Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Sanctuary's End: Cries of Anarchy Under the New Moon ❯ Changing Everything ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
An old home movie projector continuously cranked, pushing the film through its scope. The film played in black and white on the white wall. A thin older man, with large square glasses, pure white hair and a long nose appeared talking. He was in some sort of lab, looking under one of those old giant black microscopes from the 1960's. 

"What you see here is a piece of rock taken after an earthquake.  We're trying to find any particles that will help us discover the natural ‘glue’ that tethers matter into existence." The scientist jotted down a few notes, twisting the scope into focus.

"We believe that there must be a particle in the earth that will reveal itself for a short duration. And by taking this rock sample as soon as it splits from under the earth, we'll be able to extract the particle before it dissolves."

In the middle of the scientist talking the film ran out, causing the wall to go white again. The door creaked open and a young Asian woman popped her head in. Her gaze landed on the sleeping giant. How peaceful, she thought. Silence was shattered as she cleared her throat loudly and then exited as fast as she came in.

Jimmy startled by the sound awoke from his sounding slumber; his eyes quickly reverting to the clock on the wall. "Seven already? Damn." And with that he jumped up from the plastic chair but regretted the thought soon after.

A scowl formed over his middle aged face that contained wrinkles on his forehead, bags under his eyes and frown lines around his mouth. 

"Yep--there we go--my back. Getting too old for this, Jimmy," he stated nonchalantly.

With one hand placed on his aching back he stepped towards the entrance. The sound of flickering, spinning, whirling came from the empty sprockets wheel without film. A simple smirk was visible when he turned the machine off. Reluctant, he pulled the door open and paced down the hall rather quickly. 

It didn't take long for Jimmy to enter the lab, with a swipe of his I.D card. The door opened and he was ambushed by the same young Asian woman that woke him.

"Good morning, doctor. Glad to see you bright eyed and bushy tailed today." She teased. 

"Oh, I don't know how much more bushy my tail can be. I practically knocked over a guard on the way down." He retorted.

She winced at the thought of him with an actual bushy tail. The woman was the complete opposite of Jimmy. Where she was short, he was tall, where he was round, she thinned and the stout of her nose hid in the shadow of his long beak.

His loquacious humor continued. "Call the cops cause I'm about to go all types of Godzilla around here, Lina. Attack of the bushy."  

Lina hid admiration for her fellow kid at heart colleague. Although Jimmy was fifteen years older than her, he oozed a youthful zeal where other scientists were serious. She often wondered how he ended up a physicist and not a comedian.

The temperature sent a chill through their bones immediately as they entered the lab. There were beakers filled with high pigment liquids, test tubes spinning, and a massive machine attached to a turbine that ran a pipe connected to another electric source.

Four other people joined the lab, bustling about the cold marble floor. Altogether they had a strict team of six: Jimmy, a quantum mechanic, Lina and another particle physicist, two nuclear physicists, and an engineer.

It had been two years since this project began and their deadline was vastly approaching. Together, with what Jimmy's team discovered and the notes already given by previous scientists, they stumbled upon an answer.

Jimmy scanned over the equation filled board which lapped the room, his eyes shifting vigorously over the mathematical language. This had to be it, without fail or the project would be scrapped and funding cut off. 

Lina crept up alongside of him with the fluorescent light beaming off her glasses. She could feel his anticipation growing as if it radiated off of him in waves. "Just know, we accomplished more than what we sought out to do." 

A series of blinks shelled his eyes and a rumble in his throat expressed anxiety. "No failures today, Lina." 

With that he moved on to the giant machine and inputted some data. Two medium sized rocks were placed inside the machine from recent earthquakes. 

"Here we go."

Jimmy pressed the start button on the machine and a clashing crumbling sound was heard as the rocks collided. Another button was pressed and liquid nitrogen was added causing gas to cloud the inside of the visible machine. The giant glass dome appeared white, billowing with nitrogen.

Lina switched the lights off and pressed another button. The dome lit with a red glow. Jimmy rushed to the scope on the front of the machine and peered through the lens.

"See anything?" Lina asked curiously.

"Not yet, give it a second," Jimmy lashed. His hand twisted at a knob to enhance the picture.

Come on, he thought. 

"After a minute the broken particles will begin to die off and we'll have nothing!" Lina hissed.

Fear was starting to set in causing beads of sweat to form on his visage. He couldn't see anything other than the normal particles. Just when he was about to give up he saw something that seemed strange. "There! Quick! Seize it." 

Lina pressed a few buttons and the machine hummed softly, absorbing the particle and cryogenically freezing it. 

"Pull the picture up on the monitor so we can have a look." One of the scientists said. 

Lina took a picture and turned on the monitor and zoomed in as far as she could go. 

"What is it?" The engineer inquired.

A series of tiny strand like particles could be seen on the screen with tiny bristles at the end like fabric. The moment was punctured by the roaring laughter emitted from Jimmy's mouth. 

"What is it?! It's what scientists have been theorizing and searching for since the big bang. And we found it!" He continued to laugh with every step forward towards the monitor. 

Finally, after two years in the frigid cold of Antarctica, under the rock and ice covered bed, in a stark sterile laboratory, their efforts paid off. They marveled at the sight, not knowing what it was exactly but understanding that it was about to change everything.