"Wait, I didn't understand any of it," Dr. Jacobi said when Dr. Johannson shut off the computer screen and pulled him out of the room.
"That's a very good thing," Dr. Stevenson said. "If you understand it, it means you've had a psychotic break. Sit." She pushed him into a chair and wheeled around the cluttered table, sitting across from him. "How do you feel?"
"A little headachy, I guess. Could be the caffeine." Dr. Stevenson nodded, jotting notes down. "No different from before looking at it," Dr. Jacobi said. "Should I be thinking about it?"
"Are you happier? Sadder? Angrier?" Dr. Stevenson stared into him. "Have your emotions changed at all from the pre-interview?"
"Not that I can figure," Dr. Jacobi said. "Other than confusion. Can you tell me what it was?"
"A transcript," Dr. Stevenson said, writing notes on the piece of paper in front of her. "Taken from a stone tablet found in Iran. It's covered in Elamite script."
"That's what those symbols were?"
"That's right. It's one of the older languages, long-dead." She pulled her laptop close. "Stopped being used around three hundred B.C. It's a language isolate, which makes translation difficult at the least. What you saw was the oldest known form, Old Elamite. It could be up to five millenia old."
"So why is being able to understand it evidence of a psychosis?"
Stevenson looked up. "You misunderstand. It doesn't give evidence, it causes psychosis."
"What?" Jacobi said, leaning back. "That can't be possible."
Stevenson spun her computer around, so he could see the screen. "This is Professor Kazmi." Her screen showed a sun-burnt Iranian man, squatting next to a hole in the dust, grinning at the camera. He wore a wide hat, sunglasses, gloves, and dirty pants and shirt, and held a small metal tool hand. "He's the one who found it. He's one of Iran's leading Elamite experts. He's been on the hunt for language fragments for decades. This tablet represented a major breakthrough for his studies."
Jacobi turned his head, looking at her with one eye. "But..."
Stevenson sighed. "But, he's currently missing. It's a long story, and I don't think it's necessary to tell all of it. He killed two of the people at the dig with him in...horribly painful manners. He injured two more, and another received wounds trying to detain him, but they were minor. It happened during the night, and he escaped into the desert." She spun the laptop around so she could use it. "That happened three months ago; no one has seen him since. He's likely dead."
"I'm sorry."
"I'd never met him." Stevenson continued typing. "I heard about it after the fact, and set up this study with Dr. Zabka. Now that we've determined you won't undergo a psychotic break due to viewing the tablet text, you can join us."
Dr. Jacobi sat with his mouth open. "What would you have done...y'know, if..."
Dr. Stevenson slid a drawer open, revealing a Glock .22. She replaced it. "Just for emergencies, of course. You should meet Dr. Zabka." She stood up, and hurried out the door. Jacobi chased after her until they got to another office, this one much cleaner and smaller. A wall of thick textbooks surrounded a hunched-over man. His head snapped back and forth between it and a notepad, which was covered with strings of tiny, immaculate notes. Stevenson bustled right in, her presence enough to interrupt the man.
"Dr. Zabka, may I introduce Dr. Carl Jacobi, our new research assistant. Dr. Jacobi, Dr. Peter Zabka."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Jacobi said, stepping forward with his hand out. Dr. Zabka stood, adjusted his shirt, and held his hand out for Jacobi to grasp. The handshake was quick, due to Zabka disengaging almost as soon as they touched.
"A pleasure to meet you," Zabka said, already back to his work and hiding himself from view.
"Dr. Jacobi will be assisting me with interviews and test," Dr. Stevenson said. "He possesses a PHD in clinical research, and has experience with archeological work." She looked at Jacobi. "Any questions?"
Jacobi shrugged. "Do I have an office?"
"Isn't this kind of dangerous?" Jacobi asked. "Exposing people to something you suspect to...cause psychosis?"
"Science isn't supposed to be easy," Stevenson said. "While Dr. Zabka works on the translation, we conduct clinical trials. At-will tests to see how people respond to the tablet."
"Doctor, do you really believe the tablet caused Professor Kazmi's mental break?"
Dr. Stevenson narrowed her eyes. "Believe? Yes. Am I sure? Of course not, that's what being a scientist is about." She slapped her hand onto a stack of papers. "These forms cover a wide range of possible effects one might have. What I do know is Professor Kazmi is the only one to have gone mad directly after viewing the tablet, and he is an expert in Elamite. Is it such a leap of logic to imagine understanding the tablet causes some breakage in the psyche? Exposes some drop of madness we all possess?" She looked at Jacobi suddenly, startling him. "Isn't it possible?"
