A sole projector lit the room. Silhouettes of men in suits paid close attention and barely moved as they absorbed the next era of technology. However, one stood out more than the others, even when compared to Mr. Furyk.

"How did you let this happen?"

Mr. Furyk stepped away from the projection, "Do you understand quantum mechanics, Mr. President?"

The president sat at the far end among his generals, who had authorization for a briefing on Optimal. His silhouette didn't move when he responded. "I can't say that I do."

"Believe it or not, no one does. And we have several thousand people who work in the field of quantum mechanics, and they only think they understand it. This is more complicated than quantum mechanics by at least a thousandfold. I know little about flying a plane, but I trust the pilot to fly it. I have to trust the pilot. What you're looking at here is only understood by one person in all of history. And we have to trust her. Just be glad we found her first."

All the heads turned back to the president, "What you're saying is it's impossible to do this without her?"

"It may be impossible in the future if another Stephanie Saunders isn't out there to continue the work. But we can replicate the physical technology, but any further than that is impossible."

"And you've reigned her in?"

"Without a doubt. And the US will get credit for landing on Mars first, and the American flag will be there soon." He gestured to the projector, which showed an aerial view of the building Connor put together, obviously taken from a satellite.

The president turned to the man on his right and nodded. Without hesitation, he took over the projection with three prominent bullet points. Occupying Mars, Asteroid Resource Retrieval, and Missile Defense on the Dark Side of the Moon.

***

"Awesome," Teresa stood back and looked at the setup in the front yard. Despite being as tall as his dad and athletic, Timothy worked up a sweat moving her equipment around.

"Hard to believe a little girl put this all together," Timothy leaned against the tall structure in the middle of the driveway.

"Your dad helped me move it all here. Anyway, those sheets of aluminum you're leaning on don't do anything. I'll need those to rebuild the Estelar one day."

Estelar? Another question he decided not to ask because what she said never made sense to him. He just nodded when she asked to rearrange the garage and nodded again to place heavy aluminum sheets between her table and the empty table outside. The anticipation was real. He felt as if he had to know what she would accomplish.

She skipped back into the opened garage, "Stand back." He took a step back. "Maybe get on the grass." He took another step back. She wrote one on a neutrino ball with a pen and two on the other. "One and two, see these?" She held them up. He nodded.

Her knees landed on the swivel chair, and she began tapping away at the laptop. Besides the aluminum ring about as wide as a bagel and the two neutrino balls, her desk was cleared.

"Here goes nothing," she said.

The ring illuminated bright white with bursts of purple, and one of the neutrino balls disappeared. Timothy jumped as he saw the ball appear and land on the empty table with one written on it. And a moment later, two landed next to it.

He looked in the garage where Teresa sat and noticed the neutrino balls weren't there. Once he realized what had happened, his jaw went limp, and he looked like a kid who just saw his first magic show. "What? But how?"

Teresa couldn't see past the tall, thin aluminum sheets between her and the table in the driveway. She ran out and saw the result. "Awesome."

"Seriously, what happened?"

"The balls went through these thin sheets of steel. We did it." Teresa just realized she sounded like Stephanie talking to Connor. It felt like a team effort.

He grabbed a neutrino ball and tossed it up and down. "Glad I could help." Timothy could tell she didn't look too happy, as if there were more. "So what's next?"

***

He sat curled up on the table in the garage. "I swear, I'm an idiot sometimes."

"I've been doing this all week with masses slightly bigger than yours," Teresa said. "A high schooler did this with no questions asked."

The table shook slightly as he turned his neck to look at Teresa. "Seriously?"

"Like a heart attack. He's been to Mars a few times too."

Timothy chuckled at what he thought was an egregious lie. "Did the boy wonder bring back a souvenir?"

"No, but he shot down a missile a few times, which was awesome. Anyways, you'll be in a state called the Lucid Passage during the trip from here to the end of the driveway. It's nothing to worry about."

"Should I be worried?"

"Nah, you seem reliable."

"Is this top secret? We're outside."

"It's hazy. No one will know."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Should he be concerned? She wasn't. "Alright, I'm ready."

Teresa didn't wait, the garage lit up, and Timothy got engulfed in white and purple and fell on top of the other table in the same curled-up position with his arms wrapped around his legs. Frazzled would be an understatement as his limbs spread like a scared spider monkey flipping himself off the table and face-first onto the driveway.

"Success!" Teresa ran over to him as he scrambled to his feet.

"My fiancé," he had a thousand-yard stare, "she was doing things. Wonderful, amazing things. To me. Parts of me. And donuts. Lots of donuts."

She lifted her hands at shoulder height, "Okay, let's keep those details to ourselves, Romeo. And lucky her."

He gained his composure and looked between the garage and his landing spot from the Lucid Passage. "Wow. I really did move."

She nodded and absorbed the blissful thought of matching or surpassing Stephanie Saunders. Although she had a little help from Timothy on the hint that Stephanie gave her, Her excitement wasn't as high as she thought it would be. Relief. She realized she felt at least some relief. Yet she was still frustrated.

"Any way you can send me and my car back to college tomorrow?"

She raised a brow, "I think I need to do some charging for that distance and mass, but yeah. I'd have to send you to a field so you don't end up inside a wall or something. And also at night, so no one gets freaked out."

The implications of her tech showed on his face, an impressive thousand-yard stare at the table he landed on, and he placed his hands on his hips. "So what's next?" He was trying his hardest not to be too impressed. Keep it cool, he told himself.

