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geniusboyy · 20 days ago

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Covenants and other Provisions

Chapter 30

Can You Hear the Music?

Ford’s eyes opened slowly, reluctantly drawn from his dream. His head lifted slightly, heavy with the weight of too little sleep, before his gaze settled on the symbols. They stared back at him—precise, stark, unyielding—etched with a kind of fevered clarity that belied the desperation behind their creation.

The room was oppressive in its stillness. The air had gone stale in the hours since he’d sealed himself inside, thick with the metallic tang of ink and the heat of his body. He shifted against the wall, his back protesting with a dull ache from where he’d slumped after the ritual, the coarse rug beneath him doing little to cushion the fall of exhaustion. His arm, cradled in its sling, pulsed faintly, the stitches beneath the gauze itchy and raw. He let his head fall back, closing his eyes for just a moment longer. And then there it was: that voice—right back where it belonged.

“Aren’t you just a picture,” Bill drawled with rich amusement—igniting a surge of excitement through Ford no amount of time could dull. “And in a broom closet, no less. How quaint. You really know how to sweep a guy off his feet.”

Ford let out a soft, rasping laugh, rough with sleep and the dregs of strain, still half-caught in the fog of the night before. “Sorry, the Ritz was all booked,” Ford mumbled, his voice rough with sleep, still catching up to the moment. “You’re lucky I found something suitable at all.”

Bill’s laugh rippled through Ford’s consciousness, “Oh, I’m lucky, am I?” he crooned, the lilting mockery in his tone unmistakable. “Let’s not kid ourselves, darling. We both know who really lucked out last night.”

Ford chuckled softly, the sound low and dry as he rubbed his bleary eyes. For a moment, he let himself linger in the comfort of the storage closet, his gaze wandering over the symbols etched on the plaster, the ink stains on his skin. But the moment stretched no further. The faint scent of something sharp pulled him back to reality—weed, and the burnt bitterness of over-brewed coffee. Fidds was up.

Ford scrambled to his feet, his movements quick and purposeful as he threw one last glance at the scrawled symbols before shutting the door firmly behind him, looking over at the stairs for any sign of movement.

Ford scanned the lab for anything he could use to secure the door. His eyes landed on a steel ruler and a battered toolbox nearby. With quick, practiced, he jammed the ruler between the door and the frame, securing it as best he could, before pushing a few crates haphazardly in front of the door—it wasn’t perfect, but it would do for now.

Straightening his shirt, Ford stepped back toward the center of the lab, moving between the hulking machines with practiced ease. He ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it down, and wiped the ink smeared on his palm against his pants just as the creak of the stairs broke through the air.

“Thought I heard‘ya down here,” came Fidds’ drawl, his voice lazy and familiar. The man’s silhouette appeared at the top of the staircase before he descended, spliff dangling between his fingers, trailing smoke in lazy spirals. His gaze swept over Ford with a practiced nonchalance, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.

Fidds took a slow drag, his free hand resting on the bannister as he exhaled, the scent of burning paper and resin curling through the room. “How long you been up?”

Ford turned, forcing an easy, neutral smile as his thoughts scrambled to catch up. “A while,” he said smoothly, keeping his tone light, brushing a hand along his pants as if he’d been too busy to sit idle. His mind raced for a distraction, for anything to steer the conversation. “I was thinking… I’d like to do some stress testing on the compound today,” he said, his voice quick but steady, his words deliberate. “Evaluate how it reacts under different conditions. Narrow down the scope of its properties.”

Fidds nodded, rubbing the back of his neck as he approached. “You got a plan, or are we just gonna start throwin’ shit at the wall and hope for the best?”

Ford smirked faintly without looking up, the flicker of a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, you know… somewhere in between.”

Fidds snorted softly. “Figures,” he said, stepping closer and setting the mug down on a nearby table. His gaze lingered on Ford for a moment, his brow furrowing as if considering something unsaid. Then he straightened and gestured toward Ford’s arm. “Let me change your bandages before you go settin’ yourself on fire again.”

