10.6: A Bit of a Time Travel Obsession

   "Hey, where you going for lunch, Janes?"
   "I brought mine." I smiled at Elliot Keith, the other intern. He was a year older than me, a freshman at UCLA, majoring in physics, the field I wanted to pursue. "So the break room, I suppose."
   "Ah and here I thought you would go out with your friends."
   "I'm not exactly the friend type." I shrugged blushing as I hung up my lab coat.
   "Really?" He looked surprised, as I shrugged, unsure of how to reply. I'd presumed that fact was obvious; I was spending the last spring break I was going to have working, well, volunteering, I technically was not being payed, after all. "Er- Sorry- I, uh... Did I offend you?"
   "Oh, no, I just mean, I, stereotypes. Geeks. Scientists."
   "Yeah... Do you want to eat lunch together? So we're not alone, I mean. If I-"
   "Alright." We were both socially awkward people, why not be awkward together? We headed off to the break room together, ready to spend the allotted twenty minute break we were, reluctantly, taking. If it wasn't for California law, both of us would probably willingly work from five am to ten pm with no breaks, instead of nine to six with two fifteen minute breaks and a twenty minute lunch break.
   "So..." He started, once we'd pulled our subsistence out of the fridge, microwaved it, and decided that the break room was too chilly and that the warm, April air outside would be a much more satisfying place to consume our lunch. "What college are you planning on attending?"
   "UCLA offered me a full ride, so there, probably. I was hoping a Massachusetts, or another east coast Ivy league, university would at least offer me a partial scholarship, though, tragically, they did not."

   "I'm sorry." He said, looking genuinely upset, he was not just saying it due to social protocol dictating it.
   "It's fine, I mean, they're a decent school, especially for a physics undergrad degree with a minor in robotic engineering, furthermore I was thinking maybe Caltech, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, or Duke for grad school."
   "MIT is my number one for grad school; astrophysics."
   "Ah." I smiled. "You're one of those types."
   "Why yes, yes I am." He replied, wiggling his eyebrows. "I don't suppose you'd tell me what major you were thinking for grad school."
   "Quantum physics, theoretical physics."
   "String theory?"
   "Time travel."
   "Don't tell me you had a traumatic childhood instance and wish to remedy it by traveling back in time."
   "Oh, no, don't start using the soft sciences against me. I want to travel forward in time."
   "But not space?"
   "Is it peculiar of me to believe that that is something better left to the Doctor?"
   "Is it peculiar of me to believe that he was the one who inspired you to pursue the traveling through time?"
   "Considering that he, and all of his regenerations, did not, I would answer yes."
   "Who did?"
   "Many people, Hawking, was the most influential, however my passion began when I read H. G. Wells' novel The Time Machine."
   "And which time do you wish to travel to?"

   "All of them."
   "All?"
   "Every monumental moment, rather than all, would be a better way of phrasing it."
   "Do people find it laughable?"
   "Do you?" I took a bite of my lunch, eying him with curiosity.
   "I wouldn't deny the possibility of something we have yet to disprove."
   "Superb answer."
   "I try." He said, standing up, to toss away his detritus. "I believe it is time to begin our work again."
   "I believe that as well..." I said, halfheartedly. I was going to be building a robot to help with the experiment my boss was doing, which I loved, however I was enjoying the witty banter in between Elliot and myself. I had worked beside him for a year, since Hadley, who proudly boasted of her 2.6 GPA every time we communicated, had set me up with the research lab's largest donor's son, yet this was the first time we'd truly been able to converse and I didn't want the moment to end.

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