TTI3P: Part Two, Chapter One

          Vincent enjoyed the crisp air as he walked the mile and a half to the university campus, which conformed to the mountainous terrain unlike most modern buildings. Despite the locale, the university was fairly well known for its research so even though he was skeptical about the demonstration Ailis had mentioned earlier in the day, he was also a little excited.

            He’d spent several hours more at the café looking into space-time and the interesting discussion on whether or not time travel was possible. Most scientists agreed it was theoretically within the realm of possibility, but nearly everyone he’d read also agreed that if it was going to be done, it would be many more years in the future before technology caught up to the physics. As for the mathematics and foundational knowledge needed to understand how or why it was possible… well, that was beyond him. Trying to wrap his brain around just some of the basic terms was enough to make him feel like a moron.

            On the last half of the hike up Main Street, Vincent reminded himself that he wasn’t a moron, just not an expert in the field of quantum mechanics. He brought his tape-recorder in case he couldn’t understand the presentation, but he was hoping the grad student would know his audience well enough to dumb it down. His notepad and a pen were also packed neatly in the leather shoulder bag his parents had gotten him to celebrate his graduation from this very college two years prior.

            As he walked through the alumni gate, he felt strangely nostalgic for the place. After a moment’s contemplation, Vincent decided it had to be the combined pheromones of students, drunk on the hope of future jobs, houses, and white picket fences. If it wasn’t so sad, it might have been sweet.

            He was out of breath by the time he reached the science and technology building, but this didn’t surprise Vincent. Even though he was moderately in shape, no one walked anywhere on campus without breaking a sweat. Out of Staters were famous for displaying a myriad of symptoms related to altitude sickness in their first few days- so much so that anti-nausea medication was provided in the freshmen’s welcome pack along with the standard campus map and a string of condoms.

            He hadn’t spent much time in Gamow, aside from the Astronomy 101 course he’d taken a few years back to satisfy a science credit, but it hadn’t changed much. Vincent stopped to check his phone. It read: 11:31 p.m. Scrolling through his text messages, he saw the room number that Ailis sent him.

142- Research Office. ;)

            Vincent was in work mode so he didn’t give much thought to what the emoticon might mean. Instead, he found a map posted in the atrium and located the room he was looking for. Turning right down the hall, he mumbled the room numbers under his breath, noting the evens were on the right. He kept walking until he came to the last door and peered in through the window. The “Research Office” was almost as large as a gymnasium, the new LED lighting giving everything a cold, blue tint. A man about his own age moved around the ordered room with phrenetic purpose. This aside, the grad student did not lend credence to the mad-scientist cliché. He was clean cut and fit. He wore no glasses, nor was his dark hair sticking out like a young Einstein. In fact, he looked like an average townie, except for the blindingly white lab coat marred only by a coffee stain which started at the third button and trailed down to the top of the fourth.

          Vincent pushed on the door and walked into the lab, which had a sterile smell to accompany the unfriendly lighting.

          “Journalist?” the man said, barely glancing up from his work.

          “How did you know?” Vincent asked, surprised.

          “The three-day-old 5 o’clock shadow accompanied by a leather satchel always indicates a journalist. No offense, of course. Likely, it’s purely subconscious on your part.” The grad student said this in a very clinical, almost bored, manner.

          “Is that why you wear contacts and go to the gym?” Vincent responded without thinking, his expression neutral. He regretted the words as soon as they’d gone from his mouth, but the man only laughed and set down a metallic box slightly smaller than a rubik’s cube he was working on. For the first time, the grad student paused to actually look at Vincent, as if his own observation made him worthy.

        “Indeed,” he said with a finger pointed up and a comical grin spread across his face, “Always do the thing no one expects.”

        “Who said that?”

        “I just did. You can quote me, too. My name is Cole Bennington.” Cole stuck out his hand and Vincent shook it.

        “A pleasure, you’re sure.” Cole said, taking the words out of Vincent’s mouth. Weird, thought Vincent. The research door opened and the first group of people began to trickle in, most of them students.

        “I expect you will want to interview me at some point. How does tomorrow afternoon, this office, at 1 p.m. sound?” Cole Bennington was making his life much easier than he’d hoped for. So rather than question it, he simply agreed.

        The closer it got to 11:45, the more people came in until there was no standing room. Some of the stragglers peered through the windows built into the door, their faces pressed against the glass. Ailis and her cousin were nowhere to be found, but Vincent would not risk the best spot to go looking. Instead, he pulled out his phone and texted:

Are you here?

        While he waited for a response to come through, he pulled out his tape recorder and turned it on. “Check, check,” he said, then pressed the play button. A tenor Check, check came through clearly. He deleted it and spoke again, recording all the information he thought might be valuable. His phone vibrated.

