Fanfic #20: "Love Knows No Chronology"

[Iuvenis Scriptor]

This fanfic is partially story-within-a-story. The first two parts are the text of a short story Phil wrote about his experience (presumably just as a way to deal with the emotions of it all). In the third part, Phil's written account is used to bring about a very happy ending. Therefore, I won’t mention Phil or Keely by name until part three. Just humor me.

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For two or three centuries, there has existed a theory in some form or other that the automation wrought by technology is the antithesis to the human experience. Proponents claim that every technological advancement that further automates any activity originally an intimate part of human life, however mundane, detracts a portion from the collective pool of daily experiences that, in ways that become only remotely tangible even after a long period of time, make up no small part of the richness of a human lifetime.

It was Robert Wobby who had most effectively formalized this school of thought and brought scientific attention to it for the first time since mankind had even been aware of his immense and growing technological prowess. Yet to the young man who now sat bemusedly and rather sadly in his robotically cleaned and computer-run home, surrounded by all the comforts of 22nd-century life, Wobby had just been another name to memorize while “going to school” with the virtual classroom device that had overtaken the traditional classroom at the close of the 21st century. It resembled a thick and shiny aluminum visor worn over the eyes like the virtual-reality viewers of some of the more upscale video games of the early 21st century. The wearer of this contraption would be welcomed by a holographic teacher whose words were effectively supplemented by images, videos, recreations, and reenactments that displayed behind the teacher as if he or she were standing in an old-fashioned 21st century OmniMax theater.

Once again, the youth found himself returning to his habit of comparing almost everything that had once been second-nature to him to their 21st century counterparts or imitators. The reason for this was the same reason that Robert Wobby’s theory, or Wobbyism as it was popularly called, had acquired new and critical meaning to him. Ironically, it was due to another 22nd-century theorist that he had been able to acquire a profound appreciation for Wobby’s ideas.

In the very late 21st century, a time when time travel had only recently entered the realm of scientific reality, the general public was frightened that an overzealous physicist anxious to execute the technology that had come to be known as “the Holy Grail of theoretical physics” would incite a “butterfly effect” and would forever change the world that had come to be – the world that they lived in – by influencing past events and changing the course of events in history. The government had been poised to pass legislation banning time travel, or temponavigation as the more erudite called it, altogether…until a quirky but brilliant scientist named John Killims had mathematically proven his theory of essendum est futurum (“what must be will be”). Using the methodology and technology behind temponavigation as background, he had used three virtual blackboards full of numbers and mathematical symbols to prove conclusively that if time travelers from the present influenced any past events or circumstances in a way that would somehow alter history, fate would always find some way to compensate for the temponavigators’ influence and restore the natural course of history. Thus was born Killimism, or scientific fatalism, had which allowed temponavigation to become first an acceptable activity, then a routine historical research technique, and finally a leisure activity.

Therein was the root of the young man’s changed perspective. When a time travel vacation had gone horribly wrong, he and his family had returned to the 22nd century only to inadvertently become famous…after being marooned in the years 2004 to 2008 for four years! To avoid the paradox of returning to the present a mere month after they left (as was originally planned) having aged four years, his father had purposely returned them to 2125 instead of 2121. Still, nothing would ever be the same for the family of four. They had single-handedly resurrected questions about the safety of recreational temponavigation, becoming household names in the process.

While the global society was reacting to their plight, the family itself slowly began to realize how the experience had changed their outlook on everything they had once been so accustomed too. It was easy enough to settle into their old lives, but each member of the family was forever marked in someway by their extended exposure to a 21st century lifestyle.

The youth’s younger sister could be seen playing with an “antique” basketball just as often as she could be seen challenging herself at laser squash. The youth himself had gone to great lengths to acquire a hoop from a museum so that they could occasionally play some one-on-one. This was especially telling, because the once insufferably capricious tomboy used to have no time to spare for bonding with her brother. Now, though she remained as always rough around the edges, maturity and experience perhaps beyond her years had taken a toll on her disposition.

Meanwhile, the parents of the family found themselves unusually bored as time went on, and though neither of them seemed to admit it, the youth was suspicious that it had been the more manual tasks of 21st century house and family maintenance that had kept their minds sharp all that time and perhaps even kept them from becoming depressed or going insane in light of what otherwise would have surely seemed to be a desperate situation.

