2

August 17, 2024
7:52 a.m.
Boston, MA

“What is this?” Emery’s sharp voice shook him from his slumber. He blinked and shifted into a sitting position, his body still heavy with sleep.

“What?”

“What are you listening to?”

He reached for his speaker and turned it off. “Nothing. Just something to help me sleep. I must have accidentally set it to loop.”

“You listen to old-time radio to help you sleep?”

He yawned and pulled himself off the couch. “It comforts me.”

“You know, a bed might comfort you even more.”

“I tried that. Doesn’t work for me.”

She sneered at him. “Well?”

“What?”

“Did you find any bugs in my code?”

“Not yet. I’ll keep looking today.”

“You don’t have to keep looking. We can run the test again, and actually measure the results this time.”

He ignored the snarky remark. “Are Phillips and Wilkins here yet?”

“They should be here soon. It’s almost ready to go again. I’m going to start setting up.”

Emery walked out of Silberman’s office and went to her workstation. He grabbed an energy drink and followed her out, climbing the curving metal staircase up to the second-level catwalk.

Phillips arrived just before 8 o’clock, greeting the two doctors with a chipper smile. He could not understand how she was always so cheerful. She went straight to the pen and started preparing one of the rabbits for the next experiment.

A few minutes after 8 o’clock, Wilkins tottered in with four cups of coffee in hand. “So sorry I’m late, something was... something happened with my train... delayed...” He took a breath and pulled himself together. “I brought coffee!”

“You know Dr. Silberman doesn’t drink coffee,” Emery said without looking up from her computer screen. She reached her arm out behind her and he handed her one of the cups. “I guess you’re going to have to drink two of those.”

Wilkins chuckled awkwardly. “Julia? Do you want one?”

Phillips smiled at him politely. “No thanks. I have my tea.”

“Three,” Emery smirked.

Wilkins sighed and set the remaining coffee cups down on the table in the common area. He grabbed one of them and started sipping from it. “Are we almost ready?”

“We would be if you weren’t late,” Silberman muttered, only half-serious. “Get to your station.”

Wilkins hurried up the stairs to his terminal, clutching the coffee cup tight to his chest.

“Looks like everything’s cooled off,” Emery called from the other side of the room. “We should be good to go.”

Silberman looked down at the motionless hardware on the floor below. Even though he knew this test was designed to fail, he still felt the familiar nervous thrill rush through his body. Ensuring his area was stable, he commenced the checking process. Each member of the team confirmed that the system was ready. He gave the order to execute. As with the previous run, a buzzing vibration swelled through the room, followed by a blinding flash of light, and then empty quiet.

“2A, Clear.”

“2B, Clear.”

Silberman knew to suppress his joy this time. This test was purely diagnostic. He descended the stairs at a leisurely pace to meet the others.

Emery was inspecting the new rabbit, poking at the plastic surrounding its small frame. “Looks like the degradation has already begun.”

“And we’re measuring it this time, right?” Wilkins inquired with concern, leaning forward to look at the creature as it gradually morphed into nothing.

“The readings should finish processing in a few minutes. There will be a lot of data to scrape.”

Silberman watched the platform as the furry thing disappeared. He turned to examine the analysis compiling on the screen.

“I can take a look at the chemical synthesis output,” Phillips said brightly. “I think I might have an idea.”

He wondered what her idea could be. She was certainly sharp, but she couldn’t possibly know what had happened to the previous test subject. He himself had no idea.

“I’ll keep trying to untangle this scanning spaghetti,” he mumbled, making his way to his desk, already lost in the flow of debugging.

Wilkins and Emery sifted through the logs, poring over the data point by point, searching for clues. The room fell silent as the team worked. A few minutes, an hour, two hours... time always seemed to lose its meaning when Silberman was trying to solve a problem. He only existed in the world of the problem. Reality slipped into the recesses of his mind as the hyperfocus loop took over. Then, like an early morning alarm clock, a booming voice snapped him out of it.

“Working hard I see!”

He turned and quickly identified the source of the voice. Jorgensen stood above them on the second-level platform, both of his hands clutching the railing, smiling as he surveyed the lab.

Silberman smiled back at him. “Of course, Dr. Jorgensen. We’re always working hard.”

If it had been anyone else’s jarring voice that had ripped him from his problem-solving zen, he would not have been so kind. He hated losing his train of thought, but he knew he could lose a lot more if he was not polite to Jorgensen.

“Any progress since I checked in yesterday?”

Phillips started to speak, but Silberman stopped her. “No, not yet. We’re optimistic, but we still have a lot of work to do.”

