Phase Shift (11 page)

I turn to face Suzanne and half-smile. This is
the nicest she's been to me...well...ever, and I want to show her
it did not go unnoticed. So what if I'm Palmer's wife and Suzanne
had once been a candidate for the position? And while I hold no
illusions she and I could one day be friends, I can't help but
wonder why the simple fact we have both once slept with the same
man dictates we be enemies.

Suzanne continues to spout off
facts about the markings on the cartonnage, but I manage to tune
her out as I take a stroll around Mary's perimetre, taking in the
perfect markings on her wrappings. While I don't recognize the
symbols used by the ancient Egyptians as skillfully as can my
rival, I can make out the symbols for 'Queen', and 'youth' and
'beauty'. Didn't Suzanne say something about her being a princess,
distantly related to someone who might or might not one day be
Pharaoh? Not that it matters. Mary is unique in that she is whole,
her cartonnage undamaged, even after all these years. Afloat in
Mary's aura, I almost forget the real reason for my tagging along
tonight—to irradiate what may have once been Spencer Prescott's
phase modulator.

"Not that I want to be a spoil
sport or anything," says the technician. He looks nervously at his
watch, "but it's almost three. We have to get the X-rays done in
the next half hour or so. We're due for our CT no later than
three-thirty. We lose the room at five whether we're done or
not."

"Right," says Suzanne, "let's get her on the
table then, shall we?"

We wheel Mary's gurney so it's
side-by-side with the X-ray table in the centre of the room, then
we form a circle around her. "On three, gentlemen," Suzanne says.
As the only woman in the room—besides Suzanne—I try not to be
miffed at the snub.

Suzanne counts to three and we
lift Mary onto the table. What strikes me as most surprising is the
weight of the thing—but then again, once all the layers of resin
soaked linen combined with the plaster outer layer are taken into
consideration, it stands to reason it should weigh a
ton.

"Only one of you can stay," says the
technician holding up a single, white, lead apron. He continues,
apologetically, "I don't have enough of these things to go
around."

"I'll take that, thank you,"
Suzanne sings. She plucks it roughly from his grasp.

For no less than three minutes,
Palmer, Ungermeyer, Stowe and I stand expectantly in the bright,
peach-colored corridor, staring back and forth at each other. The
men begin stilted small-talk about last night's game. Palmer winks
at me when he's sure no one else is looking. It seems to take
forever, but eventually Suzanne opens the door to usher us back
in.

We resume our positions around
Mary. "On the side on my mark," Suzanne says, and counts slowly to
three once more. We prop Mary up with foam wedges to ensure she's
stable before we return to the corridor, minus Suzanne. It's just
as well. I'm enjoying the break from her.

In and out twice more to get
Mary's other side and back. Before I leave this time, I take a good
look at Mary's backside. The cartonnage is sewed up from behind
with a single seam down the entire length of the sarcophagus. It's
almost as if Mary were wrapped in a complete body corset. Around
the edges of the cartonnage, near the seam, I'm sure I can see
delicate layers of linen. I want to admire the finery of what
essentially amounts to Mary's death shroud, but Suzanne ushers us
back out into the hall with a shooing motion.

At last the
X-rays are done and we head over for the CT-scan, anticipation
mounting until it threatens to overflow. While the adventure of
Mary's X-rays were exciting—to say nothing of the moment when we'd
actually be allowed to see them—they were merely the
hors-d'oeuvres
. The
CT-scan would be the
pièce-de-rèsistance
, in more ways
than one.

In my research on the Web, I
discovered that computed tomography scans—CT scans—use a dose of
radiation about four-hundred times that of X-rays. Although
“zapping” (for lack of a better term) the device during Mary's
X-ray session would probably have been easier in the dully lit exam
room, we had to be sure the zap would be sufficient to fully charge
the device. That is why Palmer and I decided to wait it out and
risk it in the brightly lit CT room instead.

"Okay, people," Suzanne says,
voice reverberating in the sparsely furnished room, "onto the
table. On my mark."

