[M]Out of Time(IC)

[John]

Students wandered the halls of MIT, moving to and from lockers and heading off in the direction of wherever they needed to go. It was much the typical day at the university. The clamour of conversation echoed through the halls as people went about their daily business. Occasionally though, some of the people in the hall stopped what they were doing and stared dumbfounded at the thing of beauty that passed them by in the halls. Her name was Sadie Chastain.

Now Sadie was known to more than a few around the university and that she was there would not normally bring such a reaction form the other students. But today, she looked different. As was usual, Sadie wore a smile on her face, and her lucky hat, which had been given to her by her grandfather. He had raised her after her parents passed away and always encouraged her and pushed her to excel at everything she ever did. It did bring Sadie sadness that he wouldn’t be here today to see her accomplishment, but she would honour him, and given what she was going to achieve today, there was no way she would be anything less than happy. But it wasn’t the hat that drew the attention, it was the rest of her outfit.

Sadie wore a white tank top that clung to her body, accentuating her breasts quite nicely. She also wore something that few had ever seen her wear, a skirt. It was cut incredibly high, and painted on her, leaving little to the imagination; and a nice view should she happened to bend over. The skirt itself held no special meaning for Sadie, and frankly, she preferred to wear jeans. But Sadie wanted to look good today.

Sadie strolled down the hall in her white tennis shoes, her large denim handbag slung over one shoulder and a metal briefcase in one hand. It was what was in the briefcase that had Sadie so happy. To anyone who looked at it, it appeared to be a Blackberry phone but about twice the size. Once Sadie proved that it worked, once she graduated, she would be able to get any job she wanted. And right now, there was only one place she could think of that she wanted to be.

Admittedly having doors opened for oneself could be a means for travel. No doubt there would be companies form all over the world that would want a piece of her device. She could see all of the places she had dreamed of. Go anywhere she wanted to. Having grown up in Brooklyn, she never saw anything outside fo the New York borough until she went to Cambridge; not counting the two times her grandfather took her to New Jersey. Now she found that faced with the opportunity to be able to go wherever she wanted, she knew in her heart she was already where she wanted to be. Sadie was in love.

It was something that was never supposed to happen. Admittedly Sadie was attracted to Ethan from the first moment she laid eyes on him. But Sadie was more attracted to his mind; of course having a great body didn’t hurt either. He was truly brilliant and their relationship started out as just teacher and student. They ended up becoming friends over time, which eventually led to their romance when Sadie became his TA. But it was always supposed to be for fun.

It couldn’t be serious. Something like that in public could cost Ethan his job, so they were always careful. Thing was, it was never about grades or anything like that. It started out just being about the sex. It was only after a while that Sadie started to fall for him, despite his quirks, not that she didn’t have a few of her own. And now she wanted to stay in Cambridge because of him. Maybe a nice teaching job. But before that could be decided, there were two things he had to know. And just how she felt was one of them.

Sadie entered the door to the physics lab, glancing quickly at her watch. It was two fifteen and by now all the students would have left the class leaving her alone with Ethan. She entered the lab, closing the door and locking it behind her and walked right over to where he was standing, in front of one of the chalkboards, and leaned up to give him a small kiss on the lips.

“Hey hun,” her voice had something of a girlish quality to it and she was grinning ear to ear. “I invited a bunch of people. All the faculty, and a few choice students as well.” Sadie set down the briefcase and opened her bag, pulling out a sheet of paper and handing it to Ethan. The people she had invited, the VIPs as she thought of them, were listed. They were Ivan Proctor, whom she had met in the library. They talked for a while and found out that they had something in common, a love of whales. Joshua Richards, whom she considered a friend. He had a brilliant mind as he was just the type of person that Sadie enjoyed associating with. Aerin Siour, who Sadie wouldn’t have thought very much of, had it not been for his genius in mathematics. He was able to figure out an equation that Sadie couldn’t quite nail down. And as such, deserved part of the credit. Alexander Shenti, who Sadie didn’t really like. Still he was intelligent, and no doubt he would have some opinion about her experiment. Alice DuBurg, who Sadie knew reasonably well. They had been to some of the same parties but it was more for the interest that Alice would have as a history student that Sadie wanted her there. Sarah Brandt, who Sadie had actually met by bumping into her in the hallway causing Sarah to drop all her books. Sadie of course helped her pick them up and took her for lunch as an apology. And Lisi Madel, who though not a student or teacher, was someone that Sadie had gotten to know fairly well. Sadie would admit freely to liking Lisi’s photography work and tight now was hoping that Lisi would remember her camera.

Ethan's mind was still not totally out of his teaching mode. He still had his safety goggles on his forehead, although is lab coat was gone, and he regarded Sadie in a mildly bewildered fashion before belatedly kissing her cheek and reading through the sheet she handed him. He recognized a number of the names, giving her an incredulous look.

" Are you sure?" he asked her blatantly.

“Well I might think of a couple of other people,” Sadie moved closer to Ethan, wrapping her arms around his waist. “But I’ve been a little distracted today,” Sadie smiled as she stared into his eyes.

“See,” Sadie gave him a quick kiss. I have two very important tings I have to tell you. I’ve been thinking that once I prove this works, I will pretty much be able to write my own ticket. I mean really, I shouldn’t have any trouble getting any job I want,” Sadie kissed him again, holding it for just a moment.

“Well I’ve been thinking,” Sadie rested her head against his chest, snuggling into his. “That I want to be a teacher. And I was thinking I would like to teach here at MIT. That is, if you want me to stay?” Sadie looked up at him, her eyes sparkling in the fluorescent lights of the classroom.

“I love you Ethan,” Sadie kissed him again. “And the only place I want to be is here with you.”

Ethan blinked curiously, a pleased smile suspended on his face before it faded into a curious, shy half smile. In truth, Sadie's confession scared the living hell out of him. The last time he'd heard (or said for that matter) something similar it had ended in disaster. Tears, angry words, and fire. Literal fire. It had taken him months to rebuild his wardrobe.

Of course, Sadie was much more mature than his last love interest. She had treated the few arguments they'd had with dignity and respect, even when she was angry. He was fairly sure she would never take his clothes out on the lawn and light them on fire. But that didn't quite erase the fear and uncertainty. Ethan was aware he was not that good at relationships. He'd been called inattentive, forgetful, distracted, uninterested, and all together absent.

He didn't want to hurt Sadie. He cared about her. She was a bright, sweet girl with her whole life ahead of her. She didn't need to be tied down with an awkward professor who wouldn't treasure her like she deserved to be treasured. But he couldn't bear to hurt her, her happiness meant too much to him.

So instead, he kissed her, softly and reverently, wondering if he could make it work for her, and basking in the joy that she found him worthy of her love.

“Is that a yes?” Sadie looked at Ethan, her eyes reflecting the love she felt. “I know it’s a big decision, and I know you’re sacred. Hell, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sacred too. But I really want this. I want to be with you.” Sadie hugged him tighter and sighed.

"I love everything about you," Sadie whispered. "I won't ever leave you."

Ethan licked his dry lips and swallowed nervously. Fear and doubt wormed into his stomach, eating away at his resolve to make her happy. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he hurt her, but he didn't think he could live without her either.

" What about traveling? I thought you wanted to work in Europe." he asked instead.

Sadie could tell that Ethan was nervous and it caused her to worry a little. He seemed to be trying to talk her out of the idea. But Sadie had resolved to make her life about him, and once she put her mind to something, nothing would stop her; short of him saying no of course.

“Listen to me,” Sadie brought up a hand and ran it gently over his cheek. “I have to go where my heart tells me to. And it wants to stay here with you. You make me happy. I can see Europe anytime, and it would be much more fun if you went with me.” Sadie kissed him again, this time flicking her tongue against his lips.

“I will understand if you say no. But it won’t change how I feel,” Sadie smiled at him, nibbling at his lips.

And in that instant, Ethan was undone and all his protests died in his throat.

" I'm not saying no." he whispered in a low voice before kissing her deeply.

Sadie held onto Ethan, keeping her lips pressed against his, her tongue snaking into his mouth. After about a minute, she pulled away form the kiss and hugged him tight.

“Thank you,” Sadie whispered. “I promise I will make you happy.” She held him for another moment and then pulled away, opening her bag and taking out her phone.

“I told everyone to be here at five, so we have more than enough time to set up,” Sadie turned on the phone, quickly typing in a text message to a few other people she just thought of. She hoped they would show. Once the message was sent, she put the phone back in her bag.

“Thank you for all this by the way,” Sadie’s expression was one of joy. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I know I say it a lot, but you are brilliant.”

Ethan just shrugged and smiled, happy to oblige his former student the credit she deserved. " It was your brain child. You made it happen."

“Well,” Sadie winked at him. “I did have help.” Sadie leaned against the desk and smiled at him, wondering how long it would be before Ethan asked what the second thing she had to tell him was.

(co op with Gypsy)

[Damonique]

Aerin Siour was, as usual, sitting in his apartment. The lights were off, dim lighting decreasing the retina damage caused by staring at computer screens, and he was staring at three. The algebra had to precise, the abstract formula had to be followed to the thousandth of a decimal.

Sadie had already done some limited simulations with his incomplete math over the last week or two, and it had appeared to be sufficient, but the challenge was too great for him to pass up. Aerin had spent the last twelve hours factoring the math to a point where, if the preciseness of the figures were to be applied to say..a camera lens, if it were possible, the resolution would be entering microatomic levels.

The three flat, hi-res plasma screen monitors flickered with walls of numbers, each a key component of the equation. He could have had his hard drive run the calculations, but that would actually require coding a program for the formula he was using, because the methodology behind it was far too abstract to be written into any program code, so he had to plug each digit in manually.

His long, pale fingers danced across the three keyboards staggered on ascending mounts before him, decimal by decimal, one of the six laptops on the tables around him let out a notice ding, indicating a new Email. Given a total of only four people had his Email address, it had to be Sadie. Glancing across at the screen, it automatically opened the message.

"Hey Hun. Would Really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses

,Sadie"

The lanky, black-haired prodigy gave a shrug of disdain for the frivolities and began to put the finishing touches on the algebraic formula, filtering the three key figures each desktop listed into an 87 Gigabyte mass storage drive, as well as into a backup driver that never left the room. By time he finished the process, it was about 3:30.

Aerin stepped into the bathroom and took a look at himself in the mirror. The 23 year old was actually surprisingly tall, standing at 6'3", but lack of exercise left him looking extremely thin and lanky, and all the time spent in dark rooms staring at computer screens left him with pale skin and large shadows thick around his piercing white-blue eyes. His light black/dark grey hair hung in a ragged mess over his face.

Aerin took a fifteen minute shower and shaved away the rising 5'-o-clock shadow on his face, cursing his Icelandic decent. Light eyes responded the worst to low light, high focus conditions, and though in a perfect world it would make sense for him to let his quickly-growing facial hair stay, it was socially unacceptable to have both unkempt hair and an unkempt beard.

Lastly, Aerin ran a quick comb through his still-wet hair and parted it all away from his eyes, hoping it would dry that way and stay out of his face for the rest of the evening, and threw on a pair of faded grey jeans and a plain white T-shirt, there was no point in keeping up with fashion or even looking good when every one around you wouldn't see you more than a few times a month, if at all.

Aerin set his computers to complete some unrelated calculations while he was gone and slipped on a slightly-too-large, deep pocketing grey jacket and dropped the Mass Storage Drive into an inside pocket, tucking one of his laptops under his arm. Aerin locked the three locks on his apartment door and took the elevator to the ground floor and briskly walked past the people milling about on the ground floor. A few people, most of them other MIT students, gawked as he walked past.

Aerin ignored them and stepped out into the sunlight, giving his eyes a second to adjust to the harsh light, blinded for a second before reorienting himself to gaze over the MIT campus, students rushing from building to building with laptops and sheaf's of paper, ignoring them all, he began to make his way towards the physics department building.

[Lake]

Ivan sat in the Archives library, sifting through various papers and documents pertaining to aquatic life. Normally, Ivan would be thrown into his work, only leaving it temporarily to go get something to eat, sleep, or to use the bathroom. He, like most of his fellow Biological Oceanography students, work viewed as the outcasts of the MIT intellectual society. While most of the minds were hard at work figuring out formulas or developing new theories about particle physics, the potential Marine Biologists were out on the Massachusetts coast line, collecting samples of microorganisms that may or may not (more so may not) alter the course of history. Ivan didn't mind though, and knew that someone had to care about their work, as it was still offered as a course her at MIT.

