AMELIA TOOK in a deep breath. She released it.

And then she slammed her fist into the tiled wall — momentary satisfaction that faded into deep regret as she swore and clutched at her hand. Shower water cascaded down her thick curls and paining back, and she used the moment as an excuse to finally cry.

She'd nearly died. The only thought that had entered her mind as the elevator's doors opened and those 'rescuers' had opened fire on them had been Daryl. How she had failed him and lied to him and then she was going to die without getting a last chance to tell him that she loved him.

And then Amelia hadn't died — but instead she'd been told that the mission had been moved from two weeks' time to within two days. Her emotions were scattered, and she was too exhausted to try and understand the decline her life had taken. She was hurtling to self-destruction. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"Mel?" Tina was in the shower cubicle next to her own. Amelia switched the water off and swallowed thickly before responding, hoping her friend wouldn't be able to tell that she'd been crying.

"Yeah?"

"You okay?"

She didn't hesitate in her response. "No."

There was a pause, where Amelia felt like the most selfish person on earth — she hadn't asked how Tina felt, or Luca, the one who got shot. She fought to rectify this, summoning an emotional strength she didn't know that she possessed in order to lighten the mood. "But one day, I think, we'll get over it. Like Lale. Or, y'know, Bradley."

Tina snorted, and Amelia's heart lifted with the sound. Her own lips curved into a slight smile. "Yeah — and then we're gonna become as grumpy as Lale! I think I prefer being emotionally scarred for life, thank you."

This shifted the mood slightly, but now, at least, there was comfortable silence. Amelia leant against the cool tile, feeling slightly chilled. "But I honestly don't think he's grumpy."

"What else is he?" Albertina laughed, switching her shower back on. Amelia, cold to the bone, did so as well, thinking over the various synonyms for 'grumpy'. But it felt like more than that, too — if Luca and Tina thought the former marine was cranky, then was she just a bad reader of personality?

Or, a quieter voice inside of her suggested, maybe you see something no one else does. But there was a reason why that voice was quiet, and Amelia quickly discarded it before she could think about it too much.

"Fine," she conceded, and her smile grew wider, even though there was no one else to see it. "He is one grumpy dagger."

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Amelia fidgeted on the spot as the warehouse doors were opened. All of the ERAA members were heading off to another building in order to view the time machines (though Luca corrected her when she said this; they were meant to be called TimePods, but she thought time machines sounded better and less like an invention of the 2020s), but the sight of bullet-frazzled doors and electric fencing that had only just started being repaired only further knotted her stomach.

It had been a miracle so few were killed, she realized as she walked out of the warehouse, Tina at her side, and Lale on her other, especially as she viewed the carnage. Bradley and Luca were lucky to be recuperating from mere skin wounds, and Amelia hoped they would be able to heal before the mission got underway.

As they filed into the other warehouse — which had miraculously escaped damage, beside from a few bullet holes in the metal wall — Amelia felt her breath catch in her throat. This depot was vastly advanced compared to the one that held the elevator; mysterious contraptions only people like Luca would understand hung from the ceiling, while people wearing grey work clothes slowly moved from metallic desk to metallic desk in front of a large curtain of plastic, spanning half of the building's interior.

Warning signs emblazoned the curtain.

"Please refrain from touching any of the equipment," a tall Asian woman appeared in front of them, her baggy engineer's uniform stained with what seemed like oil. Her black hair was tied into a messy bun, and Amelia didn't miss the bags under her eyes — something she recognized from her own reflection.

Everyone a part of the ERAA mission was frazzled and exhausted, especially now that the countdown was on. Even thinking about it — less than twenty-seven hours remaining before she was broken apart into tiny atoms and suspended as literal dark matter for a total of one hundred and thirty-one days — caused a shiver to creep out over Amelia's arms.

Were they ready to face the real Jurassic and not the one portrayed on the lectors' screens? If one had asked her perhaps a day before, Amelia would have readily said 'yes'. But she could feel the doubt creep in as she warily watched the head engineer lead them into the cordoned area.

Tina squeezed her hand reassuringly. Amelia smiled shakily at her friend, who returned it. Even Lale looked somewhat apprehensive, his face growing even tighter with a tense blankness that had been retained ever since the attack. (Not for the first time she wondered what had happened before she, Luca, and Tina came to the rescue, but it didn't seem like the marines were sharing any time soon.)

"This stuff costs more than you do," the engineer added, holding open a small zip-locked door and spritzing something that was definitely not perfume over each person before they entered the place beyond the plastic.

The mist was cold on Amelia's hands as she reached the front of the line, and she studied the Asian woman more readily, making out the faint markings of a washed-out logo that held the word 'NASA' on her front, before she had to walk through, almost tripping over the baggy plastic.

