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The Aerospace Engineer and the Vice Consul
Marina Gibbs was furious. She had never liked reading the newspaper, and now hated it more than ever as she stared at the headline on page six:
“Aerospace engineer Marina Gibbs, inventor of the MG planes, doing humble shift at local observatory.”
Marina bit her lip and frantically scanned the article below the headline. How could they do that? She had not given anyone permission to write an article on her. Getting fired was one thing: having it published in the paper years later – well, that was just too much!
Since she had moved to New Mexico, roughly fourteen years before, Marina had learned to enjoy strolling along the winding road that led to the tiny observatory at the top of the hill. One of her favorite nightly rituals before the beginning of her shift was making a mental inventory of all the stars in the sky while slowly sipping some coffee and munching on cashew nuts. On this particular November evening, however, Marina had neither coffee, nor the usual bag of nuts with her. Instead, she clutched the wrinkled newspaper and muttered angrily to herself as she marched up the dirt road. Her keen gray eyes scanned the article restlessly from behind a pair of narrow, rectangular glasses, and the short waves of her brown hair blew wildly in the wind. As she finally reached the weather-beaten door of the observatory, Marina mumbled one last complaint, carelessly adjusted her glasses, and hurried in.
The foyer of the observatory was a round hallway with a well-worn, cracked stone floor, and walls that hosted enough cobwebs to indicate they had not been painted – or cleaned – for a considerable amount of time. The entire space was bare, except for a strikingly narrow spiral staircase on one side, and a feeble-looking wooden desk on the other.
Marina’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light as she tossed her jacket on a coat rack. She surveyed the room in search of the old security guard who was usually sitting at the desk with his feet up.
“Charlie!” she called, wondering if he was in the bathroom. “You never lock the door! One of these days we’re going to have surprise visitors – and I don’t mean the raccoon that keeps showing up!”
The sound of a flushing toilet and water running from a faucet told Marina that Charlie had not heard a word she had said. She sighed. On top of letting visitors in after business hours and forgetting to charge admission, Charlie had a habit of leaving everything unattended – not to mention forgetting to lock the door altogether. Despite such blunders, Marina could not bring herself to fire him when she inherited the observatory from her parents. After all, Charlie had been there when she built her very first airplane model – in that same foyer, as a matter of fact – and she could see that it was still sitting, faded and wobbly, on his desk all these years later.
Still, Charlie could strain one’s patience. How much longer would he take to finally get out of the bathroom?
“You won’t believe what’s in today’s paper,” Marina cried, pacing around randomly. “Some jerk who doesn’t know anything about anything wrote an article about me! And you know what’s worse? He said my MG designs were a failure! A failure, Charlie! The most technologically advanced airplanes ever designed, and this moron says they were no good!”
No reply from Charlie.
“What really gets me,” she continued, gesturing impatiently, “is that if I hadn’t been fired, I could have shown them what those planes were capable of! If they had actually tested my prototype, they would have seen how amazing it was – I mean, no one’s designed planes like that ever since!”
She stopped, nearly gasping for air, and flopped down on the old wooden chair by the desk, where a small television showed the evening news. As she sat there, her feet restlessly tapping the floor, the voice of the reporter on TV caught her attention:
“The cause of death is still unknown, although forensics experts say this death is connected to the death of business mogul Robert Penderton, shortly after he announced bankruptcy last week. So far, authorities refuse to comment on whether this is yet another instance of what many people are beginning to call ‘supernatural deaths.’ There is still no diagnosis relating to the black marks found on the victim’s body. Authorities are urging people to remain calm until more is determined.”
Marina sprang up, and quickly grabbed the crumpled newspaper she had brought with her. In her eagerness to find the insulting article on her, she had completely missed the gigantic headlines. She flipped her way back to the front page and stared at it. Yet another dead body whose autopsy had revealed a strangely withered heart? Ugh! She scanned the article but found no new information: the police was completely stumped, and refused to respond to the growing belief that supernatural agents could be responsible.
Marina was just thinking about how unsettling this notion was when she remembered that she was still waiting for Charlie to come out of the bathroom. She stopped to listen: the bathroom was silent now, but Charlie was nowhere to be seen. She felt a slight shiver travel down her spine. What if something had happened to Charlie? And – worse – what if the sounds in the bathroom had not come from Charlie at all?
If Marina had been a cautious person, she might have turned around and called the police. She had never been cautious, however. Her curiosity always got the better of her, and it was no different this time as she quietly approached the bathroom door.
Just as Marina reached for the doorknob, the door suddenly opened from the inside, and she and Charlie both screamed at the same time.
“You almost gave me a heart attack!” Charlie cried. “Why were you hovering by the door?”
Charlie’s furrowed face and large front teeth reminded Marina of an enormous, worried otter. She was about to ask why he had not answered her calls, when she remembered that the old security guard was almost entirely deaf in one ear.
“I’m sorry,” she said, speaking into Charlie’s good ear as they walked back to the desk. “I guess I got spooked by the paper headlines. All that stuff about people with withered hearts has been freaking me out! When I didn’t hear you, I –”
Marina stopped abruptly. Something very unusual had just happened: the lights in the room had shone considerably brighter for a moment. In that brief moment, she had felt a pleasant sensation of peace, as if all her worries were gone, or at least did not matter just then.
“Charlie,” she said, her gray eyes focused on him, “tell me you felt this.”
“I wish I felt like that all the time,” he muttered. “Do you think it has something to do with the lights?”
Before Marina could answer, they heard a noise upstairs on the observation deck. It sounded as if all of Marina’s electronic equipment had suddenly come to life at the same time.
“It’s probably just a power surge,” Charlie offered, looking unconvinced by his own explanation.
“Let’s check it out, just in case,” she said. She could sense that something unusual was happening up there – something that had nothing to do with power surges or the raccoon that methodically rummaged through her things looking for peanut butter crackers.
“Let me go first,” Charlie said, rushing to the stairs. “After all, that’s what I’m here for.”
Marina desperately wanted to go first, but she obliged Charlie, so that he would not feel completely useless.
“Looks perfectly normal,” he said, after turning
