Tadashi sat on the counter, watching as I darted this way and that around the lab. I pulled knobs, set up various tubes, and, with a heavy sigh, heaved the scooter battery onto the counter. After attaching a couple pieces of equipment, I stepped back and analyzed the setup.

"Uh, Honey..?" Tadashi said, obviously confused.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" I said, taking off my glasses and rubbing them on my shirt. Tadashi jumped off the counter and stood next to me, staring at the mess of equipment on the table. "I mean, the battery needs and energy, right?"

Tadashi furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of my concoction. I giggled—he looked cute when he was confused. It wasn't something you saw often from Tadashi.

"Energy…" Tadashi mumbled, "that we can get from jumper cables." He sighed and sat down in an office chair, spinning around and staring at the ceiling.

"I thought you said you trusted me," I said, crossing my arms. He stopped spinning and stared at me, then got up.

"I do trust you," he said, walking toward me. "Alright. Do your thing." He leaned against a counter opposite the one I was working on, and watched as I opened my kit. I pulled out something small, but the look on his face confirmed that this was much more than jumping a battery. "Tungsten carbide…" he said, a smile creeping across his lips.

"Yeah!" I half yelled, half laughed. "Tadashi, this could be what I need to prove to Professor Callahan that I belong here." I took the tiny ball of Tungsten Carbide that I held in my hand and placed it into a container, which was connected to two tubes: one that would receive the drop of solution, and one that would transfer the energy to the battery. If all worked as I thought it would, we could have this battery up and running STAT.

I pulled out a dropper, suctioned some of the special solution into it, and dropped a tiny amount of it into the tube that led to the TC. In a matter of seconds, it exploded into a ball of pink smoke, and that smoke was sucked through the tube leading to the battery.

"How will we know if it worked?" Tadashi asked, leaning in close to watch the reaction happen before his eyes.

"Well…" I said, waiting for the last bit of smoke to be transferred into the battery, then removed the battery from the tubes. "We take it back to your scooter and try it!" I smiled a big, toothy smile and placed the battery into my kit.

"Sounds good," Tadashi grinned. "Just give me a sec. I've gotta grab my wallet from my office."

"That would be good to have!" I said, following him down the hall. "I guess it's a good thing your scooter died then, huh?"

"No kidding," Tadashi laughed."

Tadashi and I walked down the main promenade of SFIT, which was lined with dozens of blossoming cherry trees. The pink petals fell gracefully from their branches, landing beside our feet and fluttering back up into the air with each step we took. I looked down at my feet, and then at Tadashi's—we were walking in time with each other. The petals swirled around us, encompassing our feet in one tiny whirlwind of pink. Why can't these beautiful petals engulf us? Why can't they bond together and form our own personal cyclone, one that would separate the two of us from the rest of the world? Just carry us off into the sunset, little petals.

Then I remembered that merely wishing for something, hard as you might, doesn't make it happen.

Tadashi initiated conversation. I didn't know how much more gushy, lovey dovey stuff my heart could take. "Why Tungsten Carbide?" Tadashi asked.

"Huh?" I asked, not fully hearing him. I was still partly submerged in my daydream.

Tadashi half-smiled. "I'm just curious as to why you picked the substance you did. TC is pretty expensive."

"Oh," I giggled awkwardly, wondering if Tadashi was doubting my idea. "Well, TC, when combined with the materials I showed you, produces a very powerful reaction. Theoretically, with enough TC, one could power… jet engines, power plants, space shuttles… an entire country, possibly. It's a much cheaper and environmentally friendlier alternative than nuclear power or fossil fuels."

"No adverse effects on the planet?" Tadashi asked. If anyone was an advocate for saving the earth, it was him."

"Absolutely none. I've studied the byproducts of the reaction. The only effects would be fluffy pink clouds floating in the sky, eventually dispersing."

"You really know your stuff, don't you honey?" Tadashi seemed impressed. I blushed and beamed at the same time.

Screeeeeech!

Tadashi and I glanced at each other before taking off at a run toward the parking lot. That was the sound of tires squealing, and his scooter was the only vehicle in the lot.

"Whoa," I said, out of breath as we reached the parking lot.

Tadashi's eyes searched the entire lot. "I just bought that scooter!" He started sweating. "Not good. How'd they get it started without a battery?"

My heart sank into my stomach. I opened my tool kit and shuffled my materials around. No battery.

"I don't understand," I said frantically. "It was just in here, I—"

"Someone must have snatched it when we were in my office," Tadashi sighed.

"Hold on."

I pulled a pair of glasses out of my purse. These glasses looked like the ones I was wearing, but they were made to increase vision by up to 10 times—an accidental side effect of me going a little overboard trying to craft my own lenses.

"The rubber from the tires was burnt on the asphalt just seconds ago. Whoever has your scooter is close by."

I scanned the perimeter of the lot, hoping to see a flash of red zooming up or down one of San Fransokyo's hilly streets.

