Ariana and Liam Taylor embraced as she stepped off of the launching platform. It was the first time it had been tested with an actual human and the tension in the room was high. It had worked, she went back, the time machine actually worked!

Ariana had been working on this for a long time now, with many fails and many victories. She was so excited that it worked. She had gone back to yesterday and came back again in just five minutes, her trip was successful. However, she knew that once her and her crew got up to traveling a long time away, it would be much longer than five minutes. As the Taylors drove home, Ariana had a hopeful heart that soon she would be able to go back in time to study different historical events up close. She knew it would take a few weeks but she estimated that she would be able to get back to it in a month or so.

Liam leaned over and kissed Ariana on the lips. “Some day you're gonna be taking photos of the first ever car. Or something even bigger.” He finished with a loving grin.

“Someday.” Ariana replied with a satisfied sigh, and she smiled back into her husband’s deep brown eyes.

The following day Ariana had an interview with one of the biggest newspapers in New York, but since her project has been a fairly quiet research she asked them not to publish until she had gotten back from her next trip. Somehow someone in the newspaper’s office had gotten word that a very ambitious historian and engineer was attempting at time travel. However, that did not bring Ariana’s hopes down one bit, she was determined.

“Stop it! Bring it back, now! Stop the machine!” 

Everyone was running around frantically, yelling, trying to halt the machine that was now acting up. It hadn’t had a problem for two months and now, during their first huge trip it broke down. There was no bringing her back. It had broken down too late into the process. 

NEW YORK NEWS

BREAKING HEADLINE!

Famous Historian and Engineer Mysteriously Gone Missing

Famous historian and engineer Ariana Taylor went missing after an accident at her work.

Ariana appeared in a grassy side yard of a college. The college was a huge brick building with stone at the bottom and a long staircase. On the top of the front of the building she read a sign saying New York Community College. This was the college she attended three years ago. Ariana dug inside her backpack until she pulled out a silver orb that sparkled in the afternoon sun. Around the orb were rotating rings but the edges were scorched and black. Suppose that’s from the malfunction she thought. She knew that it wouldn’t work anymore and she now couldn't send a message to the crew back home to bring her back although, she guessed that their end was somewhat broken as well. A knot formed inside her stomach as she had to realize that no one could bring her home. She had to wait until her current time came to her, three long years, or until both sides were fixed.

“Can you fix it and bring her back soon?” Questioned Liam with a hard stare.

“Sir, we will start to fix it but it might take some time.” Replied one of Ariana’s crew members nervously. “I’m really sorry sir.” He said almost in a whisper. “We have to wait until she has fixed her signal device so that she will be ready and can come back safely.” 

“We can’t wait that long.” Liam tried to keep himself under control but it was proving to be more difficult than he thought. The man cringed at Liam’s raised voice but kept silent. Liam walked off into the laboratory where the machine was getting fixed and the crewman supposed their conversation was over.

Ariana looked up as she heard the school bell ring, her heart started to pound, she could absolutely not be seen, especially by her three-year-ago-self. Holding her knees to her chest she sat in the corner of the steps and the building, waiting for students to rush out of the large oak doors for lunch period. As students bursted out of the doors Ariana could hear numerous conversations between different students. Students were laughing, shouting, groaning, and chatting and Ariana could hear all of it. She sucked in her breath as a young woman hopped onto the thick stone rails on the edge of the steps laughing cheerily with a young man who was sliding down the metal rail in the middle.

Ariana looked up, a smile spreading across her face as she recognized who was laughing together. It was kind of weird feeling to be getting a different perspective on her life three years later and seeing her and Liam in college together before they knew they would get married and they were both going to work on a time machine together. She would miss Liam and her family. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, she didn’t want to think about going through three years of her past without any of her family with her. 

“I’ll call Liam.” Said a man in overalls working on the time machine. “Hi, sir? Yes it is almost finished. Ummm… maybe a day or so. Yes sir I will call you. Thank you sir. Yes, then we will be ready to receive her signal. Yes sir. See you then.” The man finished, satisfied by the contents of his phone call.

Once all of the students were gone, Ariana stood up brushing off her dirty pants and took a notebook and pen out of her backpack. She started to write down all of the things she did for the past three years so that she avoided her three-year-ago-self. If she ran into herself, there would be serious consequences. When she was done writing and could’t think of anything else that she had done she started walking to a restaurant that was always her favorite in college. She stopped walking when she wasn’t sure if she, her other self would be there or not. Wanting to rather be safe than sorry she sighed and walked off in a different direction. 

