The two men neared the transportation tube without having said a word since leaving Justine back at the transport ring. But as they drew closer to the beginning of their logically questionable plan, one of them decided to speak up.

  “You know.” Joseph stopped short of the door and stared thoughtfully at the two ornate knobs attached to the wall. “We probably would have spent another hour trying to analyze them.”

  “Probably,” Foster’s satchel strap had begun to pinch his shoulder, so he repositioned it. “And we wouldn’t have made it out of the tunnel without her either.”

  “Don’t forget about how she came through for us in the engine room and on the engineering level.”

  Foster visibly grimaced with every word the deputy had said. “I didn’t forget about those things. I’m just trying to ignore them.”

  Taking a couple of steps forward, both men hesitated before pressing the elevator button. Each of them had some serious reservations about leaving the station without her given she was the team’s undisputed muscle.

  After a minute of trying and failing to offer a better response, Foster’s resolve firmed up like unrefrigerated Jello. “But we have our reasons for doing this. She doesn’t.”

  “Still,” Joseph decided the die was already cast, so he pressed the top knob. “The way she handled herself under all that pressure. This plan of ours would be a whole lot easier to survive if she were coming with us.”

  “I told you. I’m not putting her in that position.” On this point, Foster was resolute. “She can live a normal life back on Earth.”

  “So could you.”

  “Me?”

  Foster’s body seized up at the thought of not being able to understand the events that took place at this station so many years ago. And in turn, what those events meant for humanity as a whole. And without even trying to think about everything, he could already feel the questions consume him like a virus infecting a computer.

  “No, I couldn’t, Joseph. I need to know the answers to these questions.” Foster said simply. “She doesn’t.”

  The transportation tube had to cycle through a series of checks. That meant it took a few seconds before the door opened and allowed them to enter. During that time, Joseph decided to change his tactics a little bit.

  “You’re probably right. Who cares if she’s not coming with us,” he said in a goadingly indifferent tone. “It’s not like she was anything special.”

  “Not anything special?” Foster felt his body unfreeze instantly by that verbalized slight to the young agent’s value. “I don’t care how big your universe is, Joseph. I will probably never meet anyone like her again.”

  “So.” Directly behind them, a wholly satisfied voice rang out that sent shivers down the scientist’s spine. “You think I’m special.”

  “What?!” Both men yelped in unison as they turned around to find Justine standing there, panting like she had just run a marathon.

  “Guys,” she said with a genuine smile. “Relax. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Calm down?” Foster’s face somehow conveyed annoyance and joy at the same time as he glanced down at her empty hands. “You’re supposed to be heading back to Earth. And where is the phone I gave you?”

  “With the little girl.” Justine sidled up between them and entwined her arms around theirs in a sitcom kind of way. “I told her to press the button once they get where they’re going. Don’t worry. She’s smart. And you made the process almost too simple.”

  Joseph began to thank her for her timely appearance but stopped before saying anything. Caught between being happy and nauseous, the idea of traveling across the universe with a pair of potential young lovers held little appeal. Still, the FBI agent was handy in a fight and right now that’s all that really mattered to him.

  “Anyway, both of you would be dead without me,” Justine said with a metaphorical wink. “And there’s no way I can allow that to happen.”

  Foster’s first urge was to say something unbelievably mean to try and convince her to leave with the prisoners. But the feeling of her touch had a mind-numbing effect. So, he went with his second option: blissful acceptance.

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  “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “But this changes things, Hoover. Adjust the message and set the phone to signal 911 as soon as the little girl hits the button.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “911?” Justine’s initial burst of enthusiasm slightly waned. “Why would you signal the police? Why not just alert Saunders and the rest of the team?”

  “Saunders?” Foster looked at the FBI agent with slight bemusement. Then he remembered there were a couple of things he forgot to tell her in the rush to send everyone else back home. “I’m having the phone signal the police because there won’t be a team in Elmira to contact.”

  “No team?” Justine’s confusion grew. “Why wouldn’t Saunders still be there? We’ve only been gone for about 12 hours and I’m sure Fitz Hume is going bat shit crazy trying to find you.”

