2

September 6, 2025
7:24 p.m.
Boston, MA

She threw open the door and kicked off her tennis shoes, not bothering to untie them. She tossed her yoga mat into the closet and hung her purse on the wall hook. This was her favorite moment of the day; she could finally relax. She pulled a protein shake out of the refrigerator and made her way into the living room. The television sparked to life as she plopped down on the couch and sank into the cold leather cushions.

She browsed through channels for a minute before settling on the news. Politics, global civil unrest, new developments in healthcare technology, economic collapse... she found herself struggling to pay attention. Her eyelids had begun to droop when a familiar face appeared on the screen. His bald head and broad grin were unmistakable. Her eyes widened as she reached for the remote to turn up the volume, leaning forward for a better look.

“The science is truly remarkable,” he said. “I believe it has the potential to revolutionize every industry. This is only the beginning.” His smug geniality almost made her turn off the TV. She could barely stand it, but she needed to know more. She grabbed a throw pillow and kept watching.

“How do you see this new technology impacting your business overall?” the off-screen interviewer asked. The camera cut to a woman wearing a dark red suit, apparently the CEO of a major airline.

“We’ve always thought of ourselves as more than just an airline. We aspire to connect people, to bring people together. We are a travel company. For the past several decades, airplanes have been the most efficient and luxurious way to travel. Now, that has changed. We believe that this technology will usher in an entirely new era of travel. It will create a seismic paradigm shift in our world, and it will be at the forefront of our offerings within the next few years.”

Alison gripped her pillow tighter as the woman spoke. How could Jorgensen do this? They were nowhere near ready! Her thoughts spiraled as the interview continued.

“Is there a timeline for implementation? When can my husband and I take a trip through the internet?”

The woman laughed. “Not quite yet. We have been testing the mechanism with Dr. Jorgensen’s team for the past few weeks. We hope to have a very limited private offering at some point in the coming months. The first pair will go between Los Angeles and New York City.”

“That’s fairly ambitious, no? Quite a distance to traverse for the first venture.”

Jorgensen took this one. “Ambitious, yes, but not because of the distance. The only real limit here is the speed of light. Three thousand miles or three feet, the experience is identical.”

“Have you yourself gone through?”

He shifted, revealing a touch of discomfort under his cocksure exterior. “Of course I have! It would have been tough to sell something like this without experiencing it myself.”

The interviewer gaped at him, a childlike curiosity in his eyes. “How did it feel? Was it painful?”

“No, no, it wasn’t painful. It’s hard to describe. A little disorienting, but thrilling nonetheless.” He smiled. “You’ll have to try it yourself someday.”

“That brings me to my next question. How much is this going to cost?”

The CEO’s lips curled into a devious smile. “It will be expensive at first. Somewhere in the six figure range. Once the technology becomes more ubiquitous, smaller, easier to maintain, we will adopt a multi-tiered approach, factoring the distance, comfort, many...”

Alison clicked off the TV. She did not care to hear any more about the business model. Her mind raced. How could all of this have happened without her knowledge? She had been paying less attention at work lately, but she would have remembered something like this. As she tried to recall any business discourse she had heard in the past few months, her phone lit up with a text message. She picked it up and saw that it was from William.

Hey, are you busy?
            

She was about to text him back that yes, she was busy, when another message came through.

We need you at the lab. Testing Mark 3
            

Her frustration manifested as an angry exhale through her nose. William always texted like that, with no regard for her personal life, no regard for her as a person at all. She wanted to throw her phone at the wall and forget she had ever worked on this awful project. She wanted to order several fast food cheeseburgers, curl up on the couch, and watch a true crime documentary. She wanted to give up completely, but she knew she could not. Her careful examination of the data could mean the difference between people living and people dying. The technology might not be ready for public use, but maybe she could help make it at least a little bit safer. She lumbered over to her front door and pulled apart the knots in her shoelaces. Cursing her compulsion to do the right thing, she stuck her feet into her shoes and walked out of the apartment.

The evening was warm, but she could feel the impending autumn in the breeze. A few splashes of yellow and red peeked through the green of the trees, a harbinger of bleak winter on its way. She strolled across the brick sidewalk under the orange streetlights and crossed the street, taking the stairs down into the station. Sitting on the laminated wooden bench, she waited with the other subway patrons.

As they talked and paced and rested, she thought about their lives. It was an old habit of hers; she had been imagining other people’s lives since she was a girl. Maybe the man and woman arguing were on the brink of divorce, with two young children caught in the crossfire. Maybe the bedraggled man lying on the floor had once been a successful artist before his family had disowned him. Maybe the young businesswoman talking on the phone was on her way to visit her brother in prison. She wished she could live their lives instead of hers. She knew her life was good, and their lives were no easier, but at least they seemed normal. She wished she could escape her problems, escape her own psychology, escape herself.

When the train finally pulled through the tunnel, she stepped through the sliding doors and found a forward-facing seat on the left side of the car. She rested her head against the window as the train chugged along. It burst out of the earth to let the night lights of the city shine through, and then dipped back underground, leaving her to stare at the reflections of the people around her. Time always seemed to pass faster as a passenger. Bodies embarked and disembarked at each stop, on their way to so many various destinations. She waited with dread for her own stop, growing more and more tense as it approached. The bell chimed and she exited, making her way up the stairs, down the street, through the campus, into her building, all the way to the entrance of the lab. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

William greeted her from his station below with a warm grin. “Hey, Emery! You didn’t text me back, I’ve been worried!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

He smiled at her. She noticed that Sam and Julia had already arrived and were settling into their seats. William asked too much of those poor kids, giving up another night of youth for this ill-fated project. They greeted her as she shuffled over to her desk, reluctantly booting up her computer and logging in.

