Twisted Time

22 - Cashew effect

For the first time, Dan remains conscious during the whole transfer. The brightly lit conference room around her loses substance, the sharp outlines of the room become distorted and fade into the gloomy parking lot. She materialises beside her car, in the same spot she stood when the last time shift got hold of her. While her eyes adjust to the dimness, her ears still ring with the siren's shrill, stuttering sound. It fades together with her nausea in the loneliness of the rest area. The dog has gone.

"Buddy? Are you here?" There is no answer. Disappointed, Dan reaches for the car's door. She needs to get Ric's box before wasting time on the search for a stray dog. Strange how fond of the animal I got, considered the short time we spent together.

With a deep sigh, she slumps into the driver's seat. It's not much warmer in the cabin, but at least the car protects her from the wind. To pick up the bag of cough drops takes only seconds. Dan wedges it into her pocket, the precious grey box, the Metec, still inside.

Now, the shift can occur, the earlier, the better. Dan is convinced the alarm means someone discovered Steff and Ken. Following Murphy's law, she transferred away in the same instant. What if Ric doesn't wait for me where I left him? What if he gets caught or moves to find a better hiding place? If only I knew how to influence the time frame of these shifts.

Her primary task fulfilled, she leans back and stifles a yawn, condemned to wait for the next transfer. A short nap would be nice, but her bloodstream carries enough adrenaline to push the growing tiredness away. Restless, she turns the ignition key to check the clock. For the third time tonight, she calculates to be sure what time it is. If this isn't the moment to adjust the damned thing, it will never come.

With no other urgent event or obligation distracting her, she tries to remember the key combination for the setup mode. Too lazy to check the manual, she presses random combinations until the display blinks. With a few swift moves, she resets the time from 01:07 to 02:07. Her brief sense of achievement is soon replaced by a longing for her cosy bed at home. Tomorrow, her first meeting starts at eight.

That's less than six short hours, and still an hour to drive before I have the ghost of a chance to catch some sleep. Dan rubs sandy grit from her eyes and yawns, worried about the upcoming meeting. Before she can dwell on it, she glimpses a movement out of the corner of her eye, and a well-known whine calls her out of her musings. The dog approaches the car—its motions hesitant and skittish.

"Hey, You're back!" Dan opens the door, driven by a burst of energy. But the animal shies back. "Are you afraid? Well, I can't blame you, after the disappearing trick I pulled on you. But I'm as real and as bewildered as you are, trust me."

Her words seem convincing enough. The animal sits two steps away from her, it's gaze fixed on her movements. "Glad to have you back, buddy. At least I'm not talking into the void while you're around. Sorry about the vanishing, I didn't do it by choice." And talking to a dog is better than worrying about another setback for my project—or about going maudlin.

"You know, I'm waiting for the next time shift. I still haven't figured out how to predict it, except for the flickering lights." The dog's gaze never wavers, and she feels the tension in her neck dissipate. "You're a good listener. Better than most people I know. Certainly better than the head of our institute."

Premature anxiety clamps it's fist around her stomach. She'll have to fight for her share of their institute's meagre means in a few hours. "Do you think it's worth it? Jostling for another semester of funding?"

The dog barks once, and she smiles. "You're right, I can't give up now. We might be so close to—something." Since her breakthrough in the technology of molecular animation two years ago, Dan suffered several setbacks. Still, she remains convinced her method has the potential to refine polymer surfaces to suit almost all imaginable needs and purposes. "We're on to something, I'm sure. But to prove it, I must raise enough funds to build a better molecular animator. Our prototype is not efficient enough and runs at the limit of the university's power supply. No wonder we get unpredictable results."

Dan smiles in memory of the most spectacular incident. When the dog wags its tail, she laughs out loud. "You're priceless. Can I take you home?" Another bark is the answer. "Gee, I swear you understand every word. Come here." She slaps her thigh, and the animal approaches to sniff her hand. Dan is not used to dogs and remains wary, but her visitor seems not about to bite her.

Reluctant at first, she pats the furry head and caresses the soft ears. "Want to hear the rest of the story? That day, I discovered what I call the cashew-effect. I still can't explain it, and I'm afraid it might hamper our proceedings if it happens when larger amounts of mass are at stake. But that's why we need a high-performance test system."

She shakes her head, remembering how baffled she was by the results of the accidental experiment. "It was more of an incident, actually. We had a small after-work celebration in the lab with a drink or two. Claire proposed to test molecular animation of a salted nut. I didn't want to do it at first. I was afraid of the potential damage to my precious equipment. But then I was intrigued. I mean, what could happen except the cashew burning up in the molecular bombardment?"

The dog licks her fingers. "Right, I guess the talk of nuts makes us both hungry. But my food is gone, just like the cashew. It was there, in the chamber of the animator where I placed it, and when I flipped the switch to start the animation, it wasn't. It disappeared without a trance."

She remembers her surprise, and how everyone laughed it off, the debate soon drifting to unbelievable stories about fake miracles and conjurer's tricks. But that night, Dan couldn't sleep. During the following days, she repeated the experiment several times when she found herself alone in the lab. "I never told anyone, but I'm sure you can keep a secret, buddy. In three out of ten trials, the same effect occurred. The other seven nuts ended as charred lumps as they all should have. I never found an explanation or a reason why some didn't and what happened to them instead."

Dan sighs and stifles another yawn. The dog rests it's head on her thigh, waiting to be petted again. Dan obliges, her thoughts wandering back to her secret experiments. The cashew-effect stole as much or more of her sleep than her financial troubles. "And then Ric waltzes into my life and insists I'm about to invent the first-ever time machine. While I can't even turn my refinement technique into cash. Until yesterday, I'd have sworn time travel is unthinkable ."

Unthinkable, and as far from her research goal as possible. "Only an accident might bring it into play, a surprising side effect of some sort." She jerks up, and the dog shies back. What if it already happened? Is it plausible I sent a handful of nut kernels into another time?

The thought of four cashews popping up in the past, lost and out of context, makes her laugh out loud. But the sound is strangled. A victim of involuntary time shifts herself, Dan feels almost sorry for the nuts. With closed eyes, she tries to verify the plausibility of this new hypothesis. Are the cashews the mysterious key?

A bark draws her attention to the dog. The animal stares at the flickering illumination of the parking lot.