The lights beamed over the entire room. It reflected in chromium white as a megaphone-like structure was placed on one side of the room. Behind a fiberglass window in the wall, a man stood furiously writing on a clipboard. The man had short brown hair, and wore a large white lab coat and blue lanyard. He fixed his glasses as he looked up. Dark circles were apparent in his eyes while he yawned.
The room behind the glass had the stench of sterile alcohol. Long tables lined the room with various tubes and metal apparatuses, microscopes and barometers. Meticulously detailed charts scaled the walls and boards, as if they were the wall design itself.
The man pulled a stopwatch from his pocket.
“Trial AT-546, beginning test run.” He leaned down and pushed a button on the wall, while adjusting multiple levers on a control panel. “C’mon…”
A crackle of audio came from the megaphonesque structure in the white room across. The man cranked a rotary switch, as a hologram displayed various musical notes. High-pitched feedback reverberated from the speaker, as the sound watered down into a single harmonious key. Sweat dripped down the man’s face while his fingers twitched. He observed from the window carefully, his eyes delaying in blinking. He cranked the switch higher. The pitch turned louder and sharper. Soon enough in the white room, saharic particles began to light up.
“Saharic density, thirty hyakume. Changing into G augmented.”
The constant sound from the structure in the other room warped into a disharmonic tone. More and more saharic particles revealed themselves as glowing bits of matter. Just as when the frequency rose, smoke arose from the device. The sound stopped abruptly as the particles dispersed back into nothing. All that remained was static feedback.
The man banged his fist on the desk and crunched over. “Punyeta!... Just what is wrong with the transmutation?!”
“Isai, that’s enough testing for today. Learn when to take a break.” Another person opened the door behind the hunched man.
“I was this close, Doctor Saje Puutmiq.” Isai got back to his feet and pushed back his glasses to his head.
“You’ve pulled around three all-nighters. Can you at least head out with me for luncheon?”
“Three? The others working in the Transmutation Department have done seven!”
Saje bonked Isai on the head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m dragging you out of your hermit lab no matter what.”
The two of them were walking out in the hallway. The black floor was lined with pipelines and glowing lights on each side. The white walls declared themselves the cleanest of them all. Isai and Saje’s lanyards jingled with their identification cards and the Salkina logo to their walk. Other people in lab coats greeted them as they walked by, carrying clipboards or barehanded.
“See? Once in a while you should go out for a walk like this in the laboratory.” Saje gestured with his hand. “Your fellow colleagues are pretty surprised to see you finally left that room of yours.”
“Yeah, yeah. But the AT just isn’t working right yet…”
He placed his hands in his pocket. “Think about that later. Our work here isn’t just about the Audio Transmuter. Your research on Particle Fusion has already carried us this far, so you don’t need to hurt yourself doing more.”
“Particle Fusion, huh…” Isai stopped walking for a moment and remembered something. “I don’t want anything to do with the Fusion Department anymore.”
“This again… Why don’t you visit your son once in a while?” Saje turned around to him and crossed his arms. “That way you can finally tell him what you’ve done.”
Isai glanced at the floor. He knew what he had done. “Suruj has a pretty bad image of me right now.”
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“Then you gotta mend it. Life is like a barometer, you know.” Saje pointed at him.
“It’s not that simple.” Isai sighed and brushed his hair. “I wasn’t there when his mom and little brother were killed, and I wasn’t aware that he was captured to fight in that tournament two years ago. Even so…”
“So?”
“It’s my fault that he was captured by Al-Wa. When he was little… I used him as the first evaluation of Particle Fusion. Gave him high Saharic Mastery and Sahar Level. The kid gained an interest in particles even though I was the one experimenting on him.”
Saje slapped him in the face. Isai recoiled and rubbed his cheek. “Yep, you’re the Isai I know. You’ve told me the same thing two times before when I tried to get you out of your testing lab for the past two days, going on with your drivel. What happened to saying you’ll take the Module to your son and his group?”
“Well, about that… Now I think it’s too risky.” He scratched his head with a slur on his words. “Sahar is dangerous, and I don’t think I’d sleep well at night giving Salkina tech to people on a whim.”
“You’re one to talk. We are a part of Salamangkang Kinabukasan, better known as Salkina Research. Even though the motto here is to ‘revolutionize saharic particles, not weaponize them’, I think the director would let this slide since it’s your Module and your invention.”
Isai looked away, rubbing his tired eyes. They were quick to close and heavy to keep open, as his consciousness slipped in and out. Even so, tears welled up in them. Saje put his arm around the saharic scientist and gently patted him on the back.
“You’re everyone’s senior colleague at Salkina Research, and everyone’s worried about you. Although we can’t do anything to get back what you’ve lost, we’ll support you in keeping what you have left.”
“Rosa, Koi, Suruj…” Isai’s fingers quivered to pull out from his lanyard a picture of his wife and two sons. “Where is the nearest Salkina facility near As-Z̆onghu̐a?...”
“Hm… That would be in Shikot, Isai. One of the Tourism Sector’s directors has direct ties with our research, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he let you stay there.”
After finishing the short walk across the laboratory, they entered the cafeteria. Around twenty other researchers were eating in the vast white space; Many of them splitting off into cliques and groups of their own. Vending machines lined the back corner. Food service workers moved around the clock dishing out meals at the serving counter. Isai and Saje sat down in their own spot.
“If I may ask…” Saje stuck a utensil into the pasta. “Why do you want to go to a Salkina branch near As-Z̆onghu̐a?”
Isai glanced behind Saje and around, making sure no one was eavesdropping. “You want to know?”
His colleague nodded solemnly. “Secrets are fun.”
“D’you remember that meeting we had a week ago in the Luzokapital?”
“Yeah. The director of Salkina met with the director of the Shikot Tourism Sector.”
“I was bored out of my mind briefing them on the data results of the new staff prototype.” Isai played with his sinigang soup. “So when everyone left the boardroom, I decided to sneak a peek at one of the manila folders lying on the table.”
“Uh… Are you sure that’s okay? That’s highly classified material that only the directors can view.” Saje munched on the rest of his meal slowly. “Maybe I should report thi- Aray, aray! Joke lang!”
Isai let go of Saje’s ear. “You better not. Anyways, this was the most important thing that struck me the moment I saw that folder. The title of the file was labeled ‘Desert Company’.”
“‘Desert Company’? Never heard.”
“Exactly. I was a little curious, so I skimmed through the contents of the papers briefly. There I came across a name. ‘Izato’. Although most of it was financial funding reports and ROI’s I saw a list of names. One of them was Suruj.”
Saje banged his hand on the table. Others looked their way as the two of them became awkwardly silent. He coughed. “Your son was on that list?”
“Precisely. The last thing I spotted before I had to close that manila folder was a location. As-Z̆onghu̐a, Lāoyuàng Administrative, Lāoyuàng 'Aimag.” Isai waved his finger at Saje. “Which is why I need to bring the Module and myself to Shikot.”
“But Isai, how are you going to get there by yourself?”
“Not a problem. We’re just going to do some modular experimentation with teleportation.” Isai looked up with him with returning light in his eyes. “If all goes well with permission from our director, I’ll use the Module to transport myself there in a blink of an eye.”
Saje shook his head, but with it a smile coming across his face. “That’s the Isai I know. When you’re nuts, you’ve got the guts.”
Isai recalled that photo in his lanyard. This was all for a selfish reason. A reason to rebuild those burned bridges scorched years ago. Isai Zundui was Suruj Zundui’s father, and it was his responsibility. The Module was just an excuse. It was not the real reason. The real reason was for Suruj and Isai alone.