Scene 1. Physics Class

Lilly awakens, laying in the bed of her world, her back still touching against Roc’s. She rolls over and stares at the ceiling, I guess I will talk to The Professor today about setting up a demonstration. I’ll need to fabricate that mercury vacuum pump, but I think the department has a mechanical vacuum pump.

I really want to know if what I am seeing in the dream world can be true in this world. And, actually, I hope not.

She gets up and starts to dress for the day. I need to get closer to The Professor somehow. He seems to be interested in my photography, maybe we can ‘develop’ something in the ‘darkroom’.

When Roc is away in camp, Beth, Roc’s oldest daughter, becomes the live-in day-care attendant. Beth is also taking care of the ‘other me’ during the nights of the ‘exchange’. Beth has prepared breakfast. My, she is as good a cook! As good as Rod at least! She is much better, and faster, at cooking than I am!

Beth speaks, glancing at Lilly, “You were up again last night.” “Your sleepwalking has improved, you could stand and walk by yourself this time, so I didn’t have to help you as much.” “Also, you seemed to know the layout of the house now.” “I still had to help you in the bathroom though.” “And your midnight snack eating is still pretty messy.” Lilly smiles, “I don’t remember any of that, but I thank you for taking care of ‘me’.”

Beth then turns and walks to the high-chairs, to help the twins. But they, too, are needing less help now. Lilly then thinks about the twins, Maybe I should put them in preschool, they are so smart. But Timmy seems to be happy reading to them and taking them to the park. They adore Timmy, and will do anything he asks. They always rubbing up against him and sniffing him. I hope they are not taking after their perverted mother and her love of carnivorous furries!

Lilly then collects her school notes, stuffs them into her folio and walks to the college. I’ll need to make a drawing of the mercury pump. It didn’t have that many parts, so it should be easy to make, if I can use the college’s machine shop. I’ll need The Professor to help me with that too. I could use his help with the drawings. He is a good sketch artist.

Lilly walks to the lecture hall and listens to the physics lecture with interest. Afterward she follows The Professor back to his office. She walks to his door and knocks. The Professor in his calm voice says, “Come in.” Lilly peeks in, “Is now a good time to talk?” The Professor nods. Lilly is anxious,“I have a physics demonstration I would like to do,” “may I show you what I have in mind?”

Lilly proceeds to show The Professor her drawings, of the tubes, pumps and electrical equipment necessary for her proposed demonstration. The Professor regards the drawings carefully, one by one. Lilly has already circled the apparatus she knows the Physics department has, with only a few black figures remaining to found, or fabricated, to complete the demonstration set-up.

The Professor regards Lilly, “Do you know how the run the machines in the machine shop? Could you make the necessary parts yourself there?” Lilly nods.

The Professor continues, “I will need to accompany you in the shop for school security reasons, but we should be able to find some time when the shop isn’t being used, and we are both available.” “Probably at night, if that works for you.” Lilly nods briskly, now very excited as The Professor seems to want to proceed.

She then makes another request, “Do you have anyone to help you with your photography projects?” The Professor stares at the young women over his glasses, “I am behind on developing my astro-photography plates.” Lilly smiles, “May I help you?”

I am a demon in the darkroom, elsewhere too.

She is also getting a faint whiff of a forest smell from The Professor.

Let’s get close in the darkroom, you smell great!

“I am developing some of the plates this evening if you would like to join me and are otherwise available.” “We can meet at The Sciences darkroom at 7:00pm.”

Lilly smiles, wiggling her tail and her body a bit, “I’ll be there!”

Scene 2. Darkroom Developments

She attends her remaining classes for the day and heads to the library to work on her drawings for the demonstration apparatus.

I will need to add some detail if we we are going to be machining parts from these drawings.

She then heads over to The Sciences Center. She finds the Center’s darkroom in the back of a large, general sciences, lab area. Unfortunately, the room has several young sheep-women, working on papers and lab apparatus, all apparently are his assistants too.

We will not be alone together tonight.

Lilly looks at the women in the room and notices that they are all pretty plump.

No wonder he likes me. I don’t think it will be to difficult for me to get on his ‘good side’!

