"It has been several months since the disappearance of the D.S Butterfly into the Ushavex nebula," the reporter on the Information Screen in the corner of the engineering classroom spoke, though the sparks which hissed off the metal panel she welded made it difficult to see past her mask. Nova twisted off the thermotorch to listen to the news which repeated every week. Sweat plastered onto her brow when she tugged it off her face. On her feet, she undocked the thermotorch from her welding tool, and changed the setting while the reporter continued on their track.

"Mx. Orili — known best for their work on temporal anomalies and their use in stasis pods — was sent by the Institution of Anomaly Research to spearhead the research team to study the nebula which currently prevents further exploration past the galactic wall." The reporter leaned forward with intentful, hungry eyes, slavering for any gossip. "Many have posed questions to the Institution about this strange disappearance — prompted by these discussions, the I.A.R have sent out the B.H Supernova research station to contact the D.S Butterfly, though they have declined further comments as to whether this was caused by an anomaly yet unrecorded."

Enough time to clean my mess. Nova rested her hand on her final project and presentation for Internship on the B.H Supernova. One last check of her wristwatch, she tapped the small screen to bring up the time and her schedule. Tools back into the box, she closed it, and it hissed and locked. Knees bent, she lifted it into her arm and waddled over to her personal cabinet, shoving it on the bottom rack, beneath datascrolls full of blueprints and measurements. Her head throbbed with uncertainty as she closed her locker, and the news report went silent once again. It's like it's taunting me. Jitters crawled through her hands, and she tried to shake them out as she returned to her droid to set up the protective barrier. It crawled and twisted into diamond shapes. Everything checked, she grabbed her bag full of holotexts and left the classroom.

Nova headed past one of the first term engineering lecture rooms, where Overseer Mikean as he directed the fresh blood into the program of droid creation, ship building and maintenance. On some of their faces, pain and confusion at all the formulas which hid the creation and love of their machine art. It'll come in time. Her steps took out outside the Shipfaring Faculty, on the side of Irevium Collegiate, on a hill which overlooked the metropolis which overtook the valley. A breeze hushed through the campus, and she walked towards the dorm towers, though she stopped by the main part of the campus, populated by both the library holostore and the large cafeteria.

Music droned through the chatter of students on their varying lunch blocks. A synthesized beat to overlap the words as she adjusted with her bag straps and headed to the counter for food. Student Identification between her two fingers, she mulled over the options of the week. In light of the recent opportunity given to her for Internship, she hadn't wanted to risk wasting picking up groceries only to leave it all behind. If I get picked. Her stomach churned at the scenario of failure, but she pushed through onto the small track, where the barrier closed behind her and she was free to pick and choose.

Let's see... Nova ran down the list while the barrier closed off the chatter, but not the music. Menus separated by nearby planetary cuisines, and sometimes even a special, while underneath each listing it showed dietary needs and ingredients within. Her finger drifted on the smaller projection front of her while other students put their orders into the system for the cooks. Nervousness flowed through her spine at the thought of all the others who waited in line, so she went for her usual pickings of salads and cold meats for a lack of appetite. Order placed, she moved onto Neo's.

If I know him, he's going to come to the dorm late having forgotten to eat. Nova grabbed the packaged meals at the end of the delivery line. Some people from their generalized courses sat in the booths, surrounded by papers and barely any time to socialize with their final papers. Just as she had barely any time to think about anything other than her presentation for Internship.

"Nova!"

Kiala, one of the Anomaly Research students, rushed to her. Her glasses slipped down her nose, but she caught them with a deft, practiced hand before placing them back over her ears, where it tangled with her blonde, curly hair. "I really need to get a new pair," she mumbled, but then smiled. "Are you going back to the dorm?"

"Yeah." Nova balanced the packages in her hand. "How's your thesis coming along?"

Kiala groaned and pressed her tongue between her teeth. "It's going okay. We just got our presentation slots. I was hoping Neo was with you since he's in the slot a week after today and I wanted to pick his brain about my subject of choice, but..."

"Was he not in class?" Nova questioned.

"Nope. Never arrived."

Uh oh. Nova sighed. "I'll be sure to let him know about his presentation slot." Kiala continued on her resolute path as Nova shook her head. And this is becoming too frequent. Ever since he picked his thesis subject he's been running himself ragged over it. Reminder locked into her datascroll and wristwatch, she left the main building and across the school pathways, full of students from the first quads to to the last. Set him in front of his anomaly studies and he forgets the world and himself.

She slipped her ID card into the entrance of the dorm tower and straight into the elevator, giving no pause to the dorm receptionist at the desk. It was a smooth shot to the highest levels of the tower, where it opened to the view over the metropolis of Irevium. It dinged, and she left onto her floor, past the common area that no one ever used save for Collegiate events. Dorm one hundred and eleven, a co-ed dorm her and Neo shared for their final quad. It clicked in response to her ID, and slid open with a hiss.

Card in the panel, the lights hummed back to life as she set the packages on the small kitchen counter. "Neo?" she questioned as she turned on the I-Screen on the wall separating their rooms. "You here?"

