Fook (6 page)

“I’ve explained this before” Jason sighed,
spinning around in his chair to face his bored roommate. We can’t
just turn it on and hope for the best. If my calculations are off
by even the slightest bit we could end up floating off into space.
This concept isn’t just time but also coordinate based. I have the
ability to calculate some flexibility into the equation,
compensating and adjusting our location within a few hundred feet
and maybe about twelve hours or so, but that’s about it. To
accurately predict when and where we’ll end up, we need to know the
exact location and rotation of the Earth at—”

“—at the exact moment we intend to arrive,”
Derek finished the frequently received lecture. “I know. I get the
concept but you’ve been working on that program for two years now.
You’ve checked it over and over and over again. Sometimes you just
need to let go and trust yourself.”

Listening to Derek, Jason knew that his
roommate was right. Derek was much more the type to just let go and
let whatever was going to happen, just happen. They’d had the same
classes all through high school and finished first and second in
their class. They’d both been members of the math club and they’d
both received full scholarships to attend M.I.T. but that was where
their similarities ended. Derek’s high school experience had been
very different from his. While
he’d
suffered the socially
stereotypical fate of a kid with his I.Q. in public school, Derek
had excelled. He’d demonstrated an uncanny ability to blend in with
just about any click. Though not the best player, he’d managed to
work his way onto the varsity baseball team, giving him that all
important connection that made him fit in just about anywhere, and
while he was intellectually superior to his classmates, he was
still somehow able to conceal that fact and let loose with them,
participating in the most idiotic of drunken ideas. However, even
with such socially opposite fates, they’d managed to remain best of
friends since early childhood.

“Trust me Jason. You’ve got this.”

Derek was right, he’d tested the program’s
accuracy thousands of times, not once finding a miscalculation. But
he was a thinker, not a doer and as with most things in his life,
he didn’t like the idea of taking that first big step without
knowing exactly what to expect.

“You understand the risk, right?” Jason
questioned in a very serious tone.

“Jason, I don’t even understand how what
you’re proposing is possible, but we’ve been friends for nearly
twenty years now, so if you say that you can make this thing work,
then I believe in you.”

After a pause, Jason uttered the word Derek
had been hoping to hear.

“Okay.”

Derek almost jumped out of his seat with
excitement but, somehow managed to maintain his cool in light of
Jason’s apprehension.

Turning back to the screen, Jason powered
down the computer and getting up from his chair, made his way to
the very same cabinet from which Derek had withdrawn the machine.
Placing his thumb against the scanner, the cabinet lock released
with a click. The machine still sat open on the counter beside
Derek, however they needed one additional item before the first
test could be made. Swinging open the cabinet doors, Jason knelt
down to reach the small refrigerator at the bottom of the cabinet.
It too possessed a small biometric scanner, though this one didn’t
require any silly movie phrases like the machine, nor did it
require both his and Derek’s fingerprints to open. He’d installed
the refrigerator himself as well as programmed the scanner himself.
His thumbprint and his thumbprint alone could open the small black
cube. Placing his thumb against the scanner, the refrigerator door
opened with a soft click followed by a faint hiss as the airtight
seal gave way, releasing wispy swirls of cool condensation.

Derek knew what was inside, though he’d only
gotten a glimpse of the actual contents twice. The extent of his
knowledge didn’t go much beyond the machine that he’d assembled. He
knew what the machine was supposed to do. He understood from an
electrical standpoint what the concept was; deliver a massive, yet
precise electrical jolt evenly across the entire core at precisely
the exact same moment. It seemed simple enough at first. It wasn’t
until he’d started to assemble the components that he’d realized
the difficulty inherent to such a task.