Ford hesitated but finally relented, unfastening the sling from around his neck and rolling his shoulder with a faint wince. He slipped his arm free and unbuttoned his sleeve, rolling it up high with careful precision. The fabric rasped faintly against his skin, exposing the pale stretch of his forearm.

Fidds grabbed a clean roll of bandages from the counter before pulling up a stool to sit beside Ford. The room was quiet except for the soft scrape of scissors as he began snipping away at the gauze. When he pulled the bandage free, he stopped short, his hand hovering, frowning slightly when the wound came into view.

Fidds brow knitted as he leaned closer, examining the glossy texture of the new skin forming. “Huh,” he muttered under his breath.

“What’s the matter?” Ford asked.

“Nothing—it’s just…” Fidds trailed off, his thumb brushing lightly over the skin, which was no longer raw or red, but already entering the proliferation phase—skin knitted together with surprising smoothness, faint ridges of newly formed tissue standing out against Ford’s arm. “It’s just…” Fidds hesitated, his voice almost reverent. “I’ve never seen a wound heal so fast. Your collagen production is… through the roof.”

Ford shifted slightly in his seat, trying to mask his unease with a nonchalant shrug. “Good genes, I guess.”

Fidds wasn’t buying it. He glanced up, his eyes searching Ford’s face for any sign of explanation. “Here, extend your arm.”

Ford complied, wincing as he stretched it out fully. Fidds held his wrist steady, watching intently as the scar tissue expanded and tightened with the motion.

“Does that hurt?” Fidds asked, glancing up.

“A little,” Ford admitted, though his voice was steady.

Fidds shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, his words soft but tinged with something heavier—concern, maybe, or fascination. “You’re just about ready for these to come out, and it hasn’t even been… eighteen hours.”

Ford leaned forward, examining the wound himself. He flexed his fingers experimentally, noting how the skin barely pulled now, the raw edges almost entirely smoothed over.

“Neat…” Ford said.

“Does this have anything to do with that thing we’re working on?” Fidds asked suddenly, his tone sharper now.

Ford hesitated, the weight of the question settling over him. He straightened slightly, tugging his sleeve down and smoothing it into place, the motion precise and deliberate. “I’m not sure,” he said at last, his voice carefully measured. “It’s… possible, I suppose. But we’ll figure it out later. Right now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

He buttoned his cuff crisply, his movements brisk, like punctuation to the conversation he clearly wanted to leave behind. Standing, he reached for his cigarettes at the edge of the table, dismissing Fidds’ concern.

But Fiddleford didn’t look convinced. His jaw tensed slightly, and his gaze lingered on Ford’s longer than necessary, watching him light up and casually puff away. Something about the whole situation wasn’t sitting right with him—but he knew he had to pick his battles. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his nose, and straightened. “You sure?” he asked.

Ford offered a faint smirk, brushing the question aside with a wave of his hand. “If I start glowing in the dark, you’ll be the first to know,” he quipped.

As he brushed his hands off on his jeans, Fidds muttered under his breath, “Guess we’ll see.”

Ford puffed out thin clouds of smoke, the cigarette balanced loosely between his teeth as his fingers flew across the keyboard, the sling no longer imposing on him. Every so often, he’d pause to take a slow drag, his lips closing around the filter as commands scrolled across the screen in sharp, unbroken streams of text.

At the edge of the lab, suspended in a newly reinforced containment chamber, the ore sat like a predator in a cage. Its surface shimmered faintly, distorting the space around it in a way that wasn’t visible so much as felt. Looking directly at it for too long made Ford’s head ache, like trying to focus on the edges of a mirage.

“Careful with that,” Fidds muttered from his workstation, glancing warily at the chamber. “We don’t know jack about how it’ll react to another energy field. Last thing we need is this thing frying every circuit in the building—or worse.”

“That’s what the fire extinguisher’s for,” Ford said passively, pointing to the corner where the ancient red canister leaned haphazardly against a shelf, its label peeling with age.

