Jacob Alexander’s office was directly behind the reception desk, and they could all see that the light was on and the door open. Alerted by the sounds of their arrival, he came out to meet his late-night visitors. He was a man of around sixty, broad and thickset, with his remaining dark gray hair shaved close to his scalp. He was dressed in a suit, his recently removed tie draped around his neck. He smiled when he saw Watkins.
“John! Good to see you—even if you have taken me away from a dinner with my wife’s book club.”
Mr. Watkins hurried over and shook his friend’s hand. “Apologies and all that, but we need to get some very interesting rocks out of the trunk of my car. Can you robe up for us?”
Dr. Alexander looked over at the three cousins, who were watching the car.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later, but essentially the rocks belong to Itchingham Lofte there—the tall lad. And that’s his sister, Chloe, and his cousin, Jack.”
“Ah, the Lofte clan. Of course,” said Alexander.
“Oh, you know them?” asked Watkins.
“Well, not exactly.”
“Anyway, please hurry, Jacob,” said Watkins. “We’ve got eight rocks, and when I took a Geiger reading on just one of them, it gave me ten thousand clicks per second.”
The director stared at him. “Heavens! Are you sure? From just the one rock? I’ll suit up. Follow me.”
They followed him inside, and Alexander disappeared back into his office.
When he reappeared, he was covered from head to toe in a white fabric suit and carried a protective helmet under his arm—he looked as if he were expecting a chemical attack. He approached the cousins.
“I feel a bit silly putting all this on, but if what John here says is right about the radiation count from your rocks, it seems a wise precaution.”
Itch, Jack, and Chloe looked at their own flimsy clothing and wondered how much radiation they had absorbed. Chloe hadn’t been sick again, but she still looked extremely pale.
Disappearing into another room, Alexander emerged with a large, heavy white container like an oversized toolbox. “This is what we use for our radioactive rocks—not that we’ve ever had eight here before—but it should do the trick. It’s got a lead shield within thick high-density polyethylene. What are your rocks in?”
Itch, sounding almost apologetic, told him. “Well, we had to make it up as we went along. One’s in a lead tube, and the other seven are wrapped in a lead apron from a hospital.” He thought he’d leave out the word stolen for the time being.
Dr. Alexander nodded, put on his helmet, and went outside. Watkins popped the trunk with his remote car key and watched as his friend placed the box on the ground, took off the lid, then lifted the trunk and peered inside. With gloved hands, he picked up the canvas bag and placed it carefully in the lead box. He replaced the cover, tested its weight, and shut the trunk of the car. Leaning heavily to the right, he carried it through the reception area. He paused to turn on a new set of lights, then called through the helmet, “You can follow me,” and headed off down a corridor.
They followed him down a number of other corridors with darkened classrooms on one side and bulletin boards on the other. Itch checked out the posters and handwritten notices advertising ENGINEERING SOC, METALLURGY 2ND YEAR RESULTS, AND LITHIUM MINE TRIP TO BOLIVIA! SIGN UP!
They came to a T-junction, turned left toward labs 3, 4, and 5, and followed the lights as Alexander switched them on, passing through two labs before arriving at their destination.
Alexander called “Wait here!” loudly through his protective helmet. They all stood in the doorway and watched as the director stopped in front of a shedsize container. It was made of white painted metal, its walls corrugated, with a door taking up one half its front. He put the box onto a workbench to free his hands so he could push down on the compression door lock. The door swung open a few inches, and he pulled it the rest of the way. Then he picked up the lead box and placed it inside the container on the middle of three shelves. From where the cousins and Watkins stood, it appeared that there were only two other boxes inside, one on each shelf. Alexander swung the door shut and then lifted the handle. The heavy locking mechanism echoed through the lab. He turned around and removed his helmet before coming over to them.
“They are safe and we are safe, depending on how much radiation you have already been exposed to.” He beckoned them through to the adjacent lab. “Sit down and tell me everything you know about these rocks that have so spooked my friend here.” He smiled at Watkins—who smiled back somewhat nervously.
“First, I’m calling an ambulance,” the teacher said. Alexander nodded and they sat in silence as Watkins gave details over his cell phone of what had happened and where they were.
The director jumped up. “Let me add something.” He took the phone and, explaining who he was, walked out of the lab, pulling the door shut behind him.
“That doesn’t sound good,” said Jack.
“They’re on their way,” said Watkins, doing his best to look reassuring.
“How long?” asked Chloe.
“Didn’t say, I’m afraid.”
After a few seconds, Alexander strode back in and returned Watkins’s phone.
