Author's Note: Honestly no clue if Miranda is going for her Master's or Ph.D. in physics, so I made it Ph.D. Sorry if this is wrong. Heck, I'm not even 100% that's she's a grad student since this is my first season. If I'm wrong, kindly correct me and I'll correct myself. Thanks! Also, making up students professors left and right to avoid falling out of character with the existing ones we know about.
Chapter 2 -- Scientific Method
"What kind of test?" Gabe asked, shifting uncomfortably under Declan's scrutiny.
"It's like a guessing-game. You just guess the next shape in a random sequence."
"And after that you'll drop this whole thing?" she asked. "You promise."
"Yeah, if you want." He nodded. "Why does this scare you, Gabe?"
"It doesn't," she muttered, staring at her feet. "Just… Okay, fine, I'll take your stupid test. And then you have to promise to drop this."
"We'll discuss the results and then, if you want, I will drop it," Declan promised, nodding.
"Okay." Gabe nodded, sighing. "How's this work? You do this… test?"
He shook his head. "Doctor Craig will administer it."
She frowned. "Jenny?" she asked, frowning. Jennifer Craig was a tenured professor with the psychology department.
Declan nodded. Jenny had developed quite an interest in parapsychology in recent years and had eagerly agreed to help him out in this case, genuinely curious. "Or possibly one of her lab assistants."
Gabe nodded slowly. At least that way she knew that everything would be handled properly, scientifically. "When?"
"Well, I can make an appointment for you with her, or you can yourself."
"I'll do it," she said, shrugging sullenly.
Declan stared, startled. "You have a real problem with this, don't you?"
"Minor one, yeah."
"Want to talk about it?" he suggested.
"My discipline's job to ask questions like that," she informed him quietly, spinning on her heel and leaving.
Declan stared after her, startled. He could have sworn that the last had been spoken with hostility, but where had it come from. Skepticism he could at least understand, but hostility? Shaking his head, he left the classroom to start setting his office to rights.
***
"How the hell did the couch end up upside down?" Declan grunted to Mole, flipping it.
"Maybe you and Miranda could run some tests?" a low voice suggested. The suggestion was accompanied by a laugh.
Declan smiled. "Hello, Peggy." He turned around, his smile fading slightly as he took in her appearance. Blue-jeans? Maybe he could get Miranda to run some tests on that unusual occurrence. He shook that off, grinning at her again, with the smile that Gabe had remarked was too adorable to be legal. "Laundry day?" he teased.
"Miranda told me your office was trashed." Peggy paused for a split-second. "More trashed than usual," she amended, grinning at him. "So I thought I'd come offer to help." She looked around. "And I see that, as usual, she might have understated things slightly."
"Well, I think I got all of the glass up," Declan said, offering her a seat and rubbing the back of his neck. "I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but the coffee-maker didn't survive." He gestured to a partially-flattened hunk of plastic, metal, and wires on the floor next to a pile of broken glass, shaking his head. "Tragic…"
Peggy grinned and shook her head. "You're in a good mood, considering how much damage there is in here."
"Books bounce," Declan told her with a grin. "Which means there was a lot less damage than their could have been." He sighed and sat down next to her. "Miranda was not as lucky."
Peggy frowned sympathetically, nodding. "I heard. Both computers, the gas chromatograph, microscopes…"
Declan nodded. "I was down there. The chalkboards are about the only thing that did survive."
Peggy winced. "How's she taking it?"
Declan shook his head. "Well, the entire physic's department's pretty upset, but right now, Miranda is rejoicing that her Dissertation was saved to disk and not one of the lab's computers."
Peggy's eyes widened. She remembered the amount of work that had gone into her Dissertation, and she could well imagine what it would have been like to lose it and have to start over half-way through. "Now that is lucky."
Declan nodded. "I ever tell you about the time I lost my thesis to an ill-timed lightening strike?"
"You didn't have a backup?" Peggy asked, staring.
"Sure did. In the disk-drive at the time." He shook his head. "Damned thing melted."
Peggy's eyes widened. "Are they going to be able to recover what was on the computers?" she asked.
"Miranda says they think one may be salvageable, but the other's toast. Motherboard got snapped in two." Declan shook his head sympathetically. "A lot of data lost there. I hear that the department head gave everyone an automatic extension on basically everything."
"Well that's something at least, but…" Peggy shook her head. "It's got to really hurt."
Declan nodded. "And, according to Jennifer Craig, Physics isn't the only department in that fix. Lots of profs lost lots of data."
Peggy shook her head. "Keeping backup disks is just common sense."
