Shimmer

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 7

  “I’m not coming to EMIT today,” Alex told Silas the next morning. He hadn’t slept at all. He knew he looked ragged and was worried that Silas would question the dark circles under his eyes, but with his typical lack of concern, Silas didn’t remark.

  Silas raised an indifferent eyebrow. “School?”

  “No,” Alex replied, working hard to keep the surge of relief from his voice. “I’m going to my house to get some things and look around in my dad’s study. Maybe I can find something there, some research he left behind or something.”

  Silas narrowed his eyes. “I will send someone with you. Someone from the lab. Perhaps they will be able to help you determine what might or might not be relevant.”

  Don’t trust anyone. Don’t tell anyone. Alex’s father’s words echoed in his mind.

  “No, thank you. I…” Alex floundered for an explanation and blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. “I just need some alone time, Silas. It’s been weeks. I have to face the idea that my dad might be gone forever.”

  Silas continued to regard him dubiously. It was obvious that Alex’s fake emotional outpouring did nothing to soften his outward rigidity.

  “Alright,” Silas said grudgingly. “But only today. I don’t feel comfortable knowing you’re out on your own. It has occurred to me recently that you are the sole heir to EMIT. You have a responsibility to the company now.”

  Ugh, Alex thought. “I know, Silas,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Silas had the company driver take a detour on the way to the lab so that they could drop Alex off at the house.

  “Call when you’re ready and I’ll arrange for a ride back,” Silas said by way of farewell. He put his window up without another word, but Alex was so used to the man’s peculiar, rude behavior that he barely noticed.

  He opened the front door hesitantly and stepped inside his house. The air was still and quiet. In the kitchen, the refrigerator kicked on, startling him. It felt surreal to be home, almost like he didn’t belong there anymore. What did that mean? Did he intuitively know something he was refusing to accept or was it just that it had been long enough that he’d forgotten what it felt like to have a place to call his own?

  Putting his backpack down on a chair near the front door, Alex nudged aside one of the front window curtains and peeked out, looking both ways down the road. The driveway was empty. Silas had gone.

  Alex counted slowly to sixty before he grabbed his backpack and hurried down into the basement.

  Before his mother had disappeared, his parents had been part of many social circles. It hadn’t been uncommon for them to host parties and fundraisers right here in the house. The main portion of the walkout basement had been finished as an area to entertain, most of it a wide open space, but at the far end there was a door that led into a storage room. A sliding glass door on the far wall led out into the back yard. Sunlight poured into the room. Alex went to it and pulled the curtains closed.

  In the storage room, he switched on the light. He had to hand it to his father—the room definitely didn’t look like it contained the entrance to a super-secret lab. Cardboard boxes were stacked, neatly labeled with permanent, black marker. Several pieces of old furniture were piled carefully in one corner. It all appeared completely normal.

  He scanned the walls and was a little surprised when he located the switch without much effort. It was on the far side of the room, just as his father had said it would be. It was a simple black toggle with a plastic cover over it, easily overlooked, and not hidden in any way.

  Alex flicked open the cover, flipped the switch, and a section of the wall directly in front of him slid open with a soft swoosh, like a door in a Star Trek episode. He drew back and waited to see if anything else would happen, but he was only met with silence.

  Inside, fluorescent lights were beginning to flicker and blink. Hesitantly, Alex stepped over the threshold.

  As soon as he entered his father’s lab, the door slid closed. Alex panicked for a moment, but saw a similar switch on the inside wall. He let out a sigh of relief. His father wouldn’t have led him here only to lock him in.

  The lab wasn’t terribly large, maybe twenty feet square. Equipment and machines, the likes of which Alex had never seen before, lined the walls. There was a large work table in the center of the room with a computer and smaller pieces of equipment scattered across the top of it.

