The Didymus Contingency

TWO
Precipice
2005

David Goodman knew what day it was. Tom told him the story ten years ago and David had since learned how to treat his partner on this day: just like every other day. As David threw away the soggy cereal he never got around to eating, he thought about Tom and wondered how a man who had no hope for the future, could bear the burden this day represented.

Tom had thrown himself into his work since Megan’s death, but that was required of them both. David had never been married and probably never would be. He was fond of saying, “Fifteen hour days locked in a secret facility, six days a week aren’t exactly conducive to dating.”

Whatever the case, they were each all the other had. The only variation in the pair’s schedule was that David drove forty miles every Sunday morning to attend the nearest church. Tom did not. God was often a source of heated debate.

It was a topic David would attempt to avoid today. He quickly adjusted his paisley tie, slipped into his perfectly polished black shoes, attached his LightTech Industries ID card to his blazer and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked old. Older than he should. His blue eyes seemed to have faded nearly to gray. The crow’s feet stretching out from his eyes, which deepened when he smiled, looked good on Hollywood actors, but not on him. They made him feel old. He turned sideways and sucked in his gut. The old skinny David was in there somewhere, buried beneath a few inches of chub.

With a sigh, David left his bedroom and grabbed a 20oz. bottle of Wild Cherry Pepsi from the fridge. With the recent addition of a breakfast soda, this had been his morning routine for the past fifteen years-as boring and stale a routine as the average person’s. But it never bothered David. Particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, black hole generators, heavily armed guards and secret tunnels kept the rest of David’s day a tad more interesting.

As soon as David left the front door of his smooth, adobe home, the morning heat struck his head. David grumbled under his breath as his armpits instantly began to perspire. It took David ten years of Arizona heat before he had found a deodorant that could keep him dry. Last year they stopped selling it. He had never been fond of heat and even lobbied to have the whole operation moved to New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The official LightTech response was a hearty laugh and pat on the shoulder.

It took David ten seconds to walk from his air conditioned home to his burgundy Land Rover, which was parked as close to the front door as possible without crushing his collection of cacti. In years past, he parked the vehicle in the attached garage, but it had become so full of old computers and spare parts that there was little room to walk. He had considered cleaning out the garage on several occasions, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. The computers in the garage were part of his past-LightTech’s past-and if he and Tom succeeded, all of it would be part of history.

David hopped into the Land Rover, slammed the door shut and glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His neatly bearded face looked as if he had just run a race through the Australian outback during the rainy season. David wiped the sweat from his pasty, white forehead and felt glad that those ten seconds represented his daily time spent in the sun. He started the engine with a surge of gas and cranked the air to full, so that it blew his graying hair back and dried his skin.

It took David five minutes to navigate through the LightTech owned and operated neighborhood. The neighborhood was the only visible group of buildings for twenty square miles and housed two thousand employees, from physicists to janitors. Tom was waiting by the sidewalk as usual.

Tom was dressed casually, as he tended to, in blue jeans, a white T-shirt and an open, plaid, button-down shirt. Of course, LightTech had a dress code, but Tom had never cared about codes, rules or outside guidance. Besides, he knew they couldn’t fire him. He was too important. His eyes had narrowed over the years, his face was more carved and his cheeks were rough with stubble. David was sure Tom was going for a Clint Eastwood look, minus the gray hair-Tom’s was still solid black and wavy. Tom had also managed to stay fit, which vexed David because he never saw the man exercise and they had similar diets.

Seconds after Tom entered the SUV, David cracked open his Wild Cherry Pepsi, signifying the start of their morning banter.

Tom looked at David with amused disgust. “You’re going to rot your teeth out,” he said.

“What do you know?” David retorted with his thick Hebrew accent, dodging any real response.

“I know that I’m going to keep my teeth longer than you,” added Tom, with a gleaming grin.

“We’ve been friends since we both came to this country, what, fifteen years ago? Don’t presume to come between me and my true love,” David replied, as he took another swig.

