The Book of Levi (10 page)

He reached beyond the corner of the wall and pressed something. The wall slid back and a bright light filled the hallway. Into this subterranean luminescence he led her.

At first she thought that he was playing a trick upon her. The room was empty except for two metal chairs upon each of which sat a metal cap attached to the chair by a series of rudimentary wires. It was like something out of an old Boris Karloff movie. She would have dismissed it as child’s play had she not also noticed a room above looking down upon the chairs. Through the glass she could see . . . what were they? Computers? Mainframes?

‘What’s up there?’ she asked, tantalised by the basic efficiency of the place. Something about it spoke of real quality and scientific enterprise. It was too bulky and solid to be pretend. The room had a definite presence.

‘Shall we?’ he said, beckoning her towards a tiny staircase leading up to the higher room.

She had lost her fear. She led the way up the stairs and soon she found herself inside a room full of ancient and dormant computers. In the corner sat a black box, about half the size of an average man. She turned towards Sebastian, a question posed within her eyes.

‘He’s done it all for us,’ he replied. ‘All we need is someone to fully understand how the system functions and we’re away.’

‘Away?’ she iterated.

‘If you trust me,’ he replied, moving up close to her and penetrating her with his dark and dangerous eyes, together we will become the most powerful people the planet has ever imagined.’

‘I don’t know what this is,’ she replied slowly, ‘but surely, whatever it is, you overstate your case, Mr . . .’

He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth again - this time with a great deal more passion. Again, she surprised herself by not only acquiescing, but by actually responding, momentarily, to his inappropriate advances.

She pulled away. ‘Get the book,’ she replied, drawing in her breath unevenly, ‘and we will see.’

Sebastian stared at her long and hard and without taking his eyes from her dark, olive beauty, he reached out, placed his hand behind the black box beside him and produced a small bundle of paper. He handed it to her. ‘Here is the relevant section. I have the rest of your little green book safely tucked away,’ he said quietly. ‘Send your finest mind to me. Once they have understood the mathematics and unleashed the physics of this contraption, together, you and I will reinvent this world.’

Elizabeth took the small bundle. She thumbed through it. But as she did, Sebastian thrust his hand forward and stopped her progress. She looked up; startled.

‘This is the page you want, my dear,’ he whispered.

She looked down and saw the letters I.Q. sitting innocuously at the head of the page and below this the word: Transference.

‘This is the future of world government. This is our future.’

She re-looked at the page and then stared back up, limply, at Sebastian. He moved slowly in towards her lips and he kissed her slowly and with a great slow-burning lust. She kissed him back. She didn’t know why. They did not touch otherwise. They were only joined at the lips. It was as if some unknown quantity had hold of her. As if some certain future had captured her. She was driftwood in the growing swell of a river. He sucked back away from her lips as gravity pulls inexorably away at the river’s source.

She was spinning. Yesterday she had been the president of the known world. Now she was in charge of one city in a world full of cities and she was being challenged by an insignificant man in the depths of a musty old library and he was making demands of her power. Not only that, but he was kissing her. He was kissing her and she was aroused and responding. It was all so very strange - all so very strange, but all so very enticing and intriguing. This swarthy, mysterious, strange man promised her power beyond all possibility.

And she was kissing him.

‘I have too much of the artist within me,’ Sebastian confided to Leslie’s eager face. ‘I tend to see the romance of the flower’s blooming rather than the chemical process or the physics within. I loathe myself for this shortcoming, you understand, but it is unfortunately rooted deep within my nature.’

Leslie nodded at every word. He had just met Sebastian. Now they were descending the stairwell towards the lowest floor of the library.

‘Elizabeth tells me you’ve made an important discovery,’ said Leslie. ‘But I don’t understand why you need me?’

‘I never studied the maths, you see. That was my mistake. The concepts form in my mind but I don’t have the numbers to support the structures.’

‘Could you not study?’ asked Leslie as they reached the bottom floor. ‘Anything can be learned, surely?’

Sebastian stopped and turned. ‘It is not what we learn but how we learn it. I could study my entire life away and still I would only see forests. I want to see the trees as well.’

