ELEVEN

Sterling Quint came to work at 7 A.M., looking more dapper than ever in his double-breasted Benaduce suit, Vanya silk tie, and four-hundred-dollar pocket square. His wrists were garnished with eighteen-karat-gold cuff links that were molded in the elaborate pattern of watchworks, the closest thing he had to a lucky charm. He’d first worn them ten years ago at a grand convention hall in Havana, where he stood before two thousand of his fellow temporal physicists and assured them in his most regal baritone that Earth was not an only child.

“We are surrounded by infinite kin,” he’d declared. “Siblings and half siblings. Distant cousins. Even twins. These parallel realities share our physical space, lying just outside our perceptions. I believe that one day we’ll be able to access them, like so many frequencies on a radio.”

Quint was not the first scientist to present that notion, but he did offer a mathematical description of his multiverse in action, a theoretical equation that unified two competing ideas about the nature of time and purported to explain most if not all of the paradoxes involved with temporal manipulation.

Though his Radio Worlds Theory was untestable and could neither be proved nor disproved, it went on to dominate the university chalkboards and make him a global star of the physics field . . . for a time. Eventually his scientific peers, no better than teenage girls with their fickle tastes and fad worship, discarded his theory for a newer and shinier rival.

Now Quint could only grin at the thunderous uproar he’d create at the next temporal physicists’ conference. The looks on their pasty white faces when he unveiled the scientific find of the century.

The meeting room was large enough to seat a hundred, but only six folding chairs had been set in front of the dais. Most of Quint’s employees stood along the walls. Another few scurried onstage, rushing to prepare the mechanical devices that Quint would soon demonstrate for his guests.

Shortly after nine, Czerny arrived with five Silvers in tow. They approached their seats in a slow single file, their curious gazes fixed on the many strange contraptions up front. Hannah cast a baffled glance at a young and lanky post-grad who was dressed from head to foot in a blue rubber suit.

“What’s with the deep-sea diver?”

“It’s not a diving suit,” Quint told her. “You’ll see what it does.”

Zack sat down last. He dragged the sixth folding chair in front of him and used it as a footstool.

“Okay, Sterling. We’re here. Dazzle us.”

Quint glowered at him. “Put that back.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this for the prophet Elijah?”

“I think you already guessed who it’s for.”

“I have,” Zack admitted. “You could have just told us, you know.”

Amanda eyed him strangely. “What are you talking about?”

The double doors opened again. Now Beatrice escorted a young Asian man in a dark blue sweatsuit. He swept his nervous gaze through the crowd, recognizing only Quint and a handful of physicists. The five people in folding chairs triggered a cloudier air of familiarity, as if he’d seen them all in dreams.

One in particular stood out, just as she stood up.

“Oh my God . . .”

Hannah had only met him once, for a short but eventful eighteen minutes. Still, with nearly seven billion people gone, it was a drop of medicine to see him again. It was just so damn sweet to find another survivor from her world.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

“Hi, Theo.”

—

The last any Silver had seen of Theo Maranan, he lay unconscious on a stretcher, bleeding from his nose and mouth. The Salgados had given him a baby spot sedative, which reacted violently to the alcohol in his bloodstream, which threw him into a coma.

Though Azral had been surprisingly tepid to the loss of Natalie Tipton, Jury Curado, and the elusive Evan Rander, he was far less pleased about Theo’s plight. Four weeks ago, just moments after Theo’s bloody arrival in Terra Vista, Quint received an irate text message.

Quint blanched as he keyed his reply.

The news stunned Quint. For five long years, all of Azral’s instructions had come from prerecorded videos, all mysteriously delivered to some corner of Quint’s house and accompanied by staggering amounts of cash. On the morning the nine Silvers became flesh in this world, Azral suddenly began communicating through mobile texts. Now suddenly he was coming in person.

At midnight, a round white portal bloomed on the wall of Quint’s office. An exquisitely tall couple stepped through the surface. Though Quint had no trouble recognizing Azral from the videos, the brown-haired woman was new to him. She wore a fluffy fur coat over a sheer cocktail dress. The shopping bag in her hand was adorned with Japanese text. Quint reeled to wonder if the pair had just stepped away from a sunny afternoon in Kyoto. (It was actually Osaka.)

Mercifully, Azral appeared to be in a genial mood now. With a soft grin, he introduced his companion as Esis Pelletier. Quint had no idea if she was his spouse, his sibling, or possibly both. (She was neither.) He had a hard time believing she was the medical specialist in question. The woman dressed like a European prostitute and grinned like she was high on four different opiates.

“Precious Sterling,” she cooed. “We gave them silver in honor of your name. We found it amusing. It still makes my heart laugh, when no one’s looking.”

Despite her questionable state of mind, Esis wasted no time getting to work. Quint watched with rapt fascination as she cut a bloodless path through Theo’s forehead, using tools and gels Quint had never seen anywhere. After seventeen minutes of tinkering, she closed Theo without a trace of incision. He looked exactly as he had before, except now his eyelids fluttered with restless life.

“He’ll awaken tomorrow,” Azral informed Quint. “It’s fortunate. That one’s of particular value to us. Had we lost him, I would have held you responsible.”

Quint felt a cold squeeze around his heart. “I apologize again. Are you . . . do you wish to see the others while you’re here?”

“Let them sleep,” said Azral. “They had a trying day. I would like to meet your staff, however. Please summon them.”

