—May 27, 2145, 11:00:00—

  The air in the chamber was different today. Colder. Sterile in a way that felt less like a lab and more like a tomb. Adam stepped out of the Loom, the disorientation a fleeting, familiar whisper. The world snapped back into focus, and he saw her.

  At first, he didn't recognize her. The woman standing by the console appeared to be a stranger, her frame swallowed by a loose-fitting, gray tunic. The full head of jet black hair that he saw just moments ago held together loosely in a bun disappeared. In its place, a silk wrap that shadowed her face hugged the top of her head. She leaned on a sleek, metallic cane, her posture stooped, as if the air itself was pressing down on her shoulders. She took a step toward him, and a faint, almost imperceptible wince crossed her face.

  "Maxine?" The name came out as a question, laced with a disbelief he couldn't conceal.

  She offered a weak smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. They were the same brown eyes, but they swam in a sea of new geography. Fine lines etched themselves across her forehead and around her mouth, but it was more than that. It was a deep, cellular weariness that had settled into her very bones. "I told you I'd be here to greet you," she said. Her voice was thinner, more fragile than he remembered, like old paper.

  He stood tall, his body feeling no different than it had when he left. A slight headache, a faint metallic taste on his tongue. Nothing more. He felt like he'd just stepped out for a quick jog.

  She came closer, her steps slow, deliberate, each one a small, measured victory over pain. She stopped just in front of him, her gaze roaming over his face, his shoulders, his hands, as if she were trying to confirm the existence of a myth. Hesitantly, she reached out and placed a trembling hand on his forearm. Her touch was cool and frail.

  "I had to see it for myself," she whispered, her voice full of a breathless awe. "Even now, looking right at you... I'm not sure I can believe it."

  Adam looked down at her, at the weak hand on his arm, and then back at her face. He couldn't help but notice the deep hollows of her cheeks, the way her skin seemed to hang loosely on her frame. "I still don’t understand. It felt the same as before." he said, his voice flat. "Judith never told me that there was anything to worry about."

  A sad, knowing smile touched her lips. "Of course she didn’t." Her expression was interrupted by a sudden reflexive bout of coughs. Maxine doubled over and reached into her coat pocket to find a linen handkerchief that she brought up to her mouth. She tried to conceal it from him, but Adam noticed a small stain of brightness on the cloth as she brought it back down.

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  He focused on her features now that she had drawn closer to him. They reflected a level of discomfort and pain that only could have come from illness. "I know I look quite different from when you last saw me." She let out a small, dry laugh that held no humor. "It must have just seemed like moments to you. I’ve been dealing with this now for years.”

  “What is it?” Adam prodded.

  “Ah. Some rare, unknown neurological condition that nobody seems to know anything about. A side effect of... well, of the job, I suppose.” She pointed her chin toward the Loom and shrugged.

  “It did this to you?”

  She nodded, exhaling a deep breath. “I believe so.” She admitted. “It's progressive. It will take my life. I know this." She said it with the same clinical detachment she might use to discuss a faulty power conduit. “We’ve made changes to the protocol since the first jumps. But for me…” She trailed off, her voice becoming distant. But then her eyes softened, and the awe returned, burning brighter than the sorrow. "But I have to keep working. I have to be here. To be a witness…to this."

  Adam looked around, turning as though trying to see the thing she was talking about.

  She touched his arm, again, prompting him to turn back to her. Her eyes glistening. "It’s you, Adam. You are the miracle that this machine has created. You will save this world. Just like you already have so many times before. And you don’t even know it.”

  “But I haven’t done anything. I’ve never–”

  “You’ve been here before. We’ve had this conversation, no doubt, many times. Hundreds of times, probably.” Nothing she was telling him made any sense to him, but the way she looked at him with those penetrating eyes told him what words could not express.

  Adam felt a thought gnawing at his gut. “Why can’t we just use the Loom to go back and make changes? So you wouldn’t go through…all of this?”

  “No.” She said, with an intense immediacy, as if his suggestion was clearly out of line.

  And then it happened. Her composure, the fragile shell of the scientist, cracked open, and pure, unadulterated emotion poured out. Tears began to flow, silently at first, then in warm, steady streams down her wrinkled cheeks. But she was smiling. A radiant, beatific smile that seemed to light up the cold, sterile chamber from the inside out.

  She reached out and took both of his hands in hers, her grip surprisingly firm. "I wouldn't change any of it," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "Not a single moment of the pain."

  Adam stared at her, completely bewildered. "Why?"

  "Because everything we have done has led us here. To a reality where we have you, Adam," she whispered, her voice breaking with the weight of her conviction. "We went through all of it... for this. You are everything to us."