Private Journal, April 8, 104, A.T. [the year 2073, Gregorian]: My latest government assignment ordered me to the Peace Frog, which was a Mary Jane establishment in Pasadena, California. The air inside was filled with a thin haze caused by constantly smoking patrons and, because nearly all the gonge was flavored, the indoor fog smelled of berries, peppermint, chocolate, vanilla, as well as cannabis. It was a candy-chronic conglomeration; a reefer redolence; a pot-pourri. Like most marijuana bars, this one was a nostalgic dive into the 20th Century, when pot was actually illegal, and only rebels smoked it, as opposed to the young and well-heeled conformists who generally frequented here. So, naturally, someone like a middle-aged scientist, my target, stood out like a whole handful of sore thumbs.
I wish I could say my feminine wiles lured him in, but really all I needed to do was show up. He hit on me almost instantly and, when I didn’t actually run away like all the other women did, he opened up like a cave full of treasure to Ali Baba. In theory, my job was to get him talking, and keep him talking, until he accidentally gave us what we needed. In practice, it was damned near impossible to shut the motherfucker up. “That’s right,” the scientist slurred. “I invented the thing. I invented the Scotty. I get to say that because I was head of the department, you know. Pretty cool shit, right? But believe me, it wasn’t easy.” I tried to appear absent-minded as I listened to the condescending babble of this old fool who was high enough to paint stars. What a lame pick-up line, telling strange women that he was the one who actually invented the Scotty! He might as well claim to have invented Velcro. Okay, sure, he was telling the truth as it turned out (about inventing the Scotty, not about the Velcro), but I was the only one besides him who actually knew that. I’m also certain I was the only woman that line had ever worked on, and that only because I had to pretend it did. “You see,” he paused, taking a drag from some absurd miniaturized hookah, “the main problem was resolution. We were easily able to transport matter from point A to point B in an instant, but if we dematerialized, say, a block of stone, all we’d get when it re-materialized at its destination was a pile of sand. If we used a block of wood, all the receiving end got was something resembling sawdust.” “But then you realized that the process had to be fine-tuned to below the Planck-length level,” I completed the thought for him, trying to speed things along. His bloodshot eyes gave me a look of surprise. “How the hell did you know that?” “I was an engineering major. Besides, it isn’t like this stuff isn’t common knowledge, or anything.” That was certainly true, at least to a certain extent. Name a matter-transport device ‘The Scotty,’ after the Chief Engineer on the Starship Enterprise, and every science fiction geek will want to learn all about it, which they did, sort of. Truth be told, all the general public really knew was that the Scotty existed. Only the nerdiest nerds knew any details. He finally looked at my face instead of my tits for one damned second. “Oh,” he finally said. “That’s impressive, uh – sorry, sweetheart, what was your name again? I forgot.” “Sarita,” I answered, trying not to look annoyed as I offered him my hand. “Sarita Johansson.”
