Escaping Relativity
Chapter 30

They met in the mechanics room; all of them crammed around the device which Lennie had conformed to the room in general. The regular mechanizations of what caused the Velociraptor to run was somewhere in all of the new machinery. Xander prayed it would work right.

“Since we have no other pentagons, I’ve got the machine built in the shape of one. Whoever is inside it, goes, everything outside the pentagon stays. Charlie gets the seat of honor, and Xander, you get in the middle,” Lennie instructed.

“So, I may be late in asking this, but what’s the deal with pentagons? The mall you found me at was shaped as a pentagon, the place we broke out of was one, and now this JUMP machine is shaped like a pentagon too. So, what’s the deal?” Charlie asked.

“Well it can get very complicated,” Lennie began.

Xander held his breath to keep from screaming at all of them. This wasn’t the time for this, but be damned if he was going to take some potentially life-saving information out of Charlie’s hands, simply because it aggravated him.

“The easiest way to explain it,” Rolara started, “is this...so a pentagon has five points and five connecting lines. Those each represent the scientifically known and agreed upon dimensions. Now when you operate this machine, you will use those dimensions in your mind to create the first moment of time and space that you want your traveler to go to. Then, when it’s time to come back or for them to move on, you will use those same ten to mentally create your second location. You act as the string which connects these two relative realities. The pentagon itself acts like a tuning fork to the ten dimensions of each relative society. With me so far?” Rolara asked. Xander was actually pretty impressed at her ability to break it down so well.

Charlie nodded, her eyes never leaving Rolara.

“Alright, so, mentally the pentagon you create on your right is where they go first, the pentagon you create on your left is for their next destination, the pentagon surrounding you acts like the tuning fork for these places, making sure everything is as it should be, and you become the string between the two relative states. You will move Xander through time and space through the connection you provide between these places. It’s all on you to connect them so they are transported safely, Charlie,” Rolara finished.

“So, are you sure they wouldn’t be better off with telling the machine what to do, while I just kill people?” Charlie tried to joke, but the sincere worry in her eyes was almost heartbreaking. It made Xander trust her even more.

“Do we know if this JUMP machine will even work, have we run any tests?” Xander asked.

“We didn’t have time, Xander. The configurations held us up, and we don’t have the time to spare. However, we have pictures of the floor plans, and the location you saw Brick during the time and date stamped conversation you last had with Sojo. Charlie will JUMP you right outside the deck, where you can grab Brick and stay right there. We’ve put you on a three minute JUMP,” Rolara explained.

Worry clenched in his gut, and everything in him clamored for more time. Every weapon he knew would work was strapped on, tucked in, or tied to his body. Charlie had begged him to let her go with him, but he refused. It was no reflection of her skill, and every reflection of his attachment to her. He wasn’t about to lose her because he made some mistake. Besides, he trusted her mind better than the machine alone. Of course there was always the worry that the machine itself, if improperly built, would kill her too.

He had to stop thinking of things like that, and just trust that things were going to work out. He had to trust in Lennie. The Wizard could do more things with a program than most anyone else could do with an entire machine. He also had to trust Charlie, things had gone wrong in almost every situation, and she’d always come out ahead.

Purposefully, he moved toward Charlie. She sat curled up in the main chair, her hair pulled up in some messy sort of strangeness that she called a bun, and her feet tucked underneath her. She had never looked so frightened and determined at the same time. He stood in front of her, their foreheads touching.

“Don’t make me lose you,” she said, a tear falling from the corner of her eye.

He kissed the tear away, tasting the warm, salty water on his lips.

“Don’t make me lose you,” Xander answered Charlie with her own statement.

He refused to kiss her, this would not be goodbye. Somehow she knew, and her fingertips traced the outer edge of his face. Slowly he moved to the center of the pentagon, looking into the eyes of the woman he loved. He silently prayed he would see her again, he had to.

A few seconds later, she opened her eyes––unseeing––and the precious blue of them had turned to laser waves of violet light chasing each other in the seas of her eyes, and then, the world around him went black.

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