Shattered

In my dreams, she is always there.

She stands on the balcony, silhouetted against the night. Untouched, her champagne glass sits on the railing beside her. The sequins on her midnight dress – real diamonds? – sparkle like a galaxy of stars.

The city spreads out before her, at her fingertips. She could have anyone, anything, she wants. She picked me.

A lump fills my throat. “Maia.”

She turns, red lips curling in a delicious, secret smile. The smile that stops my heart every time. The smile only for me.

She places her hand on my chest. “Is it time for your speech?”

“Not yet.” I chuckle nervously. It’s easier to focus on her than on public speaking – which I hate. “But the keynote speaker is about to start.”

She flicks a finger at me. “You know I’m only here for you.” I shrug, but she doesn’t let me get away with that. “If only you took as much pride in your achievements as everyone else does. This is one of the most prestigious awards in your field.”

I grab her hand and press a kiss to her palm. “You said you’d never heard of it.”

“I hadn’t.” She kisses my jawline, her perfume – exotic, intoxicating. “But when my boyfriend told me that he’s been nominated for an award, I did my research.”

I run my hands down her bare back. “You have no idea how much I wish we were alone right now.”

Starlight reflects in her bottomless dark eyes as she tips her head back, with that soft laugh that makes my blood pulse with sudden heat. “Later.” She tucks her arm through mine. “First, we have speeches to sit through. And you owe me a dance.”

My free hand slides into my pocket, to the small box I had picked up from the jeweler earlier. I was going to wait until we were at dinner later – do something cliché and over the top. But I don’t want to wait a minute longer.

I go to one knee, pulling her around to face me. Her eyes widen.

“I love you, Maia.” I’d prepared a speech for this too, but in the moment, all my fancy words evaporated. “I want us to be together. For you to be my wife, not just my girlfriend.”

I never get to hear her answer, because that is when the sonic blast hits. The windows implode outwards, showering us with shards of glass. Because I’m on my knees, I don’t get swept over the edge by the shockwave – just flung against the railing with enough force that my ribs crack.

Unlike me, Maia is swept backwards, over the balcony railing. I lunge for her, ignoring the pain screaming up my ribs, trying to grab her, to pull her back onto the balcony. Our fingertips brush, and then she is just gone.

Then comes the actual explosion. The balcony lurches sideways, the floor tipping at a sudden slant, and I’m suddenly falling. Screaming. My body slamming into rock and concrete as I tumble, ragdoll-like, through the debris showering down.

The explosion of agony as my body impacts the ground. Then merciful blackness.

Today, I wake, screaming, for the last time.

Cassandra doesn’t ask questions. She just sets a cup of coffee on the table in front of me. My hands shake worse than usual as I reach for it, and she silently steadies me.

The coffee doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not sure whether it’s nerves – or the after-effects of the nightmare. I only take a couple of sips before pushing the cup away.

“You should eat something,” she says softly.

I ignore her, heading downstairs into the lab, leaning heavily on my cane and the railing. I would take it slow, but not today. Now that the moment has finally arrived, every wasted second seems to matter so much more.

The lab doors slide open as I arrive. And there it stands in the center of the room – my masterpiece. The culmination of the last twenty years.

The capsule stands ready, waiting for me to step inside. All I have to do is input the final calculations, make the final adjustments, and I can change everything.

Figuring out how to travel back in time – that was the easy part. But I don’t want just that.

I want to rewind time. To go back to that night, make different choices, and relive my life.

It isn’t just about me. The world outside has never been the same since that night. All the greatest minds – the changers, the thinkers, the dreamers – wiped out in one terrible moment. A generation of knowledge and potential for innovation – gone.

I don’t remember how I survived – the only one who had. I remember everything else.

With an effort, I shake my head and move over to the console. The memories don’t matter. After today, they will never have existed.

Cassandra enters behind me. She sets a small plastic cup down on the console. “You forgot your meds.”

“I’m not taking them.” I straighten, gritting my teeth, as pain spikes down my spine. “I won’t need them. Never again.”

I can tell she wants to argue. It’s a fight I don’t want to have. Not with the woman who is more than an assistant, more than a friend, more than the one who patched up my broken body when doctors had given up on me. I wouldn’t be here without her.

But she says nothing, just picking up the meds and disposing of them. She stays. Unlike everyone else who left, insisting I was obsessed – or plain crazy. Maybe I am.

I focus back on the numbers on the screen, checking and rechecking the calculations. No matter my impatience, it has to be right. I’ve already used up more second chances than any man can expect.

Finally, I’m ready. The time and date are right. I have triple-checked everything. The math works.

