Farlight

By Michael Swanson

A scientist's discovery enables him to send a telescope far out into space and look back at the earth from light-years away. His Farlight technology allows him to look back at the earth, capture the light and see history's most secret, scandalous, and earth-shaking events as they actually happened. Is OJ Simpson really a murderer? Who really assisinated JFK?  What hidden treasures lie waiting to be discovered?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Farlight Press
• Release date: May 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201813499

Michael Swanson

Finalist for the 2021 Houston Literary Award and author of the Sci-Fi best-seller, Farlight, Michael Swanson is the author of multiple novels and short stories across a broad range of genres.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Door by door she walked hesitantly, now nearing the back of the long hall.  A fluorescent bulb in one of the overhead fixtures was failing, and the light was flickering wildly, making it difficult to see here near the end of the corridor.  She stopped, and nibbling at a fingernail looked back; it was obvious she wasn’t entirely sure of where she was.  Then she saw it.  On the next door down, below the plastic placard displaying the office number, Prof. Lesli Quisp, in faded letters, was stenciled on the glass.

She unfolded the crumpled handout again, double checking to make sure she had it right.  Then with a clammy hand, she gripped the smoothly worn knob and went in.

The small office was cluttered, with little room amongst the stacks of disorganized books, leaning sheaves of papers and haphazard equipment strewn about.  Tucked in the open corner nearest the window, leaning too far back in a tired old chair, reclined the professor, face to the ceiling, his palms covering his eyes, and his fingers kneading his rumpled hair.

She held out the paper before her as though to validate the intrusion.  Professor, may I see you?

Without removing his fingers, he spread his hands and peered out at her.

It says office hours are two to four.  She said, still brandishing the paper.

The chair creaked dangerously as he swiveled around to face her.  He leaned over to clear some debris from the only other chair in the room.  Why don’t you take a seat, Miss ...?

Towbridge, Laurie Towbridge.  I’m in your Tuesday –Thursday physics course, she began even before she sat down.  I’m sorry I haven’t been in to see you before, but I really do need to talk to you.

He stole a quick once over.  She wasn’t as young as most of his students, though she sported an assembly of various bright hardware dangling from multiple piercings.  Most notably, a silver bar through her tongue wobbled suspiciously when she spoke.  Most girls these days didn’t wear their hair nearly so long as she.  And obviously, she didn’t go out in the sun all too often as the deep brown color framing her face and neck caused her white skin to shine out in the office gloom.  Physically, though, she was very attractive, and he found himself wondering if the third button, he’d so quickly noticed on her blouse was undone on purpose or merely forgotten.

The professor turned to the desk and placed his fingers on the computer’s keyboard.  Course section and student number?

She rattled off the numbers, and as he entered them, she unfolded before him on the screen.

Forty-two average after the mid-term.  He shook his head trying to look concerned.  You should have been in to see me before this.

She actually wrung her hands.  I was doing fine before the midterm.  She followed his eyes to the screen and paused while they both looked at the numbers.  Well, okay, at least I wasn’t failing quite so badly.  She hesitated again and tried to compose a sorrowful face.  I don’t know what happened.  I really don’t.  But I just can’t flunk.

His left eyebrow rose quizzically, giving him a look that was at once odd and queerly humorous.  As with some things people do, the true effect of the expression was a far cry from that which he imagined.  As a teenager, he had practiced throughout an entire summer to train his eyebrow to affect this singular angle, as he’d idolized Mr. Spock, that crafty and enigmatic Vulcan.  Now though, with his blond hair peppered with gray and the wrinkles spreading around his tired, blue eyes, he looked more like the untenured, backwater professor he had become, than the stoic space hero he had once dreamt of being.

Noticing the surprised look she cast back at he dropped the eyebrow and kept his eyes on the screen.  Well, there are two more quizzes and then the final, he offered.  Theoretically, you could still pass.

She dropped her shock and suddenly looked almost to tears.  Sure.  She even threw in a pout.  Yeah, right, if I aced everything including the final.  Her eyes cleared, and her resolve returned.  Leaning in she placed a hand on his knee.  Isn’t there anything else I can do?  You know.  I mean, personally?

The professor looked down to her hand, and the eyebrow, this time, unconsciously leapt back to attention.  In his mind, he had always fantasized of this situation, though he had never realistically imagined it actually happening.  Having been involved in only two thoroughly embarrassing and entirely terrifying close calls with females, one during his adolescence and the other in adulthood, he was painfully aware of his usual effect on the opposite sex.  Looking up into those eyes, his palms went wet, and his mouth went dry.

