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Do You Have the Time? Episode 004: Xuan “Sophia” Nguyen

[March 15th, 2018, 7:05]

Leopold’s phone alarm gently filled his room with lovely harps and orchestral strings. It played for five minutes before he managed to stir from his dreams and blindly sweep his nightstand with his hand. Such music was a wonderful vacation from the white noise-esque ambience of suburbia. Though, it was soothing, it made for an awful choice for an alarm. This he knew, and yet he never seemed changed it.

He was within reach of the phone, since he had woken up with his body sprawled out across the entire bed. After grasping it, he rose from his pillow and sat upright, silencing the alarm in his quiet, shadowy bedroom. Today was the day that the lab was to finally make a decision on their new hypothesis. He took a deep breath and edged to the end of the bed, recollecting the previous night. Pizza with the team, the white-board ideas with Jeremy, and the breakdown in his office with Leslie. Quite the eventful night.

Now, he needed to keep himself on track. The mission was to get far enough to present to the research centre’s board for a better grant. And maybe they could have a real shot at their goal of time travel. He slowly sauntered to the old vanity desk with a mirror that sat opposite to his bed. This idea of time travel, these possibilities for great discovery, it was no longer only for Leopold. This was for his team. For Leslie to actualise her brilliant abilities in her research. For Jeremy to enter the world of discovery and make his first contributions to science. Even for Madison to find her path in life.

Leopold tenderly picked up an old framed picture that sat at the corner of the desk. A wonderful moment of him and his love sharing a day off in autumn on a light hike. They had just been married a few years before. Their skin so soft; her straight, black hair was so shiny. He lovingly rested his thumb on her pale cheek behind the glass and cracked a faint and somber smile.

This was for Marie. Oh, for Sweet Marie. Who always encouraged him to follow his dreams and live without a doubt, no matter how impractical it may seem. She certainly thought some of his aspirations were unorthodox, surely she must have; but she never tried to convince him otherwise. Or if she did, it was rather short-lived. Leopold kindly set the frame back down. He turned toward his dresser to search for his slacks, tie and shirt. It was time to turn on the lights and wake up.

—

Madison matched Jeremy’s footsteps as they treaded down the hall of the familiar Centre for the Advancement of Technology and Science. She flicked her yo-yo down to her feet and glanced at him as they neared their lab.

“I just think it’s so cool, you know?”

“Mmm,” he dismissed.

“I mean, there are so many tricks you can do. My favourites are all of the ones that I’ve made up. Granted, they’re all by accident, but isn’t that how all great discoveries are made?”

Her yo-yo whipped back up towards her and Jeremy. They each reflexively dodged it. Madison busted a gut at the close call and looked to her brother to share the experience.

“First of all, if you’re not careful, you’re going to knock out your other eye with that thing,” he said.

“Double eye-patches. The only thing cooler than aviators.”

“Secondly, do you still need the one you’re wearing right now?”

“Eh, maybe not, but my eye still looks irritated and it’s still a little hard to see. Plus, I mean, why pass up the opportunity to ride out the eye-patch phase for as long as you can?”

“Point taken.”

“Haha!” She laughed triumphantly.

“Lastly, yes, that is how discoveries are made, but like any experiment, it must be replicated and yield the same results each time for it to be valid. So, almost knocking yourself out and dodging it the one time it happens doesn’t count as a ‘trick’ unless you can replicate it, deliberately.”

“Good advice,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“But also,”

“No.”

“Why do you have to make everything sound so boring?”

“Why do you have to be such a nuisance?”

“Jeez, dude, way to get real at nine in the morning. Why don’t you just let me deprecate myself instead?”

“Because you’re deprecating me, instead,” he shot back, “And also, you hardly ever deprecate yourself. Did you not just finish talking about how cool you are with an eye-patch and how great you are at yo-yoing?

“But aren’t I, though?”

“Yeah, you’re amazing.”

“Not sure if you’re for real, but thank you if you are!” She said, happily.

“Sure.”

They turned into the lab to see Leslie standing in front of the whiteboard with Leopold’s scribbled handwriting. She was thoughtfully examining it with IO by her side. She turned to Jeremy’s little friend with a smile and pointed towards the board.

“Which one do you think we should do first?” She asked.

IO beeped and booped with colourful lights blinking from the bulbs on top of its head. Leslie’s face was blank with confusion.

“I’ve got to ask Jeremy how he understands you. You’re a darling little thing, but I have no idea what you’re saying…”

“It said that cosmic strings sounds possible,” Jeremy said with a hint of enthusiasm. Madison glanced at him with a perplexed eye, then an intrigued smile. IO beeped and flashed in excitement to see Jeremy.

“Oh, there you guys are!” Leslie cheered. She waved them over to her and gestured to the small working station that she built. The whiteboard was brought to the centre of the lab, and just next to it, she had set up a bulky rectangular table with wheels on its legs, and seats for the four of them with notebooks, scientific papers about time travel, and other potential resources placed on it.

“Damn girl, you really go all out with this ‘being prepared’ stuff, huh?” Madison said. Leslie’s face went blank again, glancing around at her work.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Madison laughed.

“No way, dude,” she said, “I only brushed half of my hair today.”

“Good God,” Jeremy repelled and squinted at the top of her head.

“I’m wearing two different socks,” she continued.

“Madison, hun…” Leslie said.

“I don’t actually even know what store this coat is from. I just found it in a puddle one day.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that.” Jeremy snorted.

“Sweetie, that’s not good for you. Did you at least wash it?”

“Um, does it look washed?” She gestured towards her mildly soiled jacket, then confidently put her hands on her hips and spread her legs to create a power-stance for displaying her clothes. Jeremy closely peered at the fabric.

“I can’t tell, actually,” he said.

“Okay, well, I did wash it back then… it’s just been a while since then,” she emphasised.

Leslie folded her hands and rested them on her chest our of concern.

“So, what do we have here?” Jeremy gestured to the table and board.

“Ah! I am glad you asked, Jeremy.” Leslie gleamed and circled the work area, “You are familiar with the whiteboard already,” she said, putting Madison’s messy life out of her mind.

“Because I was there when Leopold wrote it, yes,” he retorted.

“But here, we have our lab meeting table. A place for us to theorise, elaborate our ideas on the board, build things, work on the dimensions of stuff in GraviTime, come up with fun inside jokes, the uses are endless!”

“Yeah, cool table, Les,” Madison brushed off.

“Oh, and I’ve already assigned everyone’s seats!”

“You did?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow.

“Yes! Madison and Leopold will sit over here on this side, facing the entrance to the lab. And, Jeremy, you and I will be on the other side with our backs to the entrance.”

Madison jabbed Jeremy with her elbow. He winced and nudged her back out of spite. Leopold strolled through the entrance of the lab with his satchel hanging off his shoulder. He peaked around Jeremy and Madison and grinned at Leslie and her meeting area.

“Ahhh, so this must be the fabled lab meeting table you spoke so much of, yes?” he winked.

“It is! And your seat is right here, closest to the whiteboard.”

“Are our work areas customisable?” He asked.

“Uh, well, yeah, sure, if you want!”

“Good!” He sauntered over to his seat and pulled out a picture frame from his satchel. “I pulled this picture of Marie from home to keep in my office, but since we’ll be spending most of our time out here at this table, I figured it would make more sense to go here.”

“Great, Leo! Making it your own! Although, if we build things on this table, it could get a bit dangerous, so we maybe might want to move it when we’re doing that.”

“Oh, we’ll figure it out,” he waved away the comment.

“Well, I think that this can definitely keep us on an organised steady track,” Jeremy said as he approached his seat. Madison followed behind him and dropped her backpack down on her seat.

“And speaking of ideas for research, I brought one too,” he mentioned.

