"God Damnit! Why won't you just work already?!" Jasper's voice wrang out from the lab as Elaine entered.

"She's not going to listen if you keep yelling at her," she said.

"'She' is a machine, it doesn't have ears, or did He Xin put some on when I wasn't looking?" Jasper bent down as if to check.

"Come on J, Dr. He isn't that bad."

"He's always messing with my work. If he'd just stick to his own projects-"

"Then you never would have figured out that error in calibration that stumped you for four months."

"I would have," he made eye contact "eventually." Seeing her smirk he rolled his eyes.

"So how has the project been going, besides the fact it won't work and all," Elaine jestured to the sleak metal platform in the middle of the room.

The scientist sighed, and walked over to his desk in the corner of the room. Gesturing her to come over he began opening up several computer files. "When we started it seemed so simple, just a bit of math to scale up the the transport distance, a few detailed scans of the destination and we'd be good to go, but the vector configuration isn't registering. When we do send something out, we have no idea where it goes, the energy signature is completely different than yours." He rubbed his eyebrows as he explained, pointing out the readings.

"How can I help? Do you need more readings? Money? Time?"

"Honestly all of the above. When can you come in for the readings?"

Elaine smiled, "I'm free now if that works."

"Perfect!" Scrambling to get up, Jasper tripped and nearly face planted onto the desk.

"Slow down," as she steadied him, Elaine looked at her mobile screen. "It's late and I'd wager anything that you didn't eat at all today," she paused and pointed to the bright red empty cans on his desk, "and no those don't count. I'm going to get us some food while you set up." Shaking her head which a smile, she turned on her heal and left.

....

"Alright, all hooked up," Jasper told her. Backing over to the computer and clicking a button he continued, "Whenever you're ready."