  “Twelve hours our time, Agent Rushing.” Joseph added to Foster’s already confusing explanation with his own cryptic answer. “But on Earth...” He looked at Foster for help, but the scientist just shrugged his shoulders. “It’s probably been a little bit longer.”

  “I’m sorry, but what the hell are you talking about?” It was then that an old science story popped into her head. One whose plotline revolved around how a powerful gravity field could dilate perceived time. Like the type of gravity field that emanated from the giant black hole just beneath their feet.

  For a moment, she felt extremely stupid for letting such an obvious thing slip past her inner sci-fi nerd. “How much time?”

  “That’s where things become a bit wonky.” Foster said with a smile. “If I go by the time dilation of the original signal, it could be as much as 8 years.”

  “8 years?” The implications of that statement made her brain stutter. “You mean to tell me that I was about to go back to an Earth that was 8 years in the future?”

  “That would be a worst-case scenario.” Foster wondered what she was thinking at that very moment. After all, he hadn’t told her anything about the possible time jump before she went back home. And right now, he was afraid she might be really pissed off. “But yes, 8 years.”

  “8 years...” Looking suspiciously calm, Justine looked back to the transportation ring with almost a wistful look. “You mean to tell me that I could have beamed across the galaxy and time traveled. All within 24 hours?”

  “I don’t know if I would call it time travel per se.” Foster gradually began to relax. Of course she didn’t find not being told aggravating. She found it exciting.

  “Don’t ruin this for me, Foster.”

  “You know?” He held up his hand in mock surrender, turned back toward the elevator door and pressed the button. “There’s still time to head back to the ring. I’m sure you could make it before the device activates.”

  “You think?” Her words belied an urge to do just that. But the grip she kept on both their arms said a very different thing. “No. I’ll stick with you guys.”

  “Great...” Foster started to move on from the whole not telling her thing, but a harsh look from Justine instantly stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “But don’t think I’m going to let it slide that you were going to send me back to a future Earth.” Her angry look was clearly forced. “Especially without telling me.”

  “Fine.” Again, Foster raised his arms in a pleading manner. “No more secret time travel trips for you.”

  Upon hearing his promise to not let her do something awesome, her heart sank a little. But instead of answering, she silently stood there and waited for the tube’s doors to slide open. Once they did, the trio hurried inside.

  “Ten more seconds.” Hoover said, finally rejoining the conversation while trying very hard to pretend her sudden appearance was a complete surprise to him. “It’s so nice of you to join us.”

  Fully committed to her choice, she happily played along with his ruse. “My pleasure, Hoover.”

  With everyone in the group either happy or cautiously optimistic, the doors slid closed and their trip back to the top of the station began. However, this happyish moment only lasted long enough for the prisoner’s retrieval timer to hit zero.

  For a breath of time, everything in the tube remained status quo. But that status quo shifted violently to something else as the entire station was rocked by a powerful energy spike. Instantly, the elevator ground to a halt. And for the first time since arriving, they could feel the station lurch and shudder under the black hole’s terrible pull.

  “What the hell was that?” Justine pressed Foster up against the wall and reached for her Slinger.

  Even in the dark, Foster could sense that she was trying to protect him and that feeling was more than welcome. “Hoover… was that just the machine?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Apparently it’s been a while since the device needed to send so many subjects back to Earth?”

  After a few seconds of nervous silence, the power was restored to the elevator, and the transportation tube continued upward.

  “That was something.” Justine responded to the loss of power as only a true Floridian would. “Kind of felt like the brownouts we used to have during a hurricane.”

  “Is this going to be an ongoing problem?” Foster added in a slightly concerned voice.

  Ever the engineer, Joseph opened a crude wire frame model of the station on the elevator’s small display panel. As the image began to coalesce, he brought up the only diagnostic program available on this panel. “I don’t think so. I don’t see anything structurally wrong with either elevator or the transportation tube.”

  Just then, almost as if on cue, small thuds began pelting the top of the elevator like hail stones hitting a car roof. Soon, the noises were followed by a cacophony of very familiar scraping sounds against the top of their unarmored conveyance.

  “Guys…” Hoover activated the viewing port, and the material facing away from the station became transparent. Foster and Joseph scrambled to look out into the void, while Justine kept her eyes glued to the ceiling. “I’m afraid I have some more good news.”