[Retired]

N/A

Chapter 1 by darkness_drearing darkness_drearing

The steady beep of the monitor was the first thing Tony heard.

Its rhythmic pace was almost soothing in a way. It certainly made up for the harsh light of the room that he was in after he opened his eyes. Tony blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

When he felt that it wouldn’t hurt to look around, he found himself sitting in a very plain looking bed, its starchy sheets practically taping him against the hard mattress beneath him. Almost immediately questions began forming. ‘How long was I out for? What the hell happened?’ Much to his chagrin, Tony couldn’t remember. It was as if a fog had settled over his mind and made it impossible to recall the last 24 hours.

The room was very cramped, even more so than the urgent care clinics he’d gone to once or twice as a kid. Wherever ‘here’ was, it was meant to be more practical than comforting. At the very least it seemed obvious by the near total silence that it wasn’t a hospital. Pushing himself up, Tony leaned against the uncomfortable pillow behind him.

‘I… came in to do something.’

That was right. He’d left to go do a shift over at New Horizons, one of the city’s latest tech start ups that made the usual promises of changing the world as everyone knew it. The rusting industrial park it sat in hadn’t seemed promising when he’d first driven over for the initial interview, but it had been easy money and Tony had needed few qualifications other than to sit as various egg heads strapped devices to him while they took notes.

He hadn’t even really bothered to pay attention to what it was that they were doing here.

Yesterday had been different, however. Rather than simply fiddling around with the dials and knobs of their equipment, they’d loaded him into a machine that looked almost as if they were going to do a brain scan. Tony had been nervous but they told him not to worry about it. It was a test run, but everything appeared to be in working order they’d assured him.

‘Guess they really didn’t know what they were doing after all,’ Tony thought to himself. ‘No need to take the blinders off the horse, right?’

Tony tried not to think of the medical costs that might ensue from this trip. At the very least hopefully New Horizons would let him chalk it up as worker’s comp. He couldn’t afford it otherwise, not just after graduating from college.

It was at that moment that the door directly across from him swung open. Dr. Zimmerman, dressed in a stereotypical lab coat that was as white as his sheets and black dress slacks, marched into the room, the click-clack of her heels echoing against the tiled floor. The blonde’s eyes, though, are filled with concern.

Tony didn’t consider himself a pervert but he had to admit that Zimmerman was attractive. She had sharp cheek bones, forest green eyes, and even when she was frustrated about some setback or another her appearance never wavered in how perfect it seemed. Not a single strand of hair ever came out of the tight bun she kept it in.

Until now. He could see that several swayed freely in the air conditioning of his impromptu quarantine.

“Hey, Tony. How’re you feeling?”

He frowned. There was something strange about Zimmerman’s voice, but he couldn’t place what it was.

“I dunno. I just woke up a minute or two ago and wanted to ask you about the experiment from the other day. Did I pass out?”

“Something like that,” Zimmerman says, eyes glancing down at the ever-present clipboard Tony had seen her with countless times before. “It’s been crazy since we put you under. We’re just glad you’re still here.”

“…What do you mean by that?”

Zimmerman looks at Tony, biting her lower lip as she once again went over the material in her hands before moving over to one of the walls and leaned against it. She lets out a long sigh, closing her eyes, before opening them and meeting Tony’s gaze, a confusing mixture of emotions on full display. Regret. Concern. Fear. None of it inspires any confidence in him whatsoever that the news she has for him is good.

“You remember what our mission is, right?”

Sheepishly, Tony looks down at his lap and shakes his head.

“Kinda embarrassing to admit, but not really, no. I just show up for the paycheck.”

“Seriously?”

Zimmerman’s brow is furrowed and she rubs her free hand over her face. Shaking her head, she continues.

“Exploring quantum physics as a private company, without governmental backing.”

“…Oh,” Tony simply says, nodding along. “Now that you mention it, I do remember that from orientation, I guess.”

“I doubt any of the more technical explanations would make sense. Do you know what it is that we’ve been doing these past few months?”

“Not really…” Tony had to admit that even without whatever bad news was going to be delivered, they’d been fairly mum about the nature of the experiments.

“We’ve been putting your brain through stress tests to see how the human mind might react if we were to… send it elsewhere.”

It’s at that moment that Tony realizes what it is that’s changed about Zimmerman.

Her voice.

It’s deeper than he can recall it being. Not that he’d paid such things mind before, but it was undeniable.

“Elsewhere?”

“Yes,” Zimmerman clears her throat. “We learned early on that physically moving an object from one universe to another would be next to impossible. But then one of our scientists thought to ask: ‘what if you didn’t have to send someone themselves, but their thoughts?’ It was highly unorthodox, but we started looking into it.”

“By sending thoughts you mean… what, transplanting them to another world? Like their brain?”

Zimmerman nods. A smile briefly gracing her lips before disappearing as quickly as it arrived.

“Right. We figured it’d be like cloud computing; all you’ve got to do there is just upload your files and you can access them from another location.”

For a moment, there’s only silence between them as Tony begins to work through the meaning of her statement. ‘If they could do that, then it means…’ He feels his eyes involuntarily widen.

“Is this my universe?”

“…No. I’m not your Dr. Zimmerman.”

Tony’s mouth goes dry at that.

“Given the innumerable matches that were possible, we picked one at random and decided to make the ‘bridge,’ as we called it. We never thought that our counterparts we were reaching out to would be at the same point in their research we were.”

“There’s an infinite number of worlds, right? If that’s the case, you should’ve seen that shit coming!”

Zimmerman simply gives Tony a sad look.

“We should have.”

“So I passed out from your little science experiment? That it? Great. I’m up now. Send me home.”

“We can’t.”

“What?”

“Our machines are designed to connect to our target in the world we chose. Specifically, we were looking at their brain patterns. When the transfer was made, you arrived here and the you I’m familiar with…”

Zimmerman pauses, her eyes pleading with Tony, a manicured hand moving to her mouth.

“Didn’t survive the trip.”

“So I died?”

“For your counterpart it… was instantaneous. For what it’s worth there would’ve been no pain. We’ll never be able to tell what went wrong on their end, just that it did.”

Tony can feel his own breath slowing, rattling around in his chest.

“So even if I wanted to leave, there’s no way I can.”

“Correct. For things to work, you would need to leave here and go back to your double.”

Tony suddenly feels as if he’s an alien within his own body.

“For what it’s worth, New Horizons plans on helping you adjust in any way we can. This is literally unprecedented and no expense will be spared. It’s the least we can do.”

“Because my life here might be totally different, right?”

“…”

Zimmerman says nothing in response, instead finding the floor a more interesting subject.

“Well, at the very least, it’ll give us an excuse to ask-”

“Why the fuck would I want to help you after everything you just said?” Tony can feel his voice beginning to rise and his fingers shake as he increases his iron grip on the sheets around him. “You’re asking me to just… forget everything about myself up to this point.”

“It’s a tall order, I know, but the data is invaluable, and we have to see just how much we might have to catch you up to speed on if things are that drastic.”

Tony pauses for a moment and weighs his options. He wants to throw off his covers and march out of the room on his own, but a part of him stops himself. Even if he did, Zimmerman’s offer to help seems tempting the more he considers it. Without a firm understanding of what happened outside of this New Horizons’ walls it might very well land him in deep trouble if he couldn’t properly fit in.

“Fine. I can go ‘home’ after this, right, doc?”

“Assuming there’s nothing that would prevent you from doing so, then you should be alright.”

Feeling even more exhausted than when he woke up, Tony slumps forward and stiffly nods at her.

“Alright. Where do you want to start?”

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