Cassie was sitting on a bench outside in the school courtyard. Her feet kicked out in a distracted manner, her eyes were downward and she was pouting slightly.

“What are you doing?” Larson's voice was irritated.

She didn’t even glance up. “Do you think Roman is lonely at the house?”

Larson crossed his arms, “he wasn’t lonely before he was pissing in my home, so I really doubt it.”

Cassie looked at Larson as he sat beside her, “he just needs some home training! He’s still a puppy so relax, he won’t be doing that anymore soon.” She affirmed.

“How do you even know what breed it is?”

“Because I love dogs! He’s a Boxer… plus I looked it up to be sure.”

Larson just shook his head at her, “well either way the damage is already done and I have to buy carpet cleaner… or remove the carpet.”

“That latter option sounds like the way to go!”

“Are you gonna do it?” he snapped, “because it seems like you only pick options that involve you doing no work!” She smiled at him, “I swear-” Larson reached to grab her neck, but Cassie reacted and tried to resist him.

“It’s not like that, you’re the one who said it!”

“Yeah, with the hope you wouldn’t say what I was thinking!”

They struggled for a bit until they heard someone call them.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting something.” They turned and saw Jax approaching them. He had a soft smile on his face.

With the small distraction, Cassie took this chance and ran behind Jax. Larson sighed and got up.

“He’s trying to kill me, Jax!” Jax just chuckled and didn’t move, allowing Cassie to hide behind him. Cassie stuck her head out to the side and spoke. “D-don’t you hurt him just to hurt me!”

“Calm down.” Larson sighed. She still remained behind Jax however, “but, did you find out anything?” Larson said, looking at Jax.

“Yeah, my mom told me she thinks my grandparent’s place might have a few books that they kept; but other than that, my grandfather was really secretive, so she doubts if he even gave anyone anything.”

“What’s the point of having years of research if you wouldn’t keep it or share it with anyone?”

“I said she doubts it,” Jax repeated, “I never said for sure. I remember my grandfather telling me a little bit about it and one thing for sure is that all of his research is somewhere.”

“Yeah, real helpful.” Larson sat back down on the bench.

“But, my grandma was telling me she may know of a few books he kept in the house, if she found them… or really if they’re there, she was gonna send them to me.”

“Wow, never thought I’d hear some good news for once.”

“Stop being a loser, Lars.” Cassie came out from behind Jax, “anyways, with that out of the way, we can spend time trying to get to Pluto!”

“So you actually found something?”

“A confirmation to be specific.” Said Larson.

“Pluto huh? Who would’ve guessed. So how are you two planning on getting there?”

Cassie grinned, “Lars says we have to get enough speed and jump in the direction of Pluto! We’ll have to shoot off like a rocket!”

Jax chuckled at her enthusiasm, “you guys think you can?”

“I don’t know about her, but I can pick up some considerable speed.”

“Well, you’d need a bit more than that.” Jax began.

“Isn’t that inertia and stuff?” Cassie’s voice was strained.

“Yeah, it’s Physics.” He said, trying to ease her worries. Jax reached into his bag and pulled out a notebook, “I can figure this out for you guys, but I’ll need some numbers.”

“Whatever you need, we’ll deliver!” Cassie said.

A smile came to Jax’s face.

“Before that,” Larson halted their eagerness, “it won’t matter if this research is a bust. Did you find out anything from Barmen’s book?”

“I’m glad you brought that up!” in Jax’s other hand was the very book. He opened it.

“Didn’t we already-”

“Shut up!” Larson snapped at Cassie before she could finish her sentence, “let him tell us.”

Cassie frowned deeply at Larson. Jax looked at them both.

“Not sure what that’s about.” Jax awkwardly chuckled.

Cassie got closer to Jax, “at least I’m not alone. You better start talking before he blows a fuse!”

Larson said nothing to that and Jax took that as his cue to start his explanation.

