Chapter 3. The Seventh Step

The world seemed to reveal its true nature - each detail pulsed with special meaning, as if reality itself was trying to communicate something. The grey sky was a canvas where patterns of time emerged, the gate a door between worlds, and the scent of pine needles a thread connecting all versions of what was happening. He viewed the world through the eyes of a researcher, just as his grandfather once did. There are no coincidences - only patterns we haven't yet learned to understand.

The lock opened with the same inevitability as converging lines in a precise calculation. Entering the house, the young man felt his previous anxiety giving way to the strange calm of a researcher who had found the key to the puzzle. The laboratory's hum met him on the stairs, and now this sound carried something new - an acknowledgment of his right to be here, at this intersection of all times, as if the house itself had chosen him to continue his grandfather's experiment.

The flower's transformation had reached a new level. Each petal now resembled an ultrathin plate of unknown material - hovering between glass and metal, emitting a barely perceptible shimmer. In the rose's center, a crystalline architecture unfolded, resembling both a snowflake and an atomic lattice diagram. The rose seemed to be transforming into a living mechanism, embodying those laws of nature his grandfather had sought all these years.

"Arc," he spoke, feeling a strange weight from the awareness of this moment's inevitability, "you're about to say what I've already heard twice." "Greetings. According to my data..." "'Your last visit was three weeks ago,'" the words escaped his lips, preceding the mechanical voice. "I know, Arc. Your system clock runs linearly, but time around us has folded into a loop. I'm here. Again and again." "Temporal anomalies are impossible according to..." "In this notebook," the young man carefully retrieved it from under the blueprints, "there's a diagram of a special device. Grandfather drew it hurriedly, as if afraid of running out of time. But the central element... it's barely sketched, like a ghostly silhouette. Before, I thought it was carelessness, but now I understand - grandfather knew. Knew that this part would constantly change, following the flower's transformation in each new time cycle."

In the laboratory's silence, Arc's electronic pause seemed particularly significant - as if the artificial intelligence itself was trying to comprehend the impossible. "My protocols... did not anticipate such a scenario," it finally responded. "I know, Arc," the young man stepped closer to the flower, watching light play in its facets. "With each repetition, I see more clearly: grandfather created something greater than just an experiment. Look carefully. Its structure evolves, transforms. Each iteration brings us closer to something... something grandfather was trying to create."

"According to my calculations, no changes..." Arc began, but his words drowned in a wave of memories. The young man was already walking to the far corner of the laboratory, where under a tarpaulin lay the familiar outline of an old friend - an "Astra" reel-to-reel tape recorder. This gift from grandmother became more than just a recording device for grandfather - it was the keeper of history, the confidant of all scientific insights. "Modern gadgets come and go," grandfather would say, rejecting any attempts to switch to digital media, "but these reels will outlive us all. Physical recording won't betray, won't erase from a random glitch." Now the young man understood the wisdom of this choice.

The tape began to roll, and through slight crackling emerged grandfather's voice: "Day 1825. Upon adding titanium tetrachloride, an interesting effect is observed - the solution begins to interact with the flower's organic structures. The regeneration process initiates, but..." - his voice carries a mixture of fatigue and inspiration - "this strange blue glow appears. It intensifies with each new contact with organic matter. The reaction is unstable, the nature of the glow changes. Need to find a way to control the process. Perhaps if we add..."

The tape recorder's click echoed through the laboratory. "Arc, at the end of the recording... there was some sound. Can you check?"

"Initiating noise reduction algorithm," Arc responded. "Interesting... 1.3 seconds before stopping, there's a clear distinction of the gate's sound. The characteristic creak that always occurs when opening."

Before the young man could address Arc, it spoke: "According to metadata, the recording is dated yesterday, 18:43. Strange... Immediately after the gate sound, my system logs show a temporal discontinuity. All subsequent data is lost. The next log entry appears only this morning." A heavy silence fell in the laboratory.

"Yesterday... But how is that possible? His phone hasn't answered for days."

"Mobile signals are indeed unstable in this zone," Arc confirmed. "The laboratory's electromagnetic background distorts most frequencies. The Professor always uses my secure communication channel." The young man thoughtfully examined the diagram, processing each detail from a new angle. Something about these hurried lines seemed strangely familiar. The handwriting... it was similar to grandfather's, yet different - more sharp, nervous, as if the person was rushing to capture a thought slipping through time's fingers. The central element was sketched schematically, as if the author understood the futility of attempting to reflect its exact form.

"If in previous cycles contact occurred accidentally, probably some stage of assembly will inevitably lead to this again," Arc reasoned aloud.

"Let's proceed systematically," the young man took out the components. "First, we need to connect the voltage stabilization module." Taking the wire stripper, he felt a strange unease, as if each movement was predetermined. Metal glinted in the lamplight, and a moment later blood appeared on his finger.

"Arc, we stand on the threshold of something important," the young man's voice remained calm, despite his bleeding finger. "Three elements: blood, technology, and flower. In this cycle, I finally understand - there are no coincidences."

He lifted the wire, where a drop of blood glistened. In the flower's bluish glow, it appeared almost black.

"Detecting anomalous electromagnetic field fluctuations," Arc's voice carried something akin to alarm. "Readings exceed all previous measurements."

As the bloodied wire approached the flower, the laboratory space began to change - light born in the rose's crystalline heart flowed through the air like liquid silver.

The silvery glow filled the laboratory, reflecting off the glass surfaces of instruments, flasks, and monitors. In these reflections, reality seemed to fragment into multiple variants - like in a hall of mirrors, where each glass shows its own version of events. In one reflection, the wire was still in his hands; in another, it was already falling to the floor. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement in the flask's curved surface: a familiar silhouette in a worn lab coat bent over the desk, hurriedly writing something in a notebook. Grandfather... his heart skipped a beat, but before the young man could look more carefully, a wave of light consumed all reflections, dissolving the very fabric of space.