Lost in the Universe

iii

"You have no idea how much of a bad feeling I have about this," she told him. He frowned at her, not really knowing what do say. After realizing the girl had rendered him speechless, he nodded, in a way reassuring her.

"Tonight, you will watch and wonder. Tomorrow, you will wake to a world which will be changed forever," Lazarus continued.

The old man opened the door and walked inside his machine. A pair of lady scientists step up to lock him in and activate the device. Soon enough, the four columns surrounding the machine start to oscillate and rotate around the chamber as they pour energy into it.

"Something's wrong," Nina said out loud when she realized what was happening.

"It's overloading," the Doctor added. The computer agreed as it beeped an alarm sound throughout the room.

Suddenly, sparks start to erupt from the controls, and then a thick cloud of smoak followed. The Doctor was quick to take action as he rushed to the controls and took out his sonic screwdriver.

"Someone stop him!" A woman yelled. It was Lady Thawn, Lazarus' wife. "Get that man away from the controls!" The Doctor turned to face her.

"If this thing goes up, it'll take the whole building with it. Is that what you want?" The woman suddenly realized the gravity of the situation and shook her head, shutting up. Nina was quick on her feet and ran to the Doctor, somehow knowing exactly what to do to turn the machine off. She looked at the controls and pulled out a power cable. The contraption slowed down, and then finally came to a stop. Martha ran to them.

"Get it open," Nina told them.

Methane did as she was told and opened the door, allowing a young man to stagger out. Nina recognized the man, it was Mr. Lazarus. She got a chill throughout her body. This was wrong. This shouldn't be able to happen.

"He did it, he actually did it!" The old woman exclaimed.

"It can't be the same guy," Martha tried. "Its impossible, it must be a trick."

"Oh, it's not a trick. I wish it were," the Doctor mumbled. He and Nina kept their gaze straight at the young man. They could both feel how wrong the situation was. This human was bound to live twice the lifespan of a normal human. Humans were learning to live forever. This was not how things were supposed to be.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Richard Lazarus," the young man yelled to the crowd. "I am seventy-six years old and I am reborn!"

The crowd cheered.

"What just happened?" Martha asked the Doctor. She had noticed how serious both him and Nina were.

"He just changed what it means to be human."

The trio watched as Lazarus was speaking to his wife, and suddenly stiffened and grabbed a plate from a waiter, eating the whole thing.

"Richard," Lady Thaw scolded him.

"I'm famished," he told her.

"Energy deficit," the Doctor chimed in. "Always happens with this kind of process."

"You speak as if you see this every day, Mister?" Young Lazarus trailed off.

"Doctor. And well, no, not every day, but I have some experience of this kind of transformation," he told the man. Nina scoffed. They both had quite enough experience with transformation and energy deficits, hadn't they?

"That's not possible," Lazarus commented.

"Using hypersonic sound waves to create a state of resonance," the Doctor used Nina's words from earlier.

"Isn't that... inspired," she noted.

"Both of you understand the theory, then," Lazarus smiled.

"Enough to know that you couldn't possibly have allowed for all the variables," Nina told him.

"No experiment is entirely without risk." Nina scoffed.

"That much risk? That thing nearly exploded. You might as well have stepped into a blender," she commented.

"You're not qualified to comment," the old lady told her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she fake apologized. "Who was it that stepped in to disconnect the cables form your beloved machine before it blew the whole block?"

"She's right," the Doctor backed her up. "If we hadn't stopped it, it would have exploded."

"Then I thank you two. But that's a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less," he argued.

"You've no way of knowing that until you've run proper tests," Martha chimed in. She was definitely right.

"Look at me. You can see what happened," Lazarus told her. "I'm all the proof you need." Nina shook her head, a frown on her face. This was so wrong.

"This device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially," Lady Thaw told them.

"Commercially?" Martha exclaimed in disbelief. "You are joking. That'll cause chaos."

"Not chaos, change. A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve," Lazarus said.

"This isn't about improving," The Doctor told him. "This is about you and your customers living a little longer." He knew what Lazarus was up to.

"Not a little longer, Doctor. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely."

"Richard, we have things to discuss, upstairs," Lady Thaw said, grabbing her husband's arm.

"Goodbye, Doctor. In a few years, you'll look back and laugh at how wrong you were," Lazarus said, taking Nina's hand and kissing its back, then leaving with Lady Thaw.

"Oh, he's out of his depth. No idea of the damage he might have done," The Doctor mumbled to himself, his hands going through his head.

"So what do we do now?" Martha asked.

"Now? Well, this building must be full of laboratories. I say we do our own tests."

"Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample then, isn't it?" Nina told him, a smug smile on her face as he winked.

"Oh, Nina, you're a star." He grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.

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So guys I just found a way to turn this fanfic super fucking weird, so that's what I'll do. Just a warning. :)