“When she sent the third group of people to the future, the ones who remembered some things, one of them told her I’d just developed a cure. I didn’t believe her at first, but she convinced me that if I brought the cure back, we could save both my mom and her daughter. That’s why I signed up. Well, that and I was desperate for money. We were about to sell this house to pay off the medical bills before Aether came along with their offer.” He looks down at the floor, sucking in a long breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t risk not being able to bring back the cure.”

But as he speaks, I’m not really listening anymore, because his words are like a puzzle piece fitting everything together. Memories flash in rapid succession: the moment before the aperture opened, when Trent reached for the case of genicote. Back in the present, when he told the others, “I swiped something from Lynne’s office we can use as leverage.” Zoe’s girlfriend’s apartment, ransacked as though someone was looking for something. Lynne being out of the office all day.

“Did Lynne call you today?” I ask slowly, not wanting to believe the theory forming in my head.

“Yeah, she called me this morning. She asked if I had any extra doses of the cure, but I didn’t. I asked her if there was a problem. She said no, and then she hung up. Why?”

It’s not Aether Corp trying to kill us. I was wrong this entire time.

Lynne is the killer.

I can’t believe it. I trusted Lynne. She wanted to help us. She saved us in the future.

No, she saved Adam. The one person who could cure her daughter. She never cared about the rest of us. She just needed to make sure Adam brought the cure back. And she had to make sure he returned to the present to develop the cure in the first place. The rest of us were disposable.

In the future, she lied to us about Dr. Kapur wanting to “purge” us. She’s the one who recruited us in the first place. It all makes sense. Perfect, horrible sense.

Trent must have stolen the cure from her to try to use it to protect us, but Lynne needed that to save her daughter’s life. She must have tracked him down, and when he wouldn’t give it to her, she killed him. The others must have been in on it too, which is why she searched Zoe’s place. Does that mean she didn’t find the cure—does Chris have it? Is that what he meant when he said he was handling it?