chapter 24
TEAM 2, YEAR: 2016
Time Remaining: 155 Days
The team shut the lab down shortly after their success. Conversation during the drive home was light and filled with the type of giddiness only relief can bring. Now comfortable in airing their mounting concerns about what their next suggestions would have been, they joked about their level of desperation. Of all the neutralization methods presented, the zeno ray guns seemed like the only method with reasonable potential, but without a diffused beam, that solution faced abandonment leaving them with no clear runner-up.
“My next suggestion was to fill the tank with water,” said Owen, turning down a side street. “I was really running out of ideas.”
“I was ready to grab a hammer and smash that bloody gun to bits,” said Finn from the back seat of the truck.
“What would that have accomplished?” asked Riley.
“Not a bloody thing. It just would have felt very satisfying.”
The team laughed as they pulled into Owen’s driveway. Owen noticed how bright the stars were for the first time in ages and parked his truck in the driveway to gaze at them before going inside. As he closed his truck door, he stared up into the vast abyss of space and felt a wave of gratitude wash over him. Gratitude for what specifically, he was unsure. Perhaps for Riley and Finn coming into his life and waking him from the debilitating depression that had seized his life? That he had finally started to move forward? Perhaps all of the above. Owen took one last look at the Big Dipper then took the steps to the basement entrance two at a time.
“Owen?” called Riley.
Owen was just about to slide his key into the lock. “Yeah?”
“I, um…I don’t think we should go in.”
Owen thought she was joking. He looked over his shoulder at her with a smile and was puzzled to see her still beside the truck. “Riley, are you okay? Maybe it’s the floodlights, but you look really pale. Do you want to sit down? Let me get the door open.”
“Owen! No!” Riley raced down the stairs and knocked his hand away from the lock, sending the keys to the ground. Owen knelt down to pick them up. As he stood, Riley grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back up the concrete steps.
“Riley, what is it?” asked Finn. He looked at his lead imploringly and this confused Owen further.
“I don’t know,” she said. She put her hands on her hips and looked up at the house. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
Owen saw Finn back away from the house at her words. Riley pulled Owen farther away from the house. “Riley, what’s wrong?”
“I just have a bad feeling about this,” she repeated.
Owen looked at Finn for a clue, but his expression gave away nothing. “This intuition is what makes her good at her job,” said Finn, finally. “It’s why she, well we, and a lot of other people are still alive. If Riley has a bad feeling about something, I listen. She’s been right before about some crazy, out of the blue things.”
“What, like someone’s in my house?” Owen found the situation hard to take seriously, but the grave expressions on their faces left him unsettled.
“Call the fire department Owen. Call them now.” Her voice was urgent but controlled, like that of a seasoned emergency services operator.
Owen dialled 9-1-1. Better safe than sorry, he thought as he held his hand over the phone. “What am I going to say to them?” he whispered loudly as a voice picked up on the other end.
“I don’t know. Tell them anything,” whispered Riley.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” asked a calm voice.
“Fire. Or police maybe. Police I guess, please,” stammered Owen.
“Is there a fire sir?” asked the voice.
“No, uh… Not that I can see. I just got home and I think someone’s in my house.”
A new voice collected Owen’s details and dispatched a unit to investigate. They stood at the back of the driveway staring at the house and waited for the police to arrive. In Finn and Riley’s silence, Owen contemplated the situation. He never really believed in premonitions, but he had come to know Riley fairly well over the last month and knew her to be an intelligent, humble and honest individual. Based on what he had learned of her and the level of respect he had for her, he took her words more seriously than had they been anyone else’s.
A police cruiser pulled into the driveway within ten minutes of placing the call, lights flashing but no siren. Owen relayed the made-up cover story to the two officers before they entered the house—that he had seen some shadows moving in the living room as he pulled into the driveway.
The first officer took Owen’s house keys and instructed them to wait behind the cruiser while they searched the house. Owen told them the alarm code and pointed to the basement door through which he had planned on entering.
