The lecture that day was about mass and fields.
Mr. Hanks — my professor — began explaining something that sounded simple at first but quickly turned strange the deeper he went into it.
He said that mass might not really be a "thing" the way we imagine it. Instead, mass could simply be a disturbance in a field — a ripple inside something invisible that fills the entire universe.
For example, he talked about the Higgs field.
The way he explained it made me imagine the universe as an endless ocean of fields, and particles as nothing more than tiny ripples moving through that ocean. When a particle interacts strongly with the Higgs field, it slows down — and that resistance is what we interpret as mass.
In other words… mass might simply be how strongly something pushes against the field around it.
It sounded less like physics and more like philosophy.
He concluded the lecture by saying,
"The idea of today's lecture is simple — fields are more fundamental than particles. Particles might just be the visible behavior of something deeper."
He paused for a moment before continuing.
"I'll give you time to digest this. Tomorrow we will continue from here."
With that he began packing his things and switched off the digital board.
Most students rushed out immediately, eager to escape another long lecture, but I stayed seated until the classroom slowly emptied.
"Justin, we're planning to go for a drink right now — it'll take fifteen minutes," William said while looking at me, Anthony standing beside him.
"No… you guys go," I replied quietly. "I still have some doubts."
They shrugged and left.
I waited until they disappeared down the hallway before walking toward the professor.
"Sir… I want to talk about yesterday."
Mr. Hanks froze for a moment.
He slowly stopped packing his bag and looked around the classroom — first toward the door, then toward the empty seats behind me.
Then he leaned closer and said quietly,
"Not here."
He glanced around one more time, picked up a few of his things, and gestured toward the door.
"Follow me."
He walked out of the room without another word.
What I didn't know… was that Anthony and William had been watching the entire thing.
They were standing just far enough away to avoid being noticed.
My professor led me through darker corridors of the college — parts of the building I had never seen before. The further we walked, the quieter everything became.
To be honest…
I was starting to feel a little nervous.
Behind us — at a distance — Anthony and William followed quietly.
"I didn't know Justin was not straight…" Anthony murmured to William while trying not to laugh.
"Oh shut up, Anth — this is serious," William whispered back.
Meanwhile Mr. Hanks and I reached an old storage room at the end of the corridor.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room smelled like old equipment and dust.
Once I entered, he shut the door behind us.
Outside the room, Anthony and William quietly leaned closer to the door, trying to hear what we were saying.
Inside, Mr. Hanks didn't speak immediately.
He stood there for a moment — staring at the floor — as if trying to decide how to say whatever was on his mind.
Finally he dragged a chair across the floor and gestured for me to sit.
Still without saying a word.
Why is he so confused? I wondered.
At that moment I had absolutely no idea what was actually happening in the world around me… or what it had to do with me.
Mr. Hanks finally looked up.
"Justin…" he began slowly.
"You are the most mature student I have ever had — and I hope you can listen to what I'm about to say with the same maturity."
His voice was calm, but the weight behind his words was impossible to ignore.
"Looks like they're discussing something very important…" Anthony whispered while bending slightly to peek through the keyhole of the storage room door.
"What do you see?" William asked while pinching the bridge of his nose impatiently.
"I see… a storage room. Very dusty. And uh…" Anthony scratched the back of his head. "I actually have myopia, so can you—"
Before he could finish, William pushed him aside and leaned toward the keyhole himself.
"Move."
Inside the room, I had never seen Professor Hanks look this serious before.
"Justin…" he began slowly, his voice carrying a weight that immediately made my chest feel tight.
"What you did yesterday was not just a fluke."
He stepped back while rubbing his forehead, and from the way his eyes wandered across the room it was obvious that he was struggling to find the right words.
I remained silent while watching him carefully.
After a moment he came closer again and lowered his voice.
"Listen carefully… do you know how Chrono Exchange works? Did your father ever try to explain anything to you?"
"No," I replied quietly while shaking my head.
Curiosity flickered across my face, though somewhere beneath it a faint sense of fear had already begun creeping in.
The professor studied my expression for a few seconds before speaking again.
"Is your mind starting to behave… a little differently?" he asked slowly.
The moment he said that, I knew exactly where this conversation was heading.
"Yes," I admitted.
I explained how strange everything had felt since the day I suddenly collapsed — how my thoughts had started racing faster than usual, how certain ideas felt clearer than they ever had before, and how it constantly felt as if something inside my mind had quietly changed.
But I never mentioned receiving forty extra years.
