Quarks

“Let’s begin our lesson with quarks.” Aki said, writing the word quark on the blackboard.

“Teach, what is a quark?” I then ask. But then I remembered that asking Aki is a bad idea. He is only going to yap and not actually teach me anything.

“Be a little patient. I am going to explain it.” Aki said back.

“Ooh, are we talking about quarks?” Mizuki came bursting through the door. “In that case, let me explain it!” She pushes Aki to the side, grabbing a chalk.

“Hey, I am the teacher here.” Aki tried to grab the chalk back.

“Remember that poor class of kids you tried to teach with the classic lab rules?” Mizuki resisted. “They didn’t understand anything you did!”

“As if you could do better!”

“I can and I will prove it now!” She pushes Aki fully to the side.

Mizuki clears her throat and writes something on the blackboard. “The chemical formula for chalk is CaCO3.” She started to explain. “This terrible teacher has already explained bonds, so I will not repeat it.”

She then writes the atom Ca on the board. But not the letters. She drew 5 protons, 5 neutrons and 10 electrons on the board.

“This is not an accurate depiction of Calcium as an atom, but this is how an atom really looks like.” She started to explain. “In science we wanted to understand what those protons, neutrons and electrons are made of. So, we zoomed deeper in to them, to see what they are made of.”

She went to the board on the side and drew a big circle. Then she drew 3 smaller circles inside them.

“This is how a proton looks like when you zoom in very deep. Those three circles are quarks. A proton consists of two up quarks and one down quark.”

She then went to the first board, erased the contents and drew all the quarks from the top of her head.

“There are 17 quarks. I am not going to ask you to memorize them all. But you should know that the smallest form of matter we can search is quarks. Everything is made out of quarks.”

“Wait, but then what are quarks made of?” I then asked raising my hand.

“Good question.” Mizuki said. “At that point, we will get into string theory. It is a theory that everything is made out of strings like the strings on a violin. But this is too complex for you.”

Mizuki then cleared out the right side of the board. “Alongside quarks, there are other particles like bosons and stuff that explain forces like how a graviton is the cause of gravity. But we don’t have proof of that yet, only theories.”

She then drew the human cell on the board. It looked a bit off. It looked like there were two nucleuses in the cel. But I don’t have enough knowledge to know if it’s normal or not.

“This is your cel. It looks different than our cells.” Maybe I am correct. “I believe that you have some kind of force that you can control, and it comes from your cel. That’s my theory.”

“See, not so much different than mine.” Aki suddenly said, trying to act like the better teacher.

“No actually, despite knowing that quantum mechanics is a complicated subject, I could follow.” I then responded.

“Hmph, simp.” Aki pouted, clearly jealous.

“W-What?” I was confused.

“Anyways, that’s class for today. I will be holding a test next week on Monday.” Mizuki then said dismissing me.

“Nicolas, I am going to take money out of your paycheck.” Aki then threatened me.

I got on one knee and arm on my chest, acting dramatic. “My liege, I was only joking, you are clearly the better and superior teacher here.” Aki chuckled, taking a photo of me.

“Hey, you can sue him if he really does that.” Mizuki said being my lawyer.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes.” She answered.

I then jumped onto my feet, pointed at him and shouted: “You suck at teaching!”

“No matter what you do, you’ll never be able to win against me in court.” Aki then said in a very intimidating voice. “Whether it is the best lawyer protecting you, or me actually committing a crime, why would someone listen to a homeless, no degree, not even in education poor little guy?”

I thought quickly of a way to fight back for myself. “You attacked me at street, many people have recorded it. The rest could be considered as kidnapping. Mizuki would even protect me with this.”

“Huh, you would?” Aki then asked Mizuki.

“I hate you so much. If I had the chance to get you out of here, I would take it.” Mizuki answered coldly.

Aki frowned. He actually looked sad. “After all I’ve done…?” He asks. “I wonder how long it will take until you figure it out. Your black holes obsession is dumb, but can you really be that stupid?” He then grinned, clapping his hands.

