The Time Traveler’s Trap

Chapter 1

Before I started my journey through time, I loved stories and television shows about time travelling.  I even had a remark I used to tell people, jokingly when the subject came up.  “We’re already travelling forward through time, we just don’t have any control over it.”

As lame is the joke is, it was that exact joke in an interview that landed me my final job at Quantinited Labs in Baltimore, Maryland.  That is where it all started, the mess that trapped me where and when I am right now, and why I’ll probably never see my wife again.

I had just been let go as a research assistant from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in nearby Laurel, Maryland.  That was pretty much a dead-end job, fact-checking things that the graduate students and professors there were too lazy to check on themselves.  They all thought their own time was too valuable to do research, so they wrote what they thought they knew and then before they submitted for publication, I had to go through every line of their article, book, or whatever, and find a credible, already-published source that they could claim they used to make their work sound legitimate.  Sometimes I wish I’d been paid by the number of citations I found for them instead of by the hour.  It made the time go by, but it was a thankless, boring job.

Anyway, it was having that place listed on my résumé that impressed Quantinited Labs enough to hire me as a liaison in their “Black Hole/Big Bang Singularity” research department.  The place wasn’t like any other business I’d ever been a part of, or even could have imagined existed before I started working there.  Quantinited Labs was definitely a business, because all I ever heard from the scientists who worked there was about how they had to show progress and practical application, or all of their project funding would be pulled and they’d have to spend their time teaching at a high school on the side.  

Where Quantinited Labs got their money from, I don’t know, but I can say for sure that wherever it was must have been rolling in the dough.  Any time the scientists needed something for an experiment, I was the guy that had to chase it down wherever and however I could.  My job boiled down to being a glorified facilitator.  The scientists were all pompous or nervous self-absorbed workaholics who had a hard time relating to people.  That’s where I came in.  I would sit in the lab with them, try to understand what they were doing, and when they needed something, I would schmooze with management to get approval, explaining the importance and possibilities of whatever the scientists were working on.  Then the management would go to somebody else, and within a day I’d have the go-ahead to talk to suppliers who would either have it on hand, or manufacture it and ship it to us.

And these weren’t normal pieces of equipment either, let me tell you.  Some of these things that I’d have to get for the scientists could take months of research at another company to create, some cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (just for a part!), and some were as large as a swimming pool.  All I can say is that it’s a good thing Quantinited Labs had a lot of money, because in addition to paying these scientists, having a prime location in the U.S., and having a super-secure, top-notch facility, the suppliers charged a lot of money for those parts, including shipping, research, and whatever else it took to get us what we needed.

The manager I usually had to get buy-in from was a young guy named Gator.  Well Gator wasn’t actually his name, it was Steven Gates, but since college everyone had called him Gator.  He’d been on a football scholarship at Stanford University, and was supposed to be a really talented guy.  Gator wasn’t good enough to continue on to professional football though.  He used his degree in Applied Physics, which he undoubtedly earned thanks to tutors doing his homework and taking his tests, to land a cushy smarmy managerial position over an umbrella of departments at Quantinited Labs, including the BH/BBS, or ‘BS’ department as I so lovingly refer to it.

Gator was a good enough guy.  He could be fun, relied on my judgment most of the time, and surprisingly involved himself heavily in understanding the projects each of the departments was working on.  I think that was because he didn’t want any of his underlings slipping past him with an idea and jumping over him in the food chain.

The only problem with Gator is that if he didn’t like you, you might as well start passing out resumes to work at the local high school, because he would give you the axe faster than Paul Bunyan in a forest of redwoods.

And that’s where all my trouble started.

Chapter 2

You would think that staying late would make me look good, but it turned out to be the beginning of a huge downward spiral for me that I had no control over.

Late one Friday night, I was at my desk in Quantinited Labs’ BS department, filling out a requisition form for an additional line of power in from Washington DC’s power grid into one of the scientist’s experiments.  All of QL’s power is generally pulled from the same grid that any business or home on the eastern seaboard of the United States uses, but the consumption of Dr. Plank’s newest experiment required a dedicated, uninterruptible power supply.  That’s really not uncommon though; some experiments have to continue to run because if they are shut down, they have to be started all over again, and like they say in the big offices, time is money.  