Their old friends were often amused by their habitual use of 21st century lingo, while people who didn’t know them personally would often badger them with questions about what life was really like “back then.”

The youth, for one, had grown to dislike the phrase “back then.” To his old friends, it was an abstract world long past. For him, however, it was a chapter in his life that he would forever remember and ponder about. He had come to believe that there was a peak in the chronology of technological development where technology and the richness of human experience said to be hindered by it were relatively balanced. There was a point in human history where technology was as high as it could be without its effect on the daily, menial experiences that enliven the human experience being so great yet as to merit any real sense of loss or widespread superficiality, and the young man believed that the approximate time period when this equilibrium occurred had been the very time period in which he had spent four years stranded.

However, the young man would have been kidding himself if he claimed that this was even the primary factor that kept drawing his thoughts and desires over one hundred years into the past. The real reason had blonde hair and blue eyes.

[Iuvenis Scriptor]

One of his first experiences in the 21st century had been meeting a girl who had at first struck him as quirky and unduly preoccupied with her social standing. Hoping to make at least some casual friends to get him through the duration of his stay in the century before his own, he had taken her need for tutoring in algebra as an opportunity to extend a hand of friendship towards her. He had been somewhat disappointed when she had at first accepted it only vaguely and with the provision that it not be public.

The next day, however, she had surprised him. Even when he had only a vague notion of the social hierarchy in 21st century brick-and-mortar high schools, he had known enough to tell that she had made a bold move in sitting with him at lunch that first day. With a small and almost shy smile that in some ways seemed to officially welcome him to the 21st century (without her even knowing it), she had accepted his invitation for friendship wholeheartedly in one seemingly casual move.

She had quickly opened up more and more to him with each passing week after that, and the young man too found himself sharing things with her. It was primarily through her that he had made two other loyal friends. It was almost entirely she who had made him grow more comfortable in the 21st century than he had ever expected to. She had made him feel like he belonged when he truly didn’t.

It had been with her and her alone that he had shared his mind-blowing secret. To this day, he still marveled at how well she had carried his secret for him. True, she had initially stared at him as if she didn’t know who he really was and walked away visibly numb from shock and deep thought. Yet she had come back that same day, looked him in the eye, and said with shy but warm reassurance, “Whatever secrets you have are safe with me.” He still admired her greatly for being so loyal as to keep such a monumental secret with hardly a second thought.

From that day on, she had quickly become almost a part of the family as well as an even closer friend to him. The youth could remember vividly the time she had left a dance to which she had yearned to go only to join him and his family in celebrating a holiday that had yet to be established, using customs that were surely foreign to her. She had not only been willing to share his secret, but now she had willingly participated in an unfamiliar tradition for no other apparent reason than the fact that it meant something to him and his family. She had wanted to know about the very different world from which he had come and even be a part of it in any way she could.

In retrospect, it should have been no surprise that somewhere amidst the adventures they had shared involving his arsenal of yet-to-be-invented gadgets, his many missteps in adjusting to 21st-century culture, and the great escapades he and she had shared in the name of preserving his secret, he had fallen in love with her. Even now, he wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but one day realization had struck him. He had fallen for her vivacious disposition, her golden blonde hair which always looked pretty no matter how she wore it, and her wide blue eyes in which he could often see her inner child dancing but which could simultaneously reflect great caring, concern, or even a youthful sort of intellect.

In one respect, he had quickly found out, he had been a normal teenage boy. He recalled wanting so much to tell her how he felt but never finding the right time or the right words. It was unusual for him to be at all hesitant to speak, but he had soon found out that being in love was a different story. His array of 22nd-century gadgets offered no weapon against the time-worn fear of rejection and of ruining a precious friendship in the risky attempt to turn it into something even more priceless.

This had made it all the more surprising how little it had taken for his true inclinations towards her to come to light. In one of his most vivid memories from his time from the 21st-century, she had stopped by his home to find his family attempting to wash the car. With a good-natured smirk on her face that he was sure had been worthy of Kodak, she had quickly involved herself in the undertaking, acting very much the expert on washing and maintaining 21st-century transportation devices with all the mock pompousness that came with it. He could still remember that moment when they had both taken a sideways step on opposite sides of the car to find each other face to face. She had looked from him, to the hose in her hand, and back at him. Then, her lips had formed a distinct shape that had made him wonder how so much mischief could be packed into a relatively small smile.

