Unparalleled

by D. S. Smith

  Dave had been invited by the professor to join him and Dr Marks to go over the final preparations for Stuart’s departure. This they said would help him understand exactly what to expect. They were sat in a common room not far from the lab were the transfer would take place. The professor sat cross legged on a large, comfortable sofa looking relaxed as he described the process for opening up a wormhole between two universes. Dr Marks sat in a chair scribbling notes onto a pad fixed to a clipboard. Though he did not understand much of what they were explaining to him he did find the whole principle fascinating. One particular aspect that struck a chord with him was the exchange of energy between the two universes and the importance of maintaining a balance. If he understood this correctly the energy lost in his universe as a result of Stuart’s departure would need to be replaced. He thought back to the conversations he had had with Stuart regarding his brother from this universe. In particular he recalled Stuart’s description of the man he had found in the tiger enclosure. While Stuart had not exactly said it, he had indicated the man looked very much like his double and had appeared to be dead. Dave felt he had to ask the question of what the team anticipated seeing arrive back here in exchange for Stuart, even though he was afraid of what the answer might be. He directed the question to Dr Marks. She seemed uncomfortable answering it so looked to the professor for help. He thought for a moment before replying. “There is no way to flower this up David, so I’ll get to the point. There are a number of scenarios that could play out depending on the current state of your brother’s existence in the other universe.”

  The professor coughed, clearing his throat before continuing. “The best-case scenario would be that your brother is alive. That way, regardless of his condition he will be drawn though the wormhole, back into this universe and will be a perfect expression of his genes. The second scenario, and excuse me for being blunt, is that he’s dead. If this is the case what we see back here will depend on what they did with the body and extent of decay. The best we could hope for if he is dead is that they cremated the body. That way all we should witness is an increase in temperature as the energy levels balance out. In short, we aren’t sure what to expect David, but if you are going to join us for the exchange you should prepare yourself for the worst.”

  Catherine jumped as the door to the lab swung open and in entered Dr Cooper. He had a broad smile on his face and seemed perfectly relaxed as he apologised. “Sorry to keep you waiting but we had to change the plan due to security concerns.” He walked over to the bench and sat next to them. “How are you feeling Stuart, ready to go home?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” Stuart offered.

  “Good, then come with me.” He jumped up from the bench and headed toward the booth. “You too, Doctor.” He beckoned to Catherine to join them. “This Harmoniser is the same one you originally saw in the other lab. We moved to this lab because the original location is known by hostile parties. It has been replaced by mock-up to act as a decoy.” Dr Cooper was just about to add that the rest of the team would join them there shortly when the door opened and in walked Professor Humphries with Dr Marks and David Milton. The professor headed straight over to Stuart and looked him up and down. “What on earth have they dressed you in?” he asked. “Not that it really matters,” he mumbled, more to himself than the others. He placed an arm around Stuart’s shoulder and led him to one side, speaking to him quietly as they moved away from the others. “This is it Stuart. Within the next thirty minutes you’re going to step into that machine and begin your journey home.” He nodded toward the booth. “Within the next six to eight hours you will be back with the people you love. They are probably going to be extremely confused. Just as you were when you arrived here. But you are now the one with all the answers, Stuart. Use your own intelligence to get you through whatever situation you find yourself in, but use your new-found knowledge to give you the courage and conviction to take this technology forward. The information you are carrying in your blood is a gift to the whole of humanity. Take care of it by taking care of yourself and when the time is right we will share it with our worlds.” The professor’s words brought back the burden of responsibility Stuart was trying to shed. He had pretty much decided that if the transfer was a success he would try to forget about everything that had happened and get back to a normal life. The life he had been describing to Catherine just minutes before. But he knew this was never going to be possible. Even if he tried to keep it to himself, a successful transfer for him would mean a successful calibration for the Harmoniser. This would pave the way for the professor, or anyone else to follow. This, added to the potential that he was not going to be aging anymore, pretty much meant normality was something no longer available to him. He would just have to go along with whatever fate had in store. He turned to the professor and thanked him for words of advice. “So if everything goes to plan when do you intend to follow?” he asked.