I'll take that as a no. Nova stopped by his wide open door, where holotexts scattered across his desk and a shredded trail of papers near his abandoned codex, open at his research notes for 'Chaos Theory', his chosen subject for his Internship thesis. Codex in her hands, she flipped through the margins of notes, where Neo squished whatever he could within each line. Doodles littered some of the corners, often related to the subject matter, but also nothing more than ceaseless squiggles.

Strange.

Nova looked down at his disaster of a desk, then scooted the shredded paper into the trashcan below. You forgot the codex... that's not good.

Her stomach rumbled.

Nova grabbed her package, throwing Neo's into the fridge and plopped herself in front of the I-Screen to wait for Neo. Another news report of the D.S Butterfly, and she switched the channels to find something to watch without reminding her of the daunting task ahead. A grin formed on her face when she found the next episode of her favourite ghost show she forced Neo to watch with her, though the Anomaly Scientist refused to truly believe in ghosts, though he also had no proof they weren't real — just as much as she couldn't prove they were. Last episode left him with an uncharacteristic scowl as he fiddled with a clicking cube between his hands, which somehow disappeared in the middle of the episode and left him further disgruntled, though he hadn't done much with it other than put it down for a couple seconds.

Maybe I shouldn't have joked that a ghost made off with it.

Her and Neo tore through the dorm looking for it, to find it off on the kitchen counter.

He didn't look so happy when I said 'looks like it was right in front of our faces the whole time.'

It happened to him a lot.

Left in the dark, she finished her meal, and looked out the window where the orange evening gave way to the star-speckled night. I better go find him and tell him about his presentation in a week. The hunt for ghosts on pause, she grabbed her card, which shut off the power in their dorm. If he's not here, the only other place he'd be is in the Campus Anomaly Labs. Hanging lights purred along the tower when she left it and back onto the path tearing itself through the campus grounds. Everyone disappeared quickly back to the dorms or to the parking garage to speed off back to the city.

Soft lights guided her to the Anomaly labs, and when she entered the main area, the silence crawled through her spine. Decontamination barriers blocked the path deeper into the student laboratories, but she stopped at the row of entry computers. Too used to the noise of her faculty building, she heard her own blood rush through her ears as she entered herself into the system, and the decontamination unit opened to let her pass. Gloves handed to her through the unit, she waited while it hissed for confirmation of well-being, and she checked her watch.

Near midnight.

It hissed open.

Her footsteps clicked against the sterile tile, past the foremost classrooms, devoid of any students, though chock full with the day's notes on the holoboard. Some professors sat in the faculty offices, giving her a cursory glance before returning to their screens. Nova reached Research Lab A, and pressed her hand against the panel. Green light surged through her skin, and she sighed when it opened with a quiet squeak.

Machinery beeped and purred, carrying their energy throughout the anomaly lab. Data fed into the terminal along the outer wall. Over her head, time ticked on with gentle numbers sprawled across a screen. One computer lit up with Neo's user interface, full of notes and findings of whatever he studied within the lab — though without his codex, would mean nothing in the way of grading. If you're going to write something down, write it twice. Measure twice. Cut once. Time inched closer to midnight as she crept deeper into the lab, empty of scientists and students both, except for one.

In the corner of the massive lab, guided by a string of lights dancing in the clear piping, Neo Teimea. He had a hand against his cheek as he gazed down at what perplexed him; a tank full of bouncing orbs of golden light. On the terminal next to it, energy levels remained balanced, with few fluctuations between the tanks full of the same bouncy orbs.

Air continued to tick.

"Do you know what time it is?" she asked.

Neo lowered his hand from his cheek and turned to her. Curiosity and confusion both shone in the bright grays, full of life and an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

"Nova?" Neo asked, then left the tanks when his smile dug further into his cheeks. "I thought you'd still be in the shop working on that droid — I was just going to pick up some food and head back to the dorm. I just needed to figure something out with these power anomalies." He tapped his lip twice and pressed his fingers together to rub them in repetitive motions. "I noticed one tank was having some major fluctuations, but when I was looking through the system I didn't see anything irregular, so I was going to run some tests to see if I could balance it out. Anyway, you were asking the time? Isn't it six—?"

Nova smiled and thumbed the overhead timer above the door while it ticked.

"Okay." Neo nodded. "That is not a number that is anywhere close to six. Unless you half it, I guess." He winced and rubbed his fingers again with a touch of sheepish shame. "I've been in here for hours."

"Bit absorbed in your studies?" she questioned when he returned to the tank. "Shouldn't you be working on your thesis? Your presentation is a week from this sol date."

"It's what?" Nova gave him a second to process her words instead of trying to answer the question running through his mind when he'd interrupt her the moment she tried to clarify. Neo stiffened. "Oh, a week from this sol date. I didn't think we'd be hearing about that in class today," he said and jittered back into his spot in front of the light orbs. "I'll keep that in mind, but first..."

"I wrote it down," Nova said and showed her schedule when he lifted his head. "Kiala is on the same date, so for the specifics you might have to talk to her. How is your thesis coming along?"