  Looking past the table to the far side of the room, Alex gave a small shout as he caught sight of the outline of a person. He was already fumbling for the wall switch when he realized it was not a person at all, but a suit that looked just like the one his father had been wearing in the video. Next to it was some type of contraption, something that looked like a bathtub standing on its end, except the inside was molded in the shape of a human. It was one of the oddest things Alex had ever seen.

  Taped across the front of the computer monitor was a piece of paper with Dad’s familiar scrawl: “PRESS ENTER.”

  Alex stepped up to the table and hit the button. The screen came to life, and another video of his father filled the screen.

  “Alex,” his father said insistently. “You need to destroy everything in this room.”

  “What?” Alex exclaimed at the computer screen.

  “If they ever find it,” his father continued, “if what you see around you ever gets into the wrong hands, it might be the end of things as we know them. There are only two Personal Transport Suits in existence, one of which is in this room. The other is in my possession. Take the suit, this computer, and every scrap of research in this lab and incinerate it all. There is a chute in the wall behind you. Open it, put everything in, and then press the red button beside it.” His father leaned in close so that his face filled the screen. “This is important, Alex. I need you to do this.”

  And then the video was terminated.

  Alex looked at the suit and then back at the computer, frustrated.

  Are you kidding me?

  There was no way he could destroy the suit. It was his one and only chance for finding his father. Alex took a deep breath and stepped back from the table.

  There was no way. He just couldn’t do it.

  Maybe if he understood a little better, maybe if he saw there was no other way. Where had his dad gone, after all? From what he’d said in the first video, Dad seemed pretty sure that he knew where he was going.

  Alex pulled a stool over to the table and sat down. He began digging deeper into the computer, reading through the research, looking for clues. He spent hours there, not just on the computer but also sifting through the piles of notes that were strewn across the table and pinned on the walls.

  By the end of the day he still had no idea where his father had gone, but he did have a basic understanding of what had been created in this room. The Personal Transport Suit, or PTS, was exactly what its name implied, in every sense.

  It allowed the wearer to instantly be transported from one place to another all from a small device near the right-hand wrist of the suit. It utilized a simple laser pointer to target the destination. It was both complex and rudimentary at the same time, because while it allowed the user to instantly go from one place to the next, the destination had to be within sight. Part of his father’s research discussed the future of the technology and the idea that it could evolve using fiber-optic lines to transport over long distances, or perhaps GPS to secure a coordinate. In its current incarnation, the technology could only make use of the laser, traveling along the same tiny line it used to get from one point to the next.

  Only.

  Alex shook his head in wonder. His father was a genius. It could only teleport someone or something using a laser pointer. It was absolutely amazing! And his father wanted him to destroy it? The notion was ludicrous!

  He continued to read and learned that the suit was personal in application, very personal. It had to be bio-coded to the individual wearing it, literally plugged into the person who used it
through ports, much like those worn by cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Instead of injecting a fluid into the user, though, these ports created a conduit for the electro-magnetic pulses from the suit through the user’s body.

  These conduits also collected unused energy straight from the wearer’s body, right into the suit to be stored. Alex knew from his father’s energy-sharing project that humans constantly produced energy. Even at rest, humans produce small amounts. Throughout the course of the day, through movement, kinetic energy is created. This was yet another type of stray energy that his father intended to harvest with the energy collectors he was working on for the government.

  And apparently he’d succeeded, because that’s exactly what the suit did. Essentially, it powered itself by feeding off the energy of its wearer.

  His father had made the process to implant the ports simple. The strange bathtub-looking machine against the wall was made for that purpose. Not only did it embed the ports in the user’s arm, but it also scanned their DNA, uploading the sequence into the PTS. By the time the user had the ports implanted, the suit was theirs—like having the keys to a car, except in this case the keys only worked for the person whose DNA matched the sequence uploaded into the suit.

  The implantation device was automated, made to be used by the person receiving the ports through a simple push of a button. His father had thought of everything. Of course, he would have had to if he didn’t want anyone else to know about the project.

  Was it really that easy?

