What Science Brings
Prologue
Charlie Evans scribbled in his notebook fervently. The notes were almost complete and if he could finish them tonight, he'd be able to finish the experiment by July. If not, his funding would be delayed or even cut off. Charlie paused for a moment, but quickly resumed his work. It had to be finished tonight; it had to.
In his writing frenzy, Charlie's elbow knocked into a beaker of blue-green liquid. Charlie's eyes widened as the beaker fell. He dropped his pencil and reached for the oh-so-important vial only to let it slip past his fingertips. Charlie waited for the smash accompanied by the sound of all of his funding being yanked out from under him.
But it never came.
Charlie cracked open one of his eyes only to see blue-green. He pulled his head back to see that it was the beaker being held before his face by a hand. With a sigh of relief, he reached out and took the vital mixture from the person. After checking to see if his experiment was damaged(which it wasn't) he turned to look at the person who had saved his career.
It was a woman with a mop of dark hair that perpetually covered her eyes. She was wearing a long white lab coat over jeans and green t-shirt. The only visible parts of her face were her mouth and nose.
"You should really be more careful, Charlie," the woman reprimanded.
He sighed and turned back to his notes while saying, "You've told me about a thousand times, Paige."
Paige gave him a crooked smile, "You've almost lost your funding about a thousand times."
He gave her an irritated look out of the corner of his eye, but continued scribbling in his notebook. Paige walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. His hand stopped scribbling for a moment, but quickly resumed.
"So, you're almost ready to test this, huh?" Paige asked while reaching over and grabbing the beaker she'd saved earlier. She swirled the liquid inside around a few times before setting it back down.
"Yeah," Charlie put his pencil in his notebook and closed it with a snap, "I heard from Akens that your team was ready to go already."
Paige nodded excitedly, bangs bobbing up and down with the rapid movement, "Uh-huh, and I get to be the first to use it." She leaned against Charlie's desk, grinning proudly.
Charlie shot her a nervous glance, "Isn't that a bit dangerous? I mean, I trust your team's handiwork, but you know the old saying- anything bad that can happen, will."
Her lips pressed into a hard line, "I know, but how else are we supposed to test it? It would dismantle anything without a pulse and using animals is too dangerous." At Charlie's confused look, Paige elaborated, "They're too unpredictable to use. We can't specify an assignment to them and even if we did, there's no guarantee that they'd stay on track. With humans, it's...more reliable."
Charlie shook his head, "How do you know you won't be dismembered yourself?"
Paige looked away from him, fingernails digging into the aluminum of Charlie's desk, "I don't; not 100% anyway. There's still a 45% chance that I'll be dismembered." Charlie's eyes went wide, but Paige cut him off before he could say anything. "I know it's a bit high, but it's come down quite a bit since we first began. It used to be at 89% percent. I'd call that a pretty good reduction." The remark seemed like it was supposed to sound cheery, but it didn't come out that way.
Charlie looked at his friend worriedly, "Do you even know where you'll end up if you don't get dismembered?"
Paige chuckled humorlessly, "No guarantee of that, either. I could end up anywhere from 15th century Germany to 4950 A.D. New York." She scratched her nose and looked over at Charlie, "Heck, maybe I'll even have the chance to meet you as a little kid or an old man. Or myself for that matter..." She looked up at the ceiling, seemingly in deep thought. It was quite clear to Charlie that she had spent a lot of time thinking about the subject.
"Well then," Charlie began, causing Paige's head to snap back to attention, "I guess I should wish you good luck, then." He offered his calloused hand to her. Paige smiled and grabbed his hand. Charlie was about to give it a firm shake when Paige pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"Just in case," she muttered before letting go.
She made to leave the office, but turned around in the doorway. She gave him, what he assumed to be, a reassuring smile. And, not for the first time in their friendship, he wished he could see her eyes.
A/N: I know, I know. A new story is a bad idea, but when I get an idea I write it down. Besides, this one is different than a lot of what I've come up with. That and this is my favorite genre and I haven't seen anthing like this so I thought 'why not'. I just hope I can stick to it.
Cordially yours,
Alias E.