Southbound

Before his eyelids opened, Solomon Jones knew this assignment would be on a train. The soft, hypnotic hum of the maglev propulsion drive, the smells of newspaper ink, body spray on sweaty business clothes, the rubbery non-slip aisle padding, and the piquant residue of fabric cleaner on cloth seats. The olfactory memory made him question if he’d been sent back in time for this commission, for although twenty orbits had passed since his Academy training in that city, the smell of the Torin magtrain could never be erased from his mind.

“Perhaps that’s why they’re using me,” Solomon pondered as his eyes begrudgingly opened. Muted daylight poured through tinted Tarcissian dome glass above, still bright enough to make his gunmetal grey eyes squint. “Midsummer, mid-afternoon,” his mind whispered, and he shifted to casually scan the sparsely populated car. He sat in the back row – of course – and outside the viewports, the spires of midtown Torin, the capital of Tarcis, slowly passed by. “We’ve just left Memorial Station,” Solomon thought. If the Bureau had sent him back in time, they didn’t send him far… this train was decorated in the crimson and onyx of the High Stell, the new ruling party in Tarcis.

He waited for the telltale resonance change in the magtrain’s hum. His hand on the empty seat before him, his fingertips confirmed the moment the control car crossed from one guiderail to another on Torin’s city limits. Through the dome, Mittinar was full and Bexxinar was waxing gibbous, but he couldn’t see the third moon, Octavia. Slowly, the moons shifted counter-clockwise 50-degrees. “We’re heading South. Toward Oriel.” Solomon Jones felt his stomach sink. “Every mission, a Fixer gets that chill,” he chided, “and wonders what the Bureau has wiped from our memories.”

Raising the sleeves of his black dress jacket and the white shirt underneath, Solomon felt the bandage covering the needlepricks on his wrist, injections for Placer hibernation and to remove dangerous memories should he be compromised. This bandage was wide, like a hospital dressing used to cover stitches. He closed his eyes, waiting for the magtrain to achieve full speed before opening them again.

He began to ra breathe. His pulse slowed, and he withdrew into his own mind like a castle of sand collapsing upon itself. There he found his inner sight, the advanced mental training given only to recipients of the Pearl Scales. His thumbs massaged his earlobes, adjusting the frequencies of sound waves entering his aural canal, and projecting through the walls around him, he manifested images of what the train contained. He had smelled the sandwiches being sold at the counter, the bubbles of soft drinks in the lounge, but now he saw the tables, stools, and people. Beyond the lounge, he identified two more passenger cars identical to the one he occupied, then a private Tarcissian couchette, and beyond that, two cars of freight. In front of this car was another passenger car, another lounge car – this one serving alcohol – and finally, a security car and the control center. Throughout the magtrain, he sensed clear corridors and vacant bathrooms, and other than a ticketed opium orgy in the couchette, he couldn’t find anything worthy of further examination.

He ascended, opening his eyes, and burrowed through his pants pockets and shoes. Nothing encrypted, no pens, coins or electronics. “No ticket stub?” he questioned. “I guess they’re not needed after boarding,” but surely it would have offered information. He carried no sidearm. Frustrated, Solomon quick-focused his inner sight on himself but couldn’t find any explosive components. He quietly examined his wallet: enough Tarcissian paper currency to offer enormous bribes – and three gold-edged treasury cards if he required more. His identification card was visible through a clear plastic window, his holographic image bordered in fine lines of High Stell red and black to show not only his party affiliation, but also his Stell rank. “Damn,” he swore, “four lines… that’s cabinet level. Only the Grand Chancellor and Four Ministers have five. I’m a nationalist policymaker…”

Then Solomon gasped. Two decades a Fixer for the Bureau of Oriellian Justice, sixty missions, eighteen-times awarded the Pearl Scales of Oriel, and what he saw was something he had never before even considered.

The name on the identification card was Solomon I. Jones. Printed in bold Stell font, his own name. His own real name. The most essential element of being a Fixer was chaotic, untraceable anonymity. Solomon felt betrayed. “There must be a reason.”