Fidds shot him a withering look before focusing on the task at hand. A series of electrodes extended toward the chamber, each calibrated to emit controlled bursts of electromagnetic energy. The idea was straightforward: expose the ore to a spectrum of frequencies and measure the response.

But theory had proven to be a cruel joke when it came to this stuff.

“Alright,” Ford said, his voice tight with concentration. “Start at half power and bring it up in increments of five percent. Let’s not tempt fate any more than we have to.”

“Copy that,” Fidds replied, his hands steady as they worked the console. A faint whine filled the lab as the electrodes powered up, their tips glowing faintly.

The first pulse hit the ore with a faint crackle, and the shimmer around it seemed to intensify, warping the air like heat rising off asphalt.

Ford leaned closer, his gloved hands hovering over a monitor as the readings spiked. “Voltage is holding steady… Energy output is—” He stopped, his brows knitting together. “That can’t be right.”

“What?” Fidds asked, his shoulders already tensing.

“It’s amplifying the input,” Ford said, his voice sharpening. “It’s not just absorbing the energy—it’s...” he paused, tapping the keyboard a few times before pointing at the screen. “Look, here’s the input. These feedbacks are scattered, which I expect, but…they’re clocking in higher.”

Fidds looked over that scattered data, the series of bursts between error reads. “That’s not possible. No material should be able to—”

“Forget ‘should,’” Ford cut in, his eyes glued to the data. “It is. Look at the waveform—Here, adjust the field strength,” Ford instructed. “Slowly. Let’s see if we can isolate the—”

Before he could finish, the machine gave a loud pop, and a brilliant flash of light filled the room, followed by a shower of sparks. Both men instinctively ducked, shielding their faces as the containment chamber began to burst and sputter.

“God dammit!” Ford shouted, his voice sharp over the noise.

Fidds went for the power switch, yanking it down with a grunt. The machinery groaned one last time before falling silent, save for the faint hiss of something burning.

“Well, that’s fried,” Fidds muttered, straightening as he slapped soot from his gloves, his movements slow, deliberate, annoyed.

“Did you see that?” Ford asked, “The readings—”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Fidds cut in, crossing his arms. “And it nearly blew us up in the process.” He nodded toward the monitor. “Not that it matters. Half of it didn’t even register, anyways—look at all those gaps in the data.”

Ford said nothing, his mind already elsewhere. Where Fidds saw static, Ford saw something else—patterns buried in the gaps, bright and fleeting, precise in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. Moments of symmetry, gleaming like constellations in the noise.

“What the hell is this stuff?” Fidds said under his breath.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Ford’s lips. “It’s potential.”

The next few days passed in a haze of exhaustion and frustration, each hour stretching endlessly into the next. The lab had become a battleground of singed gloves, crackling machinery, and muttered curses, punctuated by the occasional sharp bursts of something overloading or misfiring. Every so often, the room would erupt with a flurry of sparks or warning lights—an unrelenting process of trial and error.

The ore—relentless, inscrutable—resisted everything they threw at it. Electromagnetic fields, searing heat, cryogenic cooling, even the pressure of vacuum chambers: all in vain. Each test yielded the same maddening result—wild, erratic spikes in energy, with no logic, no reason, no change to the material itself. The lab had become more disordered by the hour—tools strewn carelessly over every available surface, wires snaking like vines across the floor, and the sharp scent of burnt circuitry saturating the air, hanging thick in the dim light.

“Alright,” Fidds muttered, his voice low, worn, as he leaned over the containment chamber. A wrench dangled loosely from his hand, a cigarette wedged stubbornly between his teeth. “This thing’s gonna drive me to drink…” He paused, tossing a charred fuse onto the growing pile of scorched components on the workbench. “If I see one more of these processors fry, I’m chuckin’ this whole damn thing out the window.”

