Two Time - SCP Foundation

The sky was black like bullet rain, and Kiera lay gasping on the hard sandstone, vision blurred and flashing with scarlet fireworks.

“Kiera,” Hollatrix took a cigarette from her maw. “Think. You’re a goddamn scientist.”

Right. She was.

She took a breath, the air scraping into her lungs in a struggle. The coarse steel faded, the sky revealing itself as blue ocean, as the blood flashes drained out of her eyes.

“Thanks, imaginary-Hollatrix,” she whispered.

She was well equipped with the theory, that was all and well. But that was just it - theory. Theoretically, the timeline had points where it split. Theoretically, there were alternate timelines to her own. And theoretically, their research might make it possible to perhaps access these timelines.

And possibly and might and perhaps were the words that had been dangling her eyes, clouding her from seeing actual progress. Yes, perhaps it was possible. But not in her lifetime, certainly. But she had manufactured the machine, and she’d done the maths.

Ceelie and Don had helped her with the maths, Ceelie’s tail thumping against the floor when she was thinking hard, and Don muttering to himself in a near constant drone. Then Charlie came to the project, and everything went to shit from there. It wasn’t a bad thing. It was just that…

Well, Charlie could do something that wasn’t just science. The first time it had happened, it had been almost too fast to process. They’d been all puzzling over an equation together, stumped beyond all reason, when xer face had screwed up, and suddenly the equation had rearranged, and the answer was sitting in the centre. Charlie had cheered, clapping xer talons together as xe shifted the numbers back to the main board.

Ceelie and Don had turned to Kiera, eyes wide and feathers slightly flared out. But they hadn’t mentioned it.

Charlie was too good to lose.

But something had shifted, during those last few weeks. Charlie got more nervous, and things in the lab started to shift as their move swayed back and forth. A mug on the large auburn table, talon carved and inlaid with gold by Ceelie to mirror the night sky, would change from coffee to tea. A blue coat that Don had come to work in would leave as a red poncho. The week had started with that - and it had ended with Charlie sitting in front of their time machine, panting, as a low light began to emit a static hiss from inside it.

And they’d done it.

They’d succeeded.

So why had it gone wrong then?

They’d elected Kiera to test it - since she was the one who had teased the formula out, that got them funding from the University. She’d packed her things, and walked in-

“Slow down,” Hollatrix’s voice played in her mind again - and Kiera took a breath, focusing herself back into the timeline. Going over everything, picking it apart, trying to find the gap.

Kiera had stepped inside, and Don had begun inputting the coordinates, running them through the equation they’d found. The right inequality sequence, and-

The machine had buzzed. They’d named the machine HoloTrix, after Hollatrix, who’d been their supervisor, and practically Kiera’s mom for the longest time; they used to all set their tails in the centre after a tricky research session, and shout “Go HoloTrix!”.

That day, they didn’t do it.

That day, when they were finishing adjusting the settings, the doors had burst open. And suddenly, a group of Raptors had swarmed the laboratory, grabbing their documents. Two grabbed Charlie’s arms, and held xem back. Charlie yowled, Don panicked. The team leader touched his ear, radioing in somewhere - his words were a jumble in her head, and all Kiera had really heard were the letters he said. “Beta-07, back to Site Command. We got em’. ACP is Contained.”

Then Ceelie was shoving documents into Kiera’s bag, and Kiera was stumbling into the machine, and everything was blinking and rushing towards her and away from her at once-

And then she was Here.

The machine was broken. That was not a good start. And in the fiery nova that had crashed her here, the documents she’d been carrying had nearly been scorched to ash. Swearing, she stood up, and felt around - there. Her glasses had landed a few feet away, one of the lenses cracked, but the other intact.

And she looked out. Here stretched a sandy cliff, overlooking a desert settlement. Here was a blinding sun and cornflower sky. Here was a deafening heat, and noise that pierced her ears - - the roar of distant machines. Here were stray clouds drifting and air that choked her lungs, making her turn and grab for the oxygen mask she’d packed. Where the fuck was she?

“Hollatrix. Please. For Sanador’s sake, where the fuck are you?” Kiera whispered. Think. Think like a Scientist.

Get that thick Pachy skull of yours into gear, Kiki. You have a PhD in Physics. You have an equation named after you. The Damindar Inequality.

Right. She conjured that chart into her head, the idea of the universe back into frame. She wasn’t too far from home, statistically speaking- the presence of recognisable flora proved that. Searching the air, she spotted a small insect flitting past. Squinting through her still-working lens - a variety of anisoptera. Smaller than the ones she was familiar with - perhaps some sort of shift in genetics related to food chain organisation? A general shift in size? That made sense.

