Fred

Darwin sat down at a table outside of the café, it was very cold, but the sun was out and felt good on his face and his long overcoat was keeping him warm, heavy as it was. He watched the steam drift away from his coffee for a moment, sighed and took out his phone. There were no new messages. No new messages meant no new developments and no progress. He needed the project to progress. He wished for the millionth time that Ariana was still working on the project, they owed most of their critical advances to her.

He looked again at his coffee; the steam had already stopped rising. He set his phone down and reached for the cup. Taking a sip, he noticed the old homeless guy, Fred, who always seemed to be around the café in the mornings coming his way. Fred was not in good shape, his face was bruised, he had a black eye and there was dried blood on his beard from a cut lip. He sighed again; eye contact had been made.

“Hey Fred, what happened to you?” Darwin asked. “You get in a fight?”

“No, no, Fred don’t fight, don’t fight Fred,” Fred said rapidly. “Can you uh, can you uh, buy me, me a uh, coffee, a coffee?” He asked looking down at his hands. He only had one glove on and was clutching a little black notebook in his ungloved hand.

“Sure, I can get you a coffee. Are you ok?” asked Darwin, concerned.

“Yah, yah, just want a coffee, coffee,” Fred said as he looked back over his shoulder. He whipped his head back around. “Gotta hurry, gotta hurry,” said Fred looking him in the eye.

“Okay, be back in a moment,” The café staff would not let Fred inside ever since he just walked behind the counter one day and started making himself breakfast.

Darwin came back outside a few minutes later. Fred was standing where he left him, shifting his weight from foot to foot while thumbing through the little notebook. Darwin went over and handed him the coffee.

“Here, take it, take it. Not for Fred, not for Fred,” Fred set the notebook on the table, took the coffee and walked off with another look back over his shoulder.

“Take care Fred,” Darwin said with a sigh and a shake of his head. He usually avoided street people and had little compassion for them, but Fred was a different story. Rumor had it that he had been a PhD student at the University but had a psychotic break a few days before he was set to defend his thesis and never went back. Darwin hoped he would be okay.

Darwin sighed, took another sip of coffee and watched Fred walk away until he turned to go down the next street. Fred looked back at him at him as he rounded the corner, eyes bright and wild. Darwin’s phone beeped just as Fred disappeared.

Darwin checked his phone and had a text message stating: “hey we finally got it working get yourself in here asap.” It was from Lacy, his research assistant. Lacy rarely messaged him and only if it was important. Darwin knew this had to be it. He turned to go nearly forgetting the notebook. He stepped back, grabbed it and slipped it into his overcoat pocket.

Lacy met him at the door to her office with a manila file folder and a laptop in her hands.

“It worked Darwin,” She was smiling ear to ear. “It worked.” She said as she held up the file and the laptop. “Let me show you.”

They went inside his office and Darwin hung his overcoat up on the coatrack.

“We got it all dialed in a couple of hours ago and then sent the package through,” said Lacy.

“Everything come out just like it was before it went through?” Darwin asked.

“As far as we can tell,” said Lacy. “It’s being analyzed now, should know more details in a few hours,” offered Lacy.

Darwin’s day sped by, the high of success making it pass quickly. He was about to head home when Ariana appeared at the door to his office.

“Congrats, my friend,” She said with smile. “I heard the DNA in the blood sample survived the teleport completely intact.”

Darwin walked over and gave her a hug. “All thanks to you, my friend.”

“Don’t give me that, you and your team made it happen,” She said pushing him back but holding onto his shoulders and looking into his eyes. “You made it happen, your name will go down the history books,” she said and hugged him again. “I have to run, let’s grab a drink soon and celebrate. I’ll message you.”

She turned and walked away. She was humble as ever, while it may have been his idea and initial build, it was her ideas and tweaks that made it all work. She left the team for good reason; she had been offered her own research project and team. He knew he would have done the same.

He turned to grab his coat, pausing to look around his office. It hit him then and it hit him hard. Nothing was going to be the same. It was his project, his programming, his engineering, his baby, and it worked! As far as he knew, their accomplishment was the first successful teleport of matter on a macro scale, ever.

Darwin looked up and mumbled, “Beam me up, Scotty. Beam me up.”

It was below freezing when he went outside, Darwin buried his hands in his coat pockets against the chill. His hand found the little black book and memories of the morning came back to him. He hoped Fred was ok being out in this kind of cold.