“Oh, that’s great, Jeremy! What is it?”

He set his bag down, reached into it, and pulled out a video camera.

“Oh! You want to make a documentary about time travel!” Madison squealed.

“Incorrect,” he asserted.

“Welp.”

“What I was thinking was that we could set this up somewhere and make sort of ‘lab video logs’ about our progress in our research. If we make a break-through, record our thoughts, what we did, etcetera. Or if we hit a brick wall, explain that too. Just try to capture a general progression of what our research was like. From start to finish,” he explained, “…If we finish, anyway…”

“I like it, boy!” Leopold clapped and pointed at him and Leslie, “You two have some great ideas! I can’t wait to get to work!”

“So, it’s like a mini-documentary,” Madison interjected. Jeremy sighed out of exasperation.

“Sure, Madison. It’ll be like the Blair Witch Project of time travel.”

“Oh God,” she retorted, “That sounds terrible. Will we run into the Blair Witch when we’re time travelling?”

“No. It’s the only documentary that I could think of off the top of my head.”

“You know, they actually remade it a couple years ago,” Leo chimed in.

“Ohh! We should rent it! And have like a horror movie time travel night extravaganza!” Madison replied.

“Okay, okay, wow!” Leslie halted them, “That sounds like a great idea. But I think we should probably start working on our jobs, first.”

“I agree,” Jeremy said.

“Yes, of course, Leslie. Another good idea!” Leo said.

“Anyway, I do like the lab log idea, Jeremy. Why don’t you find a place to set it up and then we can get to work!” Leslie suggested.

Jeremy headed to the stockroom and set the camcorder up on a miniature tripod on the table in the middle of the room. The same place that he sat when he and Leopold had brainstormed the hypotheses to be discussed that day. At the meeting table, Madison had started practicing chemistry problems with her headphones on while Leslie and Leopold patiently waited. Jeremy was the last to take a seat.

“Okay, here we are!” Leslie said, excitedly looking around the table, “I took a look at the ideas that you guys came up with. So I think that we should spend some time weighing the pros and cons of each one until we can agree on a hypothesis to pursue. I think that was the same idea you two had, right?”

“Indeed!” Leopold said.

“Yes,” Jeremy replied, “we marked each idea we had based on how possible we think it is.”

“So the ones with an X are probably not going to be our first attempts?” She clarified.

“Not unless you can make a case for it. Then we could always decide to include it again.”

“Okay, so no travelling at the speed of light…” she started.

“Because we can’t do that on earth,” Jeremy said. Leslie humorously exhaled. “Yes, getting us into space might be a little difficult to manage… and dangerous too. I can’t let my friends do that!” She joked. Jeremy and Leopold chuckled.

“So, what about the next one?” She continued, “Gravitational waves? Are we still on the fence about it, because there’s a slash next to it?”

“Ah, yes, that was Jeremy’s idea!” Leopold joined in, “We would need black holes to merge together, so… more space travel and funding, but we did like the idea that we can create variation in the ripples in time. Maybe if we have more control manipulating them, we’ll more accurately pinpoint places in time to travel to.”

Leslie nodded and glanced at Jeremy.

“So, it was your idea?” She said with a smile, adjusting her glasses.

“Well, Leopold thought of the better control system and was going to scratch the idea, but it sounded valuable so I wanted to keep it. I realise that actualising this type of research is a long and seemingly unreachable endeavour. But I thought that if Leopold could think of those ideas while we were still in the brainstorming process, we should at least hold onto them until we’re sure it’s a dead-end.”

“Hmm, okay,” she said, “Although, if we’re going to keep this idea even though it could potentially involve space travel, wouldn’t we have to keep the first idea too based on principle? We can’t rule out travelling at the speed of light because we would need space travel, but then approve manipulating black holes in space,” Leslie analysed.

She was right. Their list of hypotheses had a clear bias for one idea over another. It was Jeremy’s bias. He felt his face heat up. He sheepishly adjusted his sweater and swept his hair across his forehead while he considered her argument. This was a strangely uncomfortable position to be in. Usually Leslie was agreeable and sweet. He did not expect her to scrutinise and criticise his thoughts this much. Although, she had a point. He supposed it was a necessary skill for everyone to have on a research team; whether you’re outgoing and personable, scatterbrained and silly, or determined and thoughtful. He had remained still as usual for a few minutes and realised that he was expected to defend himself. However, what arguments could be made.

“Oh, well, I… uh, yes, okay. So, I see your concern,” he stammered, “Um…” IO quietly approached Jeremy in his distress and nudged him with its square head. He looked down and smiled at his friend who was displaying soothing colour-changing lights. Jeremy rested his hand on top of IO’s head and looked back at Leslie. Noticing the acute stress and embarrassment that she had inadvertently caused, Leslie began walking back her statements.

“Well, we can always come back to it again!” She said, “I mean, if you guys really think we can somehow apply the ideas you came up with, we can definitely try!”

“No, no, you have a point,” Jeremy said, “Just because we have more ideas, doesn’t mean they’re more practical.”

“Ah, may I say,” Leopold added, as he raised his hand in the air to bring attention to himself, “One issue with the speed of light theory is that we would cause time to move differently around us without being able to reverse it. Because time moves slower the faster you go. So we could travel extremely fast and cause time to slow down around us, but we would not be able to return to any other previous points in time. The gravitational waves theory is different because we may be able to pick and choose which points in time we travel to, forwards or backwards. We would travel through time, as opposed to time travelling around us,” he explained, “I think that may have been the reason that Jeremy preferred gravitational waves, yes?” he gestured to Jeremy. He and Leslie were both looking at Jeremy for his response. His shoulders were rigid. The room was soundless while he attempted to collect his thoughts.

IO peaked over the table and beeped and buzzed in Jeremy’s place. Leslie and Leopold began laughing. IO nudged Jeremy again and he began to chuckle too. The tension in his shoulders began to subside while he leaned back in his chair and let his breath go. He smiled at his colleagues with him at the table.

“It’s alright, son,” Leopold said with a calming but firm and reassuring tone, “We’re all trying to figure out what the best hypothesis is. I don’t even know yet,” he looked at Leslie, “Do you?”

“No, goodness!” She laughed, “Jeremy, I really don’t know which one we should do either. I’ve looked over the list two-hundred times already and it’s not even noon.”

“You have?” He tilted his head in surprise.

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow in Leopold’s direction who shrugged in astonishment and confusion.

“The point is that we’re all here together to figure it out. Right?”

“Yes, of course,” he articulated with a sturdier and less sheepish tone.

“I understand why we might eliminate speed of light theory for now. Although, Leo’s explanation about why you wanted to keep gravitational waves makes sense. It sounded like bias at first, but if it’s not, then we should keep it and consider it more seriously.”

Jeremy nodded.

“Well regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that we may have to use space travel which would need a lot of funding and training that none of us have. If we have another promising hypothesis that we can pursue without those rings to dive through, I think we should start with that.”

“What… what rings? Diving through?” Leslie furrowed her brow. She looked at Leopold who, for the second time within the same minute, shrugged in astonishment and confusion. Madison removed one of the headphones from her ear.

“He means you should start with hypothesis without as many hoops to jump through.”

Leslie and Leopold made a silent “Ohhh…” motion with their heads and mouths.

“Yes, that’s essentially what I said,” Jeremy defended himself.

“No. It wasn’t. You said it wrong in your own nerdy way with your natural nerd-like twist in your natural nerd-habitat—”

“Hey!” Leslie interjected.

“—because you’re an enormous, chess-loving, physics-studying, robot-building NERD.”

“That seems excessive,” he responded.

“Only a nerd would use those exact words in that order.”

“How did you even hear me? I thought you were listening to music,” Jeremy squinted.

