Captain Paterson, August 9th and 10th, 2000
Late night experimenting and waiting on the radio. George, our contact with DIA COS Krakow, confirmed our request for a meet. I want the tags and papers in other hands as soon as possible. I haven't decided on the box yet. Such a curiosity and challenge.
From all the sockets sticking out of the panel we figured it was a power source of some sort and the toggle was the on-off switch. I sent Don and Randy to scavenge every electrical item they could find and plugged them in one by one. Those still in working order lit, bleeped or whirred. I plugged in as many as I could and they all worked.
Next step was testing the "fuel". The stuff bothered the hell out of me initially. We used a straw to pipet a small amount of it out of the reservoir. Just a few ounces, it didn't noticeably change the gauge any.
The fuel wouldn't catch with a flame, didn't react to battery acid, didn't react to a sliver of soap, evaporated under heat. My hands were itching for better equipment. We kept bouncing ideas and tests off of each other for a good while.
In the end Leo, being Leo, picked up the sample, swirled it around and to our shock downed it. He smiled and said, "Fuck it. It water. Let's open box." I gave him a five count to drop over dead before agreeing with him.
Eddie hauled out the tool kit, plugged his electric drill into the box and used it to remove the screws. He flipped the switch off and pulled his drill to work on the lid. It came off with some gentle encouragement and strong language. I watched as Eddie dealt with the interior details.
About three quarters of the foot locker was filled with yet another box, a real black box this time, welded all the way around. There was access near the bottom for the "fuel" to gravity feed in from the bottle through a plastic tube. A spaghetti tangle of differently colored wires ran out of the black box's side to the electrical outlets and switch. Eddie began searching through the tangle, reading tags off to Doc, and tracing the wire's connections.
Leo pulled a geiger counter out of his pack and leaned over Eddie. He started with the high gain and worked his way down as low as he could go.
"Hot, but not very." Eddie shot him a strained look. Doc made a give it up gesture. "Safe, just a little higher than background. Don't open box 2 and don't take it to bed."
Ed and Doc Miller got back to the interior details. I took Leo off to the other side of the room. I could see he'd though of something from the way he bounced over.
"Spill it."
"It nuclear. Soviet satellite reactor. Make them very small, run forever. We keep, da?"
Shaking my head I shot his theory down, "not unless your reactors defy Newton's Laws of Motion. You saw how hard it was to get moving and to stop. Remember the front door?"
His face fell. "Yes, but I want it to be reactor. Easy answer."
"Me too. I feel if we open the second box we'll find a third, then a fourth and so on all the way down."
"Like nesting dolls, one inside the other."
"I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. We'll keep it for now. If George and the spooks want it they can ask for it. I'll decide then."
"Good. Tomorrow, I shop for record player!"
"You do that Leo. You do that."
No comments:
Post a Comment