—March 18, 2110, 07:38:00—

  The lab sat deep in the industrial sector of New Verillian, all bare concrete and exposed conduits, built for function rather than comfort. Outside, the city carried the scars of the Collapse openly—patched towers, uneven power grids, the ever-present haze of reconstruction. Inside, the world narrowed to calibrated light, precision mounts, and the quiet discipline of people who still believed the future could be engineered.

  The laser rig hummed with a low, irritated sound, like a machine that knew it was being watched too closely.

  “Quarter-inch torque,” Neil said, his voice muffled from somewhere inside the scaffold of metal and fiber lines. “Not the magnetic one.”

  She glanced down at the tray of tools, selected the correct wrench, and placed it in his waiting hand without comment.

  Neil shifted, the rig clanking softly as he adjusted his position. “So,” he said, casual, “how’d the defense go?”

  She hesitated just long enough to be honest. “I passed.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It is if you’ve ever been on the other side of a panel,” she said. “They didn’t eat me alive. That’s a win.”

  “Mm.” He reached out again. “Micro-spanner.”

  She handed it over. “They tried, though.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  “Truly.” She sighed. “One of them asked if my work assumed a moral obligation on the part of the observer.”

  Neil laughed. “Did you tell them no?”

  “I told them physics doesn’t care about our feelings.”

  “That must’ve gone over well.”

  “Oh, beautifully.”

  He wriggled free of the rig just enough for his face to become visible—dark hair damp with sweat, sleeves rolled up, the look of a man who’d been doing this kind of work long enough to trust machines more than institutions.

  “So,” he said, leaning back in, “say it again.”

  She sighed. “Say what again.”

  “Your thesis title.”

  Her eyes flicked up toward the ceiling. “You already know it.”

  “I like hearing you say it.”

  She rolled her eyes and rattled it off in one breath. “Observer-Dependent Causality in Nonlinear Time.”

  Neil whistled softly. “Catchy.”

  “I don’t write for marketing.”

  “No,” he agreed. “That’s very clear.”

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  The laser pulsed, a thin line of controlled violence cutting cleanly through the air. She watched the crystal housing, arms folded now, thoughts drifting.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, quietly, “what the world would have been like if we’d stopped it.”

  Neil grunted as he wrestled with a stubborn fastener. “Stopped what?”

  “The Collapse. If we’d caught it early. If someone had pulled the plug before everything spiraled.”

  “Well,” he said, “if we ever crack time travel, we could always go back and unplug the computers before they wrecked everything.”

  She shook her head immediately. “That wouldn’t work.”

  “Sure it would.”

  “No.” There was no patience in her voice now. “You can only go back as far as the first machine. Causality still matters. You don’t get access to a past you haven’t earned.”

  Neil paused, then chuckled. “Remind me not to argue with you before coffee.”

  “Remind yourself not to argue sloppily.”

  “Tool,” he said.

  She handed it over.

  A second later, the wrench slipped.

  “Shit.”

  Metal rang sharply. Neil jerked back, hissing, clutching his hand. A thin line of red bloomed across his knuckles.

  “Hold still,” she said, already moving.

  She crossed the lab, grabbed the first aid kit, and returned as he sat on the edge of the platform, scowling—not at the blood, but at the rig.

  “It took me six hours to align that crystal,” he muttered. “If it’s off—”

  “We’ll fix it,” she said. “Give me your hand.”

  He extended his arm out to her so she could take his hand under her care. She cleaned the cut carefully, methodical, fingers steady. Alcohol pad. Pressure. Bandage. She put just a little bit of pressure over the area that had split. “Does that hurt?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. He was watching her face.

  “No,” he said finally, quietly. “That feels just fine.”

  She tied the bandage, then gave his hand a brief squeeze. “You’re going to live.”

  “Tragic.”

  She smiled despite herself.

  A moment passed, comfortable and unhurried. “Do you remember much,” Neil asked, “from before the Collapse?”

  She thought about it. “Not really. I was too young. Just flashes. Half-dreams. Things that don’t connect.”

  “I remember,” he said. “It wasn’t perfect. But it was… easier. People didn’t live like everything was borrowed time.”

  He exhaled. “It used to be a beautiful world.”

  The hum of the laser filled the space where neither of them spoke.

  Eventually, Neil straightened. “I don’t know if you have heard. There’s a new lab starting up.”

  Her attention snapped back to him. “What kind of lab?”

  He hesitated. “I can’t say much. Classified, as usual." As were most of the projects they worked on together. “But I’ve been asked to head it.”

  “That’s exciting.”

  “I want you there,” he said simply.

  She studied him. “What can you tell me about it?”

  He smiled, a little crooked. He pumped his hand, wincing slightly from the fresh wound. “We’re going to be building a machine.”

  He paused to lure in her mind. And he stared into her soul. “To bend space and time.”

  Her eyes widened despite herself.

  “They’re calling it the Loom,” he added.

  Silence.

  Then he said, “So. Interest you at all, Judith?”

  She tilted her head, lips curling just slightly.

  “Careful,” she said. Then she smiled fully.

  “It’s Doctor Hawking now.”