The fluorescent lights in the workroom buzzed faintly, bathing the group of students that had found themselves gathered there in the sort of bluish white hue that was most commonly seen in hospitals and where scientific breakthroughs were being made. After hours, the lab workrooms were really only populated by students looking to get ahead in class, overworked teachers or Teacher assistants, students looking to catch up on sleep, or just those who had nowhere else better to be. But as for Ally? She was here for a breakthrough - and she was getting close, she could feel it!

The asian-american student leaned over a small cluster of exposed components pulled out of a simple housing, watching a small LED display intently as she turned a dial with a screwdriver, trying not to let her friend Laura jostle her delicate adjustments.

“No way Ally! That’s actually the coolest thing ever, oh my god - you’re being way too modest!” Laura gushed, practically bouncing in place as she beamed over at her friend, who was currently jotting down the numbers from the small LED display onto a small notebook with laser focus. Connor made a dismissive little noise from nearby. “Sure - it’s neat in theory and all, but it’s not like it really has any practical applications. I mean, I’ll admit that it’d be pretty good for a thesis paper, professors go crazy for applied theory and stuff like that- but it’s not like it’s going to make her a billionaire or anything.”  The tall student leaned against the lab bench with an air of smug superiority. “Robotics is where it's at, honestly. All the jobs will be automated in what, ten years, tops?” He shrugs.

Laura frowns and rolls her eyes, looking at Connor with an annoyed air about her. “You’re just jealous because Ally is literally doing Star Trek shit and you’re just working on the next Wall-E or whatever!” The blonde fires back, and Connor bristles, looking like he was about to pop a vein, but Ally manages to stop the powder keg from going off with an exclamation.

“Guys- look at this!” She says, waving them over with one hand. A beat-up monitor that looked like it belonged in the early 80s flickered and buzzed to life. Putting their feud aside for the moment, the two students gathered around. A grainy image slowly shifted in and out of focus as Ally expertly pivoted the screwdriver back and forth, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in an expression of rapt concentration. Laura and Connor both held their breath until finally, the image seemed to stabilize. Ally gently set the screwdriver down, and the group looked at the fuzzy monitor.

It was a little hard to make out anything distinct, but it was more than enough to amaze Laura. She clapped her hands onto Ally’s shoulders and shook her side to side like a broken vending machine. “OH. EM. GEE!” She breathed. “That’s another dimension, Ally? Like, we’re looking at a whole new world on there??” She asks, pointing at the screen.

Ally grins in response, looking at her enthusiastic friend. “Well - sort of, yeah!” She says with a shrug. “It’s not technically a ‘world’ per se - at least not as I understand it right now, it’s more of a dimensional liminal space, so it’s not an entirely new plane so much as -” Ally trails off, noticing the confused look in Laura’s eyes as she struggled to keep pace with what she was saying. She pats her reassuringly on the shoulder. “But, yes - a new world is close enough!”

Laura crowds the lab table as Connor shrugs. “It’s pretty hard to make out anything, though…” He says, squinting at the fuzzy video output on the CRT-style monitor.

Laura groans. “You’re the woooorst, Connor.” She looks at another student, one who had up until now been minding their own business in a more distant corner of the workroom. “Hey, you - what’s your name?” She asks, and the rather stocky looking student looks up from a book with a confused expression. “Me? Uh… My name’s Liam. Is… did you need something?” He says, furrowing his brow - he wasn’t really a very social person, hence why he did most of his studying in the corner, away from busy areas where he’d be randomly roped into other conversations - or so he thought.

Laura strides over, and shakes his hand, which makes him visibly flustered. “Well Liam, if you could look into another world, would you say that’s - “ She holds up two fingers, touching the tip of her opposite index finger to one - “ A, Really friggin’ incredible and the coolest,” She touches the other finger - “Or, B, like, kind of lame and not as cool as like, a machine that puts doors on cars or something?” She asks smugly, firing a look back at Connor.

Clearly a bit unprepared for this, Liam hangs up a minute, rubbing the back of his head. “Uh.. I mean, it sounds like it’d be pretty cool?” He says, with a sheepish smile. “I don’t really mean to like, pick sides or anything -”

Laura whirls around and cuts him off. “Told you so, Connor!” She says, and turns back to Liam. “Thank you, you chose the obviously correct answer!” She smiles, and he flushes - this was perhaps the most interaction Liam had gotten with a cute girl for the past 3 or 4 years.

“Laura, just leave him alone! He’s trying to study!” Ally chides her friend from the workbench, fiddling with the sensors to try and make the image clearer. Liam waves his hand dismissively in the air. “No, it’s okay! Honestly, I wasn’t getting much done anyway!” He says, and his eyes linger for a suspiciously long amount of time on Laura’s open-toed sandals - long enough that she notices. “OMG, I know I have to get a pedi, right?” She says, oblivious, putting her foot up on the chair next to him, and he shuffles awkwardly in his seat, beet red. Luckily, everyone else is either too preoccupied, or in Laura’s case, too oblivious, to notice how strongly he seemed to be affected.

Liam stammers “Oh uh- n-no, it’s just that - you’re supposed to have um, closed-toed shoes in the lab, I think?” He says, eyes fixed on her purple-painted toenails. “But uh, I won’t like, report you or anything!” He adds hastily, eyes flicking rapidly between the leggy blonde and her sandal. She just laughs. “Oh, my bad! I don’t usually come here, I just wanted to see Ally, so I’ll totally wear my Docs next time, okay? Pinky promise!” She winks at him, and bounds off to rejoin the group at the workbench.

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–!

Just outside the workroom door, a pair of students were sitting, completely detached from the groundbreaking discoveries taking place just on the other side of the wall. Aleck Dunlap, a 24 year old Business major with a very rich father, was typing on his laptop composing an email that was meant to convince his father that he couldn’t be pulling up to school in something any less than a Mercedes, or it would obviously hurt his ability to make the right connections.

Watching him intently from a few feet away was 19 year old Alica Sommers, who had just made the cheer squad and was now on the hunt for an arrangement that would allow her to indulge in fancy, expensive things at in exchange for a little flirting, and perhaps some over-the-pants stuff if she really had to. The Rolex on Aleck’s wrist looked real, and she wanted a boyfriend that could shower her with the high-end clothes and jewelry that she so clearly deserved - and she was fairly certain she had found her mark, laying on thinly veiled flirting from the chair opposite his. She was making frustratedly little progress, even when she complained about how hot it was where she was sitting and moved to the chair right next to him, loosening her cheer uniform a few buttons to show off some chest - but it was like he was a million miles away! She huffed, about to give him a piece of her mind, when suddenly - the air shifted around her.