Ch 13

Melmat reflected that though the situation was bad, it wasn't beyond salvaging. Ronnie clearly hadn't understood the function of the antenna, or the theory behind it, otherwise it wouldn't have burnt out the way it had. Melmat sympathized, he hadn't understood it the first time he built one either. There was a certain kind of trauma, a foreign perspective that the scientific mind needed to suffer and survive before the full meaning of many such devices became apparent.

Melmat found himself disliking Ronnie solely because he was the exact type of person Melmat had been, which wasn't a very spiritually enlightened thing to do, but as the master had often said 'I'm still only human.' He wondered if his master could still say that, these days.

“There's still way too much fucking energy we can't account for,” Chad, Ronnie's assistant, the redhead undergrad who swore a little too much for a professional environment, had been perceptive enough to see the anomaly.

The three of them were standing in the lab, huddled around the Uke-A. It was roughly the size of a three gallon water jug, and reeked of burned metal and melted plastic. To Melmat, it gave off an aura of unformed danger, and neither he or Librorum could fully relax around it. How could they? There was an active dimensional anomaly on the planet, and they could only theorize about the kinds of energies that were floating around and observing them.

“I thought it was an issue with the power supply,” Melmat said, knowing his deception was falling on deaf ears at this point, but throwing his last hail Mary just in case.

“If it was the power supply,” Chad responded “then why wasn't any of the damage to the parts connected to the power supply? It's originating from the fucking antenna, and that's why this is so weird. If I didn't know better, I would say it looked like it got struck by lightning- I mean fucking lightning, excuse me.”

“Well,” Ronnie said “It didn't. I checked the video to get a better idea of what happened, and it wasn't lightning. Have either of you seen this yet?” Melmat and Chad shook their heads. “Let me bring it up then.” Melmat and Chad followed Ronnie to a nearby table, where Ronnie's laptop was open, with a video file ready to play. Melmat appreciated that Ronnie had thought far enough ahead to have the video ready, rather than fishing around for several minutes.

The video was taken from a high vantage point, coming from the top corner of the dark lab. The Uke-A was not in the center of the frame, it sat off and to the left, near the edge of the screen.

“There's not a better angle,” Ronnie said, gesturing to the Uke-A on screen.

Nothing happened for several moments, and then a whole bunch of somethings happened; The conic, wire antenna on top of the Uke-A began to glow; a gentle wind began to blow, and a large leaf curled and twisted as it landed on the floor nearby; the video quality began to degrade rapidly. Then, the glowing antenna burst into flames, before rapidly putting itself out.

There was silence after Ronnie closed the video. Before anyone was able to speak, Melmat was walking towards the Uke-A's former location in the room, head on a swivel as he searched.

“Found it,” Librorum whispered, causing a section of the room to glow to his eyes only.

“Found it,” Melmat said aloud, walking to the bright spot and bending over, the glow vanishing as he did so. Ronnie walked over, curious, while Chad watched from the distance. When Melmat stood up straight, he was holding a broad, roughly square leaf that had a picture of a frog on it. He carefully set it down on a nearby table, then gave Librorum a single command.

Time ground to a stop as his mental rhythm was increased to many times it's normal tempo. During this time, he allowed himself to feel all the emotions he would never be able to express, but which desperately needed to. He felt joy, unbelievable joy. Then, anxiety that came from a very rational place. Finally, grief. His master had spent his very life to make this possible, and yet he received nothing for it.

“Like Moses,” Librorum said, voice tinted with sadness “He never got to step into the promised land either. Are you ready to go back, Master?”

“Yes, bring me back down.”

The world seemed to lurch back into motion, and Melmat was struck with a sudden and massive fatigue. From a pocket, he produced a water bottle and began to rapidly chug it. He nearly gagged as the overwhelming taste of the sugar water hit his mouth, the almost thick texture it had going down. He finished the bottle and gave himself a moment to recover.

“Are you OK?” Ronnie asked.

“I'm fine,” Melmat said, setting the empty bottle down “Just a sudden case of dry mouth. Do you know where this leaf came from?” he said, pointing at it. Ronnie looked at Chad, both of them seemed confused. “That's what I thought. Because it looked to me,” he said, turning his attention to the computer “Like it came from the Uke-A before it caught on fire.”

“What do you mean, it came from the Uke-A?” Chad asked, face scrunching in minor frustration.

“I mean,” Melmat said, mentally making the final adjustments to his plan “I don't think the Uke-A just detects energy. I think it manifests it too,” Melmat held the leaf up “And this leaf came from another dimension.”