The Final Chapter in the complex work surrounding Kitty, Charlene and Tad. This is a dramatic twist in the story, and is in the SF section because it has little in the way of BDSM, so it's cross-filed. For those who have not read it before, it is recommended to read the works 'Battlefield' and 'Measure Of A Man' before diving into this final chapter in the life. This final chapter basically wrote itself, it evolved from a simple closure of the story into a complex reality altering tale that continued to make sense as it splashed onto the pages. It's name even changed, going through five different titles before it finally felt comfortable being simply called 'What If?' I may never visit this universe again, but as with any work I put on the digital domain, there is always the possibility that the characters will wake me up and ask me that same question ... 'What If?' I must put a shoutout to @SmallTownGirl and to @EagleJet1 who helped me to review and work out many details of this story to make it more concise and make sense, especially with my high-speed pacing. Even if you don't feel like you did a lot, ladies, you helped a great deal, and this final work is dedicated to the both of you. As always, comments and critiques are welcomed, enjoy the ride, I know I enjoyed crafting this tale.
Kitty got up on unsteady legs and sat on the edge of the bed. Last night was a blur. JJ and her had celebrated her 21st birthday the way he celebrated most things, by getting stinking drunk, but this time she had joined him, as much to feel the same level of numbness as to be a part of his world. The house smelled of stale alcohol and vomit. JJ had been sick, throwing up all over the bathroom before heading off to work, a bottle of Bacardi in his pack. Leaving her to clean up the mess and get the kids off to school. She reached over and pulled on a thin cotton dress that was all that he wanted her to wear when she was at home. If he wanted to fuck her, she was easily accessible, but decently covered if somebody came over.
At least now that she had given him two children, he was not as violent with her any longer. The Chattel Act of 1978 gave him the right that he had exercised twelve years ago when he had bought her after her parents and Aunt Charlene had been killed in that car accident. As an orphan child, she was an available property, and JJ had bought her for his use. The same act meant she was untouchable sexually until she was sixteen. Then he had made her his, and she had given him two children in twenty-three months. Now she was 21, the kids were growing up, and JJ was slowly fading into a drunken mess on a regular basis.
Chevonne and Jason were both quiet and obedient for their mother as she got them up, dressed, fed them porridge, and then they were off to wait for the bus to take them to the integrated school at the edge of town. Chevonne was in kindergarten and Jason was in Grade 1. Both of them tried very hard to please their mother and their sullen father, when he cared to pay them any attention at all.
As children of chattel, they were free as long as their free parent survived until they were sixteen. If JJ was killed, they would go on the auction block and would be sold to any one who had the cash to buy their writ.
Once they were both on the bus, it did not take Kitty long to clean up the puke in the bathroom and then get the rest of the house cleaned up. JJ would be home around 2ish, and she made sure there was food ready to cook, then got dinner prepared so it would be ready to serve once her Master Husband was home.
She sat in the kitchen, watching the pot slowly begin to boil as it began to cook the roast which was what JJ liked on Wednesdays, then she turned and gasped, dropping the glass of water she was carrying. It smashed on the ground at the feet of a girl standing in her kitchen, dressed in some sort of purple bodysuit that left little to Kitty's imagination.
"Who are you? Get out!" Kitty said in a quavering voice.
"I'm you, and this ... this is totally wrong." Said the other girl with a frown and Kitty realized as she heard the voice that she was looking at a mirror image, this was her, but not the same her, this was somebody different.
...
Mariah Catherine 'Kitty' Douglas was sitting in the lab, watching the team make the final calibrations on the device they had been assembling for the past eight weeks. She had been working with them, her ideas and insights as to the physics having been instrumental in the baseline for this experiment.
She had gone back to school at Charlene's urging, and had delved right into high-energy physics, something that had been tickling at the back of her head for years, but which she had not pursued. With Charlene and Tad's support, she had enlisted with U of Wash's physics team and quickly rose to the top of the class. She had a unique way of looking at the world, and her professors were amazed at the odd insights she had shown which meant some of their established ideas were being turned on their heads.
It was her work with Cerenkov wavicles and radiation that had gotten her this far. She had gotten the idea back in the first days of the class, when the Professor had been explaining just how Cerenkov radiation impacted the material world as it was supposed to show the effects of faster than light energies impacting in our world. Kitty, or Mariah as she liked to be called at Uni, had asked some oddball questions which the Professor had been unable to answer to her satisfaction.
Two weeks later, Mariah had been sitting with him after class, showing him a formula she had devised that explained her theory, Professor Scott had been amazed that this Freshman had actually devised a physics formula that not only looked like something Einstein or Hawking would write, but it made sense.
She spent the rest of that evening explaining the formula and her wavicle theory to him, and he had taken her out to dinner so that they did not have to be interrupted. Mariah smiled at the memories. Professor Scott was in the middle of the group building the Cannon, every once in a while he would glance over to where she sat and she'd smile at him, which he would acknowledge with a small thin smile of his own, then go back to work aligning the 21 Cyclotron generators.
