Receiving a mysterious black box from creepy people like Mr. Robert was neither exciting nor compelling for someone like Rhyme. She didn't knew what to do with it. She just shoved it into her handbag like everything else.
"Since you were the last one to join the team, I will explain you how to use the instruments of time travel.
First, you need to understand that you cannot travel through time in your present state of being. You need to be converted to dark matter, which you can do by covering yourself with the invisibility cloak. It changes the state of the particles which make up human body to the extent that it becomes invisible and is converted to dark matter. These cloaks took a lot of time and effort to prepare but we assume that if we successfully conduct this experiment of time travel, we can go into the future to find out more simpler ways of time travel.
Time travel isn't really a big deal since the secret of dark matter is revealed. It was found out in a very ingenious experiment that dark matter can travel at a speed even more than the speed of light. This dark matter interacts with various quantum particles (like many combinations of quarks, the particles which make up the electrons, protons and neutrons; you can relate if you have studied some chemistry, but if you find this part boring, you can totally skip the following 2-3 paragraphs). These interactions between quantum particles and dark matter produce little time pockets which are present at each and every nook and corner of this universe. These time pockets were named Chorisis. The concentration of chorisis is maximum inside a star. These chorisis do not open in the entire lifetime of a star(yes, something like that does exist, though it is several billions of years), but only after it is about to turn into a black hole. Thus as a star matures, and turns into a black hole, and all the chorisis contained in that star join to form a massive time pocket, through which time travel is possible.
Since humans are not capable enough to survive going inside a black hole, we have found an alternative to create chorisis on earth through which we can travel through time.
The locket you have, is made up of a very rare substance which is normally found on Mars. It is almost iron, but the constituent particles of the iron atoms are completely different than normal iron atoms. It has positrons, neutrinos, and anti-electrons instead of normal protons, neutrons and electrons. This when comes in contact with the time capsule given to you, opens up a time pocket of the desired time and place, which is large enough for a human being. The capsule contains condensed Higgs boson particles, which have the ability to open a time pocket when made to come in contact with quantum particles."
"This is something the humans would have never achieved if it wasn't for chief Stephen Hawking. I am glad to be his co-worker." said Mr. Robert with teary eyes, startling Rhyme.
"There are knobs on the locket to set the time, latitude and longitude of the desired chorisis."
After ending the meeting, Rhyme went to visit her pad one last time before the journey.
Rhyme was placed in a very difficult dilemma. She didn't knew what to do. She thought that the Stephen Hawking everyone knew and this Stephen Hawking were both different. All this didn't seem right to her. It felt like something was off.
She now wanted to back out of this mission but it was too late. She had the locket. She had the capsules. There was no turning back. She decided that she will do this.
After a lot of brainstorming about the intentions of the chief and this experiment, Rhyme came up with many conclusions, some of them even like all this experiment and sh*t is a prank and there will be a hidden camera at Central park filming the dumb astrophysics student who actually believed that time travel is possible. But she did had a feeling that this is real, as many phenomena at quantum level indicate that it is possible. All these discoveries combined with Stephen Hawking's knowledge of outer space, black holes and dark matter could definitely result into successful time trips on earth.
As the time was passing by, Rhyme realised that it was just an hour left before she would be going on her first time trip! It was more scarier then exciting.
She quickly got ready, took all the required stuff and left for Central park. This time she made sure that she would reach the destination exactly on time as she didn't wanted to bump into those scary people making plans again. She did wanted to eavesdrop on them again, she was curious as all human beings!
She strolled inside the park for a while as she was still a little early. The weather was great that day, thanks to the arrival of spring. The park was very well maintained, and there was a large pond at the centre of the park. The trees had beautiful, colourful flowers on them. The scene was so perfect that it seemed like a scene straight out of a painting! Under the clear blue sky, now having a tint of orange due to the setting sun, the New York City looked wonderful.
Rhyme was walking along a path, with the beautiful garden on one side and the busy road on the other, which would take her to gate number 2 of the park. When she figured out the entrance of gate number 2 and spotted Dr. Rosé in a floral dress waiting for others, she suddenly spotted a very familiar face entering a Porsche with blacked-out windows across the road.
There's no way it could be him. She thought she was daydreaming, but she had this hunch in her stomach that it might be him.
Just as she was about 10 mts away from gate number 2 of the central park, a huge goods carriage truck suddenly appeared out of nowhere and it looked like the driver lost control to its brakes. It didn't stop no matter whatever vehicle was in front of it.
Rhyme thought that it was just another case of drink and drive, as she heard a loud screech and then a huge bang! She turned around to see what happened, hoping that the drunk truck driver didn't cause anything serious, but to her shock, she found the truck stuck to a Porsche with blacked-out windows which got smashed into a tall building!
She wanted to go and check whether the familiar looking person in the Porsche was alive or not, but she had no choice, it was 6:02 in her watch already. There was no way she was going to get late to her first time travel session just on the basis of a glance...
But what if her assumptions are true?
Whoever it is, she has to call the police and ambulance, since it was a really huge accident.
She had to think quickly, there was no time to waste. On one hand, someone she assumes that he is the one she loves is about to die, and on the other hand, there is this creepy bunch of scientists waiting for her to come over to conduct an experiment of time travel!
What will she do?