  Alex thought back to his father’s video from the airstrip. He was sure his father wasn’t dead. Something of him would have been left behind on the airstrip if he had died there. The question wasn’t if he was alive, the question was where.

  He looked at the suit and the implant machine. There was only one way to find out. If he didn’t do this, he would never forgive himself. Yes, his father had told him to destroy everything in the room, but that was when his dad thought he had everything under control. If he’d really wanted all of this destroyed, why hadn’t he done it himself before he left? Had he thought he might need it of the one he was wearing didn’t work?

  Maybe not destroying it was exactly what he thought his headstrong son would do simply because that’s what he asked of him. Alex shook his head. That was ridiculous. Something this important, his dad wouldn’t play mind games.

  His dad had really thought he’d be back. He’d said so in the first video. That’s why he hadn’t destroyed it before leaving. And he’d thought he’d be bringing Mom with him.

  That last thought was all Alex needed to spur himself into action.

  Following his father’s instructions, he powered up the big bathtub-looking machine and stepped into it, nestling his back into the human-shaped mold.

  As soon as he was in place, and before he could talk himself out of it, he slapped the button in the side of the machine to start the injection process.

  Curved metal cuffs rotated out from under his wrists and arms, tightening and holding him in place. He instinctively fought against them for a moment, paranoia almost getting the best of him, but forced himself to calm down. This was something his father had already done. It was safe. He was doing it for Dad.

  From behind the machine, tiny mechanical arms came around the sides and scanned his arms from palm to shoulder. Once the scan was complete, the mechanical arms moved down to a point about halfway between his wrist and elbow. Without sound or warning, the end of each arm jabbed down, lodging a small, round port in him. It hurt—bad. He cried out and jerked reflexively from the pain, but there was nowhere to go.

  The arms pulled away, folding back on themselves, and disappeared again behind the machine.

  Alex was panting, mostly from adrenaline, but there was no blood and the pain was already receding. The entire process had taken less than a minute. The restraints quietly rotated back into the machine, releasing their hold on him. He pushed away, giving the machine a wounded scowl as he examined the gadgets that were now a part of his body. They were round with small triangular ridges jutting from the outer edge. In the center was a tiny, circular, metal hole.

  He gently poked one with a finger, testing to see if it hurt. It didn’t. He pushed on it harder. He could feel the pressure, but still no pain. There was some tenderness, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

  Now for the hard part. He studied the suit closely. It would be easy enough to put on. It was, more or less, just a piece of clothing.

  The part that would be difficult would be plugging the suit into the ports. From his dad’s notes, Alex knew it literally plugged into him. He had no idea whether or not it would hurt, but the mere thought of it made him cringe.

  He took the suit down from where it hung and laid it out on the table. His dad had been clever. It was adjustable—an almost one-size-fits-all piece of apparel. The arms and legs could slide into or out of themselves to elongate or shrink. The material was odd, like a hard mesh spandex. It stretched when he pulled on it, but not easily. The wires that crisscrossed the suit weren’t set in straight lines, they zigzagged, and they stretched with the fabric. Anyone seriously overweight probably wouldn’t be able to wear the suit, but for Alex it would fit easily.

  He stripped out of his clothes and pulled the suit over his legs. Before putting his arms into the sleeves, he rolled them back so that he could get to the apparatus that plugged into his ports. He slid his arms through and studied the plugs. They weren’t large. They looked almost like small, flat spark plug wires. It was very clear how to attach them, there was only one way they could go.

  Taking a breath, he took one of them in his left hand and inserted it into the port on his right arm. It clicked into place with a snick. Nothing happened. It didn’t hurt. He didn’t feel anything except the slight pressure he’d had to put on it when he attached it. He rolled down the sleeve on that arm. At the end was an attached fingerless glove, which he slid his hand into.

  Still nothing happened.

  Reaching over with his now-gloved right hand, he plugged the apparatus for his left arm into the port.

