“I talked about this with Prompt, Ted and he allowed him to work with me. I have only one month to prove Jess's ability,” Kate said.
Ted made disagreements face, unpleasantly with Prompt’s idea. He muttered. ‘What’s he thinking,'
Then he turned to Jason “Can you swim, Mr. Smith?” Ted suddenly asked.
Jason nodded, puzzled.
“Great, so, follow me,” Ted said then led them went to the next room inside.
The room that Ted led them in was a simulation room for wormhole traveling. It was a round room with something like a large pipe in the middle. It was a clear pipe that people could enter for three or four people and the inside was empty.
“Get in,” Ted said to Jason.
Jason looked at that big pipe before turned to Ted.
“Wouldn’t you explain anything? What is it and how it works and what I have to do with it,” he said unpleasantly. If Ted didn't like him who came from the non-wormhole technology universe, at least should tell him directly not to let him went inside a tool that didn’t know it could harm him or not like this.
Ted sighed heavily and turned to Kate. She stared at him as she agreed with Jason.
“Alright….Mr. Suspicious, wormhole traveling allows us to move at the speed of light. Which make us feel like being floating in a strong flow of water. In a moment of moving at that speed may cause us to feel sick. Simulation of wormhole traveling could help our body to get used to this type of journey faster. But please don’t make the room dirty,” Ted explained and bring him a pack of sick bags.
How many times would he have to vomit, today?
“Don't be scared. Jess, I've been through this machine and I guarantee it’s safe,” Kate said, soothed his back as an encouragement. “If you want to vomit during training, raise your hand,” She continued.
Jason walked inside the large clear pipe in the middle of the room. He looked up at the top, hopefully, that he wouldn’t be thrown outside. Fortunately, at the top of the pipe was a ceiling with something that looked soft. At least if he floated too high, he wouldn’t get hurt.
Jason took a deep breath for prepared and in his right pants pocket was distend by a pack of sick bags.
“Make yourself relax, Mr. Smith. If you get faint or past out, I’ll stop the machine immediately,” Ted said while fluently pressed buttons on the control panel. Then, just three or four seconds later, Jason felt that something spouted from the ground, It passed him until his clothes were blown and his huge body began to rose up. It's not wind nor water. Jason just felt like his skin was touched by something but he couldn’t see it.
Jason was excited about feeling like he was flying. He looked at Kate, she was standing outside the pipe and she looked farther.
“Wow.... This is awesome,” Jason blurted out excitedly. He tried to control his body in the direction he wanted.
Yes ... It's like being underwater but could move the body a little harder because it's like the flowing water tried to bring him went upward all the time. But for a moment he became used to it and this time he rolled and turned a somersault and then backstroke. This wasn’t difficult as he thought.
“He’s some kind of nuts, do you think so?” Ted whispered to Kate.
Kate looked at Jason, swam in a large pipe. Then sighed. “He just... a playful person, Ted,” she replied.
Ted nodded, “Okay, Mr. Smith, it seems like you're used to with the condition in a wormhole. Then this will be a simulation when you travel through another parallel universe,” He said solemnly.
Before Jason could answer anything back, he felt like his body became heavy. He remembered, what he felt when traveling to here, yesterday. He became more difficult to move his body. The pressure made him uncomfortable, but still able to control the body stable. Straight limbs attached the body. Looked like it's not difficult with this kind of journey and just followed what Kate previously said. ‘Stand still.'
“We'll give you a break, Mr. Smith,” Ted said. The uncomfortable feeling of Jason's body gradually released, he began to float down to the bottom.
“What do you feel, Jess?” asked Kate when she saw him stood still. “Wormhole-sickness?”
Jason slowly looked at her then looked around before answered.
“No, this time I don't vomit,” He said gladly. Or that he could adjust faster than others. Yes, he was physically strong. He’s played any kind of sports, both single and team like Taekwondo and also belongs to the police station's basketball team.
“3… 2… 1....” Ted countdown, and at the end of his voice, Jason's face seemed to turn to be green. He quickly pulled a sick bag out of his pants pocket and began to vomit a lot.
Ted smiled satisfied “Don't be happy too soon, Mr. Smith.... Everyone vomit,” he said before pressed a button to open the door for Jason to come out of the large pipe.
Jason walked out the pipe without energy and Kate held him a trash can for let him thrown away two fully sick bags that were almost couldn’t seal it.
“Take some rest,” Kate took him to sit on the bench in the room. “All of the investigating agents of our agency have been sitting exhausted here,” She encouraged Jason the pale face.
“Your body can adjust itself soon,” Ted said. “It may take two weeks for probie who never travel by wormhole before,”
Have to vomit for two weeks? This was hell. Jason couldn't say anything but sat down to mull over what things happened since he was here. He forced a lot of strange things when he arrived; got hurt his eyes so much that he thought he was blind, made himself dirty with his own vomit. Then he was taken to inject and shower. Surrounded by people he knew but didn’t know, still have to train to use wormhole that was so torture. Was that really ok to accept this job?