While electricity in the United States is
the most stable in the world, there are still subtle fluctuations
in the precise power delivered to any one location at any given
time. To most people these fluctuations aren't a big deal. If they
plug in their television or cell phone charger and everything turns
on, they’re perfectly happy, but when you’re trying to calculate a
precise voltage down to the nanosecond, the inconsistencies of the
grid become clearly evident. This problem was the reason it had
taken him well over a year to complete the build and the reason why
it took an entire briefcase full of components to simply electrify
a spherical space only four inches in diameter. Each component
within the case was designed to not only amplify the electrical
charge, but also clean it up, reorganizing the electron flow and
storing the energy until the precise moment that the device is
activated. At that moment, the stored charge would be released all
at once into the fuel contained within the core; the very fuel that
Jason was withdrawing from the tiny refrigerated safe.

“You gonna tell me what that is yet?” Derek
posed the familiar yet unanswered question.

“This is the fuel cell that will power our
little friend there,” Jason replied, holding up the small, four
inch sphere, the room’s florescent lights illuminating the deep red
liquid contained within the glass orb.

“Yeah, I know that much. I mean
what
is it?”

Carefully cradling the spherical cell in his
left hand, Jason closed and locked the tiny refrigerator followed
by the cabinet and made his way to Derek. “The sphere is a graphene
enhanced crystalline vessel that—”

“—Smart ass. I know what the sphere is.
Remember? I came up with the idea of utilizing graphene to enhance
not only the structural stability of the vessel but its electrical
properties as well. I meant what’s inside, because it kind of looks
like blood.”

“Blood?” Jason laughed. “No, it’s not blood.
It's a mixture of various chemical byproducts derived from the
synthesis of albumins, globulins and fibrinogens, as well as a
mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.”

Derek just stared at Jason confused. While
he hadn’t been horrible at chemistry, he’d also never gotten a good
handle on it. For all he knew, Jason could have been making up the
names of those components and he wouldn’t have known any
better.

“This is what makes this whole thing
possible,” Jason reemphasized as he handed the small orb to
Derek.

Holding the orb to the lights overhead,
Derek stared at the crimson qualities of the dark liquid before
slowly placing the sphere into the machine’s core. He didn’t know
how this little red ball was going to make what Jason claimed,
possible. If it was so simple why hadn’t anyone else done it yet?
Why was the concept still deemed science fiction and not reality?
How had a twenty-two year old M.I.T. student perfected such an
impossible concept when no one else could? Truthfully, these
questions had been running through his mind ever since Jason had
first proposed the possibility of such a device nearly three years
ago. He wanted to believe that it was possible. The very idea of
being the first to do what Jason was proposing was beyond words,
but frankly, he didn’t expect much more to happen than for them to
plug the device in, press the button and then spend the next few
minutes staring at one another as Jason tried to figure out what
went wrong.

With the sphere inserted, Derek slid the
tiny metal door back into place, concealing the red fuel behind
Jason’s familiar family quote.

“We can’t do it here,” Jason uttered.

“Why not?” Derek, confused, stepped to the
side as Jason took over closing the device.

“Our first test has to be a small one.
Twenty minutes at most...just to confirm that everything’s working
properly.”

“And that can’t happen here, why?”

“It’s too dangerous here. We need somewhere
more secluded. Somewhere no one’s been for the last hour or
so...including us. We can’t risk being seen, but at the same time
we can’t risk occupying the same space at the same time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ‘Timecop’ theory,” Jason emphasized, as
if that explanation would make everything clear.

He had no idea what Jason was talking about
nor did he understand what a mediocre movie from nearly twenty
years ago had to do with their experiment. “Are you talking about
the movie from the nineties with Jean-Claude Van Damme?”

“The same person can’t occupy the same space
at the same time. I know it was only a movie but the theory is
valid. The outcome could be catastrophic. Furthermore, we can’t run
the risk of overlapping the same space as each other or anyone else
for that matter.”

“Why?" the concept still eluding him.

“Picture yourself instantaneously becoming a
conjoined twin with the person who’s space you materialize in. Your
bodies could fuse together, permanently joining you on a molecular
level. If somehow you did manage to survive the instantaneous,
biological reconfiguration, there would be no way to reverse the
results without likely killing you and your new twin in the
process.”

