The Lab
The sound of the clock ticking filled the air as the young man sat opposite the desk of an older balding gentlemen, nervously adjusting his tie as his boss looked over the stack of papers that had been on his desk. "So the scientific ethics and health committee has looked over your request for expedited human testing of your matter teleportation device," the older gentlemen said. "They are happy to inform you that they will be flying in for a live demonstration of your machine, and pending evaluation you will be cleared to begin phase three human trials within two months."
"I can't believe it Craig!" Daniel nearly shouted in joy before he quickly regained his composure. "I mean I've already proven that this thing works on our phase two trials, I just didn't think they would actually abbreviate our trial schedule for it. If we succeed here we can bring our product to market within the next year."
"Well it's all due to the hard work of you and your team for sure," Craig responded as he handed the eager young man a thick folder. "I wouldn't worry too much about that time table, the reason we even have such a long phase trial time is due to our pharmaceutical division. Just make sure you put on a good show, we only get one shot at this and if they deny our proposal then we're going to have to wait the full two years until we can bring it to phase three."
Daniel reassured his boss that he wouldn't let him down and then let out a string of appreciations as he shook the other man's hand. As soon as he left the office he went straight to the lab and shared the good news, which drew a round of cheers and celebration from all the technicians involved in the project. Once they had finished their calculations for the day they held an impromptu party, which lasted long into the night before everyone either drove home or in some cases took a taxi. Soon the only things left in the lab were the remains of such festivities and Daniel himself, who labored over the glowing screens connected to one of the platforms that served as their matter teleportation module.
"Alright, so all the diagnostics are a go," Daniel muttered to himself as he watched the lines of code flicker by. "Fusion core is stable and at one hundred percent efficiency, tungsten coils charged, quantum particles locked..." suddenly the screen turned red as a warning flashed across the screen that coordinates failed to lock and internal calibration was required. "Not this again! Why is it always the last step that causes the most problems?"
Daniel sighed and took off his tie before he grabbed his toolbox and walked up onto the platform. A light haze of smoke from the liquid nitrogen tanks coiled around him as he opened one of the panels and looked at the crystal array that was housed underneath. For him it hadn't been the first time he was in this predicament, one of the problems he had been trying to solve was the stability of the matrix that told the matter where it would be redirected too. It was nefarious for becoming out of sync, and when he looked at the positioning compared to the computer screen he found it to be a similar case.
"Great, that's another fifteen minutes of waiting for realignment," he grumbled as he set the gears to relocate the crystals. He watched as the spires of glimmering stone began to shift and rotate for a few seconds, then shut the panel and began to screw it back into place. Before he could finish the last one however he heard the loudspeaker announce that the coordinates were locked and the machine was about to fire. Daniel felt his stomach drop into his feet as he heard the machine revving up to rip apart every molecule in his body and sent to a location that he hadn't even specified, which shouldn't have been possible since the only other platform in existence wasn't even charged yet.
Written by Serathin on 15 January 2017
