THEM: ARMAGEDDON (Book Three)

Chapter Nine

Harris looked to David, the young man who had proven to be a wunderkind and picked up the technology faster than anyone had any business to. "So, how does this thing work again?"

"Well, there's parts of it we get and parts we are still kind of figuring out how it works," David admitted. "Basically, it maps out every single piece of a person or thing and kind of saves not just the structure but the order. It then breaks it down to energy, broadcasts it then does the pattern in reverse. The best way to describe it if you took a complete puzzle, marked down what each piece was and numbered it then out it in a box disassembled. Then when you moved it to another table you put it back together perfectly using those numbers."

"Kinda like how they number bricks to move old buildings form one place to another," Rick said as he walked into the bay, his backpack full and his gear ready to go.

Harris looked at him. "Rick, you are going in the test?"

Rick nodded. "I figure there's two trips for supplies and personnel. I'd rather be in the first one in case anything goes wrong."

"That makes absolutely no sense," Harris admitted. "If something went wrong wouldn't you want to be in the second attempt?"

"Well, we got to try twice no matter what," Rick replied. "I figure it is best to be in the first attempt and it fills then be in the second that fails. Because right now I feel pretty good about it but if some people were lost in the second attempt. I would not feel good about the second."

"So, a quick death by surprise over a predicted death you were almost sure of?" Harris asked.

"Something like that," Rick commented. "Also, I kind of have a love hate thing with science."

"What do you mean?" Harris asked.

"Well, as you know I have worn many hats in the science field," Rick explained. "Physicist, astronomer, scholar, pretty much anything that interested me. However, as much as I have discovered that science is an unbiased thing those who would wield it are very much not. The people who discovered how to make dynamite, split the atom, genetically modify chromosomes. All thought that they were discovering something for reasons that were for the greater good. However, these things were used for great good a and great bad."

 "The balance of destruction versus creation is based on the had that wields it, not the one who discovers it. Science is not inherently good nor evil. The bright ultraviolet rays of the sun that starts a fire of dry brush and burns down a forest is not trying to destroy one thing for any benevolent reason. However, a man with bulldozer chooses what he does and who he destroys in either to create. I have made my own discoveries, ones that I as sure were for the betterment of people around me both immediately and in the future." 

"I saw those who would take the raw facts of science and they monetized them. They deprioritized them and with it did so much more evil with it than the potential for good. So, when I stand here and look at this device, I am almost defiantly telling it to do its worse though I realize that it is not about me. The machine will teleport me or kill me and it is about the tech and it is about the laws of averages. Though I want to believe that good will come, that I will come out the other side and the work we have started will continue."

"That does make a lot of sense in a way," Harris laughed. "I suppose this will work or it won't and staring at it means nothing. I was considering going in the first batch, but mostly because I have felt like I have been sitting non the sidelines of this little endeavor for far too long."

"First through, first to hit the ground running," Rick agreed as he walked over and stepped into the chalked-out square.

"I agree," Harris said as she walked toward the circle, though it was just a line of chalk she could feel the apprehension in her body. She moved in and stood next to Rick, immediately feeling charged about her decision. As David and the others activated the device, she felt light fill her vision as the puzzle pieces moved from the table back into the box.