Early July

Dissertation Defense

Aelita sat, waiting nervously in a hallway looking at an innocuous looking door. The door itself wasn't important, but on the other side was the panel of experts in quantum mechanics that would determine whether or not she would be qualified to finally get her PhD... and it was to those people whom she would be defending her dissertation! Jeremy had gone through his dissertation defense a few days prior, and he said that it wasn't too bad... however, he had a completely different group of 'experts,' in a completely different field! Without warning the door opened, startling the young woman. A middle aged lady with auburn hair tied back in a bun poked her head out and looked at Aelita.

"Aelita Stones?" The woman asked.

"Y-yes, that's me," stammered Aelita, standing up.

"We're ready for you now." The young woman took a deep breath and walked into the room.

The woman took a seat at a table that was set up. Also seated was a middle aged, dark skinned man in a gray business suit; and an elderly bespectacled gentleman in brown slacks and waistcoat. The woman and middle aged man nonchalantly watched the young woman as she walked in the room, but the older man's eyes shot wide open the moment he saw her. Aelita gulped and froze when their eyes locked and neither one of them moved. She thought that there might be something familiar about the man, and from the way he kept staring, he clearly thought he recognized her somehow!

"Ms. Stones, correct?" The other woman called out, breaking the silence and startling both Aelita and the older man.

"Yes ma'am," she replied after taking a brief moment to regain her composure.

"I am Dr. Annette Simmons, and these are my associates: Dr. Darnell Washington, and Dr. Felix Schmidt," she introduced, gesturing to first the middle aged man, then the man who had been staring. "First, I'd like to say that we are very... intrigued by your interesting direction of research..."

"May I inquire as to what influenced your decision to dedicate your pursuit of such an unusual and... complicated study?" Dr. Schmidt interrupted softly, staring at Aelita once more. His speech held traces of a German accent, and the intensity that his gaze raised the hair on the back of the her neck.

"I've always had a fascination with some of the ideas presented in science fiction, and I thought that if this particular idea was able to become reality, then the applications could be nearly endless."

"If you'll forgive me," began Dr. Washington, speaking for the first time, "I must admit that even after thoroughly evaluating your dissertation, I'm still a bit skeptical of the whole thing."

"Why shouldn't it be possible," rebutted Dr. Schmidt, his defense catching Aelita completely off guard. "I've seen very similar work before..." the old doctor trailed off and Aelita gulped nervously. Dr. Simmons turned to her colleague in surprise.

"Are you suggesting stolen research? If so, why did you not bring this up sooner." Aelita grit her teeth. Her father may have pioneered and even perfected the virtualization technology, but she and Jeremy had never figured out a way to bring proper tools and diagnostics equipment to the lab without arousing suspicion. Because of that, they had to redevelop and re-engineer the inner workings and mechanics from the programming alone. As such, her and Jeremy ended up needing to do almost all the research on their own, and to be accused of stealing made her angry!

"No, no. Nothing like that." The older man replied with a light chuckle. "It just looks very similar to the work being studied by my..." he paused and pursed his lips together for a moment. "By an old acquaintance a long time ago."

"May I ask who this old colleague was?" Aelita asked with her heart pounding in her chest, and the man heaved a long sigh.

"I apologize, but he disappeared, probably before you were born. Unfortunately, names escape me. Equations, on the other hand... I remember those forever... along with faces..." he trailed off again.

"Well, this is all very fascinating, but how about we get back to the matter at hand," spoke Dr. Washington, who was seeming to grow impatient. "The fact is that the digitization of matter simply isn't possible." Aelita put Dr. Schmidt's words out of her mind and refocused on defending her research!

"While you are correct in saying that digitizing matter is impossible, digital implies the use of traditional computing hardware. Virtualization however, is possible with the use of quantum technology. It hasn't been published yet, but I have recently submitted an article for peer review with the results of an experiment performed two weeks ago by my mentor Dr. Aditi Singh and myself."

"And what was this experiment?" Asked Dr. Simmons, genuinely curious.

"Using the quantum supercomputer at the institute, we successfully virtualized a microliter of water, then successfully rematerialized it to it's full molecular integrity.." Aelita replied, doing her very best to keep the smugness out of the grin that sprouted on her face when the eyes of all three doctors shot wide open.

"Well... you've certainly captured my interest now..." murmured Dr. Washington after several seconds of silenced. His previously derisive attitude melted away almost instantly.

"The biggest limitation is that it takes a tremendous amount of power to virtualize even a small amount of matter." Aelita explained, mentally kicking herself for what felt like the millionth time since realizing that her father's machine had it's capabilities boosted by countless Return to the Past trips, something that the institute's computer would never get.

"So it is possible..." Whispered Dr. Schmidt, getting Aelita's attention. His stares made her shudder slightly. Even so, she would not be daunted.

"Yes, it is indeed possible, and with Quantum systems only getting more and more powerful..." She declared, intentionally leaving the statement open ended to spark their imaginations.

"Well, how about you tell us more about it?" Invited Dr. Simmons. Aelita took the offer and started discussing the minutiae of the experiment and of her research as a whole, mostly with Dr. Simmons and Dr. Washington. Dr. Schmidt didn't say much, which was just fine with Aelita because he made her uneasy every time he spoke.

"It was a great pleasure to meet you Miss Stones, and I am very much looking forward to seeing more of your work," said Dr. Simmons when their time was over.

"It was a privilege to meet with other scientists such as yourselves as well, and I thank you for the opportunity," replied Aelita. The three doctors stood up and Aelita shook their hands before she left the room. When she took Dr. Schmidt's hand, she held it for the minimum amount of time necessary to appease social etiquette, and then quickly left the room.

She arrived at home a little while later to the welcome sounds and smells of Jeremy making dinner. Hearing the door, he poked his head out of the kitchen.

"Hi, Aelita! How did it go?" He asked with an excited grin.

"The actual defense of my dissertation went quite well, but..." she trailed off, not entirely sure how to bring up the subject of Dr. Schmidt.

"But, what?" Asked Jeremy, his smile fading fast.

"Umm... I think one of the men on the panel thought he recognized me."

"What do you mean?"

"... Like from my old life." Jeremy's eyes widened. "I thought he might have looked familiar too."

"Oh," the young man groaned. He thought for a moment. "With your chronological age and your biological age being so far off from each other, it would be very difficult to prove anything," he reassured his fiance. Besides, that was over twenty years ago on the other side of the world."

"Yeah, you're probably right," she replied with a sigh.

"Would you like me to try to do some digging into this guy?" Aelita smiled at his offer.

"I appreciate it, but we've got enough on our plate right now with the wedding and all."

"Ok, Aelita. But if he starts coming around, I'm going to look into this. Deal?"

"Deal." Jeremy sniffed the air.

"AH! The croissants!" He rushed back into the kitchen to save the precious pastries. "Saved them!" He called out, eliciting a cheer and giggle from Aelita.

"And I want to hear the rest of how it went at dinner, ok!"

"Sure thing, Jeremy!"

A/N: Again, I'm sorry about the late entry. I think I might be over the hump as far as writing is concerned, but with they way my job has been going lately, I've had less and less time to write. I am in no way abandoning this story, or this series, but I think the slow updates will unfortunately be the norm for a while.

Anyway, I sincerely hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope you like where the plot is going!

Also, if I botched up either the dissertation defense, or made the pseudo-science too unbelievable, I apologize. I myself don't even have an associates degree. So, while I try to do my homework, I'll admit that I'm also doing a fair bit of guesswork and I hope it doesn't show too badly.