Thank you to those that have bought The Egyptian Enigma. The novel is continuing to do well on the charts, world wide. If you have read the novel, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It would be greatly appreciated!

 

Enjoy the beginning of book three in the Quantum Convergence Series. Coming spring 2026.


Sneak Peek of

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Edge of Infinity
 

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Chapter 1

 

 

Money couldn’t buy happiness, and Brad Sheppard knew it better than anyone else. He’d never been more miserable with untold billions in the bank, enough square acreage in Wyoming to compete with a small European country, and a beautiful family. Virginia was everything he’d ever wanted, yet something in him remained hollow. Brad looked forward to growing old with his wife and living life fully.

But for all his wealth and love for Virginia, one problem gnawed at him: his seven-year-old son, Oliver. He was your typical boy, full of energy, enjoyed fishing and video games, and loved his parents unconditionally.

Oliver’s love was unreturned, a one-way street Brad couldn’t walk down. And Brad did try. He struggled, but it was useless. Brad wasn’t there for his birth and had never met the boy until twenty-four months ago. Now, Oliver was seven and would be starting grade two the next month, and Brad couldn’t shake the feeling that he was raising someone else’s child, no matter how hard he tried. Whenever he looked at Oliver, Brad was reminded of the cost of his meddling with time—Olivia’s absence was a wound that never healed.

After years of adjusting an altered timeline, a twist of fate had dealt a cruel blow. Instead of having a daughter, he had a son. None of that took away his memories of his little girl—her laugh. Smile. Neck-breaking hugs. Tea parties and even spa days with her dad.

All gone.

Traveling through time was a delicate balance, and the slightest change could alter the present. For two years, a meteorite of dark matter sat within a fold of space and time, like an old sock at the back of a drawer, discarded but not forgotten. The most priceless item on the planet was safely out of reach and only accessible to one man—Brad Sheppard. Still, he ignored his quantum abilities to keep his sanity and prevent further disruptions to the timeline.

He had sworn not to change or attempt to change the timeline or make adjustments. As Brad sat in the lawn chair staring out over his pond, he struggled with the problem. Olivia doesn’t exist and has never existed as far as the world is concerned. He was the only one who knew her. Virginia had only known Oliver. How can you miss something you never had?

Brad wouldn’t even know where to start. He glanced at the Rolex on his wrist and shook his head. That was a lie. Someone gifted him the watch when dealing with the Lincoln assassination. However, the watch was from the early 1950s, and on the inside plate was an engraving where he would locate another meteor fragment that he could use to travel in time.

There was another player in the game. That was the only reason Brad clung to the one emotion that enabled him to get through the days.

Hope.

As long as there was a chance of regaining his daughter, he would cling to the thought like a drowning man clutching a life raft in the middle of the ocean. He would sink to the black, cold depths if he ever gave up hope.

“Dad! Check it out!”

Oliver came up the path with a fishing rod in one hand and a twenty-four-inch rainbow trout in the other. The boy’s grin was infectious, and Brad winked. “Good job. Want me to show you how to clean it, or do you remember?”

“I should be good.” Oliver carried his catch to the outdoor kitchen off the patio. The stainless steel sink and garden hose had been incorporated into a fish-cleaning station. The setting sun caught Oliver’s blond hair, turning it into a halo of gold. His delicate features and sharp chin were from Virginia, but his stubborn streak and determination were from Brad. Not me, but maybe an alternate Brad from another timeline.

Brad shook his head at the dark thoughts and went to supervise. The fillet knives were sharp, and with one slip, Oliver could lose a finger or open his hand to the bone. Though Brad struggled to connect with him, he still couldn’t bear the thought of Oliver getting hurt. Oliver was innocent and shouldn’t suffer because of Brad’s mistakes.

Oliver cut behind the gills with two careful slices and opened the belly. The organs were removed along with the bloodline before he rinsed the cavity with clean water.

“Good job. Let’s clean up and invite this trout for a late dinner.”

Oliver grinned. “Sounds good to me!”

Years ago, Virginia had banned cooking fish inside the cabin, and Brad had an outdoor kitchen built near the lounge seating. Sunflower oil and a cast iron frying pan were prepared as Oliver went inside for plates and a lemon. Catching and cleaning a fish was one thing, but Brad wasn’t comfortable with Oliver cooking with a hot pan and oil. Not yet. When Brad was seven, catching lunch consisted of meeting with friends and walking to Tony’s Pizzeria, which was half a block from home. It was a different time and place. Oliver was doing just fine.

