If sulking had a record, I beat it. Des kept asking me how the date with Colin went, but every time I went to tell her, I felt the need to bang my head violently against the wall. Our goodnight was just so… unbearably humiliating!

How could I have mistaken the signal!?HOW!?

“Petite,” Des started. “It is ok if it did not go well. At least, you had your chance, yeah?”

“But you don’t understand…” I whined. “It was perfect! Amazing, in fact, but then…”

“But then…?” she gave me an enquiring look.

“I leaned in…”

“Uh, huh?” she smirked.

“…and he leaned back….”

I stared at Des through one eye in my embarrassment.

“Oh.” She said, giving me a sympathetic look. “Well, maybe he did not notice, cherie.” Des came over to give me a hug. “When do you see him again?”

“Tomorrow… if I’m lucky.” I mumbled sardonically.

“I bet he didn’t notice.” Des tried to cheer me up. “Tomorrow, you’ll find out. If everything is normal, you’re good!”

"I guess." I groaned just before I headed towards my classes. 

God, I hope this day ends soon.

*****

Surprisingly, Jack didn’t speak a word to me as he sat down. He barely even gave me a glance. Weird.

“Hey, Einstein.” I called. “Do you know the answer to number twelve? I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out.”

“Huh?” he asked, looking down at the paper. “Oh, it’s the greenhouse effect.”

“Thanks,” I replied, watching him carefully as I wrote down the answer. “So, what’s wrong with you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re all… quiet. It’s eerie. I feel like any second a bucket of slime is going to fall on my head.” I looked up and around as if saying those words would actually put me in the middle of a kid's game show.

“Just don’t feel much like talking today.” He told me curtly.

“Jeez, fine.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Don’t have to get all pissy on me.”

He glanced over at me before mumbling, “Sorry,” But then, after a minute or so, he started up again. “Penn?”

“Yeah?” I asked, smiling at the lack of ‘-elope.’

“About yesterday—never mind.” He cut himself off.

I looked at him suspiciously. “What?”

“It’s nothing. Forget it.”

“Jack—”

“Alright, everyone. Let’s get started! It’s exciting stuff today.” Professor Maxwell announced.

I glared at Jack. He knew stuff like that drove me crazy. For the rest of class though, he didn’t speak to me—with the exception of helping me on a few course-related questions. But as soon as Professor Maxwell released us from class, Jack left without a wave goodbye.

“Seriously?” I mumbled to myself. “Leaving me hanging like that. That’s just cold.” I pouted, contemplating while all the men in my life are determined to make me miserable this week. 

*****

After Des went to sleep, I got ready for my night of exploration.

I grabbed my backpack and put it on. As soon as I did, I groaned for a second. My right shoulder was still sore after being a battering ram a few days ago. I thought the pain would go away sooner, but I must have used more force than I thought. This heavy bag didn’t help any. Honestly, it made me wish I had Hermione’s infinite handbag from Harry Potter.

It looked so light too.

Quietly, I Scooby-Doo tip-toed past Des's room. I kept frantically checking over my shoulder to see if her light came on. Thankfully, nothing happened when I reached the front door. I briefly let out a sigh of relief before a sense of exhilaration struck me. 

Here goes nothing!

*****

For some reason, I never noticed how creepy walking Cardinal City at night was. Maybe it was because I was used to the same old route, but I was seriously trying to remember all the moves I learned in my self-defense class last year.

There weren’t many people out, and the ones that were eyed me like they were considering if I was worth their time. By some miracle, no one talked to me, but some were really close to offering me a smoke. And trust me, it wasn’t a cigarette.

When I saw the garage in sight, I began to breathe again.

Holy cow! On what street did I stop breathing? It could have been the block that had the drunken guys puking in the corner. Or the street that I’m almost certain had a prostitute on it. Where the hell am I, Sin City?

