Book Five, Chapter 113: The Guided Tour

🔴 REC    SEP 24, 2018 09:02:38    [▮▮▮▮▮ 100%]

“It’s time to see what it’s like on the other side of the museum industry,” I said as we walked into the building right next to Town Hall.

This museum had an exhibit on the very meteor that struck Carousel nearly 300 years prior. We were going to try to learn everything about it that we could.

It was just Bobby, Kimberly, Logan, and me. Antoine volunteered to stay with Anna to help keep her safe.

What kind of research would we actually find in the museum?

If the meteor fragments that had been turned into the amulet truly had time-travel properties, I doubted they would have a placard that said so.

Still, we made our way directly to the exhibit on the meteor. It was the largest and most impressive exhibit there. In fact, the area covering the meteor looked suspiciously like a planetarium, as if some all-powerful entity had just copy-pasted one into this building.

Up above us, a colorful sculpture of the meteor could be seen.

We did a guided tour. A petite, blonde tour guide nearby named Ashley gave us a good overview:

“Welcome to our exhibit on the Carousel River Valley Meteor. This extraordinary meteor struck the center of the Carousel Settlement in 1743, destroying everything man-made within a ten-mile radius. What it left behind was a collection of fragments unlike anything ever seen. The largest piece was roughly the size of a small car, while smaller shards were scattered throughout the area. Even the soil here still carries traces of the meteor’s particulates.

If you’d like to see what these fragments looked like, we’ve prepared detailed recreations in the next exhibit room. You’ll find a life-sized model of the largest fragment, along with smaller shard replicas and a display showing how the blast spread material into the surrounding area. It’s a fascinating glimpse into one of history’s most destructive events. Follow me, and let’s take a closer look!”

Before the tour guide could move to the other room, Logan said, “Excuse me, but I was wondering if you knew where the actual pieces of the meteorite are?”

Ashley looked at him and blushed. “If you’ll look at the back of the tour group, you’ll see Dr. Logan Maize, one of the museum system’s most decorated historians—and a bit of a troublemaker.”

Logan waved, not quite expecting that reaction.

“The real fragments are kept in a lab underneath the museum for testing and safekeeping,” Ashley said to the group before leading the group into the next room.

Logan’s character should have had some idea where the originals were, but he couldn’t find that information. He just had to bite the bullet and ask.

He was a good actor and managed to play it off as if he had been flirting with her.

We continued to mill about the museum, looking for any exhibit or sign that might explain more about the meteor or its strange properties, but we didn’t find any. All the information we had was very surface-level.

Luckily, we were employees of the museum system.

We found the entrance to the Employees Only section and easily made our way inside by flashing our badges. We might not have been employees of that museum, but it was all one large organization funded by the same benefactor in conjunction with the Carousel city government.

Unfortunately, the employee section wasn’t much more helpful.

There was no display case with all the real fragments of the meteorite just sitting around waiting for us to stare at them. There wasn’t an advanced section revealing all the true information about the meteorite.

There was a cafeteria, though—one specifically for the employees.

We sat at one of the tables, and we all leaned in so Logan could whisper to us.

“According to the museum database, the actual meteorite is on loan—or at least that’s the designation it was given. I can’t figure out where it was lent. However, I do happen to know the guy who was in charge of researching it. He still works here,” Logan said.

All of this information was what we could find in the database for the museum system. But since Logan’s character was supposed to be the major historian, we thought he should be the one to relay it.

So we waited in the cafeteria.

It took 30 minutes.

“There he is,” Logan said. “He always stops to get a cup of coffee—I doubt that’s changed. Although, if memory serves, his idea of coffee is mostly milk and sugar.”

He was ad-libbing, using information he had gathered from different places and wielding it to create a useful narrative. He knew the name of the guy from the database, and his character had received a birthday email from someone with that same name.

I followed his eyeline with the camera to show a short, bald man with thick glasses and a cheerful face.

Logan held up a hand and said, “Roger.”

The man turned and saw Logan, a smile growing on his face.

“Logan!” the man said cheerfully as he walked over, shifting his briefcase from one hand to the other to extend a handshake. “I heard you got put in the jailhouse.”

“On account of my rough and tumble past, I’m sure,” Logan said as he shook the man’s hand.

The two men laughed.

“So, what are you doing here?” Roger asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually here to see you.”

“Me?” Roger asked. “What do you need to see me for? I told you that poker game was not for real money.”

Logan laughed.

“We’re doing an exhibit on the Carousel River Valley meteor strike, and I seem to recall you being the foremost expert on the entire thing.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Roger smiled. “The only people who know more about it than me are the ones who got crushed by it,” he joked.

We all laughed—lot of laughing in this horror film.

“Say, what exactly does the Crime Museum need an exhibit on the meteor for?” Roger asked.

The gig was up. We could come up with some excuse—after all, the jailhouse was built on the cornerstone of the original jailhouse wiped out by the blast—but that was a tenuous connection.

Logan was about to relay that reasoning when, luckily, Roger spoke again. “Oh, you must be talking about Grant Leitner.”

Logan, taking the lifeline, said, “Exactly.”

“Well, I’m sure I could rustle up some info. You know, we used to have an exhibit out here in the main museum, but then somebody upstairs realized it was a bad idea to advertise one of the biggest museum thefts in the history of Carousel,” Roger said.

More laughing.

Roger checked his watch and said, “Well, I can look in my files and shoot you over anything I find.”

“That would be great,” Logan said. “Another thing: when I was looking into this, the database said we don’t actually have the meteorite fragments anymore. Don’t tell me we sold them.”

A sour look appeared on Roger’s face. “Don’t get me started on that whole mess,” he said. “I worked on that meteor for 14 years, and then we loaned it out. Turned out this other group had some fragments of it themselves, and suddenly they needed every piece for their research. I still get burnt up just thinking about it. All I’ve got left to study is dust.”

“That’s how it is, isn’t it?” Logan said. “The guy with the checkbook gets to control our history and our science.”

“Damn right,” Roger said. “And that is so frustrating because the implications of my findings were monumental.”

Finally on a topic he was passionate about, Roger sat down next to us. After a brief greeting, he launched into a diatribe about the things he’d discovered about the meteorite and its unique properties.

He gave anecdotes about his experiments and day-to-day projects in the lab.

“Put it to me straight,” Logan said. “What is special about this meteorite?”

Roger scratched his chin and said:

“We conducted extensive tests to determine the elemental composition of the fragments—everything from spectrometry to crystallographic analysis. While all the fragments are made of the same base material, each one exhibits slight, measurable variations in its quantum resonance profile and isotopic decay rate.

“These differences are so consistent, yet distinct, that they caught the attention of Kinetic Research Systems Laboratories back in the ’70s. They’ve been requisitioning more and more pieces of the damn thing ever since.

“I was studying the material for a groundbreaking project: developing a clock that could theoretically function with absolute precision, unaffected by phenomena like time dilation or relativistic distortions. I imagine that’s what the KRSL science monkeys are doing now. They even got my notes. The unique properties of the fragments—their isochronous decay patterns and resistance to external temporal fluctuations—make them an ideal candidate for such a device.