Infinity

A burst of steam washed over Sal. He shook wide awake. In front of him flickered a red, beeping light and a frozen clock.

“Fuck! Again?!” Sal screamed it out, “What the shit is this thing?”
Benny couldn’t even speak anymore. In an act of powerlessness, he slowly let his body glide to the floor. “It’s hopeless Sal, we’re done. This is why we don’t mess with things we can’t control.”
Around them, the pod was the same as it had been these last few hours. It encapsulated excitement turned into worry, which now finally reached a point of despair.
“No! We can’t give up like this,” Sal was steaming. A powerful combination of agony and willpower fueled him. He was desperate to get out.
“What do you wanna do then?” Benny half looked up at Sal, but his eyes were falling asleep again.
“Five minutes. Clock’s ticking. Get the fuck up.” Sal shot straight into action as he yelled out to him. Benny let out a sigh and got up, “It’s hopeless man, embrace it.”
“I’m not embracing shit.” Sal turned around. The pod appeared longer than it was, and was tighter than it seemed. The walls were decorated with all sorts of modules, but nothing they hadn’t touched yet. It wasn’t very spacious, but at least there were plenty of buttons to mess around with. “C’mon, go check on the regulator module. Hurry!” Sal continued.
Benny took off his jacket like he’d done a thousand times before, and turned to the regulator. “What’s left to do here? I checked this stupid thing like twenty times.”
“Just shut up and get us out of here.” Sal was hastily running around, turning knobs and pushing buttons. Metal echoed and levers flicked, just like it had been, time and time again.

“Wait,” Benny’s eyes lit up as he found himself fiddling with the module again.
“What?!” Sal snapped back. His voice sounded almost angry at Benny for not yelling it out instantly.
“What if we’ve been doing it wrong this entire time?”
“Get to the fucking point, Ben, we don’t really have the luxury of time here.”
They both thought it, but there was no time to be joking around now.

“What if the regulator’s working isn’t the issue, but the adapted datastream?” Benny paused for a second as he looked up at Sal.
“I’m not following,”
“What if the rostling-processor hasn’t been picking up on the correct LSS input?”
“Benny I swear to fucking god–”
“It would fill the missing data with a set template right? Which would be our template.” Benny smiled broadly as he brightened in hope and revelation, “Infinity!”

Sal was quiet for a second. A quiet he hadn’t expressed very often these last few hours. He mumbled a little under his breath, envisioning the calculations as his mind traced the circuits around the pod.
The pod kept on twisting and beeping, but at that moment, both scientists were frozen in thought.
“Benny, you fucking genius. That’s fuckin’ it!” Sal awoke from his processing trance.
“We’ve got one issue though,” Benny continued.
“What?” Sal was already busy inventorising as he flung a USB-stick at Benny, “Catch.”
Benny effortlessly caught the USB and continued to make his point. “No one simply hijacks the roslting in under four minutes. Hell, even five is impossible. I think we’re go–”
“Shut up Benny!” Sal almost screamed at him, “We’re changing that. We’re gonna make some fucking history.”
Sal rushed over to an input panel on the opposite side of the processor. His fingers flew effortlessly over the terminal. “Status, Ben?”
“Redirecting.” Benny sounded calm, but excited. An emotion he thought he had let go a long time ago. “Go check on the interpreter already.”
No reply came, but the focus was tangible.

Sal moved over to the interpreter module. It was a rectangular-shaped box mounted on the far end of the pod. From within, the interpreter looked like a science project made by a 5-year-old, but both of them had always lived proudly by the quote “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. And since this module individually sustained the balance in the underlying physics, it had been best for them to leave it be.
Sal gave it a harsh swing with his fist, no time to be delicate now. The box bursted open and a messy complex of wires and LEDs appeared. “Alpha flow?”
“A-7,” Benny was quick to reply. They both knew what was at stake. “Sending it through now.”
“Fuck, hold on, hold on!” Sal fidgeted a little with some controller device he picked up earlier. “I’m almost ready.”
“Sal!” Benny sounded annoyed, the urgency had now completely washed over him as well.
“Aight. Okay, send it thr–”
“A-7 out now.” Benny couldn’t wait for Sal to finish his sentence, “time?”
Sal twisted the top of the device in his hand as he mounted it on top of the interpreter module. “Just– just a sec.”

Lights flashed, perfectly executing the Modenbergen sequence as intended. “Two min.”

Sweat dripped from the forehead of Sal. The pressure was insane this time around, but the radiating heat also didn’t exactly help. In fact, Sal had never been as comfortable working in hot environments.

“Status?” Benny’s voice urged from a couple of meters away. His attitude became serious, he was suddenly convinced they might just make it.
“Uhh.. Modenbergen’s all good. Switching to LSS Adapter. You go check the fucking– Uhh– Thing.”
Sal was locked in. Luckily, Benny knew exactly what he was on about.
“D’you have the override for the P-OX?” Benny crossed the pod. Over on his left, Sal was facing the far-end modules. In front of him another wall of inputs and technical systems appeared.
“P-OX..” Sal was hands deep into the interpreter module.
“Sal!”
“Fuck! Yeah, wait.” He wildly searched his back pocket after shoving the varitool into his mouth. Eventually, another flash drive appeared. Sal tossed it without looking, and continued to dive straight back into the interpreter.

