"Please forgive me, while I turn out the lights, watch this haunted day turn into a wasted night…"
She wouldn't talk, damn her.
Zane shoved away from one computer monitor, using enough force that his rolling office chair would have crashed into the terminal ten feet away if he hadn't casually caught the edge of the desk and swung himself to an abrupt halt.
He looked at the display. Those numbers were wrong, they had to be. He sighed.
Wheeler's quantum entanglement project was an interesting challenge.* He wasn't sure why Fargo had told him to start working on it or where Wheeler was, but he didn't really care. Any project that included cool physics was good by him.
Unfortunately, it wasn't going well. He knew part of the problem was that his attention was divided. Instead of concentrating on what was wrong with the calculations, he kept thinking about what was wrong with Lupo. Something definitely was.
But she wouldn't talk and the archives had been a bust. After Andy had suggested that the Sheriff check Grant's records, Zane had been sure he'd find something there that would explain what was going on, but someone – probably Lupo – had beaten him to it, and cleaned the place out.
In fact, if he hadn't gotten curious about Einstein's records while he was there – hey, who wouldn't take a chance to look at the files of one of history's greatest scientists? – he wouldn't have found a single trace of anyone named Grant.
He glanced across the room at the contraption he'd built. The plans he'd found in Einstein's records for the Einstein-Grant bridge device made for another cool project. Too bad it didn't work. Well, couldn't work: Wheeler and Rosen had disproven Einstein's Lorentzian wormhole bridge back in the 1960's – it was inherently unstable, and not even light would be able to pass through it without exotic matter holding it open.** Still, even if the wormhole theory was flawed, he'd had an idea about networking the Einstein transmitter to the quantum entanglement program. With the extra power, maybe he could boost the output levels enough to actually make the math work.
Now if only he could find something that might help him with Jo. She was more complicated than a physics problem, but maybe there was some experiment that he could run that would at least get him some more data. Like kissing her. That impulse hadn't gotten him the answers he wanted, but it had definitely gotten him closer to the truth. The way she responded, kissing him back without hesitation, the way her lips softened under his and her hands rose to hold his shoulders and stroke his cheek…yeah, there was something between them that made no sense.
Just like these damn numbers. Why the hell hadn't Wheeler dumped this project months ago? She must have seen some possibilities in it, but even on a theoretical level, the numbers just weren't adding up.
Behind him, the door to the lab slid open, almost silently.
"I'm on it, Fargo," Zane grumbled, without looking up. He wasn't going to solve the problem any faster with Fargo breathing down his neck, but for some reason the director was all over this project.
"I'm sure he'll be glad to hear it." The voice was dry, but decidedly feminine. Lupo.
Zane swiveled immediately, but then leaned back, trying to look casual, trying not to show the way his pulse had quickened at the sound of her voice. "This is a surprise."
Lupo's lips quirked but she didn't answer directly, just stepping into the room. "Mansfield wants this project moved to Section 5."
"Section 5? Why?" Zane complained. Working in Section 5 was such a pain. The guards all hated him – okay, maybe rightfully so, after a few of the pranks he'd pulled – but between the guards, the other security measures and the depth underground, even a quick trip to the cafeteria for a snack took forty-five minutes.
"Apparently, there's reason to believe the Chinese have taken an interest in this technology."
"The Chinese?" Lightning-quick, Zane's brain jumped to Wheeler: her absence, her ancestry. "Lisa's not in trouble, is she?"
"Lisa?" Lupo's brows raised. "I didn't realize you were on a first-name basis with Dr. Wheeler." There was an edge to her voice, just a little one, but Zane heard it.
"Jealous, Lupo?" He tried to keep his expression neutral, no smirk, no teasing glance.
She glared at him. Score. Now he did grin. The old Lupo would have rolled her eyes, sighed, and maybe, maybe, said scornfully, "In your dreams, Donovan." This Lupo's glare said that maybe she really was jealous, and there was something sort of secretly satisfying in that. More data, yeah, but also…eh, he just kinda liked it.
