Tube Cult 1

I was thrilled at the prospect of finally getting off the road and away from the scrutiny of HD cameras and studio lights. I was exhausted from answering the same inane questions at every stop. Univision questioned the impact of our invention on immigration. Fox News accused us of being godless scientists out to prove some crackpot theory, consequences be damned. CNN dropped our recorded segment and instead ran a trending cat video.

How fucking humiliating.

Finally, after nearly a year of touring, Miranda emailed me saying that she needed me back at the lab at MIT urgently. That kind of message was typical of Miranda, so I wasn't worried. To the contrary, I rushed back home as fast as possible to get back to our now famous research developing what we refer to internally as "stasis chambers." It was Miranda's enthusiasm which inspired us, honestly. She believed that if we had stasis technology ready now, then that could enable space travel to distant galaxies today.

Sadly, all stasis chamber prototypes thus far have only enabled up to several weeks of stasis. Even state of the art technology of year of our lord 2012 could only get one stranded in 6 weeks, not to another galaxy. Six weeks plus 60 years of your life wouldn't even get you to the nearest star. Nevertheless, we believed our research would be vital one day, and it looked like the American public agreed.

Before I was volunteered for the position of Chief PR Liason, we were designing our first human trials to be conducted on student volunteers. Miranda had already compiled a roster and contacted the test subjects as I flew off to my first stop in New York. No information on those trials had been released yet, even to me.

The Monday after arriving home, I showed up to the office with my laptop bag and my coffee excited to hear the scoop from Miranda. I couldn't find her. The lights in her office were off. Her desk looked like he hadn't used it in weeks.

I swiped my card to enter the lab and turned on the lights inside. Everything was quiet. Papers were stacked neatly on the matte black counter tops. The 3x3 bank of computer monitors that display sensor readings for our latest stasis chamber prototype were black.

"Slackers." I flipped the switch to turn on the monitors and grabbed the latest status report from the top of the stack and began reading, proud to be the first one doing anything useful that day.

I sipped my coffee over the report. "Subject 14 reported the same continuous dream scenario. In stasis for 6 hours but has recollection of one continuous dream that seemed to last for months in which Subject 14 was involved in drug trafficking for a troupe of mimes from Bolivia."

One dream that seemed to last for months? Wild stuff.

The report continued, "Assuming that human subjects can endure the entire 6 week safe period of stasis, the subject could live through years of dream experiences. Tomorrow is the big day."

Unprofessional shit, leaving personal memos in your status report. I glanced up at the monitors and back at the report. My brain was still slowly processing what was on the screens as my grip loosened on the coffee and the scalding black liquid ran down my legs.

Somebody was in the stasis chamber at that very moment, and their life signs were faint.