Dr. Elena Wright made her way through the cluttered lab late one Friday afternoon, the hum of machinery surrounding her as she stared at the hypnotic Rift lit up before her. A tear in the fabric of space and time, the mere size of a pin tip, somehow held the universe’s energy. Years of her life had been burned away, countless nights had been sleepless, and it’d taken many failures to find the loophole, this tiny crack of space and time. The lab, dimly lit by flickering neon lights hanging from the ceiling, felt like a separate world isolated from the rest of downtown Pheonix, which bustled with activity outside the frosted windows. She reached out, hands trembling, realizing nothing would ever be the same once she crossed over.

Upon contact with the Rift on an anti-magnetic pedestal, the lab and the world around her spun violently. Dizziness overtook her and made her nauseous. She sat at her desk, waiting for the world to stop spinning. The feeling passed after a few minutes, but the whole experience had been jarring.

The time on her laptop told her it was now Thursday afternoon, four thirty on the dot, exactly 24 hours from when she had been just a few minutes ago.

She considered returning to her lab in the JDL building to finish more physics experiments, but it was too late to start anything new, so she didn’t see any use in returning. Anyway, more tests with the Mega Collider might jeopardize her project here. Then again, she’d already ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, so how could one more hurt? Super energized particle beams traveling at the speed of light were so three years ago; what more could we learn by continuing that research? It paid her bills and paid enough to allow her rental space here for real research instead of retreading the same ground.

Exhausted from everything, she considered calling it a day, but a knock on her door spoiled that idea. The pedestal would need to be hidden, so she moved it into a cabinet and locked it with a key before answering. Her usually friendly demeanor changed quickly upon seeing Tony Huppe. She had no idea what the Sanguine’s building manager wanted from her. The man had made it a weekly routine to ask her out, and at this point, she couldn’t make eye contact with him. Instead, she lowered her head but greeted him deadpan, hoping he’d take a hint. It didn’t work.

With much glee, he said. ‘Doing anything tonight, Elena?’

She looked at the floor and thought of an answer she’d give. Everything inside her wanted to shove this pest to the ground. She had an idea, and Tony could provide the key to taking advantage of traveling through time.

‘How about Sporters bar? We’ll place a few bets.’

Tony’s smile disappeared, replaced by a quizzical look. ‘Not exactly what I had in mind, but maybe we could get dinner afterward.’

Elena smiled crookedly. ‘Give me a half hour. Luckily, I brought a change of clothes with me.’

‘Sounds good, but who will win tonight’s Gravball game, and why will it be the Quantum Strikers?’

‘The Phoenix Sky shredders win by a goal.’

A look of surprise came to Tony’s face. ‘That sounds super-specific. Besides, Pheonix lost three of their last games.’

‘We don’t have to make the decision now. We’ll make it when we get there. Besides, you know how antigravity ball is. Being off Earth does a number on an athlete’s body, even the best ones.’

She changed into tight jeans and a pink blouse and rushed through the testing work that paid her bills before they left. Just a few minutes into this, she was already making different choices. The first time she’d lived through Thursday, she hadn’t answered the door as she had been working furiously on not only testing but hadn’t even heard the guy knock. He left a note later, but she threw it away without knowing what it said.

She bet a considerable amount of money on the game and won the bet since she already knew the result. Tony ended up not betting any money and seemed not to enjoy that aspect of what should’ve been a date, but not in Elena’s mind. When she paid for their meal at Minney’s, she could tell he was turned off by it. Her whole scheme had worked tremendously, and tomorrow would be even better.

She returned to her apartment in Tempe, a short flight away, inside an auto-aero-cab around ten pm, the latest she’d ever stayed out in her thirty-two years of existence. Her time hadn’t been that fun, but it had changed from her routine.

Tony didn’t seem like her type, but he was friendly; she’d give him that. At the same time, he’d already given her creeper vibes since he’d taken the position six months ago. He always seemed irritated when Elena didn’t have time for him. She’d hoped the disastrous date last night would turn him away. Tomorrow, she hoped he wouldn’t come around.

