POV: Time Variance Authority

The moment Professor West picked up the manuscript, he couldn't help but mock his own desperation.

"I really am clutching at straws…" he thought.

Believing an art school grad could solve the ice crystal dilemma? It sounded as ludicrous as expecting Van Gogh to fix a lithography machine.

Yet he put on his glasses and began to study the pages.

At first, it seemed like the young man had simply done his homework—gathered some random references. But as West read on, his brow creased more and more.

"He knows this too?! Where did he get these ideas?!"

With a sweeping motion of his arm, West cleared away the clutter on his lab table, placing the manuscript front and center. He straightened his posture, determined to take it seriously.

"It feels like something's missing here…"

"This part—how was that concluded? The logic feels jumpy, but it does fit overall."

He found the layout somewhat scattered, but as he flipped through, West confirmed it wasn't out of order or missing pages. Tapping a finger to his chin, he continued reading. Gradually, sweat beaded on his forehead.

"It… actually has substance!"

He was a professional. Within the first few pages, he could tell with 100% certainty that—although the manuscript was patchy, with seemingly abrupt leaps and a few minor symbol errors—this was undeniably authentic research notes, not nonsense or guesswork. There was real data behind each reference.

In the front half, the concepts were fairly basic, and he understood them well. But the latter half mentioned some "wild ideas" that he, in all his years, had never considered.

Flipping another page, West found himself staring at extensive chemical equations, formulas, and experimental parameters. These were the real treasure trove. There was no time to lose.

He emptied his mind of reservations and, following the manuscript's data and steps to the letter, began an experiment. The instructions were specific enough that "copying them" was straightforward. Some connections seemed missing, but West had spent years in this field—small gaps he could fill himself.

Before long, he'd synthesized a brand-new substance intended to bind water molecules at a deeper level to resist ice formation. With a microscope and a cryo-chamber ready, he repeated a living-cell test.

His heart pounded as he took a long, deliberate breath.

"Here we go…"

He pressed the button to lower the cryo-chamber's temperature:

3°C

-8°C

-17°C

-27°C…

The colder it dropped, the faster West's pulse raced. Frost crystals soon encrusted the chamber's glass edges, yet under the microscope, the living cell at its center still showed sluggish movement, its internal fluid shifting gently—no sign of freezing or ice crystals.

"…..!"

West was stunned.

"Liquid nitrogen—bring it in!" he said out loud, though no assistant was there. He hurried to the storeroom, retrieving a container of liquid nitrogen, pouring it carefully into the apparatus.

Liquid nitrogen hovered around -200°C—a threshold for extreme cold. The digital gauge displayed the temperature plummeting like a bungee jump:

-87°C

-156°C

-187°C…

Finally, it stabilized at -191°C. Peering through the microscope, West watched the living cell all but freeze—yet it still faintly twitched. Even the watery fluid inside refused to crystallize, merely flowing at an ultra-slow pace.

"No ice crystals… no crystals at all!" West blurted, breath quavering.

"In -200°C conditions, the cell is still alive! No ice crystals forming!"

He sank onto the floor, as if the weight of the moment knocked the strength from his legs. All the frustration, the heartbreak of countless failures… poured through his mind, along with the image of his frail daughter in that hospital bed, comatose and wasting away. Tears blurred his vision.

"Kate…" he whispered hoarsely, "I finally did it…!"

After a long while, he calmed his trembling emotions. Rising shakily to his feet, he cradled the stapled pages in both hands, as though holding a divine proclamation. The brief test proved these notes were genuine.

"If the ice crystal problem is solved, we're only one step from a functional cryonic fill-liquid."

"They overcame the crystals in just two pages… he marveled. So the rest must be the correct formula to produce the entire cryonics fill system."

West's excitement flared, but so did an even bigger question:

"Where on Earth did these notes come from?"

Anyone who understood advanced cryonics could immediately see that the young man—Elias—was only the transcriber, not the researcher. The difference was obvious to a professional. None of the text read like a novice's speculation.

"I recall… his name was Elias, correct?" West murmured, replaying their dialogue:

"Any family in cryonics?"

"No."

"So, where did these notes come from?"

"Um… I can't tell you that."

"Can't tell …? Huh!"

He paced the lab. Possibly, Elias was the messenger for someone else—some expert who wanted to remain anonymous. Or maybe he obtained it via shady means from a foreign research facility. Both scenarios felt incredible.

"We have no cryonics teams in this country aside from me. If any major figure wanted to help, why not come forward? Why go through Elias?"

Or could he have stolen it from some top-secret lab overseas? A bizarre notion. Elias was an art student, not a special ops commando.

But these mysteries could wait. West set the question aside, flipping deeper into the sheaf. The last few pages were loaded with chemical and molecular notations. If he followed them precisely…

"Perhaps I really can create the cryonics fill-liquid in one shot," West thought, heart pounding with excitement.