In a dark room only lit by computer screens, countless scientists are working; they are all looking for a breakthrough, something that will make them rich. Finally, a young scientist around age 25 makes the breakthrough. He has found out how to transport to anywhere on earth, you just type where you want to go and within a few moments you’re there. He converts this huge gigantic machine into laptop form and gives 5 for testing. They all work perfectly, the only side effects seem to be that you get drowsy and can only use it once every 24 hours. The year of this breakthrough is 2037 A.D. They were looking for a good way to promote the product. With a sale price of 700,000 dollars it would be a phenomenal thing to get even 100 sold.
Then someone had a bright idea, around that time the Modem and Monitor or M&M store was taking off, they would propose a deal to merge and then go from there, M&M accepted. Then something happened that hadn't happened since 2004, the cubs made the playoffs. It seemed to be a knock on the head for a promotion for the transporter. They decided to put all 5 in a raffle at the ball games.
One of the winners was Justin Time, he's 18 fresh out of high school and a very avid Cubs fan. When they made the playoffs and they were to face the Marlins next, he took a flight from Illinois where he lives and flew to Florida. There he found a raffle run by the M&M stores, the grand prizes included: 10 World Series tickets (given to 10 different people of course) for the whole entire series, and 5 transporters. Naturally he bought a few hoping to win World Series tickets... He won a transporter instead. Another one of the winners was John Smith. He lives a few blocks away from Justin Time surprisingly, and they became good friends.
One time Justin and his friend John flipped on the TV to watch a new game show that was suppose to be on, but instead the news was. Apparently some major heists of banks have taken place and one now was robbed near them. Justin says ‘I wonder when this will stop, if they will ever catch this guy, he must have a transporter or something to not be caught already.’ and John said ‘well I suppose the person who robbed those banks is rich.’ when he said that Justin thought he caught an odd gleam in his friends eye.
The next day it became dangerous, it was all over the news that someone was using Nuclear weapons to blow banks apart after they took the money as to take away any photos or camera that caught them. It didn’t seem to matter where they were, America, England, Canada and the Middle East. There were several of these bombings it seemed. He decided that if that person were ever going to get caught, he would have to catch him. John agreed to help as he could. So started a long and heavy chase of someone they knew very little about, or so Justin thought.
First, They had to have some kind of information about their enemy’s whereabouts. John insisted on checking a little curiosity shop he heard about in London, England. Eventually Justin gave in. They took along some sandwiches and about 300$ each, And Left a note for their parents, Justin didn’t know he would never see them again.
They were way to tired from the Transporters to go to the shop then so they found a hotel. They found a fairly nice one, your modern day regular Hotel. As they checked in sleepily they got room 277 and walked up to it since the elevators were out of order.
When they got up to their room they flopped down and went right to sleep. Justin Fell asleep and had a dream he had had a lot lately, he dreamt he was running full speed through a forest away from something. Every single time he would slip and fall and a red-cloaked figure would appear and he would wake up. Not this time, He ran and ran but never slipped. He came over looking a great burning city and he said "This looks like my home" and the red-cloaked came up behind and said "It was your home, no more, weep and despair for all shall soon meat this fate" and he woke up.
Troubled by this dream he tried to dismiss it, then he flipped on the weather channel to see if it would be that bad of a walk to the curiosity shop It was only about 2 miles but still. He couldn’t check it because the same thing was on every channel, Illinois had been Bombed, Nuclear Bombed, Their home was destroyed, their families killed. Justin fell to the floor in grief and wept. John however took it silently and said "That was only my home for a little while, anyway; We better get going if we ever hope to make it there today" so reluctantly, they started off.
They met few strangers on the road, which didn’t surprise them the weather was terrible within a few moments of them leaving the hotel. Hail pounded down and bruised them. On the way Justin asked John where he lived before he moved to Illinois, John said "many places, some out of this country." They reached the curiosity shop finally only to find it was closed on Monday, which was today. They trudged back to the Hotel and went back up to their room and ordered some pizza to be delivered.
Justin went on the Internet after dinner (the Transporter does function like every other laptop also besides the transporting power) and he found a very interesting site, it showed where every family had ever lived. John retired early while Justin was still looking up all his Great Aunts and Great-Great-Grandparents and friends he knew. He decided to look up John. It was alarming; he had lived in over 7 different places in the past 3 years. 5 of those Houses were where Transporters had been awarded, this amazed Justin.
Justin’s thoughts reverted back to when he first got the transporter and how there was a golden note with silver writing attached.
