Yuri woke up at nearly 6 AM in her 1R rental located in Minato district. In Japan 1R stands for 1 room and they have a lettering code for all types of apartments. For instance, 1DK stands for a one-room apartment with a separate dining-kitchen space. A studio is usually a 1R and in this part of the city it can come to up to 200,000 yen/month, which is not cheap even for a working student such as Yuri. The first thing she did after waking up was to put the Moka pot on the stove. The preparation time for coffee is the exact duration of a full shower session. After ten minutes, while drying her hair with a white towel, she switched off the small electric stove. She was getting ready for class.
Yuri had one quick stop to do before going to the university. She had a packed gift with a beautiful cotton light magenta dress shirt. It was neatly packed in paper and held by a small golden sticker that presented the information of its artisanal hand-made quality. Yuri needed to drop the anonymous gift by the door of her professor. She took the Metro all the way to Shinjuku for the detour. After a successful drop off she was in class by 9 AM.
Unaware of this whole scheme, Chance woke up and started grading papers and preparing for the lecture. He was awake for some time when this mysterious parcel appeared at his doorstep and he wouldn't notice it for another good few hours, because his Astrophysics classes were only scheduled for afternoon on that day. He opened the door to go get a coffee and a croissant at the nearby Seven Eleven, when he noticed it. It said "For Tiberius Chance", so it was not mistakenly addressed to him, but it had no postage information. With a flair of usual naivete and his usually lightmindedness for things outside science, Chance picked it up and placed it on the sofa. He opened it and thought that it looked quite glamourous but not outside his taste. He'd give it a test run one of these days, he thought to himself.
Upon getting ready for university, he looked at his closet and unfortunately, all of his white shirts were in the laundry basket. He was very good at living alone so he didn't have a strong grasp on the timing and logistics of laundry. With a usual sigh, he went to the living room and picked up the new shirt, looked at it one last time… and decided to iron it before putting it on. This would be his attire for the day.
Yuri was waiting for the class to start. When she saw the professor, she was awed by how fast it took for him to wear the new shirt. She took out her phone and took a picture. The upload to her "OnlyFriends" account took a few seconds. The account page was called "Excited particles" and it was created and maintained by Yuri. It grew an audience of close to 60,000 fans that wanted to see daily photos of the university professor. As a teenager, Yuri used to do fundraising for a dog shelter. Now, she was using all of her expertise, to make money of this "OnlyFriends" account. She was making enough to cover her rent and a bit on top. Her latest idea was for fans to vote on which clothes they want the professor to wear in the future and then to crowdfund the cost of the clothing article with most votes. Once the money was collected, she ordered the purple shirt from a famous artisanal shop located in Nagoya. Oblivious to his online fame and immense fanbase, Chance entered the classroom and began his lecture as usual.
…
James went to ask a quick question related to the Plank constant as soon as the lecture ended, and as soon as he started talking, the professor was startled and hid his phone. He was obviously hiding something, and James felt it. Perhaps it was some flirty message from a student, he thought. Chance excused himself and said that now is not a good time and asked James kindly if he could email this very same question to him and he'd take time to explain it next time. Something out of the ordinary was happening, and James felt it. He backed off, but stared suspiciously at the professor's reactions.
Chance was reading "1/3 of Pakistan is under water as a result of mass floodings that happened last week". It was the exact week that Chance was in Portugal on his surfing holidays. The media was all over it and they already connected the photographs of the massive full moon of that night, posted by those very same lucky photographers that managed to capture the precise split-second moment. This exotic phenomenon rose lots of suspicion in the press and the media was talking about nearly 2,500 households completely destroyed in Pakistan and nearly 1,000 people missing. Mild panic was visible on his face and he did not know what action to pursue. How could he help those people? How should he intervene? How could such a mild incident have caused so heavy collateral damage?
A special investigation group was launched at NASA, whose sole mission was to study this unusual behavior of the moon and how could it have deviated from orbit. Chance struggled to finish his university work for the day and went home. He took sleeping pills in order to calm down and he knew he needed to rest and clear his mind. A clear mind would be able to generate a plan out of all this mess. Chance fell asleep eventually, but his dreams proved to be just as overwhelming as his day life.
…
He dreamed of having just finished a lecture on the light wave/particle nature. The lecture hall was already empty and the professor was gathering up his things before leaving. One student ran back into the lecture hall and rushed to her desk. It was not someone that he recognized. Neatly dressed, in a navy skirt and white short-sleeve shirt. She picked up her notebook and was on her way out when she noticed the professor and she stopped mid-way. Chance did not know how to react, because up to 2 seconds ago he was comfortably inexistent in the mind of the student and now he was the object of her undivided attention. She was scanning him top to bottom and started walking towards him. Her high heels were made soft noisy clicks. She got to him and started undressing and after unbuttoning her white shirt, she got even closer and tried to started kissing Chance. He was lost in the moment. Divided again, between the intense pleasure of being touched by a beautiful woman after more than a few months of not even going on a date, and knowing that any second now he'd have to interrupt it because this could turn into a massive scandal that would not only get him expelled from the University, but probably even imprisoned. Before finding the right thing to do, the girl stopped. Took three steps back and picked up her white shirt from the ground.
"Did it work?" she said, in an unusually old man voice.
Chance was dumbstruck.
The girl continued.
"You can call me Stephen. Stephen Hawking. I've been trying to contact you for some time now. Tiberius Chance, we need your help and the only way we could come in contact was in your dream state!"
