Dead Waters - Anton Strout [84]
“Do we have an expert on this or something?”
Wesker narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you not hear me before when I said I’ve never seen this done successfully before?”
“Right,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Sorry.”
“Can you let me do my job, then?” Wesker asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed off to a tall cabinet on the other side of his office and threw it open. It was stocked with vials, tubes, and little clay pots that were full of a variety of colorful spell components. He bent down to the bottom shelf, pulled up a large, plastic jug, and carried it back to his workbench.
“Do they sell bulk bloodroot at the discount clubs now?” I asked.
“No,” Wesker said, sliding on a pair of protective gloves, “and this isn’t bloodroot. It’s nitric acid. Movie film—more commonly, cellulose nitrate—eventually deteriorates and releases the acid naturally. Using this amount should serve as a catalyst.”
“Ah,” I said. “So naturally you just happen to have it around for office use.”
“It also makes a fine salt substitute for spell components when mixed,” he said. “As it stands, however, it’s quite toxic. You might want to step back.” He picked up a set of gloves and a pair of goggles off the workbench and put them all on. “This might eat away your eyeballs if I splash any of it.”
A mix of vanity and fear was enough to back me away almost before he finished his sentence.
Wesker twisted off the cap, and then poured half the container out into a large, clear petri dish. He put it down, and then scooped up the film and lowered it into the liquid, backing away from it.
In seconds the dish filled with swirling, bubbling activity. The mixture popped and hissed as sections of the film dissolved under the chemical attack. The acid turned from a clearish yellow to a dark, soupy mess. Only after a few minutes of furious activity did it begin to settle down.
Wesker walked back over to it, a satisfied smile on his face, no doubt loving the destructive display before him. When he reached it, however, the look vanished and was replaced with a disappointed one.
“Look, Simon,” he said, dipping his hand into the liquid mess. “Here’s something you should be familiar with—failure.” He raised his hand, pinching a section of stillintact film between his fingers. Wesker kept pulling until a fair section of film came out of the sludge.
“Your chemical didn’t dissolve all of it,” I said.
“No,” he said, walking over to a sink set off to the right of the workbench. “I suspect that what survived is the spliced-in magical part.” He rinsed the section of film thoroughly before laying it down.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“I’m on it,” Jane said, stepping forward with a determined look on her face despite the exhaustion in her eyes. She grabbed up the remains of the filmstrip and brought it over to Wesker’s desk. She leaned over and picked up the wastebasket next to it. On top of it were the close, sharp teeth of an electronic paper shredder.
“Jane. . .” Wesker said, but my girlfriend held up her hand, silencing him. Without another word, she slipped the film into the shredder’s jagged mouth. She laid her free hand on the top of the machine as it set into action. A horrifying sound came from the machine. Jane gave a nervous look down at it, but then bent down to it, whispering an electronic string of technomantic speech at it.
In response, the power level of the machine kicked into high gear, grinding its teeth even harder into the film, but so did the earsplitting screeching coming from it. Smoke rose somewhere inside the gears of the machine and seconds later flame burst out of it. The shredder shook and sputtered as Jane continued talking to it, her eyes half-rolled back into her head as she tried in desperation to command it.
I couldn’t take the sound of it or the oily haze of smoke rising from the flames licking along the top of it. I ran over and pulled the cord from the wall. Reaching for the nowmelting trash can below the device, I picked it up and ran it over to the sink before dumping the whole