"Wow — " The word escaped her lips on instinct. The area hidden from view was even more impressive than the one she had just been in, and she stepped closer to the shiny white orbs that she presumed were the TimePods, each pristine and rounded, and a lot more than she had thought there would be.

An estimate would've been about fifty time machines covering the metallic floor, and a huge metal container far across the room that held the same white-washed appearance. Everything shone and stabbed at Amelia in the eyes, but she gritted through the discomfort to survey the mystics of technology.

Suddenly the objective of the machine seemed all too real, and Amelia tightened her hands into fists, fighting down the anxiety. We're ready for this, she tried to convince herself. I am ready for this.

"This is amazing!" Thank goodness Tina was there to distract her from her own thoughts, and Amelia welcomed the distraction. The russet-haired girl gawped at the TimePods, and walked to the one Amelia was standing next to. The curly-haired girl chuckled, feeling the elephant on her chest deflate as Tina stuck her tongue out at her reflection on the sheeny white surface.

Lale emerged from behind the plastic, and his eyebrows rose. For some reason, this amused Amelia more than Tina's childishness, and she grinned, which Lale did not return, though his grey eyes seemed to grow lighter than before. (Which was good enough. One day I'll get him to smile, and smile fully, Amelia found herself vowing, and it gave her a pleasant sense of obligation, like a New Year's resolution.)

Soon enough the room was filled with people, and Amelia found herself chuckling at each person's reaction to the time machines — from awe to wariness to that one dude who broke out into a boogie. (Entertaining, albeit weird. If she had been that sorta person, Amelia would've commented on that being 'so twenty-twenty!'.) This was not found as the head engineer herself stepped in, holding a PortScreen and wearing annoyance like a cloak.

The chatter immediately quieted, yet the engineer still cleared her throat. "My name is Avery Liu. I'm the one who built these things," she gestured to the TimePods, "and helped implement the very program you are now taking part in." Her dark eyes sliced into each recruit, and Amelia found herself tensing when Avery's gaze landed on her.

She's the real mastermind behind all this ... Wonder if she and Luca would like to get together. The imagery didn't bode well with the severity of the situation, and Amelia berated herself for giggling at everything like a schoolgirl. She blamed it on the nerves. Get it together.

"If you have any questions about the TimePods, you ask me." Avery tapped something on her PortScreen, and Amelia shrank back in shock as the nearest machine suddenly made a clicking sound. Pressurized air escaped the orb as it slowly opened, a a growing gap neatly halving it and revealing the interior. Forgetting her wariness, she stepped closer.

A second coating of black contrasted the white outside, and Amelia could see the seat for the pilot (would they be regarded as pilots?) in the center of the opened capsule. The seat had a high back, and the bottom was made of metal that extended horizontally up the sides of the pod's interior. I wonder what that's for.

It was more cramped than she had envisioned, but not nearly as technical as Amelia had reckoned. No controls or buttons — a hazard light alongside the seat, and a seatbelt that looked like the most complicated part of the whole thing.

She honestly didn't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved, and settled with contentment.

"There isn't enough time, unfortunately, to explain the entirety of the technology that went into the making of these," Avery slapped the hull of the TimePod, her face growing more pinched. They don't like the change of schedule, either. "But the most important to note are the rings," she pointed to the metal curved bar that Amelia had been wondering about, "which will ensue that you will also remain upright, even if the TimePod as a whole is upside down.

"Then there's the oxidizer count." The hazard glowed red at the touch of another control on the PortScreen, then green. "Red means bad — probably that you're under the sea."

"That's possible?" Tina hissed in Amelia's ear. Amelia didn't bother to respond. If time travel in itself was possible, then what was impossible?

"While green means that you're good to go." Avery touched another button, and the TimePod began to close. "The motion sensors will pick up elevated heartbeat, and open if the oxidizer deems it safe," the engineer elaborated, before someone asked. "Once you're in a safe habitat, and awake and arrived in one peace to the K-zone, then it will, by default, open."

The other woman put her hands on her hips. "Any questions?"

Amelia had one, and raised her hand before she could worry too much about its validity. "Anything we shouldn't do?" She asked when Avery nodded to her. "In regards to the machines?"

"One person per machine," Avery answered, which only piqued Amelia's curiosity further.

"What happens if we don't abide to that?" Tina piped up, raising an eyebrow at Amelia, who shrugged.

Avery's iris-less dark gaze rested on her, almost boredly, before she responded. "Your atoms break down when you time travel — and alike atoms attract, as we have programmed the TimePod to receive.

"If two humans, or any associated primate, time travelled together, for whatever stupid reason, they would effectively be broken down at a sub-atomic level, and become one person."

"Joy," Lale muttered. It made Amelia like him more, his sarcasm drowning out her disgust. A horror movie she'd watched as a kid came to mind — The Fly, which would've been the same age as her grandmother, had she still have been alive. The special effects were cheesy, but the concept had terrified her.

Let's not do that, then.

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