"You'd think so." Declan shrugged and rose, picking up a pile of papers and returning to the couch. "Next time remind me to staple. Paper-clips do not stand up well to earthquakes, apparently."
"Here." Peggy took the papers from him and began ordering them. In spite of the fact that the handful of papers represented not fewer than three of Declan's most recent academic papers, it was not particularly difficult to restore them to order, thanks in large part to his habit of scrawling the full title and 'page x of y' across the top of each page. Fortunately, the over 300 student papers had been safely filed away in a vertical-file.
"Thanks, Peg." Declan smiled gratefully and rose again.
Restoring the office to order was a daunting task, one that he was beginning to think was hardly worth the effort. Of course, after three days of it, that opinion might have been slightly biased. It had been wonderful of Peggy to come help on her day off. He picked up the flier that had been distributed to all of the professors and stapled up all over campus. Heavy lifting should be referred to the Physical Plant, live or exposed wires and damaged power outlets should be reported to Maintenance, damaged electrical equipment should not be unplugged while the power is on, broken glass should be reported to the janitorial staff, do not on any account touch exposed wires or broken glass… and so on and so on. Declan had broken most of these rules in the past three days, nearly electrocuting himself by unplugging what was left of the coffee-maker.
Peggy looked up, grinning. "Saw one of those posted in the elevator. Interesting how 'do not ride the elevators' was last on the list," she laughed.
Declan grinned and nodded. "They don't turn them off, they don't post warnings…"
Peggy shook her head. Bureaucracy at its finest. "So, how many of those rules have you broken?" Peggy asked with a challenging grin, knowing her friend.
"Um… haven't been in the elevator…"
Peggy laughed and shook her head.
"Guys! We got a new coffee-maker in the physics lab!" Miranda announced cheerfully, almost bouncing into Declan's office.
Declan regarded her with wide eyes. "And obviously someone's already tested it out."
Miranda shrugged, once more settling into her normal, more laid-back demeanor. "You guys want to come have some?"
"Please," Declan said, nodding.
Peggy nodded and rose. "How's the recovery on the computers coming?" she asked as they walked.
"Well, IT says that the main computer is definitely salvageable," Miranda reported. "It's on the waiting-list." She made a slight face. "Or, as they put it, 'in the pile'."
Declan winced at that phrasing, even if it was typical of the IT gremlins. "What about the other one?"
"They'll do their best." Miranda shrugged. "I hear they've offered extra credit to any Comp Sci student who can pull anything off of it."
"So, basically it's toast?" Declan laughed.
Miranda shrugged and nodded, then shook her head. The lab, when they walked into it, was in far better shape than Declan's office, but only by virtue of being almost completely empty. The Physics grad students had all gotten together and removed everything that had been damaged, throwing away what was obviously beyond repair and sending the rest for repairs.
"What I want to know is where we're going to get the money for a new chromatograph," Professor Jericho was muttering to one of her graduate assistants.
"Hey, maybe they'll be able fix it." He shrugged. "Oh, hey, Miranda, Professor… Dunn. Professor…" He paused, staring blankly at Peggy. He could not quite place her although he was sure he had seen her before.
"Fowler, Doctor," Miranda supplied. "She doesn't work her."
"Peggy," she said, extending her hand.
"Ben."
"Jerry," Doctor Jericho added, shaking Peggy's hand.
"Ben and Jerry," Declan remarked quietly, making Miranda roll her eyes.
Doctor Jericho was obviously more amused than Miranda. "Well, what was I going to do? Make him change his name?" She shrugged blithely. "So, you're Declan?"
"That's me." Declan smiled and shook her hand. "Nice to finally meet you."
"So, when do we get Miranda back?" she asked with a grin, referencing the girl's habit of spending more time with the Anth professor than with all of the Physics professors combined.
"Um… I should be done with her in 20, 30 years." He grinned at the look on Miranda's face. "Dad, you're embarrassing me," he groaned.
Miranda stared at him, obviously more embarrassed now than she had been before.
Declan desisted, smiling. "So, Jerry, we hear that you've got the only working coffee-maker on campus."
"Actually, I think that three of the Psych grads brought theirs in from home." Jericho shrugged. "But they're barely meeting department requirements and I think you'd get your throat torn out for so much as looking at one sideways."
"Psychologists and their mind-altering substances," Declan muttered, shaking his head.
"Funny," Jerry said, shaking her head and pouring three cups of coffee. "They say the exact same thing about Anthropologists."
Declan looked at Peggy, doing his best to look like a wounded puppy-dog. "You do?"
"Drink your coffee," Peggy suggested, shaking her head and thanking Jericho for her own.
