Chapter Thirteen
Eating dinner like this was fun.
The Archer's were silent eaters, except Peter who kept talking about everything with Zamuel.
Even though she listened sometimes, it was her visuals that were sending more information into her brain.
Peter had blue eyes that did look like the colour of an ocean on a sunny day. And the way his golden coloured hair stayed down was a beautiful sight.
Her eyes trailed down to his jaw, exquisite!
Rose stuffed another potato into her mouth, allowing it to melt. She was always amazed by her father's culinary skills.
For as long as she could remember, he had always made breakfast for them, for her mother and her. He would say he enjoyed the smell of the kitchen.
Grandpa materialized into the room, just behind Peter.
Peter had clearly not been expecting a grown up man to appear behind him, he threw the bread slice in his hands up into the air. He was definitely not used to it yet.
Grandpa seemed to enjoy it because he broke into a long train of laughter, grabbing another chair to sit in.
"Yikes, how do you guys keep appearing and disappearing like that?", Peter asked when he had recovered. Even his face was read.
Her eyes ran into big circles when grandpa looked at her to ask, "Rose, do you mind doing the explanation to this little egghead?".
"Uhmmm", she wasn't prepared or ready to talk about something that complicated yet. No, in the presence of peter.
She caught herself and quickly made a correction. She wasn't ready to talk about something like this at all. It was not like she'd like Peter when he was still almost a stranger.
"Miss, are you fine?", She heard her father ask.
That was when she realized that she had went silent. She knew that she must have looked stupid.
"Okay. I mean that I am fine".
She reached into the pocket of her coat and brought out her own teleporter. It was still tripping off the green light.
She did set it on the table, carefully for all to see.
"It's called the teleporter because that is what it is, it helps you teleport through space".
"Wow, that's cool", Peter cooed with stars in his eyes.
Even Zamuel had shifted in his seat to get a closer look.
"It's cool, right? Grandpa developed it. It's one of his numerous creations. The idea with it is the molecular theory of matter."
"Wait, what?", That was the first time that one of Peter's parents was talking at the table. It was his mother.
"Yes. It dispels the user into the smallest units of their being. Into atoms, and then it moves the atoms, at a speed greater than even the speed of light, to the place where they are reformed. You only have to make a mental picture of where it is that you're going", Rose explained.
In all, she tried her best to avoid looking in Peter's direction. And yes, she found it weird that Zamuel was looking straight at her and not the table where the teleporter was.
"Doesn't that mean that you can only travel to a place that you've been to?".
Rose looked to her grandpa and it seemed like he was pleased with her, so she continued.
"Yes. It has to be a place that you've been. Because the teleporter relies heavily on the memory of its user. Gramps once tried it with a picture. He wanted to travel somewhere in Canada, but he ended up on a mountain in Africa. You can only use it to get to places that are marked in your brain"
"How do we use it then?", Zamuel asked. He suddenly seemed interested in the teleporter and not her face. Rose didn't know if that was good or bad.
"All you have to do is tap on this button. It's the only button on it, tap once and you'd be transported to the place you have in mind. But double clicking will teleport you down to the last location you were at, before the previous use. You needn't think about this part because it's mostly for emergencies".
"Oh wow... Show us what you can do", Peter asked with his hands resting on the table.
Oh! She had looked at him! His eyes, she did feel her tummy turn.
"Okay, want something extra?", Rose asked nobody in particular.
"A bottle of orange juice", grandpa chipped in with his full mouth.
"So, now, I'd just think about being in the store and then all that's left will be pressing the button", and with that, she vanished.
Immediately she appeared in the store room, she sighed out in relief.
She had been so tensed in the presence of Peter. She didn't know why he had this effect on her when they had hardly talked.
She had admired his looks when she had first seen him in her grandfather's computer but this?
She had never expected him to be this good looking and smart too. "Rose! He is sixteen!", She scolded herself.
"Well, I'm also sixteen", she said to herself again.
Yes, she was sixteen, but at this time —the present— she was two years younger than Peter because she was from two years into the future.
How was she even thinking about all this?
Wasn't the mission the most important to her? Wasn't it to get that person that she lost to the zombie attack?
Slightly flustered, she opened the refrigerator, picked out a bottle of juice and without any further waste of time, double tapped the button.
She began talking immediately she appeared back in the dining room, "see. It's actually very easy, picture where it is that you want to be, double tap to go to the last place you used the teleporter to get to."
She gave her grandpa his drink and was about to sit when Zamuel surprised her by asking if he could test it too.
She had thought Peter would be the person to ask first though. Hiding her shock, she passed him the teleporter.
"Where are you going to try? Just so we know where to find you if you go missing?", Rose asked.
It was too late, the last thing that they all saw of Zamuel was a sad smile on his face before he became invisible.