The Professor appears. He then enters the small closet that has been converted into the darkroom. He retrieves several chemical trays along with several large black folios. The Professor lays out a printed procedure checklist for the glass photographic plate development process. He recites the procedure carefully with Lilly. Each photographic palate represents several month’s work at the observatory, so it is important that nothing is spoiled. This set was taken over the entire previous winter season.

Wow, you are behind!

He also wants to make prints from historical discovery plates, for an upcoming presentation to donors to the college. And that presentation is coming up soon.

Lilly is relieved, “Let’s start with the prints,” “we can always start over if those don’t come out right the first time.” The Professor nods.

And so the plate image projector is set up, the first glass plate is slid in to the plate holder of the projector. The large stiff sheet of photographic print paper is slid into the holder below the main lens of the projector. Lilly looks into the projector and slides the head up and down, until she feels it is a focused as good as it is going to get. Then the exposure is started in the small darkroom. The Professor and Lilly are working pretty well as she can reach the lower apparatus, and he, the higher up. However the space is quite narrow, and they are both rather thick of body. Their bodies are in constant contact with each other, and despite the strong smell of photographic chemicals, they can also smell each other. Neither seem to mind, or mention it. These are a few of the extra benefits of the ‘development’ process.

The exposed paper is then set into the trays of solution. The details soon appear, in the dim red candle light. The papers are then removed from the tray, rinsed and hung from clips on wires, to dry.

The prints came out very nicely.

Lilly is very pleased that the process was so easy, “What do you think?” “Will the regents like these?”

The Professor smiles at Lilly, “Yes I think they will do nicely,” “Now I just need to do the write-up.”

Lilly, eager to help, “It’s just a caption for the photo, right?” “I think I can do that for you, and save you some time.” “You’ll just have to check me.” The Professor nods again and writes down the references for the five prints. These will be shown by the regents as projections on a large screen from an arc-light overhead projector.

The photographic plates from the winter are left for development on another night. Lilly has made the essential impression.

Now, where am I going to get the time to do all of these things? I’ll have to confess a bit to Roc. And get also get more help for home, from someone, somewhere.

Scene 3. Homework

Roc is finished with summer training. The pro season is about to start. He is on a short vacation at home. Lilly is sitting across the front room where she has set up a large work-desk using and old door where she has been doing her homework. She is preparing the captions for The Professor’s astro-prints. The regent’s need to impress the donors to give more money to the college. Lilly is aware of its importance, half of the cost of running the college is covered by donations. She reads the discovery papers, as well as popular press articles, about the discoveries. She then plagiarizes the best words from all of the sources for the captions. She looks up from her work. Roc is facing away, reading the sports section of the local newspaper.

“Roc?” “I have something going on at the college that I need to tell you about.”

Roc is studying the newspaper and does not look up,

“What is it?” “Are you having an affair with one of your teachers?”

Lilly looks up, startled and shocked, her eyes wide staring at Roc’ back. Every single strand of her bristly white fur is standing straight up, along with her long ears.

He can’t know. He is teasing me. I hope…

Lilly, in a shaky voice, continues, “No it’s not that.” “I have a demonstration project in the physics department that I’ll need to work on for the next few nights.”

“Okay let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” “A demonstration?” “Can I come and see it?”

“I will need the evenings for the next couple of weeks.” Weeks? “And yes, it is a demonstration of a potentially new physical phenomena.” “And yes, you can come and see it, if it works.” “There might even be a public showing.” And Lilly relaxes a little. I am so close to being busted for all of this. I have to be more careful. But that is so not me. I am never careful. That’s why I have two kids. And Roc wants more!

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Scene 4. Shop-Work

Lilly meets The Professor at the Engineering School’s machine shop. They are intercepted by the Electrical Engineering department head who seems to know they were coming. He an affable raccoon-man with horn-rimmed glasses. He looks like and engineer, Lilly reflects. He is smiling and pawing at Lilly and The Professor, This guy wants something pretty badly. “Hello hello, I heard that you were coming over to the Engineering School today and I wanted to see if there was anything you needed.” Lilly does not miss a beat, “Yes, we need five liters of liquid mercury.”

