halfshellvenus | Idol Mini: "Asynchronicity"

Asynchronicity
Idol Mini | Week 14 | 1604 words
A genius is the one most like himself

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Marcus and Travis Kleinkopf were identical twins who were also brilliant scientists.

People envied them and their twin-ness. If "two heads were better than one," as the saying went, then two nearly identical brains working on the same problem would be the ultimate collaboration! Except that the brothers' interactions were more like that of polarized magnets , always repelling each other and going in opposite directions:

"We just got assigned to the lab-grown meat project," Marcus said one day. "So we can–"

"--hack it to create mutants that will get the entire program shut down!" Travis finished.

"No," Marcus said. "What? That's–I was going to say, we can search for a breakthrough that'll let us corner the market."

"Why would we want to do that?" Travis asked.

Travis wore contact lenses, but Marcus preferred glasses and buttoned-down shirts. He thought they made him look smarter. And where Marcus was the more typical scientist, always looking for solutions, Travis was a contrarian who often seemed to be more interested in thwarting other people and objectives. Thus, they were known as "Mole and Troll."

Their current project involved reducing the cost of high-power lighting. "I don't understand," Marcus muttered over the data one day. "The phosphorescence I used as the chemical foundation should have done the trick!"

"Maybe not after I added a couple of drops of hydrochloric acid", Travis said.

Marcus punched him in the arm. "What is WRONG with you?" he shouted.

The glitches in their dynamic led all the way back to childhood. When Marcus built elaborate structures out of building blocks, Travis would scamper over and kick them down. And when their parents gave the two of them Rock'em Sock'em Robots for Christmas, the boys played with them for less than a day before Travis decided that being able to knock the robots' heads loose was a design flaw, which he then "solved'' by removing the heads permanently. As an adult, Marcus still hadn't forgiven him.

In fact, Marcus regularly petitioned their boss, Mr. Hildabrun, to split them up and assign them to different projects.

"Mole, is it?" Hildabrun would say.

"Uh... yes, sir?" Marcus would respond.

"We're expecting great things from you and your brother. You two are the smartest people we have!"

"But that isn't what happens when we work together, sir."

Hildabrun would just shake his head. "Who else could ever possibly understand the way your minds work?"

Even I don't understand the way Travis thinks! Marcus would fume to himself.

After the debacle with the hydrochloric acid, Marcus cleaned up the lab equipment and went home for the weekend, vowing to start fresh on Monday. He had chores all day Saturday, but he was looking forward to his date that night with Allie Jefferson from technical support. She just "got" him in a way nobody else ever had, and was well on her way to becoming his girlfriend. At least, he hoped so.

They went to The River House for dinner that night. "So, bad week?" she asked, once they were settled with their crab cake appetizers.

"It was going pretty well until yesterday, when the Troll borked my experiment again."

Allie laughed. "I can't believe you call your own brother that!"

"Hey, if the label fits," Marcus said. "I would practically kill to get him out of our lab. He thinks cooperation is a joke."

Allie thought for a few minutes. "What about something like this: you challenge him to run his own experiment in parallel with yours, and see who succeeds first? Could he resist a dare? Because that'd keep him busy, and you might be able to finish something for a change."

"That," Marcus grinned, "is the most brilliant idea I've heard in a long time."

For the first time in years, Marcus was excited to see Monday come. He brought his notebook to the lab, and rehearsed the whole scenario in his head while he waited for Travis to show up.

Travis wandered in at 8:01, his hair in its usual wild disarray. He raised a cup of coffee in greeting. "Hey," he said. "Good weekend?"

"It was," Marcus said. "What about you?"

"Eh… Mostly playing Warcraft with the guys, and doing laundry. You know. Wish I could meet someone to go out with, like you."

Marcus forced down the urge to roll his eyes.

"Are we still working on making cheap lights?" Travis asked.

"Yup. But I have a proposition for you…"

Marcus was almost surprised that Travis accepted his challenge. It seemed like the default reaction would have been to refuse, just to be oppositional. But maybe Travis found the chance to prove his brother wrong too tempting to pass up? Whatever it was, Allie had been right.