Owen, Riley and Finn watched from behind the squad car as the first officer unlocked the deadbolt. He pushed the basement door open as he unholstered his gun, then looked inside. Seeing nothing that caused him any concern, he entered the house and disappeared from their sight, though they could see his shadow stop at the alarm keypad. The second officer followed his younger partner inside. His tall, husky shadow disappeared as he walked deeper into the basement. They heard the keypad beeping as the first officer entered Owen’s code. Seconds after the sixth and final beep, an explosion rocked the house. Glass and chunks of concrete flew in every direction. A fireball shot out the open door and disappeared upward into the dark night. A mass of concrete landed on the hood and windshield of the cruiser. The impact rocked the car and instinct drove Riley, Finn and Owen to the ground as heat and wind from the deafening blast washed over them. Small pieces of debris rained down around them. Dust and smoke accompanied the flames that poured through the basement door, as well as through a hole in the basement’s foundation. Smoke billowed from where basement windows had been. Many of the two-storey, tempered glass window panes had cracked into millions of little glass cubes. Some stood in their frames like unique art while the others fell to the ground outside like frozen droplets of rain.
Owen hit redial on his phone and got the same operator. Before he could explain to the operator what had happened, he watched in shock as Riley sprinted through the basement door. Owen’s stomach lurched and he forced himself to focus on what he relayed to the operator. Finn called after Riley and followed her inside without hesitation.
Owen got off the phone with emergency services and bolted toward the basement door just as Finn emerged with the younger officer slung over his shoulder. Owen helped him lay the unconscious officer down beside the cruiser. He looked back, expecting Riley to come out any moment; however, the only thing exiting the basement door was thick, inky smoke.
“Where’s Riley?” yelled Owen over the sound of the air whistling around them. He checked the vital signs of the officer while Finn knelt on the ground, hunched over, his chest heaving. A black mark crossed his forehead and matched dark patches of ash in his copper hair.
Finn shook his head violently, coughed a few times and sat up straight. “I don’t know. It was too smoky. I couldn’t see a damn thing. Hit my head on a beam or something.”
Owen found a pulse on the officer and confirmed he was still breathing. Hoping he would be alright for the moment, Owen ran toward the door. Finn grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“Owen, it’s too dangerous. You can’t go in there!” shouted Finn, over the sound of the raging fire.
“We can’t leave her in there!” yelled Owen, fighting against Finn’s vise-like grip. Finn stumbled on a piece of debris and lost his footing. Owen jerked free and bolted but skidded to a halt just outside the open door frame. Dense smoke surged through the open door and he could see no farther than his arm’s length. He knelt down to the ground and found the visibility little better.
“Owen! No!” Finn grabbed Owen again, this time restraining him with an arm around his chest, the other on Owen’s arm. He pulled Owen away fro
m the door. “Don’t worry. She’ll be okay. Trust me.”
Unable to pull himself out of Finn’s grasp, Owen’s heart pounded harder with every passing second that Riley failed to appear. He heard sirens in the distance. After what seemed like hours of staring into the dense, black smoke, Riley’s figure appeared, carrying the second officer over her shoulders like an oversized sack of potatoes. Finn released his grip on Owen and they lunged toward her. Riley sped between the two and carried the unconscious form away from the house. Finn led her to where the first officer lay and they helped her ease the man to the ground. She stood upright to catch her breath and stumbled. Owen left Finn with the second officer and grabbed Riley. She tried to shake him off, but her balance faltered. She bent over, propped herself up with her arms on her knees and coughed.
Owen grabbed her around the waist and eased her to her knees. “Are you okay? What were you thinking running in there like that? There could have been more explosions! The house could have collapsed on you!” He knelt down in front of her and looked her over. “Are you hurt anywhere? Did you hit your head?”
Riley said nothing but shook her head with a pained expression. She tapped her chest with the palm of her hand then massaged her neck. She coughed out hoarsely, “Smoke.”
Owen pulled her into a hard hug. She wrapped her arms around him tightly but released him nearly immediately as flashing red lights announced the arrival of the fire truck. A second fire truck, two ambulances and two more police cars filed into the spacious driveway. Owen felt a tug on his sleeve and saw Riley trying to say something, but her smoke-scarred voice was inaudible over the sirens. He leaned in closer.
“No hospital.”
What seemed like hours were only minutes since the blast. The medics looked over the two officers. The junior officer had already regained consciousness and sat in a daze beside his less -fortunate partner, who lay on a gurney inside one of the ambulances. A medic pulled the rear door closed and it tore down the driveway, sirens screaming. The second set of medics insisted on checking over Riley and Finn, and no amount of protesting from Riley would deter them. Riley settled herself on the bumper of the remaining ambulance, holding up an oxygen mask with a hand that had been wrapped in a tensor bandage for a suspected sprain. Satisfied she was alright, the medic who looked her over began filling out paperwork, and Riley watched the other medic clean and dress the cut on Finn’s forehead.