Quickly, I went down to the basement level. There was barely a light twitching in the center of the parking garage, and every other glow gave way to darkness. There were no cars or people in sight, but I kept myself alert. Despite knowing I was alone, I felt like any second someone was going to come out and attack me.

Stupid paranoia.

When I got to the fence, I pulled my bag off and grabbed the bolt cutter. I looked around, feeling like I was in a 007 movie. If someone shot at me, I was prepared to do a James Bond roll towards the exit.

I struggled as I tried to cut off the chains and lock. They were intertwined and made my attempted break in difficult. After a couple of minutes—and more exertion than I was used to—I became a pro at cutting off the links. When it was free from the gate, I grabbed the chains and walked through the doorway. Before I forgot, I took out the new chains and lock and replaced where the old ones had been.

Then, with only a bit of trouble, I opened the door and walked down the stairs, old chains-in-hand.

I decided if I was going to come back to the lab that I couldn’t go through POW! anymore. I think if I moved that bookshelf one more time, Mr. Powers would notice and then learn that I’ve been hiding my little discovery. And I couldn’t have that. If I wouldn’t tell Des, there's no way I’d want my employer to know.

After passing the coatroom, I found a trash barrel besides one of the desks. Everything was as I left it: messy and untouched.

I went over to the giant supercomputer. Like everything else, there was a thick layer of dust on it that made me want to sneeze upon command, but I pushed the urge aside to check out if it still worked. If Lady Luck was still on my side, it would.

As I found the on button, a thought crossed my mind. “Uh, oh… what if it needs a password?”

I watched the dusty screen boot up. It was slow, but not nearly as time consuming as I thought it would be. After a few minutes, something came onto the monitor, and it wasn’t a log-in screen.

It was a journal entry.

I wiped the computer clean with my jacket sleeve before I read it.

“What’s Project Hope?” I thought aloud. “And if it was such a success, why would it be shut down?”

I moved away from the computer, deciding to come back to it later. Maybe all the papers scattered around the room would give me some clues to my new-found mystery.

*****

I rubbed my eyes as I finally took a look at my cell phone.

“Shit, three a.m.?”

I’ve been looking at these files for hours, but all I kept finding were equations I couldn’t understand attached to notes that didn’t make any sense. It was like whatever the scientists that worked here jotted down were only half their thoughts. Nothing seemed to be a whole idea. They were all bits and pieces of a larger puzzle. And still there were tons of files I hadn’t sifted through yet.

Obviously, it was going to take more than one night to figure out what was going on here.

I placed the file I was looking at back on the desk and walked over the computer. Maybe there are more of those entries there.

Cautiously, I investigated on the supercomputer. When I exited out of the current entry, I was thrown into a giant list of dates. The last was the date of the entry that I read. The first was marked February 2, 1972.

“Whoa,” I stared at this giant list, shocked. “If these are the entries of the scientist that worked here, this project went on for…” I subtracted the years in my head. “Over fourteen years.” I whistled at that. “Damn, what could they have been working on? Why?”

The last entry mentioned a war, but there weren’t any major wars during that time besides Vietnam. Unless they considered Star Wars one of them. No, somehow I got the impression the Vietnam War has nothing to do with this. This was definitely a hush, hush top-secret project.

Nothing was clear, yet everything was here.

I shut the computer off, needing a break. Actually, sleep would do me some good.

I went over to the lab table, brushing my hand against the countertop thoughtlessly. Before I knew it, my hand had brushed against something cold and slimy. It sent a shiver down my spine as I shook my hand, disgusted. “Ugh! Ew! Who’s trying to bring back Flubber?” I sighed as I looked at the lime-green gelatin on the lab table. “Seriously? This is as exciting as my life is going to get? A scrambled puzzle and old Jell-O?” I found a napkin and began to clean my hands free. “If my life was like my fantasy, I would be twenty times happier.” I mumbled, wishing for my dream life before shutting the lights off and heading for the exit.