Marcus consulted his notebook again, and restarted his experiment with phosphorescence. Meanwhile, Travis was on the other side of the lab doing who knew what. But if it kept him occupied, that was all that mattered.

By Wednesday, Marcus had split his experiment into multiple samples, to better test different approaches to prolonging and regulating the phosphorescence. He was thrilled with how well things were going.

"Whoa!" Travis yelled from across the lab, as sparks flew in all directions.

"Hey!" Marcus said, as one landed on his lab coat. "What the hell are you doing over there?"

"Working with controlled ignition, not that it's any of your business," Travis said.

"Doesn't seem very controlled to me!"

Travis scowled. "Why do you always treat me like the pesky younger brother?"

"Because you are," Marcus said.

"By, like, two minutes!"

"Okay, okay." Marcus waved his hands in surrender. "Keep working on whatever you're doing. That's the whole point of this, right?"

Thursday, Travis was out sick, and he didn't come in on Friday either. Marcus found himself pondering his brother's idea of using controlled ignition. It seemed insane, but what if he could make it not insane and maybe force something useful out of it? He divided his most promising experiment again to try the concept out on one set of samples while continuing his original work on the others.

Marcus must have had a very different approach to controlled ignition than his brother. By Tuesday morning, he had results that proved his experiments were a success, while Travis had managed to blow up his test environment again and set off a small fire.

Marcus was thrilled to finally have something succeed, and Allie was thrilled that her suggestion had worked out so well.

"I just don't know how long I can keep provoking him into dares, though," he told her. "At some point, he'll catch on."

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," she said. "I mean, yes, he seems obsessed with breaking things, and that's incredibly annoying in a lab environment. But it could be a godsend in Quality Assurance, for finding weak spots before we release the product to customers."

Mr. Hildabrun was also thrilled by the experiment's results. "I knew the two of you could produce something spectacular together!"

"But we didn't, sir," Marcus said. "It was the exact opposite. We each worked on separate solutions, and mine succeeded first. And it was much easier working by myself, without Travis's interruptions. That's why I keep asking you to split us up. I really think it would help."

Back in the lab, Marcus floated the idea of working in QA by Travis.

"Huh?" Travis said, emptying the charred remains of his latest experiment into the sink. "Why on earth would I want to do that?"

It was not the response Marcus had hoped for. But after six weeks of working solo, and nothing but disasters to show for it, Travis was offered the choice of working in QA or being fired. Travis picked the option that kept him employed.

Marcus was busy with another project, involving slow-release fertilizer, but he still met Travis for lunch a couple of times a week. He noticed that they seemed to get along better when they weren't always in each other's space.

He even stopped by Travis's work area from time-to-time. One day, he noticed a setup that involved a familiar-looking substance. "What's this?" he asked. "Is this my lighting project?"

"It is," Travis said proudly.

"What're you doing to it?"

"This test heats it up from twenty degrees to one hundred-twenty degrees, and then cools it back down again, over and over.

"But that's not a real-world situation," Marcus said.

"No, but we have to make sure the product works over long periods of time. Changes in temperature are expected... This just speeds up those fluctuations so any failures will happen sooner. It's a stress test."

"Oh," Marcus said. That seems like a good idea, he thought. "And how's it doing so far?"

"No failures yet, and it's been forty-eight hours. It's looking good. Though it hasn't been through my newest test. I bought some paint mixers for it– I'll mount the solution samples on them, and then let them run for eight hours. It's a kinetic stress test."

Marcus grinned at Travis's enthusiasm. "It sounds like they're lucky to have you here."

Travis nodded. "You're damn right they are."

Marcus called Allie on the way back to the lab. "Travis seems to love the work he's doing. He's got a real knack for it. Thanks for suggesting it!"

"You're both welcome," Allie replied, and Travis knew she was smiling.

"And I know it's not the weekend, but Saturday seems really far away. Are you free for dinner tonight?"

"Why yes, I am," Allie said, with a throaty laugh. "For you, always!"

–/–

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