A mobile phone buzzed on Helena's desk. The professor's arms were folded across her chest, with her feet anchored to the same spot on the floor, between Arthur's desk and where Claudia had been moments prior.

"A student," Helena said incredulously, now turning upon Arthur, "Do you honestly believe a student would try to steal from the exhibit? As if, they're all sitting around a table in the dining commons, plotting elaborate heists to make Arthur Neilsen's day more complicated?"

"I've worked here long enough to know that there can be no exceptions," Arthur replied, now replacing his glasses on his face, "Students, staff, and co-workers. You'll know once you've spent the better half of your life here."

Helena scoffed. "As if seven years hasn't been enough time for me. Please do fire me if it ever comes to that."

The phone had spun upon its axis in its frantic buzzing, and soon it encountered the base of the lamp upon her desk. It rattled insistently against the metal, though Helena continued to pry at Arthur with an inquiring gaze. His brows twitched in irritation, until finally he swept his arm up, gesticulating toward the offending noise.

"Could you please?"

Helena contemplated the phone on the desk, finding herself inclined to let it ring in order to prolong his frustration, considering his brash attitude toward her student. Though, something dawned upon her. She tapped her fingers against her arm.

"Why give me her real name?"

Claudia strode out the office, a fierce resignation giving strength to her steps. She hadn't been that invigorated by a defeat in quite a while. She could, she thought, return to a quiet life back in her dorm. No more mysteries. Eating crackers alone in her room on a Friday night, while filling her head with some obscure encyclopedic knowledge that might never prove useful to her in the future. Theoretical use, perhaps. Indeed, she imagined herself in numerous scenarios, most frequently stranded on an island, where she was significantly better equipped for survival because of some tidbit of knowledge that she had acquired in her college days. I know how to pluck a seagull, she thought. I know which coconuts are best to eat.

She walked along the edge of the railing, away from the staircase from which she descended, recalling the struggle there and the still lingering soreness in her thighs. She remembered mention of a repaired elevator, and made a beeline for the stairs that led toward the warehouse floor.

"The home stretch," she muttered, and drew in a deep breath to patter quickly down the stairs, landing abruptly on the ground floor. Despite his abrasiveness, Arthur did manage to supply his non-existent guests with helpful signs, like a friendly warning of chemical alteration, or in this case, a sign pointing in the direction of Claudia's ascent from madness. She followed.

Her eyes wandered down the aisles between the shelves as she passed them, flicking around from object to object. She caught glimpses of the items contained within, seemingly mundane things that might as well be in any household. An armchair, a pen, a metronome. Unexciting.

Soon, she came upon a wall of the exhibit, embedded in which were the buttons for calling an elevator, though she could scarcely make out the outline of the doors themselves. She lifted a finger, approached the keypad, when suddenly the wall opened.

"Mmm-!" Claudia stumbled back from the door of the lift. Her lips were pressed shut in a suppressed cry, as she backpedaled until her back met a shelf full of artifacts. She heard a clinking from above her as the shelf swayed, though her gaze was fixed firmly on a figure behind the parting elevator doors.

A curly-haired woman had been pacing across the length of the lift. At Claudia's noise, she stopped and raised her eyes from where they'd been tracing the patterns on the floor. A hand was pressed to one ear, holding a phone, though she didn't appear to be speaking into it. She lowered it and examined the bewildered girl.

"Are you an intern?" she asked. Claudia's mouth opened, though no sound was produced. The woman's lips twinged with discomfort, and she stepped slowly out of the elevator toward the frozen girl.

"I'm looking for Helena," she began, "I didn't tell her I'd be coming, but I was hoping to see her before I left campus."

"You're Myka," Claudia said, voice hoarse. The woman was taken aback.

"She talks about me?" she asked, with slight reproach. Her face suddenly twisted into disbelief, as she considered Claudia's reaction, paired with her name. "Hold on, what has she said about me?"

"Myka?" a crackling voice came through the cell phone, and the woman hurriedly brought it back up to her ear.

