If one tried to imagine the most cutting edge laboratory in the world, the usual image they would conjure up would be that of a secret government facility. It would be bleak, empty, and foreboding. Rogue experiments would occur here, and things that played God would be done with reckless abandon. Lots of money would be spent on the facility. It was just the latter part that was true of the facility that Aileen and I decided to visit.

Describing the sensation of her time travel would be difficult, but to put it into simple terms it was abrupt and unimpressive. We would stand in a place, wait, and then the world would blink to a different place. It wasn’t perceptible. You didn’t feel anything. You were one place, and then another. What I did notice, was that smell and sight were always the first new sensations to hit.

The first sight was that of a large concrete building, with a beautiful mural painted across it. When I looked around I saw trees, and a large brown colored sphere structure - some sort of architectural piece. There were green trees around, and on the horizon to the north I saw a portion of what I supposed was the Jura Mountain range. The smell of t his place was of the green trees, concrete, and the scent of gasoline - like there was a gas station nearby. Then came other scents, food, garbage, car exhaust, and others. These were the smells of a city, which I knew was Geneva. Sound came last. The first sound I heard as talking, from a nearby group of tourists. The second was of jet engines from a nearby airport.

Aileen was the last thing that I noticed. I wondered if she just appeared later, or if the experience of having your environment shift in an instant just caused me to notice her last every time it happened. However, no matter how hard I tried, I could never tell for sure. It just felt like she was gone and then there again.

Her hair had changed, back to its natural color of blue. Most people do not understand how beautiful and deep the color blue can be, but her hair was like that. It was an unnatural blue. I had told her before that it was ok to keep her hair in its natural color when we were in the modern age, but even I worried that someone would see her hair and have questions.

Her eyes now had a similar color of blue as well, and they beamed upon the mural nearby. It was not just an artwork, it was a functional display. It showed what was within the building we were looking at, and the surrounding area. At least, it showed an interpretation of the machine inside. The parts and pieces were drawn in different colors, highlighting the individual components of the machine which was being used to research the very fundamental building blocks of the universe.

She began running forward towards the building, but I stopped her by grabbing her arm. It would do no good to run towards places that may or may not have been off limits. The truth was, to a certain degree, most of CERN was open to the public. For this particular building, the very control room for the experiment was visible through a window that tourists could walk up to. I had always thought this was just a bit odd and wonderful at the same time. On one hand, looking at the scientists working made it seem like they were monkeys in their own experiment. On the other, it was nice to see science at work.

I tried to imagine what it would have been like to watch the love of my life do that, to watch her chisel away at the secrets of the universe. I had never visited this place when we were together, and thus had never got the chance. A flutter of hope and happiness hit me as I realized that I now would get the chance. In the time Aileen had brought us to, Stella was working here. The two of us were still together, my mother was clear of cancer. All was right in the world now.

“Where?” Aileen asked beside me, breaking my mind from the reminiscence. The brief statement was a question, and like many of her questions left out context and important information, but I caught on.

“Into that building. Into the facility around use. ” I said, then I pulled out my phone, and texted Stella. This was six months before we broke up, but I knew she’d still have the same phone and number.

Hey, this is Elijah, I had to get a knew phone, are you at work now/in the ATLAS building or near it?

A few moments passed, and then she replied.

No. Is this really Elijah? Why are you asking?

I took a picture in front of the mural. Without expecting it, Aileen photo bombed the selfie. She literally jumped into it, arms raised and a bright smile on her face. It surprised me, and a mischievous grin spread across her face after she had committed the act. I gave her an odd look, and glanced at the photo. I shrugged, then sent it without further thought. I looked at the noon day sun, and sent a text to accompany the image.

Any chance you want to meet up for lunch?

OMG YES PLEASE! So many questions!! I am on my way!”

I smiled, who knows what work I’d just disrupted, or how far away she even was. It didn’t matter, she was headed to meet me one way or another. There was no stopping Stella when she was determined to get somewhere.

After a few minutes of waiting, and watching Aileen draw things in the dirt or star at the mural, unmoving and unblinking, Stella arrived. I heard her and felt her before I saw her.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming!!!” she shouted, and she tackled me in an embrace. Since I was rather tall, about 1.7 meters, her small frame did not totally knock me over - but she came close to doing so.

I felt a smile spread across my face that brought deep pain with it. This wasn’t real, I kept telling myself, we weren’t back together. This was the past. Yet, I couldn’t stop but enjoy it. For a moment, I was lost in that feeling. Joyous reunion with someone that I had loved and fallen away from. There was nothing like it. Her cute face, black hair in a lob cut, and bright brown eyes.

“I didn’t know, I would be. It was just something that happened.” I replied, holding her out away from me for a moment, before kissing her without thinking. She reveled in it, and kissed me back. Since she was wearing a hardhat without a strap, it struck me on the forehead and fell off. I ignored it, but the noise of its falling attracted even more onlookers, and this broke Stella out of the moment and she released me and picked up the hat as fast as possible. She looked around at a few of the people nearby, now staring, and blushed. Then, she turned to me, and the did the final thing necessary to break me from the illusion that I was truly back with her. She looked at Aileen.