"Well, yes, I suppose. But what if-"
"Kazmi was already suffering from a form of mental unhealthiness? Of course. I've looked over the details of the incident at the dig site, though details are...scattered at best, useless at worst. Why do you think we're conducting this study? For giggles?"
"Well, no-"
"How incredible of a discovery would it be if a few markings scratched on a stone tablet can effect the mind so much!" Stevenson poked her forehead. "Awards for everyone!"
She dug through the pieces of paper in front of her. "We have a few ideas lined up." She scratched her chin. "First is a re-introduction test. That'll be you, of course. We'll keep you strapped down, just in case. There will be a few forms for you to fill out." Jacobi thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. "I've already started the second phase, which is to take people off the street and expose them to the tablet. After that, it's introducing it to those with abnormal mental faculties."
"Excuse me," Jacobi said, his hand raised. "What was that last one?"
"We're covering all of our bases, Dr. Jacobi," Stevenson said. She wiped a tangle of hairs out of her eyes. "We have to know what effects, if any, the tablet has on people with prior known psychosis."
Jacobi sucked in a breath. "I can't help but notice there may be legal...difficulties...with such an experiment."
"The best experiments always have legal difficulties. Don't you fret," Stevenson said, pulling her laptop close to her. "I have gone through all the proper channels. Nobody's rights will be infringed. Everyone who views the tablet will do so under their own power, of their own volition, and with as much safety as we can afford, up to and including security personnel, constricting elements, medical health professionals, and personal lawyers. Shall we get started?"
"D-Doing...what, exactly?"
"Read these," Dr. Stevenson said. "Make sure you understand and agree with the details within. Tomorrow we'll conduct the re-introduction test."
"Uh-"
"It just means you'll get another look at the tablet, just to see if repeated viewings has any kind of different effect."
"Are you going to have a pistol pointed at my head the whole time?"
Stevenson laughed but, Jacobi noticed, didn't say no.
"All set?" Stevenson asked the next morning.
"I suppose," Jacobi answered, wrists bound with leather straps. He sat in front of a blank computer screen. "I'm a little nervous."
Stevenson cleared her throat. "There's nothing to worry about, probably." Dr. Zabka, also in the room, hadn't said a word since entering, though he tended to sigh whenever Stevenson spoke. "When I hit the button on this remote, the picture of the tablet will appear. Please explain to us sensations, normal or abnormal, you seem to be undergoing." Stevenson and Zabka sat across from Jacobi at the table, unable to see the screen. "Ready?"
"Yes," Jacobi said. Stevenson pressed a clicker, and the screen changed to a high-definition image of the tablet, the same he had seen the day before. "I'm looking around the outside of the tablet first. I'm wondering how long it was buried under the ground. The edges look incredibly worn--nearly round. The symbols at the very top, bottom, and sides are somewhat dull and worn, harder to make out."
Stevenson and Zabka wrote as Jacobi continued. "Of course, I don't understand any of it," he said. "I've never seen the Elamite language before, even during grad school. I've heard of it, though."
"Can you parse information of any kind?" Stevenson asked.
Jacobi leaned as close to the screen as his bindings would allow. Clinical interest replaced nervousness. "...There are a few repeated patterns. There's a strange symbol that occurs only once, right in the center. It looks out of place."
Stevenson looked aside at Zabka. "The one you told me about last week." Zabka nodded. Stevenson turned back to Jacobi. "Describe it."
"It...most of the others have diagonal lines, but this one is mostly lines radiating in cardinal directions. They...I detect some sort of curve in them, but they don't seem to vary in tilt...they are chiseled at varying depths in the stone. While all the others could be trees of some kind...this one looks more like an explosion."
"Good," Stevenson said. "More."
I may be mistaken," Jacobi said. "But I believe I see a chiasmus of the symbols."
"Elucidate," Stevenson said.
"There are a few phrases, for lack of a better word, that repeat in reverse order later on. There are several. The moment of switch from from introduction to repetition seems to be the strange symbol I described."
"Feel anything?" Stevenson asked. Jacobi shook his head. "Nothing? A pressure? A lack? Strange thoughts?"
"Nothing's changed, other than maybe I should have used the bathroom before letting you strap me in." Jacobi chuckled.
Neither of the people across the table laughed. Stevenson raised an eyebrow, and Zabka watched him without expression. "Do you see anything else interesting?" Stevenson said.
"Hmm..." Jacobi inspected the tablet's markings. "There is a two-symbol phrase I see a few times. It could be a..." He leaned back against the chair quickly enough to shift it. "Whoa."
"What is it?" Stevenson said. She was half out of her chair. Zabka hadn't moved.
Jacobi leaned forward again. "The two-symbol phrase...four dots in a square, and then an upside-down Y with dots at the end of each line...it occurs five times. Top left, top right, middle left, middle right, bottom left. The missing chunk on the bottom right might contain a final repetition."