“You’re the one who insisted on using surplus parts,” Ford shot back, though his tone lacked its usual sharpness. He was hunched over a notebook, muttering under his breath between every pause of his hand, scribbling calculations in the margins of an already crammed page.

Fidds passed a flat glance at Ford’s back, letting out a sigh about as thin as his patience. He tossed the wrench he’d been holding onto the workbench with a loud clang. “If we don’t come up with something soon, we’re just gonna keep blowin’ shit up.”

Ford tapped the end of his pen against the notebook, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the wall. “What if…” he began, trailing off. The pen stilled in his hand, and he suddenly stood, pacing toward the containment chamber. “What if we’ve been approaching this the wrong way?”

Fidds raised an eyebrow, folding his arms. “I’m listenin’.”

“Our current system is designed to measure isolated reactions—single variables, linear outcomes,” Ford said, his voice gaining intensity. “But this material doesn’t operate in isolated states. Its behavior is quantum. It’s interacting with fields beyond our immediate comprehension—dimensional tunneling, quantum entanglement, energy spikes across fractional states…” He gestured at the containment device, his hand slicing the air to emphasize his words. “We need a machine that can not only withstand those energy spikes but read them as they occur—something that can capture the quantum flux as the molecules snap back.”

Fidds tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “You’re saying we need a system that can…what? Measure quantum tunneling events? In real time?”

“Exactly,” Ford said, a spark of exhilaration in his voice. “We need to detect how the energy disperses each time the atoms oscillate between dimensions. I want to know what’s happening to the particles when they’re gone.”

Fidds blinked. “Gone? You mean while they’re in… another plane?”

Ford nodded. “The material is exhibiting behavior I can only compare to excitons in the Hall effect. Entire quasiparticles are forming—self-contained bundles of energy that defy conventional physics. These shouldn’t exist under any known conditions. And yet, they do. Why?”

Fidds pulled the cigarette from his lips, exhaling slowly as he considered this. “Hell of a question,” he muttered. “So, what? We build a machine to track the particles’ positions and energy states in multiple dimensions at once? You know that ain’t exactly in the Sears catalog, right?”

Ford smirked faintly, but his expression remained intense. “I can’t think of anyone better than you, Fidds. We need a dynamic system—a containment field that adapts to the material’s flux in real time. Something that can detect fractional charges, measure entanglement entropy, and map out the energy lattice as the particles shift between dimensions.” He paused, tapping the pen against his palm. “We’ll also need precision magnetic fields to stabilize the material’s quantum state during tunneling events. That should prevent another catastrophic collapse.”

Fidds grumbled, already pulling a sheet of metal from the pile. “Yeah, sure, no problem, Doc. Maybe I’ll slap on a bottle opener while I’m at it.”

By the second day, the lab was filled with the sound of Fidds welding and muttering to himself. Despite his grousing, Fidds’ progress was impressive. He’d managed to construct a rough prototype: a reinforced containment chamber outfitted with a lattice of sensors, each designed to detect and interpret energy signatures in real time. The outer casing was insulated with layered composite materials, designed to shield the internal components from the energy spikes that had fried their earlier equipment.

“This beauty right here?” Fidds said, patting the side of the chamber with a grin. “She’ll hold up better than anything we’ve used so far. Hell, she might even survive one of your crazy ideas.”

Ford circled the device, inspecting it with a critical eye. He ran his gloved fingers over the seams, tapping lightly at the hull as he scrutinized the welds and joints. “It’s crude,” he said finally, his tone as blunt as the assessment. “But it might work.”

Fidds smirked, leaning back against his workbench with his arms crossed. “Well, you gonna try it out, or are you just gonna stand there makin’ snide remarks all day?”

Ford adjusted his gloves. “Let’s begin.”

The first test was promising—no explosions, no fried circuits, just the steady hum of the containment field holding the ore in place. For the first time in days, the lab wasn’t filled with the stench of burnt wiring or the metallic echo of Ford’s angry outbursts. Instead, the new sensors came alive, their displays cascading with streams of data, flickering and shifting in chaotic rhythms as they attempted to map the ore’s incomprehensible properties.