Ariana walked into a dim lit restaurant with Himalayan cuisine as its specialty. She had never tried Himalayan before but she was always an adventurous eater and wanted to try something new. She ordered a dish consisting of rice and beans and she didn’t quite know what the other ingredients were. She poked around her food with her fork, her appetite not particularly large. She sighed and placed her fork down. Pulling a tip from her wallet she stood up to leave reassuring the cook that it was not the food and walked out the door. Ariana remembered a park that she and her friends would go to a lot in college and decided she needed a little bit of thinking time, and she took the next bus. 

Liam and the crew were sitting anxiously in the lab after the time travel machine was finished, waiting for the signal light to turn on. This was the first day that the machine was completely fixed and everyone was jumpy at the fact that Ariana might be able to come home soon. However, there was no sign of a signal.

Ariana found a bench looking out onto a beautiful glistening lake with a fountain in the middle and sat down to go through her options. She supposed that her best option would be to find a hotel and try to fix her scorched emergency-get-back-home-orb and attempt at getting back home. She didn’t really know what to call it, the crew didn’t really specialize in good names so she decided to stick with silver orb. Sitting down made Ariana’s eye’s feel heavy and in an attempt to let her eyes rest for a couple minutes she fell asleep.

Ariana woke to the sniff of a dog and she opened her eyes to sit up. It was the next morning and she lifted her arms in a stretch as she yawned. As the dog ran off, she rubbed her eyes and stood to go check into a hotel room and buy some supplies to fix her signaling device. 

After a long week of working on her silver orb she thought it was done. Excited at her victory, she set off to celebrate by herself at an ice cream shop. 

“What’s the occasion ma’am?” asked the ice cream man curiously, seeing her satisfied grin.

“Oh, umm. I just finished a project I was working on.” She finished with a smile, happy to have someone to talk to. 

Walking back to her hotel briskly, Ariana couldn’t wait to test the signal device, which no longer had scorched edges and was now shiny, new, and repaired. She opened her door to smoke and flames engulfing the room. Coughing, she waved her hands in front of her face to clear the air and rushed to her backpack. She knew that whatever she got out of her room it at least needed to include her backpack, which held the silver orb tucked inside its pocket. Ariana scolded herself for not remembering this happening in her last year of college. Now that she thought about it she remembered the big ordeal of one of the top floors of the hotel across the street setting fire suddenly. 

She ran as fast as she could out of the burning room and dashed down the hall coughing and stumbling. Half way down the hotel stairs, Ariana dropped her backpack and it fell releasing the silver orb from its pocket. It rolled down the stairs until it reached the basement and a knot filled her stomach. Many feet were rushing to and fro from the basement and it was two flights lower than she needed to go. She would have to be quick. 

Ariana burst out of the hotel doors orb in hand and her backpack slung over her shoulder. She made it. Now all she needed to do was signal to her team three years in the future and get home. She reached the park, her face covered in black smoke. When she reached a vacant area of the park she spinned the rings around the silver orb and talked into the mic. 

“This is Ariana Taylor, do you copy?” She breathed deeply hoping beyond hope that someone would answer.

Liam and the crew stood up quickly as the green signal light came on and a voice was received through the speakers. 

“Hello this is the time travel lab in New York. We copy.” They spoke excitedly.

Ariana stood up and put her hands over her head. She couldn’t believe it. Half of her didn’t want to get her hopes up that someone would answer. Tears running down her cheeks she replied.

“I’m three years into my past, I am ready to come home.” She finished with a relieved laugh. 

Three, two, one. Ariana felt a chill run down her spine as swirls of color erupted from the orb and it started to rise from the ground and spin rapidly. She was on her way home. The feel of time travel was exhilarating, but she couldn’t wait to get back home and run into the arms of Liam. Then it stopped. The color and chills were gone and the orb dropped back into her hands. She wasn’t on the time platform, she wasn’t in the arms of Liam, she didn’t see her cheering crew who worked so hard. 

She was standing next to a large tree and when she turned around, a tear slid down her cheek as she saw herself and Liam hugging, standing in front of their first house they owned together. Ariana had made it two years into the future. She had traveled but evidently three years was too much for the system to handle. She was so close. Ariana took out the silver orb signal and the edges were scorched and black again. She would have to fix it for the second time. One more year to conquer, one more time to fix the orb, then she would be home.

EPILOGUE

Ariana and Liam Taylor embraced as she ran off of the launching platform. It was the second time it was attempted for her to come home and the tension in the room was high. It had worked, she was back, she was home, it had actually worked! She was finally in the arms of Liam, she could see her cheering crew behind them, who worked so hard.