Future Lost

26

We rush down the stairs, trying not to trip over our own feet as we descend into darkness. The basement is pitch-black, and we move through it by touch and instinct. Without my lantern, it’s so dark it’s almost painful. My eyes keep trying to make sense of shapes but can’t latch onto anything real. My heartbeat pounds in my chest, while my mind tries to convince me that we’re not alone, and that something is going to jump out at me. I rely on the sound of Adam’s feet shuffling against the laminate floor, the feel of desks and office chairs and computer keyboards, and the smell of dust and mold and decay.

Finally, we reach the smooth metal of the accelerator and feel our way along it until we find the door. We step inside, moving to the center, and bump into each other in the dark. Adam wraps his arm around me, and I bury my face in his shoulder as we wait for the aperture to open.

“Paige and Zahra…” I whisper.

“I know,” he says, his voice rough.

“We have to change this future. For our friends. For our daughter.”

He rubs my back slowly. “We’ll fix it. Whatever it takes.”

The golden light appears around us like dust sprinkling the air. We straighten up, and I’m so relieved to be going back to the present that I want to cry. But as the light thickens, I hear something moving outside the dome. Footsteps.

“What—” I ask, turning toward the accelerator door. Have the Infected managed to find their way in? They won’t be able to return with us to the present, at least. Only people who have traveled forward in time can go back, according to Dr. Campbell.

The world explodes into light. For a split second, I see a dark figure standing in the doorway of the accelerator. And then we’re gone.

PART III

THE PRESENT

THURSDAY

There’s a third person in the accelerator with us.

It should be impossible, but I sense their presence beside us as my eyes adjust to the fading light. I can’t make out many details yet, except for a vague feminine outline. I grip my knife tighter, just in case. Maybe Dr. Campbell was wrong, and one of the Infected did return with us. Or someone else.

The accelerator door opens. Something hits the floor near my feet with a loud flash. Smoke begins to fill the air, turning it to a murky gray almost immediately. I cough and cover my mouth, but the gas seeps into my eyes and nose, burning me up from the inside out. The dark figure darts away while my head spins and my knees hit the floor.

I reach for Adam before the void swallows me.

I open my eyes. I’m lying on the floor of the accelerator, and my chest hurts. Scratch that, my everything hurts. I feel like I got run over by a truck, multiple times. Plus my eyes are damp and scratchy, like I’ve been crying or something. Returning from the future always results in some physical side effects, but never as bad as this.

My first thought is that I’m suffering from future shock. But as I sit up, the moment before I blacked out comes rushing back to me. The third person who came with us from the future. A woman. She threw some kind of smoke bomb at us that knocked us out, and then she escaped.

Adam coughs beside me. “You okay?”

“I think so.” A million questions rush through my head about who attacked us and why. And where they are now.

My legs still feel unsteady, but we both manage to get to our feet. Faint traces of smoke linger in the air, causing us to cough and squint our eyes. The accelerator door is still open, but it’s oddly quiet outside it. I step out of the machine carefully, keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any hint of danger. The mysterious person could still be out there. But all I see are the scientists and the CEO of Aether Corporation on the floor, and all I hear is the low hum of computers and electrical equipment.

Adam moves to check on the others, who aren’t moving at all. “They’re still alive, but knocked out like we were. Some kind of gas maybe that put us all to sleep for a few minutes. But who would do this?”

I glance around the room, looking for anything out of order. Was something stolen? If it was, I can’t tell. “There was someone else with us in the accelerator.”

Adam’s head snaps up. “Impossible. Only those who travel to the future can return through the aperture.” “Then Dr. Campbell was wrong…” A new thought occurs to me, and my eyes narrow. “Unless someone else went to the future with you?”

Adam’s brow furrows. “You know I went alone.”

“Sorry. It’s a little hard to trust you at the moment.” My voice comes out harsher than I intend, but now that we’re safely back in the present, my frustration with him is creeping back in. Ever since I found out he quit school and went to the future alone, I’ve worried there’s something else he isn’t telling me, some secret he’s keeping from me. I’m not sure that will ever go away.

He sighs. “I assume you went alone too?”

“Of course I did. I wasn’t risking anyone else’s life.”

The sound of movement and a sharp intake of breath distracts us from whatever we’re about to say next. Vincent is sitting up, rubbing his forehead. “What happened?”

“We’re not sure,” Adam says.

“Someone knocked us out and then took off,” I say, while Vincent slowly gets to his feet.

The other scientists are waking up too, stretching their limbs with pained expressions. Adam helps Dr. Walters up, offering his arm to help steady the older man. Dr. Kapur wears a deep frown and mutters something about how we should all be checked out immediately, but we all ignore him.