Split

Elias Venn stepped into the ring before he could talk himself out of it.

Cold surged through his right arm as his hand, and then his shoulder, seemed to dissolve.

For one weightless instant, he felt nothing beneath his feet.

Then he stumbled onto the laboratory floor.

Behind him, the machine hummed.

A screwdriver rolled off the workbench and struck the concrete.

Elias stood still.

The pain was gone.

For months, something beneath his ribs had hurt every time he breathed. He had learned to take shallow breaths, to climb stairs slowly, to hide his shaking hands when customers brought their broken equipment into the shop.

Now he drew a full breath.

Then another.

Nothing hurt.

He pressed a hand against his side.

“No.”

The word rang clear, unmarred by a cough.

On the computer, a single line appeared.

RETURN COMPLETE.

One minute backward. One minute forward. The entire journey had taken less than a second.

Eleven years of work, and the machine had finally done exactly what he had built it to do.

But it had done something else.

Elias bent and picked up the screwdriver.

His knees held. His fingers were steady.

He crossed to the medical monitor beside the bench and clipped its sensor onto his finger. The readings climbed into ranges he had not seen since before his diagnosis.

His physician had given him three months. Perhaps four.

Elias looked from the monitor to the ring.

He had finished the machine because he was running out of time.

He had never expected it to give him more.

A startled laugh escaped him.

Then he saw what remained inside the portal.

The opening should have been empty. Instead, a black mass hung near its center, no larger than his fist.

It folded slowly into itself.

A thin strand reached outward, withdrew, and reached again.

Elias stopped smiling.

“What are you?”

He took a step back.

The mass moved toward him.

He stepped to the left.

It followed.

A dark thread stretched from the opening, pointing at his chest.

Elias backed toward the workbench.

The thread pulled tight.

Then the whole mass tore free.

He threw up an arm, but the mass passed through his sleeve and sank into his chest.

There was no impact.

It simply went into him.

The pain returned so violently that his knees gave way.

He hit the floor beside the stool. His breath caught. He tried to pull air into his lungs and managed only a thin, scraping gasp.

The monitor sounded an alarm.

His hands were shaking again.

Worse than before.

Worse than ever.

He looked up at the ring.

Its center was clear.

Through it, he could see his coat hanging on the opposite wall.

The black substance was gone.

Inside him.

Elias dragged himself to the bench and pulled his phone down by its charging cord.

Nadi answered on the fourth ring.

“Elias?”

“I need you. At the lab.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Call emergency services.”

“Come here.”

“Elias—”

“The shop door is unlocked.”

He heard her moving.

“I’m coming. Keep the phone with you.”

He put it on the floor beside him.

On the computer screen, the recording of his passage waited beneath the return message.

Elias reached up and pressed the playback key.

He watched himself emerge from the ring.

Watched himself stand straight.

Watched himself laugh.

Then the black material followed him.

The instant it entered his chest, the recorded Elias collapsed.

He played it again.

There was no doubt.

The machine had taken something out of him.

And then it had put it back.

Elias opened the return log.

Most of the entries were routine: timing, power, reconstruction.

Near the bottom, one line stood apart.

UNASSIGNED MATERIAL: RETURNED TO SOURCE.

He stared at it until the letters blurred.

The collection system had been designed to return everything belonging to the traveler. He had considered missing matter a failure.

There had been nowhere else for the black substance to go.

So the machine had sent it home.

Elias pulled a blank sheet of paper off the bench.

At the top, with a hand he could barely control, he wrote:

SEPARATE COLLECTION CHAMBER.

Nadi found him on the floor, the sketch pressed against his knee.

She knelt beside him, opened her medical bag, and asked questions he struggled to answer.

What had he taken?

When had the pain changed?

Had he lost consciousness?

“The recording,” he said.

“First, look at me.”

She fitted an oxygen mask over his face.

The oxygen helped enough for him to point at the screen.

