Rob left shattered and smashed bodies in his wake. Richard could not quite make out what Rob had done to the people in the hallways, not after the first two bodies. But after the sixth and seventh, he noticed that they were all missing hefty, important parts of their anatomy. The tissues, even the bones, were excised by something that could only be a giant ice cream scoop.

  The thought soured Richard’s stomach as he chased his friend. Richard already felt at a loss as to how he would help Rob. He had no experience like this one, but he was hoping this was not something Rob would be stuck with for the rest of his life.

  A loud, repetitive sound warned Richard before he turned the corner. The noise had been building in volume while its beat remained irregular, but mostly the same. When he finally turned the corner, he saw Rob smashing at a doorway with his fists. The right was encircled by a red globe, the other a blue one. Rob looked up and screamed,

  “Richard, you have to help me! Karen is behind this door!”

  Richard walked up, raising his hands in the air to demonstrate how harmless and unarmed he was.

  “Hey buddy. Why don’t you calm down a second and let me see what’s up there?”

  Rob’s face underwent a shift through emotional states. One second he smiled at Richard, glad the other man was present. The next he screwed his face into a mask of agony. Rob finally settled on rage, his face turning red as his eyes bulged.

  “Richard James Kain, you get your ass over here and help me!”

  Richard felt the roar of Rob’s voice in his chest. This gave new meaning to the saw about shaking your fillings. Richard picked up his pace, but still walked to Rob. The other man swore under his breath, shaking his head while he did. He started to raise his hands to his head. But he stared at them like they were covered with scorpions and shook himself, happy to have avoided some problem or trouble.

  When he looked back at Richard, he had tears in his eyes,

  “I need her Richard! I need her! AND YOU ARE NOT FUCKING HELPING!”

  Rob’s roar was the only warning he gave this friend before he leapt at Richard, both arms extended to swing at Richard. Richard’s mind went clear. For the first time since he gained his super powers, he had a goal without any quirks or shortcomings. No part of his mind was motivated by self-interest. Right then he wanted his friend back more than anything else and that desire gave birth to a force of will Richard did not know he possessed.

  If force of will had been enough for him to grow stronger and faster than Rob, maybe even better trained, Richard might have been able to do something other than defend himself in the fight. All he did was backpedal, all the way down the hallway to where he had turned and seen Rob.

  Richard fell over one of the dismembered bodies Rob had created. Rob’s fury seemed to have taken him over. Richard pleaded with his friend as Rob brought his globe-circled fists down on Richard’s head. His eyes were closed when the loud ringing explosion stole his hearing away temporarily.

  Richard opened his eyes to see Rob and one of the silver-clad figures standing over his prone body. Both Rob and the silver figure staggered around Richard. It looked like the explosion had disoriented Rob and hurt the silver figure. It recovered first and drove its needle-spines at Rob, his back was turned and his hands were clapped over his ears.

  Rather than watch his friend die to an unknown enemy, Richard kicked out at the silver figure’s fractal legs. It teetered as it struck at Rob and missed by a large margin. The figure seemed to regard Richard for the first time as it skittered away from him.

  Rob howled again and launched himself for the silver creature. He had no spheres on his hands, but Richard caught the glint of crimson from Rob’s chest. For a moment, Richard thought Rob might have been hurt. But Richard could see the fight progress, the silver figured tried to stun Rob using the silver appendages. They disappeared like they were being disintegrated by the red light.

  The silver creature hopped back and Richard stood up.

  “You’re dealing with both of us now.”

  The silver beast paused now and shimmered in the ambient light of these tunnels. The silver parted from the front of the sausage-like base of the creature. It was Rachel’s friend, Zoe.

  Richard said,

  “Zoe? Where is Alethia?”

  Zoe said,

  “Hey Rich, hey Rob.”

