Ethan heard the rumble of his link on his wooden dressing table. Groaning as he forced his eyes open, he slid out of bed and walked over to his link. Through his misty eyes he was barely able to make out Troy’s name. He picked up and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Ethan. Sorry to trouble you. I mea—”

“What the fuck, man. It’s like four in the morning,” mumbled Ethan.

“Four? What clock are you looking at? It’s nine.”

Ethan looked over at his clock. He rubbed his eyes until the blurriness faded. “Oh yeah, my bad. I probably overslept. What’s up? How’s she doing?”

“Not good. She’s in a coma.”

Ethan rubbed his forehead and paced up and down his bedroom. “Do they know when she’ll wake up?”

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line. “No.”

The scientist sighed. “So, you’re going to have to pay for her as long as she’s there? Can your medical aid handle that?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll make a plan,” Troy replied without an ounce of confidence. Ethan could tell he didn’t believe his own statement.

“Well, if you need some help, just shout. I’ll pop by the hospital during visiting hours tonight.”

“Yeah… about that,” Troy said hesitantly. “I wanted to ask one more favor of you. I’m going out of town to tell my parents about her, so I need someone to handle anything that comes up. Can I put you as an emergency contact?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. I’ll send you, my details. How long are you going to be gone for?”

“A while. They live pretty far,” Troy replied.

But you can just teleport there, right? Ethan thought. Perhaps they lived some place remote that Troy had to drive to. A while was terribly generic. That could be days, weeks or even months. Regardless of the period, Ethan had nothing better to do with his free time. He wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

“A while is alright,” Ethan shrugged. He didn’t want to press the matter too much. After all, Troy didn’t have to share everything with him.

“Thanks, mate. Sorry for dumping this all on you, but I don’t have anybody else.”

The call cut. He doesn’t have anyone else? Ethan thought Troy would never have a problem finding friends. After all, they became friends in just a few months, and he’s shared more information with Troy than he had with Sarah.

Oh shit! Sarah…

Ethan had forgotten today was the day she returned from her operation. If it was nine o’clock now, he only had an hour and a half to get to the station. He tossed the sleep that lingered over him away and rushed into the shower.

***

Locking his front door, he briskly walked down the road as fast as he could. The streets were filled with people walking to the station for work. As he slipped through the crowd, apologising to those he pushed passed along the way, he glanced at his wristwatch. Twenty minutes left. He poked his head above the crowd and looked how far the mass of people went. He finally made it through and entered the swinging doors of the station.

The scientist opened his link and looked for the terminal Sarah would arrive through. 4478…4478…Come on… Ethan found a group of people surrounding a row of terminals. One of them read ‘4478’. People materialized in one terminal and proceeded to another terminal adjacent to it to collect their luggage. There was a continuous humming noise emanating from the terminals as hundreds of people teleported through them.

Within a few minutes, a maintenance officer arrived at the arrivals row and closed the terminals down for half an hour. The machine’s needed to cool down due to the influx of travelers. Ethan wasn’t aware of why the station was so busy today. It was just another Monday for him. What was so special about this Monday?

Spotting a pair of empty steel chairs, Ethan rushed over to them before they could be taken by someone else and sat down. After a run to the station and a jog to the terminal, he certainly needed to catch his breath. Sarah had told him that she would be staying a few days with her parents since she was in the area.

While Troy used to walk with Ethan from the restaurant until the station, he missed her company between the station and his house. Ethan had walked alone for the past week which gave him ample time for his thoughts to run wild. Something he was hoping would never happen. Thoughts of Max and the DNA-DEC, of Mr. Singh and his advice, and of Troy and his sister. He knew he’d have to think about it some day soon. Perhaps Sarah leaving gave him the time he needed to decide. But he needed her opinion on it first.

The scientist contemplated whether to tell Sarah or not. Perhaps if she never knew, the thought of him dying would never cross her mind. Not until he actually died. At least, he’d still see her smile every day.

