FF: Time After Time | Warehouse 13 | HG/Myka | NC-17 | Part 2
Myka knocked on Claudia’s door, pushing it open when she got something akin to a growl in response. Claudia sat on the bed, ignoring her, as she picked through a melody on her guitar Myka recognized but couldn’t quite place.
“I don’t want breakfast, I don’t want to talk, and I don’t want to go for a walk,” she snapped sullenly without looking up.
“How’d you like to do something useful,” Myka offered, her tone just razor-edged enough to get Claudia’s attention.
Icy knives of agony stabbed through her chest with each breath, but Claudia was learning to embrace the pain. It was the only thing that was keeping her from completely flying apart. When she looked up at Myka, she saw that same pain echoed in her friend’s eyes. Pain and something more: determination. “Define ‘useful.’”
“Get up and find out for yourself,” Myka challenged, turning away from the door without waiting for an answer. She tossed back over her shoulder, “And bring your laptop.”
Claudia watched her go and took a breath, feeling the pain rush through her. Another second and she was off the bed, grabbing her bag and laptop. “Hey, Myka, wait up!”
~*~
“Back up plans,” Myka said matter of factly. Tucked into a corner of Univille’s only coffee shop with free Wi-Fi (which Claudia had already appropriated for her own use), she sipped at her Café Americano and let the younger woman in on the problem she’d been working through all night. “Helena is too smart not to have a backup plan.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked, ignoring the way Myka used the present tense.
“She had no assurance that the Regents would take her back, even if she did rescue Artie… and she had no timeline for finding Warehouse 2 or an escape plan if things didn’t work out. Now, for someone as intelligent as Helena, does that make any sense?”
“I always assumed it was part of the whole psychotic-break-destroy-the-world thing that she didn’t have better planning. But you’re right, that doesn’t make much sense.”
“Unless she did have a backup plan and the Regents never discovered it.”
“A secret lair.” Now, Claudia smiled. She couldn’t help it. For one brief moment she pictured Helena as the cliché mad-scientist in a white lab coat, surrounded by beakers and boiling concoctions. Just as quickly the image was gone, along with her smile. “So what?”
“What if we could go back,” Myka asked, her eyes locked on Claudia’s, letting every implication sink in.
“Myka, we can’t go back… you know we can’t alter the timeline… besides, HG’s time machine was destroyed along with everything else.”
“Change the rules,” the brunette said softly. “And who said that was the only time machine Helena ever made.”
“You think she built another time machine,” Claudia asked incredulously.
Now, it was Myka’s turn to smile. “You know Helena and her insatiable curiosity.”
Claudia needed no further convincing, her laptop was already open as she brought up several windows at once and started clacking away. “I’ll cross-reference her known aliases with property records around Univille - she would have had to stay close.”
For the first time in days Myka felt something flutter in her chest and vaguely recognized it as hope. She reached up, a move reminiscent of Helena, and clutched the locket she now wore around her neck. It provided a moment of inspiration. “No wait, she wouldn’t have used her usual aliases. She would have used something special.”
“Special as in…?”
“Search for Christina Wells.”
Claudia raised an eyebrow but did as instructed.
The search pinged back immediately with a result. “Univille self-storage! There’s a unit rented under the name Christina Wells.”
Myka smiled in triumph.
Ten minutes later they were on the out skirts of Univille at the sprawling U-Store 1000 lot. A flash of a badge and some sweet talk got the unit number from the manager, an indoor space situated at the far end of the property. The well-placed use of a crowbar from the car trunk had the lock shattered. Myka pulled the rolling metal door up and stepped back as the dust dispersed and then settled.
Claudia reached inside the door, finding a light switch readily enough. What was revealed made her jaw drop.
“Holy…”
What other explicatives Claudia could come up with died on her lips unsaid as she stared into the storage unit. To one side Helena had set up a work bench, littered with tools and soldering irons and half-finished gadgets. But the rest of the considerable space was taken up by an obviously new and improved version of HG’s time machine.
