Unparalleled

by D. S. Smith

  For the first time, the possibility of what she was saying could be true, began to seep into him. Slowly at first but gathering momentum. The waking up in the strange house, the family at his home, the visit to his friend’s house, the girl from the pub, the shops, the wallet, the driving license. He tried to stand up but his legs buckled beneath him. He staggered backwards banging his back against the fridge and sliding down it to the floor.

  When Stuart crashed into the fridge he sent a glass vase resting on top of it tumbling to the floor. Dave was sat in the living room watching TV when he heard the smashing glass. He jumped off the settee and ran into the kitchen where he saw his brother on the floor. He went to reach out to him and help him up but the doctor grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the table pointing to a chair for him to sit. She lifted a finger to her lips to gesture to him to be quiet. He looked at her in silent shock pleading for an answer with his eyes. Some of the pages from the article were on the table in front of her. She pushed them over to him and he scanned them quickly. It was not the whole article but it was enough for him to get the gist of what his brother had just learned. He frowned at the doctor and mouthed the words “Oh shit” silently.

  After about five minutes Stuart stopped crying. He just sat and stared at his own feet which he moved occasionally. The three of them sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity, the only noise being the ticking of a large clock on the kitchen wall. The silence was broken when Dr Carson shifted in her seat causing the legs of the chair to scrape noisily against the tiled floor. Dave had been daydreaming and the sudden noise caused him to jump, but Stuart did not react at all. Dr Carson observed him for a moment longer before breaking their silence. “Stuart, is there anything we can get for you, a drink maybe?”

  He looked up at her from the floor, his eyes red and puffy from the crying. He shook his head and went to stand, reaching his hand out to his side to push himself up. There was broken glass on the floor from the vase and he put his hand on a piece pressing heavily onto it. He sat back down again and lifted his hand up revealing a jagged shard of glass about two inches long sticking out from the ball of his thumb. Blood started to seep from the base of the shard, running along its length and gathering in deep red droplets at the end before dripping down his arm. Dr Carson jumped up and ran to his side. She took hold of him by the wrist of the injured hand and elevated it above his head. By this time Dave was at his other side helping him to his feet. Stuart observed all of this in wide-eyed bewilderment as they led him over to the sink and ran the injured hand under running water. The cold water seemed to bring Stuart out of his trance. He looked at the Doctor and then at his brother. He spoke softly and calmly, just two words. “I’m ok.” He pulled the shard of glass from his hand wincing as it pulled clear. He grabbed a tea towel hanging by the sink and wrapped it around the wound before walking out of the kitchen and heading up the stairs. Reaching the top, he headed into the first room and got into his bed, his bed.

  Stuart looked around him taking in the familiar surroundings of his childhood. He was sat in the classroom of his old primary school waiting for the teacher to come in and start the lesson. The room was full of chatter and giggling from the other kids enjoying the teacher’s absence. But their enjoyment was suddenly halted when the girl in front of him began screaming, holding her hands up in front of her. Her hands began to melt and she turned to Stuart pleading for help with her eyes. Has she looked at him her cheeks began to sag causing her mouth to droop into a terrifying grimace as the skin from her face dripped off her like burning plastic. Stuart turned to the others to look for help but they had all disappeared leaving him alone with the melting girl. He suddenly felt pain in his own hands and looked down to see that he too was melting. He screamed out in pain as the imaginary burning sensation jolted him from the nightmare. For a moment, he lay still in blissful relief and bewilderment but the bliss was short-lived as the imaginary pain in his hands was replaced by the real pain that pressed into the rest of his body.

  He looked around his room through sleepy eyes, his room. It was illuminated by a bright light shining through the open curtains. He went over to the window expecting the source of the light to be a street light or security light but it was neither. The light was from a massive silver moon that filled the night sky in front of his window. The sky was a deep, navy blue speckled with a billion points of light, twitching and pulsing without purpose. He remembered Lauren once telling him that whenever they were apart he should look to the moon and know she would be looking there too.

  He looked there now and he wished, he wished so much she could be out there somewhere looking at the same moon. But he now knew it could not be so, that his mind had somehow made up his connection with her. Lauren was dead, the real Lauren and the Lauren in his mind. It was time to say goodbye.

  Chapter 18

  “For God’s sake Jim that’s the second time in as many hours. What is wrong with you? You’re meant to be the bloody genius around here and you can’t even type a line of code into a computer. We’ll be doing this for real soon and stupid mistakes like that will cost someone their life. Now get in there and clean up that bloody mess.”

  The professor threw down his papers and stormed out of the lab. They were at a critical point in the testing program and he needed everyone to be completely focused on the task. Jim had been acting strangely for days now. He seemed to be distracted somehow. He was one of his brightest students and always keen to please but of late a kind of apathy seemed to have engulfed him.

  Jim looked to the others for support but they just shrugged and carried on with their own tasks. He turned his attention to the mass of blood, guts and pink fur in the tray at the bottom of the Harmoniser that used to be a guinea pig. The irony was not lost on him.