By 2 A.M., the physicists and Salgados had assembled in the lobby, sleepy and perplexed. To all subordinates, even Czerny, Azral Pelletier was merely an obscure Canadian philanthropist who’d given Quint carte blanche to run the operation. Azral did little to counter that notion. He shook everyone’s hands, congratulated them on their fine work, then wished them a merry evening.

Esis smirked at Quint’s befuddlement. “If you saw the strings like we do, you’d know the need for this charade. My wealth labors now to prevent future difficulties.”

Once the staff left to return to their homes and beds, Azral summoned a new portal in the wall. He turned around at the rippling surface and looked to Quint.

“Keep Maranan isolated. Until he recovers from his alcohol addiction, he’ll be a negative presence among the others.”

“And be extra nice to David,” Esis added, with a teasing smirk. “He’s my favorite.”

“I’ll do that. I promise. But . . .”

The pair eyed Quint quizzically, waiting for him to finish his thought.

“I’ve followed your instructions for five years now, Azral. I’ve done everything you asked. I’m just wondering when I finally get the chance to learn about you. I mean . . . where do you come from? When do you come from? What’s your ultimate purpose with these people?”

The Pelletiers smiled with enough wry amusement to make Quint regret his outburst.

“How soon you turn from seeking forgiveness to favor,” Azral mocked.

“I’m a scientist. Do you expect me to be incurious?”

“We expect you to be patient, Sterling. This is just the beginning of our relationship. For now, your focus should be on the Silvers. Keep them comfortable. Keep them content.”

“Our task will be simpler if they remain here willingly,” Esis added.

Quint’s thoughts turned to Zack, who’d been so stubborn and clever about securing an independent future. “And if they choose to leave?”

Azral’s deep blue gaze turned chillingly severe. “Then this won’t be the beginning at all.”

The couple disappeared into the shimmering circle. It shrank away to nothingness.

As he waited for his thumping heart to settle, Quint cursed himself for his whimpering subservience. For all he knew, Azral was a mediocrity in his native era—a fraud, a mental patient. And yet here was the great Sterling Quint, begging for knowledge like a dog begged for scraps.

Still, indignity was a small price to pay for this scientific windfall, a chance to forever rise above his simpering peers. For the greater prize, Quint resolved to do his job. Most important, he’d do it without any more mistakes. On the short list of things he didn’t want to learn from Azral was how he handled the people who disappointed him.

—

Hannah pulled away from Theo and studied him. When she first met him, he looked like a shipwreck victim. Now his face was clean-shaven and his hair was trimmed to a more civilized shag.

“I had no idea you were awake,” she said. “I must have asked about you a hundred times. All they told me was that you were hanging in there.”

Theo processed her with awkward, busy eyes. She recognized the look.

“You forgot my name, didn’t you? It’s all right. I’m Hannah.”

Czerny stepped in. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that. Due to his unfortunate mishap, he doesn’t remember his first day here.”

She looked to Theo again. “You don’t remember me at all? That talk we had in the van?”

As he raised his palms in shrugging remorse, his sleeves rolled back, revealing the Asian script tattoo on his left wrist and the shiny silver bracelet on his right. It had been nearly two weeks since Zack removed her own bangle. She never thought she’d have to look at one again.

“Okay, well, I can fill you in later. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

Theo thanked her, even though the state of all-rightness seemed about as distant as Alpha Centauri. He’d spent the last month tucked away in his one-man rehab unit on the second floor, with his own catered meals, his own lumivision, his own sweaty struggles. On the upside, he was truly sober for the first time in years. That made him only slightly prepared to be integrated with the other survivors. He was only slightly ready to hear what Quint had to say.

The esteemed physicist motioned Theo to the empty chair. “If you would.”

Theo sat down at the end of the row, drumming a nervous beat on his leg. The cartoonist offered him a smile and a handshake. “Zack Trillinger.”

“Theo Maranan. Hi. Did we, uh, also meet before?”

“Nope. This is our first time.”

“Okay,” he said, suppressing the hot urge to laugh. Zack already seemed as familiar as a best friend. He had no idea why.

Quint nodded to Czerny, who dimmed the lights and switched on the lumiplex. He cleared his throat, then the presentation began.

—

The first image to appear on the screen was a satellite photo of the world. Though Czerny ran the projector-like device from the other side of the room, Quint was able to move in front of it without casting a shadow or wearing the swirling colors of Earth on his skin.

“To start, I’d like to thank you all for your patience. You’ve gotten a lot of nonanswers to a lot of pressing questions. I know how frustrating that can be. Believe me, it was never our goal to keep you in the dark. We just want to portion out the information in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you. Given all the strife with your physical anomalies, you can understand why we’d hold off on discussing the many quirks and differences of this new world.”

Theo scanned his fellow refugees, wondering if he’d failed to notice goat horns or cat eyes. When David caught his gaze, he turned his attention back to Quint.

“But now we feel enough progress has been made to attempt a basic orientation. This is only the first of what I hope to be many sessions. For today, we’ll start small. Constantin.”

Czerny pressed a button on the lumiplex. The wide shot of Earth changed to an illustration of an ancient Egyptian pyramid. As Quint spoke, familiar images advanced in quick order. The crucifixion of Christ. The Mona Lisa. The American Civil War. The montage ended with a grainy photo of a walrus-like man in a dark business suit.

“From our many interviews with you, we feel confident that the history of your world and ours are identical up to the early twentieth century. The man on-screen, William Howard Taft, is the last president our two Americas have in common.”