A single-seater this time, it was a sleeker version of the original, but sadly, not yet functional. Tacked up on the opposite wall, page after page of blue prints laid out in detail the specifications for finishing the machine. Ironically, it seemed, Helena had simply run out of time before finishing it.
Claudia stared up at the blueprints, a funny, half-smile on her face.
“What? What is it?” Myka prompted. She too was staring at the blueprints, but could make out no more than the basic design and certainly none of the details.
“I helped her with this,” Claudia answered, voice tinged with pride and a little bit of awe. “After the old machine went kaput, she wanted to break it down a bit, see where things had gone wrong, how to improve them. It was all just theoretical … ‘for scientific purposes,’ she said, but this power coupling design, it’s mine.”
“Can you finish it?”
Claudia took a breath, the pain lifting off her chest for the first time in days. “It… won’t be easy. And I’m gonna need a few things and they’re gonna be expensive.”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve done anything productive with my credit cards since I started this job.”
“Fair point.”
Myka reached into her purse and handed over her wallet without hesitation. “Max them out. Open a dozen more. Rob a bank if you need to… just make it work Claude.”
Claudia turned around, smiling at the machine like a lover she was about to seduce. “Come on gorgeous, you and me are gonna have some fun.”
~*~
Darkness had fallen hours before Myka finally came back to the B&B. As she’d expected, Pete was waiting up for her in the kitchen, making his way through a pecan pie. Without needing an invitation, Myka grabbed a fork and sat down across from him, starting in on the pie from the other side.
“What’s the word?”
“Regents don’t want to let Artie use the pocket watch… they’re afraid of the repercussions… especially since no one’s exactly sure what it does yet, since pretty much the entire archive is ashes right now.”
“Can’t blame them for being gun shy I guess.”
“Where have you been all day?”
Myka took another bite, hesitating only a moment before answering honestly, “Finding HG’s secret lair and her nearly-finished time machine.”
Pete smirked, his expression slowly dropping into disbelief as he stared at Myka. “Seriously?”
“Seriously, Pete.”
“Is that- is that where Claudia’s at?” Myka nodded. “But, Myka… even if you can finish it… we can’t change the past. We learned that the last time.”
“Did we?” she asked, putting her fork down. “Or was it simply that we went about it the wrong way.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying last time we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We jumped into Jack and Rebecca’s bodies and then they couldn’t tell us what happened later on. This time, I’ll jump into someone completely different. Unattached to the Warehouse.” At Pete’s disbelieving look, she continued, “It won’t affect the time line and I can find a way to warn us, or, or, or I’ll take down Sykes myself if I have to, but there is a way to change the past. You said it yourself - if there’s even a chance we have to try.”
“Okay,” Pete nodded reluctantly, “Okay, then let’s do this.”
Myka shook her head. “The new machine - there’s only one seat. I’m sorry Pete, I have to do it alone.”
“What? No, no way.”
“Pete-”
“No way Myka. Uh uh. I’m not letting you get into that thing alone. God knows what could happen. And I can’t… I won’t…” He trailed off, choking on the words as he turned away from her. Standing at the kitchen island, he tried desperately to hold in the tears that threatened to spill over. The last week had been a roller coaster ride through hell, with not only his life on the line, but his mother’s, his best friends - all of them family. And he’d lost along the way, just as he always seemed to lose. “I won’t lose you too,” he whispered harshly, gripping the cabinet so tightly he nearly cracked the marble.
“Oh, Pete…” Myka stood up and placed a hand softly on his shoulder, not daring to do more lest they both completely break down. “You always have my back Pete. I know that… and I need you to have my back now.” Myka took a breath and made him turn just enough to look at her. “I have to do this. I was right, Pete. The price was too high… I can’t live without her. Not when I know there’s a chance I could bring her back. So I’m going to use the time machine, and I’m gonna put my faith in you and Claudia to keep me safe until I can get back.”
“And if you can’t come back Myka?”
