Bruce and Harri glanced at each other before looking back out onto the water. The boat began to rock more aggressively and Bruce ran to grab his binoculars. Harri was stuck in a trance and barely noticed him leave. When he came back and leaned up to the window with his binoculars she immediately tried to grab them from him.
"Wait!" he said and she ignored him.
He let her have the binoculars for a few seconds before realizing he would have to go and find the other pair.
"Harri-" he said and she handed them back to him.
"What are those lines and circles lighting up?" she asked Bruce before he could even pull the binoculars up to his eyes.
"I don't know," he replied. "I don't know...it appears to be some type of wiring, possibly."
He watched the olive green lines and circle patterns glow with each bolt of lighting. Suddenly, twenty ferocious bolts of lightning in a row hit the top of the floating dome. Bruce heard Harri scream and drop to her knees and saw her place her hands over her ears. He remained standing and went back to looking ahead at the spectacle. Once the bolts stopped a light shone up into the heavens from the top center of the dome.
It looked like the most potent searchlight Bruce had ever seen. Strong enough to reach into space. The area around them was so well lit, it looked like it was daylight again. The seas calmed and the crashing waves and rain stopped suddenly.
Bruce squatted in front of Harri who still had her eyes shut and hands over her ears. He took her hands down.
"It's okay," he said. "Open your eyes."
She opened them and looked around at the bright cockpit room. Bruce helped her to her feet and she looked out at the white beam of light coming from the rock. All of the soft green lines in the dome were lit up.
"This can't be real..." Harri murmured.
"It is.." Bruce said, the excitement in his voice obvious.
"Okay...okay..." Harri said, her voice shaking. "So...this time machine thing might be real."
"Yes," Bruce answered and began to smile. Harri still looked serious and afraid.
"And you're going to figure out how to operate this thing.." Harri said. "And bring Adriana back?"
"Apparently, it can take me to the past," Bruce told her. "And I will use it to change everything that I did. I can save her."
Harri was speechless. Bruce went over to the controls and the setup of screens and began to work.
"What are you doing now?" she asked.
"We're going to move closer," he said. "It's much safer now...not too close but we need to see it better. I'll anchor when we are closer."
Harri stood behind him and watched as he moved closer to the dome. He stopped the boat when they were 100 yards away. The brilliant light was nearly blinding. They squinted as the looked out at the enormous device.
"Harri," Bruce said and reached beside himself to grab her arm without looking away from the machine. "This is it! This is it! I'm going to go over and figure out how it works."
"Oh Bruce..." Harri said. "This is..."
"A lot, I know," Bruce said and stood up quickly. "I'll just swim over to check it out and I'll come right back I promise."
"What if it..sucks you in or something..back to the past," she said. "I guess you won't be back then.."
"Well...that's possible," he admitted. "But on the bright side, we'll both be back in the past and Adriana will be with us."
"Yes," Harri said. "That's true."
"I can't wait any longer," Bruce said. "I have to get over there. I want to send a drone over first."
Harri nodded as Bruce squeezed her arm, looking at her as if asking for permission to go immediately.
"Okay," she told him and he bolted from the room.
She sighed and looked at something she never thought she would see in her life. It looked like a crashed UFO. She wondered if any other ships at sea were able to see the stellar beam coming from the machine floating in the water. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, Harri thought to herself. Her curiosity grew as she observed the machine.
After sitting and staring into the beam for a while she left the cockpit to find Bruce. She heard him close a door in the lower level of the yacht. She went down the stairs and found him in a room that looked like a closet. There were diving suits, weapons, clothing...a Batsuit.
Bruce had on nothing but a black lycra suit, pulled up to his hips. He turned when he heard Harri come in behind him.
"I won't need a tank," he said. "At least, I don't think I will. The dome is close enough for me to reach it without one. I sent a drone over and it dropped when it got close. That machine was interfering with the signal, and it's also way too bright so I couldn't see much through the footage."
He turned back and pulled the lycra up over his shoulders and then pulled his arms though before reaching for a diving suit.
"I want to come too," Harri said.
"What?" Bruce stopped. "You do?"
"Yes!" she said.
"Harri weren't you just lecturing me about how dangerous-"
"Yes! I want to come," she said. "The water is calm now. Please!"
Bruce gave her a quick nod.
"Okay," he said. "The water is very cold so put on a lycra suit. There's a woman's suit right there and there's space behind the door for-"
Bruce stopped speaking as Harri began to strip quickly in front of him. He turned around as she began to pull her t-shirt over her head. He grabbed his own black diving suit, facing away from her, and pulled it on to his body, and then pulled the tight diving hood on over his head. It covered his head, leaving only his eyes, nose and mouth exposed.
"Ow!" he heard Harri say and then he turned around. She had on the lycra suit and was pulling the diving hood very quickly and yanking her hair.
"Harri wait," Bruce said to her. "Put on the diving suit first. The hood goes on the outside or there will be leaks. I'll find a hair tie."
"Okay," she said and Bruce left for a few moments before coming back. He waited for her to pull the diving suit on.
"Here," he said and handed her the tie but her hands were shaking terribly.
"Can you?" she said and handed the elastic back to him.
"Sure," Bruce said and she turned so that her back was to him before pushing all of her hair back.