Relieved that somehow Riley and Finn had miraculously escaped with only bumps and bruises, Owen stood among the chaos and watched the nightmare unfolding before his eyes. It seemed like for him, time stood still, but for the firefighters putting out the fire, it moved in fast-forward. Mist from the thick jets of water flooding the house landed on his face. It felt cool on his over-heated skin, baked by the raging inferno that was his house. He felt helpless. The home he had known for most of his life and the last tie he had to his family—his father—was going up in smoke. All he could do was stand and watch the memories burn. He felt a large lump forming in his throat at the thought of the photos of his father, mother and his grandparents, going up and smoke. He looked down as a hand slide into his. Riley stood at his side, the orange of the blaze reflecting off her skin and eyes as she looked up at him.
“Come on Owen, we’re in the way here.” She pulled him gently away. He let her lead him and he followed blindly, looking back over his shoulder, unable to take his eyes off his home.
The fire was contained quickly, but Owen prepared himself for the worst. Firemen with axes walked through the home checking for immediate structural issues and areas that may still be smouldering. Owen kept his eye on their progress while another police officer on the scene took his report.
Owen explained to the middle-aged officer exactly what had happened, save for the few embellishments required to maintain consistency with what he told the emergency operator earlier that evening.
“And your friends went into the house and pulled out the two officers?”
Owen nodded, looking over the man’s shoulder. The home looked like the charred carcass of its former self with the blackened concrete and missing windows. His gaze fell back on the officer and saw that the man was speaking. “Sorry, say that again?”
“Your friends. I’d like to get their reports too while I’m here.” The officer smiled sympathetically as he motioned from Riley to Finn with his clipboard.
Owen hesitated for a moment as he wondered how Riley would want to handle this but saw no way he could protect Riley and Finn from the officer’s questions. Riley showed no signs of concern. After hearing the pair’s account and writing for several minutes, the officer jogged his papers together until they became uniform and clipped them to his clipboard. “Alright. I think I’ve got all I need from you guys. I just need to see some identification.”
For the second time that night, Owen’s stomach turned over. He thought back to the first day they had met when Riley showed him her three-dimensional ID tag in his office. He remembered the Adam Seers story and hoped Riley and Finn could avoid getting carted downtown and locked in a padded room. As Owen retrieved his wallet from his back pocket, he tried to think up a cover story for them. Riley and Finn produced their identification cards and the officer took all three. Seeing their cards were not from the area, the officer eyed them with curiosity.
“Phoenix, eh? On vacation, I take it?” asked the officer.
Riley nodded, not missing a beat. “Yes, we’re here for a couple of weeks.”
“I like Phoenix. Go down there sometimes during the winter. Great place.”
“Yes, it’s really nice. I like the heat,” said Riley, watching the officer line up the three identification cards then clip them atop the handwritten reports.
As the officer walked away, Finn leaned into Riley, his brow furrowed. “Are those IDs going to hold up Rile?” She said nothing but gave him an I-guess-we’ll-find-out look and a shrug to match.
The officer returned to his cruiser and sat down wearily in the driver’s seat. They watched him punch their information into his computer. After a few moments, they heard a loud voice crackle over the two-way radio clipped to his vest.
“Hey 4-0-2, there’s something wrong with the ID numbers you’ve given me.”
The officer jumped in his seat, startled by the volume of his radio. He turned it down then tossed his pen onto the dash and rubbed his eyes in frustration. His cell phone rang and he answered it tersely. Finn began balling and unballing his fists subconsciously. “There’s gotta be a problem. It wouldn’t be taking that long if there wasn’t a problem.”
The officer returned and handed Owen back his driver’s licence as he looked from Riley to Finn. “I’m having problems running your IDs. I’m only getting partial reports,” said the officer. “I think the system crashed half way through retrieving the information. The guys at the station say the federal database has been up and down all day.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his temples in exasperation. “We upgraded some software and it’s been nothing but hassles. This has been happening to me daily for at least two weeks now. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
The officer looked back at his car painfully, like the thought of having to troubleshoot another computer problem might push him over the edge. He tapped the two IDs on the palm of his hand, then handed them back to Riley and Finn. “That damn database could be down all night for all I know.” The officer looked beyond them and saw the fire chief waving to get his attention. “And it looks like the chief wants you. I’m going to bug out; I’ve done all I can do. It’s up to the investigators now. I’ve got your info in case I need to get in touch. Sorry about your loss, Owen.”