So- run that through the major three percentage factors, plug it into the larger inequality (God, she needed a calculator), and… she was around Cluster Percentage 3 × 10-12. That meant that through reversal…

This universe was in the cluster of those with 99% similarity.

It had worked. The overlap was safe.

Kiera took a deep breath.

As a sharp needle embedded itself deep into her neck.

Kiera resisted the urge to clamp her ridged teeth onto the uniformed Doctor’s hand.

“Explain it again- how did you get here?” His voice was flat and affectless.

“And again- I could explain it, if you let me have paper,” Kiera hissed back, lashing her tail. The Doctor nodded, as if he understood. “Subject displaying agitation,” he noted into the recorder he held. “Progress seems to be unlikely. It is unclear whether any progress has been made towards the subject's understanding of human speech.”

“It sure is gonna be, if you keep being this dense, fucking hominoidea,” Kiera spat in response.

They’d taken all her possessions away when she’d woken up - her compass, journal (though that had been too scorched to salvage anyway), her robe and oxygen tank. They’d let her keep her glasses, and her enclosure was at least well-oxygenated enough that she could breathe. The machine was gone, of course. Kiera doubted she’d ever seen it again.

But the drugging and containment hadn’t been the thing to set her off the edge. It had been the way they treated her. If they just let her have some paper, or let her touch any of the shiny tech they’d beeped and buzzed under her nose and over her feathers, she’d be fine (Oh god… her mouth practically watered at the thought of doing maths again). But instead, it was this. Being treated like she was stupid.

“Here,” the doctor in the corner stepped in. Kiera surveyed it - Female Hominid, not at all close to any Hominoidea they had in Kiera’s timeline. Roughly 8.5- no, make that 8.75 talons tall. Skin was pale and fleshy, with a red fur growth protruding from her scalp. Body language indicated authority, though the other doctor seemed apprehensive to her. Kiera felt dizzy with the information input. Yet her analysis had been, as of now, the only thing keeping her sane.

“SCP-317,” she began, gaze level to Kiera’s. “I’m Dr Moira. I’m the researcher in charge of you, along with Dr Lost, and Dr Smith.” She indicated the stern man who’d been carrying out the interviews up to that point. “I want you to tap the table twice if you can understand what I’m saying.”

Kiera’s eyes widened. Leaning forwards, she tapped the table twice.

Moira smirked, turning to Smith. “See? That’s all you needed to do. Now we can get somewhere in this.”

“Right,” Dr Smith said, through gritted teeth.

“Alright. I’m going to ask you questions. One tap for no, two for yes. Three if you don’t know. Got it?”

Two taps.

“Good.”

Moira took Dr Smith’s place, smiling pleasantly. Kiera let her feathers lay flat.

“Do you know how you got to our world?”

Yes.

“Good. Do you know where you are, geographically speaking?”

No.

“Are there humans - hominids, whichever you please - developed like us - in your world or time?”

No.

“Alright. I’m going to say a list of words. In case you’re curious, this is a modified form of Vocabulary-focused IQ testing. In this case, we’re trying to see how much you understand about our world. Raise your left front limb if you recognise something. Like this,” she demonstrated. Kiera mirrored the action, feeling a ripple of pleasure at Smith’s increasingly agitated expression.

“Abate.”

Kiera raised her claw.

“Okay,” the newest Doctor sat across from her, holding a stack of paper and a pen. “Here you go.” They were younger, short choppy purple hair and eyes lined with kohl and an apparent lack of sleep. Kiera ran through her usual analysis - species, height estimation, gender, prominent features. She wondered if they had guessed that she was studying them, as much as they were trying to study her.

“I’m Doctor Lost,” Dr Lost said, nervously. Their eyes flitted around the room slightly. “Uh. You don’t need to know that, though? Sorry.”

Kiera ignored them, grabbing the paper. Oh, Sweet Sanador, this was it. The pen felt like home in her talons.

She began immediately drawing. Dr Lost sat silently, tapping their foot against the ground - then slowly, leaning over, curiosity winning out. “Oh golly… is this… Quantum Electrodynamics?”

Kiera looked up, surprised. She’d been diagramming the basic calculations she’d used to convert energy to a medium and direction that it could travel through both space and time. And yes, Quantum Electrodynamics - a perfect mix of quantum mechanics and special relativity - were part of that.

“Yes.” She’d figured out in the past couple days, how to make what could be understood as words.

“You’re…” Dr Lost looked down again. “That’s the Doppler Shift. And that’s… holy shit.”

Kiera glowed.

Finally. Finally.