“It’s holding,” Ford said, his voice tight with cautious optimism, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he didn’t quite trust himself to smile.

“Yeah, but look at this,” Fidds said, pointing to one of the monitors. “The readings are all over the place. It’s givin’ us, like, three different energy levels at the same time.”

“That would be the flux,” Ford muttered, his tone distracted as he squinted at the data. The monitors showed overlapping energy peaks, each one decaying and reforming in rapid succession. “The containment field is stabilizing it just enough for us to observe, but the data…” He shook his head, frustration creeping back into his voice. “There are gaps everywhere. The fluctuations are too fast, too erratic.”

Fidds chewed his lip as he watched the date feed onto the monitor. “You think we can control it?”

“Not yet,” Ford admitted, already scribbling equations in his notebook as he tried to reconcile the data. “But if we can isolate the dimensional frequencies it’s reacting to, we might be able to predict its oscillations—or at least map them more accurately.”

Fidds leaned back, tapping his fingers on the workbench. “That’s a helluva ‘might,’ Ford. What if we push it too far? You saw what happened to the last chamber.” He tilted his head toward the monitor, where jagged energy spikes leapt and collapsed. “You sure this is safe?”

There was a flicker of something in Ford’s eyes—ambition, arrogance, maybe both.

“Absolutely not.”

By mid-afternoon on the third day, they were ready for another, more ambitious test. Ford recalibrated the containment field to increase its sensitivity to the dimensional flux, hoping to isolate and amplify the ore’s energy signatures. Fidds adjusted the power output, the hum of the chamber rising steadily

“Careful,” Fidds muttered, eyes glued to the gauges. “This thing’s already runnin’ hotter than it oughta. Push it too far, and we’ll be pickin’ pieces of this place outta our teeth.”

Ford’s focus was steady on the ore, watching the faint shimmer of distortion around it. Even now, it seemed to defy comprehension—its surface smooth and unremarkable, yet impossible to look at for too long without feeling like the world was shifting underfoot.

“Ready?” Ford asked, his hand hovering over the control panel.

“As I’ll ever be,” Fidds replied, retreating a step but keeping his gaze fixed on the readouts.

The first pulse hit the ore, and for a moment, everything seemed to hold its breath. Then came the reaction—a burst of energy that rippled through the chamber, setting off a cascade of sensor readings.

The containment field flickered, the hum rising in pitch. Fidds stepped back instinctively, his hand hovering near the emergency shutoff. “Ford, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Hold steady,” Ford said, his focus unshaken. He adjusted the field parameters, the flickering stabilizing into a steady glow.

The data on the monitors shifted again, revealing a new layer of complexity. Fidds squinted at the screen. “What the hell is that?”

The display showed a series of peaks and valleys forming a repeating pattern—a signature unlike anything they had encountered before. It wasn’t just energy. It was structured.

“This isn’t random noise,” Ford said, his voice trembling with a mix of awe and disbelief. “These are energy states I’ve never seen before. It’s almost like…” He trailed off, his eyes darting across the data, his lips moving as if in silent conversation.

Fidds stared at him, his own unease mounting. “What? Almost like what?”

Ford’s eyebrows furrowed, his muttering growing more pronounced. “That’s unlikely,” he whispered, flipping through his notebook, scribbling furiously as equations spilled from his pen. He paused, his gaze snapping back to the monitor. His face lit up—sharp, hungry. “It’s worth a shot…”

Fidds straightened, watching him with growing concern. “Who the hell are you talking to?”

Ford froze for a beat, then turned, his expression unreadable. “No one,” he said flatly. Before Fidds could press further, Ford twisted one of the dials sharply.

The distortion around the ore intensified without warning, rippling outward like heat waves on asphalt. The monitors flashed urgent warnings, their alarms cutting through the hum of the containment chamber. Energy levels spiked erratically, the readings spiraling beyond their predicted thresholds.