You mean.  He tried to swallow.  Extra credit?  He shriveled inside, knowing that he would have to flay himself unmercifully later, while reliving these crucial moments over and over again.

She smiled as if she couldn’t help herself, and leaned closer, squeezing his knee.  You know, Professor.  I do something for you, and then, you do something for me.

Miss.  He momentarily couldn’t remember her name.  He saved himself by looking to the screen.  Miss Towbridge.  I’m not sure that—I mean, look I don’t,—It’s not—.  He was stammering, as unsure of what to say as what to do.

Something about his distress must have been like the scent of blood.  Had he been more aware he should have noticed how each second her confidence had grown since first she’d entered the room.

The young woman rose from her chair, and turned slightly, lifting up her skirt in back revealing she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.  With a look he wouldn't have understood even if events weren’t already moving at a considerable blur, she turned back face-to-face and simply straddled him, nestling down on his lap.

The eyebrow, amongst other alert anatomy arose to its fullest.

She pressed in so her breasts were presented but inches from his face.  You don’t mind if I get a little closer?

His ears were on fire, and he couldn’t think.  Like a car wreck, everything was soft focus and happening too fast.  Fear, historically his most reliable sense of self-preservation, was being smothered by the realization of an all too real fantasy.

She looked him in the eyes, totally in control now, and then looked down to her blouse; like most well-endowed women, experience had taught her his eyes would surely follow.  Lightly, she unbuttoned another of the buttons.  You can undo the rest, if you like.

In a desperate attempt to grasp the situation, rationality marshaled its forces in a last ditch effort as he tried to affect a semblance of professional composure.  His face as panicked as a drowning man, he tore his eyes from her breasts and looked pleadingly up to her.  Really, Miss Thomas.  I mean here?  Now?  I really don't think it's a—

It’s Towbridge, she corrected.  Laurie Towbridge.  The young woman sat back haughtily, but then must have realized it would be best to keep things moving.  She seized his palsied hand and smacked it to her gaping blouse.

To his own credit, he tried to pull away, but she was stronger.  Relax, she cooed.  I won’t hurt you.  Relax ... It was positively a purr.  There, there now, calm down.  Just go with the flow, Professor.  There was something practiced in her eyes, something totally in control.  We’ll make a deal.  She talked in steps, as though explaining a lesson to a child.  I’m going to give you this afternoon, to show you I’m sincere.  Then we’ll have another, ‘study session’ right before finals.

Luckily, the petrified man had no idea how stupid he appeared with his mouth so wide open.

Leaning in, she put one hand behind his head and pulled him up to her kissing him full on the mouth.  With her other hand aiding his fumbling fingers she helped him along with the last button.

When the time was right, she leaned back and let him gasp for a breath.  After grades come out, we’ll go somewhere for a whole weekend to celebrate my A.  The spark of delight behind her eyes belied every ounce of the thrill she relished in feeding him the lie.

She shrugged off the blouse, pulled him in, and kissed him again.  When she let go his eyes were glazed and a bit of slobber was running down his trembling lip.

I know you want to give me an A, don’t you Professor? she bubbled and lisped, playing the scene even more boldly now.  I can absolutely, positively guarantee I’ll earn it.

Somewhere in his rational mind, he was mesmerized by the flashing silver bar wagging in her mouth.  Strangely, the memory of a nature film he had once seen leapt to mind.  A snapping turtle with a fleshy worm-like appendage in its mouth was wiggling its bait as an unwitting fish swam by.  Instinctually attracted by the action, the dumb creature was doomed and quickly lured into a swift though gruesome death.  He wondered vaguely if there was some subtle parallel with the bobbing silver object, so softly slurring the young coed’s well-practiced come on.

But before he could analyze the relation of these images, she rose up off his lap, and with a single practiced snap of her fingers, deftly unbuttoned her skirt, letting it fall to the floor.  Quickly though, she stepped back over him.  From his catatonic expression, it might just as well have been to administer CPR.  She straddled him, and with surprising ease, pulled him up bodily.  In that brief moment, after her skirt had hit the floor, two more piercings he couldn’t have possibly imagined the existence of just moments before, flashed into view.

Through the fog, a distant light came on in his mind, illuminating the fact that something was actually happening.  A moment ago, he had been alone and quietly working on his project.  And now there was a determined and very naked coed unsnapping his Dockers.  Something didn't seem quite right about any of this.  However, that protest evaporated a when she unzipped his pants and let them fall down to bunch up about his skinny ankles.  With a force that belied her frame, she grabbed him by his shirt and leaned back, pulling him down on top of her and scattering the contents of his desk, papers and folders falling to the floor.