Myka swallowed hard. “Then at least I will have gotten to see her one last time… and maybe I can tell her… maybe I can…” she stopped, the tears suddenly overwhelming her. Still, she tried to finish, “maybe I… can…” but there was nothing more that would come out as Pete hugged her tightly against him, his arms practically holding her upright as her body shook with repressed sobs.
“Shh… it’s okay,” Pete soothed, holding on tightly to his friend and partner.
For so long he’d been wary of HG, jealous even of the way she’d maneuvered herself so easily into Myka’s trust. And then she’d betrayed Myka, betrayed them all, and he’d felt doubly the fool for not trusting his instincts. But in the end he’d finally been able to see what Myka had seen in her all those times, and she hadn’t let them down. He owed her his life, and now he would do his best to return the favor.
Squaring his shoulders back, he asked, “So how long before Claudia gets it up and running?”
~*~
Myka shouldn’t have been able to sleep, but the moment her head touched the pillow it was as if her entire body simply shut down, refusing to let her mind linger on any of the thousand thoughts that had been constantly swirling through her head. In her dream, as before, she wandered the Warehouse, making her way through row after row of empty shelves. Yet, something felt different. No longer did the empty shelves and dark spaces feel hollow and desolate. Now, it seemed as if they were waiting, preparing to be filled, humming inside with possibility.
Coming around the corner, Myka stopped to smile at Helena leaning ever so casually against a shelf. “Were you dawdling?”
“Never.”
Helena pushed away from the shelf, grace personified, and took the three steps to stand in front of Myka. Reaching up, she brushed a lock of hair off Myka’s forehead and gave the younger woman the once over. She could see the difference from their previous encounter easily enough in Myka’s determined gaze. “Better,” she pronounced, and to Myka it sounded like the highest of praise.
“I found your time machine.”
“As I knew you would.”
“Claudia’s finishing it now… I don’t know if it’s going to work… last time, it seemed as if we were always a step behind. But now, I hope… we might actually have a chance.”
Beaming with pride, Helena encouraged, “I pity any one or any thing that dares to stand in the way of Myka Bering and what she wants. It is simply no contest.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” Myka asked softly, giving voice to the only fear she had left.
Helena stroked her hair softly, and then let her hand trail down pushing Myka’s hair off her collar to reveal the gold chain hidden beneath. “You wear this now,” Helena smiled, her fingers dancing over the chain and down to her locket, “And so you carry me, the best of me with you, always.” Helena leaned in, kissing Myka softly. “Carry me close to your heart, my love, for you are always in mine.”
“Don’t let go… not yet…” Myka pleaded softly even as she watched the storm of flames building in the distance.
“Never,” Helena vowed.
In the darkness they held on as the storm crested and broke over them, once more destroying everything in its path. And in the air hung the faint scent of apples.
~*~
It was amazing how much of a motivator crushing agony could be when properly applied in a situation. With no sleep, and surviving on little more than Cheez-Its and Red Bull, Claudia had finished the time machine by the next afternoon. Artie and Jane - pulled into yet another meeting of the Regents - didn’t even notice their agents were gone.
Pete whistled softly as he toured around the TM200 (as Claudia had taken to calling it) and eyed the sleek new design and specs. “Well, this is either gonna be an excellent adventure, or a totally bogus journey,” he mused, missing the identical eye-rolls from both Claudia and Myka.
“HG put a lot of thought into her secret lair,” Claudia explained. “This unit runs right over a main electrical junction line from Univille Power and Water. She already tapped into the system. I made a few tweaks, but unless something goes horrifically wrong, we should have more than enough power to keep the machine running.”
“For 22 hours and 19 minutes,” Pete said, clearly proud of himself for remembering the previous time machine’s constraints.
“Well… I’m not so sure about that,” Claudia hedged.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“HG said she never new why she couldn’t stay longer than 22 hours and 19 minutes, but in her notes she thought it might have had something to do with the structure of the power consumption. She theorized that with her modifications and an unlimited power source, a person could stay under anywhere from 48 to 72 hours.”