My office is tucked away in the back corner of the BS department’s basement.  And when I say basement, it’s actually about 10 stories underground.  Thanks to the potential danger of some of the experiments due to radiation and other things that the scientists play with, the more volatile the experiment, the deeper it has to be for safety’s sake.  The fact that we were at the bottom level should tell you how dangerous some of those experiments were.

Just as I was finishing up the form on my touch-screen tablet, I heard what sounded like a door shutting somewhere on the same floor.  It’s not unusual for one of the scientists to check on the status of one of their experiments at odd times, so I didn’t think much of it.  I pushed myself back from my desk, took a well-deserved stretch break, and headed out into the main lab floor.  

If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed in my office, locked my door, and hid under my desk.  Instead, like the unsuspecting idiot that I am, I headed to Dr. Plank’s isolated lab area to check on how his experiment was going.  As I held my security bracelet up to the security chip reader, the heavy lead door slid open.  I began “Gerard, are you checking in on your baby” when I was shocked to see that instead of Dr. Plank, Gator was standing there, literally caught with his pants down, in an embrace with an incredibly gorgeous young blonde woman, who was wearing nothing but white heels and a silky white blouse.  

Thinking back on it, running out of there and heading straight home was probably one of the stupidest things I could have done.  I can only imagine the thoughts running through Gator’s head, and none of them endeared me in his eyes.  Maybe a smarter thing would have been to give him a wink, and tell him that he found my secret spot to take ladies too.  

But I digress; what’s done is done, and that was the big mistake that began the most unbelievable tragedy I could have wished upon myself.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had nothing but excitement since then.  I’ve had brushes with death, periods of heavy romance for myself, and made and lost untold riches.  I’ve learned secrets that have perplexed scholars and law officers for centuries, and I’ve even undergone personal physical changes that even comic book writers can’t imagine.  And do you know what?  Absolutely none of that can help me now.

Chapter 3

Before I get to the pickle I’m in now though, I need to look back on what happened after I ran from Dr. Plank’s office that night.  Maybe somewhere in between then and now is something I’ve missed that will wash all of this trouble away and get me back on the straight and narrow.

As best as I can guess, Gator wasn’t supposed to be using the lower levels for his own personal relationships, but I wouldn’t have imagined that he would seek revenge on me stumbling over his little secret.  I couldn’t even have thought it probable that he would plan it so carefully, or serve it to me in such imperceptible doses over the months after that.

When we next saw each other in a meeting the following Monday afternoon, he was overly friendly, and I was hesitant to return his enthusiasm.  There were pats on the back, broad smiles and constant eye contact on his part toward me during the meeting.  Afterward, I tried to pull him aside to talk to him to tell him not to worry about it.  I was met with a quickly soured look from him.  He asked why I would bring that up in public, especially at work.  I tried to stammer out words of apology, but Gator stomped away in anger and I knew that I must have instantly made things worse.

I left the meeting to see how Dr. Plank’s experiment was working out.  His experiment was a new type of base station for teleporting matter from one location to another.  Surprisingly, it isn’t a new concept in science, although as you might imagine, it’s based in science fiction.  There even have been successful teleportation experiments in the past.  The public only knows about relatively simple experiments where photons, or complex bits of light, were copied at one location, the information was sent to a destination, and then recreated.  This of course required specific technology for them to copy, transmit, receive, and then recreate the photon, but essentially what you ended up with at the destination was what had been at the source.  And you can imagine, bits of light don’t exist for very long, so it really is a small experiment.  One of the biggest drawbacks to this experiment aside from only being able to transmit a tiny bit of light is that you had to have sight-to-sight connection between the sending and receiving sides.  As you can imagine, that would really limit the distance something could be sent, given the fact that the earth is round.

Dr. Plank had a new take on it, and the management and financiers at QL had big ideas for it.  What Dr. Plank (and apparently a few competitors) was trying to create was a teleportational device that could read the source item, regardless of whether it was light or matter that you could touch and feel, and transmit it over great distances, to be assembled at its destination.  Dr. Plank had already figured out the solution to also transmitting matter, and had shown that he could teleport it from one end of his lab to another using a transmitter the size of a small Volkswagen bus and a receiver as big as a refrigerator.  That was a lot of work, time, expertise, and parts just to transmit something invisibly small about 60 feet indoors, but he was thrilled with his progress.