…
The girl called Stephen, explained to Chance that he and a few other scientists were living in this giant lecture hall dimension. It was a hall the size of a football field, with all its walls covered in green blackboards and chalk writings. The scientists themselves, where hidden in the bodies of Japanese girls dressed in school uniforms. Stephen was the first of them, but there was also Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Hubble, all of them climbed on tall wooden ladders writing uninterrupted on the walls of the classroom.
"It was part of a deal we made. We were offered the possibility to move on into the afterlife, but we were too connected to our scientific study. Even in the last days of our waking life we worked on science-changing research projects that we wanted to continue working on. This pocket dimension, a Purgatory of sorts, is the place that we were allowed to stay in until we complete our scientific research. We could stay here forever, or until we feel satisfied or we get a sense of completion in our scientific work. Me and the girls… ", Stephen said, showing at a girl that was playing with a black and white cat, "…have been working tirelessly and now we have finally managed to get in touch with you. You, Chance, are our ideal test subject."
…
"Yes, but why did you get in touch with me like this? Is this my mental projection of you?"
"Well, not really. These are our avatars. We choose this physique because we wanted to. It is the 'vessel' that is most comfortable to live in for who knows how many years. We found a way to contact you in your dream and we used seduction as a way to increase your adrenaline levels. This is a guaranteed way that you would remember this dream."
"I was terribly worried of getting an abrupt end of my career and going to prison, so in this way, you succeeded. Are you sure this was the easiest way?"
"Let's not focus on that. We found an effective way of communication. A way to connect our research dimension to yours. We know of your gift – breaking laws of physics – and because of this, we believe that you will be able to reach the depths of space that were previously unavailable to us. Black holes, moments near the Big Bang, the expansion wave, you are the one that can collect data for us so that we resume our scientific study… and in exchange, we can give you counsel on your mission".
Chace grew quite skeptical of this strange proposal. Beautiful girls in uniform, doing research in a hidden dimension. "How did they know of my gift?", he thought. "Are they in contact with the God entity?"
Chance ended the dream with: "Let me sleep on this.", and he woke up.
…
The first thing he did when he woke up was to check the news on his phone. It was just as bad as before going to sleep. The news of the flooding of Pakistan did not go anywhere. He was so scared of what he had done, that for a few moments he'd thought of completely renouncing on his mission. It was Saturday, he had a day off, so he went to the mall.
…
After browsing the electronics store of a Shibuya mall, he found the device that he was looking for. A doorknob camera for parcel deliveries. This was sold by companies like Amazon and it was connected to their online delivery logistics. It also could serve as a simple and easy to install, discrete, surveillance camera. Chance bought it and installed it on his door in a matter of minutes.
…
The investment in home surveillance was quick to pay off, as on Monday morning, he got a beep alarm on his phone that he got a package by the door and before the 'delivery guy' could step back, Chance ran off and opened the door.
"Yuri?!"
Yuri was caught red handed. Not even she could fathom a doorknob camera system that could so effectively disrupt her anonymity. Her plan was flawless for the most part, but now she was caught in the act and needed to explain herself. Chance invited her to drink tea inside while they talk.
…
"Excited particles?? 57,000 fans?!"
"Yes. I posted a photo of you on my Twitter account in early September and it went viral. Then I just moved this posting activity from Twitter to OnlyFriends. I set up a subscription model and this became like a part-time job for me. Sorry for this. I can… delete the account…", said Yuri.
He was still in shock of this whole scheme. Chance never even heard of the OnlyFriends platform and he never had the mildest suspicion that students could be taking photos of him in class. He always thought they were taking photos of the lecture slides.
"No, wait! Don't delete it. I have a better idea."
…
Instead of deleting the OnlyFriends account, Chance suggested they transform it into a donations page for the Pakistan flood victims. They designed the new features together. One could adopt a family by signing up for a monthly allowance that would allow them to get the food and medicine. Yuri suggested that they reward the donors with more photos of the professor and even though reluctant at first, Chance agreed to schedule several photoshoots. Chance was impressed by how good Yuri was at setting up the logistics of emergency response donations. In a few weeks, they collected funds to help more than 3000 families in affected areas of Pakistan. Even if it was just a minor contribution to compensate for the damage caused, he was got a sense of slight relief from the guilt in his mind.
…
The US government issued a statement in which they are looking into the theory that the Pakistani floodings could be the result of a terrorist attack. Hybrid warfare. They launched an additional investigation into countries near to Pakistan such as China, India and North Korea, countries with nuclear arsenal. With a sufficiently advanced nuke, one could cause a tsunami. The accusations from the US turned into a massive diplomatic scandal around the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.
…
"Yuri, I think I know how to fix this.", said Chance after a few days.
"Finally, I have the answer that I was looking for. I need to pass by a tattoo salon and then I need to head to Pakistan.", thought Chance.
"I want to come with you…" said Yuri, almost as if she read his mind.
…
Yuri and Chance arrived in the southern district of Balochistan, the area most affected by the floodings and landslides. Walking through the muddy waters, ankle deep, they found their way to the one of the houses. The outer walls were broken and the entire area was filled with piles of debris, what could be made out to be wooden furniture pieces, flooring, tiles and broken plates. Chance stepped on one of these piles. He pulled up his sleeve and removed the patch from his freshly made tattoo. He looked at Yuri and said "Step back, please.", and then he touched the wall of the house and whispered "Break".
Pieces of the house started flying around and finding their old places. It was getting back in order, returning to its prior condition. The moisture was disappearing and the damage was getting undone. The muds were retracting and the whole area around the house was turning from chaotic back to organized. Chance broke the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy.