Three meetings, Dorothy thought. She’d seen Ash three times over the last week, she’d spoken to him. About what? What could’ve been so important that it sent her back in time to find him?

There was a sound in the other room, a window sliding open, and then Zora’s voice calling, “Chandra, did you see that book on theoretical physics? I thought it was in the workshop but—”

Chandra leaped to her feet. Go, she mouthed to Dorothy, her eyes suddenly wide. She flapped a hand down the hall. “You can get out through the kitchen in the back room, the window leads to the docks on the other side of the building.”

Dorothy hesitated. She put her hand on the Professor’s journal pages, which were still tucked inside her cloak.

She really should tell Chandra what she’d found. She wasn’t sure whether any of them knew that the Professor had been looking into traveling through time without a vessel prior to his disappearance, but she imagined that information would be invaluable to them. Right now, Mac had everything he needed to travel back in time—the last remaining time machine, not to mention all the exotic matter. If there was a way of time traveling without those things, surely they would want to know about it.

But something made Dorothy hesitate. Right now, those pages were her only remaining bargaining chip. She might need them. It seemed foolish to hand them over without asking for something in return. And she could only imagine what Zora might do if she found Dorothy here, interrogating Chandra.

“Thank you,” she whispered to Chandra, leaving the pages where they were. And then she slipped down the hall and through the back window before Zora could discover her.

LOG ENTRY—AUGUST 20, 2074

14:20 HOURS

THE WORKSHOP

I’ve spent the last two days constructing Nikola’s device for inserting exotic matter into my person, using the blueprints that he so helpfully laid out in the notes he left for me. I tweaked them a bit—science has come a long way in the last 150 years—but the general idea is his. As such, I’ve decided to call this little gadget the “Death Ray” since that’s what he told the press he was working on in his final years.

Oh God, please let that name remain ironic.

The Death Ray is now complete. It’s a handheld device about the size and shape of a small gun, with a long needle where the barrel would normally be. I’m to use this needle to extract exactly ten milliliters of exotic matter and insert it directly into my aorta.

I should pause for a moment to point out that a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm can cause life-threatening bleeding.

So, ha ha, I better not mess this up.

Here goes nothing.

Oh God . . . my hand is actually trembling.

UPDATE—

AUGUST 20, 2074

16:05 HOURS