"Do you derive any meaning from the symbol?"
Jacobi shook his head. "No, I just noticed its position." He hummed to himself. "The two middle occurrences are on the same line as the out-of-place symbol."
Zabka spoke up. "Tell me the other symbols on the middle line.
Jacobi studied them. He strained at the straps. "Three lines, going horizontal, the middle one with a small circle or dot equidistant from the edges. A small parabola, starting low, going up and then back down. A squat diamond, and a four-sided symbol that looks like it has horns." He leaned back.
Zabka was frowning at his pad of paper. Stevenson was bobbing her head up and down in a grotesque nod. "Feel any different?" she asked.
"No, not at all. Other than a purely scientific interest in seeing what was on the missing chunk. Was that left off on purpose?"
"No," Stevenson said, rising. She pressed the clicker, and the screen lost the image of the tablet. "It was never found, not even after Kazmi ran into the desert. Come, we can do the rest of the interview in my office."
They left Dr. Zabka, who was frowning at his notes. "A four-sided symbol with horns?" he said to himself softly. He used the computer to view the tablet. He narrowed his eyes at the line in the middle, with the symbol Jacobi had described as an explosion. He looked for something one could interpret as a four-sided symbol with horns. He shook his head, and switched off the image. He curled his left hand into a wrinkled mass of skin, and nearly slammed it down on the table. He closed his eyes. He opened them and inspected his notes. They were squeezed into the lines, going up and down and around the page. To most people they would have made zero sense, but Zabka understood them perfectly. He left the room and switched the light off.
"Morning doctor," Jacobi said, meeting Zabka in the hall and holding a cup of coffee for him. "How goes the translation?"
Zabka proceeded as if Jacobi hadn't spoken. "Was there anything noteworthy from the tests yesterday?"
"Well, no, honestly. Twenty people, and the tablet didn't have an effect on any of them. I'm doing follow-up calls, and we asked them to be prepared to answer, or at least return the call as soon as possible. Perhaps it has some sort of time-release effect."
"Doubt it," Zabka said. "Kazmi still had the tablet in his hands when he started raving." Zabka stood in the middle of the hallway like a statue, haggard and un-shaven face going slack and pulling downward.
"Doctor? Are you all right?"
Zabka looked up. "Of course I am." He pushed past Jacobi without another word.
Jacobi entered Stevenson's office, placing a cup of coffee in front of her. "Good morning."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" She snatched the cup up and drank.
"About Zabka..." Jacobi sat across from her. "He seemed out of it just a minute ago, in the hall. He didn't even take his coffee."
"Peter isn't much of a coffee drinker." Stevenson sipped her own. "I shouldn't say much, but he has been having a difficult time. He's thrown himself into his work because, well, his work can't leave him and take the kids and the dog. He's not a bad man, he's just a bit prickly. You'll come to love him." She thought for a moment. "Ready to get started?"
"Before we being...is there any danger to Dr. Zabka studying the tablet so intensely? Could it have a cumulative effect? Or a random chance per viewing?"
Stevenson shook her head. "Peter and I both went though intense psychological evaluation. We're as solid as Everest."
Jacobi nodded. "Granted, but you said the tablet does not reveal psychosis, it creates it."
"I appreciate your worry, young man," Stevenson said, grinning, "but there's no reason to fret. Dr. Zabka has been doing this sort of study for longer than you have been alive. He knows what he's doing."
"If you say so," Jacobi said. Stevenson sipped her coffee and held out her hand. He put a folder into it, and she flipped the folder open.
"When do you begin the calls?" she asked as she read.
"In about an hour," Jacobi said. "The schedule is on page four."
Stevenson flicked papers out of the way until she reached it. "I see. Everything looks good, then." She pushed the folder, nearly into Jacobi's lap. "Plenty to do here to get ready for the third step." She picked up her phone. "It seems a fair number of so-called 'medical professionals' don't appreciate the idea of exposing mentally-disturbed individuals to potentially-triggering stimuli. I've been looking everywhere for someone who will at least listen."
"I'll leave you to it," Jacobi said, rising and finding his own office. He got ready, and when the time came, he called the first person on his list.
"Good morning, Mr. Ritzone. How are you feeling?" Jacobi listened for a few seconds. "Excellent. Well, I have a few questions for you. Shouldn't take more than about fifteen minutes. Give as little or as much detail as you think is necessary."
He made his way down the list, staring through the open doorway of his office into the hall. Each person he called stated their soundness of mind and body, save incidental sicknesses or minor ailments. Jacobi went on for a few hours, recording observations, and relaying the time and date of an additional follow-up call he would make. Near noon he was listening to one of the participants explain her sciatica when he saw Dr. Zabka walk past, Glock in hand.