Moving from one textbook citing the anatomy of whales to another explaining the similarity between dolphins and humans, Ivan happened to uncover his computer, which had long been buried under the stack of papers before him. Taking a deep breath, he opened it up, typed in his subsequent password, and decided to see what, if any, new emails he had. Surprisingly there was one, from a Sadie Chastain.

Before opening it, Ivan searched through his memory to who this girl could be. He often didn't meet people who weren't studying his same major, and unless he might have worked with her at some point, how could she have gotten his information? Shrugging, he opened the message, wonder what this mystery person could want.


"Hey Hun. Would Really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses

,Sadie"

"Sadie. Keyes. Lab. Experiment. Sadie. Sadie, Sadie, Sadie. Ah yes, Sadie!" He mumbled to himself, before finally realizing who this girl was. He actually began to blush, as he met her in this very library only a few days ago, and they had a decent conversation. She had talked about an experiment she was working on with Ethan Keyes, the Assistant Director of the Department of Physics. He had only heard about him through the MIT's student newspaper, as he was often mentioned for various activities done in the field of physics. Still, Ivan couldn't help wonder what this experiment pertained too.

Checking his watch, 3:30, Ivan decided he had plenty of time to go to his apartment, which conveniently wasn't far from the Archives library. He exited the building after securing all of his belongings and checking out the appropriate material. On the walk to his apartment, he wondered what this experiment could be about. Having minimum knowledge of physics, only taking a required course his freshmen year, Ivan winced at the thought of being hooked up to some strange machine and being analyzed. Hopefully he wouldn't be the only one there.

Finally arriving at his apartment, Ivan unlocked his door and proceeded to his room to change. His roommate, a brilliant biologist but more interested in the alcoholic arts, sat slumped on the couch in the building's main room. Ivan gave him a slight wave, and was given a burp in return. Grinning, Ivan opened to door to his room and proceeded to change-it was rather stuffy having to wear a suit and tie each day.

Throwing his clothing into a nearby hamper, already overflowing with clothes, Ivan managed to freshen up (reapply deodorant, brush his teeth, try to look visually appealing) and then changed into a gray "Save the Whales" t-shirt and genes, throwing on his black converses and slinging his bag, which he previously left in his room, over his shoulder. He wondered if he should dress more formal, but decided against it. It wasn't like the dean of his department would show up to a physics experiment. He gulped. Would he?

Shrugging off last minute fears, Ivan closed the door behind him and looked at his roommate, who had now passed out, beer still in hand. Ivan decided he might as well leave him a note, telling him where he was and when he might be back, and placed it on his beer can, a place he wouldn't fall to see.

Ivan closed and locked his apartment door and began to think of where the physics building actually was. It had been years since he had last been there and he had the vaguest idea of what it looked like. He decided that he might as well start walking, he would find it sooner or later. If all else failed, he would just email Sadie again.

[à la Mode]

Disfigured.

The buildings of MIT’s renowned Stata architecture were so inappropriately misshapen they disgusted Alexander. At first, such oddities were exciting, or even visually entertaining! However, after studying for years in and around buildings that looked like crunched up aluminum foil, one would notice the distraction and waste of much-needed space. Unfortunately, almost the entire philosophy section of the campus had undergone the Stata renovation, and Alexander was surrounded by constant nonsense.

After several years of campus life, most people that waddled around weren’t much for Alexander to stare at either. Were all college students expected to succumb to the all-too-common loss of upholding one’s image? It seemed as people were “finding themselves” (as most colleges claimed to be the place to do) most were finding they were either fucking lazy or sexual-crazed deviants.

Or both.

Alexander Shenti found himself. He found himself Jack Daniels, the best man one could meet. He found himself Lambda Chi Alpha, a band of brothers that he only really cared to be around for the better parties (with Jack, again) and the résumé boost. He found himself with a lost faith in man, and a regained faith in God.

Alexander found his drive. His drive was in the low-lives that scoured around campus, around the world! Granted, MIT was where the more prosperous, the more determined, the “More Likely To Succeed”s went for a continued education; but, if this was what “more” was, Alexander wanted more than “more”.

Harvard didn’t look much better on the other side of the smooted bridge, either.

Collected.

Walking on the concrete path, next to the crumpled tin foil buildings, Alexander—years into his studies toward a PhD—epitomized fashion, brand, and pompous, snooty, asshole class. The strap of a muse messenger bag (Yves Saint Laurent, of course) crossed his torso like a pristine leather sash. A tee, classic white with V-neck (Calvin, naturally), was form-fitting enough to hug the peak of his biceps—slightly baring the tattooed angel, whom he named Jack in appreciation of his favorite, fermented man. And, Klein won again with his waxed, charcoal denim jeans. Alexander’s thick, black Egyptian hair was pomaded into a well-planned, disheveled coiffure.

And though he looked fantastic compared to what he referred to as trolls around him. And though his clothes were hot brands. And though he graduated top of his class, with a nearly impossible egregia cum laude. He walked alone.

Pfff, good!

And, just as alone was as comfortable as could be, his BlackBerry chimed loudly and vibrated from Yves Saint Laurent:


Hey Hun.

Would really love to see you in Professor Keyes’ lab at 5:00 today.
My experiment is ready and it would mean so much if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie

Ugh, really? Alexander muttered. ‘Hun?’ ‘Hugs and Kisses?’ Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I want to paint our nails together.

Sadie Chastain was one of the least trolliest of MIT trolls. Though Alexander knew he’d despise the gathering, he couldn’t get his proper, golddigging mother’s voice out of his head. Through all the preparations his parents made for Alexander to grow into the man he was to become, etiquette was a course taken with strict accord. Elbows off the table, small fork for salad, “Best Wishes” to the bride-to-be, “Congratulations” to the groom-to-be, etc... When being invited to any gathering you’re able to make, his mother would insist, graciously accept. The Shentis were social beings. Everyone needed to be reminded that Alexander Shenti was a person worth knowing.

The ATM card usually emphasized that fact.

In a rare moment of potential remorse, he replied to the email with hesitant thumbs.


I plan on attending with no guests.
Thank you, Sadie, for the invite.
Alexander Shenti

Prepared.

From his messenger bag, Alexander unraveled a thin linen scarf, to make his simple outfit a little more formal. His mother would be proud. It was no suit jacket, but nor was the invite necessarily printed and embossed. This would do.

He just hoped there would be cocktails.

And though his thirst could have held off until after the meeting in the physics lab, Alexander had time to spare before five o’clock arrived, as his BlackBerry shined it was just past 3:30PM. So, he made his way to Café 4, luckily just past the halfway mark between the Philosophy and Physics sections of campus. He grew envy for students of the Physics department, as their buildings weren’t as Seuss-like and gaudy. Most were actually reminiscent in architecture to a traditional, no-nonsense, Colonial style…probably because they were built in the Colonial era. Brick. Pillars. Simplicity. Everything, for once, had a point.

Distracted.

“What can I getchya, Darling?” The roly-poly lady behind the coffee shop counter asked. She looked like a New England version of Paula Dean (so, in other words, distraught and nothing like Paula Dean) She had a nametag that read "Bonnie" and she had the comfortable aura of a close-but-embarrassing-to-be-seen-with aunt or fat-but-cheerful school bus driver. Her apron was smudged with coffee ground and Sweet-N-Low, and the clothes underneath suggested she was lucky to find a job—even at a college campus coffee shop with a number in its name.

“Coffee. Black. Tall.” Alexander nodded, already digging through his messenger bag for his debit card. He didn’t pity her. This barista obviously was trying to make do, to be financially able to live a decent life, but Alexander he hated her for not trying hard enough. She had already been on the campus to grab a coffee shop application, but not one for admissions?

She started punching Alexander’s order into the computer, “Are you interested in any flavor boosts? We have hazelnut, crème de mi—“

“No. Ma’am. Just a tall, black coffee.” He rolled his eyes, still scouring through his bag for his damned card. If he wasn't going to the experiment, he wouldn't have been rummaging for a lost card. Already, he was growing wary of this gathering. “Nothing else.”

She stumbled. “I-Well, umm. That will be, uh…”

“Ahh!” Alexander rose, with card in-hand. “There it is!”

“Two dollars.”

A Shenti rarely spent so little.

[Black]

"More than half the class is gone. You few remaining members of my class have earned a little of my undying respect. I takes a lot of courage to sit there day after day listening to me spout random nonsense at you all day, and yet even more courage to listen to me when I spout random ingenuity at you. Though I have been very hard on you this year I am proud of you for sticking with me this far, only a little further to go and you seven will be among the ranks of people who have passed my class. Out of four hundred students you seven remain..." Cross looked out at his students a serious expression on his face.

"Don't forget to turn your final projects in on Monday. If you fail to turn it in you will fail my class. I will be accepting projects until the end of the school day. Im not so much of a Nazi that I would make you rush perfection just to get it in before the bell.." Cross smiled.

"You're excused" he said calmly sitting back in his seat and looking over the latest anatomy tests. He pulled one close and began to read through it. The kid who had taken the test was brilliant. Jack had no doubt that this kid would easily become a surgeon or a MD. "Excuse me Mr.Cross..." Cross looked up from the test to see Jenny, a shy girl from his class who had top-notch grades.

"Yes Jenny?" he asked politely.

"I'm having trouble with my home life, my mother is in the hospital and we're pretty sure my father is going to-"

"You may turn your project the Monday after next. Not a day later" said Cross looking down again.

"Thank you so much for the extra week" she squeeked excitedly and gave him an unexpected kiss on the cheek. He looked up after her as she hurried out, her face red as a tomato. "Cute girl..." he said absentmindedly. He wen't back to his papers and ignored the message that was beeping on his laptop.

Jack looked up from his anatomy students Tests, his glasses were low on the crook of his nose as he leaned over to his laptop to check his email which had been dinging at him for the past four minutes and had begun to bug him. He scooted his chair close to the computer and typed in his password.


Hey Hun.

Would really love to see you in Professor Keyes’ lab at 5:00 today.
My experiment is ready and it would mean so much if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie

Jack closed it, ignoring the the full-of-herself student for now. He went back to his papers, grading two entire tests before his curiosity got the better of him and he opened his laptop again and brought the email back up. He re-read it several times before he replied with the short and curt reply.

I will be there early enough to be fashionably late.
-Professor Cross

Jack then shut his laptop down and began to grade his papers once more. He got through all seven papers and gathered them up. As he expected every single test was an A+. This class was full of geniuses. He had high hopes for him all, and it was students like this that gave him his reputation of the best medical teacher at MIT.

Cross walked across the MIT campus, greeting many students as he went, failures and geniuses alike. For some reason students loved him, even after he failed them mercilessly. It confused him to a great degree, but his human sciences professor told him not to question the complexity of the human mind, just to simply go with the flow and trust the answers to come to you. Jack still thinks that teacher is pretty insane.

[Shepherd]

The wind had just shifted direction and it was at once, cooling and refreshing restoring some of Joshua's spent energy, but at the same time irritating as it caused his soaked shirt to cling to his body, which always felt rather disgusting to him. Josh wiped a nagging bead of sweat from the tip of his nose as he analyzed the situation. The young man charging toward him had his head down, trying to keep the glare out of his eyes from the nearby buildings most likely, but it meant he wasn't looking where he was going. He noticed the instant the young man pivoted with his left foot which meant he would use his right for the drive, crossing the ball in front of him.

That was when Josh made his move. He ran straight to where the young man was heading, trusting that the sudden rush of movement coming towards him would startle him and make him slip up. As he ran, Josh threw his weight to his left side as he bent his knee and lifted his right foot for the kick. The ground rushed up to meet him as the shift in weight caused him to fall, while at the same time maintaining his forward momentum and extending his right leg in a sweeping motion. The result was beautiful, Josh slid into the ball from the side taking it completely away from his opponent and knocking it upfield where his team's returning halfbacks could get at it.


Lilac eyes release me from the sting of the queen bee
Help me to forget about the lions chasing me
If a man among us has the notion that he's free
I entreat you to the challenge, stand on up and let's see

The music seemed to come out of nowhere. "Hang on guys, phone," Josh pulled himself off the ground with a reluctant sigh as the ball flew over the goal. "High and to the right again Greg, if I didn't know better I'd swear you did it on purpose," Josh yelled down the field as he jogged over to the bench that held his sports bag. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZZzeY3RWLvc/Rtd--YxnWkI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/iRPAY_izaV8/s320/adidas%2Bgym%2Bbag.JPG) Fishing out his Droid, he flipped it open and saw that he had a new email message.

"Hey Hun. Would Really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie"

Odd, Josh thought as he mused over the message, I don't remember her mentioning anything last time we spoke, which means its either something new, or something big. Or both. Looks like I have plans this evening after all. Gotta get cleaned up first though. Josh looked at the time on his phone and realized he only had about an hour and a half to get to the graduate apartments, get cleaned up, and then get clear across campus to the Physics building. If he was gonna go, he had to leave now.

