Prologue
Barely piercing the darkness and spoiling the absolute gloom was a small, pale green incandescent light bulb mounted atop the ancient-designed—and recently modified—ondograph sitting atop the desk. Steadily glowing, its luminescence was both gentle yet insistent…and entirely unnecessary, the rolling drum-and-needle of the recording graph both more accurate and permanent. However, what that pale luridness lacked in accuracy was more than compensated by its…comforting familiarity.
Without warning, a pair of glittering green lines appeared, hovering in thin air; lines gradually evolving into round disks as their owner fully opened his eyes, those cold orbs utterly focused on that pale bulb.
Eyes fully adapted to the dark—and not because they had been closed for so long—Professor Harmony leaned back in his chair, lacing fingers across his chest as he momentarily paused his meditative musings.
Until fairly recently, that diminutive bulb had been the only means available to him for displaying the intensity of the energy levels that self-designed and built-by-hand device measured; his many fortes, alas, sadly lacking the mundane, plebian “skill” of equipment design construction…
…A lack that was exasperating and infuriating, all the more so as there were no “off-the-shelf” instruments capable of detecting the particular energies he pursued.
Eyes slowly wandered about the small room, glittering orbs possessively appraising the other apparatus stored on the shelves lining three of the walls, fingers of his right hand idly playing with a small object on his desk: a cube the size of a sugar lump, and with a color and texture to match.
Those devices were, for now, unpowered. However—and far more importantly—they were fully functional—and utterly unique.
His curled lip instantly changed into a terrifying snarl as he revised that thought, for they were not entirely unique.
His student, after all, possessed identical ones.
Sitting at his very off-campus office terminal, Professor Harmony was updating his students’ files and reports. Much to his surprise—and would have surprised others in his past, had they but ever known—Octavius Harmony had discovered that he enjoyed teaching…
…to a point, and with provisos.
While neither requiring nor insisting his students match his brilliance and genius—after all, who could?— Professor Harmony did demand they strive to do so. Those who couldn’t—or, worse, wouldn’t—found short shrift with him, while those who, at least, tried…well, he certainly wouldn’t coddle them, true enough, but he would encourage and guide…
…having favors owed, and available for calling in, after all, never hurt.
And for those that did manage to do so?
Harmony’s curious, slate-grey eyes glittered, his lips curled even more.
In his entire life he had, once—just once!—met an individual with the potential of almost matching his own. And, like so many others in his past…
Reclining back, his eyes closed and fingers once more laced across his chest, Octavius Harmony relaxed as his thoughts drifted back…
For as far back as he could remember, Octavius had been…different. In the beginning, that conclusion was based upon how others, including his parents, had acted around and towards him.
However, as he had matured, he had quickly realized that others’ perceptions of him had not been the reason for their behavior: his talents, intellect—his raw genius and obvious superiority—were the reasons. His IQ had been, well…quite obviously “off-the-charts”, for it had been painfully evident how brilliant, how talented and gifted, he’d been, and just as clear how puerile his so-called peers were.
And not only his “peers”.
Honestly, he had been flat-out astonished—as well as infuriated and offended—with the maturity and acumen “grown-ups” displayed. Or, and more accurately, failed to demonstrate. Enraged, as well, at their constant negativity towards, and inability to comprehend commonsensical practicality. What was important were results, no matter how achieved. How hard was that to understand?
Apparently, quite hard.
He could easily describe the mandated school years in exactly two words: Boring and pointless. Well, three words, to be scrupulously accurate: Boring, pointless…and infuriating.
Multiple scholarships had awaited him by then, and the moment Octavius had officially graduated…he was gone, immediately departing the auditorium and heading off to his fortunes, leaving his past—and parents—behind.
With absolute, single-minded focus, he had achieved seven minors and two majors from Stanford University, the latter being in theoretical physics and the other in biophysics, by the time he had been struck by an epiphany. He was meant to dominate his chosen fields, ordained to be recognized as—not just his generation’s, but all—the genius he so clearly was, destined to be awarded accolades, positions, titles, and wealth.
And why not? Experience had already proven to Octavius that such was not only within his grasp but was already being accomplished.
In addition to his undeniable genius, he was also amazingly charming and witty…dangerously so, in fact, for Octavius had no hesitation with exploiting others—sometimes in harmful ways—for his own gain or pleasure, frequently manipulating and deceiving them, achieving that through wit and a façade of superficial charm, aided, at times, through intimidation, although eschewing violence altogether.
Therefore, it came as no surprise when he was approached by DARPA for an “informal interview”. And never had there been a more perfect match than that between Dr. Octavius Harmony and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. At the pinnacle of his career, Octavius had been directly assigned to three different technical offices: DSO, STO, and BTO. Although excelling with both the Defense Sciences Office and Strategic Technology Office, it was the Biological Technologies Office where he truly shone.
