Sci Fi Theatre

Freeze Frame

By Edward Owens

[setting]  Science Lab. Large machine sits in the center. Three walls and the floor of the room remain. The ceiling and one wall are missing there is only blackness.

“Jackson we are cutting a hole in the floor. Hang on!”  Man in lab coat yells at the floor.

A muffled sound comes through the floor.

“What did he say?” Woman in lab coat asks the yelling man. Dr. Shawn Braxton.

“I think he said he’s not going anywhere. I think I heard the F word.”  Braxton said shrugging.

A second man in a lab coat is waist deep in a box in the floor. He hops out. He takes a welding torch and pulls down a shield and pokes his head back into the hole. Sparks begin to fly.  After a few minutes a pop sounds and the chunk of metal on concrete comes from below. The man with the torch yells down the hole.

“Everyone okay?”

“Yes. What the hell is going on?” Jackson yells up from below.

“We aren’t sure. The machine triggered prematurely and.....”  Braxton said standing over the hole.

“You better wait for that to cool a minute or two before you try to come up.” The torch handler, Dr. Eric Deiken yells down.

“Ya think?”  Jackson yells back up.

“What’s it look like down there?” Deiken yells.

“I suppose you are asking how much of the building is left. There is a floor.”  Jackson yells back looking around.

“Anything to stand on?” Braxton yells.

“My lab stool is intact.”  Jackson again.

Deiken reaches down and pokes the metal with a finger and pulls it back quickly. Then he pokes another spot. Then lays his hand on the metal.

“You’re good. Come on up.” Deiken yells.

Jackson places his stool beneath the hole and stands on it. It is another two feet to the hole. He looks up. Deiken and Braxton bend down and extend hands through the hole.

“On three. One, two, three!”  Braxton says.

Jackson jumps. Deiken misses grabbing a hand. Braxton grabs Jackson’s left hand. Jackson dangles above the stool.  Braxton heaves up and Jackson sticks his other hand back up. Deiken grabs it and they pull him up together.

“Anyone else down there?” The woman, Dr. Sheila Linney asks Jackson.

“No. Just me. Everyone else was on the other side of the blackness. Wherever or whenever that is now. What were you guys doing? Quantum tunneling, quantum entanglement, quantum something right?”

The men and the woman look at each other. Jackson smirks.

“I think we are beyond security clearance issues at this point don’t you?”

The two men and woman looked at each other and shrugged.

“Yeah. We were about to send a signal in what we would assume to be the past but suddenly this happened.”  Dr. Braxton spoke up.

“You said your machine powered up early? That's what it sounded like through the floor.”  Jackson asked intrigued.

“No, it was powered up it just fired the burst earlier than we had programmed it to do.” Linney said.

“How much earlier than programmed?” Jackson asked.

Braxton walked to the computer which was oddly still functioning. This fact suddenly dawned on him. The lights were still on. The machines were still working.

“Well?”  Jackson said making a face.

“Fourteen minutes and forty one seconds. And why is the power still working?”  Braxton said pointing around.

The others looked around. They hadn’t noticed either.

“We must not be cutoff from the power supply which means the black sphere surrounding us didn’t destroy us or the outside world. Assuming there is an inside and outside.”  Dr. Deiken said.

“Has anyone attempted to move through the blackness?”  Jackson asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

“Also, have you noticed that we haven’t fallen meaning the floors are not severed from their supports? Also no one has come in or poked an object in? Do they even know this is going on from their perspective?”  Dr. Jackson said.

The three lab partners looked at the man and around at each other. As a group they shrugged.

“The fourteen minutes forty one seconds might be a clue or it might be pure coincidence. What are the odds that an event, that would have begun fourteen minutes and forty one seconds in the future, triggers that same amount of time, the decay rate of free neutrons, in the past?  Any thoughts?” Dr. Jackson asked.

Dr. Deiken stepped forward.

“Yeah. What do you do here? I have never seen you before.”

Dr. Jackson smirked.

“I don’t socialize much and I use the back entrance. Level four studies.”

Dr. Deiken looked at Dr. Braxton and Dr. Linney.  The terms “level four” and “back entrance” meant off the books projects usually funded by the military.

“What in particular?”  Dr. Linney asked cocking her head.

“Well there really isn’t a name for it yet but the ultimate goal is zero point energy production. Two very strong like charges are forced together and cycled. The idea being to draw energy out of the compressed space between the two like charged fields. Tore a hole in the machine. Lit up the room like turning on the sun.”

“Does it work?”

“I’m starting to think so.” Jackson said looking around.

“You think this is a result of your experiment?”  Dr. Braxton asked wide eyed.

“Well your experiment glitched fourteen minutes forty one seconds prior to being activated and at the exact same time I achieved a perfectly stable field for about one tenth of a second which in this case is somewhere near an eternity. If I am right your experiment did work and will somehow tunnel backward to a point my machine occupied. At least into the field. The effect if not having to do directly with neutrons follows the same laws as decaying neutrons. The universe apparently like fourteen minutes and forty one seconds. Actually forty two seconds but what's a second between universes right?.”  Jackson said making a believe it or not face.

Dr. Deiken looked at Dr. Braxton and then at Dr. Linney.

“Bullshit.”  Dr. Deiken said dead faced.

“Yeah probably. What have you got that’s better?”

“I don’t know. We don’t even know the nature of the black sphere. Although if someone could get in, assuming anyone is still there, they probably would have by now. At least flicked the lights or something or shut down the power to this part of the building. Something. Which tells me they can’t, don't know, or won’t. Also how would your energy come through to feed the power to the lights and machines? I think we are still connected to a grid somehow. Your zero point energy wouldn't be coming through just on power lines.”

