CHAPTER 14

April 18th, 2007

The room around us fades and tables are rearranged. Tables that once were once chipped and broken rebuild themselves before my eyes. Papers once strewn about return to their original location, some disappear completely. Five people fade into existence before me, their actions ceased and everything stands still as if it were paused.

This is another one of those visions, er, hallucinations. The one closest to me on my right is an easy recognition, it's my father. That means that these other four are the ones he worked with, of course. Beside my father is David Cress, the man with the jet black hair and the European sounding voice, Jay Rein, the hair that has already started to gray alongside his cloudy eyes, and Mason Radica, the one with the dark brown hair cut real short with a southern drawl. The fifth, Jack Adata, stands in a separate partition behind a glass window fully robed in white with a mask over his face. I guess I can't really know that this is Jack, but I do.

Just like I knew the others's last names. I didn't know them, but now I do. I think Leto is showing me that, telling me inside my head. I also know that the time I'm looking at happened ten years ago in 2007. Her voice slips away as the world starts to resume in front of me. My father presses a button on a microphone standing in front of all four of them and bends down.

"Hey Jack?"

"Yes, Greg? I read you," I see him reaching for a mic on the lapel of the robe.

"Okay, good. You have little room for error here, you realize that, right? You're working with things no other human has come in contact with."

"I know, I know. I promise I got it."

"We don't know how that Lantrate reacts with anything, you'll need to tell us every little thing that happens even if you think it doesn't matter. We won't be able to see the reactions since we're locking the door so the safety barriers can go down," Mason says, bending down to speak in.

"Wait, safety barriers?" Jack asks.

"Yeah, they're mandatory, Jack. Word from up high demands their use in conjunction with the Dicoberene and Lantrate," My father says.

"I wanted to tell you, Jack, but-" Jay begins.

"But you wouldn't have gone in if we'd said so," my father says.

"Well what the hell, guys? Jay, I would have thought you would have at least told me," Jack says, his voice cracks.

"There is nothing to worry about. Worst case scenario is that we have to unlock the door and you're all fine, okay? It wasn't our choice to put you in there," my father says.

"It was from on high, wasn't it?"

"Straight from the President himself," David says, breaking his silence.

"He didn't like the mishap you caused with the sulfuric acid, so consider this sort of retribution act to win over his favor once again," my father says sternly.

"Right, I'm sorry again," Jack says.

"Well, we'll see once we figure out what this stuff does," my father says. "Begin test one," he lets off the button.

Jay looks to my father, "Now why'd you tell him that Valhart assigned him to be the one who had to test it, Greg?"

My father slides up his sleeve and moves his hand to near his elbow until he unfastens what I see is actually a prosthetic arm. He slams it down on the table and looks Jay in the eye. "He cost me my arm, Jay."

"Yes, I know that, Greg, but at some point you have to move on. We've got work that could very well be our advancement as a species and you risk it over something petty?" I ask.

"Petty? Man, you try losing your arm and see how petty it is."

"Guys, guys, you need to relax. Listen, if Bozo the clown in there fucks it up, then it's him who pays for it. If he succeeds, cool, we're still good out here, you see? It's the safest method, and besides, what if you did go in there, Jay? What if something did go wrong? Who would be there to take care of Karen?" David says.

"Excuse me for intruding in on what sounds like a private argument, but we really need to turn our attention back to Jack. Greg, if anything happens to him in there, you're the one tasked with telling his daughter," Mason says.

My father doesn't answer. He bends down to the microphone and presses the button, "Jack, you okay to begin?"

"Yes, I read you."

"The locks are being sealed now," he says.

"Okay."

A heavyset metal pane begins to replace the glass of the window by what I can only explain by science that seems fifty years ahead of anything I've ever seen. It seems to transform.

I turn to walk and I find that I can actually move myself, I'm not pinned to one spot like in my last vision. I look to the closed off partition and move towards it. I wonder if I can see this up close and personal. I find that the door is incorporeal, or rather that I am. I pass through the door and see Jack's shaking body as he breathes in deeply. There is a microphone situated in front of him on the sole desk in the room.