Mark, one of Josh's fellow players, walked over to the sidelines, apparently Josh was taking to long. "That was a nice slide and all, but are you gonna get back in anytime soon?" he asked.

"Actually I'm gonna have to cut it short today, a friend wants me to come see a project she's got going on and if I don't leave now I'll be late."

"Alright man, see ya next time," Mark said as he went back to the field. Josh always enjoyed playing soccer with the guys, it was nice to be able to ignore the fact that they were at MIT and act like just a couple of regular guys every now and then. And besides some of them weren't bad to look at either. Not that Josh was any slouch in the looks department.

Standing at 5'11 with dirty blond hair and blue eyes and a rather boyish face Josh was already considered fairly attractive. Throw in a body kept fit by running around the soccer field and he was a bit above average on the scale. The ladies all seemed to love how he looked, but sadly for him guys tended to be more shallow. Sure he was cute, but his stomach was flat, not a six-pack, his biceps and legs were defined, but not bulging and he didn't look like he could bench press a car, so while guys would notice him, it rarely turned into anything. Josh couldn't blame them though, he was a bit shallow as well, and most of the guys on campus weren't his idea of attractive either. At least not physically.

Quickly packing up his gear Josh decided it'd be best to jog the three blocks to the apartments, after all he was already covered in sweat. Upon arriving he quickly hopped in the shower and grabbed a change of clothes. A black button down, combined with some faded dark blue jeans and a skinny silver tie. Throw in a pair of black sneakers and he looked ready for a night out, not an unveiling, but he knew Sadie and figured he should look nice for the event without being overly formal.

Josh took one last look in the mirror to fix his hair before grabbing his keys. He locked the door behind him on the way out. He always did, even though the apartments had plenty of security. He never could be too cautious. As he made the long trek to the physics building Josh dug his phone out of his pocket and sent a text back to Sadie.

On my way now, and I'm curious to see what you've been up to. Will probably be a few minutes late, you know me. See ya soon.

- Joshua

[Mysteria]

Having come from a small town in Pennsylvania it was still taking some getting accustomed to living in the city. Country life had suited her just fine but with her fathers transfer to Salem years ago she'd had to leave the country behind and settle for city life, at least for now.

Lisette had been fortunate enough to find work at M.I.T which had also allowed her to take some small classes in her favorite subject of photography. It was Lisi's dream to someday become a world renowned photographer and there was no better place to learn it than M.I.T. Lisi had found the course in numeric photography to be not only interesting but also to give her much further insight into all of the possibilities that a career in photography had to offer. It had amazed her at all of the ways different applications could be used to enhance and change simple photographs into true works of art.

Working in the office of M.I.T had given her the advantage of becoming familiar with many of the students that walked it's halls along with being familiar with may of the teachers there, but had also left her with the disadvantage of not having the opportunity to really get to know any one very well beyond being a casual acquaintance other than one or two short lived relationships and a few nights out with a handful of girls that she had gotten to know in her short time here.

One of those girls had been Sadie Chastain. Lisi could remember exactly how they had met as if it had happened only yesterday. Unlike most of the other students that Lisi knew who she had met through her work in the office, Lisi had met Sadie outside of the M.I.T buildings on the lawn one day when she had been sitting with her Portfolio of her photography spread out in front of her trying to decide which photgraphs to hand in for her first grade in her numeric photography class. Sadie had chanced by that day and stopped to say hello and introduce herself and in the process had looked over Lisi's photography and had liked it. Not only had she liked it, she had helped Lisi to chose which photographs to submit for grading. When the grades finally came in Lisi had made sure to find Sadie and thank her for helping her to chose the photographs that had garnered her a top score in the class. From then on the girls had become friendly.

It was because of that beginning of a friendship that Lisi had been glad to receive the email from Sadie that day. Lisi Madel was working in the office of M.I.T. like she would on just about any day since her arrival in Cambridge.


"Hey Hun. Would Really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie"

Sadie had done it! She had finished the oh so secretive experiment that she had been working on and was finally ready to reveal it and she had invited Lisi to be there when she did it. Lisi was glad that Sadie was revealing it on one of the scheduled days when she'd not have to work late in the offices. She had just enough time after work to get to her room, shower and change, and grab her camera's. Lisi was certain that Sadie would want pictures of the unveiling and it was the least Lisi could do for all that Sadie had done for Lisi thus far.

Lisi showered slowly as she always did. She loved the feeling of the hot water trickling down over her neck. It always helped ease the tension and stiffness that seemed to have taken permanent residence in one centrally located spot ever since an earlier car accident that had left her to endure six months of therapy. Even after all of that therapy her neck had never been the same.

Stepping out of the shower Lisi dressed casually, in a pair of snug fitting jeans and short sleeved sweater that was cut just low enough to show off her assets without looking trashy like some of the girls on campus tended to dress. Lisi had never seen the need for dressing trashy. While she may not have been the thinnest girl on campus, she certainly filled out her jeans and sweaters in all of the right places enough to garner more than just a few glances from the guys on campus, along with a few of the teachers.

After having made certain that her camera case was packed with her favorite two cameras and multiple lenses along with enough of film to take hundreds of photos (Lisi always believed you couldn't carry too much film, there was a world out there to capture on film and Lisi never wanted to miss a shot) Lisi typed in a quick text to Sadie "Be there in a few, bringing my camera's with me to capture this moment for you. Thanks for the invite hun."

Slinging the case over her shoulder and grabbing her jacket, Lisi Madel headed out the door to make her way to the lab.

[Damonique]

Aerin walked in a calm stride across the campus lawn. Passing near the sports field he mostly attained snickers and gape-jawed grins from the bumbling imbeciles kicking around a ball for fun like neanderthals. You would think that on the campus of the school that housed some of the greatest minds of the 21'st century, they would have more pertinent things to do.

Once he reached the old brick and masonry buildings of the old physics department, he was swarmed by students who he had either helped in the past or had heard about his work begging for him to once-over their math. It had become a department tradition to forward your work to "That Genius kid with the multimillion dollar grant" and hope to get something back, even more so after some students he had done work for started receiving their marks for the term.

Out of sheer boredom, and with some time to kill, Aerin grabbed the sheaf of papers being held nearest to his face and took a quick look, spotting seven errors in calculation almost immediately as his eyes scanned over the matrix of numbers.

"You used a computing program with too great of a margin for error. It overestimated on the 36'th, 42'nd, and 93'rd decimals. You'll have to reset the entire program from the 35'th decimal onward if you want even a semblance of accuracy." He muttered to the portly, long-haired physics student he had taken the paper from, who accepted it and quickly ran to the nearest wi-fi bank to set up his laptop.

Aerin did the same thing with a half dozen more papers and laptops before dismissing the lot of them, threatening to Email that he had assisted in the work for all of their professors. In reality, most of the teachers in the Physics and Mathematics departments already knew what Aerin's work looked like, mainly because unlike 99% of the math written up by their students it was actually ACCURATE. But most of the students hadn't yet realized that using the intelligence of others was advocated in the theoretical field, and scattered like flies.

Aerin entered the Physics Laboratory the test was supposed to be conducted in, and searched for the individual lab reserved by the recently-formed Temporal Studies department. It wouldn't be that hard to find. It was still a half an hour until he was told to arrive, but Aerin decided to show up early and make sure that Sadie followed his algorithms to the decimal, and not get himself and whoever else she invited maimed or killed out of neglect.

[Lerouge]

The Night Before

“Hey Tristan!” Came the familiar voice of the head chef of the diner where Tristan was currently working a night shift. Tristan’s eyes looked up past the counter into the kitchen at the sound carrying the last of the dirty plates into the back and placing them by the sink. “Don’t you have class in like 3 hours? You should call it a night!”

“I still have another hour left boss…” He replied as he turned toward the man calling him and ran his fingers through his hair securing it behind his ear. “I can’t just leave I need the money.”

“Don’t worry about it you’ll get paid for the full time anyway… besides it’s dead and you look about the same. Get outta here before I fire ya.” He teased placing a hand on the boys shoulder and smiling. Tristan nodded his thanks and walked out of the kitchen as he unhooked his dirty green apron and tossing it over his shoulder and grabbed a guitar case that was leaning against the counter.

“Thanks a lot Chef… ” He muttered as he made his way out into fresh air and took in a nice deep breathe. Chef had been right at the fact that Tristan did look half dead with the dark bags under his eyes and the fact that his body seemed like it would give out under him any second. His bright blue eyes stared into the sky in front of him and his lips smiled as he saw first traces of sunlight coming up over the buildings. “It’s been ages I’ve actually seen the sun rise…”

Tristan worked nights and evenings with the rest of his day dedicated to two things… music and work, one out of passion the other out of desperation. Asides from the few hours he had after his final shift and his first 8 A.M. class he had never even seen his dorm room and sadly it seemed like tonight wasn’t going to be one of the nights he saw it. His vision was blurred extremely as he walked across the street onto the campus of his school and he ran his hand over his eyes slightly. “Damnit… why am I so tired?” He asked himself stupidly even though he knew what the answer was and he hated it. This wasn’t the first time he hadn’t managed to make it to his home after work, normally it was due to a lack of time; however, this time it was different. Tristan felt as though he would collapse any moment.

His feet led him slowly through the abandoned campus, the cool morning breeze doing nothing but adding to his exhaustion and nothing asides from his voice in his head was driving him. Just get to your class and you can just nap till people get there, he repeated to himself over and over as he continued on his way.

He looked up at smiled slightly as the building he had been looking for came into site, or at least he thought it was the building he was looking for. Tristan’s shoulder pushed against the door and luckily it gave way letting him wander into the building itself, lazy janitors perhaps? He shrugged and continued into the main hall placing his guitar on the floor in front of the chairs aligned against the wall, surely someone would wake him up when his class started.

The human body has always been able to push itself farther than the human spirit ever wants to be pushed, one could go for days if not weeks without sleep if they so wanted. Tristan knew this yet it didn’t register to him that his might could be seeing things as he gazed to the front of the room and imagined the regular desk and white board that his first 8 A.M. class had. How was he to know that the test tubes, electronics and other machinery wasn’t what he wanted it to be and that the words on the board weren’t poems but instead math problems. It didn’t even cross his mind to wonder why things seemed different as he crawled into the chairs and lifted their armrests so that he had enough space to lay his body into.

“Someone will wake me up… I’m sure of it” was the last thing he muttered as he drifted to sleep not realizing that Building C was the English Department and Building D which he had stumbled into was the science department.


(He will wake up when you dudes all get there unless one of you want to wake him up or something idk)

[Cleopatra]

There was complete silence in the south side of the fourth floor of Hacket Hall Dormitory. There were six rooms on that side, and all six of them were wide open. Because they were in a more out of the way area, no one was really noticing, and all the occupants of those rooms were... occupied with things. If one listened carefully they would be able to hear the clacking of computer keys and the clicking of computer mouses along with hushed mutters.

If one were to peek into these rooms, they would be greeted with the site of one or two people in each room huddled over their various laptops and desktops furiously concentrating on something, not bothering to even talk to each other. Other than the occasional “Good... good...” or “No, no, no, no!” there was almost complete silence.

After a few minutes of this almost silence however, there was suddenly a huge outbreak of noise.

“God DAMNIT!”

“You bastards!”

“HA! HA! Who's laughing now, bitches!”

“Get the tanks out, get the tanks out!”

“Kill! KIIIILLL!!”

There was a flurry of activity from all the rooms, cussing and cries of frustration from some of the rooms, followed by crows of exultation from others. One of the crow-ers was Alice DuBurg, furiously pressing the Spacebar and One Key, causing her Mage Night Elf to set everything ablaze in a glorious band of flame. The battle raged on until it ended in a glorious ball of violence and explosions of magic, and then once her team had won Alice pumped her fists in the air and made her usual noises of victory.

It was then that she noticed her cell phone flashing to signify a text message. Frowning, she picked it up and checked it.

Hey Hun. Would Really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie

Alice blinked. She didn't really know Sadie that well, having only met her a few times at parties that she hadn't been really interested in. But seeing as how she'd always been nice to her, it couldn't hurt to go. After all, now that her online battle was done she might as well attend. It seemed to be important to Sadie since she'd texted her and she'd never done that before. Alice shrugged and then glanced at the time.

4:27.