Jacobi let the phone fall onto the desk as he leapt up, blood frozen in his veins. He hauled himself around the desk and strode toward the hall. He watched Zabka's heel disappear into Stevenson's office.
His entire body went cold. His mind screamed at him to run, or to dash forward and leap on Zabka from behind. The first gunshot startled him into action, ringing his ears. He threw himself against the wall next to Stevenson's door, trying to hear.
"There was never any rope," Zabka whispered. Jacobi heard labored breathing.
"Was it the tablet?" he heard Stevenson say. Every word sounded like a needle jabbing into her arm. A loud groan came, in her voice. "At least tell me that."
Jacobi peered into the office to see Zabka standing with his back to the door, shaking his head. Stevenson was against the wall, trying to stop the blood pouring from her stomach. The room smelled like smoke. The gun was at Zabka's feet, under his limp hand.
"Then why?" Stevenson managed to say. Her face was twisted in pain, and he couldn't turn away from her agonized expression. For a moment, the only sound was dripping blood.
"It was an excuse," Zabka said. "It's the only reason I wanted to join the project in the first place." Each word landed on top of the other, like bricks stacking up to build an obscene monument. "Do you know what it's like to lose everything? To have NOTHING!" The shout made Jacobi jump. "To have it all taken away? I decided I would try to decode the tablet. If what you said about Professor Fazmi was true, then if I understood the tablet, I would have a foolproof reason to lose my mind. And look." Jacobi saw him gesture at Stevenson's blood-stained clothes. "I don't feel a thing."
"Why would you want to have a break?" Stevenson's face was pale.
"Because I have lived my life the hard way for decades. For once, I wanted to go the easy route." And Zabka bent down to pick the gun off the floor. "What could be easier?" He aimed the gun at her. Jacobi shut his eyes and stopped his ears with his hands. Nothing came. He heard muffled talking, and removed his hands. "...Just escape the pain, now can I," Zabka was saying. "With a bullet in your stomach, you'll suffer the most intense pain you can imagine...and then you will die." The mad old researcher sighed. "Now, I wonder where the other one is."
Stevenson kept her eyes off of Jacobi. "He heard the gunshot. He's probably long gone by now," she said, and gave a little laugh, despite the immediate pain it caused her.
"It doesn't matter," Zabka said. "As long as more people die." He turned around before Jacobi could vacate the doorway. Jacobi saw an empty face, smooth compared to the lines dominating Stevenson's tortured face. The eyes were wide open, not shadowed by heavy brows or squinting. The mouth sat neutral, not smiling or frowning, and Jacobi backed away. "There you are."
Jacobi ran, heading for the exit. He reached into his pocket for his phone, finding his pocket empty. He made it to the door, bright sunlight on the other side, and crashed into it, falling. He surged up, rising in an instant, and hauled on the door. His eyes focused on the door's lock. It was turned ninety degrees.
A bullet turned one of the door's window panes to pieces of silver noise, and Jacobi threw his hands around his head. His ears rang. He dove sideways, into the room with the computer screen they used to display the tablet. He fell inside. Scrambling to the table and pulling himself up, he nudged the computer's mouse, bringing it out of sleep mode. A stupid idea dropped, fully-formed, inside his head, and he scrambled with the computer. Finished, he pressed himself against the wall next to the left side of the doorway.
Zabka entered the room, eyes on the screen. "I spent all that time trying to translate it, and all I had to do in the end was go mad."
Jacobi tackled him, before he had a chance to bring the gun across his body. It skittered out of his hand, into a corner of the room, and Zabka's head cracked against the floor. Jacobi laid on top of him. "So what does it say, then?" Jacobi asked, after striking Zabka in the mouth with a fist. "Can you tell me, or is your mind too blended?"
Zabka's laugh sent a bloom of fear in Jacobi's stomach. "It says 'You aren't the first to read this, and you aren't the last. You, Peter Zabka, are just the latest. You are looking for an escape, well, take it. This is not the last time these words will be written, and this is not the first."
"I guess he forgot about modern medical techniques," Stevenson said, a few days later. She was resting in her hospital bed, tubes and lines running to and fro across her. "And morphine."
"Do you believe him?" Jacobi asked, sitting next to her bed.
Stevenson played with the sheets covering her legs for a moment. "I'm not sure. Was he looking for an excuse? That's not how it seemed. There were too many similarities between him and Professor Kazmi." She looked up at him. "What was it Peter said about the tablet?"
"A lot," Jacobi said. "Some things we'll have to discuss. Personally, I think the tablet belongs back in the hole Fazmi found it in."
"The archaeological community will never allow that."
