My older self opens our eyes, and I see twisty metal coils above our head. They’re affixed to a curved, shiny wall that goes all the way around our body, encasing us in a tube. We’re lying on a narrow surface that’s slightly padded but mostly hard, and I smell the cold, crisp scent of antiseptic mixed with human sweat. There’s no noise inside the tube, an absolute silence you get only inside a vacuum. It’s so quiet that our ears begin to hum.

This must be Cristela’s time travel device, the one she invents in the future.

Panic surges. Last time I traveled forward in time, I didn’t wake up inside a tube. Did something go wrong? Am I not in the future?

Calm down. Last time, the older Alice knew I was coming. She was probably shielding me until she exited the machine, in order to limit my knowledge of her time.

I force my attention back to our body.

My older self wiggles our toes. Swallows. Flexes our hands. Must be a routine check to make sure all our parts are still here, still working.

I hunker underneath her consciousness, not thinking a word. Just…waiting. Watching. Hanging back the way she did, so that she didn’t interfere with past Alice’s actions. I learned this stealth mode directly from her.

Luckily, she’s not looking for another consciousness. Our brain is clogged full of thoughts; our heart is bursting with emotion.

“Malice?” A distorted male voice fills the tube. There’s still no one here but me—us—so the man must be speaking through an intercom, which makes him sound tinny and slightly robotic. “You made it?” he asks, his voice weak with relief. “You’re still…you?”

Our heart leaps. Hers, because she must be glad to hear from him. Mine, because I know who he is.

This must be the man who placed his warm hand on our shoulder the last time I came to the future. The one who squeezed ever so gently.

This man must be my future husband. He must be Zeke.

“Yeah,” my older self says. Our voice is thin and patchy, like she’s exhausted from a faraway adventure. But it’s also warm and full of love. “I made it.”

“Take a few minutes,” the older Zeke says. “You’re not invincible, you know. After eighteen trips to the past, even the great Malice will feel the ravages of time.”

I don’t realize it until that moment, but our body feels…tired. Our limbs melt onto the narrow platform, boneless, and our heart is racing too fast. Our head pounds, as though from a migraine but worse, because it comes from deeper. Way deeper.

My older self runs our hands down the hospital gown we’re wearing, pausing at our stomach. Soft. Old.

Or at least older. By approximately ten years.