“Field strength’s climbin’ too fast,” Fidds said. “You need to shut it down.”

“Not yet.” Ford said, his eyes locked on the data streaming across the screens. “Just a little longer—”

The machinery groaned under the unbearable strain, a guttural, almost alive sound that reverberated through the lab. The air felt charged, sharp and electric, the scent of ozone thick enough to sting the back of the throat.

“Ford—” Fidds began, but it was too late.

The shielding around the ore collapsed with a crack so sharp it felt like the room itself had split open. The distortion imploded violently, drawing in the surrounding energy before releasing it in a blinding, concussive shockwave.

The force hit like a hammer. Fidds was thrown backward, his body skidding across the floor until his back collided with the leg of a table, the impact rattling his ribs and knocked the air from his lungs. Around him, the lab dissolved into chaos—papers whipping into the air, tools clattering to the ground, shards of glass raining down like splinters.

For a moment, there was nothing but the roar of static in his ears and the burn of his lungs as he fought to breathe.

“Goddammit, Ford!” Fidds rasped, coughing through the haze. He dragged himself upright, gripping the edge of the table to steady himself as the floor continued to shake beneath him.

Ford ignored him. His hands were locked onto the dials of the control panel, knuckles white as he braced himself against the chaos. The floor rumbled beneath his feet, a deep, bone-jarring vibration that seemed to emanate from the ore itself.

“Ford!” Fidds shouted again, his voice straining over the roar. He stumbled forward, each step a battle against the invisible pressure pushing him back, raising his arm to shield his face from the shards of metal and glass spinning through the air. “Turn it off, you fuckin’ lunatic!”

But Ford didn’t flinch. His jaw was locked, his face a mask of defiance as energy crackled around him. His lab coat whipped violently in the current, his hair plastered to his forehead, sweat dripping into the creases of his furrowed brow. The monitors behind him blinked wildly, spitting raw streams of data—waves of peaks, valleys, and jagged spikes surging across their screens in erratic patterns.

Fidds stumbled but managed to keep himself upright, his entire body braced against the crushing force that filled the room. The containment chamber screamed under the strain, its casing warping with a sickening glow that pulsed through the cracks in the hull. Yet none of it—the noise, the danger, the raw, crackling power threatening to tear everything apart—was as terrifying as Ford.

Ford’s face was a rictus of exhilaration, his eyes wide, pupils blown, reflecting the chaotic streams of data like a mirror. His lips moved, forming half-spoken words, fragments of equations, or perhaps nothing at all. And then, impossibly, Ford’s expression shifted. His lips curled into a grin, faint at first, then splitting wider, and a sound escaped him—he was laughing.

It started soft, almost inaudible beneath the shriek of machinery. But it grew louder, sharper, cutting through the sound of shrieking metal and stone with a kind of exhilaration that set Fidds’ teeth on edge.

“Ford—what the hell are you doing?” Fidds shouted, his voice breaking under the strain.

But Ford didn’t hear him. Or if he did, he didn’t care. His hand moved again, fingers tightening around the dial, turning it up. The chamber rattled violently, its whine rising to a deafening pitch, the distortion around the ore surging, folding in on itself, the glow emitting between the cracks becoming blinding.

Fidds faltered, thrown by the sight before him. “Ford, for the love of God, turn it off!”

For a moment, Ford froze, as if caught between two worlds. His gaze flicked to the chamber, then to the monitors, and then—finally—to Fidds. His hand hovered over the master switch, trembling, his face caught in an expression Fidds couldn’t place: awe, defiance, madness.

And then, with a sudden, violent motion, he slammed the switch down.

The power to the containment chamber cut with a resounding click, the noise dropping out of the room so fast it left Fidds’ ears ringing. The chamber’s glow extinguished, the trembling subsided, and the lab was plunged into the dim, erratic flicker of emergency lights.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Fidds stared at Ford, his chest heaving, his face a mixture of disbelief and anger. He hauled himself upright, dusting shards of glass from his clothes. “You gonna tell me what the fuck your problem is, or do I need to guess?”

