"Don't thank me, thank my overinflated sense of modesty and not wanting to end up inside some sexual-tension-laden drama show episode."

She laughs at that. "Alright, I'm gonna get some sleep. I won't bug you about it but, you probably shouldn't pull an all nighter too many nights in a row."

"I can sleep on Earth."

Alice frowns at that but simply says "Alright, Goodnight" And decides to mention it to Walta at some point.

He finishes the drill hole and unboxes and investigates the 'temporal relay'.

There's a circular port on one end that looks like it might be a power input, and a small hexagonal one without any metal in it. If he goes to the console, Alice's prediction will prove true and a diagram will be available. The hexagonal port will be labelled as a configuration and control port, while the circular one is indeed a power input. The article makes some notes about localized time-dilation effects in the specified area. It notes that they tend to be used for structural reinforcement and storage, fine grained applications apparently require more advanced versions.

On the one hand he's sleepy and grumpy but on the other hand alien technology. Does the database have any information on temporal mechanics? What an intro to circuits textbook would be, compared to the user's manual for an oscilloscope.

The encyclopedia does in fact. The math is definitely high-level calculus, and it talks about orthagonal resonances and other things he's never seen mentioned in any physics book he's read before but by the end he'll have a vague understanding of how the relay projects a field of slowed time.

This is really tricky to wrap his head around.

...Can he find the name of the thing used to control it? Whatever is supposed to go in the data port. He doesn't really feel like guessing at opcodes or whatever it uses.

The original specification sheet mentions that certain sensors, including magnetic and optical ones can be configured to send an on-off signal down a standard optical data-channel. It also references something called a configuration loader. They do not appear to be sold in the mall, but maybe there's one in one of the warehouses. If he investigates optical data-channels he'll find that the computer he's using also has such a port on the back for programming devices. Unfortunately he lacks a cable to connect them.

He can set it aside, try to make sense of some calculus for a few hours, and half give up and go to sleep somewhere around 2 AM then.

Zahn wakes up at about six thirty in the morning and puts on some of the clothes he found in the mall last night. Lacking internet, he goes to the kitchen to see about making breakfast. Are there any other early risers present?

Nope.

But there's someone who might be a late arriver, she's wearing club clothes and glitter, sprawled out snoring in one of the lounge's chairs.

Zahn makes himself a small breakfast of toast, yogurt, and an apple while being as quiet as possible. Then he sits at the counter and eats.

The club girl doesn't wake up.

After a little while Joe comes in and mutters something about hangovers.

Zahn, mindful of the sleeping girl and the sound sensitivity of people experiencing a hangover quietly asks, "Did you figure out how to watch a movie?"

"Yeah. Who leaves a TV on the news, anyway?"

"We're getting news here?" Zahn briefly forgets about being quiet then drops back to the same quiet level, "I wonder if anyone's noticed the cluster of college students disappearing. It's probably still too soon to make the news but it might be worth checking."

"You can go. I'm gonna have breakfast and an ice pack."

"Eh, there's no particular rush. Do you feel up to informing the woman sleeping on the couch over there if she wakes up? I can wait till someone else shows up if you don't."

"I'll do one better and cook up breakfast for eight or ten folks. Good smells are a nice way to wake up after a rough night."

"Alrighty then, hopefully there are animal farms somewhere around here, otherwise we'll all have to go vegan, but I suppose it doesn't hurt much to use what we have."

"Surprised people aren't more freaked out. Surprised I'm not freaked out."

"Huh, that's a good point, I'm not surprised I'm not freaking out but that's because I have pretty strong, if not necessarily healthy coping mechanisms. Still, it's not like we eased the rest of you into the realizations super carefully. Maybe whatever happened to give us the linking power also ratcheted down our stress-levels just a little? It would be really creepy if that was true, though maybe for the best on the whole."

"Or maybe party types don't freak out as hard. Or we didn't see the freakouts. I don't know."