Ezra knew he had to take things a step further. He had already proven that gravity could slow down particles. That it could even make them behave in ways they weren’t supposed to. But slowing them down wasn’t enough.

  He needed to see it. He needed proof. That meant one thing. If gravity was acting like a wave, stretching and deying particles, then there had to be a way to colpse that wave into something observable.

  If he could trap it, pinpoint it, isote it—He could turn those waves into particles. Then, he would know for sure.

  It took him weeks just to set up a safe experiment. He couldn't just throw particles together recklessly. He was dealing with antimatter. Unstable. Unpredictable.

  And if things went wrong, he wouldn’t get a second chance to correct them. He had to be careful. The setup was inspired by the cssic wave-slit experiment. It had been done before—countless times, in fact. Humanity had already proven graviton particles existed.

  They had a different name for them. Antimatter.

  The most votile substance known to man. And now, Ezra was about to run the same experiment. But this time? He wasn’t just going to observe the usual results. He was looking for something new. Something everyone else had missed.

  The experiment began. A beam of electrons was fired through the isotion chamber, which had been flooded with a small amount of antimatter. It should have worked. But when Ezra checked the results—Nothing.

  No reaction. No anomalies. Just—nothing. Ezra stared at the screen. Frowned. That wasn’t right. Antimatter wasn’t supposed to ignore electrons. Something had to be happening. Something his instruments weren’t picking up. Then—Ezra noticed something strange.

  The chamber looked normal. At first. Then he saw it. One side of the chamber—the exit point of the electron beam—It was warm. Ezra grabbed an IR ser thermometer and took a reading. There it was. The temperature was higher than it should have been.

  Not by much. But enough. Curious, he reached forward, pressing his hand against the exit panel. -ZAP!-

  A sharp electric shock shot through his fingers. Ezra jerked his hand back. What the fuck?

  His mind raced. The electrons should have passed through. That was the whole point of the experiment. But they hadn’t. Instead—They had built up at the exit point. They were stuck. Stopped.

  Ezra’s heart pounded. If antimatter was supposed to be slowing things down, then how had it completely halted the electrons? Unless—Ezra rushed back to the whiteboard.

  Started scribbling equations. Numbers. Patterns. Connections. Antimatter had always been used in reactors, refined into energy. But here? It wasn’t behaving like energy.

  It was blocking flow. Not just slowing it down—Stopping it. That didn’t fit. That didn’t make sense. There had to be a middle ground.

  A bance between the wave-slowing effect of gravity and the particle-halting force of antimatter.

  If he could figure it out—He might be able to manipute electrons at will. But the math wasn’t supporting it. Every equation—every formu—came up wrong. Ezra knew what he was seeing. He knew what was happening.

  But the numbers weren’t agreeing with reality. Which meant—It wasn’t his theory that was fwed. It was the physics itself. He was missing something. Something big.

  Ezra stepped back from the board, running a hand down his face. He was so close. So, so close. But until he found the missing variable… He wasn’t sure if he was on the verge of a breakthrough—Or about to run himself straight into a dead end.

  After weeks of pushing himself in the b, Ezra hits a wall. His brain feels fried. His calcutions aren’t adding up. Nothing he tries feels right. So—He does what he and Haru used to do whenever they were stuck.

  He takes a break.

  Ezra found himself at the old ramen shop he and Haru used to hit up after long shifts. The little hole-in-the-wall joint was tucked between two towering buildings, steam always rolling from its open kitchen, the smell of broth thick in the air. He slid into their usual booth, the one in the corner with the cracked tabletop and faded graffiti carved into the wood.

  Without thinking, he ordered the same thing Haru always got—miso ramen with extra pork belly. The old man behind the counter gave him a knowing nod, like he remembered them. Like he knew someone was missing. Ezra sat there, staring at the empty seat across from him, listening to the hum of the city outside, the ctter of chopsticks, the faint echo of Haru’s ughter still lingering in the space between them.

  While he’s sitting there, lost in thought, something happens.

  Something small.

  Something ordinary.

  A storm is rolling in. A car’s headlights flicker as it drives over a pothole. A street vendor’s paper sign keeps flipping back and forth in the wind. And then—He hears a familiar voice.

  "Kiddo."

  Ezra freezes. Turns around. And there he is. Mr. Shoece. Sitting at the bench next to him. Like he had been there the whole time. Like he had never left. He’s dressed casually, legs crossed, his ever-present smirk lingering at the edges of his lips. Ezra stares. "Jesus fucking Christ."

  Mr. Shoece chuckles. "Not quite, but close."

  Ezra rubs his temples. "I’m losing my mind. This is it. My brain’s cooked. Do you know how many weeks I’ve been banging my head against the wall?"

  "Yeah, actually," Mr. Shoece replies, pulling out a small notebook. "Thirty-six days, give or take a few hours. I was wondering how long it’d take for you to look up from your equations."

  Ezra gres. "You could’ve saved me some time."

  Shoece just shrugs. "Nah. Some things ya gotta figure out for yourself."

  Ezra exhales sharply. "So why are you here?"

  Shoece gestures to the storm rolling in. "Just enjoying the view."