"Helena? Yeah, one of your interns here is staring at me in holy terror, do you tell them stories about me?"

Muffled confusion on the other end. She winced and turned away from Claudia.

"I'm here, at the exhibit - who? ...You don't?"

Quick chatter from the other end of the line, and a brief pause. The woman locked eyes with Claudia, and spoke into the phone slowly. "Then how does she know my name?"

A loud bang sounded from somewhere in the exhibit, reverberating through the air and sending Claudia springing away from the shelf. The hanging lights swayed above, and both her and the woman gazed upward, as the several of the bulbs began to flicker out. The two exchanged bewildered glances, and craned their necks around the shelves with curiosity. A crackling noise came over a PA system, and Arthur's voice boomed out over the warehouse with an intensity that sent hands flying up to ears.

"So help me Claudia," the voice roared, "I will have you arrested, or at the very least dismissed from the university for disturbing my exhibit. Leave anything you've taken right now and when I send the police after you, I will make sure-"

His voice was cut off as fumbling came over the speakers, and the microphone knocked against something. Helena's voice pierced through the indistinct noise, increasing with volume as some scuffle took place for the possession of the microphone. Finally, the clamor stopped, and Arthur's voice was heard with muffled protestation in the background.

Helena spoke clearly and sternly through the speakers.

"Hello, Myka and Claudia. I'll need the two of you to stay right where you are. We appear to have a foreign body in the facility, and I'll be down in just a moment to deal with it. And, for the record, I do not tell my co-workers stories about you, Myka, and I apologize for causing you any worry. I hope your first day of work went well."

Myka lips drew up in a small smile, and her face reddened slightly. Shuffling sounds came over the PA as if to end the transmission, though Helena suddenly returned to the microphone.

"Oh, and Claudia," her voice continued, "I believe you."

Claudia's heart leapt into her throat.

"And I think you have something more to tell us."

The sound of footsteps nearby broke through Claudia's brief moment of relief. She shot Myka a perplexed glance, though the latter seemed unperturbed. It couldn't be possible that Helena had made her way from the office to the floor instantaneously, nor could Arthur. And no one else worked there.

Myka was the first to move. She walked off in apparent disregard, following the increasingly close footsteps and though Claudia did not want to go, and she wished to stay in that spot where Helena could find her and affirm the strange events that took place, her feet moved to follow. The two of them walked along the shelves, scanning down the rows, until Myka came to a halt. Claudia crept up beside her and stared at the figure before them.

A man loomed between the two shelves, just thirty feet away - aged, yet not old, with grey-streaked black hair atop a thin face. He wore a well-fitting dark grey suit, and he faced them, motionlessly, though a small curve appeared at the edge of his mouth showing something akin to amusement. Claudia took a step behind the taller woman who had rooted her feet to the floor in a defensive stance.

"Foreign body is a funny way of putting it," the man called out, in an accent not unlike Helena's. There was no reply from the PA.

"Do you have permission to be here?" Myka called back. Claudia hadn't the voice to speak. Something tingled at the back of her head, a nagging and instinctual fear, and she sensed that something was very off about this person.

The man feigned consideration of this question, then put on an expression of mock surprise. "You know, I don't, actually," he said, eyes twinkling. Myka's lips pressed together in a scowl.

He cocked his head to the side, peering past Myka to examine the hiding girl. "Ah. You're the one Steve found," the man said, "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. From what I've heard about you, you have everything very well figured out."

Claudia nearly jumped out from behind Myka, seized by a sudden panic. She called out to the figure, fear rattling her voice, "How do you know me?"

"And isn't that the same question everyone's been asking you," the man said, with a hint of delight, "For someone trying so hard to deter the interest of a crowd, feigning madness is both a brilliant and idiotic way to go about it. You deter the idiots, and yet the brilliant ones will find you all the more interesting." He slipped his hand into a pocket and slowly drew out a thin string, yarn-like, roughly a foot in length. It dangled in the air, and carefully, he turned it horizontally with forefingers and thumbs pinched at either end, his eyes scanning along its edge. His eyes flicked up toward Claudia, and lifted the string up to the level of his nose.