The girl jumped up immediately shrieking in surprise. “Everyone out! I gotta get ready!” There were protests and muttered complaints but they were all out fairly quickly. Alice changed her clothes to a red top with a black jacket, red earrings with a matching necklace, comfortable jeans and black leather boots. After quickly applying some makeup, she ran to get her stuff and quickly walked to the other side of the campus. Even hurrying she was still a couple minutes late, but there didn't seem to be anything important happening yet.

She glanced around disappointedly seeing that there was a distinct lack of snack foods available. Quickly running through a list of excuses she could use to leave early, she settled on “I have to wake up early tomorrow to study.”

“Yeah, that works,” she said quietly to herself, looking around the room, waiting for the events to begin.

[The Gypsy Queen]

Ethan smiled down at Sadie, who came up to about his chin. There were those who would have told him (if they knew) that dating a former student, especially while she was still in school, was unethical. But Ethan had never had much use for most the ethics that had been forced on him, as a child, a young adult, and as a professor. Sure, he was a fair teacher, and he didn’t accept bribes, which put him a notch above a lot of the professors he knew. But he saw nothing wrong with pleasuring the immensely attractive and amazingly dressed young woman pressing her round and sensual body to his and squirming around with need. She was willing, and God help him, she loved him, even if he couldn’t fathom why. He’d never been one to question providence, and a girl who literally embodied the old Beatles lyric, “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” could surely be counted as providence.

He bent his back lightly and grabbed her by her upper thighs, lifting her against him and wheeling around to perch her on the lab table behind him, leaning his hips between her knees and relishing the warmth that radiated from her small frame. His hands roamed aimlessly along her hips, thighs and waists, travelling her sweet curves from memory, and memory making his breath come in sharp, pleased gasps and his head swim.

“ What else did you want to tell me?” he asked shortly, eager to get the “setting up” he’d been waiting for all weekend.

Sadie took hold of one of Ethan’s hands, her body screaming out for him. She brought it up to her lips, and kissed his fingertips lightly, flicking her tongue against them and biting gently.

“Well,” Sadie grinned, sliding Ethan’s hand slowly down between her breasts and across her stomach. “I was in such a hurry today, that I forget to wear any panties.” Sadie purred the words as she slid Ethan’s had between her legs. The moment she felt the touch of his hand it felt like she was going to explode. She reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck, crushing her lips into his.

Anything remotely resembling coherent thought utterly evaporated in a burst of fiery passion that made Ethan's head spin. Caught somewhere between a jealous rage (she'd walked down the halls in that skirt with no panties?! How many co-eds had she lift aching in her wake?! And how dare they look at what belonged to him?!) and mind-numbing desire (good God she wasn't wearing panties...), Ethan barely registered her kissing him for a long moment. When he did, he kissed back ferociously, determined to make up for lost time, and grabbed her wrists to pin them behind her back.

Sadie moaned as her tongue reached into Ethan’s mouth, desperately seeking his. She was trembling and whimpered slightly as he pinned her hands. She had wanted to use those, but found she had an extreme liking for when Ethan showed his aggressive side.

“Please Ethan,” Sadie gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him close. “Please fuck me.” Sadie bit playfully at his tongue and lips, grinding hard into him.

Ethan groaned and pinned the beautiful girl beneath him down, intent on answering her every desire and he slid down her delicious body, licking his lips in the anticipation of her taste.

A few hours later, Ethan's hair was more messy than usual, and in addition to his rumpled clothes he now wore a goofy grin. He was just putting away the last of the classroom equipment as he glanced over to check on Sadie's progress, now that she seemed to have regained use of her legs.

Sadie had already opened her bag and removed her rolled up jeans, tee shirt and lab coat. As she slid into her pants, she stared at Ethan, swooning. And right now, a part of her was wishing they didn’t have an experiment to conduct. The thoughts of his every touch and the sensations she felt, made her want him even more. But still they would have to wait until later.

Sadie put on her tee shirt and hung her lab coat over one of the stools in the lab. She walked over to Ethan and kissed him again, before fixing his hair a bit. Despite the fact that Ethan was not what you could call really fashionable by any means, Sadie thought he was the most attractive man she had ever seen.

“That was divine,” Sadie whispered into his ear, flicking her tongue against it. “Now I believe we have a little work to do professor.” Sadie backed away slightly, placing a hand on his cheek, smiling. She stared into his eyes for a moment, before moving back to her bag and removing two CDs. Walking back to Ethan, she handed them to him.

“The first one’s the equations for the chronoton monitoring. The second is the tesseract display.” Sadie reached for her lab coat and put it on.

“Oh and I emailed the dean,” Sadie’s chirped. Of course the email she had sent to the dean of the university was nothing like the ones she had sent to her friends and the other faculty. It was far more detailed and quite professional sounding.

“He’s coming,” For a moment, Sadie was giddy as a schoolgirl at the thought of the upcoming experiment and what it meant for both her and Ethan

Ethan smiled and took the CDs to the lab computer to get them ready. He and the Dean had not always seen eye to eye but for Sadie's sake he could put his issues aside.

" Good. I told you, you'll have people crawling out of the woodwork to fund your research."

"It's never been about the money Ethan," Sadie spoke softly. "You know that. It's about the science. I don't need money to be happy. All I need is your brilliant mind," Sadie smiled coyly. "And for you to make me scream...often." Sadie giggled and and placed the metal briefcase on one of the lab tables.

"Oh and animal studies is sending me a dog to use," Sadie spoke as she opened the case. Should be here about fifteen minutes before we start. You were right. The "Back to the Future" experiment would be best, but..." Sadie sighed and the smile faded from her face.

"Don't be mad Ethan," she spoke softly, turning and walking to him. "But after I was sure it worked, I used it on myself."

The old money and its being a necessary evil died in Ethan's throat as he stared at Sadie.

" That was... immensely and uncharacteristically stupid, Sadie. What if something had gone wrong?" he demanded, trying to quell the irrational terror that screamed in his brain.

"I know," Sadie sighed. "But after sending Marty five times, I needed a different perspective. And it's not like a rat can talk. I just....I needed to know. Needed to see it for myself. And I didn't go far. Just an hour back. Please don't be mad." True remorse showed in Sadie's eyes. She knew she had upset Ethan and felt badly for that. But at least she wouldn't have guilt nagging at her for not telling him.

"I didn't think," Sadie lowered her head. "I'm sorry."

Ethan sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

" Albert Einstein never had to worry about being torn apart by a tesseract. Because he only did thought experiments." he muttered before smiling. " No harm done, but you can't do that, Sadie. You could have been hurt. We had no idea what that thing could have done. Hell, for all we knew, it might have started a black hole in the lab."

"I know," Sadie spoke quietly. Despite however strong willed she was, she knew she was in the wrong and couldn't defend herself; especially against Ethan

"I just got caught up in the moment," Sadie shrugged. "Forgive me?"

Ethan smiled and hugged Sadie. " I'm not the one who could have been torn down to her separate atoms." he held her for a moment and relished in the fact that she was still living. " Let's get this done, shall we?"

"Thank you," Sadie smiled and kissed him on the cheek. She then moved ot the case on the table and removed the device form inside. She held it in her hands for a moment, thinking of the things that would be possible because of it. Not to mention, that Ethan had manged to give it a handy little upgrade.

"And your idea worked," Sadie grinned at him. "Thanks to your adjustment, it can actually send you wherever you want as well as whenever. Maybe this summer we could go see ancient Greece." Sadie grinned and turned the device on. The display cam to life and her eyes lit up. She did have the desire to use it but would wait until the time was right. Still, she did want to have a little more alone time with Ethan. And thanks to the device, they had all the time in the world.

"Wanna take it for a test run?" Sadie held it up and waved slightly at Ethan. Of course she was joking, but still, he might say yes; though she doubted it

Ethan laughed and shook his head. " As much power as it takes? No thanks, I'd rather not explain the electricity bill to the Director. Save it for the audience, dear."

"Awww, you never let me have any fun," Sadie whined and made a pouty face before winking at him.

"So do you want to set up the equations for Aerin or the tesseract?" Sadie hoped he would pick the math. Frankly that one equation was beyond her and she wasn't in the mood to deal with what would no doubt be a condescending attitude from Aerin. Still, he was brilliant, she had to give him that.

" The equations please." Ethan said happily, making for the computer. " Dad never thought so, but I always knew all that education would be useful."

[Black]

Cross stepped up to the room Sadie and Ethan had just recently made love in and knocked on the door. He peeked inside and saw the two at work. Cross slipped in quietly and closed the door noiselessly. He used his best 'i'm a sneaky teacher catching a texting teen' skills and slid up behind the two peering at their work "Seems mighty complicated Mr. Ethan, Miss Sadie," he said smiling. Jack looked at them both and smiled even broader. "Well then... Im about fifteen minutes early so... Shall I just go play with the skeletons in the closet? It's not to late to tell me you don't want me here!" he said with good humor.

Jack went over and sat in a chair and waited for everyone else to show up. He didn't know what any of the equations meant, but that didn't matter. They looked interesting enough to keep his attention... For the moment. He wondered what the big project was that they wanted to show him, and knowing Sadie, everyone else in the MIT school district, as well as the town. He shrugged to himself and leaned back in his chair tipping back on two legs of the chair and closing his eyes.

[Damonique]

(OOC- Note that all of my math is utter bullshit and that I got my degrees in physics and mathematics from a crackerjack box)

After a few minutes, Aerin finally found the laboratory reserved by Sadie for the experiment. Besides Sadie herself, there were two other people in the room, Sadie's professor Ethan Keyes, who Aerin guessed had done as much work on this experiment as Sadie herself. There was also another professor, one Jack Cross. Aerin had stepped in on a few of the mans seminars, but had never really got to know the man.

Aerin yawned quite audibly and removed the large Mass Storage Drive from his jacket pocket and set it alongside the other equipment. Examining one of the many screens Keyes was monitoring, he noticed his old, rougher, if passable equations. Without a word Aerin pushed the man away from the screen and wiped the algorithms from the screen, then plugged the storage device directly into the computers USB slot.

Immediately, the program stored on the drive began running, removing all unnecessary programs from the computer, and replacing them with gigantic files of microcalculations. After the initial setup for the program, it began to show the unending digits of his coding matrix. If you were to consider the Chronitonious distortion of time the experiment would create as a localized explosion, this sequence of digits would be the shaping for the charge.

Once it was done, Aerin turned to Sadie.

"So, how many people until we can get this experiment started. My end of the math is done, for all intents and purposes. I spent the last 48 straight hours calculating the distortion down to a billionth of a second."

[à la Mode]

The coffee was as bitter as his cynicism, and it made Alexander hiss. Waiting for the drink to cool before he took the first sip was a disciplined deed and a mistake he'd typically redeem himself of, by turning on his heels and scolding Café 4's pudgy Bonnie about. But, Alexander was already well on his way to the physics lab, amidst a crowd of students donning knitted caps and unfounded ambition, with his seemingly day-old, two dollar coffee in-hand.

He sipped again.

And sipped, and sipped, until he arrived to the physics lab with an empty cup. Alexander Shenti was never one to be late to an event. Though, by the looks of the people that occupied the lab, he prayed that it would all be the slightest bit worth the trouble and lost time.

He also prayed that Ugly wasn't contagious.

The lab smelt of the janitor's cleaning bleach, with a faint undertone of sweat (which Alexander quickly blamed on the all-too-abhorred student body that surely rolled in to Physics101 sans soap and water). The room wasn't large by any means, compared to the lecture halls of his early philosophy courses, but it wasn't the stuffy Café 4 either. To his dismay, no liquor was in sight. Ha! These people were in for a trip.

With a heavy sigh of disdain, Alexander stepped into the lab, nodded to Sadie, and delicately sat in the seat farthest away from the pale, atrocious being on the computer. If there were a Hail Mary for the mortal sin of pure unattractiveness, Alexander would have handed the pale kid a rosary.

And a Bible.

And a crucifix.

And help pray for a miracle...or God's forgiveness.

Confusion on his invite still swam in Alexander's mind. Often, he was asked to attend an unveiling, experiment, party, and orgy...only two of which actually sound fun...and with his generous display of disregard, the invitations ensued. He debated whether people sought his frequent jeers, or if he was a mere poster boy for the event.

Either were quite doable for Shenti.

He made little noise, saving his retort for after the experiment. Instead, he distractedly pulled out his BlackBerry and played Brickbreaker until the liquorless “party” commenced.

Even then, Brickbreaker could be the lesser of two evils.

