Bad news traveled quickly. Not long after the discovery of an accidental death at the Voltaire Transportal, everyone at the National Laboratory talked about it. The fact that teleporting a person caused death surprised none of the scientists and researchers. That hazard was well known. What was surprising was that such an accident happened at all.

Most of the staff, including Kylian and Moyenne, gathered around computer screens to watch news reports from the official UEN news broadcast. The basic facts of the accident had already been reported and now, journalists of the UEN interviewed police for their opinions.

A reporter on the screen asked a question to an officer. “So, Detective, was this really an accident or do you suspect foul play?”

“We cannot rule out foul play at this point in the investigation,” answered the Detective. He sounded professional and emotionally detached.

“What about speculation that the victim was trying to escape to the UEN?” pressed the reporter.

The Detective did not like this line of questioning. “That’s also a possibility that we’re looking into. It is true that the shipment came from a CoC country that’s been struggling with poverty, but we’re not going to speculate until we have all the facts.”

Solene’s words rushed back to Kylian.

They could lift themselves out of poverty faster if they had access to some of these advanced and powerful technologies. The countries of the CoC resent us because they believe the UEN is purposely holding them back and keeping them poor and weak, preventing them from attaining the better future they deserve.

Moyenne sighed after hearing the report. She knew the answer and said out loud what everyone else thought but maybe were too afraid to say. “If we were able to achieve 100% teleportation accuracy, something terrible like this wouldn’t have happened. We need to get there somehow.”

Dr. Leandre Renard, inventor of the teleportation technology, staggered out of his office just in time to hear Moyenne’s resolution to achieve 100% teleportation accuracy. However, instead of supporting Moyenne’s hope and ambition, he groaned with distress.

“Why did it have to happen?” Dr. Renard sounded upset. “It’s my fault for inventing this dangerous technology! We were better off without it!”

Moyenne dared to disagree. “No, Dr. Renard, that’s simply not true! Your invention of the Transportal has benefited the people of our country in so many ways. It’s helped the lives of so many others, you can’t wish for it all to go away now. We’re all trying hard to reach 100% teleportation accuracy and when we do, accidents like this won’t happen again in the future.”

Instead of soothing Dr. Renard, Moyenne’s reassurance just made him angrier. He barked back at Moyenne.

“We’ll never reach 100% accuracy! It’ll never be 100% accurate!”

Dr. Renard shook all over as some kind of internal rage gripped him. He grabbed the sides of his head as if he suffered from the worst possible migraine ever.

“Arrrrrrgggghhhh!”

Acting as if his head would explode, he staggered back to his office.

Kylian could see that Dr. Renard wrestled with his inner demons, but what demons lived inside geniuses?

“Dr. Renard? Are you going to be OK?” Kylian asked.

Dr. Renard ignored Kylian’s concern. Instead, he collapsed into his chair in his office and leaned his head on his hand which propped his head up. He reached out to the old-fashioned, framed photograph on his desk of his two young daughters, the identical twins Anaelle and Marielle when they were no more than three years old.

Unseen until this moment was another person in the background of the photo behind the twins. It was a young woman in a modest yellow dress trying to get the two little girls to pose nicely for the camera. One of the girls was behaving and trying to stand still, but the other little girl still wanted to play to the frustration of the woman behind them. It was obvious that the young woman in the background was Anaelle and Marielle’s mother.

Dr. Renard lost himself in his memories of the day of the picture. It was a day long ago when life was simpler and happier. His eyes looked longingly at that old photo of his daughters and their mother for some time. At last, he spoke to his wife, mother of their children, as if she might be able to hear him.

“Elise. Why did you have to leave me?”