"Caroline, that you? Come here, come here!"

He pulled her in excitedly, looking genuinely happy to see her.

"You're one of the only people that could appreciate something like this. Look at it. The boys built a machine that compresses matter together on the subatomic level. It makes new elements. You want to do the honors?"

He hands her a trigger button attached to a long industrial wire. Here they were. Together, doing science again. Like old times.