For some reason I simply kept that part to myself.
It didn't feel important enough to bring up… and besides, those years were worth millions of dollars. The last thing I wanted was unnecessary attention or trouble surrounding them.
Tch… it's probably nothing important anyway.
So the information remained locked inside my head.
The professor listened without interrupting, his expression growing more serious with every word I spoke.
When I finally finished explaining everything, he slowly nodded.
"Now I'm certain what has happened to you…" he said quietly while taking a slow breath.
My chest tightened as he looked directly into my eyes.
"Justin… your chip has broken."
Outside the storage room, Anthony and William heard every word, Anthony slowly turned toward William while lowering his voice.
"William… did you hear that?" he whispered.
William adjusted his glasses while glancing back at the door.
"Yeah," he said calmly. "And it sounds like there's a lot more going on in there than we thought."
"Chip?" I asked slowly, the word sounding strange even as it left my mouth. I knew it wasn't something I understood yet, and perhaps because of that my mind immediately tried to deny it.
"Oh—you mean my mobile chip? Nah, it's fine, I've used it—"
"No."
My professor interrupted me before I could finish.
"Justin… just listen. Give me ten minutes and you'll understand everything," he said while pulling a chair closer and sitting down in front of me, his hands clasped together as if he was preparing to explain something extremely delicate.
Then he began explaining.
He had asked for ten minutes—but the explanation stretched well beyond thirty. This wasn't something a person could casually say in a few sentences.
He spoke continuously while I sat there absorbing every word. Questions formed in my mind one after another, yet I chose to remain silent because my thoughts were still struggling to process the information.
NeuroLink.
That was the name of the chip inside our heads.
Yes—at birth, chips were secretly implanted into every human brain. In fact, the entire Chrono Exchange system depended on those chips.
"Without the chip," my professor explained while pacing slowly across the room, "you would live naturally—sometimes even up to a hundred years if you were extremely healthy."
He paused briefly, allowing the statement to sink in.
When I finally questioned him about how and why something like this could exist, he didn't answer immediately. Instead, he raised his hand and pointed toward the small birthmark on the side of my head.
"It isn't random, Justin. That's where your chip was implanted."
He folded his arms as he continued.
"The government inserts them at different locations in every child to avoid suspicion. Only a handful of high-level officials even know the full details."
My head felt heavy as the words settled inside my mind.
"What does that have to do with me?" I asked slowly, leaning forward in my chair while trying to keep my voice steady. "And what does it have to do with my equation… or my mind suddenly racing all the time?"
The professor looked straight at me.
"Everything."
The word echoed in my head far louder than anything else he had said that night.
How was I supposed to take this in?
A chip inside my brain — Chrono Exchange controlling human lifespan — and the government hiding all of it… the thoughts collided inside my head faster than I could process them, and for a moment it felt as if the room itself had grown heavier around me.
It was simply too much — far too much — for a nineteen-year-old mind to absorb in a single conversation.
Yet even with my mind spinning in confusion, I stayed silent and waited.
Because I knew he wasn't finished explaining yet.
After another thirty minutes of talking… many things slowly began to make sense.
My professor knew I loved history, and he also knew that if he explained things through historical examples I would understand them better than through complicated science.
So he gave me an example from the polio outbreaks of the 1950s.
For adults, the cure already existed — a treatment capable of eliminating the disease completely. But when it came to children, the system worked differently.
Instead of giving them the full cure, governments distributed a weakened preventive dose that only protected them for a short period of time… sometimes barely a month.
Children were asked to take those drops again and again.
The disease could have been eradicated entirely — but it wasn't.
Because repeating the treatment meant continuous profit.
My professor paced slowly across the dusty storage room while explaining this, occasionally glancing at me to make sure I was following.
"Now imagine something similar happening on a much larger scale," he continued, folding his arms.
"The chips implanted inside our heads work in a very similar way."
I stayed silent while trying to absorb the comparison.
"A child is born with roughly one hundred years of natural lifespan," he explained while raising his hand slightly as if outlining the numbers in the air. "But the system quietly extracts around sixty to seventy of those years and stores them within the Chrono Exchange network."
My chest tightened slightly.
"Those years are then sold — often through hidden or illegal markets."
I leaned back slowly in my chair.
"Each human life becomes a source of enormous value… sometimes worth nearly fifteen million dollars."
For a moment the room fell silent...Now everything was starting to make sense.
The Chrono system… the economy built around lifespan… the reason people barely lived beyond twenty or thirty years anymore.
