Intermission // Van McCann

15. So What's the Plan?

Later that day, I reached out to Leigha. It took her a while to respond and I knew she was avoiding me because she's always on her phone and usually responds much quicker. She said she was "busy" and won't be able to meet me until Saturday. That was only three days away so I accepted. Hopefully by then we'll get Bondy back.

Van looked at his failsafe code again and was pleased with his work, eager to get a start on testing it but he didn't want to continue without Professor Hayes. He spent the rest of the afternoon reading some books on physics to try to figure out how he could replicate the power outage. He began writing the code in his notebook and managed to get a few pages written. I wandered over to check on his progress and went to sit on his lap because there was no other chair available.

"This code is supposed to replicate the power outage," he explained to me; however, it seemed like he was trying to convince himself. "Here's the power outage. It occurs right here." Van pointed to a specific line in the text.

"If that's the power outage, what's the rest of the stuff for?" I asked, gesturing to the other pages of text he wrote.

"Ren!" Van chided. "Not everything is that simple. If it was, the time machine code would only be a page long. Instead, it's hundreds of pages long!"

I knew that but I enjoyed giving him a hard time. He's data driven and always overcomplicates things when there's a simpler answer. For example, I remember a man approached us, lost, asking for directions to University Village. Van began going off about heading west for a certain mileage and turning on a street name. The man was flustered so I explained how to get there using landmarks like store names and he finally got it.

"I bet you can cut half that stuff out," I continued to taunt him and Van instantly caught on that I was giving him a hard time.

Van wrapped his arms around my waist. "If you're so good, tell me, Ren. How do we replicate the power outage?" I could feel his teeth graze the back of my shoulder and I squirmed but he held me in place.

I glanced over at Iván who was luckily not paying attention. "Stop it, Van," I whispered, smiling.

"What would you cut out?" he asked, smirking.

"I'd cut all of it out. You don't need a code at all," I rambled on, not knowing where I was going with this. "Why can't you just pull the power cord to replicate a power outage?"

At my answer, Van began laughing and rested his head against my back. "Oh Ren, you never fail to amuse me."

I removed his arms from around my waist and stood up to face him. "Ha-ha, very funny! You laugh but I'm being serious." I walked back to my spot on the couch.

The rest of the day was uneventful so we decided to call it a day. We all grabbed our stuff and headed home. We figured we'd start fresh tomorrow with Professor Hayes's help. Van and I held hands while waiting for the next light rail to come.

"Are you gonna talk to Leigha about today?" Van questioned.

"Yeah, we're meeting this Saturday. I'm certain we could've met much sooner but she's been slow to respond," I replied.

"Do you think she confessed her undying love to him and him not responding is scaring her?" he asked, grinning.

"Quite possibly! I'm sure she's wanting to talk to him."

"I'm so glad I'm done with that."

"Me too."

"Now that my mum's not asking if I've got a girlfriend, she'll be asking when are you gonna get married? And after that, when are you gonna have children? The questions will never stop!" he groaned. "At least you've got a brother so their attention is split but I'm an only child so there's no escape!"