DreamScar, Chapter 2, Squeal of the Guinea Pig

DreamScar1

Chapter 22

The Squeal Of The Guinea Pig3

Kristi still held the door ajar, doorknob in her hand as she stared at the stunned and confused burglar. She quickly took in the situation, noticing that the object that had caused the racket was the still reverberating piece of steel lying behind the assailant. Kristi, followed closely by Anbo, slowly walked into the garage, where she circled the tall boy standing in her garage. He was about 5’8” and had a messy mop of brown hair. After making a full 360 around him, she stopped and looked him in the eyes.4

“Nice to meet you,” She said extending a friendly hand to shake. “I hadn’t expected that when your resume had dictated that you were specialized in stealth that you would end up sneaking into my house” She said with a sardonic, yet warm smile.5

Anbo was hit with surprise at this statement. “Job résumé?!” He muttered, stunned, mouth hanging agape. “What do you mean job résumé?” He looked dumbfounded from Kristi to the 15 or 16 year old boy, making for the second time that evening that Kristi had seen such emotion across Anbo’s face.6

“Anbo, no reason to be alarmed, it’s not like I have hired a hit man to take you out for me,” Kristi joked, nudging him aside and leading the new boy inside the house. “It’s lucky for you that I didn’t hire you due to your stealth skills because, I’m afraid that you seem to have none if I were to take that little… incident into accommodation” Kristi Joked with him7

“Even if you did, I can’t really expect hundreds of stainless steel plates and… all this crap to be in a normal household” The young man joked back, making his way through the door after Kristi and Anbo. As he got inside the door he looked around and in disbelief uttered “Jesus cripes, I wouldn’t have stood a chance trying to sneak in through this junk” while nudging a few papers aside with his foot. 8

“Yes, you’ll have to excuse the mess” Kristi said, a little embarrassed. She bent over and picked up the papers that had been brushed out of the way and set them on the mountain of papers that was once a kitchen table.9

“-or he could just get out” Anbo finished with his own words, letting them drip with malevolence.10

“Anbo there is no need for that,” Kristi interjected leading the two boys into the living room and somehow cleaning off a spot on the couch for them to sit down. “Anbo, this is Daniel, Daniel- Uhh, how exactly is that pronounced?” she stopped, looking to Daniel.11

“Breyen, just like Brian” he said, flipping his hair out of his face. His hair was short in the back but came down to past his chin in the front. It was spiked in the back like the classic ‘emo’ cut. He had Icy blue eyes and a mischievous smile. His teeth were a bit yellowed, but not disgustingly so. “I’m 16, and I go to Mason-Chesterfield High,” He said extending his hand to Anbo who, in a most impolite manner, pushed it aside, and sat down to pout on the couch. Daniel Shrugged and began to explore the living room. “You never got a chance to tell me,” he said, “What exactly was I hired to do?”12

“You are, in lack of better terms, our guinea pig. Our lab rat.” Kristi explained to him as he made his way around the mounds of plywood and metal rods in her floor.13

“Are you ready to squeal like one?” Anbo said with a horribly venomous look in his eyes 14

Suddenly Daniel stopped toying with one of the blue curtains. “What exactly are you going to be experimenting on me?” he said with his eyes widened.15

Kristi loved to explain her projects, and most people, however often it didn’t happen, had learned better than to ask, and therefore, it didn’t happen very often at all anymore.16

Kristi jumped up off the sofa, already excited, and making that visible through her smile. She walked around the two steel circles had been cut and then welded to old bed frames, she grasped a blue curtain circling one of them and opened it allowing the inside of the circle to be visible, she then hurried over to the first circles counterpart, opened it, and then scurried back to the front of the room. “This was my idea,” she started off. She always seemed to turn these explanations into a small acceptance speech, as she hardly ever got recognized. “I am trying to create the first ever telepod technology. This idea is one that will speed up transportation several hundred times; it will allow humans to travel at the speed of light. Unfortunately, the scrap yard was fresh out of any materials that could have been transformed into a pod, so we had to make do. That is, unless you are wanting to climb into a refrigerator to try this.” She stopped, trying, but failing to keep a straight face. “Anyway-” she coughed, “our first test will be to try and get our teleportation devices to work, after that, we will work the pods into the picture. They won’t be hard to incorporate, they are mainly to cut down on cost and room consumption” She finished the first part of the explanation.17

“Okay, so what are the chances that a 17 year old girl and a-“ Daniel thought then finished with- “A 14 or 15 year old twit are going to be the first people in the world to achieve a working teleportation device?” a little narrow mindedly.18

