Harmony Burton

Ruby felt angry. She was irritated about something but wasn’t exactly sure what. She frowned as she mixed some chemicals. Was it the view outside? No, Dr. Nelson had fake windows with amazing views installed in every Capsule. Was it the pollution? That seemed most likely. Every Capsule she had lived in was surrounded by trash and debris. By 2090, Earth was 50% pollution, 50% paradise. 

The so-called “paradise” was a huge scam founded by Dr. Tom Nelson, the richest man on Earth who could do whatever he wanted. He knew what people wished for. He knew when they wanted it. This, however, he did not care about. He only cared about himself and his money.

Ruby despised Dr. Nelson. Most people did. He was a liar, but he owned every Capsule that anyone lived in. You couldn’t upset him without ruining your whole life. Ruby had spent the past 10 years trying to clean Earth again and save the human race, but Dr. Nelson kept undoing everything she started. 

Ruby was a scientist. She had many experiments already in motion, but she got distracted easily when something that could be better popped into her busy mind. She was just finishing up with something when she saw it was 11:00 P.M. Ruby opened her Sleeproom door and climbed into her white bed, draped with white sheets, white pillows, and a white duvet. Ruby hated the lack of color, but there was nothing she could do about it. Capsule fabric was paint-proof, dye-proof, and stain-proof. Ruby sighed and closed her eyes.

A few hours later, Ruby awoke to a loud whooshing sound. She sat up and looked around her Sleep Room only to find nothing. She clambered out of her bed and opened her door, careful not to make any sound. She looked around and saw... Nothing. There was nothing there. Ruby shook her head in confusion and went back to her bed before falling asleep once again. Whatever made the sound must have been harmless, right?

At seven A.M the next morning, Ruby slowly opened her eyes. She yawned and shuffled over to the door before remembering the noise from last night. She slowly nudged the door open. Still, nothing was there. Not a hair was out of place. Ruby frowned. The Capsule developments were silent at night. It was against the law to be outside after 10:00 P.M., and the Capsules themselves were completely soundproof.
Ruby tried to convince herself it was just a dream, but she barely believed herself. She quickly ate a “Cereal” FreshPack (A drinkable meal designed by Dr. Tom Nelson, of course.) before washing her hands and getting ready to experiment. 

Ruby put on a pair of latex gloves before carefully lifting her glass beakers off of a shelf and placing them on a counter, along with a few textbooks. She realized that one of her books was missing and started to look for it.

After about twenty minutes, Ruby was stumped. She had searched every corner. Defeated, Ruby sat down in a chair and tried thinking.

“Where did I put it… I was using it just yesterday! I never forget to clean up.” Ruby remarked. She was truly confused about where it would be. Ruby glanced around the room again and looked at her fridge. 

“How did I forget the fridge?” Ruby stood up quickly and walked to the tall metal box. She pulled its large doors open and found the missing book right there. Of course. After a sigh, Ruby picked the book up and placed it along with the rest of the items she had put out.

Just as she was about to shut the fridge door, Ruby noticed a glass jar. It was full of something blue and shiny. Ruby tilted her head, puzzled. She hadn’t been doing anything with blue or shiny materials. She picked up the jar and looked at it carefully. Nothing familiar. Ruby opened the jar and put it down on a table before trying to pick up some of the liquid with a scoop. The liquid didn't fill the scoop, though. It seemed to go through it. Ruby dropped the scoop into the mysterious liquid as she went to grab a pencil. Ruby’s eyes widened. “Oops…” Should she try to take it back out? Was this some kind of acid? Was it a dangerous poison?! No. Calm down, Ruby. Ruby sighed once more and decided to find out.

She found a ruler and dipped it into the bottle. When she pulled it out, nothing had happened to it. She dropped the ruler fully into the liquid, and it was gone! The jar was large, but not that large! Where did the ruler go? What was this… thing? Was it even an actual liquid? It looked like one, it moved like one, but it didn’t act like one. 

Ruby picked the jar up and looked at it closely. She had no idea what was going on and was, to be honest, a little scared. Ruby’s eyes lit up. If this was a new discovery, it could make her famous, and if she was famous, people might listen to her about pollution, and if people listened to her about pollution, she might be able to fix Earth’s ecosystems! Ruby grinned at this idea. She could be the reason that Earth was back to normal. She could save everyone! 

She stopped smiling as she realized that the discovery could be a bad one, too. It could be toxic. She didn’t know what it was, where it came from, or what it was made from. What was it made from… Of course! 