“She didn’t know how long it lasts?”
“She never got a chance to beta test it.”
Pete’s eyes went wide, but Myka just nodded resolutely. “So, I’m a guinea pig. Won’t be the first time. Hopefully won’t be the last.”
“Myka, are you sure-” Pete started to ask but the look from his partner silenced him quickly enough. “Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. “We’re doing this.”
“How far back do you want me to set the machine?”
“I’ve been thinking about it - I think about ten days. That should give me enough time to take stock and tip Steve off without causing suspicion. With everything I know he shouldn’t have a problem warning us and from there… well, from there I don’t know what happens,” Myka admitted.
Pete scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Time travel gives me a freakin’ headache.”
Claudia nodded emphatically.
Myka took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s do this.”
“Just like that?” Pete asked, his voice squeaking.
Myka nodded, smiling faintly. She knew he didn’t want her to use the machine; she knew his fear. She understood it even as she knew that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try. “Just like that, Pete.”
She sat down in the chair, not giving into the urge to hug both Pete and Claudia. She refused to say goodbye, telling herself stubbornly that there was no reason. She’d be back soon enough. Claudia placed the halo like device on her head, helping to strap her in. A sleeker version of the original machine, the space where the second chair had been was now occupied by the processing center where Claudia inputted the time and date data.
“Last chance, Mykes,” Pete offered, half-hopeful, half-resigned.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” Myka promised.
“You better.”
In a move wholly reminiscent of Helena, Myka reached up, her hand clasping over the locket tightly before she took one last breath and nodded at Claudia to start the machine.
The TM200 lit up, slowly engaging its gears, the chair and input center starting to spin around as the original had. Myka closed her eyes as it picked up speed, holding the locket tighter with each revolution, the object practically pulsing in her grip. Or maybe, she thought, that was just her pulse. Faster and faster the machine spun, the effect dizzying even with her eyes closed, and then she felt herself start to drift, to come loose from the moorings of her body. The machine pulsed and spun round and round, taking her into the past, as she whispered in amazement, “I smell apples.”
Part Three
“I don’t want breakfast, I don’t want to talk, and I don’t want to go for a walk,” she snapped sullenly without looking up.
“How’d you like to do something useful,” Myka offered, her tone just razor-edged enough to get Claudia’s attention.
Icy knives of agony stabbed through her chest with each breath, but Claudia was learning to embrace the pain. It was the only thing that was keeping her from completely flying apart. When she looked up at Myka, she saw that same pain echoed in her friend’s eyes. Pain and something more: determination. “Define ‘useful.’”
“Get up and find out for yourself,” Myka challenged, turning away from the door without waiting for an answer. She tossed back over her shoulder, “And bring your laptop.”
Claudia watched her go and took a breath, feeling the pain rush through her. Another second and she was off the bed, grabbing her bag and laptop. “Hey, Myka, wait up!”
~*~
“Back up plans,” Myka said matter of factly. Tucked into a corner of Univille’s only coffee shop with free Wi-Fi (which Claudia had already appropriated for her own use), she sipped at her Café Americano and let the younger woman in on the problem she’d been working through all night. “Helena is too smart not to have a backup plan.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked, ignoring the way Myka used the present tense.
“She had no assurance that the Regents would take her back, even if she did rescue Artie… and she had no timeline for finding Warehouse 2 or an escape plan if things didn’t work out. Now, for someone as intelligent as Helena, does that make any sense?”
“I always assumed it was part of the whole psychotic-break-destroy-the-world thing that she didn’t have better planning. But you’re right, that doesn’t make much sense.”
“Unless she did have a backup plan and the Regents never discovered it.”
“A secret lair.” Now, Claudia smiled. She couldn’t help it. For one brief moment she pictured Helena as the cliché mad-scientist in a white lab coat, surrounded by beakers and boiling concoctions. Just as quickly the image was gone, along with her smile. “So what?”