Tonight, she still had a problem to fix before going to bed.

The Lopez couple, who lived one floor below her, had mistakenly left their door unlocked the first time around and ended up getting robbed blind. Slipping on a dark long-sleeved shirt, black leggings, and a winter hat, she headed downstairs so she could lock the door, but as if she were a fly on the wall. The hat would hide her long golden-brown hair, and sunglasses would help conceal her identity. Every floor had security cameras, but no one would likely review this as the crime would be prevented in this timeline.

With the coast clear, she went down to the Lopez’s apartment, where she pushed on the door ever so slightly. Suddenly, the elevator beeped, and its door started to open. She had to act fast or risk being seen tampering with someone’s door. She opened the door and went into the foyer of Lopez’s apartment. She stayed less than thirty seconds before the knock came. She places her right eye on the peephole. Outside Lopez’s door stood the delivery man; he held a bag with a smiley face. She’d be stuck in a difficult situation. Behind her, inside the young couple’s apartment, one of them started to stir. Without a second thought, she greeted the delivery man and opened the door.

He handed the bag to her. ‘For Marina and Ivan Lopez, you must be Marina.’

She took it from him. ‘Yes, that’s me. Thank you.’ She quickly closed the door, setting the bag down at the doorway. She gave the kid ten seconds to leave before leaving the apartment, being sure to lock the door behind her.

Someone was leaving the Lopez’s apartment when she opened the stairwell door. Had one of them seen her? Were they following her now? She wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to know. She didn’t return until later; the door had been locked this time. Her being inside must’ve reminded them to lock it.

That night, she slept like a rock, unlike the first take of Thursday, and now it was Friday again. On her mind was a list of things she wished to change about how she’d go about her day. One of those was ordering an auto-aero-cab instead of driving her own. The first take of Friday had brought misfortune in the form of a fender bender with a furious man. She’d later see the man’s name on a city arrest report for an unnamed crime. The name shouldn’t have been essential, but he happened to be Al Bonny, a career criminal. The man had sped off before she could get his information, but she knew the face. It was one she’d seen many times on the news. Based on these past reports, the man’s arrest would likely turn out to be drug trafficking. Now, she’d avoid that whole situation altogether. After she’d filed a police report and given them his license plate, they must’ve run it through their system and obtained a few warrants. Preventing the accident would mean a career criminal now wouldn’t see her face.

Today, she’d also make a Peanut Butter sandwich for lunch instead of going out. During the first take, she’d gone out for lunch with her colleagues at JDL Institute and made a fool of herself because she added something to their conversation about politics that didn’t seem to fly well. Now, she could avoid the awkward situation altogether and at least try to make friends at the labs. Everyone in the labs at JDL had avoided her the rest of the first take of Friday, and now she’d avoid it altogether. After she ate her sandwich at lunchtime, she played the lottery numbers she already knew as winners. The prize would be a decent ten thousand bucks, not enough to retire, but it would provide her with more spending money.

She also made some mistakes during Friday’s first take in her testing lab work, which will now be logged and corrected.

When she returned to her apartment in Tempe, Scott Francis was stopped by the building’s guard on her way in.

‘Do you know a Tony Huppe?’ He said.

She froze. ‘I do, why?’

Scott said, ‘He was here this morning. He said he stopped this way to buy a few replacement locks and wanted to ride you to work. I told him you’d left already.’

Dr. Elena made a puzzled face. ‘Oh, that’s strange. I thought I saw him on my way out, but at the time, I thought it was someone else. Oh well, thanks for letting me know.’

Once the weekend came, she avoided Tony like the devil. His stopping over unannounced to ride her made her feel uneasy; now she wished she hadn’t gone out with him. Over the weekend, she moved her equipment to the apartment. That way, there’d be no way Tony would see it.