She was getting somewhere.

The theory was fairly simple, in it’s core. In essence, there were an infinite number of alternative timelines. These were separated into layers, called timeline clusters, which each had a set of percentages attached to them.

The beginning of her theory had been simple.

In 100% of timelines, the universe exists.

From there, it went into guesswork and complex equations that you had to peel yourself out of when you were done with them, or else they’d stick to your mind and lose their sense of meaning. About 15% of universes contained the Milky Way Solar System - the Milky Way cluster, she’d termed it. Then, there were splits for each major historical event - by multiplying a certain set of parameters against each other (.000045 (the % for Earth’s existence) x .0000021 (the % for life evolving) would work as the equation for the cluster of timelines containing only those two events) they could find the exact percentage representing that universe cluster.

From there, it got increasingly theoretical - for example, the Eclipseon Timeline, which they’d constructed and calculated for the sole purpose of acting as a secondary data point to their own.

From listening to the doctor’s talk, Kiera’s current theory was that at some point, her species had undergone a mass extinction event, allowing for the current dominance shift. But up to that point (that point specifically being 𝜂(x) < 3 × 10-12), the development had been relatively similar.

In other words.

It had worked.

Charlie, Ceelie, and Don had done it.

She had done it.

But at what cost?

Agents London and Goddard - her containment specialists - led Kiera back down the hall to her cell, scanning their cards and letting her through. “You need anything, 317?” London asked, gruff in his demeanour as per usual.

Yes.

She needed her friends back. She needed to be home, with her sister and her nephew right now. She needed to talk to Hollatrix.

Kiera shook her head, sighing.

The Agents saluted, and left. And Kiera was alone again; save for the recording device tucked away in the ceiling corner. Homesickness was a cherry pit, rooted in her stomach and spreading its branches out. Weighing her down against her bed. She thumped her tail against the floor, flank prickling.

She conjured her friends into her mind, letting their voices float up to her ears.

“Kiki, you’ve got yourself into a proper damn mess,” she pictured her sisters familiar domed head, the faint red markings under her eyes. “I told you this was a bullshit job, right? Don’t answer- I did.”

“I’m sorry, Ani,” Kiera whispered. In her head, Anika sniffed, turning away.

Ceelie’s small frame was next, her five talons painted a dark purple, and her large blue eyes bright. But that was all she got. Just the images - Don, with his chipped head, and then Hollatrix with her dark purplish-grey feathers, the scar that dashed over her left eye. But no advice came - instead, Hollatrix simply slowly shook her head. Kiera’s head ached.

And that was it.

“So, this is a converter-” Dr Moira, Dr Smith, and Dr Lost were huddled around Kiera’s table, talking with her as she fleshed out the rest of her diagram. They’d asked her to tell them more about the machine she’d come in. And so she was - on the condition that they’d help her repair it once she was done.

Yes, Kiera signed, frowned as she struggled for the next bit, and then shook her head before drawing it out, wincing as a pain dug itself into her gut. Her stomach had felt sore for most of the day - which made sense, given the quality of food here. She didn’t know how to bring it up though, so had decided to wait it out.

She still hadn’t forgotten Charlie and her friends. After all, they were the reason she was cooperating with these creatures in the first place - well, aside from a stunning research opportunity. She needed to get back to them. She needed them to be safe.

Kiera had nearly 40% of their diagrams redone, though. Circuitry had always been Ceelie’s thing (Kiera wasn’t a fan of being too close-and-personal with live wires, resulting from a specific incident involving an electric fence and her tail) and Don was the best with understanding particles. She had been the brains of the maths. And Charlie…

Charlie had been all three, and maybe a fourth that xe wasn’t supposed to.

But now she had to be all three. She had to do what Charlie had done. She had to solve all their equations backwards and forwards.

Kiera had to get back home.

Things hurt.

It had started when she was walking back to her Containment cell with London - Goddard had called in sick, which had prompted Lost to make a joke about calling in dead, which no one laughed at.

She was almost down the second hall, when the growing pain in her stomach flooded into a stabbing, churning agony.

It had sent her down to the floor in a matter of seconds, London rushing to her side in a panic. The next had been a blur- Dr Moira at her side, asking her questions. Smith shouting on the phone. Lost panicking. And then she was in her bed, and the doctors were examining her, poking her, prodding her.

Her head ached, her vision blurring.

“Fuck- I think she’s had a stroke.” Hollatrix was over her, dark feathers wavery and distorted. “Someone call Med Staff. Fuck.”

The ceiling was black like bullet rain.

Scarlet fireworks flashed in her eyes.

And darkness was her icy tomb.