“They understand the situation, I think. So …” He spread his arms. “Begin.” And the four of them—Itch, Jack, Chloe, and John Watkins—all sitting on stools, told him what they knew and told him fast. In under five minutes they had finished their story.
“Right. Extraordinary. But you don’t need me to tell you that.” Jacob Alexander had been pacing around the lab, but now he stopped in front of the cousins. “My hunch is that you will get sick, I’m afraid. If the seven new rocks are as powerful as the first one and decaying in the same way, the lead apron wouldn’t have been effective enough to protect you all. Chloe’s sickness is probably caused by radiation.”
Jack put her arm around her cousin as tears began to run silently down Chloe’s cheeks.
Alexander continued: “We aren’t equipped with any decontamination gear, I’m afraid. I can get some sent, but it will take a few hours. This is way outside what we would normally be dealing with here. Obviously.”
Itch said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Chloe.” He looked at his sister, who was normally so strong and spirited, but now, in the harsh fluorescent glare of the laboratory, looked white-faced and really scared.
Alexander smiled kindly, his tanned face creasing around his eyes. “The hospital will take good care of you, I’m sure, Chloe. You two will need to be checked as well, and I’m guessing the police will be here shortly, once they’ve put everything together. And your eyebrows, Itch … Have they just fallen out? Because if so—”
“No, no, that was something else,” said Itch. “It was an accident with some phosphorus a week or so ago.” He looked at his sister, but she wasn’t listening.
“Oh, OK. Now, while we’re waiting for the ambulance, let’s see what you have brought us. I’d include you if I could, but we don’t have enough suits, I’m afraid. You can watch through the glass though, if you like.” And the director hurried back into the lab where he had stored the rocks.
They sat silently, their four stools close together, and watched him. Jack still had her arm around Chloe, who was leaning on her shoulder, eyes tightly closed. Itch sat with his head down, shoulders slumped, suddenly totally exhausted. If he stopped now to think about how much trouble he was in, he’d be paralyzed. Soon he would have to deal with his family and the ambulance and police, when they arrived. He would look after his sister, too, but fortunately she had her cousin for the moment. Right now Itch wanted to focus on the rocks. Once he knew what they were and what was going to happen to them, he would feel as though he’d done his duty to Cake. The note had said not to trust anyone, but that just wasn’t possible. At some stage he had to hand them over to be tested, and if Mr. Watkins thought that West Ridge and Dr. Alexander were the best option, then that was OK with him.
Jack interrupted his thoughts. “I’m just taking Chloe to the ladies room, Itch. She’s feeling sick again.” And she escorted her cousin out of the lab.
Itch found himself thinking about his grandfather’s Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and its advice to go and “find out about things.” He wondered what its author would have made of this situation, with eight radioactive rocks being tested in one room and an eleven-year-old girl sick with radiation poisoning in another. It was the “finding out” bit that was still driving Itch—he had to know what he had stumbled upon.
While lost in this train of thought, he began to be aware of that feeling of combined dizziness and nausea he had felt in the greenhouse. It brought his thought processes to a crashing halt. This is it, he realized. I know what’s coming. On the one hand he was surprised he’d been OK until then, but this was really the worst time to get sick. The rocks were finally being analyzed; now was the moment he had to be well and thinking straight. Small beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and he could feel his stomach tightening—there was no doubt what was happening.
He turned to his teacher. “Sir,” he said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Watkins looked grim. “I’ll check on the girls and then come back and check on you. I’m sorry, Itch. Not much I can do to help. But the ambulance is coming, the paramedics will be here soon—you’ll be in good hands.”
Itch nodded and dashed out, trying to remember where he had seen the signs for the restrooms. If he hadn’t been doubled over with cramps and had instead been peering through the glass door into Dr. Alexander’s lab, he would have observed the director engaged in the most amazing analysis of his life.
It wasn’t a tricky operation—just the transfer of eight stones into an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a six-foot-high green metal cabinet-style machine with a large control panel at the front. The effect was of an oversized and rather dull video game—operated by a man from outer space. Alexander had put his helmet back on and had taken the rocks out of the canvas bag and their protective covers. He pried open one end of the lead pipe, and Itch’s original rock slid out. Alexander cut the other seven out of the lead apron. Their sizes varied from that of a large pebble to a medium-size potato, but all eight were jagged and charcoal black. They were staggeringly heavy for their size—much heavier than lead. Alexander’s pulse kicked up a notch.