Neo raised a finger, but then glanced around the lab. "Well, I wrote a couple of notes down but I don't know where I put them," he said in one fast, methodical tone. "I swear it was around here somewhere." He looked underneath the desk, in the cupboards, and she frowned at the frustration tightening his fingertips. He shook his head at the wall while his gaze slid upwards, and she almost heard the unspoken curse on his lips.

"Should I say 'language' preemptively?" she teased.

"It was around here," he said. "But, I also have notes in here." He tapped his temples.

"All well and good, but you know memory can't always be relied on." Nova slipped out the codex when he turned his back. "Good thing I'm around."

Neo faced her, then zoned in on his codex. He swiped it out of her hands with a burst of energy as he rifled through the sprawl of notes in his quick, methodical handwriting. "Where was it?" he asked as he returned to the tanks and opened to another section of his codex.

"In the dorm," Nova said and stood at his side. "You must've forgotten it in your rush."

Neo placed the codex flat in front of him. "How on brand of me, thank you." He gave her a quick nod. "You actually prove my point with 'Chaos Theory'," he said with a gesture to her as he opened the section up. "You see, the idea is there's this universal butterfly effect moving the sea of space-time along." He ignored the tank for her, and she listened to the thesis subject he obsessed over and repeated over and over to her, but she let him talk. "Like this. If I hadn't left it in my room, you wouldn't have needed to bring it down here. Quite possibly giving you no reason to come down here."

"And you would've worked long into the next day," she said with a grin. "And missed more classes because you forgot.."

"Exactly." He nodded. "It's this idea that time cannot be measured in such a strict way. Every little action will cause a reaction, and that reaction will create more possibilities. Several facts are immutable, but I can argue this one — no matter what, we cannot change time. Time changes us with every step we take." He beamed, then put the codex back down to open the tank, where the ticking air wrapped around the orbs, and they brightened further. He scooped a ball into his gloved hand. "Take these, for example. About as basic as anomalies go. Good for learning. Class A's — absolutely harmless. These power this lab all alone." He brushed a finger through the light, which sent gentle shadows over his cheeks and dark hair. "I've been trying to figure out why one tank was behaving differently compared to the one in a similar set-up."

Nova frowned when the beeping of the monitor intensified, and Neo got his answer.

The orbs left in the tank detached and skittered along the class, and the ticking stopped and sent them into darkness, leaving the little light in Neo's palm.

"Neo, I think you should put it back."

He put it back, and the orbs reconnected and the power flickered back to life, though it left the other tank struggling to keep up. Neo stared between them with a curious frown.

"You should come to the dorm and get some rest or work on your thesis and leave this question to the next class," Nova said. "You're missing your favourite show."

He ignored her to examine the other tank.

"Neo. You should work on your thesis if the presentation is soon," Nova pointed out.

Not that he's going to have any difficulty getting picked. He's going to get picked, there is no question. He's so...

"I guess you're right," Neo said, grabbing the codex into his hands as he moved for the door. Nova went to follow him, but he hesitated at the edge.

"What's wrong?"

He gripped the codex tighter, then nodded at her as they left through the door. It closed, and he looked at the codex again with a certain expression of finality and uncertainty. He breathed out a sigh of oddly placed relief, then said, "Thanks for coming to get me. I know it must be annoying to deal with sometimes."

"Why would it be annoying? It happens. I sometimes get too engrossed in my projects," Nova said. "You're passionate about your studies."

His smile rang hollow when his eyes no longer beamed with him. He tucked the codex into his bag. "Of course," he said with a nod. "Though I've never had to come get you because you lose track of time." He waved at her. "What'd you pick up for dinner?"

"I got your favorite from the food hall," Nova said as they left the anomaly lab, but her certainty fell with his smile. Questions fluttered on her tongue, but she let them pass to head back to the dorm with Neo, who chatted about his thesis.

I'm glad I was wrong about you. I first met you and thought you were some egotistical smartass. Everyone loved you, and I couldn't see why. I was worried it'd be like highschool all over again, shunted by popular kids, but... that wasn't it at all. Only thing that annoys me is how... envious I am. Fists clenched, her mind wandered to her project which never quite reached her self-imposed expectations. You're confident without ever really trying.

"What's my favourite show, by the way?" he questioned, breaking his own conversation topic to bounce to the next like the light in the tank and the tick of the clock.

Nova smiled at his switch in topic. "Ghosts."

"Oh. That favourite."

"I don't make you watch it with me," she said with a nudge into his side. "I'm more impressed at your restraint to not nitpick it."

"Because I know you'd nitpick my nitpicking. Ghosts aren't real."

"You can't prove that they aren't."

Neo pressed his lips into a thin line. "No."

"So..." Nova leaned into him as he blinked at her. "Guess you can't say that, can you, Mr. 'Nothing is impossible'?"

Neo stopped. "If you want to debate with me about the existence of ghosts—"

"I think the last time we had that debate I expressly remember winning," Nova said. "You conceded."

"I don't remember that." He sped along.

Sure you don't. Nova rushed to catch up to him with the lamps and stars to light their way back.