To See Her One More Time

by TheMessenger

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Entire crowds of empty silhouettes marched past by Robert, Neil, and Eva, cheering noisily. Several tables were lined against the sidewalk edges, creating aisles as their featureless attendants waved their arms wildly, trying to draw the attention of theirs and the other faceless figures. Robert ignored it all. He walked purposefully past the screams and the colorful posters that advertised clubs and fraternities. He wore a faded brown backpack over a shoulder, and under the other he carried a few textbooks.

"Never thought I'd actually go back to school," Robert muttered with a chuckle. He made his way through the crowd toward a glass building in the distance. A giant stick model of an atom sat on the ceiling. "If only Mom could see me now."

"So this is definitely new," Eva observed. She bit her lip and frowned.

"What's up?" Neil asked, noticing his partner's actions. "I mean, sure, I don't really get how going to college has anything to do with seeing that pony again, but at least something changed."

"It's not that," Eva assured, shaking her head. "I'm just not looking forward to reporting my breakdown back there. I can't believe what happened." Eva groaned. "Ngh, I can't believe you had to jump and save the day, that's just downright embarrassing."

"Just give me a cape and call me Superman," Neil said, smirking. "Hey, I won't say anything if you won't."

"What's the catch?"

"It'll be our little secret, and I get to remind you of it every time you scold me for doing something stupid," Neil said. He giggled like a child as Eva stared at him. She planted her face into her palm.

"I don't know what'd be worse, but I doubt you'd let me forget this anytime soon anyways."

The gaudy atom model grew larger as Robert got closer. A large sign sat on the cut grass in front of the building, on which several students were laying about. A few figures ran on the lawn tossing a frisbee around. Robert paid them no mind as he read the sign. In bold letters, it said Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.. Robert turned toward the entrance of the building with Neil and Eva following shortly behind.

He moved past the reception desk, giving the greeter a wave as he walked by, and went down a long hall. Doors, and the rooms they guarded, aligned the wall, each with a small plaque on it or next to it. Several began with the abbreviation Dr or ended with PhD. A few had a pane of enforced glass that acted as a little window, revealing the run of the mill office workspaces or the advanced machinery on the inside. Eva paused when Neil suddenly stopped moving.

"What is it?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

"I think that's a Tesla coil in there," Neil whispered, pointing into one of the rooms. "I've always wanted to see one of those in action."

"Neil, focus. We still have...is that a particle accelerator?"

"I know, right?" Neil hopped on his heels. "Ooh, I'd bet half of the guys back at the office would be jealous if they knew."

Eva shook her head and tore herself away from the window. "Come on, let's go," she said, dragging a reluctant Neil along. Robert himself had stopped in front of a door labeled Dr. Leo Cuskind. Taking a deep breath, he knocked.

"Come in," came a low voice from inside. Robert pushed the door open and walked in. Another undefined figure of a person sat at the desk with their hands folded neatly on the desk. "Hello?"

"Hello, Dr. Cuskind," Robert said. "I'm, uh, one of your new students this year, and I thought I'd introduce myself before classes began. My name's Robert."

"Ah, well hello Robert," the professor said, taking Robert's outstretched hand. "So, you have an interest in theoretical physics, eh? Well, I suppose you're never too old to learn. Just look at me." The figure chuckled. "I see you have your books already."

"Yes sir," Robert said with an eager nod. "I've actually taken a look through a few chapter, and I have a few questions on a certain section."

"Already? Impressive," the shadow said. "Well, show me, and I'll see if I can help."

Robert placed the large text books he held down on the desk and opened one of them. His question was muffled and incomprehensible as the room disappeared.

*

A large lecture hall, packed with silhouettes, replaced the cramped office. Robert sat at the front, his pen flying furiously across his notebook. As his surrounding peers whispered to one another, Robert focused on the figure standing at the podium at the front and the projector screen behind him. Several complex formulas were on both the screen and Robert's handwritten notes.

"...is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region, preferably a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon," the professor had been saying. "In a larger sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure painted on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are an effective description only at macroscopic scales and at low energies. Cosmological holography has not been made mathematically precise, partly because the cosmological horizon has a finite area and grows with time.[4][5]"

Robert raised his hand. "How does this principle relate to the black hole thermodynamics we discussed earlier?"

"The principle was inspired by black hole thermodynamics, which conjectures that the maximal entropy in any region scales with the radius squared and not cubed as might be expected," the figure at the podium droned. "In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the informational content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. The holographic principle resolves the black hole information paradox within the framework of string theory.[6] However, there exist classical solutions to the Einstein equations that allow values of the entropy larger than those allowed by an area law, hence in principle larger than those of a black hole.

"These are the so-called Wheeler's bags of gold," the professor continued, quoting the phrase with his fingers. "The existence of such solutions is in conflict with the holographic interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity including the holographic principle are not yet fully understood.[7]"

"What?" Neil asked as he stared back at his partner. Eva shook her head.

"If you're going to just lift stuff out of a wiki, at least have the decency to remove all the citation reference numbers," Eva said. "How is he even saying those things out loud?"

