Tara was running late for her next class,
it was always a difficult one to make on
time, as it was across campus and she
had only 15 minutes, between it and
her previous lab.
Suddenly she realized she had left her
planner at the lab, it had her project
information for her next class with it.
Tara was a freshman mid way into a
new semester at her college.
She turned around and was met by a
rushing wall of people heading in the
same direction she had opted out of.
Tara always struggled with crowds,
her miniscule 4'9" frame was hard to spot,
still for her focusing on her education was
her way of defining herself.
After swimming upstream of the crowd
for a few minutes, she made her way
back to the lab, planting her
back right on top of the MK I without
realizing it.
She immediately scoured her lab station,
finding her planner within moments.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she
placed it in her bag, and lifted it of the table.
As she turned her back to the desk,
she heard a clattering sound on the
ground behind her, blended with a slight
electrical buzz.
She jumped up out of shock and looked
back to see what looked like one of
Montana's works in progress shattered
on the floor.
Tara saw the mess she had gotten
herself into, and immediately panicked.
She had such a clean track record
throughout her education that she was
not about to have her reputation be
tarnished in her freshman year.
She looked over the scattered parts of
the crude device and reason
began to prevail, she had done enough
work with crude robotics that she felt
she could potentially fix it, return it
and have nobody be the wiser.
She had all weekend.
She checked her watch, she had to
hurry to get to her next class right away,
she placed the fragments of the device
into the front pouch of her backpack
and rushed out the door.
Tara leaned back onto her front door
after her long, stressful day.
With shut eyes, she took a deep breath,
she had made it home without any sign
of Professor Montana knowing what
happened.
Fortunately no one else was home.
She had gone to her parents home
not wanting to risk her roommates
catching her.
She retired to her old room and
unzipped her backpack, pulling out
the remnants of Montana's work.
Tara began her in-depth examination
of the device, a large portion of the
soldering and wiring was still intact,
she estimated it would be done
fairly quickly. A pleasant surprise.
Tara's knowledge of experimental
electronics was quite limited in scope,
but from what she could tell about this
device was that it was powered by an
energy source she had never seen before.
The rest of the device was fairly
rudimentary, and displayed the crude
craftsmanship of an early prototype,
making her confident she could likely
return the device, fully repaired and
Montana would be none the wiser.
Tara spent the rest of her evening carefully
examining and soldering the device
back to its original condition, or at least
attempting to, coffee was only taking
her so far before she fell asleep
at her desk.
She awoke the next morning, and the
device was almost complete, she felt a
sense of relief wash over her, she was
going to be in the clear in no time.
She tried her best to be quiet as
she grabbed an apple for breakfast
and snuck back into her room.
She ate her breakfast and got back to
work on the device, finishing it up
before anyone had gotten.
Tara examined the reconstructed
device, a simple chassis that had two
inputs, a toggle marked with up and down
arrows and a button.
In reconstructing the device, it had taken
on the shape of a television remote, with
an energy output on the tip.
Tara inspected her handiwork, and
decided to Tara examined her
craftsmanship, thinking she did better
than she had expected to, the only
thing left to do now is confirm that it
functions.
Having no idea what the device does,
she hoped that it should be
functioning properly as she checked
the minimal inputs for the device.
The toggle was set to the down arrow,
she decided to leave it there as she
pointed the device at her desk and
pressed the button.
She wasn't expecting a beam of
energy to emit from the tip, which
shot out for a fraction of a second before
Tara released the button, worried
about damaging her desk.
She eyed it up and down, and couldn't
see any damage, but also no
evidence of any function in the device.
She decided to try again, this time
pointing at her empty coffee mug.
This time expecting the beam, she held
the button down for longer, long enough
to see a visible result.
Her mug was getting smaller!
She released the button and examined it,
after a few seconds of exposure to
the device's beam, the mug was just
optically smaller enough to be noticeable,
as it no longer fit around the stain it left
on the paper underneath.
Tara was in awe of the device, then
considered its secondary function.
She flipped the toggle to the up arrow
and eyed her room for a test subject.
She decided to start with something small,
but not too small that she could potentially
miss. She rifled through her drawers
and pulled out a stapler.
She anxiously pointed the device at it
and she was ready to fire when _______
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