The Nick of Time

by Mike Parker

  © 2017 – Mike Parker

  Shekinah Reflection Publishing

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN-13: 978-1542982948

  ISBN-10: 1542982944

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other – except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without prior written permission of the author.

  The author can be contacted at:

  shekinahreflections@gmail.com

  For all those

  who have always

  wanted to have a book

  dedicated to them,

  but were pretty sure

  it was never going

  to happen.

  – 1 –

  Macintosh or

  Granny Smith?

  Nick Jones was an average guy. He wasn’t known for being exceptional at anything, and he was okay with that. His first 25 years had not produced anything particularly noteworthy and he honestly didn’t anticipate that the two, or if he was really lucky three, quarter centuries he had left on this earth would be any different in this regard. Yes, Nick Jones was quite content with his station in life and he had no interest in anyone attempting to alter it in any way, shape or form. Life was just fine the way it was.

  Carl Ryan, on the other hand, was a child prodigy. He was a physics genius and everyone expected him to do something phenomenal with his brilliant mind. By age fifteen, Carl had received invitations from all the world’s most prestigious universities. Now, at 24 he was about to complete his second doctorate degree and was enjoying a lucrative research grant at MIT. Although he was a complete genius with books, Carl tended to be less skilled in social dynamics as is often the case with the extremely intelligent.

  Thus, it was quite a surprise to both young men when they found themselves best friends with one another. It happened quite by chance. Nick was in need of some extra cash and a little extra credit work to help him squeak through his third-year physics course. Carl was looking for an assistant who was capable of handling basic tasks, but, frankly, would not be pestering him with questions or, even more irritatingly, suggestions. As it turned out, the two were exactly what the other needed – in more ways than they would initially realize.

  For the past two years, the pair had been working tirelessly on a revolutionary project. Well, Carl had been working tirelessly. Nick had mostly been fetching coffee and entering test results into a computer database. Because of the friendship, Nick had agreed to stay on and continue to help even after he managed to pass his physics class. It didn’t hurt that Carl was able to offer him a substantial pay raise which was born partly out of their friendship but more than anything it was a reflection of how desperately Carl didn’t want to have to train a new lab monkey, as Nick had facetiously nicknamed himself.

  It seemed, now that Carl’s doctoral thesis was complete and he could focus all his time and energy on his work, the project might soon enter the testing phase. Both men had been fascinated with the concept of teleportation since watching Star Trek as kids. Now it seemed like they were on the verge of “turning science fiction into science fact,” as Carl’s personal mission statement, plastered on signs all over the lab, declared.

  “Friday’s the day,” Carl confidently declared as he walked into the lab on Monday morning.

  “Had a good weekend, did you?” Nick replied, totally ignoring his friend’s bold statement, quite on purpose. Carl seemed unphased by the remark and began bustling around getting himself set up to start the day. “Yes, I did Nick. Thank you for asking.” Nick continued both sides of the conversation himself. “How was your weekend, Nick?” He gave a quick glance at his partner who was shuffling through stacks of papers on one of the desks and completely oblivious to the discussion at hand. “It was not too bad. I did some spring cleaning, went to the beach, caught a movie with Ainsley.”

  Carl stood up straight as though a drill sergeant had just called him to attention. He took a minute to replay the last few lines of dialogue in his head, one of the advantages of having an eidetic memory. “My sister, Ainsley?” he inquired. “You went to the movies with my sister Ainsley?”

  “Well, yeah,” Nick answered, concealing his glee that the notion of Carl’s sister on a date with his friend left the scientist so flummoxed. “You were holed up here, as usual, and we were both bored, so we figured ‘what the hay!’”

  “Humf,” Carl grunted thoughtfully and then turned his attention back to the papers on his desk. “Well, no movies on Friday. Friday is the day.”

  “Are you sure the machine is ready?”

  “No, but it will be,” the scientist declared confidently. “I just have to fix a little bug with the resequencing.”

  “Is that the little bug that turned your apple into applesauce last week?” the assistant chuckled.

  “Yes, and why are you chuckling?”

  “I’m chuckling because I have a $10 blender from Target in my kitchen that can do the same things as this million dollar machine!”

  “Ha ha,” Carl mock laughed. “Although the apple was not exactly intact, it had precisely the same mass which means the entirety of the item made both the outgoing and return transports. Therefore we can deduce the machine worked 99 percent correctly. I just have to resolve the final one percent of the equation.”

  “Yeah, well,” Nick said, examining the bowl of pureed apple on the lab counter. “That’s a pretty important one percent if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t,” Carl looked up with a big grin. “But, that’s why we better get to work inside of all this lollygagging and chit-chat.”

  “Did you just say lollygagging?” Nick asked in disbelief. “My Grandpa used to say lollygagging.”

  “Ah! Here it is,” Carl cheered, ignoring his friend’s teasing and holding up a stack of papers as if it were a trophy. “These are the results from the weekend tests. Punch them into the computer so we can figure out which screw needs to be tightened.”