[Whimsical Wail]

Vanessa languished on her impeccably made bed, its sheets straightened with the same obsessive-compulsive fervor commonplace in military barracks. The façade of a misleading jacket embraced Memoirs of Cleopatra, transforming it into the seemingly erudite Their Word is Law. While she was advancing towards self-actualization and the manifestation of her personality, her romantic notions would continue to be swept out of sight. They were sickeningly saccharine, and as far as the realm of academic was concerned, shoved under the tapestry of straight-laced scholarship like exiled dust bunnies. In Harvard, the trend of legal fiction functioned as “escapism” for the legions of law students undergoing laborious intellectual tasks. Sincerely wishing to avoid ridicule from those who would recoil to hear her taste in lovelorn literature, she feigned interest.

Perhaps M.I.T. would be more accepting of her idiosyncrasies. They provided a plethora of clubs that she allied herself with for the sake of socialization and distraction; extracurricular activities caused her to develop a temporary, self-imposed amnesia that repressed the doldrums of legalese. She playfully and impulsively joined the Strategic Games Society, and while it appealed to her sense of adventure, it lacked whimsy and sentiment. The Society of Creative Anachronism benefited from her refined research tactics and undiluted enthusiasm. However, her crowning glory was membership in the Quiz Bowl Team; chills of pleasantly frigid glee coursed down her spine when she spotted her name on the roster.

As far as classes were concerned, she was a capable student who was charmingly wakeful and astute, even in mornings when she had just managed to clear the rheum from her weary eyes. She managed to muster a small measure of excitement in Calculus due to her knowledge of Sir Isaac Newton, who she recalled to be the first scientist ever to be knighted. That savory morsel of trivia provided the impetus to her drive in courses she might have abandoned altogether. Of course, this was purely hypothetical melodrama – she was a devoted daughter, and would simply transition into a mechanical mindset if necessary.

Concerning Physics 101 – she was vaguely terrified in the beginning as Physics in high school constituted hanging on for dear life by relying on “study parties” consisting of worry-addled overachievers similarly aiming for a high grade. However, upon arrival and seating herself in the front row as per usual, she quickly learned it would be far less tortuous than she imagined. Both the professor, Ethan, and the T.A., Sadie both inspired rapt attention by (inadvertently?) applying the law of attraction. Vanessa was clearly not the luminous star student in this scenario, but she did have her moment when the topic of ancient history, particularly Aristotle, was broached. When she was rewarded with kind, albeit short-lived praise, she visibly glowed.

Eventually, she managed to strike an amiable discourse with Sadie after classes, who had noted in passing her proficiency with history. These were rare instances in which she lowered her guard, and the latent romantic emerged; she also tended to become so stimulated that she rambled seemingly endlessly. She spoke of fin de siècle – the French decadence movement – and the Italian Renaissance to underscore their common ground in languages. She also revealed the oddball books she indulged in, though she captured Sadie’s interest when she described the plot line of The Dancers in Time. Since then, she found that discussing the ethics of time travel was a form of recreational theorizing that earned a couple more minutes with Sadie.

In the end, their interaction had made her somewhat noticeable; Sadie inquired if she would be willing to participate in an experiment. Vanessa cheerily consented, as long as it did not conflict with her Quiz Bowl schedule. She recalled Sadie laughing, and mentioning something along the lines of, “I doubt it – and who knows, you might come out of it learning a thing or two!”
Pondering over it now, she wondered how in the world a physics experiment would be relevant to the history section of the competition, but it definitely would not damage her chances with befriending Sadie; there was no point in backing out.

Just as she was in the midst of heated intimacy (or Cleopatra’s, to be more accurate), the tinny chime of cell phone charms incited by her LG White Chocolate’s vibration wrenched her back into reality.

"Hey Hun.
Would really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today. My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie"

She blinked dumbly, enthralled by that simple and contrite term of endearment. It didn’t help that her lavender-scented keypad further aroused her wistful daydreams with its olfactory spell. What a lost cause she was – hanging on to an outdated phone that she had purchased on Valentine’s Day as a whimsical fifteen year old. Sentiment would always be the undoing of her. Shaking her head, the pads of her thumbs hurriedly whipped up a reply while she sprinted to Keyes’ lab:

“At your beck and call! :3 ~ V”

[Shepherd]

Joshua actually managed to make it to the Physics building with about 10 minutes to spare. Nice, he thought, I actually have time to find the right room and still not be late. That never happens. He strolled down the front hallway of the building looking for the labs. It's been forever since I've been in this building. Not since my Biological Physics course.

As he approached Professor Keyes' lab he heard commotion coming from inside. He smiled to himself as he though about Sadie running about putting the finishing touches on everything. He wondered what this secretive experiment could be. Well time to find out.

As he entered the lab Josh was surprised to see that he wasn't the only observer there. Apparently everyone was getting there early. Good thing I'm not running late for a change. As he looked around the room he noticed Sadie setting up, it amused him to see her in a lab coat, though he didn't really know why. Professor Keyes was looking rather disheveled, but as Josh thought about he didn't remember a time he'd seen the man when he didn't. He had no idea who the others were or nor how long they had been there, and he certainly didn't recognize the disturbingly pale individual who appeared to be helping Sadie and the professor set up.

"Hey Sadie," Josh said with a quick wave, "can't wait to see what this is all about." Josh didn't speak further as he made his ways over to the chairs set up for the demonstration. He didn't want to distract Sadie and potentially screw up her experiment. He knew all to well what could happen when you got distracted in a lab.

Josh sat and watched patiently as everything was set up, waiting for any others to arrive so that the unveiling could get underway. I really wish I had some clue what this was all about.

[John]

Professor Cross was the first to arrive and seemed quite cheerful. His demeanour actually helped to make Sadie’s day a little brighter, if that was even possible at this point. It even made up for the rudeness displayed by the next to arrive, Aerin.

Sadie frowned noticeably as Aerin pushed Ethan Away form the computer. She felt it was a severe lack of respect to show toward one as accomplished as he. And no doubt Ethan would feel the same. However, it really wasn’t her place to say anything to Aerin, but quite frankly, she wanted to smack him in the mouth.

“There needs to be one minor adjustment,” Sadie sighed, walking over to Aerin. “The Q variable needs to be changed to zero point three one five. I know we said one four, but trust me this once. I know I’m right.” Sadie smiled and moved a little closer to Aerin.

“It works Aerin,” Sadie whispered smiling. “The device works.” Sadie looked at him, her eyes lit up with glee. Moving back to the other computer, she continued to work as the other guests started to arrive.

Alexander arrived next, giving Sadie a nod, not that she expected more. She smiled at him and continued working. She stopped momentarily to wave to Josh as he entered, continuing with her work. The rest of the people she invited slowly arrived, and Sadie didn’t even bother to check her phone as it vibrated In her pocket. She was glad to see that everyone had made it, especially Vanessa, whom Sadie thought would definitely get a kick out of this. Not to mention that Sadie found her incredibly attractive.

Alice was the last to arrive, preceded by the dean of the university, also arriving fashionably late. Sadie didn’t mind though. The extra time made it so she could double and triple check the device. Once everybody had made themselves comfortable, Sadie pushed a button on the computer and the image of the tesseract (http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv46/nazguljcg/200px-8-cell-simple.gif) appeared on a wall screen.

“Thank you all for coming,” Sadie smiled. “Now as some of you already know, I have been working on a project for the last three months. Well thanks to help from Aerin here, and Professor Keyes, it’s finally ready.” Though Sadie was smiling, she was trembling a little. The fact was she was nervous about this. There always was a possibility that things could go wrong. Not to mention that Sadie was never one for giving speeches, not that she had prepared one. But still she thought it appropriate to say a few words.

“When I was a little girl,” Sadie began. “My grandfather gave me a copy of HG Wells, The Time Machine. Form the moment I read that book it became a dream of mine to someday, build a time machine of my own. Well, I have done just that. And I would like to dedicate this to my grandfather. I wish he could be here to see this.” Sadie turned to pick up the device off the counter and then continued speaking.

“Einstein said,” Sadie continued. “There is no difference between the past and the future in the four-dimensional space-time-world. The present is only an illusion. And nothing could be more true. See, we are always in motion, always moving forward through time, existing in the present for nothing more than a nano-second. Only prevented form existing in past present and future by a sort of invisible curtain. Today I will break through that curtain by using a tesseract.” Sadie motioned to the screen.

“Now for those of you who don’t know,” Sadie smiled. “ A tesseract, or hyper-cube, is a four dimensional object. And as time and space exist in four dimensions, we need to use this to break through the curtain. Allow me to demonstrate.” Sadie moved behind the lab table and brought out the dog.

“I would like to thank Animal sciences for allowing us the use of Rover here,” Sadie knelt down and started to pet the dog. “Yes, he’s a good boy.” After a moment she took a small digital clock with a clip on it from her pocket and clipped in onto it’s collar. Getting up, she walked over to the computer, pressed a button, and two digital clocks appeared side by side on the wall screen.

“The first clock on the screen represents the computer.,” Sadie motioned at the computer. “The second is the clock on Rover and is synchronized perfectly to the computer as you can see.” Sadie started to press some buttons on the device then nodded at Aerin. Breathing deeply, Sadie pointed the device at the dog and pressed a button.

A wide beam of light emitted from the device and surrounded the dog in the shape of a cube. Once the dog was obscured, the beam seemed to split and a second cube formed, surrounding the first and it now looked nearly identical to the tesseract that Sadie had shown on the screen. After a quick moment, it moved, folding in on itself and then it, and the dog, were gone.

“And now for my next trick,” Sadie giggled. “Anyway, I have just sent Rover one minute into the future. So let’s wait and see what happens.” Sadie fell silent and looked at the clock on the screen, counting along with it in her mind. Once the minute had passed, the tesseract appeared in the same spot, unfolded, and the dog appeared.

“You will notice that the two clocks are now running exactly one minute apart,” Sadie spoke calmly, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s because Rover was transported instantaneously into the next minute while we had to get their gradually. So in effect, Rover actually pushed through the curtain and skipped over that minute.” Sadie smiled, noting the look of pure amazement on the dean’s face and then shot a quick smile to Ethan.

“So any comments or questions?” Sadie glanced around the room.

[Damonique]

Aerin ignored the small crowd that began to fill the lab. It was the normal crowd someone looking for a grant would demonstrate to. The Dean, a few professors, and a handful of students who must have just been friends of Sadie's, as there was no way most of them would even understand the experiments meaning.

“There needs to be one minor adjustment,” Sadie sighed as she approached Aerin, who was too busy checking all of the readouts. “The Q variable needs to be changed to zero point three one five. I know we said one four, but trust me this once. I know I’m right.” Sadie smiled and moved a little closer to Aerin, inspecting the matrix on his screen. Aerin didn't see why a single degree of variation could affect the outcome of the experiment, but he just shrugged and plugged it into the matrix.

“It works Aerin,” Sadie whispered, smiling. “The device works.” Sadie looked at him, her eyes lit up with glee. Aerin gave a wholehearted smile at that. This was a major breakthrough for mankind...too bad it was made ahead of its time, or this could lead to untold discovery. The government or some corporation would probably buy up the technology and bury it, but this wold still no doubt earn Aerin all the funding he could ever need.

Aerin tweaked the matrices to her specifications and sat back through the formalities. He had to admit, Sadie had style when it came to making an impression. The dog experiment went over perfectly, and Aerin could see the shock painted on all of the spectators faces.

[Black]

Cross's face emanated pure shock at the dogs transportation into the future. The sheer limitless possibilities of such technology amazed him. How could one possibly bend the rules to transport anything into the future! Such technology could also pose possible harm to the world. People could meddle with many things and cause utter havoc because of it. Of course he wasn't the expert on time and space so he decided to just sit back and wait for whatever was next. He looked across at everyone else and the shock registered on their face. Pure genius with a side of dumb luck.

((Short post is short))

[à la Mode]

Bullshit.

An MIT parlor trick was all it was to Alexander. Houdini could probably have done the same thing, and done it in a vat of water! David Blaine with a 4.0 GPA. Criss Angel with a degree in physics. Penn & Teller on campus.

“You realize, Sadie,” Alexander yawned. His eyes rolled as he continued to play Brickbreaker; as he continued to desire a Jack and Coke, “You realize how easy it is to manually adjust a digital clock, right? I just changed my BlackBerry clock an hour ahead.” He lied. He just lost to Brickbreaker.

The pup, which Alexander so quickly assumed was hidden during the massively bright light, wagged its tail on the desk. It was so happy, so unaware, to be the white rabbit in this MIT magic show. The small digital clock attached to its collar blinked, finally reaching the minute his Blackberry already passed.

The people around him, Dean, professors, students, alike, sat still and in shock. And, just as he did for Bonnie of Café 4, Alexander held no pity for their blind, stupid disbelief. They were the foolish audience, Sadie their magician. They were the viewers of The Hills, Sadie their L.C.