  Despite the importance of the work they were carrying out Jim could not stop thinking about Lucy. He had never met anyone like her. He had completely underestimated her the first time he had met her at the zoo. He had her down for a bit of an airhead, an easy conquest, but the more he had gotten to know her the more he realised he could not have been further from the truth. They had been out a couple of times since that first night but they were never out for long. All Lucy wanted to do was go back to his place and go to bed. That’s where she really came into her own. She was incredible in the sack and she knew exactly how to get him going. It was almost agony the way she could bring him to the brink before backing off again at the final moment. She would do this three or four times before finally letting him let go. They would then just lie on the bed for hours, smoking weed and talking. She talked a bit about herself, her life in California, her studies and her travels but mainly she just liked to listen. She clearly found him fascinating and seemed to have a hunger for physics and the work he was involved in. He probably shared with her more than he should but he didn’t see any harm in it and doubted she understood much of it anyway. It was just nice to have a girlfriend who did not yawn at the very mention of string theory or particle accelerators. He even told her about the Harmoniser and what it could be used for. He led her to believe it was mainly theoretical but he could see she was genuinely enjoying his explanations. To the point where it would turn her on and they would end up wrapped around each other again.

  “What the hell Jim?”

  He was snapped out of his daydreams by one of his colleagues. Dr Marks stared at him with a sickened look on her face. Jim had blood all over his hands and was knelt in the remains of the guinea pig. He pulled himself together and finished off the grisly task of cleaning up the dead animal. He cleaned himself up before the professor returned and the whole process was started again. Another guinea pig with dyed pink fur was placed into the Harmoniser tray. Jim put on his UV visor, typed the code into the controller and placed his finger over the send button. His colleagues carried out the same procedure and were both poised with their controllers. The professor put on his own visor and gave the command. The three research assistants pressed th
e send buttons at the same time. The Harmoniser immediately filled with light that grew in intensity until all that was visible was a mass of brilliant white light. This lasted for about thirty seconds before the light dulled again revealing the booth of the Harmoniser. The guinea pig was gone. “Finally!” the professor exclaimed. “Ok, let’s not get complacent.”

  He was cautiously optimistic but they would have to wait another six hours before they would know if it had worked. He instructed them they did not all need to be there as long as someone stayed to monitor the Harmoniser. Jim immediately volunteered to do this by way of apology for causing them the earlier setbacks. Besides, he would be left alone to anticipate his next meeting with his little American beauty. A thought occurred to him. Why wait until tonight? If she was turned on when he talked about his work what would she be like if she saw it? He took out his phone and called her. He would only have a couple of hours but that would be long enough for him to impress her and for her to show her gratitude. He felt like a teenager going on a first date knowing he was going to get lucky. He was getting aroused just thinking about what they would be doing when she arrived. He had to try and control himself or it would all be over too quickly. He busied himself going over the figures of a formula written on a whiteboard on one of the walls. It was a relatively simple algorithm that allowed them to calculate the amount of energy converted in the formation of the wormholes. By processing the data from the satellite image showing the black spots caused by the quantum activity, and by adding the distance from which the image was taken, the algorithm could work out how much light was being absorbed and hence how much energy. The Harmoniser could then generate the energy required to recreate the conditions of a quantum event and open up the resulting wormhole.

  The intercom by the door buzzed. He walked over to it, pressed the talk button and stated his name. A voice crackled through the speaker announcing there was a lady at the security office asking to see Dr McGonagall. Jim instructed the guard to let her through and direct her to lab number 12 on the second floor. His heart raced and his groin stirred as he inspected himself in the mirror making a few last-minute adjustments to his hair. There was a light knock on the glass panel in the door before it swung open revealing Lucy looking every bit as sexy as he had been fantasising. She was wearing a white lab coat buttoned up to her chin and a pair of shiny, black stiletto shoes giving her the appearance of a much taller woman. She had a pair of black-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose. She looked at him seductively over the rim of the glasses and swaggered toward him like a model on a catwalk. Reaching him, she removed a handbag from her shoulder and placed it on the floor. She reached out with her arms and embraced him with a long, slow, sensual kiss before pulling away from him to survey the surroundings. “So, this is where my clever doctor spends his days. What does all this stuff do?”

  Jim gave her a tour of the lab explaining the function of the various items of machinery and banks of computers. She listened intently, showing no signs of boredom. In fact, she stopped him a number of times asking him to repeat or elaborate on something she had not quite grasped. When it came to the Harmoniser Booth he hesitated from giving her a full description of its purpose, stating instead that it was an x-ray machine designed to record molecular activity in living things. She asked him to give her a demonstration but he told it was in the middle of a calibration and could not be interrupted. Instead she settled for a run-through of the operation sequence on his laptop. He didn’t tell her the sequence involved sending three simultaneous coded signals from three separate laptops, but she seemed suitably impressed by what he did share. Despite her enthusiasm he was getting bored with talking about his work and wanted to get down to the reason he had invited her. He kissed her lightly on the lips and gave her a knowing look before going over to the door to lock so they would not be disturbed. While he had his back to her she reached into her bag and removed something. Jim turned away from the door and walked back toward her full of anticipation. She waited for him to get closer before removing a revolver and silencer from behind her back. Before he had chance to register what was going on she shot him twice in the head. He was dead by the time he hit the floor.

