The Reset

Athena pulled her goggles up, sighing as she stepped away from the microscope. On the desk to her right was a black notebook, filled with timestamps. Athena scribbled down some numbers as her coworker stepped into the vault.

“Whatcha got?” Carl asked. His voice was hoarse as he took a sip of coffee before clearing his throat.

Athena shook her head. “Nothing new,” she said. “I’ve been here since five this morning, and the pattern hasn’t repeated once.” Putting her hair into a ponytail, Athena walked over to Carl, holding her palm out. She pulled her fingers in. Carl stepped forward.

“Not, you,” Athena said. She pointed at the coffee cup in Carl’s hand. “That.”

Carl handed her the cup begrudgingly. Athena took the cup in her hand and downed the rest of the drink before handing it to Carl, turning back towards the notebook. She frantically flipped between pages. There must be something I missed, she thought.

“You need any help?” Carl asked?

He was met with silence, except for the crinkling of pages.

“Athena?” he asked again.

Another page flip.

“Doctor Adams?!”

Athena turned her gaze to Carl. “Just another hour,” she finally said. I know the pattern will repeat. It has to.

“At least let me help you with logging the time stamps,” Carl said.

“Fine,” Athena said. “Maybe you’ll catch something I’ve been missing.”

Walking back to the microscope, Athena pulled her goggles back down, peeking through the lenses. “Carl...start the collider for me, would you?”

Carl punched the red button on the wall panel behind him as a flash of light filled the glass chamber Athena was standing behind. Though what she saw was anything but a flash of white. Under the microscope, she saw an explosion of reds, purples and greens. Then...nothing.

Carl was already standing over the notebook waiting to jot down numbers, as he checked his watch. “Well?” he asked impatiently.

“Nothing,” Athena said as she pulled away from the microscope. She sighed in frustration as she put her hands on her hips, shaking her head.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“Athena,” Carl said, “what are the odds that this was going to work? We’ve been trying for the last two years.”

“I know,” Athena said. “I know.”

“So why’d you even call me in today?” Carl asked. “It’s our last week, Athena. If we don’t find--”

“If we don’t find the origin of the universe within the next 45 minutes,” Athena interrupted, “that $20,000 grant we received last month will be for nothing.”

The chamber fell silent.

“I know he wanted this, Athena,” Carl said. “Greg was a great guy, and a great scientist - but this was his dream, not yours.”

Athena leered at Carl in response, crossing her arms as she tried to steady her anxious shakes. It didn’t help much. “Greg was my best friend, Carl,” Athena said, a tear falling down her cheek. “This was his life’s mission, you know that.”

“I know,” Carl said. “But you need to know when it’s time to give up on dreams. They don’t always come true.”

A long silence presumed.

“If I stop this now, Carl,” Athena whispered, “then he’s truly gone.”

Carl turned away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Athena, I--”

“No,” Athena interjected, wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s fine. I just want these last 45 minutes to mean something - even if they mean nothing. Fire it up again.”

Carl fired the button again, but the result was the same as the last 100 or so attempts. Forty minutes later and the pattern still didn’t repeat.

“Dammit!” Athena pounded her fists against the glass chamber. It was supposed to repeat by now, she thought.

“I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“It doesn’t make sense, Carl,” Athena said. “Greg’s math has to be correct.”

“He designed this chamber and his calculations said after a thousand simulations, a quantum-sized universe would appear through chance alone. We already know the elements needed to create a universe - we’ve known for decades now. All this chamber does is make those elements crash into each other, attempting to create a universe.”

“Maybe we just lucked out,” Carl said.

“Maybe,” Athena said. “Unless…”

She walked back over to the notebook with the time stamps, checking each one. Each time stamp ended within one-hundreths-of-a-second of the previous one.

“Carl?” Athena asked. “What if we haven’t been creating universes?”

“What do you mean?” Carl asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Look,” Athena said, showing him the logbook. “Every time you hit the button, the time stamps were within one-hundreths-of-a-second from the previous test.”

Carl stared at Athena blankly.

“What if that’s what happens?” Carl whispered.

“What do you mean,” Athena said, “I just told you that is what happened!”

“No,” Carl said, “I meant with us - our universe.”

Athena stepped back, eyeing Carl, trying to make sense of everything.

“Time is relative,” Carl said. “Right?”

Athena nodded slowly.

“But space and time are linked,” Carl explained. “The more gravity’s force increases, the slower time passes by.” Carl pointed at the glass chamber. “The gravity in that chamber is one-hundreth the amount of what we experience here. We have been creating universes this whole time - and each time we’ve been restarting.”

Athena felt a shiver rush through her body.

“Are you saying that the universe restarts itself?” Athena asked. “Why would it restart?”

“I don’t know,” Carl said, dumbfounded.

Unless it doesn’t restart, Athena thought.

“Every time we run the test, we re-fire the lasers that crash into each other in the chamber,” Athena said. “But each test doesn’t run the same amount of time.”

“It must be a random pattern,” Carl said.

“I don’t think so, Carl,” Athena said, shaking her head. “If we were truly restarting the test, each test would run the same amount of time.” We’re resetting it, she’d realized. “We’re resetting the--”