The Fantastic: Epilogue

"Hey mom," Ben says and turns away from the guard so he can at least pretend he has privacy. "How are you doing?"
"Ben?!? Oh honey it's so good to hear from you. Where have you been? It's been more than a week and you never wait that long to call."

"I'm sorry mom, I got wrapped up in helping Reed," he replies and he has really. "Listen, I'm gonna take the next semester off of school. Reed needs some help here and I could use a break from school."

"Benjamin, don't you give up your education for Reed!"

"It's not like that mom! Reed needs my help here and I can probably get some work credit or something."

"What is Reed doing that he needs your help?" she asks clearly not buying it.

"I can't tell you mom, it's government stuff," Ben replies at a complete loss before he remembers some equipment some of Reed's peers showed him earlier. "Just testing things."

"If you are sure," she replies clearly not quite believing him. "I need to go but don't forget to call okay? I was worried."

"I will mom but they are keeping me busy here. I'll call in a week. I love you."

"I love you too honey. Say hello to Reed for me."

"Bye now," he says and hangs up. He didn't quite lie but it was close. Damnit Reed!

The Theory of Apple

Reed clears his throat as he takes a seat in what is currently passing for Ben's room. From what Ben understands they already have a room for him; the floor's been reenforced and all the fixtures have been adapted to be easier for him to use but they're having trouble finding furniture which will take his weight. "I've, um, I've got some questions from Sue. That, um, she thought might be better, y'know, coming from me."

"Okay," Ben replies. This oughta be good, he thinks.

Reed swallows a few times.

Ben just stares at him.

"Can you, um. Can you still go to the bathroom?"

We saved Sue so she could ask me this? Ben thinks and just stares at Reed for a second. "Yeah," he finally says scratching his head. He moves to scratching his nose before realizing Reed is still looking at him expectantly. "You don't wanna know the details."

"Okay," Reed says and looks away embarrassed. "Sue might need to see you use the bathroom."

"Sue can bite me."

"She'd break her teeth."

"Dude..."

"I'm sorry," he says and looks down.

"Nah, it's cool. It's just...Two months and you still don't have a clue about this, do you? What happened, how it happened..."

"I know how it happened. I just don't know how to reverse it."

Startled, Ben exclaims, "You know how it happened?"

"Sure," Reed says surprised and a little confused. Hadn't he told Ben? "Victor messed with the software that ran the superpositioner, creating a phase-space fugue that..."

"Whoa," Ben says interrupting Reed before he gets started. "I got everything up to 'software'."

"Okay. Try this," Reed says and presses a few buttons on his pocket computer. A hologram of an apple appears to float above it. "Here's the apple we were going to transport through the N-zone. What we were going to do is e-mail it, okay? The transporter in Nevada was like a computer, and the N-zone was like a phone line.

"Now check this out," he continues pressing another series of commands. The hologram changes to display a multitude of apples all in different stages; seeds, shriveled, decayed, ripe, different sizes and colors, worm eaten. "This is the phase-space of the apple. Phase-space is all conceivable states of an object. Like, maybe, this apple's seed never grew. Maybe it got a plant disease. Maybe it rotted on the branch. All the ways the apple could have gone see?"

Ben nods and Reed stands to continue, "Once something organic goes into the N-zone, it shifts into its own phase-space. It's the superpositioner that tells the N-zone that, no, its our grown apple, and it's being e-mailed off to another computer. Yeah?"

"'Kay," Ben says hesitantly pretty sure he's got it.

"'Kay. Victor messed with the superpositioner. The hole into the N-zone expanded out. For a fraction of a second, we were all in the N-zone. From a fraction of a second, we were all in our own phase-spaces. And the superpositioner wasn't able to tell the N-zone that we were us."

"So we all came out as rotten apples?"

"Kinda."

"So the good apple here," Ben says gaining confidence that he's getting all of this, "This is me? And all these others, these are what I could've been? And because of the broken thing, my body got swapped over with one of these?"

"Yeah."

"So this is permanent." He doesn't bother making it a question cause he knows the answer. Or thinks he does.

"No," Reed says and Ben gives him a disbelieving look. "See, if I knew how Victor changed the code, I could eventually rerun the whole thing. Put use back in the phase-space condition, select out a modality and..."

"Put me back in the apple."

{OOC: All dialoge from Ultimate Fantastic Four # 08}