The Trash Gun

When the eccentric Doctor Lake unveiled his latest invention, his assistant Harman immediately dubbed it "the trash gun."

     "What good is a teleporter," Harman said, "if you don't know where you're teleporting to? If nothing else, we can use it to get rid of the garbage."

     "Nonsense, my boy," said Lake, stroking his beard. "This problem just requires a little research, that's all. Besides, we can't very well go around teleporting our garbage when we don't know where it goes. Why, what if we teleported it right into the middle of a national park? Or onto the White House lawn?"

     "I suppose," said Harman.

     "Come," said Lake. "Let me show you how it works."

     Lake led him into his private lab, a holy of holies that Harman was rarely invited into. The trash gun filled the entire room.

     "It's a little bigger than I expected," Harman commented.

     Lake waved a hand absently. "Utterly irrelevant."

     The trash gun was roughly a seven-foot cube, with protruding wires, cables, tubes and electrical devices Harman didn't recognize. A five-foot cannon that looked like a ray gun from a low-budget sci-fi movie pointed through a small opening into a four-foot glass cube.

     "Now then," said Lake. "what shall we teleport?"

     "How about some trash?" Harman suggested, handing Lake a paper cup he'd been drinking from.

     "Fine, fine," said Lake. "I don't want to set some kind of precedent for beaming trash all over, but this will do for starters."

     There was a small hatch about the size of a sheet of paper in one of the sides of the cube that was also made of glass. Lake opened it, tossed the paper cup inside and closed it. He stepped over to a keyboard and tapped several keys. The machine began to hum loudly.

     "Goggles," said Lake, slipping a pair over his eyes. Harman followed suit.

     Lake pressed another key and there was a blinding flash of light. Then the light was gone, and the electric hum of the machine died away.

     "I'm just glad I don't pay the electric bill," Harman muttered, pulling off his goggles. "So is that it?"

     "It is," said Lake. "Look and see."

     Harman walked over to the glass cube. The cup was definitely gone.

     "Well?" Lake asked.

     "This is all well and good," Harman said. "But how do you know you teleported it? How do you know you didn't just burn it up or disintegrate it?"

     "A fair question," Lake said, "But easily answered. I had wondered the same thing. After previous experiments I have examined the chamber thoroughly for residue and found none. If it was destroyed, it was broken down to virtually the atomic level. Which is, of course, ridiculous."

     "I suppose so," agreed Harman. "Let's assume it teleports. How do you know it teleports to a viable location? How do you know it won't teleport you to the moon or into solid rock?"

     "Because of the exchange," Lake said.

     "Exchange?"

     "Certainly. If we just sent matter from our end and didn't receive matter from the other end, we would have a vacuum inside our chamber. But we do receive. We send a cube of matter from here and receive a cube of matter of equal size from there, wherever there is. Go ahead. Open up that glass hatch and see for yourself."

     Harman hesitated.

     "Oh, go on," Lake chided him. "It's perfectly safe."

     With some trepidation, Harman slowly pulled the hatch open. A rush of cold air made him start, and he released the hatch, which slammed shut.

     Lake laughed. "It's harmless."

     "Is it air?" Harman asked. "I mean, is it normal air?"

     "Yes," Lake said. "Perfectly safe to breathe. Cold, isn't it? That's as far as I've been able to narrow it down so far; that we're teleporting to a colder climate. Somewhere closer to the poles."

     "Or somebody's industrial freezer," Harman said.

     "I hadn't considered that!" Lake exclaimed, delighted. "Marvelous, marvelous. I'll have to test the air for coolant particles later."

     "Well," Harman said, "if we can't use it as a trash gun, maybe we can use it as an air-conditioning gun."

     "I don't believe that would be a good idea," Lake said. "Who knows what damage we would cause to the environment? But I'll worry about these matters after we have determined where this cold air is coming from."

     "How are we going to do that?" Harman asked.

     "Simple, really, although very expensive. But then again, that's always been the beauty of research grants. I have three state-of-the-art beacons with global satellite tracking."

     "I was expecting something a little more complicated," Harman admitted.

     "Like what?" asked Lake. "Put my name, address and phone number in a bottle and cast it out into the great unknown? Now, I will send the beacon and you will track it with the computer. It's all ready."

     Lake put the small, cylindrical beacon into the chamber and turned on the machine. "Goggles," he said.

