AevumSaeclu

2

The AevumSaeclu main generator is something you'd need special equipment to take out of the lab. It weighs close to a ton. There's some particle physics behind how it works, but that's not important. What is important, as you might remember, is whether I can get its accompanying app on the prototype scanner to relay the user's genetic information and latitude and longitude to the main generator's deconstruct and reconstruct databases.

            One thing I like about working late is that I know that the AevumSaeclu main generator is offline. Engineering can't be tinkering with it at 11:00 PM. Engineers are boring. They have square jaws, floss every day, and crash out by ten. So if I'm fucking around with the scanners' GUI at midnight, I know I won't accidentally send my cat to the Weimar Republic.

            The scanner is kind of like an iPad, but thicker. And with a flip-screen lid. So the more apt comparison is a Pokédex. Eventually we could probably be able to implement the scanner app on an iPad, but that's a bad idea. The US government definitely will not want Joe Q Public to get his paws on something like this. Everybody would want a re-do at their worst mistakes, and we can't have that. I guess that's why this project ended up in the hands of Butterfly Electric, the lamest military contractor in the country. Our last project was installing surveillance devices in smart microwaves sold to ISIS (from what the grapevine has been saying, ISIS buys a lot of hot pockets).

In sum, there's no profit in a project like this. And, honestly, the utility of the product is damn near zero.

            I guess that's why the scanner ended up in my hands. A junior developer, with no com sci degree. Who knows nothing about physics, but can code furiously (if only by the seat of her very buggy pants). And in my hands the scanner was.

            If you know anything about coding, you'll probably be familiar with the fresh brain effect. Step away from your code for about fifteen minutes, and, upon your return, the bug you have spent the past four hours trying to isolate and vanquish will appear on your screen, offering a frustratingly simple solution in its insecty hands.

            I benefited from the fresh brain effect as soon as I got to my home laptop (alas, the error was indeed the result of a single stupid misplaced bracket). I complied my program a couple of times. No exception was thrown. I didn't even need to play around with the interface on the prototype scanner. I was done. I brushed my teeth, braided my hair, and was about to tuck myself into bed when my phone buzzed.

            Dan had finally texted back.

            Haha cool. U should go sometime

            By now, I didn't remember what it was he replying to. I read my last text, from three days ago.

            I'm extremely jealous. I've heard about that place from so many people and I've been dying to go.

            Oh yeah. Dan was going to an old school vintage 80s arcade my friend Jaime had told me about. I happen to really like arcade games (part of the reason I became a programmer), and I thought maybe I could turn Dan's interest in the arcade into a future possible date.

            Every dating guru I'd ever watched on YouTube was adamant you never ask a guy on a date. You can dangle your kerchief at them, you can be suggestive and coy and cunning- but never direct.

            And so I wasn't.

            And this is still what I get.

            Haha cool. U should go sometime

            I'm twenty-five. I've never been on an actual date. I've never been in an actual relationship. I don't know what that's like. But what I did know was that I couldn't get a single guy to even consider dating me. It was inexplicable, really. I'm not substantially unattractive. I don't have a man jaw or body odor. I'm a blonde, whatever that's supposed to say about me. I think it's meant to make me attractive.

I mean, fucking Reynold calls me Barbie.

            I didn't know what to write to Dan, so I wrote nothing at all. I flicked off my lights, shut my eyes and...tossed and turned in my bed, and ruminated over what my friends had said.

            It's just men these days don't date. You have to trick them into a relationship. It's not the 1980s.

            I wasn't going to fall asleep.

            I sat up. Flicked back on my lights. Went to the kitchen. Made some hot chocolate. I decided to download the updated program onto the prototype scanner. It took about fifteen minutes.

            My cat, Chester, was watching me from his cat bed in the living room. As I sipped my chocolate, I thought about quitting my job and moving to a big city, downloading PetPedi, and hooking him up with a nail technician. I wondered if there were any heterosexual male nail technicians. They'd probably be very gentle. Probably sensitive kissers.

             Some sardonic joke compelled me to pick up my updated scanner and changed the date from March 20, 2018 to March 20, 1985 in the destination text field. I set the destination coordinates for the same latitude and longitude as my current location, and then, just for fun, since I knew the AevumSaeclu main generator was offline, I held the scanner up to my face, and pressed "Go."

            Well.

            Some idiot must have left the AevumSaeclu generator on.

***

             March 20, 1985 was rainy. So rainy that after about a minute and a half of standing on some strange stretch of roadway, trying to get my bearings, my pink satin mocking SpongeBob nightie was soaked through to my skin.

            I was trying to think of a way to protect my AevumSaeclu Pokédex, when I was blinded by a pair of zipping yellow headlights. It soon became apparent that those headlights belonged to a fast-approaching Camaro IROC-Z. It got so close to me that I could hear that one Dan Hartman song blaring through it's speakers. But before the muscle car could hit me, I dove into a muddy diversion ditch on the right side of the road.

            As I attempted to pull myself to my feet, I heard a car door slam shut, then high heels on black top.

            "Hey, now!" A nasal-voiced, brunette woman reached for my arm. "Are you alright, there?"

            "Ah goddamn," a man bolted out from behind the driver side door. "Do we got to take her to the hospital? I hate the hospital, all those assclowns with stethoscopes-"

            I couldn't blink. I couldn't breathe. All I could do was fish my hands through the black ditch water, and pray for the slick, plastic edges of my prototype scanner.

            "Hey, now," the woman repeated. "Are you cut up any?"

            I found the scanner as soon as I realized it was completely waterlogged.

            "Oh fuck," I said.

"For Christ's sake, Denise, ask her if she needs to go to the hospital already!"

            "Rice." I heard myself say. "I need rice. Tell me you've got some rice?"

            "We've got Rice-A-Roni?" The man chuckled, but his face didn't look amused. "The San Francisco treat."

            "It's critical that you take me to the grocery store," I tried not to sound like a madman. "I NEED A BAG OF RICE."

            "I don't know, Harrold," Denise snapped her gum, "I think she must have hit her head something bad."

***