1. In the Next 30 Seconds
"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Charlie Eppes slammed his books down on his desk and sighed, running a hand through the sweaty tangle of curls that had plastered themselves to his face. At the best of times, his office was stuffy; now, in the unusually high heat of June, it might as well have been an industrial-sized, rather tastefully decorated if somewhat cluttered oven. The foot of papers that threatened to cause his desk to collapse shuddered as he added the books to their ranks, but they lay still otherwise. No redeeming breeze flowed through the window, left open in hopes of such a visitor. Crossing to the small sink fitted at the corner of his office, he stuck his coffee cup beneath the spout and pulled the handle.
Nothing happened.
Shaking his head, he looked into the unoccupied coffee cup and sighed. Just then the door to the office opened, letting in a slight breeze he relished for the moment it existed; he looked up to see Larry, short of breath and a little red-faced, who shot him a grin a he shut the door behind him.
"And how do I find you today, Charles?"
With a shrug, he collapsed into his chair. "Immersed in thought, frustration—" he gestured to the empty coffee cup, "—and thirst."
Larry cocked his brow and sat on the corner of his desk. "How so?"
Fingertips together and his chin resting on them, Charlie resembled an old-fashioned supervillain, and his expression was just as menacing. "My afternoon class has just proved my latest theory."
Larry perked up. "Oh? I didn't know you were working on anything."
"It's quite a new one, actually. The theory is that the attention spans of students are inversely related to temperature. As temperature increases, attention decreases."
A chuckle escaped Larry. "You can hardly blame them. What are the chances that the campus water main would break during perhaps the most intense heat wave ever recorded in the month of June?"
Spinning in his chair, Charlie grabbed a piece of chalk and started scribbling on the board. Two to the power of five hundred sixty-four billion, eleven million, three hundred twenty-eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-two to one," he recited, "against."
Staring at the monolith on the board, Larry shook his head. "Perhaps the remedy for this problem can be found in distraction. I recently discovered an excellent pizza place downtown with Megan—definitely worth a second visit."
With a contented snort, Charlie rose, pocketing the chalk. "A hypothesis worth investigating. Come on; I'll treat."
They made their way down several flights of stairs, emerging into the magnificent feat of engineering that was so dully referred to as the lobby, deserted for the heat.
"So, what subject was so complex and involved that it failed to hold the attention of your adoring pupils?" asked Larry.
Charlie looked sheepish for a moment, a look that Larry noticed as he passed through the door Charlie was holding for him. A look of realization crossed his face.
"Charles, don't tell me you were trying to explain your cognitive emergence theorems to you undergraduates again."
The young mathematician cast around for something to change the subject with, but the quad was fairly uneventful. A few groups of students wandered here and there, happy to be done with their last classes of the day, though the majority of them were gathered around – and in – the fountain. The quad's burbling centerpiece had been bone-dry since the water main catastrophe had occurred. Across the green could be seen a white van with PLUMBTEC painted neatly on the side; around this were gathered several white-suited men, attending to the muddy mess of a hole that had once been the damaged section of the pipe.
"I was only trying to make sure I'd got it right," he replied in frustration. "I mean, how hard is it to understand that the firing of synapses in the human brain in relation to the firing of other synapses can be quantified and their paths extrapolated using a modified application of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?"
Larry let out a breath and waved halfheartedly to some of the frolicking youngsters in the fountain as they passed it. "A great deal harder than you might think Charles. The sheer complexity of the theories would be enough to strain the brain, and yet you've introduced the human element into equation and expect it not to complicate things?"
Charlie shot him a look. "Now, what is that supposed to mean?"
Larry shrugged. "It means, Charles, that human behavior can be a slight bit…" he searched around for a word, "…unpredictable."
As if on cue, there came a flash of light, a searing wave of heat, and the sound of the fountain exploding behind them.