Your Student is Damn Good (8)
Calis Stranoff’s email to Professor Feynman came with a video attachment.
[Alright, say your name and student ID for the camera.]
[Idel von Rheinland, Class of ’24.]
[Shall we do something fun?]
[Resonator research! Resonator research!]
[Want to take your clothes off?]
[I’ve changed into my cleanroom suit, Professor.]
Professor Feynman’s jaw dropped.
[A master’s degree won’t be enough, right? I’ll take responsibility all the way to your doctorate. Mr. Rheinland—no, Idel. So please, stay in our lab. Stay with us.]
[I will! I’ll join your lab, Professor!]
Idel threw himself into Calis’s arms. The two became one in body and soul.
[From this moment on, I declare that I am one with Professor Calis Stranoff. Any attack on her shall be considered an attack on me.]
The video went on for another five hours. It was formatted like a vlog, showing Idel hard at work while Calis watched him with a fond smile.
One sickeningly sweet scene after another played out. Feynman clutched his chest. Just watching made his teeth ache.
[Will you sign the employment contract?]
[Yes, Professor…….]
For a second he thought he’d misheard.
[From today onward, I will perform paid labor in Professor Calis Stranoff’s laboratory…….]
“No.”
This had to be a dream. It could only be a dream.
“Professor……”
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening—!!”
Feynman slammed his desk, tears streaming down his face.
Stolen. Lost. The most promising prospective graduate student he had been eyeing.
“Please! What did I do wrong……?”
He slammed his forehead against the desk. His head rang; darkness swam before his eyes.
Static crackled.
That was when the mood of the video flipped.
[Hello, Richard?]
It was a post-credits scene. The screen had gone dim, and at its center sat a woman wearing a sly smile.
[Heh. It’s been a while since you called me by name. Have you been well?]
“Calis……”
[Sorry, but I’m taking Idel. Too bad for you—losing a student you’ve been in touch with for so long.]
“You—you really!”
[Don’t be too depressed, though. And don’t go running to a lawyer to make this bigger than it is. I never forced or threatened the boy. If anything, think of it as a genius simply finding the nest that suits him.]
“……”
[You’re not actually angry, are you? That would be shameless of you.]
“What?”
[Richard, this is all your own doing.]
The light vanished from the woman’s eyes. With a click, the lights went out as well. In the deep darkness, only a single candle flickered.
Calis pressed her face close to the camera and continued.
[You dumped me. Three times. No—four, if we count the love letter you ignored.]
“……”
[I liked you so much. I loved you. How could you treat me so coldly? Was research really that important?]
“……”
[Look at us now. Between you and me, who’s the better researcher? Who’s the winner? For the record, I’m also rich. I do both theory and experiment, and I receive generous corporate funding—unlike you, who only reads books and chases abstractions.]
Venom filled her gaze.
As if she were finally vomiting up years of resentment. As if she were repaying every humiliation.
[So regret it. Regret kicking me aside back then—regret it while beating your chest.]
“Calis……!”
[You should know the pain of heartbreak too.]
A deep, triumphant laugh echoed through the speakers.
Joy.
Rage.
Sorrow.
Every emotion poured through the speakers.
The video cut to black and the player closed. At the same moment, a new DM arrived.
“Ghh—aaaaagh!!”
“Wh-what……!”
Beep!
The other party is now offline.
“This…… can’t be happening.”
Feynman opened his inbox. There had to be something he could still do.
The wait was agonizing, like soy sauce burning on a hot pan. Dozens of minutes crawled by.
Feynman read the message in a rush. Below the DM window, the words “typing……” appeared. Reading “typing” backwards spelled “graviton, graviton, graviton”—and tears.
Finally, the reply came.
Wait.
No.
Don’t do this.
Lies. Those were lies.
You came to the academy looking only for me. You can’t just announce this out of nowhere without any warning.
For several minutes after that, no reply came.
Feynman kept typing through tear-blurred eyes.
And soon, the answer arrived.
“Ah.”
The ceiling swam yellow. (In truth, it had always been yellow; maintenance had simply never been done.)
“Professor……? Professor!”
“Snap out of it, Professor Feynman!!”
When he came to, several hours had passed. He had lost the paper, the time, and the student. It was the worst day a professor could suffer.
From evening onward, Feynman began screaming in earnest.
He screamed and screamed until his throat was raw, soothed it with honey water, then screamed again until blood flecked his vocal cords.
That day, the graduate students never got to leave work.
But.
This was not enough to break Feynman completely.
“……Field trip. Cough. Let’s go.”
The professor assembled an expedition with only one thought in mind: to reclaim the stolen prospective disciple no matter what.
And.
“I never imagined things would turn out like this.”
“At this rate we really won’t graduate!”
“We have to bring our junior back somehow.”
Three lab slaves—no, three bright and spirited graduate students willing to do anything for their thesis and graduation.
Ian, Flans, Mercury.
“Though our surnames differ, now that we are bound by the ties of graduate school—!”
“We shall share one heart and lend our strength to one another in times foul and wretched.”
“We shall repay our professor above and bring peace to our junior below.”
“Though we did not enter on the same day, we pray to graduate on the same day. May the cosmic forces and the Constellations watch over our resolve, and may any who forsake righteousness and duty be punished by the Outer Gods and their Avatars, forced to pay for every group meal.”
The three doctoral students, now sworn brothers through their universal oath of the peach garden, stepped out of the academy.
For reference, the dropout rate in the Quantum Gravity Theory Lab exceeded eighty percent.
That was why they had never had a single master’s junior……
***
Thud! Thud! Thud!
- Calis! Get out here right now!
A familiar voice. An unfamiliar tone.
I had been smiling at the end of the resonator fabrication research when the sudden roar made me jump.
Professor Calis Stranoff hurriedly draped an outer coat over me.
“Stay in the side room.”
“But that voice……”
“It’s probably nothing serious. I’ll handle it.”
Yet it seemed already too late. With a violent bang, the locked door burst open.
The laboratory turned ice-cold in an instant. And when Professor Feynman’s eyes met mine, his gaze was colder still.
“I’ve come…… to rescue Student Idel.”
“Hah!”
Calis stepped in front of me, facing Feynman. She spoke lightly.
“Those behind you—are they not graduate students? Only three?”
“Not three, Calis. Four.”
“I see you have one more in your lab. But it doesn’t seem to be Idel von Rheinland.”
“That student belongs to our lab. Step aside.”
“Oh my, what vulgar language. You’re a professor. Can’t we speak with a little more dignity?”
“Even if I have no sense of decorum, I’m still better than you, aren’t I? Hm? Calis.”
Professor Feynman opened a message window in midair. I, Professor Calis, the graduate students working in the lab—everyone could see it.
“What’s going on all of a sudden?”
“Ah, Zernya. Come on in.”
“That’s…… ‘Think you can afford accelerator time with that government grant the size of a chick’s dick?’ ‘I loved you, you bastard?’ Wow, what kind of uneducated bastard wrote such vulgar curses?”
“Professor Calis Stranoff.”
Zernya froze.
Anyway, my plan was proceeding smoothly. I had expected Professor Feynman to come here.
I quietly pulled the corn-snack wrapper from my pocket and handed it to Zernya. Her expression turned sulky.
“……What.”
“Microwave. Five minutes thirty seconds.”
From here on, it was popcorn time.