The soft holiness of the university library was my haven. Mondays especially were quiet, the ideal setting for working on my thesis on quantum entanglement. I was far into the maze-like stacks, surrounded by the familiar smell of old paper and forgotten knowledge, when I heard it.
It was not a shout, only a low rumble, hardly audible over the soft hum of the fluorescent lights. Two men's voices, close. I scowled, irritated. This was the quiet part.
"…tonight. At the old mill. No one else knows."
The first voice was like gravel, a low rumble. The second, higher, more anxious: "Are you sure about timing? It's dangerous."
"It has to be tonight. Before the transfer. He's expecting it."
My typing fingers froze halfway on my laptop. Transfer? Expecting what? My brain, used to dwelling on subatomic particles, got stuck on the odd words. It sounded… illegal. Like from a horrible spy novel. I instructed myself to brush it off, to concentrate on my work. People said odd things all the time.
But then the icy whisper, the one that really caught me: "And what about the girl? The one who saw him?"
Beat of silence. Then the gravelly voice, colder now, emotionless: "Loose ends. They always get tied up."
My breathing caught. Loose ends? A shiver of discomfort crept up my spine. This was not only an odd conversation; it was foreboding. I slowly, cautiously, looked around the high bookcase.
Two men were a few aisles away, their backs to me. One, a tall, broad-shouldered man, wore a black trench coat in the pleasant weather. The other, shorter and thinner, kept looking over his shoulder nervously. They resembled characters who had been transposed straight out of a film noir.
As I was about to duck out of the way, the shorter man shifted his head slightly, and I got a glimpse of his profile. My blood froze. It was Professor Albright, department head of Physics, a man with a reputation for meticulous research and spotless reputation.
My hand darted to my mouth, holding back a gasp. Professor Albright? Whatever could he have to do that would involve discussion of "loose ends" and "old mills"?
The men walked away then, their footsteps receding. I remained rooted there, the words repeating in my head. Tonight. Old mill. Transfer. Loose ends. The girl.
My thesis on quantum entanglement then felt inconsequential. I wasn't about to brush this aside. Not when Professor Albright, someone I held in high regard, was involved. And particularly not when mention of "the girl who saw him" was made. Was someone at risk?
The. rest of the afternoon was a haze. My brain whirled, putting together pieces. The old mill was a deserted, decaying structure on the edge of town, a local myth for telling ghost stories. "The transfer" might be anything – cash, information, something illicit.
That night, a nagging curiosity, tinged with a sense of public responsibility, drew me to the old mill. I reassured myself that I was only going to watch, to check if anything out of the ordinary occurred. I parked my rusty vehicle far enough away, the engine still clattering as it cooled off.
The mill rose up against the light of the twilight, a bony shape. It was starting to rain, light, insistent drumming against the hood of the car. My heart thudded against my chest. What was I doing here? This was crazy.
Next, headlights pierced the darkness. A black sedan stopped in front of the entrance to the mill. Two figures stepped out. One, unmistakably, was Professor Albright. The other was the tall trench-coat man. They entered.
Minutes ticked on forever. Just as I was ready to accept I was imagining the whole thing, a dim light showed up in one of the broken windows of the mill. And then, a voice. A muffled cry, followed by an impact.
My breath caught. Something was going down. Despite my better judgment, I picked up my phone, ready to call the police, but my hands flailed. I had to know more.
I emerged stealthily from the car, rain sticking my hair to my face. Wind screamed with rumors of the past. I approached a damaged wall, looking through a crack.
A single lantern lit the interior of the room in flickering light. Professor Albright stood beside a big, metal box. The trench-coated man was shouting at him, his tone hurt and furious.
"This wasn't the deal, Albright!" the trench-coated man growled. "Where's the rest of it?"
Albright, normally so calm, looked gaunt. "There is no rest. This is all that made it through the. incident."
Incident? My brain shrieked.
Albright suddenly glanced up, his eyes flicking towards the shattered window. My heart sprang into my throat. He'd spotted me.
He pointed. "There! The girl!"
The trench-coated figure whirled around. Panic gripped me. I wheeled to flee, but caught my foot on a loose rock. I fell, my phone sliding across the soggy ground.
Clumpy footsteps pounded after me. I sprang up, adrenaline pumping. I heard the trench-coated figure yell, "Get her!"
I sprinted blindly down the rain, the skeletal framework of the mill a blur. I could hear them coming for me. My lungs seared. Just as I felt that I was finished, a hand closed on my arm, yanking me forcibly into the recesses of a falling-down annex.
I screamed, but a hand closed over my mouth. My eyes widened in fear.
It was Professor Albright.
He laid a finger to his lips, his eyes wide and urgent. "Quiet! He'll hear us!"
My head spun. He was assisting me?
He pulled me further into the annex, through a secret passage I never knew existed. We came out into a tiny, dusty room. He dropped my arm, gasping.
"You shouldn't have come here," he whispered, his voice rough. "It's too perilous."
"What's happening?" I insisted, my voice shaking. "What is that thing? And who is he?"
Albright pushed a hand through his tousled hair. "That 'thing' isn't what you think. And he… he's a black market trader. I was attempting to reclaim something that was stolen from the university. Something very valuable, and very unstable."
He pointed to a small, radiating device on an improvised desk. It glowed with an otherworldly blue color.
"It's a prototype," he clarified, "a quantum energy converter. It was stolen several weeks ago. The 'incident' he referred to was the failed operation to recover it. Someone was injured. The 'girl who saw him' was a student who inadvertently saw the initial theft."
My head reeled. "But… why are you handling him? Why not the police?"
Albright sighed, a deep, weary sound. "Because the university wants to keep it quiet. And because… because I was the one who designed it. I felt responsible." He looked at me, his eyes filled with a desperate plea. "I needed to get it back before it fell into the wrong hands. It could destabilize entire power grids if weaponized."
Then we heard the footsteps coming up to the annex. The trench-coat man was on our tail.
Albright snatched up the lighted device. "We have to leave. Now."
He took me through a second secret passageway, a thin, black tunnel that led out into a thick stand of woods at the back of the mill. We ran, water rinsing us off, sounds of the chase growing distant behind us.
We didn't let up until we hit the main road, dripping wet and panting. Albright stopped a cab that was passing by.
As we left the threatening mill behind, I turned to Professor Albright. He wasn't a criminal. He was a scientist, desperate to defend his invention. And I, the unwitting listener, had entered a much more complicated and perilous world than any quantum model.
The next day, the papers carried a report of fire at the old mill, cause undetermined. The university reported a "minor equipment malfunction" in the physics department, promptly fixed. Professor Albright was at his office again, a trifle more fatigued, but otherwise business as usual.
And I? I completed my thesis. But each time I gazed upon a quantum equation, I did not see merely figures, but the soft blue light of an instrument that could revolutionize the world, and the silent bravery of a man who had gone against everything to defend it. My accidental eavesdropping hadn't just revealed a secret; it had pulled me into a hidden battle, showing me that even in the quietest corners, the most ordinary people could be entangled in extraordinary events.
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