David and Tom were both born and raised in Israel. Their homes there were two miles apart, yet they had never met until LightTech hired them both. They came to America and both quickly adopted it as their home country. David had been sent to a prestigious private school from which he graduated top of his class, while Tom was home-schooled by his father, an ex-Rabbi, who no longer held the Jewish faith. David remembered their excitement in the early days, when freedom to do groundbreaking research in a privately owned facility was somewhat of a novelty.

Tom smiled and leaned back into the plush leather interior of the Land Rover, enjoying the conversation. “And what if I do, old man? Will you cane me?”

David fumed. “Cane you? I don’t use a-old man! I’m your senior by three years and you presume to call me ‘old man’?”

“I suppose I presume too much?” asked Tom.

David nodded as he sucked down some more cherry-flavored liquid sugar.

“About as much as you use that word,” added Tom.

“What word?”

“Presume.”

David shifted in his seat and said, “Don’t presume to tell me how to… Huh, I guess you’re right.”

Tom smiled, “Aren’t I usually?”

“Bah,” David blurted, “The only thing your brain is good for is quantum mechanics and attacking Chri-”

David managed to stop his sentence short, but Tom’s jagged facial expression revealed he already knew how it ended. The silence that ensued was nerve-wracking. How could David forget! Of all the days… It was Tom who finally spoke, “Better step on the gas; we have to meet the bitch in a half hour.”

David was immeasurably relieved that his transgression had done no permanent damage, and he gladly resumed his role in the conversation. “Language!” David shouted.

“C’mon, David. You have to admit she’s-”

“Just doing her job. I admit she’s forceful at times. I’m just saying, watch your tongue,” David said in his best patriarchal voice before taking another drag of soda. “You know, if you had all the responsibility she does, you might not be nice all the time either.”

Tom looked at David, waiting for the punch line. “You’re serious?”

David nodded and Tom laughed, relaxing and turning in his seat.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The motor hummed and the crunching of soil beneath the tires rumbled for what felt like ten minutes, but was closer to ten seconds.

“You’d be grouchy too, if you worked for you,” David stated.

Tom raised an eyebrow and cracked a smile. David saw him. “You know what I mean!”

Silence resumed as dust blew over the windshield, kicked up by a warm gust of wind.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked.

“You can be hard to deal with sometimes. That’s all I’m saying.” David guzzled some soda.

Tom smiled, “Yes, well, at least I won’t be sucking my food through a straw soon.”

David huffed and turned his full attention to the road.

Tom watched David drive, smiling at his friend’s wrinkled brow, knowing that David would never give up his Pepsi habit, even if it did take his teeth. All of David’s convictions ran that deep. It was one of the things Tom liked most about David, but would never tell him. It reminded him of someone he knew once.

For miles in every direction, there was nothing but red dirt, craggy rock formations and deep blue sky. Dust sprayed up behind the Land Rover and covered the vehicle as it came to a stop in front of the only landmark for miles, a rundown wooden shack with a missing wall. The wooden structure looked as though a strong breeze could blow it over, but it had stood in this very spot for twenty years, never collecting dust, never losing a nail and never drawing any attention.

David steered the Land Rover into the shack and put it in park. Tom and David unbuckled their seatbelts, leaned forward toward the windshield and continued a conversation already in progress, paying no attention to the loud clacks and whirs emanating from all around them.

“All I’m saying is that I’m not sure,” Tom explained.

“It will work. It’s our design,” David replied.

“That’s what concerns me.”

A small device, disguised to look like a knot of pine, lowered over the Land Rover’s hood from the shack’s ceiling. A shimmering green laser investigated the vehicle from top to bottom, front to back. The laser passed across the windshield and into the SUV. Tom and David looked forward, eyes wide open, allowing the laser to scan their facial features and retinas.

“You know what you need?” David asked rhetorically. “Faith. Just a little would do you some good. You always have to see it, touch it, smell it, before you believe anything.”

“It’s called science, David. It’s what we scientists are paid to do.”

“ You got here through science. I got here by faith,” David said with a wink and a smile.

“Well then, should we go see what your faith has to say about the malleability of space-time?”

“Gladly.”

The laser disappeared, and the knot of pine retreated into the shack’s ceiling. Seconds later, a cloud of dust exploded up around the Land Rover and the ground beneath it lurched downward. Light poured out from under the ground in a circle so perfect, it might have been drawn by a compass. The light grew brighter as the platform, which the Land Rover rested on, moved downward.

