Milk in the Future Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Nurse Yeaston and the Doctor walked down the hall at what could only be described as a brisk pace. Having just received some rather unsettling details about a new patient, the Doctor was insistent this whole thing was a mistake. Was this supposed to be a surprise birthday party? He jogged his memory. His birthday was a while ago, that couldn’t be it. Was it his anniversary? He remembered it being warm out during his wedding, and it was November now. That couldn’t be it either.

Surely the details on the file were a mistake. He had never seen numbers like that before. People like that didn’t exist, period. But the nurse was not backing down. The documentation was right there in front of her, and it was undeniable. If what she was trying to show him was true, this could be a big medical phenomenon. They may be able to learn something from this patient.

And he was at ground zero.

“Nurse,” the Doctor said through gritted teeth. “If you’re playing me right now…”

“I’m telling you, Doctor, he’s real. The numbers, crazy as they are, are accurate. Once you see it, you’ll get it.”

“There’s no telling what I could do with a patient like that. The research, the data. To think, we’ve never had anything remotely close to someone like him before, and one day he just falls into my lap.”

If the doctor was being honest with himself, he would admit that the last few years had been rather slow for him. He was once renown for his skill in his practice. He made breakthrough after breakthrough in his youth, to the point where most agreed there wasn’t much room left for discovery in the world of milk studies. And perhaps they were right. Patient after patient, year after year, there were no more surprises. Just the same few ailments with the same few cures. The money was good, and who could say no to the hours, but what of the passion? With nothing left to solve, the game was over.

And he had always been a player.

“Doctor, I haven’t heard you talk like that in years,” Nurse Yeaston said.

“Yeah well, we haven’t seen anything like this in…” he paused to think of what he wanted to say. “Well… ever?”

They rounded the last corner of the hospital, where one final door remained. It was through here that the impossible awaited. It was through here the first and only specimen of its kind was laying on a bed. If they had been playing a prank on him, the hustle and bustle of the workers around him were all in on it. This would be the most elaborate and unfunny joke of the year, of all time.

He put his hand on the door knob. He turned to look at the nurse, who gave him an approving nod. He turned it and pushed the door open. As he stepped foot inside, a crowd of doctors and nurses were huddled around a single bed. They were talking with each other, pulling out and returning tools to people scurrying about. It was amazing how fast and coordinated ten people each weighing over four hundred pounds, to put it generously, could be, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

One of the doctors took note of the elderly man that had just entered.

“Doctor Everson,” he said. “You’ve got to see this.”

He told the others to part, and then he himself moved out of the way. The old man approached and looked down at the bed in front of him.

“Oh my god…”

-

Kevin’s small hand placed a keycard in front of a little box by the sliding door. There was a chirp, a green light, and then it slid open. This was how he normally got in. But now it was the night. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He knew the guard at the front took a break at 11:30. His backup was the security cameras. But with Kevin’s plan, it didn’t matter if there were security cameras.

Hell, maybe it was better there WERE security cameras. Then they could see the genius that was his plan and project, right in front of their eyes. It could be documented for the whole world to see, to know that he was a modern genius and his device could and would work. Everyone here would look stupid after that. Well, everyone but Chris. Actually, he would look stupid, but he wasn’t really. He didn’t deserve that tag… he was getting bogged down in the details, this always happened to him.

He quietly snuck past so as not to alert the guard in the breakroom and found his room. To his initial dismay, they had put up yellow tape around his door. It would seem his boss was already on to him. He was smarter than Kevin gave him credit for. Hopefully, they hadn’t done anything to his device.

Kevin pushed through the door to look at his beautiful creation, locking the door behind him.. There was room for just one, and there were a lot of buttons and dials that nobody knew about, mostly because they refused to learn. He noticed the power supply had been pulled, but they didn’t know he kept a ton of spare parts in one of his closets. He slipped back there and began digging around. Right when he found the necessary part, he heard something strange coming from behind him.

His computer rang.

It was the tone the built in chat system made when someone was trying to contact you in the office. But… how…

He took the computer out of rest and looked at the chat box. To his horror, his boss was calling him. He could see the profile picture, the smug face, getting ready to crap all over him. He had been caught, and there wasn’t really a way out of this.

Kevin answered.

“Y-Yes?” he asked.

“Kevin, it’s quite late. What are you doing at the office?”

“How did you-”

“I am wired to the security cameras. I’m talking to you from home. You know you’re not supposed to be in so late.”

“I can do what I want,” Kevin said.

“Kevin, you’re speech is slurred. You haven’t been drinking, have you?” he asked. The way he was speaking was so insulting Kevin would have tried to fight him right then and there. He wouldn’t win but he'd take a swing or too.

“Irvin, why didn’t you just believe in me?” Kevin asked. Irvin was right about one thing: Kevin was absolutely smashed. “My project was going to be the greatest invention of all time. You could have taken some of the credit for it. You could have been promoted just for being a part of it! Why?”

Irvin chuckled. It wasn’t a video call, but Kevin could imagine his face and it filled him with intense rage.

“Kevin… you know your work is dangerous. What if we put all of this down, I’ll forget about your intrusion, and I’ll assign you to someone else’s project. You can make their dreams come true, I know you’re smart enough to do that.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Something inside of him snapped. No, he would never do that. Not anymore. He wasn’t about to be part of someone else’s big scheme. He wanted some credit. He wanted the respect.

“Fuck you.”

“Excuse me, Kevin?”

“Fuck you,” Kevin repeated, not backing down. Clearly, his job had ended. There was no going back now. And knowing what he was about to do, it didn’t matter. With one last show of defiance, he ripped the computer out of the wall and smashed it on the ground. All of the pieces of machinery splashed all over the ground.

He had finally done it.

And then he turned to the machine before him. He swallowed hard. He had talked himself up, he would be a hypocrite if he backed out now, if to nobody but himself. Fear was beginning to take hold, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

Just then, he heard a pounding on the door. He realized the guard must have known he was there. All of that noise! All of that fucking noise. The pounding grew louder. He sounded like he was going to try and break through. There was definitely no options now. Good thing he knew this tool well enough to calibrate it in seconds.

He plugged it in and adjusted some items on the dashboard. The only thing left to do was determine the year.

2224.

“Maybe in two hundred years,” Kevin said to himself. “They’ll have figured out what a hero looks like.”

He closed the lid of the device over his head as he heard the door smash off its hinges. Too late, losers.

-

Ariel had been waiting in the Doctor’s office for at least ten minutes now. He had left in a hurry and told her to wait there. She had already been hesitant about being there, and now she felt even more assured that this wasn’t right.

She sat up, heaving her massive frame off of the comfortable seat. There were few women bigger than her, and even fewer with breasts the size of hers. Getting up was a big deal. If she stood up, it meant she was ready to move. Her weight was a deciding factor in a lot of facets of her life.

She texted her boyfriend “YOU WERE RIGHT”, then turned towards the door and pushed it open. The halls were aflutter with people running around, shouting and pushing carts. It was like some apocalypse, but nobody was dying. The hospital seemed to be running fine, but everyone was all in a tizzy.

But what about?

Who cared? Not her problem. She had resigned to just go home. There was nothing here for her. Just a rude, tired old man that didn’t seem to care about her. That’s not how she wanted to feel.

It was just as she rounded the corner towards the exit that she heard her name from behind her back.

“Ariel!” panted the Doctor.

She turned to look at him. He looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Ariel… come quick… we need you!”

“You… need me?” she asked.

“Yes…” he said, still catching his breath. “You’re the only one that can save him.”