If this was a dream, it was incredibly realistic, engaging all of her senses, even smell.

I can’t remember smelling in a dream before.

Chevie knew it was no dream. The tiles that smooshed her jaw and cheek were too slick with lumpy blood and ichor.

The jumble of body parts clicked and rattled with labored breaths, drawing bolts of energy from the pod. It shook like a wet dog, shaking off globs of its cocoon until the figure of a man emerged. The man oozed into a standing position, then spread his arms wide, flexing his fingers as though they were wondrous inventions.

Chevie felt her legs piston weakly as they sought traction on the floor, but even that effort made her head spin.

Riley. I need to save that boy.

The figure seemed to hear the thought and shrugged off the remains of the distended bubble of sloppy substance, transitioning from solid to gas and floating in clouds toward the ceiling.

Clothes grew on the man, literally appearing stitch by stitch, crawling like worms along his solidifying skin. The garments were a curious blend of hemp, hazmat leggings, and a Victorian gent’s overcoat, topped off by a bowler hat that seemed as out of place as a bow tie on a shark.

“Riley,” said the man, as if testing his mouth. “Riley, my son. I have come for you. I know where you are incarcerated. The futurist Smart showed me.”

Smart showed him, thought Chevie, and she knew in her gut that the hazmat team was gone.

Chevie remembered having a gun, which was possibly in its holster at her side, but that seemed like an impossible distance for her hand to travel. It was all she could do to keep one eye open. She saw the magician fondly tap the keyboard on one of the old computers, then his gaze turned on her.

He sees me, Chevie realized, feeling the cold from the basement’s floor seep into her body.

His gaze lingered on her a moment, then the magician made his way with determined strides toward the lockup door.

It’s okay, she thought. That door is reinforced steel. The devil himself is not getting in without a card or a code.

The demonic figure came to a halt in front of the security keypad, cracked his knuckles theatrically, then punched in the code.

“Abracadabra,” he said as the holding-cell door yawned open.

I am sorry, Riley , thought Chevie. You told me the truth, and I left you there to die. Forgive me.

Garrick doffed his hat, as though entering a church, then ducked inside the cell.

Chevie closed her eye. She did not want to see what happened next.

Albert Garrick had literally become a new man when he emerged from the sac and stepped into the future.