saladlove | To Sail Across the Sky

Well, here we are, the first really foreshadowing heavy chapter. Speaking for foreshadowing, would anyone be interested in joining a theory chat for this? Please comment with your skype name if interested. I think the break between chapters two and three might be longer than this one was, but we'll have to see. This wasn't as heavily edited, so apologies for any mistakes I missed. Please send feedback!

Dr. Tesla emerged downstairs, looking for clues. "I wish I had a magnifying glass." he mumbled to himself, walking around the room.

"First thing's first." he said to himself, walking to the small alcove to the left of the door where the flower pot was, noting again that the middle section of the flowers was missing. He picked one of them and smelled it. Yeah, he decided. This will do. He grabbed a ziplock bag out of one of the many pockets inside his lab coat and put the flower in it, zipping the bag back up and putting it back in the pocket. He also zipped the pockets closed. How does Dr. Milner live with so few pockets? He wondered to himself, taking the time to look around the room more.

From his position on the left wall of the house, he could see the remainder of the first floor fairly well. A small kitchen dominated the back right corner of the house, with a baby grand piano sitting just in front. To the left of the kitchen was a door that he assumed led to the basement. Past that door was a small bathroom. Just the essentials. he noted. He then looked at the paint job, which hardly looked professional. Whoever painted this did it on a budget. Wonder how old the place is? He shook his head. A crime in the DIY industry. Is DIY an industry? Realizing he was getting off track, Dr. Tesla resumed his search.

After searching the kitchen, Dr. Tesla had found nothing of note. Except for coffee. Dr. Tesla noted to himself. Going to have to bring that up later.

He decided to try the door he had noticed earlier. True to his suspicions, the door led to a small basement. The basement had a small bed that appeared to fold in and act as a fold-out couch. The basement clearly hadn't had much time spent on it, the only carpet being one that the caretaker had just thrown on. Exposed pipes were visible, and the room smelled of must and week-old air freshener. There was a door next to the bookcase lining the back wall. Dr. Tesla tried the door. Locked.

Hmmm. Dr. Tesla thought, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Wonder what he's got hiding in there. The bigger problem at hand, though, was the key. He resolved to ask later. Let's see what he's into reading. He thought to himself, examining the bookshelf.

The book titles ranged from things like Rise in Revolution to The Walking Salad. Dr. Tesla wasn't sure how a salad could walk, but they at least sounded interesting. He resolved to look them up when he got home. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed an odd detail on one of the books. The book was titled The Reluctant Writer and was notably written by Jimmy himself.

An author, huh. Wonder if he ever got anything published. Dr. Tesla opened the front cover of the book and saw the publisher information. I guess he did.

Dr. Tesla also noticed something strange about the book's spine. While it looked relatively unopened, it was extremely bent in one place. When Dr. Tesla opened the book to the place with the bent spine, a key fell to the floor with a soft 'clink.' Huh. Well, he sure knows the best places to hide things. Wonder if the bookshelf is also a secret rotating door?

After testing each book and ensuring this was not the case, Dr. Tesla took the key and unlocked the door, albeit a bit tentatively. He felt an odd vibe coming from the room. The scent of mold (and... paper?) came from the room behind the now open door. Dr. Tesla opened it further, hearing the sound of crinkling paper as he did so.

He stepped tentatively into the dark room. Somehow, the room seemed to suck in the already dim light from the basement, making even Dr. Tesla's uneasy squint into the darkness ineffective. Once again, Dr. Tesla thought about how nice it would be to have a tiny flashlight along the rims of his glasses. It might even help counterbalance his glasses to stop them from sliding down his nose, as they were doing now. He indulged in the nervous habit of fiddling with his glasses and adjusted his lab coat to fit a bit tighter around him. Although the basement was a comfortable temperature, he was starting to feel a slight chill down his spine.

He looked for the light switch. Pawing across the wall, he finally found it. He flipped it on. HIs eyes widened and he took an unconscious step back through the door.

The room was covered in paper boats. They were everywhere: on dusty shelves, across the floor, tacked onto the walls, behind the door. You couldn't step anywhere without stepping on one of them. The crinkling sound when he opened the door, Dr. Tesla realized, was the door crushing more paper boats.