  “I’ll wait exactly two weeks Stuart. Hopefully that will be enough time for you to find your way back into your old life and for you to warn my counterpart as to what is going to happen.”

  “How will you know if the transfer is a success,” Stuart asked shrugging his shoulders, “I’ll have no way of relaying that information back to you?” The professor looked him in the eye, placed a hand on each shoulder and stated calmly: “Courage and conviction Stuart. I’ll be heeding my own advice. Having the courage to take the risk and the conviction to believe in the accuracy of the team’s research.” With that he turned away from Stuart and shouted instructions to his team. “Dr Cooper, Dr Marks, prepare the initiation sequence. Let’s get this man home.”

  Dr Cooper briefed Stuart on what was required of him once inside the booth. The process for him was simple; stand with his feet in the positions marked on the base, take hold of the stirrups hanging from the ceiling and stay as still as possible for as long as possible. Apart from the clothes he was wearing the only other item he would take into the booth with him was a pair of dark glasses to protect his eyes from the intense light. Dr Cooper pointed out that the materials for the clothing and the glasses had been carefully selected to ensure there were no animal products used in their production. He added that whilst the presence of foreign DNA would not affect Stuart’s reconstruction it was their responsibility to limit the materials they transferred between universes. This seemed reasonable to Stuart and also helped him understand why he had to wear the ridiculous tracksuit.

  While Stuart was being briefed the professor and Dr Marks were carrying out the first two stages of the initiation sequence for the Harmoniser. This involved entering primary and secondary codes into their respective keypads. On completion of the secondary stage a loud hum was heard coming from a cabinet at the back of the lab. This drew everyone’s attention and gave the professor the opportunity to illustrate what was going on. He pointed first to the bank of computers racked along one wall. “These,” he explained, “are running the algorithm that controls every stage of the sequence required to stimulate the Harmoniser into creating a quantum event.” He directed their attention to the cabinet at the back of the lab from which the loud hum emanated. “This is where most of the energy is generated. Inside here are huge banks of capacitors used to store the energy required to energise the resonator tubes that stimulate the quantum collapse. It takes billions of joules of energy to power this process but while this seems a lot it is no more than is generated naturally by clouds when they produce lighting.”

  “In fact,” he added, “we are using a very simple process designed by Nikola Tesla in the 1920s to emulate the formation of lightning. The power generated by this process is used to charge the capacitors.”

  Finally, he walked over to a third keypad on a bench by the Harmoniser booth. “In just a few minutes time when Stuart is in position in the booth, Dr Cooper will enter a code into this keypad to trigger the tertiary sequence of the algorithm and determine the exact power requirements for the resonator tubes. To progress beyond t
his stage the central processing unit requires a simultaneous signal from all three key pads. Once this is received the power from the capacitor banks will be diverted to the resonator tubes and a quantum event will ensue, opening up a wormhole that will take Stuart home.” Stuart had been listening to the latter part of the professor’s presentation but only five words of what he had said meant anything to him; “in just a few minutes.” He looked around the room. His brother was deep in discussion with Catherine, Dr Cooper had joined Dr Marks at the computer bank and was taking readings from various dials and screens and jotting notes down onto a clipboard. The professor stood staring straight back at Stuart with a half-smile on his face and his head slightly tilted to one side. When their eyes met he approached him, put his mouth to his ear and whispered. “It’s time to say your goodbyes.”

  Chapter 59

  The agent arrived back from the library with several copies of the college blueprints. He handed them over to his boss. Terry went through them one at a time looking at the box in the bottom right-hand corner of each sheet. After about ten minutes he had identified there were four revisions to the one they had been using. The most recent being revision five, produced in 1998. He shook his head in annoyance and began to scrutinise the layout of the college once again. It took him about thirty seconds to identify the utility chute as a point of entry to the rooms below.