It was too soon out of Mem Station for riders to have finished their newspapers, and even his enhanced vision couldn’t view the date from any respectable distance. He stood to explore other cars, and his peripheral vision caught several people timidly glancing at him. He felt concern in the air: they knew who he was. Quietly he waved his hand before a scan pad and silver doors slid open from the center, inviting him into the flexible vestibule between cars and into the lounge.

A half-dozen booths adorned the lounge’s port side, each dark Nassetter oak table displaying its own crystal parrafin lamp and broad viewport. A glass delicatessen counter graced the front corner of the starboard side, and adjacent it was a polished bar, a mirrored wall spanning the car to its end. Midcar, a staggered line of cozy circular tables and stool chairs as recorded piano music played from unseen speakers. Solomon strode in, eyeing the red leather seats and the dark wood, everywhere the colors of the Stell. He mounted the left-most stool at the quiet bar and nodded at the tapkeep for service. She, smiling, approached him.

“Welcome to The Tap, Vice Chancellor Jones,” the petit server offered, and even through the amazement of hearing his own name paired with that title, Solomon wondered if her long red hair was the reason she was chosen for this station.

“You match the color scheme nicely, young lady,” he replied, and the server giggled.

“This color, sadly, is from a box,” she admitted. “but, yeah, it helped me out of HQ to see the world. What will your pleasure be this afternoon, Your Honor?”

“I’d love a root ale with lime and a drop of lavender, please,” asked Solomon, “and if you’ve a newspaper, I’d like nothing more.”

“The bar doesn’t stock lavender, but I keep a dropper in my purse if you’d like.”

“I appreciate that,” beamed Solomon, “thank you.”

“My pleasure, Your Honor! You know, it’s funny, my mom gave me root ale with lemon and lavender whenever we rode magtrains.”

“The combination works wonders – there’s never enough electromagnetic shielding – but I find the paper helps also.”

“I’ll grab my purse,” the server again smiled, “I kept today’s Torin Stormer, too.”

Solomon’s smile faded as the server stepped away. Only nine people inhabited the lounge, confirming his initial meditation, where he estimated the train was well under twenty percent capacity. Looking through the car-length mirror behind the bar, he noticed two of those occupants were intermittently watching him: a younger man sitting alone in the booth nearest the next passenger car, and an older man sitting on the last stool of the bar near a woman dressed in a sheer black dress, unencumbered by clothing beneath, undoubtedly a hostess for the couchette orgy.

Solomon entered rapid meditation, focusing on airborne particulate. He recalled his advanced elemental training at the Torin Campus of the Academy two decades before, when the Democratic rule of this nation-state seemed as permanent as Oriel’s. He gently pinched his nose just under the cartilage beneath his frontal sinus, massaged the plexus point of four nasal arteries, and began ra breathing and concentrative visualization. Within moments, his mind transmitted enough neuralpheromone to the nerve cells in his olfactory epithelium that he could taste the tobacco smoke from the forward lounge near the security car door, and he could actually visualize the vial of lavender at the bottom of the tapkeep’s purse. Before he took his next ra breath, he found the two scents for which he had been looking: He smelled gunpowder residue lightly dusting a stainless steel barrel and the bouquet of magnetized ozone adhering to a recently discharged energy pistol. Immediately, he knew that both weapons were in this lounge, and that the powder weapon was made in Oriel.

The keeper returned before he could pinpoint the locations of the two firearms. “Here’s the paper, and… your root ale with lime and lavender,” said the young woman. “The umbrella’s my touch.”

Solomon met her smiling face with a genuine smile of his own. “What’s your name, love?”

“Melony,” she replied. “And I call that drink a V.C. Solomon.”

He laughed. “How about… a Solomon Refresher..?”

“Even better!” The man at the other end of the bar beckoned her, and Melony backed away from Solomon, smiling. “Sounds… informal-er.”

His smile lingered as he snapped the newspaper rigid before him. The date read 18th of Midsummer, 2nd Era, 2nd Orbit. He’d been correct: the Bureau had sent him back in time, only two and a half seasons. “How did they place me here with my own name – and instantly make me Vice Chancellor? How is this possible?”

