GENISIS PROJECT
Meredith Colson remained seated at the dinner table, maintaining her sullen pose, hoping to avoid any prolonged eye-contact across the embellished meal she had prepared for her husband David. She knew all it would take was the smallest slip-up, and he would soon be on to her little secret she was trying to hide. Unfortunately her vows didn't include a hidden clause that exempted her from clandestinely withholding information, especially when it was pertaining to protecting national security. Despite the seven and a half years of marital bliss, Meredith was still bound by oath, a pledge of allegiance that even her life meant less if broken. Sure, she loved him, and some day when they were too old and gray to care, she might finally divulge her cavernous closet of skeletons. But for now, she would have to keep up the facade, playing the part of the simple house wife, perpetuating her nominal position as a clerk, at an office that didn't even exist.
Meredith had accepted the role long before she met him, which would explain why he never even knew that she had graduated from MIT with honors in both biology and physics, or that her major in quantum physics landed her a position as the top researcher on the Genesis Project, before she even turned twenty. Now, on the eve of one most important breakthrough's she had ever encountered, she had to try even harder to contain her budding excitement. It had been nearly two years since she had tried to quantify the Butterfly Effect, but finally the formula was complete. Dealing with quantum paradoxes had always been like slamming into an impassable monolith, but even Einstein himself couldn't see past what was already there staring him in the face. Relativity and physical boundaries had no place when dealing with time travel, which might explain how they missed a tiny group of cells buried deep within the cerebral cortex; the key to unlocking Genesis.
Meredith tried her best to bide her time, before announcing that that the office called to see if she could come in for a late-night emergency.
-An excuse that had served her well all those years, relieving her from just about any obligation she may have had lined up-
"So, did you hear the President overturned the block on allowing stem cell research?" David was the first to break the veil of silence that hung heavy in the air.
"Really, that's wonderful news...maybe they can finally cure some of those nasty diseases that everybody keeps hearing dying from!" Meredith was preoccupied with her thoughts, but she still had to maintain her slightly-less intelligent guise. Even though, she had already met the new President twice, it was another one of her little secrets she had no intention of revealing.
"I heard that stem cells might even be able to cure the common cold!" Knowing well her husband held a doctorate in medical science, she knew he was probably laughing at her inside. Another necessary evil she hated, but pulled off very well.
"I don't think it will be a cure for something viral, but it does play an intricate part in spinal injuries and other diseases that require cell generation." David raised his glass, silently motioning his intellectual prowess.
"Honey...I got a call today. The office wants me to come in as soon as possible; they apparently are having some crisis with a few of the computers and they need all the help they can get." Meredith paused, waiting for him to raise his eyebrows just enough, before she could add the icing to the cake.
"I hate leaving during the middle of dinner, but I did make your favourite apple-pie...in fact I bet there's even some ice-cream left in the refrigerator!" Meredith knew if she got even the slightest grin, she had a green light to excuse herself from the table.
-C'mon, I know you want it, you can already smell it-Meredith knew her husband so well, that she probably knew what he might do even before he had planned to do it. Finally, she saw his lip beginning to tremble, exposing his pearly-white teeth.
"Don't forget to pick-up my dry cleaning on the way to the office! I could really use my gray suit tomorrow!" As his words trailed away she was already in the car, pulling out onto the street.
A few moments later she pulled up to the security guard booth, quickly flashing her identification so she could proceed inside. The elevator doors finally slid open, revealing the inner hallway leading to her laboratory. A few of the other lab rooms were still buzzing with researchers and doctors, busily working on their own projects. But that didn't matter much, since Meredith was about to send her first test subject hurtling through space and time. If all her calculations were correct the lab rat, "Sparky" would reappear a few minutes later in the same empty cage he was about to depart from. She carefully aligned the precise ark of electronic current across the electrodes fastened to his head. The rat, oblivious to what was about to happen, seemed rather calm, and with a slight twitch of his nose he vanished. Meredith let out a slight yip of elation to the spectacle, jumping back to her camera to witness it a second time. Did she even dare tell anyone else, what she had just accomplished. No. It was too soon to start traversing through time, but this was just the beginning. A few more minutes past as she stood fixated on the empty cage. For a second she thought-what if he didn't come back?
All her years of research would mean nothing if the subject couldn't complete the journey in one piece. A few more seconds slipped by, edging even closer to the exact time she infused into the arc pulse. Finally with a jump, the alarm sounded off, but still no rat! The test was a failure, years of agonizing and reworking the formula over and over for nothing. She was just about to shut the arc down, when suddenly she felt something tickling her ankle. Sparky, could it be him, she hesitated since the cage was plotted carefully to be the return point. She could test his DNA, but that would take hours. No, she had to have a quicker solution, one that would guarantee whether her Rat had become the first time traveller. This time she took a felt-tipped maker, scribing his name into the outer layer of fur. Quickly, she placed him back into position, realigning the arc pulse to only two minutes, instead of five. Her patience was easily being preceded by her desire to achieve results. Again, in a blink, the surface was as blank as an empty chalkboard.
This time she carefully went over the data, carefully observing each dynamic, which carefully aligned perfectly with her final equation. It didn't make any sense...suddenly the alarm went off again. Once again, the cage was empty.
"Crap, what am I doing wrong?" Soon, she began searching around the lab for her little time traveller. Suddenly she felt something again, but this time the soft tickle was closer to her back. Swinging back, she let out a gasp! Something truly unexpected, and even more disturbing had happened. She slowly sunk down to face Sparky's body that hung suspended in mid-air affixed to the side of the lab table. As she got down onto her back she looked up, revealing the rear hind quarter sticking out the other end of the steel table. The lifeless body lay limp, and even though it was whole, it had somehow merged with the molecular structure of the table, killing him instantly. At first it seemed impossible, but her eyes told a completely different story, revealing a little snag in her plans.