Ford was already halfway across the room, yanking the freshly printed data from the sputtering machine. His hands shook as he smoothed the crumpled edges, his breathless words tumbling out too quickly.

“Look at this,” Ford said, shoving the papers toward Fidds without waiting for a reply. “I knew they weren’t random! The peaks, the oscillations—“

For a second, Fidds didn’t move, his gaze locked on Ford—His skin marked with streaks of soot and heat, sweat dripping down his temple, his hair a mess of puffy static and charred ends—he looked utterly unhinged.

Finally, Fidds reached out, snatching the papers from Ford’s trembling hand. He flicked his gaze down, the words and numbers blurring together in his still-dizzy vision.

And there it was—the pattern Ford had seen, sharper now, undeniable. The numbers didn’t lie, but Fidds couldn’t focus on them. Not now. His eyes kept drifting back to Ford, who was pacing in tight, agitated circles, his hands clasped behind his back, his lips moving without sound.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Ford’s voice sliced through Fidds’ distracted thoughts, shaking him out of his trance.

Fidds’ gaze sharpened, his tongue flicking over his curled lip, a habitual gesture when his patience began to wear. “Why don’tcha explain to me,” he said, letting the stack of papers fall onto the table behind him with a soft slap.

“This means energy,” Ford said, “Not just energy—limitless energy. Renewable. Infinite. A power source beyond anything we’ve ever imagined. This material, Fidds—this ore—it’s bridging dimensions. It’s tapping into forces we’ve never even seen before.”

Fidds frowned, his brow furrowing as he tried to catch up. “I’m not followin’.”

Ford stopped his pacing and glanced over the workbench before he grabbed a scrap of paper from the cluttered surface, folding it sharply into a rectangle, holding it up between them. His tone shifted, taking on an intensity that seemed to sharpen the air around him. “Planes. Layers of reality,” he said, shaking the paper lightly for emphasis.

He picked up a pen, tapping it deliberately back and forth between the folded sides. “Imagine this is our universe,” Ford explained, tapping the pen against one side of the paper. “Now, imagine there are other planes—other universes—stacked on top of ours, separated by fractions of a dimension. Spacetime.” He tapped the pen against each fold again, his movements precise and deliberate. “This ore doesn’t just sit in one plane. It oscillates between them. Every time it shifts, it disturbs that spacetime fabric. Those disturbances release energy—massive bursts of it.”

Fidds squinted at the crude demonstration, his expression shifting to cautious understanding. “That why we can’t seem to run these tests for more than a few minutes at a time? It’s jumpin’ between these… planes, and each jump blows the whole system out?”

Ford’s eyes gleamed. “Exactly! The energy bursts aren’t random—they’re signatures of the transitions. If we can map those transitions and harness the energy generated at each oscillation, we won’t just unlock a power source—we’ll rewrite physics as we know it. Entire new models.”

Fidds stared at the paper in Ford’s hands, then at the ore glowing faintly in the containment chamber, then back at Ford. His voice was low, almost awestruck. “You’re sayin’ it’s like…some kind of interdimensional engine?”

Ford hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “It could be. The oscillations are the key—they’re creating the bursts, but we still don’t know the full mechanism. Not yet.”

“That’s a hell of a lot bigger than what we started with,” he muttered. “You really think we can control somethin’ like that?” Fidds said

Ford nodded sharply. “We knew about the flux. Now we know what that flux is capable of producing.” He paused, folding the paper again. “Next…” He pressed his thumb into the center of the paper until it buckled, then jabbed the pen through it, leaving a jagged hole. “I want to see exactly where it’s going.”

Fidds blinked, his brow furrowed as he tried to parse the words. “Wait a second,” he said, raising a hand as though trying to physically halt the conversation. “This is all based on the assumption that beyond the fabric of spacetime, there are these dimensions, like ours?”

