Biz tapped a pencil on the table and tried to get a proper grasp on the situation.

Charlie had left to get Red, that was simple enough. But the lab was also currently lit by a flickering vortex of energy, which was considerably less so. That was complex and messy and hard to understand. Biz was left feeling very much alone, and given the date, was not feeling particularly up to the task.

As Biz took a mental inventory, they felt things shift and reached into a pocket swapping out the xe/xyr badge for a they/them with practiced ease.

They flinched and glared at the spinning vortex as it spat fresh arcs of electricity at the cage around it. After a moment more thought they decided like any good Brit that the best decision was to make a cup of tea and have a good old think about it.

Their hands ran on instinct as they moved around the kitchen, boiling the water and adding the lemon substitute between concerned glances at the vortex. Drink made they moved to the foyer and sat bat facing the flickering shadows as they took careful sips of earl grey and waited for Red to arrive. Their eyes glazed over as their thoughts fell back into a familiar pattern and they pondered past moments, the series of life events which had led them to this point.

A decision to visit the lovely cottage in the North Yorkshire Moors, to prepare a surprise for their wife. A quaint hilltop cottage that had snatched them from their reality, dropping both them and it on the corner of a street that defied the laws of physics.

No way home, no way back to her, no way even to send a message. Seven years of staring at ancient photos on a worn-out mobile phone. Seven years of wondering if people were actually "taken" or if they were copied. Seven years of wondering if the love of their life thought they had left her one day, left without so much a word – just vanishing into the night. Seven years of wondering if the Biz that was them, was even the real Biz at all.

Seven years of worry to the day, or well seven years as far as they could track time in this awful place anyway. Biz grimaced into their tea as the familiar thoughts cycled endlessly through their mind. They definitely needed something to distract themselves whilst they waited for Red to arrive.

Determined, they looked around for distractions and caught sight of the faded, note-covered map in the reception. Marked with Biz’s spidery cursive the map was on the one place where Biz, at Red’s insistence, had labelled and updated the changes they had made to the lab’s layout.

Biz grumbled to themself, a map wasn’t going to be enough today, they needed the real physicality of walking, of seeing the progress they had made over the last seven years on the street. The proof that there was meaning to the madness of the life they were stuck in.

The first room on their impromptu tour was charitably known as the stasis chamber, a “machine” that consisted of a tarp and two doors held open by a pully and a long chain. As Biz watched from the corridor the furthest door began to swing shut yanking open the second door a fraction of a second before the prior closed.

As they watched the simple contraption cycle the two doors open Biz couldn’t help but wonder about the other people on the street. Not a one of them interested in replicating the simple feat that kept the lab perpetually anchored to the same patch of street. To their shame, Biz’s simple explanation of how the street worked had fallen on deaf ears. Why people preferred the inconsistency of navigating by shadows in the sky to the simple joy of certainty Biz was never quite able to understand.

And yet, the next room they visited was a testament to that same chaotic spirit. The complicated, ugly machine as much within the room as a part of it. Floor to ceiling the walls were covered with axles, chains, gears, and magnets each turning in a constant crunch of motion. At its centre was the unifying point, partially disassembled car engines, bolted to the exposed concrete of the laboratory floor.

The engines billowed black plumes of smoke as the bubbling vat drained through the rattling machinery. The smell was uniquely vile, the cloying tang of cooking oil blended into the raw, rough metallic stench of well-greased pistons all underplayed by the faint scent of cheap perfume and cigar smoke which lingered as an immutable reminder of its original owner.

There was not much to consider about the monstrous mechanical device, copied whole cloth from an online “prepper guide”, Biz was only vaguely aware of how the damn thing worked.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Oil makes the engine move, that makes the axles spin the magnets and that generated the current?” That sounded right to them, but it was hard to tell if that was correct since the design had been copied from a now long defunct web forum. Regardless, it worked well enough and kept the more sophisticated parts of the lab powered and ready for use.

They loitered for a while in the engine room, letting the sounds and smells of the machines wash over them in a great sensory tide. As they stood, Biz felt their years old worries begin to slip away, the old hurts and well-trod anxieties overwhelmed as the sound and stench obliterated any sense of self, time, or place.

