Letting Go - 9. Chapter 9

Keith woke up on his bed, he rolled over and looked up at the big digital clock screen on the wall to register the time, it was 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

 

Shit I’m late for the meeting with Dr. Quentin!

 

But he did not hold on to that thought long, soon Keith realized that was not the only thing he should be concerned about. He was supposed to go meet Dr. Quentin the scientist around 10 in the morning, with Elliot.

 

Oh right, Elliot.

 

Everything started flashing back like a slide show, he remembered seeing Elliot being cornered by another guy in the hallway of Brown's hotel. Keith turned around and felt something hard pressing against his body, it was his cell phone, he took it out and found fifteen missed phone calls. Nine from Ian and six from Elliot. Keith dialed the number and listened to his voice mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keith didn't finish listening to Elliot's voice mail and deleted them all, he stared at his phone for one second then agreed that he at least owe one person a phone call.

 

"Hi Ian, it's Keith... I'm really sorry for last night I got totally wasted and I don't even know how I got back home... Yea I'm feeling okay now, just a small hangover, no big deal... Yea I got all of them, sorry I didn't hear any of your calls... Nothing particular... No I'm still feeling weary, maybe next time.... Yea... Okay cheers."

 

Keith got out of bed, took off all his cloth and stood naked in the bathroom, he glanced at himself in the full length mirror and saw a reflection of an exhausted body, He got into the shower and just stood there, letting the water run down his body from head, he wished the water could sweep away his sorrow.

 

After the shower, Keith got dressed and went downstairs, he didn't even have appetite for breakfast, there in the living room Albert told him Elliot had dropped by for a visit four hours ago and asked if he should ask the kitchen the prepare breakfast now.

 

“No I don’t feel like it.” Keith could not think about food, it would irritate his already suffocating chest.

 

"Mr. Elliot looked concerned when he was here." Albert said to Keith, “He asked me to tell you to call him after you wake up, he was very worried.”

 

Keith did not comment, in stead he said, "Albert, I'm going out in forty minutes, can you get the driver ready for me?"

 

"Yes Mr. Keith" Said Albert, “Are you sure you don’t want to have any breakfast, I could ask the kitchen to prepare something light.”

 

“No it’s okay, thanks Albert.” Said Keith and then Albert left.

 

Keith then took out his cell phone and dialed another number.

 

"Hi Dr. Quentin, it's Keith, sorry I didn't make it to our today's meeting, is... Elliot… still there?... Right, is it ok if I drop by after one hour?... Okay I'll see you then, bye."

 

Dr Quentin was Keith father's friend, he had graduated as a rocket scientist from Harvard with a degree of Aeronautical Engineering and Computer Science and had used to work for MBDA in air defense department in Germany, but four years ago he had had an heart attack and had been barely brought back to life, then he had decided to leave the company and do things he had been longing to do for so long and to stay with his family. He had spent one year traveling around the world , another year on learning how to cook and for the last two years he had been working in his basement lab on a big project but he had not told anyone about exactly what the project was, today was the first day he showed the project to others, Elliot was the first to know and Keith would be the second, and most probably the last too.

 

One hour later, Keith stood right outside of Dr Quentin's villa and buzzed the code panel outside of the iron gate.

 

"Hey Dr. Quentin, it's me Keith."

 

"Come on in!"

 

The iron gate opened automatically like it had received Dr Quentin's order, Keith walked through the yard and got into the house.

 

"Dr. Quentin?" Keith looked around but didn't see anyone.

 

"I'm down in the basement!" Dr. Quentin's voice echoed in the room.

 

"Er... okay, is it save if I go down there now?" Keith was right for being cautious, not everybody wants to join the group of Fantastic four when they walk into a physician's basement, especially Dr. Quentin had never allowed him to get down there before.

 

"Yea, definitely, come down now I have something to show you." Dr. Quentin called back.

 

Keith walked down the staircase and came to face a thick frosted glass door, he rang the bell again and the door slided open, maybe you would be expecting some sort of blue smoke squeezing out of the door but sorry I'm not good at writing that kind of stuff. Keith walked through an aisle and got into Dr. Quentin's lab in the basement.

