Shimmer

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 6

  Alex didn’t have a clue what he was looking for.

  His mother and father were the geniuses, not him. He was far from it. Of course his father had always pressed him to do better, but he was a “B” student, at best.

  Nevertheless, after seeing Silas’s video he agreed that his best chance of finding Dad was to pour over his father’s research.

  Days went by, and then days turned into weeks as Alex delved deeper and deeper into what his father had been working on. There were no surprises. He found a massive amount of information on teleportation, but the documentation and notes he found all dealt with how it could be used in conjunction with the energy sharing project. There wasn’t a single page, paragraph, or even Post-It note that mentioned actual teleportation of objects or people. Nothing about a suit, absolutely nothing.

  In the video, his father had mentioned that he’d tested the technology on animals and objects, but Alex could find no logs, notes, or videos to support the claim. It was like those experiments had never happened. Certainly, no experiments of that nature had happened at EMIT or there would be some evidence of it. The staff, at least, would remember.

  So where had all of that research been done?

  Alex grew more and more desperate with each day that passed, increasingly spending longer hours at the lab until the only time he wasn’t there was when he went to Silas’s house to collapse into bed, exhausted. He knew he was missing something, he had to be, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was.

  On the twentieth day of his father’s disappearance, he felt the first stirrings of despair.

  He rode home slumped in the back seat next to Silas.

  “Where is it?” he asked in frustration, his voice raspy from lack of sleep. “There has to be something, somewhere! Why wouldn’t he have shared a project as big as this with anyone else?”

  Silas surprised him by answering, “Your father must have felt the need for secrecy. He may have felt it was a private matter.”

  “Silas, I’m going to ask you again—did you know he was working on this?” Alex asked, sitting up straight.

  There was a pause.

  “He’s always been working on it,” Silas finally answered heavily, as if he were admitting a terrible secret. “He and your mother.” He gave Alex an inscrutable look. “It is what they were working on when she disappeared.”

  Alex blinked. “Are you saying you think he did this because he thought he could go after Mom with it?”

  “I know that’s why he did it,” Silas answered. “But I don’t think he ever expected this outcome. He’s always believed your mother had gotten too close to perfecting the technology and the government wanted to keep her from it. He was sure she’d been taken as a result.”

  “What?” This sounded ridiculous. Like something out of a spy movie. “Dad never said anything like that.”

  “He wouldn’t have,” Silas told him. “For fear of putting you in danger.”

  “So Mom had this all figured out, six years ago?” Alex asked.

  Silas nodded grimly. “At least we believe she did. She was always the smart one, you know.” He pressed his lips together in what Alex guessed was supposed to pass as a smile. All it did was lend Alex a whole new level of the creeps. Reflexively, he inched over on the seat, away from Silas.

  “But all of EMIT’s contracts are through the government!” Alex protested. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “It makes perfect sense,” Silas reasoned. “Your father used their funding to continue the research he believed was the cause of her disappearance. He thought that if he could figure it out, they’d be watching. He figured they would come for him, the same as her.”

  Silas still wasn’t telling him the whole story, Alex was sure of it. But he was just as sure that, if pressed, Silas would completely clam up.

  “So where is it?” Alex asked, frustrated all over again. Even with this new information, it didn’t get them any closer. “Where is his research? He didn’t leave a single shred in his office! Nothing!”

  “I don’t know,” Silas said calmly, like they were discussing the weather. It made Alex want to punch him square in the nose. “That is why I’ve enlisted your help.”

  Alex shook his head, frowning.

  “But why would the government get involved at all? Why would they want to keep it a secret?” Alex asked. “You’d think they would want to help him! I mean, come on—don’t you think the Army would want to be able to teleport stuff—troops, tanks—?”

  “You must think of the big picture,” Silas replied. “Imagine all of the other implications. If you could teleport anything or anyone anywhere you wanted, entire sectors of commerce and industry would cease to be relevant. The automotive industry, shipping, trucking, oil companies—they would all come crashing down.”

  “Yeah, but think about what you could do!” Alex protested. “I’ve thought about this a lot. Dad’s technology could save lives!”

  “Of course,” Silas replied. “Instant treatment for the sick, immediate aid to countries in a state of emergency… there are so many positives it would impossible to list them all. And it would create a whole new branch of industry, just to maintain the technology and keep it up and running.” Silas’s mouth twisted into a frown. “But some people like things to remain the way they are.” His voice took on an ominous tone. “Especially if they’ve become rich from it.” He flipped a negligent hand. “But I digress. It appears your father was wrong.”

  Silas was right. Alex hated the way he said it, but he was absolutely right.

  Alex had watched the video at least a hundred times, probably more like a thousand, and he was positive his father had teleported to the spot on the airstrip only to sink down into it.

  At first, Alex thought maybe his father had burned up, or somehow been vaporized, maybe from an extreme temperature given off by the suit. But if that had happened there would have been something of his body left behind. Alex had gone out to the airstrip. Nothing was there. Not even a scratch in the concrete.

  No, Alex was sure his father had gone somewhere. Somehow, the pulse of energy from the teleportation suit had taken his father even further than he’d expected, and the only way Alex could conceive of finding him was to duplicate the experiment.

  And once again, that brought him right back to the original question of how his father had managed to create the suit and test it in total secrecy.

  With the help of Silas, Alex had checked all the EMIT land holdings. There weren’t many, only half a dozen buildings scattered around the city. None of them contained anything that looked like it might have been part of the research.

  They arrived back at Silas’s home and silently went to their separate quarters, frustration.

  That night, Alex lay in bed, unable to sleep.