  That greeting was punctuated by Rob hitting Zoe with a blue clad fist. Richard shouted at Rob who ignored him. Richard almost turned away from what would inevitably come of Zoe’s body from Rob’s assault. But he refused and that let him see that Rob just hit Zoe with the blue sphere. Not that it was much better than killing her outright. Richard heard the unmistakable sounds of bones breaking with the first hit. Rob reared back with his blue fist and red fists raised. Richard said,

  “Hey man, this is not right. Don’t hurt her. You remember Zoe, right? That’s Rachel and Alethia’s friend Zoe.”

  Rob stared at Zoe like he was trying to place her in his memory, until Richard mentioned Alethia. At that point, Rob brought both hands down, and this time Richard did shut his eyes, he did not want to see anyone die today at all if he could help it.

  An enormous crash sounded, like a large slab of meat hitting a steel wall. That was definitely not the sound Richard expected to hear. He peeked and Alethia stood in front of the still stunned Zoe, her hands raised. Her arms seemed to glint in the light of the tunnels. She nodded to Richard and said,

  “Go get Karen. I will take care of Rob.”

  Richard shook his head,

  “Don’t kill him. He’s sick, Allie.”

  Rob stood up from the opposite side of the room.

  “You don’t need to sweat that, Richard. I got this bitch.”

  Rob must be hearing a different conversation in his head, because that was not what Richard offered. Alethia blew a kiss to Rob, which only incited him further.

  The thin, beautiful woman stood there like a Valkyrie set to take a charge. Rob raised his red-clad fist and swung it at Alethia. Richard blinked and missed her movement. Once instant she was just within Rob’s range, the next, he missed by the width of a splinter. After that initial exchange, Rob went berserk. Richard had little trouble watching the fight, but the speed impressed even his own enhanced body.

  Rob panted with exhaustion and circled Alethia. She dominated the fight with her cool, efficient movements and almost relaxed style. Richard had noticed her dis-ease while fighting Tim at the feast a few weeks before. Alethia had been slumped in on herself, even after she won the bout. But here, she carried herself like a ballerina. Her erect posture and swift actions mesmerized Richard and slowly seemed to calm Rob.

  He rested on his knees and blew his breath out in big gasps. Alethia watched him like the untrustworthy maniac he had become. Richard thought he detected a chance for Rob now that he ran down. His eyes no longer rolled around his head. He looked at the ground and nodded to himself, like he was making a decision. When he raised his head, his eyes were filled to the lids with remorse. Alethia seemed to relax as Rob held his hands out to both of them, palms up to expose his helplessness. Both Alethia and Richard knew the truth in that display but Richard saw a piece of strain fade from between Alethia’s shoulder blades, like she had been trying to hold a tic-tac there until then.

  Tears rushed out of Rob’s eyes to express his penitence. He said,

  “Richard, Alethia. I am so sorry. Please.”

  Alethia looked at Richard who nodded. Alethia let out her held breath and said,

  “Glad to have you both back. It’s good to see you two!”

  Alethia hugged Richard first. Then she hugged Rob, something she never did back home. Richard watched his friend closely; as close, he imagined, as Alethia did. Rob’s eye twitched, but he looked otherwise normal to Richard. The eye twitch made Richard a little nervous, but the two broke apart without incident and Richard released a breath.

  Richard and Alethia walked to Karen’s door ahead of Rob who offered to watch their backs.

  Alethia put her hand on the door and said,

  “You said this was it, right?”

  Richard nodded and said,

  “Try this, it should open the door.”

  He placed the scepter-like sphere against the door and it opened with a loud mechanical protest. Rob’s scream, followed by Alethia’s extended the whine of the door opening that Richard was taken completely by surprise.

  Alethia’s scream died as she did. Richard watched her with tunnel vision. Everything to the periphery faded away to black. All he could see was Alethia’s perfect blonde hair and cream-colored skin flecked with tiny red drops as part of the back of her head disappeared. Momentum carried her around to look at Richard and he swore he could see Alethia trying to speak or scream as she died.

