Ch 10: The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
“Step right in. Nothing to be scared of.” Ashley gestured at the metal tube set into the wall. Climbing the wall behind it like vines, there were more tubes and wires than Ingrid could count.
“Do I need one of those bib things? Like at the dentist?”
Ashley beamed, shaking her head. “Nope. It doesn’t work like that. There’s no x-rays, no radiation of any kind. This technology is proprietary.”
Placing a hand on the capsule’s opening, Ingrid felt the chill of the cold, smooth metal. The narrow cylinder was just big enough for her to fit inside. “Cole already did this?” Ingrid asked. She’d had her verbal interview and completed several paper questionaires while waiting for Cole to go through the emotometer. Ingrid had explained why she didn’t feel she had any attachment to this time. She hadn’t meant to divulge so much, but Ashley was so kind and welcoming. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to Ingrid with such a warm demeanor. The words had flowed freely from Ingrid, words about the hacking fiasco, words about how not everything about being fired was bad, at least she had some free time now. She’d hated how much time her fledgling career had stolen away from her. Back in college, she’d had time for her studies and her designs. She wanted to get back to those. She wanted to sketch and draw all of the dresses and blouses she dreamed of. She wanted to sew and embroider and create her own clothing line. Only, once she’d lost her job with Mattel, she hadn’t gone back to her working on her own clothing line. She’d only wallowed, and she’d been wallowing for so long, that she didn’t think she knew how to do anything else at this point. She’d been thrown off track and she didn’t know how to pull herself back on. She could be someone new in a new time. She could start it all over, leave her mistakes behind. Everything would be fresh and new, a new life of endless possibilities. Something most people would never experience. A person’s mistakes went with them. Every choice limited future choices. She couldn’t imagine how many doors had been slammed shut, locked tightly, now forever inaccessible, as a result of her impulsive, angry actions.
“Cole did fine,” Ashley said. “Stefanos texted me and said he did great. No issues. You’ll do fine too.”
“Did he…pass?”
Ashley opened her mouth. She smirked slightly. “Why are you asking?”
Ingrid shifted her lips back and forth. Moving her lips around was a nervous tick she’d had since childhood. She was usually better at keeping it in check. Not today though. “I’m just curious. If he passed, maybe I will too.”
“How about get in the machine and give it a whirl yourself? Don’t worry about Cole. If he doesn’t make the cut, we’ll find somebody else who does.”
“Sure,” Ingrid muttered. She lifted a foot and stepped over the small lip on the floor of the capsule. Twisting to the left, she pulled her other foot inside. The space was cramped, and she could hardly move without knocking her elbows into the metal interior.
“Ready?” Ashley asked with another of her vibrant smiles.
“Yes.”
“Right-o! I’m closing the door now. All you have to do is think about the possibility of being chosen for the experiment. Think about time travel. You have to think about time travel so the machine can measure your emotions around the idea. I’ll be in the next room with Jude and Stefanos. We’ll be watching the machine and the data that it’s collecting. This won’t hurt, but it might feel weird. Shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Could take less.”
“Wonderful.”
Ashley shut the door.
Darkness swallowed Ingrid. She felt the flash of her pupils dilating. A moment later, the metal wall in front of her blinked with lights and a screen clicked to life, showing a series of numbers and symbols that Ingrid couldn’t make sense of.
Her eyelids drooped, a feeling of warmth and sleepiness overtaking her. Thoughts ran through her mind, disconnected and dreamlike. In a blurred daze, she remembered Ashley’s instructions. Think about time travel. That was what she was supposed to do.
She shifted a bit, bringing her weight over to the right side of her body. She lifted her left foot. She allowed her pink heel to slide away from the sole of her foot, dangling it off one toe.
Time travel. She’d get to see a decade she never would have otherwise. No other human being born in 1991 would see the fifties, sixties, or seventies. Even the eighties would be cool. Ingrid wouldn’t mind seeing one of Madonna’s first shows.
The temperature of the capsule dropped suddenly. Ingrid’s lungs burned with a sharp intake of breath. She clenched her hands, trying to shake off the painful cold stiffening her fingertips. Her thoughts sprinted now. The pressure to make it big, go big or go home, the pressure to live up to her sister. The shame of the hacking scandal, her parents’ disapproving eyes. All of this would be gone. Gone, gone, gone. Nobody would know her in the decades before she’d been born. Nobody would think she was some horrible person. And maybe, just maybe, she could learn to not BE a horrible person. She shook away that last thought. She wasn’t horrible. She’d been letting the online commentary community get to her. Tatiana had deserved it. She’d deserved it. Tatiana shouldn’t have tried to compete with Ingrid. She was so so sick of being competed with against her will. In another time, she could relax and stop feeling like she couldn’t measure up, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t…real.
An otherworldly sound echoed in the small chamber, like something between a gurgle and the plop of something heavy into a still pool of water. The noise repeated upon itself, undulating and stretching out languidly. And then, all at once it stopped. The silence straightened her spine.
The screen in front of her eyes died away, leaving her in stark blackness once more. Her eyes flitted about restlessly. Sensation crept back into her fingers. The temperature rose steadily back to a reasonable degree.
With a hiss, the capsule’s door swung open. Ingrid blinked against the sudden brightness of the lab.
Grabbing hold of Ingrid’s shaking hand, Ashley quipped, “Let me help you out. Watch your step.”
Ingrid stepped out of the metal tube, her toe catching against the lip. She staggered. Ashley caught her by the shoulders. Flushing, Ingrid straightened up, shoved her left foot back into her shoe, and finished removing herself from the tube.
Ashley led her into the adjoining room, a small space filled with computer screens and large thrumming electronics. Judy sat in front of the largest screen, her eyes focused, her mouth set into something that was almost a frown, but not quite.
“And?” Ingrid asked. “Did I pass?”
Judy turned away from the screen, folding her hands neatly in her lap. She gave Ashley a knowing look. Ashley bobbed at Ingrid’s elbow, her eyes dancing with delight.
“Well?” Ingrid asked. “Am I moving on to the next round?”
“Pass?” Judy laughed. “You scored higher than almost anyone else who has ever stepped into the emotometer. Ashley’s intuition about you was right. You do want this quite a lot.”
“That’s right!” Ashley interjected excitedly. “I read your submission email. I knew your story. After reading about all that fallout, I knew you must want this. You do really want this! This might work! It might-”
“Ashley,” Judy warned. “Calm yourself.”
“Sorry, Jude.”
Suddenly feeling sick, Ingrid ran a hand unsteadily through her hair. Uneasiness set her skin to sizzle.
“Only one other person ever scored higher than you,” Judy continued. “Only one other person ever showed a subconscious resistance less than one percent.”
“Was that-”
“Yes,” Judy replied, a palpable energy dancing behind her words. “Cole. Cole was the only one to ever score higher.” She stood and approached Ingrid with outstretched arms. “I never expected a resistance percentage so low. Tomorrow we set a date, and it has to be soon. The resistance percentage could change. Stay offline. I’ve issued Cole a no contact order and I’m doing the same for you. We need to move fast.”
“Wait,” Ingrid said, shaking her head against her confusion. “Does this mean-”
“It does. You two are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And we need to move fast.”