"Robert doesn't seem to mind," Neil said dismissively, waving a hand. "Cut me some slack. What, you really think I'd predict he'd need public information on string theory and have it ready beforehand? I'm awesome, not omniscient."

"It's not that hard to edit something like that out," argued Eva. She frowned and folded her arms. "This just sounds sloppy. Listen."

"...the oscillation of the horizon of a black hole is a complete description[note 2] of both the infalling and outgoing matter, because the world-sheet theory of string theory was just such a holographic description..."

"I stand by my previous argument. Robert doesn't have a problem, and neither do I. Here's a question though," Neil said as the classroom disappeared, and a laboratory took its place. Robert sat in front of the monitor of a large machine. He listened intently to the instructor next to him, whom was giving an explanation on the machine's operations. "What's all this about?"

"What's what all about?"

"This." As if to clarify, Neil gestured to their surroundings. Lab technicians hurried to and fro, from station to station. The one instructing Robert took a step back, making room for Robert. "The whole going back to school business, and to study theoretical physics no less." Neil snorted. "I'm glad something's changed, but it doesn't seem like he's any closer to seeing R--the pony."

The monitor lit up, along with Robert's face. He turned toward the tablet laying on the desk nearby and quickly tapped at it. A few unfamiliar symbols appeared on both the machine's monitor and Robert's tablet. A couple of laboratory assistants walked by to watch.

"Hmm, well what exactly did you expect?" Eva said. "His daughter lives in a world we only know from a cartoon. It's probably from a completely different universe, maybe even a totally different dimension. It's not like he can just take a bus or something. Even with today's technology, traveling between separate universes is nothing more than science-fiction."

"So that means..." Neil prompted.

Dr. Rosalene hesitated before saying, "If the technology doesn't exist, maybe he's trying to invent it."

"Oh." Neil nodded his head slowly. "So our buddy here is going to somehow invent inter-dimensional travel, something mankind has only ever written and dreamed about." The man smiled. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love this job? It's like we're just being paid to turn fantasies into realities."

"Well, this assignment has definitely been one of the more fantastic," Eva said, watching as Robert now sat alone in a dark library, next to a lamp and several stacks of books. Eva bit her thumb worriedly. "I just hope he has enough time."

"What, you mean before he croaks?"

"There's that, yeah, but I'm thinking about how much time he has left in this new life we set up for him," Eva explained. "Robert's what, in his mid-thirties here? That means he has forty, maybe fifty, years to find away to see his daughter again before he becomes too old to achieve his goal."

"That hasn't never happened before," Neil said.

"True, but normally we insert the motivation as early in the client's childhood as possible to give them as much time as we can. What Robert's trying to do though..." Eva gestured to the man sitting at a desk, writing quickly while his featureless peers scratched at their heads or pulled at their hair. "I just...I just don't know. I mean, it's been so many years since the original Star Trek aired, and the greatest minds of this generation still aren't any closer to making teleporters. People have spent their entire lives trying to study and understand these vague concepts, and Robert's going to try and turn those abstractions into something practical?" Eva shook her head. "I mean, we've done some crazy things, but never this crazy."

"Yeah, well, those greatest minds of yours didn't have motivators like us," Neil declared, placing his hands on his hips as he smirked. "Robert'll make it, have a little faith."

Robert, clad in a dark gown, with a square academic cap on his head, made his way up a set of steps toward a large podium. There was a great wave of applause as he accepted a sealed roll of parchment from the figure at the podium. Robert wore a triumphant grin as he held his diploma over his head.

"Wow, everything I say sounds like I've given up or something, huh?" Eva said with a sigh. "Just, ugh!"

Neil leaped in surprise as his partner pulled at her hair and groaned. "What?"

"I can't believe you're telling me off again," Eva grumbled, frowning. She crossed his arms over her chest. "I hate it."

Robert made his way into a large building, past a sign simply read Department of Energy with the background of an American flag. He wore a sharp black suit and tie and carried a beige Manila folder under his arm. A figure greeted him at the entrance with a hand extended. Robert shook the figure's hand and followed him inside. His suit was suddenly replaced with a lab coat as the figure he followed became five. Robert's hair had grayed, and his clean-shaven chin was now covered with whiskers and dark stubble. He stood over one of the sitting silhouettes and looked through the thick glass screen in front of him at a pair of large rings interlocked together.

"Yes, it feels nice to finally have the moral high ground," said Neil smugly. "Or whatever you call it. Having a better attitude? Yeah, let's go with that." Neil laughed as his colleague rolled her eyes. "You know what, I think I'm going to try to be more optimistic in my life. Heck, I bet nothing else bad'll happen tonight."

The two giant metal rings started to spin around. Robert alternated from watching the contraption spin and hum to examining the monitors in front of him. As series of numbers scrolled along the computer screen, Robert bit his lip. He bent down, nudging aside the person at the computer, and rapidly typed in a few lines before hitting the return key. As the twin rings began to rotate and flip about faster and faster, Robert ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair before his fingers danced across the keyboard again. The few figures around him slowly inched back as the hums became louder.