Due to her use of the Rift, this weekend would last four days for the doctor, but Monday would be one she wanted to avoid repeating. Who wants to redo the first workday of the week? But she had another idea in mind. Every time she relived a day, she’d create a different path and timeline. The only thing that remained of the original twenty-four-hour period lived in Elena’s mind. The universe where the first take of these days resided would be destroyed each time she used the Rift. This Monday, she’d do something she seldom did: call in sick from work. She could do whatever she wanted the first time around, then relive it and go to the lab on take two.

She spent the whole day on the couch with a bag of candy-flavored popcorn. No one would be here to ruin the fun—neither her boss, Victoria, nor Tony. However, days like these went by fast, and this day was no exception. The day may be wasted, but that’s how she feels about her work at JDL. When she asked the institute for permission to work with experimentation with the multiverse and the space-time continuum, upper management vetoed it with extreme prejudice. She figured they all thought of her as nuts. She might be fired or end up at the bottom of a landfill if they knew what she’d discovered.

For Monday night’s dinner, she ordered a small mushroom pizza from Doughy Delights around dinnertime to top off the day of self-indulgence. Still, it took an unusual amount of time to arrive. When it did, the delivery man wasn’t wearing the Doughy Delights hat or uniform but only had on-street clothes. It seemed suspicious to Elena, but the pizza tasted fine, and it wasn’t like she had a reason to suspect the man of doing anything wrong. She ate it, then did a few chores around the apartment, like sweeping the floor, moping, and washing walls. An hour after eating the pizza, her eyes were heavy. She walked to the couch and figured she’d nap to shake off this fatigue, but she collapsed and passed out when she arrived.

By the time she woke up, it was already Tuesday morning. A notification came to her phone, notifying her that she had mail. The time on her phone told her it was already nine a.m., so it was too early for the standard US postal mail to have arrived, so this was strange. She went downstairs, checked her mail slot, and found a rather long letter from Tony Huppe. In it, he told her he had to move to New York to work for his dad and that he wouldn’t be bothering her anymore. She couldn’t help but feel the bitterness and even rage in his letter’s tone. It made her sick to the stomach.

She’d thought of the strange delivery man, the tainted pizza he’d given her, and how she’d fallen into a deep sleep last night after eating it. He’d done this to her on purpose, but why?

When she called the Tempe police and reported it, they went through a few formalities with her, followed by a report number. Not one officer was sent to her place to investigate. As much as she wished to argue, she had to make another decision, so there wasn’t time for that. Would she go back to yesterday morning and relive Monday or skip reliving the past twenty-four hours?

She entered the room where the machinery and pedestal were hooked up and thought about her choice. She reached her hand out but quickly pulled it away when a massive explosion shook everything around her.

Leaving the room, she opened her blinds and looked out. Pheonix could be seen from where she stood, but the only thing visible now was a city-sized mushroom cloud of smoke. Once the dust settled, the devastation became apparent. All the downtown area of Phoenix had been destroyed.

It took a while to process what had happened, but once she turned on her screen, the auto-emergency news pulled up the breaking story. No one seemed to know what had happened, labeling the explosion mysterious. With the Rift at her fingertips, she could go back and warn everyone, hopefully preventing this from occurring in the first place. The news story had suggested that the Mega Collider may have been responsible—something she found absurd. Mankind had been experimenting with light-speed particle movement for over fifty years, and as a physicist, she knew the collider taking out a city was impossible.

Seeing the clock strike ten and realizing how late it was, she knew why she’d been secretively sedated last night. She’d be incinerated like the rest of Phoenix if she had been at work. Someone had saved her, but why? She couldn’t figure it out but knew whoever it was had to be responsible for the explosion.