“That aside, this book was amazing! It was almost like I could hear my grandpa all over again! The main focus dealt with something he titled a ‘rift’.” The pair looked to one another, “he was saying how these rifts are only felt by Dimensional Beings by an increase of pressure. It’s almost unnoticed by humans.”

“Most of this I could have told you, but that wasn’t written anywhere in that book.” Larson’s intrigue only grew.

Jax smirked, “yeah, nowhere in the pages.” He moved closer, presenting the book to them, “you’ll notice on page forty, there’s just this random paragraph at the bottom.”

“Yeah, some leftover information.” Larson was dismissive.

“It’s not,” Jax seemed excited, “the way he describes a rift’s formation here, he uses the word rips here, but that’s not how he talks about it at all before or after this point. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Larson shrugged, not seeing the point.

Cassie scoffed, “yeah it is.” Larson looked at her, “any decent writer knows that if you use a certain way to describe something, you usually keep it the same throughout. If an author suddenly changes a descriptive word, it means they want you to pay attention to that small, subtle change.”

“Exactly,” Jax said, “so I did. The paragraph said you guys ‘rip rifts from their back’ which doesn’t make much sense. I realized though that he wanted the ‘reader’ to ‘rip’ the ‘back’ of the ‘book’.” Jax showed them all his markings. The red circles around those words as well as all of Jax’s handwriting along the margins of the book was a clear indicator of his hard work. “In the back was this sheet of paper.” He presented the folded sheet to them, “in it, was everything I told you.” Jax finished.

“That’s so cool!” Cassie exclaimed, “everyone knows you’re super smart, but I didn’t think it’d be like this! You’re really amazing Jax!”

Jax wasn’t prepared for her praise and wound up shying away, “thanks… I didn’t think it was all that impressive.”

“She’s right though,” Larson began, “looks like you’re useful after all.”

Jax felt his initial embarrassment fade away, “I’d have to side more with Cassie now. I’ve studied my whole life in every scientific field I could handle. There was no way I’d be useless to you.” His position was stated with the utmost confidence.

Larson just stood there with nothing to say.

Cassie giggled, “that’s what I’m talking about!”

Jax looked at Cassie, “you know, I always thought you were really quiet. Guess you’re not just a cute shy girl.”

Cassie’s face lost its elation and slowly turned to an expression of utter horror. Her face went flush at his words.

“Ugh, here we go.”

“So it’s true that most shy girls don’t know they’re really cute. I guess that’s why you all usually are.”

“C-cute? In what world!” Cassie turned around and hid her face from Jax, “I’m a demonic monster! How c-could one of the prettiest p-people in school say I’m cute?” She seemed to be speaking more to herself at this point.

Jax couldn’t help but enjoy her reaction.

“While she’s malfunctioning, can we get back to business?” Jax gave Larson his attention, “if you’re so useful, then maybe you can find a way to get us up to Pluto.”

“Oh, I was thinking about that. I don’t have class right now; so if you guys want, we can get what I need right now and I’ll work on the calculations later. Then when school’s over, we can test my theory.”

“Yeah, you said you needed some numbers?” Larson recalled.

“Your weight and height. It’s to see the kind of force you two would need.” Jax explained.

“Right,” was all Larson said.

Jax wrote something on two pieces of paper before he handed them to the pair. Larson took his, but Cassie still hadn’t come back to reality.

Larson sighed, “looks like that dog will starve-”

“If you neglect that dog, I’ll hang your corpse from the school roof!”

Larson smirked at her threat.

“Too easy.” Larson moved on.

Cassie, realizing what happened, did as well. She took the paper, “are you sure the government won’t be concerned about what you’re looking up?”

“I don’t know if that’s even true or not, but I’ll just be looking up drag forces. I’m assuming something already, but you guys have to get some serious speed. Essentially, you two need to float upward for as long as you can.”

“So it’s not forward momentum?” Larson asked.