Leslie said nothing. He could shift between both. Perhaps not everybody could.

Sebastian must have read his mind. ‘I asked President Dawson to send me her finest mind. If she has, you will have no trouble unravelling the mystery of the black box, Consul Woodford.’

‘Black box?’

‘Yes. Are you good at spelling?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Why, yes.’

‘And you have a written turn of phrase too, I’ll bet?’

‘Yes,’ Leslie confided. He felt like a defendant unsure of where the prosecution was heading.

‘You have been blessed. You have been blessed,’ Sebastian muttered with a short grin and a wave of his index finger. He turned, laughed and continued to laugh as he resumed his passage down the hallway. He yelled upward over his shoulder as Leslie scurried behind, ‘Very few of us see the building blocks of Lego and the soft edges of the creation.’

Leslie followed, perplexed.

Sebastian reached the door towards the end of the hallway where Weena had once led Rueben. He turned back to face Leslie. ‘What would you give,’ he asked, ‘to be what you are, times ten?’

‘I don’t understand the question,’ replied Leslie. He was captivated by this strange and slightly older man who spoke in riddles and who obviously had a great gift of mind.

‘You have the paper I gave Miss Dawson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘I only received it just before we met. Elizabeth gave it to me and I was escorted here. I haven’t had anything but a cursory glance at it.’

‘I see,’ Sebastian replied with a nod of his head. ‘In that case, I will show you something and explain what I know. Then I will leave you for one hour and return after that time with some food and drink.’

‘Food and drink?’

‘You have a long and interesting night ahead of you,’ replied Sebastian with a sly smile. And he opened the door to the transference chamber.

When Leslie stepped into the chamber, and especially when he looked up at the console room and saw the mainframes, he drew in his breath with anticipation.

One hour later, Sebastian returned with the food. ‘So?’

Leslie didn’t answer him at first, so immersed was he in his reading. When he did look up it was with the starry eyes of those journeying back to the restraints of physical reality from the limitless reaches of thought.

‘So?’ repeated Sebastian, scanning Leslie’s face for traces of discovery.

The two men sat upon the transference chairs. Leslie had a transference helmet upon his lap which he now raised towards his eyes in silent amazement. He turned it this way and that and looked closely at the wires connected to it.

‘This is incredible,’ replied Leslie with a clearing of his throat and several blinks of his eyelids. ‘Incredible,’ he repeated hoarsely.

‘So it can be done?’ asked Sebastian nodding his head in affirmation of a deed not yet accomplished.

‘Yes,’ replied Leslie. He raised his puppy dog eyes up to meet Sebastian’s denser, more sinister ones. Then he shook away the clouds of mind and focussed upon him. ‘But are you sure that you want to?’

‘Want to?’ repeated Sebastian, almost reeling back in chair, as if he had been struck by the remark. ‘Want to? Of course I want to. Consul Woodford, this is the single greatest gift to man since E=mc2.’

‘Yes,’ replied Leslie thoughtfully, ‘and look what happened because of that.’

‘Electricity changed the world. Technology must be embraced. We must move from the shadows.’

Leslie straightened in his seat. ‘Yes. But that was an external convenience. This is penetrating into the plasticity of the human mind.’

‘True,’ Sebastian conceded, ‘but think - what is the major problem in this city today?’

‘Inequality?’ offered Leslie.

‘Precisely,’ replied Sebastian, grabbing him lightly by the forearm. ‘And if you can make this system work that will disappear, almost overnight.’

‘I don’t see how,’ replied Leslie, his eyes narrowing in puzzlement.

‘Come. Come, young man,’ Sebastian responded condescendingly, (in truth he was not all that much older than Leslie), ‘He who controls the mind, controls the body; he who controls the body controls the animation of the pieces; he who controls that animation of the pieces, controls the game. Don’t you see? We can issue intelligence; regulate the pieces; control the game.’

Leslie had become perturbed by the manic widening of Sebastian’s eyes. As he had increased in intensity of speech, so too had he tightened his grip on Leslie’s arm. At last, Leslie shook it free. ‘People are not merely animated pieces,’ he stated. ‘Have you sought Elizabeth’s permission to do this?’

