I do not watch him leave, just stride across the room to the TM the resistance created. I pry open the makeshift pieces of metal that have been tacked together to create a door. The light inside is impossibly bright, and I blink, my eyes tearing as I enter the machine. I turn to pull the heavy door shut. Nikki and Chris are already gone, and only LJ remains, tapping on the keyboard, his eyes darting toward the hallway and the shrieking alarm. On the monitor in front of him I see a pulsing red dot on a black screen map. It is moving rapidly to the right.
I hesitate before closing myself into the TM. When I do this, everything changes. I will never see my parents, or Wes, or my grandfather again. My memories will be all I have, and over time, they will fade until I will be left wondering if they ever happened at all.
But I will not let the Project steal any more lives, especially from those I love, and so I pull the door closed, the metal slowly grinding as it shuts. Light is all around me, throbbing, shifting, so hot that my skin burns against the fabric of my dress. I can only hear the faint sound of the alarm outside, the TM buzzing louder and louder, a constant drone that rattles through my body. I sink down to my knees, pressing my hands to my ears again. The light around me starts to change colors, first red, then blue, then green. I tilt my head back to see that the ceiling has disappeared. In its place is smoke and sparks, a churning mass. As my body slowly melts away I hear a noise, an echo, a flickering sound.
“Lydia!” it screams. At least I think it does. Or maybe I just imagine it in that final moment before I am torn apart, before I am gone.
Chapter 17
I come to on the floor, feeling metal beneath me, not dirt. This can’t be right. I’m supposed to be in the woods.
I crawl to my feet, touching those familiar smooth walls, the manual control panel built into the side. My fingers shake against the still warm metal. I’m in another TM.
The door slides open. A man in a white lab coat is standing there, his light hair slicked to one side, his pale eyes wide behind thick, black-rimmed glasses.
“You’re not one of our s-subjects,” he stammers.
I straighten fully, ignoring the way my back spasms, my arms tremble, the lingering effects of the TM tearing through my body. “What’s the date?”
“W-what?”
“The date. What is it?”
“May fourth, nineteen forty-five.”
My stomach dips as though I’m standing on the edge of a cliff looking down and knowing I have to jump. Two years late.
“You’re n-not supposed to be here.”
“No. I’m not.”
He opens his mouth to scream for help and I launch myself out of the TM, kicking him directly in the jaw. His head snaps to the side and he starts to drop, but I grab his body before he can fall and lower him gently down. He’s still breathing, his chest rising and falling with the steady movement, but his mouth is sagging, his eyes closed tight. I only have a few minutes at best before he wakes up.
I drag his body under one of the large desks that run along the side of the wall and set him on the dusty ground. He is wearing spotless wingtip shoes, and I pull them off, followed by his white cotton socks. I tie them together to create a gag. There are wires under the desk connecting to the consuls above and I rip out two long pieces and use them to bind his hands, then feet together. As soon as someone finds him, they will know there was a breach in security, but there are fewer personnel in the Facility in 1945. I just have to pray no one was watching us from the two-way mirror on the other side of the room.
I wait for one minute, then two. No one comes. I glance at the now-silent TM. It is connected to a large computer system that sits on the desk above me. There are no digital screens against the back wall, no slick tiled floors. It is a simple room, a deceptively simple machine.
Maybe I should try and travel through the TM again, hoping I can reach 1943. But this machine is so new that the metal base still gleams, and the glass top that stretches to the ceiling is barely clouded. The TM wasn’t always accurate before 1950—Faust and his team were still perfecting the machine, and the time travel serum I have in my body hadn’t been invented yet.
I think of LJ’s file, with plans for every scenario, pressed tight against my back. The most important thing is that I stop the Project. It’s still possible in 1945, just more difficult.
It’s too dangerous to stay in the Facility while I decide how to adjust the plan. And now that I’m in 1945 there are a few people I need to see again.
I slowly inch out from under the desk, pressing my body to the side of the wall as I move toward the exit. Thank God there are no surveillance cameras in the forties.
I open the door a crack. The hallway is empty, so I slide into it and run, half hunched over, my eyes, my ears, everything on alert. The walls and floors are as white as I remember—freshly painted, lit with the fluorescent bulbs that Tesla invented, too.
I turn a corner and hear voices coming from up ahead. There’s nowhere to hide here, but the door to my right is unlocked. In 1989, it leads to a storage area, so I quickly slip inside.
The small, shadowy room overflows with towels and cleaning products. The smell of bleach is strong, and I wrinkle my nose as
