“Like another dimension,” Priya said. “Because of the theory that gravity is a stronger force in other universes.”

“Yes,” said Tanaa. “So you would still be here, but your mass would be elsewhere.”

“All of this is just a means to an end, though,” added Sougata. “We think if we can solve the gravity problem, we can create stable worm—” Anya kicked him and he coughed and said, “pie. Worm pie.”

“Mmm,” said Priya, “worm pie. My favorite.”

“It’s a delicacy,” said Laurence. “Someplace. We don’t know where, but we’re going to go there and enter a contest, once we’ve perfected our recipe.”

A couple weeks passed. Everybody got used to having Priya around. Meanwhile, the team finally had some real success with the machine. First a golf ball, then a baseball, then a boiled egg, then a hamster named Ben—they all let slip their surly bonds at the flick of a button, then returned to normal weight at a second button press.

In theory, a person could crouch on the glowy white disk, with the giant red nozzle aimed at it, and be bathed in the full effect of the antigravitation rays.

“But I’d want to do a lot more testing before doing any human subjects experimentation,” said Anya.

“Can I try it?” Priya said. “I want to be the first weightless person on Earth, so my name can be misspelled in every record book, forever and ever.” Anya started to protest, but then Priya said, “Conventional Newtonian gravitation is so last year.”

Everybody giggled. Priya always knew just the right things to say.

The others looked at Laurence, who slowly nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I think we can make that happen.”

An hour later, Laurence was frantically dialing Patricia, praying that she hadn’t left her cell phone at home or turned it off for some witchy festival. She picked up, and he started talking immediately. “Hey, I desperately need your help. We have tampered with forces that people were not meant to fuck around with, and we seem to have pushed Sougata’s girlfriend into another plane of existence, where we have no way of locating her or even proving that she still exists, and we’ve basically exhausted all scientific options and don’t worry I won’t tell the others about your secret, just please help.”

“Wait a minute,” Patricia said. “Sougata has a girlfriend now?”

“We didn’t account for the extra mass, and the correspondingly greater level of attraction in the other universe,” said Laurence, as if that answered her question.

“I’ll be there in a few,” Patricia said. “I’m just up the street.”

When Patricia got to the cement blockhouse and Laurence came down to let her in, she barely had time to impress upon him the fact that his friends must not find out about her skills. No matter what.