He lets his finger off of the button and he looks down, moving away for a moment and I see a few sets of containers on it. One contains a green looking metal that seems to glow ominously. The label on the container says "Lantrate." Next to that one on the left is labeled "Dicoberene" and it contains a rough looking chunk of rock. These are the two new elements that they'd found on Mars.

I notice that there are two other containers, each labeled "Radium" and "Calcium". There are solid forms of each element in the containers. Jack first takes a chunk of the Dicoberene off of the larger chunk. He moves slowly, a hesitation in his movements. There is a beaker beside the containers and Jack lifts the Dicoberene sample and sets it inside of the beaker. Next, he takes a small sample of calcium and gently eases it into the beaker. When the two elements touch, they begin smoking somewhat, but that seems to be the only reaction.

"Testing shows that subject Dicoberene reacts minimally with subject Calcium," Jack says.

"What does minimally mean exactly, Jack?" Mason asks.

"Sizzling, almost like I poured acid on it," Jack replies.

Jack then moves to grab the Radium. He uses a pair of tongs and grabs a small sample which is then dropped into the beaker. Once the Radium hits the Calcium and the Dicoberene, the beaker begins smoking even more. "Subject Radium produces a ton of waste byproduct when introduced to the Calcium and Dicoberene. I haven't even begun heating them up yet."

"Alright, test out the Lantrate now. That's the one we're all curious about," My father says.

"No need to rush him," Jay interjects.

"Jay..."

"Hush up the both of you," David says.

"But are you sure that you should add that in if it's smoking?" Jay asks.

"Jay, you need to learn how to calm down. Everything will be okay," David responds.

"Okay, I'm going in," Jack says.

He wipes off the tongs of the bits of Radium that had stuck on and he goes in to grab a small specimen of Lantrate. The glowing green metal seems to hum and glow brighter in a rhythmic fashion.

"It's glowing brightly now, guys."

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Jay says.

"Uh, yeah. I think I'm with Jay on this one," Mason stands up.

"Guys, we have to take a little bit of risk. Who knows? This could be like, the secret cure to cancer or something!" David assures.

"I-uh, grabbed a bit too much of the Lantrate for one specimen's worth and it's kind of stuck to the tongs," Jack says.

"Approximately how much do you have?" Mason asks.

"If I were to guess, I'd say about nine sample sizes worth."

"Nine?! You only need to put one in!" my father calls into the microphone.

"This stuff acts like a magnet to any other particles! I can't get it off!" he says, frantic.

I see David take over the microphone from Mason, "Jack, you have to test this stuff out. If you can't get the extra bits off, then just dip what you can into the beaker! This is important shit we're dealing with!"

Jack takes a deep breath and dips a lone section of the Lantrate into the beaker. When it makes contact with the other elements, it softens into a liquid, which all empties into the beaker. The solution begins glowing a vast array of blues and greens and even oranges.

Jack holds the beaker out in front of him and he notices that the other solid elements had been melted into one liquid solution.

"It all went in," Jack says.

"And?" my father asks.

"It's turned all rainbow-like, liquid and it's really hypnotic," Jack begins. "Does anybody want to get a closer lo-" He is interrupted by the sudden explosion of the solution in the beaker.

The liquid blasts out in all directions and Jack tries to shield his face with his arm. He screams out in pain as the liquid splatters against the metal like a blood splatter. The blast blows the door clean off its hinges. Jack is lying on face down on the ground, the entirety of his suit burnt off and his skin doesn't look much better.

The others rush into the room, helping him stand up. He's alive, making out a garbled cough as his eyes open slowly. He lets out a sound that sounds pained from the start, and then all of a sudden the alarms in the building start going off.

"Warning. Warning. Chemical leak. Warning. Warning."

"God damn it, Greg," Jay lets out, and he lets go of Jack.

"W-What? Where are you going?" my father says.

"The kids," he says, "You and David stay here, okay? Mason, come with me."

"Got it."

Mason hands off the rest of the weight to David, who helps my father pull him out into the main laboratory. My father mouths "I'm sorry" to Jay, who doesn't seem to see, or care at the moment. Mason and Jay start running out of the room and cross into a hallway, the very one that leads to the elevator that killed Tom. The vision fades to darkness.