Round Robin October 2020

21 October 2020

As they walked away from Samantha's cousin, Emilia got a sudden insight into Samantha's family situation. It was none of her business so she wasn't going to ask Samantha about her relationship with her cousin.

"Soo.... that's your cousin?" Greg asked, and Emilia sighed on the inside.

"Yes." Samantha looked at Greg. "I think I like him better in this dimension though. In our home dimension, he owes me at least a grand."

There was a pregnant pause where Emilia glared at her fiancé. Luckily, Samantha was oblivious to the tension between the engaged professors and redirected the group to focus on what's important.

"Where are we going and how are we going to do it? We have no money," Samantha pointed out.

Emilia looked at Greg, and he nodded at her. "To find Dr. Lenox."

Samantha looked at her like she was nuts.

"If AD Dr. Lenox is anything like Dr. Lenox from our dimension, he's the best chance we have of figuring out what to do next." Greg explained.

"And if he ain't?" Samantha questioned.

Greg shrugged. "We go busking? Em can sing pretty well."

"Thanks, but I think I'd rather see you go busking." Emilia retorted. "Your dancing will definitely turn some heads, Greg."

For sure," Greg replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Samantha, do you have any special talents for busking?"

Samantha got a faraway look on her face at Greg's question. "I don't have the tools for it here." She replied in an odd monotone.

Emilia looked at Greg in horror. 'How does he keep stepping in landmines around her?'

Samantha began to become more lively and asked them the best way to find Dr. Lenox.

"His lab." "My lab." The professors replied simultaneously.

"Well, hopefully, he hasn't had the accident that gave me the lab in this dimension. And hopefully, he is running the same experiments as in our dimension," Emilia continued.

The three dimensional travelers focused their walking toward the college campus and more specifically the science buildings. Their walk was picturesque but fraught with danger--the danger of being seen, the danger of being questioned, the danger of the mark. This perilous journey took a little over a half-hour because all three of them were now terrified of meeting Samantha's analogue and anyone else they knew.

As if on cue, AD Samantha showed up right outside the lab building. Luckily, Greg had spotted her moments before she rounded the corner and dragged Samantha and Emilia behind a nearby stand of trees which was, luckily, just big enough to hide them all.

"Yeah," AD Samantha was saying into a bright pink cellphone (at least her favorite color seemed to be the same), "I'm passing by the science labs now." After a pause, she continued. "Mm. Just let me call Mason and let him know I'll be spending the night out - you know how he worries."

Emilia glanced at Samantha to see how she was faring with the strangeness of seeing her AD self. She was handling it surprisingly well...

Just as she was thinking that, Emilia swallowed her words.

AD Samantha giggled - flirtatious giggling. "Okay. Yeah, see you then, Kyle."

Samantha blanched and stared at her AD self as if the world had just ended. "No way." She mumbled. "No freakin' way!" She shouted, Greg and Emilia covering her mouth as quickly as they could.