“What if we could go back,” Myka asked, her eyes locked on Claudia’s, letting every implication sink in.
“Myka, we can’t go back… you know we can’t alter the timeline… besides, HG’s time machine was destroyed along with everything else.”
“Change the rules,” the brunette said softly. “And who said that was the only time machine Helena ever made.”
“You think she built another time machine,” Claudia asked incredulously.
Now, it was Myka’s turn to smile. “You know Helena and her insatiable curiosity.”
Claudia needed no further convincing, her laptop was already open as she brought up several windows at once and started clacking away. “I’ll cross-reference her known aliases with property records around Univille - she would have had to stay close.”
For the first time in days Myka felt something flutter in her chest and vaguely recognized it as hope. She reached up, a move reminiscent of Helena, and clutched the locket she now wore around her neck. It provided a moment of inspiration. “No wait, she wouldn’t have used her usual aliases. She would have used something special.”
“Special as in…?”
“Search for Christina Wells.”
Claudia raised an eyebrow but did as instructed.
The search pinged back immediately with a result. “Univille self-storage! There’s a unit rented under the name Christina Wells.”
Myka smiled in triumph.
Ten minutes later they were on the out skirts of Univille at the sprawling U-Store 1000 lot. A flash of a badge and some sweet talk got the unit number from the manager, an indoor space situated at the far end of the property. The well-placed use of a crowbar from the car trunk had the lock shattered. Myka pulled the rolling metal door up and stepped back as the dust dispersed and then settled.
Claudia reached inside the door, finding a light switch readily enough. What was revealed made her jaw drop.
“Holy…”
What other explicatives Claudia could come up with died on her lips unsaid as she stared into the storage unit. To one side Helena had set up a work bench, littered with tools and soldering irons and half-finished gadgets. But the rest of the considerable space was taken up by an obviously new and improved version of HG’s time machine.
A single-seater this time, it was a sleeker version of the original, but sadly, not yet functional. Tacked up on the opposite wall, page after page of blue prints laid out in detail the specifications for finishing the machine. Ironically, it seemed, Helena had simply run out of time before finishing it.
Claudia stared up at the blueprints, a funny, half-smile on her face.
“What? What is it?” Myka prompted. She too was staring at the blueprints, but could make out no more than the basic design and certainly none of the details.
“I helped her with this,” Claudia answered, voice tinged with pride and a little bit of awe. “After the old machine went kaput, she wanted to break it down a bit, see where things had gone wrong, how to improve them. It was all just theoretical … ‘for scientific purposes,’ she said, but this power coupling design, it’s mine.”
“Can you finish it?”
Claudia took a breath, the pain lifting off her chest for the first time in days. “It… won’t be easy. And I’m gonna need a few things and they’re gonna be expensive.”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve done anything productive with my credit cards since I started this job.”
“Fair point.”
Myka reached into her purse and handed over her wallet without hesitation. “Max them out. Open a dozen more. Rob a bank if you need to… just make it work Claude.”
Claudia turned around, smiling at the machine like a lover she was about to seduce. “Come on gorgeous, you and me are gonna have some fun.”
~*~
Darkness had fallen hours before Myka finally came back to the B&B. As she’d expected, Pete was waiting up for her in the kitchen, making his way through a pecan pie. Without needing an invitation, Myka grabbed a fork and sat down across from him, starting in on the pie from the other side.
“What’s the word?”
“Regents don’t want to let Artie use the pocket watch… they’re afraid of the repercussions… especially since no one’s exactly sure what it does yet, since pretty much the entire archive is ashes right now.”
“Can’t blame them for being gun shy I guess.”
“Where have you been all day?”
Myka took another bite, hesitating only a moment before answering honestly, “Finding HG’s secret lair and her nearly-finished time machine.”
Pete smirked, his expression slowly dropping into disbelief as he stared at Myka. “Seriously?”
“Seriously, Pete.”
