John Gone (36 page)

“Not anymore.”

“I could make you something for this,” she
said.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she said absently, measuring
his hand with her eyes, “some sort of apparatus, maybe a robotic
glove to put over it.”

John laughed. “You just want to control my
hand like Mouse.”

She couldn’t stop the laugh that came. “I
promise I’ll be good,” she promised in an innocent tone. She wiped
the last tears from her cheeks before turning from him and stepping
inside. “It’s going to take a couple of days at least,” she
said.

John lifted his left hand to her arm and
stopped her. She turned back around to him. “I just have tonight,”
he said. “Maybe three or four hours. I have to go.”

“I know,” she said, breaking his grasp and
walking back into the apartment.

Felix opened his eyes and stared at the
polished concrete ceiling above him without moving his body. He lay
there silently in his bed, much as he had just minutes prior while
still sleeping. There was no alarm by his bedside ringing him
awake, nor was there any type of clock to be found in his lab at
all, but Felix knew exactly what time it was: 7:45 A.M. It was the
exact time he’d woken for the past eighteen months. He knew what
day it was, too: Thursday, the day of his escape.

Five minutes later, he allowed himself to
move. He slid his hand from his stiff white sheets to the small
table by the bed where his fingers found his glasses. He turned his
legs from the mattress and sluggishly allowed himself to fall from
the bed to his right. His feet made contact with the floor, met by
the familiar chill of its touch. He walked across the room to his
dresser and silently put on his pants, shirt, and lab coat.

The last two years of Felix’s time with the
company had passed more slowly than the first. Life in the lab
without Karen had been abysmal, and the lack of sleep caused by his
extracurricular work on a secondary device had made him depressive
and edgy.

As he’d expected, he’d seen Karen once or
twice a month, moving in and out of her new lab or buzzing about in
the hub. Per her instructions, he hadn’t spoken to her since that
night two years ago when she’d left him. Resisting the urge to
speak with her in person was difficult, so he’d instead resigned
himself to watching her on the security footage when he was feeling
desperate for some form of connection with her, no matter how
minimal. Following her on the terminal was never as fulfilling as
he’d hoped.

The assignment of a new Badge to his lab had
failed to cure his loneliness either. Her name was Amy, a woman
whom Felix often referred to as an “all-business fatso” when
speaking of her to Calendar.

The tortoise had now grown to full size for
his species’ average in a tenth of the time he should have, and the
accelerated development had continued to cause Felix worry. After
finishing his after-hours work, he’d often spent his nights on the
floor, his back against the side wall with his tortoise happily
seated beside him like a loyal hound. Felix would sit there, half
asleep, half awake, and repeatedly count the tallies he’d drawn on
Calendar’s shell while wishing he’d been able to spend more of his
time discovering what terrible things had been done to his pet in
the other labs before they’d met.

It stood to reason, Felix had considered,
that with faster aging came faster death. While he had come to
appreciate Calendar’s particular set of quirks, he couldn’t help
but feel that robbing a creature of its lifespan was sinister,
especially one he now considered a friend.

Felix took the black marker from his lab coat
and bent down over the sleeping tortoise by the foot of his bed. He
added a small black tally to the group.

“Last one,” Felix said, waking Calendar for
the morning.

Felix stood and thought about the day ahead.
Later, the hub would be cleared of all non-essential personnel, and
the Diaspora would be used to transport a test subject from the lab
to a set of coordinates in Darwin, Australia and back.

If the test was successful, Felix would be
congratulated and sent back to his lab for what they would tell him
would be one final night before his payment and trip back to the
surface. Then, after the lab corridor doors closed later that
evening, the company would do whatever it was that they did to seal
in their scientists. At that point, Felix would use the secondary
device he’d built to escape, and the company would have no idea
that he was gone. That was the plan, anyway. If the device failed
to work on its first test subject, then his contract would be
extended until it did, and Felix’s escape would have to wait.

