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"So, imagine a flat universe on this billiard table.” Jin slid the balls into position and lifted the plastic triangle. Dusty light illuminated her face as she looked across the table to Auggie.
It was a long day, and all Auggie wanted was to not think about work. When Jin texted about being absolutely done with physics, Auggie took it as a chance to declare this was a drinking-level emergency. Hopefully, the bar would solve their problems.
However, Jin was adamant that she needed the billiards to explain her problem. So Auggie had leaned over the barside and used her charm and more than a decade of (expensive) patronage to get them ahead of the line to the tables. It was a feat given how crowded it was on a Friday night.
“Want to take the first shot?” Jin walked over and handed a cue stick to Auggie.
Auggie glanced at Jin. “This really is an emergency isn’t it?”
“Just take the shot, I’ll explain,” Jin folded her arms and stared at the table. She wore a blue mandarin and cardigan, not quite fitting in with this particular crowd, but obviously not caring tonight.
Auggie relented and set herself up to take the break shot. Billiards scattered.
“Newtonian physics,” Jin walked around the table and pointed as the solid green ball rolled slowly toward a corner pocket. “Let’s say that over a millennia of collecting data, each billiard has the information to understand how they and the other balls move.” The green ball paused just before dropping into the corner pocket.
“I haven’t heard you say Newtonian physics in a while,” Auggie chalked up the cue stick for Jin.
“Plenty of astronomers still use it,” Jin took the stick Auggie handed her.
“I thought you were a theoretical physicist. Isn’t your head in the clouds all the time?”
“What does that make you, then?” Jin took a shot but all that did was scatter the board further. She promptly handed the cue stick back to Auggie.
“A realist. Bringing you back to Earth when you go off the rails.” Auggie put a hand on the stick but didn’t take it from Jin. She studied her friend’s face and tried to detect how serious Jin’s problem was.
“A realist that’s been pushing the forefront of nanotech all to save the people?” Jin pushed the cue stick into Auggie’s hands.
“Fine, continue your lecture.” Auggie set her sights on the green ball again. The cue hit another ball and sent it rolling slowly toward its target.
“Alright, let’s say that you, a billiard ball, now has enough data to demonstrate that every bounce follows the physical laws you’ve developed.” They watched as Auggie’s ball lightly tapped and sunk its target into the corner pocket. “Shit. That was a good shot.”
Auggie shrugged and walked around the table to line up something more difficult. “Go on.”
“Um … yeah, so let’s say one morning, you tell the others you know exactly how it’s going to work when the cue strikes a ball. You bet your billiard ball life on it.” Jin followed Auggie’s cue ball as it hit one corner, then another until Jin stopped it in its tracks.
Auggie stood up, confused. “The fuck?”
“Exactly.” Jin looked up at Auggie. “You're a billiard ball that didn't realize that the universe wasn’t constrained to the table.”
Jin waited like she wanted Auggie to fill in the blanks. Auggie frowned. “Okay … isn’t that every day in the physics world? We don’t have a complete understanding of the universe. Even you know that we’ll probably never get there.”
“If you were a billiard ball, and I never put my hand on the table, you would never know that the truth was something you didn’t have access to before.” Jin continued more quietly. “You want to know what every accelerator from here to Beijing is seeing?”
Jin’s eyes were intense now. The occasional intensity behind her otherwise muted energy was something that Auggie liked. But this felt different.
“What are they seeing?”
Jin lifted the ball she was holding off the table and tossed it over her shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Auggie gaped. The cue ball had disappeared into the large crowd of people gathering around the stage. Auggie was shocked it hadn’t hit anyone on its way out.
“Exactly.” Jin leaned on the table. “Nothing makes any sense. Every instrument and every computer triple-checked for hardware and software issues. For about a month now, none of their results have been making any sense. None.”
Auggie took a moment to catch up to what Jin was saying, and then she scoffed. “Okay if what you’re saying is true, then maybe … maybe this wreck is how you start to understand, I don’t know - dark matter. And you know you could have just said this instead of tossing our cue ball around. That could have hit someone.”
