Eclipse - Book One: Darkness Falling
by M. Bumbarger
Chapter One : Golden
She found him exactly where she knew he would be found. Slumped over the workbench, forehead resting on the white sleeved lab coat that covered his arm, a pile of papers scattered beneath his cheek and within reach at his fingertips he slept as though he lounged in his bed back home. Juggling the cardboard tray that held three hot cups of coffee, a large orange juice, one cranberry juice, three bagels and a box of half a dozen donuts, and the shoulder bag slung over one arm, she smiled fondly at him as her elbow grazed the light panel.
The room brightened instantly, artificial fluorescent light coloring everything in a sickly yellow glow. For a moment, the sudden brightness stung her dark eyes, and Sue Lee took a moment to blink in the brightness before everything came into focus once again. Computer equipment, laser technology and other items that she could never identify or remember the names of lined the walls; the printer at the far end of the room hummed softly while spitting out a row of equations that read like a foreign language to her untrained eyes. A multitude of different cords crisscrossed the floor, books and notebooks piled on the various desks and tables, and still she managed to skirt around them all with the grace and familiarity of a dancer on a stage. The tray found its way to its usual place on top of the compact refrigerator, and she skittered across the room with two cups of coffee in those Styrofoam cups.
Now, there was something that amazed her. Styrofoam. One would think that with all the technological advances the Unified Alliance had made in the past years that Styrofoam would have become a thing of the past. But in this case, as well as in so many others, old habits died hard she supposed.
Slipping onto the lab stool besides her target, Sue Lee set down the coffee cups and affectionately mussed the tousled dark head of hair. Her voice was a soft lilting and British accent, complimenting her fine Asian features. "Come on Sleeping Beauty, it's time to join the land of the living."
He stirred slowly, heavy lidded dark eyes opening to blink at her in confusion. Sue Lee watched in amusement as the emotions of waking drifted across his handsome young face as his eyes slowly came to focus on her. Then suddenly, as if someone had flipped on light, he was awake and sitting upright. Rubbing the back of his neck and yawning, he spoke in the familiar Australian accent that he had retained even after living in the British Provinces for most of his life. "Sue Lee . . . what are you doing here?"
The unasked question being 'What are you doing here this late?' That thought made her smile more brightly.
"It's already morning, Neiman. You slept here last night." Sue Lee paused and nudged one of the cups of coffee towards him. "Again."
He grinned sheepishly, and took the cup. "How did you know I was here?"
"Where else would you be? I stopped by to pick you up," she popped the plastic lid from her coffee and lifted it to her nose, enjoying the aroma that wafted up. "My turn to car pool us, remember? Anyway, you weren't home. You didn't answer when I rang you, and your bed wasn't slept in."
"You let yourself in again," it was an accusation.
"You should be glad that I worry about you," Sue Lee retorted.
"Mother henning me is more like it," he grumbled.
Sue Lee shrugged, undeterred by his indignation. She had been mothering him for so long that she didn't think it was possible for her to not mother him. "Adam, you really need to start getting some sleep."
"I get sleep," Adam argued over the rim of the coffee cup.
"Some place other than this lab." Jumping off the lab stool, she marched over the white write-on/wipe-off board and studied the equations written there for a moment. She knew nothing about physics or math, but she was observant enough to know that the equations had not changed at all in the past few weeks. "You and Red still haven't worked this out?"
"Not yet, but we're getting closer." The shift in topic brought down Adam Neiman's defenses and he was by her side in a heartbeat. "The part that's slowing us down is the quantum differential. I think that if we . . ."
The rest of his words were lost on her because they made about as much sense as to her as Ancient Egyptian. Sue Lee did however, smile in encouragement, enjoying the enthusiasm and love that Adam showed for his latest interest . . . solving the problem of time travel. Or rather disproving all the theorems and equations that demonstrated why time travel was an impossibility. And, given enough time and enough rope to hang himself with, Sue Lee knew that he would manage to do just that.