Mia and Zack scribbled into their respective books. Zack’s notation was a quick doodle of Taft, with “1912?” written underneath.

Quint continued. “So, what changed? What was the first thing to happen on one Earth but not the other? Under current limitations, it’d be impossible to pinpoint the exact moment in which our timelines diverged.”

The screen changed to a black slide with a single line of text. October 5, 1912.

“However, we’ve identified the first major event to occur on just one Earth. That was simply a matter of asking. We learned that the date on-screen holds no significance to any of you. And yet it’s a day that everyone on this world knows by heart. It even has its own holiday.”

Now the screen gave way to a movie clip, a pulled-back view of a grand old city at the brink of dawn.

“This scene is from a 1978 historical drama called The Halo of Gotham. In addition to being one of the most acclaimed films of all time, it provides an extremely faithful reenactment of the event I’m about to discuss. There’s no footage of the actual—”

“What city is that?” Hannah interjected.

“New York,” said Zack.

“This is New York,” Quint replied with mild annoyance. “Hence the ‘Gotham.’ Anyway, on the fifth of October, 1912, at 5:52 in the morning, the entire—”

The Silvers gasped as a dome of white light erupted in the center of the city. It grew in all directions, devouring everything in its path. By the time Czerny paused the video, the dome had overtaken the scene, splitting the clouds and stretching deep across the landscape.

“We call it the Cataclysm,” Quint said. “A massive discharge of energy centered in northern Brooklyn, in the area once known as Winthrop Park. In five seconds, the burst expanded 4.7 miles in every direction, destroying 24 percent of Queens, 22 percent of Brooklyn, and 68 percent of Manhattan. Everything below the upper reaches of Central Park.”

Hannah and Theo covered their mouths. Amanda watched the screen in wincing anguish.

“How many people?”

“A little over two million,” Quint replied.

Mia clenched her jaw in tight suppression. She was a hairsbreadth away from bawling at the unbearable fragility of existence, but she didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not in front of Sterling Quint, a man who had a very cruel definition of “starting small.”

“To call this a transformational event would be an understatement,” he continued. “For America and the entire world, everything changed in an instant. Countless books have been written about the rippling effects of the Cataclysm—on culture, on politics, the economy. Those are all topics for another time. For now, I want to discuss how the event forever changed science.”

The projection advanced to sepia-toned photos of the altered New York landscape. A quarter skyline of Manhattan. A ten-story building, maimed at the base by a giant curved bite. A bird’s-eye view of Central Park, with a diagonal arc of wreckage separating the surviving greenery from acres upon acres of flat gray ash.

“As you can imagine, the mystery of the Cataclysm became a top priority for scientists worldwide. The explosion clearly wasn’t man-made, as the damage went far beyond the limits of any human weapon. It left no heat signature, no radioactive fallout. A person standing just five feet outside the blast radius could have gone on to live for decades. In fact, the last known survivor from that famous halo—an infant at the time—only recently passed away.”

The next image was an old photo of three pale men in lab coats, posing in front of an elaborate machine. David motioned to the one in the center.

“That’s Niels Bohr. He was my father’s idol.”

Quint smiled. “Mine as well. Though the cause of the Cataclysm has yet to be discovered, the energy itself was successfully reproduced by Bohr and his fellow Danish scientists in 1933. They called it the femtekraft, or ‘fifth force.’ Over the next two decades, it went on to adopt many other monikers. White force, whitewave, nivius, cretatis. In 1955, when its true nature was at long last discovered, it took on its final name. Temporis.”

The screen went blank. The overhead lights came on. The Silvers all winced in adjustment.

“Today we know enough about temporic energy to fill a library,” Quint declared. “And yet it’ll take a dozen more generations to get a true grasp of its nature. Simply put, the Danes had it right. Temporis is yet another governing force of the universe, the quantum building blocks of what we perceive as time. Though the cost was great, the Cataclysm triggered a scientific revolution like none other. We’ve acquired the means to bend time like a prism bends light. More than bend it, we can stretch it, harden it, even reverse it. Through temporis, we’ve accessed the watchworks of existence itself.”

Quint could see from his guests’ fidgety stances that he was flustering them. He swallowed the rest of his spiel and took the shortcut back to their concerns.

“For the last few weeks, you’ve wondered if you’re unique in your abilities. The answer is both yes and no. With the exception of one of you, all the amazing things you can do have been done countless times before by others, myself included. The difference between you and us, what truly makes you special, is your innate ability to wield temporis.”

He gestured at the showcase of gadgets behind him. “The rest of us need machines.”

Quint moved to the left side of the room and opened the door of a boxy white appliance that looked like a quarter-scale clothes dryer. He retrieved a banana from inside and tossed it at Zack.

“Before I demonstrate the first device, would you do me a favor and age that?”

“Uh, okay.”

Though the act of reversing had become as simple as third-grade math, Zack had a trickier time sending objects the other way. He grimaced with effort. Soon the banana turned spotted, then brown, then pungently rotten. Quint directed him to put it back in the machine.

As Zack returned to his seat, Theo drank him in with saucer eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“I know. Trippy, isn’t it?”

Quint closed the door, then pressed a few buttons on the contraption’s keypad. The box quietly whirred.

“This machine is known as a rejuvenator or, informally, a juve. The technology was invented in 1975 but didn’t reach the consumer market until 1980. At first there were certain issues with tooping, which we can talk about another day.”