“Who - who is this?” she asked, puzzled. It wasn’t accusatory. It was not jealous or suspicious. Aileen looked childlike, and though nobody could accurately pin down an equivalent human age for her appearance, she did not look like an adult human, much less the sort of human I’d be dating or cheating on Stella with. Thus, her question was just out of confusion. After all, why was I with some random young girl at CERN?

This question, at least, I was prepared for. Aileen began to speak, as I expected, and I waved a hand her way to hush her, then spoke. “I’ll explain over lunch. I need somewhere that we can talk.”

Stella nodded, and with her usual direct but exuberant approach, motioned for me to follow her and walked away.

Aileen and I followed. Along the way, Stella explained that that globe was the ‘Globe of Science and Innovation’, and many other things about where we were. It was as if she had turned into a tour guide. One might mistake her for one, if they didn’t know better. Stella however, was no tour guide, and despite her outward bubbly personality, she was a genius. She was also a dedicated genius.

A funny thing about genius, is that many do not have the drive to use their intelligence. Life is easy when a smart person is young and in most schools, so many have little reason to drive themselves forward early and to continue doing so later. Parents that want their children to have “normal” lives aid this, by not pushing their child. My mother did that, and I couldn’t blame her. I had enjoyed that childhood, and my mother had been a wonderful parent.

Stella had a drive though. I was never able to tell if it had been her parents or if it came from her excitable soul, but it showed in everything she did. I had studied among geniuses, at one of the best technological institutions in the world, and she had stood out. Everyone had known it too. Not many begin their university studies when they are sixteen, fewer still have a doctorate at twenty-one. Stella did though, and it was just the beginning of what she would do, I knew it.

The restaurant that we eventually arrived at was self-service, and had a large seating area. Nevertheless it was also quite crowded, which under normal circumstances would have annoyed me, but it was good for what we were going to do. It would keep our conversation from being too conspicuous.

Soon enough we had food and had sat down. It was then that Stella launched a flurry of questions.

“How did you get here, why is a little girl tagging along with you, and how long can you stay? Also, you will get extradited if you kidnapped her, just so you know.” she said. A smirk came to her lips.

“I was not kidnapped.” Aileen piped up, and her face held on to the indifferent expression I’d known her for. She still stood by our table, rather than sitting down. Stella brought her hands to her cheeks and her mouth hung agape.

“Oh my goodness, she’s so adorable! That tone was so deadpan!” Stella said, before motioning to the seat beside her in our table. “Come on, have a seat.”

Stella then looked up at me, and her demeanor became serious. “Are you alright? You don’t look great, and you keep just…staring. Is everything ok? Honestly, who…who is this? Answer me.”

I felt terrible. There was no way around it. I hated every part of this. It hurt less than seeing the trauma and horrors that I’d experienced in my past few adventures with Aileen, but it hurt in a different way.

“This is Aileen.” I said, motioning to my time-traveling future friend. “She brought me here, and I think she would enjoy talking with you. About physics and things.”

“What?” Stella said, arching and eyebrow, before looking at the girl. “What do you-”

Amid the bustle and many chattering conversations of R1, where the universe was being unraveled by old and young alike, Stella’s phone pinged a notification. To my surprise, rather than ignoring it, she checked it.

Then it occurred to me. This was the usual time I would have conversations with her during the day. I would get off work, and she would be at lunch on CERN time. This was a trained instinct for her, to check the phone no matter what if it went off during this time, to see if it was me.

Concern flashed across her face and then turned to utter confusion and fear. She looked up at me, then back at her phone.

“I suppose that is me texting you, isn’t it?” I said.

“Who the hell are - is this- what?!” she stopped and looked around, as if seeking an escape. Then, I turned to Aileen and spoke. It wasn’t as if I knew what to do, but I knew that in this situation, it would be better to have a childish face explain things in a rational way than for me to try and reach out with an emotional plea. I couldn’t explain this, or even understand it.

“Aileen, please explain to Stella how time travel works.”

Stella froze. She blinked, as if unsure of what she had heard. Without skipping a beat though, Aileen responded.

“Time-place particle manipulation via extrapolation of collisions and energy resonance signature identification and stabilization is the method by which I travel through time.” Aileen began.

“That doesn’t mean any-”

“Generally, you may consider the illusion of time and its meaning to humanity to be an irreversible process. However, particle collisions and interactions are not untraceable nor irreversible. While the net entropy of the universe must increase, the process I am describing can be almost fully reversed with near perfect fidelity. This first requires -”

And I cannot tell you where I became lost, but I did. This had happened when Aileen had first tried to explain her time-travel to me. She refused to simplify it, and I had stopped asking. Stella however, became locked into the discussion. She asked probing and clarifying questions that Aileen answered without any difficulty. More than once she had worn a look of shock and disbelief, only to have that look wiped from her face by things Aileen said. More than once, she tried to correct something Aileen said, only to be corrected herself. Stella had no trouble accepting these corrections either.