These questions lingered in her mind, but they were all due to a factor underlying them. One or more people knew about the Rift Dr. Elena had opened, and they had already manipulated her, ensuring she survived. She could go back a day to stop the bomb from going off, but there was information she needed to know first. It meant she may have had to find out who was behind the explosion but would at least need to find out where it went off in the first place. But who was she kidding? The Rift would only take her back twenty-four hours in the past. She couldn’t afford to wait three days or more for the authorities to investigate and then another week or two to release that information to the public. She’d go to the destroyed city to see what she could find.

According to the satellite radio news, none of the auto-aero-cabs were going anywhere near Phoenix today. Also, air traffic control was patrolling that area and keeping citizens away from the disaster, so the only way for Dr Elena to get there would be with her old electric ground car. However, she could only get so far before road access was blocked, so she would have much walking ahead of her. With her credentials and work badge in her purse, she put on her black leggings and a dark long-sleeved shirt, with the cap and hiking boots on, and then took a black box from her closet and got out her laser pistol in case she needed it.

Once she arrived, she could hardly believe her eyes. The remnants of the city’s buildings lay in rubble and gray ash. There was little she could recognize, but a few buildings stood somewhat, and she saw a few survivors roaming the streets in the distance. The Fifth Avenue Street sign was on the ground, and soon, she knew precisely where she was. This is where the JDL Institute and Sanguine buildings were. The sight of it being in ruins was too overwhelming and made her fall to the ground and cry. All the people she worked with, the friends she’d made, were dead. Neither building had survived.

Then, a man in a hazmat suit approached her. ‘We need to get you out of here.’ He extended his hand, but she didn’t take it. My name is Alan Roak. I’m with search and rescue.

‘Can you tell me where the bomb went off?’

Alan shook his head. ‘Details aren’t being released currently. Come on, we need to take you to a hospital. You’re being exposed to radiation right as we speak.’

Alan then gestured with his hand, expecting her to take it.

She slapped it away.

He looked annoyed momentarily before grabbing her by the arm and pulling her up. ‘There’s no time to argue. Let’s go.’

When the man started to drag her, she kicked him away and then pulled out the laser pistol. ‘I’m sorry, but I need your suit.’ Al’s eyes widened with surprise. He lifted the visor from his eyes as if he didn’t believe what he saw. She had a moment for an easy shot. She aimed and fired once at the man’s face. The shot hit, turning his head coal black. He fell to the ground and collapsed.

Had she not seen the devastation and loss of life, she may not have been able to do it, but Al Roak’s death was only temporary. After she went back and fixed all this so none of it happened, he’d be back at the fire station playing cards with his fellow firefighting buddies and not here in a hazmat suit forcing her to the hospital.

She left the remnants of the JDL Institute building and moved to the other side of it. She saw another man in a hazmat suit and approached him.

‘I just got here. Where was the blast? The Fire Marshall sent me to help with the investigation?’

The man nodded while he scanned her suit. ‘It’s across the street. You can’t miss it.’

She thanked him and headed for where the man had told her to go. The massive hole was jaw-dropping. There were remnants of the Sanguine here, but what caught her attention was a tunnel on both sides of the crater. The tunnel likely led to JDL Institute.

She found herself being pulled back. She turned. She could tell this man was a cop.

‘What division are you with,’ he said with crossed arms.

Dr. Elena tried to keep calm and collected. ‘I’m one of Fire Marshall Phil’s people.’

He scanned the barcode on the hazmat suit she was wearing. ‘Why do you have AL Roak’s suit?’

‘He gave it to me back at the station. He had to go home for a family emergency.’

The policeman had a tablet in his hands and was poking around at it. He pointed past the crowd to a particular squad car. A few other hazmat-suited policemen and women were waiting there. ‘Go over there and speak to them.’

She went over as instructed, trying to blend in like a fly on the wall. When she got there, a policewoman grabbed her by the arm. ‘Have you seen Al Roak?’

Dr Elena focused on the ground. ‘The last time I saw him was back at the station. Why.’

The policewoman looked at her colleagues. ‘She’s lying.’ She turned to Elena. ‘Alright, turn around and put your hands behind your back.’ She paused. ‘We already found Al’s body.’