"Well, I gotta get my friends back."

His interest was piqued as much by the science experiment as anything else. "I'd ask why you don't just call them, but I'm sure you have an esoteric reason."

She chuckled. "They're prisoners somewhere. At my last job."

"Jesus, what kind of job did you work at?"

"For the government."

His inclination about this being top secret was spot on. "Great, so you want to teleport them out of there?"

She went back into the garage, sat in her chair, and looked at the ceiling. "It's not teleportation. And yeah, of course. But I don't know where it is."

"You don't know where your last job is?" He walked back in and leaned against the table.

"Nope. It was all top secret."

"Any sort of clues?"

"Umm." She walked into the garage, sat down, and spun in the chair. "Those airships you saw in the news came from there. They use my outdated tech."

"Really now? For flight?"

"Yeah."

Timothy had an idea and read some rumors online. "What was the environment like?"

"I wasn't allowed out of the area, but it was a desert outside with a huge runway. It was a lot like home in Mexico, too."

Timothy smirked. "I think you need to visit Area 51."

***

Thomas was adamant. I owe it to those two boys. He had told his wife before leaving. And since he was paying Timothy's tuition, Thomas would never let his son miss a day of school, so it was up to Thomas. It felt tense, as neither of them had slept well in the hotel room in Las Vegas. Teresa did feel safe with the idea of breaking into Optimal with Thomas Bailey. She thought he could single-handedly fight a war.

Teresa drank the hotel room-made coffee in the rental van's passenger seat. "With this amount of charges, I should be able to get in, cause some mayhem, get Connor, get Axel, get Stephanie, and get back here, and then you drive us back to the casino. Do a charge, home, and out of the country. About six uses before a charge at the casino. I'm unsure how Stephanie got more, but this should be enough."

"Wait." Thomas had a thought. "Why not build another switch?"

"I tried that, but the one not in use kept getting fried. The particle accelerator that isn't doing the work gets its charges blown away as they resonate together. And I'm not risking hiding a switch out of sight."

"Alright," he said, not turning his head from the road. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it should all work."

"I mean, breaking into Area 51."

"Yeah." She took a final sip and pulled her anti-grav suit from the seat behind her. She didn't mind the awkwardness of reaching between the two chairs and leaning into the principal a little. A slit was cut out on the right leg, which she used to build her variation of the Aeon Switch. She undressed into her underwear and slid into the suit, pushing against the chair as she stretched to get it on. Once she felt comfortable and wiggled a few times, she pressed the button on the back of her neck, and the suit tightened to her figure, mid-neck down, and it illuminated its usual shades of purple, and her hair began bobbing.

She pulled out one more item, two short plastic wires with the copper ends poking out, and wrapped both around an ankle. "But, if things get bad, I can recharge by sticking these two into a socket and the other ends into the Aeon Switch."

"Make sure the getaway car is ready."

"Getaway rental van. I'll keep the doors open."

"Sure, I should be good to go," she said.

"Last chance to take the gun."

"It just feels silly with an Aeon Switch on hand." She pulled it out of the glove box.

"I hear ‘ya," Thomas said. "The faster you can do this, the more likely it will succeed. Just stick to your plan." He's putting a lot of faith in her. "I have no idea how anything works," and to him, it's their best bet. He thought his son had lost his damn mind for a moment when he explained what Teresa had done to him. And then Thomas saw it for himself.

"It's nanotech that can rearrange itself to collide atoms differently. It also has a thin layer beneath as its power source. My suit uses the same nanotech technology to hurl atoms at each other around my body to affect gravitons. The suit modifies gravitons, and the Aeon Switch modifies dark matter and gravitons."

"What?"

"You mumbled to yourself that you don't understand how any of it works," she said. "I'm trying to explain."

"Forget that. Just get in, and get out."

The famous sign on the dirt road came into view, and he stopped the van. It warned, cross this line, and you will get shot and go missing.

Teresa jumped out of the van and lifted the Aeon Switch, she had no brain imaging hardware like Stephanie's, but she had it set to act as a makeshift watch. Each use of the Aeon Switch is ready. The first tap was to get in. The second was to blow off the roof to cause chaos and scout around. The third was to send the main corridor walls away to find Stephanie and finally send everyone back to the van. Each tap on her watch will advance the preset configuration for the Aeon Switch to do its thing. She had a few options on her watch as well. Such as moving back to where she was thirty seconds prior, traversing a hundred feet ahead of her, etc.

"You're sure they're in there?"

"Yes. Optimal only allows for one location. No electronic communication goes in or out, and no transferring of people or equipment to other locations. This way, nothing gets leaked. They are there because it's the only place that has them."

"What if they're dead?"

"As in they killed them?"

"Yes," he said.

"Mr. Furyk only kills threats. Connor and Axel aren't a threat."

That almost reassured Thomas.

"I'll see you in a few minutes." Teresa tapped on her watch.

[]~*

The Lucid Passage surprised her. It was different than the few times she's experienced it. She sat on the edge of the Estelar, her legs dangling about, as she watched them invade her adobe home in broad daylight by US soldiers. Helicopters swarmed, And two US navy ships occupied the ocean.

A young Terasa willingly walked behind several soldiers, and her parents struggled to reach her. Her parents haven't seen her since.

Why am I thinking this?

She hadn't thought of her parents at all since she left. She's sure they miss her, but her work was far more critical than bonds or good memories. Then she remembered New Year's with Connor on the roof when he said he missed his deceased father, and she echoed the sentiment. She missed them gravely.