Benny mounted the flash on top of the P-OX Unit. His hands were shaking. His eyes were twitching, but he pushed through. Only, the lights didn’t flash as they were supposed to.
Shit.
“Uhm, Sal..” Benny opted questioningly as he fiddled around with the connection of the flash.
“What now?!” He screamed in an almost fury-like fashion.
“The P-OX isn’t reading it.”
“What do you mean it isn’t reading it?” Sal yelled out in a panicked, croaky voice.
“I–I don’t know what’s going on.”
Benny tried to bring it as carefully as he could, but remained urgent in tone. “It’s just not picking up the LSS input whatsoever.”
“Fuck!” Sal frustratedly smacked the side of the interpreter. “Just remount it already.”
“Okay,” Benny tried his best to remain calm, the pounding pulse of his heart convinced his body otherwise. He shakily ripped the flash back off the module, but he fumbled. The flash slid right through his fingers as it audibly bounced on the metal floor.
Shit! Benny looked back at Sal, almost expecting an insult to be swung at his head, but none came. He rushed and picked the flash off of the ground, now tightly gripping it down.
Quickly, he turned around, shoving the flash back into the input channel. Then he watched in careful anticipation.
Nothing happened. There was no sign of anything different from the last time around. The flash remained unlit—dead quiet.
Until suddenly, it started flickering.
Benny almost screamed it out in a blurt of euphoria. “We’re back on!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. No reply came.
Lights started flashing. Within seconds, the pod turned into a proper disco.
“Time, Sal?” Benny exclaimed as he dove into the flash’ control panel. “Don’t underestimate the rostling!”
“I fucking know!” Sal screamed back at Benny. He stuck his hand in the interpreter, but quickly withdrew it as an electrical shock pulsed over him. “Fuck!”

Sal stuck the varitool back into his mouth as he finally smashed the LSS adapter to a close. “Fourcy secons,” Sal grunted, his voice muffled by the tool.
Another hatch flung open. The entire pod looked like a failed prototype, being taken apart for hardware. “Okay, here goes the rostling.” Sal sounded scared, but determined.
“P-OX almost reconfigured.” Benny’s voice was saturated with excitement, “We’re fucking doing it, Sal. We’re doing it”

Concentration washed through the atmosphere in the pod once again. If it wasn’t for the mechanical clicks of the components, the ticking clock would be audible.
“30 seconds Ben,” Sal upped the pressure once more. “Hurry the fuck up, man.”
“Mhm,” Benny didn’t even listen to what Sal said, he couldn’t let anything bother him. He carefully directed his hands along the outlines of the P-OX. One misstep and they would be back where they started. One torched wire. One faulty input. Their work was fragile, but doable. They couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

“Done!” Benny turned around to gauge Sal’s progress. The pod seemed to casually pulse, or maybe he was just a little dizzy. Sal was deeply focussed on the contents of the rostling, he would probably work best if left alone.

For the first time in a while, Benny thought about home. His mind wandered off to his children, his wife. He envisioned his garden, the outside. The smell of the grass crept into his nose again. He was thrilled to finally escape their failed project. Well, it was successful in a way, but not exactly in the way they envisioned it beforehand.
Ohh, how long had they been trapped here now? Initially it was like a dream come true. Their bodies moving through time, escaping the boundaries of realism. And now here they are.
Benny longed for the sun, an old life. One comfortably encapsulated by the boundaries of realism. Anywhere outside of this horror shit show at least. Anywhere th—
“Ben!”
Benny shook awake. “Yes. Done?”
“What’s the fucking time?”
Benny hastily made his way over to the system controller. “10 seconds. How’s the rostling?”
No reply came. Mere mechanical silence echoed through the pod.
“Sal, the rostling! We’ve got 7 seconds. 6.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Sal screamed it out.
In front of him, Benny saw the system clock slowly drip down.
5..
“Sal!?” The clock came ever closer to another iteration of their inevitable destiny.
4..
Sal was focussed, but eventually broke the silence.
3..
“Switching the output now!”

The clock fell down to 2, but then the pod got flushed with a loud humming noise.

For a second, both scientists were quiet. Both were silently waiting to see what was gonna happen. As Benny kept an eye on the clock, he saw the numbers slowly drop into the negatives.
“I think we did it.” His voice sounded careful, yet enthusiastic.
Sal was still quiet, unable to fathom what had just happened.
“We did it! Sal. We beat the pod!” Benny looked over at Sal. He looked confused, but happy. A broad smile formed on his face. His eyes glistened as he looked back at Benny.
“Ben, I fucking love you man!”
He walked up to Benny, his arms open, ready to embrace him. And right as their bodies met in a moment of euphoria, the lights dimmed and the noise zoned out.

A burst of steam washed over Sal. He shook wide awake. In front of him flickered a red, beeping light and a frozen clock.