But with great success also comes distrust and jealousy.
The ultimate betrayal came, not from backstabbing inferiors, but from—of all things!—technology. The “Computer Age” had not just hamstrung the completion of his greatest achievements but had decapitated them as well.
Take, for instance, night vision. Long a goal of the military, real night vision had been a long-sought Grail, and Dr. Harmony had actually created bio-techniques to enhance natural vision, expanding the ‘visual’ range to include infrared. That, by far, was a decidedly vast improvement over image intensifiers which, by their very nature, were of considerable size and weight.
But then came the advent of night vision devices and thermal imaging cameras, both made possible by increasingly smaller and more powerful microprocessors, supported by concurrent technological advances.
Another example had been in the field of memory, encoding storage, and retrieval: the creation of a durable, memory-storage system that was both robust…and portable. Considering the RAMAC 305 had been the size of two refrigerators, had used fifty 24-inch platters, and had held only five megabytes of data, DARPA had been eager to develop better memory storage devices. Therefore, Dr. Harmony had begun researching that, and, as a result of his brilliance, had created a revolutionary means of doing so: Molecular circuitry storage.
However, once again, technology had trampled his genius. Within a seeming blink of time, memory storage had rapidly evolved. Advancing from platters to immense hard drives, and from there to increasingly smaller and higher capacity hard drives, to removable drives as well. While portable media emerged from eight-inch ‘floppy disks’, passed through to five-and-a-quarter inch, before finally arriving at three-and-a-half, the latter storing the data the RAMAC 305 had held on just four of them! And now, with solid-state drives…
Blinking as he shook off the dregs of woolgathering, the remembrance of his memory, encoding storage, and retrieval project being shut down still infuriated him. Yes, yes, he'd testily admitted. It was amazing to have 128GB of non-volatile storage on something smaller than a pack of gum.
Octavius glanced down at the small cube he had been toying with. He had to play with it where it was, since, at three-and-a-half kilograms, it was a bit uncomfortable to pick up and manipulate with fingers. Lips again curling at the corners as he lovingly caressed its surface, he accepted, once more, that its mass was a minimal price to pay for an exabyte storage medium. So let them have their measly 128GB!
And an indestructible storage medium, at that. Or, well, indestructible relative to anything it might reasonably be expected to encounter, Octavius revised; ‘reasonably’ including being exposed to a thirteen megaton thermonuclear explosion…a necessary qualification test, unfortunately requiring a contrived “accidental” warhead detonation.
After all, omelets were not made without breaking a few eggs.
His time with DARPA had served him well, for, tucked amongst the data harvested from his lessers and the experience and knowledge gleaned from his unparalleled experiments and research had been several serendipitous discoveries, one of them being how quantity could, at times, best even the most paramount of quality.
He had had his opponents at DARPA, especially at BTO. Rivals, as well, although, he derisively snorted, “rival” only in their eyes; after all, he had no real competition. When he had finally “tendered his resignation”, having seen the handwriting on the wall, they had believed they’d seen and heard the last of Doctor Octavius Harmony; that, having been mortally wounded at their “victory”, he would simply slink off, metaphoric tail between his legs, and fade away into the mists of defeat.
What his “vanquishers” had overlooked entirely and had utterly missed—no surprise there—had been that Octavius had not been defeated; had not supinely surrendered. Hell, he had not even “strategically withdrawn”!
Octavius had had a second epiphany towards the end of his time with DARPA. Yes, he was still meant to dominate his chosen fields, as, indeed, he had. And, yes, he still deserved recognition the world over as the genius extraordinaire he was. However, as to being awarded accolades, positions, titles, and wealth?
Lips curved into a smile that would chill a star’s heart, Doctor Octavius Harmony’s eyes malevolently glittered. His destiny had never been, he had finally realized, to be awarded anything. After all, a true conqueror did not accept accolades, positions, wealth, or—and especially so—titles.
He claimed them…mercilessly grinding adversaries and opponents under heel as he did.
Rising up, he methodically paced out into the corridors of his off-campus quarters…off-grid as well as off-campus; here again, lessons learned at DARPA had proved useful. Octavius highly doubted his “friends” back there had, in good riddance, simply washed their hands of him. Then again, why rely on something as intangible as such a cognitive process as doubt when you can obtain concrete proof by simple surveillance? So, since they were keeping tabs on him, why not show them what they expected?
Disdainfully sneering and snorting in memory, Octavius had shown those credulous buffoons precisely what they had expected to see, and quite the classic misdirection that had been, too! They had expected him to retreat into a private sanctum sanctorum, there to continue his futile, dead-end research and experiments, and so he had. What they had not accounted for, however, were the many favors owed him.
