Connor and Ally were in some sort of heated debate about ohms, which Connor cleary was losing and refusing to admit it, when Laura inserted herself physically between them, interrupting the mansplaining to talk to Ally. “So, Ally, can you like, send people in to look around?” She asks, poking at the screen.

Ally opens her mouth to respond, before closing it, as if a thought had just occurred to her. “You know, I… theoretically, I could construct something that would allow transport of say, a recording instrument for data gathering.” She says, stroking her chin and flipping to a new page on her notebook. “Actually, most of the work that I’d need for that is already done…” She muses to herself, drawing diagrams as Laura claps her hands excitedly. “I’d just need to construct a little array like this… Connor, could you make something like this?” She shows him the diagram, and he just laughs.

“Um, in my sleep, yeah? I could probably do it in like, 5 minutes with all the stuff Ally dragged out from storage.” He says cockily, yawning. “But I’m not on the clock, so…” He shrugs lazily.

Laura smirks. “You can just say you can’t do it, you know - like, you’re not fooling anyone?” She snickers, Connor’s face quickly growing red as he tries to look unbothered, failing quite noticeably. “Oh yeah? Just because you can’t do something doesn’t mean it’s not possible.” He says, clearly annoyed.

Laura shrugs. “I mean, if you want to prove me wrong…” She says, trailing off meaningfully. 
“I’m not going to do it just because you’re trying to pull some grade-school bullshit.” Connor huffs.
Laura looks at Ally, faux whispering to her friend. “...Or, because he was full of hot air and can’t do it.” Ally stifles a laugh.

Laura looks back at the increasingly incensed student. “I’ll even buy you a pizza if you can beat 5 minutes like you said.” Connor slams his hand on the tabletop and grins with an unsettling glint in his eyes. “Fine! You’re on. If I do it, you have to say, ‘Connor is the best and I was wrong’ and never get snarky with me again.” Connor says, dripping with confidence.

“Uh, deal, dude! And if you can’t do it in 5 minutes, you have to admit you’re like, way too full of yourself!” Laura says, smiling a little to herself. She quickly whips out her phone and sets a stopwatch, holding it up for Connor to see. “Whenever you’re ready to lose!”

He snags the notepad and looks over the diagram once more. “One second, jeez…” He mumbles, glancing over at the workbench littered with mechanical and electrical components. He mouths silent words to himself, and then leaps into action. Laura protests, starting the timer with a complaint - “You didn’t say go, cheater!”

But he was already scrambling around, frantically trying to work on some sort of ring-shaped contraption out of copper wiring and graphite rods, the timer ticking down. The other two students looked on as he worked, and even Liam leaned in from his secluded corner to see what all the fuss was about - and in a flurry of hasty work, a shoddy recreation of Ally’s sketch was soon sitting on the lab bench, a red-faced and slightly out of breath Connor standing over it with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

“Well?” He looks at Laura, who flips the phone around.

“Hmmmm, 8 minutes and 32 seconds… plus it looks kind of wonky?” She says, cocking her head to one side. “So I’m pretty sure you lost!” She grins as wide as a Cheshire cat.

“Bullshit!” Connor protests, and Ally steps in to save the day once more.

“Laura, come on - it was pretty fast, and - it looks a lot like I designed - it just needs a tweak or two, and we can hook it up!” She says, excitedly. The tension dissolves as the three young students are dazzled by the prospect of being the first to see a new world. “You guys can sort out your bet later - don’t you want to see this?” She says, fiddling with the wiring a little to adjust the parameters.

The two reluctantly agree, crowding around the table. “Fine, I guess…” Connor mumbles. Ally picks up a pair of alligator clamps from the table, and attaches them to the side of the crude device.

The group watched with bated breath as she connected one of the terminals to a power source underneath the workbench, then the other - sparks flew as she clamped down the connector, and the lights flickered slightly. Nobody spoke, the tension palpable as she held her hand over a crude switch Connor had rigged up. “Alright - it’ll just be a short test, and we’ll see if it’s stable - I’ve only set it to open a channel for 3 seconds, so we won’t be able to do anything - this is just to test that it works.” She tells everyone in a level voice, sounding as though she was reassuring herself as much as the others in the room. The atmosphere was tense with anticipation as she threw the switch with a sharp tug downward.

BBRZZZZZT–!