Traveller Inceptio

7

Mel couldn’t sleep. She had been experiencing a lot of frustration of late. There was a conundrum in her mathematical theories and it had her worrying at it like a loose tooth. She decided to take advantage of a public holiday and ride her bicycle to The Factory. There she would be free from distractions so she could concentrate on finding the solution.

The streets were anything but quiet. The Factory was in the heart of a busy little seaside village and the tourists milled to take advantage of the gorgeous sunny weather. As the other team members would take every opportunity to enjoy the long weekend, their research facility would be empty. She rode down the esplanade along the Maroochy River and avoided the usual horde of joggers. Across the road, the white walls of high-rise resorts stood like sentinels, all identical in their efforts to appear unique. The stunning vista of the turquoise river and the morning sun sparkling on the clear water calmed her. Already children squealed as they splashed each other at one of the many beaches. A local farmers’ market blocked off one of the streets and Mel dodged shoppers who strolled in the sun. She suspected Phil and Yeti would have hit the surf long before the beach crowds, and as the already warm sun toasted her bare legs and shoulders, Mel knew the day would be a scorcher.

On arrival at The Factory car park, Mel found the rear security door already unlocked. Fearing that someone had accidentally left the door open overnight, she was immediately concerned they had been robbed. The equipment may not make sense to most, but a thief could sell the computers and a vandal would wreak havoc and destroy valuable research.

She opened the door to the sound of arguing. It was Phil, so she felt relieved that their gear would be okay. Removing her helmet, Mel wheeled her bicycle to park it in the kitchen as usual. The air conditioning was on and felt delicious. In the lounge area sat four guys. Yeti reclined in a beanbag with his cap backward and Phil stood in front of their large screen TV. They had obviously just returned from a surf as Phil still had white sunscreen on his nose and she recognised the two seated on their battered sofa as Dawsy and Little Sam, friends of Yeti and Phil. A bong sat on the tatty coffee table and the smell of ganja filled the room.

Phil paused in what looked almost like a lecture, obviously making a point in an argument. Behind him, on the TV screen, Mel spotted the frozen image of Judy Garland’s Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Mel had actually expected to see the close-up of various explicit body parts from an exotic porn movie. The fact it was The Wizard of Oz intrigued her. As she walked in, Yeti waved and casual greetings were exchanged. Phil nodded to her before he continued. “No, you don’t turn up the sound on the movie. The idea is that you play The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Side of the Moon, and for some reason the two just go together and the music suits the movie. I don’t know who found it out, but it’s fucking cool. Ok?”

All heads nodded.

Yeti said, “I heard it was with Alice in Wonderland, you know, the Disney version.”

“No, it isn’t fucking Alice in Wonderland, you dumb Yeti; it’s with The Wizard of Oz,” reiterated Phil in a tone that indicated he had already explained this numerous times. Mel was always amazed at how the guys let Phil talk to them like this, but as the others laughed, she realised it was a point of amusement between them.

“Ok, let’s play it!” exclaimed Dawsy. He leaned forward, took a drag from the bong, and reclined in comfort to exhale. Phil flopped into the second beanbag as the music of Pink Floyd’s classic began to blast from the stereo.

Mel had removed her helmet and scuffed up her short, dark hair, grabbed her lab coat and put on her glasses to walk into her office. She booted the computer, but left the door open to listen to what sounded like a potentially amusing episode.

“Hang on, hang on!” yelled Phil, voice rising in frustration. “Who restarted the fucking music?”

“I did,” replied Dawsy in a tone that implied no little confusion.

“Dawsy, you dumb-ass, you restarted the music from the beginning. You had to restart it from where we left off.”

“Oh.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! Let’s start again!” cried Phil.

Mel chuckled softly. Phil was heavily into what he thought were clever and slightly retro trends and his friends faithfully tagged along, though these pot heads honestly had no idea what Phil was on about.

She soon tuned out the music and the smell of the smoke as she researched on-line journals to seek inspiration. Maybe it was the secondary smoke, but as she scribbled on the whiteboard, Mel experienced a moment of clarity when she paused to stretch her neck and shoulders. The aim was to develop a more efficient formulae for their data manipulation. There! She punched the air in victory, made some changes, and paused to photograph the whiteboard with her phone. With her head spinning slightly, she wandered out to grab a drink of iced water from the refrigerator. Smoke filled the room and, on the screen, flying monkeys wreaked havoc. Mel remembered being terrified of those monkeys when she was a child.

As she passed, she heard Little Sam mutter to Dawsy, “I wish we could hear the movie.”

On hearing the comment, Phil’s mouth became a hard line. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Dumb-ass.”

They continued to watch the movie but the magic of the moment was lost. Mel found it an effort not to laugh out loud, so hurried with her bottle of water back to the office and shut the door before she burst into a guffaw of laughter that was, admittedly, at Phil’s expense.