“Lemons!” Oliver handed them over. Brad sliced one and placed the yellow discs inside the trout.

Brad was about to place the fish in the pan when he paused.

He was seeing double. His vision blurred, splitting into two, then three. He blinked, but the world only fractured further, a kaleidoscope of confusion. When the dizzy spell hit, Brad gripped the counter’s edge. The spatula tumbled to the floor from numb fingers.

“Dad!” Oliver’s hands steadied him, or Brad would have fallen.

The headache was instant, and Brad dropped to his knees despite the boy’s help.

“Get… your… mother. Now!” Brad struggled to breathe. A vise the size of Texas was squeezing his head.

Oliver darted inside and screamed for help.

Brad staggered to his feet and lurched to the back of the outdoor chair as his vision shrunk to a pinpoint of light. Then, like the last star in the night sky, there was nothing but darkness.

 

*****

 

 “Brad!” Virginia ran outside as her husband collapsed to his knees while he held his head with both hands.

“Stay back!” Brad screamed.

“Dad!” Oliver tried to run to his father’s side, but Virginia pinned him against the door frame.

Like a heat shimmer on a hot interstate, the air around her husband rippled and blurred, distorting his image. “Oliver, stop struggling!”

“We have to help him! What’s going on?”

Brad tilted his head back to the sky and howled in pain.

The notes intensified beyond a human’s vocal range. The cabin windows cracked, and a rumble made the deck shake.

Reality parted like a tear in a sheet. A slash of darkness stood in sharp contrast to the motes of light that swirled around Brad. Faster and faster, they spun, but when they cleared, her husband was gone.

An implosion of air popped like a champagne cork, pulling Virgina forward. She would have fallen if she hadn’t clutched the door frame in a white-knuckled grip. The tear in reality disappeared.

“Dad!”

Her eyes grew round as she tried to take it all in and gasped for breath.

Brad Sheppard, a former FBI agent turned time traveler, father, and husband, was gone, leaving nothing but the echo of his scream.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

The overwhelming darkness was replaced by a blinding light that shone through closed eyelids and into his soul. The illuminating brightness shifted from an intense white to a cool blue as Brad floated on a sea of tranquility. With every instant that passed, he became more aware and followed an incessant beep into consciousness.

If I’m dead, I wouldn’t be lying on a cold, uncomfortable floor, he thought. Where am I?

Before opening his eyes, Brad realized the cold, hard surface pressed against his legs, back, and arms. Oh, shit.

With a deep, ragged breath, Brad opened his eyes.

Too many things happened at once, and he took a moment to process. A glass shattered. A woman let out a muffled scream. The beeping became a shrill klaxon alarm that made his ears ring.

“Good Lord. What have we done.” A man’s deep voice cracked.

Disorientated, Brad raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light as he squinted. The container was seven feet long, four feet wide, and the same height; it was made of thick glass. Technical equipment with myriad sensors decorated the interior on all four sides. But it was the dim room beyond that gave him concern.

Towers of computer equipment pulsed with a dim orange light, and thick black cables disappeared into the ceiling. An older woman in a white lab coat with gray hair piled on her head in a loose bun stared wide-eyed and dropped her jaw. At her feet was a broken mug.

She glanced over her shoulder at a man behind a row of technical equipment with blinking lights. “Please tell me we’re recording.”

Brad could see the top of a bald head nod and heard a flurry of keystrokes that sounded like hail on a window pane. “Yes! Recording.”

The alarm was silenced.

She approached the rectangular prison, pressed her hand against the side, and whispered, “Do you understand me? Are you real?”

Brad’s eyes flicked to the embroidered badge above the lab coat’s pocket. QSCRP before he nodded. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

He raised himself on one elbow.

The woman was in her late sixties—Brad guessed—with a narrow chin and prominent cheekbones that reminded him of Meryl Streep. Her blue eyes danced with contained excitement.

“I’m Daisy Struthers. Doctor, actually, but that doesn’t matter. That’s my husband, Don.” A hand waved in Brad’s direction behind the counter. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe this worked!”

“Again … where am I? Get me out of here.” Brad tapped the glass with a knuckle.

Daisy wrung her hands and nervously glanced at a display monitor. Brad couldn’t read the screen from his angle.