The excitement of the day was in him and did not want to go home quite yet, so he decided to stop for a drink on the way. He sat at the bar, ordered a double shot of Macallan 18 and planned on enjoying it thoroughly. After a moment, he remembered the little black book and pulled it out.

It was old and worn and the pages had gotten wet at some point. There were initials embossed on the cover: X F M. He opened it not sure what he would find. The pages were filled with mathematical equations. He recognized some of the equations, then realized he knew some of the equations very well; they were part of the basis for his original theoretical model of the teleporter apparatus. There were a few subtle differences but otherwise they were the same. Darwin was shocked, few people knew those exact equations. He first encountered them when one of his mentors had pointed out to him an unpublished thesis written some 35 years ago about teleportation.

Darwin set the little black book down on the bar and stared at it. He took his drink, threw it back in one gulp and ordered another. A thought was looming large in his head and he whispered it out loud to himself, “How had Fred come into possession of this little black book?”

It took Darwin a week to find Fred. He had been beaten up pretty bad the day he gave Darwin the little black notebook and had found a new place to sleep. The volunteers at the homeless shelter knew him, however, and gave Darwin some clues about where to find him.

“Hey Fred, how are you?” Darwin asked when he finally found Fred in the park sitting on a bench.

“I know you, I know you. I’m okay, okay,” Said Fred rapidly. His face was mostly healed but the skin around one eye was an ugly yellowish purple. “What do you want, you want?” asked Fred.

Darwin pulled out the little black book and held it out to Fred. Fred started to reach for it but stopped, dropped his hand and quietly said, “No, not for Fred.”

Darwin sat down next to Fred on the bench. Fred began clutching his midsection and looking down.

“X F M, Xavier Frederique Montague. Is that you?” Darwin asked looking at him intently.

Fred shuddered, started slowly rocking back and forth, then slowly looked up clutching even tighter at his midsection.

“Not anymore. Just Fred, Fred,” he said slowly. “Never liked Xavier, Xavier,” his gaze moved to the little black book as he spoke.

“I read your thesis and used some of your concepts to make a working teleportation apparatus,” Darwin said unsure of how Fred would react.

Fred started laughing and then managed snort out, “I don’t believe you. Don’t believe you.” He sobered quickly, looked at Darwin and said, “They all said it’s not possible, but it is. I did. I did the math.”

“Would you like to see it?” asked Darwin while beginning to think this might not be a good idea.

“Really? you’re serious, serious? Working?” Fred’s mouth kept moving but no words came out.

“I am Professor Darwin Shultz. I teach quantum mechanics and experimental physics at the University. I’m serious,” said Darwin. “It works.”

“Oh, uh, yes, I would, I would,” Fred looked down and reached out for the notebook. Darwin gave it back to him.

Darwin brought Fred into the lab 2 days later. Lacy and the rest of the team were there. Fred was an instant hit, he had an intuitive understanding of the apparatus and wanted to know everything about it.

“Are you ready to see it work Fred?” Darwin asked.

“Yes, yes I am, am” replied Fred. “Yes.”

A small plastic bust of Einstein, the one with his tongue sticking out, was placed on Port one. A few seconds later it was gone. Fred stared at the space where it had been.

“I did the math,” whispered Fed

When it re-appeared on Port 2, Fred started laughing.

Darwin met Fred at the café a few weeks later. The staff did not recognize Fred, he was wearing clean clothes, had trimmed his beard and cut his hair. Darwin had arranged for Fred to have a few hours a week of supervised time in the lab. It seemed to be very therapeutic for him and he had been taking much better care of himself.

“May I join you?” Darwin asked.

“You, you don’t have to ask,” Fred replied.

“Remember that Gofundme page Lacy set up for you?” asked Darwin.

“Yah, what about it, it?” asked Fred.

“Your story got out and people have been donating, a lot,” explained Darwin.

“My, my story?” asked Fred.

“Yes, your story. Brilliant student writes revolutionary theory about teleportation, does the math, but mental illness derails his life before it gets published. He winds up homeless for many years, then by chance, he meets the guy who built on his work without knowing whose work it was and now he is back in the lab helping that guy work on the actual teleportation device that could not have been developed without him. Quite the story,” said Darwin.

“When, when you put it that way, it sounds like, like a bad movie” said Fred a little taken aback.

“Your Gofundme hit $20,000 this morning. Like I said, your story got out,” Darwin said with smile.