For a half second after I opened my eyes, I thought I’d landed back in Ford’s Theatre and this was another Abraham Lincoln assassination simulation. The building I was in had the same old ornate feel, with its tall ceiling and arched windows and rows of hard wooden seats. But this was no theater, and surrounding me was not the well-groomed and washed crowd that had attended that infamous production of Our American Cousin. No, this was something else entirely.

The room was crowded, bodies pressed in on me from all sides, and the air had an angry hum that reminded me of a beehive I’d accidentally hit with my baseball when I was nine. The smell washed over me a moment later, and I had to swallow hard to get my gag reflex in check. Man, I hated time traveling to years before regular bathing was a thing.

A quick glance down at myself showed that I wasn’t in an ornate and cumbersome dress like I usually was when I did a simulation this far back in the past; instead I was dressed like one of the many men surrounding me. My brown fitted pants were heavily patched and the shirt I was wearing probably hadn’t been washed, well, ever if the dark yellow stains covering it were any indication. I lifted my hand to my head and discovered a wool hat that was barely containing my hair inside it. I was disguised as a boy. Lovely.

But where was I? This was obviously pre–Civil War, and I stank at pre–Civil War simulations as a general rule. I scowled, which wasn’t a big deal since everyone in the room was wearing a similar disgruntled expression, although I was pretty sure it wasn’t because their simulation test hijack wasn’t going as they’d planned.

Someone was calling the meeting, or whatever this was, to order, and I turned my attention to the front of the room, where a familiar-looking man stood. He wasn’t particularly tall or impressive, but there was something about the way he held himself that made it clear that he was in charge. Or maybe it was the way the crowd immediately quieted and turned their eyes on him that did that. Either way, I knew that I should know him.