33 A Better Tomorrow - 1

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One Week Later...

Rose and Slade Wilson were dead.

There had been a small funeral for the father and daughter who had died tragically in what by all appearances was a freak electrical fire that engulfed their small suburban home only three days after the Roanaoke Incident as it was not populary referred to as.

The two had been buried side by side as was Slade's wish in a small plot purchased years ago in a small cemetary on the outskirts of gothm and the service was attended by a spare few close friends and mourners.

It was also a complete crock of shit.

The day Deathstroke died to an electrical fire was the day Cadmus willingly went back to Tartarus.

It was one of the near countless contigencies Deathstroke had created and then forced Cadmus to put to memory. Deep cover, cut all contact and all ties with everything and everyone. True to the plan, all of the leads Cadmus had followed, informants, old contacts, brokers, hell even old army buddies who Slade who got drunk with every few months so, came up dry. Deathstroke and Ravager had disappeaared and had no desire to be found.

So, that brought Cadmus to where he was now. At some run-down diner on the outskirts of Jump City, scarfing down his fifth large pizza. They had been marketed as being enough to serve a family of four which either meant portion sizes had shrunk dramatically since he'd been stuck in prison or it was a flat lie. But it had cheese and bread and was oily enough to warrant American intervention so he couldn't complain much.

Cadmus had taken great pains to conceal his identity, even if the chances of being recognized here was near-zero, but it paid to be cautious, and with his extra precautions along with the natural changes of two years with no sunlight and no access to a razor he doubted most of the people from his past life would be able to recognize him.

The pair of sunglasses he had inconscipously requisitioned from a nearby gas station, as well as the bulky hoodie on top of a floral hawaiian shirt he had found being dried on a clothesline outside a trailer park, and cargo shorts paired with the extremely impractical flip flops he sported, and the beard that one particurarly imaginative crack addict had described as "somewhere between Jesus and Rasputin" before trying to steal his kidney, was a surefire gurantee of his anonymity.

Cadmus ignored looks of utter revulsion and wonder on the faces of the other patrons at the sight of the stack of empty pizza trays stack beside him, chewing ponderously in thought on what his future held. He had to lay low, somewhere he wouldn't be recognized while he could come up with a plan on just what do next with his life, discover himself in a way.

"Well," Cadmus said aloud, thumping the countertop with the palm of his hand, drawing the attention of the entire diner. "I guess I'm going to college."

"Poor bastard," the barman shook his head in sympathy. "have another slice on the house."

It turns out one cannot simply say they are going to college.

Firstly he had to figure out which college he wanted to go to, and then which major he wanted to study. Finding a college with the right major is a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack especially when one's only outlet for searching is a library computer running the first version of Windows whose access is limited to thirty minutes a day, strictly enforced by a crotchety librarian who did not like having "ruffians and homeless people" around her precious books.

Finally, he found the perfect place. Hudson University, located in Jump City, and boasting the best physics department this side of the Mississippi. Even better, there were no known heroes who called the city their home, and no heroes meant no villains which meant no drama to worry about. More importantly, the head of the department, Dr. Martin Stein, was renowned for his work in thermodynamics and had recently started a lab with a focus on a recently discovered and barely understood particle, the Tachyon.

after deciding his life for the next four years, he needed to apply to actually get in, which opened up an entirely different can of worms that left Cadmus drowning in paperwork and the worst thing invented in the history of mankind, standardized testing.

Surprisingly someone who never finished high school or took the SAT was not exactly a potential candidate for some of the best colleges in the country.

And rather than wasting his precious time on such superfluous items, Cadmus decided he would go straight there instead. It wasn't like they could stop him from attending, right?

Hudson University sat on the outskirts of Jump City, its campus neat and orderly in distinct contrast to the sprawling and bustling city. Cadmus walked through the grounds completely ignored by the students who milled about outside of a sideways glance once every so often.

Rather than going to the admissions office or even more audaciously, the office of the university's president to gain his admission, he instead made his way to the research buildings, a long row of identical box-shaped edifices isolated from the rest of the campus.

"Lab 19, Lab 20, no that's not it, ah here we go," Cadmus came to a stop in front of the front door of another building, the glass stenciled simply with,

"Lab 25, Dr. Martin Stein. Non-allowed Personnel are strictly forbidden. Violators will be prosecuted."

Cadmus opened the door.

The interior of the building was nothing like what Cadmus would have thought based on its exterior. The floors and walls were pristine and polished and a myriad of machines lined the walls all connected to a singular well-like structure at the center of the room that emitted a soft blue glow. Around it stood a group of students listening intently to a bespectacled older man sporting wild gray and slightly unkempt hair, gesturing animatedly as he wrote a series of calculations on the whiteboard in front of him.