The juve let out a high ding. Quint popped the door, then brandished a perfect yellow banana to his audience.

“As you see, the device matches Zack’s talents by creating a localized field that reverses the flow of time. It can restore anything that fits inside it, though it does irreparable damage to electronic circuits and batteries. Its primary function is exactly what was demonstrated: the restoration of food. Today you’ll rarely find a kitchen without one.”

Zack wasn’t sure how to react. From the moment he gained control of his weirdness, he’d felt like a borderline superhero. Now he realized he was only as skilled as a common household appliance. He was as impressive as the hero who could turn bread into toast.

“Can it also advance an object’s timeline?” David asked.

“Yes. That feature’s used for accelerated defrosting and marinating.”

Amanda thought about the coffin-size device she’d noticed in the ambulance on her traumatic first day. “What about people? Couldn’t that same technology be used to heal?”

“Good question. There is indeed a device that works on the same principles. It’s called a reviver. They’re expensive and highly regulated. You need a special medical license to operate them.”

Zack snapped out of his dolor. “Wait a minute. If you guys have the technology to undo all the bad things that happen to people, wouldn’t that eliminate the nagging problem of, you know, death?”

Amanda nodded. “That’s what I was wondering.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Quint replied. “As human beings are far more complex than your average food product, there are risks in using temporis to revert people to a prior state—neurological issues, vascular problems, infertility. The further you bend the clock, the greater the chance of adverse effects. As a result, revivers are mostly limited to life-or-death situations, and usually for traumas that are less than twelve hours old. It’s certainly not a tool for fighting something like cancer.”

Mia raised her hand until Quint acknowledged her. “What about the recently deceased? I mean if someone died six hours ago and you reverse them seven hours . . .”

“Revivers can indeed restore the spark of life to a dead body, but not a dead brain. The temporis turns a corpse into a living vegetable, and even that typically lasts a couple of hours until death comes again. The technology gets more sophisticated each year, so who knows how long these limits will remain? I can say that revivers are much safer on animals. Veterinarians use them to extend the life of household pets.”

Hannah gaped with revelation. “Oh, that’s what it was.”

Upon receiving a roomful of glassy stares, she described the first person she met on this world, a pony-haired teenage activist who sat outside a supermarket, urging a stop to pet extensions. Hannah finally knew what the term meant, but she couldn’t understand the controversy.

“There are people out there who see all forms of time manipulation as unnatural,” Quint explained. “Even unholy. And then there are other, more rational individuals who simply believe that animals, like people, have a right to die with dignity. When you consider that the oldest dog in America is currently forty-one years old, it’s hard to dismiss their argument.”

David whistled in wonder. “Forty-one. That’s amazing.”

“It’s awful,” said Mia. “You’d think that poor dog would want to die at this point.”

Quint shook his head. “Keep in mind that reversal is total. When you undo a year of life, you undo a year of memories. From the dog’s perspective, he’s merely reliving the same year over and over. He’s frozen at a mental age of ten.”

“Huh. Just like Zack.”

Half the room erupted in chuckles. Zack wagged a wry finger at Hannah. “Well played. Well timed. I hate you, but kudos.”

Theo clenched his fists until they throbbed. He was two bombshells away from structural collapse, and yet the others seemed to be handling it just fine. Why aren’t they freaking out? Why am I the only one ready to scream?

Unamused by Zack and Hannah’s silliness, Quint motioned Charlie Merchant to the stage. The slender young physicist looked slightly ridiculous in his blue rubber suit. Insulated wires connected his thick gloves to a small electronic console on his back. The Silvers watched in quiet bemusement as he wrapped a dangling hood over his head and snapped a clear bresin guard-mask over his face.

Hannah winced with concern. “He’s not about to get younger, is he?”

“No,” Quint replied. “You in particular will appreciate what he’s about to do.”

Charlie pressed a button on his glove. The device on his back whirred to life. A mesh of glowing blue lines appeared on his suit. Before the Silvers could process the odd display, he dashed back and forth across the stage—fifty feet each way, five times in each direction.

He did this all in a blurry six seconds.

The guests gaped as he came to a panting stop. Wisps of steam rose from his shoulder blades.

“The device Charlie’s wearing on his back is called a shifter,” Quint explained. “The outfit itself is called a speedsuit. As you’ve no doubt gathered, the gear doesn’t imbue the wearer with any special motor skills. It merely creates a temporic field in which time is accelerated. What was six seconds to us was a full minute to Charlie.”

Quint patted the young man’s shoulder. “Thank you. You can go change.”

Hannah watched Charlie exit. “God. Is that what I look like when I do it?”

“It is,” Quint told her.

“And is there one of those in every house also?”

“No. Speedsuits are expensive and difficult to maintain. But the technology isn’t limited to clothing. A temporic shift can be generated in any enclosed space. There are special cinemas where you can watch a two-hour movie and yet only lose twenty minutes of your day. Restaurants have special booths where a busy diner can enjoy a leisurely lunch in minutes. The technology’s been around for over three decades. Most of us can’t remember a time when our personal day was fixed at twenty-four hours.”

“How far can it bend time?” Zack asked. “I mean, is it possible to squeeze a year into a day?”

“No. By federal law, no shifter can go beyond twelve times normal speed, or 12x, as they call it. And there are limits, both legal and physical, to the number of consecutive hours one can spend in a shifted state. In most places, the cap is twenty.”