Ford’s response was immediate, a simple, unshakable “Yes.”

Fidds pressed on, his voice laced with skepticism. “How do you know for certain that these dimensions even exist?” His mind was still spinning from Ford’s previous revelations. “I know your math the other day was solid—those proofs, they held up, but—”

“Because I know,” Ford cut him off, voice calm but heavy with conviction.

For a long, tense moment, Fidds was silent, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as he stared at Ford, trying to read him. “Alright, since you know,” he said, his tone now tinged with a thin thread of mockery. “Then that would mean these bursts are… disruptions. Gravitational waves pulsing through the fabric of spacetime?”

“Correct.”

Fidds frowned, rubbing his lips thoughtfully. “Well… gravitational waves are still a theory, Ford. We’ve never actually detected them directly. They’re just—”

Ford cut him off, reaching out and gently tapping the pages of data that lay on the table, his fingers brushing over the numbers like a quiet drumbeat. No words were needed. The data, the patterns—they spoke for themselves.

Fidds grabbed the papers, scanning them once, then twice with urgency, the weight of the implications pressing down on him. The numbers, the oscillations—it all clicked into place. “Did…did we accidentally prove relativity?”

Ford didn’t hesitate, his voice low and sure. “I believe we did.”

Fidds sank into his seat, flipping through the pages, his mouth hanging open in a stunned silence. The paper felt heavier in his hands as the implications of Ford’s words began to settle like a stone in his gut. Ford, however, didn’t slow. He turned abruptly, his voice already rising with the same intensity that had built in the lab.

“Tomorrow, we will redesign the entire system. From scratch. A new containment chamber—one that integrates the ore as an energy source.” Ford gestured vaguely at the scattered equipment, his hands quick, almost frantic, as if he couldn’t keep up with his thoughts. “We can stabilize it, keep it from overloading. And then…” He trailed off, his hand rubbing his chest absently, the gesture as disjointed as his thoughts. “Then we’ll see exactly where this flux is happening. We’ll map it out… Follow it to the source.”

He gathered his notes, his movements brisk, almost impatient. Then, turning, Ford raked a hand through his messy hair. His eyes had the kind of wild gleam that Fidds had come to dread. “And once that’s done…” Ford trailed off, his gaze sharpening, narrowing on something distant and unreachable. His mouth curved into a grin, followed by a short, almost breathless laugh. “Who knows?”

Fidds exhaled slowly, the sound sharp in the tense air. “Who knows,” he echoed flatly.

“Think about it, Fidds,” Ford said in reverence. “This material—it’s not just powerful. It’s limitless. We could power the entire lab. Hell, we could power an entire city.”

Fidds watched him in silence, his jaw tightening. There was something unsettling in the way Ford spoke, how his excitement seemed to rise and rise, no ceiling in sight.

Ford clapped his hands together, the sound breaking the tension in a way that made Fidds flinch, his nerves shot from the chaos of the night. “Oh, we’re gonna have this place lit up like the Fourth of July,” Ford said, his tone almost giddy now. He turned on his heel, heading toward the stairs with a spring in his step, his mind already racing ahead to tomorrow.

But Fidds didn’t follow. He stayed where he was, staring at the ore, his stomach twisting. He thought about the sharp crack of the containment field failing. The way the room had groaned, like the world itself was straining under the weight of what they were trying to do. His gaze dropped to the floor, tracing the scorch marks that stretched like dark veins from the chamber to the wall

“Ford,” he called, his voice low, uncertain.

Ford paused halfway up the stairs, turning to look back at him with an expectant expression.

Fidds opened his mouth, the words forming on his tongue. But the weight of them caught in his throat, heavy and unwieldy. What good would they do, anyway? Ford never listened—not when he got like this.

“Nothing,” Fidds said finally, shaking his head. “Get some rest.”

Ford gave him a small, triumphant smile. “You too, Fid. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

Fidds watched him disappear up the steps, the sound of his boots fading into the floor above. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall with a steady breath.

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