"So what's this you want to show me?" Nathan asked.
"A piece of 24th century technology. It's just over here."
Nathan looked around but didn't see anything unusual where Dr. Ranon was pointing.
"I don't see anything."
"Of course you can't. It's cloaked."
"What?"
"Just watch." Dr. Ranon took out a small device from his pocket. It looked quite like a remote control. He pressed a button on it.
Dr. Campbell looked up. To his amazement, he saw in front of him a small... thing suddenly appear out of nowhere.
"What's that?"
"That, my friend, is the Atlas. Standard shuttle design, technically assigned to the starship Saturn, maximum speed of light factor 10, now basically my personal experimental test base. Let's go. Stop here."
Nathan parked the car. He, Dr. Ranon, and Sally who was coming with them went over to it.
"It's incredible!" Dr. Campbell remarked.
They walked to the shuttle. It was fairly small, but still spacious inside. It was mainly white, with markings all over it, though not making much sense to Nathan.
Inside were clattered machines, presumably all of Dr. Ranon's inventions. It was all in a mess, and yet it seem to be an organised mess. Lights flashed everywhere.
"With this equipment," Dr. Ranon said, "we should be able to work out a way to stop the further opening of the distortion between the dimensions."
He went over to the front of the shuttle and showed Nathan the control room.
"It will probably be necessary to use the Atlas to launch our experiment. In this situation, you will need to become acquainted with the instruments here. Let me show you..."
They worked for hours, trying to find out any possible way to stop the imminent danger.
However, as it became dark, a person approached in the shadows. Not much could be picked out from his appearance at that time. He got up fairly close to the shuttle, apparently trying to look inside. He saw Dr. Ranon, Dr. Campbell and Sally talking to each other, but couldn't hear much.
Just as he started to come closer, Sally looked out the window and saw him.
"Dad! Someone's out there!"
"What the -! Come on!" He rushed to the controls and pressed a few buttons. The man outside suddenly was looking into empty space, confused. He left, but hid further away and waited. Eventually, as he had expected, the shuttle reappeared in the same spot. He went back.

"Tell me something, Doctor. Why don't you just leave the cloaking device on all the time?"
"It's no so easy. The device uses up most of the shuttle's energy while engaged, and not much else can be done. But the security systems would have detected him. Something must have gone wrong."
They went over to a screen on the panel. Dr. Ranon pressed a few buttons. Dr. Campbell looked over.
"This is strange," Dr. Ranon said. "The sensors haven't registered anything. Although something very strange happened."
"What?"
"I can't tell yet. It'll take some time."
"We'd better go home now. Do you think you could somehow bring it over there? We could clear out the garage, and it would be easier to work on over there."
"I suppose so. Let's go."

"I've found out what went wrong with the security systems," Dr. Ranon said. "It appears that something fell out from the system, probably when we were coming here. It may take a while to find."
"What does it look like? We could find it."
"It's a small object, about 10 cm long, it's blue, and has four carbon-steel extensions protruding from it."
"I think I've seen it," James said. My friend Anna found it on the side of the road."
"Can you get it?" Nathan asked.
"I'll try tomorrow."

Away from the house, an old professor was going up the stairs of his home. He came to the top, and went around the corner...
And he saw in front of him an image of himself. At first he thought it was just a mirror, but then he realised that he didn't have a mirror there.
Before he could do anything further, his "image" hit him and proceeded to tie him up as he became unconscious.

"So," Jenny said, "what's the future like?"
"Well," Sally replied, "we have big ships going in space, which travel around exploring and... well, doing other stuff."
"What do you do?"
"I do just normal stuff, you know, go to school and that sort of thing."
"Kind of like here, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Some things never change." She laughed.
Jenny looked at her, imagining what being in space would be like. It would be different, but then it was 400 years in the future.
"Sounds good."
"Well, it's alright."
"Alright? It sounds great!"
"Sometimes. But most of the time nothing happens. I know," Sally suddenly added. "Come, I'll show you some of my things in the shuttle."
"Cool!"
They went out of the room.

"Which do you think is better: now, or the future?" Rachel asked Daniel.
"I don't know. I suppose some things are better here, and some are better in the future."
"Yeah. You're right, I guess." She thought of the events of the past two days. Things had become quite complicated. She was beginning to get confused by everything. But it would hopefully get sorted out as time passed.
Daniel thought. This was his chance to get things straight between him and Rachel.
"You're good."
"I am? In what way?" Rachel asked, puzzled.
"In every way."
Rachel smiled. "Oh, I see what you're getting at." She leaned over and kissed him.
And in his mind, Daniel was alleviating the nervousness of the subconscious thoughts he had in anticipation of a negative possibility.
In other words, he was relieved.

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