"Leonard Speaking"
'Leonard Thinking'
Warehouse, Washington DC, Three months later
Leonard looked at the latest results of the experiment with excitement and joy. Ever since their breakthrough, the entire team worked like mules. But unlike mules, every experiment they conducted made them happier, motivated and optimistic. He turned to Gustin, who had handed him the results, "Inform the others; Phase-1 is almost complete. Soon, we will have a stable black hole. For the next two days, we will fine tune the experiment for the last time."
Gustin nodded and ran towards the team. Leonard heaved a sigh of relief and sat down on a chair with a thud. Tilting his head back, his eyes found the dark ceiling. For a moment, Leonard looked at the ceiling, an abyss like darkness covering it.
Suddenly, Paige approached Leonard, "I heard the experiment is in the final stage."
Leonard smiled, "Just Phase-1. We have almost finished the hard part, now comes the easy one."
Paige asked, "So, when this phase is complete, does the team have to leave?"
Leonard quietened at that. Truthfully, he hadn't considered it before. Now, the thought would not leave him. With a sigh, Leonard answered, "It is a strong possibility."
Paige sat beside him, and asked, "Is that why you are so worried?"
Leonard looked at her, before he chuckled, "Nothing can be kept a secret with you, can it? Yes, I am worried about that一among other things."
Paige squeezed his shoulder, "When we share our worries, they tend to weaken. What exactly are you worried about?"
Leonard looked down, unsure of how to put it. Then Leonard whispered, "When you stare at the abyss for long, at some point, the Abyss stares back. Scientific development is great, but sometimes I fear if we can even adapt to what we discover. Once this experiment succeeds, the world will never be the same."
Paige stayed silent for a minute, processing what Leonard said. Finally, she said, "When I was young, my mother told me to read the Bible. For me, it was a silly book. Sheldon seems to share this opinion, although he was a lot more vocal about it. But I realised something after reading the book. The book supported an entire culture through some of the worst possible times. Maybe you can write a book similar to that."
Leonard's lips curled up, as he considered the idea.
A Week Later
The team was about to start the experiment. Gustin was placing brand new Casimir plates, as Burton kept watch over the readings. Suddenly, Gustin asked, "Hey Gus, do you think we will become famous after this experiment?"
Burton, without raising his head, answered, "It is quite possible. After all, we will be the first group of scientists to successfully create a miniature black hole in vitro. This will further the study on black holes, possibly help develop time travel."
Gustin, lost in thought, asked, "If you had a time machine, what would you do with it?"
Burton grinned, "I would relive my childhood. My childhood was wild, with Shawn being the agent of chaos. I still don't know how he was able to pass the police academy. The youngest detective in our town."
Gustin looked solemn at that, "I would warn my mother to get a checkup. She ignored her health for too long. By the time we detected the tumour, it was too late."
Suddenly, Burton pushed the question to Natasha, "What would you do with a time machine?"
Natasha thought for a minute, her finger playing with a stray bang of hair, "I would copy my grandmother's recipe book. It was lost in a fire when I was very young. My grandmother only remembered the specific recipe of Medovik. It was the best thing I ever tasted."
Soon, the question was put to Karen. She chewed on her pen before answering, "I would open a school in my mother's village."
As the team kept reminiscing, Leonard's voice rang, "Are we done on that section? If so, come to the observation room. We are about to start."
Soon, the team assembled as Leonard started the experiment. Leonard looked at the graph and spoke in a clear voice, "Activate the Casimir plates."
Soon, the plates started to hum. The readings on the monitor changed as Gustin informed, "Sir, we have achieved negative energy density. The stabilizing field is ready."
Leonard nodded, "Start the collider."
The entire device started as the focus tubes filled with plasma. The wakefronts established as the subatomic particles accelerated to a high degree. Gustin announced, "Particle speed is approaching light speed. Collision conditions are ready."
Finally, the particles collided in between the Casimir plates. The gauges climbed as the gravitational field stabilized. Soon, the black hole was formed. Leonard yelled, "Keep the field stable, maintain the black hole."
Suddenly, Leonard turned to William, "Start the Chronon harvester."
William nodded and quickly turned on the Harvester. A spherical device connected to the collision chamber started humming as it started to glow with a soft blue light. The gauge on the device started to show progress.
The team of scientists watched with baited breath as the device kept working quickly. In about fifteen minutes, the first Chronon cell was full. Leonard yelled, "Switch to Cell 2."
With a quick process, the Chronon cell was replaced with an empty one. The cell kept filling as the team breathed a sigh of relief. The experiment was not only successful, but also viable.
Leonard kept the experiment running, as four Chronon cells quickly filled up. As soon as the fifth cell was applied, William spoke with worry, "Leonard, the Chronon harvest is starting to slow. Should we expand the black hole slightly?"
Leonard looked at the data, his eyes narrowing at the slow rate of Chronon extraction. His mind ran at lightspeed as he thought, 'The rate shouldn't slow down like this. It looks like a mine slowly drying up. What if the Chronon field is thinning because of our extraction?'
Leonard kept calculating in his mind. The Chronon harvest was just a trickle now, with every percent taking successively more time. Suddenly, the math started to make sense to Leonard. He quickly compared the Chronon to multi-dimensional space. His mind started to visualize multi-dimensional geometry. Slowly, he realized what was happening. Just as he had finished processing, he heard a shout by William, "Switch to Cell 6."
