Oh my God. She flew straight back down the same holes she had just made to Thomas and Axel. This time counting the floors in her head, she slowed down at thirty and came in through the ceiling.

"Whoa," Axel jumped back, "Take it easy."

Teresa began pace-floating around the room. "Shut up." She put her hands on her head. "We're so fucked. Did you know about this, Axel?"

"Maybe."

"Christ almighty, you're a dick."

Thomas got in front of her, stopping her in her path. "What's going on?"

"I made a mistake," Teresa said.

"What was the mistake?"

"Axel and Connor fought over the switch and created a wormhole. The gravity shift is Mars. It's right above us and closing in."

Thomas, and even Axel, were taken aback. They've heard of them, but neither believed it would be valid outside of movies or television.

Teresa kept pacing around the room. Think, think...

She thought about the fight between Connor and Axel. But what was there to think about? They wrestled by the wall. She floated over to the spot where a chunk of the wall was missing.

"Axel, did anything else happen?"

"Just left him on Mars."

"Now is not the time," Teresa said.

Axel sighed. "We landed somewhere else first, the Moon."

Teresa kept pace-floating. That doesn't change much. Connor and I went together to the Moon, and Connor has been to Mars countless times. Yet, no wormholes until now.

She heard some metal skid on the floor. She bumped into the plate in the middle of the room with a floating foot. The plate Stephanie likes to use so no one accidentally blips into someone else coming out of the Lucid Passage.

The plate.

She quickly bent down and grabbed the edge, and lifted it. And what she thought was true. Some circuitry was all over the bottom of it. It looked similar to her suit and the insides of the Aeon Switch. Nanotech.

She dropped the plate.

Fuck.

The plate served a purpose and wasn't just a landing pad.

"Oh my God." Teresa put her head in her hands. "I'm an idiot."

"What is it?"

She sniffed. "I was told the plate served no purpose."

"And what is that purpose?"

"Stephanie didn't need the plate to alter matter. The accelerator attached to it was old tech. It might as well have been a paperweight."

"Teresa," Thomas comforted her.

"A third formula." Something she overlooked and should have checked while living with Stephanie.

But that didn't answer another question, she was testing and using her own Aeon Switch, and that didn't create any wormholes between Thomas's house and Optimal.

"Looks like you discovered something," Thomas said. "Do we have a chance?"

Teresa turned to the intercom, essentially looking right at Mr. Furyk. Her stare told him everything he needed to know.

"You need to create a chance right now," Mr. Furyk said. "Thirty minutes."

"Shit," Teresa spouted. "I need Stephanie," she hated saying that out loud.

"Too dangerous,"

"You don't trust she can close the wormhole?"

"I don't trust she'll not kill us after she closes the wormhole. Thirty minutes until we launch." The intercom made an audible off noise as if someone pressed a button.

Shit.

Her pacing continued after she checked her watch, thirty minutes.

"Teresa," Thomas said, "I want to be with my family if this is it."

"Can't. That takes a charge, and I might need them."

"Send me to the other side of the world," Axel demanded.

"A planet-size collision won't matter where you are," Teresa said. "Shit. This is it."

A beat passed, and Thomas and Axel struggled to make themselves comfortable, knowing what would happen.

"Teresa," Thomas said again, "start with what you know."

That's the problem, Teresa thought. I don't know a damn thing. She closed her eyes and crossed her arms, an Aeon Switch in each hand. She tilted her head and began tapping the gold Aeon Switch against her forehead, her finger habit replaced with the blue jewel of the switch.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"She's lost," Axel said. "Just send us somewhere safe."

She glared at him, and even Axel was taken aback by the piercing look in her eyes.

And then she noticed something. The GUI had changed, and the options in her retinal display sent from the gold Aeon Switch were different.

"Guys," Teresa said. "Something's different."

"What?" Thomas said.

"The menu is different."

"What's different about it?"

"It says, satellite, missiles, moon. Before, it was just Mars, Moon, and a few others under the send option."

"I don't quite understand, but what does that mean?" Thomas said.

"Means it was a hidden menu? I don't know. But it switched somehow."

"Tap it against your head again, dumbass," Axel said.

She glanced back at him, and, it was apparent, she tapped the blue jewel on the switch again against her forehead as she was, and certainly enough, the menu changed. She wanted to kick herself because Axel had deduced something so apparent before she did.

"It changed," Teresa said.

"What does it say?"

"White House." She tapped again. "Blue Ashe, garage, living room." She tapped again. "Runway, Cube." She tapped again. "Pyongyang. Beijing."

"What?" Axel said.

"Capital of North Korea."

"Wait," Thomas said. "What's cube? Go back."

She kept tapping, this time against the palm of her hand. "'Kay, back on cube."

"Is that the thing I saw earlier? Floating in that room." Thomas caught a glimpse of it on the way down the corridor.

"I wonder."

"You said something about moving through matter? Maybe she's inside the cube." Thomas said.

Teresa paused and stared at him in disbelief. It became so obvious.

"Alright," she sounded irritated. "God, this pisses me off."

She tossed her silver Aeon Switch to Thomas, "Hold onto this."

