Main Laboratory of the DF Technologies
A modern and secure white building with a huge tower is the DF Technologies’ headquarters of which Marc is one of the lead researchers. He is a simple man in a plain black T-Shirt depicting Ace, a personage from his favourite anime and faded jeans with a somewhat handsome face, long black hair and blue expressive eyes providing quite a refined look.
He was standing in a huge room with a lot of bizarre mechanisms displayed on all the 4 white walls, leaving the white floor of almost 200 square meters empty, except a machine 10 meters in diameter at the centre of the room. The whole room gave the feeling of desolation and sterility.
Right now that face is wrinkled in concentration facing the huge metallic mechanism with a lot of spikes protruding from the spherical centre on the platform.
Near him, a last generation laptop was displaying some electronic shames and circuits that looked more complicated that a lot of mazes.
After almost 16 years of continuous research in both theoretical and practical fields he’s at the final step. If the project is made public it would make a lot of people go wild, as it deals with one of the most basic aspect of the reality – space manipulation, with lightning (for the lack of a better term describing it) used as the catalizator. A bold approach from his part.
He couldn’t handle the pressure of potential failure that he decided to leave the final component on the table on his left, neat his laptop and take out a cigarette from his pocket.
Lighting the cigarette and inhaling a big smoke he started to recall his life till this very day.
As an inventor, electrical engineer, material engineer, physicist and futurist at his 34 years, he started his studies and research from a stupid ‘geekly’ idea – I want to control space.
How he got this thought? Between his love for science and light novels read in his youth, it’s hard to decide its root, maybe both of them are.
He could finish 5 or even 8 years earlier if not the fact that he decided long ago to never forget to enjoy life and never spend more than 8 hours a day on his research.
Coupled with the standard 8 hours of sleep, he was left with 8 hours to LIVE and not only exist. He spent most of it on manga and everything related, martial arts – Niten Ichi-ryu and finally with his very few friends and irregular girlfriends.
Irregular because he understood he doesn’t want stability in everything and relations were made for enjoyment, so he wants to enjoy it and not hinder his dreams. He’s still young and doesn’t see the need of a family. Plus his life was written 10 years ahead, he made a lot of plans, and if successful, it will push forward human development in many fields for the centuries to come.
His sword mastery also evolved during the last 18 years of daily practice. The muscles on his body were developed beautifully and his stances reached an instinctive feeling of harmony with the sword. This practice allows him to shut down all thoughts and immerse his mind in this amazing state.
The two swords, a gift from his deceased father, became his companions and he took care of them before each practice. It was part of the mind cleansing.
In 6 weeks the investors want a demonstration of their prototype, nobody is stupid enough to throw a ton of money on a project, even more if this ton of money is a small rock in comparison with the mountain of founds that this research required.
Materials cost was impressive and to ensure the best results a lot of qualified people were needed.
Failure was not an answer since he bet his entire career on this project.
With all the ameliorations to be made, tomorrow is the last day the first trial can take place. But Marc won’t wait, he was eager to see the results of his years of work. It was a mixed feeling between trepidation and unease.
Since he was sure that till the trial was performed he can’t get a better understanding of his theory and its practical application, he decided to extinguish his cigarette and get back to work.
2 hours after, he finally was standing before the control panel of his creation, ready to launch the experiment. It was a big red button, his special design. Because for a job like this only such kind of button is adequate. What could go wrong?
He took out his phone and dialled his friend and colleague Alex. On the screen appeared the image of Shishimaru, the Alex’ anime personification. It’s the impression Marc had on him – lazy but with a phenomenal mind set.
‘’Hi there, guess what I’m trying to do?’’ Asked Marc in a teasing tone. This info must be shared.
‘’Let me guess, trying to destroy the world with that money eating machine?’’ Alex sounded quite sleepy but was still able to try and joke around.
‘’Exactly smartass, because I found sponsors earlier than you doesn’t mean that you must bitch around every time I call you. How’s in Tokyo?’’ He chuckled and lighted another cigarette, the third for today, two more go.
‘’If your brain will ever adapt with the time differences you will understand that here it’s still night and I was trying to sleep. ‘’ His friend tried to sound pitiful, still he continued ‘’So why the call?’’
‘’No particular reason, just the fact that I wanted to share with someone the fact that a historical event will take place in a couple of minutes and I find you the most appropriate person for this role. ’’ Marc tried to use the most neutral voice and sound nonchalant to hide his emotions.
‘’O thanks for the great honour, but I’ll go back to sleep, send me the recordings so I can take a look in the morning. ‘’
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A sleepy scientist is not the best talking partner, Marc told himself. But it still felt good. Alex’s help was essential to put in practice some details that he couldn’t solve. As a colleague researcher he has his share of the pie, but ridiculously little since this is not his main project.
However during the work he was inspired and now his research has some tangencies with Marc’s. They even become friends. Plus it was Marc who aquatinted Alex and his wife.
“Of course, and sorry for the call at this hour but I couldn’t leave it till tomorrow. I know that you wanted to be informed about this’’
Another smoke ring left his mouth with the parting words ‘’Have a good sleep and I look forward for your review of the results first thing tomorrow’’
Alex, half snoring responded ‘’Good luck Marc, I hope that it will be fruitful, but I swear that I’ll block your number if you continue to call me at this hour. I’ll ring you back in 5 hours. PS don’t screw up.’’ And just hung out.
Finally putting the cigarette in the ashtray he was prepared.
He checked for the last time all the recording sensors and with a ‘Let it rock’ pressed the button.
