—March 23, 2116, 08:45:00—

  The conference room smelled of stale coffee and recycled air. Judith sat at the polished table, her fingers tracing the rim of a ceramic mug that had long gone cold. Ten days had passed since the incident—ten days since she had died and been reborn in the same breath. The physical wounds had healed, but something else had shifted beneath her skin, a quiet vibration that hadn't been there before.

  Neil sat beside her, his knee bouncing restlessly beneath the table. He hadn't left her side for more than an hour at a time since it happened. Across from them, Silas and Maxine picked at their breakfast pastries, their movements careful, as if the wrong gesture might shatter the fragile peace that had settled over their lab.

  Maxine appeared to be choosing her words carefully, given the gravity of the events that unfolded the previous week. “It would appear that Dr. Hawking’s theories may carry more weight, in light of recent events.”

  Neil exhaled and looked at Judith. Nodding, he agreed. “I certainly do hope that is the case.” He was willing to lose that argument if it meant that they could avoid the same catastrophe that led to the future Judith’s untimely death.

  Judith smiled at Neil. “I think I can agree to not stepping through that machine in the future if you all are comfortable with creating Stream B.”

  All of them laughed, clearing the tension in the room, as they waited.

  Maxine’s smile dissipated as she appeared lost in a new thought. “Still, now I wonder something completely new.” She said, her face contorting as she considered Judith’s comment. “Assuming we all agree that we are going to not allow the events that led to what we experienced last week to happen again, how do we know that we’re not in Stream C, or Stream D?”

  “We can’t.” Judith agreed. “We have no way of knowing.”

  “One thing is for sure.” Neil said. “Judith will not be stepping through that machine again until we figure this all out.”

  “I’ll be the one.” Maxine immediately responded. “It can be me.”

  Silas looked perturbed. “And how do we know that in some original timeline that it wasn’t Maxine that stepped through that machine and met the same fate?” He let that sink in. “And that we had a conversation just like this one and Judith decided to be the one to correct the timeline?”

  “Well, there may be truth in that.” Judith said. “However I’m the one that touched the body that fell through the machine, not Maxine. It wasn’t the jump that killed her.” As she spoke those words, she closed her eyes, as if remembering. “She was still alive. Disoriented, but alive. It was my touch that annihilated her consciousness.”

  The door hissed open.

  Dr. James Maxwell stepped inside, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. He was what Judith had expected—late-fifties, perhaps—with silver-dark hair cut with military precision and bifocal lenses that seemed to magnify his eyes to impossible proportions. He moved with an economy that suggested every motion had been calculated for maximum efficiency.

  "Dr. Tyson," Maxwell said, his voice a calm baritone that carried an unmistakable authority. "Dr. Hawking. Mr. Doolittle. Ms. Li."

  Neil straightened in his chair. "Dr. Maxwell."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "I have read through each of your reports and your personal accounts of the incident," Maxwell said, taking the chair at the head of the table. "Now that Dr. Hawking has recovered sufficiently, I'd like to take the time to go through the events of March 13th, together."

  Neil cleared his throat. "Well, sir, we had completed the final diagnostics on the Loom. All systems checked out nominally. We were preparing to receive our first test specimen—a standardized aluminum bar, serial number 734-B, to be transmitted backward in time from several minutes in the future.

  "The moment Silas activated the sequence, everything appeared normal and we were expecting the specimen to complete its jump at approximately three minutes from activation.” He coughed and looked over at his colleague.

  Judith picked up the narrative. “However, there was an energy surge right after the machine fully activated. It was unpredicted. Instead of an object materializing, a person fell through the aperture. I moved to assist, to turn the body over, and then..." She paused, searching for words. "Everything went white. Like being submerged in light."

  “And then she just collapsed. And both of them stared with dead eyes, wide open, unmoving on the floor of the lab.” Neil added, his voice flat, his expression distant. And they all fell silent for a moment.

  Maxwell was reviewing the reports in his hands and his gaze shifted to Silas. "And after Dr. Hawking collapsed?"

  Silas adjusted his glasses. "Maxine called for emergency medical help and I attempted resuscitation. The other Judith—well, we didn't realize she was a different person initially. We worked on her for nearly seven minutes before medical personnel arrived. There was... there was nothing to be done."

  Maxine added quietly, "Her pupils were fixed and dilated. No response to stimuli. The coroner later concluded that brain death had most likely occurred almost instantly upon arrival."

  Neil's hands clenched into fists on the table. "I stayed with our Judith. There was no pulse, no respiration for over five minutes. Then..." His voice cracked slightly. "Then she gasped. Her eyes opened. And she was back."

  Maxwell's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as he studied Neil. Judith noticed the subtle shift in his expression—the way he catalogued Neil's emotional response like data to be analyzed later.

  "There's something else," Judith said, drawing their attention. "Something I need to explain, and it may be difficult to comprehend."

  She paused, choosing her words carefully. "During the time I was... elsewhere, in that white space, something happened. I merged with her. With the other Judith. I have all her memories now. Everything she knew, everything she experienced." She let that sink in before continuing. "And I think I know what went wrong."

  Her gaze drifted toward Maxine, lingering just a moment too long. "There was a miscalculation in the temporal resonance frequency. Something that threw off the entire transfer matrix."

  Maxine paled, her hands trembling as she reached for her water glass. Silas placed a steadying hand on her arm, his expression unreadable.

  Dr. Maxwell jotted a few notes before responding to the new information. This was not in her report. “Interesting.” He said. “Dr. Tyson, if I may have a word in private please. The rest of you may go.”

  They each looked at each other, and then at Neil before finally standing. Pushing in their chairs, a rasping noise produced as the chairs grinded against the floors, the other three scientists departed and headed back to their lab.

  The doors closed and three sets of footsteps faded as they departed down the hallway.

  Neil stood abruptly. "Dr. Maxwell, I take full responsibility for this incident. I understand completely if you need to reassign me or—"

  Maxwell held up a hand, silencing him. A slow smile spread across his face, wide and unnerving. "On the contrary, Dr. Tyson. The results, while emotionally taxing, are quite promising. Quite promising indeed."

  “And I’m sure that you will each learn how to correct the issue so it does not occur again.” Maxwell rose from his chair, his movements fluid and deliberate. "You've all exceeded my expectations. Continue your work with vigor. There's much yet to discover."

  Maxwell paused at the door, turning back to face Neil. His eyes seemed to gleam behind his bifocals.

  "After all," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, "sometimes the most valuable discoveries are made when we break the universe just enough to see how it puts itself back together."