Free A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) by Kim K. O'Hara

learning, still forging new ground, while I struggle to endure tedium.”
    “It is no picnic, though. I can’t publish anything. The journals will have nothing to do with me.”
    “Will Lexil be able to publish?”
    “He might. We haven’t tried. His name has never been overtly associated with mine, but it can’t be associated with anyone else’s either, so he might not get the attention he deserves.”
    “My name’s not my own, or I’d gladly lend it.”
    “I know.” Doc patted her hand. “You have enough to worry about.”
    “I feel better, knowing that you know what is going on,” Marielle said. “I worry about all of us going down in flames and nobody having any clue. But enough about me. What have you two been working on?”
    “We’ve continued developing the sensors. We’re still getting readings from the old machines that we started back at the turn of the century, when you were still a grad student.” Doc was going to start reminiscing. Lexil could tell by his expression.
    “Before chronography,” she said.
    “Yes, but chronography wouldn’t have happened without them! And now they, and their brothers and cousins, are forming the basis for entirely new discoveries. Tell her, Lexil.”
    “We’ve been able to put equations to all the time disturbances. We can distinguish now between the random ones and the deliberate ones. Most of the deliberate ones are accompanied by peripheral events that generate their own effects.”
    “The timestream ripples.” Marielle nodded. “I remember those. But these deliberate time disturbances—have you been able to trace their source?”
    “Almost one hundred percent of them come from the institute,” Doc contributed. “We really need someone on the inside, so we can compare our findings with what’s happening over there.”
    “I can’t,” she apologized. “All my incoming and outgoing communications are tightly monitored. And I dare not try to contact someone else in there, someone less noticeable, because the person I choose would have a high likelihood of reporting our conversation.”
    “We understand,” said Doc. “We’re not asking you to. It would just help us a lot to have that contact.”
    “Ideally, we’d want someone in the lab, anyway,” said Lexil. “Right down there in the middle of the action.”
    “There really isn’t much action there now. You’d be disappointed, Mitch, at what it has become. The interns are doing busy work, more than anything. Not like your work here.”
    Lexil nodded. “Just this morning, I was showing Doc the results of my new equations. We’ve discovered—”
    “You’ve discovered.” Doc corrected him. “Credit where credit is due, boy.”
    “Well, then, stop calling me ‘boy,’” Lexil countered with a feigned look of injury. “I’ve discovered distinct indicators of a third force, beyond the initial disturbance with its peripheral blips, and beyond the natural damping force, that appears to come in and clean up after the event. It repairs the damage caused by the blips.”
    She sat up and leaned toward him. “It can repair blips?” She sounded like she couldn’t quite believe that.
    “Not only can, but does repair them. And Doc found evidence that it has been happening for thousands of years.”
    She whistled. “Maybe I should just give them my notice and come work for you.”
    Lexil wanted to say, “Yes! Do it!” but Doc spoke first.
    “You’d be welcome, of course, and your contribution would be invaluable. But I’m afraid attention would follow you over. We’ve been able to operate relatively free from interference here. Also, I think you may be the only one left there that has any kind of conscience.”
    “For the little good it does.”
    “Someday it might,” Doc encouraged her. “How was it that you were able to come see us today?”
    “My mother has been ill. I spent the day with her, down in Central Oregon, then flew back here a little faster than I should have to