THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

seven

"FIRST, you've got to sign a form."

The man, who seemed as cool as a cucumber compared to Amelia and the commuter-who-was-not-a-commuter, only took a moment to present a PortScreen from the inside of his suit's jacket. Amelia wondered what else he had stored in there.

The blue glow lit the man's face only partly; his sunglasses — Who else would wear sunglasses at night? She thought — stubbornly keeping his features in shadow. He offered the PortScreen to Amelia first, and it took only a moment to read the title.

"A confidentiality clause?" Yet it made sense. If what Gerald and his superior had already stated was true, that many lives were at stake and the whole secret-conspiracy aura could be blown, then information would have to be safeguarded. Amelia tried not to think about what would happen if someone happened to let slip.

"Of course." The man tapped the screen, causing the document to scroll down a little. "Just sign down there."

Hardly trusting such a shady operative — Who am I kidding? This whole thing is shady — she read the entire document (okay, about seventy-five percent of it) before crossing the line with her signature. Most of the paragraphs had been stating how the program in general could not be held responsible for any injury, death, or terminal affect, etc., etc., and continued to list reasons why secrecy was critical. By signing that form, Amelia realized, she would need to continue lying to her cousin.

But it was too late to take it back — her fellow interviewee was already holding the rectangular device, and, by peeking over her shoulder, learnt that her name was Audrie Sesam, as her signature indicated.

The man put the PortScreen back in an unknown (probably huge) pocket in his jacket once Audrie handed it back to him, and seemed to almost smile in satisfaction, like they were cute chihuahuas that had done some neat tricks.

"I'm here to provide you with information, but this knowledge cannot be misused. I'm sure you understand that?"

Amelia nodded, seeing Audrie do the same out of the corner of her eye. "Good." The man dipped his head. "You can call me George. All of your questions will now be answered."

It took a few moments before it clicked in that Amelia was finally — finally — get some actual information. Her stomach churned a little at the thought, though that might have been because of the bad toilet smell that shrouded them. Before she could open her mouth, though, Audrie dove in:

"What's the technology behind the time machine?"

It took both George and Amelia back. Such a thing hadn't even crossed her mind, as she'd never much been the technical type. Hands-on practicality was her thing, and she privately doubted learning the names of a bunch of mechanisms was a priority.

"Neither of you have yet the clearance to access that tidbit of information," George spoke firmly, and Audrie slumped in disappointment. "However," he continued, causing her to perk again with anticipation, "I believe I can share that you can compare inter-timensional travel to your breath on a pane of glass;

"The condensation in this case is our world and the dimension we live in," George continued, and Amelia was glad that he had used such a comparison, else she would've been completely lost, "and the world outside of the glass are other, unknown dimensions. In order to time travel successfully, we do not try to enter the glass directly to get to the landscape outside, per say, but rather insert ourselves into the glass pane and travel within it."

And Amelia was lost again. Her companion, however, looked positively delighted. "That's exactly what I thought!" She exclaimed, her eyes twinkling. "Generating enough power to enter the dimensional cycle, and calculating the approximate landing range, all count on the mass distance from period to period." And now she turned to the curly-haired young woman. "Which is, in this case, about thirty-five million years."