  Deep inside of Richard, he saw every event in a line like he could stand outside of time on his own. First he watched himself break out of the Time cop’s tunnels and return to his own time. Then he saw himself convince the Taylors and Alethia to take his serum. Everything bad that happened since then happened because Richard took the serum. The weight of it tore open Richard’s heart. In that shining moment of pain and fury, he turned to his best friend. Now splattered with Alethia’s blood and brain matter.

  Rob grinned.

  Any other response from the man might have held Richard back. But the bloody smile of his best friend pushed the man beyond his limits. With an eye blink, he was half a foot taller than Rob and rippling with corded muscles, and most importantly of all, the rage of seeing his crush destroyed by his best friend. As he swung the massive ham hocks that comprised his fists at Rob, the other man’s eyes widened and he said something as Richard struck him, essentially unaware.

  The first blow stunned Rob. If Richard had stopped there, he might have been fine. His friend would have recovered and everything could go back to the way it used to be. But most of the blood on Rob’s unconscious face belonged to the innocent woman Richard loved, or at least thought he loved. By the time a hand rested on his shoulders, Rob’s face was no longer recognizable as such.

  His own fists were torn and bloody when Richard looked back to see Karen’s face staring down her arm at him where she touched him gently on the shoulder. Her face did not belong in the scene, not with the ruined mask of her husband’s face lying in the same pool of blood that Alethia had lain in.

  Karen’s quiet, accepting serenity indicted Richard more than any words she might have said. As if Richard had not just murdered her husband with his bare fists, Karen looked down at him with a sad smile on her face. He read the look in a flash, she pitied him because she knew how painful what he just did would have to be for Richard. What made it all worse was that Richard knew she would forgive him, that might have even been her first words to him. In that burning moment, he searched for recrimination or disappointment in her eyes. But they were utterly absent. Had Karen cast a single hair of blame at Richard, he might have remained behind to receive his well deserved castigation.

  Instead, he bolted. Just like the day he fled the Time cops’ headquarters the first time. His flight reminded Richard of that day while he begged the universe to undo all of it, an idea occurred to him:

  The time cops possessed a Time Machine, duh.

  Alethia’s clone died with a scream on her lips. Someone must have ambushed them and that meant Karen, Richard and even lame Rob were in trouble. The same someone must have silently stopped Rob from moving. Alethia kicked the debris hiding her primary body out from above her and sent out her double to run alongside her.

  Her speeding legs carried Alethia to Karen’s room before she left the area. Rob was down too, his face an exploded mix of blood and bones. He had been beaten to a pulp.

  Karen watched Alethia run up as if she was expecting her. Karen had her arms folded over her chest, a look of irritation and even outrage on her face.

  “Rob killed you just now. Richard and Rob thought he did anyway. So Richard kill him. He killed his best friend for you, Allie. Now Rob is dead and Richard’s running. Why didn’t you tell us Allie?”

  Alethia’s voice would not sound on her behalf, like a bird whose mate died, she had no sounds to offer the living.

  Karen shook her head and said,

  “Don’t talk to me. Go find Richard before he does something else stupid. Karen raised her hand and then lowered it.”

  “I cannot give you the directions directly. Did you do something to your communications protocols? I can only tell you’re there.”

  Every beat of this scene was wrong. Karen, even keeled and rational Karen, should have been more upset than this. She should have been railing against Alethia, crying and shouting at her. Instead she stood like a robot, issuing instructions like Alethia was a fellow malfunctioning system.

  At least she did not appear to be in immediate danger, so Alethia sniffed the room and picked up Richard’s trail. Karen watched her sniff the air and said,

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “You could also follow your friend Zoe. You might try that too.”

  Alethia almost asked about Zoe, but the longer she talked to eery Karen, the more uncomfortable Alethia became. For the first time in years, she did not feel uncontrollably attracted to Karen. Alethia ignored that thought as she ran off, hoping Karen would be okay. Richard seemed like he was in the more immediate danger.

