Field Investigations

Chapter 5: Stars

"And this switch here is pretty simple," Kenna said, pointing to a broken off piece of a plastic fork that had been tied into a plastic box with a short strand of purple yarn. "It just turns the Transporter on and off." She'd only gotten about fifteen minutes into her demonstration of how to use the Transporter, but I was already falling behind.

"Okay, I think I get that," I said, reaching for the Transporter to feel the utensil/power switch. My hand brushed up against a couple exposed wires as I tried to find it. 

"No, no, don't touch that!" Kenna shouted. "Trust me, even barely touching the switch can turn on the power and electrocute you if you're not careful."

"Oh," I said, finally reassured that this Transporter gizmo was really perfectly safe. "That's nice to hear. You know, my favorite activities are those that come with a high risk of electrocution."

Kenna frowned for a second, confused, before she realized I was being sarcastic. "Wait, I didn't mean to say-"

"That this thing would electrocute me?" I finished. "That's exactly what you meant to say. It doesn't matter though," I added quickly when I saw her serious expression. "By all means, continue with your demonstration."

She relaxed. "Alright, so, I was saying..." Her voice trailed off.

"You were showing me the fork thing," I said. She looked at me, her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "I meant the power switch," I clarified.

"Oh, yeah. Wait, before I keep going, just know that you'll be wearing these gloves," she pulled out a pair of rubber gardening gloves from her pocket, "when you actually use the Transporter. Trust me, there's no chance of electrocution if you're wearing these." She handed them to me. "You can put them on now if you want."

It took me a minute to pull on the gloves. The sticky, rubbery material stuck to my hands making it difficult to slide them all the way up. "So, back to the fork/power switch thing," I said after putting on the gloves.

"Okay, so it's pretty simple. To turn on the power you just pull upwards on the 'fork thing', as you call it, and wait for it to click into place. You'll know it's on when you see this light," she pointed out said light on the outer layer of the contraption, "turn green." 

"Got it. Why is the light even necessary, though?" I asked. "Wouldn't the fact you were invisible be enough of an indicator that it was on?"

"Just turning the Transporter on doesn't automatically send you into the Field. No, it's a lot more complicated than that. You need to enter your entry coordinates, map out your pathway through the Field... Suffice it to say that there are a lot more steps."

This was starting to seem a lot harder than I'd thought. "So which button actually sends you into the Field?"

"See this dial here?" She showed me a disk with numbers engraved along its edge that ran along the circumference of the sphere. "If you turn it to the right number combination, it'll detach from the sphere. Underneath it, there's a button that activates the Transporter and sends you into the Field."

"Got it," I said. "So what's the code?"

"Sorry, but I'm really not allowed to give you that information. Sharing your Transporter code is sort of like sharing your credit card pin. Today was the first time I met you, and even if I knew I could trust you there's always the possibility that someone is in the Field here on this bus, listening in on our conversation."

"Wait - how will I go into the Field if I can't know the code?" Despite my anxieties, I was actually getting excited to go back into the Field. 

"I'll put it in for you." Kenna said. I thought about this for a minute. It didn't make any difference who put the code in, right? Why was I finding her answer so off-putting? 

Don't worry about it, I told myself. It's not that big a deal. Just forget it about it and let her put in the code.

"Alright," I said aloud, contorting my face into what I hoped looked like an agreeable smile. "So, can I finally try this thing out?"

"Sure," Kenna said, taking what looked like a keycard out of her pocket. "Let me show you how to pick your entry coordinates." She tapped a black square on the center of the keycard, projecting a holographic display. I leaned over into the aisle for a better view. The holograph was of a large graph with temperatures on the y-axis and times on the x-axis. There were thousands of lines, each representing one of the Field dimensions, plotted on the graph. Suddenly, Kenna's arm disappeared. Not just her arm, Kenna disappeared. And - I looked down - I was also transparent. We were back in the Field.

"Oh," Kenna said. "I'd almost forgotten that we were going back in for the crossing."

"What crossing?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter," Kenna told me. "We'll probably be out in a few minutes. Just sit tight."

This time, there weren't any of those crazy temperature changes from before. In fact, being in the Field felt sort of cool this time. I looked around, trying to figure out where we were. The road signs flew by too fast, though, and our surroundings were a blur. For a second, I thought we'd gone through some sort of small building. A toll booth, maybe? And then, a few minutes later, the bus floor solidified beneath our feet.

"Number 7683 looks  alright," Kenna said, going back to her presentation and swiping her finger on the Field Interface to select a small, red line that was almost horizontal. The holograph shifted to display a chart of numbers. "That's the log chart," explained Kenna. "It shows how many people are in the Field right now and tells you their coordinates. And up here," she pointed out a set of four coordinates listed above the chart, "are the entry coordinates. Let me show you how to plug those in to the Transporter."

She handed me the sphere of mismatched components and showed me a small graphing calculator near the battery. "Just type the coordinates in here." She said. Once I plugged in the coordinates, she took the sphere back. "I'll map out the pathway for you," she said, using the graphing calculator to create a sort of chart. "It's a bit too complicated to explain now, but you'll find out later once we're there."

"How far is there, anyway?" I asked. "We've been on this bus for at least five hours now."

"Oh, by the time you finish with your trip into the Field I think we will have definitely arrived," Kenna responded, still typing in numbers at a rapid pace. "And I've almost mapped out your path through the Field dimensions. Number 7683 didn't work out after all, but I found you a safe course through Fields 8641, 932 and 7492. I'm just about finished typing it out here..." Her voice trailed off again and for a minute I heard nothing but the satisfying clicks of the calculator keys. 

I looked out the window again. It was getting dark out; I could see only a sliver of sunlight peeking out from behind the distant hills. The sky was a dark purple, speckled with millions of brilliant lights, each one seemingly only a tiny fraction of the size of our sun though, in actuality, most of them were hundreds of times larger. 

My home seemed so small to me now, so distant from where I sat now in the back row of the school bus. And it's crazy to me, because really, when I think about it, I was kidnapped. I was taken against my will onto this bus by two strangers, and yet I felt... comfortable. I felt relaxed here, looking out at the darkening sky and watching the stars glow even brighter as the sun dipped below the horizon. 

"Isabel?" Kenna's voice brought me back out of my mind and into the present. "I finished setting up the Transporter." She reached under her seat and pulled out a pair of bright yellow Adidas sneakers. "Put these on," she told me. "They're made of a hybrid material that can exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously." She studied my expression. "They'll stop you from falling through the floor," she explained , seeing that I didn't understand. "So, are you ready to press the button?" 

I twisted my hair around my finger, thinking.

"Isa, not Isabel." I reminded her, kicking off my blue boots and pulling the sneakers on in their place. "And yes, I'm ready."