“The song ended at the right time and I was in the right place,” Madison turned the page of her textbook and glanced at the answer key, “Dammit! Wrong, again?!”

“Serves you right. Back to work,” he sneered and pointed her book.

“Ya NERD,” Madison squawked as she put her headphones on.

“Keep trying, Madison! I’m sure you can do it! Let’s not hurt each others’ feelings, though…”

Madison removed her headphone again, this time with music blaring out of it.

“WHAT.”

“She said your hair was nice today,” Jeremy said.

“THANKS I ONLY BRUSHED—”

“Yes, we know.”

“ ‘KAY,” Madison let go of her headphone and it slapped back against her ear. Leopold was leaned back, grinning and watching the lab table dissipate into entropy. Jeremy met eyes with him and frowned in confusion.

“What is it?” He asked.

“I just like my lab members!”

“Okay, okay!” Leslie waved her hands to shed the distractions off, “Well, that sounds like a reasonable process to me, Jeremy. We’ll do that!” Leslie agreed.

“But in the meantime,” he raised a finger to make one last argument, “maybe we can store this hypothesis away just in case nothing else works out. What’s the purpose of actually getting somewhere in an idea without at least trying to actualise it. Maybe one day we’ll have the resources to use experiment with it.”

“There you go!” Leopold beamed from ear to ear, “Potential for the future!”

“And the remaining two are developing candidates because of a possibility that Leopold thought of,” Jeremy said, giving his professor a swift point of the finger, “He wants to try to create micro-scale variations of either cosmic strings or the Tipler Cylinder similar to people who design micro-scale versions of chemical reactions to perform in their labs. If we can replicate these phenomena in our lab, maybe we can manipulate them to help us time travel.”

“Okay, so we’ve managed to eliminate one idea,” Leslie supervised, “And we’ve got three to choose from.”

Leopold gave her a thumbs-up. Quickly, as if someone had flipped a switch in his mind, his face shifted from curious and comfortable to stern and distressed. His eyes were trained on the entrance to the lab. Leslie and Jeremy, after noticing this, turned around in their seats to find a peculiar and pernicious person standing before them. She wore a close-fitting, black skirt with a white, tucked in blouse, and a black blazer over top of it. Her hair matched her blazer and ended between her chin and her shoulders in a bob shape; her eyes were narrow and glared at the lab meeting with scorn.

“Oh, boy…” Leopold mumbled under his breath.

“So…” the young woman said as she approached their table, “this is the wonderful team I’ve heard so much about.”

“It is. Welcome our laboratory.” Leopold extended his arms out, gesturing to the room with a stoic expression. An unfitting and uncommon demeanour for him. The woman glanced around with her arms crossed, nodding at the environment. She smirked.

“Cute.”

Leopold leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands on the table. He gazed at the woman with weathered and desensitised eyes.

“What can I help you with, Xuan?” He asked.

“Please, I prefer Sophia, now.”

“As you wish.”

“And nothing. I just wanted to see for myself this so-called ‘progress’ that was being made on… what was it? This is the science-fiction wing of the building, right?”

Madison took her headphones off and leaned across the table at Jeremy and Leslie.

“Who is this mean lady?” She asked.

“Sophia,” Jeremy said.

“What’s her deal?”

“She seems mean, you’ve got her pegged well,” he said with a shrug.

“Okay, cool.”

“You guys, shhh,” Leslie said.

“And these are your… students, I suppose?” Sophia said as she circled her finger around the other three.

“Miss Sophia, I am sorry if we have given you the wrong impression, but I assure you, we are hard at work in our field of research! No need to be suspicious of our work-ethic!” Leslie chimed in to lighten the mood.

“Oh, I’m not here to manage your time. I am very familiar with Looney’s work-ethic.”

“Oh, hey, Leo, come on,” Madison nudged him, “You’re not looney, you can’t let her bad-mouth you like that,” she turned to Sophia, glared, and stood up, “Listen lady, you can’t just walk in here and START TALKING A BUNCH OF BULLSH—”

“OKAY, okay,” Leopold chuckled and brought his heavy, long-fingered hand to the top of her head, and guided her back into her seat, “Looney is my last name, Madison. No need to get worked up.”

He held his intense stare on Sophia while maintaining a apprehensive posture.

“A bit of an unfortunately easy last name to take advantage of like Sophia and many others in this building choose to do. But my own, nonetheless.” He cleared his throat, “Sophia, I do not want to fight. Is there a professional reason that you have paid us a visit? Because if not, my colleagues and I would like to get back to work.”

“The newly-elected board president wants me and the other board members to drop in on each of the research labs that have potential to be considered for a grant and updated equipment should they successfully present at the next conference. I was shocked that your name was part of the list, so I decided to come and see for myself.”

Jeremy looked at Leopold with wonder.

“Our lab is on the list? Also, there is a list?” He asked. Sophia snorted with contempt.

“Glad to see your research team is informed. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of information to share come presentation time,” she mocked.

“Excuse me, Miss Sophia, but that is enough!” Leslie interjected, “I will not sit here and listen to you insult my friends while we were in the middle of brainstorming some promising hypotheses. As Dr. Looney said, if there is nothing else for us that you have, we would appreciate it if you saw yourself out so we can continue preparing for the conference, since we’re on the list,” she enunciated, “And If I may offer you some criticism, since you appear to be very accustomed to it, I don’t think that barging into our lab because of some personal vendetta you seem to have with our head investigator is very professional. Perhaps you’ll rethink your actions and choose a different approach the next time you observe potential labs.”

“Damn, Leslie… you’ve got some sass…” Madison leaned in to whisper from across the table.

“Well, it’s about time I move on to the next one anyway. I raise your criticism with a word of advice,” Sophia began, “tell this one to tone it down little. The loudmouthed one,” she pointed at Madison, “The more she spouts off about your work while she wanders through this research facility, the more people will think of this lab as a joke. Just a helpful thought. But what do I know? What really is the difference in the end? Grant… no grant… it’s not a big deal. Either way, good luck and have fun!”

She turned and slithered out of the lab while Madison barked at her. Jeremy shushed her. The room remained still while the adrenaline levels declined and shock swept through them. The three of them looked at Leopold who appeared exasperated.

“So, I take it she’s part of the reason you didn’t want a board meeting for so long?” Jeremy asked.

“Indeed,” he sighed.

“Who was that lady, Leo?” Leslie said.

“She’s… well, Xuan and I used to know each other quite well. But we had some unfortunate circumstances and she’s harboured a grudge since.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that,” Madison added.

“So does that mean we’ll have to face her when we present?” Jeremy asked.

“If we present,” Leopold corrected, “And, yes, probably.”

“If?” Jeremy repeated, “That’s still the plan, right? We can’t not present because of her.”

“It’s all a matter of whether or not we have enough data and progress to present.”

“I think we should just try to put Sophia out of our minds for now. We were doing so well! The plan hasn’t changed. We just have a bigger challenge, now. A bigger, darker, nastier challenge,” Leslie chuckled nervously.

Leopold was staring down at his papers. Madison fidgeted in her seat, looking at her phone. Leslie’s eyes bounced from person to person in the uncomfortable silence. In an attempt to ward off the situational feelings of discomfort, Jeremy began jotting something down in his notebook. Madison frowned and slipped out of her seat.

“This might seem like I’m trying to escape an awkward situation but… I actually have to go to class soon…” she trailed off.

“Yes, yes, go. Go, go. Have a good time, hope to see you later,” Leopold dismissed. Madison scurried away from the table and out the laboratory door, slipping her arms through the straps. Leopold began to withdraw from the table, too.

“W-well, there’s still us three!” Leslie pleaded, “We could still talk about our ideas, maybe agree on something, get started on it, you know?”