“You are probably safer inside with the biofilters and pressurized climate. I can’t risk contamination.” Don stood. He was a thin man in his early seventies with a white goatee and a single gold hoop in his left ear. Don sat behind the monitors again.

“Sorry.” Daisy tentatively smiled. “But I can tell you a few things. We’re in a remote city in Sudbury, Ontario. You’ve probably never heard of it, but that’s okay. Can you tell me your name?”

The shock of waking up in a scientific laboratory was wearing off, and Brad took stock of his abilities. While he hadn’t traveled through time in a few years, honoring his promise to Virginia didn’t mean he gave up the means to do so. His connection with the meteor, a piece of dark matter, was still good. However, there was a slight problem. Not only did the stone allow him to travel through time, ignoring the laws of physics, but it gave him a sense of time. He could always tell where and when he was located. To the second. Except now. The last few times he used the meteor to travel through time, he paid the price: blinding headaches, nose bleeds, nausea, and a sense of being torn apart at a molecular level. Besides that, it was a piece of cake.

While Brad could escape, he needed a reference point from where to begin. It was like having a vehicle with the latest GPS, but there were no orbiting satellites to feed him information about the roads or directions of travel.

“In Canada. Yes. My name is Brad Sheppard.”

Daisy clapped as her face transformed with joy.

“Very good.”

“I need to ask, Daisy. When are we? What year is it?” Brad was getting annoyed, but he needed answers. How did they rip him from his timeline and home? What were their intentions?

“Well … I have to ask you a question first. I don’t want to startle or cause you to panic.”

Lady, not much could shock me, he thought. “Go ahead.”

“When are you from?” Daisy asked. Don rose like a groundhog from its burrow over the monitor, eyebrows raised.

“The year?” When she nodded, Brad continued. “Two thousand, twenty-two.”

“Oh, my!” Daisy’s eyes teared up, and she waved a hand in the air.

“I knew it would work!” Don chuckled.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “He always says that. I knew it would work as well, but not to this extent. I was hoping for a plant or small mammal, but you have shattered our expectations.”

Brad’s eyes narrowed. “What year is this, Daisy.”

“Twenty-one, twelve.”

He took a deep breath and understood why he couldn’t pinpoint his location in the quantum realm. Brad was in his future—by eighty-nine years. While he had navigated the past, the future wasn’t written. You couldn’t arrive in a location that doesn’t exist. But the future did exist, and Daisy and Don were able to bring him into their present. Thinking about the potential paradoxes hurt his head. Deal with the now and sort out the details later.

Behind Brad’s shoulder, from the room’s far side, a door opened, then gently closed, but the muffled click carried over the exhaust fan on the glass sidewall.

Brad ignored the intrusion.

“Tell me about QSCRP and how I got here, Daisy.”

“Well … originally, we were a lunar training post. Astronauts came here before going to space. Then, it became a deep space listening and communications base. However, we’ve worked on quantum physics for the last fifteen years.”

“Shocking.” Brad’s connection with the meteor was still present, and he temporarily halted time. Daisy froze in mid-gesture, and the hum from the equipment stopped. He spotted a dark figure standing in the shadows beside the door. It was too dark to make out details, but Brad believed it was a woman—the narrow shoulders and long hair weren’t much to go on. There was no point in startling the scientists, and he remained in the glass cage. Reassured he was in control, Brad allowed time to resume its flow.

“Quantum Signal Communicator Receiver Program. We were working on instantaneous communications, from anywhere to anywhere, but we stumbled on a side effect.” The woman Brad had noticed earlier emerged from the shadows, stepping into the light. As Brad suspected, it was a woman younger than Daisy and Don, probably in her late thirties. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her eyes were sharp and focused, taking in the scene with a calm intensity. “When we increased the power input exponentially, a rift opened.”

“Why me, then? How did you manage to pull me from 2022?” Brad asked, his frustration mounting. His mind raced through the implications of what they were saying. They had brought him, specifically him, from the past. That meant they had to have some sort of lock on him or his abilities.

Daisy hesitated, her hands twitching nervously as she looked at Don. “We… We weren’t exactly targeting you. We were trying to open a quantum rift to see what we could retrieve from it. But something … something happened. A surge of energy unlike anything we’d seen before. The instruments went haywire, and then you appeared.”

Don nodded, still focused on his screens. “We don’t fully understand it ourselves.”

Brad’s thoughts spun. They didn’t seem to know about the meteorite or his time-travel abilities. If they did, they would have said something. No, this was something different. His connection with the dark matter must have been what they latched onto, unknowingly pulling him through time.