The vehicle descended into a bright, white, open cavern. The rounded walls were smooth, like the inside of an egg. The round platform was held aloft by a tall, white, hydraulic pole, which was disappearing into the floor, and four support cables strung from holes in the ceiling to the platform’s edges. Two hundred feet below, every make and model of vehicle, belonging to thousands of employees, filled the football-stadium sized parking lot.

As they reached the first floor level, simply designated Parking Level One, they exited the Rover and left it with Fred, the wiry thin valet parking attendant. He had the physique and style sensibilities of a young Bill Gates, which was a common look for not just the scientists in the facility, but also the support staff. Aside from security, and Tom, most of the men working for LightTech, whether men of science or valets, perfectly fit the nerd stereotype.

“Any news from the future?” Fred asked.

“Not yet,” Tom replied, “We might be paddling up the quantum stream in the wrong direction.”

Fred snorted gleefully. Even the parking attendants at LightTech Industries were smart enough to understand quantum humor. “Good one, Dr. Greenbaum.”

“Not to worry, Fred,” David added, “Today is the day.”

Fred brimmed with excitement. “Really?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Tom said, “Dr. Goodman here thinks we’ll succeed because he has faith and we all know faith is more important than science.”

Fred laughed again and found an opportunity to brownnose, “Two for two, Dr. Greenbaum. Faith more important than science? Please.”

David responded with a scowl directed toward Tom. Fred wished them well as they entered the complex through a pair of glass doors that were etched with the LightTech logo-three beams of light converging to a point to form a cone. Through the doors, they entered into a bright white tunnel that appeared to continue infinitely. Both men strolled fifty feet and stopped, seemingly for no reason.

“Think she’s here yet?” David asked.

“A snake can usually be found in its den.”

“Especially when the snake has spent two billion dollars building the den,” David said with a smile.

“She’s going to kill us if we don’t come through today,” Tom said, as he shook his head. “Two billion dollars on a project we proposed… We should have been salesmen.”

David forced a grin. “We may still get our chance.”

The illusion of an infinite hall faded away as the image turned milky and then solidified to reveal a single door, which opened automatically. Tom and David entered, the door closing behind them with a clunk and the hallway reverting to its never-ending appearance.

Tom and David entered the control center, waving hello to fellow scientists bustling around the room and working at various computer consoles. The day had just begun and it was already a madhouse. The control center was a masterpiece of modern engineering and electronics, the science for which wouldn’t be available to the outside world for another twenty years. The walls and ceiling were rounded like a black half-shell amphitheater. Level after level of computers and workstations were staggered down the floor like an audience, all culminating in a sheet of four-foot thick glass separating the control center from Receiving Area Alpha. Light streamed from the grated floor like glowing square waffles, illuminating faces from below. David sometimes joked about how the lighting made the team look like they were about to start telling ghost stories.

Descending down the center aisle, David and Tom headed for the wall of glass where Sally McField stood over the shoulder of a very nervous scientist. David thought Sally was beautiful in a power-suit kind of way. She stood six inches taller than him and her taut calf muscles hinted that a fit body hid beneath her masculine suits. He was often tempted to compliment the woman on her bunned black hair that hung straight when freed from the bun, or how the shade of maroon lipstick accentuated her full lips and softened the stern look of her frequently furrowed brow line, but he held his tongue for fear she might have him executed. Only one man dared ruffle her feathers.

Tom scurried toward Sally from behind, a nervous David in tow.

“You watch,” Tom whispered to David, “She has eyes in the back of her head.”

“Shush!” David urged, not wanting to be berated first thing in the morning, “She’ll hear you!”

Tom replied by pointing to his eyes with his index and middle fingers and then at the back of Sally’s head, reiterating his statement in pseudo sign language. David widened his eyes back at Tom as a final warning.

“Dr. Greenbaum. Dr. Goodman. You’re both late,” Sally said without looking back.

Tom, in his best sideways sotto voce whisper, said, “I told you.”

In a swift move, Sally spun one hundred and eighty degrees on her high heels so she instantly faced Tom and David, who quickly morphed their expressions into sweet smiles.