Time wore onwards, and the information exchange kept going. Stella grabbed a napkin at one point, and started using that to follow along. Then, she grabbed another. Some curious physicists spotted this, and a couple stepped closer to see what she was doing, but she shooed them away with a hand, and they obliged without further question. In time, almost all of the customers had left the restaurant, and Aileen stopped speaking and began writing on the napkins to help guide Stella. Talking between the ceased. Then the writing did too.

Napkins were splayed across the table like a map. Equations and numbers were written across them that looked foreign to me. Stella stared at them, looking so defeated it made me a little sad. I had never seen her even strain to understand something. At this point, I wondered if she looked worse for wear than me. Her face was both depressed and awed, as well as tired and shocked.

It was an hour later, after she had checked over the napkin calculations and notes multiple times that she spoke again. By now, individuals were beginning to filter in for the evening, to sip on beer and relax after a days work - and maybe to share ideas.

“The you that texted me. That is another you.” she said. Her voice was filled with disbelief, and her mouth hung open in between setnences. “This is it. This is actual time travel.”

I nodded. “A different version, a different place, a different time.”

“No not a-” she began, and then turned to Aileen, mouth agape. “Wait, he doesn’t know?”

Aileen shook her head. “I explained, he did not understand. He is distressed. I am empathetic and sympathetic to him, I do not want him more distressed. Also, my study would be jeopardized.”

“Oh.” Stella replied, before she looked back at me, and then to Aileen. “But why? Why is he distres-”

“My mother died, Stella. Her cancer comes back in August. Metastasizes, got everywhere it could. She dies in December. You and I break up in October.” I said, and involuntary tears sprung up in my eyes. I could feel the tears falling, and the lump in my throat became so strong that it was hard to speak. “I’m looking at a past that was good. She’d just gotten better. You’d just got this job. I - I’d not see- seen things - and heard-”

It was too much to bear. I started to bawl, earning some odd glances from the few extra patrons. One walked up, someone who Stella greeted in a cheerful manner. They offered if they could get me a drink or something, and Stella gently turned him away.

After some moments, I started to compose myself. Stella had not moved from her seat, but had put her hand on one of mine to console me. She seemed unsure, and afraid.

“Look-” I began again. “She wants me, she wants me to-”

“Study the extremes of humanity.” Aileen interrupted. “The best and worst moments of human history should allow insight into what caused humanity to go extinct.”

“You aren’t even human?” Stella asked in a quiet voice, which gained a glare from Aileen.

“I am human. I am a different species.” Aileen explained.

“Right, that makes sense. I guess.” Stella said, and looked thoughtful. Then, after a moment she spoke again. “So why come to me?”

There was a sad smile on her face now. It hurt to see the happy and extroverted scientist seem crestfallen. I wondered what she was thinking about that had caused it. Was it the secret to time travel that Aileen was withholding from me, or rather, that I could not understand? Had that caused her change in mood?

“Well, you see, we went to Nagasaki, right after the bomb was dropped. While we were there, Aileen mentioned how there were beautiful aspects to the bomb amid the sad parts. She talked about its heat for example, and the things humanity learned. So my line of thought was that you collide particles here. They get very hot, and you learn things. It seemed like the right place to go.”

Stella nodded along, but looked concerned when I me ntioned Nagasaki. “Well, tomorrow would be a good time. I'll be on shift part of the day actually, so you can get to see me work. The you in this time hasn't yet planned a trip.”

Aileen stood up. “Alright. Let's go there Elijah.”

“No!” Stella blurted out. This attracted some odd looks from nearby physicists and others, once agian drawing their curioousity. She waited a moment, till the stares were gone, before speaking again in a quieter tone. Her eyes stared at Aileen in a determined but pleading way. “Don’t leave. Give me this.”

Aileen cocked her head. “What?”

“You can’t…can you? It wouldn’t be wise, would it? This costs, doesn’t it? Even with all that you have, this has got to cost. The energy required for this project of yours is enormous. You’d blink enormous quantities of stars out of existence every time, no number of Dyson swarms would be enough, would it? Or…or…is it a black hole you’re using? Sure, the energy would no not be much on that scale, but enough to make it costly for-”

“Yes.” Aileen said, interrupting her. “You are correct. The cost is great. I do not have jumps to spare. Waiting a day is acceptable, and I feel for you. Also, he is not distressed with you. This is good. Time spent here would be accepable.”

Stella gave a grateful smile and then stood up. She grabbed my hands, and before I knew it I had been whisked away. Aileen, to my surprise, did not even try to follow. She sat at the table, and watched as I walked away with Stella.

Soon, we had left the building. I was confused, but happy. I was so very happy. Before long, we had left all of CERN completely, and in about an hour or so we were wandering through the streets of Geneva.