by Sarah Noffke
“Cheng?” Hatch rushed forward, squinting like he wasn’t seeing him quite clearly. He was suddenly vibrating with surprise, but he stayed at a distance from the man.
Cheng nodded, sweeping his hands over his arms. “Yes, I-I-I…think that’s me. When my mind clears, I remember what it was like to be who I was.”
“How are we not ourselves?” Eddie said in a mused tone.
“He said that you two created a device together,” Julianna interjected.
“We created many things together. Cheng was my research partner for several years.” Hatch neared Cheng and looked him over. “But you died?”
“Abducted,” Cheng corrected, standing as stoically as if he were in a lineup of thieves.
“By the Saverus?” Julianna guessed.
Cheng nodded.
However, Hatch didn’t appear to be listening. His face was overwhelmed by his surprise and he ran a tentacle over his chin, surprise changing to awe. “This is impossible.”
“Only if you believe it is,” Eddie said, quoting another line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. How could he not? It had been the perfect setup.
“Right, right,” Hatch said, now staring at the floor and pacing as he tried to piece things together. “It’s so incredible to see you. When you disappeared, I hadn’t seen you in the better part of a few years, and…”
“Yes, we had been working remotely,” Cheng stated, still frozen, arms by his sides.
“Just video calls,” Hatch said, nodding. “And then you just up and disappeared one day. So the Saverus—”
“Actually, no.” Cheng’s mouth hardly parted for the words. “I was testing our last invention.”
“No!” Hatch said, his eyes wide.
Cheng hung his head, shame making his shoulders hunch. “I’m afraid so.”
“But we knew that—”
“That it had flaws,” Cheng said, finishing Hatch’s sentence.
“And it was never intended to be used for human life.” Hatch’s tone now was punishing.
“I know.” Cheng scratched his beard with both hands. “And I’ve suffered ever since from the radiation.”
“What was this device?” Julianna asked. “This is what the Saverus are after, right?”
Hatch seemed to think. “Yes, that would make sense. It’s a very valuable tool, and absolutely deadly no matter whose hands it is in. That was why, after Cheng’s disappearance, I had the device I was working on placed in Area One-Twenty-Six.” Hatch continued pacing, seemingly to relieve his nervous energy. “I really should have seen this coming. It all makes so much sense now.”
“It might to you two,” Eddie said over the clanging of metal in the back of the lab. Knox was apparently working on a project.
“This device…what is it?” Julianna asked.
“The T-T-T...” Cheng’s voice trailed away, unable to finish his sentence.
“The Tangle Thief.” Hatch waddled over and laid a comforting tentacle on his old friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay, you’ll be fine.”
“What does the Tangle Thief do?” Eddie asked, backing toward the workstation and pulling himself up to sit on its surface next to Bob.
Cheng seemed to come back to himself and nodded before saying, “Entanglement.”
“That’s right,” Hatch said, encouragingly, waddling back to where he’d been pacing. “The Tangle Thief was based on the quantum theories of entanglement. There are two parts, a receiver and a client.”
“Like Bob?” Eddie asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the green blob.
Hatch nodded, his face brightening and the wrinkles around his eyes disappearing for a moment. “Yes, just like Bob. The receiver is placed on that which is supposed to be stolen, or relocated. We never intended it to be a burglary device. It was just a clever name.”
“But in the end, it stole a lot,” Cheng said, a chill in his voice. The Tangle Thief, it sounded like to Eddie, had stolen this man’s faculties and the better part of his life.
“That it did,” Hatch said with a sympathetic nod. He was never this kind to anyone. Well, maybe Knox at times.
“What is the client’s role in this?” Julianna asked, steering the discussion back on track, as she was prone to do.
“The client is placed wherever the object is to be relocated to,” Hatch explained. “You see, in entanglement theory two particles are always connected, even when separated by distance.”
“Again like Bob,” Eddie observed.