     Harman pulled his goggles on. Lake activated the beam. There was a flash of light and the beacon was gone.

     "Now track it," Lake said, coming over to the computer. "It should take just a few moments to find."

     They waited for five minutes before Harman said, "I don't think anything's happening."

     Lake frowned. "Hm. Perhaps the teleportation disrupts electronics. Let's try another, but let's start tracking it here." He activated a second beacon and placed it inside the chamber. When he opened the hatch, more cold air rushed out. "Do you have a fix on it?"

     "Yes. Ready."

     Lake activated the trash gun again and again there was the flash of light and then the beacon was gone.

     As Harman expected, his fix on the beacon's location also disappeared. But seconds later it was back. "I have it!" he shouted. "I have it! It's-" He broke off as the signal went out again. "Now I've lost it," he said irritably.

     "Never mind that," Lake said. "Did you have a lock? Could you tell where it was?"

     "Yes," answered Harman. "Canada. About a hundred and fifty miles east of Edmonton. Pretty isolated."

     Lake stroked his beard. "Do you have specific location?"

     "You mean latitude and longitude?" Harman asked.

     "I want to send the last beacon through," Lake said. "To make sure everything we send is going to the same place."

     "Yes, we can do that."

     Lake teleported the last beacon.

     "Same place," said Harman. "Exact same- Damn it, I lost the signal again."

     "Never mind," Lake said. "Our point has been made."

     "Hang on a second," Harman said. "If we're teleporting to the same place, why didn't my paper cup come back when we teleported the beacon?"

     "Probably because it blew away," Lake said.

     "But then the first beacon should have come back when we sent the second, and so on."

     "If we're teleporting to Canada and getting cold air in return, it's safe to assume that we're teleporting to an outdoor location. It's not going to be perfectly flat. The beacons are cylindrical. They probably tipped over and rolled out of range."

     "Okay, but humor me, Doctor," said Harman. "Can we teleport something and then teleport it back again immediately, so that whatever it is we send doesn't have the chance to roll away?"

     "That's a fine idea," said Lake. He grabbed a paperweight from his desk at random and put it in the chamber. He activated the machine, and as soon as the light flashed he activated it again. The paperweight was in the chamber. "It worked!" Lake exclaimed.

     "Just a minute," Harman said. "How do you know it teleported in the first place? I didn't see it disappear."

     Lake frowned. "There's no reason why it wouldn't, my dear boy. We did the same thing each time. Still, let's investigate." He plucked the paperweight from the chamber and scrutinized it.

     "What is it?" Harman asked.

     "See this?" Lake asked, indicating the underside of the paperweight. "A tiny layer has been shaved cleanly from the bottom."

     "What does that mean?"

     "It means I was right about the uneven terrain. The weight was beginning to settle onto the ground, which took the bottom edge of it below the range of the teleporter. Do you see?"

     "I guess so," said Harman. "That's pretty good, Doc."

     "I agree," said Lake. "Let's move on to a live experiment."

     "A live experiment? Don't you think it's a little soon for that?"

     Lake snorted. "I don't see why. Do you want to send more junk through? Really make it into a trash gun?"

     Harman laughed. "I suppose not."

     "Of course not," Lake said. "Get me a few of the rats from the other room."

     Harman brought a small cage with four rats in it. Lake took one and dumped it through the hatch. Then he activated the teleporter.

     Lake looked at his watch. "Let's give the little guy sixty seconds," he said.

     "Sixty seconds for what?" Harman asked.

     "To run away. To overcome his fear of new surroundings and move."

     "What if it died?" Harman asked. "Won't we beam back a rat with a slice out of its bottom? Since it'd be settling into the ground, I mean."

     "Yes indeed," said Lake, "although I don't see how it matters much if the rat's dead."

     "I guess not," Harman agreed.

     "Okay, let's see what we've got," Lake said, activating the trash gun again.

     There was nothing in the chamber.

     "I guess he got away," Harman said.

     "Yes, but I want to know in what condition he got away. The teleporter may have other effects on a living organism than just killing it outright."

     Lake removed one entire panel from the cube and placed a stool at the center.

     "A stool's a living organism?" Harman asked dryly.

     "It's for the rat," Lake said patiently. "I'd rather have my stool come back with no feet than a rat I want to study."

     "I know," said Harman. "I was kidding."