"I was told that you enjoyed strings. Would you like to tell us what you found, with that map on your wall, and the little bits of yarn?"

"Map-?" Claudia said, voice cracking.

"Yes, the funny map that Steve said you had, it was so intriguing that I had to see it for myself."

The color drained from Claudia's face. "When the hell did you see it?" Claudia wheezed, "Were you- no, I took it down!"

The man rolled his head around, cracking his neck. "Not an issue. For the uninformed of us here today," he raised his voice, "Your map perfectly corresponds to the locations of every incident associated with one artifact of interest."

"I'm not looking for anything," Claudia said, mouth dry, "Neither of us has any business with artifacts. We're not interested."

"Well," the man raised an eyebrow, "I am."

A high-pitched whine came over the PA system, and though the others' hands flew up to cover their ears, the man seemed particularly careful not to recoil. The string remained as it was. The lights of the exhibit turned a hellish red, and clanging sounds echoed from the walls. The whirring sounds in the background, of underground ventilation and the whiffs of an outside breeze screamed to a halt, leaving the air stagnant. As soon as the feedback ended, Arthur's voice blared out over the exhibit, with an uncharacteristically intense fury in his tone.

"Myka and Claudia. Do not move."

A familiar buzz came from somewhere along the shelves, as Claudia recognized a small security camera mounted up above. It had turned, and was now intently focused upon the man they faced.

"Do not speak to this man," Arthur boomed, "Do not entertain him. James, you will not leave here alive."

The man let out a slow laugh, beginning from the depths of his belly, and rising to shake his whole body. It seemed to take all of his self-restraint not to double over in mirth, as Arthur's heavy breathing rasped through the speakers, and the camera buzzed again, lens zooming in on the man.

"Oh, Arthur. Another time." He looked back at Claudia with a renewed excitement. "Let's take another look in our sister universe, shall we? Since I didn't get the chance to locate you last time, I was hoping you'd stay around longer to help me find what I need."

Claudia felt her face turn cold.

"Love, you're in the way," he sing-songed to Myka. The woman did not budge.

Rapid footfalls, then the sound of soles sliding across concrete, as Helena careened into view two shelf-lengths behind the man. She skidded to a halt, wheeling herself around to stand with feet planted firmly apart, facing the scene down the aisle. Myka's gaze met hers, sending blaring signals toward Helena in a visual panic, as the man craned his neck back to catch this new figure out of the corner of his eye.

Helena braced herself, legs bent to launch herself down the aisle in a sprint, though the man whipped his head front to face Myka and Claudia.

"Well, no matter. Time to go!"

In one rapid movement, he brought the edges of the string together, pinched with a hanging loop below them, then whipped them back apart.

The string drew taut, and the force with which it straightened caused it to resonate, vibrating rapidly up and down between his fingers in a blur. The air around the string began to change, and Helena's awe-stricken face disappeared from view.

Something like waves emanated outward, though they were invisible in themselves, they expanded and contracted to manipulate the visual field between the string and the women poised further down the aisle. The two could not move. The world in front of them became a torrent of visual stimuli, as any reference point for their own position in space was turned about, and they swayed with sudden nausea. Claudia stumbled in some direction, and her elbow met the hard metal of a shelf, and in recoiling in another direction her hip made contact with the floor.

The man's face stretched around them, horrific and comical, and through it all they saw his teeth appear alternatively tiny and gigantic, in a wide grin.

The waves soon enveloped Claudia and Myka, as Claudia's lips drew back and she formed the words she knew, the patterns in the air falling into recognition.
Bed bubble.

The waves synchronized themselves, and as they did their amplitudes were magnified, the expansions multiplied ad infinitum, and the space on one side of them contracted to a point as that behind them became stretched. An atom pulled like taffy to the size of a shelf behind them, and a space the length of galaxies compressed to the size of a molecule before them.

Claudia blinked.

And the warehouse was gone.