This day would mark the first, and hopefully,
last live test of the device. He hadn’t been allowed to do any
major testing during his four years of development. They had told
him it was due to safety protocols, but Felix knew that it was
because they didn’t want him flittering about on the surface with
their property, possibly choosing not to return willingly to the
sunless cave underneath.

Without complete knowledge of the work done
on the Diaspora by his predecessor before him, and without the time
to gain it, Felix had been forced to replicate the watch’s inner
workings component by component. That meant that, much to Felix’s
chagrin, the new device he’d built would be subject to the same
protocols and programming of its brother.

Even the signals it sent couldn’t be stopped,
though he’d at least been able to route them to his own computer
terminal. It was the only other IP address he knew, and was sure to
be safe when sealed away in the laboratory after tonight. Even if
the company did dig it up someday, Felix would already be far away
from the watch he’d built.

The door in the main lab slid open. Amy, a
rotund woman with a perpetually scrunched up nose, entered his
living space.

“Dr. Kala?” she asked loudly. “It’s
8:00.”

“I know what time it is,” he answered,
leaving the bedroom and joining her in the lab. “And I told you,
‘Mister’ is just fine.”

“We’re waiting for you, Dr. Kala. It’s an
important day today,” she said.

“Just a moment,” he answered, walking to the
food storage. Felix opened one of the many foiled packages and put
its contents into a small red bowl.

“And how’s your day been thus far, Amy?” he
asked nicely, bringing the bowl back to the bedroom for
Calendar.

“What do you mean by ‘how has it been?’”

“Never mind,” Felix said after a quiet sigh.
“Let’s just go and get this over with.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she concurred.

Felix followed Amy through the long, dark,
cavernous hallway that connected his lab to the hub. Their walk
passed without conversation. Amy wasn’t much of a talker.

Finally, the pair reached the hub, and Felix
had never seen the facility so empty. He wondered where the company
was storing all of the Badges normally seen milling about there.
Dr. Castler, whom Felix hadn’t seen since their initial
introduction four years ago, was standing in the center of the
room. Two young men he didn’t recognize were standing silent with
clipboards in their hands to the overseer’s right. Karen was to his
left.

Felix looked to her as he approached the
group behind his new supervisor and was surprised to see her make
immediate eye contact with him. It was the first time they’d looked
at each other in two years. Her green eyes were wide and still,
betraying a quiet sadness behind them. If there had ever been any
doubt that Karen knew exactly what went on in the facility, this
silent desperation belied it.

“Felix Kala,” Dr. Castler said excitedly,
shaking Felix’s hand furiously, “I’ve been following your daily
reports since you began. I’m extremely excited to see what you’ve
made for us.”

Felix nodded.

“Amy? Do you have the device?” Castler
asked.

“Yes sir!” she shouted, her loud, abrupt
response jarring even Castler.

“Good,” the man replied, forcing a smile at
her.

Amy lifted the small metal box and opened it.
She removed the watch and offered it to Castler, who gestured to
Felix instead of accepting it. Felix took the watch and looked to
Castler for direction.

“Karen here has volunteered to be our guinea
pig today,” the man said. “Normally we would use someone a bit more
... expendable ... but since this device actually takes you outside
of the facility, we need someone we can trust to bring it back!” He
laughed.

“Felix,” he continued, “if you would do the
honors, please.” Castler lightly pushed Karen toward Felix by her
back and lifted her right arm with his other hand. Karen continued
her unwavering stare into Felix’s eyes as he approached her.

Felix took her hand and gingerly placed the
watch over her wrist. He turned her arm and latched the band
beneath. The skin was as soft as he had often imagined it to be. He
wondered if this would be the last time he would touch it.

“Too tight?” he asked her quietly.

“No,” she said.

I need to focus,
he thought.
This
needs to work.