Dr. Tesla then noticed a note tacked on the back of the door. "I moved the others to the shipwreck." The note read. His eyes widened. There are more?!

He laughed nervously. "This is weird, right?" he asked the origami boats.

They had no response.

"Yeah, this is weird." he said, turning around, away from the room that felt almost like it was watching him. "This is really weird." He walked through the door, turning around to wave through the room as he closed the door. "I'm going to go now." He chuckled nervously. "See ya."

He closed the door, and the room full of forgotten memories one again returned to the darkness.

Dr. Tesla, taking one last look at the basement, decided that he was thoroughly done with the basement and returned upstairs.

Well, that was... interesting. he thought, walking back to Jimmy's room. Well, at least I got the flower, which should work. We also know he's an author, so it wasn't all useless. I wonder if I should check out that shipwreck the note was talking about. He shrugged. I suppose it couldn't hurt.

Dr. Tesla made his way out the door and into the cool night. Once again, he was reminded of the fact that he was near the ocean by the sound of crashing waves and the salty smell that filled the air. He took notice of a path leading behind the house that he hadn't seen before. The ground sloped down, then led to a staircase that ended near a giant, rusty ship, marooned on the coarse, rocky beach.

The boat was rusted, having clearly been trapped there for a long time. It gave the appearance of being nearly drivable, with the exception of a large fracture splitting the boat down the middle. One side of the ship was incredibly rusted and near useable, and an important looking chunk was missing from the other side of the moat that looked to be part of the hull used to combine the two halves together. The shipwreck towered at least a hundred feet over Dr. Tesla. It looked like the lighthouse may have, at one point, been absent, and the lighthouse on the cliff was installed so the shipwreck could not happen again.

Dr. Tesla stepped onto the sand and looked at the wreck in awe, out of the corner of his eye he noticed something grey sticking out of the sandy shore surrounded by purple and red flowers.

It was a gravestone.

Dr. Tesla approached the gravestone, kneeling down to read what was on the surface.

Ember Rem Oblitus

A simple gravestone for the death of a person who was anything but simple.

That must be his wife. Dr. Tesla thought. He frowned and stood up. I should get moving. Don't want to keep Dr. Milner waiting.

Deciding to quickly check out the ship to make sure he wasn't missing anything.

He wasn't. The ship was merely occupied by more paper boats and a strange stuffed duck. He picked the duck plush, turning his head sideways and examining it closely. It was oddly misshapen, and looked very old. Dirt and signs of wear were prevalent, but it was still in relatively good shape. Whoever owned this had really cared about it.

Dr. Tesla decided to head back. The visit had been ultimately meaningless, so it was best not to waste any more time here. They were on a strict deadline, after all.

Dr. Tesla returned to the room to find Dr. Milner talking with the doctor. The machine and its components appeared to have been set up. The main computer was out and running on the backup battery supply, although it was not plugged in to the house's wall outlet. The silver patient helmet adorned Jimmy's head. Dr. Tesla had always though it either made the patient look like an alien invader, or a character from one of those old cheesy si-fi movies who controlled the minds of the other characters. Not that the helmet he wore while performing the procedure looked much better. It looked a lot like the one on Jimmy's head, except with green lights instead of red. His and Dr. Milner's helmet were both sitting on an armchair in the lower corner of the room.

"The machine's not plugged in." Dr. Tesla noted aloud, walking into the room and making his presence known. "What gives, Jill?"

Dr. Milner frowned at him, a judging expression that often made him reconsider his life choices. "I was discussing with the doctor here the possibility of a power sag once the machine is plugged in. Everything else is set up." She motioned to the simple wall plug that connected the multi-million dollar supercomputer to the home's relatively insignificant power source. "She says it's fine. Would you like to do the honors?"

Dr. Tesla shrugged, walking over to it. "Sure. The machine's power supply has been improved to work on less current draw, so it shouldn't be too much..." He plugged in the cord to the outlet.

The lights dimmed and the beeping got quieter. Everyone looked around for a few moments. A few seconds later, the power returned full force, the machine now blinking in the boot-up state.

Dr. Tesla flashed the room a winning smile. "Just keeping you all on your toes!" He said cheerfully, discarding the momentary burst of panic that had flared in his stomach seconds earlier.

