From there, Bradigan was led to a doorway which, to his surprise, opened with but a wave of a badge, and led into a room with computers and a couple technicians. This room overlooked another, larger, room with more researchers and various monstrosities of technology Bradigan couldn’t even begin to fathom the purposes of. The two technicians, one a young man and the other a middle-aged woman, looked to the door as they entered.
“Welcome back Miss Davis,” said the woman.
The young man waved to them with two fingers. “Yo.”
Valeria made way for Bradigan to enter the room. “Here’s our guest of honor,” she said.
The woman rose from her chair and came to shake his hand. “Wonderful to meet you,” she said, smiling. Her hair had a considerable amount of grey and was put up in a hasty bun with knitting needles holding it together. She wore a baby blue cardigan, no doubt something she made herself, and a tan pleated skirt. “I’m Missy Hammond.”
The young man had rolled his chair over to just within reach of the group and offered Bradigan a fist bump. “Ben,” he said succinctly. At that moment, Pip stepped through the door behind Dr. Zachariah and Ben quickly got up and wiped his hands on his black flannel jacket. He offered Bradigan a proper handshake. “Ben Stanford,” he said, straightening himself up. He was surprisingly tall with long, wavy, dark-brown hair and a short beard that needed touching up.
“Nice to meet you both,” Bradigan responded.
“Me and . . . Ms. Hammond and I,” Ben began, “are in charge of, uh . . . collecting and organizing the . . . data we get from the machines during the, uh . . . experiments.” He glanced at Pip and she smiled back approvingly. He seemed to be trying hard for her sake.
“What kind of experiments?” Bradigan asked.
“Hold that thought,” Valeria said, holding her hand up. “Don’t want to spoil the big reveal too soon. Step this way, Doctor.”
Bradigan was quickly shuffled out of the room while Valeria thanked Missy and Ben for their contribution to her tour. He was led into a hallway leading down to the main laboratory with more rooms and hallways branching off here and there. As they approached another door on the right, it opened and a thin, sharply dressed man with short, meticulously-combed hair stepped through carrying a tablet.
“Ah, Miss Davis,” he said. A moment later, he noticed Bradigan. “And Dr. Bradigan I presume.”
“Evening Mister Cruz,” Valeria answered.
“I guess you’re ‘gut feeling’ was right about him. Welcome aboard,” he said, extending his hand to Bradigan. “Sebastián Cruz, head analyst.”
“Actually,” Valeria interrupted, “he hasn’t agreed to be part of the project yet.”
Cruz eyed her critically. “You do understand that having him here is a major breach in security, the security you insisted on?”
“I do.”
“As you say.” Cruz thought for a moment. “I think I’ll check in with the team on C-level. Excuse me.” He continued on his way up the hall.
“What’s on C-Level?” Bradigan asked.
“Oh, just experiments with brain function, nothing very interesting.” She quickly indicated a door up ahead. “The entry is just up here.”
As they approached, Dr. Zachariah took the lead. “Allow me,” he said, waving his badge.
The doors slid open on tracks and they were led into the main testing area. Bradigan checked his bearings by looking up at the control room where he could still see Missy and Ben. There were five researchers, one for each machine in the room, and they greeted Dr. Zachariah upon his return. He led the party to the center of the room where, contained in a large clear chamber, the greatest of the contraptions hung from the ceiling on thick tethers like some great mechanical bat. The only other thing in the chamber was a small robot that looked like a mars rover.
“Doctor Bradigan, you mentioned before my ‘weird theories,’” Zachariah began. “This is the culmination of those. When Miss Davis came to me those many years ago she offered me the opportunity to explore my ideas and move them from theory to application. I assembled a team of my most trusted colleagues and together we stretched the limits of human capability to create this feat of science and engineering, we call it: Hermes.”
Bradigan could swear there were tears in the old doctor’s eyes. “Hermes. What does it do?” he asked.
Zachariah looked at him questioningly. “I take it you don’t remember the nature of my theories, Doctor.”
“I’m afraid I never paid much attention.”
“I’ll spare you the technicalities, but my theory was thus: That with the proper application of energy and temperature, it was possible to open a wormhole through time itself.”
Bradigan was floored by Zachariah’s directness. “Doctor, are you trying to tell me that you discovered time travel?”
Zachariah smiled wide, the pride in his achievement showing clearly. “Would you like a demonstration?”
Writer by Grace 