Jin blinked and glanced around. “Oh. Fuck.”
Auggie walked over to her. “There’s something else bothering you about this isn’t there? And it’s not just that you have no fucking clue how to explain the data.”
Jin bowed her head awkwardly as Auggie approached. “It’s … look these experiments tell us how the universe works. If we accept the results as they are … I don’t know if anyone can explain this.”
“You said the results went crazy everywhere about a month ago? Why then?” Auggie leaned on the table beside her to examine Jin at eye level. Auggie knew Jin would have considered this question. Jin would have considered everything before saying that something might just be unexplainable. And where was Saul? He should’ve been here by now to help with this.
Jin hesitated and wrung her hands. “I … maybe it’s too fucking crazy.”
Before she could press Jin for an answer, there was a flicker in her eyes, like an imprint of a shadow. Auggie rubbed her eyes, and it was at that moment that the karaoke bar decided to start. Loudly. They frowned at each other for a second before turning to the stage. A woman was belting an angry rendition of I Kissed a Girl and it was now obvious how drunk the crowd was.
“Wow. Confidence,” Jin commented, and Auggie turned to see her look at the singer with an odd mix of grudging admiration.
Auggie swatted her shoulder. “They should’ve gotten you to go up. I know how much you love singing this when you get drunk.”
“Oh my God, Auggie.” Jin groaned. “Please forget those days.”
The bartender finally walked over with the tray of the beers and vodka shots Auggie had ordered. Auggie smiled and placed them on their nearest table. “Nope.”
Jin looked at the drinks and chuckled. “You know you’re carrying me home, right?”
“I’ve done it before,” Auggie took her shot and Jin reluctantly followed.
Jin pulled up into a seat opposite Auggie to watch the show. The only good thing about the singing was that it brought Jin back to the normal world. She brushed stray strands of hair from her face, and continued, “You know, maybe that’s evidence for the second law of thermodynamics up there on that stage. At this point, we should take anything to -”
“This yours?” A man walked by, holding up a cue ball. He eyed Auggie slowly.
“Uh, Yeah. Thanks.” Auggie plucked it from his hand.
“You ladies going to sing?” He asked. He glanced between them for a second and then back at Auggie. Auggie knew that look - her makeup and work outfit were clearly still on point. “You look like you could sing a fine one,” He added.
Jin looked between Auggie and him quickly. “Uh … no.”
“No?” He laughed.
Jin glanced at Auggie before looking awkwardly down at the table.
Auggie put her drink down and turned to face the man directly. “Sorry. My girlfriend and I are on a date. But you should definitely go up there. Good luck.”
The man actually took a step back. “Oh! Uh … sorry ‘bout interrupting. You two enjoy yourselves.”
Auggie watched him stumble away and turned back to Jin with satisfaction.
To her improved satisfaction, Jin looked absolutely shocked. “Your girlfriend? That’s what you went with?”
“Why not?” Auggie glanced around to check no one overheard. “We probably look like girlfriends.”
“Huh. Let’s see if Saul agrees.” Jin mumbled.
Auggie smirked. “Sure … babe.”
That made Jin flush and take a drink. Before Auggie could decide whether to tease her further, a woman stumbled into Jin and knocked her beer on the table.
“Oh fuck,” Auggie caught the glass before it could spill everything. The girl stumbled away into the crowd and practically jumped onto what seemed like her partner or a very enthusiastic friend. Or friends. Wow, she was going for it with the crowd.
“Jesus. This bar actually has turned to shit.” Auggie wiped down their table before the beer could spill on either of them, and then noticed that Jin was still staring at the woman.
“Um … Jin, you okay?”
Jin snapped out of it, and looked everywhere but at Auggie. “Y-yeah. Bar going to shit is … entropy. Second law of thermodynamics again. Fuck what was I saying earlier?”
Auggie leaned back into her seat and all thoughts of billiards and physics left her mind. She couldn't remember when she saw Jin like this before. At that second, she would rather Saul took his sweet time to get here.
“Were you checking that girl out?”