She didn’t comply. If she let them take her into custody, she’d be locked up forever, and it would be too late to prevent anything from happening.

The policewoman had fury in her eyes. ‘Did you hear me? Do it now. We’re dealing with a destroyed city; we don’t have time for this monkey business.’

Dr Elena pulled away and bolted away, keeping the eyes in the back of her head on the police. One of them drew his laser gun. She dropped to the ground and rolled as he shot. The shot landed a few feet from her head. She pulled her laser pistol from the suit’s pocket and fired back. She watched his whole head turn to cinder ash.

The policewoman from before started to draw her laser, but Dr. Elena was too quick; she fired at the lady’s hands. The policewoman fell and began to roll in agony. Her hand was now coal black. The other cops attended to two wounded officers, one already dead. This would be her chance to get away. She ran to the JDL Institute building and checked AL’s body for his vehicle’s start module. The locating feature lit up, showing her where the aero-car would be two blocks away.

She turned while she ran in that direction. A few cops were trailing and gaining on her fast. As she approached the emergency vehicle, one of them was a few feet behind, about to grab her. The module opened the door, and the car started automatically.

She hopped inside, locking the door behind her. The aero-car took off before the police could break the window. They followed her closely, with the lights flashing and sirens blaring. She located the settings on the car’s touchpad, changed the speed to high, and set the destination to her apartment in Tempe.

She was there in a few minutes, but the police were still on her ass. Once the aero-car landed on the street, she bolted out and headed inside the apartment building without looking back. She took the elevator to the twelfth floor, and since there was only one lift, the police would have to take the stairs. She was on floor twelve within seconds and inside her apartment, double-boulting the door behind her. Strangely, the door had been unlocked before she arrived, but had someone else been in her apartment after she remembered locking it when she left? If they had been, they wouldn’t be there now.

With no time to waste, she headed for the spare room that held the Rift and its machinery. The police, however, had already made it to the door. They already had the door blown down. She was in the middle hallway, and they were already on her tail again. She bolted towards the room, but the door was closed. That’s weird, she thought. I remember leaving the door hanging open. With the police behind her, she closed the door, but this one had no lock. She’d made it to the Rift and was lifting her hand to its pinpoint, but the police had opened the door, their guns drawn to her head. She reached out in blind faith, feeling the laser’s heat graze her as she touched the Rift.

Now, back in her bed, it was late Monday morning again. She felt the side of her head. The injury hadn’t carried over, nor had it ever happened.

Pheonix could be seen outside her bedroom window, the sun lighting it up like the calm before a storm. But if she could help it, nothing would happen.

She prepared for the day by showering and dressing in her JDL Institute uniform. Blending in would be key to gaining access to the basement of the building, where the bomb had to be. When she was ready to leave, she checked the Rift computer to ensure the battery was charging. A process that took twenty-four hours. As soon as she entered the room, she put her hand on her mouth. The Rift and all its equipment were gone. Someone must’ve taken it, but who? It may have been stolen by the same person who had broken into her apartment. She felt she’d discover the answer as the course of the day was unwound.

With little time to waste, she ordered an auto-aero-cab and waited for it on the roof of the apartment building. The cab arrived in five minutes, and she was at her lab at JDL Institute in no time.

After an hour of going about her daily routine acting as if nothing were wrong, she went downstairs to the basement. Luckily, her badge allowed her to be taken there. Still, the door leading into the tunnel would likely be a different story. Walking around a bit gave her a sense of space, and she realized this place was only used for shipping and storage. In the middle was a large room where JDL Institute’s computer and testing equipment were stored. She could see inside the room but didn’t have access to it. This was for the better, as she wouldn’t want to come here and be accused of stealing equipment.

She found the tunnel behind a set of doors at the back end of the basement. In front of it, she expected someone to guard it, but no one was around. It made sense since these doors were locked behind security access restrictions. She figured they were used by the guards who patrolled both buildings.