The temporal displacement chamber screamed.
Not the gentle hum it should have made—a sound as if the universe was tearing itself apart. Lila's coffee cup fell to the ground, forgotten, as every alarm in the lab started screaming at the same time.
"Jesus Christ," she breathed in, as impossible readings flowed across her monitors. For eighteen months of shattered experiments, the particles had not been jiggling about randomly. They were dancing. Forming patterns that made her height-enhanced sense trill with recognition.
This was it. This was really working.
Lila glared at her coffee mug. Empty again. When had she last drained it? The temporal displacement chamber was whining that sound where it whined just quietly enough to be infuriating but not quietly enough to have any reason to complain about it. Like the neighbor's air conditioner at 2 AM.
She got up from her workbench, using a push with one hand. Her neck pounded. Eighteen months spent working bent over these equations and she had nothing to present to show for it except a chronic back ache and a laboratory that looked like a hurricane had ripped through it. Piled papers everywhere on the floor, empty food containers, and at least three cups of coffee in various stages of abandonment.
The quantum particles in the containment field were acting weird tonight, however. They usually just bounced around randomly, like atoms in a chemistry textbook. But now they were. doing something. Moving in patterns that were almost intentional.
"Hyeah ARIA," she shouted. "What is the chronoton density reading like?"
"Which is forty-three percent, I'd guess, Dr. Reyes," said the AI. ARIA always did sound a bit like Lila's sister Sarah - same soothing voice, same trace of accent. That was probably why she liked working alone so much. "Should I start containment procedures?"
"No, let's see what." Lila raised her data screens. Holy shit. The numbers actually added up for once. Variables she'd struggled with for months were now clicking into place.
She retrieved her neural interface headset from where she'd thrown it before. The metal was chilly on her forehead, but the connection felt like a blessing. Like plugging your phone in when you're at five percent.
The lab was otherwise quiet but for the whir and soft glow of the processing units along the walls. She could look up at the Earth hanging out there in space through windows in the ceiling. Still hadn't gotten over the reality of living in space. Dr. Chen would have found that funny. "Lila Reyes, resident space station," he would have made fun of her in his joshing tone.
She missed him. Three years and still it hurt. He'd believed in this project when no one else had thought she was sane. Time travel. Yeah. Like that was ever going to work.
Except. the particles were clearly acting differently now.
Her computer beeped. Chronoton density: fifty-eight percent.
"Uh, Dr. Reyes?" ARIA's voice was concerned. "Those numbers are rising awfully high. Perhaps we should—"
"I did the safety protocol myself," Lila grumbled, her fingers moving across the controls. "I know what I'm doing."
Did she? The math pumping through the neural link didn't sit right tonight. Like it was calculating itself.
The lab door slid open. Great. She knew those steps. Dr. Khatri, to tell her she was staying too late again.
"Burning the midnight oil, Reyes?" That was that administrator tone he'd fallen into grating on her teeth. "The board's asking about your timeline."
"Science doesn't have a clock," she growled, never removing her eyes from her screens.
"No, but research budgets do." He paced across the room, no doubt raking her data. "Your project's taken up almost half our budget for the quarter. They want results."
"They're going to." She pointed to the readings. "Look at this. We're making progress at last."
Khatri paused reflectively. "You've told me that before. Maybe it's time to accept Chen was wrong regarding time travel."
Before she could tell him exactly how she felt about that, all of the alarms in the lab started screaming.
The containment chamber was a whirlpool. The particles stuck together magnetically, forming something that filled her with revulsion. A hole. Not absence - a window. And on the other side of it, she saw things that could not, possibly, exist. A garden at moonlight. An elderly sailing vessel rocking on the waves. People in baroque out-of-fashion attire dancing in a ballroom.
"Chronoton density at ninety-four percent!" ARIA was screaming now. "Temporal matrix stable! This is not a drill!"
Lila's hands reacted on their own, struggling to capture the reaction. The math in her head was running amok now, reorganizing into something she had never seen. The tear was not opening - it was looking for something.
"Shut it down!" Khatri thundered. "Reyes, emergency shutdown now!"
But she could not move. There, in all that swirling impossibility, a man was forming. Tall, in what seemed an antique naval uniform with brass buttons. He gazed into her eyes across time and space, and held out his hand as if he might reach for her through the wall.
"Holy hell," she whispered as the entire station trembled around them. "It really works."
Time shockwave hit a second later. The last she saw was the face of the stranger - fear-stricken, desperate, outstretched reaching for her as reality tore apart at the seams.