A small spark appeared in the center for a barely noticeable second before being replaced by a brighter ball of light. For several moments, the light blinked, threatening to die out and disappear, but the flickering eventually stopped. The hovering orb slowly became more and more intense, the light as bright as the sun, and its shape was more obvious, to the point of appearing solid.

Every figure in the room stood up and began to clap enthusiastically. A few whoops, hollers, and cheers mingled with the applause. Robert rubbed the back of his head and blushed as he bowed under the pats and slaps his back received.

"I think you might be right." Eva said over the celebration, turning to her partner. She smiled. "And you know what? For once, I'm perfectly okay with that."

*

"...and so, it is my honor to introduce to you, the president of EQ Innovators!"

The auditorium was flooded with applause as an elderly man carefully climbed up to the podium on the stage, his wrinkled hands leaving the cane he used to grab the stand for support. He squinted as the flashes of cameras reflected off his glasses, and he dug a small handkerchief out of the pocket of his coat. He quickly dabbed away some of the glistering sweat from his brow and the top of his balding head before stuffing it back into his pocket, replacing it with a folded sheet of paper. He smiled as he leaned over the podium, waiting for his audience to quiet down.

"My friends call me Robert," the old man said, lowering his head slightly to speak into the microphone to address the crowd. "I consider everyone of you here a friend. If you weren't, I'm not entire sure what you're doing here, perhaps to watch an old decrepit geezer's speech slowly degrade into sad ramblings?"

A small laugh rippled through the crowd. Robert's grin became bigger. "When we talk about future, we're not just talking about the next generation or the generation after that or the generation following that one," he continued, his voice resonating through the entire room. "At least, that's what EQ Innovators believes. That's what I believe. The future belongs to this generation as well, to each and every single one of you, be you forty, fifty, or my age. The future is now," Robert said, raising his index finger toward the ceiling, "and this company's goal, from day one, has been to devote all we can into the development of the world's technology into the most efficient, most affordable, and least damaging it can be. We hope to create and bring a future that both the people of today and the people of tomorrow can enjoy.

"But technology is only the first step," Robert declared with a sniff. "What good is technology if it is stagnant? When we leave this world for our children, we leave them not only memories and our own previous achievements, but also a foundation for them to build upon. Research has always been a top priority, and I am proud to say that we are closer to calling theoretical physics simply physics."

There was another collective chuckle, one that Robert echoed. "Clean, renewable energy is just the beginning, my friends. The isolation of photon particles? That's nothing. The space shuttle that made a seven hundred million mile trip to Saturn in less than six months?" Robert smirked. "Only a taste of what we have in store. I've been told that I am an ambitious man. Well, what better investment is there than setting my ambitions on the impossible?"

The old man shook his head and sighed. "To the future, my friends," he said, lifting his hands. "To us. To our children. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the fifty-ninth HRT Conference and Exposition!"

A deafening roar trumpeted from the audience as Robert slowly made his way off the stages. He greeted the figures approaching him with handshakes and and smiles as he passed, but the kind words they had said were muffled, like if Robert had been underwater. He continued to smile and nod politely even as the faceless crowd began to blur and blend together with the background. A sharp shrill buzz overcame the applause of the assembly, and a burst of white light swept away the room and everything in it like dust, save for Robert. He stood there, smiling, waiting.

The light died away, revealing a large, deserted laboratory. A huge contraption sat in the center, shaped like a standing horseshoe. Several massive tubes and wires ran through the device and into the walls and other large machineries. Of the several dozen computers that littered the room, only one monitor glowed and hummed.

Robert slowly walked toward the machine in the center, loosening his tie as he approached. He stopped before a small control panel locked behind a glass screen. With a clumsy swipe of a card by Robert's shaking hands, the glass slid away. His fingers pressed against the touch screen, and suddenly the horseshoe began to vibrate. A small sheet of dim light appeared between the two arms. Slowly, the light became stronger.

Robert took a step forward. And other. And other. He lifted his hand and touched the light. The blaze became blinding.

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Robert opened his eyes and blinked furiously. He tore the spectacles off and rubbed his eyes. When he removed his fingers, Robert's arms fell to his sides. His glasses were dropped along with his jaw as Robert stared at the meadow he stood in.

Green grass grew beneath his feet and across the field and beyond. He could hear the cheery voices of songbirds from the trees nearby. A brook babbled past him, reflecting the clouds from above. Robert raised his head and stared at the bright blue sky, clearer than he had ever seen it before.

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Robert knelt in front of the stream and washed his face. As he did, he saw a young man in the water looking back at him. Robert touched his hand to his cheek, searching for those aged wrinkles and lines. He found none. He brushed his restored hair back and shook his head in laughter.

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A shadow suddenly appeared over him, blocking out the sun. It had disappeared just as quickly, but before Robert could ponder over it, he felt something fell on his head. Carefully, he removed a cyan feather from his head. As he examined the feather, rolling it between his fingers, he heard a soft thud came from behind. Robert's breathing accelerated, his entire body tensing, and he slowly turned around.

"D-Daddy?"

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Comments

[HandelHoft]

What a madlad, defying physics and reality just to get to see his daughter back. Robert has transcended beyond bronies.