Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

The figure hunched in the chair leans on the table with trembling arms.
“It was a routine trip. Scanning and observation, back before the dinosaurs. We’ve done several.”
The stocky figure in the hazmat suit sat opposite points at their tablet.
“Not like this, Professor Devis. You bought something back.”
Devis looks up, snorting a laugh.
“We always bring something back: data.”
“Something living.”
“That’s impossible, Captain Malcolm. Causality wouldn’t allow it.”
Malcolm rocks a gloved hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture.
“That’s what everybody thought. But the likely cause of what’s happening outside has made some of your colleagues reconsider.”
Devis shakes his head.
“If Professor Garvin or any of his clique support this new theory, it’s nothing but nonsense with fancy presentation and a streaming deal.”
Malcolm chuckles.
“We all know your dim opinion of Chance Garvin, and his of you. What about Professor Quen?”
“She’s rigorous. Has insight. Haven’t studied enough of her work to say more.”
“How about a theory proposed by Quen that builds off your ‘temporal detritus’ notes?”
“Hmmm. They were more a scientific doodle than anything serious.”
“She said it was a moment of subconscious understanding bleeding through.”
Devis looks surprised.
“Since she put it like that… Okay. What’s Garvin’s take?”
“You’re an overpaid fraud who has ‘contaminated the mind of a promising young professor’.”
Devin cracks a smile.
“Now I definitely want to hear it.”
“Thought so. At my request, she gave me a short version for those lacking the necessary scientific background. Will that do?”
“It’s been an intense few days since I returned to find the temporal facility burning. So yes, the simple explanation would be grand.”
Malcolm nods sympathetically as he swipes to find the document.
“She said: ‘While all agreed it was not possible to bring ancient organisms back to the present, analysis of the cause of the current pandemic indicates that consensus may have been incorrect.
“What I propose is that we have always brought microscopic organisms back, but the majority do not survive undergoing what I posit to be an accelerated aging process (the exact nature of which being a subject for future investigation).
“What we have in the Sandringham Z Influenza virus is quite likely an organism that survived by simple reproduction: undergoing possibly three hundred million years of evolution in somewhat of a unique environment.
“It’s an airborne contagion. So unbelievably infectious that it having a chimeric element has been proposed by doctors working in several of the worst-hit cities. Variable onset times and severity of symptoms are also a cause for concern, as no correlation between pre-infection state and physical reaction has been found. The forms of pneumonia and haemorrhagic stroke it can induce are by far the most lethal symptoms, and the leading cause of the 92% mortality rate.’”
Malcolm puts the tablet down and waits while Devis thinks it through.
Eventually, Devis starts talking.
“I think she’s on to something. I also think determining the origin won’t help. That’s for later. Priority has to be developing survival protocols while working on a cure for something we have absolutely no defence against bar luck.”
He places his palms flat on the table.
“She and I should work together, starting from where your other teams are now, and in collaboration with them.”
Reaching out, he highlights the final lines of her summary. Malcolm leans forward to read it.
‘This started as a virus from a time before man. What it has become may well be the end of man.’
Devis taps it.
“That I hope we can prove wrong.”
Malcolm nods in agreement.