Kathryn's Gift, by StevenB

Chapter 1
Kathryn's Gift, Part 1

Chapter Description: By StevenB

By StevenB

It was a mid-spring evening when a blue accord pulled up to a large non-decorative building, surrounded by barbed wire, near a forest in northern California. The driver, a brunette woman aged 45, paused to give her ID to the guard at the gate before continuing on to the parking lot in front of the building. There were only a few cars left in the lot because most of them took off for the night. The driver got out and walked up to the front door of the building. The night guard greeted her as she entered.

"Good evening Dr. Kathryn", smiled Robert. "Going to work late I see", he questioned her as he checked her ID.

"Good evening Bob, and yes I decided to work on my project some more tonight", answered Kathryn.

"Good luck; I’ll see you later then, Dr." said Robert.

Kathryn headed down the hall to the elevator and slid her ID card in the slot. The light turned green and the elevator door opened. She pushed level 2 and the doors closed. At the second floor, the doors to the elevator opened and out walked Kathryn. She headed down the hall to a room with a door with the name Dr. Kathryn Holts printed on the front. Right below her name was printed ’Temporal lab. TOP SECRET’. She punched in her pass code and entered her lab.

’Hopefully I can make some more progress on the anomaly’, thought Kathryn as she put on her lab coat.

"I could win the Nobel prize, if they would just let me publish my work, but being that it is a black project, I am screwed." said Kathryn to herself as she left her lab office and entered the main lab. She wished she could tell the world that she was on the verge of a breakthrough that could change everything. Kathryn had always been fascinated by the idea of time travel and the concepts of time itself since when she was a little girl and read ’The Time Machine’. Now she was close to making a working time travel portal using an unstable time vortex anomaly her machines created. All she needed to do was to learn how to control the anomaly and use its energy for the time travel portal.

The lab had computers and other electronic devices spread out everywhere from the walls to the tables. What stood out the most was the large spherical glass looking container with a blue and white flashing light coming from the center. Three metal arms held onto the globe with wires and cables attached to them. Behind the globe was a large square box with lights and monitor screens where the three metal arms came from. Cables and wires came from the large electronic box and ran to a main computer control area where Kathryn was headed. She started to look over the readings that were being displayed on the computer screen. "I am still getting random fluctuations from the temporal anomaly", Kathryn said to herself.

As she was looking over the readings, the alarms for the building started to go off and a red warning light started to flash above the main door to the lab.

’What’s going on’, thought Kathryn as she went to check the security monitors.

What she saw in the monitor scared her. Armed men dressed in black were rushing into the building firing at anyone that they saw. A few seconds later she heard gun fire outside of her lab and people screaming.

’I need to hide’, thought Kathryn as she looked around for a place to do so. She did not really want to jump out the second story window.

Just as she was going to hide behind one of the computer work stations an explosion ripped through the lab door throwing her at the large containment globe. Pieces of metal and glass tore at her skin leaving deep cuts in her arms and face. She was barely conscious when she heard them enter the lab.

"Grab all the notes you can and leave no witnesses," shouted the husky sounding man by the door. He then spotted Kathryn laying on the lab floor bleeding.

"She does not look like she is moving but burn this lab with her in it just to make sure." said the husky man.

"We are going to be so rich from all the secrets from these labs we’re going to sell to that mysterious buyer," said the man that was grabbing Kathryn’s notes and data disks.

"He knew exactly where this building was and what was in it and what the security was", the husky man said. "Come on we do not have much time before the alarm alerts the cops".

"Got it", the other man said and turned to drop a metal sphere on the floor.

Kathryn’s vision was fading in and out as she watched them leave. She got up slowly do to the pain in her arms and legs. Electrical shorts were everywhere and small fires were starting because of the sparks. A crack appeared on the containment sphere and was getting bigger. Another small explosion erupted where the metal sphere the armed man had dropped. It threw Kathryn into the containment sphere and caught her lab coat on fire. When she got back up the whole lab was engulfed in flames. There was no way for her to get out but the window on the far wall. She could feel the fire burning her skin as she tried desperately to put out the fire on her coat.

The containment sphere broke and the blue flashing glowing ball left the sphere and hit Kathryn in the back, causing her to scream out in pain. She stumbled towards the window when the machine holding the sphere exploded throwing Kathryn out the window and onto the ground two stories below. Kathryn blacked out from the pain. Her right arm was broken and so were a few ribs. She had burns on her arms from the fire and multiple cuts on her arms and face.

While she was blacked out, the cuts on her arms and face started to fade and the burns disappeared. She woke up and felt pain in her right arm.

’I must have sprained it because it does not feel broken,’ thought Kathryn. She then turned to look at the burning building. She could hear the armed men in the parking lot shouting to each other to leave.

’I need to get out of here and get some help’, thought Kathryn as she removed the burned lab coat and started to run into the woods behind the burning building.

She thought she heard someone behind her and it made her panic even more as she ran. She was so focused on running away that she did not notice the pain in her arm go away nor the pain in her sides disappear. Her breasts started to shrink, unnoticed by the running scientist.

Soon a teenage brunette girl was running through the woods instead of a 45 year old woman. She tripped as the skirt and panties she wore slid down her skinny legs. Her shoes slipped off as she fell because they could no longer fit the small feet that were in them. Kathryn did not care at the moment or give it a second thought as she crawled back up to keep moving. The only thought on her mind was getting to help and away from those armed men. She left her skirt and panties behind and was now only wearing a women’s blouse that looked funny on the now 10 year old looking girl. Kathryn thought it a little strange that the woods seemed to get bigger as she ran. About 2 miles from the burning building, Kathryn passed out from exhaustion. She continued to grow younger, shrinking into a now large blouse. Her hair shortened to her shoulders and baby fat started to appear on her face, arms and legs. Her belly began to stick out a little.

A childless couple camping in the woods found a small little girl lying face down and wearing only a bloody torn women’s blouse. Scared for the small child they picked her up and took her to the nearest hospital.