She hesitated to hover her line of sight over the Cube option on the brain interface. She believed she had matched Stephanie, but she was wrong, and the entire globe felt the consequences.

"I think she'll appear on the other side there," Teresa said. "Have you ever seen her on this side?"

"Don't think so," Axel said.

She readied to select the GUI and couldn't help but reflect. She received the clues she needed from Axel, Thomas, and a week prior, from Thomas's son Timothy. And she was now receiving help from Stephanie. It irked her a little, but at the same time, everything she needed came from unexpected places.

Maybe that's why she sought out Connor, a pizza delivery driver in high school who helped her achieve her goals, the smartest woman alive still needed help, she thought. She's just a little older than I am.

She activated the option on the gold Aeon Switch, and the room on the other side of the removed glass illuminated. Right in the center of it, Stephanie appeared out of the glow and stumbled before gaining sure footing.

Her eyes widened as soon as she saw everyone and the destroyed lab. "Nice work," Stephanie said to Teresa.

"No time," Teresa floated to her. "We accidentally created a wormhole. I have no idea how to stop it."

"Wow, okay, slow down," Stephanie said with raised palms, which she felt were lighter. "That's a lot to absorb. Where is this wormhole?"

"Between the Moon and us."

"And what's coming through it?"

"Mars."

She thought for a moment, not paying much mind to everyone in the room. And then she noticed the missing piece. She sighed, "And Connor's on Mars?"

"Yes."

"Yup," Stephanie said, "he wasn't standing on the plate here then. The one on mars is plane, just for landing."

"So the plate was important? It wasn't a red herring?"

"Of course, it was important." She rustled through some stuff on the counter by the intercom, found a rubber band, and tore it, so it wasn't a loop. "Point a," she grabbed one end of the rubber band, "point b," she grabbed the other. "Gravitons don't want to be forced into doing something they're not, and the further they're forced, the more likely they'll snap back to where they were." She stretched the rubber band and let go, and the ends snapped back on each other.

"And that's how the wormhole was made," Teresa said.

"The plate is used for long distances. It speeds up atoms to increase its gravity, gravity acts as a wave, and if you counter the wave of the gravitons from the switch at either point a or b with the plate, it won't snap back."

"Okay, that's great and all," Thomas said, "but we have thirty minutes until they nuke it, and Connor is up there."

Stephanie groaned. "That simpleton thinks he can obliterate a planet."

"What other option do they have?" Teresa said.

"We can close the wormhole. It won't be easy, but their plan to nuke it won't work."

A loud thunk quaked the floor. It wasn't something that came from the room they were in, but through the hole, all the holes in all the ceilings Teresa made when she blasted through to the surface.

Thomas knew what it was immediately. "Get down!"

Teresa flew onto it and covered as much of the bomb as she could with her arms and torso. A burst of energy poofed out what little open area her limbs didn't conceal, and debris shot across the floor and lodged itself into the walls. Thankfully, no one was standing in its way.

Teresa rose off the ground without a scratch. "Whew. This Zero Shield is pretty handy."

Axel got out of his defensive posture and broke the stunned silence, "Those assholes are gonna kill us."

"They were clear not to get Stephanie," Thomas said.

Axel turned to Teresa, "Good job, dumbass."

She ignored him. "They don't think we can close the wormhole. Which means they're launching."

Stephanie hadn't entirely snapped out of it. Despite the Zero Shield absorbing most of the explosion, it was still loud enough to shock Stephanie stupid. Without her Aeon Switch, she felt defenseless and weak and wasn't used to being on the receiving end of destruction. It rattled her.

"My Switch," Stephanie demanded.

Teresa didn't waste any time and tossed it to her.

She put it on and looked off to space a bit. "Okay, still have some power for a few jumps. We need to set up the plates at the points those two blipped from."

"What do you have planned?" Teresa said.

"To fasten it with dark matter. From point a to point b." She hustled to the counter, went to the terminal, and began typing. "We need to know how Connor is doing first."

The terminal blinked back with a message from Connor.

"Low on Oxygen, wearing spare suit, and I'm standing on the wall."

"Sit tight. We'll be there in a moment. And don't panic if you start falling through space," she texted back.

"How's he doing?" Thomas asked.

"Fine for now, but we have to hurry." She looked at the group, and before briefing them on her plan, she noticed a silver ring similar to her gold necklace. She gave an approving smile and glanced at Teresa, impressed. "You figured it out?"

"Yeah."

"Nice. Can you get Connor with that?"

"Way too far for this one. A charge or two left."

"I see. Alright then, let's get started—"

Another canister dropped, and red smoke poured out. Instantly Teresa grabbed it and said, "I got this," she tossed her watch and switch to Thomas, then flew up, breaking through the ceiling, taking the tear gas with her.

"This day keeps getting weirder and weirder," Thomas mumbled as he put on Teresa's watch with the switch tucked under his arm.

Stephanie waved the two men over to move the plate with her.

"I'll get her once we set this up," Stephanie said. "Where precisely did you blip out of here?"

Axel nodded where it happened. "That dumbass tackled me against the wall over here."