So engrossed were the group in the discussion, that they didn't notice Cadmus's presence until he had already walked over and waited just behind, examining the calculations. The older man, Professor Stein, finally dismissed the group of students who promptly filed out of the room, paying no mind to the stranger dressed in a hoodie and flip-flops looking around at their clearly classified laboratory.

Stein returned to looking at the board, made a series of further calculations, and turned and started back at the sight of Cadmus, clearly expecting to be alone.

"Excuse me," he cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "this is a restricted area." He paused and peered at Cadmus. "Visitors are not allowed."

"My name's Cadmus. I've read all about your work, Dr. Stein." he offered his hand which the professor took warily.

"It's nice to meet a fan, if you would like to me sign a book or an autograph or something I would be happy to do that in my office-" Stein took a step forward trying to usher Cadmus out of the building.

"I'm actually here to talk to you about joining the university."

"Surely that's a job better suited for the admissions office, you'll be in good hands there, here I'll get someone to escort you-"

"That's a thermonuclear equation, isn't it?" Cadmus pointed to the mass of calculations. "It looks like you're trying to calculate emission but I've never seen a particle with that coefficient. It's a Tachyon isn't it?"

Stein's eyes flicked nervously. "My work here is confidential, now if you'd please leave or I'll have to call security."

Cadmus paid no mind to the threat, studying the calculation. "You're missing something, professor."

Nothing can shift a man's attention than by saying his work was incorrect. "Is that so?" he gestured impatiently at the wall of calculations. "Then by all means. Brighter minds than you have failed."

Cadmus snorted. "I doubt that." He erased the entire wall of marker much to Stein's chagrin and began writing. "Tachyons are assumed to be the underlying cause of what we perceive as Time, is that right?"

Stein nodded. "Theoretically, yes."

"What you're missing here, Dr. Stein is that these particles can operate as a function of energy rather than a constant coefficient for their emission. Apply heat, more Tachyons are produced, remove heat, less Tachyons are produced."

"You do understand that implies time only works because there is energy in a system," Stein shook his head. "That's ridiculous."

"If a system has no energy, Dr. Stein, is time really progressing? No action is taken, no change will ever occur, and no moment is unique from the previous or the subsequent. If you'd bear with me, and I'm sure you'll test this in your lab, but a Tachyon's emission is inversely proportional to the entropy of the system you're calculating, so if you apply the second law of Thermodynamics to this idea you can calculate the total number of Tachyons is constant but it's emission is dynamic," Cadmus trailed off.

"That sounds more like philosophy than physics. You're saying Time is quite literally relative even in a setting that's not subatomic." Stein laughed in disbelief. "I'm sorry I find it hard to believe our entire foundation of science could be turned on its head by someone who...what did you say your name was again?"

"Cadmus Othrys."

Dr. Stein turned his head at that. "I know that name," he tapped his chin. "Someone by that name published an interesting solution to an entropic problem in thermodynamics and then he just disappeared. But that was six years ago and you're what, twenty-two, twenty-three?"

"I published it when I was thirteen," Cadmus agreed.

"And what, you just stopped?" Stein decried unbelieving. "You could have had your choice in whatever school you wanted, a mind like that...what have you been doing since then?"

"Personal issues, but I've decided Hudson may be the best thing for me now, so how about that admission?"

"I think we may be able to work something out, Mr. Othrys."

By the end of the day, after settling the issue of acquiring a GED and using a published research paper as a valid substitute for a standardized test at Dr. Stein's insistence, Cadmus Othrys became a full-time student at Hudson University and a member of Dr. Martin Stein's research group.

Surprisingly life did not change greatly after becoming a college student. Stein helped set him up with an apartment as well as a stipend and a promise that the tuition would be covered so long as he remained active in the research group and contributed to the publications.

But outside of spending long hours in the research lab pouring of thermonuclear equations with Stein, and spending a few wasted hours on extraneous electives needed for his degree, there was little else for Cadmus to do.

"How many times have I told you no pizza in the lab?"

Cadmus plopped down to a chair and fished a slice of the box. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Never?"

Technically that was true for today, but in the month that the two had now known each other, Dr. Stein had tried and failed to stop a pizza box from being smuggled into his lab over twenty times. In the past five occasions, he contributed to its consumption in fact.

"There are protocols that need to be maintained," Stein explained exasperatedly for the umpteenth time. "Tachyons are a barely understood particle, who knows what olive oil and mozzarella cheese will do to our experiment?"

"You can just mark it as extraneous variables in the appendix."

Stein sighed. "Did you at least get olives?"

"I'm not a monster, half olive for you and half pepperoni for me."

Martin reluctantly took a slice of his own after failing to resist the heavenly aroma.

"So what are you working on?"

"I was thinking about our last conversation, about Tachyon movement in a gradient. I've done some testing on the Tachyon Generator Well in my own time and noticed well what could only be called distortions when the gradient reached a certain magnitude."

Cadmus put down his pizza. "What kind of distortions, doctor?"

