The grey, cold light of the Berlin morning filtered through the windows of their Friedrichshain apartment, but the atmosphere inside was like a deep, dark night. Even the cups of coffee on the table had gone cold. No one had spoken a word for several hours. The three of them were just staring at a single screen—Jerome's laptop, where the "Project Prometheus" file was open.
It was a mirror in which they had seen the reflection of humanity's deepest and most dangerous ambition. The power to control time.
"This… this has to be a joke," Sara finally broke the heavy silence. Her voice was a suppressed whisper, and a visible tremor ran through her hands. "It has to be science fiction. Time travel… it is not possible. The laws of physics do not allow it." She was a historian, a woman who believed in facts and evidence. This idea was shaking the very foundation of her world.
"At the beginning of the twentieth century, airplanes also seemed like science fiction, Sara," Jerome replied quietly. He had not taken his eyes off the screen. "And a century ago, the internet was no less than magic." He opened another file. It was the personal laboratory diary of that German scientist, Doctor Wilhelm Einstein, handwritten in nineteen oh two.
Jerome began to read, his voice echoing in the room like a grim proclamation.
"17 October 1902. Today we conducted the first controlled test of the 'Chronos Device.' The goal: to slow down the flow of time, for just a fraction of a second, inside a sealed vacuum chamber."
"We placed a simple pocket watch inside the chamber. The energy level was minimal, using only a tiny fraction of the energy matrix described in the tablets."
He paused, then read the next line, his voice dropping lower.
"The results… were unexpected. The time on the watch did not slow down. Instead, for a moment, it vanished from inside the chamber, and then reappeared. But when it returned, it was not the same watch. Its metal was heavily rusted, as if it had been left in the rain for decades. And its time… it was seven hours ahead."
A moment of silence fell in the room.
"Seven hours…" Sara repeated. Her voice was barely a whisper. "What does that mean?"
"It means they did not slow down time," Mayra said, her mind rapidly making connections. "They sent that watch into the future, and brought it back. Perhaps for only a few seconds. But in that journey, it was subjected to decades of environmental effects." What kind of power can do that? she thought, a cold dread creeping into her heart.
"It gets worse," Jerome said and read the next entry from the diary.
"24 October 1902. We conducted another test today. This time with a biological subject—a laboratory rat. The goal was the same. But as soon as we activated the device, the lights in the laboratory flickered for a moment. And the chamber… the chamber was empty. The rat did not return. It was just… gone."
"But that same evening, a strange incident occurred at the home of one of our colleagues. A dead, badly decomposed rat mysteriously appeared on his kitchen table. Its physical structure matched that of our laboratory rat. It seems… it seems we sent it not just to another place, but also to another time. And that journey killed it."
Sara covered her mouth with her hand. She felt sick.
"And this is the last entry," Jerome said. His voice was now almost a whisper.
"2 November 1902. This morning, Doctor Einstein was found dead in his laboratory. There were no signs of injury on his body. The cause of his death was reported as heart failure. But I know what the truth is. I saw a note on his table, which the authorities confiscated. On it, only one word was written—'Prometheus'."
Jerome closed the file. The room was once again plunged into silence, thick with the weight of that hundred-year-old secret.
"Prometheus," Mayra repeated. "The Titan from Greek myths who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. And as a punishment, he was subjected to an endless torture."
"Doctor Einstein saw himself as Prometheus," Sara said. "He had stolen a fire that humanity could not handle. And the torture of that knowledge is what killed him."
Now they understood why the German Empire had backed away from this knowledge. They were afraid. Terribly afraid.
"So this is the knowledge," Mayra said, leaning back in her chair. "It is the ability to bend and break reality. The destruction of Akkad by mosquitoes… perhaps it was not a divine curse. Perhaps they conducted a large-scale test of this technology, which created a shift in time and ecology."
The idea was so terrifying that for a moment, they could not even move. This search was no longer academic. It was personal. They had looked into the face of that knowledge, and what they had seen was not beautiful. It was a void that could swallow everything.
"What do we do now?" Sara finally asked. Her voice no longer held the thrill of discovery, but a deep, ethical burden. "Should… should we stop all this right here? Destroy this information, and go back to our lives?"
It was a question that was on all their minds, but one that no one had dared to ask.
"No," Mayra said firmly. "If we stop, the Syndicate will not stop. We must find it before Eleanor does."
"And then what, Mayra?" Jerome asked, his voice challenging. "We find it, and then what? We use it?" His eyes were burning with a strange intensity. "Do we become the new gods of the world?"
It was the first time a real, deep ideological difference had emerged within the team. This was no longer just about strategy. It was about morality.
"I do not know," Mayra admitted honestly. "I really do not know. But I do know that I cannot leave this decision in the hands of Eleanor Vance."
Before their debate could go any further, a sharp, urgent notification beeped on Jerome's laptop. It was an automatic alert from the Syndicate's server that he had set up for himself.
"Uh oh," he said.
"What is it?" Mayra asked.
"Eleanor has issued a new, global, priority-one order." He turned the screen towards them.
The order was brutally simple:
TARGETS: Nassar, Haddad, Daoud.
OBJECTIVE: Terminate on sight.
BOUNTY: Ten million dollars per head.
Their greatest victory had turned them into the world's greatest threat. They were no longer just researchers. They were fugitives. And every Syndicate agent, every greedy hunter and mercenary in the world, was now their enemy.
"We cannot trust anyone," Mayra whispered, a hint of true desperation in her voice for the first time.
They had no country, no government, no allies. Except for one, about whom they knew nothing.
Jerome hesitantly picked up the small, palm-sized satellite phone that Attar had given him. It only had a single button. A panic button. His hand hovered over it, a clear hesitation in his movement.
"Maybe… maybe it is time," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Mayra and Sara looked at each other. It felt like a defeat. Asking for help, as Attar had said, would come at the cost of their self-confidence.
But they had no other choice.
"Press it," Mayra finally said.
With a trembling finger, Jerome pressed the button.
Nothing happened. No sound, no light, no confirmation. It was as if he had pressed a button that was not connected to anything.
"It… it is not working," he said in despair. "Maybe this was just another one of his jokes."
They felt more alone and in more danger than ever before. Thousands of miles away, in a crowded Moroccan market, a man sitting behind a pile of colorful spices slowly lowered his cup of mint tea.
Attar opened his eyes.