As the officer got into his car, Finn exhaled like he had not breathed in ten minutes. “That was close. I don’t know if their system was down or if it was the cards, but I’m fine not finding out either way.”
As the trio walked over to where the fire chief was conferring with his men, Owen saw his back door lying on the concre
te drive. The door now possessed a bowl-like quality as a result of the blast and blackened water had collected inside.
The chief was holding two small, grey unmarked packages and a third item that looked like it may have once been identical to the first two at some point. All that remained was some grey paper that had miraculously not disintegrated in the blast. All three items were dripping wet.
“Do you know what caused this?” asked Owen.
“I don’t want to say officially until I’ve completed my report, but it looks to me like this was intentional.” He held up the two packages and the blackened remains of the third.
Owen looked at the water-soaked packages in the chief’s gloved hands. He had never seen them before in his life. “Like explosives? You’re telling me this wasn’t a gas leak or something?”
The chief nodded. “It’s looking that way. Your alarm system was rigged, but whoever did it didn’t finish the whole job. An amateur, I’m guessing.” He held up the charred package. “I found the remains of this in the panel box that controls your alarm in the utility room.” He held up the two grey bricks. “These were on a shelf in the cold room. I can’t say for sure, but I’m going to guess that whoever was doing this got interrupted and hid them hoping they’d go off in the blast. You’re a very lucky man. This could have been…well, three times worse.”
“How bad is the damage?” asked Owen. He prepared himself for the house to be a total loss.
The fire chief pushed up his helmet scratched his forehead. “Well, it’s not as bad as it looks. Especially considering what it could have been. Good thing the house is mostly concrete, that’s what saved it. Whoever built this house built it like a tank. There is a hole blown out of one basement wall as you’ve seen and there’s some cracking, but the place still looks structurally sound and what is damaged should be repairable. Most of the upstairs is untouched, just smoke and water damage. Structural Assessment will come by tomorrow and do an official inspection. Oh, and the Forensics Unit will be spending a bit of time here too. They’ll want to go over that basement with a fine-toothed comb.”
Owen nodded and looked back at his truck. He saw the windshield had several spider web cracks and a softball-sized chunk of concrete sat where his left headlight should have been. “Before I go, can I go in and salvage what I can?”
The chief hesitated for a moment as if deciding whether or not to let them in. “I think that’ll be alright. There’s probably a lot of smoke damage, but we didn’t water the upstairs too badly, so it’s worth taking whatever you can if it puts you more at ease.”
The chief escorted the three into the house. Behind the back of the chief, Owen saw Riley and Finn shoot each other a look he understood. Make sure you get everything out that you can’t explain. Once inside the house, the chief left them and they surveyed the damage. Most of the windows were missing; fragmented into millions of pieces and lying on the grass below. Water dripped from the ceiling like a bizarre rain shower. The furniture was soaked and water trickled steadily down the stones of the fireplace chimney and collected in pools on the warped hardwood floor. The cover page of Astronomy Today floated in one of the puddles. The hardwood floor by the kitchen had blackened where the fire had begun spreading into the living room.
Owen, Riley and Finn went to their rooms and packed what they could. Finn was done first; there was little left in his room to salvage. His bag and some dirty clothes, having been crammed under the bed, were remarkably undamaged, albeit smoky, and he gathered them quickly. As the rest of his clothes and possessions had been strewn about his room at the time of the blast, they had succumbed to the fire.
In what remained of the en suite bathroom, Finn found and picked up the now-blackened medical bag from the floor. Water poured from a tear in one of the seams. He pulled out the MediScan device that Riley had used to heal Owen’s foot on the day they met. Water dripped out of its casing and the screen was cracked. He swore under his breath.
Riley found most of her possessions were salvageable. Most were wet and all smelled of smoke, but nothing had burned. As she filled her bag, she thought about the bullet they dodged by keeping their most unexplainable gadgets on themselves at all times or locked safely in the lab. She imagined having to explain her VersaTool to a room full of police officers. She finished packing and quickly removed all traces of her ever having been there. She went to Finn’s room to ensure he had done the same. They waited in the living room for Owen, giving him space.
Ten minutes passed and Owen still had not come downstairs.
