The Second Time Around
8

Dr. Gregory Paite lurched two steps outside of the testvessel and he hit his knees. He retched,hard, but there wasn't anything in his stomach left to bring up. Still, his body protested to the abuse he wasputting it through, as did his mind. Everything in the tiny basement room seemed to spin for a moment beforesettling.

"Dr. Paite!" One of the lab techs exclaimed,"Are you okay?"

"Some lingering after effects of the shift ahead,"Gregory answered. "How long was Isuspended this time?"

"The longest yet, Dr. Paite," The young womananswered with excitement. "Nearlyfourteen and a half hours from the time we reached Delta Zero. That's right at twice as long as the lasttime."

"Very good," Gregory told her with a forcedsmile. "Take down the necessary lognotes and begin resetting the apparatus. I want to make another attempt as soon as possible, understand?"

The young woman pushed a pair of thin gold-framed lenses upa slender nose and nodded. She waspretty, but indifferent about it, which somehow made her all the moreattractive. Gregory had no romanticfeelings for her at all, but he was still a man and realized she was strikinglybeautiful. She was also brilliant anddiligent, if a bit flighty.

Gregory managed to walk down the hallway and to thedormitory wing. He even made it throughthe door to his room upright, but collapsed soon after. Pains and aches wracked his entire body fromhead to toe. His muscles felt like theywere rippling with liquid fire and his bones felt as if they were being slowlypulled apart one by one.

Gregory clenched his teeth and rode out the wave of agony ina rigid fetal position on his floor. Some immeasurable time later, the feeling passed like a summerthunderstorm. It faded in fits andspurts, flaring briefly, and then waning again. Finally, it was gone, and Gregory lay on his back panting, soaked insweat, with the taste of coppery blood in the back of his mouth. He sat up and realized his nose wasbleeding. It wasn't much, but a thinsteady stream ran from both nostrils. Itstopped quickly, though, and with no interference.

Gregory climbed slowly to his feet and sank into bed. He trembled slightly for a little bit as hismuscles relaxed and the memory of the agony faded. It seemed the backlash from reintegration wasgetting worse with every interjection event. He wasn't sure if the increasing consequence was from spending more timein the past, changing more to affect the future, or simply the cumulativeeffects of mucking about with space-time itself.

The answer seemed like it should be very important to him,but it barely registered. He was totallyfocused now on his plan. He couldn'tafford a single mistake that might result in a paradox breach and collapse theentire thing. He had put too much intoit now, too much time and too much pain.

He looked down the three fresh red spots on his t-shirt.

And too much blood.

Sometime later Gregory must have fallen asleep. Darkness enveloped him, total and complete,with not even the slightest hint of a dream. It wasn't so much that Gregory was unaware of time, the way he used tobe when he would sleep without dreams. Instead, he was very much aware of everything that was going on aroundhim. The problem was nothing was goingon at all. And so he waited, imaginingwhat it would be like to tap the toes that he could feel but couldn't seem tocontrol.

In that kind of dark emptiness, time seems to stretch and toopen up. It was almost the same kind offeeling that he had when inside his device and the power was just hitting itspeak. Time slowed, stretched, and thensudden was still again, but in a slightly different shape. Except instead of suddenly being free to moveabout at will through the vast sea of thenow he was trapped. Like a fish tapping on the wall of anaquarium, he could feel the barrier but he couldn't see it or pass through it.

And then some noise or smell in the waking world finallycaught his attention enough to rouse him. As suddenly as flipping on a light switch in a dark room, he wasawake. Gregory blinked and frowned as hesat up. He always felt cold and somewhathollow now when he woke up. Before, hehad always known that at some point in the night he had dreamt, he justcouldn't remember anything. Most often,he would have awoken with some vague impression or feeling lingering from adream that he knew had happened, but couldn't quite describe. Rarely had he ever remembered a dream in realdetail.

But now it was very different. Gregory knew, without question, that hehadn't dreamt at all since he'd stepped into the device the first time. And that really bothered him. Gregory rubbed his eyes with the heels of hishands and stood slowly. His muscles achedas if he'd climbed a mountain with a refrigerator on his back the daybefore. A dull throbbing in his templeskept time with his pulse.

For a brief moment, Gregory wanted nothing quite so bad as ascotch on the rocks with a cigarette. With a deep breath, he forced one foot in front of the other and went totake a steaming hot shower. Slowly theheat and the strong aspen scent from the bar of soap seeped into his pores andloosened his muscles a little.

Gregory dried off and dressed as quickly as he could. He checked his watch, and for a brief momentthe room seemed to spin around him. Hecaught himself with a hand on the edge of the bathroom sink. Gregory blinked a few times and his visioncleared to show the time at quarter till noon. The date function had dashes where the day and month should be. He'd been forced to rely on memory and acarefully kept day planner to keep track of the days.

On the inside cover was a list of dates and times witheither a D or an A next to them for Departures and Arrivals. His last departure date and time had him atOctober 4th 2017 at two thirty in the afternoon. He carefully wrote in his arrival on October5th 2017 at five in the morning. Andnow, since he'd slept, he had no idea what day it was. Although Gregory had felt and experienced, andcould remember every single instant he was asleep, he had nothing to gauge thatpassage of time against, and so he wasn't sure how long it had been. There weren't any newspapers delivered, andincoming electrical signals were very tightly controlled for security purposes. He didn't feel like he'd slept an entire dayaway, but that wasn't always reliable.