"There!" I saw Tadashi's scooter zipping out of the parking lot and out onto the main road. I giggled when I saw following the scooter, coming out of the exhaust pipe, a trail of fluffy pink smoke.

We took off at a sprint toward the road and waved down a police officer. Conveniently, there was one sitting right outside the entrance to the school.

"Officer!" Tadashi shouted, running up to the car and poking his head into the window. "That scooter was stolen from me, the one that's shooting out pink smoke." He pulled out his license to prove that the scooter belonged to him.

The officer glanced at the license, then at the pink smoke that flew past his window. He rubbed his eyes, then took Tadashi's license, scanning it. The red scooter appeared on his display, indicating that it indeed belonged to Tadashi.

"Get in, kids," the officer grumbled, buckling his seat belt and starting the engine. He flipped his sirens on, taking off before we had even closed the doors. The officer floored it, weaving in and out of traffic, avoiding collisions here and there.

I kept my special glasses on, making sure not to lose sight of the scooter in case the officer did (he didn't. I was amazed at his driving skills).

"You do this a lot?" I called to the driver.

"All the time, kid," he yelled back. "But most of the time it's without pink smoke flying at my windshield."

The police cruiser was neck and neck with the scooter now—it was right outside my window. Without hesitation, I threw my purse into Tadashi's lap and rolled down the window.

"Hold my legs!" I shouted to him, grabbing at the frame of the window for a place to hold on. Then to the officer, I yelled, "Keep it steady! Stay even with the scooter!"

"What?" Tadashi yelled. "Are you crazy?!"

"Possibly!"

Yep, I was crazy. I leaned out of the car and frantically tried to grab the driver. Shoot! I thought. I stretched farther He's too far. Just a few more inches… Yes! I grabbed a piece of the driver's leather jacket, pulling myself closer to him. He glanced over at me and groaned, grabbing my hand hard, trying to pull it off. With my other hand, I reached for the driver's helmet, scratching at it, hoping I could at least get a look at the driver.

"Honey!" Tadashi yelled. "I'm pulling you back in, there's a motorcycle coming up. It's gonna hit you!"

"No!" I called to him. "Just hold my legs!" I glanced at the oncoming traffic. Sure enough, a motorcycle was about to split the police cruiser and the scooter apart. Quickly, I let go of the driver and turned around, pulling the upper half of my body onto the top of the police cruiser. We zoomed past the motorcycle. That was way too close.

I flung myself back onto the driver of the scooter. "Come on already!" I shouted. "Give it up!"

"Not in a million years!" He yelled back at me. "Your tech is way too valuable to just 'give it up.'"

I was stunned. Someone was stealing my tech, and I had no idea why. With an angry groan, I grabbed underneath the driver's helmet and ripped it off, exposing his identity. He looked at me with dark, angry eyes. He had spiky black hair and a large, down-sloping nose. If only I had access to my phone I could snap a picture of his face, but before I had time to reach for it, he grabbed back at his helmet, successfully retrieving it. He placed it back on his head and kicked me off of him.

"Honey!" Tadashi yelled, pulling hard at my legs.

I screamed as Tadashi pulled me back inside the car, just before we zoomed right past a city bus.

"I saw what he looked like!" I said frantically, out of breath.

"You almost got yourself killed!" Tadashi said in a panicked voice.

The scooter pulled ahead of the car again, the pink smoke engulfing the police cruiser. Vision was decreasing by the second. The officer slowed and pulled out of the smoke, and for a second I couldn't see the scooter. My eyes darted across the street. Before I had even seen it, the officer was at full speed again, coming up on a red light.

"Hold on, kids," the officer shouted. "This is gonna get rough."

The scooter zipped through the intersection, completely running the red light. The traffic coming from the cross street squealed to a hard stop, barely avoiding both the scooter and us. The scooter fell out of sight, and seconds later we were airborne—the police cruiser came off the ground as we went over a hill, and just as fast as we had gone up, we came down. Hard. Each of us groaned as the car recontacted with the ground. We braced ourselves, but the landing still hurt. I barely had time to recover before the cruiser had pulled ahead of the scooter and trapped it between another cruiser—backup.

The officer unbuckled his seatbelt and quickly exited his car, carefully approaching the scooter with his hand on his pistol. Tadashi and I peered out the window to watch, pulling out my smartphone to take video in case we needed evidence.

"Get off the vehicle with your hands up!" the officer called, still slowly approaching the scooter. The other police officer behind the scooter got out of his car, and carefully started moving toward the driver.

The driver of Tadashi's scooter was waring a full bodysuit and helmet, so we couldn't tell who it was. Thankfully I had that quick glimpse of his face etched in my mind. The driver slowly stood up from the scooter, and just as slowly raised his arms into the air. In an instant, he threw his arms down and was engulfed in a giant cloud of black smoke. I gasped as the officers drew their handguns and aimed at the cloud, hoping to get a glimpse of the target. It was useless. He was gone.

"What the…" I stammered, my hand covering my mouth.

Tadashi's eyes were wide.

"Well… At least we know it worked."