“Is that- is that where Claudia’s at?” Myka nodded. “But, Myka… even if you can finish it… we can’t change the past. We learned that the last time.”
“Did we?” she asked, putting her fork down. “Or was it simply that we went about it the wrong way.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying last time we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We jumped into Jack and Rebecca’s bodies and then they couldn’t tell us what happened later on. This time, I’ll jump into someone completely different. Unattached to the Warehouse.” At Pete’s disbelieving look, she continued, “It won’t affect the time line and I can find a way to warn us, or, or, or I’ll take down Sykes myself if I have to, but there is a way to change the past. You said it yourself - if there’s even a chance we have to try.”
“Okay,” Pete nodded reluctantly, “Okay, then let’s do this.”
Myka shook her head. “The new machine - there’s only one seat. I’m sorry Pete, I have to do it alone.”
“What? No, no way.”
“Pete-”
“No way Myka. Uh uh. I’m not letting you get into that thing alone. God knows what could happen. And I can’t… I won’t…” He trailed off, choking on the words as he turned away from her. Standing at the kitchen island, he tried desperately to hold in the tears that threatened to spill over. The last week had been a roller coaster ride through hell, with not only his life on the line, but his mother’s, his best friends - all of them family. And he’d lost along the way, just as he always seemed to lose. “I won’t lose you too,” he whispered harshly, gripping the cabinet so tightly he nearly cracked the marble.
“Oh, Pete…” Myka stood up and placed a hand softly on his shoulder, not daring to do more lest they both completely break down. “You always have my back Pete. I know that… and I need you to have my back now.” Myka took a breath and made him turn just enough to look at her. “I have to do this. I was right, Pete. The price was too high… I can’t live without her. Not when I know there’s a chance I could bring her back. So I’m going to use the time machine, and I’m gonna put my faith in you and Claudia to keep me safe until I can get back.”
“And if you can’t come back Myka?”
Myka swallowed hard. “Then at least I will have gotten to see her one last time… and maybe I can tell her… maybe I can…” she stopped, the tears suddenly overwhelming her. Still, she tried to finish, “maybe I… can…” but there was nothing more that would come out as Pete hugged her tightly against him, his arms practically holding her upright as her body shook with repressed sobs.
“Shh… it’s okay,” Pete soothed, holding on tightly to his friend and partner.
For so long he’d been wary of HG, jealous even of the way she’d maneuvered herself so easily into Myka’s trust. And then she’d betrayed Myka, betrayed them all, and he’d felt doubly the fool for not trusting his instincts. But in the end he’d finally been able to see what Myka had seen in her all those times, and she hadn’t let them down. He owed her his life, and now he would do his best to return the favor.
Squaring his shoulders back, he asked, “So how long before Claudia gets it up and running?”
~*~
Myka shouldn’t have been able to sleep, but the moment her head touched the pillow it was as if her entire body simply shut down, refusing to let her mind linger on any of the thousand thoughts that had been constantly swirling through her head. In her dream, as before, she wandered the Warehouse, making her way through row after row of empty shelves. Yet, something felt different. No longer did the empty shelves and dark spaces feel hollow and desolate. Now, it seemed as if they were waiting, preparing to be filled, humming inside with possibility.
Coming around the corner, Myka stopped to smile at Helena leaning ever so casually against a shelf. “Were you dawdling?”
“Never.”
Helena pushed away from the shelf, grace personified, and took the three steps to stand in front of Myka. Reaching up, she brushed a lock of hair off Myka’s forehead and gave the younger woman the once over. She could see the difference from their previous encounter easily enough in Myka’s determined gaze. “Better,” she pronounced, and to Myka it sounded like the highest of praise.
“I found your time machine.”
“As I knew you would.”
“Claudia’s finishing it now… I don’t know if it’s going to work… last time, it seemed as if we were always a step behind. But now, I hope… we might actually have a chance.”
Beaming with pride, Helena encouraged, “I pity any one or any thing that dares to stand in the way of Myka Bering and what she wants. It is simply no contest.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” Myka asked softly, giving voice to the only fear she had left.
