Page 14 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Black Pinhole Nanofurnace

place wired for high voltage. I could not find what must have been a
rather creaky and unreliable freight elevator car at any of the floors
the stairway spiraled around. Perhaps it lived in the basement with
the vermin.
I knocked, and then banged, on the door to Aitkens’ fifteen
hundred square feet. By the sound of it, the old wooden portal had
been reinforced with stronger stuff on the inside. My hand ached,
and I stopped for a few seconds, looked around to see if I had
attracted any unwanted attention, and then resumed trying to make
my presence known to the occupant. At length I heard latches
thrown and a small window about eye level opened. The eye that
transfixed me was anything but level.
“What do you want?”
First impressions are crucial, I told myself. The gruff voice
betrayed little of an Ivy League education and years at the apex of
organizational responsibility. I tried simplicity with firmness.
“Good morning, sir. I am looking for Dr. Aitkens. He is not
expecting me, but I believe he will be glad to hear what I have to
say.”
“No evangelists, no salesmen, no bill collectors.”
The eye withdrew into the interior gloom and the window began
to close.
“Please wait, sir. I represent a group of investors interested in the
nanofurnace.” I pushed a business card halfway into the vanishing
sliver of aperture. “Here.”
I waited, wondering what ambivalence warred within his psyche.
Old buildings never exhibit the dead silence one would encounter in
a modern sealed office building on a Sunday, assuming all the air
conditioning, telecommunications and computing equipment were
shut down. Would an acoustically dead mausoleum be creepier than
one with ambient sound? That might depend on the nature of the
images the listener conjured to account for the latter’s unsourced and
unidentifiable hums, crackles, squeaks and clanking thuds.
Finally desire overcame fear and the flap reopened.
“Let’s see your face and your driver’s license together.”

12