  Snick.

  Immediately, he felt energy surge through him like he’d been injected with a thousand milligrams of caffeine. His body felt so electrified it made him rise up on the tips of toes, and he gave an involuntarily moan. He was a little freaked out at first, but after he got over the initial shock he realized it felt good. He could feel his whole body humming, like it was a machine, and in a way he supposed it was. Maybe it was just the suit that was humming. Whatever it was, it made him feel strong, like he had boundless energy.

  He pulled the glove over his right hand and flexed his fingers. He could feel the tiny apparatus that was embedded into it. It ran up the sleeve of the suit. He couldn’t see it—it was inside the fabric—but it was undeniably there. It wrapped around his right wrist snugly; this part of the suit sensed the muscle movements that would activate it. In the wrist, there was a small, round, hard piece of plastic with a lens: the laser pointer.

  He’d read the notes. He knew how it was supposed to work—all he had to do was stretch out his fingers, arch his hand back, and the laser would activate. Wherever he pointed it, once he clenched his hand into a fist, the suit would be activated and take him there.

  So now what? The suit was on and ready. It was now bio-coded to him specifically, or it wouldn’t have turned on when he plugged it into himself.

  There was nothing more to do except test it.

  And he was scared to death. The next step was to use it, and then go back to the airstrip where his dad had vanished and try to reproduce the exact same scenario. It sounded simple enough, but what if his father hadn’t really gone somewhere else? What if he hadn’t sunk, or vanished, or whatever, and had actually been killed by the suit? His father had admitted that his had been the first human test of the technology. Had his dad really survived? Alex would be risking his life to use the suit. After all, dissolving your body and resolving it so
mewhere else wasn’t exactly a ‘safe’ new technology.

  He had to do it, though.

  His father said he’d found his mother, and Alex knew his dad wasn’t someone who did things on a whim. His mother had been gone for a very long time. This wasn’t something his father had rushed into. Silas said Dad had been working on this project since the day she disappeared.

  Dad was a genius. If he thought he’d found Mom, then the chances were that he had. He’d gone wherever she’d gone in an attempt to rescue her, but he must not have been able to find his way back. Not after a month.

  Now it was up to Alex to bring them home. Even if he couldn’t, at least they would all be together again, wherever that was.

  He lifted his right hand, spread his fingers, and tilted back his wrist. As expected, the laser silently shone out, beaming in a straight line. The suit began to thrum like it was alive, vibrating over his entire body. Heart racing, Alex slowly moved the pointer to a spot on the floor near the door to the storage room. He was breathing heavily, adrenaline coursing through his veins so strong he was worried he’d start shaking and miss his landing. It was now or never.

  He gritted his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist.

  Power. It was the only word to describe what he felt. Not him—his body. It felt like it was being washed inside and out with power. Not like an electrical zap, but something closer to pure power, like being doused in a cool lake full of energy. He was completely blinded for a moment by light, reminiscent of when PJ had thrown the volleyball into the side of his head. Dull, white light completely obscured his vision, but only for a split second, and then it winked right back out.

  He was standing near the door of the lab.

  Nothing had changed, except where he was standing. He patted down his body, feeling himself all over to make sure everything was still where it was supposed to be.

  It was.

  He was still him. His body was still whole.

  He’d done it!

  He gave a high-pitched whoop!

  Running over to his clothes, he gathered them up and went back to the door. He hit the switch and left the lab, grabbing his backpack on his way up the steps. He had his hand on the front doorknob and was just about to bolt out the door when he came to his senses.

  What was he doing? What was he thinking? He was wearing a piece of technology that could change the world and he was just going to run out the front door wearing it? If the wrong people saw him with the suit he would lose it forever, and all his Dad’s hard work would be exploited.

  And he might never be able to find his parents.

  Alex pulled back the sleeves, detached the suit from the arm ports, and then took it the rest of the way off. He carefully folded it and placed it in the bottom of his backpack.