“Miss McField.” David greeted her with a kind voice, as he raised his hand to shake hers.

“Sally,” said Tom with a wry smile, “so good to see you again.”

Sally ignored David’s extended hand and got right down to business, “It won’t be if I don’t see some results by the end of the day. To put it mildly, doctors, impress my ass off or I pull the plug.”

Tom’s button was instantly pushed, but before he could unleash his fury, David interjected as diplomatically as he could muster, “Miss McField…today you will witness something we cannot yet explain. It will, in seconds, change the course of human history, or more accurately, human future. I assure you-”

“Tom might enjoy your speeches, David, but they don’t impress me,” Sally said. “All I care about is results. We’ve had you two bottled down here for years. It’s about time we saw something for it.”

David’s blood pressure rose to terminal levels, but he managed to contain his personal meltdown, “You will, Miss McField. Soon enough.”

“I better,” Sally said, as she used the same high heel pivot maneuver to spin and strut away.

David stared at Sally, throwing imaginary grenades at her head. In his blind anger, he let slip a simple word that instantly changed Tom’s mood from rage to pure glee, “Witch.”

Tom’s eyes nearly launched from their sockets, “W-what did you say?”

David scrunched his face. “What?”

“You called her a bitch!” Tom said with a grin.

“I absolutely did not!”

“I heard you!”

David huffed. “I said, ‘witch,’ with a W.”

Tom’s smile faded, but not completely. “Ah, one of your religious curse replacements. Fudge, shoot, gosh darnit, Jiminy Cricket. It’s all the same, you know. You still mean the curse, even if you don’t say the actual word. Changing bitch to witch might alter the sound, but the emotion behind it is still the same.”

David and Tom stared into each other’s eyes. Tom knew his constant gaze and slight smirk would eventually wear David down.

“Bah! No one’s perfect!” David said as he stormed away, “We have work to do!”

Tom laughed and followed after his friend, thinking that maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

An hour passed before David was calm again. Tom knew Sally could get under David’s skin like no one else, which made him wonder why David looked at her the way he did. He’d been watching David attempting to write out some calculations for the past half hour. But every time Sally walked by, it was as if she were a magnet and David’s face was made of metal. His head would follow her across the room and then linger as she disappeared from view. Could he be interested in such an ice queen? Did David see something in her that Tom couldn’t? Tom decided to discover the answers to these questions, but right now, there were more pressing matters demanding his attention.

A slew of scientists sat behind the myriad of consoles that filled the control center. The place smelled of warm computers. The excitement in the room was nearly uncontainable. Every member of the science team, led by Tom and David, had dreamed of this moment for years. Some spent their entire careers at LightTech for the slim chance they would succeed.

David, Tom and Sally stood in front of the glass wall, peering into Receiving Area Alpha. The room was smooth from top to bottom; not one ninety-degree angle could be seen. The walls were brushed silver, like a giant frying pan. The massive sheet of glass separating the control center and the receiving area made the whole scene feel like an oversized children’s aquarium. Tom’s eyes eagerly searched for something, any anomaly that would suggest a breach in the time stream had occurred.

Sally looked at her watch, “By my time we should see something in forty-five seconds. Not that I really expect to see your entire future life’s work suddenly appear.”

“If we succeed within our lifetimes, we’ll see something. Even if it’s just a fluctuation,” Tom added.

“Then I don’t expect we’ll see much because if my future self is anything like my present self, she will have pulled the plug on this little-”

Tom interrupted, “Hey, that’s not-”

“Quiet!” David yelled, “Both of you! All this talk, this bickering, it’s all pointless! In ten seconds, our world will change forever and all you two can do is nag each other. Please…for the love of Moses, just shut up!”

“For the love of Moses?” Tom said with a raised eyebrow. “Really?”

Sally’s reaction caught both David and Tom by surprise. A smile cracked onto her face, if only for a moment, before she smothered it and began waiting patiently as David had demanded.

Tom glanced away from the receiving area and saw David eyeing Sally, inspecting her soft lips for any sign of the smile’s return. He imagined David was even more shocked by the emergence of Sally’s smile, especially at a tense time like this. But it wasn’t important now and Tom certainly wouldn’t let David miss a second of what they hoped would happen next.

