"Carter, I'm leaving you."

"Yeah love, just make sure you leave dinner on the table," Carter said. She focused on the motherboard in front of her, the silver and gold circuits holding her attention better than jewelry ever could.

Evan made that threat every so often, to get her out of the lab, but she couldn't today. She was so close to completing the necessary tech for her control panel. While her earlier attempts had ended in failure, she knew this wouldn't.

Having already figured out the quantum formula for time travel, this should have been a breeze. But as they liked to say, the devil was in the details.

Speaking of which, what's that smell?

She sniffed under her arm and gagged, bile reaching the back of her throat. She couldn't remember the last time she showered, but it couldn't have been that long. Besides, science waited for no one.

The time machine's shell gleamed in shades of silver-blue in her periphery. It consisted of a titanium-andarium alloy, two of the strongest metals known to humankind. It could withstand extreme heat and cold and treated boulders like pesky mosquitos. If she happened to land in a volcano or in a surprise ice age, she'd be fine unless she opened the door and broke the seal.

She had no intention of opening the door.

All the grant money for her project had dried up and her savings dwindled every second. Yet all of it, money and time, would be meaningless once she finished. She could apologize to Evan with a Danish from the bakery where they'd met ten years ago.

Theoreticians had all these 'rules' to time travel. If you occupied the same place and time as yourself, you could cause a spatial implosion. If you killed a butterfly, you could set off a chain of events that caused Hitler to win the World War II. Yet all these 'rules' were contradictory and based on theory. Not a single person had successfully traveled back in time.

Yet.

Carter didn't specialize in theory. She was the engineer, the muscle behind the machine. She'd been deconstructing and reconstructing tech with her father since she was a child. Give her a broken device and she'd figure out how to make it work again. Then build a better version with the spare parts.

Besides, all of it was bull. No one or thing on this planet was irreplaceable to history. All those world-changing discoveries and inventions? Someone else would have done it. Just like people on four different continents invented the crossbow at roughly the same time. So what if one of them had died? The world would still have it. People died needlessly every day and time kept flowing.

That was the first thing she'd do after getting Evan that Danish. That worthless drunk driver that killed her father would never learn to drive.

The final solder complete, she connected the board to the diagnostic program she'd created to test its efficacy. She set a quick alarm on her smart watch. It would take a few hours, so she left her workshop for a bath and a meal, not necessarily in that order.

She opened the door and was assaulted by the darkness. The moon peeked through the clouds like a child playing hide and seek.

Dinner was likely cold, but that's why they invented the microwave, right?

When she opened the door to the kitchen, instead of a covered plate, there was a folded note on the table. Evan usually left one there as not distract Carter from her work. She tended to ignore text messages, v-notes, and the world in general while she worked.

She made a mental note to read it after eating and went to the fridge. There wasn't a nice container of food waiting like she'd expected. To make matters worse, Evan hadn't shopped in a while, because they were out of deli turkey and pickles. There was some half-thawed ground beef and tomatoes staring her in the face, but instead of trying to remember how to make a lasagna in the middle of the night, Carter decided to pull a six-pack out of the fridge and drink until she forgot she was hungry.

When she plopped into the oaken chair, her knee nudged the table and the letter popped open. Her eyes caught the first words.

Mi Amor, Amanda Carter.

She shook her head. Only Dear John letters started that way.

"Guess Evan was serious this time."

Carter fought back the tears creeping to the surface. Evan had threatened it several times before, but never followed through. Just one more day and they could have put this time machine behind them.

It was no matter, she tried to convince herself. A Danish from Lola's Panadería would solve any problem. That's what Evan loved to say. It had closed last year, but with a time machine it was an easy fix.

She smirked. With one flaky pastry, I'll be able to say 'I love you' and 'I was right' at the same time.

She took a swig from the glass bottle, then decided that this occasion called for more. The

good scotch was in the liquor cabinet right next to the fridge. She grabbed the bottle and three glasses, then sat down and poured three shots.

"Dad, Evan, we did it. Dad, you taught me everything I know about engineering. Evan, you can barely operate an alarm clock, but your support helped me push through. I couldn't have done it without either of you. We'll celebrate again soon." She clinked both glasses, then took a shot.

Then took another. It was only after the sunlight tore through her eyelids that she realized how well she'd achieved her goal.

There was a faint beeping in the background. She jumped up, unsure of whether it was a fire alarm or a v-note from Evan. In the process, she knocked over the bottle of beer, dousing the front of her jeans.

She sighed the suspicious wet splotch on her crotch, set the cam to waist-up view and plastered a fake smile on her face. The German beer mixed with her poor general hygiene was hard to ignore, but luckily, Evan wouldn't be able to smell through the screen.

She flicked the smart watch on her wrist, projecting a list of the v-notes from people who wanted to v-chat with her. There were a lot, but none from Evan. It was a tad confusing at first, because her smart watch was only set to beep for him. In a few moments, however, she remembered the alarm she had set.

