Do You Get It?

A Wrench in the Problem

The Creator

"What do they say?" I ask, trying to remember the bits and pieces of words that I had translated. But I come up empty handed. I should have read the sentences as I translated, rather than speedily matching up the letters and symbols. The price of swiftness is confusion.

"The machine...it's...." he stumbles, still grasping the papers. Anything that causes Sans to lose his cool is not good. Sans, a calm composed monster, shaken my a few documents. With his unease, the pain starts to come back. I can hear the sound of the oncoming waves of pain. "It's what Sans?" I ask closing my eyes. I can't handle anymore bad news right now. But bad news is the only news I get.

His face is wrought with confusion. "It seems to be some sort of rift creator..." He says slowly. A what now? "It creates tears in the universe, like forced bridges in between alternate universes." He says flipping and scanning the papers rapidly, double checking what he says as correct.

"If this machine were to work, it could punch a hole in any dimension." Questions are rapid firing in my mind. How did this scientist, who was around BEFORE I had even started creating AUs, know about this? There couldn't have been a reason for inter-dimensional travel, if the theory of other universes hadn't even been proven?

"How would that machine swap Error and I, if it's purpose was to go to other universes?" I ask voice full of concern. He doesn't respond right away, instead going back to the machine. "Ink, I don't know." He responds, still reading the translations. I take a sigh of defeat and sit back into the wheely chair. I roll over to him and the machine.

"But here it doesn't even say the word alternate universe on it." He says handing me one of the pages. I lean back in the chair and angle my eyes towards the page. It talks about how the machine would reverse the polarity of the current universe and flip it. The opposite charge would pull all the atoms into a catatonic state, allowing there to be a weakened spot in the space time continuum. And when that weakened spot appears the machine would literally blast a hole into it.

"There was no hole when it went off." I say defeated. Even if we knew what the machine was supposed to do, that doesn't mean it did what it's supposed to do. "Yeah, that's the problem," he starts, "Machine must have malfunctioned or something when you hit it." All he can give are theories. But random guesses aren't going to fix the problem.

Sitting down in the chair another wave of exhaustion hits me. I rest my chin in my hand, as my elbow balance on my knee. I hold the paper in my left hand, trying to make sense of what went wrong.

Sans is still sitting on the floor next to the hunk of metal. He pops his head up from behind the page. "How did you turn it on?" He asks. His eyes gives away the hope he has. "Uh...I hit the control panel with paint." I respond. Now recalling how I had hit the machine made me a little embarrassed. I shouldn't have missed.

He rubs the top of his skull, thinking about the machine. "When it has happened, there was a large explosion that we were both caught in. Do you think that the explosion could have caused a rift?" I asked my panic evolving into terror. That rift could lead to anywhere. "I don't know Ink, there is always that possibility." He says opening up to that theory. But when he sees my reaction, he knows that he shouldn't have said anything. My muscles slack and the papers go limp in my hand.

"That portal could have opened up to anything." I say, nervousness cracking my voice. I could have doomed my own creation. That AU, could be demolished at this point and I wouldn't even know it. In my own body, I had a better sense of how the AUs are doing, but as Error I can only hear the roaring waves of oncoming pain in the distance.

While in my thoughts of confusion, Sans continues to dig into the machine. "If there was an explosion, there would have to be a fuel source that worked as an explosive." He thinks out loud. I try to pay attention to his words, but my mind is unable to focus. The grey zone of nothingness welcomes my mind. But when he starts saying my name, I snap to attention.

"Ink, look." He pulls out a metal pack, rusted and weathered. He unscrews the bolts at the top of the box. The metal pack itself is a little bigger than the size of my hand. When he drops the screw driver and lifts up the panned, there is a subtle glow coming out. He pulls out something with care and caution.

It's a tube of red liquid. Glowing with power. Bottled up and stored to be forgotten. The same liquid that was injected into monsters was enough to power a machine. A machine with enough power to create rifts. Enough power to punch holes into the space time continuum. Enough power to reset time.

"Determination."