Memoirs Of An Invisible Man by H.F. Saint Read Free Book Online Page A

must be on a back road. I was definitely quite carsick. I wished I were not down on the floor and that I had drunk less the night before. I wished I could see something more out a window than a patch of cloudy sky or the occasional tree branch sweeping sickeningly by. I closed my eyes. Worse. Reopen them. Drive taking too long.
    When the van at last came to a halt, I hurriedly pushed open the rear doors and stumbled to my feet with as much dignity as I could manage. No sign of the guinea pig, but I left the doors open to give him as much of a chance as possible. Where do guinea pigs occur in a state of nature? Not in central New Jersey. I did not think much of its chances of survival in the wild, but at least its destiny was in its own hands now.
    Anne and Carillon were standing by the front of the van, still in conversation. When I came around to them, Anne looked up at me and said, “I’m not quite finished, Nick.”
    “Take all the time you want, Anne. There’s no hurry. I’ll be over in front of the building, getting some air. Bob,” I continued, holding out my hand to Carillon, “thanks for the ride. It was great chatting with you and in case we don’t run into each other again, I want to wish you every success today and in all your future endeavors.”
    He nodded curtly, ignoring my outstretched hand, and turned back to Anne. On the other side of the parking lot I could see some of his confederates watching us silently — waiting, I supposed, until Carillon was done with us.
    I turned and followed a footpath out of the parking lot through a break in a hedge which screened the parking lot from the building. I found myself on the edge of a large lawn with enormous shade trees, which must have been there for generations. To one side, a drive lined with oaks ran from the edge of the parking lot out to the road a hundred yards away. Beyond the lawn in every direction were fields bordered by trees. It was a beautiful place. The incongruous thing was that in the middle of it all was a brand-new, long, white, rectangular wood frame building of the type that you would expect to find surrounded by asphalt in what is for some reason called an “industrial park.” A paved walk led from the parking lot along the front of this structure to the main entrance in its center, where there were two steps up to a threshold flanked by two massive white wooden columns which supported a sort of vestigial porch roof extending no more than a couple of feet out from the rest of the façade. The effect had no doubt been described by the builder as “colonial.” Above this oddly foreshortened structure the name MicroMagnetics was spelled out in twelve-inch-high red letters affixed to the building. And above that was a sort of circular shield six feet in diameter on which were painted two huge red letter Ms joined by the pattern of arcs used to represent magnetic fields. It looked like a gigantic M&M candy. This odd new structure must have replaced a much older farmhouse. If you could have somehow got back the farmhouse, it would have been a very beautiful place indeed.
    I stepped off the path onto the grass and walked towards an ancient and massive copper beech, sucking in deep breaths of heavy, humid air in the hope that it would make me feel better. A single large raindrop fell out of the dark sky onto my head. Soon it would really begin to rain. I wondered if that might not be an improvement. Perhaps I should stay out in the rain for a while. Why had I come here?
    Dully, I tried to survey the situation. MicroMagnetics was an even smaller enterprise than I had imagined. The entire building could not be even ten thousand square feet. Off to one side there was another, much smaller, concrete structure, into which ran enough power lines to supply a small city. They must be doing something here that required a lot of electricity. Could be anything. Who cares? I took several more deep breaths and tried to decide whether or not I felt any