“Let’s just say I’ve seen the future of this city,” Mac said with a shrug. “It ain’t what I’d call pleasant. The best thing any of us can do is get the hell out of Dodge, leave this damn city to its ruin.”

Regan tilted her head. “And my payment?”

“I might be compelled to take someone who helped me out along with me to the past.” Mac’s toad-like eyes narrowed. “Life, girl, would be your payment.”

“An intriguing offer,” Regan said, head tilting. She took a moment to consider before saying, “I accept. Sir.”

She held out her hand. The two of them shook.

Mac let out a bark of a laugh. “I’m sure we’ll be an excellent team.”

Dorothy took a step backward, so that she was entirely enveloped in shadows once more. For a moment she stayed still, barely daring to breathe.

Even after everything else he’d done, Dorothy had assumed Mac felt some small loyalty to his city. Oh how wrong she’d been. Mac cared for nothing but himself. He really was going to let the city fall to ruin.

Unless . . .

If you don’t kill him, time travel will continue, and, eventually, bring about an earthquake that will destroy us all, Roman had said.

Dorothy pictured bloody water. An empty rowboat. Prememories are memories, she thought. They’ve already happened.

There’s nothing you can do to stop them.

LOG ENTRY—OCTOBER 1, 2074

20:34 HOURS

THE WORKSHOP

Now that I’ve determined that Tesla’s theory for time travel without a vessel actually works, I’d like to begin the complex process of breaking down exactly how it works.

Initially, I posited that Tesla had figured out a way to travel through time without exotic matter, access to an anil, or a vessel to travel in, but that’s not quite the case. I used exotic matter, I just inserted it directly into my body. And I may not have needed to physically travel into the Puget Sound anil, but I did end up utilizing the power of the smaller, microscopic anils that exist within the earth’s crust to pull me along the currents of time.

So, really, the only thing that I no longer need is a vessel. My body, essentially, became the vessel.