"Oh, Declan, what did Gabriella Watts say about those tests?" Miranda asked after a few moments of comfortable silence.
Peggy turned to glance at Declan who was shaking his head and waving his arms at Miranda. She raised an eyebrow. "I thought you planned on dropping it?"
"Well…" Declan shifted uncomfortably, then said defensively, "Come on, Peggy. When have you ever known me to drop anything?"
"Good point." Peggy shook her head. "What tests?"
"You know, just some standard pre-cog flash-card things…"
Ben raised an eyebrow but kept his mouth shut, largely due to the look that Jericho was giving him.
Peggy shrugged. The test was harmless enough, and when miss Watts got the standard 15 to 25 percent right, then Declan would admit failure and drop it.
"Thanks for the coffee, Jerry, but I really should finish getting my office squared away," Declan said.
Jericho nodded. "Guess I really should as well," she sighed. "Ben, extra credit?" she offered, smiling at his groan.
***
"You honestly believe this crap?" Gabe asked Doctor Jennifer Craig.
"Let's just say that I haven't seen anything to substantially disprove it, yet."
"Yeah, but no proof either."
Jenny looked up at Gabe. "You should know better. As psychologists, it's not our job to prove or disprove anything."
Gabe rolled her eyes and nodded. "Only to develop theories and support or refute them. Whatever."
Jenny smiled and held up a deck of cards. "Five different images are printed on these. This is double-blind, so I won't be seeing them either. You just tell me what you think it is. Don't think too hard about it, just go with your first instinct."
"Yeah, whatever." Gabe nodded and sat down.
"Shapes are: star, square, circle, cross, wavy lines. Ready?"
"Yeah." Gabe shrugged. "Whatever."
"Try to keep an open mind. I once had a student get almost 50% right, which is--"
"More than twice as many as could be expected by chance," Gabe recited, rolling her eyes.
Jenny sighed. "Okay, now that we've established that you paid attention is Statistics and are less than open to the process, can we get started?"
"How long will this take?" Gabe asked.
"There are two hundred cards. Most people don't take more than a few seconds per card. If you need a break, or feel a headache coming on, just let me know and we'll take a breather."
Gabe nodded. "Shoot." She looked at the card that Jenny was holding in front of a screen so that all Gabe could see was the white side and Jenny could not see anything at all. "Um, star."
"Okay." Jenny made a quick mark on her pad and picked up the next card.
"Square. Circle. Circle. Cross. Lines. Star…"
Gabe answered rapid-fire, as soon as the card was held up, not really caring how well she did. She just wanted Professor Dunn off of her back. Her parents, she knew, would have been appalled by the mere suggestion of something like this. Seeing the future? Predicting earthquakes? In her eyes, it was crazy. In theirs, probably evidence of some demonic pact. All she needed was for them to be more scared of her than they already, for some inconceivable reason, were. Her mind wandered during the test, on the poetry reading she was attending tonight with her friends, the jam-session they planned for afterwards, the paper that was due next week, everything but what was on those stupid cards.
Jenny sighed as she held up the last card. Obviously Gabriella had neither tried nor even paid attention to the process. She would have to mention it to Declan when she reported the girl's scores.
"Um…" Gabe paused. For some reason, she was having trouble randomly selecting a shape for this one. "Circle?" she finally said, strangely indecisive over it.
Jenny nodded and noted it down. "Thank you, Gabe. Now I just need you to sign this so I can release your results to Declan."
Gabe nodded and signed the form.
"And did you want a copy of the results as well? I can drop one in your mailbox?"
Gabe shrugged. "Whatever works for you."
"And I don't suppose you'd be interested in participating in research of this nature in the future? Maybe even trying this time?" Jenny asked, trying not to let the irritation she felt creep into her voice.
"Not particularly, no." Gabe shook her head and left.
Jenny stared after her with a sigh, wondering if it was even worth her time to bother scoring the girl. Gabe's results would only foul up Jenny's numbers, so she would not bother including her in those, but as a favor to Declan she decided to score the test anyway. Sighing, she picked up the cards, shuffled before the testing had begun, and began noting down the images on each, next to Gabe's guess. Yup, her score was abysmally low, as Jenny has suspected it would be. She had maybe 8 percent right.
Jenny frowned. That was far too low. By chance, she should be expected to get around 20 percent right. 8 percent was a notable score if only for how low it was. Thoughtfully, she tapped her pencil against the paper, musing the implications of the score, staring at the answers before her, trying to make sense of them, of what the unusually low score meant.
When if clicked into place, Jenny did something she had not done in over 20 years. She swore.