This machine was supposed to separate the very fabric of reality. It was the first step in his theory that needed confirmation. It was the foundation of his future accomplishments. He was the only person there since it was a Sunday and his subordinates were in weekend. This was the second reason why he wanted to do the experiment today.
‘Better safe than sorry, you never know’ he thought to himself. Plus, a big red button was involved.
Even with all his assurance that they took everything in account, there is still a little chance of error left. With this type of experiment nobody can know how exactly it will happen. That’s the problem with theory.
A massive influx of energy, perceptible even to the naked eye rushes from each spike into the rotating panels.
During the next minutes the panels started to rotate faster and the energy emited by the spikes became massive lightning bolts. It put pressure on the mind and body even behind the protection glass panels.
When the rotation and energy reached 98% percents he saw a little crack forming near one of the spikes. Mac didn’t even have time to enjoy the moment or look at the results when everything went dark.
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Trying to figure out why his mind hurts, Marcus immediately remembered the experiment and how he had lost his conscience. The eyelids were too heavy, as if someone was trying to keep them closed, but he hardly opened his eyes and then closed them back.
It was too bright for eye comfort, nor did it compare to the 1000lux lamps that illuminated the lab. And now that he thought about it, the floor of the surveillance room was not under him. Something smooth and warm had replaced it.
Blinking a few times to get to the light and with some gloomy words he had risen in his elbows to see where he was. Everything around him was white. White in all directions. An immaculate white that lay on till the horizon. The lack of other landmarks had made Marc panic. On such white, everything else would have come in contrast and would attract attention, but after a few movements of his head he could not see other objects, or at least other colours.
Standing up and shouting a few times, he had not produced any results. Trying to calm himself, he staggered down and began to think. Logic always wins if you give it a chance and do not act based on emotions or instincts. And now they cried out that he was dead or teleported somewhere.
A few good hours after awakening and a few panic attacks he was ready to cry. In all his lifetime he didn’t feel so lost and scared. He never really needed a cigarette.
Trying to find a border of this bizarre space, he started to walk in the direction he was looking at. Unfortunately nothing new on the horizon, literally nothing.
The problem of moving without benchmarks is that at some point you deviate and revert where you started. Without wishing your body returns to point zero. Being right-handed and favouring his right foot, Marc was sure that his walk made a curve sloping to the right.
When he remembered his father's stories about the people lost in the woods, he was making a step toward the left at every 200 steps ahead to ensure that he’ll advance straight. That did not help. Always the same landscape or its lack.
Seeing his first plan doesn’t work, another idea had come to his head. If he really is dead, he should not have blood, being a purely ‘soul body’, for the lack of a better term. The fact that he counted till 1354875 Mississippi and his breath was calm helped to confirm it.
Without nails, the teeth came into action. With the confirmed lack of blood, instead of relaxation, a much greater panic overwhelmed his thoughts.
'Fuck, so you say this is purgatory, and my punishment is to lose my mind here alone, in this hospital / psychiatric environment. It's too white for my mental comfort, you could be original and paint everything in pink, it could be even worse." he screamed to the sky, or at the too high white ceiling, he just had no idea what it really was, again.
Having nothing else to do, he groaned and began to think of existential questions. Death was too sudden for him, to think about it seriously until now. Fragments and memories of what he had read and heard had gone through his head. What is death?
The afterlife, as Marc knew, is the concept of a realm, or a realm itself in which an essential part of an individual’s identity or consciousness that continues to exist after the death of the body. But what it represents?
This question is more than a mind-bender. For thousands of years, certain people have claimed to have actually visited the place that, “no eye has seen … and no human mind has conceived,” and their stories very often follow the same narrative arc.
A skeptic, a rogue or an innocent suffers hardship or injury: he is hit on the head, he suffers a stroke, he sustains damage in a car crash or on the operating table. A feeling of disconnection comes over him, a sense of being “outside” himself. Perhaps he encounters an opening: a gate, a door, a tunnel. And then, all at once, he is being guided through other worlds that look and feel to him more “real” than the world in which he once existed. These realms are both familiar and strange, containing music that doesn’t sound like music and light brighter than any light, and creatures that may or may not be angels, and the familiar faces of loved ones lost as well as figures from history and sometimes—depending on the narrator—even Jesus himself.
Tales like these are thrilling in part because their tellers hold the passionate conviction of religious converts: I saw it, so it must be true.
That was the Christian version of death. Marc in the state he was preferred to believe in reincarnation, a more favourable ending in his opinion.
It’s the concept that an aspect of a living being starts a newl ife in a different physical body or form after each biological death. It is a central tenet of all major Asian religions and maybe the novels that he read influenced a little.
Still reflecting about all this, he feel himself being pulled away somewhere. The world blurred around a panicking Marcus as he was pulled to another place far away.
The belief of oblivion after death is scarier, and now he was sure that that is his near future.
‘What’s the purpose of the white space than?’ he asked himself.
He was flying (and panicking) for an unknown period of time, still trying to gather his thoughts when a black hole appeared somewhere in the distance, disturbing his thoughts.
It was difficult to concentrate the mind on only one thing. It’s like a huge hangover mixed with brilliant ideas and understandings put in a blender and then inserted in his soul form, or how else to call this metaphysical effect?
Still trying to perceive what happened and what was this sensation that he was filling and even understanding he approached the black hole.
Marc bet everything that his continued existence will take place in a spiritual realm and this is just a teleport. The alternative of being reincarnated in an animal was still ok, but the death of the mind still inspired dread.
At some moment the phenomenon started to pulse, resonating with his own conscience and drifting him towards its core.
The distance was shrinking and a sudden pain attacked him when he touched the core.