“Wow…it’s him?” the voice of someone greeting excitedly pulled Jason out-off his doubtful mind.
Jason looked up to the owner of the voice and saw the handsome guy in the black suit came in.
“Yes, Todd, this is Jason Smith from B13,” Kate introduced with proudly.
Todd smiled at Jason. “Heard that you’ll come to work with us. I’m Todd Robinson,” he said. He was the first person who would like to shake hands with Jason in a friendly manner.
“Don't worry. The first time everybody will be like this. I was vomit for 17 days before used to it,” Todd said. “Oh, I bring you orange juice, Kate,” He handed the bottle of orange juice to Kate.
“Thank you, Todd,” she smiled and received orange juice from Mr. handsome. Jason remembered that sight. She used to do this with Todd, His Todd from his universe. But Todd didn’t pay attention to her pleasing charm eyes because he was gay.
Jason was being nausea thought it would be good if he got something sour. He hurriedly grabbed a bottle of orange juice from Kate’s hand. Then opened and drank a few big gulps with shocking sight from both Kate and Todd.
“.... He looks ... rather impolite doesn’t like Jason, do you think so?” Todd whispered to Kate.
“I'm not your Jason,” Jason said, wiped his mouth. And his face looked better. “I don’t care how much your Jason was a boring person but I’m Jason from parallel universe B13,” He said emphasized.
Jason felt like being compared with Jason Smith who belonged here, despite they were actually different person.
And his words would make a good atmosphere of greeting became uncomfortable. Then Todd hurriedly excused for back to work.
“You shouldn't say that. It’s impolite,” Kate whispered blaming Jason who was sitting on the bench.
Not fair…Todd also compared him with their Jason.
“This time it’s just only 20 seconds. We’ll try again in the evening. If you are not ‘afraid’ of it,” Ted said. Didn’t know why but Jason’s thought he looked so happy.
Jason nodded, just 20 seconds could make his breakfast all out.
“So, shall we go to see the information of the case, Jess?” Kate said, pulled his hand to follow her.
Even though
Ted and Todd of this universe looked like Ted and Todd that Jason knew, but they didn't make Jason feel even more comfortable.... They were someone else who’s not his friends nor underlings. Oh ... Yes. For them, he was just a stranger.
Chapter 7
Jason sat on one of the desks in the office. It was together with many desks in a white square room that was decorated by grasses and small trees on the wall like a typical office. There were stairs to the labs on the mezzanine in the middle of the room.
The labs used for traveling between parallel universes, each room had a solid metal door like a vault.
Jason noticed that there were many people in the office watching him. Some people just sneaked around but some people sat down and stared at him seriously and whispered to each other. Some people even took him a picture. Was there anyone going to feed him like a hippopotamus in the zoo?
“Ok, let’s see the information we’ve got, Jess,” Kate said after walked back from one of the rooms with two stacked boxes of evidence.
“Um... how long will they look at me?...I feel like a bear in a cage or hippopotamus in Africa,” Jason said with a sullen face. Kate looked around and saw many people quickly turned back to their own work.
Kate turned to look at Jason's face and thought. “So, we go to Emma's lab for better. In here the news of your story goes faster than traveling to parallel universe B16,”
She kept the stuff and let him handed a box of evidence before led him up to the mezzanine, while other people stared at them.
The gossip here could go faster than the speed of light? Maybe….Jason thought that in a few seconds everyone would know who he was and why he was here. Fine…not necessary for him to introduce himself to others.
“I never tell anyone or anything about him, Kate,” Emma said after Kate told her that others were looked at Jason and gossip. “It couldn't help. He looks like Jason doesn't shave. We are used to seeing ourselves or those people we know that come from other parallel universes, but the universe without wormhole technology? No wonder why they keep gossip about this,” she continued while watching the queue of today’s traveling.
Kate shrugged and sighed. Sometimes she tired of the gossip speed of light in here.
“Why they don’t just focus on their work?” Kate complained impatiently.
“Oh ... this is human beings, you must be used to it, my dear,” Emma said. Turned to look at Jason who’s looking around the room interestingly. Even though he has previously entered this room but he still felt that it was worth to look at.
A lot of strange tools and machines that he never seen before. The control panel was filled with a lot of colorful buttons like candy. The dashboard showed numbers of something he didn’t know, there were twelve decimal point.
“Do not touch anything, young man,” Emma said.
Jason frowned at her. “I know, I’m not a child,” He replied.
Emma narrowed her eyes, didn’t trust him. “If you touch any button, I may have a problem with getting our agent back from traveling. And I have to set up a new device. Do you understand, Mr. Smith? I don't want to see any agent’s legs or part of their body being stuck in the floor,” She said seriously with arms on her hips.
“.... Yes ....” Jason replied, looked suspicious. “…Alright...I changed the decimal point there from 9 to 8....” he said softly.
Emma sighed and shook her head tired before reinstated the numbers. Then she turned to stare at Kate as if asking ‘Was this the person you really work with?’
“He just….excited….too excited, Emma,” Kate whispered with an uncomfortable face.