Ruby jumped up and started flipping through her notebook. She always wrote down each step of everything she did so she wouldn’t forget what she had done if something great happened. She paused when she found a page including a jar. Aha! She had found it. Only, the drawing of the jar had something brown. The bottom of the page said, “Leave in the fridge for 24 hours.” Oh. The date on the page was from a week ago! Ruby sat down again and read through what she mixed to create this anomaly. A cup of this, two ounces of this, Ruby had the recipe. She tried pouring the mixture into a small dish, and it fell into it just fine. Why did it only go into things when poured? 

Not knowing what to do, Ruby decided to try searching online about the mysterious goop. 

Nothing. No results with any correlation to what she needed. This would be harder than Ruby thought. 

Ruby decided to pour the liquid into a large tray she had. The tray was almost the size of her and would be good for studying it at a far. More area to look at. She poured it into the tray on the floor and thought about what to do next.

“I could try freezing it! Ooh, and I could try melting it, too…” Ruby thought out loud. She decided that both were good ideas and left to get a hotplate and a small container to freeze the liquid in. 

As she brought back her tools, she was careful not to trip on the large tray of liquid and placed them both down on her counter.

“Oh.” 

Ruby realized she wouldn’t be able to pour anything into her freezing container since all of the liquid was in the tray and couldn’t be scooped. 

Ruby sighed as she realized she couldn’t attempt to freeze the liquid and got up to put the container back. How was she that foolish? As she was walking, her shoelace got trapped underneath a chair and she tripped over, her shoe flying off and herself flying into the large tray of liquid.

“Shoot!” Ruby tried to dodge out of the way of the liquid but was unsuccessful. She squinted her eyes closed and fell into the tray. It seemed like gravity had reversed. She was falling… up? Ruby opened her eyes and looked around.

“Where am I?” Ruby wasn’t in her lab. She was in a large forest. A forest? Forests didn’t exist. Well, not in Ruby’s time. They were all gone. All that remained of any forest would be dead trees and dried-out rivers. What was this place? Ruby looked behind her.  A giant hole was in the middle of the ground and it looked exactly like her lab, but upside down. This must be a dream.

Bird noises were all around her. It almost seemed as if this place was real. It obviously wasn’t, though. How could it be? Ruby must have hit her head. Or maybe the mystery liquid intoxicated her? What was going on… Ruby pinched her arm. She felt it but didn’t wake up. Ruby regained herself and decided to try going back to her lab. She jumped into the hole, felt the same thing as before, and was back inside her lab. Ruby frowned and looked at where the liquid was. Now, there was a hole into the large forest. Had she just discovered another universe? Ruby wasn’t sure what to do. If she could get enough people, she may be able to have Earth start anew! Although, this new Earth could be full of diseases that modern humans weren’t accustomed to. Ruby decided to do some research.

. . .

After Ruby had spent almost two years studying what she could of the new planet, it seemed to her to be inhabitable. She decided to tell the world what she had done!

3, 2, 1. Live.

“Hello. My name is Ruby Hanover. I believe that I have found a way to restart the Earth that we have created. Our planet is full of pollution, but I may have discovered a chance to save humanity.” Ruby tilted the camera towards the portal. Just over a thousand people were watching.

“This may not look like much, but I have been studying it for a couple of years. It can transport you between this world and another. This other world seems to be Earth in the past. There are no humans, only wild animals in this… dimension. I believe that humans may be able to start again here, and lower pollution. We know more about how to stop what happened in the past now and may be able to use this knowledge to fix our mistakes and live a better life for us and future generations. Those who would like to join me in this project, I will be holding a gathering to explain all of this on Monday in Field 91 at eleven A.M. Thank you for listening.”

Ruby shut the livestream off. Five thousand people had been watching at the end. Ruby wasn’t sure how many people would show up, or who they would be. Her plan could be ruined if Dr. Nelson’s crew were interested. 

Field 91 was one of the few places where grass still grew. Well, it didn’t grow. It was fake. Even so, Dr. Nelson was not allowed to build on fields. Only ten fields were left and Field 91 was the most popular, so Ruby decided to choose that one.

It was getting late and Ruby had some preparation to do. It was Friday and Monday was only in two days, so there was a lot to be done. Ruby packed away her devices and closed the lid she had made for the portal’s tray. She got ready for bed and went to sleep.

. . .

It was Monday.  Ruby had set up a podium in Field 91 along with a table full of water and snacks. It was still half an hour before eleven, but people had already started showing up. 

Ruby was worried about Dr. Nelson’s crew coming. All of his robots looked uncannily human, so it was difficult to tell, especially since they all had human names.

 Ruby walked onto her podium and looked across the people. At least a thousand were there. Ruby explained about her discovery and how it could help everyone. She demonstrated going in and out of the portal liquid and let people test it to prove it wasn’t just a trick. At the end of her speech and presentation, people clapped. Not everyone, but most people. Just as she was about to step off of her podium, a group of three people held her back. One of the three stepped up.

