"Okay, I'm down. Who am I even trying to win against? Shoot the problem", the boy wasn't as intelligent as to the level of the girl. He had created his own version of a hologram that earned recognition when Microsoft took it under a contract, stood in second place in the university as the first was taken by the talented professor.
After receiving the award last year, the girl's nerves never let her sit and chill, waking up to the gentle air of summers morning and sipping on the coffee in the serenity of evening as the struggle to invent something new began itching her. That was how she came up with the idea of a time machine. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months.
The machine was built under her guidance, electricity generators were stationed which were capable of generating megawatts of power within a few minutes, however, something still seemed missing.
"That's the heck I can't get! It would be easy peasy lemon squeezy to solve the problem if I knew what it was. Everything seems okay to me", she groaned, pulling her hair in frustration, banging the head against the table. What was the point of having that genius brain inside the head when it would end banging on the concrete?
"Stop. We won't want to lose an intelligent brain here", after two or three thumps, she felt the skinny texture under her forehead rather than the hard concrete counter.
"Let me see", the boy removed his hand from beneath her forehead and motioned the papers in front of him down on the counter.
"Hmm", chewing on the inner cheek, he checked all the equations and formulas one by one. The girl's eyes were impatiently looking at him, ears holding the desire to listen one last time before losing the hearing ability along with the rest of the other senses. Regardless, what they wanted to listen to wasn't the sweet 'love yous' every girl of the twenty-first century would want to hear but the problem in the machine. Maybe, the boy would pinpoint what she was failing to track down.
"I don't see the pain in the arse here", lifting his gaze from the bundle of papers, he gave voice to his thoughts. He might be not sagacious as the youngest professor, his logical mind would have detected something missing when it applied all the analytical methods on the equations and codes derived by the girl. There were no blank spaces he could fill.
"Come", she pushed the chair back with the screeching noise and walked up to another room inside the laboratory that had the time machine. The boy stood by her side on the controller as she began tapping on different buttons.
"Banana? Scarlett, you sure you want a banana to be the first thing to travel back in time?", the boy did a double-take when he saw a banana placed on the bottom plate of the time machine. If the machine run was going to be successful, shouldn't it have been something meaningful to be travelled in order to write it down in the news blogs, columns and books?
"Can't help. Love sucking on them", the professor shrugged her shoulders, eyes still glued to the screen while proceeding to set the year just like how she had been doing umpteenth time now.
"You just love sucking on bananas or the sucking itself?", the boy asked. Scarlett was the youngest in their Master's class. A beautiful single girl whose dating demand was only one, the boy should be of the same age as her and being four to five years younger in the department did not do well having her had one. Sticking to the facts, there wasn't a line of boys waiting for her to give them a signal. Being friends with a scientist was cool, but that was only limited to the friend zone. Dating came off as dull as ditchwater to everyone.
"Bananas only. What do I look like? A toddler?", she finally pressed the start button before giving the boy a side glance then fixing her eyes back on the machine.
"And I see what you did there", electric blue energy began passing through the tubes that were attached to the top conjunctions of the machine.
"Hehe~~", Dylan scratched the back of his head, showing the sheepish grin to the girl.
"Here, keep an eye on this", rolling her eyes, the professor gestured at the screen that had years displaying on it. Following through with the programmed lines of codes, the software started executing commands, ending and starting different operations on the screen.
"Beep...beep."
And just like last time, at a certain juncture, the years began swapping back on their own too fast that it was impossible to keep the eyes focused on what years were rolling onto the screen now.
"Error...error."
For a millisecond, the screen stopped rolling and a year was highlighted, however, too fast for a naked eye to capture as it began rolling again until it reached the current year, 2021, and the machine stopped.
"System Failure", Dylan read the red coloured alphabets on the screen.
"The Launch Failed", a programmed voice rang in their ears.
Sighing, the professor exited the room. Grabbing the bag and batch card from over the table she walked towards the door. Putting the proximity card on the card scanner that was positioned to the side of the door, she held the bag in one hand as the door dinged open.
"Wait for me!", she walked through the opened door and continued walking down the empty hallway.
It was Friday evening, weekend. Most of the students were off to...study for the upcoming exams? Not by a long shot. They were kicking some fun in clubs, releasing the stress of exams. It was almost the end of their academic year. More the days to present their projects were approaching near, more jittery the professor was growing. She had put her everything in the time machine, those sleepless nights, locked in the room unaware whether it was sunny or raining out, but there was no fruitful result out of it.
If she couldn't make it work, the council was not going to fail her. On no account they would drop out a brilliant student. It was a matter of her commitment to herself. She never learned how to fail. Everything that would get the touch of her hand, and, needless to say, her brain too, it would turn into an achievement of a new invention. The failure in the machine launch had started becoming a challenge for her, a challenge she would not back out from.
"Gotcha", Dylan ran across the corridors to make it to the professor who was walking through the halls, heading out of the building.
"Come on now. Don't let your spirits down. You have a long path to go, professor. And if you think you can scare me off with that face, let me clear something for you. I've long-term plans to stick by your side. Who knows I might end up becoming your future assistant?", at the end of the long speech he winked at Scarlett. She faked a disgusted look as they made it to the parking lot.
"So what do you think it could be? A glitch?", he asked, fingers brushing the cheek where he felt something wet dropping from up above.
"I never designed it to be a glitch", the professor walked off to her car in a huff.
"You don't design glitch software, professor", Dylan looked at the sky. It was cloudy, rain to start anytime soon.
"Yeah right, they didn't design the glitch filter", pulling out the key, Scarlett inserted it in the lock.
"I'm down, again. You know you are the most---hey wait that's a whole different thing!", he was about to submit to the conversation with the girl again but before he could do it fully he realized that glitch filters were specially designed to give photos amazing glitch effects, unlike software glitches that were actually errors.
Scarlett chuckled seeing a pair of eyes popping out the sockets.
"Anyway your machine is definitely malfunctioning. What year did it stop on last time?", the girl pulled back the flap to open the door.
"2021", she bent over to put the bag on the passenger seat and grabbed a rubber band from the dashboard.
"No, I mean the year it shortly stopped on before sliding back to 2021", raindrops started falling. The two remained unbothered by it, continuing their conversation.
"It never stopped on any year other than the current one", gathering hair in one hand, she tied the rubber band around them.
"Well, I beat you to it. My neurons were probably fired faster than you. For a millisecond, it did stop on a year", light rain was falling in fine water drops. It was drizzling. Gentle and soft, caressing the hair and skin. It was the time when nature would caress those in pain, reminding them that even if it felt all alone they weren't alone.
"What year?", her ears perked up, a strange settled in her stomach, breath caught in the throat in agitation.
"1420."