"I put a nail, within the conflux of Tachyons and when I added heat to the system, it rusted immediately like it'd been sitting there for months!" Stein exclaimed animatedly, reaching into his pockets and withdrawing a rusty nail for effect.

"And I'm thinking now, what if it's applied in the other direction? Can we reverse the effects, turn back time?"

"It's like trying to undo a chemical reaction, Dr. Stein, you just can't."

"But what if you could? Just imagine, Cadmus, time travel! Into the future or the past, just think of the possibilities!"

The thought of it made him viscerally sick for a reason Cadmus could not quite explain to Stein without giving up the ghost.

"Imagine if you could travel into the future, even the past." Cadmus allowed. " No one has any idea what actually changing the past could cause. Even the most minute change could transform the entire world in ways that we couldn't even begin to imagine. Undoing uncountable reactions, where would all that energy go? How would it even function with the changes we have made even incidentally?"

The thought was enough to steal the wind from Dr. Stein's sails, and the knowledge that he may have just averted the doctor from following a trail of thought that may have caused indescribable damage to the timestream was a small comfort to how the near-childish excitement in his expression fell into a morose thoughtfulness.

"You...you're right. We have no idea what we're dealing with, we're even more naive than Oppenheimer playing games with the atom. Yes, it's better that we remain cautious with just how far we go with our experiments, as much as I hate to do it, it goes against everything a scientist is meant to be. We're meant to explore the unknown, it's our calling for god's sake!"

"Then let's do it the right way, preferably in a fashion that minimizes the chances of completely destroying reality."

Stein fell heavily into a chair beside Cadmus, tossing the chalk in hand to clatter somewhere in the lab. "Look at us, two geniuses having to restrain our minds for the good of the world. It's noble from a certain perspective, I suppose."

"I've been promoted from lowly research assistant to genius? Does that come with a better stipend?"

"You're already making fives time as much as I was when I was your age, and I had three Ph.D.'s to my name by that point." He pointed out dryly.

"And not one of them came with a sense of humor?"

"Hilarious, truly. Now put down that pizza and help me clean up the lab. I'll not have us lose a chance at the Nobel because of your incessant need to bring a pie with you every time you come here."

Cadmus shrugged. "What else am I supposed to spend my stipend on?"

The professor looked meaningfully at the old hoodie and cargo shorts that Cadmus still sported. "New clothes for one."

Over the course of the next few weeks, The research being undertaken in Lab 25 absorbed the totality of both men's attention, to the point it was not uncommon for whatever few meals they could squeeze in between experimenting to be taken within the lab itself or in Stein's office, while the two poured over the latest round of results and calculations produced by the Tachyon Well.

It was admirable just what could be accomplished through such a sheer and complete dedication to science, but the reasons behind their research could not be more different. Dr. Stein's long and storied career had been defined by venturing on the edge of the unknown and what the rest of the scientific community could not understand. The Tachyon was just the next great frontier for him.

But for Cadmus, this research was as close to personal as it could be. It was the study of just what his powers did and just how far he could push them if he wanted. And for every experiment they completed, successful or failed, Cadmus learned. He had no idea before that with a sufficient Tachyon gradient, he could increase heat in an area exponentially, or in the same vein, by slowing down a reaction, he could manage the transfer of energy to sustain it long past what was thought possible.

The potential of what could be accomplished was quite literally infinite.

The few curated hints that they let slip to Hudson University's board of regents were enough to secure another round of funding in addition to giving Cadmus a permanent excusal from the many superfluous electives that would normally be required for his degree.

However, that did not excuse him from the bane of any research student's life.

"I want you to be my teaching assistant for Introduction to Physics, next semester."

"What?"

"Newton, an apple falling from the tree. Gravity, I could give you a refresher if you'd like."

"I know who Newton is Stein, I'm asking why. I came here to do research."

"What's the point of doing research if you can't bring this knowledge to others?"

Stein wilted just a bit under Cadmus's gaze. "Okay, truthfully, my previous assistants are all graduating, and I need a T.A. to help manage my class. It will be a great learning experience for you as well...if you choose to remain in academia."

"Is there any other option?"

"Well, you could always sell your morals to the highest bidder and prostitute your mind to some billionaire who will use all that genius to figure out how to blow himself up to space. I hear they compensate you quite well at least."

"Tempting, but I don't like the idea of working for anyone else. So, I guess teaching it is if I have to choose."

Stein clapped his hands together happily. "Excellent! Here you must try this cake my wife Clarissa made."

From beneath his desk, he retrieved a half-sheet of cake with the words, "Congrats on becoming my T.A.!" written in bright blue frosting.

"Were you just not going to offer me any cake if I said no?" Cadmus asked, unable to hide just a bit of offense from seeping through.

Dr. Stein shrugged sheepishly and offered a slice to Cadmus. "I had a few alternatives I planned to interview tomorrow if you decided not to."