"I'm pretty sure I'm on a first-name basis with every physicist at GD," he said mildly. Lisa was no one special to him, and he didn't want to leave Lupo mad at him over nothing for too long. "But is she in trouble? Did she do something?"
Jo shrugged and moved a little further into the room. "She's in Washington right now, helping with the investigation. I don't think they suspect her of anything, but she has relatives living in China who may have been under surveillance."
Zane nodded. Sucked for her. She wouldn't be the first person to have inadvertently said a little more than they should have to a relative, but it was trickier when your relatives lived in a country that might not be an enemy, but was definitely a rival.
"So we need to get you packed up," Jo said, pulling out her datapad. "What needs to move?"
He looked around the room, and then gestured with an open arm. "Pretty much everything," he said. "I guess we can leave the computers behind and just transfer files to the machines in whatever lab you're putting me in, but Wheeler's requisitioned a bunch of equipment for her system and all of that…
At the sound of a gasp, and a thud, he glanced back at Jo. She'd dropped her datapad on the floor. "Are you okay?"
"Are you insane? What are you doing with that?" she demanded, pointing at his Einstein-Grant bridge device.
Hmm, that was interesting. Why would Lupo recognize the machine he'd built? His eyes narrowed, as he stood and walked toward the machine, answering casually. "I built it."
"Built it? Do you have any idea how – you're just going to need to unbuild it!" she snapped at him.
"Well, now, why would I want to do that?" he asked, passing Lupo and turning to look at her as he reached the device. He patted it proprietarily. "It's a sweet little machine."
"It's a sweet little-?" she started incredulously. "The hell it is. It's dangerous! How did you manage to build it anyway? There weren't any transistors left."
Oh, now, that was fascinating. "I updated the tech for the 21st century. Replaced the transistors with integrated circuits. Made a few other modifications," he answered, eyes intent on her, as he tried to add this latest information to the data he already had. Grant. The ring. Jo being different. Jo recognizing the machine. But Einstein's bridge couldn't work. It was impossible.
"How would you know it needed transistors?" he asked softly.
She glared at him. "I am not kidding, Zane," she whispered furiously. "You need to dismantle this machine. Immediately."
"It doesn't work, Jo," he protested. "At best, it's going to boost the power on Wheeler's quantum entanglement project and maybe – maybe! – let me move something three feet across the lab."
"You have no idea what this machine is capable of!"
"I built it," he protested. "I think I know what it can do."
"You have no idea!" In her urgency, Jo had moved closer to him. She was standing directly in front of him, looking up at him, her eyes serious. It was the closest she'd gotten to him since that day in the sheriff's office, since that moment when he'd taken her lips and she'd responded, and he was tempted – so very tempted – to kiss her again.
Instead, he shook his head, and said, "Look, I'll show you."
Reaching for the power switch, he started to press it, but with a yelp, Jo grabbed for his hand. Too late, though. He pushed the switch, her hand on his and…whirr, jolt, stumble.
Okay, what the hell? What had happened to the lights?
As his eyes adjusted, he realized there were lights: stars. The sky was midnight dark, sprinkled with dots of white. But not the dots of white he was used to seeing over Eureka: wherever they were, day had just turned to night and the night sky was not the same.
"Damn you, Zane."
Ouch. Jo's swift punch to his gut had him coughing with pain. But at least she was here with him. Wherever here was.
*See Crossing Over
**Your science fact for the day. Obviously, that begs the question of how it really did work, but hey, Kevin is a super-genius. Maybe he created some exotic matter in his basement.
A/N: Thanks to Sara for the request and song inspiration. I admit, I'm not really going with the tone of the song (Reckless, by Papa Roach) - her story is going to be a lot closer to the song's feel. But I'm using the lyrics to drive the plotline, so hey, if you check out the lyrics, you can make guesses about where I'm going with this one. Also, yeah, my life kind of sucks right now, so updates might be slow, but currently my mental outline of this story only has three chapters so it won't take forever.