But one question still remained.
What was wrong with me?
"Justin…" my professor said while stopping in front of me and resting his hand against the edge of the table.
"The chip comes with several side effects. One of them is limiting the brain's analytical capacity. I don't know the exact neurological mechanics behind it, but people with functional chips consistently show reduced problem-solving ability compared to what the human brain is naturally capable of."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"The moment you solved that equation… that was when the idea first crossed my mind. Because a normal person simply wouldn't have been able to solve it."
He raised three fingers in front of me.
"Three things helped you reach that solution."
He lowered the first finger.
"First — psychology. You never assumed the equation was impossible. To you it was simply a homework problem, and history has shown many examples where problems remained unsolved only because people believed they couldn't be solved."
The second finger lowered.
"Second — persistence. You kept working on it for days. The scientist who declared that equation unsolvable apparently worked on it for only one day, and his confidence in that conclusion stopped him from trying again."
Then he lowered the final finger.
"And third… the most important factor."
His voice grew quieter.
"Your chip has malfunctioned."
He hesitated slightly before finishing the thought.
"Or… perhaps you were born with a defective one. Either way — I'm certain something about your chip isn't functioning normally."
"Oof…" I muttered quietly while pressing a hand against my forehead.
Outside the room, Anthony and William had heard every word...When my professor noticed the faint shifting sound near the door, he turned his head slightly and spoke toward it.
"You might as well come in."
The door opened slowly.
Anthony stepped inside first, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
"Hey… Justin… we were just passing by.. Hehehe" he said with an uneasy laugh.
William followed him inside while adjusting his glasses.
"I hate to admit but we heard most of it," he admitted calmly.
The professor sighed softly and gestured toward the chairs.
"Well, since you've already heard this much… you might as well sit down."
They moved closer and took their seats....Even after everything that had just been revealed, one final question still remained in my mind.
I stepped forward slightly and looked at my professor.
"Sir… if this is such a dangerous secret, then why tell us about it?" I asked slowly. "Why tell me?"
I swallowed before continuing.
"Now you know... I know… and even my friends know. If everything you're saying is true, then all of us could be in serious trouble."
The room fell completely silent.
I waited for his answer — because I needed to understand why my professor would choose to reveal something so dangerous to someone my age, knowing fully well that a secret like this could cost us our lives.
"Because I once had a friend…" the professor said slowly while resting his hands on his waist as Anthony, William, and I watched him speak.
He paused for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing. Sweat had begun forming along his forehead, and the way his voice trembled made it obvious that whatever he was about to say wasn't easy for him.
"They died… because I didn't warn them," he admitted quietly. "I should have told them the truth — but I stayed silent."
His eyes dropped toward the floor.
"It was my fault."
For a moment the room was completely silent except for the faint hum of the ventilation system.
The professor took another deep breath before speaking again.
"And I don't want to repeat that same mistake with you, Justin," he continued. "Now that you know the truth… just stay safe. Be careful — and keep this information to yourself."
He turned toward Anthony and William.
"Mr. Ginart… Mr. Matthews… you two must remain silent as well. If the wrong people hear about this, your families could end up in serious danger. Do you understand?"
Anthony immediately straightened his posture and raised his hand in a mock salute.
"Yes sir!"
William and I both looked at him with completely serious expressions.
Anthony lowered his hand awkwardly.
"What? I was just complying," he said defensively.
William leaned closer and whispered sharply into his ear.
"Oh shut up, idiot. Can you be serious for at least one moment?"
The professor sighed faintly before stepping toward the door.
"Alright… you should all go home now. I'll see you in tomorrow's class."
With that, he left the storage room.
Anthony waited until the professor disappeared down the corridor before turning toward me.
"Damn, Justin," he said while shaking his head. "Looks like you're smarter than William now."
William didn't respond.
Instead he simply walked out of the room, clearly lost in thought.
Anthony and I exchanged a quick glance before following him into the hallway.
After a few seconds of silence I spoke.
"I need a break," I said quietly. "I'm going to grab a coffee in the campus café."
Anthony's face suddenly lit up.
"Oh… then you might love a ride," he said while rubbing his hands together excitedly.
I immediately shook my head.
"No. Not today — not today, Anthony. Today has been… a lot."
I exhaled slowly.
"Let's just walk."
So the three of us started walking toward the café — none of us speaking much, each lost in our own thoughts.
None of us realized it yet…
but our story had only just begun.