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Chapter One - Perfecting the Machine, Maybe

Dr Arthur James was one of the leading theoretical physicists in the world, and yet at times he felt like a harried father. His partner was Dr Selena Gomey, and she was the cause of both his success and distress.

She'd lured him to her lab with talk of her teleportation invention. What she'd neglected to tell him was that it wasn't perfected. Anything sent through the machine tended to get... well, sort of torn apart and slapped back together. The two had worked together for months on the project, but when progress had not been made in a timely fashion, Selena decided to cut corners. In the last six months, she'd sent dozens of items through without running any simulations. Each time, she learned more, but each time she damaged the machine.

She didn't care. Her only interest was in perfecting her invention. Arthur was losing his patience with her.

"Selena, you really must stop these haphazard tests," he scolded. "Every time you run one, you set us back a month."

"Shut up, Art," she spat. "I think I've worked out what went wrong last time."

"You've said that the last three times," he replied calmly, counting to ten in his head. "For God's sake, just take it slow."

Selena moved to her desk. It not only had her computer and papers, but several of her favorite toys. As she fiddled with them, Art had to grin. God, she could be such a child. He thought of her as the classic stereotype brilliant scientist, and the two of them were a study in contrast. She could design a machine to split atoms, but she'd lose her car keys in her own purse. Where he was tall and powerfully built, she was petite and waif-like. Her height and size were inversely proportional to her intellect. When they went out, on those rare occasions when they took a break, she was routinely carded at the clubs, despite being almost thirty.

His computer beeped. Loath as he was to take his attention away from work, he saw that an email had come in, and he recognized who had sent it. Oh, it could not be good news. He punched a few keys and viewed the message. Yeah, he was right, it was very, very bad news. Chewing his lip, he began pacing about the room.

Selena noticed his distress and put down her Transformer toy. "Art, I sense something is amiss. Care to share?"

"Yes, I do," he growled, and stopped in his tracks. "It seems we're in a bit of a jam."

She laughed. "Oh, that is rich! Okay, I'll bite, what's up?"

"It would appear that some of our less scrupulous rivals have figured out where we are. Well, to be exact, they know we're here in LA, and they're looking for us. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you, Selena?"

She swallowed hard, put down her toy, and took a step back. "Ah no. Why do you ask?"