Palmer turns to me and smiles. He
holds out his hand and I surreptitiously place the small, silver
medallion into his upturned palm. He nods, and then jockeys for a
position at Mary's head.

Suzanne counts three and we lift.
Some of the men grunt with exertion.

Protocol dictates we have to leave the room
before the scan can begin. Palmer is right behind me, but then he
kneels to tie his shoe lace. He is the last to exit the
room.

We stand in the adjacent control room,
separated from Mary by a pane of immaculate glass.

On the other side of the window, a
motor whirs to life and the table upon which Mary lies begins to
slide into the CT drum.

We gather in behind the pair of
technicians and computer screens flashing multi-colored images. All
seems to be going smoothly until the female technician exclaims,
"Wait! What's that?" She points to an opaque, round shape just to
the left of Mary's head.

I immediately recognize it as
Prescott's modulator and hold my breath. What to do now? Palmer
brings a hand to his forehead. I'm sure we're done for—how could we
even begin to explain?

"Is there something on the table?"
Suzanne asks. She points to the object on one of the monitors. "It
appears to be outside of the sarcophagus."

Palmer draws his hand from his
forehead, over his glasses, and to his mouth. The blood drains from
his face.

I can't breathe. My heart beats
double-time.

Palmer looks at me, mouth open as
if to say something, though he remains wordless.

"What the hell is it?" Suzanne
asks. "Never mind that," she continues, "what the hell's it doing
in my scan?"

"Oh my God," Palmer says finally, barely a
whisper. "It's me." All eyes turn to him. He clears his throat.
"It's me," he says again. "It's my pocket watch."

"What?" Suzanne practically
bellows.

I look at the group, eyes wide
open. I feel my jaw drop. There's an itch on my left forearm, but
I'm too stunned to scratch it. The air in the room has grown thin.
I think I may pass out. Pocket watch? They'll never
believe—

"Can we stop the scan?" Palmer
asks. "I checked my watch before we left the room." Everyone in the
room turns to look at him. "I tied my shoe lace," he apologizes. "I
guess I put my watch down on the table and...forgot." He smiles
shyly—God, I love him.

Suzanne looks at the female technician as if
to say, "Can we stop it?"

"Now that we've identified what it is," the
technician begins, "there's really no reason to stop."

Suzanne gives Palmer a look. Her
arms are crossed over her chest flattening what little breasts she
has. Her lips form a thin line; she is definitely not amused. She
cocks her head to one side as if contemplating what to do with him.
At last she says, "That's Paulie Richardson for you—the epitome of
the absent-minded professor."

The absent-minded professor,
indeed. Her voice hangs in the air, heavily laden with
condescension, and rife with insult.

Palmer just grins and shrugs his
shoulders, having taken the bullet for me.

"Continue with the scan," Suzanne says,
sounding defeated.

Palmer glances at me from the corner of his
eye before maneuvering through the crowded room to stand next to
me. He puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes, as if to say,
"Mission accomplished".

Nearly an hour later the scan is
complete. Palmer retrieves the device. He holds it up for all to
see, making a show of it, making light of the whole situation. He
waits until they return to the control room to gather their
belongings before he slips it to me and I put it to rest inside the
small cardboard box waiting for it inside my backpack.

"It's chillier out than I imagined," Palmer
tells me. I’m staring out the picture window, feeling forlorn. Up
until this very moment, we’d been sitting together in silence,
Palmer and I, at some all-night greasy spoon on Yonge,
contemplating the sticky menus in front of us. Deciding what to
order is a challenge—it's harder to find something with passable
taste and sensible balance of protein, carbs and fat than you might
think.

The waitress is dressed in pink muslin. A
white muslin apron covers her midsection. She rights Palmer’s cup
on the saucer and pours from a steaming hot pot of dark coffee. She
upturns my cup, too, but I place a hand over the cup, shake my
head, and smile. I have no use for coffee, not unless it’s mixed
with chocolate syrup and heavily laden with sugar. The mere thought
of a mocha is enough to get my saliva glands going. I order a Coke
instead. Coke for breakfast. Gross as it may sound, right now my
body craves caffeine, regardless of the source and damn the
carbs.