  Richard became a scourge. His stick and ball opened every door in this facility he wanted, meaning that he broke into a new part of the facility that tickled the back of Richard’s mind. Explosions erupted around him, shaking the building’s foundations. Richard could see artificial decorations fade as the facility computer systems entered battle mode. He ran into more and more interdiction forces, managing to evade all of them. As he ran, the violence behind him grew in volume and intensity.

  Someone followed him, Richard assumed it was Karen.

  That thought coincided with a realization. These tunnels were so familiar because they were arrayed exactly like the base where Richard had been treated the first time he was here.

  What were the chances?

  Zero it turned out. He listened carefully to the percussion of the explosions. These were the same volume and tempo Richard heard his first day running through these tunnels. Soon, he could pick out his route and was able to follow that back to where he thought the time machine was. Despite the pursuit, Richard was pretty sure he knew he could reach the time machine before the people following him.

  He pushed himself to the point that his vision narrowed and his internal computer warned him about all sorts of meaningless biological functions. He had the impression that he could run his body dead with his enhancements if he wanted to.

  By the time he was deep into this part of the facility, he was being threatened by other time cops. To forestall that problem, Richard assumed the face of the only official person he could recall, the man who’s order had left him feeling calm for days.

  He found the door he sought, ignoring the activity of the other time cops and assorted civilians in the facility. The door opened to Richard’s scepter and he closed it behind him, leaving the emergency protocols in place. Luckily for Richard that the time cops had not recognized him running around their halls wearing another dude’s face.

  He dialed up his own time and space, just an minute before he was scheduled to arrive. The plan was a simple one: show up and convince himself not to share the serum with his friends. When that failed, if it failed, Richard would just beat himself up and smash the serum vials to dust. That would fix everything.

  The fact that events had not taken place that way did not bother Richard right then. Not until the door opened and someone stepped through. He raised his head in time to see himself. Shock stole his reason as the sequence of events caught up with Richard. He put his hand up and said,

  “No! The door’s open!”

  A blazing beam streaked over past-Richard’s shoulder into the center of present Richard’s chest.

  “No. You have to destroy the time… No!”

  His internal computer lit up with warnings. The gist of the meaning: that Richard would not survive this process.

  Above him, past Richard completed the temporal sequence. Richard’s dying thoughts wondered at how easy the sequence had been to enter, and how fast the process had been. It never occurred to him to wonder why the system was already primed to send him back to where it did. The last thing he saw as he died, was a silver figure leaning over him holding one of the time cop weapons. A woman’s voice shouted,

  “Richard? Richard? No shit no! No!”

  Alethia followed the scent trails through a new section of the facility. It resembled the rest of the tunnels, except that the response here seemed almost lackadaisical compared to the first part of the tunnels. Like this section had been cordoned off from the rest until recently. Alethia turned a corner into the hallway where Zoe stood weeping over a body.

  She spun, holding up one of the Enforcer rifles and revealed Richard’s dead body lying at her feet. Zoe dropped her weapon before Alethia reached Richard. He was not breathing, but he was still warm. His heart had only just tried to stop beating. A large, cauterized hole in his chest occluded his bronchial tube. He was suffocating, had probably already started.

  Alethia strained her powerful mind to the limits and could not find a way to save her friend. The Time Machine beside them was dangerous in the extreme and beside that, Alethia had no idea how to operate it. For all she knew, it led to the center of a star.

  Alethia wept over Richard’s body as he twitched out his life. She screamed and accepted the comfort Zoe offered, even if she was the proximal cause of this particular bit of pain. Her screams tore from her lips, raking her throat over coals in an attempt to beg God to bring her friends back to her.

  He did not respond to her directly, but Karen stepped into the chamber then. She looked down at Ricard and spoke with an ominous tone,

  “The instigator falls by his own hand. Fitting. We need to flee this place before the Enforcer systems come back online and they can record our presence here. Why is there an unbound control rod next to Richard’s corpse? Oh well, that will be useful.”

  Her voice was monotone and heedless of Alethia’s pain as Karen reached down and lifted the sphere on a stick Richard had been using before he died.