  “Un-be-liev-able.” he said splitting the word into four syllables. “This leads directly to the lab where the original Harmoniser is situated. How the hell did we miss this?” he said to his colleagues. They shook their heads without answering. He approached the two agents monitoring the screen that had been showing the boiler room but was now blank. “You two come with me.” He marched back over to the table where the blueprints were spread out. He gestured to the agent who had brought the blueprints to join them also. He pointed out the utility shed and the chute running down the back of the building giving access to rooms on each of the five floors. He highlighted the room on the first floor that served as the laboratory where the mock Harmoniser was housed. He advised them Lin Lee could be on the roof, inside the chute, or in any of the rooms directly above or below the laboratory. He sent two agents up to the roof to check out the utility shed and the chute. He warned them to proceed with caution and to be vigilant, as booby traps may have been planted around the area. He told the third agent to join him in checking rooms on each floor. He asked him to grab a metal carrying case from under his desk. The case contained an endocam, a tiny camera on the end of a thin flexible wire designed to be inserted under doors to detect wires and explosives. His final action before heading off was to contact the agents in the laboratory and advise them to be extra alert.

  Terry and his colleague edged slowly down the corridor leading to the fifth-floor room identified from the blueprints. On arrival at the door they inspected the frame and the area around the handle to look for signs of force or tampering but there were none. He inserted the endocam into a gap underneath the door. The image from the camera was relayed onto a screen on a handheld monitor. The room was in darkness. He flicked a switch on the monitor and the screen lit up as a powerful LED illuminated the room. He manipulated the endocam so it pointed straight upwards toward the inside handle. Again, there were no signs of tampering and no visible wires. He pointed the camera toward the back wall to see if there were any signs of entry around where the chute would be, but the wall was intact. Confident the door was not booby trapped he tried the handle and the door pushed open. The room was empty. Following his gut instinct Terry decided to skip the next two floors and head straight for the second floor to the room directly above the Harmoniser laboratory. On his way down the stairs he received a message from the agents on the roof that the utility shed was empty and the hatch to the chute was in place. He told the agents to stand by in their current position until further notice. Terry and his colleague arrived at the door of the second-floor room. As per the fifth floor they repeated the inspection of the outside of the door. No signs of forced entry were apparent. Before inserting the camera, Terry placed his ear against the door and listened for a few seconds. Having heard nothing, he inserted the camera. Again, the room was dark. He waited for a moment to see if he could detect any movement before switching on the LED. The camera was pointing directly to the back wall. As soon as the room lit up he saw a hole in the plasterboard big enough for a person to climb through. He panned the camera along the length of the wall then across the floor. He stopped midway as the screen displayed a slab of plastic explosive with wires snaking out of it in three different directions. He panned the camera in the direction of each wire discovering two of them led to another slab of explosive while the third led to a small metal box. He positioned the endocam to give the best overall picture of the inside of the door. There were no wires or sensors evident. He stood up and took hold of the door handle. He pushed it down as far as it would go. The door sprang open about an inch as the locking mechanism clicked and unlatched. Terry pulled the door to again but did not latch it. He signalled to the agent to follow him and they headed for the stairs. As soon as he felt he was a sufficient distance from the room he spoke into the mouthpiece and advised his colleagues on the roof to head back to the control room immediately. He contacted headquarters and asked them to mobilise a bomb disposal unit and be ready to scramble a helicopter once the bomb had been made safe. Finally, he contacted the agents in both laboratories and told them to evacuate everyone back to the control room.