Felix removed his gaze from Karen’s and
cleared his throat. “Yesterday I set the device to transport the
subject to the coordinates I was provided with. Among the
improvements I’ve made to the Diaspora is the ability to easily set
the destination with the watch’s hands. No more plugging in a
complicated algorithm into a computer terminal. This will allow the
operator to choose locations as needed, instead of phoning back to
HQ to input more numbers remotely.”

“Very good,” Castler said, “but is there
truly enough control over location data with just three hands to
set?”

“This is a good point, and leads me to my
next improvement,” Felix replied. “I’ve reprogrammed the watch to
bring its user into bathrooms. Yes, you lose a small amount of
precision by handling things in this manner, but it also allows for
finite locations to be programmed via the hands by the user.”

“Bathrooms?” Amy said skeptically.

“Quiet,” Castler barked at her. She shrank.
“Please Felix, continue.”

“Bathrooms make more sense than you may
think. As the intention of the device’s use is not public
transportation, you must remember that the sight of a quantum
replacement, or ‘teleport’ as they’ll perceive it, would be quite
surprising. This will also hamper any efforts of its user to remain
incognito. Hence, it places them in the closest bathroom. The
device observes locations based upon commonplace components of
bathrooms, plumbing, sinks, toilets, pipes, etcetera. The bathroom
is a place that exists almost everywhere on Earth and has the added
benefit of also generally being the most private area within any
location.”

“Very astute,” Castler said.

“I mention it now because the test subject
will not arrive at your precise coordinates. She will arrive
directly nearby, inside the closest bathroom,” Felix explained.
“The subject appearing there, as opposed to the directed
coordinates, will dictate the actual success of this test.”

“Understood,” Castler remarked. “But what if
the bathroom should be occupied?”

“I could ask the same question about specific
coordinate use as well. It isn’t as though you’ll be able to always
know precisely who is nearby without a supplemental device when you
choose to travel. I will, however, say this at the risk of sounding
cold-hearted. This contingency actually makes the bathroom even
more beneficial. What better than a private place to handle any ...
unwanted witnesses.”

“My kind of thinking!” Castler exclaimed.
“So, Felix, any other changes I should know about before we
begin?”

“Nothing major,” Felix replied nonchalantly.
“I’ve added a holographic communicator, a calibration protocol for
acclimating the device to a first time user, and a few other minor
improvements. As my mission was to simply power the device using
natural energies, I didn’t spend exorbitant time on additional
improvements.”

“Understandable. This calibration protocol,
though,” Castler replied, “will we need to run through it now
before the test?”

“The protocol will consist of the device
taking its user farther and farther from its point of origin,
recording energy usage and returning them between each
displacement. Each body will produce and allocate differently, so
this process is suggested prior to any consistent use by a new
user. That being said, one displacement won’t be problematic. We
can continue without it.”

“Then shall we?” Castler asked.

“Yes,” Felix answered. He looked back to
Karen. She was still looking at him. He had the sudden urge to
embrace her, but instead, took two steps backward.

“Placing your thumb across the face’s glass
for five seconds will force the displacement. On this model, the
top includes a print scanner which will check your thumb against a
remote database as failsafe before you--”

“Jump?” Castler finished for him.

“Sure, ‘jump,’” Felix said.

“Did you say ‘this model’ Felix?” Castler
smiled. “Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Oh,” Felix replied. “Yes, of course. I just
assumed that this would be more of a prototype. I’m sure when you
produce others they will include some different functionality and
protocols.”

“I’m sure,” Castler agreed.

We need to get started
, Felix thought.
I can’t afford another slip.

“The watch currently recognizes this facility
as its point of origin. If at any time you wish to return from
whence you came, simply set the hands clockwise to 12:00 and zero
seconds. You’ll need to do so to come back to the facility after
this test. So, without further ado; whenever you’re ready,” Felix
said, crossing his hands in front of him. “Please place your thumb
across the watch’s face and hold it there. The process is quite
painless, I assure you. You may, however, be a bit chilly upon your
arrival in Australia due to a temporary alteration of your thermic
energy.”