Day 10 (Disappointment)

That morning, he'd almost managed to convince himself that he
didn't really need to talk to VonCannon. After all, he'd only
been mentioned once, in passing, and they'd had a falling out.
Whatever the old professor had to say about Caster was probably
not complimentary enough to put in a story anyway. So it had been
with a relatively relieved mind that he'd set out interviewing
people who were more likely to give him useful information.

Dean Howard had done that, at least in the form of James'
personnel file. It had most of the biographic information that
the reporter had been seeking, for one. So it should have been
hard to be annoyed at Howard, but as Grant drove back downtown
toward an industrial center he'd already visited more times than
he'd have liked to, he found it quite easy.

Professor Malachai VonCannon. Resigned just shy of a dozen years
ago under far more suspicious conditions than Caster would later
find himself leaving. He'd had a very colorful history and even
while employed he had been somewhat of a pariah. The most
important part of the ex-professor's file, however, was the
address of a warehouse in a certain industrial area of the city.
Grant knew it probably hadn't been exactly ethical to ask for
VonCannon's file in addition to the late James Caster, but given
the current administration's willingness to put the incidents
behind them and never mention them again, it seemed unlikely
they'd miss it. He'd glanced through it as he walked back to his
vehicle, and he was sorely tempted to do so again on the many
occasions he found himself stopped upon re-entering the city.
That, he knew from experience, would lead to him forgetting to
stop reading and irate drivers honking at him for ignoring green
lights.

This was perhaps the only time in his long history of driving
into the city that he found himself hoping for worse traffic than
usual. When he'd first met Malachai, the man had seemed tired and
irate, and Grant hadn't even really wanted anything from him
then. He couldn't imagine that attempting an interview would
improve anyone's mood, much less someone who was annoyed to begin
with.

That settled it, then, he rationalized. He would go to the
warehouse, try and fail to talk to VonCannon, and then go into
the office and write this damn story already.

The warehouse squatted before him, looking even more decrepit
than when he'd first visited if such a thing were possible. Grant
knew that this perception was probably more in his mind than
reality, but it didn't stop the feeling of dread from returning.
He got out of his car, noting that once more his was the only
other vehicle parked outside the building, and knocked on the
entrance door.

There was no response. He found himself flooded with mixed
relief. Mixed, of course, because the doctor's absence meant that
he'd have to come back later.

``You again?'' While Grant had been distracted, the door had
opened, and the old man from the previous day was standing there
looking as irate now as he had seemed then. ``I don't know if I
was clear last time; this isn't actually a recycling center. This
is a private place of business.''

``Yes, of course.'' The reporter decided he'd have to handle this
very carefully. ``I'm actually here on business today. My name's
Grant Wynn and I'm a reporter with the Gazette.''

At first he wondered if VonCannon wasn't hard of hearing, because
the man didn't seem to respond to that statement at all. Finally,
the ex-professor spoke up. ``That's very well, but so what?''

``I'm writing a story about Dr. James Caster, and-''

``He's dead, you know.'' VonCannon interrupted abruptly. ``If
you're having trouble finding him, that's probably why.''

In reality, Grant was just relieved he wasn't going to have to
break the news to yet another person. He found the professor's
sudden revelation to be unnerving, though.

``Actually, that's why I'm writing the story, we're doing a part
on people injured in the outage.''

Malachai again seemed unresponsive, then spoke up just as
abruptly as he had before. ``Okay then, come in.''

Once again Grant found himself transitioning from a world flooded
with light to a world with only patches. He tried to stay as
close to the doctor as he could without being uncomfortably
close. For his part, VonCannon didn't seem to notice his presence
at all once they'd gone inside, instead walking sedately toward
the back of the warehouse.

``Tell me,'' the man could spring from utter silence to
conversation in a fraction of a second. ``what you know about
Doctor Caster's work.''

Grant wasn't sure how he was supposed to reply. ``Not a lot, just
what the interviews told me.'' he thought back to his interview
with James' co-workers, but wasn't about to tell the professor
about Caster's troubles of late.

``Does this look familiar, then?'' They'd reached a pool of light
whose sole purpose was to illuminate a shoddy card table. The
table was a masterpiece of both engineering and fashionable
design compared to the object on top of it.

It was hard for Grant to even look at. It seemed to be very old,
but not in a preserved way. Rather, it looked as though someone
had gone to a battlefield and dug until they hit something,
denting it in the process, and took that something directly home
without bothering to clean it. It had once been a box, probably
metal, but rust and other less identifiable corrosions had eroded
most of its original materials. Color-coded wires dangled
pointlessly from parts of it, their insulation wearing in some
places and stripped from others. There was a row of tiny red
lights at the bottom, most of which were burnt out. One was
physically broken altogether. Those that were working emitted a
feeble, flickering light. It growled some sort of noise that
should have been a low hum, but instead indicated that the
machine's humming days were long behind it, and now perhaps a
dull 'thunk' might suffice.