  Lin Lee put the revolver back into her bag and took out a camera. She took several pictures of the equipment and one final shot of the formula on the white board. She took Jim’s laptop and put it in her bag before unlatching the door and leaving the lab. Once in the corridor she smashed the “break glass” fire alarm and left the building with everyone else via the fire stairs at the back. Within minutes of the alarm sounding, the building had been completely evacuated. The only living thing remaining inside being a white guinea pig running around in the tray at the bottom of the Harmoniser.

  Chapter 19

  Stuart felt he needed closure before he could put his past behind him, perceived or otherwise. He wanted to find someone who had known Lauren and would be able to help him understand who she was and how she compared to his memories of her. He tried friends but the people he thought were friends either did not exist or had no recollection of her, or of him for that matter. It was hard for him to face people he thought he knew but showed no sign of recognition toward him. Having no success with friends he decided to try Lauren’s mother, Margaret. He managed to trace her to a retirement home in Brighton. Thanks to the internet it had been easy. He simply Googled her name and as luck would have it she had recently been involved in a protest march and was featured in a local newspaper article under the headline, ‘Pensioners March For Energy Bill Cuts’. The feature praised the marchers whose ages ranged from sixty-six to eighty-one years old, the latter being the age of one Margaret Bell resident of the Marina Heights Retirement home. Stuart recognised the photo straight away. A number of questions and doubts immediately filled his mind. Chiefly, how did he know this woman if he had never been involved with Lauren in reality? He pushed the thoughts aside and stayed focused on the purpose of finding Lauren’s final resting place.

  The retirement home was not what he had imagined at all. The residents were housed in a series of bungalows forming a curve in line with the coast. The bungalows overlooked the English Channel to the front while a passage at the back led to a large community building were all the daily social activities were carried out for anyone wishing to participate. Stuart approached the reception to find out which bungalow Margaret was in. He told the receptionist he was an old family friend. The woman suggested he ask Margaret himself and pointed to a lady stood in front of a big screen TV in a room opposite the reception.

  Margaret Bell was dressed in a beige, velour tracksuit with white stripes down the sleeves and trouser legs. She had gleaming white trainers on her feet and her grey, frizzy hair was bunched up on top of her head, held in place by a large wooden clip. Just as Stuart entered the room music began booming out of the TV speakers and Ms Bell began moving rhythmically, imitating the animated dancers on the screen in front of her. Stuart watched in amazement as the eighty-one-year-old stepped and twisted with the agility of a much younger woman. Stuart recalled his perceived memory of the last time he had seen her. It would have been around three months ago for her eighty-first birthday. He and Lauren had gone to pick her up from her home in Croydon to take her for a meal. At her request, they had gone to a local carvery, one of Margaret’s favourite eating places. The afternoon was not a great success and Stuart was glad when the old lady had requested to be taken home as she was feeling tired. His recollection of her was of a much frailer woman than the one he saw dancing in front of him now. The sudden silence as the music ended snapped him out of his thoughts and he looked up to find the woman staring at him. “Can I help you, young man?” Margaret asked barely out of breath. Her cheeks were red from the exercise but she looked much younger than her years as she stood bolt upright with her hands on her hips and her head tilted to one side, in anticipation of an explanation. “Hi, my name is Stuart Milton. I used to know your daughter Lauren several years ago and I’ve o
nly just found out what happened.”

  It felt odd for Stuart introducing himself like a stranger to a woman who he thought he had known for almost seven years. A woman whom he had asked for the hand of her daughter in marriage. The woman visibly relaxed in response to this information. She took Stuart by the hand and led him over to a couple of armchairs in the corner of the room. “Ok Stuart, come and tell me how you knew my girl and I’ll tell you what happened to her.

  They talked for about an hour. Stuart said he had once met Lauren at a party and they had kept in touch for a while by letter. He explained that like Lauren he too was interested in large cats. He found himself telling her he was now an education officer at a zoo. It was strange how the supposed truth felt like a lie. She in return talked about how excited Lauren was when she got the chance to go to Africa to study lions. How proud she herself had been that her daughter had achieved so much academically. For the most part she was upbeat but when it came to the point of explaining how Lauren had died she became more solemn, despite her obvious efforts not to. “We lost Lauren’s dad when she was still a little girl. Lauren adored her daddy and I thought she would never get over it. But children are resilient little things and as the months went by she became my support.” Margaret paused for reflection before continuing.