From the novel Infinity
By Areaze Jiuare
He was late.
Not just late — desperately late.
In thirty minutes, a meeting awaited in a city more than two thousand kilometers away, yet traffic near the main square barely moved. The taxi sat motionless in the middle of an endless column of cars. A distinct feeling lingered: red lights seemed set against him. The routine of delay went on, unbroken.
The morning had gone wrong from the very beginning.
It started in the kitchen. While hurriedly stuffing documents into his briefcase, he knocked over a cup of freshly brewed coffee. It spilled across his shirt, blooming into a dark stain on the sleeve ironed less than an hour earlier. There was no time to change. He dumped the dirty mug into the sink and rushed out of the apartment.
Now he missed that coffee terribly.
Not the stain. It was occupying the wrong patch of space in the universe, a quiet insult to order itself.
Fumbling with the wallet, the payment done, the taxi left behind, sprinting toward the new Teletransport Center.
The coffee incident wasn’t the only reason for his unease. Teleportation itself made him nervous. It always did. Every procedure left behind a faint nausea, a lingering sense that something had been misplaced. Unfortunately, his job required frequent long-distance travel.
Airplanes, as a form of mass transportation, had been obsolete for years.
At first, the whole thing had seemed almost naive. He remembered reading about the original experiment led by the famous physicist Sebastian Braun. A handful of atoms in one room had been scanned using a revolutionary new method. In the adjacent room, different atoms were arranged into the exact same configuration.
As with every breakthrough, the machine continued to improve. Soon, the first molecule was teleported. Then DNA. Then a bacterium. Only a month later, an insect.
The direction of progress became obvious.
Distances increased. Targets grew larger. Energy consumption was optimized.
Eventually, it was a human being’s turn.
After the first successful human teleportation, nothing in transportation — or daily life — could remain the same. Change followed quickly and mercilessly, reshaping society at every level.
He remembered visiting the Teleportation Museum.
In one of the first halls, a glass display case held two insects. One was labeled Original. Beneath the other, a triumphant plaque read:
“The First Teleported Multicellular Organism.”
Both were pinned lifelessly to a board.
Looking at them, he was reminded of the first dog sent into space. That animal hadn’t been granted a kinder fate.
What puzzled him was how they had preserved the original insect after teleporting it. When he asked the guide, the man hesitated, visibly thrown off. Then, without answering, he turned and ushered the group toward the next exhibit.
That’s what happens when they hire half-trained ignoramuses, he thought.
One particularly spicy detail the guide did share was that none of the scientists who developed teleportation could use it themselves. During the early experiments, they had caused irreversible anomalies in their own tissue — effectively disqualifying themselves from traveling through the very system they had given the world.
The irony was exquisite.
They had delivered humanity the greatest invention since fire and the wheel, yet were barred from enjoying it.
To make matters worse, Sebastian Braun himself — the owner of Teletransport — had been present during those experiments. As a result, he too was forced to travel exclusively by private jet, one of the few aircraft still allowed to carve pale contrails across the sky.
A pitiful limitation for a man who had changed the lives of the entire planet.
“At least there are no airport crowds,” Braun once joked when asked how he felt about it.
When teleportation became commercially available, nearly every airline collapsed within a year — the unavoidable cost of progress. Teleportation was faster, safer, and cheaper. Airplanes never stood a chance.
His throat tightened.
He was nervous, as always before a jump. But driving was impossible over such distances.
What if something goes wrong?
What if my atoms are put back together the wrong way?
Despite more than a billion successful teleportations, the discomfort never fully went away. He repeated the officially confirmed statistic to himself like a prayer:
No fatalities. Over one billion transports.
Why should today be any different?
He reached the entrance of Teletransport.
The doors slid open silently, and a perfectly trained voice greeted him:
“Teleportation is the fastest and most comfortable way to travel. Welcome. Your cabin is ready. How are you feeling today?”