Having figured out her intentions a split-second too late, he had promptly found himself drenched from the chest up. He hadn’t hesitated then in taking off after her, chasing her around the house and finally cornering her against the fence. Wrestling the hose from her grip, he had swiftly proven to her that payback was indeed a brat, causing her to emit a high-pitched yelp in the process.

But then, he had paused to look at her as she regarded him with that bright smile of hers and a playful spark still in her eye. Even now, he wasn’t sure if he had been drunk from love or playfulness, but he hadn’t realized how close he was drawing to her face, on which the bright smile was fading slightly as she had seemed to realize more than he had been. His judgment hindered by some abstract force, he had brushed his lips against hers.

Then, just as quickly, his judgment had returned and he had pulled away.

“Sorry,” was all he had managed to say sheepishly, praying that he hadn’t just opened up a can of worms from which their friendship would never recover.

After a brief pause that had seemed much longer to him, she had lowered her head slightly to force him to look her in the eyes. “For what?” she had almost whispered.

“For…doing that. For kissing you,” he had said. “You probably didn’t want that to happen.”

She had then shaken slightly, but she had stealthily re-established eye contact and said, “What makes you so sure I didn’t?”

Her response having surprised him, he had stammered. But either she had somehow deciphered his utterings or she had been too impatient to wait for better articulation, for she had given him the smallest hint of a smile before kissing him softly on the lips.

It had then been his turn to initiate eye contact as he looked into her blue eyes to confirm what he thought and hoped she was telling him. Her eyes had responded practically with a command. His face finally breaking out in a lopsided grin, he had obeyed that mandate and kissed her again, this time more passionately. If there had been any doubt left as to the message she had been sending him, it had been erased when she had returned his kiss with equal passion.

They had shared several more such kisses before they had decided to get back to the car before his family became suspicious.

Thus had begun the most meaningful and perhaps the only true romantic relationship the young man had ever had. He had taken her to a small but cozy Italian restaurant for their first official date, and they had eventually made it a routine outing. They would spend many hours laughing together, watching a movie, or just talking and sharing their life’s ambitions with one another. If they would run out of things to talk about, they would soon be engaged in what in the 21st-century was referred to as a “make-out session.”
The youth stifled a sob, remembering the time he had first told her he loved her and vice versa. One thing that the 21st and 22nd centuries had in common was a widespread acceptance of the fact that young love rarely lasts. But he hadn’t cared. When he had said those three little words to her, he knew he had meant it. And somehow, he knew she had meant it too.

Then, the day had come when he had cursed himself for completely forgetting that the place and time period he had grown to call home (largely because of her) were not where he belonged. He should have known the day would come when he would have to return to the world from which he had come. In retrospect, the irony did not escape him that the fixing of the family time machine, an event that couldn’t come soon enough when he had first found himself stranded a century behind his natural lifetime, had then come far too soon.

When he had finally managed to say the words that he had never wanted to say to the girl he loved, she had looked at him blankly for a moment before tears could be seen sneaking out the corners of her eyes and she had finally abandoned her composure and rushed into his arms. In that moment, they had held each other tight, not wanting to let go. He had kept hoping that his dad would find another problem with the time machine, but in the end, he had known that there was no facing the fact that he and the girl that he had held onto for dear life were worlds apart. That’s the way the timeline had been designed, and he had been powerless to do anything about it.

The image of her face as she had watched him step into the time machine after saying her last good-byes was burned into his memory. She had looked like a young child who had been dropped off at day care for the first time and was watching longingly as her parents left her seemingly alone.

Upon returning to the 22nd-century, the youth found the familiarity of the world in which he had been born of little or no comfort. As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, he did his best to convince himself that he was where he belonged, that as much as he wanted to hold her in his arms again, to have her fall asleep with her head on his shoulder, to be with her as she went through life, it just wasn’t meant to be.

So there he sat, six months later, still longing to see her, to hold her, to hear her voice. When he had first returned to the 22nd century, he had believed himself to be a fool for allowing himself to fall in love with a girl that fate had so obviously not designated for him.