The circuit board!

She darted outside, cursing as she slipped in the mud. She stopped her fall with her hands, avoiding a face full of muck, but her shirt wasn't so lucky. Mud brown dotted green shirt, making it look like a half-finished camouflage. She shook her head, pushed to her feet, and continued to the workshop.

Inside the lab, the diagnostic screen flickered. She swiped through the preset parameters. All systems were green and a few exceeded the required specifications.

She pumped her fist, then pointed at the picture of her father and Evan that she kept on the desk.

"We did it!" she shouted. "We're going to celebrate again soon. All three of us."

She washed her hands and sprayed them with static dispersing agent. After disconnecting the tech from the diagnostic computer, she stopped, wondering if she should take a shower before dropping in the past. It would probably have been a good idea at that point, given her appearance. However, excited at the prospect of a live run, she removed the smart watch from her wrist, glad it was the only tech she had on her person. Then dropped it on the counter and grabbed the motherboard and slid it into the control panel of the time machine.

Science first, shower later.

She strapped into the chair and stared at the screen awaiting her commands. It had to be a time and place with very low tech. Where the people couldn't even fathom what appeared.

What about prehistory?

She shook her head. She didn't believe in a god, but the absence of evidence wasn't the evidence of absence. If there wasn't a big bang and instead a magical being (or beings) that created humanity, she didn't want to fight them. God would probably say something like "get thee from mine domicile anon" or something suitably archaic before dropping her in a pit of cobras for her hubris.

I hate snakes.

She hesitated. The one point that everyone seemed to agree the further back you went, the more radically a mistake would change things.

Yet she wanted to be sure that any human she saw couldn't fathom her machine. Fifty thousand years in the past would be safe for her machine, if she didn't kill a Neanderthal.

Forty-eight thousand, B.C. it is.

The air buzzed, and then whirred. She expected some turbulence as she broke the space/time continuum, but it was smooth as butter, like she was riding in the back of an auto-driving Audi.

It was so smooth, in fact, she was afraid that she'd failed. But the readings said she'd made it. Given that the air quality was much better than it was in current day, she had to have gone somewhere far in the past.

She pulled up the holoscreen and selected the command to view outside.

Nothing happened.

She tried again with the same result.

Note to self: visual technology does not survive time travel.

It was a conundrum. If she couldn't prove that she went into the past with video, she'd have an uphill battle. An environmental sample would work, but visual proof would have a stronger effect.

Also, she was curious what history got wrong.

So, she released the straps and stepped in front of the exit hatch.

A little peek couldn't possibly hurt, right?

"Open hatch."

As the door slid into the recess of the hull, she was greeted to so much green that she wondered what nature reserve she stumbled into. The ground was thick with trees that streaked towards the sun and the sky was so blue, it seemed unnatural. Like an animation studio had created it in the lab.

The song of nature greeted her ears, a pure melody of birds and insects. A quick look revealed no large animals or human structures of any kind, so no danger of killing Neanderthals.

She stepped outside and took a deep breath.

It was the worst mistake of her life. Instead of enjoying the cleanliness of the air, it lit a fire in her lungs. It hurt to breathe and burned with each heartbeat. She fell to the ground, clutching at her chest. Her vision blurred and she went scrambling for the time machine, feeling like it was miles away instead of a few inches. It was like having one hundred percent cacao after a lifetime of eating Snickers.

This is how air is supposed to be?

Her head snapped back as her hair got caught in something. She clawed at the source, wishing it was anything other than it was.

Fingers.

"Let me go!" She shrieked as the hand dragged her away from her machine. Her pants leg caught on something sharp, ripping as the Neanderthal pulled her free with frightening strength. She squirmed with an additional burst of adrenaline, grabbing a rock and flinging it at her assailant.

There was a grunt, but the fingers stayed laced into her scalp.

Her vision still blurry and her lungs still on fire from the air, she pulled her leg back and mule kicked as hard as she could, hoping it was a man.

She was rewarded with the freedom to move her head and a sickening thud. Ignoring proprietary, she clawed through the dirt and grass, throwing herself into the hold.

"Close hatch!"

She lay there for a few moments, the pain from her chest subsiding as air flowed into the chamber.

That thud was ominous. I should check on that caveman.

She opened the drawer under the chair and pulled out the Taser she'd placed there for such an occasion. She should have grabbed it to start, but curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Carter aimed it at the door, her hands clutching the grip.

"Open hatch."

With her vision cleared, she saw the man, with all of his impressive business out on display, lying on his back unmoving with a sickening amount of blood pooling under the grass. His head was tilted upwards, as if he'd landed on something hard.

"Close hatch!"

The door slammed closed and the chamber pressurized again. She dropped into the chair, Taser still hanging from her right hand.

Great job, Carter. 'Don't kill a Neanderthal' was literally the only thing you had to do. Sure, he was probably going to rape me, but he's still a freaking Neanderthal!

