Breakfast Serial is a serialized collection of short stories. We will post an episodic entry each week.
“Ready for what? You’ve not explained how this works.”
“The mechanics are boring; the execution–that is where the excitement lies! All will be explained in the end, but for now, I will only need one of you to lower the lever on the right side of the room, which primes the machine, and then the other to lower the lever here next to this table which activates it.”
“That sounds easy enough, but how will we know if this has proved successful?”
“A fair question that I have already prepared for. Once the process has completed, one of you will release Hera from her headset, but it will not be Hera who is in control. My consciousness will have been temporarily transported to her mind, and once freed form the machine, I will jump off the table, walk over to you gentlemen and shaker your hand first, Larran, and then yours, Pickering. Afterward, I will have her return to the table, bark three times, and then remain in the seated position until my consciousness returns to my own body. Should anything else happen, I will be proved a fraud.”
“And what if this machine kills you instead?”
“Call me ‘arrogant,’ if you like, but that would mean I have made a mistake. I do not make mistakes.”
Pickering shook his head. “You two talk as if this all were merely a matter of course, but what you’re suggesting here is madness.”
“My dear, Pickering,” Shelley replied, “it is a matter of course when one considers the profundity of biology and what has been proven to us in these recent years. With what we know now, we have learned that there is so much more to explore and to learn. Why should I balk at such opportunities?”
“You are a fool, my boy,” was the terse reply. Pickering was clearly offended by the whole concept of the experiment, but more than that, he seemed to be genuinely worried about Shelley.
“Let’s get on with this, gentlemen,” said Shelley, pointing one hand at the first lever. “Will you do the honors, Larran, as it seems that Pickering will have none of this?”
Larran nodded, while Pickering crossed his arms and looked on angrily.
“Raise the primer lever, and then, when the bulb above the second switch is alight, raise that lever. The machine will stop when it has run its course.”
Lauren silently nodded again and raised the first lever. A low rumbling sound began to emanate from the walls of the lab. The two older men were startled, but Shelley reassures them, “The machine is so large that it fills all of the chambers surrounding this one.” This calmed the men but only to a small degree for soon a shrill electric while began to pierce the air. Just as the tumult reached it’s fever-pitch, when the men were able to bear no more of it, the light above the second lever slowly began to shine.
“Don’t lift that lever!” Pickering shouted, gripping Larran’s arm.
“What else can I do?” came the shaky reply, “How else can I stop this but to go through with it?” And with that, Larran lifted the second lever.
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