“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“You can be hard to deal with sometimes. That’s all I’m saying.” David guzzled some soda.
Tom smiled, “Yes, well, at least I won’t be sucking my food through a straw soon.”
David huffed and turned his full attention to the road.
Tom watched David drive, smiling at his friend’s wrinkled brow, knowing that David would never give up his Pepsi habit, even if it did take his teeth. All of David’s convictions ran that deep. It was one of the things Tom liked most about David, but would never tell him. It reminded him of someone he knew once.
For miles in every direction, there was nothing but red dirt, craggy rock formations and deep blue sky. Dust sprayed up behind the Land Rover and covered the vehicle as it came to a stop in front of the only landmark for miles, a rundown wooden shack with a missing wall. The wooden structure looked as though a strong breeze could blow it over, but it had stood in this very spot for twenty years, never collecting dust, never losing a nail and never drawing any attention.
David steered the Land Rover into the shack and put it in park. Tom and David unbuckled their seatbelts, leaned forward toward the windshield and continued a conversation already in progress, paying no attention to the loud clacks and whirs emanating from all around them.
“All I’m saying is that I’m not sure,” Tom explained.
“It will work. It’s our design,” David replied.
“That’s what concerns me.”
A small device, disguised to look like a knot of pine, lowered over the Land Rover’s hood from the shack’s ceiling. A shimmering green laser investigated the vehicle from top to bottom, front to back. The laser passed across the windshield and into the SUV. Tom and David looked forward, eyes wide open, allowing the laser to scan their facial features and retinas.
“You know what you need?” David asked rhetorically. “Faith. Just a little would do you some good. You always have to see it, touch it, smell it, before you believe anything.”
“It’s called science, David. It’s what we scientists are paid to do.”
“ You got here through science. I got here by faith,” David said with a wink and a smile.
“Well then, should we go see what your faith has to say about the malleability of space-time?”
“Gladly.”
The laser disappeared, and the knot of pine retreated into the shack’s ceiling. Seconds later, a cloud of dust exploded up around the Land Rover and the ground beneath it lurched downward. Light poured out from under the ground in a circle so perfect, it might have been drawn by a compass. The light grew brighter as the platform, which the Land Rover rested on, moved downward.
The vehicle descended into a bright, white, open cavern. The rounded walls were smooth, like the inside of an egg. The round platform was held aloft by a tall, white, hydraulic pole, which was disappearing into the floor, and four support cables strung from holes in the ceiling to the platform’s edges. Two hundred feet below, every make and model of vehicle, belonging to thousands of employees, filled the football-stadium sized parking lot.
As they reached the first floor level, simply designated Parking Level One, they exited the Rover and left it with Fred, the wiry thin valet parking attendant. He had the physique and style sensibilities of a young Bill Gates, which was a common look for not just the scientists in the facility, but also the support staff. Aside from security, and Tom, most of the men working for LightTech, whether men of science or valets, perfectly fit the nerd stereotype.
“Any news from the future?” Fred asked.
“Not yet,” Tom replied, “We might be paddling up the quantum stream in the wrong direction.”
Fred snorted gleefully. Even the parking attendants at LightTech Industries were smart enough to understand quantum humor. “Good one, Dr. Greenbaum.”
“Not to worry, Fred,” David added, “Today is the day.”
Fred brimmed with excitement. “Really?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Tom said, “Dr. Goodman here thinks we’ll succeed because he has faith and we all know faith is more important than science.”
Fred laughed again and found an opportunity to brownnose, “Two for two, Dr. Greenbaum. Faith more important than science? Please.”
David responded with a scowl directed toward Tom. Fred wished them well as they entered the complex through a pair of glass doors that were etched with the LightTech logo-three beams of light converging to a point to form a cone. Through the doors, they entered into a bright white tunnel that appeared to continue infinitely. Both men strolled fifty feet and stopped, seemingly for no reason.
“Think she’s here yet?” David asked.
“A snake can usually be found in its den.”
“Especially when the snake has spent two billion dollars building the den,” David said with a smile.
“She’s going to kill us if we don’t come through today,” Tom said, as he shook his head. “Two billion dollars on a project we proposed… We should have been salesmen.”
David forced a grin. “We may still get our chance.”
The illusion of an infinite hall faded away as the image turned milky and then solidified to reveal a single door, which opened automatically. Tom and David entered, the door closing behind them with a clunk and the hallway reverting to its never-ending appearance.
Tom and David entered the control center, waving hello to fellow scientists bustling around the room and working at various computer consoles. The day had just begun and it was already a madhouse. The control center was a masterpiece of modern engineering and electronics, the science for which wouldn’t be available to the outside world for another twenty years. The walls and ceiling were rounded like a black half-shell amphitheater. Level after level of computers and workstations were staggered down the floor like an audience, all culminating in a sheet of four-foot thick glass separating the control center from Receiving Area Alpha. Light streamed from the grated floor like glowing square waffles, illuminating faces from below. David sometimes joked about how the lighting made the team look like they were about to start telling ghost stories.
Descending down the center aisle, David and Tom headed for the wall of glass where Sally McField stood over the shoulder of a very nervous scientist. David thought Sally was beautiful in a power-suit kind of way. She stood six inches taller than him and her taut calf muscles hinted that a fit body hid beneath her masculine suits. He was often tempted to compliment the woman on her bunned black hair that hung straight when freed from the bun, or how the shade of maroon lipstick accentuated her full lips and softened the stern look of her frequently furrowed brow line, but he held his tongue for fear she might have him executed. Only one man dared ruffle her feathers.
Tom scurried toward Sally from behind, a nervous David in tow.
“You watch,” Tom whispered to David, “She has eyes in the back of her head.”
“Shush!” David urged, not wanting to be berated first thing in the morning, “She’ll hear you!”
Tom replied by pointing to his eyes with his index and middle fingers and then at the back of Sally’s head, reiterating his statement in pseudo sign language. David widened his eyes back at Tom as a final warning.
“Dr. Greenbaum. Dr. Goodman. You’re both late,” Sally said without looking back.
Tom, in his best sideways sotto voce whisper, said, “I told you.”
In a swift move, Sally spun one hundred and eighty degrees on her high heels so she instantly faced Tom and David, who quickly morphed their expressions into sweet smiles.
“Miss McField.” David greeted her with a kind voice, as he raised his hand to shake hers.
“Sally,” said Tom with a wry smile, “so good to see you again.”
Sally ignored David’s extended hand and got right down to business, “It won’t be if I don’t see some results by the end of the day. To put it mildly, doctors, impress my ass off or I pull the plug.”
Tom’s button was instantly pushed, but before he could unleash his fury, David interjected as diplomatically as he could muster, “Miss McField…today you will witness something we cannot yet explain. It will, in seconds, change the course of human history, or more accurately, human future. I assure you-”
“Tom might enjoy your speeches, David, but they don’t impress me,” Sally said. “All I care about is results.