“You should check on him,” said Finn, his voice quiet and morose.
Riley peered into Owen’s room and knocked on the doorframe. His closet door stood open revealing a mostly bare closet. A large rolling duffel bag lay open on the damp and stained white duvet covering his bed. It was packed to the top with clothes and personal items. Sitting next to it on the bed were some wet wood carvings, water-damaged pictures and a soaked and torn strip of newsprint. Riley looked through the glass patio door and saw Owen still as night, leaning on the balcony railing and watching the river. The moonlight reflected off his dark hair as he leaned on the railing. She wanted to give him space but felt it would be best if she and Finn left before more questions were asked.
Riley slid the patio door open and leaned on the railing beside him. Without consciously thinking about it, she tested its integrity before leaning on it.
“Owen?” She put her hand on his shoulder.
He looked back at her and sighed resignedly as he straightened up. “I know, we have to go. It’s just really hard to leave. It’s hard to see this place like this.” He ran his hands back and forth across the railing in a caressing fashion. He explained to Riley about his father passing away, how it had nearly destroyed him to lose his best friend and father. Seeing the house like this made him feel like he was losing him all over again. Riley let his words hang in the silence for several minutes before delivering another painful blow.
“Owen, I think whoever did this meant to connect all three explosives but was interrupted and left the remaining two underneath the panel hoping they’d detonate in the explosion.”
Owen looked at her, perplexed. He thought maybe she had misheard the fire chief. After all, his ears were still ringing from the blast. “No, the other two were in the cold room. There’s a concrete wall between the panel and the cold room.”
“No, they were under the panel box. I came down to the basement this afternoon and put some groceries in the cold storage. When I passed by the door to the utility room, I saw those two grey bricks sitting on the floor. I had no idea what they were and, truthfully, I didn’t really give them too much thought. Looking back now, I realize there was a beige metal box mounted on the wall above them, but at the time, I barely noticed it. I just thought it was a weird place for whatever the two bricks were because everything in your house is so orderly. They were sitting so haphazardly, I moved them into the cold storage area so no one would trip on them.” She looked at Owen. “Owen, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Owen studied Riley’s face. She still had streaks of soot on her cheek. He believed her. How would she have known what explosives from eighty years ago looked like? Hell, most people now had no clue what explosives looked like. He would never have recognized them as explosives if he had stumbled across them. He smiled weakly. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. If you hadn’t moved them, they would have exploded as well, and my house would have been confetti.”
“Hey, guys?” Finn stuck his head out onto the balcony. His expression was solemn. “Sorry, but the chief needs us to head out.”
Time Remaining: 153 Days
After hearing about the harrowing events of Owen’s weekend, his director had no problem letting Owen take three weeks of banked time off, and even threw in an extra week of vacation time for good measure. Owen was an asset to the NRD and they wanted to keep him happy—not just because he was a star in his field that private industries paid
big dollars to contract out on occasion, but because he was a dedicated employee. He was easy to work with and a genuinely kind-hearted individual who would give you his last loaf of bread if he was starving.
The days that followed the explosion had been a blur. Despite the damage it sustained during the blast, the alarm panel did an excellent job of telling its story. Between the crude materials and the amateur method of connecting the explosives, the forensic team concluded that the person who rigged it likely had little to no experience with explosives.
What unresolved issues Owen had about that night, he swept aside with surprising ease. He knew the house could be rebuilt back to its former glory and his most valuable possessions, like photo albums and old family mementos sustained surprisingly little damage, having been stored in waterproof plastic containers. The rest could be replaced. What Owen did find uneasy was knowing that someone had done it intentionally. He wondered what his father would have done in this situation. He suspected his father would have looked on the bright side, helped the police with whatever they needed to help find the culprit and move forward. The bright side being that it could have been a lot worse—none of them were seriously injured and Riley had again saved his life. Her wrist had healed in a matter of days, and even the mark on Finn’s forehead had begun to fade. “Chicks love scars,” Finn had said after taking the bandage off the following day to survey the damage.
Owen, Riley and Finn had spent the night in a hotel. This temporary residence would become permanent until the insurance completed the repair on Owen’s house. Riley and Finn were spared from returning to the Fore Seasons. One of Owen’s friends owned a small chain of hotels and was more than happy to give them a very generous “friends and family” rate after hearing about Owen’s predicament.
