Never Ending Days

Chapter 5

"Thanks." Madison said, surprised that he was being nice. She figured it was only because he was dragging her to work in the middle of the night- the last thing anyone would want to do. The two of them looked at each other quickly, and they bolted out of the car to the east entrance of the Applsn building, Madison holding Erich's jacket over her head.

"Damn I need to get a parking garage." Erich mumbled. Madison stood next to Erich as he unlocked the set of doors to the building and they scurried in before they got any more drenched than they already were. Thankfully, the rain was going at an opposite slant, and they were under at least a foot of roof, so they weren't too wet.

"Don't slip." Erich said sarcastically once they got inside, locking the doors behind them.

"Same for you." She mocked. But she knew- they both knew- that if one of them were to slip, it would most definitely be her. They ran through the main area of the company, down to the lab where they had been working the day before. They hurried there, as if any second, they would both forget everything they'd came up with. Once they were in the lab, Erich threw down his bag, which was filled with notes and books, and began turning on the electrical circuits to the prototype.

"Where do we start." Madison asked, beginning to lay out the wires, determining which ones to keep and which ones to needed to go. She was surprised this job hadn't driven her mad yet- so many little details, so many codes, so many buttons, wires- satellites even. Yet she loved her job, and for that, she was proud of herself.

"Let's see." Erich joined her in filing through the mess of wires, each the size of yarn- even one the size of thread. There had to be at least 40 of them, but it looked like 200. "We first need to find which wires are crucial."

"And then slowly add on from there." Madison added. Erich nodded.

They began to run through all of the cords, counting how many there were, and how many of each origin. The wires were each color coded, representing its conductivity. There ended up being 62 wires total, 31 grey, 26 of them were black, and 5 were silver.

"I get it." Madison said, after minutes of counting the total number of wires. "There's only 5 silver."

"So?" Erich questioned, not following along with Madison's brainstorming.

"The rest of the cords have a much larger quantity than the the silver." She said, spreading out the silver cords, to make sure they weren't any black or greys in with them. "The smaller quantity only reinforces its significance." Erich stopped what he was doing for a moment and thought about what Madison had said. Then he caught on.

"Madison you're brilliant." Erich hurried around the lab to find the box of unused silver cords. "Absolutely, fucking, brilliant."

"Actually I'm just highly logical." She laughed.

"Don't get to excited yet," Erich was nearly tearing apart drawers trying to find a silver cords to dissect. "If I can't find another silver cord that isn't in use, I'll have to order new ones."

"Which take weeks to ship." Madison groaned.

"I had no idea, Madison." He said sarcastically. "Not like I can just run to Menards and find them there."

"Why not?"

"They're hand crafted. God knows I don't have the time to weave special wires together. No way in hell." Erich stopped what he was doing for a moment and ran out of the lab. Confused, Madison stopped what she was doing as well and waited. Erich came running back in like a puppy retrieving a squeaky toy.

"I forgot I had boxes of extra wires out there." He said panting. Madison could only laugh.

"This whole time." She pushed the rest of the wires aside, keeping their color formation, but making room to pull apart a silver wire.