Adam Neiman was what was a "golden child." He had a mind like a vice and a photographic memory. And he had been born that way naturally . . . not engineered in one of his father's biological laboratories like so many of the golden children who emerged these days. His father, the esteemed Dr. A. Marcus Neiman, hailed Adam as the prime example of how intelligence and ability could most arguably be inherited. Adam, for his part, tried to ignore his biological relationship to Dr. Neiman as much as possible.
"Whoa, Neiman, put a cap on it will ya?"
The call came from the entrance of the lab as their friend, and the other half of Adam's time travel equation, wandered into the small private lab. Red was, as usual, wearing nothing more than a pair of sweats and running shoes although the weather was cool and slightly damp. He raked his fingers through his damp titan hair, the feature that earned him his nickname, and headed immediately towards the refrigerator and the breakfast tray which Sue Lee had provided. "You're putting Sue to sleep again."
"Hey Red," Adam raised his cup in greeting. "You're here early."
"I told you I would be," Red grabbed the remaining cup of coffee and opened the box of donuts. "You didn't think I'd forget?"
"Did you boys have a break thru last night?" Sue Lee asked, admittedly a bit curious. Marmaduke "Red" Damon crawled out of bed before ten o'clock in the morning only for the most specific and important of reasons. For him to have arrived at the lab before nine o'clock was a fact that didn't escape her scrutiny.
"Yeah, I was just telling you –" Adam stopped in mid-sentence, his dark brown eyes focused on the woman in front of him. "You weren't listening, were you?"
"I was listening. I wasn't understanding."
"That's because Neiman over there thinks that everyone is a MENSA scholar and that he doesn't have to explain things in plain English," Red leaned against the window sill, and gave her a wink. "Sometimes, I don't understand a word that he's talking about. . . so did you go home last night or did you pull up a stool?"
"I got sleep," Adam responded instantly to his friend's inquiry.
"You slept here. Why do you even pay rent? Just buy yourself a cot for the corner and you'll save money."
"Speaking of which," Sue Lee spoke up quickly, hoping to stave off what would certainly turn into a mild disagreement between the two young men, "I brought you a change of clothes. I thought that you might want to teach class today in something different than you were wearing yesterday."
Adam took the offered shoulder bag with a sigh and another one of those sheepish grins that made him look like a young boy and not the twenty-five year old man who was out to foil Einstein and the other great minds of the twentieth century. "Thanks, Sue."
"Get changed. You've got class in twenty minutes."
As Adam disappeared into the back office to change, Sue Lee returned her attention to the board of equations. "So, did you have a break thru?"
"We think so. We may have found the problematic equation," Red spoke around the donut he was rapidly devouring, but it was a behavior so typical that Sue Lee barely noticed it all. "I'm going to do some hypothetical runs through the computer to see what I come up with while Neiman's in class today."
Pausing briefly to finish swallowing, he lowered his voice and cast his eyes towards the office. "You know, we really need to do something about him."
Sue Lee nodded, "I know. He needs to get out more."
"He needs to get a woman. He needs to date . . . to do something besides hole himself up in this lab with his computers and equations." Red didn't mince words, but Sue Lee hadn't expected him to. One thing she had learned about Red was that he was honest . . . blatantly honest.
She hadn't trusted the young, loud student from the when he Adam had first introduced the two of them almost three years ago. But she was protective of Adam Neiman; from the time his mother had died when he was only six years old, Sue Lee had been his nanny and his best friend. Although a distance of ten years separated them, they had always been close and after watching him hurt by his father's cold and methodical love, and the few failed attempts at friendship, she had taken it upon herself to be both a mentor and mother to him.
Red was Adam's friend though, not someone who simply wanted to get close to him because of who Adam's father was. He was a loyal friend, and one that was honest enough to tell Adam the things he needed to hear and not only the things he wanted to hear. He was also a whiz kid with computers and his addition to Adam's team was priceless.
"How many times do I think I've told him that? Suggested it? Encouraged it?" Sue Lee asked softly. She waved her hand negligently around the lab, "This is what he loves. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do. This is Adam's passion."
"And what happens when he solves this equation . . . and he will solve it, Sue. What happens when this is gone? What's going to get him all fueled up then?"
Sue Lee stared sadly at the office door behind which Adam changed. "I don't know, Red. I really don't know."
***