  “Lab monkey is on the job!” Nick laughed taking the papers and settling into the chair at his workstation.

  The duo worked feverishly all week, both focussing on their particular area of expertise. Carl prepared the machine and constantly ran tests, staying late into the night long after his partner had called it a day. Nick arrived early, put Carl’s quad-Americano on his desk, and then began tidying up the place and entering the data from the previous night.

  Although he would hide it at times, Nick was as excited for Friday’s test as his friend was. The idea of being able to instantly transport from one place to another would revolutionize the world like nothing had done before. Sure, there would be tremendous accolades that would come, most of which would be directed towards Carl, and rightly so, but that’s not what excited Nick. For him, it was all about being part of something that would change the world.

  Thursday morning Carl came in looking more flustered than usual. After a few minutes of rapid pacing and completely tuning out Nick’s early morning banter, as he usually did, Carl stopped short and looked intently at his friend. “I have a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t test the machine,” he said flatly.

  “What? Why? How?” Nick stumbled over his words trying to find the right question to ask. “I don’t understand. You mean you can’t test the machine tomorrow? Do we need to postpone?”

  “No, no,” Carl answered as if his partner had just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “The apple test is all set and ready to go. I just have to decide Macintosh or Granny Smith. I’m talking about the test. I can’t do the test.”

  “You mean, you can’t be the first pers
on to teleport if and when we get to that stage many months or years from now?” For a moment Nick had forgotten who he was talking to. He should have known better. Carl is always thinking three or four steps down the road. If he had ever been stressed about tomorrow’s test it would have been weeks ago, not now.

  “Yes of course,” the young physicist replied matter-of-factly. “Naturally I would like to be the first man through the machine. I mean who wouldn’t be? I’d be like Captain Carl, boldly going where no man had gone before! But I can’t do it.”

  “Are you afraid it won’t work?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, of course it will work!” he chided. “I wouldn’t do the test until I was sure it was going to work.” He paused for a moment then continued on in a more subdued tone. “But, if for some unforeseeable reason, it did not work, I can not afford to not be around to fix the problem. If I got stuck in there, who would get me back out? Certainly not you!”

  Carl didn’t intend for that statement to sound as rude as it did and Nick didn’t take it that way. Carl was right, if it required anything more than unplugging the machine and plugging it back in again, he was not the guy for the task. “You’ve got a point there,” he agreed and then pondered the quandary for a while. “Well,” he said resolutely, “We’ll just have to get someone else to do it. But we’ve got plenty of time to figure that out. Let’s focus on the apple…”

  “Plenty of time? Are you serious?” the exasperated scientist moaned. “We’ve got no time at all! It’s not like we can just pick some random guy off the street and say ‘Pardon me, are you busy tomorrow? Want to be part of the greatest scientific discovery since Newton?’”

  “Hey,” Nick chuckled. “Newton used apples too!”

  “Huh, fascinating,” Carl agreed. “But totally not the point! It has to be the right guy. Someone I trust. Someone who knows the project. This can’t just be a last-minute thing.”

  “Hmm, I could do it,” Nick said flippantly. The silence that followed made him instantly nervous as he considered what he had just volunteered for.

  “I don’t know,” Carl said thoughtfully. “On the one hand, you do fit all the criteria,” he said, going over the list once again in his head. “But on the other hand, I’d feel bad if you ended up as applesauce.” Both men smirked and then outright laughed at the remark.

  “Well,” Nick said, wiping a tear from his eye and still chuckling a bit. “It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen. So, get back to work Einstein.”

  – 2 –

  B.I.R.D. is the Word

  Carl Ryan entered his lab on Friday morning with a spring in his step and an apple in his hand. Today was the day of the big test. Carl’s machine was designed to do one thing: teleport an object from one point to another and back again. Carl and Nick had attempted three tests prior to this one with varying degrees of success.

  The first test failed miserably. The button was pressed, the machine whirred and gurgled and then stopped. Test number two was slightly more productive as the machine actually did something. Unfortunately, that something was to blow several capacitors and ignite a small fire. The final test had been conducted only one week ago and showed the most promise. The object in the machine, a gala apple, disappeared momentarily and then reappeared as mush splattered all over the inside of the machine.

  “What is that?” Nick called out from across the room.

  “Ah, a golden delicious,” Carl replied proudly. Although his scientific mind would not allow him to admit it, deep down he felt like choosing the correct type of apple was somehow critical to the success of the test.

  The researcher placed the apple inside the machine and paused for a moment to take it all in. The machine itself was nothing to look at. From the outside, it appeared to be nothing more than a white fiberglass tube two feet tall and two and a half feet in diameter. Of course, that was just the outer shell. Inside was a lead lining as well as a series of lasers and sensors. The machine itself was housed inside a small room constructed of one foot thick concrete walls. The room’s entrance was secured with a lead-filled iron door. Carl’s moment of reflection was interrupted by a click and a flash. “What in the world?”