He looked at the telehostess’s pleasant smile. Behind the carefully constructed warmth, her eyes were cold — and did nothing to calm his nerves.
“And how do you feel when you teleport?” he asked.
“Telehostesses are not permitted to teleport,” she replied, decisively. The smile never faltered.
Teleportation was fast, but not cheap. That was why only the best professionals were hired — perfect voices, flawless expressions, impeccable composure.
She claimed it was policy, but he suspected her salary alone made teleportation unattainable.
He felt a trace of pity for her and for all the others confined to distances a car could manage.
Morning on a beach. Afternoon on a mountain peak. Evening aboard a space station.
“Moon cabins coming soon!” the ads promised.
Worth saving for. Not everything was affordable — most travel came on the company’s dime.
He passed a row of cabins, watching the telehostesses in light-blue uniforms stand before transparent screens displaying passenger data.
One screen flashed: Transport Confirmed!
“Proceed with the procedure,” the telehostess announced, resetting the display with a light tap.
A soft hssss came from the cabin. Silence followed.
The light above shifted from red to yellow — decontamination. Ten minutes later, green.
Ready.
He stepped into a green-lit cabin.
Fifteen minutes to spare. If he caught a taxi immediately upon arrival, he’d make it.
The heavy doors closed behind him.
They had to be massive. Teleportation generated enormous pressure while atoms were scanned, transmitted, and reassembled… or something like that. He had never truly understood how the miracle worked. That ignorance fed his fear.
A small monitor glowed on the inner wall. Soft ambient music played as the countdown began.
At zero, he would appear in another Teletransport cabin, near his meeting. One taxi ride away.
He pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over the taxi icon.
Ten.
Nine…
Eyes fixed on the numbers, grip tightening around the phone.
…one.
Zero.
Zero.
Nothing happened.
Nothing.
He was still there.
Was it possible? After more than a billion transports, this one fails?
He rolled his eyes.
Bad luck, my lifelong companion. Donuts at school? Always the one with the least filling.
The doors had to open now. Curious whether that calm, confident smile would survive a malfunction.
“Proceed with the procedure,” the telehostess’s voice echoed coldly from the monitor.
Proceed how?
“STOP THE PROCEDURE!” he screamed.
The sound died inside the metal walls.
He scanned the monitor — the only light — searching for a camera.
Then a tiny opening slid open above the screen.
Something shot out.
Pain exploded in his chest.
His body convulsed.
He knew he was dying.
Every cell was shutting down. His heart raced wildly. Sparks danced in the darkness as his muscles failed.
He tried to grab something — anything — but there was nothing.
The body hit the floor; the phone shattered.
As the world faded, the museum display came back to him — two insects, perfectly preserved. Now the answer was clear: the original hadn’t been destroyed.
They made a copy. A copy! Not a transport.
In his case, the original was no longer needed.
Darkness.
The cabin floor opened. His limp body dropped into the chute below. A vacuum sucked out everything else with a violent hiss.
Sprinklers washed the walls. Warm air dried them.
Minutes later, the cabin was ready.
A young man in a suit — messy hair, nervous eyes — stepped inside. An intern. First teleportation. He had arrived an hour early.
The countdown began.
***
He stepped out of the Teletransport cabin.
Reflex took over; a finger dialed a taxi.
A glance at the watch — and the coffee stain just beneath it.
Back home, the furniture would need cleaning too.
The taxi would arrive in two minutes.
Plenty of time for filter coffee.
The thought lifted the mood.
Amazing. An hour ago, bed.
Now, two thousand kilometers away, ready for a meeting.
Teleportation thrilled him.
Still, somewhere deep down, the anxiety lingered.
Over a billion transports.
No incidents.
Over a billion… and one more.
A yellow taxi pulled up.
The door closed behind him.
After the meeting, dinner with colleagues. Then home.
The return cabin was already booked.
Tomorrow — a meeting at a hotel on a tropical island along the Middle Belt.
And by the end of the year…
Maybe a walk on the Moon.
That would be something.