Originally, he had pursued efforts to have the item read at the source by the transmitter, having the information sent to the destination, and then recreated at the destination.  Unfortunately either he wasn’t smart enough to figure out a creative solution, or it just isn’t possible.  Without the transmitter completely disassembling the source object, which was easy with photons but not with physical matter, it couldn’t be read accurately by the source transmitter.  So he had to build complete capability into the source transmitter to also instantly disassemble the source matter, record it, and then transmit the information to the receiver, which also had to instantly assemble the copy of the source item.

Another minor glitch is that with the amount of work that the transmitter and receiver had to do, it could only handle one object at a time.  If you wanted to send something new, you had to wait until the previous item was already created on the receiver.  Also, you couldn’t create the same item again on the receiver without transmitting it on the source again.  Dr. Plank had told me that it wasn’t because of Einstein’s rule that matter couldn’t be created or destroyed, only transformed.  I knew that was true, because in his experiments the source item was disassembled and turned into energy or base atoms, and at the destination, he was using pure energy from the power company and transforming it into the matter needed to create the copied object.  It was a lot more complicated than I understood, but it worked, so I can’t really dispute it.

It was the amount of energy that it required to recreate the object though that was causing his latest problem.  That was the reason I had to stay late the previous Friday to complete a requisition form for him.

“Gerard, how are you doing my friend?  Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Ah, Muzz, I believe I have reached the limits of what I can currently test, until I have the additional energy that is needed.”

“Well, I have a meeting with Gator this evening, and I’m sure he’s going to see that this will be a quick and easy expense to approve, especially since you’re getting closer and closer to delivering something the company can use to make shipping obsolete…well, as long as the shipper and receiver have a clear signal to each other.”

“Yes, Mr. Gates has already been down here this morning to talk to me about this request, and he was looking for you.  He said he needed to discuss with you the improperly filled-out form.  I was sure he must have been mistaken, so I called Mr. Brown to ask if the form could be expedited, regardless of any possible errors.”

“You… you talked to Brownie, er, I mean Mr. Brown about the form even after talking to Gator about it?  Gerard, you know there is a process that the has to be followed here.  Gator is going to think we went over his head because he wasn’t getting us what we wanted.”

“I’m sorry Muzz, but I must have the additional energy to make any substantial progress.  I have worked out so many improvements on paper and have the additional equipment you’ve supplied for me in the past few weeks, but without energy I am unable to test them.”

“I know Gerard, I know.  It’s just that I think Gator, Mr. Gates, is having a bad day, and I’m going to have to let him know we didn’t mean anything by going to Mr. Brown.  I’ll take care of it, and I’ll make sure you have your power as soon as possible.”

With that, Dr. Plank returned to the small item he had been tinkering with when I’d entered the room, and I left, in search of a sure-to-be angry Gator.

I found Gator, or rather he found me, and I could tell that he had already had a chance to talk to QL’s Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Walter Brown.  The look of anger on Gator’s face was like nothing I’d ever seen before, but since we were in a hallway near the corporate office floor on the top level of QL’s headquarter building, it was easy to see that it was taking everything he had to restrain himself.

“Mr. Mazoli, I am very glad I ran into you here.  No, you don’t need to say anything, I am very happy that you have taken it upon yourself to escalate a minor requisition form all the way up to my boss’s boss before I even had a chance to meet with you during our already scheduled appointment.  I’ll see to it that this is given the highest priority and that you get every bit of power that is coming to you.  Thank you, and by the way, I will be cancelling our meeting this evening since we won’t need it any longer.  Have a great day!”

Chapter 4

I stood half in shock, half in mortal dread as my direct boss stormed past me down the hall back toward his office.  I had no idea what to do, but I had a feeling of impending doom.  

As I shuffled my way toward the elevators on the executive floor, I passed the office of the CFO, ‘Brownie’ as he’s called himself since before he helped to found QL.  At the front of his office I saw that same remarkable, but now haunting vision of blonde hair, trim figure and more stylish clothing (or more complete anyway), that I had seen in the basement of the lab several nights before.  