“Idiot” Anbo scoffed t him, then he stood up and motioned to Kristi, “Do you not know who this is? Don’t you? This is Kristi Arlington, Teenage whiz. She’s made the news several times, she has an IQ of probably triple yours, and if it is in any ordinance, she takes craps with more thought processes than you,” Anbo began to rant.19

“Anbo, stop. Now” Kristi said with an edge of steel in her voice. “Anyway” she started again, with a weary look towards Anbo “as you probably picked up from Anbo, I’m a bit of a genius. I know that doesn’t really give me any special credit in this day and age, but do try and here me out. We are testing it for a reason. We aren’t exactly sure if it is going to work the first time around. But we plan on trying it until it does, and, you are getting paid to test it.” She finished smiling20

Still a little tentative, but done with his questions on his safety for the moment being, Daniel went back to studying the device. “Am I allowed to ask how it works or would the idea melt my brain?” Daniel said, looking back up to Kristi, learning it was probably best to ignore Anbo who was sulking miserably on the couch.21

Kristi, who had begun to like Daniel right off the bat, answered him with a nod. “But that shouldn’t matter because the teleportation process will probably do that anyway.” She said, once again unable to keep a straight face. “Seriously though,” She hopped up on one of the steel circles, “this is where the magic will happen –“22

“Yeah, magic” Anbo snorted interrupting her.23

“Before that,” Kristi said, giving Anbo an odd look, “This is the first ‘pod’” She said, using air quotes and giggling. She motioned to the other circle “That is pod numero dos.” She jumped on top of it and continued, “Our goal is to make you get from one, to two, without YOU moving.” Daniel, nodded, then sank back onto the sofa, folding his hands behind his head and sighing, settling in for what he knew was to be a much more complicated explanation. “ so, basically, the first thing we had to do was to take a person, and transform them into some type of data, or energy.” She said, using her hands to enunciate her words. Kristi walked over to the computer, sitting heavily on the chair in front of it. “So, considering that we have figured how to do that, we have to charge the-24

“Wait,” Daniel interrupted. “Aren’t you going explain how you did that?” he asked a little wearily25

“Well…” Kristi started, thinking on a way to simple it down “In a very old article on cancer, I read how dying cells that were infected with cancer gave off a special electrolyte. This electrolyte, once studied, was found to contain information on the cells that had died. A few small professors did experiments in a Harvard lab and found that they could restrict cells and DNA from this information. Seeing this, we can infect you with a curable form of cancer, get this electrolyte, super charge it so that it will travel with electricity, and let it go from this pod to the other. Afterwards, we let the computers do all the configuration of the data, and assembly. Though we let the computers do that, actually, once the electrolytes get back together, they should actually recall themselves back the way they were once configured.” She finished quickly, taking a deep breath.26

“Wow…” Daniel trailed off in thought. “So this can actually work.” he stated in shock.27

“Maybe” Kristi winked. “We do all of this in a different order though,” she stated. , first we supercharge your cells, infect you with the cancer, supercharge you again, take the electrolytes, receive them, send them, and lastly, configure them.” She finished again. “It’s actually, a very simple process considering what we are accomplishing.” She turned back around and began typing furiously on her keyboard.28

“Supercharge me?” He gulped “That sounds a bit painful- and dangerous!”29

“It will, all happen so quickly, your brain won’t be able to comprehend a thing” Kristi assured him, still typing. She turned around to face him and said in a very serious tone “You’ll be fine; I put my word on it.” She held up her hand with her index, middle and ring finger up. “Scout’s honor”30

“But you couldn’t be a scout! You’re a girl!” he grinned. 31

Kristi sat back, as if she were offended “You sexist pig!” She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand in the classic drama queen pose. She stood up and pulled Daniel off the couch, much easier than he expected her to be able to. “If you’re ready, we can begin initial scanning now” She loked him in the eyes and then pushed him onto the first ‘pod’.32

“Right now?!” He yelled. “I wasn’t even supposed to be here ‘til tomorrow!” He continued loudly, scared. “I uh- You can’t be done with it yet” He said nervously jumping off of the pod. Daniel walked over to the computer screens and looked at them, trying to find a reason for which they couldn’t continue, but he was completely unable to decipher one tidbit of what was going on on the monitors.33

“No, we’re ready” Kristi said walking over to a cardboard box on the ground, picking it up and placing it in front of pod #1. 34

For the first time in a long while, Anbo sat up and cleared his voice, looking maliciously at Daniel. “Ready to die kid?”35

