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Caroline had seen many things in her life.
She'd spent almost two decades in classrooms, learning everything from the alphabet to color theory to—later in the game—things like esoteric chaos theory or psychological breakdowns of a broken mind. She'd sat through lecture after lecture during her time in college, pen poised above her journal, notes flowing through her brain while simultaneously wondering just how arbitrary classes like Psych 101 or Theoretic Algebra could possibly have an affect on her life outside of college.
But then, when she hit sophomore year, she'd finally begun to be able to take classes that solely had to do with her major. She focused on weather patterns, statistics and numbers, historical storms, environmental responses, and all the things she had actually wanted to learn about.
She spent years researching meteorology and climate change to pursue the career she'd always wanted. Years. And she thought she had learned everything she possibly could about tornadoes and weather data.
Within an hour, Kate Carter proved her wrong.
As soon as she led Tyler and Caroline into her workspace—A.K.A. the barn next to her childhood home—Caroline knew she was in too deep. The walls were lined, on one side of the barn, with six or seven barrels stacked high, filled with something heavy enough to hold up a banner that read Kate's Science Project!! on it in red paint. Beneath the banner was a woodworking table reconfigured into a minuscule model of a small town; houses made out of popsicle sticks, a working water tower, and roads painted down on the tabletop. A few feet away was a desk with journals strewn all over it; blueprints and data collections, notes, letters, all sorts of things.
Caroline gazed around, trying to gauge everything—but there was so much to see.
Tyler let out a low whistle. "Well, shoot, Kate. You been holdin' out on us?"
Kate—back turned to Caroline and Tyler as she shuffled through some of the papers to find her laptop—let out a light little laugh, glancing back over her shoulder. "No, I.. I just haven't been here in a while. Forgot all about it."
"About what?" Caroline said, still gazing around the barn. "Forgot about this little mad scientist lair you got goin' on?"
Kate just snorted in response, turning around with her laptop in her arms, leading Tyler and Caroline over to an open workspace. She booted up her laptop and spun it around to face the other two. On the screen was a scaled diagram of a tornado, swirling around on repeat, creating a landscape of damage that reset with each new trial run.
"Is there supposed to be somethin' special about this?" Caroline said after a moment of watching the animated twister whirl, her eyes trailing after the path it left.
