Transference

“It’s here it’s here it’s here!” I said excitedly as I burst through the door of the lab. Class had just gotten out, but I was so excited for my college’s Paratheoretical Science Research Lab’s newest acquisition that I had sprinted all the way across the university campus.

It took me no time to identify the new machine in the middle of the room. The size of a refrigerator and surrounded by monitors, it looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie.

“It doesn’t work, you know,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to recognize Professor King stepping through the doorway, smiling ruefully at me. “Not a single team has been able to reproduce the original experiment of speaking with a version of oneself from a parallel world.” He shook his head. “The researchers were practically begging to give this thing to us. I think they’re embarrassed how much money the spent putting it together.”

Despite Professor King’s words, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. “But a machine that lets you contact other versions of yourself in other worlds! Professor, just think of all the amazing implications for everything we think we know about the universe!”

“It would…if it really worked.” Professor King shrugged. “Still, you’re welcome to play around with it. It’s not like anyone’s lining up to do real research on this thing.” He shook his head as he moved toward his desk at the front of the room. “Honestly. Parallel worlds? I can’t fathom how the crackpot who built it got published in a journal in the first place.”

On the control computer, I pressed the button that would activate the machine. It let out a series of clicks, beeps, clunks, and whistles that sounded very impressive. I eagerly watched it run for five minutes. At the end of the time the computer let out a little ding, displaying a status message that the experiment was complete. Except…nothing had happened so far as I could tell.

“Well? How goes the communing with spirits of another realm?” Professor King asked laconically without looking up from his computer. I didn’t bother to answer. Surely, I just must have calibrated the machine incorrectly. This was only my first attempt, after all.

I had no classes for the rest of the day, meaning I had lots of time to try—and fail—to get the machine do something. Over the course of the afternoon, other members of the Paratheoretical Science Research Club filed in and out, working on their own pet projects or simply hanging out with like-minded students. My cousin came by to give me a sandwich, but since he was only 14, he wasn’t supposed to be in the lab, so he left quickly.

Eventually, the room was left with just myself and Professor King. “Rei!” he called to me around a yawn.

“Yeah?” I responded, my eyes still affixed to the computer screen.

“It’s late. I need to lock up and go home.” I checked the clock in the corner of the computer.

“It’s only 9:30,” I said.

“Only?”

“Give me just a bit longer. I’ve almost got it. Please?” I turned around to see Professor King yawning again. “You can go. I’m fine here.”

“Rei, there’s some expensive equipment in here. Department policy is I have to be in here as long as a student is…”

I could see him hesitate. My academic record was spotless (well, at least in the STEM fields), I had been in the club for 3 years without a problem, and I had even worked to assist him with an article he had published in a prestigious journal. “Please?”

“Oh, all right.” He tossed me the keys. “Just this once, ok Rei?”

“Thank you so much Professor!” I exclaimed. He gave me a little wave as he exited the lab, finally leaving me alone with my new favorite toy.

I lost track of time tinkering with the machine, subsisting off stale pizza abandoned a few days ago. Yet no matter what I tried, the result was the same: nothing. After failure number 79, I sat back and stared at the machine. “Why won’t you work?” I murmured.

I knew it was a long shot. But truth be told, I had a deeper reason for wanting to get the thing to work. Although it was embarrassing to admit even to myself, I had always loved stories where the hero is whisked away to another realm of magic and wonder. So when I had read in a real scientific journal about a scientist who had built a machine that could prove the existence of other worlds, I jumped on chance, no matter how small. A stupid reason, maybe, but there it was.

Looking for inspiration, I flipped through the journal article that had started the whole thing. It described the author’s process in building the original machine, the settings he had used to contact his alternate self, and the short conversation he had had. I had read the lines a thousand times and calibrated the settings just as he had said…

I looked again, frowning. Why were these two numbers different? According to his process, they should be identical, but they weren’t. The difference was tiny—in fact, it was probably a rounding error—but it made all the difference in the world.

Diving into the error proved more complicated than expected. The two numbers involved hardwired settings that had to be exactly as they were for the machine to even turn on. In other words, it wasn’t as simple as just changing a number in the computer. To fix the mistake, I’d have to tear the machine apart and rebuild it practically from scratch.

Feverishly, I dove into the project, scavenging any parts I could from the other devices around the lab. I knew I’d get in huge trouble, but through the haze of tiredness and the excitement at finally fixing it, I didn’t care. By the time I finished, the machine looked like a Frankenstein’s monster of scientific equipment. Everything done, I wasted no time hitting start on the computer.

As the machine warmed up and began humming loudly, I tiredly realized I hadn’t documented any of my work. That was bad science; I’d have to write it down right after this test.

The humming grew louder. The machine started creaking, steam rising from the open top. Suddenly, a pile of warning messages appeared on the computer. Systems critical! they screamed. I tried to abort the procedure, but the computer was frozen. Panicking, I dove for the machine’s manual power switch when it let out a blast of noise, sound, and color.

I was thrown backward, landing hard on the back of my head among the sounds of shattering glass. But I barely felt the impact through the sudden splitting headache that assaulted me, filling my sight with colors and stars and my ears with a rushing like the ocean.

I heard a voice call out, but I couldn’t understand it through the pain. It spoke again, and this time I could make out the words “…you all right?”

“Mfakgd,” I moaned.

“You’re hurt,” the voice commented. I noted it was the voice of a youth, probably a boy. “I’ll fetch some guards to bring you to the infirmary.”

At that moment I was reminded that my arm existed by a pulse of pain from my finger. I had cut it on the shattered glass. What glass? I suddenly wondered. And who was that? How did he get here so quickly?

My headache, although still painful, was rapidly diminishing. As I heard the boy’s footsteps moving across the floor, I tried opening my eyes but a rush of nausea forced them shut again. I focused on breathing, forcing myself relax.

From somewhere in the room, I heard the sound of a door opening. A new voice, this one female, said “are you all right, Kyn? I heard a dreadful sound.”

The boy’s voice—oddly, it sounded like my cousin—replied “I’m all right, your highness, but Rei is injured!”

The woman sniffed. “In that case, everything’s all right, isn’t it.” Again, footsteps, but this time with a softer tread than the boy. I heard the person stop beside me. “Well, alchemist?” the woman said, and as it came from directly above me, I took it she was the one who had entered the room. “What do you have to say for yourself, causing a nuisance like this at this hour?”

By this point, my headache had faded to just a painful throbbing, so I judged it safe to open my eyes. It took them a moment to adjust to the dim light, but as soon as they did I knew something was different. Instead of the popcorn ceiling and fluorescent lights of the lab, the ceiling above me was vaulted stone, lit by a small chandelier holding real candles. The walls, too, were stone, covered in old paper with mysterious runes and diagrams drawn on them. But all that was driven out of my head when I saw the face of the woman peering down at me.

She was my age, perhaps 20 or so, with high cheekbones, a small mouth, and piercing silver eyes. But the most eye-catching part was the hair. It flowed long, partially falling over her right shoulder—and it was a deep, vivid green, like the ocean. No hair dye could mimic that color, and yet no one could possibly have natural hair that color.

At least…no one in my world.