This is not the last time these words will be written, and this is not the first. "No, I'm afraid not."
"That's a very good thing," Dr. Stevenson said. "If you understand it, it means you've had a psychotic break. Sit." She pushed him into a chair and wheeled around the cluttered table, sitting across from him. "How do you feel?"
"A little headachy, I guess. Could be the caffeine." Dr. Stevenson nodded, jotting notes down. "No different from before looking at it," Dr. Jacobi said. "Should I be thinking about it?"
"Are you happier? Sadder? Angrier?" Dr. Stevenson stared into him. "Have your emotions changed at all from the pre-interview?"
"Not that I can figure," Dr. Jacobi said. "Other than confusion. Can you tell me what it was?"
"A transcript," Dr. Stevenson said, writing notes on the piece of paper in front of her. "Taken from a stone tablet found in Iran. It's covered in Elamite script."
"That's what those symbols were?"
"That's right. It's one of the older languages, long-dead." She pulled her laptop close. "Stopped being used around three hundred B.C. It's a language isolate, which makes translation difficult at the least. What you saw was the oldest known form, Old Elamite. It could be up to five millenia old."
"So why is being able to understand it evidence of a psychosis?"
Stevenson looked up. "You misunderstand. It doesn't give evidence, it causes psychosis."
"What?" Jacobi said, leaning back. "That can't be possible."
Stevenson spun her computer around, so he could see the screen. "This is Professor Kazmi." Her screen showed a sun-burnt Iranian man, squatting next to a hole in the dust, grinning at the camera. He wore a wide hat, sunglasses, gloves, and dirty pants and shirt, and held a small metal tool hand. "He's the one who found it. He's one of Iran's leading Elamite experts. He's been on the hunt for language fragments for decades. This tablet represented a major breakthrough for his studies."
Jacobi turned his head, looking at her with one eye. "But..."
Stevenson sighed. "But, he's currently missing. It's a long story, and I don't think it's necessary to tell all of it. He killed two of the people at the dig with him in...horribly painful manners. He injured two more, and another received wounds trying to detain him, but they were minor. It happened during the night, and he escaped into the desert." She spun the laptop around so she could use it. "That happened three months ago; no one has seen him since. He's likely dead."
"I'm sorry."
"I'd never met him." Stevenson continued typing. "I heard about it after the fact, and set up this study with Dr. Zabka. Now that we've determined you won't undergo a psychotic break due to viewing the tablet text, you can join us."
Dr. Jacobi sat with his mouth open. "What would you have done...y'know, if..."
Dr. Stevenson slid a drawer open, revealing a Glock .22. She replaced it. "Just for emergencies, of course. You should meet Dr. Zabka." She stood up, and hurried out the door. Jacobi chased after her until they got to another office, this one much cleaner and smaller. A wall of thick textbooks surrounded a hunched-over man. His head snapped back and forth between it and a notepad, which was covered with strings of tiny, immaculate notes. Stevenson bustled right in, her presence enough to interrupt the man.
"Dr. Zabka, may I introduce Dr. Carl Jacobi, our new research assistant. Dr. Jacobi, Dr. Peter Zabka."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Jacobi said, stepping forward with his hand out. Dr. Zabka stood, adjusted his shirt, and held his hand out for Jacobi to grasp. The handshake was quick, due to Zabka disengaging almost as soon as they touched.
"A pleasure to meet you," Zabka said, already back to his work and hiding himself from view.
"Dr. Jacobi will be assisting me with interviews and test," Dr. Stevenson said. "He possesses a PHD in clinical research, and has experience with archeological work." She looked at Jacobi. "Any questions?"
Jacobi shrugged. "Do I have an office?"
"Isn't this kind of dangerous?" Jacobi asked. "Exposing people to something you suspect to...cause psychosis?"
"Science isn't supposed to be easy," Stevenson said. "While Dr. Zabka works on the translation, we conduct clinical trials. At-will tests to see how people respond to the tablet."
"Doctor, do you really believe the tablet caused Professor Kazmi's mental break?"
Dr. Stevenson narrowed her eyes. "Believe? Yes. Am I sure? Of course not, that's what being a scientist is about." She slapped her hand onto a stack of papers. "These forms cover a wide range of possible effects one might have. What I do know is Professor Kazmi is the only one to have gone mad directly after viewing the tablet, and he is an expert in Elamite. Is it such a leap of logic to imagine understanding the tablet causes some breakage in the psyche? Exposes some drop of madness we all possess?" She looked at Jacobi suddenly, startling him. "Isn't it possible?"
"Well, yes, I suppose. But what if-"
"Kazmi was already suffering from a form of mental unhealthiness? Of course. I've looked over the details of the incident at the dig site, though details are...scattered at best, useless at worst. Why do you think we're conducting this study? For giggles?"
