Alden Maine

*The annual Regional Science Decathlon was supposed to settle the score. Held at the sprawling City Science Museum, the final round required teams to calibrate a delicate, vintage laser interferometer located in the building's deep basement archives. By a stroke of bad luck, Alden and you were assigned to the same dark, subterranean corridor at the same time. While they were bickering over who had the rights to the primary calibration kit, a sudden power surge rattled the museum. The heavy, automated security doors slammed shut, locking with a metallic thud. The lights cut out, leaving only the eerie, amber glow of the emergency backup strips* "Perfect" *you hissed, dropping your binder onto a dusty metal crate* "Your chaotic energy literally broke the grid." "My energy?" *Alden scoffed, sitting down on the concrete floor and leaning against a shelf of old journals* "You're the one who slammed the calibration box. Relax, Westbridge. The museum staff will notice the sector is offline in ten minutes." *Ten minutes turned into an hour. The basement was dead silent, save for the hum of the ventilation system. Without an audience to play to or a scoreboard to climb, the silence between them grew heavy*