Molecular machine mayhem!

"Into the Unknown was exceptional. Nothing could touch it. It had all the elements that a healthy young scientist’s mind could want; scientific things while also inducing magnificent, scary fears of science being used to take over the world. My favorite episode of all time was the ground-breaking “Something in the Cellar”: a masterpiece. 

It had science, and death, and the supernatural, and ghosts, and computers, and robotic voices, and electrical current, all wrapped up in a big old dark and frightening Victorian house; one with a cellar. A working cellar, yes! The second I saw the episode title in the Radio Times, it had me hooked: Something in the Cellar. I knew it was going to be something juicy in the cellar, and I was not wrong. 

The hero was a certain reclusive genius professor, whose name was Monty if I remember correctly. Played to perfection by an Irish actor who I am sure was Milo O’Shea. I can see his face now, and it has to be Milo O’Shea! The professor was building a supercomputer in the cellar that could translate languages and even had a vocal output, as well as a print out of its emissions. This seems amazingly ordinary by today’s standards, but was fantasy land back then. 

It started out legitimately enough, but it became clear as the machine was being improved along the way, that it had begun to develop a personality, and a mind of its own. Without prompting it started working its way through the alphabet, spouting words that began with an “A” all day long, getting to the “B”s and on and on. Rambling on as Monty worked on it, sorting out the glitches that were commonplace with constructing a supercomputer from scratch in those days, when computers hadn't been born yet. I was fascinated by the various flashing lights, the grey metallic boxes and consoles, knobs and buttons and switches, wires all over the place, metal frames holding it all in place, and cathode ray monitor screens showing the “brainwaves”, and the printer beside, and a microphone.

God, I wanted one. Even if we didn't have a cellar. There I was, legs not long enough to reach the carpet while sitting on the sofa, the lights out for special effect, staring at the TV screen like I had found the missing link. You could have dropped a bomb onto the back garden and it would not have gotten me to look away.

Lo and behold, it was Monty’s possessive (but dead) mother who was the personality behind the computer’s spouting. Somehow, perhaps using electromagnetic energy, her dead spirit had infiltrated the computers, via the electrical wiring maybe, entering its very core, and had become at one with it. The high voltage passing through the machine fed her control and made her even more powerful, it seemed. 

Her possessiveness became rampant, refusing to allow any of Professor Monty’s assistants to be near, she wanted her son all to herself. When his research assistant was trying to repair the “D circuit” she used electromagnetic forces to stick a metal screwdriver into his arm. Along with a nice flash of electric discharge for good measure. She particularly didn't like Monty’s housekeeper, who was bumped off in an incredible display of the machine’s ever-increasing powers. An electrical discharge was passed through the entire house when Monty was out one afternoon, and the mother’s form appeared in a closet where the housekeeper was working, and racing away from it, into the bathroom, she touched a metal tap, and the circuit was closed, passing thousands of volts through her body, killing her. Monty eventually realized it was his mother, as the voice also became more female in nature, and addressed him directly:

“Mum’s been lonesome, on her ownsome, I want to talk to you……”

Monty did his best to put an end to the beastly creation he had constructed, but the machine could emit electrical discharges, and every attempt to turn off the current lead to a bright flash of thousands of volts, to ward off the attacker. Monty even went to the main power supply to thwart it there, but again, a huge electric arcing prevented him from getting to it. Things had come to a climax, and suddenly, while trying to do something, Monty was entangled in wiring and electrodes controlled by the machine, brought close in to the metal framing surging with high voltage, he was powerless to resist . Monty was gone, and suddenly on the monitor, there was the image of his mother’s face, coupled with the audio output:

“Just the two of us, forever, and ever, and ever,  and ever..…”

Repeating over and over, as the ominous theme music faded into play.

It was bone-chillingly real and bone-chillingly scary. The sitting room was dark and I was enraptured, completely. There were no VCRs in those days, which is a shame. I would have watched that over and over. I would today also!. I went up to bed with my head full of it. Would it be possible for an otherworldly presence, presumably using some energy form to manifest itself, to use that energy to tap into another high energy source, and join it, and even feed off it? 

Could dead spirits come back to the living using sensitive equipment as their vehicle, and take over the world? Surely the Devil would have an interest in this if it was possible. He would put his best resources onto it, right away. I couldn't sleep, my eyes full of flashing lights, my ears hearing the whirring and coming-to-life of machines in the basement, machines with a mind of their own, and of evil intent. Sparks and electric current passing through all the metal contacts in the house. Some Godforsaken entity down in the basement that had now taken hold of our house, and we would never be allowed out into the real world ever again.

I suppose at some point, with weary eyes, the voice of reason told me that we didn't have a basement, so, we couldn't be controlled by a machine down there. And I doubted that the fridge or the oven were sophisticated enough to take on a life of their own. Definitely not the old washing machine, which I had heard my Mum say was on its last legs. This ruled out the possibility of it finding the strength to ascend the stairs in the middle of the night, and wrap its electrical cord around my neck, strangling me to death. Then descending once again, and sliding back in under the counter so as not to be suspected in the morning.

For sure, on its last legs it would bang loudly going back down the stairs, step-by-step, and my Dad would rush out and grab it. So  the weary eyes finally closed, and off I went into dreamland, where new nightmares were sure to be waiting for me, in some dank cellar or another. My head was ringing with forever, and ever, and ever, and ever......"

[Excerpted from THE MOLECULES by Kevin Mc, now available on Amazon-Kindle]