So, given a little effort and scrutiny, everything a nosy busybody might expect to find was, indeed, listed on public record. The demesnes might be private—and, indeed, they were; however, no more so than other, reclusive personalities, obtained—but they certainly were not concealed, let alone hidden! Items such as utilities and maintenance were also with norms for a structure of this size. However…
There was more—much more—here than met any mere eye.
Purposefully striding towards his destination, Professor Harmony traveled pitch-black hallways with neither stumble nor hesitation, pausing only to open the biometrically-locked and secured doors along his way. He no longer needed external light to dispell darkness for him to see, having personally availed himself of the fruits of his own labors.
Finally pausing outside yet another biometrically-locked door, Professor Harmony’s thoughts drifted back to what, as it had transpired, had been the final straw to the DARPA dogs nipping at his heels: Magic.
Oh, he hadn’t called it that, of course, especially not in anything official. But the fact of the matter was that Doctor Harmony, in the course of researching the then-budding field of biomedical engineering, had discovered extremely odd energy signals. And not just bizarre, but unique and heretofore undetected.
For one of the very few times in his life, Octavius had suffered an ill-timed, indiscreet slip of the tongue. Preoccupied with altering a preexisting device to more accurately detect those minuscule energy signals—and having no idea that several Department heads were intentionally within earshot but without eyesight—Octavius had testily, and quite curtly, answered the inane question posed to him by an idiotic underling regarding those energy signals with ‘It’s magic,’ when he’d meant to say ‘It’s like magic’.
Octavius often wondered just how much of an injudicious slip that had been, after all, or had that been Destiny’s hand? Because, as what was rapidly becoming apparent to him, should anyone unearth the science behind that mysterious energy, and subsequently learn how to manipulate and use that…
The low, deep chuckle that rumbled from within his chest after that thought would have terrified the most stalwart of hearts.
Had Professor Harmony entertained even the slightest of doubts regarding his Destiny, why, just look at what She had handed him! Twice!
In his entire life he had, once—just once!—met an individual with the potential of almost matching his own. And, like so many others in his past, it had taken no effort at all to entice Twilight Sparkle into doing what he needed doing: first, researching those mysterious energy signals, and secondly, delving out the rules by which it operated. Derisively snorting, he remembered the exact bait he’d trolled before her:
Magic: A Natural, Measurable Force
How delightful that had been, using the very description those clowns back at DARPA had used against him!
And how amazing her performance to date had been. The various pieces of equipment shelved back in his one office were identical to the ones Miss Sparkle had either modified or had designed, for instance. And her work on focusing in on the emission loci was equally laudable.
And all this had cost him so far was seeing to it that she had been assigned one of the highly-sought-after campus studio apartments and, of course, drawing her deeper into his web of control by a few kind words.
And when the moment in time finally arrived, everything—everything!—she had discovered, everything she had discussed and brainstormed with him…every detail, no matter how small, would have already been recorded on his little cube.
Just as everything else he had considered useable—no matter how seemingly trivial it might appear at first blush—had been recorded…including the entirety of DARPA’s records.
Now, as to Destiny’s other little gift to him?
Once again, his lips curved into a chilling smile. He’d always known the power of his voice and words; had always been aware of his charismatic personality and compelling nature. Life was filled with those enthralled to him…and his wake littered with the corpses—literal as well as figurative—of those who had betrayed or failed. However—and, quite possibly, for the first time ever—Octavius Harmony had come up second-best.
Unlocking the sealed door, Octavius stepped into the anteroom of the experimental laboratory. Specifically, the vestibule for the lab’s holding cells. Three of them were unhappily occupied; well, unhappily for the test subjects, that is. At the moment, they were untidily sprawled on the floor of their cells, either sleeping or unconscious.
Octavius had, with absolute cunning, constructed the holding area to be completely soundproof, and had followed that by devising the cells so that occupants could not see into each others’ cell…for the most part. Should two adjacent occupants tightly press against the transparent, unbreakable ceramic (yet another invention created by him from research “borrowed” from DARPA’s largesse) that sealed off the front of their cells, and then strain as far to the corner as they could reach, they could, just barely, glimpse each other.
And, in what could only be described as pure, distilled irony, had been the moment he’d discovered the power this trio had once possessed, having used his own skills of charm and blandishment to enthrall and entice them into his control.
His fingers lightly brushed the labels affixed to the outside of the holding cells and uniquely assigned to each of his specimens:
With yet another smile, this one cunning and possessive, Professor Harmony lightly touched the label of the as-yet unoccupied fourth cell: