Page 41 of What If It's You?

Probably not gonna be my easiest entry point.

But as I clicked through article after article targeting the more…layperson quantum mechanics enthusiast, one name kept appearing over and over.

…Dana Howell, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology…

…said professor Dana Howell, a leader in the field of theoretical quantum mechanics…

…but it’s still the most elegant solution, according to Dana Howell, an MIT physicist who served as an advisor to several mind-bending movies of the last decade…

If I was ever going to figure out what the hell was happening to me, I was going to need to get in touch with this Dana Howell as soon as possible. Luckily, MIT was just down the road…and it looked like my morning had recently cleared up.

I looked up at the gleaming structure that housed MIT’s physics department, grids of glass and metal pinned in place by vaguely brutalist Tetris shapes of some building material I couldn’t identify. The suspended walkways and conference rooms and offices that made up the viscera of the building were all visible through its transparent skin, and so many of the interior walls were also glass—all the desks and tables and chairs they held appearing to float atop one another, as though someone had cracked open the world’s largest dollhouse—that it made me want to pull my coat tighter around my body, protecting myself from whatever flaying effect occurred at the threshold.

But I had nothing to hide. Thrusting out my chest, I pulled open the door and walked in.

Inside, the panopticon effect—everything observable and yourself always observed—was almost overwhelming. A wave of vertigo swept through me as I stared at the glass-paneled walkways connecting opposite sides of the building several stories up, cringing slightly as I saw a man start tripping lightly down a staircase, the handrail that hit just above his hip the narrowest promise of protection between him and a multistory tumble through space. With a shiver I looked away.

“Can I help you?” It took me a minute to locate the speaker, animpossibly young-looking man tucked behind a swoop of desk near the entrance, eyes bright over the top of his laptop.

“Oh, umm…yes, I hope so. I was looking for Professor Howell. Dana Howell? I think her office is in this building.”

“I don’t think Professor Howell has office hours today…” The student frowned and turned to a desktop a few feet away from him, clicking at a mouse. “Did you have a meeting with her, or…”

“Not as such,” I said, sucking my lips between by teeth. He glanced up at me, apparently waiting for my explanation. “I was just hoping to…connect with her. About a possible…collaboration. I’m working on something that I think dovetails very neatly with her areas of study.”

“Okaaay.” He frowned, tilting his head to one side, clearly unsure what to do. “Did you want me to…call her office? She might be in. Or I can give you her email?”

“Oh, uh…both, if you don’t mind. I might get lucky, right?” I laughed awkwardly, which he ignored, clicking a few times on the screen, then flipping over a business card to scribble down an email, [email protected]. Probably could have guessed that one without making a total idiot of yourself, Laurel.

He passed it to me and dialed an extension on the phone, staring past me through the wall of windows as it rang…and rang…and…

“Oh…hello? Is this Professor Howell? Wow, okay, cool. There’s a lady here to meet you.” He stared at me expectantly. It took me a minute to realize he wanted my name.

“Laurel Everett.”

“Laurel Everett,” he repeated. “She said she wants to collaborate with you on research? No, I did. Sure. Right, okay, I’ll tell her. Thanks, Professor Howell.”

He hung up and turned to me.

“She said she can’t take a meeting today, but if you can wait a few minutes she could talk to you briefly.”

“Great! That’s great,” I chirped, smiling too wide. “I’ll just sitover here?” I tilted my head at some nearby benches. He nodded. “Great. Thanks so much.” But he was already back to his laptop.

Twenty minutes later, a petite woman in a chunky cabled sweater emerged from some unseen corridor, box braids pulled back loosely from her face, wire-rimmed glasses slipping slightly down her nose. Possibly because she was moving so quickly, each step so determined, her entire body seemed to vibrate slightly as she hurried beneath the tangle of suspended glass and metal, not bothering to look up at any of it. Her backpack hopped up and down like an eager toddler trying to see over her shoulder.

“Laurel, was it?” she said, voice as crisp and efficient as her gait. She didn’t seem to be slowing down as she approached. Tentatively, I rose. I recognized her from her faculty photo, though her lips hadn’t been so pinched there.

“Yes. Professor Howell? Thanks so much for taking the time to talk…”

“Call me Dana. And I won’t betakingtime, I’ll be optimizing it. That’s the point.” She strode past me, pausing for a moment at the door to glance over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in impatient annoyance. “Were you planning to join or did you just like the views? Henry made it sound like you were keen to chat?”

“Oh, umm, sure. Yup, coming now.” I hiked my tote up my shoulder and hurried after the smaller woman with the massive amounts of BDE.

She emerged into the fall sunshine and started down the sidewalk, weaving deftly between oncoming students.

“So you want a collaboration. On what, precisely? Are you an academic?”

“No. But I’m very interested in your work.”

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