Timestone

Chapter Thirteen ϟ Detour

I bolt up, awakened from my short nap by a guard bringing a plate of food. I'm back in the temporary quarters they gave me when I first arrived. I scarf down the food. After eating, I need to use the restroom. Cautiously, I open the door. The guard in the hallway outside scowls suspiciously. I tell him what I need, and he leads me to a bathroom.

After finishing, I exit and see my escort speaking with another person at the far end of the hall. I quietly close the bathroom door and slip around the corner. I'm not sure what came over me to do something so spontaneous and stupid. It wasn't something I had planned—I just found myself doing it as I did it. But now that I've done it, I'm eager to see more of this place.

My heart pounds as I quickly walk along the corridor. The anxiety in my chest increases with each step. Luckily, this part of the building seems vacant. I eventually arrive at the end of a hall with two doors on either side. I test the one on the right and find it unlocked. Inside sits a staircase that appears to descend a long way. I'm guessing it's an exit to the bottom of the cliff. Part of my brain screams at me to bolt down the stairs and escape. But the other part holds back with curiosity. If I'm to gain any answers, I feel this is the place where I'll find them. I need to keep exploring.

I back out and move to the other door. It doesn't have a handle but instead a black panel. I approach the door, and a floating display greets me. I tap in the air on a green button labeled Open, and the door slides into the wall. As I step inside, a wide window on the opposite wall draws me toward it. The window overlooks a spacious room on the lower level.

Several people stand in the room below draped in white lab coats—scientists. At the center sits a white cylindrical device. It stands about three feet in height and about five feet in diameter. The top contains a control panel with a screen and arrays of buttons and status indicator lights.

The rest of the room lies bare except for some high tables and racks of tools and gadgets along the outer edges. Two scientists speak from opposite ends of the room, but I can't hear any of it. When I entered the room, I noticed a switch labeled Audio near the door. I crawl over and flip it on. I can now hear everything happening in the room below me.

"Load the timestone," a voice says over a speaker above me. Two scientists stand near the cylindrical device. One carries a large, black egg that looks like it's been carved from the metallic stone of the mountain. The other opens a panel on the device, and they position the black egg within it. The voice called it timestone.

"Stand clear for calibration of the time engine," the voice rings out.

Time engine? I lean forward with piqued interest.

Two thin ovals of light appear on the floor, encircling the device in the center. Fixtures mounted on the ceiling are projecting lasers, which form the ovals. They remind me of an egg—a larger outer oval for the shell and a smaller, more circular one for the yoke. They start small but begin to expand until the outer oval stretches nearly to the walls. The time engine sits right at the heart of the ovals.

The scientists casually approach the room's corners until they all stand outside the outer oval. The voice fills the room again. "Calibration commencing. Standby." Then, after a moment, "Calibration complete. Time rate set to ten. Ready to begin test scenarios."

Three scientists step toward the outer oval, each carrying a tablet.

I see it, but I can't believe it. As each scientist steps across the line, one by one, they become unrecognizable. If I hadn't seen them cross over the line, I wouldn't have known they were human. They're now just fast-moving blurs zooming around the outer oval. Occasionally, a blur stands still momentarily and becomes recognizable as a person—or at least a blurry person.