Page 68 of The Devouring Time

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Despair replaces pride. We’re too late. We’ve always been too late; I wasn’t even returned to my body until the thirtieth.

Unless I’m missing something. If only I could remember my time with Bianca, I might understand what it all means. Though it sounds as if her memories, while more intact than mine, were fragmented as well.

“Damn it,” Helen says. Dr. Dane gives her a hard look. “Excuse my language, Professor. Is your machine operational? Can we use it?”

Dr. Dane’s expression shifts to one of chagrin. “It’s close to working. But it needs something more. If I had the Key of Mithras…” she trails off sorrowfully, then shakes her head. “Never mind. I assume I’ve answered your questions thoroughly, and I have work to do.”

“Can we see your machine before we go?” I’m not certain what good it will do us, but I also don’t know what else to do.

She looks at me for a long moment, as though weighing something in her mind. Then she picks up her cigarette case and stands. “Why not? I’ve had few enough interested visitors.”

She leads us out of her office, pausing to lock the door behind her, then back past the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist eyes us suspiciously, but she can hardly object to our presence since we’re with Dr. Dane.

A stairway, far narrower than the one leading to the more utilized floors, wends up through the tower. Slender windows let light into the otherwise gloomy stair. “I’ve been working up here to keep down any electrical interference,” Dr. Dane explains, a bit out of breath from the climb.

Near the top of the tower, the steps end in a round room with several desks and seats pushed against the walls. A ladder runs up the far wall to a hatch, presumably leading to the observatory itself.

In the center of the room is an odd machine, a thing of glass bulbs, strangely colored liquids in vials, gauges, and tubes arranged around a central metal box that encloses its inner workings. A thick cable leads to a sort of metal helmet resting on top of the box.

“Bring one of the chairs over and place it by the machine,” Dr. Dane orders. Adrian and I both move to comply; he’s faster, and settles the chair in place. “Now, Mr. Caine, take a seat and put on the head piece.”

I hadn’t expected to actually be connected to the thing in some way. Adrian holds up a hand. “Wait, why Sterling?”

“If his consciousness has already traveled through time, perhaps it will be more receptive to what the machine can do, even in its current state.”

Oh—no wonder she agreed to show us the machine. She’s running an experiment, using me as the subject.

Adrian seems uneasy, but I touch his arm as I take my seat. “Remove the helmet if I appear in distress.”

“Oh, I will, don’t worry about that.”

“It’s perfectly safe.” Dr. Dane seems annoyed by our caution. “Mr. Caine is just interacting with sensory input.”

Sensory input has landed more men than I can count in the hospital for shell shock, but I’m not going to argue, lest Adrian become even more concerned than he already is. I try to find a comfortable position on the hard seat, then lift the helmet. It’s surprisingly heavy, and when I settle it on my head, it completely covers both my eyes and ears. To make it easier to concentrate on whatever the machine shows me?

The machine lets out a muffled sputtering as it comes to life, which quickly turns into a hum so low I’m not sure if I’m hearing something or just imagining it. It feels awkward, just sitting here with the helmet on; I must look like a fool. Am I supposed to be experiencing anything yet, and if so, through what sense? Sight I assume, but⁠—

Something flashes across my vision, even though my eyes are closed tight within the confining embrace of the helmet. It’s there and gone before my brain can make sense of it, but I’m certain it was real.

Tingling crawls across my scalp—electricity from the machine, perhaps? But it feels almost like something brushing past.

A faint murmur starts up, resolving into a babble of voices. There are too many to count, to even begin to understand. Am I hearing conversations from the other branches in time Dr. Dane mentioned?

Visions flicker past my eyes, there and gone in an instant: a thousand versions of this very room, of Adrian, of myself, too fast for me to truly note the differences. More scenes show a vacant room, then people I don’t recognize, then empty air and landscape after landscape: a crowded town, a tiny hamlet, a blasted wasteland no life has ever touched, on and on, and I’m about to rip off the helmet when⁠—

“Hello?”

A voice, rising above the cacophony.

I focus on the sound, or try to. It wasn’t speaking to me, that would be impossible…wouldn’t it?

“Hello? Can you…” It fades out, then comes back, like a badly tuned radio. “…stop them…have to find where the…stop…”

“I can’t understand,” I call back, shouting as if physical effort alone could carry my words to whatever place and time the voice is coming from. “You’re not⁠—”

Then, suddenly, every strange sound, vision, and touch cease all at once. I’m sitting in the dark silence of the helmet, breathing in the stink of burning electrical wire.