Biz stayed for as long as they were able, till their head thrummed endlessly with vibrations and their throat gagged against the thick greasy air. When they finally passed their limit, they stumbled out, dry heaving and physically drained, but mentally refreshed and almost ready to interact with Red.

Biz was sat once more in the reception sipping a second cup of tea when Red pushed open the door to the reception. They placed the chipped mug to one side as Red wandered in, a book filled satchel dragged along the floor behind her. They waved at Biz and slumped further into the room eyes scanning the area as she made note of the few minor changes to the layout. As expected, she pulled a green backed notebook from the pocket of their waistcoat and made a note of the changes, changes that Biz knew would make their way onto her map of the lab before the day was out.

Finished with her note taking, they turned and addressed her host properly.

“Hey Bismuth! Charlie popped by and said you have a Glowing Silver Light Vortex you want some help with?”

She gestured at the periodic flashes of light that outlined the door to the lab.

“I take it it’s in there?”

Biz nodded and held the door open for her. She began to move around them and then stopped dead and twisted to examine Biz, nose twitching as they sniffed the air around them. She grimaced as she caught the pungent smell of petrol fumes on Biz’s breath and in an instant their bulky bag was dropped, forgotten as she turned a concerned frowning face towards her friend.

"Bismuth why do you smell of sadness? What happened to drive you into that dark dank room for so long?

Tell me what's going on. You know it'll help if you explain it or vent a bit! We can map out your feelings, look I have my workbook right here!"

She pulled a blue backed notepad from the bulky bag and dropped into a cross legged sitting position before Biz and stared up unblinking as she checked their face for signs of stress.

Biz sighed exasperated as they recognised the exact behaviour they had hoped to avoid. Defeated they nodded at the concerned women, and she grinned childlike as they pulled a pencil out of her frizzy ginger hair, poised and ready to take notes.

“Okay, well don’t miss anything out – We need to get a full map for you!

Resigned to their fate they joined her on the floor so to at least see what was being written in the notepad as they began to talk through the events of the day. They talked of Biz’s morning, and the discovery of the mysterious silver statue in their bedroom. Of the first wave of tests and the panic that followed them. They talked of Charlies visit and how things had gone from bad to worse. Of the lethal silver vortex Charlie had created and of Biz’s depressive spiral after he left. They didn’t talk of the cause or content of the spiral. There was no need when Biz’s sad history was already so well mapped out in the blue backed notepad.

“and then we were here.” Biz finished, standing, and stretching as Red completed the last of her encoded note taking. Feeling better despite themself Biz ventured a return to the reason for Red’s visit.

“Well Red, do you wish to see the scientific phenomena that you came here for?”

She was up and across the room before Biz could even blink and Biz watched as she made their way around the machine, a purplish book suddenly held in one hand as she sketched a rough diagram of the metallic cage. They circled again humming and muttering at the design as she marked off points on the diagram.

"Why you got all these inefficiencies Bismuth?"

She pointed at a few recent additions to the cage including the not unimportant cable that grounded the errant electricity arcing from the vortex.

Biz grimaced. "Literally every single thing you just pointed at is a safety feature that I added in to stop this vortex of energetic matter destroying my laboratory."

She stared back at Biz blankly, and Biz realised they should have tried a different approach.

“The safety features stop me being incredibly stressed?”

A thoughtful smile crept across their face, and she took a step back slashing through the previous notes and redrawing her plans in a frantic a blur of sharp hand motions. In seconds they had a rough suggestion drawn and held up to with a few centimetres of Biz’s face.

“We should do this! See, we can have your ‘safety features’ be actually useful! This thing is putting out enormous amount of energy. With the right mapping and power distribution we could even make it replace that relic that you call an engine room!”

Biz considered the diagram for a second, a simple elegant design utterly divorced from the reality of the dangerous phenomena besides them, and yet inexplicably viable and even quite useful. Biz weighed it up for a moment longer, but ultimately Red’s bouncing enthusiasm won out, and Biz found themself grinning ear to ear as helped draw up a more detailed plan.

As they worked together Biz began to hum to themselves softly - maybe, just maybe the two of them would be able to create something truly revolutionary once again.