On closer inspection, he noticed small pewtercolored flecks in most of them that sparkled as they reflected the fluorescent lighting. He pulled out his phone and took photographs of each of the rocks. Before placing them into the spectrometer, he pointed his Geiger counter at them—and a volley of clicks rattled through the speaker so fast that it was just a solid wall of sound. In astonishment he looked at the meter—it was off the scale. John Watkins had told him this would happen, but it was amazing to see. Adrenaline shot through his body. What were these rocks?
With a renewed sense of urgency, he set about transferring them one by one into the spectrometer. He needed it to get to work, bombarding the rocks with its x-rays. They would then react by emitting x-rays of their own, and from that, the machine could determine their makeup. Before he keyed in the final instruction, Alexander glanced up at the glass door between the labs.
Itch’s face was pressed against the window. It was very pale and shiny with sweat. Some of his hair was plastered to his forehead, the rest sticking up at crazy angles. He had never felt as bad as this sickness had made him, but had been desperate to return to the lab. He had vomited once, then forced his trembling legs to carry him back—he was not going to miss this.
Alexander gave him a gloved thumbs-up—to which Itch raised his thumb in reply—then turned back to the spectrometer keyboard and pressed “Enter.”
There were no flashes, no bangs—just an instant row of black numbers and letters scrolling across a white screen. Itch watched as Alexander read, then reread, the figures. The director stood stock still for a moment and then ran to grab some documents. Frantically he turned the pages of the largest file until he found what he was looking for. He held the chart he had found to the screen, his head moving up and down as he compared the two.
At first Itch thought a wasp must have found its way inside Alexander’s protective outfit. He had started leaping around the lab, his arms whirling like windmills. He ran around the spectrometer four times. Through the glass and the thickness of Alexander’s helmet, Itch could definitely hear yelling.
He inched the door open. “Dr. Alexander? You OK?”
The director saw Itch, hastily put the rocks away and bounded over. Picking up some of the papers, he pushed Itch back through the door to the next lab, following closely behind. He removed his helmet, his face running with sweat, his eyes wide and staring. He was smiling broadly.
“Astonishing, truly astonishing! If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. Astonishing! Never seen the like. It’s what we’ve been hoping for!” He was talking at, rather than to, Itch as he started to pace again.
“Excuse me, Dr. Alexander. What is it? What are they? What have you been looking for?”
The director stopped his pacing and turned to face Itchingham Lofte. “It’s not uranium. It’s … It’s … not anything we’ve seen before. It’s new … It’s … a … new … element! Well, an old element maybe … never seen on Earth since the Big Bang. It’s what we’ve been looking for. But then—”
Frustrated, Itch interrupted. “Sorry, but what? Dr. Alexander! Can you start again?”
“OK.” He took several deep breaths. “Unless my machine is on the blink, those rocks are made of a substance we’ve never seen before. The Table of Elements would put it at 126.”
“No, that’s impossible,” said Itch. “The Table of Elements stops at 118—everyone knows that—and those at the end only exist in labs. They disappear in seconds. Your machine needs to be kicked.”
“Trust me, I’ve kicked it!” said Alexander. “Look, come through, you can kick it.” They walked back together into the other lab. “You clearly know your stuff, Itch—I’m impressed. Your dad did well! Oh, congratulations, by the way, on getting the rocks here. You took what precautions you could, but this is absolutely where they should be.”
“You know my dad?” asked Itch—but they had stopped by the spectrometer, and Alexander was pointing at the computer screen.
“Look, the results are clear.” He indicated the rows of figures. “Each element produces its own characteristic x-rays, and these are absolutely unique to what we think 126 will be.”
Itch gazed at the numbers, dumbfounded. “It’s still not possible.”
Alexander laughed loudly. “I know! Isn’t it great!”
“OK,” said Itch. “Assuming this”—he waved at the screen—“is correct, what does it mean? What sort of things will these rocks be able to do?”
Alexander rubbed the stubble on his head vigorously. “What a fantastically exciting question! Who knows? Let me give you an informed guess, based on what some elements at the top end of the table can do. Help with some forms of cancer. Detect oil down a well or gold down a mine—it’s all due to the neutrons they give off. But I think that, when this gets out, most attention will be on their ability to start a nuclear reactor.”
Hearing footsteps, they turned and saw Mr. Watkins helping Jack and Chloe back into the lab. He was alarmed to see Itch in the same room as Alexander and the rocks.
“Itch! What are you doing? Jacob, are the rocks safe now?” he called.
The director thought for a moment and walked back through the door toward his friend.
“Are they safe? Well, I think so, as I’ve put them back in their case. And the case is back in the can. And I’ve sealed the can. So, normally, yes—but I think we might have just said good-bye to normal.”