His brows furrowed as he stared intently at the floor in thought. Every moment that passed was another moment wasted, he thought. He needed to talk to Sarah about his invention, his meeting with Max and the incident with Troy. Everything except his illness. It’s hardly something he’d want to tell her the moment she returned.

The shuffling of shoes on the tiled floor snapped Ethan out of his trance. The terminals had re-opened and people once again gathered, waiting to see the arrival of their loved ones.

He turned his attention to the person exiting the teleporter. It could have been Sarah but there were too many people in his to get a full view. They slid their feet lazily on the tiled floor. Ethan caught a glimpse of some brown hair and his ears caught a familiar whistle.

Yep…That’s her, alright…

The scientist walked around the back of the crowd. For a minute and a half, Sarah looked for Ethan in every place except where he was standing. The doctor looked like a lost soul who was oblivious to the giant waving her down frantically.

Well, I would expect nothing less from a person who gets lost in the hospital parking lot, Ethan thought.

Eventually, Sarah waved back acknowledging him. As she shuffled over to Ethan with her her baggage following her in a floating basket. She greeted him with a hug and a smile he had missed for the past week.

After sharing a tender moment, Ethan’s frowned. “A few days my ass. You were gone for a whole bloody week!”

“Aw! Did you miss me?” she teased.

Ethan scoffed, “What? No… Of course not…”

“Sure thing, buddy…” she replied patting Ethan on the back. “Come on.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming,” Ethan said as he caught up to her.

They exited the station but not before grabbing some fruit from the stall at the entrance. Sarah took an enormous bite into her apple. Within minutes the fruit vanished, only the core remaining.

“Did you have breakfast?” asked Ethan as he watched his friend gobble through another apple.

“Yeah. Tea.”

“That is not breakfast. Which means I am making you some when we get home.”

“You don’t need to do th—”

“I wasn’t offering,” insisted Ethan. If he could make her breakfast, he’d also have an opportunity to talk to her about what had happened in the last week. She’d been out of the country which meant she probably knew about the bombing but didn’t know about the president’s message.

“Okay, okay,” she surrendered.

Sarah unlocked her front door and invited Ethan in. It seemed she had tidied up the apartment before leaving. At least the laundry basket isn’t sitting in the living room. Ethan got to work as he switched on the stove and placed a pan on one of the hot plates.

“So… How did the op go?” he asked.

Sarah looked over her shoulder. “Well, we managed to save his kidneys and cleaned out his liver. Overall, it was a success.” She continued unpacking her bag until there was nothing in it.

“Did you go to oversee an operation or go on a shopping spree?” asked Ethan, surprised by the amount of items Sarah had packed in there. It was a miracle that it all fit.

“These are for you. Courtesy of my mom,” she said waving a wrapped box in the air.

Ethan set the stove on a timer and joined Sarah in the living room. He sat cross-legged on the floor and unwrapped the box. He smiled when he saw hauled the jar out of the boxing.

“German coffee. One of the rarer kinds,” he remarked as he examined the container. “Tell your mom I said thanks. This will make a fine addition to my collection.”

“She was kind of mad I didn’t bring you with me. I told her I would’ve if you didn’t have a doctor’s appointment,” she said as if prodding Ethan to tell her about it without asking him directly.

“It went alright,” Ethan said in the most casual tone he could fake. “Xavier said I just developed some chronic disease. Nothing a few antibiotics can get rid off.”

“Well, that’s great!” she said without hesitation. “See? I told you it was nothing.”

“Yeah… Nothing,” Ethan trailed off.

The pan began to steam and Ethan rushed over to pull it off the stove. The aroma of perfectly cooked sausages filled the room as he pricked the meat off the pan and placed it on a white ceramic plate.

He gestured with his hand for Sarah to sit. As they both ate, Ethan explained the what had transpired over the past week. As he narrated, it seemed crazy to think that all of it happened in such a short period of time.

“And Max didn’t offer you a chance to complete the design fully?” she asked.

“I don’t care if he did. Secronium is dangerous. I could kill myself using it if I am not careful. But that leaves me with a problem.”