Heart pounding, I place my hand on the initialize button. With a roar that rumbles the ground, the vortex swirls to life inside the capsule. All I have to do is set the countdown and step inside.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Cassandra finally voices the concerns she’s had for months – years? “You have no idea what that’ll do to you if you step inside.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t know that.” Her hand moves to cover mine, to stop me from initializing the countdown. “Nothing like this has ever been done.”

I gesture at the capsule with my free hand. “I’ve devoted my entire life to this. It. Will. Work.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

But she doesn’t stop me. She lets me go. She walks beside me as I hobble painfully over to the capsule and step onto the platform. She takes the cane from me and waits until I am leaning on the rail inside before she steps back.

The capsule seals behind her, closing me in. The lights start flashing in time with the countdown, and the capsule starts to spin. Through the glass, the lab, Cassandra, the future blurs out of focus as the vortex expands to surround me.

Everything is spinning now, impossibly fast. I hold onto the railing tighter.

And then the capsule itself disappears, and I stand alone in the center of the vortex, as time unspools around me. As every past mistake, every loss, unravels.

I can feel myself changing too. I bite my lip to keep from screaming as the screws holding me together come undone, as shattered bones reknit. As I am made whole.

I am shaking now. I can see so clearly. All the places my life went wrong. All the things I should have done differently. All the things I can do differently.

And then I am standing on the front steps of the conference center. And there she is – Maia – getting out of the limo, one hand wrangling her voluminous skirts, the other accepting the valet’s help.

Eyes only on her, I take a step forward, only for my legs to buckle. The world is spinning, and I focus on my breathing, willing the urge to vomit to subside.

This nausea shouldn’t be happening. It didn’t happen that day, twenty years ago. I remember being excited, nervous, deliriously happy, but not this.

A hand touches my shoulder – her hand – and I look up into her face, inches from mine. I thought I remembered how beautiful she was, but time had dimmed those memories.

In an instant, I am swept away by her – as lost as I was then. As I am now.

“I missed you. So much.” The words rasp in my throat.

Her brow crinkles slightly, and I realize how insane I must sound. “Marcus, sweetheart, you should’ve said something. You said you didn’t want to come tonight. I thought you meant you didn’t want to speak. Not that you weren’t well.”

I didn’t want to come? Why couldn’t I remember that part?

That younger self was just yesterday, but at the same time, it was twenty years ago. I understand the mechanics – or thought I did – but wrapping my mind around the temporal logic makes my head spin again, worse this time. I close my eyes, waiting for the urge to retch to subside.

Just focus on the moment.

I open my eyes. She is still hovering over me, dark eyes clouded with worry. With a shaky hand, I cup her cheek.

“We could just go.” For a moment, I almost forget about the past and the future and everything I want to change. “Just drive somewhere, far away. Somewhere quiet. I don’t care about any of this. Just you.”

She stands up, grabbing my hand and pulling me with her. Steadying me as I wobble slightly. “You’re not getting out of this.” The unusual fierceness in her voice makes sudden unease pool in my stomach – no, just nausea from the breakfast I didn’t eat. “You earned this award. And you’re going to walk up there like a man and accept it.”

She doesn’t know how right she is. I did all this for her – but also to change everything else that went wrong. Much as I want to run away, not to face this place – this night – again, I can’t. But just for a minute, I want to be that selfish.

My chest constricts. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”

“Silly man.” A flicker of those long, dark eyelashes – and she has me right where she wants me. “You tell me that every day. But you still aren’t getting out of tonight.”

A laugh bubbles up inside me. Pulling her close, I let her lead me inside.

Just inside the main hall, I stop. I hadn’t expected the sudden flood of stimuli – the crush of hundreds of people crammed together, the white glare of lights, the hum of voices above the music – to be so overwhelming. But I’d spent the last twenty years as a recluse in an underground lab – or at least my older self had. Again, the temporal paradox.

I shake my head to clear it. Maia is frowning again. “What is wrong with you tonight, Marcus?”

I’m not given a chance to answer – even if I could. A hand grips my shoulder. “You look paler than during your first exam in my class.” Professor Holstenn grins at me.

Emotion chokes in my throat. I’d been so focused on Maia that I’d forgotten all the other friends and colleagues I lost this night.

Maia gives me a push. “Go on – this is your night. There are dozens of people who want to congratulate you. Let them.” I balk, not wanting to let her out of my sight. “I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

I hesitate, torn, wanting to go after her. But she’s already disappeared through the crowd.

Swallowing, I remind myself why I’m here. To stop the coming tragedy. To save her. To save them all.

I excuse myself from the professor, from everyone else who tries to stop me. A smile, a word, a clap on the shoulder – the faces are just a blur. I guess, in my head, they’ve been dead for twenty years.

