From "Face Time With Timeface" by Ryan Everett Felton

“Splendid,” she said. She pressed a button on the wall, and the monitors shut down, then the lights. All that was left was the fast-fading radiance of the golden fountain. Graham’s stomach lurched in disappointment as the last of the sparkling mini-stars fizzled out. The door opened back up, and Ellis exited the room into the long blank hallway. Aaron was gone.

On the short trek to the end of the corridor, as their footsteps echoed like those of a spelunker’s, Graham indulged himself one more question.

“Professor Ellis?” he asked, wringing his hands.

“Yes?”

“What kind of work do you do in that lab of yours?”

She smiled, as though she’d been hoping for that question, and pressed the button that released the first door, which led onto the main campus. As the din of the student body flooded the sterile environment of the hallway leading to her lab, Professor Ellis spat her mint out into her used Kleenex and pocketed the bundle.

Then she said, “Why, Mr. Sebastian, we’re going to open a gateway to Heaven.”