Inversion - 7

Chapter 7

The nausea struck again as Laurel hunched over his desk, trying to focus on quantum field equations that swam before his eyes like tadpoles in murky water. Three days of dry heaves, and his body felt hollow, a discarded shell. The campus health center had run more blood work, urine tests, even did an MRI. Nothing. Dr. Mukherjee had suggested stress when he called her, perhaps delayed concussion symptoms, and prescribed rest. Rest. As if he could sleep when his stomach felt like it was digesting itself.

Maya found him in the lab at two in the morning, slumped in his chair with his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling tiles.

“You look like death warmed over,” she said, setting down a thermos of tea. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“Tuesday.” He didn’t look at her. “Or maybe Monday. Food just comes back up.”

She pulled up a stool beside him. In the fluorescent light, her dark hair caught silver streaks he’d never noticed before. “Tell me again what happened. All of it.”

“I’ve told you…“

“You’ve told me nothing for four days now. Her voice was gentle but insistent. “I’m a biochemist, Laurel. Help me help you.”

“I’m worried that something has gone wrong with the teleportation after all. I felt great after, remember? No disorientation, no nausea, nothing. I felt like I could conquer the world.”

“And now?”

“Now I can’t keep down a glass of water.”

Maya stood and began pacing the small lab, her footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. “The animals you tested – how long did you observe them post-teleportation?”

“Long enough. A few hours for the mice, overnight for the pig.”

“And then?”

Laurel’s stomach clenched. “Then I euthanized them. For the autopsies.”

“So you never observed long-term effects.”

“There were no long-term effects to observe.” But even as he said it, doubt crept in. The pig had seemed listless in its final hours, though he’d attributed that to stress.

Maya stopped pacing and turned to face him. “I need blood. Fresh blood.”

“I already…“

“Not the hospital. Me. My lab, my equipment.” She was already moving toward the supply cabinet, pulling out collection tubes and a tourniquet. “Something’s wrong with your biochemistry, and I’m going to find out what.”

The blood draw was routine, but Maya’s hands trembled slightly as she labeled the vials. Laurel watched her work, noting the furrow between her brows, the way she bit her lower lip when concentrating. How had he never noticed these things before?

“Results tomorrow,” she said. “Maybe the day after. Some of the tests I want to run… they’re not standard.”

She left him alone in the lab with the hum of equipment and the weight of possibility settling on his shoulders like snow.

The call came thirty-six hours later while Laurel was attempting to choke down a protein shake that tasted like chalk and disappointment.

“Come to my lab,” Maya’s voice was tight. “Now.”

He found her standing before a whiteboard covered in molecular diagrams, her hair pulled back in a messy bun secured with what appeared to be a pencil. She looked as if she hadn’t slept.

“Sit down,” she said without turning around.

“I’d rather stand.”

“Sit. Down.”

The command in her voice was so unlike her usual gentle manner that he obeyed, sinking into the desk chair she’d indicated.

Maya finally turned to face him, and he saw something in her eyes he’d never seen before: pity.

“Your amino acids are backwards,” she said simply.

The words hung in the air like incense, heavy and incomprehensible.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your amino acids. The building blocks of proteins. In nature, they exist in two mirror-image forms – left-handed and right-handed. We call it chirality.” She moved to the whiteboard and tapped a diagram. “All life on Earth uses left-handed amino acids exclusively. It’s been that way for billions of years.”

Laurel’s mouth felt dry. “And?”

“And yours are right-handed. Every single one.” Maya’s voice cracked slightly. “It’s like someone took your entire molecular structure and flipped it in a mirror.”

The lab fell silent except for the steady drip of a faucet somewhere. Laurel stared at the diagrams without seeing them, his mind struggling to process the implications.

“That’s impossible.”

“I ran the tests six times. Different samples, different equipment. The results are consistent.” Maya moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Laurel, your body can’t process normal food anymore. The enzymes, the chemical pathways – everything’s reversed. To your system, regular amino acids are like poison.”

“But I feel fine. I mean, apart from the nausea.”

“No, you don’t.” She pulled up a chair across from him. “You’ve lost twelve pounds in five days. Your muscle tone is already deteriorating. Your body is literally starving to death because it can’t break down anything you’re feeding it.”

Laurel looked down at his hands. They seemed somehow foreign now, as if they belonged to someone else. “The teleportation.”

“Has to be. During matter transmission, your quantum state was decoded and rebuilt. Somehow, the chirality got flipped.” Maya’s voice grew clinical, safer in the realm of theory. “It’s actually elegant, in a horrifying way. The quantum information preserved everything about you – every atom, every bond – but mirrored the molecular handedness.”

“Can it be reversed?”

The pause before her answer told him everything.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But Laurel…” She reached out as if to touch his hand, then pulled back. “The process would essentially be another teleportation. And if something went wrong…”

“I’d die.”

“You’d die.”

They sat in silence, the weight of it settling between them like a wall. Outside, Laurel could hear the distant sound of students walking to class, their voices bright with youth and possibility. The normal world, going about its business while his own had just collapsed into something unrecognizable.

“How long do I have?”

Maya’s eyes glistened. “Without intervention? Weeks, maybe a month. Your body will consume itself trying to process food it can’t digest.”

“And with intervention?”

“I don’t know. No one’s ever…” She gestured helplessly at the whiteboard. “This has never happened before. You’re the first.”

The first. The phrase carried an odd weight, like a title he’d never wanted. Laurel stood slowly, his legs unsteady beneath him.

“I need to think.”

“Laurel, wait…”

But he was already moving toward the door, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. Behind him, he heard Maya call his name once more, but he didn’t turn back.

Outside, the Colorado sky stretched endless and blue above the campus. Students passed by in clusters, their conversations a meaningless buzz. Laurel walked among them like a ghost, invisible and untouchable, his molecular structure as alien as if he’d arrived from another planet.

He was still walking when the sun set, and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky – distant lights that had traveled impossible distances to reach him, their ancient radiance falling on a world where he no longer quite belonged.