“What if my new twin is hot?” Derek
joked.

“I’m serious Derek. We have to be really
careful.”

The tone in Jason’s voice making it clearly
evident that he was in no mood for Derek’s typical jokes, “Okay, so
where do we do this test?”

“I have a place.”

*****

“Are you luring me down here to kill me?” Derek
joked as he and Jason carefully navigated their way down the steep
flight of basement stairs.

More interested in the test than his
friend's jokes, “Follow directly behind me,” Jason instructed as he
paused at the bottom of the stairs.

“Okay,” Derek, confused, did as he was told,
following his roommate step for step along the dimly lit
hallway.

Their dorm building had been built in the
1800's, so he wasn’t surprised to see the stone masonry foundation
typical of the time. Obviously, over the past century, there had
been some updates to the dark space. Electric lighting had been
added at some point, providing some light to the narrow passageway.
The plumbing running overhead looked fairly new, neatly running the
length of the hall before ducking around a corner and disappearing
into an unseen portion of the building.

“Remind me again why we’re playing follow
the leader.”

“Do you want to end up a quivering pile of
fused goo?” Jason, seemingly perturbed at Derek’s lack of
understanding, stopped and turned.

“Not really,” Derek smirked.

“Then you need to follow me.”

“You’re worried about miscalculating the
jump aren’t you? You’re afraid that you might misjudge the exact
time and location of arrival and that somehow we might land in this
very hallway at this very moment and that you and I will somehow
meld together in some twisted, deformed mass of handsomely nerdy
jello.”

“Finally he understands,” Jason thought to
himself.

“As I understand it though, the arrival
point isn’t dictated by where we’ve been so really we could arrive
anywhere within the margin of error. Ultimately we could end up
trapped inside one of these stone walls or even buried alive in the
ground adjacent to the building…if your calculations are off that
is.”

Jason thought for a moment...now he was
questioning his own logic. Derek was right, but he knew his
calculations were solid. He’d checked them eleven times before
Derek had convinced him to finally leave the lab and get on with
it. It was highly unlikely that they’d end up in the hall. If
everything went according to plan they should arrive in the same
location from which they’d left, at exactly 12:38pm. Checking his
watch, it was 12:58pm. They had a twenty minute window. That should
be plenty of time without any cause for concern.

“What are we doing?” Derek questioned,
wondering why Jason had stopped.

“Just stay behind me anyway,” Jason only
half acknowledged Derek’s solid logic. “By sticking together we
minimize the risk,” he added, continuing down the hall and through
the same opening that the pipes had used to disappear.

Running his hand up and down the wall beside
the doorway, Jason searched for the switch. This wasn’t the first
time he’d been down there. He’d spent many a night planning this
test. He knew exactly the spot he intended to use. The back corner
of the room in which they’d just entered was in actuality the front
left corner of the building and the spot at which all of the
building’s power entered from the street. There was a switch on the
wall just to the left of the doorway where his hand methodically
searched.

“When that light comes on I’m not going to
come face to face with some type of torture device, am I? You’re
not going to strap me to some table and have your way with me are
you?” Derek continued to joke as he stared into the darkness before
him.

Still focused on finding the switch, Jason
continued to show no response to Derek’s jokes. Suddenly, his
finger detected a small patch of smooth plastic and a moment later,
a soft click prompted a series of florescent lights to flicker to
life.

While still not the most efficient lighting,
the now visible room was much better lit than the hallway. In the
back right corner stood a small tower of cardboard boxes. The
various company logos and handwritten labels suggested that the
boxes contained supplies pertinent to the upkeep of a residential
building, though their faded appearance suggested that their
contents had been forgotten long ago and that the janitorial staff
didn’t frequent this portion of the building very often. Just
inside the doorway was a series of empty wooden shelves which
appeared to have been converted into a high rise condominium for
spiders and other insects, but it was the back left corner that
Jason had apparently been interested in as he quickly made his way
to the caged off portion of the room.