John woke up Justin the next morning. Justin said sleepily "where was that nice note you got when you got your transporter? John looked puzzled at first and then said, "I don’t know where it is", though he said it sort of irritably.
They started out for the Curiosity shop again, the weather was much better on Tuesday though, they entered the shop and found all sorts of things on display, from swords to daggers to glass figures and many other things. They searched around. What surprised them was that there was no one running the register or even near them, the man who ran the store was probably in the back they thought. It was a small shop, about 15 square feet of display and walking space for the room.
John began walking around the room banging his feet loudly, Justin said ‘what are you doing that for? You’re going to break something!" But John continued and said "here we go" Justin watched as he opened a trap door leading into the basement which surprisingly, looked like a laboratory. Justin said, "Wow you found it!". Then noticed they didn’t have anything but their fists to protect them. Justin said "there is a bell on the counter lets ring it and ask about buying those 4 foot swords".
The Shopkeeper came strolling in from the back room and Justin asked "those swords, how much and how sharp are they?" the shopkeeper said in return in his deep voice "they are 100$ for those two standard ones there, good price extremely cheap. As for your second question, I sharpen them daily". Justin looked at John and said, "We better buy 2 better say than sorry". John agreed. Once they had purchased the shopkeeper returned to the back room.
Justin and John crept into the basement. Justin said, "Why did you move so much? I looked you up on that website last night and it said that you had lived in over 7 places over the last 3 years" John returned "be quiet, we don’t know what is down here, all I’m glad is that we took fencing over the summer" Justin agreed as they walked through the strange Laboratory.
The Laboratory itself was rather bland, mainly just white and dark blue. Justin saw few tables here and there, some big tanks with rounded tops and, of course, some huge computers.
They continued to walk through till they came to a door as soon as they opened it an alarm set off and in the distance he saw Men dressed in armor, this surprised Justin. They all had swords at their side. Justin muttered to himself "Why wouldn’t they have guns?" John turned to him and said "Because you are in my lair, just like the 3 others before you and I didn’t wish to get caught in the crossfire and be hit by a stray bullet, this way you have a fighting chance too" with that John charged at him sword in hand Justin barely had enough time to parry the stroke.
Justin said "This is no time for nonsense dueling, come we must try and escape!" John said "Escape from my own lair? Why would I want to do that? Justin turned to run but John took a slice and scraped Justin’s back. Justin turned around infuriated and said "So you led me here all along? You are the one who has robbed and bombed everything? No wonder you were never around then or soon after or before those robberies. I can’t believe you". John just smiled and said "you really were easy to fool, at least the other 3 put up a fight".
Justin charged him angrily, John parried and they dueled, attacking, blocking, neither could get his sword on the other until finally Justin hit John’s hilt and the sword flung away. Justin heard a yell and figured it must have hit one of John’s men. Justin attempted to stab John in the chest but it the sword bounced right back at him. John said "I couldn’t leave out all modern discoveries" and showed he was wearing a different kind of armor then the rest of his men. Justin had put a huge scratch in it.
By that time the men had closed all around them. John, amazed that his Armor had been damaged ran back into his men, after which, they circled Justin and closed in on him. John said, "I don’t want him killed... Yet. Just try to just knock the sword from him. Justin tried his best to fight them and killed 1 or 2 but didn’t even come close to doing more before his sword was knocked away. John said "take him to the prison where the others are but relieve him of his transporter". It finally hit Justin why he had moved to all those locations. He had stolen all the transporters so none could oppose him. A punch knocked him out.
He woke up in a cell with 3 other people. Their names were Stan Antiquety (pronounced An-Tick-wha-tee), Jack Angilla (An-Jill-Ah), Beth Consoultopolous (Con-Soul-Top-oh-liss). Surprisingly all were around Justin’s age though they all looked starved. Stan was 20, Jack was 19, Beth was 16. They greeted Justin and pressed him for news outside. All had been captured the same way Justin had. Except for Beth, obviously John had sent a girl to befriend her and lead her here. All had their homes bombed so as to disguise the disappearances.
They were in a room about 10 feet square and 10 feet high. It was a gray cell and the only opening was iron bars above their heads and after that he could see a red button on the wall that he presumed would release the bars. "Why doesn’t someone get on my shoulders to hit the button on the wall to get out of here?" Justin suggested. Jack responded "we tried, but its higher than it looks its a good 5 more feet at least our arms can’t reach more than about 1 or 2 who are you kidding?".