“What was so urgent that we needed to test it this very night?” she asked, already sure she knew the answer.

William straightened his back, as proud as he was sly. “A certain unnamed stakeholder, a very important one, has a release schedule we must keep.”

“Unnamed?” Julia giggled. “I’m pretty sure it’s public knowledge. I heard Jorgensen on the radio on my way over, talking about how an airline would be using our scientific discoveries. There are already a dozen articles about it on the tech news aggregators.”

William sighed. “No matter. The business side is none of our concern. All we need to do is make sure our appliance is ready for alpha testing by next week.”

“You’re starting to sound like him, you know,” Alison said.

He rolled his eyes. “And you are starting to sound like you don’t want to be here. We’re supposed to be a team!”

“Alright, alright,” she conceded. “What do you want me to do?”

“Make sure the data collection mechanism is ready,” he commanded. “Theoretically, this should be no different than any other test. The data just has to go a little farther.”

Sam spoke up from his corner of the lab. “If my simulations are any indication, he is correct about that.”

“The adapted model should handle the transfer even faster,” Julia said brightly. “Our research from Antarctica has proven that it is possible. Now, all we have left to do is prove that it is practical.”

Alison sneered, still skeptical of the entire operation. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something. Besides, how can we test such a vast distance in such a small space?”

At this, William’s eyes grew wide. He stretched out his arm like a priest, presenting a strange twisting heap in the corner of the room. How had she not noticed such an outlandish sight? Miles and miles of cable snaking together, wrapped up in a few dozen cubic yards of space. Strands of the dark thread coiled and extruded from all sides of the pile. She followed the thin wire lines with her eyes, weaving and twirling throughout the lab, stretching out into every nook and cranny, all along the walls and ceiling.

“A few thousand miles of distance, all here within our little laboratory,” William gushed. “Quite a feat! We have Julia to thank for it.” He looked down at her glowingly as she blushed, hiding her pride under a veil of embarrassment.

Alison averted her eyes. She normally hated to rush these things, but at this point, she was ready to head back to the comfort of her apartment. She powered on the data collection apparatus and brought up the software. “Are we ready?”

“I just need to prepare the subject. Other than that we should be all set!” Julia chirped. She headed toward the animal pen, but before she made it there, William stopped her.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing her shoulder. “We don’t need to use the test animals anymore.”

She squinted at him and tilted her head, clicking her tongue with a playful smile. “Oh, come on. We can’t use you for every test.”

“My simulations have failed in the past,” Sam offered from the balcony. “There is a significant chance that this iteration will not succeed the first time we try it.”

“They’re right, William,” Alison asserted. “The risk hasn’t disappeared simply because you’ve done it before. We do not know the danger of repeat exposure. Anything could happen.” Her face hardened, masking genuine concern under unblinking grit. She cared too much about him to let him go without a fight.

William closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples. “You have never been able to see what I see. I know it will succeed.” He glared at her. “We’re going to have to test a human at some point; we might as well do it now. We don’t have time to mess around!”

“He does make a good point,” Julia uttered hesitantly. “Our schedule is tight, and we have no reason to believe it won’t work.”

Alison sighed. “The chance of failure may be minimal, but it is not nonexistent. And if the test does fail, the outcome would be catastrophic.”

“You’re not going to stop me, you know,” William declared. “If we don’t do it tonight, I’ll sneak back in and do it with no one else around. We might as well perform the experiment while you’re here. Otherwise, I’ll wait until you leave and run through it all by myself.”

Alison shook her head and stifled a laugh, hardly able to believe his hardheadedness.

“Do you doubt me?” William questioned.

She looked at him with playful derision. “I would never doubt your idiocy.”

“Then it’s settled. I’m going through.”

That was that. She knew she would not be able to change his mind. She tried to tell herself it made no difference whether he lived or died, that he was deserving of the consequences of his actions, but she could not make herself believe it. She felt like an enabler, like she was giving a clean syringe to a drug addict. She knew it could kill him, but she also knew it was the safest route for him overall. The team took their places and prepared the test. William zipped himself into the plastic on the departure platform.

“Check 1A!” he shouted, and the team echoed their responses. “Set.”

Alison counted down the seconds in her head, dreading the moment of execution. She was ultimately responsible for the result of this experiment. It was she who would press the button, she who would initiate the transfer process. She thought through every possible scenario in those seconds before she heard the muffled call from the platform: “Execute!”

Her mind went blank as she pushed the button. The gears spun, a cacophonous whir erupting from the system, ripping through the air like a scream. A flash of light flooded the entire lab in pure spectacular white, almost blinding her. She squeezed her eyes shut, instinctively shielding her face with her hands, somehow completely sure that the whole building would be destroyed. It felt like the death drop of a roller coaster; the moment of utter terror when a rider forgets about the restraints and the wheel locks and all the other safety precautions and thinks they are actually falling to their doom. She stood there, trembling in fear, until she noticed that the deafening hum in the air had been replaced by complete silence. She slowly opened her eyes to see the lab undestroyed, everything still in its place. She sighed, a nanosecond of relief that turned back into panic immediately as she shifted her gaze toward the arrival platform.

The plastic stood there, completely motionless, a pale shape outlined in dark fog. Alison waited with bated breath as the time ticked by. She was about to start running toward the platform out of sheer worry when the wrapping began to shiver. Gradually, the zipper began to crawl down the front of the figure, opening the plastic shell to reveal William’s face. He emerged, carefully descending the steps and standing steadily on the ground below. He smiled, his eyes alight with strange madness, and looked at the team.

“It’s ready for anything now.”