Robert tossed back a shot with a somewhat distressed groan.
“Good God. Right. So, how you been, mate?”
Richard gulped down half a pint and lowered his glass with an uproarious and satisfied belch.
“Not bad, Robert, not bad. We’ve made some new breakthroughs on our quantum time theories.” Richard leaned towards a passing waitress. “‘scuse me, could we get another round? Thanks.”
Robert clapped his friend on the arm.
“Good on you! We’re no closer with the damn M-theory, but any strides your department makes can only be good news for us. What have you chaps been up to this time?”
“Well, it’s basically a new aspect of Chaos theory. Thanks, doll,” Richard said as the waitress set down the drinks. He finished off the remainder of his first pint and made a sizeable dent in his second. Robert nodded with a grimace as he knocked back another shot.
“Aye, I know that one. Some butterfly in the African savannah flaps its wings and Ashton Kutcher dies. You’re saying you’re working on a new temporal aspect of the theory?”
“Mhmbglgl,” Richard gurgled through his beer. He set down the glass with a sigh. “It’s all about tachyons, and how they’re observed to move backwards through time. The thing is, we think they’re an integral part of Chaos theory, and we’re closing in on proving it.”
“Bloody brilliant. So now the butterfly flaps its wings and what, Hitler dies instead? Or he turns gay or something?” Robert turned his head towards the bar. “John, mate! Another round and some chips, please!”
“Well, nothing so dramatic as that, but we could very well be looking at a total reshaping of how we think about universal causality.”
Robert grinned as the waitress set down another round of drinks. He picked up his shot and held it in the air.
“Cheers, mate. Here’s to a future full of promise and a quantum past full of dead, gay Hitlers.”
Richard raised his beer and clinked it against Robert’s shotglass.
“I’ll drink to that.”