Proving the theory that sound can indeed move faster than light, especially when involved in ironies and coincidences, it wasn’t the opening of the office door that roused him, but the exclamation of the man who appeared in the doorway.

Quisp!  My God, man!  What are you doing?

Disengaging his face from hers, he looked up blearily.  He wasn’t even aware she had bitten his lower lip and held it even now between her teeth.  For a moment, all three participants looked from one to the other: A moment, of awful embarrassment, frozen forever in time.

Dean Shaeffer!  He garbled causing her to release her bite.

The small man in the dark suit stood in the door, his face blooming crimson.  His arm came up, and his finger stretched out and began to shake.  A drop of spit arced out as he roared.  That better not be a student!

Struggling, the professor attempted to pull himself free from the naked girl, but only succeeded in slipping on his fallen pants.  His right knee buckled first and he crumpled without any semblance of grace amid the papers on the floor.  Looking up at the man in the doorway he blurted, It’s really not what it seems, Dean Shaeffer.

Miss Towbridge, her timing perfect, must have realized her plans had suddenly gone bust.  Does this mean I won’t get my A? she called out and then burst into her best tears.

The speed with which Professor Lesli Quisp found himself unemployed and home alone was a fitting testament to the indignation of the little Dean.  The unfulfilled sexual escapade had been the crowning pies de resistance to the Dean’s well organized termination review.  The Professor, in his tweed jacket with patches on the elbows had sat in abject silent before the board.  At the time he didn't dwell on it, but it was such a strange coincidence, that the very afternoon Mrs. Towbridge had elected to pop by for her chat, had been the only time in Professor Quisp’s 12-year career, that Dean Shaeffer had ever deigned to visit the little cubbyhole of an office.

Glaring at the professor whenever not making eye contact with the members of the disciplinary board, the strident Dean explained he had come forth wit to confront the professor about a spate of excess computer time at the data center.  A facility, he reminded the board, where only the serious, meaning tenured, scientists had free authority to apply themselves for the good of all mankind.

Of course, as events began to unravel, it is difficult to tell, which was more important:  the purloined orbital data and temporal wave form calculations, or Miss Towbridge’s failed attempt to better her GPA.

Professor Quisp’s little bungalow, just a few blocks from the university was always in shadow, lurking under the boughs of a gathering of gnarly old oaks.  Nestled back in away from the road it was crowded at the corners by great unkempt dogwoods.  Between the overgrowth of bushes and trees, the peeling front door and the bird-stained roof were hardly open to view.

Inside the house was given over to a jumble of scavenged, odd equipment in various stages of disassembly.  Infesting most every room, computer screens winked, strobed, and rolled, amongst the gloom and clutter.  Aesthetically, it was probably a relief the wallpaper’s soured print, which had not aged with grace, was mercifully concealed from view by the disarray and the darkness.  Though in abrupt contrast, in one room, which must once have been a family room of some sort a dusty and bent Christmas tree leaned precariously in one corner.  On one wall a veritable shrine to John F. Kennedy was left open to prominent display.

Stretching between two rooms, one object stood out, not so much as it alone appeared to be intact, but because of its sheer size.  It had obviously been constructed within the room, as it was too large to have been brought in through the small doors.  The gunmetal blued cylinder might have been fashioned from a couple of surplus torpedo casings or maybe a number of discarded acetylene cylinders.  Whatever it was now though, it was suspended a few inches above the well-stained and matted avocado shag carpeting, by two stout cables that disappeared up and through the ceiling.  Plugged into a port at the top, a thick electrical cable twined down through a ragged hole in an acoustic panel.

Near the base, on each side, were two boxy, rectangular appendages, which as they jutted out away from the cylinder, thinned considerably as they spiraled in to the top, giving the whole thing a look resembling a monstrous washing machine agitator.  Perhaps the most singular aspect of the device, if one looked closely, were the over two hundred thousand minute holes, hand drilled into the casing, each with a one-quarter inch protuberance of alternating silver and golden fine wire bristles, giving the entire assembly a sheen, as though it sported a sort of two tone, bristly, metallic fur coat.

Professor Quisp was seated in front of an immense computer monitor amid a field of discarded pizza boxes and fast food bags.  It was readily apparent amongst the crumpled logos that if a marketing survey were to be conducted, Burger King would reign supreme.

He was leaning way back in his chair, and once again, had his fingers lost in his gray tangle of hair, with his palms massaging his eyes and temples.

