Part 2 (2/2)

I open my mouth and almost, just almost, make a total fool of myself. But I catch myself, smile, and take a breath. ”I'm suffering from a lack of caffeine. Is there any coffee brewing?”

”Plenty, Professor. What's that thing you're looking at?”

”A four-dimensional cube.” I make it sound like a joke.

They laugh, and I brush past them as one of the girls holds the door open for me. Well, at least I didn't blab everything out like it was real. I grab a cup of coffee and head down the hall into the South Wing, and find David Carbajal in the main lab. He's a short, gray-haired man with a gray and black beard and thick gla.s.ses. He always has a pipe either in his mouth or in his hand but I have yet to see him actually smoking it. The pipe's in his mouth as I walk in, and he glances up from what he's doing and says, ”h.e.l.lo there, Professor.”

”Good morning, Doctor.”

He scribbles something in his notebook, and without looking back up says, ”What can I do for you?”

”I'd like to borrow one of your lasers for a moment, if you've got one idle.”

”Oh, sure. Not even using one. Help yourself.” He motions to the back of the room, behind him. There's a door to the room where he's got his lasers set up. I walk toward it but then he suddenly blurts out, ”What do you need a laser for?”

I turn around, facing him nervously. ”Testing a theory. It's really goofy . . . I'll tell you about it if it works.”

”Ohhh.” He smiles. ”I get those ideas too. If they don't work, don't tell anyone you actually thought seriously about it.” Nodding, he turns away. I make it into the lab and set up the low-power General Electric laser he has for the beginning lab a.s.sistants, and shoot a beam through the cube at every angle . . . but there's no visible bending of the beam.

It's not bending light, I think. It's just an illusion.

I turn the room lights on and sit there, staring at it, feeling disappointed. Even if the d.a.m.n thing was four-dimensional, how would it bend light? It's not a lens. It's just my over-stressed brain with not enough sleep.

Then I notice something. Catching a glimpse of the cube's shadow on the white linoleum, I notice it's fuzzy and gray --- it doesn't look right. Searching around, I find a bright lamp clamped to one of the lab benches and turn it on. Quickly I put the cube in the stream of light between it and the bench.

The thing's shadow --- why didn't I think of it before? There are at least twenty lines too many. I peer into the thing, then back down at the shadow. When I look back up at the cube I nearly drop it --- for a moment, just a split second, I see the extra straws. It hurts my eyes, and when I blink the image is gone. It's again a crooked three-dimensional object made out of trash.

I almost call out David's name, but my voice sticks in my throat and instead I stand there with my mouth open. What am I going to tell him? How am I going to prove this? David's got his reputation to think about, how could I even convince him to look?

I double check the shadow, then for a fraction of a second I see the extra straws again. It's giving me a splitting headache. I hear someone enter the room and I jump, startled. It's David.

”Any luck, Professor?”

My mouth is still open. I close it. Lick my lips. ”It didn't work,”

I tell him.

He smiles and nods. ”Better luck next time.”

I nod back, then stuff the cube into my pocket. I feel like I'm shoplifting, or carrying a bomb. Turning off the light and the laser, I thank him again for humoring me, then hike back down the hill toward the campus.

That evening I get home after teaching my two cla.s.ses and Tom and Aaron are there, drinking. Aaron calls out my name in greeting, and Tom points to the kitchen, saying, ”There's a full pitcher of Margaritas in there,” and to prove it shows me the gla.s.s in his hand. I go into the spotlessly clean kitchen and pull the cold gla.s.s pitcher from the refrigerator, pour the pale contents into a gla.s.s sitting ready with salt on the rim, then join my two friends.

”Have you ever heard the name Alvin Laurel?” Tom asks me.

”No.”

”Never? He was a mathematics professor right here at Berkeley.”

”I've never heard of him. Why?”

”He's our b.u.m, now.”

”What?”

”His name is Alvin Laurel. He taught advanced mathematics and physics and also came up with some of the ground work that Stephen Hawkins took off on in black hole research. He was fairly prominent, once.”

”Where'd you find this out?”

”The manager of the book store across the street knows all about him. One day our Professor took too much LSD, or so I'm told, and he's never come down.”

I stare at Tom, wondering if I should tell him. With this new information about our b.u.m things are beginning to fall into a pattern.

Who else would be able to discover how to make a four-dimensional cube than a mathematics genius wigged out on acid? G.o.dd.a.m.n it, though --- the whole thing is crazy! I decide that I will tell Tom, but not with Aaron around. Aaron will not believe a word of it and I'll become the b.u.t.t of every joke and jibe he comes up with or the next five years.

”I wonder what it was about that cube that made Felix freak out so badly,” Tom says, musing. ”I mean, it's eerie.”

”Why?” Aaron asks.

”Because this Professor Laurel has always claimed that these cubes he makes are actually four-dimensional objects. Felix sees one and . . .

wham! Mental meltdown.”

”He's okay now, isn't he?” I ask.

”As far as I know. He's awfully burnt out . . . I'm hoping it's not a permanent condition.”

Aaron drains his drink and stands up. ”I've taken LSD once,” he says. ”I'll never do it again. Felix has been d.a.m.n lucky up 'till now, but he takes large doses. He abuses the drug. Sooner or later this was going to happen. It has nothing to do with that stupid cube.” Abruptly he leaves the room for the kitchen to refill his gla.s.s. I lean over to break the news to Tom but Tom is already leaning toward me, and speaks first.

”I need you to do me a big favor tomorrow night,” he says.

”What?”

”I want you to go for Pris.”

”What?”

”I want you to go for Pris. Heather and I are getting back together.”

”Me go for Pris? Why?” In my mind I'm ranting and raving, but I keep my voice calm. ”How am I supposed to go for Pris?”

”I asked her a couple weeks ago if she'd date Felix if I start seeing someone else, and she said the only one of my friends she'd date was you. She really likes you.”

I must be in shock; the world around me --- the dim room and the cool drink in my hand --- all seem slightly unreal, like I'm dreaming.

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