I'm at the lab a lot. That's the way it is. I was on the verge of a breakthrough that would change the world. I was close.
But breakthroughs take time and long, long hours. Taylor didn't get it. She complained bitterly about this or that, claiming I was never there when she needed me. I trimmed some hours after we married, but she knew what she was getting into. Take the bathroom fan. She could have hired anybody to fix it, but it was somehow important that it be me.
"I married the smartest, most handy man in the whole world," she said, "and you can't even fix a fan?"
I resisted the urge to point out that her pronoun didn't match. That rarely went well. I had attempted to repair the fan once before but failed to familiarize myself with the part number before traipsing off to the hardware store. That indicated a lack of attention to detail, which rarely happens, and then I guessed wrong. That doesn't happen often either. I texted her for the correct one, but she didn't respond. That was happening more often lately, and she was snippier every day.
I could build or fix anything. Colbert Renault, he of the prestigious Renault Groupe Illimité and my boss and mentor, recognized that when he recruited me at my seventh-grade science fair. As for being the smartest man in the world? I believe he recognized that as well. Eventually.
Taylor wasn't happy with my salary either. I never could understand that. I'd received a good faith twenty thousand dollar raise the past two years running in addition to a base salary of a hundred twenty thousand. I was twenty-three years old. Name one of her former classmates and potential suitors who could compete with that.
"The percentage of your raises is going down," she said crossly.
"Yes, but I haven't produced anything yet," I explained patiently for the umpteenth time. "It could still fall through. You should be happy they're paying me this kind of money to stay put and you don't have to work."
"So, when is this supposed breakthrough going to happen?" Still cross.
Ah, that was the question, wasn't it? When? My Motio Molecular Module, M cubed, or EmCube, would indeed change the world, and she didn't know a thing about it. Safer that way. Of course, you already know it as a matter-transmitting portal technology that moves your molecules from place to place. What you don't know is that the word "molecular" is actually a bit of a misnomer because the compactification process actually relies on the topology of a six-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold. That's string theory, folks, theoretical physics that yours truly just made actual. The objects moved are much smaller than a molecule, infinitesimally smaller than the distance between an electron and the nucleus it orbits. It incorporates the C-Y's topology's mirror symmetry to transport objects distances so minuscule they were previously unmeasurable, which, by its inverse, translates to the largest distances imaginable and every point in between. The word "molecule" allowed the use of three M's and the name EmCube. Pretty snazzy, right? Transit itself was informally dubbed "cubing."
It's similar in concept to the transporter on Star Trek, except duplicates are not created, so it's not like the big trick in The Prestige either. It's more like those pods in The Fly without all that dry ice. You're HERE, and then you're THERE.
By the way, it pains me to no end that I am forced to explain perfectly evident scientific principles to you using popular movies and television shows. What's wrong with this stupid society? Nobody cares about science. Are we ever going to get tired of dumbing down every single thing?
But I digress.
That Tuesday, I made a point of coming home early. It was me or the fan, mano a fan-o. No one was home. I don't know what caused it, but I experienced an uneasy sense of hasty departure, like someone had just left. I carried my toolbox up to the bathroom only to chance upon something that tore my heart out, an odor I hoped to never encounter again for the rest of my life.
Goddamn it if it wasn't a two-matcher.
~~~~~
I sat alone at the student café, as usual. No big deal, I sat there alone every day. I didn't have time to go home between my morning classes and my insane afternoon labs, so there I was, ensconced amid a rather intimidating collection of papers and notebooks. I was left alone. Nobody was beating down the door to be friends with an undersized twenty-year-old poised to receive his master's with a triple major in Mathematics, Astrophysics and Biology. Too intimidating. Honestly, probably too weird. I wasn't all that interested in hanging out with them either, as if I had the time. It was a lonely existence, but I had made my peace with it long ago, and this chapter of my life would close soon enough. This was as far as I would go. The world was calling.
"Do you mind if I sit here?"
She was a little thing, maybe five foot one. And cute, boy, was she cute. And those eyes. The blue of a cloudless sky.
"I'm Taylor," she began. "I've noticed you sitting here every day, but you never talk to anybody."
I didn't say anything.
"And you are..." she asked hesitantly, nonplused by my lack of response.
"Aaron."
"Well, Aaron, I think you're a pretty cute guy."
Who was she trying to kid? Was this some sort of prank? "Please."
"No, really. Your hair would look really nice if you just got a decent haircut." She reached out and ran two fingers down my chest. "I think you might have a decent body hiding under there, and even if you don't, well, you're not sloppy or anything. We could get you toned up in no time."
She wasn't getting an answer, so she reached over and snatched my glasses right off. "See? I knew it! Get rid of these and look at that cutie pie in there just waiting to break out. I'm a girl that likes a challenge. Why don't we talk about it over coffee?"
She looked at me expectantly, but I'd had just about enough. "Look," I said, grabbing the glasses back and jamming them back on my face. "I don't know if this is a bet or maybe some sorority initiation foolishness, but I'm not buying it, okay? Have your fun with someone else."
She stared up at me, hurt, so hurt, absolutely gobsmacked that anyone could resist her charms. "In case you don't get it," she hissed, "I'm offering myself up on a silver platter here."
"You call that a silver platter?" I grated. "Insulting me like that? I'd hate to see you play hard to get."
"But I..."
"So, I'm sure you can understand if I ask you to leave my table so I can get back to what I was doing. I'm behind schedule now as it is. Thank you."