Now, he felt like a fool for ever leaving her, for abandoning the life he could’ve had with her in favor of a world in which she was surely dead and buried (though he resisted any conscious thought of the ‘d’ word) in the name of the now trivial fact that it was where he “belonged.”

Recently, however, he had begun to espouse a different idea about where he belonged. Perhaps it was due to nothing more than a mind desperate for some hope to which to cling after months of rationalizing the loss he felt, but nonetheless he entertained the idea. He now questioned the assumption that fate works within the framework and context of naturally occurring chronology. He wondered if perhaps the unnamed force known as fate operated independently of the proper chronological sequence of human history. If this were true, than it was very plausible that he and his family’s time traveling mission had happened for some predestined reason. He didn’t know what that reason was for his sister or for his parents, but he knew what the reason for him was. Fate had broken the laws of chronology in order to let him meet the person with whose life he was meant to share his own. His own apparent failure to make any significant progress in getting over his 21st-century romance seemed to support the concusion.

Being not at all naïve, however, the youth did not expect his family to believe such a proposition. They would surely try to gently remind him of where he belonged and that his musings were the product of albeit understandable wishful thinking. For this reason, his argument in approaching his family about the radical idea of returning to the 21st century on a more permanent basis would be based more on Wobbyism. He would play on his family’s nostalgia for what they themselves missed about the 21st century, which he had always been able to tell was not at all insignificant. Though they hadn’t become nearly as deeply attached to anyone in the 21st century as he had, he knew that they still had a considerable number of heartstrings tied to a time a hundred years in the past. He would use those heartstrings and not his own to draw them back and, with any cosmic luck at all, convince them to return to the century that had become a second home to them.

[Iuvenis Scriptor]

Keely Teslow opened the door to her college dorm to find a young man standing there with auburn hair, a loose-fitting jersey, dockers, and a baseball cap. He looked up at her and gave her a casual smile, but she could’ve sworn she saw a brief and peculiar glint in his eye. “Hi,” he said.

The slight hitch in his voice made Keely wonder inwardly about him, but she smiled brightly back and replied, “Hi! You must be Fred!”

“Huh?” he uttered, looking baffled. “Oh, right!” he recovered rather crudely. “Fred…yeah. That’s me!”

“C’mon in,” said Keely. “I have my short story in my room. I’ll go get it.”

“Story?” the youth called Fred blurted.

Keely cocked a puzzled eyebrow at him. “Yeah. The one I wrote for our Creative Writing class. We’re s’posed to exchange our stories and then critique each other.”

“Oh, right!” There he went again with his crude self-reassertions. “Yeah, I…uh…can’t wait to read yours.”

Keely blushed. “Oh, I don’t even know if it’s any good.” She quickly disappeared into her room, from which the sound of moving books and shuffling papers could be heard. “What about your story?” she called as she rummaged through her stuff. “What’s it about?”

A look of panic struck Fred’s face. He ran his hands over his person, and when he struck the right leg pocket of his dockers, a light bulb seemed to appear over his head. “Uh…it’s a…sci-fi,” he said, pulling out four typed pages of text. “And a romance.”

“Oh, I love romance!” she said as she reappeared in the small living room with a notebook under her arm. “But I can’t say I’ve ever met a boy who likes it.”

He shrugged. “I’m not your average guy,” he said. “Speaking of which, before we do this, I have to ask you something.”

“Sure,” she replied.

He breathed in deeply and then exhaled. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

For a moment, she looked surprised at his question. Then, for the briefest moment, a downcast expression daunted her pretty face. It promptly disappeared and was replaced by another casual, cute smile. “No,” she answered. “What’s it to you?”

Fred shrugged. “Well, I was just thinking…”

“Look,” Keely stopped him hesitantly, “you’re probably a really nice guy, but…I just don’t really feel liked dating right now.” She looked at him apologetically.

Fred nodded. “I understand. If you change your mind, let me know.”

"Alright,” she responded half-heartedly. “Anyway, do you want to go first or do you want me to?”

Fred seemed to speak with a subtle enthusiasm now, and she inwardly wondered where it had come from. “I think I’ll go first,” he said. “In fact, if you don’t mind, I’d like to read it to you myself.”

“Oh,” Keely said with a smile. “Sure, why not? The prof didn’t say we couldn’t do that.”

“Good,” said Fred.

