Rebecca Maron

Toronto, 6:40 AM.

The city had not yet fully awakened. The streets were wet from the previous night’s rain, and the cold morning light was glinting off the windows of the tall downtown buildings.

On the seventeenth floor of a university building, the laboratory lights had been on since 5:30 AM.

Rebecca Maron stood at the test bench.

Twenty-five years old, from Toronto; 5’11” tall and weighing about 175 pounds. Her physique was the result of years of regular taekwondo training, not just to keep fit, but as an integral part of her life.

Spread out on the table were several sheets of theoretical physics calculations.

Rebecca scribbled a number on one of them with a pencil.

She stared at the equation for a few seconds.

Then she muttered:

“No… that can’t be right.”

She picked up the paper and calculated again.

Same result.

She did the calculation from the beginning for the third time.

Again, the same number.

Rebecca slowly sat down in her chair. She pushed her hair back and looked from the paper to the large screen in front of her.

On the screen, a complex model of several physical fields was displayed.

She was a physicist; and unlike many of her colleagues, she didn’t get nervous when a problem went unanswered for hours or even days.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

A difficult problem made her more curious.

Rebecca looked at her watch.

Six fifty-three minutes.

Eight minutes until class.

She stood up, tidied up her papers, and closed her laptop.

Before leaving, she stood for a moment in front of the lab glass.

Behind her, the city of Toronto was slowly coming to life.

She had a fairly regular life.

Campus in the mornings.

Lab in the afternoons.

Study at night.

And a few days a week, taekwondo practice.

In the gym, her personality was not much different from the lab.

Her movements were precise.

She didn’t waste energy.

Every punch had a target.

Her coach had once told her:

“You never fight your strength, Rebecca. You fight your calculation.”

Rebecca loved that phrase.

Maybe that was why physics and taekwondo had come together so naturally for her.

They were both about balance, timing, and precision.

She picked up her bag, turned off the lab light, and left the room.

In the hallway, she smiled a little for the first time.

But she still didn’t know that the calculation she had done that morning would change the course of her life.