  Zoe shouted,

  “Jesus, have a heart Karen!”

  Karen blinked at Zoe’s outburst and turned her head to the side.

  “I did not kill Richard, you did. And Richard killed my husband with his bare hands. A fact you would know if you had remained behind a moment instead of chasing Richard.”

  Alethia sobbed in the background of their chat, Zoe stammered, searching for a retort when Karen said,

  “They will be here soon. Where do we go? Or should I say when?”

  Alethia said,

  “What about Rachel?”

  Laser fire added impact to Alethia’s question. All three ducked down behind the low metal railings surrounding the time control panel.

  Karen said,

  “She is still confined in the facility. Two squads of shooters and melee sit between us as well as an unknown number of Keeper assault teams. I can open her door if you think you can get a clone down there. We can try to wait until you arrive.”

  Zoe said,

  “And if they can’t wait?”

  Karen shrugged,

  “They will be captured by the Enforcers and subject to modification. Not Alethia, of course. She will be executed.”

  Zoe shook her head,

  “Then here’s a plan:”

  Zoe outlined a time destination for Rachel and Alethia to aim for. In that time, they should be able to find Keeper agents who could direct a recovery team to pick up Rachel. Alethia would just let her clone dissipate then. Karen unlocked Rachel’s cell and provided Alethia with directions.

  Alethia split from herself and ran down the hallway into oncoming fire. Silver metal poured forth and protected her from the laser barrage. She had to move as fast as she could to avoid attacks by the enforcer assault teams, but Alethia found her clone more than capable of dodging the attacks, but not quite able to counter. That was fine, Alethia had a mission that did not involve attacking these people, though she would also have to find a way through them.

  One of the stragglers behind her turned and followed Alethia’s clone down the hallway. Several tendrils of shadow and smoke writhed from his back. They stretched forward, trying to reach Alethia and do… something. She did not care what they were trying to accomplish, she just knew that she did not want them to succeed.

  Alethia’s clone swung by a pile of torn and broken Enforcers, so she grabbed one of their laser — technically plasma — rifles and rolled out of range of the dark tentacle man. The strands of smoke left little burn marks like acid or fire on the steel surface where they missed Alethia. She did not even pause to consider her target, she fired the rifle at the man three times to cover for messing with the rifle’s magazine.

  The man’s tentacles deflected the plasma charges, which Alethia anticipated, so she hurled the rifle at him, the side where she shorted the magazine facing her. Alethia did not wait to see what happened, she turned and ran as fast as she could and rounded the next corner right before a concussive blast knocked her thirty meters down the hallway, inflicting multiple internal injuries on her clone and slowing her down significantly.

  Still, she hopped up and sprinted off, limping on her a fractured tibia. Steel flowed out of her body and encased the wounded leg in a cast. Alethia could feel the silver metal doing something similar to her insides. She directed her attention back to her original and addressed Karen while she was bent over the console, programming in their destination.

  “I think I might have screwed up the path back here, did I?”

  Karen stared in the distance for a second,

  “Yes, you did. You will have to seek an alternate transfer system. I am going to upload… never mind, your computer system is offline. You need to input the time sequence like this…”

  Karen explained the process to Alethia while Zoe held off a large contingent of Enforcer warriors. Alethia could see that her silver veil had already started to thin and react more sluggishly. That made sense, the plasma fire and explosions chipped away at the veil. That would make Zoe progressively less effective.

  The three were fortunate so far in that none of the Enforcer Brutes had been directed to their position yet. Alethia knew that was a matter of time and that she needed to rush her clone to Rachel in order to have any hope of escape.

  Her original body said,

  “If the way back is blocked off, shouldn’t we just leave?”

  Karen nodded,

  “Of course. I have to finish the sequence and this is not fast. By design I believe. Zoe, will you close the security doors?”

  “Easier said you guys!”

  Zoe shouted from about two meters from the doorway, which was filled with Enforcer warriors trying to secure the door.