Mizuki looked confused, but less frustrated at Aki. Did she cross some line?

“Let’s get back to quarks, shall we?” Aki then said, grabbing a piece of chalk.

“R-Right. We should.” I said, getting back to business. “How do we prove that I can control charges with quarks or other quantum particles?”

“That’s our dead end.” Aki responded. “We currently have no way of figuring out how anything works.”

Suddenly, Mizuki steps up and punches Aki in the face. He took a few steps back, feeling the force of her punch. Aki then clenched his nose feeling blood trickling out.

“Aki you fool!” Mizuki punches Aki again. Aki got pushes back, tripped and fell down backwards.

“Wait what?” Aki got confused by Mizuki’s sudden action. “Why are you so angry?”

“A person’s head work like a bucket.” Mizuki said. “Every insult fills that bucket by a drop. It might not affect a person at the moment, but after some while, that bucket will overflow.” She held up her fist, ready to strike Aki again, but then she retracted her arm and left the room angrily, slamming the door shut in the process.

Aki stood up brushing the dust off his trousers. “What’s her deal?” Aki asks. He sounded annoyed, but he looked sad. Something about Aki seemed off.

“Maybe you shouldn’t mess around with people’s ideals.” I said.

“The only thing I’m trying to do is protect her from future experiments that will blow all her limbs apart.” Aki said back.

I looked down at the floor, then back up at Aki. “I once overheard a story about this lab blowing up. What is the story behind it?” I suddenly asked.

“Where do I begin?” Aki asks back. “Let’s see…”

#####

2 years ago, Mizuki showed up at my door. At that time, it has been one year since my doctor’s degree in physics and Mizuki’s first master’s in physics. She studied a lot, first she got a master’s in mathematics, a bachelor’s in biology, a master’s in chemistry and now a master’s in physics.

She is currently studying for her doctors in physics, but in the meantime, she wants a lab to work in. This lab has fewer or actually no workers at all. But she also heard that the only person or also me was working there. She doesn’t know who I am, but she does know that or heard that I am a weirdo that focuses on all the weird things in science.

So, she applied to work here, and I accepted her. Her ideals interested me.

One year ago, in the middle of the night, I clocked out and went home. But Mizuki stayed at the lab to do some experiments. She built a machine on the top floor of the lab. It was a machine to recreate black holes. She wrote many papers, did a lot of mathematical calculations, in theory, this had to work.

But a theory cannot be completed without its practical experiment. She turned the machine on, watched and waited for some results to come in. There was a monitor screen connected to the machine with a graph to see how two protons react under too much pressure.

But there wasn’t enough pressure to rip space in half and create a black hole. Instead, a ginormous explosion happened. Gamma rays shot out in every direction in a 3-kilometer radius. People got diseases from that, some people died. But Mizuki was still there, in the middle of the blast, no burns and no radiation.

She thought in the beginning that a temporal black hole was created, keeping her safe. But then she got hated by everyone. She almost lost all her rights to work in science. Mizuki felt bad and almost quit, but her determination was stronger than that.

She pushed on, ignoring all the hate, finding every single way to create and manipulate black holes. Even I can’t compete against that kind of determination.

She would hate me every time I said her research was stupid or reminded her of the old incident. I can understand it, but I also just want to protect her.

“You would get me right?”

“But if she hates you that much, why is she still here?”

“Because nobody else would accept her. Before joining me, she went to a lot of other companies. Nobody accepted her, saying that her ideals are stupid. And now, nobody will definitely accept her. She is lonely and has nowhere to go. I guess that it’s a little like you.”

“You’re kind of like a hero that helps the people that are weak and in need. I wonder what her reasons behind this experiment is?”

“I wonder that too. What could possibly be the reason behind her research in black holes?”

#####

I looked over at Aki, and there was a deep grin on his face. He looked a little like a villain.

Mizuki’s story is interesting, and I wish to learn more about her, but I also wonder, what is Aki’s story?