A month passed, and Sophie was still working at the Science Institution as Louise's assistant, spending most of her time trying to navigate around it to collect the reports for Louise. Sophie tried to be as much of a help as she could, and would go with Louise everywhere, to work, to the shops, to her house. The other scientists praised her, telling her she was a clever kid, a great help, but none of this meant anything to Sophie. She was worried about her dad and scared that he wouldn't come back. When she wasn't helping Louise, or doing schoolwork, which her new guardian insisted she continue with, she tried to find out where her siblings were now living, but with no luck. Louise looked too, but found only about as much as Sophie did. With so much information scattered about the huge expanse of the data-share network, it was practically impossible to find anything on a couple of orphaned children like Rachel and Kris.
Another month passed, and one day Sophie was on her way to one of the research rooms, to retrieve a file on one of the artefacts. When she arrived there, one of the young scientists, Aldred, was examining a strange looking watch. Sophie grabbed the file she was looking for off of a table, but was intrigued by the watch. Drifting over to where Aldred was working, she saw that the watch was a silver colour, with a small screen and a few buttons. Aldred had the casing open and was fiddling with the wiring, amongst which Sophie could see a blue power crystal, compressed like she'd never seen before.
"What's that?" she asked Aldred.
He looked up from the watch. "This?" he pointed at it. "It's a portable, cross-spatial particle transmitter."
Sophie stared in awe. "You mean that little watch can...."
"Transport its wearer to anywhere in the galaxy, maybe even the universe." Aldred finished.
Sophie was gobsmacked. "But that's impossible!" she exclaimed.
"Not really." Aldred replied. "You just need the right coordinates, a working transmitter and enough power. And that's what this has. It was designed in our South African branch, and then all the major Science branches received one for testing and examining. All you need to do is feed coordinates into it and zoop! You teleport away."
"That's amazing!" Sophie grinned. The wheels in her brain were turning, an idea was forming. "So if..... if you had the coordinates for a planet, you could go there?"
"Yup." Aldred replied.
"What about a spaceship?" she continued.
"Within reason." Aldred looked at her curiously. "Why?"
"Um well...." Sophie felt slightly embarrassed. "You know about the..... the lost science expedition... that my dad was on, right?"
"Oh, yes." Aldred said sadly.
"Well I was wondering... if that could be used to.... to help find the expedition." She mumbled.
Sophie expected him to dismiss the idea, but instead Aldred looked quite thoughtful about it.
"You know what? If we could get this thing working, that's the perfect thing to use it for!" he told her. "I mean it would have to be tested a ridiculous amount of times, and I'd have to discuss it at length with the Board but still, that is a brilliant idea Sophie!"
Aldred suddenly looked so excited, with a look of absolute joy on his face, that Sophie found herself wondering whether the lost expedition had weighed on his heart just as it had on hers. She started to get excited as well. If a licensed scientist thought it was possible to find the expedition then it had to be!
"You really think so?" she squeaked out ecstatically. "When can you ask the Board about it?"
"Well, after I've finished here I can go ask them, if that's ok." He replied.
"Fantastic!" Sophie said. "I should probably be getting back to Louise now."
"Alright then." Aldred replied happily, turning back to his work. "I'll tell you when I've heard something."
"Thanks." Sophie picked up her files and left.
A few hours later, Sophie was sorting the physical copies of files in the 6H cabinet (after Louise read them through), when there was the hiss of the door opening and Aldred entered.
"Aldred!" Sophie exclaimed, dropping the folder she was holding. "What did they say?"
Louise looked up curiously as well.
"Is this about the teleport watch?" she asked, having already been filled in on it by Sophie.
"The what? Oh you mean the- Yes, it is." Aldred replied quickly, looking at Sophie. "I talked to the Board and they considered the idea and decided that if we could perfect the watch's abilities, and use it to gather information as well as looking for the expedition, they said that then... then we could do it."
Sophie's heart leapt at his words. There was a chance, a slight chance, that she'd be able to find her dad. And this teleport watch, as she'd called the transmitter device, was the key to doing so.
The next couple of weeks were full of hard work, with Aldred and a few other devoted scientists working relentlessly on perfecting the teleport watch. Sophie tried to help in any way she could, fetching and carrying, stuff of that sort. Aldred even taught her some maintenance information for the watch, which she picked up easily and eagerly.
Once the engineering work on the watch was completed, there were still lots of tests to do. First the watch was tested inside the Institution. Four people successfully disappeared from one side of the gigantic building and appeared on the other side after only half a day of testing. The teleport watch testing was going well, every week they were getting more confident with the results. At the end of the first month, Aldred had teleported to the moon base and back, and so had Sophie, despite many protests. She really wanted to prove that she was good enough, so that when the time came she could go on the search for the lost expedition.
It had been three months, and the experiments were all over. On the very final day of testing, the team of about thirty including everyone who had worked on the teleport watch stood at a table, looking down at the result of all their hard work. Sophie, Louise and Aldred were there along with the rest. Sophie stared down at that watch, as the group all clapped each other on the shoulders and celebrated their achievement.
But all Sophie could think about was her father, on that lost expedition, and how that one little watch was her ticket to finding that ship, and everyone on it.