“Hello. My name is Robert, and I work for Dr. Nelson. Please do not listen to this woman as she is a liar and fraud. Thank you.” Robert left the podium and the other two androids walked away, leaving Ruby. 

People asked Ruby lots of questions. She answered them vaguely so that no information could be used to recreate or destroy her discovery. Ruby thought the meeting had gone well and went back home with everything.

She carefully placed the portal tray back in her lab and went to get some lunch. She was about to drink it when she heard a knock at the door. She walked over to the door and opened the door to an unfamiliar face holding a clipboard.

 “Uh… Hi.” Ruby said, not quite sure what to do. People didn’t visit her.

“Hello. I am, as you should know, Dr. Tom Nelson.”

“Ah.” Ruby sighed. Great. She should have known because of the group of “people” behind him.

“It has come to my attention that you have found another planet”

“I guess so, yeah.”
“My company is willing to offer you a check of one million dollars for your portal here. So, all we need you to do is sign here, here, and-”
“No thanks.” Ruby shut the door and went back to her lunch. Before she sat down, the door opened again. Right. Dr. Nelson had the keys to every single Capsule. How had she forgotten that?

“Madam, we acknowledge your studies. You will be credited towards the new land founding! I will be seen as the founder of course, but you will have your name written in our contracts!”

Nobody read Dr. Nelson’s contracts, nobody cared who did what, and nobody would see her name. Ruby didn’t want to give her research away no matter what. 

“Nope.” Ruby shrugged.

“Uh huh.. Erm, Miss… Whatever your name was. Do you have a restroom” Dr. Nelson was staring at Ruby’s lab door.

“Yep. Over on the right.” Ruby answered.

“Are you sure?” Dr. Nelson glanced at the lab door on the left again.

“Pretty sure… I’ve lived here for fifteen years.” Ruby raised an eyebrow. Dr. Nelson designed the pods. Shouldn’t he know where things were?

“Right, right.” Dr. Nelson nodded slowly before dashing towards the lab door and slamming it behind him.

“Robert! Climb inside the portal and look around.” Dr. Nelson was smiling proudly at his android who had secretly gone into the room without Ruby noticing. The only problem was that he didn’t lock the door. Ruby quietly walked into the room and pulled Dr. Nelson back from the portal along with Robert.

“Get out of my lab.”

“Ah, Um… Brody, don’t worry! We will use your discovery for good! Money is very good, is it not?” Dr. Nelson had a smug smile on his face.

“My name is Ruby,” Ruby said. “And still, the answer is no.” Dr. Nelson was very annoying in person. 

“Sure, Ronnie. Anywho, how about… two million dollars? Two and a half? You name the price!” Dr. Nelson still had a smirk on his face and was overly confident in this idea that money was everything. Ruby informed him she was not interested in selling her portal and kicked him out. This time, he seemed to get the message.

. . .

A few days later, Ruby stepped outside only to find that all of the capsules around her were gone, and a huge army of androids were waiting with Robert in the front. 

“How long have you guys been out there?!” Ruby asked, wide-eyed. It was only six in the morning.

“5 hours, 7 minutes, 8.9 seconds.” one of the androids from the crowd shouted out.

“Okay… What do you want?”

“If you do not hand over your portal, we will take it ourselves,” Robert stated.

“You aren’t getting it.” Ruby went back inside. A few moments later, Ruby heard a buzzing sound. She noticed a green light seeping through part of her wall. Great. Laser knives! How considerate. The whole front wall of her capsule fell backward onto the ground outside.

“Give us the portal.” All of the androids were chanting in unison, and they looked ready to attack. 

“You know what? I’m just gonna destroy this.” Ruby grabbed her notebook and tore out the page with the portal’s recipe. She found a lighter and decided to see what would happen if she burnt the portal.

“HALT! You must not touch Nelson's property!” the androids all said while marching towards Ruby’s now open capsule.

“Tom Nelson doesn’t own this. Ruby threw the paper from her notebook through the portal and tested the lighter on it. To her surprise, something happened.  The portal didn’t burn or catch fire, it just seemed to shrink when near the heat. Ruby’s eyes widened as she realized how easy it would be to get rid of the portal. She smiled as the portal shrunk in on itself until it was either gone or just too small to see. 

Nelson’s androids noticed the portal was no longer in the tray and froze. All of them. Ruby looked out across the dozens of androids. Were they frozen? What happened? Ruby frowned. After a few seconds, the robots began to retreat to, presumably, Dr. Nelson's headquarters. 

“Woah,” Ruby exclaimed. She hadn’t been able to save her world, but she had been able to save another that would have had a similar outcome to hers. Dr. Nelson couldn’t use the recipe as it was in the other dimension, and Ruby couldn’t remember it herself. Everything was back to the way it was before.