The cardinal sin of time travel they said. She didn't phase out of existence immediately, so that discounted a complete stream of theories on the subject. She was left to the parallel universe theories. Or the ones about fate and stuff only happening when it was meant to happen.

Balls.

She stared at the blinking cursor on the screen, awaiting the date entry. The return home command would return her to her workshop, adjusting for the time she'd been gone. If there was still a workshop.

If there still was a 'was'.

Balls.

It's just one person, right? No one person is irreplaceable. There is no way that one caveman, who probably would have gotten eaten by a sabretooth anyway, would affect the present in any meaning way? Right?

Oh, balls.

She had to return home at some point. Staying here only increased the chances she'd screw up more.

She sighed. "Return home."

The whirring returned and dissipated, meaning she had returned to the present.

The air quality readings were normal, so she hadn't caused a nuclear war at least.

She squeezed the Taser in her hand, refusing to make the same mistake twice. No one would snatch her by the hair this time, unless she asked for it.

She stood in front of the hatch, psyching herself into opening the door. Her palms were sweaty and her heart pounded in her chest.

Relax. Even if you mucked things up, you can fix it. There's not a problem you can't fix.

"Open hatch."

She thrust the Taser in front of her, half-expecting to see snake people instead of humans. That would be her luck, snakes as the dominant species on Earth.

What was there was even more absurd than that.

She squeezed her eyes tight, then blinked, clearing her vision. The image hadn't changed one bit.

It was her workshop.

She laughed. Laughter seemed so inappropriate, but she couldn't help it. She'd killed a cavemen and nothing had changed. Nothing. The sink still had dirt stains from when she had washed her hands a few hours ago.

She tucked the Taser into the waist of her jeans, then snatched her smart watch from its perch next to the diagnostic computer. She had to tell Evan everything immediately. Even if Evan was angry, it didn't matter. Carter had successfully traveled in time. They'd celebrate, Carter would apologize for being such an ass and she would get Evan that Danish. She swiped through her contact list, then she swiped again. All her contacts were there, but Evan.

Odd.

Evan wasn't the type to mess with her stuff even while angry, but he had left this time. She was in uncharted territory in more ways than one.

She searched her social networks for Evan, yet didn't see any connections. Even more strange was that her profile picture had changed from her and Evan together. Instead, it was one of the pictures she'd taken with her dad before he died.

Okay, this isn't funny.

She was about to call Evan's parents when she noticed another oddity. Evan's picture was gone from her work desk.

I couldn't have removed Evan from existence. It's not possible.

She searched 'Evan Morales chef' on the web and his website popped immediately. So, Evan was fine, just extraordinarily pissed.

She opened the profile page, only to find that she had been replaced. Instead of her picture, some young blonde woman was hugged up on Evan and they both smiled as if they didn't have a care in the world. The acknowledgements credited one Liz Huang as his inspiration where her name had once been.

Okay, I was an ass, but that's playing dirty. She was halfway through the backyard, before she took a breath.

Think, Carter. Fighting homewreckers isn't what you need to do right now. Where was Lola's Panadería? The corner of 3rd and Lincoln. Two blocks from the university.

She jumped into the machine and typed five years earlier into the machine, just to be safe. The destination was set for directly in front of the bakery. She no longer cared if someone saw her creation, or if it blocked traffic. As soon as the hatch opened, she sprung onto the sidewalk.

Johnson's Bakery?

She started at the name on the awning, printed in the standard block lettering. She turned her Taser on the nearest pedestrian.

"It's a death ray!" The red-haired lady cried.

Given her lack of general hygiene, being hair dragged by a Neanderthal, and the time machine, Carter was sure she looked out of this world. But she didn't have time for this. "Where is Lola's Panadería?" she shouted.

"I don't know!" The lady replied. "I'll take you to our leader, if you want, just don't evaporate me!"

I don't need this right now.

"Oh, revered visitor!"

She turned her head and her gun on the male voice to her left.

"What?" Carter said.

The bald, brown-skinned man with a graying goatee, lowered his head. "Would you shrive mine insolence for noising about thusly, yet hence it would give me honor to port you there, anon."

"Come again?"

"It's three blocks away," he said, keeping his head down. He cleared throat. "Then thou should flee before the armies of men are alerted to your presence."

Carter shook her head. She was sure this was where the bakery was located. The spires of the university peeked over the top of the building, just up the hill.

In that moment, she knew the problem.

Carter had only frequented Lola's because it was the bakery closest to her job. Evan had traveled across town, because he was classmates with the owner.

They had met at Lola's.

Time had gone on, it seemed, after that caveman's death. Somehow, the only person's life that had been affected by her trip was...her.

It defied all logic.

So, she jumped back into her time machine, ignoring the equal parts stares and worship of the people in the streets. Her success meant nothing if she couldn't share it with Evan. She needed to go back in time to see about saving a caveman from a know-it-all engineer. Anyone who knew Carter would tell you the same. Give her a problem and she'd work out its answer.

I've already lost Evan. What's the worst that could happen?