The monitor, an old Sci-Tex unit once used for sophisticated graphic arts color alterations and picked up for next to nothing from a bankrupt type house, which had been put out of business by Macintosh, was flashing.  The light pulses beat throughout the dim room, causing the brilliant cylinder to glow and shimmer in the reflected light.

From somewhere a tone sounded, and the flashing ceased.  As though shocked, the professor startled, sat up, and peeled his hands away from a very weary face.  Deliberately he placed one finger atop the enter key and paused to scan the room about him through woefully bloodshot eyes.  He made a special point of noticing the lit red LED of a video camera, poised in the upper corner of the room.  He looked into the lens and said aloud, Photon recovery test jump one, commencement.  Mark time.

He swallowed hard, and the finger began to shake.  He turned away from the monitor to face the shining cylinder hanging in the center of the room and pressed.

Softly at first and with a crackle, a beautifully hued, violet-blue haze spread out, seeping into the air from either end.  Hugging every contour, it shimmered down the length of the tube encompassing the entire device as it slowly crept inward towards the center.  The fragrant smell of ozone, crisp, hot plastic and that odor peculiar only to new things electrical richly permeated the room.  The hazy glow seemed to poise itself for a split second, in anticipation, just before the light from the opposite ends snapped together.  At once, the color changed from the deep blue to a scintillatingly iridescent sparkle, flashing metallic tints of bronze, blue, and silver.  The interlacing, crisscrossing exterior bands shimmered and intertwined above the reverse flowing interior strands weaving a dance macabre, as something unalterable changed physically in the room, and the beautiful display simply ceased to be.

Left behind was a thunderclap that shook the windows as air rushed together to replace the vacuum that remained where the device had just been.  Simultaneously, throughout an astonishingly large radius around the professor’s bungalow, sensitive people felt a quick shivering flash throughout their nervous systems.  Creeping out of the spine between the shoulder blades, the involuntary flinch spread to the head and shoulders, as though pierced by a sudden chill.  Once it passed, icy, queer goose bumps remained for a brief moment standing every small hair alertly up on end.

Unaware to the Professor, but recorded for all time by the silent video camera, his eyebrow had arched itself to full attention, equivalent to a new world’s record.

Leaving everything as it was, he deliberately put his hands to the arms of the chair, and pushed himself up, gaining his feet.  He hurriedly vacated the room and went to the bathroom where he stayed for a half hour, only returning when another bell sounded from his monitor, calling him back.

He slid back into his seat, almost falling to the side, as one of the casters had slipped out when he had arisen earlier.  Obviously put out, but not enough to fix the chair correctly, he leaned it back to level and scooted an old and dingy cross-trainer to balance the rickety thing.

Once again, a countdown was flashing on the screen.  This time he didn’t touch the keyboard but crossed his arms securely before facing the dangling, empty cables in the center of the room.  The monitor reached zero, but nothing came into view, though there was a tremendous crash and the sound of breaking glass from outside the house.

Startled, the Professor reached the front door in a flash, spreading a swirling wake behind him through the fast-food debris strewn about.  Bursting out into the shadows of the front yard, he was not nearly as astonished as was the pizza delivery boy, pizza bag still held out before him, who stood gaping at the large cylinder.  The device was lying horizontally across the flattened roof of a very late model Volvo wagon and was quickly collecting a coat of thick, white frost.

I didn’t do it.  The red-faced teen blurted out.

He began moving sidelong toward the porch where the Professor stood, never taking his eyes off the car.  He continued talking while he walked and gawked.  I mean, hey.  I was just coming up the drive and his thing just fell over, smashing your car.  Fuckin’ thing came from nowhere.  He looked up.  You think maybe it fell out of a plane?  He handed the bag to the professor keeping his eyes on the sky and ready to run.

The Professor accepted the red vinyl bag like some kind of offering and stepped down off the stoop.  Crunching on broken chunks of glass, he walked around the vehicle, and then placed the bag on the hood.

It’s twelve bucks, right?  He asked.

Plus tip, said the pizza boy.  He walked over and gingerly touched the thick coat of frost that now concealed the object atop the car.  You gonna sue?

Who?  The Professor asked, pulling his wallet out of his khakis.

The airlines.  For sure this thing fell off a plane.

The Professor handed him a ten and three ones.

The boy shoved the money into his pocket without looking at it.  Man, that thing is cold.  Look at that, he added, drawing a finger across the frost now gathering on some of the remaining glass of the front windshield.  It’s freezing your car.  You can feel it standing over here.

