She checks the tables of contents of the science textbooks to see what kinds of topics they cover.

There are textbooks for biology, genetics, anatomy, chemistry, physics and a lot more. The tables of contents don't point towards anything alien.

Kind of a shame. She wanted more alien stuff.

None of this is exactly redundant with her education. She collects anything biology, genetics and anatomy in one pile, and leaves that alone. She looks for an introductory physics book.

Her pile will be pretty high, there's a lot of biology type textbooks. The intro physics book will yield more alien stuff upon closer investigation. While the chapter headings sound like normal physics stuff the index will have a lot more references to temporal mechanics, unified field theories and spatial manipulation than you would expect of a physics book on Earth.

"How are you at physics?"

She shows Riley the book. 

"It's really not my specialty but I can take a look." She looks at the indicated sections. Her eyes get a little wide. "Well, I guess that makes sense given they've figured out how to make interstellar teleporters. Still from my initial reading it looks like they have time manipulation of some kind. I don't think it's time travel just dilation but like I said this really isn't my specialty."

"Whatever it is, they're way more advanced than us. I need to catch up. You stick to bio, I'll see where I can get with physics. We can probably split up the important stuff between the two of us."

"Good luck."

So they read. Maddie hasn't actually taken physics before, but she manages to figure out the basics.

Eventually, she suggests they explore further.

Riley isn't opposed. "Do you want to go explore the mall more or try the outdoors?"

"The mall first. We know a little bit more, so we can get an idea of what we have access to and how long it takes to get from place to place. It might be dangerous out there."

"Works for me." She closes what she was working on and walks to the door.

She follows, camera at the ready.

"Want to try the other direction this time?" Riley asks. "Towards the middle?"

"Sounds good to me."

Towards the middle.