Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(76)

“WARNING: CONTAINMENT CASCADE IN EFFECT. CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT, T MINUS THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING. ALL HANDS PROCEED TO EVACUATION PODS IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CORE IMPLOSION IN THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING.”

“I think—” says Zila softly.

“Botany,” I huff. “I was in the top ten percent of my whole year.”

“OOOOOOH, I’M IMPR—”

“I think,” says Zila, pausing until she has our attention, “that we should return to Scarlett’s necklace. And Magellan’s analogy of the elastic band.”

Scar’s the first one smart enough to slip into helper mode, taking in Zila’s stare, the slow nibble on the curl, all the hints we know and love that our Brain’s brain is working at full capacity.

“Right. I got given this crystal for a reason.”

“Chronologically speaking,” Zila nods, “your necklace is ‘of the future.’ It has existed longer than the piece in Dr. Pinkerton’s quarters. Magellan said that time wants to be ordered. So if we can remove the phenomenon anchoring it here, your necklace should snap back to its original position.”

“The anchor is the larger piece of crystal,” I supply.

“The probe it came from,” Nari says. “Down on Level 2.”

“Indeed,” Zila agrees. “If we can cut the probe off from its power source so it’s no longer functioning as an anchor in this time, and apply a comparable amount of quantum power to our piece of the crystal as was used in the blast that brought us here, the temporal shock may cause time to reassert itself.”

Scarlett frowns. “Like … shocking someone after a heart attack?”

“Exactly.” Zila pauses, tilting her head. “Either that or we will be erased entirely from the spacetime continuum. But I believe the odds of success are at least 8.99 percent.”

“THAT MAKES SENSE,” Magellan says. “YOU KNOW, YOU’RE PRETTY SMART FOR A PROTEIN POPSICLE FULL OF TEENAGE SEX HORMONES.”

Zila glances at Nari, frowning. “I am full of no such thing.”

“Okay, so first problem,” I say. “Presuming this tremendous discharge of quantum power doesn’t just delete us from spacetime entirely, it’s not like we just have that kind of energy at our disposal. The power levels you’re—”

“WARNING: CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT, T MINUS THIRTY SECONDS. ALL HANDS EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CORE IMPLOSION IN THIRTY SECONDS.”

“CORE IMPLOSION?” Magellan beeps. “THIS PLACE IS IN WORSE SHAPE THAN I AM. WHAT THE HELLS HAPPENED AROUND HERE, ANYWAY?”

“Part of the experiments these lunatics are doing,” I tell it. “They’re running a sail out onto the edge of a dark matter tempest, and the whole place got hit by … oh.”

“A quantum pulse,” Zila supplies.

“… And we know exactly when it will hit,” I breathe.

“Forty-four minutes,” Zila nods.

Scarlett looks between us, color rising in her cheeks. “Wait, you want to hook me up to a pulse of raw dark energy? The blast that’s cooked this entire station and killed us, like, a million times? That’s your power source?”

“WARNING: CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT. FIVE SECONDS. WARNING.”

I look at Scar and shrug.

“It might tickle,” I concede.

“WARNING.”

BOOM.





23



AURI





When I swim slowly, painfully toward consciousness, I know where I’ll be when I wake up. I can remember all of it, though it hasn’t happened yet.

I’ll be on a slab, naked except for a silver space blanket.

There’ll be a boy on the other side of a frosted glass wall, and he won’t be wearing any pants.

A woman, white as starlight, will come in and tell me that this is the future, and aliens exist, and my family is long gone.

And I’ll ache for them.

And then I’ll find my new family.

And then …

My eyes snap open, and I try to push myself up onto my elbows, an immediate bolt of pain starting in my temples and reaching my fingers and toes in an agonizing millisecond. “Kal?”

The word comes out as a croak, and it’s another endless heartbeat before I realize he’s right there—a tangle of violet and gold curled up in my mind, like a cat that’s tucked itself away for a nap in a hidden corner.

Somewhere else, not far away, he’s asleep. But I can feel his pulse beating in time with my own. He’s all right.

He’s safe.

“He’s safe.”

The voice echoes my thoughts. For one wild moment I feel like I’m in one of those old vids where the main character wakes up from a bump to the head and everyone’s singing, because those two words are delivered in a three-note musical chord in a sorrowful minor key. Then, just as my brain’s pointing out the many holes in this theory, I turn my head and find not a guy with no pants, but the Ulemna member of the Sempiternity Council of Free Peoples.

My breath catches all over again at her perfection, the swirls of blue and purple in constant motion beneath her skin, the serenity of her silver eyes. I just stare, lips parted, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t look away.