“Yes, that’s where I originally got the idea,” explained Cheng. “While I was making Bob, I figured I could use the same principle to misplace an object if entanglement was established by correlating it to a particle of sorts.”
Eddie noticed that when Cheng spoke of his work he was lucid, which was different from the dazed look in his eyes otherwise.
“So you put one device on a car,” Eddie said motioning to the DeLorean. “Then you take the client and put it on Onyx Station and activate it, and what…the car disappears?”
“And reappears on Onyx Station,” Hatch said, nodding.
“That sounds like an incredible technology,” Eddie stated.
“Except that early tests showed that when used, the Tangle Thief created tears in the universe where deadly radiation leaked through,” Hatch said.
“Oh, which is why it was locked up,” Eddie guessed.
Hatch puffed out his cheeks. “Destroying it would have been too dangerous. We were afraid it might have fatal repercussions.”
“And you used it on yourself?” Julianna asked Cheng.
He nodded. “I’m afraid so. It worked, and then it didn’t. The Tangle Thief wasn’t meant to transport human life, but I didn’t fully realize that until after the fact. I didn’t land where the client was located, which was on the other side of my house. I found myself in a strange, deserted land. I still don’t know where it was. I was holding the receiver but it was fried, meaning I wasn’t going to get back. All I can figure out is that the tear I created when I transported attracted the attention of the Saverus. I know now that they’d had wind of the project and were trying to track down the device.”
Hatch let out a long breath. “Good thing we had my Tangle Thief secure at Area One-Twenty-Six. We searched your house and didn’t find anything. You had simply vanished. I knew the project was dangerous, so I terminated it.”
Cheng clapped his hand to his forehead. “My son? He was gone?”
“Dominic?” Hatch asked, scratching the side of his head. “Yes, I’m afraid so. There were many theories. Like that you took him and disappeared. That something had happened to you both. Honestly, after the investigation came back inconclusive I had to assume you were dead.” A deep regret filled Hatch’s eyes. “I, of course, didn’t know what to think, but believed you were gone forever.”
“My son…” Cheng was lost in jumbled thoughts. His eyes were haunted, and regret surfaced and took over his expression. He combed his hand through his hair several times. “I never forgot him. Always regretted that I... But what could I do? The Saverus abducted me. I pretty much never considered I’d come back to the world. The Saverus weren’t going to let me go, and they didn’t give me much of a life. Mostly just endless days in a lab where they expected me to remake the Tangle Thief.”
“But you didn’t,” Hatch guessed.
“Of course not, but not because I didn’t try. I thought they’d release me if I did, but the Tangle Thief took something from me when I transported. Maybe it put my brain cells where the client was and the rest of me in the desert.” Cheng laughed uncomfortably.
“But that’s why the Saverus are after the other Tangle Thief now,” Julianna stated.
“The one in Area One-Twenty-Six,” Eddie added.
“We’ll have to alert the facility,” Hatch stated.
“Yes, but as we just learned, the Saverus are incredibly hard to stop. They turned into us.” Julianna motioned to her and Eddie.
“Julie, you shoul
d have shot first and asked questions later,” Hatch said with a morbid laugh.
“Ha, ha,” Eddie said humorlessly.
“Well, at least we know what they’re after,” Julianna said, letting out a sigh.
“And you’re back, Cheng,” Hatch said excitedly. “I never thought the day would come.”
“It’s pretty remarkable,” Eddie agreed, sliding off the workstation and stretching to a standing position. So much had happened to this man that he didn’t appear to have processed most of it.
“Hey, kid!” Hatch called to the back. “Get over here! I have someone to introduce to you!”
“I’ll be there in one second,” Knox said, his voice muffled like he was in some compartment.
Eddie pointed to the tires on the DeLorean, which were bald. “You’re gonna have to get a new set of wheels for that car before taking her for a spin on the open roads.”
Hatch glanced at the car and shook his head. “Nah. Where we’re going, we don’t use roads.”
Julianna cast the mechanic another skeptical glance. “What exactly are you working on?”