“It’s a factor, yes, but I need to account for perpetual motion. It might be a reality for you guys. I’m not sure, but you two could possibly maintain your speed somehow. Since you guys don’t have an engine to propel you, in order to get far enough out of Earth’s atmosphere, you would need to slowly increase speed over-”

Cassie began to groan, they both looked at her and saw her rubbing her temples.

“Uh, so it’s a bunch of science and… math stuff… right?”

Jax couldn’t help but chuckle, “yeah, but don’t worry, you won’t have to calculate any of it or even understand it. I’ll figure it out and just tell you what you guys have to do.”

“Still, all this talk about big numbers and big formulas is giving me a headache.”

“Then think about Roman.” Larson came out and said.

Cassie instantly perked up and giggled.

“Who’s Roman?” Jax asked.

“He’s a dog she forced me to take in.”

“Oh, because dogs are really in tune to phenomena like you guys?”

Cassie chimed back in, “See? He got it and I didn’t even have to say anything.”

Larson rolled his eyes, “shut up, let’s just hurry up and give him the numbers he needs.” Larson took Cassie and began to drag her off despite her protests otherwise. Jax watched the pair getting some enjoyment out of their interactions. He sat down to start on his work understanding drag forces…

They eventually came back with the numbers he needed.

“Oh, and don’t tell Lars my weight.”

“You think I-” Larson stopped and just let out a large breath.

“She’s still a girl Lars.”

“You’re both idiots. Look, unlike these humans I could care less about someone’s weight!”

“Still, don’t tell him my weight.”

Jax assured her he wouldn’t, while Larson just glared at her.

Jax tried to distract them. “Well, I have a good handle on the drag formula.” he began, “I was gonna ask my teacher to proof it a bit though.”

“These teachers might be a little nosy,” Cassie grumbled.

“I don’t think so. If I say it’s because I’m trying to figure out something from a show, they’ll just think it’s like a GameTheory or something.”

Cassie smiled at Jax.

“Okay, then we’ll meet back up after school.” Larson said.

“I think I know a good place where you guys can go to test out your speed, the earlier we go the better.” Jax stated.

Larson looked at Cassie.

She huffed at his staring, “I’ll be out early, don’t worry!”

…

By the time school was over, Cassie was actually out early. Much to Larson's surprise. They all met up at the courtyard where they left for the school parking lot to get in Jax’s car.

While driving, Cassie was looking out the window and realized they were going to a track. As they got further away from the school, Cassie could see old sports buildings for Baseball and Tennis respectively. She started to recognize this area a little bit.

“Hey, isn’t this the old track?”

“I’m surprised you know about it. We were getting run out of this place by the time I was a sophomore.” Jax explained.

“Sometimes I would get a little bored and I stumbled here one day.” Cassie spoke, “but no one comes here to work out?” Cassie asked as she leaned forward in the backseat.

“Not that I know of. Even if they do, normally people go home once it starts to get dark out because there’s no lights anywhere near here.”

“Not surprising for this cheap ass school,” Larson said casually, “so how are we supposed to see then?”

“Yeah, I’m surprised we got all these useless abilities. Why can’t we see in the dark or something?”

“Useless to you.” Larson said under his breath.

Jax quickly interjected, “we’ll use my high beams, don’t worry.”

He kept driving until he eventually got to a good spot that faced all of the track. He turned off the car and Cassie got up and out first. She began to run around the area for a bit.

Larson and Jax remained by the car.

“Okay, I think I can just tell you the actual numbers. For Cassie, I’ll use a demonstration.”

Larson had no issue agreeing to that and listened to Jax’s explanation.

Behind them, Cassie was running around and jumping as high as she could until she thought about something. She dropped to the ground and suddenly turned around.

“Wait!” She yelled to them both; either she was too far away for them to hear or they were ignoring her. She huffed and looked to the sky as she mumbled to herself, “Jax said we have to launch off towards Pluto—wherever that is—so does that mean we’ll fall in the same direction?” Cassie was curious and decided to ask him. She went over to them and caught him on the tail end of their conversation. “Hey, how are we gonna get back on Earth?”

