During the second test, heartbroken and not thinking clearly, Beale makes a mad dash through the machine into the wormhole, with these parting words: “You may own the Dahlia, but you don’t own me.” In an attempt to avoid losing ownership of his company, Beale had reasoned that he needed to send something through the wormhole — namely, himself — that did not belong to Meisner from an intellectual-property standpoint. He is thus transported one week into the past to the time of the first test.

Beale is convinced that on this “second run”, he can outwit Meisner and Abby and prevent his research from falling into their hands. He seduces Abby but soon learns that she was honestly attracted to him: A science writer herself, she had read an article about him and crafted a fanciful story in a journal about what he must be like. Having learned more about him from Meisner and researching his work, she is powerfully attracted to him. Beale reads the fictional story but finds that it is a somewhat inaccurate representation of his work and is also unfinished.

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