Amanda looked to Hannah with fresh concern. “What’s the danger of going beyond those limits?”

“That’s a source of endless debate,” Quint responded. “Aside from the small bouts of resistance one might encounter when tampering with their body’s natural clock, some psychologists believe the human mind can only handle so much disruption to its natural cycle without suffering . . . issues. Most of their concerns are either theoretical or anecdotal.”

Neither Given took comfort in Quint’s assurance. Great, thought Hannah. Now she’s going to treat me even more like a time bomb.

Moving on, Quint retrieved a small object from a display table. It looked like a ten-inch dinner candle without the wick.

“There are other forms of temporis that are specific enough in application to earn their own names. One of them . . .”

Pressing a button at the base of the candle caused a floating white flame to appear.

“. . . is lumis.”

While the others squinted curiously at the fire, Mia started a new page in her journal. She’d seen lumicands on two occasions now and was eager to learn how they worked.

“Temporic energy moves in waves, as does light. Using one to manipulate the other has opened up some interesting new avenues. This isn’t a real flame. It’s merely a temporal projection, a visual ghost that’s been digitally brightened and desaturated.”

Quint stepped inside a structure the size of a phone booth. It had no walls, just four metal posts supporting a thick ceiling. A series of round glass lenses lined the inside of each column.

“Over the last quarter century, lumis has been adopted into hundreds of everyday devices, and has made dozens more obsolete. The television. The lightbulb. Even windows and mirrors are being replaced by more versatile lumic screens. And as you’ve seen from this little device, lumis is the key to holographic imaging.”

Quint flicked the candle four more times, then exited the contraption. From the back of the room, Beatrice entered commands into a handheld console. Suddenly a second Quint appeared inside the booth, indistinguishable from the original except for the faintest of shimmers. Both Quints addressed the Silvers, though no sound came from the duplicate’s mouth.

“This machine is called a ghostbox. Like David, it reproduces images from the past with lifelike accuracy. These devices come in all sizes and are used for everything from store displays to forensic imaging.”

Just as Quint had done fifty seconds prior, his ghost lit the lumicand four times, then departed the booth. It vanished between posts.

“Does it come with audio?” Mia wondered. “Or are these all silent ghosts?”

“As we have yet to discover a way to restore sound waves through temporis, ghostboxes are forced to rely on standard digital recorders. This machine is currently muted.”

“But David’s ghosts come with sound.”

Quint nodded. “Yes. I was surprised to learn that myself. Obviously his abilities go well beyond the current technology. Perhaps with his help, we’ll be able to catch up.”

David leaned back in his seat, releasing a grin that was smarmy enough to make his friends chuckle. Theo wasn’t as amused. He’d noticed the boy earlier and felt a strange sense of outrage, as if David were mocking everyone in the room. He figured the mistrust was his own personal hang-up. Theo knew a prodigy when he saw one, and he had very strong opinions about prodigies.

Quint moved on to a large steel apparatus that resembled an empty doorframe. As he turned a key at the base, the metal hummed with power. Amanda jumped in her seat.

The machine suddenly turned opaque with a waxy white substance that by now was familiar to everyone but Theo. He cocked his head in puzzlement.

“Tempis,” said Quint. “First discovered in 1984. Made commercially available in 1990. Some people refer to it as solid time, but that’s a misnomer. It’s merely air molecules, temporally manipulated into a uniquely solid state.”

David leered suspiciously at the bright white plane. “How can you adjust the speed of air molecules without creating a temperature shift? I mean we should be feeling it from here.”

Quint beamed. If he’d had more students like David, he wouldn’t have hated teaching.

“I’d love nothing more than to discuss it with you, one-on-one. For now, I’ll just say that tempis is one of the most perplexing substances known to man. It has the atomic structure of a hard transition metal but the weight of a noble gas. Somehow it exists in a paradoxical state in which it can be both airy and dense.”

“Huh. Just like Hannah.”

More people laughed as the actress irreverently narrowed her eyes at Zack. He shined her a preening smirk.

“Don’t start a battle you can’t finish, honey.”

“Oh, I’ll finish it.”

Determined to ignore them, Quint looked to Amanda. “I noticed you reacted to the energy before the barrier was even activated.”

“Yeah. It felt like someone tapping my shoulder from twenty feet away. What does that mean?”

“It suggests you have an innate sensitivity to all tempis. That’s fascinating.”

“Is it safe to touch?” Mia asked.

Quint thumped his fist against the surface. “Perfectly safe. Many specialized workers wear it as protective gear.”

“How?” David asked. “It’s a flat pane.”

“Tempis can either be projected through lenses, as it is with this barrier, or generated along conductive metal wires. Using a flexible mesh, the substance can be molded into virtually any shape.”

Zack noticed a thermos-size generator at the base of the frame. “So this runs on electricity.”

“No. Most temporic devices are powered by something called solis. That’s for another session.”

Amanda studied the barrier with heavy eyes. Now that she knew the name of the force inside her, she rolled it around her thoughts like a boulder. Tempis, tempis, tempis. She squeezed her golden cross, praying for the day this beast, this madness, this tempis-tempis-tempis stopped scaring the hell out of her. It didn’t help that her sister seemed equally frightened by it.

Quint peered at the clock on the wall. “Does anyone have any questions?”

“Yes,” said Zack and Hannah, in synch.

David raised a hand. “Me too.”

“Okay. Hannah first.”