“I think I’m going to break for lunch,” Leopold said as he quietly snatched his satchel and retreated back to his office. Leslie half stood up with her arm stretched out to him.

“But I—”

The door shut behind him. She sighed and slumped back down in her chair. Just the two of them, now. Leslie slowly raised her head back up to Jeremy with a disheartened look on her face.

“What about you, Jeremy. Maybe you and I could still bounce ideas off each other, right?” She looked to him with big, round eyes and a long face.

“I think I might need a bit of space from this whole thing, too.”

“Right… Of course you do.”

He quietly slid out of the seat that Leslie had chosen for him, put on his coat and backpack, then quickly crept out of the lab. Leslie sat in her own seat with her hands resting on her forehead. She flipped through the papers that she had gathered for the group to read through together.

Then it was only her.

—

Madison stood at her table in her university’s laboratory. Her teaching assistant had given the class their experiment and worksheets for the day. Determining the limiting reactants in a chemical reaction. She looked around at the student next to her who would be her lab partner with a faint smile on her face. She wished she could be more excited for the class. Having Sophia single-handedly shoot the morale out of the sky and projectile it into a flaming nosedive wasn’t a great help for her day. She hated seeing everyone lose their momentum like they did. Leopold especially needed support and Sophia basically did the opposite. And Leslie put so much thought and effort into getting everyone engaged and ready to work. Maybe Madison didn’t understand it, but it meant something to Leslie. Maybe she should have been more appreciative of Leslie’s idea. And Jeremy actually manages to crack a smile and not be 100% grumpy and depressing when he’s working in the lab. At least he and Madison can have some kind of pleasant interaction when he’s there. He’s only icy and unfeeling towards her 90% of the time because of the lab.

“Hey, are you ready to start?” Her lab partner asked. Madison jolted out of her thoughts and looked at the experimental procedure in her packet. Not to mention that she hasn’t exactly been doing great on her homework problems, either. Yet another reason she wasn’t jumping up and down at their table. She found the first step of the experiment.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good to go,” she said, “Uh, so, it looks like we need to get ten millilitres of HCl, first. Do you want to do that, or should I?” She asked. Her lab partner looked at her with a blank expression and shrugged.

“Um, okay. Would you like for me to do the first one?”

“Yeah, yeah, that would be good. That way I’ll know what to do when I have to do it,” he said.

“…You… don’t know what to do?” Madison tilted her head, “It’s right here,” she held up the assignment packet.

“Yeah, I… didn’t really look over this stuff beforehand. Kinda figured we would just wing it.”

“Oh, okay. I guess. Well, it’s just getting some solution, you don’t really have to know what we’re doing to get that.”

“Right, but like, I don’t know how I would do it. Could you just like, show me?” He whined.

“You just need a graduated cylinder.”

“Okay, where’s that? Do we have to ask the teacher for it?” He said.

Madison squinted. She opened the drawers to their lab table and the all of glassware inside clinked together from her force. She retrieved a graduated cylinder from it and set it on the table in front of them.

“It looks like this. Have you used one of these before?”

Still with a blank expression on his face, he shook his head. Madison blinked in surprise. She glanced around to see other groups progressing beyond them. And still, other groups somehow behind them.

“I’m sure you’ve had chemistry classes back in high school, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I think, but I didn’t do too much in them. I was put with the smart kids and they just kinda took control of it all, you know?”

Madison took a deep breath. Everything would be fine. All she had to do is try to take the lead on the experiment, despite getting most of her homework questions wrong, teach this dude everything there is to know about chemistry, and finish the experiment with respectable results within the given window of time. That would be a piece of cake, no problem.

“There’s not enough time for you to read through everything now,” she said.

“Darn,” he replied, showing a blatant lack of interest.

“I’m going to figure out what we need to do, show you how to do it, and I’ll give you tasks to do while I make sure we’re on the right track. Think you can do that?”

“Yeah, you’re the boss,” he said, scrolling through the internet on his phone.

“Also, if you play with your phone while you’re doing the lab, you might get acid on it, and the next time you answer a call, I’m pretty sure it’ll slowly burn your face off.”

With an uncomfortable frown and a clammy hand, he shut his phone down and put it in his pocket.

It wasn’t the most accurate description, but at least she was promoting good safety technique. She grabbed the graduated cylinder and motioned for him to follow her over to a fume hood, which was essentially just a counter built into the wall with a window that slides up and down so gases from chemical reactions wouldn’t fill up the laboratory. In the fume hood sat two a round jugs; one labelled HCl and another named liquid waste. Madison sat the graduated cylinder down in the fume hood, put on latex-free gloves after taking them from a nearby box and held the jug by the handle.

“You’re going to want to hold it here with one hand, stabilise the cylinder with your other and and pour slowly.”

“Whoa, is that really how you do it? That thing is huge and basically full. Isn’t it heavy?” He asked.

“Yeah, that’s why you have to be extra careful when you’re pouring,” she said as she kneeled down to see the level of the liquid solution, “You have to be good with your hands because the stuff we do can go wrong pretty quickly if you pour too much or spill it or contaminate your samples,” she pulled pointed at her eyepatch, “I would know.”

He stood quietly nodding with his arms folded. Madison waved for him to come closer.

“I’m good, I can see.”

“No, for real, you need to be down here. Eye-level. You get better readings when you’re horizontal with the tube.”

He knelt down next to her and stared at the liquid in their container. The HCl remained filled up to the 10 mL mark on the graduated cylinder in the middle, but the liquid appeared to curve upwards at the sides of the tube. Madison pointed to the middle of the solution and looked at her partner.

“This is called the meniscus. It’s the part that we use to measure the volume of liquid. Is it at the 10 mL line?”

“Uh… yes? Wait, no,” he quickly changed his mind, “No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?” She cross-examined him.

“Is that a trick question?” He asked. Madison snorted.

“No dude,” she pointed to her eyepatch, “I’ve got no depth perception, I legit need you to tell me!” She laughed.

“Oh! Oh, then yeah, yeah, totally.”

“Good,” she said and stood back up.

“Okay, so now what? Do we—”

Madison opened the liquid waste container and poured the HCl into it. Her partner’s mouth gaped open in surprise and distress.

“Why would you dump it out?!” He whined, “That took forever!”

“Because now you can try it,” she said as she confidently slammed the graduated cylinder back down onto the table in the fume hood. A crack formed at the base and travelled up the cylinder. A few pieces collapsed onto the counter.

“Please don’t waste the HCl and break the glassware, Madison,” the teaching assistant said as he passed by, “Also, you owe the department three dollars for a new one.”

“Yep,” she blurted out.

She sighed. Her partner chuckled with his hand over his mouth. Another pair of students approached the fume hood.

“Can we use that space now?” One of them asked. From the looks of their flasks, they had already progressed to the second experiment of the day. How could that be possible? She and her partner couldn’t be that bad at chemistry. Madison stood with HCl-covered broken glass cupped in her hands. Her face began heating up and she moved out of the way.

“Uh, right, so step one: ‘break your cylinder’. So now we do step two: start over.”

—

Leslie sat at the lab table by herself with GraviTime open on her laptop. Muffled music emitted from Leopold’s office and split her concentration. An unfortunate circumstance like Sophia attacking him at a fragile time was enough to send him back into his old habits; so much for Leslie’s lab meeting table. She stressfully pinched her forehead while she scanned all of the features of the program. She opened up a new project and it displayed an empty, three-dimensional coordinate plane for her. The program allowed the user to recreate physical events by placing objects of masses of the user’s choosing into a plane and assigning them actions to interact with one another. So if the user assigned two blocks with different speeds towards one another, they would collide, and the program would predict the events that would follow the collision. It essentially estimated any event that would occur under the laws of physics. Clicking on the insert tab brought up a few choices of objects. Box. Sphere. Triangle. Person. Gear. Custom.

