UNUM
The forgotten journal entry
Seven years earlier…
Jake’s notebooks were bastions of wild ideas. The markings were more reminiscent of early man’s rock carvings than modern day writing; but Jake could interpret every symbol. The pages were full, even the margins had been exploited for their space, words careening off the page’s edge turned just in time to find a runway perpendicular to the page. These thoughts would not be ignored, abbreviated, or erased. There were at least 50 of these notebooks stored in Jake’s closet. Most of them were never retrieved after they were stored on the ‘notebook shelf’, but they all could be; they were organized in a way that made sense to their creator. The tamest ideas were sometimes transmuted into legible notes in Jake’s more refined digital journal, but his favorite ideas lived only on paper, in lead.
The rain hadn’t stopped all day, each drop carried with it a tiny parcel of inspiration; shipped expressed from the upper atmosphere, to all recipients below. Jake felt galvanized. There were some days when being alive felt magical; today was one of those days. To be awakened during the darkest part of morning with time to watch the raindrops race down the window’s glass pane gave Jake a moment of meta-realization. I am here now and I’m acutely aware of that fact, and it is a wonder.
Jake flipped on his desk lamp and cracked open his worn notebook. He flipped its pages until he found one unblemished by his pen’s stroke. He never could find the same color pen, his notebooks contained rainbows of ink. He wasn’t quite sure where this morning’s thoughts would take him, but he had an idea and it involved the most future-oriented, not yet possible, ‘everyone would be concerned if they knew I thought this’ concepts he’d ever jotted down.
What if it were possible to transport human zygotes, fertilized human eggs, through interstellar travel? Organic matter wrapped in something sturdy that could survive teleportation, what would that take?
-Note- *A large grain of sand is about 2.0 mm in diameter and a zygote is about .7mm so I suppose it’s possible…*
I’m just going to write this down. This is what we need to figure out, first we need to design and construct small capsules that are impervious to…I can’t believe I’m writing this… space travel and teleportation. So, it needs to be strong, flexible, and shapeable material. Then, we need to transport the zygote inside of these ‘escape pods’ and store them in a way that preserves life.
Jake looked up from his notebook and shrugged at the absurdity of what he was writing…
How much energy would this take and how much space would it require to store enough of these capsules to improve the chance of survivability? We’d need something equivalent to one of the largest data centers on Earth, but we’ll need hundreds of those….but what if? I’d need a way to test this, a prototype… is this even possible? I need to make sure Beth sees these notes, maybe she can bring them to life. After that we’ll coordinate things with Ingrid, she’ll know how to at least kick things off. I have to plan a way…
He’d been thinking and journaling for hours, and the sun had long been visible in the sky. Even so, Jake felt indefatigable until suddenly a wave of fatigue struck without warning and the result of this successful surprise attack was Jake’s outright plummet into the sleepy abyss. He woke up on the couch with his notebook resting on his chest, groggily, he sat up and stared out the window. His phone chimed; at first it sounded like a faint ring, but it was loud enough to call him back to lucidity. But when he arrived a sudden flush of panic rushed through him and his pulse quickened at the spike of adrenaline. He was late again but this time Beth was going to be pissed; she really went through a lot to plan the evening. So he rushed, spinning circles in the center of the living room in an attempt to ordain which thing he should do first in order to get out of the apartment fastest.
When he knocked on her door Beth’s face bared no hint of any of the emotions possibly swirling under her skin. Jake had rang the bell once and knocked twice in quick succession, his finger was on the ringer once again when the heavy wooden door swung open with surprising velocity, and he was met with her unexpressive face. He tried to walk in, but Beth not so gently placed a hand in the center of his chest, grabbed his bag and flung it into the house and slowly closed the door.
It was then that a wry smirk emerged from its camouflage of inscrutability, as she brushed by him headed in the direction of his car. “We’re going to be late Jake, you were barely on time and there’s no chance I’m letting you in the house. Come on.” It was a great evening filled with food, song, laughter, and libation. So you know what, Jake forgot about that notebook, he even forgot about that bag, he even forgot about the wild haired idea he scratched in ink earlier that morning. Much later Beth did find that bag, but just threw it in a bin where it sat collecting dust, layers of it; so much so that the bag’s color appeared to have changed. The week Beth moved she scoured her place from top to bottom, she peeked in every drawer and searched through every bag, and that’s when she found Jake’s wildest idea, wrapped in a notebook, and buried in the tomb of another bag.
She set it free and then she sketched it, championed it, and pitched it, first to Ingrid, who shared it with the people who knew how to create rough machinations from inspired notes. That was the day Jake solved the problem of reaching Unum, he just didn’t know it. During an insomnia plagued night, in an apartment all alone, the most preposterous thing Jake had ever put on paper was the very thing destined to perpetuate humankind’s existence. He should have known, inertia only yields to force; and our sincerest thoughts carry the largest magnitude of potency, but that potency is only potential; unless someone lights the fuse. For all of his gifts Jake still needed a team, it’s a good thing he had one.