     "Right," said Lake, putting a small cage on the stool and putting a rat inside. He closed the panel and stepped back to the machine. "I'm bringing him right back," he said. "We'll see what getting teleported twice does for him."

     Lake activated the machine twice in quick succession as he had done with the paperweight. Harman walked over and peered at the rat. "Looks okay to me."

     Lake pulled the rat out of its cage and peered at it. Its eyes were alert and it was active in Lake's hand. "This is fantastic!" he shouted. "It works!"

     "That's great," Harman said, "But who wants to go to the Canadian wilderness?"

     "That's not the point," Lake said, dropping the rat back into its cage. "We have viable teleportation! If we can teleport into the Canadian wilderness from here, maybe we can teleport elsewhere from other locations! This is an astounding discovery! This calls for beers!" Lake headed for a small fridge by his desk, pulled out two bottles and handed one to Harman.

     Harman raised an eyebrow at this last declaration. He hadn't even known Lake had beer in the lab. Nevertheless, he accepted the beer gratefully. He twisted off the top and took a long swallow. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was. "So what's next, Doc?" he asked.

     Lake's eyes lit up. "Me," he said.

     Harman spat beer across the floor in surprise. "You can't be serious."

     Lake frowned at him disapprovingly. "Why not? The rat came back safely. I'm going to sit on that stool so I don't lose my toes and you're going to teleport me."

     Harman sighed. Lake was using the tone of voice that tolerated no argument. "Fine," he said. "When?"

     Lake rubbed his hands together with glee. "Right now! Well, just as soon as I get my coat from the other room." He finished his beer and went to get his coat.

     Harman shook his head. Lake got results, which was why the powers-that-be typically turned a blind eye to his unorthodox methods.

     Lake came back with his coat and showed Harman how to operate the machine. Then closed himself inside the chamber and sat on the stool.

     "Ready?" Harman asked.

     "Ready!" Lake said. "I'm just going to stay on the stool. Beam me back in sixty seconds, okay?"

     "Sixty seconds. Got it."

     Lake gave him a thumbs-up. Harman teleported him.

     As soon as he was alone in the lab, Harman felt a wave of fear wash over him. What if something went wrong? What was he supposed to do? Lake was the one who always fixed things. The sixty seconds crawled by with agonizing slowness. Harman was tempted to bring Lake back sooner, but Lake be furious with him for not following the agreed-upon procedure. So Harman waited. The instant a minute had passed, Harman teleported again.

     The chamber was empty.

     Harman dashed over and lifted up the side of the cube. There was nothing inside.

     "Maybe I didn't do it right," Harman said to himself. He activated the teleporter a third time.

     The chamber was still empty.

     "Damn it, Lake, where'd you go?" Harman exclaimed. "This is just what I was afraid of. What'd you do, wander off to pick up the beacons?"

     That was something Lake would do. He got to deviate from procedure as much as he wanted. But if he had wandered off, where was the stool? Harman examined the trash gun's controls, trying to determine if he had done anything wrong. Then he saw Lake had built a timer into the machine.

     "Damn fool," Harman muttered. "He's been planning to teleport himself all along. We're not taking family photos here."

     This was when Harman resolved to go after Lake. He set the machine to teleport in sixty seconds, then to teleport again in another sixty seconds. He would just go, take a quick look around, and then come back. Under no circumstances did he want to be stuck in the wilds of Canada.

     He stepped into the chamber, then remembered Lake's concern about his toes. He grabbed a chair, pulled it into the chamber, closed the panel, and sat down, pulling his feet up to the seat. He noticed his chair had wheels and his last thought before the trash gun activated was that with his luck, he'd go rolling down a hill or off a cliff somewhere. He closed his eyes and his adrenaline surged as the light flashed, even brighter inside the chamber.

     Harman was disoriented, but a fierce rush of cold air quickly brought him to his senses, and he realized he had forgotten his coat. The wind was tremendous. It made him feel strange, almost as if his chair were pulling away beneath him. Harman opened his eyes and looked around, and he knew where they had miscalculated. He felt the icy hand of fear close around his heart, and he knew why Lake hadn't returned.

     He was three hundred feet above the ground, and he was falling.

Joshua Danke-Dake "Me, the Devil and the English Language" won third place in the 2002 CCL Writing Contest and was published with more of his work, including its sequel, in Oral Roberts University's literary magazine, Promethia.

Email: Joshua Danke-Dake

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