Mariah had no problem at all seducing the older man. Since Charlene and Tad had been married, she had learned there was no shame in using her body to help get her what she wanted, because as long as nobody got hurt, it was all green for go. Professor Ian Scott was unattached, but he was older, 46 years old, compared to Mariah's 20, at the time.
However, he was a means to an end. Mariah had to get this thing built so she could make the change that would right the wrong. She knew what the end game was already, and it was approaching. Professor Scott and all the undergrad students working on the Cannon had no idea what it was going to really be used for, and Mariah would not tell them until after the cycle had begun, which would then become fixed and not able to be changed.
21 Cyclotrons arranged in a ring, wired in series. Each one building on the energy generated by the one before it. Each cyclotron running in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen. Only one exit portal for the energy being generated by the cyclotrons, towards an inner ring that was a reinforced glass torus filled with distilled and hydrogen-ionized water. Wrapped around that torus was a fine mesh of silver wire, with the gaps being exactly 2.2 millimetres, to prevent certain microwaves from passing but allowing all other energies free reign. In the middle, a space of precisely 718 millimetres circular, the energies would interact in such a way as to generate a Cerenkov flash.
The actual device was a lot more complex than just that, Mariah had designed the entire thing, and with Professor Ian Scott's help, had begun to assemble the group of Grad, Undergrad and Sophomore students who would actually build it, and not draw attention to themselves in the process.
"Ready for a calibration run." Ian said as he and the other students stepped out of the generator ring and the torus lowered down to complete the conduit linkage. Mariah got off her stool, walked over and gave him a solid kiss that showed both her self-confidence, and lack of concern for what anybody else thought about their relationship.
He was a good man, he was her lover, and Mariah was in love with him. Just not in a position or at a stage to marry him. That didn't stop her from fucking his brains out every night she could though. Tonight would be no exception, Ian would be worn out by the 20 year old's energy and attention and sleep with a very satisfied smile on his face.
Ian handed Mariah the control panel, wired to the system by an inch-thick cable that was wrapped in layers of electrical tape, and as everybody stepped outside the red, then the yellow taped lines on the floor, she looked around for a final visual check.
"OK – final checks people." Mariah said into the quiet.
"Cyclotron visual check, good. Power feeds online, green. Water torus filled and sealed, nominal bubbles. Calibration sequence ready, computers are powered up and ready to start the sequence." Came the responses from Karen, Ramon, Shaun and Teg, four of the students who had helped put the device together.
Mariah tapped a series of commands on the console in her hands and lights began to flash in series as each cyclotron began to spin up, handing it's charged particle load off to the next one in series as they all built upon the stepped energy of the unit before.
"Ten Thousand Electron volts." Came the report from Ramon who was keeping an eye on the cyclotron power meters. Mariah knew they had to hit 100 MeV, or Million Electron volts, even as Ian had tried to tell her weeks ago, that the Cyclotrons she had acquired for this could only output a maximum of 5 million eV's each.
Her response to that had been to sit him in his chair, pull up her skirt so she could straddle him, and then she had educated her older lover in the finer points of french kissing, before slipping down to the floor where she knelt, unzipping his pants, and then proceeded to show him just what a tongue piercing could do to his long and thin member.
He had been quite happy to allow her to seduce him, despite what the conduct rules were at the University, there was actually nothing that prevented a student and Professor from being intimate. Just as long as they were discrete, and that there was clear separation between course and personal life. No matter how well she fucked him, it would not earn Mariah an A grade in class, even as she was Triple-A in his bed.
"We're approaching a hundred thousand eV." Ramon reported from the power monitors. This test would only bring the unit up to a million eV. Enough to allow them to visually see the result in the middle of the chamber as the Cerenkov Radiation interacted with the mesh and energies to begin to make something incredible manifest.
Mariah recalled when she had first gotten wind of this. A letter being delivered to her house days before she had begun enrolment. Hand-written, dated from 12 years ago. The FedEx delivery man had told her they had instructions to hold this letter until this specific date, then deliver it. There was no return address, but it was her own hand writing.
She had since received nineteen letters, and knew that there was one more left to arrive. 21 letters to change her life and the lives of those she cared about. 21 letters to make sure people could have a happily ever after. 21 letters to ensure that events happened the way they needed to happen, and not just by fate.
The letters had given her the formula, the plans, and the instructions to seduce the professor to seal the initial deal. The letters had given her the ability to talk to him on his level, because Mariah had the knowledge, but the letters gave her the insight to be able to talk through the difficult questions asked of her.
"Two hundred fifty thousand eV. We're approaching the beginning of the cascade." Mariah nodded at Karen and made an adjustment to the console so the waveguide gateways between the cyclotrons opened to allow energies to overflow as they reached peak and begin to ramp up other devices, so they could share the power build and not overload.