They were truly taken back by something they thought to be so real.

Rubbing his hands along the groomed beard of his jaw, Alexander continued in his obvious disappointment: “If you need a volunteer for when you 'saw someone in half,'” he sneered, quoting the air around him, “count me in.”

[Black]

Cross looked over at Alexander with obvious dislike. "So tell me, if you would Alexander the Gay, is it because your father never loved you, or loved you too much that turned you into such a prick?" Cross stood up and his chair fell over, the fury obvious in his eyes and voice and stood in front of Alexander. "Perhaps it's the fact that you're probably a depressed alcoholic thats lacking in the department of social skills. Have you ever even had a friend? Ever? Do you remember what it's like to talk to someone? To know laughter, revel in it, and share it? Or are you the hollowed out shell of a pathetic boy playing in a mans world trying to be an ass to everyone else so that you can ruin their happiness and accomplishments and make them as sad lonely and depressed as you" Cross dumped his glass of water on Alexanders head and tossed the cup onto his lap. "Get some friends dickwad" said Cross as he went over to Sadie.

"Excellent job my dear. Never knew you had such astonishing intelligence. I commend both you and Ethan and whoever else helped you. Honestly this is worth the Nobel time and time again. I will not pretend to know the mechanics of how something like this works, and honestly I don't particularity want to know why or how it works. The sheer amount of work and pressure of accomplishing something like this must be tremendous. I doubt anyone in the room could have done it," there seemed to be an emphasis on 'anyone in the room' that seemed to be directed at Alexander, "Was this the maiden voyage or have there been other tests?" inquired Cross.

[Shepherd]

Joshua's mind could hardly process what he had seen. The dog had obviously vanished and then reappeared. Though he couldn't help but be skeptical. Time travel wasn't possible, that was science fiction. This was MIT, they dealt with real physics not child's fantasies. But still... if anyone was going to invent it, wouldn't it probably be an MIT student?

A discussion over the validity of the experiment was already underway, and while Josh certain didn't appreciate the 'Alexander the Gay' comment, he didn't know the kid or like his attitude so he let it slide. Besides, he was about to take his side anyway, in a manner of speaking. The scientist in him just had to ask. God, Sadie, please don't hate me for this.

"Sadie, while you know I have the utmost respect for your and the professor's work, I find this hard to believe. While it is obvious that you have created a device capable of moving a subject from one location to another near instantaneously, which by itself would be a great achievement, how can we be certain that the effect on the clock isn't merely a side-effect of the trans-location. It is, after all, a digital monitoring device which have been known to provide false readouts. Especially when exposed to large amounts of particular types of energy. Also, have you done any tests as to what effect this "tesseract," as you called it, has on the subject on a cellular and molecular level? No matter how ground breaking it is, we need to make sure its safe."

[Mysteria]

Lisi had made it in plenty of time before the show even started but had chosen to take a seat in the back of the room since she really wasn't into all of that technical stuff. She had however, wanted to be there to support Sadie in whatever it was she'd had up her sleeve.

While Lisi sat in the back she pulled her camera out, making some adjustments so she could try to capture whatever was about to happen in the front of the room. She payed no attention to the comments going on around her but focused more on watching and waiting for the opportunity to begin snapping pictures. Looking through the view finder she focused the lens, adjusting the shutter speed to optimize the cameras capabilities and nab the best shots. Assessing the distance from where she sat to the front of the room she made a few minor adjustments and sat the camera down.

Looking around the room and listening to the others she waited for Sadie to begin. When she finally began the first thing that Lisi did was pick up the camera and stood up, moving around the back of the room and snapping pictures. She wanted to capture each phase of the experiment in order for Sadie.

Lisi watched the experiment in amazement. She wasn't amazed that Sadie had thought it up as she knew Sadie to be a very intelligent individual but the entire concept had amazed her greatly and to think that time travel was really possible had her excited, regardless of the others in the room that were having a hard time believing it. Lisi had always been a firm believer in endless possibilities, regardless of what the subject matter was. After all, she was fascinated with many things and this was just one more to add to that list of things she believed were possible. Lisi tried never to be closed minded about anything. She'd seen and experienced far too many things to not believe in even the most outlandish things.

The shutter snapped countless times until finally, all that was left to do was capture the smile on Sadies face at the completion of the show. Sadie was a beautiful girl and the truth of it was, if Lisi herself weren't straight, she'd have to think twice about bedding down the gorgeous woman who now stood in the front of the room beaming with satisfaction. One more snap of the camera and Lisi was done.

Laying the camera down Lisi looked up to her friend, smiling and gesturing with a thumbs up sign. Lisi was content to just hang out in the back and watch her friend enjoying her accomplishment. Lisi then took her seat and waited to see what exactly would happen next, keeping her camera close by just in case.

[Whimsical Wail]

“Today I will break through that certain …”

Vanessa gazed in hapless idolatry at the aurous genius of the deceptively delicate-appearing specimen. She deified Sadie at that moment as the ethereal vessel of otherworldly dimensions. Her peers were merely objects in the periphery, as insubstantial as a wavering mirage. The imagery of a curtain was riddled with a plethora of insinuations, from innocuous to lascivious. Her fanciful nature emerged like a repressed phantasm to haunt her pragmatism. The mantle of what was “current” was cast aside to reveal the treasures of the past. Serpentine surges of heat traveled through her veins as she fancied exotic explorations. She would be a thrall to this celestial guide. Sadie defied all that was mundane and pitifully paralyzed in this stony instant of "right now".

The present is so … passé, after all!

Already intoxicated by the tantalizing possibilities and slavishly committed to the experiment, she did not require much more stimulation. She did not seek a veritable evidence to soothe her suspicions. While the stoic cynic spouted skepticism relating to optical inventions and the trickery of clockwork, her heart thrashed in her rib cage. The fervid beat drowned out disillusionment. The displacement of the dog in synchronism with wishful thinking was sufficient cause to place her faith in Sadie’s beautifully implausible scheme.

She reeled in her jaw - which threatened to cascade in astonishment - yet her lips were supple with yearning. The gnawing desire for a kiss stung her; surely this woman had been privy to her backward flight to history … It was uncanny how vulnerable she was to this prodigy who broke the stereotype of the socially inept scientist to insignificant shards. How could she pull herself together? Punch drunk adoration and actualized dreams struck her hard, and she was seeing stars.

When asked for a comment, she was rendered physically speechless, yet every fiber of her being screamed: “Eureka! Hallelujah! Sante! Salamut!” As she came to, the chaos of the scenario vaguely registered in her still euphorically numbed mind. She blinked in aghast awe. Why were they not lying prostrate before this goddess of temporal manipulation?

[Cleopatra]

When Sadie stood before the audience and proudly proclaimed her invention, spoke of space, time and how one could travel through it, her confidence could be felt throughout the room. She was fearless and sure of herself, explaining tesseracts, Einstein, and some book that she read when she was a little kid. Sci-fi from the sound of it. Alice had always preferred fantasy.

And then when the show began, the light flew across the room, the dog appeared and seemed perfectly happy, Alice thought that perhaps her mind had no been able to comprehend as the others had. They were cheering, rejoicing, celebrating, and congratulations.

Well, except for one guy who called the whole thing a fake, but one guy out of a hundred did not a valid point make.

All around her the people jabbered on excitedly about the discovery and the leaps they were going to make. Another “Giant Step For Mankind” sort of thing.

Alice's thoughts were restrained to only one. One thought. What question. One word that burned in her mind and raced like fire through her soul.

“Huh?”

Sure, the dog looked fine. Sure, the machine looked cool. But did they really have any kind of idea about what the hell they just did?! They could have ripped a hole in the Space-Time Continuum or something! They could have doomed the WORLD!!

Of course, everything seemed fine at the moment, but everything seemed fine when Doctor Who went to a new world. But was it?

While the others ooo-ed and aaa-ed over it all, Alice gaped at everything and eventually said to herself “Great. We have a time machine. Now what the hell are we supposed to do with it?”

Messing with time was bad. It was not good. Sure, they said they just wanted it for observation and exploration and all that, but it was only a matter of time until some Ku Klux Klan member or a Russian spy or a Neo-Nazi came along and decided to do something. After all, there were surely other brilliant people in the world like Sadie. There was going to be someone somewhere else with bad intentions who was going to use this for bad.

Of course, since Sadie was all elated and such, it would be bad manners to tell her these apprehensions. Alice walked up to her, briefly said “Great work, Sadie,” and then got out of the way so the more academically inclined people could talk to their new star.

[BallsofIce]

This was not going to end well. She would pay for this, this she understood, because it seemed that all around her was more interested in 'law' and obeying that law, rather then doing what was right. She understood this, but it did not matter, because there was right, and there was wrong. Her soft hands pulled at the handle, pulling the door, creaking, peering into the cold, white bathroom...she slipped inside, and the sight was exactly what she expected. She could only see the pair of soaking wet socks, shoes and pink panties under the stall, but knew inherently it was her friend. Knew without looking. Surrounding the stall, were the gang of very rich girls, prim, proper, popular and vicious beyond all redemption...one kept the stall door open, looking to be smearing the stifled sobbing girl with a mop, a pouring wet mop...they were all insulting her, and Chinatsu, garbed in the same school uniform everyone else was, fumed with anger at the sight. Her nostrils flared, and her eyes steeled, as the women didn't even notice her at first...until the leader, the "prettiest" one turned around, obnoxious pigtails bouncing...obnoxiously. Chinatsu couldn't even think, with how angry she was. The smaller woman gave a cold grin and stepped forward.

"Oh!", exclaimed the overly make-upped doll as her friends snickered. "Halfbreed dog come to save her friend? Maybe if you get down on the ground and bark, we'll let her go! What do you say, bitch? Bark!"

Chinatsu just stared straight at her....and the popular girl's friends backed off a bit...even Chinatsu's friend stopped crying, feeling the tension in the room...Finally, something that surprised even the "gang-leader", Chinatsu...smiled.

"Halfbreed, huh?"

The gang leader(term used loosely) gave a gulp. "Y...Yeah, that's right! Little half-breed bitch!"

"That's harsh...but at least I know I'm not inbred."

The girl widened her eyes a bit, hands darting to her ears reflexively in a moment of self-consciousness, and THAT'S when the power-packed fist of Chinatsu launched into the nose of said girl, sending her flying against the stall, knocked out before her face even left the hand.

Chen awoke from under the tree, and realized, with surprise, that she was possibly late...looking at her watch...no, she had 4 minutes. She stood, her black hair going to her shoulders that she let down if she wasn't working out or running. She wore tight athletic shorts currently, with a sports top...curvy and revealing, but nothing lewd...Her plain white sneakers and gray duffel bag all spoke of someone who was not overly concerned with the latest fashions, even as she ran, ran like a blur of accurate speed, eventually making her way to Professor Keyes' room, and opening the door, to slip inside, panting a minuscule amount...

[John]

Sadie had expected most of the reactions from the others. There was the disbelief, the awe, and the downright insulting cynicism of Alexander. What she didn’t expect was the actions of professor Cross. Frankly she found his actions to be childish and extremely inappropriate, and judging form the look on the dean’s face, her felt much the same way.

She took a moment to smile, while posing nonchalantly for Lisi. Quite frankly, she enjoyed the attention. Not to mention that Vanessa’s gaze seemed to be fixed on her, it made her wonder if Ethan would allow her to bring a friend home. Adie was distracted for a moment byt the woman who entered. Sadie motioned for her to sit down before she turned her attention to Cross.

Sadie nodded her head and shot a smile at Ethan as, as professor Cross congratulated them both. She was appreciative of his words, but frankly her attention was turning to the naysayers. She was about to say something to Ethan, when the dean spoke up.

“Although I am astounded Miss Chastain,” his tone was professional. “I must admit I have my doubts as well. I’m also curious how the device is being powered. I’m sure it doesn’t run off AA batteries.”

“Two D cells actually,” Sadie joked. It was more to keep her from losing her temper. She thought she had given them all the proof they would need. Apparently, she was wrong.

“Well sir, Sadie spoke calmly. “It draws it’s power form the closest source. Right now, it’s drawing power form the school and the city grid. If we were to travel through time, it would stay connected to the same source. Think of it like running an extension cord through a door or window. As for the other questions,” Sadie shot a glare at Alex and turned to Ethan.

“Say no and I won’t do it,” Sadie spoke softly so that only Ethan could hear her. “But I only know one way to prove it to them.”

Ethan did have misgivings about what he knew Sadie was suggesting but at the same time, he had to trust her instincts.

" This is your show, not mine." he said, nodding to her.