“You don’t know what to do next,” she completed his thought for him.

Ethan nodded. “I asked Mr. Singh and well…He helped…sort of…”

“And now you want my take on it?”

“Yep.”

Sarah sighed. When she did that, Ethan knew it was lecture time. He braced himself for the worst.

“I have spent more time with you in these two months than I have in the past ten years. Why? Because you were too busy in the lab. This project consumed your entire life. It cut you off from society to the point where the only friend that hadn’t left you was me.”

Ethan felt that sentence hit him in the gut. Ethan’s friends drifted away from him but Sarah remained and all he did was keep her at a distance.

“Now, you’ve got Troy, the folks at the docks, the restaurant and me. You’re finally reconnecting. I’m not saying stop being a scientist. You are a scientist. That’s who you are. And if you can find a way to balance it, I’m all for it. But if you can’t, then you have to let it go.”

“How do I know I’m not giving up on the one thing that I’m supposed to be doing?”

Sarah put down her utensils and leaned forward. “When I first went into medicine, all I wanted to do was help people. I wanted to create a medical sector where ‘avoidable death’ was not a thing. Where every patient that could be saved, should be saved and not fall victim of a broken, disorganized and corrupt system. I thought I could do that as a single doctor in a sea of medical professionals. But I just couldn’t.

“I’m stuck at that point now. But I’m not giving up on that goal. I just need to find a different way to achieve it without compromising who I am. If you can’t let go, then try and do it in a different way.”

Something clicked in Ethan’s mind that never had before. He loved science because it was a path to avenge his mother. He invented something to avenge his mother. Every step of his life has been towards that one goal. So surely, anything he does, regardless of the field should give him the same contentment and purpose.

He didn’t think he could let this go. So he had to find a way to achieve his goal. On his terms. “I’ll give it some time. Maybe a few more months to think about it. Then I’ll decide.”

Sarah nodded. “Now eat up. Your foods getting cold.”

Three months later

Sparks scattered across the room. A crackling noise echoed from wall to wall in the small chamber Ethan was working in. A garage he once used to store old and broken lab equipment had been refurbished into a miniature workshop. With the past three months being mundane and lifeless, Ethan was determined to rekindle his spark. He was going to find a way to modify the DNA-DEC’s design to operate without Secronium. He knew it would be near impossible to replicate the results Secronium would give him but it was worth a try.

The machines that surrounded him were nowhere near industrial in quantity and in quality. He had a standard welder and an angle grinder on a steel table in the corner. The massive extractor fan remained in his garage if he needed it. He was able to acquire an electron microscope through ‘convincing’ Max. That was the key instrument.

Even with all he had, he fell short of the theoretical results he could get from even the smallest dose of Secronium. The bell rang at the door. Looking on the CCTV camera’s above him, he recognized Troy and Sarah.

“Come in,” he shouted as the door rose.

The two ducked underneath the garage door and walked over to Ethan. Standing a safe distance away from the welding station Ethan was at, they surveyed his garage.

“You make any progress?” Sarah asked.

“What?!” yelled Ethan over the deafening crackle of the welder.

“DID YOU MAKE ANY PROGRESS!!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Ethan stopped welding and lifted his mask from his face. He could feel the sweat accumulate on his forehead. It was nearly dripping down his cheek. His hands were black and his fingers ached from gripping the tool so tightly.

“No,” he responded plainly. “This one will, in theory, take about three days to cure a patient of a virus.”

“That’s good, right?” asked Troy hoping to lift his friend’s spirits.

“Bioweapons kill in hours,” Sarah said.

“All I’ve done is create a universal antibiotic that only works after the patient is dead. Secronium would have—”

“Accelerated the process. Trying to cure someone without a Secronium powered device is like trying to kill Superman with a rubber bullet.”

Ethan and Sarah both glanced at Troy, perplexed. “How’d you know that?” he asked.

Troy drifted his eyes away from the two of them and shrugged. “I don’t know. You probably told me about it sometime.”

