Desperate Games Read Online Free Page B

still working. He had already received the Nobel Prize. I was the oldest of his assistants and functioned as the head of the laboratory, with O’Kearn its real spirit.
    ‘I had been there two years, with a dozen researchers younger than me, but all of them qualified (the boss asked me to fire mercilessly anyone incompetent and even those he suspected of lacking imagination). All of them possessed enviable university degrees and had several years’ practical experience in physics. Important discoveries have emerged from this laboratory.’
    ‘We know all this.’
    ‘Fine. In addition to very delicate apparatus, we also had electric motors, some of them ordinary ones, and one in particular which was the most up-to-date model of a synchronousmotor, of quite low power, like the ones you find in all workshops. A mechanic took care of these machines.
    ‘One evening I left the laboratory, leaving two of my best researchers there, as they wanted to continue an experiment for a few more hours. I was at home, ready to go to bed, when one of the two knocked at my door. He had a crestfallen look about him.
    ‘“What’s wrong,” I asked, “has there been an accident?”
    ‘I was worried because the ongoing experiment involved considerable energy, and there was a risk, if it was poorly conducted, of reducing the laboratory, and with it part of the town, to ashes. But I had confidence in my two assistants. I was right. He reassured me quickly.
    ‘“No. It’s just a little problem, but it needs to be put right as quickly as possible. I preferred to come and ask your advice.”
    ‘“You did the right thing. What is it?”
    ‘“Well… it’s the synchronous motor.”
    ‘“What’s wrong with the synchronous motor, has it broken down?”
    ‘“On the contrary.”
    ‘“What do you mean, on the contrary?”
    ‘He was looking more and more sheepish.
    ‘“It’s running,” he said without daring to look at me.
    ‘“What do you mean? It isn’t running smoothly? Tell me!” I said impatiently.
    ‘He ended up by confessing to me, blushing with embarrassment:
    ‘“It’s running and I don’t know how to stop it. When Joë left he forgot to do it. I don’t know anything about the control board, and doing something wrong might cause damage.”
    ‘Joë was our mechanic. I’ve forgotten his second name, but I can still see him: a serene black man, uneducated, but very conscientious in his work. It was the first time that he had been negligent.
    ‘I gave a little mocking whistle. “What a nuisance! Is it such a serious problem, that you have to disturb the head of the laboratory, just to turn a lever and press a button? And are you alone over there?”
    ‘“No, there’s the other assistant. Only…”
    ‘“Only what?”
    ‘“He’s as embarrassed as me. He has no idea how to stop the motor either. But nevertheless we can’t let it run all night.”
    ‘He was quite right about that. In spite of being in a rotten mood, I realised that I ought to go over there. I slipped my clothes on over my pyjamas and, grumbling as I did so, I got ready to follow him.
    ‘I had done all these things without thinking about it, only cursing the fact that it was my responsibility. We made our way to the laboratory, which was fortunately not very far away. A thought suddenly struck me and I slowed down.
    ‘“All the same,” I said to him, “don’t you think it would have been simpler to go and wake Joë?”
    ‘He looked up at the sky and replied that he had spent two hours searching for Joë, but that Joë could not be found. That only deepened my bad mood and embarrassment for I must confess to you that, although I had been working there for two years, I had just realised that I had no idea how to go about stopping the motor.’
    ‘I thought that would be the case,’ said Betty.
    ‘Yet by then I could not go back, and so we went into the lab. It seemed to me that the motor was running smoothly, under the worried eye of