Leslie selected the custom option and it brought up a new window with even more tools to use. It allowed shapes to be combined together to form more complex objects. And probably other functions that she would have a hard time uncovering without the help of the rest of the lab. She didn’t feel like diving into something that tedious by herself. There was a play button sitting at the top of GraviTime’s window. She clicked it and a timer in the top right corner began counting the seconds. The milliseconds were racing by and the traditional seconds were rhythmically counting along, too. She clicked and dragged her perspective of the coordinate plane around and watched the axes shift. She supposed that this would allow the user to watch an event play out from different angles. Gradually, her head began to pound more and more; the program was making it hurt with how particular the user has to be with orchestrating an event. Next to Jeremy’s empty chair lied IO who had powered itself down after he had left.

An unpleasantly familiar voice projected to her ear from behind.

“So. Everyone left you, huh?”

Sophia. Again. Leslie could feel her head pulse even harder. She didn’t have the energy to keep up a polite smile anymore. Before turning around to see her again, she stood up from her chair and huffed out of agitation. Leslie met Sophia’s eyes with a blank and serious expression. She adjusted her glasses.

“What is it, Sophia? You’ve already checked our lab today.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” she jeered, “I’ve finished my evaluations of all of my assigned labs, and this one was on my way back. I wanted to come back and say hello again. So hi.”

Leslie pursed her lips together in frustration while she frowned at her.

“Oh, but there was another thing,” Sophia faux-recalled, “It looks like the overall budget of this new year isn’t as much as we’ve had in previous ones. So we’re being forced to cut the funding of a lot of labs. We’re also raising the bar for the criteria of an ‘essential lab’ in our facility to conserve resources. The medicine and robotics wings are still in the clear, but we’re thinking that the theoretical physics wing, or science-fiction wing, will probably be converted to nonessential after the research board votes on it.”

Leslie glared at Sophia with a face of stone.

“I’m surprised that you guys managed to get grant money and stay essential for as long as you did, though. So congratulations on that.”

“I don’t seem to be getting an answer from you, so I’ll ask one more time,” Leslie said, “What do you want, Sophia? Why do you come here to say all of these terrible things?”

“These terrible things are all objective facts,” she persuaded, “It’s not my fault that grants are not as easily handed out now as they were twenty years ago. I’m only following the new policy. And your lab just happens to be much less important than the other ones in this building. I actually came here to warn you about the cuts. To help you. That way you can save your money. Unless you can convince the board to give you your grant back with your presentation at the next conference, of course. Although, I think the robotics wing would be interested in buying that scrap metal off your hands,” she said pointing towards the sleeping IO, “You could add a bit more to your budget before it gets cut. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“Our research is not directly applicable to the world like robotics or like medicine. That’s because the whole point of our research is to make it applicable. You can doubt our research, you can cut our funding, you can come by and patronise me any day of the week if you want,” she took a step closer to Sophia, “But you cannot come around and threaten our robot, IO, or insult my friends. Madison is loud and should maybe think more before she speaks, which I’ve been meaning to talk to her about that, but she is passionate and she works hard when she’s not goofing around with Leopold or trying to get a rise out of her brother, and she really cares about what we’re doing. Jeremy is thoughtful and can be a little too ambitious with his ideas sometimes, but he thinks like anything is possible, and that is the kind of self-reliance and determination that people need to stay committed to their projects and come up with novel ideas; it’s what we needed as a lab to hit the ground running with our new hypothesis, and we may actually make some discoveries with him around.”

Sophia smirked and crossed her arms while Leslie continued her assertive list.

“And Leopold is a brilliant man who has worked all over his field. He works in odd ways, but that’s why he was inevitably drawn to an odd subject of research. He can perceive different angles of problems that nobody else even knew existed. If there is anyone who can uncover the mechanisms of time travel, I think it would be him. And Jeremy. And me, by the way. I am not Leopold’s student anymore, I am his coworker with a doctorate in astronomy, which everyone seems to conveniently forget. Now please, leave me be so I can stress over picking which hypothesis we’re going to use and work this Gravity-Time-program-thing that Jeremy picked out, because I can’t do any of that if I have to deal with you, and I’ve had about enough of this offensive game you’re playing today!” Leslie inhaled the entire room of air after nearly running out of it from her monologue.

“Oh? So you still haven’t chosen your hypothesis yet?” Sophia laughed.

Leslie’s lips locked together and her face started heating up from exposing their lacklustre progress.

“So you’re actually further behind than I thought. And I was only here a few hours ago. I truly do hope that you ‘unlock the secrets of time’, Leslie,” Sophia heckled, “Maybe you’ll be able to manage it better when you do.”

Leslie’s entire body was tensing up from embarrassment and frustration and exhaustion and hunger and some other fifth thing that she was too worked up to identify.

“You know, you’re not actually as nice and pleasant as you try to make everyone else think,” Sophia remarked. Leslie jolted at those words and looked down at her feet, at a loss for words.

“I’ll go and leave you to your work,” Sophia assured, “But a word of advice, Leslie. Just because Leo has worked all over the place, does not mean he is more valuable. He’s flighty and can’t decide on what he wants, what he thinks , or what he believes. He’s erratic and unpredictable. It’s plain to see from the outside. Anyway, congratulations on your soon-to-be zero dollar budget. Make your choices wisely.”

Sophia turned her back once again and took long strides out of the laboratory, leaving Leslie motionless and disturbed. She turned out into the hallway and made her way out of the theoretical physics wing, her shoes loudly tapping on the linoleum floor. Having visited all of the labs that were required of her as a member of the board, she could send in her evaluations and then attend to the other bullet points on her to-do list.

It was bad enough having to know that she worked in the same building as that senile child. Before recently, she had elected for minimal interaction with him because they were on different sides of the enormous facility. Choosing to see him may have given her spiteful stomach ulcers, but if being a part of the board meant that she could bring his life and power to a halt, then the decision was already made for her.

As Sophia officially saw herself out of the science-fiction wing through the lobby, she passed a boy slightly younger than her, heading in the opposite direction. He had blonde hair reaching his shoulders and carried two paper bags. It was that Jeremy character from earlier that Leslie was talking about. They locked eyes without speaking. A silent and brief exchange of glares as they brushed shoulders and continued their separate ways. Sophia had other business and larger priorities waiting for her.

Eventually, she made her way into her new office. It was small and wedged in next to many other identical offices inhabiting one hallway in the facility. Despite the size, the structure was organised and minimalistic. Smooth white walls and an onyx floor that matched her desk and chairs. Plant-coloured green tiles stretched across the vertical and horizontal diameters of the room, creating a plus sign that contrasted the onyx floor. There were bright orange pipes just under the ceiling that moved parallel to it from one wall to the other. The colours of her office resembled those on a paint mixing palette. She did not choose the design, but she did not mind, either.

She slid into her chair and composed an email to the president of the board regarding her evaluations. Medicine needed to get priority and remain essential. Ecology had to be cut. Ironic, seeing that the remodelling of the very office that she had just moved into was related to their conserving resources initiative. Chemical engineering could remain essential. Theoretical physics should certainly be cut to nonessential. She proceeded through the rest of the other labs and wings that she visited, edited her email and sent it out. Sophia rested her head in her hands while she planted her elbows on the desk, closed her eyes and reflected. Regardless of her feelings about Leopold, the changes in budget policy wouldn’t have allowed him funding, anyway. She could be content that her feelings aligned with the policy. It made her a better employee. A grin began to spread across her face with satisfaction. A man that she recognised from the robotics wing peaked into her office and looked around. She gestured for him to enter.