They were fed a loaf of bread for all of them together, no split for each person, and about a liter of water. Justin took his share hungrily and said "How often do we get food?" they all said "1 time a day". Justin asked them how long they had been there. Beth said she had been in the cell for about 3 weeks, Stan one 2 weeks 5 days, Jack 2 weeks 2 days.
Justin calculated and was amazed that he had been a friend with John just for about a month, 1 week before Beth was captured and Stan were captured. Justin said, "How could this be? I’ve known John for about a Month, How could you be captured the same way I was if you all live so far away from here and I don’t live here either?" Stan said, "he just came straight here with me, and he probably used his own transporter to get here and mine to get back to where his current ‘home’ is". The others agreed with that statement. Stan also said that they had told them that he was moving but he would see them from time to time. But he didn’t and sent a message to meet him in curiosity shop in England and it was urgent.
They had all fallen for the trap but Justin it seemed was the only one who entered with a weapon. His weapon! Justin thought he had it at his side, he reached for it but all he felt was his sheath... The sheath! John didn’t take it from him now he could escape since it was 4 feet long and they could probably hit the button with it. He hurried and untied it and said "this is our ticket out of here!". Jack grasping his meaning let him get on his shoulders Justin missed the button at first, and then hit it. It was the door to remove the bars he climbed up through the hole. Then said he would be right back.
Justin looked around; he was in a long hallway with about 4 doors to either side and one huge door at the end of the hallway. The Ceiling and the walls were painted a tan pink sort of color and under his feet was Red and gold carpet. He looked in the doors, in one he found a guard napping. He relieved him of his Sword. Out of very fortunate luck he was amazed to find some rope on him. It also surprised Justin that these guards were carrying swords too.
He returned back to the cell and lowered the rope to the other prisoners. They all got up with little difficulty and went down the hall to a large door and opened it. It was dark that Justin couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or shut. He whispered behind him for everyone to stay together but it was too late. He soon heard everyone stumbling around looking for each other. Then came a yell, it came from his right. Then a dozen flashlights lit up the room to find John sword in hand, standing a pace or so away from Beth, she was dead.
Justin charged at him angrily John parried stepped back quickly and ran towards a door as he went through he slammed it. Justin tried to follow but couldn’t get in. It was locked. He studied the room he was in. There was one more door. With hardly any hope he turned the handle. It swung open. Here was the biggest computer he saw.
He looked around to find that they were several screens depicting different rooms of the lab. One caught his eye, Countless money, stacked so high in a safe. He looked around to find not just his own transporter, but by extreme luck the other 3 as well. He gave Jack and Stan their transporters back. Then he decided to try and get in the safe and take some of the money with him while the other two tried to get the police.
Justin used it and got in the safe. Now that he was there he didn’t know what to do until he heard the safe opening from the outside. He got to the side of the door and watched John walk in. Apparently he didn’t see him as he breezed right past. John fingered the walls and opened a secret compartment and hit a switch.
The floor started to go up like an elevator except it was crashing through the floors as it went up. Finally Justin found himself looking up into the sky. He looked over to his right and saw a jet, A bigger jet than usual. John started loading the money into it. John was near finished when they saw a helicopter loom over the building the police had finally come. Justin saw John retreat for the last pile that he could fit into the jet and ran towards him. Finally John was aware of him and threw his sword more to slow him down then anything else. Justin dodged and continued the pursuit.
John got in the jet but so did Justin. He pulled John away from the cockpit but John started the jet a last effort to try and get away. But Justin shoved out the open jet door and John off as it took off.
Madness seized John, He ran towards the open door to the Jet and jumped off the building trying to get a hold of it, He missed.
Justin saw John fall down on to the pavement below and the ambulance come with no hope. They carried the dead body away. The Jet however, Continued for awhile on a auto-pilot and fell into an Ocean.
The police questioned Justin about all the things that had happened and then he noticed something. These policemen clothed very much like those in John's building. They were human, he was certain of that, But he wasn't sure if they were with John or not.
The police accused Justin of murdering police officers and had tape to prove it, the cameras had been taping all that time from the room where he had found the transporters. (and they conviently cut out all the talking, John, and everything else but that) Justin couldn't believe it.
Falsely charged and condemned for murder, robbery, and many other things he was sent to jail on Death row.
Justin only waited about a week before he was put to death, then the world drifted away.
Justin opened his eyes, he knew exactly where he was. He was happier then he ever was on earth.