Kerrigan Shaw tied the sash of her coat around her waist as she walked to the office for her first day of work at Procyon Technologies. Smiling to herself, she could barely contain her excitement when she found out that she was chosen as lead software architect for Project Sirius.
In truth though, working with Professor Chris Reid excited her more. More than she cared to admit. Back then, when her college friends gawked over the latest poster boys, her heart fluttered over Chris’ picture on the front cover of Quantum Physics Weekly.
Her closest friends labeled her as sapiosexual. She hated the stereotype, but at the same time she couldn’t say she disagreed. Being smart, guys who couldn’t ignite her synapses with smart banter and clever wisecrack, won’t get her number.
Kerrigan pushed hard on the glass revolving door and stepped into the marble-tiled floor of the building. She walked across the hallway, as she fixed her ruffled blonde pixie cut hair. She could clearly see the glossy granite wall bearing the company name Procyon Technologies.
“Hi! Good morning,” she greeted the lady at the front desk. “I am Kerrigan Shaw from the Sirius Project. Could you help me with the temporary ID?”
“Sure, please wait over there,” the receptionist said while pointing to the waiting area. She sat comfortably on one of the leather couch and picked up a magazine on the coffee table in front of her. She adjusted her thin-framed glasses and pretended to read.
Looking around, she noticed rows of office doors equipped with biometric locks. But one door caught her attention. That door had Chris Reid. Head, Quantum Physics Research Division engraved on a stainless metal name plate.
The receptionist walked over to Kerrigan and she was ushered into a conference room. At the center of the room was a dark hardwood table equipped with a Cisco conference phone on both ends. A projector was installed at the ceiling with its lenses pointed towards the stark wall. The walls from both sides of the room were covered with a rectangular glass panel that were used as whiteboards. Written on it, were a litany of scientific terms and equations. Definitely, not for the faint-hearted, mused Kerrigan.
She took her seat at the far end of the room, while the other members discussed among themselves. She was fairly new, so she kept a low profile and patiently waited.
Minutes later, Chris entered with a steel ringed binder on one hand, and a deck of playing cards on the other.
“Are we going to play poker? Yeah! Let’s bring in the beer,” a guy in the back quipped, eliciting laughter from the others.
Chris joined in. “Sure! I’ll make sure you’ll have plenty of time for that. But before that happens,” he paused, “I might have to fire you first.” He finished the sentence with a disarming smile, leaving it up to him to think if that was a joke or not.
The room fell dead silent. All eyes shifted to Chris, who looked dapper in his midnight blue shirt despite his roughed-up dark hair and scruffy chin.
“IT Department has requested me to give this orientation. This team would be developing the software to support Project Sirius. And knowing that most of you are computer scientists and not physicists, I felt that I owe you a lecture on Quantum Physics 101,” he said.
This is so cool, and he is so hot! Kerrigan felt giddy all of a sudden.
Chris placed the binder on the table and held out the deck of cards. “Any moment now, I will be picking a card from this deck. Could anybody tell me what card that would be?”
Kerrigan thought hard, “I’ll give you a probability, but to know the exact card? Only a psychic could do that!”
“There are 52 answers to that question, all of them valid and all of them are here.” Chris placed the deck of cards on top of the table, flicked them sideways to the left, and exposed all cards, faced up. “If I picked the ace of diamonds, does that mean that all the other cards do not exist?” he continued as he raised an ace of diamonds in between his index and middle fingers.
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The Parallel Shift
Science FictionAfter Professor Chris Reid crossed the portal to another Parallel Universe, he gained the ability to control space and time. However, a dark figure followed him and threatened to destroy the balance of his reality. Only Chris could stop him there i...