“David,” Tom whispered.

David jerked his eyes toward Tom, who motioned with his head for David to look at the receiving area.

“Right.” David turned toward the wall of glass.

Tom shook his head. What was with him?

Silence consumed the room. Tom glanced at his watch. Five seconds overdue. Tom closed his eyes and lowered his head in disappointment. They were defeated.

David’s fingers tapped against the thick glass, expelling his nervous energy. Sally crossed her arms and tapped her foot. Ten seconds late… This was not good.

A sound like the popping of popcorn began to fill the air. Something was happening. Scientists around the room began checking their equipment, recording the sound and preparing for more. The sound grew louder, crackling through the thick glass, and causing the control center to shake. A metal cabinet at the back of the room popped open and its contents crashed to the floor. There was a flash of light inside the receiving area and then everything went black.

After a moment of silence passed, the room erupted with cheering. Tom looked at David, and their eyes were wide. “Not quite what I expected, but a good turnout nonetheless,” David said with a tinge of disappointment.

“I expected more of us too,” Tom replied.

They shook hands as Sally approached in the darkness. “Congratulations. Your funding will be doubled.”

As Sally spoke, she failed to notice the light level in the room was rising. Blue light slowly lit up the room, glowing on Sally’s face. David and Tom noticed right away. With wide eyes, they stared just beyond Sally, into the receiving area.

“But we better get a little more then a light show next time…” Sally noticed their fixed gazes.

She followed their eyes back to the receiving area, which was glowing with a dull blue light, luminescing from nowhere at all.

The control center fell silent again. Scientists frozen in mid-hug watched the receiving area with beaming eyes.

Tom lifted his head and rested his hands on the glass wall. His jaw slowly dropped open like a drawbridge. “It’s happening,” was all he could say.

A small, white shimmer appeared inside the receiving area. The light glowed steadily at first, but then began to fluctuate. It strobed slowly and with each burst of light came a loud, bassy Whump.

Whump… Whump… Whump.

Faster and faster. Light swirled and flashed like at a rave nightclub.

Whum. Whum. Whum. Whum. Crack!

Several brilliant, vertical streaks of blue and white light ripped into the air within the receiving area, creating thunderous booms. One after another, cracks of light tore into reality and then disappeared. In the wake of each spear of light, an object was left behind. A table covered in diagrams, charts and graphs, a cabinet full of supplies and tools that had yet to be invented, and several countertops covered in small devices. Several large chunks of electronic equipment also appeared. An ozone-like odor filled the room and grew stronger with each explosion of light and materials.

The raw power unleashed by the event was both fascinating and horrifying. Everyone in the room, except Tom and David, took a step back. Computers began to malfunction. Sparks exploded into the air. No one noticed. All eyes were transfixed on the tears in time-space opening up in the next room.

The show concluded with a loud boom, causing everyone in the control center to jump. As the final streak of light blinked out of existence, the control center was plunged into darkness. The receiving area still shimmered with light, like a luminous snowstorm, as thousands of blue, glowing particles fluttered down to the floor. No one moved. As the last particles extinguished, the emergency lights suddenly burst on. David yelped like a Chihuahua. The room full of normally composed professionals exploded with clapping and uproarious laughter.

Tom’s hands squeaked down the glass wall. He looked at David. “We did it… We did it!” Tom yelled, as he picked David up off the ground and administered a crushing hug.

“What did I tell you!” David shouted, “What did I tell you!”

Tom bounced David in the air and danced around like a child on Christmas morning. Sally stood still, staring into the receiving area. “I don’t… I can’t…”

Tom put David back on his feet, strode up to Sally’s face and yelled at the top of his lungs, “HA!”

After Tom had expressed his victory to Sally and moved on to shake the hands of several excited colleagues, David approached Sally with a smile. “Thank you for letting this happen. We owe you everything.”

“I… You’re welcome.” Sally replied.

David extended his hand and Sally took it. Rather then shaking her hand, David let their hands linger together, while he looked kindly into her eyes. And then she did it again: Sally smiled.