“I once asked Martin Salgado what makes all the cars and ambulances fly, and he said ‘aeris.’ Where does that fit in?”

“I was going to save that for next time,” Quint said. “But since you asked, aeris is just an altered form of tempis, one that can be molecularly compelled to move in a specific direction, even up. With enough aeris, you can lift entire buildings. Since its introduction twenty years ago, aeris has replaced jet propulsion as the primary means of commercial flight. It can be found in roughly a third of all automobiles. I imagine in another twenty years, ground cars will be an antiquity. Zack?”

“Have there been any other cataclysms since 1912? And has anyone developed a weapon that more or less does the same thing?”

“Mercifully, no to both. The Cataclysm has been a one-time occurrence. And though temporis has certainly been weaponized in various ways, no one’s invented the means to re-create an event of that scale. If anyone does develop the technology, it’ll be either England or China.”

“Why not the U.S.?”

“America hasn’t been involved in war since 1898.”

Quint wasn’t surprised to see six hanging jaws in response. He sighed patiently.

“Again, a broader topic for another day. I’ll just say for now that among its many other effects, the Cataclysm drove us inward as a nation. David, you have a question?”

“Yes, I gather from your omission that there isn’t a device that does what Mia does. Correct?”

Quint emitted a smile that made Mia want to hide under her chair. “That is indeed the case. For all our advances, the act of time travel itself remains purely hypothetical. At least it did until our lovely young Mia came along. As far as science is concerned, she’s the first person in history to transport physical matter from one point in time to another.”

While Quint spoke, Zack furtively edged his sketchbook into Theo’s view. Among all the notes and doodles was a large query, circled twice.

What’s your weirdness?

Zack had left his pencil out for Theo’s use, but after five seconds of addled silence, he took it back to add a postscript.

Just being nosy. Forget I asked.

A few moments later, Theo commandeered the pad and wrote his reply. Zack eyed him in blinking turmoil. “Are you kidding?”

“Afraid not.”

“Wow. I don’t even know how to react to that.”

“Guess I don’t either.”

“Is everything all right?” Quint asked them.

“Yeah,” Zack replied. “Just a lot to absorb. I think our heads are about to spin off.”

“Well, why don’t we stop here then?”

Theo fled the room as fast as politeness would allow. Hannah watched him exit, then cautiously approached Zack.

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” the cartoonist replied, still vexed. When he asked Theo about his weirdness, he’d steeled his mind for yet another metaphysical brain-bender. But Theo’s answer truly threw him. A four-word deposition, delivered straight from right field.

I don’t have one.

—

That night, Theo ate his first dinner with the group. He kept a tense gaze at his food, forcing his eyes away from all the notable distractions—Amanda’s cast, Hannah’s chest, David’s teeming pile of raw sliced carrots. Even worse were Zack’s sporadic displays of time-twisting madness. He undid Theo’s bracelet with a tap of the finger, then proceeded on two separate requests to freshen up breads and vegetables. No one else seemed bothered by the sheer insanity of his table trick. And these were supposedly the people from Theo’s world.

Though he tried to stay quiet through the course of the meal, he was dragged through a gauntlet of idle queries by David. Maranan. Is that a Thai name? Filipino. Did you grow up in the Philippines? Nope. I was born and raised in San Francisco. How old are you? I’m twenty-three. Do you have any siblings? No. Just a whole mess of cousins.

“What made you decide on law school?” Zack asked.

Theo massaged his liberated wrist while he danced through the minefield of his past.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m from a big clan of overachievers. There was a lot of pressure to be someone. I think the plan was to get my JD, then a few years of public crusading, then local politics, then national politics, and then . . . I don’t know. My own monument, I guess. Something in a nice onyx.”

Zack smiled. He knew he liked Theo for a reason. “What did you do after you left?”

Theo’s dark chuckle was enough to make Zack regret the question. “Let’s just say I bummed around for a while.”

Hannah stroked her lip as she recalled their first conversation. He’d called himself a rehab washout, a blight on the family tree who’d tried to hang himself at least once. She didn’t think a lousy time at law school would be enough to send him on such a spiral.

David stirred his carrots with an idle fork. “How long have you been an alcoholic?”

“David!”

He looked to Amanda in surprise. “What? We’re all friends here. Must we pretend?”

In the wake of Mia’s stern glare, David sighed at Theo with grudging reproach. “If I crossed any lines of decorum, I sincerely apologize.”

Theo grinned softly. If anything, the faux pas made him appreciate David now. The kid was a fellow misfit, all brains and no wisdom. He reminded Theo of himself, in better days.

“It’s okay, David. You’re not the first one to bring it up. And you’re right. I’ve had a problem for . . . shit, it started about two years after law school, so it’s been at least five years.”

“That’s a long time,” David said.

“You’re telling me.”

Zack furrowed his brow. “Wait. You said you’re twenty-three.”

“I am,” Theo responded, with a weary exhale. Here we go again.

“And yet you dropped out of law school seven years ago.”

“I did.”

Hannah shook her head in amazement. “Holy crap. You were sixteen?”

Theo shrugged nonchalantly. “I told you I came from a clan of overachievers.”

“That goes beyond overachieving,” Amanda remarked. “You’re a full-on prodigy.”

He shrugged again. “Well, that’s what they called me, but I never thought I was particularly brilliant. Just good at tests. In any case, I did a fine job squandering any promise I might have had. I flamed out early, then went on to do very stupid things. I won’t bother you with details. I’ll just say that when my karma finally comes rolling around, you’re not going to want to be anywhere near me. You’re going to want to find another planet.”

