Chapter 1 The Accident #2
My mother’s jaw sets. “All right.”
“It’s fine,” my mother adds quickly, and I hear the lie underneath the reassurance. “We have protocols.”
Protocols. Great. I love being near things that require protocols.
A small crowd gathers behind us—suits, lanyards, and security with restless eyes. I stand close to my mother, trying to look like I belong.
Below, technicians move around the Array in coordinated paths. Their movements are precise, practiced.
Dr. Malik steps to a console near the glass, his voice carrying through discreet speakers. “Thank you for coming. We’ll begin shortly. As always, I want to emphasize: this is an experiment in controlled conditions. Safety is our first priority.”
My mother leans toward me. “If at any point you feel uncomfortable, we can leave.”
“I’m uncomfortable in my own bed right now,” I whisper. “It’s fine. I’m here.”
She looks at me, and I think she’s about to say something else—something real. But Dr. Malik speaks again, and she turns her attention back to the glass.
“We are initiating the containment field,” he announces.
Below, a technician flips a switch. Lights along the rings ignite in sequence—white to blue to a deep, pulsing violet. The hum in the air shifts, deepening until I feel it in my teeth.
My skin prickles.
I swallow. “Is it supposed to…feel like that?”
“Yes,” my mother says, though her voice is tight. “It’s electromagnetic. You’re safe up here.”
Safe. Right.
On the far wall, a large display blooms to life with a visualization: lines and arcs, a shifting waveform that looks like an angry heartbeat.
Dr. Malik continues, describing “quantum coherence” and “temporal stability” as if they mean something to me. I catch fragments—causality, closed curves, if successful…
If successful, then what? Yesterday? Tomorrow? Proof my entire existence is a coin flip?
I find myself leaning forward, despite the fear. Wonder has teeth, too.
My mother’s profile is sharp in the glass reflection. She looks younger when she’s focused like this, stripped of domestic concerns and my messiness. In this place, she is pure purpose.
And then the alarms start.
It’s not a fire alarm. It’s sharper, lower. A tone that bypasses polite society and hits the primitive part of your brain that recognizes predators.
Lights along the ceiling flash amber.
People freeze. The woman in the expensive suit makes a small sound like she can’t believe emergencies would dare happen in her presence.
My mother’s hand shoots out, gripping my arm. “Stay here.”
“What—?” I start.
Her comm device chirps. Voices overlap. “—breach on Level Two—” “—unauthorized access—” “—lockdown—”
The walkway doors slide shut with a soft thud that feels too gentle for what it means.
“Mom,” I say, because suddenly I am eight years old again and the world is too big.
My mother presses a finger to her earpiece. “Confirm location.”
Dr. Malik’s face on the other side of the glass is suddenly not charming. It’s pure calculation. “Containment?”
A technician below points at the display. The waveform spikes—sharp, jagged, wrong.
“It’s fluctuating,” someone says through the speakers, voice strained. “We’re seeing instability in the field parameters.”
My mother’s eyes flick to me. “Emma, we are leaving.”
“The doors—” I gesture helplessly.
As if in response, a panel in the wall beside us slides open. A security officer appears, breathless. “Ma’am, we need you to—”
The building shudders.
Not like an earthquake. More like…a hesitation. Like reality itself glitches for a fraction of a second.
The projected model above the atrium flickers.
The air tastes metallic, like I’ve bitten my tongue.
Down in the Array room, the violet lights flare brighter, then dim, then flare again, pulsing like a warning.
“Shut it down!” Dr. Malik snaps.
Technicians move fast. Hands fly over consoles. Someone slams a red cover open.
The waveform on the display goes wild, spiking into a forest of noise.
My mother pulls me toward the security officer. “We need an exit now.”
“We’re in lockdown,” the officer says, eyes darting. “There’s an intruder. We can’t—”
Another shudder. The glass beneath my feet seems to ripple, just slightly, like water disturbed by a pebble.
I grab the railing, my stomach dropping. “Mom—”
Her grip on my arm is iron now. “Emma, look at me.”
I do. Her face is pale. Her eyes are wide in a way I have never seen before.
She is afraid.
“Whatever happens,” she says, voice fierce, urgent, “you stay with me.”
“Okay,” I whisper, because what else is there?
Below, someone yells. A figure in a dark uniform runs across the floor near the Array, chased by security. For a second, it looks absurd—like a movie scene. Then the figure throws something.
A small, black object arcs through the air and hits the base of the Array.
A dull pop.
The violet lights surge into blinding white.
The hum becomes a roar.