The Professor unzipped the red bag and slid the pizza box out.  He handed the bag to the delivery boy and turned to go inside.

Aren’t you going to do anything? asked the gangly teen retreating back toward his car, a dented Dodge Omni, half in the road and half in the drive.

Like what?  Said the Professor juggling the screen door and the pizza box.

Call the news guys, or the cops, or someone.

The Professor turned back to the astonished kid, and under the dim yellow light from the porch light, gave him his eyebrow.  I’m going to eat my pizza."  He closed the door.

There was no mistaking the disdain in the delivery boy's tone as he said loudly enough for the professor to hear, what a geek.

Peeping through the dirty little window atop the door, Quisp watched the kid get back in his car and rumble off.

Instantly, he was back outside.  Unable to open the car door because of the bent window frame, he crawled in through where the window had been.  The chill permeating the car was like a freezer.  He clicked the garage door opener still hanging from the visor, started the car, and pulled it into the garage.  Jumping out, he grabbed an old broom and furiously began sweeping the glass from the drive into the garage.  Satisfied that he had gotten most of it, he closed the door, went inside, and made a quick call.  Finally, he sat down to eat his large special with extra cheese.  But despite the boxes' guarantee, it had already grown cold.

Within a few minutes, a black and white police cruiser cautiously pulled up to the drive and flashed its spotlight about the front of the house.  Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, it sat in the road a few moments while the officer inside must have been reporting back a false alarm.  As silently as it had arrived, the unit drove off, its tail lights a welcome sight.

Just a few minutes after the cruiser left, an old Jeep Wagoneer with mismatching rims and a homemade camo paint job pulled into the drive.  The door creaked loudly as a very thin man emerged.  He was dressed in long, baggy shorts, loafers with no socks, a bright nylon windbreaker, and sported a straggling, dark goatee, followed by a long, black, braided ponytail.  He tugged at his crotch as he went to the door.  Obviously knowing better than to try the doorbell, he pulled open the screen and banged on the hollow door.

Hey, Quimp, you wimp.  It’s me!

From deep inside came a voice.  Come on in.  It’s open.

Once inside, the bizarre figure expertly wove his way amongst the junk, working towards the back of the house.  Finding no one in the den, just the flashing computers, empty chains and cables hanging from the ceiling, he called out, Where you at Quisp?

I’m in the garage, Bill.  Come on, give me a hand.

Bill wormed his way back to the garage, winding his way through the kitchen and finally the laundry room.  He found the Professor standing on a stepladder, attaching a chain hoist to the roof joists.

Here, make yourself useful and attach these hooks to those rings, the Professor said, pointing for a brief second to the top of the icy mound now melting all over the car.

Not doing a thing, Bill leaned against the wall.  What’d you do to your car, man?  He said taking a good shot at a Cheech and Chong impression.

The Professor just clipped the chains to the tube himself and started hoisting.

Bill did what he did best; he supervised.

Good looking hood ornament, he offered.  Kind of big though.

Once raised from off the crumpled roof, the Professor backed the wounded Volvo out into the drive just in front of the camo Wagoneer.  He returned quickly, closing the garage door behind him, and began lowering the tube to a dolly on the floor.  Almost all the ice had now melted and had made a sizeable lake on the concrete.

Come on, help me guide this back inside, and I’ll feed you some pizza, said the Professor bending over and grabbing the casing.

I’ll do anything for pizza, said Bill, unsticking his shoulder from the wall.  What kind?

Free, the Professor replied.

My favorite kind, man.  Lead me on, dude.  But, let's eat first and work later.

After the bachelor feast, they tried for more than an hour, but quickly found there was no way to get the cylinder back inside the den, short of cutting out some walls.

The whole time they kept up a steady conversation.  Mostly though it was Bill, he hazily recounted the highlights of his semi-annual pilgrimage to Jamaica, from where he had just returned.  Tonight he was still attempting a Jamaican accent, at times adding a drawled out, Ya Mon, instead of his normal Man or Dude at the end of each sentence.

The Professor somehow managed to squeeze in, during the all too brief opportunities to speak, an account of what had happened to him over the last six weeks.  Bill did shut up to allow for a very thorough description of the events with the coed in the office and was visibly impressed.  He did sum up the whole thing as best he could with his inevitable and predictable point of view, That Dean’s an asshole, man.

They spent the rest of the night moving the junk from the garage out, and the equipment from the den in.  Near dawn, the professor had raised the cylinder up to the joists and reconnected it to his rebooted and now functioning computer terminal.

Bill observed sagely, "You should have just built it out here to begin with, Quisp.  Good