"Maybe if I compress the wave just a little..."
The screwdriver bit into the metal sphere's casing. Sparks flew. For one brilliant second, blinding blue light flooded Elandor's workshop—illuminating the charts, the diagrams, the thirty years of failed calculations plastered across every wall.
Then darkness. Then pain.
"Fuck!"
Elandor hunched over a worktable, illuminated by the dim glow of the metal sphere before him. He worked a screwdriver into the device, sparks flying with each twist, momentarily lighting up the room.
"Why? Why? In theory, everything should work."
He lowered his head, scratching his messy hair aggressively. "The Clark Formula... no. The Clark Formula only predicts the stable wavelength."
His leg began to bounce uncontrollably against the floor, and he started gnawing on his index finger. His eyes darted frantically between the papers on the wall. With every passing second, his foot stomped harder and harder.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
He ripped a chart off the wall. "How does this explain nothing? How can Nox's graph produce a result like this? How?!"
He began tearing down every paper on the wall.
"I am a Hexian Professor! 'Virtual Mana Theory', my ass!"
When there were no more papers left to shred, he simply crouched on the floor and began to weep.
"I am pathetic. I am a wretched creature."
For a moment, Elandor thought he felt a hand on his shoulder. But when he looked, all he saw was a ruined wall.
"I have to keep my promise."
He stood up and looked at the picture resting on the table. It showed Nikola, Elandor, and one other person. Unlike Elandor and Nikola, she was human. But with her white hair and beauty, she resembled an angel more than a human.
"Gwen... Gwen."
He started to cry again looking at the picture, but he stopped himself before losing control. He slapped himself hard across the face.
"It's too early to give up. Maybe I can try to balance the frequency by applying a reverse wave."
He carefully placed the picture back. Where he set it down, there was a metal cylindrical capsule with "Gwen" engraved on it.
He turned back to the miniature reactor on the table. Instead of the screwdriver, he grabbed two cables and connected them to a device with a glowing red stone. Just as he was about to flip the switch...
A sharp knock came from the office door.
"Elandor, it's Alice. I know it's late, but we both know you aren't sleeping at this hour."
He left the device on the table. He tried to smooth down his messy, disheveled hair with his hand. He adjusted his inventor goggles. Without even bothering to glance at the mess in the room or tidy up, he went to open the door.
"Elandor, old friend. How are you?"
Alice scanned him thoroughly, noticing the bags under his eyes. "How is the project going?"
"Perfect. Couldn't be better." There wasn't a glimmer of joy or sparkle in Elandor's face as he said it.
"Good. There is something we need to discuss."
"Okay, come in, sit down. I'll pour some coffee."
He pulled a small rectangular box and a two-chambered metal device from under a pile of papers, placed them on the table, and poured the coffee.
"How are things with Nikola these days? He returned from Kam years ago, after all."
"It's been the same since the day Gwen died. We both just bury ourselves in our own projects."
Alice didn't pay much attention to the state of the room. She was examining the miniature core and the notes on the table.
"None of us ever got over Gwen's death."
"I know, but we have to move on somehow."
He handed the coffee cup to Alice, then pulled up the other chair in the room for himself.
"Good coffee, as always," Alice said.
"Tell me, why are you here? For you to come at this hour, it must be something important."
"I became a mother."
Elandor spat out his coffee. "You became a mother? How?"
"Nox is my child."
"Nox? What do you mean?"
"I don't fully understand it myself, but he has a piece of the inheritance. I checked it, and it's truly the same. On top of that, he knows things about me that were never shared with the public, and he possesses memories about me."
"So... congratulations, I guess? But you didn't come here just to tell me that."
"Nox claims to know something called 'Particle Physics'. And what he says actually explains the errors in our calculations. It seems to hold up in other ways too."
"What? Are you saying he knows more than the entire Academy?"
Elandor stood up and began pacing the room.
"Not exactly, but what he says seems to be true."
"Seems to be true..."
"Haha."
He hurled the cup full of coffee into the corner of the room.
"We could have saved Gwen! We could have fixed everything!" Elandor shouted.
"Yes, Elandor. We could have. We could have saved her."
"You come here and tell me that a student who just arrived at the Academy managed to find the error we couldn't find for 30 years? The error that cost Gwen her life?"
"Elandor, please, calm down."
Elandor flipped his desk against the far wall.
"I could have saved her!"
He continued throwing papers, research notes, and devices at the walls.
"I couldn't do it!"
"Elandor, it's not too late for everything. There is still Nikola, think of him."
"Alice, you don't understand. All I could do was watch her die right in front of my eyes."
He slumped to the floor, defeated. He pulled something from his pocket. He took a shiny metal case, removed a white cylindrical stick from it, and brought it to his mouth.
Alice snapped her fingers. A small flame appeared at her fingertip, lighting the object in Elandor's mouth.
"Elandor, I understand you. I watched a friend die by my side too. I won't watch another friend die in front of me."
"You're not fair at all."
"Weren't you the one who always cheated at chess? Now you want to be fair?"
"True. And you would always win out of spite."
"Elandor, it's not too late for anything."
After saying that, Alice placed her cup on top of the only upright stack of books left in the room and walked out.
Elandor took a deep drag of smoke, then tossed the stick into the puddle of coffee on the floor. He stacked a few of his books on top of each other. Then, he set the miniature core and the wired device aside and connected the device to the core.