“Have you finished all of your business with the board?” He asked.

“For today, yes.”

“So you’re free for now?”

“Yes, yes, it’s all covered.”

“Good,” he said and held up a wrench, “ ‘Cause we need you back in here again.”

“Give me a minute to change my clothes, and I’ll be there in a few. I can’t get my hands dirty in all of this,” she signalled towards her blazer and skirt.

“We’ll be waiting for you.”

—

Jeremy entered the quiet laboratory and spotted Leslie still sitting in her seat with her hands frustratingly clapped on the sides of her head. The paper bags in his hands were still hot with takeout food, and he supported the bottoms so they did not rip from the stress. He cleared his throat so Leslie would turn around. She began to, but not in the way he had expected.

“I am really not in the mood for any more of this ridiculous— oh! Jeremy! You, uh, you came back,” she mumbled.

“Yes, of course I did. We still need to choose a hypothesis and try to get it off the ground. We haven’t done that yet, have we?”

“No, no, not yet,” she sighed, “Uh, sorry for raising my voice at first. I… thought you were someone else.”

“Oh. Who? Is someone bothering you?”

“It’s nobody, don’t worry.”

“Was it Sophia?” He asked.

“Um… yes. Actually. How did you know that?” She said.

“We passed each other in the hallway while I was on my way here, and we glared at each other for a few seconds.”

“She really is a piece of work, you know!”

“What did she want?” He said.

“Oh, I don’t really want to talk about it right now. I’m a little too flustered for that.”

“That’s okay,” he replied and sat back down in his assigned seat next to her. She tilted her head at the paper bags and pointed to them.

“What do you have there?” She changed the subject.

Jeremy rubbed his neck and looked away from her.

“Right. Well, you know, I left because I needed some space, but then I realised that I forgot to bring lunch with me to the lab today. So I would have had to leave at some point, anyway. I went and got Mexican food and thought that maybe, you know, I don’t know.”

Leslie’s body began to relax and she wore a kind smile, having already figured it out. She had almost forgotten about her frustrating Sophia altercations. Jeremy held his arms and legs close to his core while she was leaning toward him, intrigued in his explanation.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said and turned his head away from her, “It meant nothing to me, I acted only a whim while I was out.” Leslie giggled and rested her hand on his shoulder. His eyes shot back to his shoulder to look at it. She gazed at him through her rose-coloured glasses.

“I find it silly that you would rather speak like a fictional antihero than acknowledge how sweet you are,” she snickered, “But I know you don’t like a lot of attention with things, so I’ll let it go for you,” she said gently. She reached into the bag and pulled out a burrito.

“But just one thing?” She asked.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry for acting cold when you left. I was frustrated, but it wasn’t your fault and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. And thank you for thinking of me while you were out. You didn’t have to, but you did, and it’s very lovely. It’s already made me feel better about everything,” she said, “And I’m definitely going to remember this forever because my brain is an inescapable steal-trap of kindness.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t notice you being cold. And you’re welcome,” he said quickly and numbly, “Now, more importantly, I did some thinking about the theories we have left, because we didn’t finish talking about all of them. And we need to make a decision. Today.”

“Gooudf!” Leslie muffled through half of a burrito in her mouth. She immediately realised that she was not speaking very gracefully and covered her mouth with one hand and gave Jeremy a thumbs up with her other.

“Fsowrry!” She apologised and waved her hands to encourage him to carry on. “It’s fine,” he dismissed, “We didn’t get to it during our discussion, but I wanted to jump ahead and make a case for—”

“COSMIC STRINGS!” Leopold yelled as he burst out of his office and the muffled music became loud and clear.

“Yes,” Jeremy forcefully agreed.

“You came to the same idea, my boy!” Leo asked with excitement.

“I did.”

“Mmmyyaaaaay!” Leslie muzzled through her entire mouthful of burrito. Jeremy and Leopold paused for her to finish. She gulped down the rest of it and let all of her breath out in relief. She reached for one of the drinks in the paper bag and slurped on it for a minute. Jeremy and Leopold glanced around the room, patiently. Still silence. Except for the slurping.

“Ahhh,” she said after quenching her thirst, “Sorry, you guys. I haven’t eaten all day. I’m a little, uh, hungry.”

“Noted,” Jeremy said.

Leslie quickly glimpsed at him. She squinted her eyes and pursed her lips in a humorously overdone fashion.

“Was that sarcasm?”

“No.”

“Oh,” she paused, “Okay!”

And it was forgotten.

“Leopold, would you like to explain why you think we should pursue cosmic strings to Leslie? You seem to have a knack or putting into words the things that I cannot.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But we will get you to practice, soon!”

Jeremy shuddered. He reached down and nudged IO to wake up. It stirred in its slumber and faintly displayed its characteristic fuzzy blue lights.

“I did some reading and found that studies have been done with Tipler’s Cylinder on the micro-scale, already,” Leopold said, “There wasn’t much to go off of because the group lost their lab and their grants after publishing their second paper.”

Leslie’s expression returned to its somber and distant nature that Jeremy noticed when she first turned around to him, thinking that he was Sophia. “But! It was informative,” Leo continued, “And it seems like the cylinder being infinitely long really is a large requirement for its success. And not to mention that the cylinder needs to be of an extremely dense matter, and I’m not sure we have the tools to pack such a large amount of matter into a tiny space.” “But since energy doesn’t have the same physical properties, you think we might be able to control it better and compact it into one place?” Jeremy paraphrased.

“Into a string, perhaps?” Leopold said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“…Yes, that is what I was alluding to.”

“Maybe,” he stressed, “I haven’t found any papers about people being able to localise energy like that. But it’s worth a try.”

“What do you think, Leslie?” Jeremy asked, “We all have to work together, so we need your thoughts too.”

She exhaled and her eyes bounced between them.

“I do have some thoughts on this, and of course I will share them. But Leo, I think you may want to sit down first. I need to tell you something. So… please, take a seat,” she gestured towards the chair across from her at the table. She took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and looked Leopold in the eyes. His face became long after seeing her intensity.

“Sophia came back to the lab a little earlier,” she said.

“Oh, I see…” Leopold responded with a despondent tone.

“And she told me that she’s going to get the board to demote our lab to nonessential and cut us out of the circle for future grants. So whatever money we have now is what we’re left with for the future.”

“Ah…” Leopold chuckled in awkward surprise, “Good thing I was sitting down for this,” he said.

“Well… there you go, Leo,” she motioned towards him and his chair with a smile. A confusing smile at that, because she was happy to know Leopold well enough to suggest that he sit down; but disenchanted knowing that he wouldn’t be happy over the news.

“We still have some money left though, don’t we?” Jeremy asked.

“We do. It’s not much, though…” Leslie replied. Leopold continuously nodded very gently, as he processed the information. Leslie was tense, waiting for his response.

“Be that as it may…” he began, “We haven’t run out, yet. And if we do… then we’ll just have to find another way to keep going.”

Leslie’s body loosened up and she could feel her airways freeing. She could breathe again.

“And when we present at the conference, our data will be exceptional enough that they’ll have no choice but to give us our grant back,” Jeremy strongly added.

“That’s the spirit, Jeremy!” He laughed and pointed across the table at him.

“I thought about not telling you guys about what she said because it was pretty bad news, but… there’s no way you wouldn’t have found out. And you both deserve to know. And better from me than from her, huh?”

“Yes, much, much better, Leslie,” Leopold said, “Thank you for that.”

“I agree. Thank you.”

“So you two are both okay with this, then?” she asked, “Cosmic strings, going against the budget cut, everything?”