“You know, we can always add another member to your team if you need it.”

Emery looked up at Jorgensen with the slightest touch of worry on her face. “No, that won’t be necessary. We wouldn’t want to have to give anyone else this level of clearance. Besides, the problems we seek to solve won’t be helped by mere manpower.”

He seemed satisfied with that. “Well, I’m sorry for disrupting you. I’ll let you get back to it. Let me know if you need anything.”

“We certainly will,” Silberman said.

“Good luck to you all!”

Jorgensen gave a little wave and sauntered out through the exit. Silberman felt an immediate swell of relief wash over him. He liked Jorgensen, but there was always an air of pressure when he was around. Silberman functioned better when no one was peeking over his shoulder.

“Back to work everybody,” he commanded. The members of the team shifted their focus back to their workstations.

Another few minutes, another hour, another half-day... Silberman was absorbed in the trance of concentration again. He had yet to discover anything new, but he had several leads to follow. He was in the middle of chasing one when Phillips gasped, startling him.

“I think I’ve found what’s missing,” she murmured, almost inaudibly.

He rolled his chair closer to her and looked at her monitor. “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

“Wait, let me go back.” She tapped the screen and pulled the visualization back through time. “This is the output from the subject’s skull, right after the synthesis completed.”

“Sure. Everything looks normal.”

“But watch this.” She tapped the screen again, and then began to drag her finger slowly across the timeline. Silberman watched as the atomic structure shifted, the pieces moving and changing rapidly, disappearing and reappearing seemingly without reason. He leaned back, flabbergasted.

“I... I have never witnessed anything so chaotic. It looks like perfect entropy.”

“Now, look at this.” Phillips brought up another view. “This is the input from the deep scan.” On the screen, he saw the same atomic structure, but it did not shift with the same chaos. His mind raced as he searched for differences between the two views. Phillips turned to him uncertainly.

“I don’t know what happened, but I think there’s something here. Something that was lost in the synthesis.”

Silberman froze. “It’s not possible...” he whispered.

“What’s not possible?”

“See those little dots there? Those particles?”

Phillips nodded and Silberman continued, his lips curving into a slight smile.

“See how they seem to hold the structure in place here and here?” He pointed at two spots on the glowing screen. “How they pull everything into themselves?”

“Yes...”

He paused for a moment.

“Magnetic monopoles.”

Phillips dropped her jaw in disbelief. “I thought those were only theoretical!”

“They were. They aren’t anymore.”

“This changes everything!” Phillips was beside herself with excitement. She pushed her chair aside and began to pace back and forth.

“This is an unfathomably significant breakthrough! Everything we know will change! This is history!”

Silberman sat motionless, his mind elsewhere. “It doesn’t matter to us if we can’t replicate them in the synthesis process.”

Phillips looked at him incredulously. “You seem like you don’t even care about this monumental discovery.”

“I do care. My priority is the project.”

He had already moved past any excitement he had felt, onto more pressing concerns. How did these monopoles prevent molecular degradation? How could he incorporate them in the fusion system? As he pondered these great mysteries, Emery approached, drawn to the other side of the lab by Phillips’ revelry.

“What is it? Did you identify the issue?”

Phillips grinned and turned to Silberman. “Do you want to tell her?”

Silberman briefly glanced up at Emery before looking back at his monitor. “Magnetic monopoles.”

Emery could not hide her joy. She beamed at them, her eyes gleaming with tears she could not suppress. She stared at the bright display as if she were in a dream. “Fantastic... our deep imaging program... it worked better than I could possibly have hoped...” She sat absently on the table next to the monitor. “I tried to make it abstract enough that it could handle anything, but this... an entirely new elementary particle... truly fantastic!”

“So when do we run the experiment again?” Wilkins asked, seeming to appear out of thin air. “What do we need to do?”

“I’m already looking at the chemical makeup of the filament,” Silberman muttered, still focused on the screen in front of him. “I should be able to copy the architecture from the scanning data and use it to amalgamate a new compound. It shouldn’t be too different from the way we created the first generation of filament.”

“Yes, of course,” said Wilkins, clearly not understanding half of what Silberman had said. Emery smiled at him knowingly.

“Come on, Sam, you can help me with the data analysis script. We’ll need to adjust the algorithm to properly recognize the monopoles.” She lit up as the word “monopoles” crossed her lips, still reeling from the discovery. She headed back to her workstation, Wilkins following close behind her.

The team continued to work in preparation for the next run, diligently hacking away at their respective tasks. Silberman found quick success with Phillips assisting him. He knew Emery would have no trouble updating the data transformation code. They were compelled by the exultant force of imagination.

