Nobody said anything for a long moment. Jon, Karyn, and Zoe were all looking Athena and Zelda straight in the eyes as they began to comprehend magnitude of what they'd just learned. Athena was... smiling about it?
"Well, Zelda, looks like you owe me some money!" Athena said, giving Zelda a playful slap on the back. "I could always make use of a cooool million big ones, after all~."
"What? Hey hey hey, you know the rules, I don't owe you one penny 'til it happens, Eager McBeaver!" Zelda was apparently not as amused as Athena apparently was, but she wasn't quite as glum as the others were expecting either. By the way she was staring at the stone, it was obvious she was more fascinated with it than the current state of the Universe. "Besides, if that stone really is what they, uh... 'told' us it is, a million dollars is pocket change now. In fact, let's agree right now not to crash the world economy on a shopping spree, right?"
"I don't want your filthy magic money, Zelda, it's gotta be your own cash!" Athena teased. "Bet's a bet and it's the thought that counts and all that."
Jon and Karyn were both absolutely confused at what they were seeing. "What are you guys talking about?" Jon asked.
"Oh, Athena and I have a longstanding bet between us," Zelda explained. "She, being one of those 'the end is nigh' picket loonies, bet me a million dollars that the end of the world would happen within our lifetimes. If I see it happen, I pony up the dough."
"Yeah, and I'll owe her a million if the earth's still under our feet during our funerals. Looks like that won't be happening, though!" Athena added with a chuckle.
"Won't you guys both be dead either way, though?" Jon asked, still looking puzzled.
"It's the thought that counts!" Athena and Zelda chimed in at the same time. This was apparently an inside joke of theirs
Karyn's look of confusion had been curdling into something sour the longer the new pair in the know had been talking. "You certainly seem to be taking the inevitable destruction of life, the universe, and everything in it rather well..." she commented rather passive aggressively.
"Well, yeah, I guess. It was already inevitable, you know," Athena explained.
"Inevitable on a much longer timescale, though. Figured we'd all be dead of old age before any of the action starts. To think it would be vacuum decay, and vacuum decay happening so damn soon!" Zelda commented in wonder to herself.
"So you aren't troubled at all by the news? You aren't at all disturbed by the coming doom?" Karyn asked pointedly.
"Well, first, 'tisn't news to me, sister," Athena countered, annoyance starting to sneak into her tone. "I dunno how much Zoe's told you about my hobbies, but lemme assure ya, if you wade through some of the thickets of people I wade through, you'll be pulling 'coming dooms', 'apocalyptic scenarios,' and 'judgement days' out of your breeches for the next week. Everyone and their rat familiar's got an idea of where, when, and how the end is coming, and you know what, they can't all be wrong!"
"She's a card-carrying member of the 'end is nigh' looney bin, like I said," Zelda interjected.
"Yeah, and I've made my peace with it by now, too," Athena continued. "In practical terms, all these freaky doomsdays really, ultimately mean for us is that we meet our maker a few decades earlier than we expected. If you ask me, that shouldn't mean too much, since we all know death is never more than one freak accident away from us anywho. Besides, if you're living your life today in a way you wouldn't be happy with if you died tomorrow, you were making a mistake anyway, says I. So why worry about it?"
Jon and Karyn both gave the weird, heavily robed gothic dork a long, scrutinizing look. "Interesting take," Jon said at last. "And what about you? I was under the impression you were very much not in the 'end is nigh' looney bin until now?" he asked, turning to Zelda.
Zelda just shrugged. "No, but I can say I know from experience how easy it is to existentially freak yourself out contemplating the size, age, and fate of the Universe. It's probably healthier that you just don't. Besides, we're goths; obsession with death is part of our thing. You get used to it."
Zoe rubbed her temples. "This is all fascinating and stuff," she interrupted without the slightest hint of interest in the current conversation in her tone, "but there's a reason we're here, and if you gals aren't wanting to help us, we're wasting time."
Athena and Zelda practically bounced out of their seats at that comment. "No, no, no, no, you got it all wrong! We never said that!" Zelda exclaimed, eyes glimmering with excitement.
"Zoe, that's the most powerful magic artifact I have EVER seen!" Athena had the all the giddiness and excitement of a small child on Christmas day. "By FAR the most powerful artifact, it's not even close! You gotta let me use it, help you charge it and whatever it is you need, I'll do it!"
"The laws of Science are already flipped on their fuckin' heads with just those couple of wishes you already made!" Zelda chimed in, no less excited than Athena. "It's absolutely definitive proof that most of what we know about the Universe is wrong or at least incomplete! You got a tachyonic antitelephone and definitive answers about the metastability of the vacuum with just a single sentence! This stone is the greatest discovery made for science in chronicled history! I'll help you with it, and the Universe stuff, and everything, I swear!"
"Okay, okay, girls, chill!" Zoe waved her arms at the sudden outburst.
"Shush, shush, we're still in public, guys!" Jon interjected. "And you can't just shout this stuff from the rooftops, either!"
"Alright, alright," Athena and Zelda lowered their voices and tried to calm down while Karyn waved off an employee and a few other customers who had turned to look at the commotion. "But you gotta let me see that stone, guys! I will actually beg you if I have to!" Athena persisted.
"And you gotta let me see that tachyonic antitelephone I know you conjured!" Zelda chimed in. "That's HUGE, ladies!"
"What even is a tachyonic antitelephone?" Karyn grumbled, now thoroughly annoyed with her company. "Use English words we all understand, please!"
"You can use it to send information backwards in time, or receive it faster than light!" Zelda explained breathlessly. "It's how you guys even know about the Death of the Universe and all of that!"
"...You mean the Star Map?" Karyn said after a moment's thought. "That can't send information backwards in time, gal!"
"Yes, it can!" Zelda exclaimed. "Well, receive, but not send, but... Look, listen!" Zelda began, trying on the spot to put the science she knew into words. "The front of that death bubble is moving at the speed of light, THE maximal speed in the Universe, and it hasn't gotten here yet! But we know about it! That's IMPOSSIBLE according to causality; the information had to have traveled faster than light to get to us, don't you get it!? And relativity tells us that if you can travel faster than light, you can also travel backwards in time! That wavefront of death, it is our FUTURE, in a very real, meaningful sense! So we have seen into our future, which means information had to be sent backwards in time! Don't you get it!?"
"... No." Karyn said frankly. By the looks on their faces, nobody else at the table either. "Look, it's just a picture of the Milky way at the present time."
"'The Present Time' is relative. Google 'Relativity of Simultaneity' sometime," Zelda replied.
"Besides, we know from a wish that the stone's range in space limits in range in time. In space it's 90 miles, and in time it's maybe half a millisecond," Jon contributed.
"That is the range at which it stops affecting objects," Zelda clarified. "The range at which it can gather or send information, on the other hand, is effectively infinite, or else how would your Star Map show you anything more than the tristate area?"
Jon opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Karyn had no answer either; the rest of the table had fallen silent to think about it.
It was Athena who finally spoke up. "Zelda... you're not suggesting we try and send some information back to the past, are you?"
"Only to yesterday!" Zelda threw her hands up defensively. "Just for a little test... an experiment! For science! If it doesn't work out we can try something else. But uh..." she turned to Jon, giving him the biggest puppy eyes she could conjure, "... I need the stone."
All eyes were on him. After what seemed like an eternity, he nodded. "Alright... but be careful. Make sure you know your wording," he said, gingerly handing it over.
Taking the stone in hand, Zelda took a deep breath, and quickly said "I wish the 5 of us here knew yesterday morning what we know now!"