"Well, no-"
"How incredible of a discovery would it be if a few markings scratched on a stone tablet can effect the mind so much!" Stevenson poked her forehead. "Awards for everyone!"
She dug through the pieces of paper in front of her. "We have a few ideas lined up." She scratched her chin. "First is a re-introduction test. That'll be you, of course. We'll keep you strapped down, just in case. There will be a few forms for you to fill out." Jacobi thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. "I've already started the second phase, which is to take people off the street and expose them to the tablet. After that, it's introducing it to those with abnormal mental faculties."
"Excuse me," Jacobi said, his hand raised. "What was that last one?"
"We're covering all of our bases, Dr. Jacobi," Stevenson said. She wiped a tangle of hairs out of her eyes. "We have to know what effects, if any, the tablet has on people with prior known psychosis."
Jacobi sucked in a breath. "I can't help but notice there may be legal...difficulties...with such an experiment."
"The best experiments always have legal difficulties. Don't you fret," Stevenson said, pulling her laptop close to her. "I have gone through all the proper channels. Nobody's rights will be infringed. Everyone who views the tablet will do so under their own power, of their own volition, and with as much safety as we can afford, up to and including security personnel, constricting elements, medical health professionals, and personal lawyers. Shall we get started?"
"D-Doing...what, exactly?"
"Read these," Dr. Stevenson said. "Make sure you understand and agree with the details within. Tomorrow we'll conduct the re-introduction test."
"Uh-"
"It just means you'll get another look at the tablet, just to see if repeated viewings has any kind of different effect."
"Are you going to have a pistol pointed at my head the whole time?"
Stevenson laughed but, Jacobi noticed, didn't say no.
"All set?" Stevenson asked the next morning.
"I suppose," Jacobi answered, wrists bound with leather straps. He sat in front of a blank computer screen. "I'm a little nervous."
Stevenson cleared her throat. "There's nothing to worry about, probably." Dr. Zabka, also in the room, hadn't said a word since entering, though he tended to sigh whenever Stevenson spoke. "When I hit the button on this remote, the picture of the tablet will appear. Please explain to us sensations, normal or abnormal, you seem to be undergoing." Stevenson and Zabka sat across from Jacobi at the table, unable to see the screen. "Ready?"
"Yes," Jacobi said. Stevenson pressed a clicker, and the screen changed to a high-definition image of the tablet, the same he had seen the day before. "I'm looking around the outside of the tablet first. I'm wondering how long it was buried under the ground. The edges look incredibly worn--nearly round. The symbols at the very top, bottom, and sides are somewhat dull and worn, harder to make out."
Stevenson and Zabka wrote as Jacobi continued. "Of course, I don't understand any of it," he said. "I've never seen the Elamite language before, even during grad school. I've heard of it, though."
"Can you parse information of any kind?" Stevenson asked.
Jacobi leaned as close to the screen as his bindings would allow. Clinical interest replaced nervousness. "...There are a few repeated patterns. There's a strange symbol that occurs only once, right in the center. It looks out of place."
Stevenson looked aside at Zabka. "The one you told me about last week." Zabka nodded. Stevenson turned back to Jacobi. "Describe it."
"It...most of the others have diagonal lines, but this one is mostly lines radiating in cardinal directions. They...I detect some sort of curve in them, but they don't seem to vary in tilt...they are chiseled at varying depths in the stone. While all the others could be trees of some kind...this one looks more like an explosion."
"Good," Stevenson said. "More."
I may be mistaken," Jacobi said. "But I believe I see a chiasmus of the symbols."
"Elucidate," Stevenson said.
"There are a few phrases, for lack of a better word, that repeat in reverse order later on. There are several. The moment of switch from from introduction to repetition seems to be the strange symbol I described."
"Feel anything?" Stevenson asked. Jacobi shook his head. "Nothing? A pressure? A lack? Strange thoughts?"
"Nothing's changed, other than maybe I should have used the bathroom before letting you strap me in." Jacobi chuckled.
Neither of the people across the table laughed. Stevenson raised an eyebrow, and Zabka watched him without expression. "Do you see anything else interesting?" Stevenson said.
"Hmm..." Jacobi inspected the tablet's markings. "There is a two-symbol phrase I see a few times. It could be a..." He leaned back against the chair quickly enough to shift it. "Whoa."
"What is it?" Stevenson said. She was half out of her chair. Zabka hadn't moved.
Jacobi leaned forward again. "The two-symbol phrase...four dots in a square, and then an upside-down Y with dots at the end of each line...it occurs five times. Top left, top right, middle left, middle right, bottom left. The missing chunk on the bottom right might contain a final repetition."
