Maya’s curiosity overrode any sense of protocol. She slipped the paper into her laptop’s scanner, a piece of equipment that had seen better days, and opened the resulting PDF. The first page was an innocuous title page: Iest‑rp‑cc006.3 A Comprehensive Report on the Anomalous Temporal Phenomena Recorded in the Eastern Sector, 1943–1978 Compiled by the Institute of Empirical Science & Temporal Research (IEST) Beneath the title, an elegant watermark of an hourglass with gears turned into constellations.
Maya’s breath caught. The same date as the one stamped on the PDF’s metadata—today. Iest-rp-cc006.3 Pdf
A secret group of scientists—known only as the Institute of Empirical Science & Temporal Research—has discovered a way to view alternate outcomes of our shared past. Maya’s curiosity overrode any sense of protocol