It had felt so long on the way home that day. Even though they were walking together, the minds could not be the same.
All their mothers had cars to pick them at the end of the school parking lot, ready to whisk them away in palatial comfort. But they waved them off instead. They wanted to walk home; it seemed right. The lumbering slow step matched the whirl of questions in their minds.
Vinci kept looking over his shoulder, sketchbook tucked under his arm like a shield. Hawking's legs kept moving with a steady pace, while his mind raced ahead into unbroken play.
And she followed Einstein's side very closely, peeping up to him every few moments and testing his facial expression-fence around with its fine wire, full of stress and concern.
At one point, Einstein slowed down and turned to her. "Curie," he called softly. She looked at him, surprised.
"Can I... get your number?" he asked, clearing his throat. "Just in case something happens and I need to update you directly."
She blinked for a moment, then hurriedly looked for her phone, rapidly flushing pink. "Sure... yeah. Of course."
They exchanged numbers, their fingers brushing slightly as she handed the phone back. It felt like a small moment, but it felt like a quiet promise-a thread tying them together beyond the group plans.
Finally, they reached his house, and Einstein gave a curt nod to them before stepping in alone.
Inside it felt almost a different world; his room was his little lab. There were diagrams pinned on the walls, half-torn notebook pages, and tiny paper models of molecules and optics systems. Among the lenses, circuit boards, UV filters, and scattered sketches of Maria's glass, his table could be called an overflow.
He pulled out that sticky note that Maria had given him before and read it again. His jaw tightened, eyes sharp with resolve.
"This ends tonight," he muttered to himself.
He tied his hair back, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and got into work. His hands leapt across the table-moving sometimes like they were shaking with the weight of adrenaline, twisting wires running across the shabby-looking table like tiny rivers of silver connecting microchips and hidden UV modules. At one point, he stopped and looked at one of the smallest sketches of Eliza's face pinned to his lamp.
"Don't worry; we will keep you safe," he whispered to it.
In what seemed to be innumerable hours passing, he finally stepped back then, breathing heavily, holding the almost-finished pair of glasses in his hands. The way they looked like Maria's right down to the tiniest scratch on the left arm was phenomenal. But the story inside was totally different.
They possessed a high-focused interface, which would scan Eliza's face to create a neutral visual field inside. Thus, she would be rendered invisible to Maria's targeting. And when the latter removed them, the glasses would let loose a harmless UV burst, blinding her for about one to two minutes.
Einstein wiped the sweat from his forehead and checked the clock. Nearing midnight. And just right.
He set up his laptop and adjusted the small external camera he used for his experiments. Within a few moments, he began video calling Vinci and Hawking, together with Eliza.
They answered right away. Vinci's hair stuck wildly; Hawking barely looked to have moved from his desk since the school ended. Eliza leaned closer into her screen, eyes wide, fingers nervously twisting in her hair.
"Albert! Did you finish it?" shouted Vinci through the almost echoing sound filling the room with cries of Einstein. Einstein lifted the glasses slowly, tilting them under the lamp so that they could see every detail.
"Same design. Same marks. Identical," he said, his voice quiet but full of energy. "But inside? A completely different world."
His camera was lowered toward the inner layers-the delicate circuits, micro UV modules, and the reflective optical shields.
"These glasses read Eliza's face to establish a neutral field which, while Maria wears them, will mean only a blur to her-with nothing she can track. And as soon as she takes them off, they'll release harmless UV bursts that will confuse for a minute or two."
Vinci took a long whistle. "That's insane... even for you," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Hawking's eyes were bright. "Elegant. Brutal. Perfect," he murmured.
Eliza covered her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes. "Albert... this... thank you," she whispered.
Einstein didn't speak at first. He just looked at her through the screen, and the softening of his expression began. Finally, he spoke in soft but resolute tones.
"We are a team, and we protect each other, always."
An instant pause. A shared breath, warm between them all.
Then, Vinci cleared his throat. "Okay... but Albert... how do we get those glasses on Maria?"
The question dropped like a stone into deep water.
Einstein's smile faded. His fingers curled tighter around the glasses.
"That," he said, his voice taking on a pretty serious edge, "is the real challenge now."
The screen went quiet. They all stared at each other, feeling the weight of the problem settle in.
How to make Maria wear them? How to trick the queen of manipulation herself?
They knew a new plan had to be born. And fast.