Under his horrified gaze, the fifth cell was replaced with the sixth. For a minute, nothing happened. The Chronon kept trickling. Leonard wondered, 'Was I being too cautious?'
And then, it happened. There was a large cracking sound. The team looked around, but Leonard's eyes were stuck towards the collision chamber. He unconsciously walked closer, before everyone started to pay attention.
In front of the sixth Chronon cell, was a crack, with bright edges and a dark interior. The truly horrifying part was the crack was not in an object, but floating midair in the space. As Leonard came slightly closer to the crack, he felt suction, tugging at his clothes. Wind seemed to pick up, pushing at his back, bringing him closer to the crack. Leonard, unprepared for the sudden suction, was pulled closer to the crack. He tried to regain his footing, but to no avail. The pressure and suction were much stronger now, pulling him closer.
Leonard stumbled, now almost at the crack, before he took out a small sphere from his coat. The sphere quickly turned into a stick, with one end rotating like a drill. Without wait, he forcefully plunged the drilling stick towards the ground. As the stick was lodged, Leonard used it to resist the suction. Now, he was face to face with the edges of the crack, looking through it towards something.
Leonard's eyes narrowed at first, then widened to epic proportions before narrowing again. He quickly looked around, spotting a ring of Null, connecting the collision chamber with the accelerator. With a small thought, a tendril of Null extended from the ring, quickly approaching the Chronon cell, before detaching it from the harvester. As blue energy escaped from the cell, Leonard yelled back, "Shut down the Casimir plates. Kill the black hole right now."
Paige quickly turned off the power to the Casimir plates, while blue energy escaped the fallen Chronon cell. As the energy escaped, the crack closed slowly, leaving a disheveled Leonard and a shocked team of scientists.
Paige POV
The first indication that something was wrong came with the cracking sound. Paige had been working on the experiment for a while, so she knew the sound wasn't normal. She looked beside her, but Leonard wasn't there. Suddenly, she heard Natasha exclaim, "What the hell is that!"
Paige looked towards the collision chamber. And there it was, a crack in reality, floating midair, in front of the collision chamber. And Leonard was being pulled towards it.
The entire team was frozen in terror. The phenomenon was so eerie that no one could react in time. No one could react fast enough to save Leonard. Paige reached out, as if willing her hand to catch him before he could fall in. She watched in horror as Leonard kept stumbling towards the crack.
Suddenly, Leonard reached into his coat, and pulled out a black sphere. She had used Null before, but using it without any danger, in a controlled environment, was much easier than using it when your life is on the line. Yet, her eyes lit with joy as Leonard used Null to anchor himself and detach the sixth Chronon cell. She heard Leonard yell, "Shut down the Casimir plates. Kill the black hole right now."
She quickly snapped out of her panic, shutting the plates. The black hole destabilized and vanished in a puff of gamma. The crack closed as the entire lab became quiet as a crypt.
An Hour Later
It took an entire hour for the team to disassemble the equipment, everyone using their work to avoid dealing with the impact of watching reality shatter and crack in front of them.
Soon the team gathered at a table, the younger scientists sat in an almost catatonic with occasional tremors wracking their bodies. William looked terrified and guilty at the same time. Paige was disturbed by the event, but relieved that no one was hurt.
Leonard came to the table, with seven glasses and a large bottle of Gordon's Gin. Placing a glass in front of each occupant, Leonard poured about two fingers worth of gin in each glass. As he finished pouring, he said, "Let's calm our nerves slightly."
Natasha took the glass and took a small sip, Gustin followed suit, sipping the drink in slow sips. Karen and Burton choose to gulp down the gin in two large gulps, Karen turned into the color of a cooked lobster immediately as the alcohol hit her. Burton was slightly better at holding his liquor, giving a small cough, before settling.
Paige and William drank their gin in slow contemplating sips. Leonard chose to break the ice, "Now, what happened today was an accident. We came in contact with a new phenomenon. It happens when we come in contact with new paradigms of science. But don't be afraid. We have achieved something great today. The five Chronon cells are the proof of our achievement. Now, I plan to use three cells to make fusion reactors. The other two will be used for further study in temporal phenomena."
William interrupted with outrage, "Leonard, do you hear what you are saying? Reality broke in front of us. And you almost fell victim to it. Do you still want to study this phenomenon?"
Leonard looked at William with surprise, "Wasn't this your experiment? We just found out that the field you theorized is not just real, but we can also utilize it. There are thousands of things I can see your research being useful in. Why would you want to stop?"
William looked at the team, with shaken juniors, and a peer who almost died, or worse, just because he touched on something that should never be in human hands. He looked at Leonard with a strange seriousness, completely different from his regular absentminded gaze, "Leonard, I respect you for following scientific rigour in this case, but maybe, just maybe, we are touching on topics and things not made for humanity."
Leonard looked at William for a moment, studying his features, before sighing, "I can understand what you mean. But right now, I don't think you are in the correct headspace. Why don't we all turn for the night? Let's discuss it in detail tomorrow."
Soon, the team filed out, the juniors arguing about who gets to brush first. Leonard smiled, before reaching back to his desk. Taking out a new journal, he opened a fountain pen, and started to write.
As Leonard wrote quietly under the glow of a lamp, he never knew that his work would one day become a foundational text of civilization, a bible for people trying to learn about time. Neither did he know, that his life was about to get a lot more complicated.
AN: Another chapter completed. The stakes will only go up from now. Stay tuned for more.
AN2: I wish to thank all my patrons who have stood by me in the process of writing this story. Thank you my friends.
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