  He tossed and turned, trying to clear his head, but he couldn’t. He kept alternating between analytical thinking and despair, and he had to constantly fight to keep depression from winning out. He couldn’t allow himself to get back to where he’d been when his mother disappeared—he’d never find his dad if he did.

  What Alex really needed was someone to talk to.

  He dug out his phone and began typing a message to Leeann, but when he saw that it was past two in the morning he decided against it. She was certainly asleep already, and even though he was sure she would wake up and answer him, it would be unfair to ask her to listen to his problems at such a late hour.

  Instead, he scrolled through the apps on the phone. He hadn’t really had a chance to mess with it since the morning his dad had given it to him. He thumbed down the list, surprised to see that one of them was an EMIT app. Why would his father have put an app for their company on the phone? Alex didn’t even know EMIT had an app.

  He pressed the icon and a password box appeared.

  Great.

  Dad loads an app on his phone, but it’s basically useless. Alex closed out the app and continued thum
bing down the list, looking for a mindless game to lull him to sleep.

  His father knew him well: Sudoku. Alex never got tired of the puzzle game. He opened the app and started it on ‘easy’ mode, but after ten minutes of staring at the screen without entering a single number he knew he was wasting his time. He was too distracted.

  The EMIT app kept popping back into his head, nagging him.

  What if his father had left something on the phone that could help Alex find him? He’d given Alex the phone on the same day he’d decided to test the suit, which was also the anniversary of his mother’s disappearance. It couldn’t be coincidence.

  He opened up the app again and typed in “ALEX” when the password box appeared. ‘ACCESS DENIED’ popped up on the screen. His father would never have made it that easy, anyway. He typed in his mother’s name, “ELIZABETH”, but that wasn’t it either. He began free-associating, typing in any words that had to do with their family, the company, and the research his father had been working on. None of them worked. Thankfully, it appeared the password attempts were unlimited. No ‘Mission Impossible this app will self-destruct after three tries’ warning. He said a silent prayer of thanks to his dad.

  Closing his eyes, Alex tried to envision everything he’d seen in his dad’s office, tried to think of anything that had stood out, but nothing came to mind. Somehow Dad had managed to keep an entire segment of his life secret from everyone.

  Everyone except Alex? Was the app his father’s way of somehow sharing the research? Again, it couldn’t be just coincidence. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that was clouding his judgment, but lying there with the password box glowing in his face, Alex was positive his father had given him the phone specifically for this reason.

  And then he had it. He knew the password. As his father had handed him the phone, he’d talked about his mother. It was the same thing he said every year, which was all the more reason his Dad would use it to protect something he wanted only Alex to know.

  Do you remember what she used to call you when she chased you around the house?

  Flash. That’s what Mom had called him.

  He typed “FLASH” into the password box and it dissolved. Bingo.

  A blank video screen appeared with a ‘PLAY’ button in the center.

  His heart pounding, Alex briefly hid the phone under his covers and looked around his room, as if he was afraid someone was watching. It was absurd and he knew it, but Silas’s house had never stopped freaking him out, even after staying there for nearly a month.

  Instead of pulling the phone back out, he tucked his head under the covers and curled into a ball, cradling the phone up close so he could see it. He lifted his finger to press the ‘PLAY’ button, but a thump from somewhere in the house froze him in place.

  It was a huge, old house. It made weird noises all the time. It was probably nothing. But Alex poked his head out from beneath the covers and held his breath anyway, listening hard. He stayed that way for a full minute before finally taking in a lungful of air. He sunk back down under his blankets and tucked them up and behind his head.

  He turned the volume down to the lowest setting and pressed ‘PLAY.’

  A picture of his father’s face appeared on the screen. He was sitting at their dining room table at home. It was dark outside, and he was smiling. It was that rare smile Alex had only seen him use when he spoke about Mom. Alex felt a tightening in his throat, but forced it down.

  “Alex,” his father said, staring straight into the camera. “You’re a smart boy. I’m very proud of you. I knew you’d figure this out. If you’re watching this video, then I’ve succeeded in doing what I set out to do today.” His father looked upward, presumably toward Alex’s room. “I’m going upstairs to give you this phone and say goodbye.” He leaned toward the camera slightly. “Alex, I want you to know I love you and always will. Your mother did, too. I know she still does.”

  Unbidden, a tear pooled in one of Alex’s eyes and rolled down his cheek.

  “Alex,” his father’s voice turned to whisper, insistent, “I think I’ve found her. I think I know where she went and I don’t think she was able to find her way back. But I can.” His dad looked over his shoulder once, a quick jerk of his head. “I can bring her back, Alex.”

  What was he talking about?

  In the video, his father looked around the dining room, the same way Alex had looked around his room before playing the video. He looked nervous, like he was afraid someone was watching or listening.

  “I need you to go to my lab downstairs,” his father whispered, “the one under the house. The entrance is in the storage room. You’ll find a switch on the far wall.” Alex gaped at the screen. His father had been doing the research right under his feet! “I need you to go there,” his father insisted, “and I need you to follow the instructions I’ve left. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t tell anyone. Just do it.”

  His father stood, carrying the phone with him through the house. He began climbing the stairs toward Alex’s room. “I will be back, Alex,” he promised, his voice returning to a normal tone. “I don’t know how long it will take. If everything goes well, you may not even know I left. But if you’re watching this, then you probably haven’t seen me in a couple of days. Please find my lab immediately. It’s important. Very important.” By now his father had reached the top of the stairs and was about to enter Alex’s bedroom. His father stopped and said softly, “I love you, Alex.”

  The video winked out.