Jen flipped the book shut, the heavy cover slamming onto the pages. She stood up and paced around the apartment she had picked out. The room seemed a lot smaller than when she had picked it out for college a few months ago, probably because she had already moved in all of her things to prepare for the real moving out from home that was coming soon. She spent almost all of her time in the dorm apartment now, though, instead of at the house because she had set up all of her lab equipment in the living room of the apartment. Even in the new space, however, Jen still couldn't figure out the missing key to her project which would get her into college.

She had known for a while that she would never be able to raise enough funds for college, right after she finished her senior year, especially at a minimum wage job. Jen had been working non-stop at a job and on a science project that might earn her a full scholarship, if it worked. She hadn't originally wanted to earn a degree at a college; she knew it was out of her funding and it would take up a lot of time that she could use on development. She quickly learned, though, that no organization would hire a paid marine engineer without at least a bachelor's degree.

Jen calmed down, sitting back down at the desk. She pushed aside the book and took out a notepad, blueprints and ideas scribbled onto the pages. She flipped through a few of the diagrams until she found a specific page with a Harp Seal sketched out in the center. Different joints and flaps were highlighted and re-sketched on the margins, just mechanized with springs, metal plates, and different pins to hold it together. Jen stood up and ran into the living room, notebook in hand, and looked over the stacked boxes and portable cabinets. She stepped around the covered fish tank in the center of the room and she looked through the stacked, clear boxes until she found a box with 425 labelled onto the side.

She took the box and opened it, with what looked to be a collapsed balloon with wire inside of the latex, sat on the bottom with bagged parts and electronics beside. Jen took out the synthetic material and set it aside, opening the sealed bag with wax covered motors and coils. She took out the four motors in plastic canisters and started connecting them to the material as well as the coils, until it started to resemble the diagram that was drawn in her notebook. She finally put in small batteries into a capsule in the top, shaped like a brain and with wires soldered and carefully suspended.

Jen powered it on, the motors starting to softly hum and the reflective stripes blinking and lit up. Like every other time though, this only lasted a few seconds until the control box was too hot to touch and smoke spiralled out of the top. Jen quickly flicked it off before it could do any more damage and removed the burnt out batteries from the top with gloves. She ticked off 'Small Car Battery' from her notebook scribbles and disposed of the burnt out electronic. She put the delicate body of the jellyfish back inside of the box, making sure not to bend any neurons that were laced inside. The lid snapped shut onto the container, and she lazily stacked it on top of all the other boxes and prototypes in the living room.

Jen looked at the clock chiming on the wall as she thought of what she could try next, and immediately jumped up. She threw on a jacket and hurried out of the door with her car keys and a flashlight dangling from a lanyard. She ran down the stairwell, passing up the lazing elevators and running down to the bottom floor. She hurried through the parking lot, and on spotting her car, immediately got in and started up the ignition. Jen flicked on the headlights and drove into the dark streets, steering around jaywalkers and other pedestrians as the car got nearer to the a school. School busses started forming a line in the streets ahead and Jen waited in the humming car behind them as the busses unloaded and left. She drove into the parking lot, parking and turning of the car. She ran out of the car and walked onto the sidewalk, through the main entrance and down the nearer halls to a large classroom.