Upon seeing the heavy sets of eyes around the table, Theo felt a pang of guilt for darkening their day. His inner demon wanted to keep on pushing, to list his crimes and grievances in such exquisite detail that none of them would speak to him again. He’d become quite adept at burning bridges, and there was a certain comfort in setting these five flames in advance.

Indeed, just twelve hours later, Mia received a rolled-up warning from future times.

Don’t let Theo push you away. He’s a good man who’s hanging by a thread. He needs you all. The time will come when everyone will need him.

And I mean everyone.

—

Three days after the presentation, Quint finally agreed to remove the clamp from the lumivision. Czerny unlocked the console to the whole broadcast spectrum—thirty-nine channels, no waiting.

“Just thirty-nine?” Zack asked.

Czerny assumed Zack was joking. To Europeans like himself, even thirty-nine channels smacked of American overindulgence.

Despite the simple geographical hierarchy, the Silvers had an impossible time telling the stations apart by content. Whether it was National-1, Southwest-6, or San Diego-13, it was all the same archaic tripe. The sitcoms were filled with pratfalls and slide whistles. The dramas were as bland as meringue. Even the advertisements were blunt, unsophisticated objects—suit-clad spokesmen delivering the joys of soapsheets to fluffy-haired housewives.

Soon only Zack had the stomach to watch live programs. He lingered mostly on newscasts, and ran to Czerny whenever he encountered some impenetrable word or phrase.

“The reporters keep referring to some people as Deps. What are those?”

“Nickname for Domestic Protections agents,” Czerny replied. “They’re our federal law enforcers. Our FBI, as you call them.”

“What are predictives?”

“Predictives are illegal pills that supposedly allow people to channel their ‘inner temporis’ and see the future. It’s all bunk. Most are just cheap hallucinogens.”

“Why does the anchorman close out each newscast by telling me to ‘keep walking’?”

“It’s just an American way of saying ‘Be well.’ Dates back to a famous Roosevelt speech. I mean Teddy Roosevelt. I keep forgetting your history has two.”

One news report shook Zack to the core, a nostalgic look at the reconstruction of Manhattan. In the wake of the Cataclysm, the world’s greatest engineers came together to design a second-draft city, one that would carry the island into the next century and beyond. The present-day New York was a marvel to look at, with brilliant glass spires of all shapes and colors, tempic tubes that connected buildings at the highest floors, ethereal ghost billboards, and ten different levels of aer traffic. The images reduced Zack to wet-eyed wonder.

As August turned to September, the others began to notice a change in Zack’s behavior. His once relentless wit died down to the occasional lazy quip. He spent more time alone in his room. When asked if he was okay, he merely replied with one-word answers. Sure. Yup. Spiffy.

On September 3, David and Mia played an impromptu game of “red hands” in the lobby, giggling as they attempted to thwart each other’s palm slaps. Zack watched from his drawing chair, stone-faced, until he suddenly dropped his sketchbook and marched upstairs to Quint’s office. For once the cartoonist met him with a serious face.

“You remember our deal, Sterling? About the money?”

“Of course. A thousand dollars for each of you. For each week of your continued cooperation.”

“Right. Tomorrow it’ll be six weeks.”

Quint’s stomach lurched. “And your point in bringing this up?”

“You know why,” Zack replied. “Get your cash together. I’m leaving.”

—

The Silvers’ next meal was a loud one.

“For God’s sake, Zack! Why?”

He’d announced his upcoming departure with drab triviality, as if he were merely changing e-mail addresses. The others weren’t so blasé.

“I mean, what will you do when the money runs out?” Hannah asked. “Street caricatures? You gonna go door-to-door offering to freshen up vegetables?”

Zack smirked. “I like that. I’ll start a whole business. They’ll call me the Wandering Juve.”

“This isn’t funny! This is the rest of your life!”

“Right. My life. My decision. And I decided enough is enough. Every day I stay here, I feel more and more like Quint’s house cat. I eat his food. I lounge on his chairs. I beg for information about the world when I should be out there seeing it for myself.”

“But where will you go?” Mia asked.

“I’ll make my way to New York. If it’s anything like my hometown, it’s still Alien Central, which means there’ll be people hiring under the table. I’ll work for a living. And when I’m not working, I’ll look for my brother.”

The dining room grew quiet as the others retreated into thought. David came back first.

“Zack, I’m going to be blunt with you in a way you won’t like. I say this because I respect you—”

“Just spit it out already.”

“You won’t find your brother,” David said. “Even on the slim chance that a handful of people in New York received bracelets like we did, there’s no guarantee Josh is one of them. And even if he was, you’re not going to find him in a city of eight million people. It’s just unrealistic.”

Zack tensely shrugged. “I suppose it is. But if there’s a chance, even a small one, I have to try.”

“And to hell with us, right?”

From the moment he dropped his news, Zack had simmered in the heat of Amanda’s harsh green glare. Her cast had come off an hour ago. She held her mended wrist, wiggling her fingers as if she were playing an invisible trumpet.

“I don’t enjoy the thought of leaving you guys,” Zack insisted. “In fact, anyone who wants to join me is more than welcome.”

“Bullshit. You never asked. You never even tried to convince us.”

He looked at Amanda in flummox. “Wait. You’re mad because I didn’t ask you to come with me?”

