Nine Days Immersed in Time Travel (in Cambridge) - Nine Days, #13

Sarah Mackay a brilliant graduate student, arrives in Cambridge for a prestigious nine-day seminar on the theoretical foundations of time travel, led by the renowned Professor James Wetherby. Joined by her longtime friend and physicist Tomasz Nowak, she anticipates an intellectually stimulating experience. However, from the moment she steps into the ancient city, something feels off.

The seminar, held at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, delves deep into wormholes, closed time-like curves, and paradoxes of time travel. Wetherby's lectures challenge conventional thinking, pushing the students to explore time not just as a concept but as something potentially malleable. As the days pass, Sarah begins to sense an undercurrent of secrecy surrounding the seminar. Her suspicions are confirmed when she receives a cryptic midnight message, summoning her to the Bridge of Sighs. There, she meets Dr. Ian Sterling, a visiting professor from Oxford, who reveals that Wetherby's seminar is more than an academic exercise – it's part of a real, covert experiment attempting to manipulate time itself.

As Sarah and Tomasz dig deeper, they learn that the experiments involve artificially creating closed time-like curves, attempting to warp spacetime on a small scale. The risks are enormous. Theoretical paradoxes, like the grandfather paradox and the Butterfly Effect, could have real-world consequences. Sterling warns that changes might already be happening – subtle shifts in reality that the participants aren't even noticing.

With growing unease, Sarah questions Wetherby's true intentions. Is he trying to prove time travel is possible, or has he already succeeded? As tensions rise, Sarah and Tomasz must decide whether to expose the experiment, try to control it, or shut it down before irreversible damage is done. But in a reality where time might already be shifting, how can they be sure their choices haven't already been made?