“So, you’re telling me this was an accident?” Brad asked, trying to keep his voice calm despite the surge of emotions coursing through him.

The woman nodded slowly. “An accident, yes. But one with profound implications. If we can do this, learn to control it…”

“You’re talking about time travel,” Brad interrupted, his voice hard. “You’re playing with forces you don’t understand. You have no idea what kind of damage you could cause.”

“We’re aware of the risks,” Don said, finally turning away from his instruments to face Brad. His expression was one of determination, not recklessness. “But the potential benefits… The ability to communicate with the past, learn from it, and maybe even prevent future disasters … It’s worth the risk.”

“You’re not the first person to think that way,” Brad muttered, more to himself than to them. He had seen firsthand the consequences of meddling with time. The pain of losing his daughter, the creation of a son he struggled to connect with—all because he had thought he could change things, fix things.

“And I’m telling you, it’s not worth it,” Brad said, more forcefully this time. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Daisy looked conflicted, torn between the excitement of their discovery and the reality of Brad’s warnings. “We didn’t bring you here to harm you,” she said softly. “We didn’t even know bringing a person through time was possible. But now that you’re here, we need to understand how.”

The sincerity in her eyes didn’t ease the growing sense of dread. “You need to send me back,” he said firmly. “Before you cause more damage than you realize.”

Daisy’s face fell, her excitement dimming as the weight of Brad’s words settled over her. “I’m not sure if we can,” she admitted. “We don’t even fully understand how we brought you here.”

“Then you need to figure it out,” Brad insisted. “Before something worse happens.”

The woman held a hand to forestall anything further from Daisy and Don. Her eyes met Brad’s, and she said, “Okay. I’ve made a decision. Run a full diagnostic and clear him for physical interaction.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

A pale blue light scanned him from head to toe, and a robotic probe took a pinprick of blood from his index finger. The results only took a few seconds, and a warm female, British voice announced no known issues with integrating the subject. The enclosure was lifted, and Daisy helped him stand. The woman led him deeper into the complex.

“The key to our technology is diamonds.” Heather Price, the project officer behind the research and the liaison to the financer, was all business no-nonsense. Heather had led Brad to a windowless conference room through security doors. Daisy and Don stayed in the lab, citing too much work. “Fractally, they are perfect, with a repeating crystalline structure that diminishes to a molecular level on a cubic lattice pattern. A diamond crystal lattice can be manipulated to contain nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers, where a nitrogen atom replaces a carbon atom next to a vacancy in the lattice. These NV centers can be used as quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computing, providing a stable and controllable system for quantum information processing.”

The information was way beyond Brad’s pay grade. “You’re saying you use diamonds to store information?”

Heather tapped the side of her head. “Scientists have been able to do this for a long time. They were the key to our study and the Artificial General Intelligence integration.”

Brad’s eyebrows rose. “Neural links?”

“Yes,” Heather said. “That’s what we are working on here at QSCRP. Once the crystalline chip is installed, we have access to vast stores of information. We will be at the top of our field when we bridge the communication issue and allow direct contact between the chips and systems. We will change humanity.”

“But instead of a quantum radio, you got me.” Brad shrugged. “Sorry, but I don’t know anything to help you.”

Contrary to his easy, calm appearance, Brad’s mind spun like a hamster wheel after a heavy carb day. Traveling to the future was possible, but he didn’t have control. They did. While attempting to create a mind-to-mind diamond-powered walkie-talkie, they opened a quantum rift and pulled him through. The research was dangerous and reaffirmed his decision.

“What can you tell me about yourself, Brad?” Heather leaned forward.

“I’m just a successful stock market investor who’s retired. A family man.” All true. No one had asked him if he could travel through time or had access to a piece of dark matter that gave him god-like abilities. Heather’s eyes glazed for a split second before she nodded once.

“That is what the historical records state. I don’t believe you made it home. You disappeared, and your body was never recovered. Now we know why.”

Brad wasn’t worried about what any records stated. At this time and place, he hadn’t returned home, so any information she could access was correct—it would be updated once he left. He had to ensure Daisy wouldn’t pull him from his timeline again. The entire project should be shut down. Playing with time could have disastrous effects.

“Maybe you could just—”

There was a brief knock, and Don opened the door. “I believe we have an answer. Well, it actually creates more questions, but it’s a starting point.”