 

"BLIMY HELL! WHAT IS THAT?!" Keith dropped his jaw when he set his foot into the lab. What stood in front of him was a giant machine with a huge container in the middle.

 

"Your expression was like a replay of Elliot's," Dr. Quentin walked to Keith from his table and patted him on the shoulder like a father, "By the way, I heard about what happened last night from Elliot, have you talked to him today?"

 

"What?... No," Keith said absentmindedly, rambling around the big machine, "What is this thing, what is it for?"

 

"It's the project which has cost me ten years to finish, I've been working on that since those years in MBDA, and I just got enough time to finish it for the last two years after my retirement. I call it the OSS—— Object Shape Shifter."

 

"How does the thing work? And what exactly does it do?" Keith knocked on the container in the middle and then glued his face on the container to check what was inside.

"Have you ever heard about the Hutchison Effect?" Dr. Quentin asked.

 

"The Canadian physician who gave a new theory about Bermuda Triangle?" Keith remembered he had watched one video about him on Youtube long time ago.

 

"Exactly!" Dr. Quentin almost jumped, "if you know his theory about the Bermuda Triangle, then it'll be easier for you to understand this babe." Dr. Quentin pointed at his new invention.

 

"The Hutchison Effect is a collection of phenomena which were discovered accidentally by John Hutchison during his attempts to study the longitudinal waves of Tesla back in 1979," Dr. Quentin explained while showing Keith around the machine, "The things the Hutchison Effect has achieved include levitation, weird physical changes in metals, and other odd effects. He has somehow gotten totally different materials, like wood and metal, to interpenetrate each other, not by displacement but by some kind of interlacing of their atomic structures. And among one of those strange phenomenon, the most unimaginable one is the disappearance of metal samples..."

 

"So you worked ten years on this machine so you can change metal into wood and make them disappear?" Keith raised one of his eyebrows.

 

"No!" Dr. Quentin got more excited while explaining to Keith, "But you have caught the essential point, so if you can change the atomic structures of meal and rearrange it, then think what IF YOU CAN CHANGE THE ATOMIC STRUCTURE OF... An animal... And then... A HUMAN!"

 

"So you mean, you can change a person into... Another person?" Keith wasn't sure about Dr. Quentin's idea and it sounds really lame when you said it out loud.

 

"Technically yea, but I've never tested on human, not that I'm planning to either, but I managed to make a dead mouse disappear. You know how the Hutchison Effecting explains those accidents in Bermuda Triangle? Because that area has a extremely strong power which can distort the atomic structures of human body, so in a way of speaking, you disappear like a sand man, but if there were another power which can hold all those atomic back and restructure them, then technically you can be anything."

 

"Like a basket of grandma baked biscuits?" Keith joked.

 

"Depends on which taste you want." Dr. Quentin winked.

 

"Ew... That's just sick." Keith thought maybe it was wise to not have eaten anything at all before he left home. "So you didn't do any experiments on human?" Keith asked quite curiously.

 

"Well... There is still a risk, and there is no guarantee that there will be no effect on human even if the change succeed." Dr. Quentin's voice was full of pity.

 

"What have you tried so far?" Keith asked.

 

“Non important things, like fruits, vegetables, dead animals.” Answered Dr. Quentin.

 

“Did them all work?”

 

“Not always, but I have managed to turn the apple into a cup, but not perfect. Do you want me to show you?”

 

“Of course!” Keith exclaimed.

 

“Okay, let’s see,” Dr. Quentin looked around and grabbed his lab chair, “Help me with it,” He said to Keith, “Let’s try something big.”

 

Keith helped Dr. Quentin to put the chair into the container and asked, “What are you going to change it into?”

 

“I need a new deep fryer, so why not that, I have build my own database of random items in daily life. Let me switch on the machine.”

 

"What if you fail?" Keith asked.

 

"Then we have this reboot system which will reduce the process." Dr. Quentin showed Keith a button which said "reboot", “Although so far there is no guarantee for that either.”

 

Dr. Quentin worked on the screen and pressed the start button.