Bruce pulled the elastic onto his wrist before using both hands to contain the massive volume of the dark curls in front of him. Once he was done he reached for the hood for her to put on.
"Why is this thing so stiff?" she asked as she tried to stretch it over her head.
"Here," he said and took the hood from her. "Tilt your chin up."
He pulled the hood down over her face and hair and noticed her hands were still shaking.
"Is this suit for Adriana?" Harri asked.
Bruce nodded. "We've used them a couple times," he told her.
"So do you think the machine will be easy to figure out?" Harri asked.
"We'll have to see.." Bruce said. "I'll get the flippers and we can go."
.
.
.
"How strong of a swimmer are you?" Bruce asked Harri, both of them squinting in the light.
"I mean.." she said as they stood on the edge of the boat. "Good enough to get over there. It's not far."
Bruce nodded and they pulled on their snorkeling goggles.
"You go ahead of me," he said. "I'll be able to see you."
"Okay," Harri said and dove into the water.
Bruce watched her begin to swim and went in straight after her. He stayed right behind her until they reached the dome. Harri stopped a few feet away. Bruce realized she was waiting for him to touch the device first. He went past her and placed both hands on the side of the dome. It felt like warm, operating machinery. He used one hand to hold on and Harri came beside him, placing her hands on the dome as well.
They pulled the snorkeling tubes out of their mouths.
"That wasn't so bad," Harri said to Bruce as they held on to the rounded rock. She then turned to look at the elaborate illuminated green lines in the rock. They seemed to be contained under a very fine layer of glass..and under than glass and between the apparent wiring, was the original rocky texture of the pebble Bruce had been given.
"This is amazing," Bruce said. "I should have brought the camera."
"Well..." she said. "If it this thing works, the camera will disappear anyway when we return to the past."
"That's true," Bruce agreed and then looked at the device. He was trying to figure out how it worked. The wiring was probably the most impressive thing he had ever seen. Intricate and layered. The wires that they had been able to see from the boat were actually what looked like a series of hundreds of very fine thread like lines clustered together.
Bruce estimated that the entire dome was about 1,000 to 1,100 feet in diameter. It was enormous, likely millions or even billions of feet of the fine wire contained under the glassy surface. He looked back at the boat, relived that is seemed the dome hadn't floated any closer to it.
"What do we do now?" Harri asked.
"I don't know," Bruce said, seeing no buttons, no instructions, nothing. "We could try to circle around it..but that would take a while."
"You mean..like this?" she asked. "Above water..swimming around this whole thing to look for the controllers? How long would that take?"
"A few hours," he told her.
"Damn.." she said. "There's no way I can do that."
"She gave me no instructions," Bruce said with a bit of frustration.
"I have an idea," Harri told him.
"I'm open to suggestions," he said.
"We could walk or..I guess crawl," she said. "On the surface of this thing. I mean, it's slippery but it has some grip. Maybe there's something at the top? We saw all the sides when we were circling it and I didn't really see anything."
"Neither did I but the sides here are pretty steep, Harri," Bruce said. "How will we get up there?"
Bruce could feel the slip and steepness on the sides of the dome. It was elevated enough that he knew for a fact that he wouldn't be able to pull himself up. Anything that would hook or cut into the side for him to anchor himself would risk damaging the device. The light above them was so bright, Bruce felt like it was making him dizzy. It was getting more frustrating.
"Can you grip the side pretty well?" Harri asked.
"Yes," Bruce said. "But I can't actually climb it, there's nothing to grab-"
"Help me get up there," Harri said. "I could try to crawl around."
"Oh!" Bruce exclaimed. "Excellent idea! Here, I'll reach under you and try to push you up."
"Okay," Harri said and gripped the side of the dome next to Bruce.
She bent her knees and he grabbed her by one calf with one of his hands and she used her arms, pushing up on his shoulders and head and placed her hands onto the dome a few feet higher. Bruce used his other hand to stabilize himself to prevent himself from going under the water.
"Pull off my flippers!" she said loudly, realizing that without her feet she would surely slide back down into the water.
Hesitantly, Bruce removed the flippers, sliding them under his armpit of his stabilized arm. One Harri's feet were free, he watched her quite impressively and carefully inch her way up to the slightly flatter upper area of the dome.
"Yes!" she exclaimed and turned her head to Bruce. The dome was not as slippery as she thought it would be, and it almost felt as though her suit was sticking to the surface just enough to prevent her from sliding off. "Ok! Now what! What's the plan?" she shouted.
"I can't see all the way to the top Harri," Bruce said as loudly and firmly as he could. "If you go up too high and slide off and fall somewhere where I can't see you, it will take a while for us to find each other. This thing is huge Harri-"
"Then I guess I better not fall?" she said and smiled. "I'll be right back!"
"Harri, wait I'll try to follow-" Bruce said.
"I want to go to the top! To the light! Maybe that the way in!" she exclaimed.
"Harri!" Bruce shouted. "If you see anything, any way in do not go! You come back and you tell me first! If you're going to the center, go and come right back here! If you're not back in fifteen or twenty minutes I'll have to assume you slid off and fell where I can't see you! You understand?!"
"Yes!" she said, still slowly climbing the device. "I'll crawl to that beam and come right back!"