My hair lifts, static-charged. The air thickens, pressing against my skin like invisible hands. The glass wall in front of us vibrates.
My mother jerks me back, and I stumble, my heel catching on nothing because my legs have forgotten how to be useful.
“Shield!” someone screams.
The world tilts.
A wave of force slams through the walkway. It’s not wind. It’s not heat. It’s something stranger—something that feels like being pulled and pushed at the same time, as if the universe can’t decide where to put me.
I clutch the railing. My fingers slip.
My mother’s hand clamps around my wrist, anchoring me. Her nails dig into my skin.
“Emma!” she shouts, and her voice sounds far away, distorted by the roar.
I try to answer, but my throat locks.
The glass beneath us ripples again—no, not ripples. Bends.
The air in front of the Array shimmers, and suddenly there is a tear in the room—not a physical rip, but a distortion, like a hole punched through a photograph.
On the other side of it, I see—
A blur of movement. Dark shapes. Flickering light. A flash of gold.
And for one impossible heartbeat, the distinct smell of smoke and animals, sharp and real, cuts through the sterile lemon air.
My brain tries to categorize it, to file it under memory or hallucination or your sleep-deprived mind is doing something dramatic.
But my skin knows.
This is not imagination. This is somewhere else.
My mother’s grip tightens. “Hold on!”
I open my mouth to tell her I am holding on, I am trying, I am terrified, I love her, I’m sorry, I—
The force yanks again.
And this time, it pulls me.
My fingers tear free of the railing. My body lurches forward. My mother’s hand is the only thing keeping me from being launched into the shimmering wrongness.
Her face is inches from mine now, distorted by the bending air. She is shouting something, but the sound is swallowed by the roar.
I see her mouth form my name, and the moment her eyes change—when she realizes her strength is not enough.
Time stretches, sharp and cruel. I can see every detail: the tiny freckle at the edge of her jaw, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, the way her badge swings on its lanyard like a pendulum.
Her hand slips.
No. Not slips. Fails.
Like the universe has decided I no longer belong to her.
Her fingers lose purchase on my skin, and suddenly I am weightless.
Falling, but not down.
Into the tear.
The lab dissolves around me. Light fractures. Sound collapses. My stomach lurches as if I’m on a roller coaster built by a sadist.
Images flash—too fast, too sharp.
Water. A field of flowers. A city on fire.
Voices. Music. The crack of something like cannon fire.
My own breath, loud and panicked.
My mother’s scream, ripped away.
The smell of lemon disinfectant is gone. Replaced by coal smoke and sweat and something sweet—horse? Hay? My brain skitters, unable to keep up.
My skin burns with cold. My teeth chatter without permission. My vision tunnels.
I think, absurdly, of the sign in the lobby.
Are you flammable?
Yes, I want to tell it. Apparently I am also time-travel compatible.
Then everything goes dark.
* * *
Consciousness returns the way a tide returns—slow, inevitable, dragging debris with it.
I am cold.
My cheek is pressed against something hard. Wood, maybe. Splinters bite into my skin.
I try to move and regret it instantly. Pain flares behind my eyes. My stomach twists.
Somewhere above me, voices.
Male voices. Unfamiliar cadence. Not American. Not any of the accents I collected like souvenirs in Europe, either.
“—she’s breathing,” someone says, and the words are English, but the shape of them is…different. Rounder. Older.
Another voice snorts. “She’s dressed like a lunatic. Could be drunk.”
I blink, and my eyes refuse to cooperate. The darkness is thick, but not total. There is a faint gray light seeping in from somewhere. It smells like damp stone and old straw.
I lift my head a fraction. Something scrapes at my hair. A low ceiling.
My heart starts to hammer.
I force my eyes to focus.
Bars.
Not metaphorical. Literal iron bars, shadowed against the faint light.
Panic surges, hot and immediate. I suck in a breath, and the air tastes like soot.
Horses.
I can smell horses.
Coal smoke. Dirty wool. Stale beer. Human sweat without deodorant.
The sound of hooves echoes somewhere outside, distant but unmistakable.
My brain tries to make it make sense. Theme bar? Historical reenactment? Worst immersive theater experience of all time?
I push myself up, muscles trembling, and my hands brush against fabric that is not mine. Rough. Scratchy.
“She’s waking,” the first voice says.
Footsteps approach. A shadow looms.
I open my mouth, and my voice comes out as a croak. “Mom?”
Silence.
Then, very clearly, a man says, with mild disgust and absolute certainty:
“Is the vagrant dead, then?”