My jaw felt like it was unhinged as I realized that she must be Brownie’s secretary, or Executive Administrative Assistant.  I quickly continued on to the elevator before she could look up and notice me staring at her, dumbfounded.  

I must have pushed the down arrow on the elevator a dozen times, even after the doors had already opened, all the time muttering obscenities under my breath.  Before I even reached our cozy, sterile basement I began to understand some of what was going on.  Gator must be making a play for power by secretly cozying up to the CFO’s information focal point.  By finding out his secret, I was probably putting his job in complete jeopardy, thus the reason my job was now going to be in the same status.  I couldn’t have imagined the truth was much worse.

I went straight to my office in the basement and shut the door, continuing my obscenity-laden muttering, and probably looking like someone who just ran over a school full of children.  After a few minutes of fighting my anxiety and avoiding hyperventilating, I decided to return to Dr. Plank to fill him in on news that was likely not going to make him happy.

I buzzed my bracelet to gain access to his section of the lab.  Unfortunately for my face, my anticipation that I still would have access to his lab didn’t match reality.  After I bounced off the door and composed myself, I tried again, this time checking to see if the door would move before I rushed headfirst into it.  Again the door didn’t budge for me.  It seemed my fears were becoming reality far faster than I dreaded.  Gator must have locked me out, I thought, as I stood at the doorway in an emotional funk.

Just as I was about to return to my office to start taking stock of my belongings, I heard a faint hum and felt all of the hair on my arms standing up on end.  Then it hit me: Dr. Plank may have secured the additional lock as part of his experiment’s protocol .  I tried my bracelet again, and with a sigh of temporary relief, the door opened, allowing me inside.

I walked over to Gerard, who was standing by the receiver, looking as if he were in a daze.

“Gerard, are you alright?  Did you already talk to Gator?  I’m really sorry Gerard, I don’t know what to say.”

Dr. Plank just kept looking absently at the floor between us, as if he were trying to figure something out.  He began to wave his hand at me while still in thought, beckoning me to remain silent.  After a few moments, I began to be concerned for him, thinking that my accidental actions were also affecting any possibility that all of his work was going to be cancelled, just for revenge.

“No, no, wait, it is not so simple; but is it?  Is scale not a problem after all?  As long as all base elements are recorded in a table in memory, the only instructions that need to be transmitted are the patterns for construction?  That would drastically reduce the amount of processing required on the receiver.  In fact, that would resolve some of the memory limitations, the proximity restrictions, and eliminate the transmission requirements altogether!  If this is correct, we may be able to solve world hunger, and apply this in limitless fashions!”

Dr. Plank stared at me as his one-sided conversation had grown from mumbling to nearly a yell of triumph.

“Gerald, it sounds like you are making some great progress, and maybe even having some breakthroughs.  Now, I don’t want to take away from the excitement, but I need to talk to you about something serious.”

“Muzz, I think I have it, and this will change everything!  But wait, we must take a step back.  I haven’t repeated the experiment, and must perform extensive testing.  It could take years to prove this to be flawless and develop a final perfect prototype instead of this limited one.  Plus we must safeguard against misuse by unethical people.  We cannot take the chance that this falls into the wrong hands, as they say in the movies.”

“Wait, you need to know something before you get excited Gerald.  I just met with Gator, and I think he is going to kill the request for the additional power, any way he can.  In fact, he might not stop there.  He might even try to squash your whole experiment and this whole department.  I’ve got to find a way to smooth things over with him, and I need you to lay low, and not cause a stir with anything any time soon.”

“But we must tell them!  We have to let them know what this new breakthrough could mean and they cannot possibly stop us from continuing on.  In fact, they need to give us everything we need in order to pursue improvement on the experiments.”

“Gerald, I know it’s not just me; this is going to affect you too, but I’ve got to set this right.  I have to talk to Gator, get him to understand we are all on the same team, and we aren’t a threat to him.  You keep working on your experiment, do what you can without the additional power, and I’ll try to fix everything.”

Dr. Plank kept looking at me in a confused, excitable way, wanting to say more, but until things could be handled properly, there was no point in discussing the point any further.  Regardless of whatever breakthrough he had made, I didn’t take part in the scientists’ experiments; they just reported to me what they had accomplished, what they needed, and if necessary I tried to help them come up with practical applications for use of anything they developed, if they didn’t have the vision to do so themselves.