Nadi watched the recording once.

Then she watched it again.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you’re saying you felt well before it entered you?”

He nodded.

She checked the monitor. Her expression changed.

“We need to call an ambulance—to get you to a hospital.”

“They couldn’t stop what I had yesterday.”

“This isn’t yesterday.”

“I know.”

He held up the drawing.

It showed a narrow cylinder connected to the lower edge of the ring.

“I need Tomas.”

Tomas arrived carrying a toolbox, his shirt buttoned unevenly.

He looked at Elias, then at Nadi.

“How bad?”

“Bad,” she said.

Elias pushed the paper toward him.

“Can you build that?”

Tomas studied the drawing.

“For what?”

Elias pointed at the computer.

When the recording ended, Tomas remained silent.

Then he pulled the stool closer.

“The machine thinks that stuff belongs to you.”

“It does. But I need it kept out.”

“You need a second destination.”

“Yes.”

Tomas tapped the drawing.

“This valve won’t close quickly enough.”

Elias took the pencil.

His first attempt left a crooked line. He steadied his wrist against the bench and tried again.

“Then we close it before the return finishes.”

Tomas looked up.

“You’re going through again?”

Elias could not answer without coughing.

Nadi caught him as he folded forward.

When the coughing stopped, he tasted blood.

He looked at Tomas.

“Build it.”

They repurposed a heavy steel cylinder from an unfinished cooling system.

Tomas removed its fittings and carried it to the bench while Elias changed the collection instructions on the computer.

The black material needed its own return address.

The cylinder would connect to the ring through a short transfer tube. Once the separated matter entered it, two valves would shut, isolating the chamber from the portal.

Tomas hauled the laboratory vacuum pump into place and clamped the intake hose.

“Less air in the way,” he said.

Elias nodded. He had no strength left to argue over details.

The pump rattled into life.

Nadi stayed beside him.

Every few minutes, she checked his pulse and the monitor, glancing toward the cylinder.

Tomas tightened a fitting.

“How long?” she asked.

“Soon.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the one I have.”

Elias finished the new instruction and tried to save it.

His finger missed the key.

Nadi moved his hand gently aside.

“Which one?”

He showed her.

She pressed it.

On the screen, the destination changed.

COLLECTION CHAMBER READY.

Tomas checked the seals once more.

Then he disconnected the pump and closed the outer valve.

“The seal holds.”

Elias tried to stand.

His legs failed before he cleared the stool.

Tomas caught one arm. Nadi took the other.

Together, they brought him to the ring.

“What if it comes back again?” Nadi asked.

Elias looked at the cylinder.

“Then we didn’t finish it.”

The portal opened.

Tomas helped Elias lift his foot across the threshold.

For a split second, his weight vanished completely from their grip.

Then Elias stepped out.

He took a breath.

A full breath.

Nadi held his arm, waiting for him to fall.

He did not.

Inside the ring, the black mass gathered.

Elias stared at it.

One strand reached toward him.

Then it bent downward.

The substance stretched into a narrow ribbon and slipped through the transfer tube.

Something struck the inside of the cylinder.

The first valve snapped shut.

Then the second.

Silence followed.

Elias waited for the pain.

It did not come.

Nadi clipped the monitor onto his finger.

Nobody spoke while the readings settled.

Tomas kept one hand on the cylinder’s outer valve.

Elias looked at his hands.

They were steady.

He touched his chest.

Nothing moved beneath the skin. Nothing hurt.

Nadi checked the readings again.

Then she looked at him.

“Sit down,” she said softly.

This time, he sat because she asked him to.

Across the bench, the cylinder sat beneath the laboratory light.

Through its small inspection window, Elias could see the black residue resting at the bottom.

Still.

Contained.

Tomas let go of the valve.

“What do we do with it?”

Elias stared at the dark matter that had nearly killed him.

For now, the cylinder was holding.

“Keep it sealed.”