 

The container closed itself and color of the container wall became blue, the chair stood inside and so far there had not been any change yet, Keith then noticed a thread of smoke shot into the container, the light inside became stronger and the smoke became thicker until Keith couldn't see anything inside.

 

Keith started stared intensively at the container for five minutes, then the noise from the container stopped and the light and smoke were starting to fade away. The door slid open.

 

But what appeared in front of them was a half deep fryer attached to part of the original chair.

 

“Oh Bummer,” Dr. Quentin sounded disappointed, “It went a bit better when I showed to Elliot, I managed to make an apple into a small wooden box.”

 

“But that’s still amazing,” Keith consoled Dr. Quentin, “I have never seen anything like that, maybe it will take just a bit longer time for perfection.”

 

“You sounded just like Elliot.” Dr. Quentin laughed.

 

Elliot.

 

Keith had gotten that name out of his mind for twenty minutes and now it was back again like a bomb blowing up the amusement into shreds, he stood beside a table and pretended he was checking the notes on it.

 

"Elliot told me about what had happened." Dr. Quentin walked to Keith and put his hand on Keith's shoulder, "I could see he was feeling genuinely worried about last night, and I do trust that kid. The relationship between you and Elliot is quite interesting, from what I see and hear from both of you, it seems you all have problems to commit your feelings into this relationship, am I right?”

 

“I did commit to him, but he is not accepting.” Keith sounded more injured than he intended to.

 

“Have you told him about it?” Dr. Quentin asked Keith affably.

 

“No, should not he say something to me when he is obviously not accepting?” Keith said sullenly.

 

“I’m not sure, I’m not familiar with your relationship with him, one thing I do know is I have never seen you so devoted to something before, don’t take me wrong, I’m saying this positively. If you have been feeling like this for a long time, tell him about it, you blame him for not being totally honest with his feelings to you, but ain't you doing the same to him now?”

 

“But it is all because of him, he keeps standing on the same ground, and I have to step forward all the time.” Keith retorted.

 

“And how do you feel to stand still just like him?”

 

That made Keith silent.

 

“I know you are hurt, son, you must be, you might not be sure about you and Elliot anymore, but have you ever thought Elliot is also having the same problem, and you are not the least curious about the reason and prefer to linger on the surface only?”

 

"I don't know," Keith looked aside, "I don't know what I should do, I don't know where my feeling is leading me. This whole thing really messed me up, I thought I was living in the perfect world with the perfect guy, but now I'm not even sure what are those things I should cherish about. Sometimes I have this feeling that I have everything and yet I have nothing. Being with Elliot was the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me, I love the feeling when he was around. But now I feel like I don't know him at all, he finally became a total stranger over one night and I feel a great part of me is missing, I can't understand this feeling at all, and I can't figure out why what had happened last night has such a huge impact on me, I mean I agree with you that Elliot was probably telling the truth, but seeing him being cornered by another guy is like the last straw, no matter whether he is guilty or not."

 

"That's a question can not be answered simply by word. Actually, that’s a question which should not be answered by others. You have to find the answer yourself, with him," Dr. Quentin patted Keith on the shoulder, "Come on, let's get upstairs, I need a good rest, I don’t remember when was the last time I had a good sleep.”

 

Keith walked Dr. Quentin get to his bedroom and poured him some water.

 

"Where is Nadia, I didn't see her when I came in." Keith asked. Nadia was Dr. Quentin's wife, “You did not turn her into a cup pad, did you?”

 

"Of course not,” Dr. Quentin exclaimed, but also seemed quite amused by this thought. “She flew to Barcelona with her friends for a few days, one of her friends' son is having a wedding." Dr. Quentin gulped down the water and rested his back on the headboard of his bed, "And don't take the things with Elliot too serious, son, you always take things too serious, sometimes the problems just hold as much credits as we give them."

 

Keith took the glass from Dr. Quentin then stood up. "I think I should go now, Is it okay you are here alone?"

 

"Yes, I'll be fine." Dr. Quentin waved his arm, “Stop talking to me like I’m a dying man.”

 

"If you need anything just call me on my cell." Said Keith, "I love your new invention."

 

Dr. Quentin smiled and Keith left the room.