"Do you derive any meaning from the symbol?"
Jacobi shook his head. "No, I just noticed its position." He hummed to himself. "The two middle occurrences are on the same line as the out-of-place symbol."
Zabka spoke up. "Tell me the other symbols on the middle line.
Jacobi studied them. He strained at the straps. "Three lines, going horizontal, the middle one with a small circle or dot equidistant from the edges. A small parabola, starting low, going up and then back down. A squat diamond, and a four-sided symbol that looks like it has horns." He leaned back.
Zabka was frowning at his pad of paper. Stevenson was bobbing her head up and down in a grotesque nod. "Feel any different?" she asked.
"No, not at all. Other than a purely scientific interest in seeing what was on the missing chunk. Was that left off on purpose?"
"No," Stevenson said, rising. She pressed the clicker, and the screen lost the image of the tablet. "It was never found, not even after Kazmi ran into the desert. Come, we can do the rest of the interview in my office."
They left Dr. Zabka, who was frowning at his notes. "A four-sided symbol with horns?" he said to himself softly. He used the computer to view the tablet. He narrowed his eyes at the line in the middle, with the symbol Jacobi had described as an explosion. He looked for something one could interpret as a four-sided symbol with horns. He shook his head, and switched off the image. He curled his left hand into a wrinkled mass of skin, and nearly slammed it down on the table. He closed his eyes. He opened them and inspected his notes. They were squeezed into the lines, going up and down and around the page. To most people they would have made zero sense, but Zabka understood them perfectly. He left the room and switched the light off.
"Morning doctor," Jacobi said, meeting Zabka in the hall and holding a cup of coffee for him. "How goes the translation?"
Zabka proceeded as if Jacobi hadn't spoken. "Was there anything noteworthy from the tests yesterday?"
"Well, no, honestly. Twenty people, and the tablet didn't have an effect on any of them. I'm doing follow-up calls, and we asked them to be prepared to answer, or at least return the call as soon as possible. Perhaps it has some sort of time-release effect."
"Doubt it," Zabka said. "Kazmi still had the tablet in his hands when he started raving." Zabka stood in the middle of the hallway like a statue, haggard and un-shaven face going slack and pulling downward.
"Doctor? Are you all right?"
Zabka looked up. "Of course I am." He pushed past Jacobi without another word.
Jacobi entered Stevenson's office, placing a cup of coffee in front of her. "Good morning."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" She snatched the cup up and drank.
"About Zabka..." Jacobi sat across from her. "He seemed out of it just a minute ago, in the hall. He didn't even take his coffee."
"Peter isn't much of a coffee drinker." Stevenson sipped her own. "I shouldn't say much, but he has been having a difficult time. He's thrown himself into his work because, well, his work can't leave him and take the kids and the dog. He's not a bad man, he's just a bit prickly. You'll come to love him." She thought for a moment. "Ready to get started?"
"Before we being...is there any danger to Dr. Zabka studying the tablet so intensely? Could it have a cumulative effect? Or a random chance per viewing?"
Stevenson shook her head. "Peter and I both went though intense psychological evaluation. We're as solid as Everest."
Jacobi nodded. "Granted, but you said the tablet does not reveal psychosis, it creates it."
"I appreciate your worry, young man," Stevenson said, grinning, "but there's no reason to fret. Dr. Zabka has been doing this sort of study for longer than you have been alive. He knows what he's doing."
"If you say so," Jacobi said. Stevenson sipped her coffee and held out her hand. He put a folder into it, and she flipped the folder open.
"When do you begin the calls?" she asked as she read.
"In about an hour," Jacobi said. "The schedule is on page four."
Stevenson flicked papers out of the way until she reached it. "I see. Everything looks good, then." She pushed the folder, nearly into Jacobi's lap. "Plenty to do here to get ready for the third step." She picked up her phone. "It seems a fair number of so-called 'medical professionals' don't appreciate the idea of exposing mentally-disturbed individuals to potentially-triggering stimuli. I've been looking everywhere for someone who will at least listen."
"I'll leave you to it," Jacobi said, rising and finding his own office. He got ready, and when the time came, he called the first person on his list.
"Good morning, Mr. Ritzone. How are you feeling?" Jacobi listened for a few seconds. "Excellent. Well, I have a few questions for you. Shouldn't take more than about fifteen minutes. Give as little or as much detail as you think is necessary."
He made his way down the list, staring through the open doorway of his office into the hall. Each person he called stated their soundness of mind and body, save incidental sicknesses or minor ailments. Jacobi went on for a few hours, recording observations, and relaying the time and date of an additional follow-up call he would make. Near noon he was listening to one of the participants explain her sciatica when he saw Dr. Zabka walk past, Glock in hand.
