The Jaunt (King)
Short Summary
New York, approximately 2307. The Oates family prepared for teleportation to Mars via a technology called the Jaunt.
While waiting, Mark told his children about Victor Carune, who invented the Jaunt in 1987. Through experiments, Carune discovered that conscious beings experienced the Jaunt as an impossibly long time, driving them insane, while unconscious subjects passed through safely. The government took control of the technology, which revolutionized transportation and resource extraction across the solar system.
As the family prepared to be sedated for the Jaunt, Ricky held his breath when given the gas, determined to experience the teleportation consciously. Upon arriving on Mars, Mark awoke to find his son had gone insane from experiencing millions of years of sensory deprivation in what was physically an instant.
Longer than you think, Dad! I saw! I saw! Long Jaunt! Longer than you think-It said other things before the Jaunt attendants were finally able to bear it away, rolling its couch swiftly away.
The boy clawed out his own eyes before being taken away by the attendants, leaving his father screaming in horror.
Detailed Chapter-by-Chapter Summary
Chapter titles are conditional.
Chapter 1. The Jaunt Terminal
The Oates family waited in New York's Port Authority Terminal for Jaunt-701 to Whitehead City, Mars. As they prepared for teleportation, Mark Oates decided to tell his children about the history of the Jaunt to calm their nerves.
Your mind can be your best friend; it can keep you amused even when there's nothing to read, nothing to do. But it can turn on you when it's left with no input for too long.
Chapter 2. The Discovery of the Jaunt
Mark explained that the Jaunt was invented around 1987 by Victor Carune, who discovered it accidentally when his fingers passed through the first portal. Initially funded by government money, Carune conducted experiments with various objects, including pencils, keys, and a wristwatch, before moving on to living creatures.
The first living test subjects were mice. Carune discovered that mice sent through the portal while conscious arrived either dead or in a state of catatonia before dying. However, mice that were unconscious during the journey survived without any apparent harm. This crucial discovery led to the practice of administering anesthetic gas to all Jaunt passengers.
It seems to revolve around the idea of consciousness, and the fact that consciousness doesn't particulate-it remains whole and constant. It also retains some screwy sense of time.
Chapter 3. The First Human Tests
The government eventually took control of the project and began human testing with death row inmates as volunteers. One particularly notable case was that of Rudy Foggia, a convicted murderer who agreed to Jaunt while conscious in exchange for a pardon.
Foggia emerged from the Jaunt with completely white hair, appearing to have aged centuries despite the journey taking only a fraction of a second. Before dying of a heart attack, he uttered his famous last words about the nature of the Jaunt experience.
It's eternity in there, he said, and dropped dead of what was diagnosed as a massive heart attack. The scientists foregathered there were left with his corpse and that strange and awful dying declaration.
Chapter 4. The Impact on Society
Mark explained how the Jaunt revolutionized society, solving both the energy crisis and water shortage. It enabled instant transportation of goods and people across vast distances, leading to the colonization of Mars and other planets. The technology had even been used for sinister purposes, including murder, with one researcher erasing all possible exit coordinates, leaving his wife trapped eternally in the void.
It can turn on itself, savages itself, perhaps consumes itself in an unthinkable act of auto-cannibalism. How long in there, in terms of years? 0.000000000067 seconds for the body to Jaunt.
As Mark finished his explanation, Jaunt attendants approached with their cart of anesthetic gas. His daughter Patricia expressed fear about the process.
Meanwhile, his son Ricky had been listening intently, showing an unsettling interest in the details of consciousness during the Jaunt.
Chapter 5. The Tragic Outcome
Mark went first through the Jaunt, followed by his family. Upon awakening on Mars, he heard screaming and discovered that something had gone terribly wrong. His wife Marilys was hysterical, pointing at their son.
Ricky had held his breath when given the anesthetic, remaining conscious during the Jaunt. The experience had transformed him into a horrifying sight: his hair had turned completely white, and his eyes showed the weight of countless eternities.
The thing that had been his son bounced and writhed on its Jaunt couch, a twelve-year-old boy with a snow-white fall of hair and eyes which were incredibly ancient, the corneas gone a sickly yellow.
In his madness, Ricky revealed that he had experienced an eternity of conscious existence during the split-second Jaunt. The horror of endless awareness in a void of nothingness had driven him insane. As the attendants tried to restrain him, he clawed out his own eyes, screaming about the eternal nature of the Jaunt, while his father could only watch in horror and add his own screams to the chaos.
How long alone with your thoughts in an endless field of white? And then, when a billion eternities have passed, the crashing return of light and form and body. Who wouldn't go insane?