He gestured to the table and then quietly closed the door.

“Give me a second …” Heather closed her eyes. “Okay, here we go.”

She tapped the corner of the conference room table, and a holographic image coalesced in the air. Pretty slick technology, Brad thought. Computer screens are obsolete.

Heather’s eyes narrowed, and the images responded when her fingers danced in the air. A series of graphs and data flashed too fast for Brad to read.

“We’re able to monitor the fluctuations in quantum energy, and right before you appeared, there was a spike.” Heather shook her head. “They can’t recreate the experiment, but Doctor Struthers noticed an anomaly from your biometrics scan.”

A three-dimensional image of Brad floated above the table. Heather adjusted a sliding scale, and he briefly saw a skeletal image, then the blood vessels, bone, and muscles. The projection was detailed and captured the smallest detail.

Including his clothes, shoes, and hair.

But Heather changed the perspective, focusing on Brad’s left wrist. More specifically, the Rolex watch.

“Moments ago, you warned us about the perils of time travel and to return you before something happens. What could happen? And where did you get that watch? Why are you so calm about being ripped from your time and brought to the future?”

The image above the table shifted to a different spectrum. Brad’s body was a cool, uniform blue, but the Rolex glowed bright yellow.

Oh, shit.

The Rolex was a 1953 Explorer model, and grid coordinates to the Smithsonian and an exhibit reference number were engraved on the backplate. The etchings had led Brad to a recovered meteorite that was more than just stone—a piece of dark matter. Once he bonded to the meteorite, Brad regained full use of his quantum abilities. The watch was a gift, but he didn’t know who it was from. But they sent it to him while he was stranded in the past. A question he had asked himself hundreds of times over the last few years. None of that explained why the watch was glowing.

Brad tried to sound casual. “I have seen enough movies to realize playing with time could be disastrous, and the watch was a gift.” He ignored her third question.

Her eyes flicked to the watch, and a brief grin made her eyes dance. “May I?

He weighed the pros and cons, but in the end, curiosity won. Brad slipped the watch off his wrist. Heather led him into another room across the hall. “This is the control nodule for the project.”

A single workstation was against the wall under the window. The view was the laboratory and Daisy and Don working. Brad guessed this was also Heather’s office.

She laid the Rolex flat on a four-foot-tall black pillar to the chair. The top of the pillar turned blue, then white.

A holographic screen appeared above the desk. The Rolex image rotated in mid-air twice. The same British accented voice spoke. “The antique is authentic, including the band, but the opistone at the twelve o’clock position isn’t original.”

“What is an opistone?” Brad asked.

“It’s the name for the gemstone inserted into the neural interface.” Heather leaned forward, studying the display. “Analyze the stone in the watch.”

“I have, but I’m unable to access any information.” The computer sounded surprised. “There is a biometric lock on the interface.”

Heather’s jaw dropped. “You can’t get access?”

“Correct. Technology doesn’t exist yet to create an opistone that small and advanced. But since we’re dealing with a time shift and the quantum realm, I suspect that the advancement has already occurred, elsewhen.”

Brad picked up the Rolex from the pillar. The watch looked ordinary enough. There were only three numbers on the face—three, six, and nine—but at the twelve o’clock position was a diamond, maybe four by three millimeters, in the shape of a triangle, pointing to the center. The Rolex company stamp, with the crown, was immediately above the number three. Besides the gem, the watch wasn’t flashy or ornamental and suited his personality. Simple but functional.

However, the gem wasn’t a diamond chip but an opistone from the future with a biometric lock that a supercomputer AI couldn’t access. Brad should have been surprised, but everything about the watch, including the interior engraving, was an enigma.

Brad’s finger tapped the watch’s face. “I don’t know who or what placed that there, but it has to be connected to what’s happening.”

“Agreed.” Heather tilted her head to the side and her eyes widened. “This isn’t good.”

A split second later, red lights flashed on the desk’s display and throughout the laboratory. Daisy and Don were shouting at each other. The computer voice changed to a man’s.

“This is the ISD. You will cease all operations pending our investigation.” The message looped.

“What the hell is that?” Brad yelled over the repeating statement.

Heather licked her lips and slumped in the chair. “Investigative Surveillance Division for the Commonwealth Government. We’re screwed.”

Brad slipped the watch onto his wrist. “Are they the police?”

She nodded. “And these experiments may not be officially authorized.”

