Eva

By Jonathan Welsh

“Professor?” she asked questioningly as she spoke into the intercom to the left of the office door.

“Are you in there?”

There was no response from behind the bioplastic door so she tried again but more loudly.

“Professor, it’s Eva, are you sure you’re ok?” a slight quavering of her voice indicated that she was starting to panic slightly.

“Hmm, yes, I’m fine” came a somewhat muffled response.

“I’ve got a nice hot cup of Tealog for you, may I come in?”

“Oh, er, yes, thanks!” he responded with less enthusiasm than she would have liked.

He remotely unlocked the door from the inside and she opened it once the buzzing sounds had stopped and walked slowly in. To say that the office was a mess would be an understatement – there were piles of paperwork everywhere and the computer console was awash with piles of pizza boxes, old, stained bioplastic Tealog cups and general rubbish. There was a faint, slightly off smell wafting around the office, probably attributable to some of the decaying food stuff left in the pizza boxes. Ignoring the smell, she walked up to the messy desk where the professor was sat. He motioned to a small space off to his left and suggested that she should put the mug down there. She did so and smiled at him in a slightly nervy way. He looked up from a pile of rewritable paper and smiled back.

He was 40 years old with dark hair and eyes and the look of someone who had spent too much time looking at paperwork in stuffy rooms. However, despite this and the 12-year age gap, Eva felt her heart flutter when he looked up at her. She was his PhD assistant and had been for a year or so. She was supremely bright and had elected to stay behind after completing her studies to work with him, despite the protestations of the faculty heads and the board, all of whom described him as an irascible, old fashioned hot head who wouldn’t accept any help from anyone.  However, after an initial period of arguing and mutual distrust, they’d settled down into a good, if sometimes strained, working relationship. He was happy to discuss the more complex ideas he had regarding string theory and quantum resonance and even let her in on his “little project” about time travel. This had been his most recent obsession and had been for roughly the last 6 months. He’d been scribbling away at modified versions of Einstein’s field equations for all this time and said he was close to having a working hypothesis. He’d argued with the faculty (again) over the feasibility of the whole project but, somehow, probably due to his absolute belief in his own intelligence, he’d managed to win them around. They’d ordered all the parts he suggested and even given him some space down in the basement lab in which to work. From time to time, he could be heard swearing as he attempted to connect various lengths of superconducting filament to the small square portal that he’d built.

She smiled at him again before she calmly turned tail and started to walk away, still feeling the lightness in her chest that only comes from being close to someone you are in love with.

“Eva,” he said just as she got to the door, “I think I’ve sorted out the problem with the quantum fluctuations in the event horizon of the portal – please look over these see what you think. Oh, and thank you again for the Tealog”. Eva smiled very broadly to herself and turned back to face him.

“You’re welcome” she replied “I’ll certainly have a look over that for you.”

He handed her a rewritable pad that was covered in his trademark unintelligible scrawl.

“No rush,” he said cheerily, “I’m intending to input these into the computer on Monday next week and I’d really love you to be present when I test powering up the portal to see if it’s safe.”

 “That’s fine Patryck, I’ll look over those and get back to you as soon as I can.”

She treated him to her most dazzling smile and noted that he blushed slightly before looking down at his desk. He looked up again and then continued:

“I’m going to go down to the lab and see if I can’t sort out the main power supply. It’s not running very well and I need to speak to the electricians about somehow stabilising the output.”

“Ok, that’s fine,” she replied “we can reconvene for dinner at half 6 at the little Sicilian place around the corner, if that’s ok?”

He blushed again, more noticeably this time, “Yes, that’s perfectly fine. I’ll see you then, then”

She smiled back again and left the room, positively skipping down the corridor in joy.

Five days later, they met in the lab at 10:00am, as arranged. Despite invitations being sent out to everyone in the building, no one else turned up for the grand unveiling. They’d obviously all assumed that the professor was off his head with all his talk of time travel, despite the exorbitant costs of some the parts he’d ordered. He was extremely unhappy about the lack of recognition but supposed this was the only advantage of working for the Union with its limitless funds.

“Righty ho,” he said with enthusiasm, “let’s see if this works!”

She’d reviewed the scruffy notes in great detail and, although they had been mostly right, she suggested one or two minor modifications in order to control the power supply better and maintain the integrity of the interface. He’d accepted the suggestions and they’d discussed them several times in the previous few days. They’d put the finishing touches to them very late the previous night. They’d shared a rather nice bottle of wine between them and she’d not gone back to her usual room, opting to spend the night with him.

They stood behind the massive computer bank peering at the complex mass of wires and thicker cables that ran all over the cramped space of the lab floor. He pressed the green start button and the pop-up screen appeared and he typed quickly and efficiently into the virtual keyboard. From time to time she pointed out where he’d read his own handwriting wrongly and they had shared a small giggle and a knowing look as he corrected these errors. They took it in shifts to speed things along and finally, after a few hours of almost constant typing, he pressed the return key with a sense of finality.

“That should do it”, he said.

There was a gentle hum from the relays as the power begun to flow through the conduits, headed inexorably towards the portal. Slowly, as the power accumulated, the outer rim of the portal began to glow, slowly growing brighter and the accompanying squeal of the wires heating up grew more noticeable. As the noise grew increasingly unbearable, he passed her a pair of the ear protectors which blocked out the sound very effectively. They both stood there, looking as, with a final screech, a black promontory stretched across the portal from left to right and all of the connections around the outside lit up to an intense, white colour that seemed to burn into their retinas. The professor looked down, opened a drawer and produced two pairs of dark glasses, handed one to Eva and they both put them on. They watched as large snakes of light coruscated across the black square a few metres away in the middle of the room. They both smiled as they beheld the fruits of their work. He tapped the edge of the glasses and spoke, via the intercom to her:

“Well, it looks stable, shall we have a closer look?”

“Yes please,” she replied eagerly.

They walked out from behind the bank of computers and approached the portal from opposite sides. It was one and a half metres across and two metres tall and had the look of a hole that led into deep space. As they approached, the temperature dropped noticeably and in close proximity to the portal, their breaths froze in the air as they got closer and closer.

“It’s a bit chilly here, isn’t it?” she said smiling at him.

“Just a smidgeon! I’d never expected to see "Whispering of the stars"” he replied happily as if in a reverie.

They stopped less than a metre from the black, rippling interface – close enough to get out of the way if any sparks should jump from it. He then held out his hand but withdrew it rapidly and sucked the end of his index finger.

“Ouch, that hurts,” he said, “I didn’t expect that.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.” she responded “it’s probably just reacting to the water molecules in your finger.”

“Good point.” he said. She looked at him, smiled reassuringly and, as he stooped in closer towards the opening once more for another investigation, she pushed him hard in the small of his back towards the gateway. He screamed as he was enveloped in tendrils of blackness and then, he vanished.