Jax gave her his attention now that he finished his explanation, “I had to be concerned about that as well. You two would be similar to a meteorite and we couldn’t have that happening. So, if what Lars told me is true, then reentry isn’t going to be a problem. However, if you land somewhere you’re unfamiliar with, it might be hard to get back here. I’ve told all this to Lars,” he assured, “so you guys should land near here. Hopefully I’m right and it’s not anywhere near people.”

Cassie smirked, “I was gonna say this before, but you're totally a nerd! That’s so weird for a popular guy.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, “well this does interest me.” Cassie smiled at him, “but I’ve told all the numbers to Lars. For you, I’ll explain it differently.”

“I’m glad you understand that numbers mean nothing to me.”

“I figured as much,” he said with an amused voice. Jax then took out a small ball on a string, “essentially, what you two need to do is what this ball is doing.” He then spun the ball as fast as he could before letting it go. They watched as it went a bit away from them, he went and got it. “The faster I spin this ball, the further it’ll go, right?” Cassie understood that and he spun it once more, but did it slower and it didn’t go as far when he released it. Once more he got it and began to spin it as fast as he could while talking. “You guys have to get this fast for your height and mass, getting the most out of your build up speed. Which is a lot in comparison to this little ball.” Jax stopped spinning it and spoke to them, “for now, I wanna see how fast you two can go.”

Cassie was excited, “you’re gonna use a radar gun on us?”

“Sorry if you wanted all this to be fancy, but you can measure an object’s speed by taking the distance traveled over the time elapsed. In this case, this is a standard track; so if we go from the same point every time and get back to that point, I’ll be able to measure how fast you guys are going.”

She sucked her teeth, “man, more numbers?”

“She’s never gonna get over this,” Larson walked past them to the track, “let’s just give him a test run already.”

Cassie skipped over to the track as well and Jax looked around for something to mark the starting point. He found a part of the bleachers that was broken off. Using that, he set it down in front of them and then stepped back.

“Okay, on my mark, run back to this point.” They both got in their starting positions. “Three, two, one!” They took off and in the blink of an eye, Larson was back. “Time!” Jax yelled.

Cassie was a second behind him and groaned.

“How are you so fast?” Cassie complained to him.

“Unlike you, I don’t waste my time doing nothing all day.”

“Hey! I do productive stuff… sometimes.”

“Key word there.”

Cassie and him were cut off by Jax’s astonished voice.

“Woah… I-I really didn’t think you guys would be this fast.” They went over to him, Jax composed himself, “so you guys ran approximately four hundred meters in 0.1 seconds… or two seconds for Cassie.” she pouted, “but that means you guys can run at four thousand miles per hour! That’s amazing!”

“I would have gotten it if it was lower, but you’ve lost me again.”

“You could run to the Earth’s core in that time.” Jax explained.

Cassie let out an amazed sound, “and now that means something to me. We’re like cars—no faster than cars, how cool is that?” Cassie was excitedly jumping around.

“So what will we have to do to reach your theoretical number?” Larson said, ignoring Cassie's excitement.

Jax looked off in thought, “I didn’t think about exhaustion, but hopefully you guys have good stamina because you’ll have to run like that for an hour… and now that I’m thinking about it, it’d be good if you guys could use some kind of outside force to push you.”

“You mean like launching us or something?”

Jax nodded, “but we’ll consider that a last stitch effort, I think you guys can do it alone just by jumping for right now.”

“We should see how long Cassie can run first though.” Larson began, “she’ll be the biggest issue.”

“You’re so mean to me.” Larson rolled his eyes, “I’m not the best runner, but I don’t like to lose; so if Lars is running with me, I’ll be sure to pull out something in me that’ll be sure to help!”

Seeing their determination filled Jax with pride himself, “Great, we’ll be moving right along then. Onto test number two: stamina!”