This is another one of our flash prompts from the Elements of Genre Writing group on Facebook. If you like what you see here, please stop on by and check it out. It’s a very fun, honest, helpful group!
From www.http://thespiritscience.net/
The temperature in the lab was set to 55° Farenheit, but Lyza was used to the austere work environment and walked around in her blue jeans and t-shirt under her lab coat. The need to keep her research facility old came from the time-honored tradition of equipment easily overheating and leading to things like radiation leakage or the unfortunate exposure of easily-combustible materials. Luckily, technology had evolved to the point that such measures became virtually unnecessary and, on top of which, she was a very thorough woman and had painstakingly introduced temperature-control fail-safes and cooling methods throughout the machine. She sighed, softly, rejoicing in the tightness that crept through her chest as her lungs gleefully expanded to take in the air. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath as she looked at the timer on her vidscreen wall.
She looked up to the viewing area, protected by radiation and blast-proofed glass and containing all of the world’s most important individuals. For a fleeting moment, she felt a bit ashamed at her casual attire. Screw it, she thought, I’ve been down in this lab working too hard to go buy a ridiculous dress and no one is here to see me, anyway, much less the way I’m dressed. They’re here to behold the machine and witness the birth of a revolution in human space travel. At that, she turned to look at the machine, itself. In all honesty, it was just as ugly as her scuffed and wrinkled outfit, but it did have its own charm. It was her baby, after all, and rumor had it all women thought their children unconditionally beautiful. It was, basically, a large ring set into a platform, large enough for a small vehicle to pass through without hitting the edges with a fair margin. Behind the ring were many different devices: small nuclear fission reactors, computers, and energy conduits to power it, mostly. The main computer that directed the energy in the ring was situated off to the left, in its own protective bubble room of high-grade glass, so that it would stand a chance if things went sideways and everything exploded. The test runs for the reactors and conduits had gone exceedingly well, and she was fairly confident in her programming, but this was the very first time turning the entire system on at once.
She glanced at the timer on the wall again. A minute and a half until she powered on her greatest creation to open a wormhole. There was a twin machine to her own on the only other human-inhabited planet in their galaxy, absurdly named Titannia for its extended springtime seasons. The purpose was to create a gateway between the worlds for easy delivery of supplies and, eventually, people on either side. Up until now, all safe means of travel took a few years between the planets, depending on the weight of the haul and whether the movement of the planets in the solar systems in between were auspicious or if detours were required. Even communication signals between them took too long to be of any real use. A few years ago, they had installed communication relay buoys, which had helped some, but it still wasn’t enough. The planning of the simultaneous powering on of the machines had taken months, and both sides had technically been ready for a test-run for over a year.
Slightly nervous, Lyza shook herself and made her way to the main computer and got into her little bubble, closing the door behind her for the first time since the power generators had been cleared as perfectly functional. She ensured the program was ready to run and that energy outputs on the screens were optimal, then waited.
10…
9…
8…
She shivered in anticipation.
7…
6…
Her hand trembled as it hovered above the final keystroke that would change the world…
5…
4…
3…
2..
She stared hard at the screen, not daring to look at the machine as she lowered her fingers…
1…
She pressed it and melted into her chair as the pent-up energy flooded into the ring, turning it a dark blue and then, suddenly, she could see something on the other side and her eyes lit up in hope as she tried to process what she could see through the portal.
The room on the other side of the portal was dark, but it could have been a lab. Probably was a lab of some kind. Instruments were scattered everywhere and she dared, for a moment, to hope her hypotheses had been correct and she’d been able to make contact with her other team. But it couldn’t be Titannia. For however much it looked similar to her own lab, it couldn’t be the other human-occupied planet. There was a man standing on the other side of the portal and he… wasn’t human.
To be continued? I hope. It’s way past my bedtime!
Rabid Writes 