The Fantabulous Nanomorphique Adventure
of M Hardoon Rotman
[Previous Week Plot Review]
The Jade Exhibition held at the Pellimet Museum in Paris attracted great audiences, but the most eye-catching item in the exhibition rotunda, was a huge poster, hanging over the balcony banister from the 3rd floor to the middle of the 1st floor.
The poster was a lovely photograph of a couple – Alfonse de Baux, the original owner of the ancient Chinese artifacts, and his fiancée, Chinese movie star Tang Meiye; both in Chinese period costumes.
This highly anticipated exhibition was about to open in two days, but what happened next stunned the entire city of Paris! Alfonse de Baux disappeared into thin air!
With such unexpected happening, Parisians were even more anxious to see the exhibition, therefore it was a block buster on the opening day, and the museum almost received non-stop visitors from the morning to the night!
Catherine and Cassandra stopped by in the early evening and followed the visitors through the exhibition.
But Cassandra raised her head and looked up again and again, the mother asked what she saw, she said there was a man on the ceiling.
[ Illustration - Elevator and the Spiral Staircase ]
ONE – The little girl looked up again and again
– Continue <Week IV>
Catherine again squinted her eyes and looked at the vault ceiling, still, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. But she somehow knew that she could not ignore her daughter's acute senses. She discovered that Cassandra, at a very early age, exhibited telepathic abilities.
"A man? on the ceiling? How is that possible?"
She focused on the stucco surface of the diamond shapes, searching for signs of cracks, flaked paints, or even remote possibility of a bird nest illegally set up in a hidden corner.
If any of those cases happened, she would have to report them to the engineer department of the museum for repair jobs to be done; but the ceiling right now looked in a mint condition to her.
"There is a man lying on the ceiling." Cassandra said.
"How can a man lying on the ceiling?"
"like a lizard."
"Lizard is crawling on the wall, or on the ceiling, with its four legs, not lying there."
A group of visitors led by a guide moved to the glass case where they was viewing. They heard the guide said: "In this glass case, we see this jade piece, caused quite a debate in the academic world. From the shape and color of the jade, it should be, as Chinese scholars would call it, a CONG, it is a ritual piece used in various religious ceremonies, but when the museum received the collection, it was mixed among a small amount of Mayan jade pieces. Our researchers wanted to raise the question to Mr. de Baux directly, but unfortunately, Mr. de Baux suddenly disappeared several days ago, right now, searching efforts were launched all over the world, yet all in vain; therefore, unless we find Mr. de Baux, otherwise, no one could answer this question: why a Chinese jade was in the midst of Mayan pieces."
Cassandra saw that her mother's attention was shifted to the visitors, listening on the guide's explanation; she tucked on her mother's clothe again, and pointed her finger to the vault.
Catherine looked at her wrist watch, then softly said: "Silly girl, let's go back to my office, there is another piece, I need to take another look."
Catherine's office was on the first level of basement. Mother and daughter had to take elevator at the north side of the circle, where the entrance to the rectangular building connected to the rotunda.
Pellimet Museum had two levels of basement, where all museum's collections were stored. But the basement space was not as big as the entire street block; because there was no sub-level underneath the rotunda.
She picked up her daughter's hand and went for the elevator by the entrance to the rectangular section of the building.
The third floor of this rectangular building was mainly offices for the employees, with the Electronic Control and Security Room at the south end, overlooking the rotunda.
The first and second floor were various sized room for themed exhibitions.
On the first floor, the entire space was divided into 3 sections by two walkways. The middle section was larger than the two flanking sections of equal size. They were utilized for specific themed collections of the museum.
Two passenger elevators were located at the end of the west section. The space in front of the elevators, was a 6-foot wide “curved” corridor separating the rectangular section with the rotunda.
Only elevator number two stopped at all five floors, i.e., from the third floor to the second level basement. Elevator number one descent down to the top level basement only, skipping the second level.
At the north end of the building, two more service elevators situated next to the fire exit, one at each corner. The one on the east side was a freight elevator, three times larger than the stander size, to accommodate any over-sized artwork.
At the end of the east section, in the middle of the curved corridor, a beautiful and grandeur spiral staircase twisted and twined from the first floor, through the second floor, landed on the third floor balcony. It was pretty spacious, wide enough for a two-way traffic, as long as each using the right side.
Only a packed exhibition like this one, the museum kept it for one-way traffic only, upstream in the morning and downstream in the afternoon; any wrong direction at the wrong time, would have to wait for the elevator.
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