Events director buys nuclear reactor 'as a prop', accidentally invents time travel
Rob Lancaster, who is known for returning from auctions with remarkable objects, has this week returned from one with a functioning nuclear reactor and, shortly afterwards, the ability to move through time. He maintains it was a good deal.
Rob Lancaster buys things. This is understood. Over the years the events director at The Cyber Escape Room Co. has arrived at the office with a fairground organ, a submarine periscope, a full-size telephone box and, on one memorable occasion, a stuffed bear wearing a monocle. Nobody asks anymore. It is simply what Rob does.
This week he went slightly further.
The lot was listed, he says, as “decommissioned reactor, ideal for events and display”. The price was, by his account, “frankly rude, in a good way”. He collected it in a hired van. He was going to use it as a set piece.
It was, it turns out, not as decommissioned as advertised.
Colleagues became concerned when Rob failed to arrive for the Monday stand-up, then arrived for it twice. On Tuesday he greeted the operations team by cheerfully recapping a conversation they had not yet had. By Wednesday he had attended his own leaving do, which has not been scheduled.
“Honestly the reactor was a steal,” he said, from what witnesses describe as slightly before the present moment. “The time travel is a bonus. Great for logistics.”
Physicists have asked to examine the device. Rob has said they can, but they'll need to book, as he is “quite busy next week, and also, briefly, last Thursday”.
The company has confirmed the reactor will not be used at any client event, and has quietly added “check whether it's radioactive” to the standard prop procurement checklist.