Grant knew, intellectually, that Doctor VonCannon was an
intelligent man. He had the look of a mad scientist about him,
there was definitely that. The reporter had read his file and in
it, it was indicated that before he'd gone off the deep end, the
professor had done some impressive things. So to see such a
horribly constructed device and to know what the professor was
capable of, well, it was just....

``What is that horrible thing?'' Wynn found himself sputtering
without even thinking of it. His professionalism, he realized
with growing dismay, had deserted him in the face of such a
poorly constructed device.

``You expected something a little fancier?'' VonCannon said.

Grant nodded vigorously. He'd driven all this way - twice - gone
through all this trouble for a story and now he had to look at
this... thing. Disappointing. That's what it was. The whole
machine was just disappointing.

Realization dawned on him, then, and Malachai saw it. ``Ah-ha!''
he said, with less delight than it seemed he should have. ``You
do know what this is. Caster was working on it, and somebody told
you!'' The professor's features looked almost delighted, then
sunk into dejectedness. ``I should be happy someone's replicated
my work, but I can't. Let's get away from this damned thing.''
Without looking to see if Grant followed, he started walking
further toward the back of the workshop.

Grant tore his fascinated yet horrified gaze away from the
machine and followed VonCannon, his thought processes clearing
the further he walked. ``Wait, what the hell is that?''

``Isn't it obvious?'' Malachai responded without looking back. ``
It's a Disappointment Machine.''

This confirmed Grant's realization, that Dr. Caster had indeed
been trying to work on the same thing Dr. VonCannon had. If he'd
copied that machine well, Grant shuddered to think what the
effect it'd had on the late doctor's co-workers. No wonder people
had begun to think he'd lost it.

``I got a message,'' they had reached the area illuminated by a
floodlight, which revealed a modest work area complete with desk
and somewhat vintage computer, ``the night that Doctor Caster was
killed. He called me, trying to make amends, claiming he had
replicated one of my experiments. I thought it some kind of
trick, but when I tried to reach him the next day, he was nowhere
to be found. My lawyer was the one who ended up breaking the
news.''

Grant just blinked at this. His ability to ask leading questions
and get to the bottom of a story had fled him along with his
professionalism. Thankfully, VonCannon appeared willing to talk
without prodding.

``We have the same lawyer,'' The professor clarified, ``James and
I. I retained him when I thought I might need a tenure hearing,
and so later when Doctor Caster was in much the same position, I
recommended him. I called yesterday to ask if he'd been the
recipient of any strange messages, and to see if I couldn't get
ahold of James through an intermediary. So you see, this is how I
know. It seems strange to me that after a half-dozen years of
animosity, he would come back, and on that night of his return,
he would die.''

``I know what you mean.'' Grant found himself saying, and
immediately regretting. One of the first rules of his profession
was that he wasn't supposed to get involved. Find out what was
going on, do whatever good could be done by reporting it, and get
out. He wasn't supposed to commiserate with VonCannon, that was
for certain. In fact, despite having got a great deal of
information from the man, he wasn't sure if any of it was
something he could use in his story.

``You are a journalist, yes? A reporter?'' VonCannon was looking
fully at Grant now. His gaze had up until this point been
wavering and disinterested. Grant wasn't sure he liked the
change.

``Yes.'' he said somewhat unsteadily.

``I suppose you have a card of some sort, with contact
information, that sort of thing?''

Grant fumbled in his wallet and found one. He handed it over to
VonCannon and even managed to do so without shaking. His
composure was returning, bit by bit, but he found himself hoping
greatly that he could leave this place as soon as possible.

VonCannon nodded and his piercing gaze went elsewhere. ``Good,
thank you. I must do some very heavy thinking. You may hear from
me again. I assume you can find your own way out?''

Grant wanted to answer with ``not really'', given he wasn't sure
which of the pools of light was the door and which held horrible
machines that made him almost physically ill, but he wanted more
to just be out of the place. So he replied with ``Sure.'' and
left the building as quickly as he could without actually
running.

He practically burst out the front door and took a deep breath.
As the door closed behind him and he took in the sun, he found
himself realizing that he'd never thought a downtown industrial
slum could look so good. The warehouse, for all its openness, was
entirely too claustrophobic for him.

He had one more stop, he knew, but after this talking to people
at a hospital would be easy.

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