I spent months calculating the blast radius, using blueprints, the scatter pattern of the rubble, and my fragmented memory to figure out where the explosive had been planted. I know where to look.

The math – the numbers – doesn’t lie. I find the explosive exactly where I calculated it would be, in a small equipment closet off the lower-level stairs, directly beneath the speaker’s podium. But the math did not prepare me for this.

I stare at the device, unable to believe what I’m seeing. This is my work. Twisted, corrupted – morphed into something it was never designed for – but the science behind it is unmistakably mine.

The same science I am supposed to unveil to the scientific community tonight. Only a select few have seen it. Even fewer understand it well enough to implement it. Those few are at this conference.

“Marcus?” Maia’s voice snaps me out of my shock.

I dash to close the door – too late. Maia comes through the doorway and stops, staring at what even she can tell is an explosive device.

“Maia, I can explain,” I start. Only to stop when I realize she is not looking at the device but at me. Not with shock, not with accusation – but with undisguised fury.

And then the pieces fall into place. Maia, chin on my shoulder while I’m working on my calculations. Maia, asking questions, pretending not to understand, making me laugh at the confused little crinkle in her forehead. Maia, the rich girl who could have anyone she wanted but who settled for the nerdy scientist who had barely said two words to a girl before she erupted into his life like a solar flare. It was always Maia.

“Why?” That one word is all I could get out.

She doesn’t try to deny it. What would be the point? The truth – naked, ugly, devastating – fills the air between us.

“You scientists.” Contempt sours her words. “Heads full of numbers and equations and ideas. But not one of you able to see past your own work, to see the bigger picture.”

“This is my work!” I am shaking. “How could you take turn it into – this?”

“Knowledge is power.” Her voice is calmer than mine. “Remove the knowledge, and only power remains. Power that belongs to those who deserve it, who know how to use it, who’re willing to do what’s necessary.”

“Sir? Ma’am? You really can’t be down here.”

The voice from the doorway, unmistakably a guard. His eyes go past Maia, to the explosive device, and widen.

Maia utters a low, vicious growl, shoves past him, and disappears back up the stairs. I go after her, but not before I stop beside the guard. “Sound the alarm and start getting everyone out of here.”

He’s still staring at the device. “Can’t you stop it?”

“Not in the time we have.”

And then I am out of the room, running after Maia. Her formfitting dress slows her down enough that when she reaches the main hall, I’m only a few feet behind her.

The fire alarm screeches, causing immediate panic. Chaos. People scatter, running for the nearest exit. I hope it’s enough. I hope it will save at least some.

Maia pushes through the crowd, heading toward the glass doors leading onto the balcony. I should be running for safety with the rest of the guests. But I can’t. I need answers.

I follow her onto the balcony. Only to stop, as sudden nausea assaults me. This time, it has nothing to do with time.

In a flash, I am back – forward? – at the explosion. Seeing Maia go over the railing. Falling. Bones that haven’t been shattered yet ache at the memory, and for a second, I can’t breathe for the pain.

Gasping, I stagger over to the railing. This hasn’t happened yet. It won’t. And yet the analytical part of my brain already knows that by coming out here, I have set in motion becoming the shattered man I will be. Have been.

Maia is right next to me before I can move. She grabs my arm, twisting it behind me. “How did you know?”

I wrench my arm free. “I survived.” All the truth on the table, in these last moments. “And I came back. To save you. To stop this.”

She laughs. How can this woman with the ice-cold eyes be the woman I loved? I don’t even recognize her. “What kind of fanatic do you take me for? I planted the device. I’m not stupid enough to stick around for the blast.”

My mouth goes dry. “I saw you fall. Saw you die.”

A hitch of one elegant shoulder. “You saw what you were supposed to see. You always did.” Ice-cold disdain. Resolve. “And I’ve wasted far too much time on you.”

She takes a step forward, but whatever she’s about to do is interrupted by the sonic blast. It flattens me against the railing. Maia is swept over the edge, just like last time. I don’t lunge after her. I can’t. I also can’t watch her fall. Even now.

And then the explosion – and I am the one falling. Smashing into concrete and steel on the way down. Shattering. Inside and out.

Impacting.

Hands, pulling me out of the rubble. A face, blurring into focus, as she shines a flashlight into my eyes. Tears run down my face as this moment merges with the memories I could never remember before. I think part of me always knew.

“Can you tell me your name?” That voice, professional, kind. So familiar.

“Cassandra.”

She frowns. “Do we know each other?”

Pain pulls me under, but I smile. “You’re the one who always catches me when I fall.”