TTI3P: Part Two: Chapter One

Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.'" -Stephen Hawking

         Vincent Jennicks sat hunched over his laptop in a coffee shop, staring dejectedly at a blank page curtailed only by the rhythmic blinking of his cursor. He wondered briefly how much thought went into determining the length of the intermission between flashes. Did the program writers receive data sets about the responsiveness of users to cursor speed? What made this speed more special than one a millisecond faster? He stared at the cursor trying to decide what this speed said. He tapped his finger in time with the flashing vertical line and thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t hurrying time. The steady transmission of intermittent light seemed to say, “Hey, I’m ready when you are.”

         Vincent chose this café to do his writing because of the natural light let in by three walls of windows and the oversized couches which nearly swallowed him when he sat. If he was being particularly honest, he also enjoyed the company of Ailis, the barista who worked the same schedule every week. Thinking of her, he looked up to see her full lips pressed together in a thin line, head bobbing, humming the tune that played over the speakers. By chance, Vincent noticed the beat was in time with his cursor.
“… and you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you’re drinking,
and you spend your life just thinkin’ of how to get away…”

         Vincent wasn’t usually into twanging banjos, but there was something about the song that felt true. He was looking for a way to make his break and get out of his small-time assignment as a writer for a web-based news portal. If he had to write another local-division piece about Eagle Scouts building a bridge or the selfless high school cheerleaders volunteering in a soup kitchen, he was going to find a very tall building and jump. Even that would be an ordeal, since this tiny mountain town didn’t have a building over three stories.

         He stooped to his lowest when he accepted a gig to write an advertorial for skin cream. While it had paid for a month’s worth of rent, it was demeaning. Vincent wasn’t sure if it was even ethical. How could making up a fake news story to sell a product be an ok thing to do? He took a sip of his coffee, long cold, as if to wash the sour taste out of his mouth. It didn’t work.

         What he needed was a real story, something that would pull his byline from the obscure side bar to the front-page in large, bold font. But what? Vincent picked at his teeth with a thumb nail for a second and then opened his web-browser. The cursor blinked patiently.

         “More coffee, Vincent?” Ailis said, smiling, a carafe in hand. “I just made a fresh pot.” He shook his head, trying not to stare at the feather pendant which sat between her perfectly formed breasts.

         “Only if your ultimate goal is to turn my blood into rocket fuel.”

         “I’m surprised it took you this long to figure it out,” she replied in mock seriousness. “Any good stories on the horizon?”

         Vincent wanted to lie and say yes, but Ailis would know better. This town was full of college boys who would say anything to impress a pretty girl and he didn’t want to be lumped in with them. The truth was he’d barely typed a sentence since he got to the café at two o’clock. It was five now, so the solitary sentence had been deleted approximately two hours and fifty-eight minutes ago.

         “Unless someone robs the town’s only bank or a Grizzly eats a camper, I’ve got nothing.” Ailis nodded apologetically, looked around the mostly empty café and put her carafe on an adjacent table.

         “You been on campus recently?” Ailis asked as she leaned over the back of the couch sitting opposite Vincent. He focused all his energy on maintaining eye contact as the feather pendant swung out from her chest and the front of her blouse revealed an electric blue bra underneath.

         “Uh no, actually. What’s going on at the campus?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. Ailis suddenly looked conspiratorial.

         “Well, I told you my cousin goes there, right?” Ailis said in nearly a whisper. Vincent nodded even though he hadn’t known she even had a cousin.

         “Right, well- she was at this party on campus and she overheard some people talking about some crazy research they’re doing in Gamow.”

         “That’s the science and technology building, right?” Vincent asked, his interest piqued.

         “Exactly. So, apparently, there’s a grad student working in Gamow who thinks he’s figured out how to manipulate space-time.”

         “Like time-travel?” Vincent asked, trying to maintain his original enthusiasm. Ailis’ cousin had probably overheard the drunken, tall tale of a researcher who hadn’t been laid since prom or ever, for that matter. The barista shrugged.

         “Well, I didn’t finish college so I have no idea what “manipulating space-time” means, but I do know the school mascot is missing and the grad student claims he used it in an experiment to test his theory. There’s supposed to be a demonstration tonight in the science building.”

         Regardless of how ridiculous the claim was, there was a story here. Granted, it wasn’t Pulitzer-quality, but a real-world, mad-scientist was way more interesting than another evening of mindless television and a frozen dinner which had been his fate up until that very moment.

         “What time should I be there?” Vincent asked, pulling out his phone and opening his calendar app.

“Jill said to be there at 11:45. Are you going to go?” Ailis asked, pushing a lock of wavy brunette hair back behind her ear.

         “Definitely. This is probably the most interesting thing that’s happened in this town since weed was legalized.” If he was going to write a story on a grad student’s alleged space-time breakthrough, he was going to need to do some research of his own. “I guess I’ll need that coffee, after all.”

         Turning back to his computer he typed the following words into his web-browser:

         Space-Time, manipulation