The group ate breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. Speculating over who could have blown up Owen’s house, or why he would have been targeted, carried the trio through their entire meal. With no word yet from the police, and unable to come up with any person or group with the desire to target Owen, they could only conclude it was a random incident until evidence was discovered that proved otherwise.
Owen could not believe the attention to detail Riley went into as she explained the alibis she had arranged to account for their existence in 2016. Huddled together over the now-empty plates and talking quietly so no one around them would hear, Riley defended her compulsive need to plan.
“Think of it as our backup chute. You never want to have to rely on your backup chute. But if you need it, you’re glad it’s there. When you travel back in time, you obviously want to avoid any situation where there is a lot of probing into the details of your ‘life.’ However, if you do find yourself in a sticky spot, you’ll be thankful you took the time to set it up. It was part of my own little risk assessment test when we were preparing. What did you call it, Finn?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“A waste of time,” responded Finn, in a deadpan, I-know-you-told-me-so kind of way. “But, I’m glad you did and I promise I’ll never make fun of your obsessive-compulsive planning again.”
“So, are you telling me that on your first day here, you hacked into a federal government computer and implanted yourselves as a vacationing couple from Phoenix?”
“Yeah. Just before we intercepted you at the bus stop. It was killer easy,” said Finn. “The encryption on the database was so damn easy to crack that a five-year-old could have done it. Anyway, we just threw in some details, dates and cities of birth, some schools, social security numbers and a few jobs. Easy as pie.”
“And we made these before we left, just to be on the safe side.” Riley pulled the Phoenix, Arizona, 2016 driver’s licence out of her backpack and handed it to Owen. “It was nothing. These old security features are so easy to fake.” She flipped the card around in her hand and inspected her handiwork. “They’re so archaic. They don’t even do anything. No projections, retinal graphs or anything.”
Owen had become used to these tangent conversations where Finn and Riley reminisced about some wondrous aspect of the future that eluded him entirely. He listened in fascination but felt deprived in some way, knowing he would never get the chance to experience it for himself. It was the same hollow feeling he would get looking up at the sky at night as a child, so close but not able to touch.
Time Remaining: 151 Days
With the diffuser problem resolved, the team could move to the next step in testing the viability of the zeno ray gun theory. To do so, they would test the effectiveness of the gun’s rays on Elevanium. As the brick-shaped samples of Elevanium were a fraction of the size of the full deposit, the gun would need to be shrunk down to a one-to-one ratio with the sample Elevanium brick representing the full-sized deposit.
After a lot of math, the team determined how small the ray gun would need to be. Finn used his VersaTool to shrink the gun and its tripod to the appropriate size. The resulting size meant the gun would fit nicely in the trunk of a Hot Wheels car.
“Are you guys ready?” asked Riley, looking up at her two partners huddled around the testing tank.
On the left side of the tank sat the test brick of Elevanium. On the right, the miniaturized ray gun pointed at the glowing rectangular stone. Riley held the remote control for the ray gun in her hand, her thumb itchy on the trigger. Riley decided that controlling the gun with the remote control was the safest way to operate. With her, Finn and Owen all wearing Icomm contacts with the ability to control the gun, it seemed like the best way to prevent any accidents.
The gun discharged and the block of Elevanium took on a pinkish hue from the diffused red beam.
After thirty seconds, Riley looked from the tank to Finn. “Anything?” she asked.
Finn shook his head. He held a yellow scanner in front of him like a digital camera, ready to shoot. The Multi-Matter Scanner he held measured the potency of the Elevanium and timed how long it took for the mass to become neutralized. Owen watched the scanner over Finn’s shoulder. The scanner’s screen was black except for a bright white shape in the middle, illustrating the potency of the Elevanium. Owen watched the screen and noticed at around the five-minute mark, that the white mass seemed less prominent. At the ten-minute mark, the white had faded to grey and detail around the edges had disappeared.
“Twenty-two minutes, thirty-four seconds,” reported Finn. “That’s depressing.”
Riley laid the remote control on the lab desk next to the tank and rubbed her eyes. “Wow. I didn’t think it would be that slow. I thought maybe thirty seconds to a minute or something.”
After days of testing, manipulating variable after variable, including using pieces of Elevanium that were different thicknesses in the diffuser, moving the gun closer or further away or heating or freezing the Elevanium, no difference was made. It became apparent that adding the two other ray guns to the plan was necessary. Riley felt uneasy relying on all three guns as part of the primary solution; it left no backup should one fail.