The lab was lit up like a Christmas tree. Indicators were blinking everywhere and he wasn’t sure where to go first. The numbers and printing reports he slept through, but the two alarms that suddenly started chiming within seconds of each other woke him. It was a deep sleep that he’d deprived himself of during the constant analysis of their jumps, but these alarms weren’t the kind you could ignore.
He ran to the master screen and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Their phases were even more out of shift from one another than they were before. He couldn’t imagine what the two of them had done; it was a variable the scientist hadn’t planned for. But his fascination was deep.
Rolf had not had a challenge like this in years. Not even back in the day when working for his master was fun. Things had gotten dreary for quite some time, but now? Now there was nothing he wanted more than to be in his lab and be awed. Constantly awed by the work he was doing. But the veins of resentment ran through that scientific reverence like weeds wrapping around a rosebush. Resentment for being sidelined as an observer, resentment in knowing he wouldn’t be getting any credit. He had been angry that he’d been forced to do this in the first place, but now? Now it was a labor of love, the grudge notwithstanding.
Rolf had paid his dues. He’d done the bidding of others his entire life. He knew how brilliant he was. Einstein, Oppenheimer, Hawking; he knew what his place was amongst these geniuses, and that was above them. They were the brilliant minds that turned corners in global human science, and he held them in the highest regard. But Rolf wasn’t just in their league, he was chief among them, and he knew it. Not just in intellect, but in results. He didn’t theorize, he proved. He didn’t try, he did. His science had always been considered that of fiction. His peers considered him the Dr. Frankenstein to their Pasteurs and Bohrs and Curies. Rolf let out a snarky little laugh. He knew Neils Bohr, and a bore he was. He may have defined quantum mechanics, but Rolf, he harnessed it! He was actually doing it! If only his colleagues could see him now. Then he reminded himself that maybe they could one day.
But not with numbers like this.
Rolf turned his attention back to the master screen and studied the phase shift. The increase had been unexpected, and there was no obvious reason for it. He turned back to the numbers their most recent jump had thrown and reminded himself that time was unquantifiable. There was a reason slipstreams were unstable and that no one had been able to harness them. Yet, Rolf said to himself.
Just then another alarm sounded, and the master screen registered new movement. Excitement grew in him, along with a healthy dose of frustration for the phase-shift. He didn’t really understand it and would have to analyze the reports in detail, but clearly, they were now jumping out of sync. He knew Dimera’s former soldier and his wife did something to cause it, but he didn’t know what, though he had some theories. Whatever it was, it was enough to throw numbers that he couldn’t make head or tails of. Things were definitely off. Possibly indefinitely.