Outside the door- its packed.

        Vincent chose not to reply. There was nothing he could do to get her in and Cole had finally raised a hand for silence.

      “Ladies and Gentleman, you are here tonight to witness a piece of history- a piece of the future,” the grad student chuckled to himself as if he’d just told a hilarious joke. “I’ll save the mathematics and physics for my publication, but I will say that humans have long held the notion- some might even call it a romantic notion- that we could find a way to manipulate our physical world in such a way as to reverse or speed up time. H. G. Wells wrote of it. Einstein developed the general theory of relativity. Even Star Trek got a turn, despite its horrific interpretation of light speed.” A titter from a part of the group, likely the mathematicians, made Cole smile. Someone shouted, “Dr. Who!” This elicited some applause.

        “Excellent segue, random padawan. The point indeed is that time is more ‘wibbly-wobley’ than the average person would like to believe and tonight I’m going to demonstrate just that.”

The way Cole said this last part made the hairs on the back of Vincent’s neck stand up. The confidence in his voice wasn’t bravado. There was no uncertainty. The rest of the room also went quiet until someone from the corner- the same one who’d shouted ‘Dr. Who!’- said, “Bring back Bugaloo Jeffrey!” Nervous laughter ensued until Cole raised his hand again for silence.

        “While there was a rumor going around that our mascot’s disappearance had something to do with my demonstration, I can assure you that this is not the case.” Grumbles around the room made Vincent smile. The adoration of the mountain goat, whose access across the campus was unfettered, apparently had not suffered since his graduation.

        “Rather than risk our school’s good luck charm, I have volunteered myself for this demonstration,” this announcement silenced the group. “As you can see, I’m clean shaven. In approximately 3 minutes, I’ll have a beard.” Cole paused allowing the idea to sink in.                     “But I can’t have you all thinking that this is just an elaborate magic trick so I think I need a lovely volunteer to come kiss my cheek to verify.”

        A couple of attractive, college girls raised their hands and Cole grinned. “How about one for each side?”

The girls jumped to the front and the group cheered as they nuzzled and pecked Cole’s cheeks. A showman and a scientist, Vincent thought, amused.

         “Well, how about it ladies? Did I miss any spots?” The girls laughed and shook their heads. “Excellent. Thank you.” While the girls moved back to where they stood before, Cole reached down under a table and pulled out a backpack, which looked prepped for a week-long hike. Taking off his coffee-stained lab coat, he laid it on the closest work table and shouldered the pack, clicking in the straps across chest and waste. Vincent saw that the grey base layer beneath had almost escaped the spill, but there was a stain the size of a dime where the fabric between buttons puckered.

         “Now, in a moment, I am going to disappear from this room. I encourage you not to be alarmed and to calmly remain where you are standing. For you, only 60 seconds will pass, but for me, it will be a week spent camping in the mountains. As proof, I will abstain from shaving, giving you the best evidence that my research is real and that the space-time barrier that has so long kept us locked firmly in the present has been mastered.”

         There was some scoffing from the back of the room, almost instantaneously hushed by several people at once. Vincent waited anxiously with the rest of the onlookers as Cole opened the metal box and pressed a couple of buttons, though he could not see which.

         “Anyone have a stopwatch?” Cole asked, looking across the crowd. Someone held up a phone and he nodded, closed the lid of the box, and waved goodbye. Vincent wasn’t quite prepared for what happened next. A stiff wind seemed to come from the edges of the room towards where Cole stood and then quiet unexpectedly and without ceremony, he was gone.

         A simultaneous gasp came from the group, followed by murmurs of disbelief and shock, but no one moved. It was one thing to be told the impossible was going to happen. It was quite another to witness it. Vincent’s cell buzzed, but he ignored it.

The person who’d held up his phone moments before shouted out, “45 seconds!”

         Vincent had a hard time concentrating, immediately forgetting the text. He double checked his recorder to make sure it was still running then stared at the spot the grad student disappeared from. Was it a trick or the real thing? What if he didn’t come back? What if he did?

         “30 seconds!”

         His phone vibrated in his pocket again, making Vincent jump. It was two texts from Ailis:

         What’s happening?

         Did he really disappear?!

         Vincent responded quickly:

         Yes

         “20 seconds!”

         The energy of the crowd was palpable. Vincent stared at the spot where Cole stood only forty seconds before.

         “10 seconds!”

         A press of bodies started to push in on him as the seconds wound down. Curiosity and excitement had built to a near frenzy.          Vincent held onto the corner of a table that was bolted to the floor and listened as the students counted down the remaining seconds.

         “5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”

         There was a sickening pause after the last count. And then there was a whooshing sound and Cole Bennington was back, sporting a week-old beard, just as he’d promised.