  Karen flicked her head toward Zoe, eyes on Alethia,

  “Help her.”

  Alethia nodded and threw herself toward the guns and fighters trying to take their bulkhead.

  Alethia’s clone had left most of the resistance behind. Her silver leg still gave her away, so she had been forced to knock several Enforcer civilians out before they could raise the alarm further and report her position.

  She found Rachel’s door open. Alethia waited until the hallway was clear and stepped into the room, leaving the door cracked as she did. Dizzy nostalgia swept over Alethia at the sight of the room. Draped from the top of all four posters on the bed, pink taffeta diffused the light and gave the whole room a pink cast. That would not have mattered much because the whole rest of the room was pink, as pink as the room could reasonably get.

  Rachel still slept in the bed, reminding Alethia of Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. Rachel even lay on her back.

  “You’re no princess, but then again. I am no prince.”

  It felt right, even though the room was empty save of the two of them. She lifted Rachel into her arms and kicked the door open. The metal door vibrated with a loud clang sound as it hit something on the other side. Alethia rounded the door to see a civilian holding his nose and looking at Alethia. The whole scene was ridiculous enough that Alethia paused while the civilian stared at her.

  Alethia waited too long before acting because the man made some motion with his hand and new alarms blared out.

  Back at the time machine, Karen looked up from programming the system to say,

  “Security is aware your clone has escaped their cordon. You have approximately thirty seconds to reach the secondary time nexus doorway before it is automatically closed. We would need this,” she held up the metallic sphere, “to get through in that case.”

  Alethia’s clone shifted Rachel over to her shoulder and wiggled a bit to get her balance correct as she hurried. The last turn before the secondary time machine arrived and as Alethia cleared it, she saw a four-man Enforcer team starting to setup near it.

  She consciously withdrew the silver cast from her leg, bringing back the pain of the break like reinserting a needle into the same puncture wound. Alethia shifted Rachel to her arms like a child and worked herself into tears. She did not find that especially hard right then considering how bad her afternoon already was. One image of Richard’s splayed corpse got her eyes evacuating tears like a bilge pump.

  Alethia’s clone then turned the corner, hyperventilating and running, ‘just like a girl’, swaying back and forth like her hips were on a swivel. Her ruse worked, the four men stood at alert when she appeared, but all four relaxed when they saw who she was and what she was carrying.

  “Oh God, please help me!”

  Alethia was crying as she reached the men.

  “They are right behind me, please, they are coming!”

  Three of them diverted their attention to the hallway behind Alethia and readied their weapons for an attack. The fourth man, wearing a jaunty red hat, was probably the commander of the team. He kept his eyes on Alethia when he said,

  “Who are you and where are you going? Why isn’t your data system active? Why isn’t hers?”

  He thrust his chin at Rachel with the question. Alethia babbled,

  “A data bomb went off, I don’t know what happened. I can’t access my data system and I need to reach the infirmary!”

  She looked down at Rachel in her arms and the commander’s skepticism faded to a soft hum. He looked back at the door they guarded to dismiss Alethia’s concerns. That opportunity presented itself right in line with Alethia’s plan.

  She kipped up the wall, clutching Rachel closer to her chest. Alethia’s clone relaxed and the silver veil poured out of her body in a massive wave.

  It slammed the commander into the steel walls behind him and scattered the other three troops. Two small red spheres darted out at Alethia who ducked around Rachel’s body and rolled along a ramp formed of her silver veil. Where the red spheres touched the silver liquid, it disintegrated leaving only pale ash behind.

  Alethia noted that from the corner of her eye as she continued toward the door. The silver liquid propped the door open for her and she slid through ahead of the red spheres. She managed to close the door, but not before one of the spheres sped between the gap.

  She darted away from it, but it froze for a moment and did not follow. Alethia sighed in relief before the sphere started bouncing around the room. Where it made contact with the steel walls of the chamber, or the time machine’s instruments, nothing happened. When it reached anything else, the sphere erased it like a digital editing tool.