Sadie turned back and started to press buttons on the device. As she was in the process of programming it to do what she wanted, the door to the lab opened and Sadie walked in; about two seconds before she disappeared from the front of the lab.

“As you said Josh,” Sadie grinned. “The device does allow you to move to a different location as well. But I’m willing to be that Andrew will suggest I have a cloning machine as well or a twin.” Sadie walked back to the front of the class, smiling all the way. She turned back to the group and noticed the look of doubt gone from the face of the dean. If Alex still doubted, tight now she didn’t care. She only wished to impress the dean at this point. The words rang in her head; Sadie Chastain, Head of the Temporal Sciences Department at MIT.

“So how am I doing professor?” Sadie looked to Ethan. A look that seemed to say please don’t kill me for this. She figured that most of the others wouldn’t understand what could have possibly happened just now, but Ethan did. What Sadie had just done put not only herself, but the fabric of space time in jeopardy as well.

Ethan, for his part, was enjoying a deep sense of self satisfaction and pride that only came with watching a student do well. He was surprised a bit to see the device in action, but no more than anyone would be to watch a woman define the laws of space and time. He crossed his arms and tried not to look too smug or check out Sadie's rear. Sadie had them eating out of the palm of her hand, and now she only had to bring it home.

Sadie smiled at Ethan, now wanting to get out of the lab and celebrate, ut she knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

“I see a lot of applications for this,” Sadie spoke triumphantly. “It will completely change the world we live in as well as how we look at physics on the whole. Not to mention the historical value of the device. Think about it, you could actually go back and see the burning of Rome or even the pyramids being built.”

Sadie couldn’t help wonder if Alex would have any smartass comments now. Frankly, she didn’t care anymore. She could tell form the look on the dean’s face that he was sold, all that was left was to accept the final round of congratulations and negotiate her future teaching position at MIT.

(co op with Gypsy)

[Black]

Cross just sat there with a smile on his face. "Veni, vidi, vici" he said quietly quoting Caesar, so quietly only Ethan and Sadie could hear him, or even see the minuscule lip movement. He didn't know what to do to show his amazement at this. He already knew he was going to get suspended for a while, but he really didn't care. He didn't care what anyone in this room thought about what he said, nor did he care about their opinions or qualms. You reward brilliance with caring and congratulations, and stupidity with harshness. Alexander said all of that just to spite Sadie in his mind and that was a big no no, saying that someones work was just cheap parlor tricks just to spite them and embarrassing them in front of the dean. Maybe it's time to quit this job Cross contemplated. He wanted to be a surgeon and now would be a perfect time. Sassy patients would be a nice reprieve from timid students to outright disrespectful students who thought they could do everything better than you. As he reflected, patients were the same, the only difference is that most of his patients would be dying, and therefore would have a right to be angry at the world and disrespectful to everyone, at least until someone punched them in the mouth and told them to wake up, but he would need to refrain from that.

Seeming to come out of a day-dream Cross looked at the dean, met eyes briefly with his angry boss and his smile seemed to say "I know you're angry, we'll talk later, you probably enjoy it less than I will"




OOC: "Veni, vidi, vici" Is famous for Julius Caesar and is translated as "I came I saw I conquered" o3o.

[ｒａｂｂｉｔ]

Sarah screeched with terror – well, surprise really, but momentary terror – as her phone rang. Her dark blue eyes sprang wide and she lurched forward, fumbling with her Mythic phone, dropping it twice but miraculously catching it on the third fall and saving it from a death (or at least serious breakage) on the marble floor of the MIT library’s study area.

Undeserved adrenaline made her heart crash against her ribs as she sat, frozen, stretched out and grasping desperately at the device, her rear still in her chair. The blond became acutely aware that she’d drawn the attention of just about everyone in the library and a particularly nasty glare from the elderly librarian behind her desk. Silently, she closed and scooped up her three pound MacBook Air, slung her bag over her shoulder and ducked about as quickly as she could out of the library.

“Oi vey,” she muttered, sliding her laptop into her bag and then waking up her cell phone with the press of a button, drawing a crude, invisible heart on the screen with her thumb to unlock it, and then glancing at the message center box. The little envelope with an “e” in the bottom right corner was toggled open and the “From:” showed it was Sadie Chastain.

Sarah blinked in surprise and clicked “Read” with her thumb. The message read:


Hey, Hun.

Would really love to see you in Professor Keyes' lab at 5:00 today.
My experiment is ready and it would mean so much to me if you were there.

Hugs and Kisses,

Sadie

Miss Brandt’s eyebrows raised with curiosity. It was obviously a mass invitation – no name, no personalized information – and she wondered what Sadie had been up to for the past handful of months, as well as who else would attend. Sarah had been craving human interaction lately. Sure, she was majoring in humanities, but that didn’t mean that she had free time to actually get out much. The most she got to be around people was in class, and it was mostly serious, which she found a bit lame – though, she did generally enjoy class. She wasn’t a genius like most at MIT. Sarah worked hard to stay on top of her classes and actually understand it all, despite her ways, she had to understand what she was learning logically, not just emotionally.

Sarah glanced at the time and “eep”ed quietly, closing the message and altering her course for the physics building as she typed out a few text messages and then sped up her pace to something between a jog and a quick run. The young woman arrived with time to spare without breaking a sweat, only a light blush decorating her lightly freckled nose and cheeks; she followed in several others who had apparently been invited and watched them fan out around the room, claiming their seats. Sarah chose a seat close to the middle of the room, and in the third row back, placed her bag beside her chair, crossed her legs at the ankles, toes of her shoes against the linoleum floor, and leaned forward, slender and manicured hands clasped on the desktop.

Rather ignorant about the situation, she looked on and watched as the experiment ensued. The blond tipped her head, lips pursed as she placed her hands in her lap, now, thoughtfully rubbing her hands against the soft and faded designer denim. There seemed to be mix feelings about what had transpired, even from the dean, but Sadie and Professor Keyes seemed delighted about it. Wasn’t that what mattered, anyways?

Subtly, she lifted her hands and made a small, quiet applauding motion at Sadie, accompanied by a smile and nod of the head. Then, Sarah looked to the others around the classroom and uncrossed her ankles, leaning back in her chair a little, sacrificing her posture in the movement, trying to understand – exactly, why, how and what had happened.

[The Gypsy Queen]

Ethan was about three steps away from outright gloating. He'd never exactly gotten on with the dean and this was just too good.

Sadie was brilliant. Not a soul in the room could deny that she was the next big star of the scientific community. People would be lining up to fund her research, and companies would be scrambling to bid on her new technology. Thank God he'd talked her into getting the patent pending paperwork months ago, otherwise he'd be worried someone would rip her off, and all it would take was the photos Lisi was taking.

Just then the lights began to flicker.

" Sadie..." Ethan started a warning as the room filled with a disturbing electrical hum. " Sadie, turn it off - hurk!"

It felt as though someone had tied a rope around Ethan's foot and poured oil on the floor, then given him a tug. He lost his balance and felt himself sliding down a sharp incline, which was disconcerting because the floor of the lab was flat.

Then he was sitting in sand. Hot sand.

With a surprised yelp, Ethan leaped to his feet, looking around. There was sand flying in the strong wind and he could make out other people from the lab. All thought of where they were fled his mind as he became preoccupied with a more immediate concern.

He grabbed Sadie and pulled her beneath him to shield her from the flying sand, which felt like sandpaper on his skin, rubbing him raw.

" Cover our eyes!" he shouted to everyone else, screwing his own eyes shut.

The sandstorm only lasted a few minutes, and Ethan's panicked heart rate only a bit longer. When he was confident the danger of the sand was past, he stood up and looked around, wondering where they had found themselves.

He was standing at the top of a hill of sand, looking down on a bustling metropolis on a river. This wouldn't have bothered him so much, except that he recognized the river. He also recognized the city. But the last time he'd seen it, it wasn't anywhere near the river.

" That's the Nile." he muttered, astonished. " That's Sais." he added, mostly to himself. The arrangement of the structures were almost exactly like the ruins at Sais, except for a few things no one had thought to imagine and some all wooden structures. Sais was where the Rosetta Stone had been found, and it had looked like this since at least 200 B.C. " Where are we?" he wondered out loud.

[Mysteria]

Lisi had just packed her cameras back into their cases having been fairly confident that she had enough of pictures taken for Sadie to pick and choose from later when the floor around her seemed to dissolve and she found herself sliding.

" Sadie, turn it off - hurk!" Ethan was yelling to Sadie and Lisi at that moment had the most terrible feeling in her gut that she had ever had. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Try as she might to maintain her footing she found herself sliding down the floor and felt something hitting her face although at first she wasn't even sure what it was.

Sand. Sand was flying all around her. " Cover our eyes!" Again Ethan's voice rang out loudly and Lisi's reaction was to do only what she could do. Protect her eyes. After several dizzying moments she finally no longer felt the sand hitting her face and she opened her eyes to a scene very unfamiliar to her. If it had not been for Ethans comment Lisi would have had no idea where she and the others were.

Obviously something had gone wrong and for a moment Lisi wanted to totally freak out but her sensible side told her to remain calm. Why surely if they had gotten to this place and space in time it could be reversed. Yeah, every thing would be alright wouldn't it? Of course it would, wouldn't it? Lisi sat in the sand for a few moments before standing up and stretching, looking around as she did. The structures surrounding her were unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

Looking around at the group Lisi said absently-mindfully "Is everyone okay?" Turning around to see if everyone in the room was now with them she added more to herself than to anyone else "One things for certain, this ain't Cambridge."

[Cleopatra]

Alice had been wary of the whole idea to begin with. Time travel was just not a good idea. Who knew what sort of havoc could be wreaked with it. Especially with someone who was greedy.

Although that thought was firmly implanted in her mind, Alice couldn't help but gape as Sadie willingly jumped into the machine. It was highly unlikely that she would be disintegrated into little tiny bits, but still, the possibility was there. She could fall into a cross-parallel universe or something and herself from that would could pop out, and it could have three arms with gigantic hooks on them-

And then just as Sadie disappeared, she reappeared at the top of the stairs to the room. As she walked down, Alice found sounds like “Augh... I... oghl... wha...?” escape her lips. It was one thing for a dog to do it. It was completely different for a human being to.

Alice looked over the device again, almost too afraid to touch it. But, deciding to have some sort of courage, she hesitantly reached out and touched the side of the machine.

Suddenly the lights started to flicker. Alice jumped back, threw her hands in the air and said “I didn't do it! I swear!”

She heard Ethan's voice saying " Sadie, turn it off – hurk!" and then the next thing she knew he was somehow drawn into the machine which gave a huge flash of light. Alice's mouth dropped open and she pointed dumbfounded at where he had been moments before. “Didn't do that either.”

And then it felt like someone grabbed the back of her shirt and decided to give her a strong tug backwards. “Aaaah! Hey!” she shouted. Alice expected to feel the hard classroom floor as she fell backwards, but instead she felt-

Hot burning sand, all around her, covering her as she tumbled head over heels down a sand dune. The hair was full of sand as well and Alice coughed and gasped as she slid downwards. She vaguely heard what sounded like Ethan's voice somewhere close talking about a sandstorm.

No kidding, Sherlock, she thought to herself as she lay there dazed. With a cough she heaved herself up and heard him say something about the Nile. She froze. “Nile? Nile? As in the river the Nile?”

She stumbled over to him, grabbed his arm to steady herself, and tried to cough up the rest of the sand. As if it wasn't bad enough to be covered in sand, Alice then heard him say “Where are we?”

Alice stared at him. “Oh please, for the love of all that is good and holy, please tell me you didn't just say that.”

[Black]

Professor Cross seemed to be the only one elated about this. "The Nile! I love the Nile" His laughter echoed out across the sands. "This is excellent" he reached in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. There was no service. "Oh this is just to good" he said and he tossed his phone over his shoulder and searched his pockets. He pulled out a bottle of water, a pen, a pencil, eraser, and whiteout. "Well thats not very useful. . . Hm" he bent down and set it all in front of him. He turned on his cell phone and cycled through its applications. "Well, I've got a modern-day map, frogger, and Amateur surgeon. I don't think the last two will help very much, but the map might" and with that he tossed it to Ethan.

"This is your rodeo boyo. Never mind the reasons we got here, never mind the blazing sun. Where here now, lets not panic or bitch" he said looking around. "It's your show now, take us for a tour of Ancient Egypt while you figure out a way to get us home"

[ｒａｂｂｉｔ]

The sound of Ethan’s cry dragged her out of her thoughts that were frantically trying to remedy her confusion using what little knowledge of physics she had. Sarah moved to sit up straight again – scooting her butt towards the back of the chair and leaning up – but only found that something like warped gravity wouldn’t let her. Instead, it steadily tipped her chair and let her spill onto the floor.