Sebastian slipped slowly into Leslie’s personal space and looked over his glasses at him. ‘No. But I will.’ His presence was dark; ominous. ‘And you will have to agree to fire up this console if you ever hope to see the rest of Dunnett’s blueprints.’

‘That’s blackmail.’

‘Yes. It is,’ replied Sebastian with an annoying grimace. He was so close that Leslie could count his nasal hairs.

‘Very well,’ replied Leslie, continuing to labour under this short but awkwardly close encounter with Sebastian’s face. ‘But I know she’ll come down straight away when I return to the office.’

Sebastian did not reply, but continued to linger at an unacceptably close range to Leslie’s nose.

Leslie had not backed away but he did visibly relax his stance when Sebastian finally stepped back away from him.

‘Just set it up and leave the rest to me. We’re all in this together,’ said Sebastian waving his arms in slow motion from the chairs in which they sat and up towards the console room above. ‘We have to learn to trust one another, consul.’

Leslie did a small double take. He had always been told never to trust anyone who said ‘Trust me’. But he was as intrigued as Sebastian by the possibility of thought transference and he figured that any misappropriation of power would be dealt with severely by the president. Elizabeth was friendly enough to him, but it was also true that she had a reputation for ferocity when threatened.

So Leslie went about his business in the console room and did not emerge until the following morning. He was unshaven and grubby and sitting back in the transference seat when Sebastian returned.

Leslie looked up. His eyes were tired and he had bags beneath them. ‘How did you know I was finished?’ he asked.

‘Surveillance,’ replied Sebastian.

Leslie cast his eye quickly around the chamber but he could see nothing.

‘So. Is it done?’

Leslie nodded.

‘Excellent,’ replied Sebastian. The murky depths of his eyes widened momentarily with pleasure.

‘But you can’t use it yet.’

‘Why not?’ Sebastian snapped back, his grin blown away.

‘Because (a) you don’t know if it’s safe; (b) you don’t have permission, but mainly because (c) the box is empty.’

‘Box?’

‘The transference box. The black box. It will need I.Q. stored in it before we can use it.’

‘How can we do that?’

‘It’s relatively simple,’ replied Leslie uneasily. ‘Listen. Don’t do anything until you’ve talked to the president.’

‘She’ll be here any minute,’ replied Sebastian with a calculated smile. ‘I took the liberty of calling her when I saw that you were finished. I hope that you don’t mind?’

Leslie didn’t mind at all. In fact, he was delighted. His great fear was that he would leave and that this odd-ball man would do something rash before Elizabeth could stop him.

Minutes later, two large guards appeared and moved to either side of the transference room door. Elizabeth pushed past them and entered the room. It buzzed with latent electrical current and the console room above was alight with computer thought.

Elizabeth smiled. ‘Is it done?’ she asked Leslie.

He nodded. She embraced him.

‘Excellent,’ she said, clasping her hands together in great excitement. Her eyes flashed and her dark hair tossed around her delightful face like soft pillows of cloud blown gently above a sun lighted ocean.

‘We must test the device first,’ said Leslie.

‘Of course. Of course,’ she agreed. ‘No one is to use this unit without my permission. This entire library is to be locked until further notice.’

‘And how and when are we to test it?’ asked Sebastian quietly but intensely.

‘How and when I say,’ replied Elizabeth curtly. ‘From now on, no-one comes into this room without my express permission. Is that understood?’

Leslie nodded in assent but Sebastian was rigid.

‘That includes you too, Mister Levi.’

‘Madam . . .’ he began, but she interrupted him. She had regained her authority, courtesy of armed guards.

‘I know you’ve been here for many years, Mister Levi. Don’t give me any speeches. I won’t forget my promise. But first we must ensure that this device is safe.’

‘May I speak with you alone for a moment, President Dawson?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied. ‘Leslie, you may leave us.’

This surprised him. ‘But is it . . .’ he began.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be quite safe,’ she replied with a smile, nodding towards the guards at the door.

And he exited the library leaving the president several floors below with the inscrutable and slightly-scary Sebastian Levi.