Keely took a seat on her couch with her hands in her lap, encouraging him with her eyes. Sighing, Fred took a seat in a chair across from her and brought his four pages in front of him. He gave her a quick smile that Keely couldn’t quite interpret before he began reading. She became engrossed pretty quickly, but as he continued to read, she became more than engrossed. Every now and then, Fred would glance up at her. From those glances, he could see her facial expression change. As the story progressed, interest turned to nostalgia and nostalgia turned to sympathy with a hint of reminiscence. As he reached the last half of the third page, he observed her eyes growing visibly moist. He hadn’t finished the first half of page four before tears had begun to escape from her blue orbs. Finally, as he read the last paragraph, she let out a small sob.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. Is it that bad?”

“Gosh, no!” she said, smiling warmly through her tears. “It’s wonderful! I’m sorry,…it’s just so sad! You have to keep writing! It’s not done, by any stretch of the imagination.”

Fred chuckled. “If I’d have known he was that good, I would’ve written a happier story.”

“It’s not over is it?” she said with a final sniffle before standing up slightly uneasily. “I mean, did he convince his family to go back? Did they get back together? What happens next?” She whined. “You can’t leave a crying girl hanging like this!”

Fred chuckled again. “No, it’s not over,” he reassured her. “The rest…just hasn’t been written yet.”

“Well, what happens?” she asked, eagerness showing despite her eyes still being not at all dry. “It’s just so good. It makes you really feel for them.”

Fred gave her a strangely knowing smile and averted his gaze. “There are just so many ways I could end this. I want it to have a happy ending, but I just don’t know what would be the best. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Sure,” she responded eagerly.

Fred pursed his lips and turned his back to her to look out the window. “What would you think of this scenario: Before he goes to have that conversation with his family, he decides to write down everything that happened and everything he felt. Maybe because he thinks getting it all out might help him deal with it if his attempt at persuasion failed. I don’t know. Anyway, he talks to his family, using every single heartstring he knows they have to the 21st century to convince them all to go back to where they had spent some of the most…interesting years of their lives. He reminds them of all the little mishaps and misunderstandings they had, how much fun it could sometimes be doing things the old-fashioned way. He uses every persuasive trick in the book, and…he succeeds.”

Keely’s happy squeal was hindered by her lingering sadness, but it was still quite obvious.

“I thought you’d like that,” remarked Fred. “So, long story short, they all pack up their stuff and leave the 22nd century for good. But, suddenly the youth has a thought.” He turned back to face her.

She was visibly disappointed by his last statement, but her eyes remained wide with anticipation. “What?” she asked simply.

“It had been quite a while since he’d left the 21st century. Several months. That may have been enough time for her to get over him and start dating again.”

Realization played in her eyes. “There may have been someone else.”

“Exactly,” said Fred. “So, he decides he has to find out if she’s moved on. After all, he gave her no reason to think he’d ever be back.”

“Right,” nodded Keely. “So what did he do?”

Fred turned his eyes to the floor, pausing for dramatic effect. “He used…one of his futuristic devices…to disguise himself…as one of her classmates. He went to see her in his dorm, and just his luck, the classmate he had chosen to impersonate apparently was her partner in some writing thing. They were s’posed to…exchange some stuff that they’d written.”

“Like you and me!” she said, a slight squeak in her voice. “Using real life events as inspiration. Good strategy.”

Fred grinned at her. “So, how do you like that scenario so far?” he said, inching towards her.

“I like where this is going,” she replied, surprised at the decreasing distance between them but somehow not wanting to move.

He stopped just a few inches away from her. “Good,” he said, reaching into another pocket of his dockers. “Because that’s what really happened.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he drew out his InstaMorph. She barely had time to recognize it and utter the resulting gasp before electronic waves surrounded Fred. Before her eyes, his light brown hair darkened, his gray eyes turned brown, and his face became the face of the man she had never given up on.

“His name was Phil Diffy,” said Phil. “And he loved Keely Teslow with all his heart.”

Keely’s expression of astonishment quickly morphed into one of pure delight. Her blue eyes shone like they had never shone before and accentuated the huge grin that had sprouted on her face. She launched herself at him so hard that they both nearly fell over. “Oh, my gosh, Phil!” she cried through tears of joy. “I can’t believe you’re back!” Her grip on him tightened, and he reciprocated the action. “I missed you so much!”