Daniel was completely undone by this comment. “What- What are the chances of that happening?” He hurriedly asked Kristi. Kristi looked up to him, but past him.36

“Well, that can’t be right” She frowned “According to my calculations, you have a 25% chance of survival” She shrugged and went back to unpacking the cardboard box. 37

Daniel was dumbfounded. He was completely unable to say one word, utterly speechless. He swallowed and looked at Anbo who was still smiling that smug grin. “do them again, they have to be wrong” He somehow managed to make out.38

“That, once again, show’s your stupidity,” Anbo cockily shook his head, placing it on his palm, as if he couldn’t quite believe someone could be so stupid. “You see, Kristi, calculating wrong, that is simply not possible.” Kristi hurriedly looked up to Anbo in disbelief, “I was lying Anbo” She said, frowning, “What is wrong with you tonight? He’s not normally like this” She spoke to Daniel but still eyed Anbo in a disapproving, yet suspicious, manner.39

“Oh,” Daniel sighed again. He was still extremely nervous. He just couldn’t shake the fact that HE was the guinea pig.40

“I’m going to need you to remove your clothes, place them in this box, and then wait inside the curtain please” Kristi said to him, handing him the cardboard box.41

“Why can’t I keep my clothes?” He said a little more wearily, gaining a bit of confidence back.42

“Well… if you keep them, you’re going to be fused with them forever. It probably won’t reconstruct anything without DNA so very well.” She said.43

“Oh, well...that wouldn’t be good.” Daniel stepped up the four inches to the steel center that seemed to be a mile higher than they were a moment ago and slowly pulled the curtain closed. “I hope your not doing this just to see me naked!” He tried to joke over the curtain. Kristi giggled madly and Daniel heard her begin to type furiously at the keyboard. Slowly, he began to undress, but as soon as he started, despite the separation of the curtain, he began to flush uncontrollably. He placed his jeans, shirt and other necessities in the box. He kicked it outside of the curtain and yelled “I’m ready.” He heard some shuffling and the sliding of the box as it was pushed to the other pod.44

“Stand in the middle, and keep your eyes closed. Don’t open them for any reason at all” She yelled over the curtain.45

Cameron looked around at the circle, then saw an X spray painted crudely in red towards what he guessed to be the middle of it. He stepped slowly over and placed his feet on the X46

“I’m here” he said softly47

“Here we go” 48

“Have a nice afterlife” Anbo said loudly and obnoxiously, but Daniel heard a small slapping noise and then a click of a mouse.49

“Close your eyes!” 50

Daniel closed his eyes quickly, clenching them as closed as possible. He heard a small metallic hum as the machine around came to life. Following this noise was a whir of metal moving around him and a very loud crunching sound. Wondering if something was going wrong, Daniel opened his eyes and looked around him. From the poles that were heisting up the curtains, he saw that a smaller ring was descending around him. From this ring, a bright blue light was being emitted. The ring was currently descending over his eyebrows and as he had opened his eyes, the light ran over them. Daniel quickly closed his eyes again. He stood there in the nude for several minutes, feeling slightly more than stupid when the sounds around him stopped, leaving a very loud and echoing silence.51

“Daniel? We are starting the teleportation process, stay calm, relaxed and we will see you in just a minute, okay?” Kristi called.52

“yeah” Daniel called halfheartedly. 53

A motor somewhere above him started, it sounded like a car engine, and according to how everything else had looked, and Daniel figured that it probably could be. He kept his eyes closed as the noise got louder. 54

“Breathe deeply!” Kristi yelled55

He heard a sound like steam being ejected from somewhere behind him, and he inhaled deeply, quickly, losing his breath. He bent over and began coughing, forgetting to keep his eyes closed. He saw that the steel plate he was standing on had begun to glow with a very bright orange. Suddenly, a great pain went surging through Daniel’s body, he grabbed at his sides and head, unable to stop the pain. He fell to the ground and began to spasm upon the ground lying on his back as the pain stopped. He looked up at the ceiling, which was also glowing. He saw a structure jutting out of it glowing with a ball of electricity.56

“I was just electrocuted.” He thought plainly. Then he realized he heard a voice.57

“-and when I said I was kidding… I was”58

“What a relief” Daniel sighed59

“-You actually only have a 23.6% chance of survival”60

Daniel looked up into the great glowing mass of electricity. 61

“Just my luck” he thought as he watched the ball of electricity descend upon him. He felt the pain as the electricity enveloped him. He watched it flow up his fingertips and watched it engulf his body. He screamed with pain as he felt the intense heat it brought with it, but that is when Daniel Breyen saw and felt nothing else at all.62