Chapter 5

Over the next few weeks, things seemed to have cooled off between me and Gator, but as I expected, there was no progress made in getting Dr. Plank the additional energy he needed for his experiment.  I would visit him in the morning, and give him the same news, which was no news.  At first he was irate with energy, begging me to go to Brownie, or even Louie.  Louie was Louis Fenner, III, the CEO and longtime primary founder of QL.  His decision was final on everything, since he was the one with the contacts that funded everything at QL.  It took a bit of effort to convince Dr. Plank that we needed to lay low and that if he continued with his work, we would eventually get what we needed.  He had to understand that rocking the boat could be the worst thing we could do now that Gator was starting to at least acknowledge that I existed.

As the weeks turned into months though, I began to have my own doubts that we would ever get approval for additional power.  Oddly enough, Dr. Plank was becoming less and less concerned and was actually getting happier over time.  I could see that he was really putting a lot of effort into one area of his experiment, a small, flat disc, about the size of an old pocket watch, but with a crystalline face and nothing but a silvery metal beneath it.

Then one day the unthinkable happened.  Louie and Brownie showed up at my office door in the basement.

“We’re ready for the show!”

I had no idea what they were talking about.  Heck, I didn’t even know they knew I existed much less where my office was.  Now they were both staring at me and I felt like I knew how Gator had felt at that moment I’d walked in and he wasn’t expecting anyone to be there.  Gator!  Was he behind this?  If not, he certainly was going to hear about this in no time flat, and I might as well just walk out right now and join the witness protection program instead of facing him.  And just when everything had just gotten somewhat bearable between us.

Louie and Brownie both looked expectantly at me, as though I were supposed to be taking the lead on something.

“Are you going to take use to Dr. Plank’s demo, or are we going to have to teleport there ourselves?”

Louie winked at me, as though I were being a showman, trying to build up suspense by not jumping up and escorting them where they expected to go.

“Of course!  Yes, let’s go see Gerard, Dr. Plank, shall we?  I can’t wait to show you what he plans to surprise you with today.”

As I left the office I could see Gator just exiting the elevator, his glare burning into me from across the huge expanse of the cluttered room.  I could see he was going to meet up with us and cut us off, but I was in no way anxious to find out what he had to say.

I tried to think about what I could do to avoid his immediate wrath, when I realized who it was I was with.

“Gator, thank you so much for arranging this demo for Louie and Brownie to see what Gerald has been working on.  Gentlemen, you don’t know how excited Gator has been to share this with you, but he wanted to wait until we really had something to show you before putting it in front of you.  Gator, why don’t you have the honor and lead us to Gerald’s lab?”

Gator’s seething imperceptibly turned to determination as he stopped himself short of us and clasped his hands together.  I could only picture him imagining my head being squashed between his grasp as his hands began to turn red, then purple from the force.  As I choked down a fear-filled gulp of air, Gator led us into the lab.  And it got worse.

As we entered the room, there were many things that were obvious.  The first is that we were all alone.  The second is that absolutely nothing in the room was turned on, powered up, or even remotely ready for any kind of a demo.  As Gator poked around, looking for Dr. Plank, I felt like that was about the worst possible timing for me to try to make it all look like Gator had arranged this.  Instead of trying to improve our relationship, I’d just made him appear to be incompetent in front of the two most important people in our company.  If there was a keyhole in the door, I felt like I was small enough at that moment to have flown through it.  Louie and Brownie both looked puzzled, as they stared after Gator, who was still searching for something that wasn’t there.

“Oh, I know!  I’ll just call Sylvia and have her check on where Dr. Plank is.

As Brownie began operating his phone to contact his secretary, Gator looked on in a weird mix of frustration and horror.

“Sylvia, this is Brownie.  I’m down in Dr. Plank’s lab with Gator, and do you know what I found out?”

I could see Gator just imagining Sylvia breaking down into a full confession over the phone of her fling with one of Brownie’s managers.  As the imaginary pieces of Gators life began to shatter, it cascaded on my face to reflect the destruction of any hopes and dreams that I may have had.

