Unfortunately, he did not believe me. Perhaps this is something I should’ve expected, but I have to admit that I was quite surprised by his reluctance to accept my story. I thought that, even if he wouldn’t admit it to my face, he would take my warning to heart and stay off the damn bike.

I’ve been glued to the news site all afternoon, hoping that my warning had worked.

And then, at 18:45 hours, the news story appeared. Motorcyclist seriously injured. I’d failed.

This is the Cassandra Complex at work, I’m afraid. Cassandra was gifted with the ability to see the future, and then cursed because no one believed what she told them to be true.

I just can’t accept that. There has to be some way to make them listen.

That kid was planning to go to WCAAT in the fall. I feel like I’m responsible for his death.

20

Ash

NOVEMBER 7, 2077, NEW SEATTLE

One moment, the anil looked like it always looked: a glimmer of light dancing over black. A swirling mess of mist and smoke. A crack in time.

Then, the Black Crow was there.

Ash flinched at the ship’s sudden appearance, nearly knocking into the person crowded onto the dock behind him. The ship didn’t arrive, exactly. It was simply not there one moment and very much there the next.

Wind blew through the screaming crowd. The ground bucked. Zora said something, her fingers clawing at the damp leather of Ash’s jacket, but Ash couldn’t hear her and, anyway, his mind was somewhere else.

Was this how time travel looked from the other side? he wondered. He wouldn’t know. He was always inside the cockpit of the time machine when it exited the anil, hands wrapped around the yoke, heart pounding in his throat.

The fact that he wasn’t there now caused a deep, sucking sadness to open up inside of him.

The guy he’d noticed earlier, the one who’d seemed to recognize him, was standing closer now, watching him with a quizzical smile on his face. He’d been one of the ones shouting The past is our right! and pumping his fist at the Black Crow.

Ash felt his muscles begin to knot. He could picture how a confrontation might go. The guy would say something rude or ignorant or both. And he—unable to help himself—would throw the first punch.

He leaned over, speaking directly into Zora’s ear so she would hear him over the still-cheering crowd. “I’ve seen enough. Should we find the others?”

Zora nodded distantly. She was staring very intently at the time machine, forehead creased in concern. And then she blinked, shaking her head.

“They’re already at Dante’s,” she said, her voice sounding very far away. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“Okay . . . so I think this number is the primary wave . . . which means this must be the secondary wave, see?” Chandra said, squinting. She had the Professor’s old textbooks and a thick pile of his notes spread out on the table before her, and she was looking back and forth between two rows of scribbled digits, pencil tapping her chin. “So you can measure the interval time of the S-P to find the distance from the seismometer to the epicenter. Hey, that makes sense.”