“Leopold already made his case,” Jeremy said, “I think that cosmic strings is the most doable option for us right now, and it is probable. Gravitational waves would have been promising if we had the tools, especially since we had more ideas for that hypothesis. But since we can’t act on that hypothesis, pursuing the ideas we have for cosmic strings is our best opportunity. Even if it means that we have to chew the shotgun shell and put gravitational waves to rest.” “Jeremy, I think you mean ‘bite the bullet’,” Leslie modestly raised her finger to correct him.

“It’s the same thing,” he said.

“The action is technically the same, but the the actual phrase is ‘bite the bullet’, son,” Leopold added.

“I literally see no difference between them whatsoever. The ideas are identical.”

Leslie pinched the bridge of her nose and cleared her throat.

“Let’s just move on,” she said.

“Okay.”

“If you both are okay to move forward, then I want to pursue the strings, too,” Leslie concluded, “Especially since you both came to the idea independently. It’s the most practical, and it has promise. And that’s exactly what we need right now.”

Her face lit up and she turned to Jeremy.

“Hey, IO was right! That’s what IO said it wanted us to choose when you got here this morning!” She laughed, “Maybe we should listen to it more often, huh?” She joked as she peered past the table to check on IO sitting next to Jeremy’s chair. He faintly smiled at IO.

“Maybe.” —

Madison and her partner were some of the only students left in the chemistry lab that were performing the experiment. A few other groups were around the same place in the assignment, but the majority of the class had already finished and left. She stood at their part of the laboratory counter and performed unit conversations for each compound they used. Her partner approached and slid his paper over top of Madison’s. It had all of the work and answers on it. She looked up at him with a puzzled appearance.

“What is this? Did you do all of this?” She asked.

“No, I got the answers from the group behind us. Now, we can go!” He coaxed.

“Dude, we still have 30 minutes left of the period, we can finish our calculations before then.”

“Well, I already have mine finished. Just copy it and turn it in! It’s not like you wouldn’t be able to do it on your own time.”

“I don’t know if I would be able to do it on my own time! That’s the whole point! Because I want to be able to do this stuff, man. It’s my major, you know? It’s frustrating and hard and it annoys the hell out of me sometimes, but I have to know how to do it.”

He rolled his eyes and grunted.

“Listen, thanks for offer, I guess. But I’m going to stay and do this.”

“Suit yourself,” he murmured. He gripped his paper, turned it in to the teaching assistant who instructed the laboratory, and exited with the group he copied off of. Madison was the only one left. Her back was aching from bending over the table to calculate the amounts of each chemical that were needed for each reaction. Cramps ran through her hand and she let go of her pencil for a moment to rest. She tucked her hair behind her ear because it was dangling over her paper and getting in the way. The frustrating sequence of events evoked an involuntary groan from Madison’s throat. So many reminders that she was the only one left and possibly the most consistently incorrect student. The teaching assistant dragged his stool from across the room to her table and set it behind her.

“Take a seat,” he said. She came out of her mind looking lost for a instant, but she fake-smiled when situation came together in her eyes.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, “Why do they give us tables with spaces for stools but no actual stools?” She asked, trying to make natural conversation out of her nerves.

He shrugged.

“You know, when you’re in your lab classes, you’re actually supposed to tie your hair back so it doesn’t get in the way during the experiment. It’s the dress code,” he said, pointing to her hair that still managed to dangle over the pages.

“Oh, shi—I, uh, I mean, shoot,” she stuttered. He chuckled and waved her fright away.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“The hair, or the, uh, swearing?”

“Both of those things, actually. You’re not doing the experiment now, so it’s just a technicality. But next time, make sure you do it.”

“Right, of course.”

“My lab teaching assistants said much worse when I was an undergraduate like you, so I don’t care,” he put his hands in his pockets, “But I appreciate you trying to refrain from that. It’s a good habit.”

“I know you probably want to get out of here,” Madison changed the subject, “I’m almost done. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, I do, but I have no problem waiting. Don’t apologise. Take your time.”

Madison didn’t respond. She pretended to concentrate on working out the problems in her head.

“Why do you think you’re the only one left?” He asked.

“Um… because I’m slow? Or I’m not that great at this stuff?” she said, “Is that… a trick question, or something?” She picked up her pencil again to continue writing.

“Eh, kind of. I think it’s probably because most of the students cheat on the experiments. They’ll make up realistic numbers to save time, or copy off of other people.” He held up her partner’s assignment. Immediately, her face shot up from her paper with a restless expression.

“I swear, I didn’t copy off of anyone, he came up to me and was like—”

“I know, I know, relax.”

“Oh, you do? Okay, good. Thanks.”

“I think you’ve got the right approach to your work. You’re not going to get weeded out of your major because of these classes.”

Madison scoffed and shoved her textbook and notebook sitting on the table in his direction.

“I’ve been working on these calculations for the lecture class for days. That’s all I’ve been doing today besides coming here for lab. And I’ve gotten them all wrong,” she dropped her pencil from her hand cramps again, “I don’t really think that’s a good track record for how the rest of the semester is going to go. We’re already halfway through.”

He quietly nodded and flipped through her notes. His watch read that the lab period had ended three minutes ago. The next class wouldn’t be in for another fifteen minutes, so he chose not to say anything. Technically her paper should be collected since it’s overdue, but why shouldn’t the hardest working student get a chance to prove herself?

“You used the wrong answer key,” he said.

Madison’s eyes widened and, without thought, her hands shot out and snatched the book for inspection. Her fingers traced over every word of the new pages and her eyes bounced back and forth between the answers and her work. She was in such a hurry that she was not actually interpreting the problems or understanding the answer key. Her teaching assistant leaned over and began pointing at the problems on the page.

“So you still got this one wrong, and that one.”

Madison let out a disappointed breath that she had instinctively kept in.

“Those three are also wrong.”

“Wow. Thanks, don’t hold back,” she groaned.

“That row of problems is wrong.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Wait,” he asserted.

She stopped and watched him in jittery anticipation while he paused. He grinned and planted his finger down on the last problem. His next words sounded light as a feather.

“This one is right.”

Madison did not move or react for a moment. Having noticed the silence, the teaching assistant glimpsed at her and did a double take when she was still entirely motionless. She shook her head to get out of her own mind. A grin grew across her face like a child who had just outsmarted their parents.

“Wait, seriously? For real, I got one right?!”

“Yeah, the last one, number ten. I think what you did was—”

“Woohoo!” she cheered and leaped from her seat, “Oh my God, I actually got one! I’m not a failure, I got one!” She electrically waltzed up and down the aisles between the lab tables.

He started laughing at her charades.

“Listen buddy, you’re laughing now, but if you’d seen how much BS I went through just to get this one, you’d be hysterical too!” She balled her fists until her knuckles were white and threw punches into the air away from her table.

“Yes! Yes! YES!”

“Madison, you’re being very loud.”

“DON’T CARE. I’M READY TO GO. SOMEONE FIGHT ME.”

She turned around and started at her teaching assistant down the aisle who took a step back from her table after catching the look in her eye.

“Oh— Ohh, no, no, nonono, not me,” he shooed her back.

“Ohhhh, yeS YOU,” she blurted out and marched towards him.

“I thought you were happy!”

“OH, I AM ECSTATIC.” She raised her hands in the air and cackled triumphantly. It appeared that she was too worked up to really commit to… assaulting him, apparently. His fight-of-flight response was subsiding.

“You still have nine more to correct.”

“Don’t care,” she beamed up into the air.

“The lab period is over.”

“Don’t care!”

“I’m taking your lab report, too,” he said as he snatched the paper and retreated back to his table with his grading binder on it.

“Hey wait, no, I care about that!”

She ran after him with her arms outstretched towards her assignment. He held the packet just barely out of her reach.

“Too late, you should have stopped while you were ahead.”