“What? No!” Jin looked scandalized but also slightly fearful. Auggie’s jaw dropped.
“Oh my god, you were! Is that why you like that song so much?”
“Oh please, like I’d be able to hide something like that from you. Besides, you know I have a boyfriend. I wasn’t - checking her out.”
Jin seemed to be telling the truth, and for a second Auggie was disappointed. She took a sip of her beer. “Okay… whatever you say, then.”
Jin fiddled with the sleeve of her cardigan awkwardly. “I mean, haven’t you ever just appreciated other … women before?”
Auggie hadn’t expected this to bother Jin, so she paused before taking another sip of her beer. They had stayed up late talking about men before. But this… this suddenly felt more personal. Auggie found herself intrigued by the discomfort in her gut. “I mean, sure, yeah. So, who caught your eye?”
Jin cleared her throat. “Well - I mean. I - I feel like you’ve got a good sense of style.”
“Wait… What?” Auggie laughed, completely taken aback.
Jin looked down at the table and tried to laugh it off. “Yep.”
Crap. “No, Jin - I mean. Wait.” Auggie leaned forwards and put a hand on Jin’s arm. “Shit, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Are - are you saying that you're …”
“Yeah, I don’t know what I am,” Jin pulled back and laughed awkwardly. “Sorry, I don’t even know why we were talking about this.”
Auggie tapped the table with her fist as she thought of how to smooth this over. “No, look … I - yeah. I’ve thought women were attractive too. And there’s nothing wrong with that, of course.”
“You have?”
Auggie shrugged. “Well it’s all fluid anyway, right? I just … didn’t expect to hear that from you.”
Jin held her eyes for a second, before looking away and smiling. “Right.”
“Hey. Just so you know,” Auggie reached for Jin’s wrist again. She hesitated, and then chuckled as Jin waited. She didn’t expect to feel this nervous. “I … you’re pretty cute, you know?”
Jin slumped and her eyes lit in a laugh. Auggie couldn’t help but smile and watch. “You are.”
Jin looked away and there was a flush on her face again. “Yeah. You make a great girlfriend, Auggie.”
Auggie smirked. “Well, thanks for the five-star rating, babe.”
“Oh my god.” Jin closed her eyes. “Okay, we have really gotten off track.”
They laughed and fell into an easy silence. It felt like they were able to see each other just slightly more clearly, or like they had more space to breathe together. After a few moments, Jin put her drink down. “You know what, Saul’s clearly taking forever so enough about me. Tell me how your work’s going.”
“Yeah, no shit he is. And work's fine. We’re testing the prototype as soon as - ” Auggie felt her phone vibrate on the table. She scoffed and shoved the phone to Jin. “And look who finally calls. Just when …”
Overlayed on Saul’s photo was a shadow of numbers.
“Hey, everything okay?” Jin prompted her. Auggie looked at Jin, and then back at the screen. Did Jin not see that?
“Uh, yeah,” Auggie declined the call and the countdown disappeared. She breathed out in relief. “See how he likes it after ignoring me all day.”
“Seriously? You two are like fourteen-year olds.” Jin deadpanned. Then Jin frowned and pulled out her own phone. She chuckled and showed Auggie who was calling her.
The numbers appeared on the screen and blurred Saul's face.
Auggie grasped Jin’s hand and tilted the screen. It was still there.
“Auggie?” Jin frowned and looked at the screen and back up at Auggie like nothing was unusual. She brushed a finger across Auggie’s hand when there was no response.
“Um. Yeah, it’s fine, take it,” Auggie pulled back, and ran a hand through her hair. Jin eyes furrowed in concern, and then answered the call.
Auggie looked down at her hands. Was she going crazy?
The numbers appeared on her hands.
Auggie’s blood ran cold. She turned to the crowd, and the numbers followed her point of view. It was a countdown, like a clock face. Only it was just for her.
Jin spoke in a distant, soft voice. “Auggie.”
Auggie swallowed and turned to Jin. The numbers blurred her best friend’s face.
“Dr. Vera Ye’s just killed herself.”