2: Nightmares and Revolutions
That morning, 0950 hours.
Winston stirred in his sleep. Athena checked his vitals and brain activity. The same as it had been every night since the Slipstream Incident. The same nightmares plaguing him.
The night that Horizon imploded on itself. The other gorillas in the colony tearing the scientists limb from limb. Winston powerless to do anything but watch. The sensation of emptiness as he floated back to Earth in his jury-rigged pod, leaving the facility behind.
The day of the Slipstream's first crewed test. His glee at seeing the product of months of trials, tests and simulations come to fruition. His joy at the thought that soon, his technology would be turning the tide of the war against the Omnium.
The change he felt, as its plucky young pilot clambered inside the cockpit, and sealed the canopy. The glee and joy gave way to something else. Not fear, not quite. Something similar. A knot in his stomach. He didn't know why, but he had a terrible feeling as the sleek superfighter climbed skyward and completed its initial flight tests.
The horror as the exchange over the radio changed once the matrix was engaged for the first jump.
"W-Winston? Something's not right here, the controls are-AAAAAA!"
A loud scream pierced the channel.
"Tracer? Tracer, come in. Tracer, Respond!"
The chasm that seemed to open up within him as he looked skyward, to a bright flash. And the Slipstream, which had been there a fraction of a second earlier, disappeared.
The relief and confusion the day she was found. Sitting in the back of the SAR VTOL as it homed in. The feeling of sheer incomprehension as her form flickered in and out of existence. The feeking he had once had returned, the feeling of helplessness the night of the Horizon Uprising.
He sprang awake. The same way things had happened for three months. He glanced at the clock. 10.15. I've barely been asleep for seven hours.
He looked over the work Athena had done in his sleep. He mused that even an AI as advanced as her could not figure this problem out. What chance should he rightly have?
He Turned his attention to something which Athena had highlighted. Yet another equation. He pondered it for a few moments, turning it over in his mind. At last, the light inside his mind clicked on. I wonder if that can help account for what I'm missing! He started to work feverishly, uprating the Stabilizer in order to accomodate the new method of function.
Several hours later, he was ready. Still suffering somewhat from fatigue, he geared up the test chamber for what he believed- hoped- would be the last time. He flicked the switch. No flash this time. The stabilizer ran for a few minutes perfectly. He opened the door and went inside the chamber, ignoring Athena's pleas otherwise.
He stood over the device. As though to confirm Athena's suspicions, the device begun to make an electrical buzzing sound. Smoke begun to work from the Stabilizer as the light inside it faded to black, completely burnt out. The frustration of being so close- yet unable to get the device working- combined with sleep deprivation and the prospect of having to start over , finally overwhelmed Winston as he lost his temper. He picked up the dead stabilizer and threw it in a fit of pique through the door of the chamber before proceeding to destroy several objects inside the chamber.
After a while, he came back to his senses. He trugded out, somewhat defeated, before deciding to find what was left of the stabiliser and start once again on the solution. As he picked it up, he uncovered something else. An article clipping inside a box which he had taken almost twenty years ago. It was from one of the scientific journals Winston had read. The scientist in question was his second-biggest inspiration, behind Harold whom he had named himself after. He dug out some more of the items within.
A light clicked into place inside his mind. This guy had been legendary within the scientific community, something of an Einstein, prior to the nuclear reactor he conducted most of his research at detonating and presumably vaporizing him with it. It occurred to Winston that although there was little proof of his survival, there was less to prove that he was dead.
"Athena, search. Parameters: Doctor James Lamont."
"Right away, Winston."
Moments later, Athena had located virtually every digital file regarding the scientist. The conventions he had appeared at, the radical creations he had came up with, and one article in particular. Winston recalled that this scientist in particular was renowned as an outcast- a black sheep- as he had always argued against Relativity. He had always believed that objects could go beyond lightspeed, which in itself had inspired Winston to look into the concept. Winston was willing to bet that the work James had once done trying to disprove Einstein might hold the answer to his problem.