Gregory stood in front of the mirror for a moment once hewas dressed and stared at his reflection. The face that gazed back seemed to be his, though it was thinner than heremembered. There were dark bags beneathhis eyes and his skin was pale. He triedto remember the last time he'd sat down to a hot meal of real food, butcouldn't. Gregory ran a hand through hisshort dirty blonde hair to give it some semblance of order, and then turned thelight off and closed the door behind him as he stepped out into the hall.

On the way to the control center, Gregory wolfed down aprotein bar and a vitamin smoothie. Heused whitening and disinfectant strips to clean his false teeth. The porcelain veneers still felt unnaturallysmooth beneath his tongue, though they looked amazing in a picture. He paused outside the door and took a deep,steadying breath.

When he opened the door, all conversation in the roomimmediately fell silent. He walkedthrough that silence to the viewing window in the back of the room. There he was handed a folder with themorning's full report condensed down to five sheets of notes and datapoints. He skimmed them quickly, andturned to the lead architect on duty.

"We're set, sir," He reported with a snap in hisvoice. "All we need is the timevariant to enter."

Gregory nodded and ran a hand wearily through his hair. He looked through the observation window,past the dim half-reflection of his own haggard face, to the vesselitself. It looked like nothing moreexotic than a large metal ball. Thething had hoses coming out of various panels, and a near constant mist ofcondensing gas rolling off the shell. Around the spherical chamber were panels that resembled solar panels,only more reflective.

"Set the containment field for forty eight hours,"Gregory said. "Assuming you cankeep things stable, that should give me at least two days to take measurementsand readings."

The lab tech nodded, "We'll hold it, Dr. Paite. You have my word on that, sir."

"One other thing," Gregory said as the lab techturned to go, "What is the date and time?"

The young lab tech looked a little confused but checked hiswatch and answered, "October sixth, zero seven hundred."

Gregory nodded and pulled out his small day plannercalendar. He wrote the date and time inthe inside cover and put a D next to it. He handed the little leather bound calendar to the lab tech with hispen.

"I'll have it delivered to your quarters, sir,"The young man said somberly.

Gregory just nodded, and handed the file folder back to theyoung man before he turned on his heel and marched away. The rest of the staff stayed back fromGregory as he looked out at the vessel. He had acquired something of legendary standing among the research scientistsand it made them uncomfortable to be so near to him. Gregory felt the itch of their eyes on hisback, though, and it made his skin crawl. If they only knew the things he'd done, the mistakes he'd made.

He could have retreated to the solitude of his office, aspacious room sectioned off with privacy glass at the end of the long bank ofcomputer terminals, display screens, and switchboards. Once inside that refuge, he could fog theglass with the push of a button, and have complete privacy. Instead, he stood and endured the stares andwhispers behind him as part of his penance.

After some time the lab tech returned and cleared his throatuncomfortably. "Everything isready, Dr. Paite. All we need is youword."

Gregory nodded, but didn't turn from the window. "Heading in now," Gregory saidsoftly, "See you on the return trip."

He walked down to the prep chamber and stepped into thescanner. An intense metal detector ran ascan from head to toe to clear him of all metal. Even the buttons and the zipper on his pantswere made of plastic and nylon. Metal ofany kind would interfere with the intense magnetic fields he was about to beexposed to and could have some rather interesting adverse affects on the reaction.

The green light over the door to what had been dubbed thelaunch chamber clicked on, and Dr. Gregory Paite stepped through the heavy doorand it automatically closed and sealed behind him. The hatch for the vessel itself was open andGregory climbed, carefully closing and locking the hatch behind him. He heard the magnetic locks click into placeafter he tightened down the manual latch.

The chair mounted to the exact center of the sphericalchamber was his own design, and as comfortable as he could make it. He settled into the plush leather upholsteryand stared up at the blank black ceiling punctuated by a few LED's providingthe dim light for the interior of the vessel. Once he was still, the system began the launch process.

Liquid Helium was pumped into the outer skin of the vessel,dropping the temperature quickly. Theinterior chamber was insulated, but the chill still began to creep in. Gregory's breath began to fog in front ofhim. Then the powerful electromagnetslining the launch chamber began to power up. As their combined magnetic field grew in strength, the effects began tomanifest. Gregory's vision seemed toblur, but the problem wasn't with his eyes. The magnetic field was actually beginning to twist the fabric ofspace-time and Gregory's brain was picking up on the distortion waives.

The LED's in the ceiling began to dim, their light taking ona slight reddish tent. The effect wassubtle at first, but built rapidly. Asthe darkness grew, Gregory felt himself growing heavier and heavier. Just as the very last vestiges of lightfaded, and Gregory felt the pressure would grow to the point that it crushedhim, everything stopped.

For a brief moment, Gregory hung on the point betweenconsciousness and death. That momentsstretched, twisted, and then stopped.

And time stopped with it.