Infinity Device (Chapter Four)

By Barker Tree

Chapter List

Elmo:   

So the door opened and there was this Japanese girl or something, knocking on the door! She came out of nowhere! I think it even surprised Uncle Rogers, because he had this odd glint in his eye and he moved quickly and got the beam on her and that was that.

I wondered what was going to happen now! Asians were super interesting. Ninjas and Samurai and stuff like that! Maybe we could make this girl into a ninja, how cool would that be?

Uncle Rogers guided her inside and checked the street before closing the door. Turning to me, he smiled and said “why don’t you take a turn with this one?”  See? Uncle Rogers was the best. I swelled with pride and set my Switch down carefully on the carpet. Ideas raced through my head. I could make her fat! Give her a topknot!

But then I hesitated. I had to do the right thing with Uncle Rogers around. He had given me another speech on the way here, just like the other times, stuff that went over my head. “Calibrations are sensitive and prone to rapid deconstruction…” “… Just a week or two until phase three…” “… the last thing we need is a reality burn that ends the known universe…” What was he talking about, exactly?

Infinity Device (Chapter Three)

By Barker Tree
Chapter List

Annika:

I opened the door to the apartment. I was so unsettled that I immediately started pacing back and forth in the living room. I hugged myself with fear: I had never felt like such a kid before, uncertain and afraid. Maybe I feel like a kid because I am a kid, I thought to myself, a little shaken. I wasn't old enough to handle any of this on my own.

But as went back and forth, I started thinking that there had to be some solution out there. Perhaps something helpful from my previous life of science, something I could pull out to my advantage. I gripped the back of a chair and forced myself to stand still. Think rationally. Concentrate.

Slowly, a few ideas trickled into my head. It was odd, trying to access an older part of myself, a bit like trying to recall a very old memory. But I had some stuff in my room that could maybe help, some science-y shit. I ran to my bedroom and opened the drawer where I kept my stash of equipment, and then pouted in annoyance when I saw it was just a collection of fucking fashion magazines.

GIF #2 - Traveling Abroad

By Barker Tree

Michael:
So, I was stuck with my parents at this stupid conference in Italy. Like, it was cool and all to be in Italy, but they would just leave me at the hotel, which was totally in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the company took them on tours and dinners. Just me and my phone, playing games.

The one bright spot was that there was another girl stuck here too, about my age. Our eyes met when we checked in and we shared a mutual look of boredom. She was pretty good looking, skinny and braided, and she looked away and then I didn't see her again for another day or two after she and her parents disappeared with their luggage into the elevator.

I spent a while wandering the halls to pass the time. It was like an old mansion or something, and mostly empty. I saw her flipping through her phone in one of the lobbies.

Infinity Device (Chapter Two)

By Barker Tree

Chapter List

Annika:

“Oh, fuck,” I thought as I awoke, “my fucking head.” Jesus, something must have happened last night. Too many drinks – god, maybe I was roofied or something, like Samantha had been last…

I jolted upright. Professors Rogers! He had been here, in my room. A dream? – and then I felt my breasts bounce with – hell, I don’t know, vivaciousness, and I lumped my head back down against the sofa.

So it wasn’t all some dream. Some psycho with an impossible machine had snuck into my room and fucked with my life. I giggled. Literal fml. Fucked my life.

I got up carefully, gingerly. I immediately realized I was completely different. I was like a superlatively graceful cat – it was like I had been a bowling ball in my previous reality. I mean, he had turned me into a fucking ballerina, and I could feel it, all this energy. I was gracile, supple, powerful, like a panther. A pert little ballerina, I thought, almost giggling. This was so stupid.

Infinity Device (Chapter One)

By Barker Tree

Chapter List

Madeleine:

As I drove past, the lights along the road blinked forlornly. The days just seemed to fly by, an endless procession of classes and studying and shepherding confused undergraduates. I stared down the road pointedly.

And another dinner with Tom, both of us a little stressed. At least he hadn’t cried this time. Jesus, at least I didn’t cry this time.

So life wasn’t the glamorous bounce-a-thon of fun I had kind of expected when I was younger. I mean, sure, how naive of me. But I remember graduating high school (god, ten years ago?), and having it all planned out, all hopeful of the future. I’d become less shy, less awkwardly crabby around people, maybe change my style.

And then I imagined how as I grew into my profession I’d meet some cute mathematician or something – wealthy, why not? And hopelessly literate too, with nice eyes – and then trips to France – showing him off to my impressed parents, my jealous younger sister – even my brothers would grudgingly concede their support. And then we’d win the Nobel Prize and watch Wes Anderson films on the couch.

I mean, it didn’t have to be exactly like that. But at least in the same direction. And surely more than just becoming more disheveled as I got older. At least Tom was nice. Could banter.

I was gloomy, but I always felt a little off at night. After I got some sleep I’d feel much better in the morning.

Infinity Device (Prologue)

    By Barker Tree

    Chapter List

Prologue

“Hey Tom,” I said breathlessly, plumping into a chair. “Sorry I’m a little late. The traffic...”

“Uh-huh. There was dry-cleaning – a fire…” Tom said good-naturedly. He got up and gave me a sweet but awkward kiss on the cheek. “I knew you wouldn’t miss Chinese night. I mean… the company…”

“You wish,” I said, laughing. “You’re just lucky I’m a creature of such inertia. At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do anything else on a Thursday night.”

I looked around us. We were entirely alone in a dingy American-Chinese joint, and the waiters were as stone-faced as gargoyles. Maybe they wanted us to leave.

“What do you want?” one asked me.

“Um, General Tsao’s,” I said, cringing at my basicness. “And… an egg roll. No, two.” Tom smirked at me. I had been texting him just this morning about getting serious about clamping down on my weight after my depressing monthly weighing, on the hyper-precise scale at the lab next to ours. I was right at that point, in age and life, where things could get overboard, real fast…

Changing Realities

- Dimensional Tech - 

By Barker Tree

I looked in the mirror at the changing station. For such an elaborate lobby, the bathrooms were decidedly sterile and impersonal, like the proportions were slightly wrong. If this were a restaurant, I'd probably decide to leave.

But it wasn't a restaurant. I was here to abandon my old life and be transformed. Limited dimensional shift, the brochure called it. I should laugh, but I didn't. 

I didn't even smile. I was feeling more nervous than I thought I would be. For weeks I had felt resolved, testing myself by postponing the urge to walk through the doors. Even just yesterday, I had felt so committed, so certain. But now... I tugged on my fingers nervously and looked down at the aspirin container of DNA that I had illicitly (and guiltily) extracted from my niece's bedside trash. Some of her nails and hair I had found bedded among the tissue paper and discarded school papers. Maybe I'll be like her soon, I thought, shivering strangely. Maybe.