The Amazing Duplicating Zoe(Duplication Powers, Lab Accident)

"So this is the machine?" CEO Amber Green asked as she walked into the lab.

"Yes ma'am," Cameron said proudly, "The first-ever working matter replication machine."

"And this is legit," Amber asked, "It's not just a magic trick with a hidden compartment somewhere?"

"No ma'am," Cameron said, "We've finally reached the technology of Star Trek here."

"This is amazing work you're doing here," Amber said.

"Well I had help," Cameron said as his wife Zoe walked out from behind the large machine.

"What do you mean you had help?" she said, "I'm the physicist here, you're just the engineer who built the thing to my specifications!"

"As I said, I had help," Cameron said then Zoe elbowed him in the ribs.

"Walk me through it, please," Amber said, "In layman's terms."

"Of course," Zoe said, "First let's make it clear that we are not creating matter, we are transforming energy into matter."

"How's that possible?" Amber asked.

"Well, plants do it with light from the sun," Cameron said, "But this is nothing like photosynthesis."

"First, you place the object or material you want to duplicate in the main compartment, there," Zoe explained, "Then you adjust the energy setting over at the control panel, and when you're ready you push the big red lever there."

"Then the machine scans the object at the subatomic level, and consumes a huge amount of energy to recreate it in the output compartment here."

"How much energy?" Amber asked.

"Enough that the process isn't remotely cost-effective with anything more than ten kilograms," Cameron explained.

"Thermodynamics dictates that you can't win, and you can't break even," Zoe explained, "So we have to use even more energy to turn the energy into matter. And the per kilogram cost of all that electricity is higher than launching that same mass into space."

"So how is it supposed to turn a profit?" Amber asked.

"Well we think that it would work fine on smaller objects of costly material," Zoe said.

"Like industrial diamonds for example," Cameron suggested.

"Or difficult to manufacture objects," Zoe said.

"Like a quantum computing circuit board," Cameron suggested again.

"And the biggest problem other than the high operating cost is that anything larger than thirty kilograms is just disintegrated outright," Zoe explained further, "So it isn't duplicated, you just moved it a meter to the right in the most expensive way ever."

"So no human trials then, I hope," Amber said.

"Definitely not," Cameron said, "You'd die in the most painful way imaginable and remember every second of it."

"Is it even safe," the CEO asked, "Apart from that little bit of information?"

"Well unless you climb up inside it, we haven't yet found anything too egregiously dangerous," Cameron said, "It doesn't bleed radiation, there's no chance of it exploding, and it probably won't open a black hole."

"A black hole!" Amber shouted incredulously. Zoe rolled her eyes at her hubby.

"It's a one-in-googol chance," she clarified, "And it would be a subatomic black hole that would eat itself out of existence before it could expand."

"Do you have time for a demonstration?" the CEO asked excitedly.

"Of course!" Zoe said, "Follow me!" Cameron couldn't help but fondly admire his wife while she gave the CEO the grand tour. Zoe was so cute when she was animated and talking about something she cared about, and she was as pretty as she was intelligent. And considering she invented a matter replicator, she was pretty damn intelligent. Cameron considered himself the luckiest guy in the world for a girl like that to fall in love with a guy like him. She was the beauty to his beast. If he was the crazy-looking mad scientist, everybody thought she was the mad scientist's hot daughter.

She was also a wildcat in the sheets, but that was neither here nor there.

"Hey, Cameron?" she called, "Can you bring some toast for the demonstration?" While her husband walked to the fridge, Zoe laid her head in the palm of her hand and watched him lovingly. He may have been a goofball with his head in the clouds, but if the clouds were where brilliant ideas came from then she couldn't complain. Zoe loved bouncing ideas off of him because he was the perfect foil to her hyper-organized, one-dimensional problem-solving process. While she was meticulous and efficient, he came up with new ideas and solutions out of the blue. He also wasn't the most photogenic guy on the planet, but he was a lot more handsome than he gave himself credit for. He knew how to take care of himself too, and the result was a fit and strong body with an even better mind.

He was also a god in the bedroom, but that wasn't relevant at the moment.

Cameron finally found the bread and a bottle of mustard which he handed to Amber.

"To prove that isn't a David Copperfield act," Zoe said, "Would you like to do the honors?"

"What do you mean?" the CEO asked.

