This is the story Cynthia heard when she finally found Ilyana sometime in the 23rd century. They spent a few days together, sharing stories of their travels and how the world, and the multiverse at large could never imagine what was coming – the technical and physical advancements, the horrible wars, the violent invasions and the cataclysmic events. Fortunately, the two of them would never be in too much danger of suffering the effects of all these things, outside of acts of God (or gods). However, Ilyana was determined not to ever travel back to her original point on the space-time continuum. Edgar and Rosko had scared her too much. She implored Cynthia to remain with her, but could not convince her to. So instead, she told Cynthia to keep her powers under wraps and not to share them with anyone she didn’t trust one hundred percent. She promised to do just that, then bid farewell, and jumped back to her time period.

It was a time period that was already beginning to see some of the problems she and Ilyana knew would eventually lead to cataclysm. Cynthia was intrigued when she began listening to and reading up on Dr. Jessica Beck, who was attempting to warn the world of the potential problems of accelerated hyper-human integration into society. She then heard about Dr. Beck’s attempt to study the time period right before Great Quake of 2016, when hyper-human integration seemed to begin. For some reason, however, no concrete historical data at all existed for the first 10-15 years of the 21st century.

Cynthia decided to investigate for herself. But when she attempted to jump back to that time period it was like she hit a barrier, consequently being bounced back to the present. It was something she had never experienced before. She could sort of see and tell there was something on the other side of the barrier, but she just wasn’t powerful enough to break through it.

She decided to go see Dr. Beck regardless, and shared with her the limited info she was able to glean – which mostly centered around some of the events that led up to the Great Quake of 2016, such as political discord, social unrest, and yes, the rise of hyper-humans. But, that was as specific as she could get. They were still blind.

Cynthia told Dr. Beck that she could potentially break through the time barrier, if they could find a way to enhance her powers. Dr. Beck knew exactly whom to call. His name was Carlos Valenzuela, but those in the know called him Flow. He had the metaphysical ability to enhance and boost the natural abilities of hyper-beings. It was a tool he, along with his wife Vivian “Ebb” Valenzuela, used to train future superheroes. He had been following Dr. Beck’s research, and agreed with the idea of exploring that particular time period in the early 21st century, especially if it would help stop tragedy in the future.

He agreed to help boost Cynthia’s powers. Dr. Beck then began to plan an expedition of about a hundred historians and scientists, including Dr. Shay Adama and Professor Willie Thomas, to go back in time with her and Cynthia, so they could do a comprehensive study and analysis. A vessel was built to facilitate the journey, called the Interceptor. The preparations took about six months.

As they drew closer to the departure date, they discovered a complication. Because of the size of the vessel and the number of people traveling, the temporal-inertia differentials would decrease significantly. In other words, because their native timeline would keep moving, they’d risk the possibility of returning to the present at a point beyond the catastrophic events they were attempting to stop. When Dr. Beck asked Cynthia why she couldn’t just re-jump back to the original departure date, she explained the “chrono-anchor.”

Cynthia said that whenever she jumps, she must metaphysically latch onto the current spot on the her native timeline, so she can have a place to jump back to. That spot is called the chrono-anchor, and it continues to move forward with the native timeline, meaning that it is impossible to return to the same point in time she left from. No matter what, when they got back from their expedition, it would be sometime in the future. It basically meant they would have to work fast. It also meant her powers would have to be boosted by Flow even more.

The day of the expedition finally came. Everyone loaded the Interceptor, and Cynthia connected to the ship’s hyper-modulator unit. Then, as the engines started up, Flow – from outside the ship – unleashed his powers, and induced Cynthia without nearly seven times her normal ability. Then in an instant, the ship jumped back into the past. And just as Cynthia theorized, the ship was able to punch right through the time-barrier!

However, a problem quickly arose, as the ship didn’t stop, and just continued barreling across the space-time continuum. Cynthia attempted to course-correct, but the force was too powerful and eventually knocked her unconscious. After a few more minutes the ship slowed down, dropped out of the chrono-slipstream, and came to rest. Cynthia could not be woken.

Dr. Beck and the team used the Interceptor’s instruments and computers to decipher that they’d traveled more than five hundred years back in time, and also they’d been bumped off the Core Reality space-time continuum into an alternate realm, and onto a wholly uninhabited planet, which would come to be known as Super Earth One.

Dr. Shay Adama and the other physicians attempted to revive Cynthia, but she wouldn’t wake up, which meant they had no way of returning to their native timeline. Shay continued to work on Cynthia, but alas, Jessica Beck was forced to lead to the establishment of a new society. Using the vast untapped resources of the the alternate Earth, as well as the intelligence, skills and talents of the nearly hundred expedition members – which also included a couple of hyper-beings – they were able to establish a thriving community.

Cynthia’s unconscious body was housed in the Interceptor, which was transformed into a sort of temple-like structure, where Shay and others kept watch over her. Additionally, expedition members would also come to pray for her or to her, as some considered her the mother of this new timeline. It was also discovered by the team’s astronomer, Priscilla Jordan, that the new timeline was moving faster than their native timeline – almost twice as fast, as a year seemed to only last about seven months. These seven-month periods came to be known as “quantics.”

It was nearlysix quantics, before everyone finally accepted the fact that Cynthia may never wake up.

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