The only indication that night had fallen was the collective hunger they all felt. Wilkins ordered a pizza, of which Silberman mindlessly devoured three slices. To him, the gooey cheese and robust sauce was sustenance and nothing more. The project consumed him completely.

The hour had grown late when he finally finished his work. Emery and Wilkins were waiting for him, anxious with anticipation. Finally, he emerged from his hyperfocused state.

“I think we’re ready.”

This time, he felt the jitters like he never had before. This time, he knew it would work. He ascended the clanking metal stairs, taking each step calmly and deliberately. Phillips zipped up the plastic on a new rabbit from the pen. No one said a word as they attended their stations and waited for the experiment to begin.

“Check, 1A,” Silberman uttered.

“Check, 1B,” Phillips replied.

“Check, 2A,” Wilkins called from across the room.

“Check, 2B,” Emery answered.

“Set.” Silberman paused for longer than the protocol dictated. “Execute.”

At once, the process began again. He watched the glorious light dance off the grey steel and concrete of the lab. As soon as it began, it was over.

“1A, Clear.”

“1B, Clear.”

“2A, Clear.”

“2B, Clear.”

Silberman carefully stepped down the stairs and approached the subject. He and the team watched the frightened rabbit hyperventilate in the transparent sack, waiting, waiting. After what felt like forever, Emery broke the silence.

“The measurements are complete...”

Silberman stared at her, his hands balled into tight fists. “And?!”

“I think... I think it worked... Of course, we’ll need to run copious tests to make sure there are no irregularities, but... I think it worked...”

She stepped up to the platform and undid the latch, reaching her fingers into the plastic, feeling the creature’s soft fur. She picked it up and held it in her arms. Silberman looked at it with proud wonder. Phillips, her bottom lip trembling, began to weep with joy. Wilkins gaped at the animal in a daze. “This is going to be the most famous bunny in the world,” he said absentmindedly. “What’s its name?”

Silberman furrowed his brow at such a frivolous thought. “We never name the test animals.”

“We should name this one,” said Emery as the adorable furball squirmed in her arms. She beamed at it as if it were a newborn baby, delicate and sweet.

“Phillips, you’ve always cared too much about these rabbits. What do you think we should name it?” Silberman asked.

Phillips sniffled. “Well, I...” She chuckled nervously and looked at the ground. “I’ve actually been naming all of them already.”

“What did you call this one then?”

“...Wilbur.”

“I suppose it’s as good as any other name. Not that it matters.”

He looked back at the rabbit again. Now that it had a name, he could not help but feel a strange personal connection to it. It was more than a successful test result; it was a living, breathing, feeling life form. He tried to hide his newfound affection for the animal, but the look in his eyes revealed his true feelings. The entire team gazed upon Wilbur with pure adoration. They loved him. They loved him because he had survived.

Silberman walked over to Emery and she handed him the rabbit. He smiled down at it and then lifted it up triumphantly. “Wilbur. The first living creature in history to survive electronic transportation.”

The squad applauded gleefully, laughing because they did not know how else to express their elation, congratulating each other like a championship team.

Silberman took on a more serious tone. “This is only the beginning. Tonight, we celebrate until sunrise. Tomorrow, we make arrangements for phase two.”

Wilkins looked up at him inquisitively. “Phase two?”

“Antarctica.”

A hush of nervous excitement fell upon the group. They had all known this would not be the end of the project, but they were not aware of Silberman’s plans for the next phase.

“We don’t need to worry about that tonight, though,” said Emery, pulling a Champagne bottle and four glasses out from under her desk. “Antarctica is thousands of miles away. We are here now. The only thing on our minds should be our extraordinary accomplishments!” She poured their glasses full and raised hers. “To Wilbur.”

Silberman, Phillips, and Wilkins repeated the toast. “To Wilbur.”

They downed their drinks and began to feel the effects. They passed the bunny around, each of them holding him fondly for a moment before Phillips placed him back in the pen. After that, they left the lab and strolled out into the warm summer night. They sucked in the air as they jaunted from one bar to the next with springs in their steps. They laughed and talked and drank, awash in the inebriated glory of victory.

That night, Silberman slept like a rock. He dreamt that hundreds of rabbits were hopping about in a meadow, hundreds of Wilburs, alive and healthy. The warm sun shone down on them as they sauntered through the grass. He caught one and picked it up, tenderly petting it as it tried to wriggle free. Suddenly, he felt a chill cross his skin as a cloud covered the sun and blanketed him in shadow.