"Just draw something," Cameron said. Amber took the mustard bottle then drew a smiley face on the piece of toast which Cameron took a bite out of and placed inside the main compartment. Cameron and Zoe both put on shaded safety goggles and he powered up the machine while she read the data displays.

"Energy is stable, no fluctuations," she said then turned a dial on the control panel, "Scanning." A blue laser lit up the inside of the machine then Cameron pushed a lever.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he shouted and a thundercrack echoed through the lab. Excess electricity arced across a pair of Jacob's ladders and down a grounding line into the floor, then the machine went dark and the two of them powered down the control panel. Cameron went to the output compartment and opened it to remove the toast. He handed both slices of bread to Amber and let her be the judge.

"Well a slice of toast with some mustard is hardly diagnostic," Amber said, "But that would be hard to fake."

"They're identical right?" Zoe asked.

"They are completely identical!" Amber handed one of the pieces back to Cameron who finished eating it, "I believe you, but I doubt our shareholders or the National Science Foundation will be as easy to convince."

"We know we have our work cut out for us?" Zoe said and slipped her hand into her husband's. Just then Amber's phone started beeping.

"Darn it," she said, "I'm sorry but I have to cut this short. You'll be ready for your presentation to the board on Monday, right?"

"We'll see to it!" Cameron assured her. When she left he pulled Zoe into a big damn kiss then they squealed with joy and exchanged high-fives.

"That went perfectly!" he said, "I was so worried there!"

"I wasn't," Zoe said, "I had faith in your engineering degree."

"Not faith in me though," he asked.

"You tend to act like a bumbling weirdo when you're not in engineer mode," she said and kissed him on the lips, "Time to clean up though. You left crumbs in the machine again!" She grabbed a small broom and got down on her hands and knees to clean the mess while Cameron grabbed a mop.

"Hey, babe!" he said.

"Yeah, what is it?" she asked.

"I think we need to move the control panel," he said, "It's right under a leak and WHOA!" he slipped in the puddle he was about to mention and shot his hand out to catch himself. He managed it, but then realized where his hand was.

"ZOE GET OUT OF THERE!" but it was too late. The door closed behind her and she was trapped inside.

"CAMERON, HELP ME!" she shouted and he ran to try and yank the power cord from the wall, but it wouldn't budge.

"Cameron, hurry! It's scanning!" Zoe shouted and he tried to shut it down at the control panel.

"The lever won't budge while it's in process!" he shouted.

"Get to the failsafe in the back!" she said. Cameron sprinted back there but before he could push the emergency stop, he heard the characteristic thundercrack of the replicator's energy discharge.

"ZOE NO!" he screamed and pounded on the glass.

"Cameron I AAAAAAAAH!" Zoe screamed in anguish as she was torn apart atom by atom and Cameron tried to rip the door off with a crowbar.

"ZOOOOEEEEE!" he screamed as he watched her vaporize into a cloud of quantum plasma, "NO NO NO!" But she was gone. He cupped his face in his hands and sobbed as he slumped to the floor in defeat.

"Cameron?" her voice squeaked from the output compartment. He gasped with relief and yanked the door open. Zoe was alive and well, upside down in a fetal position.

"Get me out of here!" she cried and he delicately helped her crawl out of the cramped machine. Zoe was hyperventilating and shaking in his arms while he kept sobbing. He knew he royally fucked up, but Zoe was too happy to be alive to shout or scold him like he deserved.

"That was horrifying!" Zoe said, "I died!"

"I'm sorry, Zoe!" he cried, "I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine baby," she assured him, "It's fine, I'm here."

"We need to report this," he said, "I'll answer for this I promise."

"No!" Zoe said, "We can't tell corporate about this!"

"Zoe!"

"They'll pull our funding! We'll lose five years of progress and we'll be blacklisted for safety violations!"

"Zoe, you died!"

"We can't prove that," she said, "I'm here now aren't I? Still, we need to... we need to..."

She tried to speak, but evidently she was allergic to quark-gluon plasma.

"AAAAAAAAACHYYYYYYOOOOOO!"

"Lock it down until we're sure there are no... lasting..." Zoe said.

"Side effects?" the other Zoe said. They turned slowly towards each other and screamed in shock and terror while Cameron tried to make heads or tails of what just happened.