Xperience Fiction – “The First”

Xperience Fiction – “The First” – by Liam Sweeny.

Joe Freer always wanted to be the first at everything. This was no small order in an experimental physics lab. But I always had him beat, even if only by a hair. I discovered vacuum energy first; I built the quantum array first; designed a working carrier first, and was dead-set to be the first human to ever travel time.

I was told not to do it by my colleagues. They said it was untested, and the risks were too great. Nonsense, I’d reply, Joe Freer knew as much about time travel as I did; if something happened, he could take over the project. I was so focused in being the first time-traveler that I was willing to risk my life for it. Never mind that I had a wife, never mind that the chances of survival were, by default, fifty-fifty; it would either work, or it wouldn’t. But then I caught wind of an email chat-log between Joe and my wife. It started out with him trying to calm her down and ended with him trying to get up her skirt. He was betting on it not working. When I got back, I would beat the bloody hell out of him.

Then one day, about three weeks from launch, a doctor was in the control room. Joe had the day off. Doc had a plastic box full of needles. Hated them. Needles, that is. But it didn’t matter. Lieutenant Colonel Gardner, the man with the money on our project, asked me to suck it up, for lack of a better term. They pulled a vial of blood from my arm and threw a taped puff of gauze on the hole.

“Mind telling me what that was for?”

Gardner took a picture out of his pocket. “This is to be shared with no one, do you hear me?” I nodded. He passed me the picture.

“We got reports this morning of a crash out in Nevada. Thankfully it was NORAD reporting,” he said. “That-” He pointed into the lab at our carrier machine. “…works, apparently.”

I looked at the picture. “It’s a wreck.”

Gardner took the picture back. “It hit the ground at Mach two,” he said. “We’re lucky it isn’t dust.”

“Was anyone in it?”

“Well, we found a body, but it was so badly mangled that we need to use DNA to determine who it is. We’re collecting yours, because you’re deciding to go on this flight.”

“What if we don’t send it?”

“Apparently we do,” Gardner said, “or else it wouldn’t have landed.”

“Have you told Joe?”

“No… not yet.”

“Then don’t,” I said. “I need time to think about this.”

Over the weeks running up to the launch, I thought long and hard about it: the mission, Joe’s fight to be first, his flirtation with my wife. All of these things I kept to myself. I needed to know one thing first and only time would tell. And the Tuesday before the flight, it spoke.

“It’s not you.” Gardner said.

“Not me?”

“The DNA’s not a match.”

“I’m not the one who goes first.”

Gardner folded his arms. “Nope’”

“It’s gotta’ be Joe then. He’s been biting at me to send him. He’s obsessed about being the first time traveler.”

“You’ll be sending him to his death,” Gardner said. “He doesn’t have the clearance to know what we know.”

“I’m gonna’ try to talk him out of it, without letting on.”

Gardner let out a grunt. “Good luck on that.”

Joe was out in the lab, polishing up the carrier. How lovingly he cleaned it. In his heart he must’ve known I’d send him first. He thought I didn’t have the balls.

“Joe,” I said, “Gardner won’t let me go. You’re up.”

“You’re shittin’ me,” Joe said. “Gardner was going to let you go a couple weeks ago.”

“He changed his mind.” I tried to hide what I knew.

“No, you’re just chicken-shit.” Joe laughed. “It’s easy to be in a lab, but when it’s time to show your sack, it just shrivels.”

“You’re going to die, Joe.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Joe said as he hopped into the carrier to feel it out. “But either way, I’ll be the first.”

In the minutes before the launch that day, Joe tapped my shoulder.

“The scientists never get remembered,” Joe said, “Just the explorers. Remember that.”

The time-machine launch took off without a hitch, in brilliant flashing light and waves that washed over the scientists and engineers involved. The next day, Joe was given a common funeral. No fanfare, no twenty-one-gun-salute, and not once in the eulogy was his time traveling mentioned. His tombstone had just his name, his rank and his birth- and death dates.

The time travel project was above top-secret. In the real world, it didn’t exist. In his race to be first in the history books, Joe Freer must’ve forgotten that part.

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