“We’ll be late, Harold!” Beatrice scolded as Harold zipped toward the nearby star. “I told you we needed to leave early!”
“We would’ve been fine if it weren’t for that construction on the Tarangian Way!” Harold snapped back, purple facial tentacles writhing angrily. “Who reduces an intergalactic byway to one lane? Traffic was stopped completely!”
July 4th, 2050
I didn’t think my husband and I would qualify for the program. Things don’t usually go our way, especially since Gavin’s release from active duty and the months of trauma that followed. He sits next to me, his fingers playing with his ID badge. The word ARMY is emblazoned across it.
Doctor Holloway! Can we please swim in your pool?” The boy looked about nine, and a couple of multicolored beach towels flapped over his shoulder as he came running toward Denise, who was about to pull a lawnmower’s cord. With him was a slightly younger girl, an inflatable swim ring encircling her waist
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April 27, 1986
The comforting notes of Babushka’s music box make my heart shatter.
What would she have thought, standing in her granddaughter’s shoes, watching the sky morph as radiation pours into the air? Even in the pain, I imagine she would’ve known what to do. How to help. How to make a difference.
Yohva chitters nervously beside me, white fur bristling down the length of her thorax. I whistle a few notes from a half-remembered lullaby and place a reassuring hand above her first pair of eyes. She settles into the shade of the smooth-stone building but keeps her focus on the tree line.
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“Oh no! Oh no! Nixie, what have I done?” Jope yanked his hands away from the control panel. Lights blinked along the dash, but he pressed fists to his eyes and leaned his weight against the harness. He couldn’t bear to look at the teleportation platform across the cabin. It was ominously, horribly silent.
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“Forget deep-sea diving,” Gertrude Tesoro muttered, trying to enjoy Café Regatta’s scenic patio beside Helsinki’s Taivallahti Bay. “The hardest part of this job is getting paid.”
“Client inbound, Aunt Getty,” Cody’s voice came through her earbud.
Lars Korhonen, dressed like a CEO at a board meeting, stood out like a sore thumb among the Saturday morning coffee crowd.
I swim to the bar of the Trendy Anemone nightclub and hail the fuchsia-haired, green-skinned mermaid bartender, squinting at her name badge. “Hey, uh… Mara. What have you got that’s, uh, free?”
Amazing. I finally managed to telepath through a whole question without a drop leaking into my mouth. I probably moved my lips, though.
Tari watched incense drift to the ceiling. After the ceremonies ended, when the artificial gravity automatically shut down, the fragrance would fill the pyramid—weaponized by the addition of a toxic compound. The haze would obscure the gold and precious jewels that glimmered from every surface, deterring any graverobbers who made it past the complex
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“Sorcha, wait!” Mr. Devereaux calls. The pompous old duck is always telling me to wait. “Feudal Japan isn’t safe for foreigners. Europeans could be killed on sight.”
“Did anyone warn my brother of that?” I yell over my shoulder.
I plunge through the dripping trees to the road beyond.
Please help me! A faint tinny voice pleaded.
“Athenis, did you hear someone?” I yelled above the buzzing alarms.
Athenis glanced up, her screen’s warning messages reflecting red on her scaly, humanoid face. “No. We’re the only ones securing this sector.” She continued nonchalantly swiping away alerts on her handheld interfacer.
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“They’re going to cut your funding, Jakk.”
The words slammed into me, but I continued adjusting the excavation bot’s parameters, pretending I hadn’t heard. When I finished, I watched the bot whir into the air, hovering above our floating platform before zipping to the jungle to join its companions at the archaeological site below.
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