She raised her eyes to what was the ceiling, blinded by sudden daylight and harsh winds, making her squint then shut her eyes tight – thick, long eyelashes blocking out the sand. Sarah coughed, hacking against the wind-guided sands that swept up into her airways and fell into the hot sand pit that is the Egyptian desert, feeling her hair whip up around her, the coarse sand against her freckled skin. The blond crumpled on the sand, curling into a ball until she felt the wind die down.

Sarah could feel it everywhere. In her bra, against her scalp, in her mouth, ears, sandals, between her shirt and stomach, denim and legs, sand. It was like a bad day at the beach. Standing, she made a face and brushed her hands over her face, arms and through her long, wavy blond hair shaking out all the loose sand; discretely, she spit the sand out of her mouth and removed the sand from inside her bra and trendy vintage band shirt. Wriggling and trying to repeat the process with her skinny-jeans, she looked around, feet leading her toward the group and leaving her standing beside Professor Cross.

“The Nile?” She spoke softly and screwed up her lips, brow furrowing. “I have an appointment…” She sighed, touching her left hip pocket, where her phone usually was tucked away – now, it was in her bag. In the… Future?

“Well, at least now there’s no speculation,” she offered, looking over to Sadie and giving her a thumbs up and a smile. “Unless there’s some kind of, like, Ancient Egyptian version of the Renaissance Fair and this is it. With really nifty scenery, too...”

[Shepherd]

Joshua was simply too amazed for words when he saw Sadie's disappearing act. Amazed and a little appalled. What is she thinking? He asked himself, she could be ripped apart molecule by molecule for even attempting that. Hell she could have turned herself into a walking atomic bomb, not to mention any other horrible conditions. What if the energy used to transport her, or hell the energy of time itself caused mutations, what if it broke down the genetic code, or rebuilt it wrong, what if it reconstructed her as a dog and used the spare DNA to try to make another creature? The possibilities running through his head were endless. Its fine to use a dog or lab rat or something, but to test it on humans at this early stage, she is being far too reckless.

As Josh slowly came out of the dizzying array of information and questions his brain had just gone through in the mere seconds since Sadie reappeared he noticed something was wrong. The hairs on his body all felt as though they were on end at once and he noticed that the floor seemed to be at an angle. He experienced a brief tug, which felt like it came from inside him and a brief moment of weightlessness. Then he was surrounded by blinding light, noise, and heat.

He couldn’t make out any sound or sights over the howl of the wind and the sand kicked up around him, but he did notice that he seemed to be falling, which his sudden impact with the ground confirmed. Josh merely laid there for a minute or two till the wind died down before picking up his head and spitting out a mouthful of searing hot sand. Well, this is certainly a great turn of events, he thought as he surveyed his surroundings. I really hope someone has a clue where in the 9 Hells we are, or when.

As he looked around he heard the words, “That’s the Nile,” and “Where are we?” both muttered by the same person. Well that’s a moronic thing to say, Josh thought, if you know it’s the Nile, then you know we are in Egypt, so why are you asking where we are? He kept his comments to himself however, no sense in starting an argument when they had a bigger problem to deal with than dumb statements. The Nile, he thought, great. Now if we can figure out when we are we’ll be all set.

“I only have two questions,” Josh said as he walked over to Sadie and Ethan, “Does that thing have a reverse switch, and if not…” he paused for a moment to look at the other accidental time travels, “does anyone here speak Ancient Egyptian?” He knew absolutely nothing about Egyptian history except what was required for his world history classes, and even then he dumped most of the information that wasn’t about myths and legends out of his head. Sure he’d seen the specials on Tut and all on the history channel, but he doubted that would do him any good here.

He took a moment to take stock of what he had on him that might be useful. He had his cellphone, Lot of good that’s gonna be, and two pens along with his wallet, which contained a few old photos, some cash, and plastic, Correction, useless plastic. Great, a gay white boy with blonde hair and blue eyes who speaks Hebrew is thrown into ancient Egypt, I’m either gonna be a god or get killed. He also realized he was HOT!!! He was in black and dark jeans… not the best “desert gear” ever. He took off his tie and stuck it in his pocket and proceeded to unbutton his shirt and roll up his sleeves. Screw this, I’m getting cooler, was all he could think. “Anybody happen to have any sunscreen? I forgot to bring some. I was expecting rain.” He laughed humorlessly at his own joke, he wanted to lighten the mood, but anyway he looked at it, he knew this was bad.

[John]

The moment the lights flickered and Ethan yelled, Sadie had already started to try and shut donw the device, unfortunately it was too late. Her first thought, as the she was passed through the curtain, was that whomever had been trapped in the tesseract, would be dropped outside the room as she had done just a few minutes ago. But the feel of the sand beneath her shoes, not to mention Ethan covering her from the sand as it whipped passed her face, shocked her severely.

As he covered her in an effort to protect her form the sandstorm, Sadie removed her hat and wrapped the device in it, pondering what she had seen on the display. The words, “RECOVERY MODE” where constant on the small screen and Sadie felt no small amount of concern. It shouldn’t have gone into recovery mode from a power surge, and by rights, once it had finished “recovering” it would automatically restart. And given that Sadie had no idea where she was, other than being in a desert, the thoughts of not being able to turn the device back on were clear in her head.

Once the storm had subsided, Ethan went to look around, while Sadie moved slightly away from the group and started to push buttons on the device in an attempt to stop it form shutting down. She also hoped she could get some info on the display, starting with where and when they were.

It was about that time she heard Ethan and the others speaking about Egypt and being quite far in the past. She kept working, trying to shut out the voices of the others. Things were bad right now and no doubt were going to get worse, given that all of them would stand out in their current surroundings, and Sadie didn’t think that ancient Egyptians would take too kindly to them.

After a few moments of typing, the words, “RESETTING PARAMATERS” appeared on the screen. Sadie breathed a sigh of relief and looked over to the others. At least in a minute or two, she would be able to use the device and get them all home and to safety.

“Guys,” Sadie called out. “I don’t think you want to be out in the open like that. I don’t think it’s a good idea if we’re seen. We don’t exactly blend.” The device beeped and Sadie truned back to the display, frowning. Not so much at the time or the location. After all she had heard what Ethan had said and the were in Egypt in the year seven hundred and twenty one BC. She was more concerned b the fact that the recall circuit was active. Because of this, she wouldn’t be able to use the device to send them all home. The device would activate automatically once the time had counted down. And given the amount of time, the group’s problems had just gotten a lot bigger.

Sadie walked over to where everyone was standing, placing the device in her jeans pocket and removing her lab coat. She stopped to look up at the sun, using one hand to shield her eyes. It was hot, and none of them were dressed for the occasion. She took a moment to adjust her hat, and then walked over to stand next to Ethan. She wanted to wrap her arms around him right now, she was scared out of her mind. But Sadie knew she had to stay focused and try to figure out their next move.

“Guys,” Sadie spoke while staring at the ancient city in the distance. “We have a problem. We’re in seven twenty-one, in Egypt, and we’re gonna be stuck here for a little while. The recall circuit has activated and we have forty-eight hours before the device sends us back home.” Sadie’s tone was somewhat emotionless, as though she were giving a report to a teacher she didn’t like; but her voice was shaky and the fear was evident.

[Cleopatra]

Alice stared in shock at the people that had seemed to fall through with her. One of them was joking, one of them, one of them was actually excited… There could only be one response to this. She stared at them all and shouted “What the FUCK is wrong with you IDIOTS?! We’re in EGYPT!! ANCIENT EGYPT!! If we don’t die of overexposure to the sun, we’ll die of thirst! How the hell are you morons joking and laughing about this?! This is the worst possible thing that could have ever have happened EVER!!
Sadie walked up behind her as she finished her tirade and spoke.

“Guys,” Sadie spoke while staring at the ancient city in the distance. “We have a problem.
“You DON’T SAY,” Alice spat. “I thought we were on a picnic. How disappointing.”

“We’re in seven twenty-one, in Egypt, and we’re gonna be stuck here for a little while. The recall circuit has activated and we have forty-eight hours before the device sends us back home.” Sadie’s tone was somewhat emotionless, as though she were giving a report to a teacher she didn’t like; but her voice was shaky and the fear was evident.
Alice looked around. “I don’t suppose anyone has a weapon I could borrow, do they? I just have to go kill myself. Shouldn’t take too long.”

[The Gypsy Queen]

" 721?" Ethan sputtered, ignoring everyone else. " 721 AD? No. It would have to be BC. By AD years the Nile had moved and... the map isn't any good, Professor Cross. The Nile has shifted quite a bit in over... oh my god nearly three thousand years. Umm so this is the 25th dynasty, there's just been a coup... There's no real infrastructure at this point, the capital city is being moved from Napata to Thebes, and there's... a lot of really violent invasions..." Ethan gulped. " Sais is fairly inland so I don't think we have to worry about getting decapitated but Assyrians... probably."

Ethan started back down the dune towards Sadie, anxiety making his face tight.

" Forty-eight hours." he repeated, struggling to keep fear and anger from his tone. " Forty-eight hours is a very long time Sadie. We have no idea if your device has negative side effects. We could be in the process of a molecular break down right now, maybe us, maybe the very fabric of reality. And! We have no idea what our presence here may do to change history. One tiny change here could completely undo the entire history of the human race, maybe even spell our extinction!" he stopped and took a deep breath. " Forty-eight hours is not good enough, Sadie. How can we speed it up?" he asked.

[Shepherd]

We could be in the process of a molecular break down right now, maybe us, maybe the very fabric of reality.

"Oh... Now my theory gets some well deserved attention. Great timing Doc," Joshua snorted as he made his way over to where the group seemed to be gathering. The sweat was already dripping down his neck and rolling lazily along his abdomen. In better circumstances it would have been sexy... but right now it was irritating beyond belief. Joshua looked from Sadie to Doctor Keyes, before deciding to address Sadie with his next question.

"Just what exactly are we going to do? We are stuck here for 2 days and for all we know the mere act of eating food or drinking water could alter the entire course of history? Please tell me you have some kind of plan." Even his sarcastic asshole attitude that he put on to cover his fear didn't hide the desperation in his voice. "Did you build in any safeties? Or better yet, does that thing have a map that can point us to a nearby cave to hide out in? No way in Hell am I about to walk into town if there's a war going on." The last thing Josh wanted was to end up a slave in ancient Egypt, or worse, dead.

Then an idea, and in Josh's mind a brilliant one, hit him like a ton of bricks. "Even if the device can't take us home, does the transportation function still work? Could we just teleport to a different part of the world? A less violent one perhaps?" He looked a Sadie with a glimmer of hope on his face. Maybe they'd get out of this yet, and maybe if they went elsewhere it wouldn't be so bad. He couldn't help but think about all the fun he'd have in ancient Rome, it brought a smile to his face a flush to his skin. Or maybe the flush was just from the heat.

[Damonique]

Aerin had been skulking behind a screen in the back of the room as everyone squawked and argued their pathetic doubts, and somehow, sexualities. Aerin had nothing to contribute. He knew from the readouts that the temporal transferred had definitely occurred, and he had brought enough fawning freshmen back to his apartment to be affirmative in his sexuality.

As expected, Sadie decided to use the machine on herself. It made sense. A dog was one thing, but someone would never apply something like this to themselves unless they knew the device was legit. Aerin examined the screens. Initialization, A delay to clear with the routers for power...then a red message, likely just some sort of issue with the power outlets. Then the computer screen exploded, and it felt like gravity was failing, he felt light-headed...

Next thing he knew he was sitting in a pile of sand, surrounded by everyone, all of whom were arguing over something and some such. The only things Aerin didn't tune out were the facts. They were in the Nile River Basin, in 721AD. It was bad.

A bit light-headed, Aerin rose, he couldn't quite feel his hands. Lucidly, he looked down. His hands were still there, his fingers could move, but they were burned, badly, no doubt and effect of him being in direct contact with the overloaded computer when the machine had broken it down.

Immediately shifting into logical mode, Aerin stood, and responded to the first thing he heard.

"We could be in the process of a molecular break down right now, maybe us, maybe the very fabric of reality."

"Impossible...I've tested this using light-atomic molecules in short stage experiments. No change in molecular structure, no decrease in half-life. As far as changing the future, I've looked up some treatise on the subject. So long as we remain anonymous and in a time where we cannot communicate with the locals, there is little chance of us having any major effects on the future. I would worry more about what we can do to survive."
Aerin shot out without making eye contact with the speaker, still staring, shocked, at his burned and soot-coated hands.