After a series of letters guided her to build some kind of temporal cannon, Mariah finds herself elsewhen, and the world she has left behind thinks she is lost forever. The world she is in, is not a safe place to be, however.
...
"A Causal loop." Ian determined with the help of some of the other physics team who were helping him. Mariah's body now lay on a marble slab. Constantly radiating cold, her body was generating some type of field that kept it at nearly 200 below zero, at all times. Something was wrong, and she was caught in some form of temporal loop that could not be broken. Every once in a while, her body would flicker, as if it was being disrupted by static, but it always remained the same, frozen, a deep glowing blue colour, and unmoving.
...
Mariah felt very self-conscious walking down the streets of the University campus in just the portal suit. The silver piping which allowed for full conductivity of the energies and the thin lycra-neoprene material left very little to the imaginations of the people who she passed, and she was acutely aware that if challenged, she had no papers to identify her, so she would have to bodyslide again. Which would potentially cause a lot more issues. It was hard enough to have made the long slide from Tacoma to the Uwash campus, but she had no transportation, so she had to do something. Now, she was exhausted, but she had to find Ian.
She finally got to the Advanced Physics building, and went inside, then checked the directory. Yes, Ian Scott was still a Professor, and still taught the Applied Physics class. According to the directory, he was in class right now, but that didn't matter, she had to talk to him today.
She stood outside the door and watched through the windows as he lectured on about different particle interactions, and she caught an error. He was talking about the Standard Model, but he only detailed ten base particles, not the twelve that she knew of. She opened the door and went into the classroom, he paused for a second to glance over at her, then he continued as she took a seat on the edge of the classroom to listen, ignoring the odd looks from other students.
Only about ten minutes later, the buzzer rang and the students gathered their notes and books, filing out as they said their goodbyes. Mariah remained sitting until the last student filtered out, then she was left looking at the Professor. He was busy cleaning the board and didn't even notice anybody was left until she asked him, "Professor Scott, how many particles are in the Standard Model?"
"There are ten ... who are you?" He said as he turned and took a proper look at the girl sitting in a chair wearing a skintight purple outfit that looked like something out of a British TV series.
"My name is Mariah Douglas. What if I was to tell you that there are actually twelve particles in the Standard Model, Sir?" She said, getting to her feet and walking over to stand in front of his desk.
He looked at her in silence, then walked over and firmly closed the door, then to her surprise he locked it, and went around closing all the windows, as she as about to speak, he put a finger to his lips to indicate silence, and finished closing the windows up.
He finished, then came to stand about two feet away. "What you speak of is treason, young lady. Confederate Physics teaches ten particles. That is in the law, and we follow the law. You are not from here." He finished as a statement of fact, not a question.
"No, I'm not. I need your help to get me back to where I am from though."
"Why my help? You know a lot more than I am permitted to know. Especially if you know what the true Standard Model is." He said, looking at her keenly.
"Because, Professor. Where I am from, you helped me to build it before. I need it built here to make a bridge home."
The Professor's eyes went wide and he sat on the lecture stool. "You'd better start at the beginning, young Mariah. Tell me everything and then we'll see what I can do to understand if I can even help you."
Mariah talked almost non-stop for an hour, taking glasses of water from the Professor as she lectured him on the basics of the Dimension Cannon and how it operated. He would pause her here and there to get clarification, but overall he remained silent as she talked, just absorbing the information and collating it in his mind as he began to understand what she was explaining.
He finally stood and walked behind the desk to get his jacket and hat. "Come with me, I'll take you back to my home and we'll see what needs to be figured out. We'll have to get you some other clothes though, that outfit is definitely not normal garb, even for university students."
"You believe me then?" Mariah asked as he draped the jacket over her shoulders, and then unlocked and opened the door for her.
"I am unsure of what to believe, I am most curious though, and I enjoy a good mystery." He replied, then taking her gently by the upper arm, they walked down the stairs to the main floor of the physics building and then out the door where he turned her towards the parking lot.
"Professor Scott?" Came a voice, and Ian turned to see two uniformed FedSec officers walking towards them. "Go with my lead, Mariah." he said quietly as they came up to the couple.
"How can I help you officers?" Ian asked.
"We are looking for somebody who matches the description of the young lady with you. She was spotted in Tacoma a few hours ago and caused a disturbance. We wish to ask her some questions, down at the office." One of the officers told him.
"I don't think this is the woman you are after. She's been with me all day. I only just picked her up from the transit station this morning. As you can see, she's not even properly dressed for our weather."
"Do you have her papers, Professor?" The other officer said.
"Not with me, they are at my house. Is this interrogation really necessary, Officers? I was using her to demonstrate physics energy on the human body. I can assure you, she never left my sight all day. This chattel was not in Tacoma or anywhere else earlier today. She has been in my office, in my classroom. We really do have to go now." He finished, and with a final nod to both officers, hustled Mariah over to his car and opened the door for her to get in.
He pulled out of the parking lot and drove slowly out of the campus, watching the two officers still standing there, conferring with each other and watching him until they were out of sight.
"I definitely got a bad vibe from those two, Professor." Mariah said.