Then.

The juice squeezes itself through her veins like syrup and she winces. She turns her back on Garrett and the rest of the lab in the hope of disguising the involuntary, public show of guilt. Garrett draws a breath; the type of breath she recognises – they type that precedes an argument. One of the engineers dims the lights just in time, the lab's shiny aluminium ceiling and walls dimming beneath the overpowering fluorescent blue of the scanning bulbs littered around the floor like a scattershot runway.

“Test one, active as of 3pm , dated 01/01/90 .”

The engineer stops the Dictaphone with a click – a sound explosion against the momentary freeze-frame of her unspoken dialogue with Garrett.

“Ms. Schafer?”

Garrett interjects. He approaches the main table before she has time to turn from the desk. The wincing hasn't stopped and neither has the pain. No injection has felt like this one, done at least an hour before in the quiet and calm of her locker-room. She'd requested a private locker from the Marshall and been granted, as expected, due to her status as the only female onboard, but also - she suspected - for being the only female surgeon willing to take this job. A job testing the fibres of a recent military acquisition; a skeleton found in the remains of a meteor that penetrated the famous hull of The Myriad.

“Ms. Schafer?”

Was that a repeat or an echo? The time it took her body to reach the aluminium floor wasn't adequate for her to figure it out.

 

To be concluded soon in: Now and Then.

Discuss this nail-biting, brain-itching piece of low-budget sci-fi on our Forum.