Doctor Malone thought she might be killed in order to protect these fragile essentials from her crushing, murderous hands, yet no one waited for her in the core chamber. No armed guards shouted at her to stop, and neither did she feel that tingling sense that always came when someone else altered part of her timeline. She could sense impending danger in those half-formed molecules that made up her future, but that was far easier to face than any danger in her inaccessible past.
The glass tubes were all around her in this circular chamber. Her latex-gloved hand gripped one, ready to crush. For the thousandth time she wondered if she could escape with the machine all to herself, without destroying it--just leave and never return, always running away from danger. Malone's affinity for the machine, even after all it had done to her life, was strong.
They had called her the Quantum Doctor because she had made the Machine cooperate unlike any other doctor in Saint Benrime General Hospital. Where other doctors used the Time Machine, she communicated with it; where other doctors used it to anticipate trouble during surgery, Malone used it to manipulate timelines and paradox and causality in very finite pockets of the human body, across myriad alternate realities.One month without a single death in the hospital won her every medical award on Earth.
She tried to train others to do as she did, to see as she did--but she found upon examining her techniques that, once measured and taught, they began to break down.
Worse, a bad intuiting of the quantum forces in time could lead to Earth-threatening paradox. More times than she could count in a month, Malone had to clean up after time-mucking nincompoop doctors, until finally, the Saint Benrime General Director's Board agreed the machine could not be used unless Malone were supervising. While supervising, she felt like an overly aggressive elementary-school art teacher criticizing every child's work -- "Not that brush stroke, this one!" -- and one day, she thought bitterly that she had wanted to be an artist before she ever wanted the responsibility of saving lives.
H.R. tried to help her. They couldn't allow her to leave the hospital - "Liability, you see, we're obliged to give everyone the same quality care, and if you're not here they won't get it" - but they offered to let her use the time machine to catch naps. That worked for a while, but one day she accidentally slept for two months instead of 8 hours.
That slip-up did not sit well with the Board. Someone hinted if she messed up like that again she might find herself at the wrong end of a well-placed time accident.
That was when she knew humans were not meant to time travel.
Now Malone stood in the cold core chambers of the time machine, and stared up at the security camera fixed on her. She wondered whether anyone in security was watching, and whether or not they would flip the trigger that would set off alarms and would trap her in here, but the tingly intuition that served her so well with the Machine told her it's okay, only the future is watching. Simultaneously she understood those folks in the future would condemn her for this, but Time never would.
"I quit," she told the camera, and with one final, freeing sweep of her arm, she broke the glass essences that both chained and linked mankind to the secrets of life.
5 comments:
I remember talking about this story and I think you did a great job with it. It feels very surreal. But I don't really see Malone's reasoning behind leaving in this story. You had the one line about it, but I think it lack oomph compared with the richness of the rest of the story.
I LOVED the last line :)
Excellent story.
I think that this time, the use of the picture didn't do anything to enhance to sory or the feel of it. It's a neat looking clockface, but the old-timey design that fitted into the Changeling story sort of clashed with this very high-tech story.
Maybe a digital clock, random high-tech-looking machinery, or even a hospital hallway might have been better visuals.
That being said, I really enjoyed this piece, it was very creative. I would have liked to know a little bit more about why Dr Malone is so atuned to the time machine. Did she create it? Is there something in her quantum structure that resonates with it? It doesn't need a full explanation, it's a short story, but a hint in that direction would have made that link stronger.
It might tell us why no toher Dr has the rapport that she does. Maybe she can't teach it, but maybe someone else could have intuited it on their own.
I agree with Erica that Malone's reasons for quitting/destroying the time machine could have been more clear. It seems a little legally shakey that the hospital would not let her quit. And while accidentally taking a nap that kept her out of the hospital for 2 months sucks, it doesn't seem like an event that would make her realize that humans are not meant to screw with time, at least no after you mentioned potentially earth-threatening paradoxes.
Overall, a wonderful story. I'm impressed.
This was written very solidly, you paint very clear pictures of what is happening. I agree that a bit more motive for why she is destroying the machine would be appreciated, but you do a very good job of painting the reality of the machine and its application.
I enjoyed this story Lacey. I liked that she had an atunement to the time machine, unlike anyone else. It made me think that maybe why it couldn't be taught how to communicate with the time machine, was that only she could have that special atunement to the machine.
Much like someone might be attuned to how a normal machine works, a car that you know will shake when it hits a specific MPH or that you need to turn the headlights on and the radio to get the defrost to work.
Again I'm not much of one that analyzes writing, I just know I enjoyed the story.
Thanks for the critiques! I think you're right, it should have been much clearer why she was leaving the hospital.
I also should specify that taking a nap for two months sucks, but the comment that pushed her over the edge was the threat that she might find herself killed if she let it happen again. I really should have added a bit about the hospital's lust for the prestige and money that came with her work... something that would make the board angry enough to kill for. At the time I decided not to delve into it because it felt like an unrealistic motivation (which is probably a good sign about a weakness in my own story).
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