  Chapter 60

  Stuart found it harder than he had expected to say goodbye to Dave. He had tried to rationalise his emotions by focusing on the fact he would hopefully be seeing him again in a short time, just in a different place. He struggled to consider them as one person though. His relationship with the brother he would be returning to had formed naturally over a period of almost forty years. The relationship he had formed with the man now stood before him was borne out of a few weeks of turmoil and conflict. When he had thought of him as his real brother he had struggled to bond with him at all. In fact, he had felt betrayed by him. Now he knew the truth he had nothing but respect for the man. He had come to think of him more as a friend than a brother and would always remember him as a distinct person, not as an alternate sibling from another world.

  Saying goodbye to Catherine was even more difficult. Without her he would never have made it this far and would probably be in a psychiatric facility ranting to his fellow patients about how he needed to find a wife and child that did not exist. That was the reality of his existence in this universe. She had helped him to live with that reality because without the professor’s intervention it was the only conclusion they could have reached. Despite her protests he thanked her profusely, adding he would be eternally grateful for her support. A statement that from him had a far more literal meaning. In return, she offered him the same pragmatic advice as before; be yourself and be creative with the truth. She embraced him and her persona softened. He reciprocated pulling her close to him. As he did this she whispered softly into his ear; “If only things had been different Stuart!” He whispered back. “You are the one reason I almost stayed.” She didn’t have the chance to respond to this as a commotion at the door drew their attention. The professor was arguing with one of the agents, waving his arms around and pointing at the equipment and the people in the room. The other agent approached them and ushered them toward the exit from the laboratory. “What’s going on professor?” Stuart asked as he was pushed toward the door. “They want to evacuate us back to the refectory.” He snapped back. “They don’t understand how close we are to completing the transfer. This will set us back hours,” he barked. “Professor, a third bomb has been discovered in one of the other wings.” The agent snapped back. “If that goes off it is big enough to bring the whole building down on top of you.”

  Reluctantly the professor agreed to evacuate the lab but not before aborting the initiation sequence for the Harmoniser. He told the agents
to take the others back to the refectory and he would follow shortly. They protested at first but soon realised this was not up for negotiation. Dr Marks agreed to stay with the professor to assist him but told Dr Cooper he should accompany the others. So, in the same way Stuart and Catherine had arrived at the lab, they headed back through the maze of corridors with one agent leading them from the front and the other following at the rear. Both agents had their weapons drawn but this time the journey was far from quiet. Stuart was complaining he could not believe after being so close to climbing into the Harmoniser booth, yet another obstacle had been placed between him and his journey home. Catherine was letting the agents know in no uncertain terms that she could not believe despite the importance of the technology they were guarding, the security forces had failed to prevent someone accessing the building and planting bombs all over the place. The whole thing felt like a shambles and she fully intended to take this up with Terry at the first opportunity. Dave was the only one remaining quiet during the march back to the refectory. He had a gut feeling he knew exactly who was responsible for the chaos.

  Chapter 61

  The unmarked vehicles carrying the bomb disposal team arrived within minutes of Terry’s request. They had been on full alert for the past twelve hours waiting for the call. The entrance into the college forecourt was now blocked due to the earlier explosion so the vehicles accessed the college grounds from a car park at the rear of the building. Terry grabbed the blueprints and headed to the car park with two of his agents to meet them. By the time they got there the team were already removing an array of metal boxes and plastic cases of different shapes and sizes from the backs of the vans.

  Lin Lee watched with interest from her vantage point on the roof of a neighbouring building. Her little surprise above the laboratory had obviously been discovered. This being the case the lab would have been evacuated. She doubted the bomb disposal team would be able to disarm her device but there was always the possibility. She considered detonating it immediately, but then a large-set man exited the building and approached the vans. She recognised him, from the photos the Director had provided, as the head of the campus security team. If he was going to be showing the bomb disposal guys where the explosives were planted, it would be worth waiting a little longer to allow them to get into position. Killing their leader would lead to disarray amongst the remaining agents, giving her the opportunity to follow up on the destruction of the Harmoniser by eliminating the expertise that built it. She set the timer on her watch to thirty minutes.