Jackson shrugged.

“I think we are sealed off from the rest of the universe. Our experiments would not be normal under normal conditions. In other words these two things or any one of them wouldn’t happen normally in space time. This is the universes way of segregating stupid people who do stupid things.”  Jackson said wide-eyed.

Dr. Deiken raised an eyebrow considering the thought.

“You mean even under say the most extreme of circumstances two poles of the same polarity wouldn’t slam together or a particle be forced to quantum tunnel. The particles would rebound or slip past each other. So when both or either occurred it breaks natural causal conditions and this is the universes way of segregating out such an event. I see your point but wouldn’t that imply some kind of intelligence?” Dr. Linney asked.

“Not intelligence as we understand it perhaps more like a program or actually more like a machine with a set of functions. For some reason in this universe, of course referring to the multi-verse theories, in this universe like poles repel, yet protons reside together in the nucleus of an atom along with neutrons. Of course with particles actually being waves and all and we just perceive them as particles, neutrons somehow seem to dampen this field. Electrons which should fly off at high speed , or crash into the nucleus to join the protons, instead orbit the nucleus. There was a theory in 2007 put out by someone I don’t remember now that the neutron either makes the protons act slightly negatively charged, until you tear it apart, and that’s why electrons don’t crash into the nucleus, or the action of the electrons trying to reach the nucleus creates a field that repels the electron like a generator creates a field.”

Dr. Braxton look quizzically at the man.

“I’m not sure what that means here.”

“I was just pointing out that there a plenty of mysteries we still don’t understand about the fundamental mechanics of the universe and this is one of them. Perhaps this has happened before. Maybe some of those weird stories you hear on AM radio late at night are true. In our case the universe is not programmed for the forcing of two like fields together and particles cutting shortcuts through the fabric of space. Or it is programmed for that and this is the result.”  Jackson said smiling.

The three lab partners looked at each other. Braxton noticed Linney batting her eyes as if she was trying to clear them.

“What’s wrong Sheila?”  Braxton said holding out a hand.

“Light headed.” She said slumping slightly. “Need to sit down.”

Eric Deiken yawned and shook his head.

Braxton looked at Jackson. Jackson shrugged.

“I think we are running out of oxygen. CO2 levels getting high. Apparently oxygen doesn’t flow through the barrier even though electricity does.” Braxton said touching his forehead.

Jackson’s face got serious.

“We need to shut down the machines! The field might collapse and return us to our normal space.”  Jackson said moving toward the hole in the floor.

Braxton, who was now feeling the effects too, held out a hand.

“But what if the collapsing fields collapse on us not just around us?”  Braxton said breathing heavier.

“Then you get crushed. Which I would say is probably a small chance since you weren’t squashed against the walls of the lab when the field expanded. But I would say the odds of death from lack of oxygen are one hundred percent. I’m shutting down my machine. You do the same while you can.”

Jackson backed down into the hole in the floor grabbing the lip with his hands dangling from his ceiling.  Braxton went over to the computer that ran the tunneling array and typed in the power down sequence and code.

“I hope you’re right!”  He yelled. And hit the enter key.

The hum from the machine began to subside.  Braxton watched the black sphere that had engulfed the lab begin to turn greyish. He didn’t know if this was true or if hypoxia was messing with his vision. Just before he passed out he thought he saw the exit sign to the lab door which had been on the other side of the blackness.

Dr. Deiken woke up to Director Hanson shaking his shoulder. The man’s chiseled face and bright blue eyes a foot from his.

“Eric!  Eric!  Are you okay?”  Hanson said loudly.

Dr. Deiken came awake quickly. His head pounding.  He looked around.  Dr. Linney was slumped over a swivel chair but stirring.  Dr. Braxton looked at him from across the room and oxygen mask on his face.  He gave Eric the thumbs up.  Eric looked around toward the hole in the floor they had cut.  He swiveled his head back and forth. A puzzled look on his face.

“Eric what’s wrong?”  Hanson asked.

“Where’s the hole?  Where’s Dr. Jackson? He‘s below us.”  Deiken asked.

“Dr. Jackson?  I don’t know a Dr. Jackson.”  Hanson said now looking puzzled.

Across the room they heard a technician who had come in to help mutter something. Director Hanson turned around.

“What did you just say Jason?”  Hanson said squinting.

“I said holy shit director.” The man said his eyes wide a look of shock on his face.

“I thought so. I know this is a stressful situation but I am trying to run a classy operation here...”

“But director they couldn’t have met Dr. Jackson. In fact they shouldn’t even know Dr. Jackson existed and that he was in the lab beneath this one.”  Jason still staring at Deiken.

“I know. There is no Jackson here. Scanlon has the lab beneath this one doesn’t he?”

“Yes sir he does now. But you’ve only been here five years.  Dr. Jackson had the lab below this one six years ago, just before you got here. In fact the accident and his death are why you are now director. Director Keen was fired for allowing Jackson to turn off safety protocols that lead to the accident. It’s in your files sir. At least I think it should be.”

Hanson turned back to Deiken.

“What exactly happened here?”

Before Deiken could answer a security alarm sounded.  Hanson's smart phone buzzed.  He pulled it from his trouser pocket pressed the screen and held it to his ear.

“Hanson. What’s going on chief?”

“Its Officer Bart sir. We have an intruder on level four room eleven.  He has a BreuderCorp ID it looks legit but he’s not on file. Dr. Scanlon says he doesn’t know him but he’s in Dr. Scanlon’s lab.”

Hanson looked back at the tech, Jason Masters.

“What’s his badge say?”  Hanson said squinting and waiting.

“Dr. Trevor Jackson sir.”


                                                                          END PART ONE