  Alethia huddled low to the ground, using her veil to shroud Rachel’s body from the attacks. She finally crawled to the control panel and started entering the destination sequence for 1910.

  Alethia’s original body helped Zoe drive the last of their attackers back to the door. Alethia slammed it shut with a heave and the two panted in unison for a second. Alethia said,

  “Why don’t we send the clone and Rachel to the same time as us?”

  Zoe said,

  “For two reasons: I cannot in good conscience send an Enforcer commander to a rendezvous point for the resistance.” She pointed to Karen, “And the more portals we target for that particular time, the more likely we are to be tracked.”

  “I don’t see why they can’t do that anyway.”

  Karen answered,

  “Because, at least in our case, I am obscuring our landing point by inputting a mountain of misleading landing zones. They will need years to parse all of them. Even then, they will have to send teams to check out each false lead.”

  The tiny hint of pride in Karen’s voice gave Alethia hope that her friend was still present somehow and the Enforcer modifications had not broken her.

  “Doesn’t that mean they can track Rachel and my clone?’

  Zoe rolled her eyes,

  “Yes, they can. Nothing we can do about that now. Head for a Keeper rendezvous and get the heck out of that time.”

  Alethia nodded,

  “Alright, are we ready yet?”

  Karen shook her head,

  “I still need a few. You need to start entering the code for Rachel now. When they bring the cutting tools, those doors will fall in less than a minute.”

  Alethia’s clone entered the destination sequence the moment Zoe told her they were not going to the same place. Based on her pace, she needed another few minutes to complete the sequence too. Nothing new happened in those few minutes until after Karen accessed the time systems and initiated transit.

  Alethia, Zoe, and Karen all three stepped onto the transfer pad. Alethia had Richard’s body in hand. Zoe held a plasma rifle and Karen held the strange scepter that protected her from detection. They landed in the Taylor’s back yard in the middle of the night. All of the lights in the house were off. The night air held a chill, but nowhere near as brisk a chill as it should have been.

  “What day is it?”

  Alethia’s clone entered the time transition sequence while dodging a red disintegration sphere that was random in its movements. Rachel was only an arm’s length away so she continued to cover Rachel with her silver veil.

  She had almost completed the sequence when the red sphere made a mad right turn and sheered her left hand off at the wrist. Alethia screamed in pain as her whole hand disappeared. Through gritted teeth, she completed the program and grabbed Zoe’s body with her right hand and hit the ignition button on the time machine.

  Her world flashed while her veil wrapped itself around Rachel and provided a makeshift tourniquet for Alethia’s stump. The world disappeared in the second of two bright white bursts. When her vision returned, Alethia sat in a large, open field with Rachel resting in her lap. Exhaustion took hold of Alethia and she passed out after dragging Rachel to the base of an oak tree.

  “They are safe, I guess. But I don’t know when or where they are yet.”

  Alethia reported on the condition of her clone and Rachel to Karen and Zoe. They sat at the Taylor’s house only two days after Richard, Rob, Karen and Rachel were abducted. Alethia’s emails and phone were full from attempts to contact her. Many of them were from UT or from her TA advisors. More than half were from her dad or from her lawyer, Gretchen.

  She limped over to Karen’s couch after shutting her computer and turning her phone off. Zoe sat in the big, overstuffed cushions crying.

  Red eyes and desperation stared at Alethia.

  “I am so sorry Allie. I didn’t know that was Richard, I swear.”

  Alethia shook her head. Richard’s corpse was presently in the Taylor’s deep freeze. The first non-neutral expression on Karen’s face had appeared while throwing out all of Rob’s dreamsicles to make room for their dead friend.

  She said,

  “I didn’t know either, Zoe. I can’t help thinking that if we had just stayed in communication with each other instead of hiding things, none of this would have happened.”

  Karen stepped into living room and,

  “You are right. We are all responsible for this. Which means we are also responsible for fixing it. What do we do first?”