Ethan shrugged it off. Maybe he underestimated Troy’s abilities. Or maybe he just forgot he told him that. It didn’t matter. Right now, he wanted to get this device done and get it tested…somehow. Three months had passed and nothing had come his way. He had tried to get funding from different organizations but one look at the blemish on his record was enough for them to turn him down. He had one last laboratory he could possibly try his luck at. If that failed, he’d have to drop the project permanently. There would be nothing else he could do.

“You ready for the meeting with C&G labs?” Sarah asked.

“No,” replied Ethan. “It’s probably not going to go well.”

“Well, just give it your best shot. Who knows?”

Ethan shrugged. “Guess so.” He packed up his tools and folded the trestle table in half. Dusting his lab coat and wiping the sweat off his brow, Ethan walked into the house to get ready to pitch his idea for one final time.

***

Dressed in a black suit with a maroon tie, Ethan looked up at the C&G tower. It shot up into the sky as the clouds sat on its roof like a table cloth. He couldn’t imagine a laboratory better than this. Ten stories of Labs, and the rest offices. It was one of the Big Three of science academia. An inkling of Ethan’s soul told him that there was a chance for him to get in. An inkling he held onto with all his strength. It was the only thing he had left.

The scientist entered the building, the glass door closing gently behind him. He walked up to a board with a map of the facility telling him what was on each floor.

Consult room 125, third floor, left wing, he deduced from the map. He took a quick jog to catch the elevator in time and slipped the closing doors just in time. He adjusted his tie and tapped his feet, impatiently waiting for the lift to open.

Once open, he peaked his head down several hallways looking for the consulting room. He eventually asked a janitor on that floor to direct him and soon found it. The scientist checked the time. He was ten minutes early, so Ethan took a seat outside the room, waiting for his interviewer to arrive. Sooner than expected, a lady dressed in a suit arrived and invited him in. She introduced herself and the both sat on opposite sides of the table. She put on her spectacles and flicked quickly through her notes.

“Well, Mr. Rider,” she began. “Let’s start with the recent research you’ve conducted.”

Ethan nearly chuckled. It was over before it even began.

***

“So… How’d it go?” asked Sarah on the other end of the call.

Ethan rubbed his forehead and pinched his nose. “That was the worst ten minutes of my life.”

“Oh… What did they ask?”

“Well she opened with the ‘past research’ card and it was all downhill from there. She really highlighted how stupid I was to use Secronium and well, defending my use of it wouldn’t have helped my case either.”

“So you just took all the flak?”

Ethan sighed as he exited the doors of C&G. “It was more than flak. It was a nuke.”

“Damn… I’m so sorry, Ethan,” she replied. “There’s always more labs out th—”

“You don’t have to cheer me up, you know,” Ethan muttered. “I’m done with all this now. I’ve applied to pretty much every mainstream lab out there that can get me what I need. None of them are willing to take a hit to their reputation by hiring a criminal. I get it. I wasn’t expecting anything different.”

Sarah fell silent for a moment. Ethan let his statement echo through the gap between them.

Trying to break the silence, Ethan decided to end the call. “But thanks for trying. I have to go. I’ll see you this evening hopefully, okay?”

“Okay.”

The call cut. Ethan looked back at the elegant building sparkling against the sunlight. He pulled the schematics out of his bag. A white ream of paper rolled into a cylinder and bound by an elastic band. He unraveled it and looked at his own invention. With one swift and painful stroke, he tore the paper in two, into four, into eight. He tore it until he couldn’t tear it any longer and tossed it in the nearest bin.

I should’ve torn that up five months ago.

He walked into the station and slot his card into the teleporter.

Teleporting in 3…2…1… Please remain calm and keep your arms inside the terminal!

The machine began to beep rapidly, and the display screen flashed red. Before Ethan could check the message, he vanished from sight as the terminal activated. I hope to God it’s not an error message, prayed Ethan. Not even a moment after his thought, he was deposited 6 feet off the ground and fell clumsily on what was the last thing he thought he’d fall on; snow.

Snow? In South Africa?