Helena stroked her hair softly, and then let her hand trail down pushing Myka’s hair off her collar to reveal the gold chain hidden beneath. “You wear this now,” Helena smiled, her fingers dancing over the chain and down to her locket, “And so you carry me, the best of me with you, always.” Helena leaned in, kissing Myka softly. “Carry me close to your heart, my love, for you are always in mine.”
“Don’t let go… not yet…” Myka pleaded softly even as she watched the storm of flames building in the distance.
“Never,” Helena vowed.
In the darkness they held on as the storm crested and broke over them, once more destroying everything in its path. And in the air hung the faint scent of apples.
~*~
It was amazing how much of a motivator crushing agony could be when properly applied in a situation. With no sleep, and surviving on little more than Cheez-Its and Red Bull, Claudia had finished the time machine by the next afternoon. Artie and Jane - pulled into yet another meeting of the Regents - didn’t even notice their agents were gone.
Pete whistled softly as he toured around the TM200 (as Claudia had taken to calling it) and eyed the sleek new design and specs. “Well, this is either gonna be an excellent adventure, or a totally bogus journey,” he mused, missing the identical eye-rolls from both Claudia and Myka.
“HG put a lot of thought into her secret lair,” Claudia explained. “This unit runs right over a main electrical junction line from Univille Power and Water. She already tapped into the system. I made a few tweaks, but unless something goes horrifically wrong, we should have more than enough power to keep the machine running.”
“For 22 hours and 19 minutes,” Pete said, clearly proud of himself for remembering the previous time machine’s constraints.
“Well… I’m not so sure about that,” Claudia hedged.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“HG said she never new why she couldn’t stay longer than 22 hours and 19 minutes, but in her notes she thought it might have had something to do with the structure of the power consumption. She theorized that with her modifications and an unlimited power source, a person could stay under anywhere from 48 to 72 hours.”
“She didn’t know how long it lasts?”
“She never got a chance to beta test it.”
Pete’s eyes went wide, but Myka just nodded resolutely. “So, I’m a guinea pig. Won’t be the first time. Hopefully won’t be the last.”
“Myka, are you sure-” Pete started to ask but the look from his partner silenced him quickly enough. “Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. “We’re doing this.”
“How far back do you want me to set the machine?”
“I’ve been thinking about it - I think about ten days. That should give me enough time to take stock and tip Steve off without causing suspicion. With everything I know he shouldn’t have a problem warning us and from there… well, from there I don’t know what happens,” Myka admitted.
Pete scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Time travel gives me a freakin’ headache.”
Claudia nodded emphatically.
Myka took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s do this.”
“Just like that?” Pete asked, his voice squeaking.
Myka nodded, smiling faintly. She knew he didn’t want her to use the machine; she knew his fear. She understood it even as she knew that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try. “Just like that, Pete.”
She sat down in the chair, not giving into the urge to hug both Pete and Claudia. She refused to say goodbye, telling herself stubbornly that there was no reason. She’d be back soon enough. Claudia placed the halo like device on her head, helping to strap her in. A sleeker version of the original machine, the space where the second chair had been was now occupied by the processing center where Claudia inputted the time and date data.
“Last chance, Mykes,” Pete offered, half-hopeful, half-resigned.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” Myka promised.
“You better.”
In a move wholly reminiscent of Helena, Myka reached up, her hand clasping over the locket tightly before she took one last breath and nodded at Claudia to start the machine.
The TM200 lit up, slowly engaging its gears, the chair and input center starting to spin around as the original had. Myka closed her eyes as it picked up speed, holding the locket tighter with each revolution, the object practically pulsing in her grip. Or maybe, she thought, that was just her pulse. Faster and faster the machine spun, the effect dizzying even with her eyes closed, and then she felt herself start to drift, to come loose from the moorings of her body. The machine pulsed and spun round and round, taking her into the past, as she whispered in amazement, “I smell apples.”
Part Three