Krahang, apparently a fellow-collaborator-turned-undercover-good-guy, if the IMP agents would not leave him behind (surely, he'd be killed), he'd help destroy the entire evil project – and do it through his own contribution.
Haradov grabbed the small vial of reddish liquid he'd left in his lab coat, the one he'd given to Cameron, and held it up to Sam. “But first, we get away from this wall.”
With no time to explain, Haradov handed it to Cameron and told him to throw the vial high enough, compensating for the fan's pull, it cleared the railing in front of al-Zebani and Osiris.
They were startled when a small, dazzling explosion took place before their eyes.
A cloud of red glitter – laced with pheromones!
Before he knew it, al-Zebani was covered by dozens of biting, stinging drones. “The Stupid Sweat!” were the last intelligible words anyone heard the man scream. His arms flailing, he tried to get away. There was nowhere to go, they were all over him. Too close to the railing, he lost his balance and fell.
Al-Zebani would fall too close to the fan! In a wild dash – had he hoped to break his former colleague's fall? – Haradov discovered too late he'd ripped open the bandages that covered his wound.
Haradov, screaming wildly, collapsed on the floor just as al-Zebani, arms flailing and screaming even louder, landed squarely on Haradov's back, then cartwheeled toward the fan. Sucked in by its powerful draw, al-Zebani disappeared.
Cameron pounded the blocks that turned the fan on: could he disengage the power switch? Instead, the rotors reversed their course.
Immediately, minced body parts started flying past them, blood spattering across the wall.
The sudden change in direction proved too much for the old motor. Smoke billowed as it lurched to a sudden halt.
With a shuddering heave, the fan tore from its moorings and hit the floor beneath with clouds of dust and smoke – and long, flickering tongues of flames.
Cameron, knocked to the ground, felt something hit him on his shoulders. Turning over, he was met by the frozen scream, all that remained of al-Zebani's shaggy-maned head.
Osiris's high-pitched shrieks cascaded all the way down the ramp that sloped from the balcony deep into the hallway's farthest shadows. Bond was convinced he was yelling “Get 'em off, get 'em off me!” This was the elusive, fearsome, evil Osiris, one of the world's worst music terrorists, and he screamed like a little girl? From what little she could see, before the crash knocked her to the ground, Osiris's wheelchair careened uncontrollably, nearly invisible under this bee-like swarm, headed for the collapsing rubble he was powerless to stop.
It was the first time she'd ever laid eyes on the man in all the decades she had been tracking him. What she wouldn't give to go back in time and tell her mentors, Davis Bundle and Tony Kunstler, what she'd seen today, those legendary IMP agents who'd been hunting for this man since 1946.
After that shit al-Zebani hit the fan, once she and the others picked themselves up off the floor, Bond looked around. A quick inventory placed Mbira and Shendo beside her, Gerdie not far away. Still no sign of Calliope-Jane whom she'd last seen on the balcony. Had the drones gotten her? She looked up, hopeful.
Maybe she'd gone after Osiris, intent on bringing him in alive. Still, what were the chances he'll be captured this time?
Osiris' screams had faded into the distance, but now there was something different.
Sam had run to check Haradov as soon as the fan crashed but he could see there was no sense looking for a pulse. The man's neck had been broken by al-Zebani's fall and the look of disbelief in the man's eyes proved he must have been aware of the irony of his death. Sam hoped in whatever afterlife he might find himself in, Yetzer Haradóv, scientist, would know he'd atoned for his sin. It was over – almost. True, al-Zebani was quite dead; the question remained, “what about Osiris?”
And there was a question about the drones themselves, the Mobots they'd all had a hand in designing: where were they? Without his tablet, Sam couldn't get into the database to control them anymore, to undo al-Zebani's directions for this latest mission. Had Piltdown had sufficient time to fuel them up with enough fresh poison?
There's another matter to consider, too: were they beginning to develop some kind of intellectual cognizance that allowed them to “think”? Had Purdue's “Clara” software managed to implant fragments of cognitive development through those rhythm-generating codes Sam used to transmit choreographic commands? Did he play a part in developing this alarming new capability, this “talent”?
Cameron ran over and yanked Sam away from Haradov's body. “Come on! Hurry!”
Two things Sam hadn't noticed: a garage bay opened in the wall before them; the floor began to collapse behind them.
The frame around the fan-house started to buckle as well, leaving Sam and Cameron little time to escape around it and follow the others into whatever tunnel lay behind the door. No one seemed to know where it led but given the alternative it was the best option. Actually, no – it was the only option.
The garage bay closed behind them as a wildly reddish afro popped up over the railing near where al-Zebani once stood. Calliope-Jane, wherever she'd been, had just returned, never so excited in her life.
“I found the exit,” she yelled, pointing behind her. But there was no one below to hear her. “Where'd they go?”
When she looked down, the floor and hallway were already dissolving into great clouds of choking dust before her eyes. There was nothing else to do.
“Run, feet, like y'all done never run before!”
= = = = = = =
©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train
No comments:
Post a Comment