  Ezra follows his gaze. Lightning fshes in the distance. The clouds are moving in thick waves. The wind picks up, making the street vendor’s paper sign flutter wildly again. Ezra’s eyes linger on it.

  The sign flips one way. Then flips back. Back and forth. Repeating. Like a wave…

  And then—it hits him.

  Ezra grabs his head. "Holy shit."

  Mr. Shoece chuckles. "There it is."

  Ezra looks at him, eyes wide. "The bance isn’t in either the wave or the particle. It’s in both. It’s about osciltion—the inversion of the wave."

  Shoece just smiles. "Took ya long enough."

  Ezra can’t believe it. All this time—he was trying to pick one side or the other. But that’s not how reality works. It’s always both. Wave and particle. Gravity and time. A push and pull.

  Haru was right. Everything has a pattern. Ezra just needed to stop looking at it like an equation— And start looking at it like a game. A dance. A constant back and forth. And that’s the key.

  He turns to Mr. Shoece, exhirated. "Okay, so now what?"

  Shoece leans back. "You tell me."

  Ezra opens his mouth—then pauses. Mr. Shoece is already gone. Ezra sits there, staring at the empty bench. The street vendor’s sign flutters again.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  Ezra grins. This? This was gonna be fun.

  Ezra sat at his b bench, rubbing his temples, staring at the chaotic scrawls covering his whiteboard. He was close. Too close to quit now.

  Alright, so—waves slow time down. That was a given. The particle? A barrier. A boundary. An anchor point. What if he used that barrier to lock the effect into pce? Like.. a timestamp? He wouldn’t need nearly as much anti-gravity as before. Just a tiny sample. A microscopic amount, contained, controlled.

  It should be enough. But the gravity waves… Those were the real problem.

  Inverting them was easy enough—he had already proved that. But control? Pinpoint precision? That was another story. If he wanted perfect synchronization between the gravity waves and the movement of electrons, he needed something faster than human hands.

  That’s when the idea hit him. Ezra turned to his phone. "Ki Ki."

  The AI assistant blinked to life. "Yes, Ezra?"

  "I need you to write me a program."

  Ki Ki’s interface pulsed. "What kind of program?"

  Ezra cracked his knuckles. "Something simple. Just another AI—nothing fancy. Its only job is to control the gravity waves." If he could tune the graviton field just right—if he could match the phases of the waves with the exact speed of the electrons… Then he could observe it.

  Measure it.

  Prove it.

  The next experiment was set. The AI-controlled graviton generator sat below a tiny antimatter sample. Beside it? The test circuit. In theory, if the AI was precise enough, the electrons should flow in reverse. Ezra took a deep breath. "Alright. Let’s do this." He flipped the switch.

  The hum of the gravity generator filled the air. Ezra’s eyes flicked to the monitor. The AI adjusted the graviton waves. The antimatter reacted. And then—It worked.

  It fucking worked.

  Ezra’s breath caught in his throat as he saw it on the screen. The electrons weren’t just slowing down. They were moving backward. He did it. He actually did it. Then—KA-BOOM!!

  The shockwave rocked the b. Ezra stumbled back as a deafening crash filled the air. Gss shattered. Instruments toppled over. The power flickered. His experiment was in ruins. The antimatter had burned out instantly. Used up.

  Completely annihited. Ezra stood there, stunned, hands still gripping the desk. The b didn’t ignite. But his work was destroyed. It took a moment before he finally exhaled.

  His pulse was still racing. He turned to the computer. Pulled up the recorded footage. Watched frame by frame. And there it was. Before the detonation—Before the catastrophic failure—It worked.

  His fingers shook as he pyed it back again. The proof was right there. But now? Now came the hard part. Measuring it.

  Ezra set up in a reinforced b this time. If he was going to keep blowing shit up, he needed a controlled space for it. The room was sterile—white walls, reinforced barriers, a single isoted chamber for his experiments.

  And in the center? A canvas. A can of paint. And his prototype.

  He had spent days adjusting the AI’s control parameters. If the calcutions were even slightly off, the antimatter would burn out again. Ezra wasn’t just looking for results this time. He was looking for proof.

  Proof that reality could be reversed. Even if only for a fraction of a second.

  The setup was simple. Ezra spttered paint across the canvas. Thick, bold strokes, chaotic sprays of red, blue, and white. This wasn’t just an experiment. It was art. A snapshot of entropy. The before. Now, he wanted to see the after.

  Ezra took a deep breath. Flicked the switch. The machine hummed to life. The graviton waves pulsed through the air. Ezra watched—waiting. And then—Some of the paint flickered.

  Like it had second thoughts. Like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to stay on the canvas— Or go back. And then—It went back.

  Droplets of paint lifted off the canvas. Some hovered. Some spiraled backward, retracing their sptter marks. And some—-WHOOSH- Sucked straight back into the paint can.

  Ezra’s jaw dropped. It worked. And then—BOOM. Another explosion.

  When the dust settled, Ezra stared at the footage. Frame by frame. Analyzing. Calcuting. And there it was. 20%.

  20% of the paint had reversed before the antimatter detonated. Before reality caught up and shut it down. Ezra leaned back in his chair, running a hand down his face. He was so close. Oh, he was onto something big.