Knox bustled out from the back carrying a tool box in both hands, grease streaked over one cheek.
“Hey, kid, I want you to meet someone special,” Hatch said as Knox hustled came forward, his eyes pointed down in concentration as he lugged the heavy tools. “This is Cheng.”
Knox’s head jerked up and the toolboxes clattered loudly to the floor. His eyes widened and his mouth shot open. “Dad?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hatch’s Lab, Ricky Bobby, Tangki System
Knox blinked, his mouth tightening with disbelief. This wasn’t possible—and yet the brown eyes of the man who stared at him were unmistakably his father’s. His feet felt stuck to the ground, and he leaned forward but didn’t budge. All noise in the lab vanished, as if it had been sucked into a vacuum. He was only faintly aware that the others were staring at him with stunned expressions.
Knox’s dad peered at him, shaking his head as if trying to dispel an illusion. “Dominic…Is that you?”
“’Dominic?’” Hatch asked, all his tentacles still. “Knox is your son?”
Knox was still leaning forward, but his knees gave way, making him stumble, falling hard to the ground. Julianna rushed over to help him up.
The shock of the moment took over her face, but Knox barely noticed. His focus was on the man on the other side of the room. Even from that distance, he recognized the once-familiar face. How long had it been? Eight years? he wondered. No, ten. It had been ten years since he had last seen his father.
“Gunner? No, that can’t be,” Hatch said, letting out a startled sigh. “He’s your… No, he’s my apprentice. This is Knox Gunnerson.” The Londil was babbling, probably overwhelmed by the strangeness of the moment.
Knox rubbed his knee where he’d landed on one of the tools he’d dropped. His eyes were still pinned on the man standing so far away. Limping forward, Knox drew in a breath. “Is that really you…Dad?” The name seemed strange to say, making his throat tighten.
Hatch’s mouth fell open, as did Julianna’s and Eddie’s.
It was him, and somehow Knox knew it. Under the shaggy black hair and beard, he recognized the man before him. A child never forgets the face of their parent. Knox could still see his mother’s face swim into his vison when he closed his eyes, having memorized the photo of her taken right before she gave birth to him. That had been her last day alive, and Knox the final offering she gave to the world.
Knox’ father rubbed his eyes and blinked at his son. He hadn’t budged as Knox drew closer. With a shaky finger his father pointed in Knox’s direction and looked at Eddie, who was beside him. “Is he real?”
Eddie, much like Hatch, appeared frozen, as if he didn’t know how to react in a situation of this magnitude. “Very much so. Do you think that Knox is your son? The one who disappeared after your experiment?”
“Dominic,” Knox’s father corrected. “And I know he is. I’d know him anywhere.”
It had been so long since Knox had heard his real name. Dominic Sung. His first name had been affectionately given to him by his mother, apparently. Knox’ father had allowed it, although he’d wanted him to have a family name. Knox had abandoned both of his names when his father had disappeared, fearing that he was running for his life. And that was exactly what he had done when his father hadn’t returned.
Knox remembered watching his father’s paranoia grow weeks before his disappearance. He’d set booby traps in front of the entrances to their house, making up excuses that they were an experiment. He peered through the drapes at night, expecting that someone was watching them from the shadows. Maybe Knox’s father didn’t think he had seen this, but the young boy had been incredible at observation. He had known there was danger approaching.
The experiments… Memories flooded in, now that Knox permitted himself to remember. He recalled the experiments. The technology lying around. His father always hunched over his workstation. But at age ten, Knox hadn’t known much about what his father did.
“D-D-Dad,” Knox stuttered, halting a few feet away. “Where have you been?”
Knox’s father shook his head and scratched his arms. “I…” he began, tears welling in his eyes. “I can’t believe this. This can’t be real.”
It was too much to process at once, Knox agreed, but there was no mistake. The man he had thought was dead stood before him somehow. “Dad, where were you? Did you leave me?” The hurt he’d harbored for so long betrayed him, was heavy in his words.