The man looks puzzled, “Whatever do you need that much mercury for?” “I doubt there is that much in the entire county.”

Lilly smiles sweetly, “Would you check for us?” Gotcha!

The ‘glad paws’ knows he will get no further cooperation from them without fulfilling this request, “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.” And he trundles off.

It is evening and the shop is locked, but The Professor has a key. He unlocks the door and they enter. Usually the shop is illuminated by daylight as the gas lamps provide a feeble illumination. The Professor starts an arc-light at one end of the large shop room and aims the bright light beam to the ceiling. It reflects down and casts deep distracting shadows, but is sufficient to see well enough to operate the machines. The Professor then recites the required safety statement, “We’ll have to be careful, running the mills and the lathes in this light.” “Show me before you start anything.” Lilly nods, not wanting to sacrifice a body appendage for science.

They examine the pile of drawings and decide to start with the easiest one. It is a short pipe-fitting with a threaded whole in one side. The drawing says “stainless steel” whatever that is. The Professor states, “we’ll use nickel.” The Professor finds a tube section in the scrap pile. The two cut it to length, with a band saw then drill the hole with the mill. They then screw in a tap, to thread the hole.

Then on to the next part. The most complex part required the mill and took several operations to complete, but by midnight they had finished all of the required metal parts.

Lilly is examining some of the other drawings, “Who do you know in the Chemistry department?” “We need some blown glass fixtures.” The Professor chuckled, “I can probably do those myself, I started out as a chemist, that’s how I got into photography.” “Eventually I moved on to astronomy and astro-photography because it seemed like there is more to be discovered there.” “Tomorrow we with start in one of my other labs. I have glass-working set-up that I keep for making apparatus, such as this.” “Ha ha!” he laughs as if he is pulling one over on the school.

Scene 5. Glass-Work

The next night they meet outside a locked laboratory in the Chemistry department. The Professor opens the door and turns up a gas lamp. He then lights several oil lanterns and sets them out on the desks. In the back Lilly can now see the gas jets, set at the odd angles necessary for working glass.

The Professor now is studying Lilly’s drawing of the glass contraption at the business end of the mercury vacuum pump. The Professor then lights the gas jets and hands a pair of goggles to Lilly and then puts on a pair himself. He pulls out a long glass tube and starts to work it. Lilly is fascinated by the process. She is good at welding but has never had a chance to work glass. She has only seen the glass doodles that the vendors make at the carnival. The Professor never stops, except to get more glass. He melts sheets, rods and tubes into a beautiful and ornate glass sculptures. He sets the most complex piece, the heart of the mercury vacuum pump, into an annealing oven, so that It won’t later spontaneously explode.

He continues to work several glass tubes into the finished discharge tubes, with electrodes held in to each end by pressing the hot melted glass tube ends shut against the mounting wires. He uses nickel battery electrodes, with lead wires already attached, for the electrodes. In short order, he has five discharge tubes ready to go. Then he mounts a tungsten wire, crimped in to nickel lead wires, carefully into the end of one tube that already has the other end crimped shut. It is the incandescent light-bulb for the demonstration. All of these tubes have small evacuation tubes projecting from their sides, for evacuating the atmosphere with the vacuum pumps.

The Professor then turns off the gas jets and places the remainder of the glass artwork into another annealing oven. “These won’t take as long.” “We’ll have to wait as I cannot leave the ovens running unattended.” Lilly nods, “No problem.” She looks at her drawing pile, “Are we finished” The Professor smiles, “Unless we missed something." “The next thing to do is to screw it all together and turn it on! Ha ha!”

The Professor then pauses, frowns and stares intently at Lilly, “We’re not going to destroy the world, are we?” I don’t think he is kidding. Is he on to me?

Lilly manages a weak smile and bats her eyelids, “Not yet.”

Scene 6. Demonstration Day

Lilly and The Professor work to assemble the high-vacuum demonstration apparatus. ‘World destruction’ is not discussed again. With the help of the other lab assistants, a large demonstration table is cleared and piece by piece the critical components and mounted and connected. Large knife-switches have been mounted to the table, to start the various stages of the experiment and to maximize the dramatic effects. The Professor waves the air and insists, “A good scientific demonstration should always have drama, or no one will remember it!”