“No, I’m mad because you decided to leave us all without a second thought. You’re the most adaptable one out of all of us. Maybe we need you. Maybe you need us. Maybe it would hurt you to lose the only people you know from your world. Did any of that occur to you? Or does none of it matter because you’re feeling antsy?”

“If you think I came to this decision lightly—”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

Sitting silent and rigid at the far end of the table, Theo awkwardly scanned his companions. He’d been an erratic presence in their lives over the last two weeks. Some days he’d join them for all three meals. Other days he’d never leave his second-floor sanctum. He wished today had been one of those other days. He felt like a guest at a family brawl.

Hannah held Zack’s wrist. “Look, we get your decision . . .”

“She doesn’t,” he snarled, in Amanda’s direction.

“She wants you to stay. We all do. We just don’t understand the rush. Why can’t you wait a month or two?”

“You think we’ll be any more prepared? It’s been two weeks since Quint’s presentation. Have there been any follow-ups? Where’s the net-accessible computer he promised us ten days ago? Wake up, Hannah. He wants us to stay clueless. He wants us to be scared and dependent on him, because we’re his meal ticket.”

Mia anxiously twisted her napkin. She agreed with everything Zack said and hated the fact that Quint’s scheme was working. The thought of facing the outside world still terrified her.

“I’d go if we all went,” she meekly offered.

David tapped the face of his wristwatch in absent bother. “That’s not going to happen. I’m sorry, Mia, but I see no need to leave this place.”

“I do,” Amanda declared. “But I’m not ready.”

“Me neither,” said Hannah, with a tender glance at Zack. “Look, you’re right. It’s your life and you know what you’re doing. It just breaks my heart to lose you. It would kill me to learn that something bad happened to you out there on your own.”

Amanda reeled with envy at her sister’s warm finesse with men. Even as a child, Hannah’s effortless charm had boys falling all over her. She disarmed them as easily as Amanda set them on edge.

Zack’s tense brow unfurled. He patted Hannah’s wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to start a whole drama. But after everything that’s happened, I just can’t stay here anymore. I have to get out and do something.”

He pushed his chair back and stood up.

“I need a purpose.”

As Zack retreated from the table, his companions glumly stared at their half-eaten dinners. Theo blew a hot sigh through his nose.

“I’ll go.”

Zack turned around at the door, wearing the same look of surprise as the others. Theo himself seemed caught unaware by the announcement. He had no clue where his idea came from, but assumed it wasn’t a place of bravery.

“I’ll go with you,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

Quint’s lantern jaw went slack as he continued to monitor the discussion from his office. Azral had already assured him that Trillinger’s departure was an acceptable loss. The cartoonist was expendable and wouldn’t be missed. But if Zack turned his exit into an exodus, if he convinced even one of the crucial Silvers to escape with him . . .

The handphone on Quint’s desk suddenly lit up with a new text message.

Quint rubbed his eyes in tension. Of course. Of course Azral already knew.

He stroked his neck in dark contemplation before keying a reply.

Azral responded immediately.

Quint scowled at the screen. He was hoping Azral would do the dirty work himself. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Quint typed.

The esteemed physicist could only sigh.

Four minutes later, Azral’s final message arrived. Quint could see the smile behind the words.

Quint leaned back in his chair and pondered the variables of this new equation. He promised Zack he’d have his parting cash on Monday. That gave him two and a half days to plan his attack. Two and a half days to rid the world of a man who shouldn’t exist at all.

—

The rest of the weekend was tense for all six Silvers. The sisters snapped at each other over silly little trifles. Mia barely left her suite. David followed Zack around like a cloud of doom, raining negative scenarios about his impending journey. Zack was, as David cautioned, a fairly obvious Semite on a solitary trek through a regressed American south. Zack told him it sounded like a great screenplay, then reminded him he wouldn’t be traveling alone.

“Yes you will,” David attested. “You’ll lose Theo at the first liquor store. If you’re lucky, he won’t steal all your money beforehand.”

Though Zack scoffed at the unkind notion, it had already made several laps around his own head. Even Theo found the idea far too credible for his liking. His tricky demon never stopped reminding him that sweet relief could be found just outside the property. It filled him with increasing dread about staying there. By the end of the weekend, the voice in his head had fallen to abject panic. Get out. Get out. Get out now.

Of all the Silvers, none seemed more anxious than Future Mia.

On Sunday night, the younger Farisi received four portal dispatches. The messages ranged from the obscure to the alarming:

The steering column is the gearshift. Press the white triggers on the inside of the wheel to switch the van out of Park.

The motorcycles have sped ahead to set up a tempic barrier on the highway. There’s no getting around it, but Zack will know how to get through it.

The winter blonde’s name is Krista Bloom. Use it. It may buy you a few seconds.

The fourth and most disturbing note had been scrawled across an entire ripped page, filled with a large and shaky version of Mia’s handwriting. The author was clearly not in a good state.

Do not let Amanda get out of the van. Listen to me, you stupid girl. Do not let Amanda get out of the van. If she gets out of the van, they will shoot her. They will shoot her and she will die.

Mia’s hands trembled as she transcribed the notes into her book. Her sunniest thought was that all these warnings were from a future that, for one reason or another, had become moot. Or perhaps these events wouldn’t occur for years to come.

At midnight, a final message dropped to her bedspread. The ivory scrap had been ripped straight from her journal, the words written hastily in bloodred ink.

They hit you all at sunrise. Sleep with your shoes on. Get ready to run.