The doctor looked relieved. Dr. Milner slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand, a gesture she did so often Dr. Tesla was surprised her forehead had any skin left. Most of the time, it was directed at him. "If you're the technical specialist, why haven't I won a Pulitzer?" She mumbled to herself. The other woman laughed.

Dr. Tesla navigated the machine's menus for a bit and put it in the startup procedure. "Alright. We'll be online in a few minutes. What's the wish?" He asked.

The woman looked uncomfortable. "It's... uh... It's a bit... strange." She finally said.

Dr. Tesla raised an eyebrow. "I've heard a lot of weird wishes, miss. It takes a lot to surprise us." Dr. Milner gave a small nod of affirmation.

"He wants to.. oh, how did he put it?

"He wants 'to sail across the sky.'"

Both doctors eyebrows shot up simultaneously.

Dr. Tesla shook his head and leaned toward Dr. Milner, mumbling. "The geezers just keep getting crazier and crazier, huh?"

She shot him a withering glare and turned towards the woman, who was, at the very least, politely pretending to not have heard. Either this woman was very polite or near deaf. "Do you have any idea what that means? Or why that's his wish?"

She shook her head sadly. "He was never able to tell me."

An air of silence fell on the room after that.

Dr. Tesla sighed and ran his hand through his hair, causing it to stick out in strange directions. "To sail across the sky... I guess the closest thing to that I can think of is flying on a rocket ship. Or ride on a plane?" Dr. Tesla shook his head. "That wouldn't make sense. If he had enough to pay for this procedure, he would have enough for a plane ride."

The lady shook her head. "He made it clear that that wasn't what he wanted."

Dr. Milner nodded. "Well alright then. I guess that's the goal. We should probably get started."

The woman scratch the back of her head. "So, uh, how exactly do you guys do what you do?"

Dr. Tesla began to explain. "Well, we enter the patient's memories as extracted by the machine, which it is currently doing. From there, we uncover travel through his memories memories until we get to the earliest accessible memory. From there, we simply implant the desire in the patent's childhood memories, and the machine generates the rest based on what the patient wants."

"And that works?"

Dr. Milner tried to explain this time. "With the goal in mind, the patient's mind will make the decisions necessary to achieve that goal. If the patient wants it enough, it'll happen. Otherwise..." She paused "Well, the process fails very rarely and under extreme circumstances. This should go pretty smoothly."

"And you'll succeed?"

Dr. Milner gave her a reassuring smile. "We're professionals, Ma'am." She noticed Dr. Tesla striking a dramatic pose out of the corner of her eye. She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm a professional." She happily ignored Dr. Tesla's indignant "Hey!"

The machine blinked, signaling to the user that the memory extraction was complete, and it was ready for the doctors to head into the memory. Dr. Tesla checked the screen. "Loose connection with the nearest accessible memory. The flower I got earlier should do the trick." Dr. Tesla grabbed the bag with the flower in it out of his pocket and tossed it at Dr. Milner.

Dr. Milner took the flower out of the bag and held it close to Jimmy's nose. He began to breathe through his nose a little more, making his breathing sound heavier. "This good?"

Dr. Tesla gave her the thumbs up. "We are ready for liftoff. Time to put on the helmets, Space Cadet."

Dr. Milner gave him a look. "If anything, Elon, I'm the commander."

"The point still stands, Commander Cadet."

Dr. Milner shook her head as she donned the hi-tech helmet, it's familiar weight making her feel a bit nervous for the mission ahead. Pre-job jitters, nothing unusual there. "That's not how that works."

Dr. Tesla sat in the chair in front of the machine, ready to enable memory entry upon helmet activation. "I'll be sure to let you know when I care. You ready?"

Dr. Milner fastened the helmet to her head and closed her eyes. "Ready when you are, private."

"Cadet"

"Just shut up and start the machine, you moron."

"Aye aye, Captain."

Satisfied he had gotten the last word, he put on the helmet and began the sequence to upload their consciousnesses into the machine. The helmets clicked on to green, and the sequence began.

Time to delve into a memory they were about to erase.

As the sequence began, they left behind two very confused women to ponder over the scene they had just witnessed.

"Are you sure these two are professionals?" The woman asked nervously.

The doctor shook her head. "I've worked with the doctors from their company. They wouldn't be here without being perfectly capable."

"I hope so."