  He turned to see a chipper young lady reviewing the photo she had just taken on what looked to be a very expensive camera. “Who let her in here?”

  “Hey,” Nick objected. “She’s an investigative reporter and I thought if there was anything that needed to be investigated and reported it was this historic moment!” The tone of his voice revealed he was jesting, at least in part. “Besides, she is your sister.”

  “Morning Carl,” Ainsley Ryan greeted cheerfully, giving her brother a quick peck on the cheek. Ainsley was a lovely young woman with long brunette hair and a bubbly personality. She had graduated with a degree in photojournalism last spring and had been working mostly freelance reporting on events around the world. “So, how does this rust bucket work anyway?”

  “It is not a rust bucket,” Carl replied equally humored and annoyed. “It is the Biometric Imaging and Relocation Device.”

  “B.I.R.D.?” Ainsley asked skeptically.

  “One in the hand is better than two in the bush,” Nick chirped as he rushed past with a stack of files.

  Completely ignoring the repartee of the others, Carl continued his explanation, “The machine uses high energy x-rays from the university’s brand new synchrotron to scan the object literally at a molecular level. That information is processed by the computer and then transmitted to a new location.”

  “Okay, but how does the object get reconstructed when it arrives at its destination? And how do you get back?” Ainsley probed.

  “Most of that is too technical and well above my pay grade, but you get back with this,” Nick said as he passed by again and handed her a metal case roughly the size of a shoe box. “We call it the little bird.”

  “No, we do not,” Carl corrected sternly.

  “Which makes that…” Nick grinned, pointing to the machine and clearly enjoying taunting his friend.

  “Big Bird,” the reporter snickered. “What does this do?”

  “That, my dear sister, does two very important things. First of all, it stores all the data the initial scan records.”

  “So it’s a backup file?”

  “A crude but largely accurate description,” Carl teased his sister.

  “Does that mean if something goes wrong, you can find the little black box and put the apple back together again?”

  “Better than Humpty Dumpty,” Nick chimed in. “At least in theory, as long as…”

  “As long as the box is still in one piece,” Carl finished the thought

  “That’s incredible!” the young woman exclaimed. “Do you realize what this means? You could scan a sack full of wheat or rice and send it to all those people starving in Africa.” She paused for a moment collecting her thoughts and then asked. “Could this thing, um, I’m sorry, the B.I.R.D be used to print multiple copies of one object?”

  “Perhaps, in theory anyway. That would certainly revolutionize shipping wouldn’t it?” Carl said, pondering the possibilities.

  “It would also kill manufacturing and put millions of hard-working people out of work,” Nick noted.

  “That’s not an issue to be discussed at the moment,” Carl added, shaking off the thought that had momentarily distracted him from the task at hand.

  “What is the second thing?” Ainsley inquired.

  “The second what?”

  “The second function of the box.”

  “Oh yes, perhaps the most important of all,” her brother explained. “Recall. After a predetermined time, the box signals the machine, uses the original data to recall the object, and anything it’s directly in contact with – like clothes for example, and send it back to the original location.”

  “How is that possible without direct access to another synchrotron?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Nick protested with a grin. “He tried
to explain it to me once.”

  “Yes, and I lost you on the fourth word,” Carl teased.

  “Hey, in my defense the fourth word was about 16 syllables long!”

  “In layman’s terms,” the scientist paying little attention to his partner, “The box contains a small time displacement device that holds the object in a temporal field. So long as the object is in contact with the box, it remains within the temporal field and is linked back to the B.I.R.D. The box also stores energy from the synchrotron within the device itself which should be enough to power several dozen teleports. However, that’s not really an issue, because it will always return right back here after each one.”

  “In other words,” the assistant explained, “Little bird makes a time bubble around the object which allows it to maintain a connection with Big Bird and get sucked back through space when the egg timer dings.”

  “Maybe you are a genius,” Ainsley kidded her brother.

  “Well, of course I am,” Carl responded in kind. “It’s about time you realized that.”

  “Actually I was talking about Nick.”

  “Stay away from my sister, Jones!” Carl called out returning his attention to the wires and pipes connected to the machine.

  “Is this about the movie?” Nick asked in mock annoyance.

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” Carl answered with a grin. “Everything looks good here. I think we’re ready.”

  A hush fell over the room as everyone anticipated what came next. Carl adjusted the apple sitting inside the machine and allowed his sister to snap one more photo before closing the pod and shutting the iron door. “We should have access to the beam from the synchrotron in three, two, one.” A soft buzz could be heard in the room momentarily before it was drowned out by the sound of the machine charging up. “The beam is at full power now.”

  “Scanning the apple,” Nick reported, eyes fixed on the computer monitor in front of him. “Fifty percent scanned. Seventy-five percent. Ninety percent. Scan complete,” he informed the others with a slight quiver in his throat. “Commencing teleportation.”