Coldmoon could only shake his head again.
Pendergast held up the journal. “If I understand Ellerby’s notes, the Roman numeral II on that dial is the second power setting. That increases the power beyond what Frost, and her friend at Boeing, intended, allowing the device to penetrate into a parallel universe running about an hour in the future. But recall, what we’re seeing isn’t our future. It’s a window into parallel universes exactly like ours, whether one minute or one hour ahead. Knowing what stock prices would be in an hour, and trading on that information, would allow one to make millions. Hundreds of millions.”
“So why are we looking at this view and not something else?” he asked.
“Frost explained that to me,” said Constance. “Shortly after she got the original machine fully functional, she went to Times Square, entered a building on the north end of the intersection, ascended to a height that allowed a good vantage point, and aimed the machine out a window and down Broadway. She focused it, or rather tuned it, to this very scene. After that, wherever she took the machine, she could always use it to observe the parallel Times Square from that same vantage point. As long as the stock ticker ran the current stock prices, and as long as she didn’t focus the machine elsewhere, she could trade on that information.”
“This is too crazy,” Coldmoon muttered. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.”
“Please do wrap your mind around it,” said Pendergast, “because I intend to increase the power to the higher level.”
“Why?” Coldmoon asked.
“Because that’s what Ellerby did.”
Coldmoon glanced at Constance; she had turned toward Pendergast, an odd expression on her face.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Coldmoon continued. “We should call in the FBI Evidence Response Team, have them pack this baby up and take it back to Quantico, where it can be examined in a state-of-the-art lab.”
Pendergast raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer to let our beloved government get their hands on it? Do you really have that much confidence in our political leaders to use this in a wise and beneficent way?”
“Oh.” Coldmoon paused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We must do this ourselves,” Pendergast said as he placed his hand on the dial. “I’m convinced this device is key to whoever—or whatever—is plaguing Savannah. If we’re going to understand it—and confront it—we need more information first.”
And he began slowly turning the dial farther.
63
AS PENDERGAST INCREASED THE power, it looked to Coldmoon as if someone had abruptly heaved a stone into still water. The mirror-clear view of Times Square wavered and grew suddenly distorted. The vibration in the room increased, causing an odd, slightly nauseous feeling in Coldmoon’s gut—something below the range of hearing but not below the body’s ability to sense it.
Now the portal flickered and shimmered, images passing by almost more quickly than he could make out: tremendously accelerated in time-lapse, twisting and tangled up in ever-shifting shapes like knots, folding and refolding over each other. Coldmoon saw many Times Squares flash past in the blink of an eye—but he also saw, or thought he saw, bizarre astronomical images of stars and galaxies and nebulae, whirling alien landscapes and twisted black holes, all in furious succession.
Pendergast’s fingers stopped at the dial’s second and last setting. The churning visions settled and the image of Times Square stabilized once again, like a pond returning to a quiescent state. It was still night and everything looked as before. Only now, Coldmoon noted, the time on the Times building read 10:15—an hour into the future.
The portal itself also seemed different. The shimmering edges of the image were heavier now, creating the effect of looking at this Times Square through a glimmering tunnel. And in those tunnel walls, Coldmoon could barely discern the flitting about of grotesque, otherworldly shapes. The smell of burnt rubber, which had never gone away, now intensified as a stream of warm, humid air issued from the portal.
With a sudden movement, one of the dragonfly-things, and then a second, zoomed in from the edges of the tunnel. They approached the portal, stopped, then wriggled through with effort, as if emerging from a cocoon.
“Stay back, please,” Pendergast said, stretching out an arm in warning. They watched as the two insects buzzed the room: the same creatures Coldmoon had seen dead on the ground, with gossamer wings and fat abdomens carrying vicious stingers. The two spiraled upward toward the naked lightbulb in the ceiling, diving at it, hitting it again and again until their wings were broken and they fluttered to the floor. At the same time, several more insects squeezed out of the portal’s membrane and flew at the lightbulb, circling and ticking on it incessantly before tangling with each other.