“Oh, cut it out you two.  I know we’re big wigs and never come down here, but just because Dr. Plank isn’t here, it’s no reason to wet your pants.  Things happen.  Now Sylvia, do you have access to the security records for the building?  Yes, I can wait a minute.  I know it’s not something you have to access a lot.  Yes, Dr. Plank.  Okay, he got here this morning at 6:05.  Yes, I don’t really care about bathroom trips, elevators, or him visiting his friend Dr. Tellas.  Where was the last place he entered?  Are you sure?  So he didn’t go anywhere after that?  What time was that?  Okay, well he’s not here now.  We’ll wait a few more minutes, and then maybe we’ll set up a follow-up visit if he doesn’t show up.  Thank you Sylvia.

“Sylvia says Dr. Plank last entered this lab around 40 minutes ago, but that sometimes the security logs aren’t updated real-time, so the system may not have his most recent movements.  And since it doesn’t look like he’ll be showing up here any time soon, I’ll just have Sylvia set up another appointment.  Gator, you know Sylvia, right?  Find a good time, and make sure Dr. Plank is aware of it this time!  Sorry about dragging you down here Louie.”

Gator stared daggers into me as he answered Brownie.

“I don’t really know Sylvia that well; we usually just do business through e-mail when I need you to sign off on something.”

“Oh, nonsense.  I distinctly remember you chatting it up with her at the Christmas party last year.  I can’t blame you.  With you being single and her being new to the company a few months before that, I would have thought you both would have hit it off.”

“Oh, that’s Sylvia?  You know, I’d only talked to her for a few moments that night, and didn’t realize who she was.  I’d only seen her face-to-face that one time, and haven’t been to your office since she started.  I’ll have to personally apologize to her for not following up with her to see how she is fitting in since the party.

“I’m sure that would be a kind gesture Gator.  And who knows, maybe you’ll re-ignite that spark.”

I could still feel the tension between Gator and I and was hoping beyond all hope that somehow, some way, I would be lucky enough for Gator to leave with Louie and Brownie.

“Well, come along Gator, why don’t you tell us what other progress is being made on the experiments here while we’re on our way up to the golden palace.”

I let out a breath of relief as my wish had just come true.

“Louie, I would love to, but I have something very important to discuss with my good friend Muzz here.  When I talk to Sylvia, I’ll set up a project update meeting with you to give you a brief overview of all of the projects.  I get the vibe that a few of them are going to have to be cancelled immediately, so it will be important for you and Brownie to help me cut all of the funding as soon as possible.”

I knew that unless the ground below me opened up and swallowed me whole, I was now a dead man.  As the door closed behind Louie and Brownie, I felt as if my adrenaline was about to put me into full flight mode.  Unfortunately for me, Gator had walked them to the door, and his former football-playing, hulking frame was making an exit impossible.

Chapter 6

“What are you two doing here?  How did you get in the lab?”

I spun on my heel to see Dr. Plank standing beside the receiver, as though he had just entered the lab through a secret door.

“Gerald, where were you?  How did you get over there?  Were you hiding, or…”

“He appeared out of thin air!  Just BLIP!  And he was standing there behind you!  I saw it with my own eyes!  What they hell!  Why haven’t you two been telling me the teleporter could move people in the same room?  Oh, wait, I get it.  It takes a long time to move something so big, so that’s why it took so long to reappear.  But Doc, are you nuts?  You never, ever experiment on yourself or a living person.  You know the scientific community has already determined that a big no-no.  My gosh, do you feel okay?  Did it mess you up at all?”

“Ugh.  What time is it?  2:14 in the afternoon?  I see I still have some adjustments to make.  Gravity.  Time.  Motion.  Recalculation required for proximal environmental delivery.  And of course the life-form detection failed, which will have to be corrected.

“Dr. Plank, we have to get Louie and Brownie back down here right now!  Wait, this meeting, why did you set it up Muzz?  I looked like a total jerk in front of them?  Why didn’t you guys wait to start any experiments until they were here?  You both really screwed up.”

After a few more choice words, many of them of the cursing kind, Gator left Dr. Plank and me alone in the quiet stillness of his lab, while he headed upstairs to try to get Sylvia to personally convince Brownie and Louie to find time for a more safe, planned demo of the experiment.

