What Goes Up

By SpunSilk

Part 4

"Ah-HA!" The stranger slapped the book, jarring me awake. He jabbed the book vigorously with his index finger. "Here is s-something! It's got to be a reference to electro-magnetism, it's got to! What else would explain it?!"

"What's g-got to?" I asked in a fog.

He was clumsily fumbling back in the canvas bag. "You want your air-conditioning g-g-glitch to stop, Honey?" he grinned, "Watch this!" He extracted a digital camera from the bag, but when he activated the screen, his face fell. He rummaged again, frowning, and brought out a digital recorder. But his face fell once more when he turned it on.

"What are you d-d-doing?" I chattered.

He hesitated, then raised his eyebrows innocently. "You g-g-got anything in there with a full b-battery, Honey?"

"My lap-t-t-top..."

"Will you l-l-let me have the battery?" he asked. "I h-h-have to warn you, though, I might f-f-fry it...

None of this made sense, but I was beyond caring. "S-sure... j-j-just let me... save." I fumbled with the odd appendages that looked like my fingers, trying to get them to hit the right keys.

When I was done, he took it from me with a grin. "N-n-now let's see if I can do s-s-some saving, myself!" He snapped the battery unit from the computer, and with one clumsy motion, emptied the entire contents of his bag all over the floor.

That bag held the weirdest assortment of trinkets I had ever seen; bells, bones, strings, small cloth bundles – a few wrapped in copper wire. And one more thing; a large orange crystal that had been set in a heavy decorated setting, just the size of a man's palm. For some strange reason, I disliked the thing the moment I set eyes on it. And I'm not one to take offense at crystals, I'm here to tell you. It made me feel... contaminated, to see it. It was the oddest sensation in my life. I actually felt a strong emotion just in the presence of this thing.

I started to breathe heavy with repulsion, but either the stranger didn't feel it, or he just handled it better than me. He unwound the wire from two bundles, wrapped then tightly around the crystal-thing and, with a wink to me and a deep breath he held the wires hard against the crystal with one hand, and with his other hand plunged the wires into the battery energy ports to complete the circuit.

The elevator itself shuttered, and I cried out, thinking we were now having an earthquake on top of everything else. But a high-pitched squeal accompanied the shuddering – intense and painful and loud. My hands flew up to cover my ears. I yelled inarticulate protest.

The stranger grimaced with the piercing squeal too, and grit his teeth in determination, both hands now resolutely on the crystal, pressing the wire into contact with it. To my amazement, the crystal started to glow; we both turned away from it as the light became too intense to take. This is when I noticed water running down all four walls of the elevator, and following it, what looked like blood. It was too much to take in. I screamed between my clamped hands.

A flash lit the whole elevator from the direction of the crystal, still clamped tightly in the stranger's hands, and the light, the squeal, and the flame of the candle disappeared. We were plunged into darkness and silence so thick it hurt my frazzled nerves.

"Ha-HA!" came a cry of glee from the stranger. I felt him roll over onto his back and laugh heartily. My skin started to prickle as the welcome warmth slowly started returning feeling to my fingers and toes. "Honey! The phone will work now, but you'll have to be the one to call; my hands are burnt." He laughed again. "Call up your maintenance men and let's have them open up this can!" he sang out. "It's over."