The waitress smiles an open-mouthed smile
revealing pearly white teeth, save for a single grey tooth and lots
of gums. She looks used, though pretty, in spite of the heavy
make-up and grey incisor. She disappears behind the counter with
the coffee pot.

I turn my attention to the world outside the
picture window at the front of the restaurant. I generally avoid
window seats at restaurants downtown—I feel uncomfortable stuffing
my face in plain sight of whomever wanders by—but this is the table
the waitress indicated when we entered and so we had sat.

I watch Palmer’s reflection in the window
beside me for a second or two. That morning will soon be upon us is
almost imperceptible. This time of year, the sky tends to settle
from bright white in daylight to backlit gunmetal whether dusk or
dawn.

"Moll?" Palmer asks. I hear him distantly.
It takes a moment to register through my early morning brain-fog.
Before I can answer him, he says, “Earth to Molly." I hate it when
he says that. This time, I purposely ignore him. He raps twice on
the table, which startles me.

"I said, 'Penny for your thoughts’."

"Oh," I say, “You first." I sit up, back
board-straight, and lean forward in my seat.

He thinks about it for a moment and I don’t
press him to answer until he’s ready. Let him take his time. After
all, we have a lot to think about. Tonight we hijacked a CT-scan to
power a device that is supposed to take us to another dimension.
What were we thinking? I don’t think we were, not beyond proving or
disproving Prescott-slash-Stanley’s claims. If we’d stopped to
think, if we’d paused even for a moment, paused to consider the
ramifications of our actions, I don’t think it would have gone this
far. None of us ever stopped to consider the danger, or potential
disease. And in order to move forward, we can’t pause to think
about it now.

"I don't know," Palmer finally says.

"I know," I agree.

"It's weird, and—"

"Surreal—"

"Surreal!" he repeats in agreement. He slaps
the table as he says it. "Yes! That's it."

I glance back out the window. The sky seems
brighter than before. Sun will be up soon. I catch Palmer watching
my reflection. A fire engine goes by, sirens blaring.

"So what happens next?" he asks. His voice
sounds distant and phlegmy. He clears his throat, and swallows a
gulp of coffee.

I look around the interior of the
restaurant. Save for the clanging of pots and silverware behind the
counter, my sigh and the beat of my heart, the restaurant is
silent. At this hour, we're just about the only patrons. "Right now
I just want to get some food in my stomach and stay up long enough
to teach my morning classes," I say.

The waitress brings my drink and I take a
long sip from a straw with green and white stripes. I close my eyes
and swallow. I feel the effects of the sugar and caffeine take
immediate effect. I might make it through this day after all.

We order: scrambled eggs on rye toast and
home fries for Palmer, poached with whole wheat and hash browns for
me. Not much they can do with poached eggs except hard boil them,
and right now, anything without the consistency of rubber would
suit me fine. The waitress collects our menus.

"I mean, what are you going to do about the
modulator?" he asks. Where do we go from here? That we're seriously
discussing this, let alone discussing it at all, is crazy.

I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. "I
don't know. Find a quiet place and press the button, I guess."
Forget crazy. This is downright absurd.

I busy myself stirring my Coke with the
straw, listening to the ching-ching of ice on glass. Palmer doctors
his coffee to his liking and takes a cautious sip.

"You know, Moll," he says tentatively,
"visiting another planet would be an amazing experience. I just
don't think it would be amazing enough to risk losing you over." He
takes another sip of coffee, and peers at me over the rim of the
cup, as if trying to gauge my reaction to his statement. “I want
our little experiment to be a success, I really do. I’m sorry, but
someone has to vocalize the possibility it might fail. Which could
mean anything from no outcome to setting off a nice little nuclear
detonation that blows away the better part of a city block. And
while my logical instincts tell me that the latter is probably not
the most likely scenario, somewhere in the back of my head there's
a little voice telling me it could happen.”