“Let’s talk about the case, Jess,” Kate said changed the subject for pulled Jason and Emma's attention to anything but the control panel or tools in the room. She took something looked like a tablet out of the box and started to read.
“Three women’s bodies found at parallel universes B09, B02, B04 and B11. At first, I came to do this case because B02 informed us that they found the bodies of three women who were not their people appeared. I and other agents from other universes went there to help and check,” Kate said.
“At B02 have got wormhole technology. They reported to the parallel universes in the WHOLE group that were people disappeared from their universes or not? And from the examination, we found that a group of women disappeared from B07, but not the group that was found at B02,” She continued.
“We have to investigate the parallel universes that are not in the WHOLE group. We found three women disappeared from B09. We, therefore, investigated many parallel universes and found that B09 also had the dead bodies of this group of women as well. They have been switched their left ear with each other. Their throats were slashed deeply, their hearts were torn out and sew the wound neatly. The problem is, B09 is a non-wormhole technology universe. Then we have to secretly collect the information from police there,” Kate said.
Secretly collect the information? ... would be the same she did at Jason police station.
“And after we collected the information from B09, then we got that the dead bodies they found were from B07 or my universe. It means, the three women who disappeared from B07 were killed and dumped their bodies at B09,”
“And when we made the timeline of founding the dead bodies in other parallel universes, we found that the incident at B02 occurred later from B09. Because B09 doesn’t in the WHOLE group, so no one informs us. They were extremely confused when they found the dead women’s bodies because the women in the same group there still alive,” Kate continued.
Yes, the police at B09 must be confused because Jason himself felt the same way. There was only parallel universes that could use wormhole technology has started investigating the case. It's not fair, they knew what happened.
“I’ll brief the case more easy to understand, at B07 there was a group of women disappeared. At that time, the police here thought they were just missing or kidnapping, not a big deal,” Kate said.
“Then their bodies were found at B09, we checked from their clothes and appearance. After founding the third dead body for about a month the same group of women at B09 started to disappear one by one. And their bodies were found at B02,”
“When the third body was found at B02, the girls there started to disappear after about a month as well. Their bodies were found at B04 one by one. When all three bodies were found the same group of women there began to disappear. We found the bodies of them at B11. Everything started and ended like other parallel universes. We found the bodies of women from B11 at B13 of yours. So it means the case took place in our universe first. WHOLE, therefore decided that our agency at B07 has to responsible for the whole case,” Kate said continued.
“That means Bella West, Piper Mason and Jessie Lee in my universe will start to disappear after one month, right?” Jason asked.
Kate nodded. “Yes, Jess. That’s why I told Prompt that you would work with me for a month and ensure that you can find the evidence,”
“Oh…sound like no pressure at all….” Jason said sarcastically and pouty.
Kate smiled funnily. “Jason and I tried to collect as much evidence as possible, but it was very little. Most security cameras were interfered from waves and light from opening wormhole until we were unable to know who the killer is. And where did he go, but we assumed the killer must be a man because there was a sexual assault and he had to carry the woman’s body through the wormhole. Unfortunately, Jason has gone, so I had to do this case alone,”
“How do you know which universe the corpse came from?” Jason asked.
Kate picked up the tablet and opened the picture for Jason to take a look. “Their bodies were marked. It’s a tattoo of numbers,”
Jason considered the photos of the bodies of those women. Each group has a different set of numbers that appeared on the chest.
01000010 00110000 00110111
01000010 00110000 00111001
01000010 00110000 00110010
01000010 00110000 00110100
01000010 00110001 00110001
“Binary code?” Jason said. He guessed that the group with the same numbers came from the same universe.
Kate turned to smile at Emma pleasantly. “I told you he can do the case,” she whispered.
“You're very smart, Jess. We spent a lot of time searching for which universe they came from until we found these codes on their chests. We had used UV light to search until we were sure that it's not just a strange tattoo of them. And then we began to paraphrase the code and get the name B07, B09, B02, B04 and B11,”
“But we haven't found their hearts, yet,” Emma added.
Kate nodded with agreement. “I think the killer took its.”
“Hope he won't cook it. He probably had many meals,” Emma said, felt disgusting.
Jason agreed with her that if the killer ate those hearts, he would be able to enjoy many meals because the women he has killed at least 15. “Are you looking for a relationship between three women? If we find their relationship, it may bring us to the killer,” he said.
“Yes, we tried to find the connection between them but in each universe, they may not know each other or may not be related. We still don’t know exactly which parallel universe that they are related. And what makes the killer choose to kill them in this strange way,” Kate explained.
That was the problem for this case. The world didn’t the only one and must be kept it as a secret for the universes that’s not in the WHOLE group.
Suddenly there was a ring sound from the control panel that Emma cherished. She quickly picked up the phone. “How’s it going you guys?” She replied and turned on the monitor and pressed a few buttons quickly. She pulled out another control panel that looked like a joystick.
“Understood, I'll start to find you now,” Emma turned on a giant light bulb that was on the ceiling above the white circle platform. This morning Jason stood holding a sick bag on it.
The Traveling Killer and Jason Smith Page 6
