Author's note: I had this idea for a reality manipulation story a while back, probably a standalone story.
The phycologist looked over her notes at me as I was lying on the couch. I always thought the whole couch thing was made up, or a relic of earlier times, I guess not.
"Steve and I were going to change the world, we just didn't realize how literal we'd be."
"Michael, start at the beginning, tell me about Steve."
Steve was brilliant, if in a few years he was getting the Nobel in Physics nobody would be surprised. The university knew it too, they wanted him here working on his theories while he finished up his PHD. I was lead on the team to support him and over the past few months we became friends. The project was insane, he wanted to skirt around the laws of physics and drain vacuum energy, if successful we'd have unlimited power overnight. Change the world.
Our budget wasn't unlimited but the university was more than happy to invest in us. For months we were putting together something that looked like something out of a science fiction story, a chamber that dominated the lab lined with what I was told would isolate the inner chamber in a force field. I'm not a slacker but his intelligence made me feel like a toddler.
When you are that smart sometimes it takes a turn, he was socially awkward and spent a lot of time in some darker places as a result. His views on women were part of it, he didn't feel they were inferior or something, just in his world it would be better if they were more accommodating. Ha, accommodating.
We didn't talk much about that; it would occasionally come out. We had two female interns on the team, he got very quiet when they were around, stealing glances where I wondered what dark thoughts were stirred up.
After months of building and testing components we were ready. The we would switch on each layer of the experiment, bringing it to 1%. Our calculations said this would spin a fan we had setup to medium speed.
The buildup was slow, every component had to be powered up and checked, it took over two hours to get to the final step. Steve explained to me that the field would create a region with a different energy state, the zero-point energy would flow out to us where the energy state was lower. I have tried through the length of the project to understand the math, I am no closer now than when I started.
If this worked, we could power a city, a large city, with no waste or pollution.
The moment of truth, Steve was at the main control board right by the chamber, I covered the backup one. We had the interns running the banks of recording monitors in the observation booth. My hand a centimeter away from the kill switch.
"Ready everyone, going to bring it to 1% power."
I went back and forth between my control board and the lonely fan connected to the chamber; it wasn't moving. The computer was reporting we were at 1%, even if our energy density calculations were wrong something should be happening.
Steve looked crushed, we got this far and we were getting no energy. As we both were checking to see if the components were working the fan slowly stared to move, slowly but building. We all were stunned for a second then everyone stated cheering, that is until the fan kept speeding up. It wasn't anything special, just a simple desk fan, one that was not meant to spin that fast. Before we realized it the blades were a blur and it pushed itself over. I am not sure who hit the kill switch first, we both seemed to see the danger.
Time seemed to slow down, it didn't really although we were so off the map with physics it wouldn't surprise me. The fan was shaking itself apart, not built for this, we heard a snap and the blades went flying across the room and getting 6 inches into the wall. The fan motor, unburdened by those pesky blades spun until it burnt out. There was a small fire on the desk that I worried would set off the fire suppression.
"Power level dropping we should be down any second!"
"Steve, I don't like the numbers I'm seeing from the 4a containment element."
There was a flash as containment failed, the energy spilling from the chamber hit Steve solidly if only briefly, I felt strange too as it reflected in my direction, the danger was short lived, the chamber went dark.
I rushed to his side, one of the interns came bursting in with a fire extinguisher for the remains of our fan.
"Steve, are you okay?"
"When you pull off vacuum energy it creates all sorts of exotic particles that are just too strange to dissipate quickly. We contain them until they dissipate, I guess we let a few of them out. It isn't like normal radiation; I can't imagine they would interact with baryonic matter."
"Let's get you to the infirmary just in case."
The checked him out as best they could, no indications of radiation poisoning but 7it is hard to imagine they could have seen what was coming or done anything to prevent what happened. The next day we went back to the lab, I had the interns cleaning up with 2 of them trying to pry the fan blade out of the wall. Steve was looking tired, drained. I've seen him near burnout during this project, this was worse than ever before. Maybe he did have radiation poisoning? I was talking on the phone when I saw from the corner of my eye, Ann was close enough to catch him as he fell, at least easing his fall.
Ann was a stunner, a curvy blond with ice blue eyes that you don't usually find in advanced physics. Steve had a silent crush on her for some time but he isn't quite subtle.
"You saved me." then he did something unexpected and tried to kiss her. Tried because she pulled back with a look of horror on her face. His face started to scowl, which turned to a look of intense concentration. There was a shimmer in the air, I had been walking briskly to Steve when I saw him fall, my phone call forgotten. I got to him and didn't feel a pulse, I saw blood coming out from his ears.
"Anyone know CPR?" The room seemed emptier, did the interns run for help? I took a shot at it; I took a course when I was a kid and figured I'd try. It didn't help I tried every trick from my memory and TV show with a medical scene, I wasn't able to get a pulse. I had a bad feeling and went to the desk where I knew a geiger counter was, I was worried he was irradiated and so was I now but the readings were background level.
I pick up my discarded phone, "We had an accident, I'll have to call you back." There was nobody there, guess they hung up.
"Ann, I'm not sure where everyone went, can you check in the control booth and call 911 if someone hasn't already."
"Of course, sir, do you need anything else?" Is she flirting with me?
"Um, no. I'm good for now."
The next day I started to piece together what happened. The world was changed in that instant. It killed him but Steve's last act was to impose his will on the entire world, changing reality. I guess because I was exposed to that radiation, I still remember the world before the change, Ann has been very helpful bringing me up to speed.