Two men in black entered the laboratory and pointed a small rectangular box at Don and Daisy—who collapsed on the floor. Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and the door to the control room was flung open.

“Get comfortable.” Heather shifted in the chair, and when the man dressed in black pointed the box, she fell unconscious.

No darts, bullets, or noise.

Brad backed up against the pillar and raised his hands in the air. “No need for that. I surrender.”

The man didn’t hesitate. The officer raised the box and pointed it at Brad’s head.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

Despite being bent with age, the man had a spring in his step, and his movements were deft with purpose. The twinkle in his eyes led others to believe that he knew their secrets—but that was okay—his lips were sealed. If secrets were currency, the figure dressed in a black uni-suit and carrying a three-foot silver case would be very wealthy.

A synthetic leather boot cleared the debris until the flagstones beneath were revealed. As the sun rose in the east, he took a moment to enjoy the vivid display of pastel red and orange light dancing on the clouds through the haze. Missing were the chorus of birdcalls and crickets chirping in the humid morning. The pond has been gone for decades, and the depression collected nothing but weeds and acidic rainfall. The forest of stumps stretched for miles, but with dust clouds and polluted air, he could barely make out a ridgeline three hundred yards away. By mid-morning, a filtered mask and visor will be used to protect against the harsh UV light. But as his face tilted towards the warmth, he remembered a better time.

Sighing, he turned his back to the sun and went to work. Three tripods were removed from the case and deployed in a triangle, twelve feet to a side. Each tripod supported a clear sphere the size of a fist.

Ready for testing.

“Proceed.”

There was no need to speak aloud, but he refused to give in to the practice of internal commands. He stood outside the tripods and activated the wrist gauntlet through the neural link. The metallic band went from mid-forearm to the wrist of his left arm. A string of red lights blinked, and he tapped the second stud from the left with his right index finger. A sequence of holographic numbers danced in the air before his face, like fireflies on a summer’s night.

The spheres hummed, and the low vibration was more felt than heard. When his finger lifted from the wrist gauntlet, beams of light from each sphere converged in the middle of the triangle. The holographic numbers changed to mathematical algorithms and equations as the convergence crackled with energy.

The man’s eyes narrowed.

“Phase two,” he ordered.

Initializing.

The beams changed from a mixed white and golden hue to brilliant purple, then disappeared as the wavelengths shorted—the ultraviolet lens was beyond human vision. The axion particles were charged, and the air warped in response.

The results after four decades of work to prove the Casimir theory worked. The effect arose from the quantum theory where electromagnetic radiation from empty space, creates a force between two objects. However the two objects in this case were not separated by microns, centimeters, but by years. The man had created a worm hole by allowing the axion particles to push the positive quantum energy aside with it’s counterpart—negative energy.

It is working!

Not that there was any doubt. The man chuckled.

The spheres rose to hover inches above the tripods.

The axion particles were emitting the negative energy faster than light, and the triangulation focused the effects into an exact spot four feet above the flagstones. However, that alone wasn’t enough to prove the theory correct.

When you bend a wire in the same spot, it becomes weaker. Repeated bending, and the wire will break. The same thing happens with the curvature of space and time. Despite the planet traveling through the emptiness of the universe at 9,683 miles per minute, the quantum weakness was held in place by the third most important factor in the equation. Gravity. Specifically, gravity and the magnetic fields were balanced. Space, time and gravity were woven together within a magnetic field, enhanced by the negatively charged axion particles.

Forty years of research had one thing in common with a real estate agent.

It was all about location.

The air shimmered like a mirage in the desert, the fabric of reality bent under the immense gravitational strain. Complete and stable. The man tugged the sleeve over his wrist gauntlet.

“Shut down in ten, then initiate cleansing protocols.”

Ten, nine, eight, seven …

His eyes lingered on the ruins, the dried-up pond, and the rolling hills that once held miles of pristine wilderness. The location was a secret he had kept from the world.

“Everything should work. If not, I’ll never know,” he whispered. With his shoulders back and firm resolve, he crossed the threshold into the heart of the triangle.

If anyone had been watching, they would have seen the man blur into a cascade of fractured images, as though reality was folding before he disappeared entirely.

For one heartbeat nothing happened.

Until a crack of thunder reverberated through the desolate landscape, followed by the spheres exploding. Shrapnel from the crystals and advanced technology scattered like lethal confetti while thin ribbons of black smoke dissipated into the morning air.

It was a one-way trip.