“Think about it,” I said, beginning a speech I’d rehearsed in my head for this moment. “What have the most important public events been in the last century? That empathic robot, then thefirst starship, then the time machine, and then me.”
“But wasn’t the time machine one a hoax?” Charlotte asked. “When the scientists came to verify it, it was gone.”
“But think of how many people were watching! They came from everywhere to see each and every one of those marvels, and people who couldn’t watched newscasts. Everyone will see it. Everyone will see me!” I was bouncing on my heels and rubbing my hands together.
“But what are you going to do?” Charlotte said. “You can’t just make up a marvel.”
I grinned and pulled out a scrap of paper that I’d had for two years. “We’ll make a teleporter. It’s all here. Remember when we talked about trying to make one? We had almost everything worked out other than the-”
“-the containment field!” Charlotte’s eyes and smile had been widening as she started to remember the conversation. “We just needed a way to hold the sister particles in place in the second capsule.” She looked over the scribbled equations and schematics. “We’d need to tweak it, we’d need to build it, but I think we could do it!”
“I know we can do it,” I replied, full of excitement. Charlotte and I could do anything. We were prodigies, after all.
…
It wasn’t as easy as all that. The math, the physics, the design schematics: those were already in place. Charlotte and I both conceptualised the formulas and equations during our many meetings, and the idea of transferring information to entangled particles was not a new concept. Getting the resources to create the machine, two capsules side by side for the first test, was a more difficult problem. Even then, with grants from Charlotte’s university and a substantial sum from an anonymous donor, the basic construction took less than two years to complete. Those two years were an absolute joy. By day, I was able to work on the tiny pieces of my machine, watching as every part started to come together and work together for the whole. By night, I dreamt of standing in the light as the world greeted me once more with cheers, welcoming me. I had never been comfortable with the concept of God, but I truly felt blessed.
Then came an interminable collection of years spent scanning the skies for the particles required to make the machine work. It was exhausting, scouring star systems for microscopic particles that could be combined to recreate me in the other capsule. Tension was very high at this juncture; if I couldn’t find the pieces to the puzzle, the machine wouldn’t work and I would be forgotten forever. So I pursued each particle with patience as they slowly began trickling in, inputting algorithms and equations that would make them easier to locate and gather together. I forgot about everything else, the scientist, Dr. Guillory, even Charlotte faded to the background as I focused on my work.
During all this time, I had the ability to leave the research station; for all intents and purposes I was free to go. I never did, mostly because I had not earned it yet. Charlotte nagged me occasionally, saying that I was proving myself with my work. I always responded that I would prove it with the results of my work, and that would end the discussion until it inevitably resurfaced the next day.
…
After years of searching, it was finally ready. Everything was in order, and it was finally time. As I came down the corridors of the research station, the same one that I was born in, I walked into my double.
A Part of Something
Start from the beginning
