here it is!! no antagonist yet, but lots of crazy scientists arguing :D — “We did,” Sam begins, her eyes widening in possible mania, “but I did it all last night.” “What?!” simultaneously rings through the room from all three of our mouths. “I spoke clearly, didn’t I? I did it all last night.” She proudly reiterates, taking a light sip of coffee from her favorite digits of pi mug. “Well, really now, you all know I tend to pull all-nighters, especially when we’ve gotten so close to our goal.” She defends in response to our disbelieving expressions. “This is more than an all-nighter! This was three weeks’ worth of work done in the span of nine hours. And besides, Sam, we’ve already been all working overtime. You’ve already pulled six all-nighters this month, we can’t have you dropping dead!” Erin shot back, her tone laced with concern. I can’t believe this- Sam never pushes herself this much for anything. It’s ridiculous, quite frankly, and even though we all agreed to give this our all, we never wanted each other to lose mental stability over it. But I can’t control other people, I suppose. “I’ll be fine.” She dismissively waves Erin off. “But that’s not important. What is important is THIS!” And with that, she pulls out an apple from behind her back. Was she holding that there the whole time?? Possibly. The apple is dark red, with light drops of moisture dotting its surface. Maybe a little overly perfect, but that’s to be expected from the apples grown in artificial farms nowadays. The silence that follows the reveal is less than surprising, but not unprompted. …Wait, maybe there’s something special about it that we’re missing? “Oh, oh! I got it- It was hand grown?” I end the awkward silence with my excitable tone. “No! Well- yes, but no,” Sam responds, standing up from her chair at the round table we’d been sitting at for the past fifteen minutes. “It was hand grown, that’s true,” She began to pace around the table, “But it is also our first test subject.” “Do we even have permission for that from the board?? This sounds risky and expensive, and…” Chris nervously trails off, noticing Sam’s irritated glare from across the table. “Mayhaps.” She slowly begins. “But the board can go to hell, taking all of its overbearing rules and regulations with it. I couldn’t care less. We may have just created revolutionary technology, so do you really want to wait three billion eons for them to allow us to perform the first trial? No. Not necessary. We should just get it over with now, then wait and ask for legitimate permission later.” Her circular trail continues around the room, glancing out the one window in the stark white room. That window was our one viewpoint to the room that holds our teleportation device, also called The Goose (because it was always a wild goose chase to complete). The device looks like a simple metal circle, slightly messy, but overall functional for our purposes. I wanted to make it into a heart shape, just because circles were boring, but the idea was immediately shot down within the first five seconds of my proposing it. “So we’re gonna chuck the apple through the circle and hope for the best?” I ask, tilting my head in skepticism. “Yes,” Sam immediately responds, before pausing and rethinking her answer. “No. Kind of.” She pauses her pacing for a moment before deciding, “Mostly. We have more knowledge than you think, Mia. All we really need to do at this point is turn it on and choose a location.” Chris’s eyes widen for a moment as he looks back down at his clipboard. “There’s no location we can comfortably send it to! If the public learns of this technology before we release it, we’ll have no way of ensuring safety for the rest of us.” He pauses, then glances at Erin. “Except Erin. She’ll be fine.” Erin grumbles something along the lines of ‘not as safe as you think’ before shaking her head and folding her hands on top of the table. “As much as I disagree with that last statement--” She shot Chris a pointed glare, slowly continuing, “--he isn’t completely wrong.” She points out. “So you won’t be hunted and killed if we teleport the apple to somewhere public?” Carl skeptically asks. “No! I mean-- urgh, I just--” Erin begins, frustrated before regaining her composure. “Listen. I meant that we don’t have anywhere to teleport the apple to.” “Yes, we do. Look around you.” Sam cuts in, gesturing to the whole area. “We have our little researching room right here, don’t we?” “Wait, wait, you… you want us to teleport the apple to a place literally four meters away from the starting point?” I slowly ask, my confusion obvious in my tone. In my opinion, it’s more logical to push the boundaries than stay within them at all costs. But, then again, I’m just a scientist who works here. I have no idea what I’m talking about. “
Yes! It’s so easy! If we know that it works, then everyone’s happy and nobody’s getting chased, hunted, and/or killed!” Sam enthusiastically replies, leaning on the table between Erin and Chris (who almost immediately scoots away from Sam). “It’s just the first trial, after all. The Goose might not even be stable, but something terrible would never happen!” At this moment, I think Sam is trying to convince herself more than the rest of us. But I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. “Well,” Carl stands from his seat, clapping his hands together defiantly. “If we’re going to run a trial, we might as well do it now before we break the law again!” Sam grumbles something under her breath before nodding, pointing to the door that led to the teleportation device. “We have probably about fifteen minutes to complete the trial before security realizes the alarming jump in charged energy. At that point, we’ll call it a messed-up signal. But we still won’t be caught in the act. Off we go!” A rush of complaints, concerns, and objections entered the room after Sam finished speaking, but instead of waiting to hear our confusion, she just leaves. Right out the door, off she goes, straight into the Goose Room. Silence overtakes the room for a good minute and a half before Erin breaks it. “So. Should we stay or should we go?” I open my mouth to continue the very obvious song reference, but Erin covers my mouth with her hand before I can. I hum it anyway. She can’t stop me. Chris groans, but Carl offers a hopeful grin. “Maybe we should follow through? It’d be fun, wouldn’t it? Plenty of opportunity, and Sam did have at least one point in that whole speech!” He shrugs, taking a step towards the door before Chris grabs Carl’s arm, restricting Carl from joining Sam in this mission. It’s a considerable height difference, which only adds comedy to the beach boy holding a college professor back. “There’s no way it’s safe, are you kidding me?! We gotta run more diagnostics, check more parts, make sure-” “Run more trials?” I interrupt, raising an eyebrow skeptically. “Yes! Exactl-- oh.” Chris blinks, realization coming to his face. “Okay, yeah, that’s a good point. But still. There’s gotta be something other than running an unauthorized test that we can do!” “Chris, I’m sorry, but Sam might not be… completely and totally wrong.” Erin carefully begins, her accent slipping into her normally clear speech. That means for once, she was nervous. Strange. I nod in agreement, indicating for her to go on. “I mean, it’s not like the whole lab is going to blow up.” “Actually,” I cheerfully cut in, “There is a possibility that an interdimensional rift opens underneath the room/possibly town/possibly the world and we all fall into an unknown and potentially fatal area in space, so hypothetically speaking--” “Besides that, is there anything that could actually happen?” Erin abruptly cuts me off, a hint of irritation in her tone. “No, there’s not. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Besides.” She glances through the window, where Sam is already typing in coordinates. “Better all of us to do it than just Sam.” —— okokok— antagonist won’t be for a while- bUT— I’ll release some quotes soon >:)