At last, the assembly is finished. Lilly looks at the table. Wow, it is neater and more clearly laid out then the one in my dream. “Maybe we should check it out in here first?” The Professor shakes his head, “Breakthroughs in science are not made by cowards!” “You have to be ready to die for your work!”

Die?

A notice announcing the public demonstration was placed in the student paper, as well as posted around campus, on handbills. The Physics department loves publicity. Unfortunately for Lilly, the regent’s presentation to the donors is also scheduled for the same day, and, of course, the donors all insist on seeing the demonstration event of the ‘new science’.

Lilly sinks into deep depression, Oh Well, I might as well make the humiliation complete.

Lilly calls Roc and invites him to see the demonstration, to be held the next day.

The hall is decorated as if it was a festival, with colored paper buntings. Prints of The Professor's astro-photographs are hung on all the walls. Lilly is inside standing dejected on the lecture platform. She looks down at the demonstration table, Could this get any worse? What ‘is’ the ‘worst’ that can happen?

The Professor walks up to the stage and silences the crowd with a wave. He then begins with a lecture, reciting the history of science and how so many discoveries have been made by students, in school classes. He points at the table and announces, “This is one such breakthrough.” Lilly is sitting at a side table with The President of the college and other dignities. She is sinking down beneath the table as The Professor speaks.

The Professor then dramatically approaches the table and slowly closes the first knife-switch. The mechanical vacuum pumps begin operation with a “chug chug chug”. The Professor then turns some of the valves mounted on the table. He then, slowly and dramatically, closes the second knife-switch. A glass column fills with the bright silver liquid mercury and the crowd gasps.

Lilly is now shaking in her seat, uncontrollably. The Professor slowly and dramatically walks from the demonstration table over to Lilly and defers to her, “Here is our inventor, I am proud to say, one of my students.”

Lilly has her teeth tightly clenched and is holding herself down to the chair thinking, projecting, NOOOOO!!!

The Professor sees her stress but he is not taking ‘no’ for and answer. Lilly is going to close that last knife-switch. She looks up. The Professor is, despite his age, a huge, strong, bear. He is big and strong enough to lift Lilly out of her seat and over to the table, if necessary. She concedes, and stands, unsteady, and staggers over to the side of the demonstration table. She is seeing black blobs floating around in her field of view. She losing consciousness because she has not taken a breath since the demonstration started.

Lilly reaches out and closes the last knife-switch. The mercury column descends and a loud buzz is heard from the high-voltage inductive-interrupter. It is now providing electricity to excite the gas in the discharge tubes. The table fills the room with an array of colors of light. The bright new incandescent light-bulb is shining like a star from the center of the demonstration table, filling the dim gas-lit lecture hall with the new white light.

Lilly loudly screams, “Baaaaaaaaah!” to the table and the crowd. She reaches up towards the roof, shouting, “No!" "It’s true!” "No!" “It’s true!” Then she stumbles, collapsing backward into the soft folds of The Professor’s body. He sees her struggle. Worried about her condition, he is ready to catch her, if necessary.

And it is.

Lilly becomes as limp as a rag doll. Her eyes are closed and her large tongue is hanging out the side of her open mouth. She is completely unconscious, with The Professor holding her up. He quickly escorts her to an alcove, out from the sight of the crowd.

Scene 7. Realization

Lilly suddenly regains consciousness in a panic and opens her eyes. She calms down a bit when she sees that she is lying, still fully clothed from the presentation, on a bed with white curtains pulled closed around it. She is in the collage’s medical suite. Since she is still dressed for the demonstration so she knows that her memory of it is not a dream.

She calls out and Roc opens the curtains on one side of the bed, “Lilly! What happened to you?”

Lilly sinks back in to the bed, looking at the ceiling again.

She softly croaks, “You saw it...”

“The Professor asked me if I was going to destroy the world...”

“And I told him, ‘not yet’...”

“I lied.”