Jacobi let the phone fall onto the desk as he leapt up, blood frozen in his veins. He hauled himself around the desk and strode toward the hall. He watched Zabka's heel disappear into Stevenson's office.
His entire body went cold. His mind screamed at him to run, or to dash forward and leap on Zabka from behind. The first gunshot startled him into action, ringing his ears. He threw himself against the wall next to Stevenson's door, trying to hear.
"There was never any rope," Zabka whispered. Jacobi heard labored breathing.
"Was it the tablet?" he heard Stevenson say. Every word sounded like a needle jabbing into her arm. A loud groan came, in her voice. "At least tell me that."
Jacobi peered into the office to see Zabka standing with his back to the door, shaking his head. Stevenson was against the wall, trying to stop the blood pouring from her stomach. The room smelled like smoke. The gun was at Zabka's feet, under his limp hand.
"Then why?" Stevenson managed to say. Her face was twisted in pain, and he couldn't turn away from her agonized expression. For a moment, the only sound was dripping blood.
"It was an excuse," Zabka said. "It's the only reason I wanted to join the project in the first place." Each word landed on top of the other, like bricks stacking up to build an obscene monument. "Do you know what it's like to lose everything? To have NOTHING!" The shout made Jacobi jump. "To have it all taken away? I decided I would try to decode the tablet. If what you said about Professor Fazmi was true, then if I understood the tablet, I would have a foolproof reason to lose my mind. And look." Jacobi saw him gesture at Stevenson's blood-stained clothes. "I don't feel a thing."
"Why would you want to have a break?" Stevenson's face was pale.
"Because I have lived my life the hard way for decades. For once, I wanted to go the easy route." And Zabka bent down to pick the gun off the floor. "What could be easier?" He aimed the gun at her. Jacobi shut his eyes and stopped his ears with his hands. Nothing came. He heard muffled talking, and removed his hands. "...Just escape the pain, now can I," Zabka was saying. "With a bullet in your stomach, you'll suffer the most intense pain you can imagine...and then you will die." The mad old researcher sighed. "Now, I wonder where the other one is."
Stevenson kept her eyes off of Jacobi. "He heard the gunshot. He's probably long gone by now," she said, and gave a little laugh, despite the immediate pain it caused her.
"It doesn't matter," Zabka said. "As long as more people die." He turned around before Jacobi could vacate the doorway. Jacobi saw an empty face, smooth compared to the lines dominating Stevenson's tortured face. The eyes were wide open, not shadowed by heavy brows or squinting. The mouth sat neutral, not smiling or frowning, and Jacobi backed away. "There you are."
Jacobi ran, heading for the exit. He reached into his pocket for his phone, finding his pocket empty. He made it to the door, bright sunlight on the other side, and crashed into it, falling. He surged up, rising in an instant, and hauled on the door. His eyes focused on the door's lock. It was turned ninety degrees.
A bullet turned one of the door's window panes to pieces of silver noise, and Jacobi threw his hands around his head. His ears rang. He dove sideways, into the room with the computer screen they used to display the tablet. He fell inside. Scrambling to the table and pulling himself up, he nudged the computer's mouse, bringing it out of sleep mode. A stupid idea dropped, fully-formed, inside his head, and he scrambled with the computer. Finished, he pressed himself against the wall next to the left side of the doorway.
Zabka entered the room, eyes on the screen. "I spent all that time trying to translate it, and all I had to do in the end was go mad."
Jacobi tackled him, before he had a chance to bring the gun across his body. It skittered out of his hand, into a corner of the room, and Zabka's head cracked against the floor. Jacobi laid on top of him. "So what does it say, then?" Jacobi asked, after striking Zabka in the mouth with a fist. "Can you tell me, or is your mind too blended?"
Zabka's laugh sent a bloom of fear in Jacobi's stomach. "It says 'You aren't the first to read this, and you aren't the last. You, Peter Zabka, are just the latest. You are looking for an escape, well, take it. This is not the last time these words will be written, and this is not the first."
"I guess he forgot about modern medical techniques," Stevenson said, a few days later. She was resting in her hospital bed, tubes and lines running to and fro across her. "And morphine."
"Do you believe him?" Jacobi asked, sitting next to her bed.
Stevenson played with the sheets covering her legs for a moment. "I'm not sure. Was he looking for an excuse? That's not how it seemed. There were too many similarities between him and Professor Kazmi." She looked up at him. "What was it Peter said about the tablet?"
"A lot," Jacobi said. "Some things we'll have to discuss. Personally, I think the tablet belongs back in the hole Fazmi found it in."
"The archaeological community will never allow that."
This is not the last time these words will be written, and this is not the first. "No, I'm afraid not."