“Not as much as I missed you!” he said, burying his face in her blonde locks. “At the risk of sounding incredibly cliché, I was a complete fool to leave you in the first place.”

She giggled, neither one of them loosening their hold on one another. “Yeah, you were a fool…a fool to think there could be someone else!”

“It’s been six months, Keel! I know we loved each other, but even that fades if one person just walks away. I didn’t know what to think.”

Keely loosened their embrace so that she could pull apart enough to look him in the eye. Running her hand through his hair gently, she whispered, “What do you think now?”

“I think I got lucky.”

At that point, she could resist no longer. She brought her lips to his and engaged him in a deep, passionate kiss. When they finally broke apart to breathe, Phil grinned brightly at her, and she returned it with a warm smile. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” she said.

“Technically speaking, Keel, you didn’t really need me to…”

“Shut up,” she cut him off and kissed him again. “You know very well you’re the only person I want to do that with,” she added when the kiss ended.

“In that case, giving up a lot of the comforts of 22nd-century-life for good was a small price to pay.”

Keely shook her head in awe. "I should've known. That story was way too accurate and hit way too close to home. I just...didn't want to get my hopes up."

“Ugh!” grunted a female voice from the doorway. “I can’t believe I agreed to come back to this naïve century and watch you two gush all over each other again!”

Phil and Keely turned to find Pim half-standing, half-leaning against the open door with a smirk on her face.

“Pim!” Keely squealed. She rushed up and hugged Pim, who rolled her eyes but nevertheless returned the hug with all the feeling she would allow herself to show openly. “Yeah, yeah, I missed you too, Little Miss Sunshine,” she said.”

“And so did we,” added a male voice coming up from behind Pim. Pim made way for her father to enter, and her mother followed immediately after. “Greetings from the 22nd century,” Lloyd Diffy said, accepting a hug from Keely.

“And this time, it wasn’t an accident,” supplemented his wife Barbara.

“Welcome back you guys!” exclaimed Keely, embracing Barbara. “I can’t believe you all came back.”

“Ah, we saw right through Phil’s persuasive maneuvers when he came to us about going back," explained Lloyd. "But he made a couple of good points, and I think we both knew that he would ultimately have ended up coming back for you with or without us, so we decided to keep the family together.”

“So, you’re all staying…for real?” Keely practically begged for affirmation.

“Now and forever,” confirmed Barbara.

“On one condition,” Phil amended.

Keely rolled her eyes. “Phil, you have my word. I will never call you ‘Philly-Willy’ again!”

Phil laughed. “No, that’s not what this is about.”

“Then just name it,” said Keely. “Anything.”

Phil swallowed, nervous for the first time since he had first shown up at Keely’s door. He took her hands in his, and she looked him in the eyes.

“Keely,” he began. “You know I love you, right?”

“Of course,” she whispered in response.

“And you love me, don’t you?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Pim rolled her eyes while Barbara and Lloyd exchanged knowing glances.

“Then, what I want you to do is…change your name.”

Keely looked at him, perplexed. “Change my name? Wha-?”

“Not your first name. Just your last name.” Phil averted his gaze slyly. “How do they do it in this century?” Despite a nervous swallow, he gazed away in mock concentration. “Oh, yeah,” he smiled at her hopefully before lowering himself onto one knee.

Keely squeaked. She knew what was coming next.

“I was just kidding when I said this was a condition for my staying,…but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it to happen very much.” Never having let go of her hands, he released only her right hand so that he could use his left to pull out a ring from his shirt pocket. “Keely…will you marry me?”

Keely looked at him tearfully and kept him in suspense until she managed to say, almost at a whisper, “Of course I will.”

Phil smiled like a little boy and promptly slipped the ring on to her finger. Standing up, he gave her another sly smile and said, “You know what this calls for, don’t you?”

“A serious make-out session?” suggested Keely.

“Well, that too,” Phil willingly conceded. “But…” he held out his hand to Pim, who smiled genuinely (admittedly a rare thing for her to do) and tossed him a familiar glowing ball that resembled an atom complete with electron orbitals whirling around it. Phil held it up before her, and she smiled knowingly with a glint of mischief in her eye.

Phil cocked his head cleverly. “…how about a celebratory skyak ride?”

There were going to be a lot of supposed UFO sightings that day.