“No!” Cheng said, appalled. “I never would do that. I made a mistake, and then…I couldn’t get back to you. I’m sorry.”
Now that Knox was really looking at his father, he realized how thin he was. His clothes were dirty and patched. He remembered that the man before him had always been freshly shaven, with his hair meticulously slicked back. They used to argue about Knox’s…well, Dominic’s Mohawk. His father had disapproved of such a bold hairstyle.
“But what happened to you?” Knox asked, his arms awkwardly hanging limp by his side. He didn’t know what to do with them—shouldn’t they hug or something? But the man before him was a stranger, and yet he was the one person he’d longed to see for so many years. How many times had Knox wished to see his father again? He hadn’t owned anything since fleeing his home, but without a doubt he would have given up everything to see his father. To know he was alive.
Instead, Knox had pushed out all thoughts connected to his father. When one lived on the streets, dwelling on the past wasn’t how one survived. Knox’d had to hunt for food, and steal to meet basic his needs. Hide from bullies. There was never time to worry about his dad, but his subconscious wouldn’t allow him to forget. For the last ten years his father’s face had filled his sleeping dreams—filled them with the eyes that stared at him now.
“Dominic, I’m sorry!” Knox’s father shook his head, seeming to fight a battle within. “I’m so sorry.”
“What did you do, Dad?” Knox asked. “Why did you disappear?”
“I made a mistake, and I’ve been punished for it ever since.”
Now that Knox was paying attention to his father’s words he noticed how slow they were, not full of the vibrancy he’d had before. The look in his dad’s eyes also hinted that a bit of dementia had crept into his mind. He shook when he lifted his hand, his fingers appearing to be counting all of a sudden.
“What did you do, Dad?” Knox asked.
Shame covered Cheng’s face. “I forgot that you were the most important priority in my life, and I risked our lives for science.”
“The people you were afraid of—did they take you?” Knox asked.
“The Saverus were watching you even then?” Eddie interjected.
Knox remembered that Eddie, Julianna, and Hatch were watching all of this—an audience to this strange reunion.
Cheng nodded. “Yes. I kn-kn-knew they were watching, and I f-f-feared they
were getting close. That was one reason I wanted to finish the project and move on from it.”
“Dad, you have to tell me everything. I’ve been in the dark all these years,” Knox said. He had so many questions, and the biggest one was, how had the universe found a way to bring them back together? Knox could have ended up anywhere and his father could have come aboard any ship, but they both ended up here on Ricky Bobby. What were the odds?
“Dom, I’ll tell you everything,” Knox’s father said, stepping forward to lay a hand on his son’s shoulder, “but first I need a moment to appreciate that my greatest wish has come true.” He pulled Knox into him and wrapped his arms around his son.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Officer’s Lounge, Ricky Bobby, Tangki System
The paint on the walls hadn’t even dried, but the lounge was already packed. Julianna stopped in the doorway, eyeing the neon signs that had been hung over the dart boards in the corner where some of Fletcher’s team were horsing around. Good idea…roughhouse while holding sharp objects, she thought.
On the other side of the large area, some of the crew were using a row of pool tables. The bar itself was packed, all the stools taken.
Julianna peered down at her stalker and Harley blinked back at her, his brown eyes intently watching her every move. “We still don’t have Ricky Bobby’s cloak ready, but the bar is functioning. Priorities, right?”
“Morale is an important part of keeping a ship functioning,” the ship’s AI interrupted, his voice coming through the speaker in the hall next to the entryway. The noise from the bar would have drowned out his words otherwise. “Think of morale as one of the engines.”
Harley turned his head to the side as if he were considering this notion.
“That’s a valid point,” Julianna said. She hadn’t had an opportunity to talk much to Ricky Bobby since they had moved to the new ship.
“Do you have a question for me?” Ricky Bobby asked.
He had always been so perceptive. It kind of felt like he was still in her head. “Is it strange for you to have so many people around?”