Chapter 7

“Gerald, what Gator said.  How could you transport yourself?  You know that’s the one big thing that is never supposed to happen?  They don’t even know now if you are the real you.  It’s really messed up!  I mean, yes, it’s great that it appears to be successful, and I’m glad you’ve made such a huge leap, but you’ve got to put more thought into things like this and communicate with me!”

Dr. Plank just stared at me for a moment, with a slightly sad look on his face, as if he had both been caught and misunderstood.

“Muzz, I know you are a good guy, but you haven’t been the most helpful person lately.  All of this bureaucracy between you and Mr. Gates has stifled my progress for far too long.  I had to effectively mothball the entire project that I had been working on and start from scratch.”

I felt somewhat ashamed of how my situation had affected Dr. Plank’s experiment, his whole life, and tried to consider how mine wasn’t the only future at stake here.

“I’m really sorry that…”

“Please don’t bother with any excuses Muzz.  It is well beyond the point of them, and instead of an apology, I should likely be thanking you. “

“Thanking me?  But I don’t…”

“No, of course you can’t know.  I’ve been keeping my updated project and subsequent experiments a complete secret to avoid any further repercussions against you by Mr. Gates that would in turn impact me negatively, and particularly because the new direction I have gone with the project is even more groundbreaking than I first imagined.”

“More ground-breaking than teleportation, Gerard?  I find that really hard to believe.”

Dr. Plank gave a secretive smile as he peered sidelong at me.

“As I began to study different related theories of matter-to-energy transfer, I recognized several variables and constants that were different, depending on how they are measured.  Light.  Electricity.  Hydrogen gas.  Gold.  Simple elements with very consistent atomic weights.  But when teleported, they all are converted from their base elemental structure to the same state of pure energy, and then reconstructed into their same original form.  Do you understand that?

“Yes, well I know that you explained that when you teleport the source object, and reconstruct it at the destination, that it had to be taken apart instantly and when it is recreated it has to be put back together all at once.  Oh!  And the amount of memory and processing that the process takes means that there are limits to how you teleport things.”

“That was correct, but thanks to the delays, I have been able to make friendships here at QL that have enabled me to make substantial progress I otherwise could not have reached.  Dr. Eisenstein in Energy Storage has solved my power problems.  Dr. Alvarez in the PicoComputing department has given me an incredible solution to both my processing and memory storage limitations.  I have also received critical aid from Professors Sanibel and Niv in Temporal Mechanics and Geophysics.  Most importantly of all though, since I have become such very good friends with them all now, they have secretly been placing orders for supplies that I require for my newest experiment.  With their help, which also has benefitted them to a degree, I no longer needed to go through you and Mr. Gates for every little paperclip.

I didn’t know whether to be angry that I had been outsmarted or ashamed that my behavior had pushed Dr. Plank to go so far.  In a way it was good that he had reached out and worked directly with other great minds from various scientific areas, which we had in abundance at QL, since getting so many expert heads together could really result in some great things.  And if he really did have something significant to share, everyone at QL would benefit from the notoriety.

“So you improved on the teleporter?  Obviously it works, even if it is still arguably unethical to experiment on a human.  That sounds like an idea out of a bad science fiction novel.  If you had still gone through improper channels, you could have at least considered the scientific process that is in place to safeguard you and QL.”

“Hah.  QL.  Yes, I do owe them, and they will benefit from this technology, but if I had followed the established experimentation process, I wouldn’t have made it to this stage for years.  We both know that.  And QL will benefit from the other scientists who helped me.  As my requirements pushed them to help me, they made breakthroughs of their own, and much of their work will be of immediate profit to QL for a good many years to come.”

If what Dr. Plank was saying was true, and it did make some sense, then he was probably right about the overall benefit to Quantinited Labs.  Even small improvements to existing technology or research could be marketed toward global applications and mean millions of dollars of profit at the very least.  Usually though, the scientists came up with the technology or improvements and other departments came up with applications that they thought would make the most money for the company.

“I have not created a teleporter though, Muzz.  What I have is a temporal matter teleportation device.  I now have what is essentially a portable time machine.”