“Wait, but I wasn’t done! I still have to—”

“Oh, would you relax,” he dismissed. “You’re getting an A on it, just get out of here.”

“But I, uh, didn’t finish the whole thing?” She admitted with a mystified frown and a tilted head.

“I know, Madison. But you also worked harder than anyone else today, and you’re clearly grasping the material well. If anything, you just need to work on your math skills. I heard you explain most of the experiment to your partner. You understand the chemistry perfectly fine.”

Madison’s smile grew back larger than ever. A dangerously looking excited twinkle emitted from her eye. The teaching assistant had never seen a student with such… positive, enthusiastic… intensity. How could a person as giddy and entropic as her also have such a honed logical process as well?

“Well hey,” she said with a calmer expression, “thanks for letting me work a little longer. I know we should have been out a few minutes ago. That was pretty cool of you.”

“Don’t mention it. But we really should leave now so the next class can get ready.”

“You got it,” she affirmed.

“And hey,” he called, “Madison?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep practicing. Use the one you got right as a template. You’ll figure it out.” He smiled with a calm and confident demeanour. She reflected the expression back to him and nodded.

“I will. I’ll see you next week.”

Madison slipped out of the chemistry lab and pulled her yo-yo out of her backpack’s side pocket. She took long and animated strides down the hallway, and out of the building. It was time to head back to the other lab that she knew so well. She hoped that they had managed to recover from Sophia’s visit; today was supposed to be a special beginning. Maybe it was only because she really felt as if she had gotten somewhere today, but she had faith that they would be okay.

Her eyes twinkled with her smile and she hoped for the best.

—

[03–15–2018; 16:15_Research_Video_Log_001_START]

“Is it working?” Leopold asked.

“Err, yeah!” Leslie hollered with uncertainty.

“Are you sure?” Jeremy squinted his eyes.

“Yes, yes!” she dismissed.

Jeremy looked at Leopold with skepticism. Leopold returned the glance with a manner of blank confusion. They both sat at the lab table built into the floor in the middle of the stockroom, waiting for Leslie to finish tinkering with Jeremy’s camcorder. He assumed that he would handle the research logs, but Leslie insisted that she do it for him. She was hunched over the video camera at the counter against the wall on the other side of the room with her back to the both of them. Seeing how difficult and unnatural handling technology was for her, Jeremy was puzzled as to why she would be so persistent. He stood up and calmly walked up to her side, leaving Leopold to zone out and glance about the room.

“Let me just show you how I—”

“No, no, it’s okay! I almost had it on!”

“Leslie, just look righ—”

“Wait!” she brushed him off.

“Oh my God,” he said flatly.

“I can figure it out, I promi—”

“It’s recording, already.” Jeremy pointed to the red light on the front of the camera.

“Oh…” she whispered. Her eyes widened, cheeks flushed, and her lips formed an O-shape from the surprise. She quickly set the camera back down on the table so that it was not filming her.

“Oh, I didn’t know…” she murmured so the camera did not ‘hear’ her.

“Well, now you do,” he snorted.

“What do we do now? Now that it has all of that on camera?”

“I’ll just edit it out.”

Leslie quickly cheered up from instant relief.

“Oh, you can do that?!” She applauded in excitement.

“Yeah, it’s not hard. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Good, good. Thank you, Jeremy! I just wanted these to be professional is all!”

“It’s fine. Now, let’s go. We need to get this recording started!” He exclaimed. Leslie raised her eyebrows in wonder at his eagerness. He actually allowed his unconfined happiness to momentarily shine through. Jeremy set the camera on its mini-tripod at the other side of their table and guided the two of them back to their seats across from it.

“Oh, are we ready?” Leopold shook himself out of his daydream.

“Yes,” he replied simply. It seemed like Jeremy may have noticed his own unrestrained enthusiasm and boxed it up again. Baby steps, Leslie supposed.

“Why don’t you start, Leo?” She encouraged. He nodded and cleared his throat.

“My name is Dr. Leopold Looney. I’ve worked in many areas in theoretical physics for the majority of my life. After quite some time, I decided that I wanted to take my interests in a different direction and explore the complete unknown. Now I am here to investigate the mechanisms of altering the fourth dimension. In other words… I want to learn how to time travel,” he chuckled and paused as if he was considering saying more. He glanced at Jeremy and Leslie, “This is my wonderful team who have curiosities just as insatiable as my own. Why don’t you two explain some things about our research and yourselves,” he suggested. Jeremy nodded Leslie towards the camera and she cleared her throat.

“I am Leslie Goodchild, I have studied with Dr. Looney for many years, and earned my PhD in astronomy while learning from him. We have just recently chosen a new hypothesis, but we will not be receiving any new grant money for the foreseeable future. We will have to be prudent with our remaining funds when obtaining our necessary resources. We speculate that it may be possible to harness energy into very thin fibre-like structures to create a finite, micro-scale version of cosmic strings. If the objects surrounding these cosmic strings interact with them in the proper manner, it should distort the passage of time, relative to the environment unaffected by the strings.”

Leslie motioned towards Jeremy to signal that she had finished speaking.

“My name is Jeremy Brilliant, I am in my second year of my PhD program in theoretical physics and I have been studying under Dr. Looney for my area of research. I have proposed that we test the theoretical feasibility of cosmic strings by first composing the experiment in the program GraviTime. If we can prove that it is theoretically possible, then we’ll be able to further justify using our resources to conduct physical experiments.”

Jeremy reached down under his chair and retrieved his laptop, which had been strategically placed for the sake of the recording. After setting it on the table, open and facing the camera, he pressed the play button in GraviTime.

“As you can see here, we have three objects in the coordinate plane. One that travels at the speed of light, one that travels at less than the speed of light, and of course, one that does not move at all. In the top right corner, you can see the passage of time relative to each of the three objects. When the objects move and reach the end of the coordinate plane, I have set the program to allow the objects to reappear at the opposite side and continue moving in the same direction. This allows the timers to keep running and create an endless loop of the objects moving from one side to the other.”

“To add to Jeremy’s test,” Leslie took over the explanation, “the time for the object standing still and the object moving less than the speed of light are synced perfectly down to the millisecond. This is what we will be referring to as standard time: the passage of one second per second; the rate at which time naturally progresses; the way that everyone allegedly experiences time. But when you observe the passage of time for the object moving at the speed of light, it is not in sync with the other two times. It begins to lag behind more and more as standard time progresses. So less time progresses for the object at the speed of light.”

“For example,” she continued, “this could mean that a person travelling at the speed of light for one year would age one year, but when they stopped moving, something like twenty years will have passed in standard time. So the person will be nineteen years younger than they ‘should’ be. From the perspective of people living in standard time, the person travelling at the speed of light will have time travelled to the future. From the time traveller’s perspective, everyone else around them will have aged rapidly.”

Leopold cleared his throat to put a close to the recording.

“This demonstration is simply meant to exhibit the reliability of the program that we will be using. This speed of light theory for time travel has already been proposed and we are simply further supporting its validity with the tools provided in this program. If GraviTime can support one theory, then surely it can be used to reinforce our hypothesis as well. The speed of light theory is a prime example of one that does not work in practicality, because we cannot withstand the forces that come with travelling at such high speeds. We also don’t have the budget to test it, and there does not seem to be a way to reverse time. Furthermore, travelling for an entire year to reach another temporal destination seems impractical. But theoretically,” he raised his finger and grinned, “it is possible.”

“Our goal is to use this program in the same way to demonstrate that cosmic strings is a possible vessel for time travel. Then, to prove that it is experimentally feasible,” Leopold declared. He smirked and gestured to his crew.

“And then to physically achieve it. Welcome to our laboratory.”

[03–15–2018; 16:46_Research_Video_Log_001_END]

#episode 004

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#episode 004