Scanning the headlines, Solomon searched for anything regarding Oriel’s diplomatic conditions with Tarcis. Perhaps something in the newspaper was placed there by the Bureau to decode? It had happened before. He could remember almost nothing about his life, but everything there was to remember about past missions, and as was standard operating procedure, he couldn't recall the details of the present mission itself. There was always a first clue, usually left on his person, and from there other hints would…

“On my person,” Solomon thought. He leaned into the newspaper to shield from observers and lifted his sleeve to examine the wide bandage. The skin beneath it stung a bit – unusual by the time a mission was underway – so he lifted a corner of the adhesive strip, pulling the bandage toward his forearm. The skin beneath was a half-shade paler than the surrounding skin, but there was nothing more to look at.

Until the pain began.

Solomon felt a fine-point of pressure gouging the exposed skin, etching into him. He watched as scratches materialized, ivory lines not deep enough to draw blood, but scarlike, above subcutaneous blood desirous to surface. Solomon was mystified as to how the scratches were manifesting, but even more so about how the scratches were forming words in Oriellian text:

KEEP TRAIN FROM ORIEL,

IMPOSTER ONBOARD

The simple block letters, were, literally, surgically precise. Finally, his first instruction was revealed, yet he couldn’t comprehend how. Within moments the letters freshly carved into his wrist dissipated as if they knew the message had been read and disappeared quietly beneath Solomon’s flesh. Solomon sipped his drink, waiting for another message to appear, even replacing the bandage against his wrist then lifting it again, hoping to reset the system and encourage another clue. Nothing.

He replaced the bandage and lowered the newspaper. "Nothing in it regarding the Vice Chancellor of Tarcis taking a magtrain to Oriel? Are there no other diplomats or Shield Service Agents onboard?" He sighed, slid from the stool, and placing a generous Tarcissian bank note on the counter for Melony, prepared to return to the passenger car when the man in the booth on the far end of the lounge made eye contact with him, slowly nodding his head and discretely holding up an index finger. Solomon lowered his eyes for a moment, confident that this man had possession of the gunpowder sidearm. “Well,” he told himself, “maybe he’s got an extra ticket to the orgy.”

Drink in hand, Solomon strode to the booth where the man stood and offered his hand. “Vice Chancellor,” he began, “I’m Lerelo Magus, a freelance journalist…”

Solomon immediately identified the intentional pseudonym. Merelo Lagus had been his first Mission Pedagogue upon graduating from the Academy. The man kept speaking, but Solomon pointed him to sit, and he quieted midsentence to do so.

“Who are you really,” Solomon said at hardly a whisper as he too sat, “and if you think about pulling that weapon, I’ll crush your throat before you can act on it.”

Awestruck for an instant, the man partially smiled. “I knew that name was sophomoric,” he whispered back, “but it’s all I could manage.”

“Time’s wasting,” hastened Solomon.

“Call me Shear,” the man continued, “we only have moments before that man at the bar keeps us from chatting further.”

“Then explain quickly and speak low,” ordered Solomon.

“You know you’ve been sent back…”

“Tell me what I don’t know. Use an economy of words.”

“Of course. This train is being sent to Libertas on a quiet diplomatic mission, led by the Four Ministers in the security car. This happened only a quarter orbit ago, but since then several media outlets in Oriel have polarized the population, demonizing leaders who promote egalitarianism and idolizing new candidates who support nationalistic ideals.”

“So why don’t you send some teachers back in time and pay teachers better? Maybe pass a law to keep foreign wealth from buying our news broadcasts?”

“Maybe we will if this mission works, but it all progressed so quickly… the Bureau was wiped out in days. There’s no one left to send back. You and I are all that remains.”

Solomon sat back. “Then where is my Placer Crew?”

Shears shrugged. “You’re looking at it,” he said. “I kept your ticket as my own because I couldn’t disembark in time.”

“Saint Egon’s blood.” Solomon rubbed his eyes. “What’s this thing under my bandage, then, writing notes to me?”

“You’re still receiving messages?” Shears gasped. “It’s new, a device like a miniature whiteboard, transmitting from the future.”

“But from whom then, if you and I are the last?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, “it’s good news… someone must’ve hidden inside Central.”

Solomon noted the man at the end of the bar was increasingly attentive of he and Shears. “Time’s almost up,” he whispered, “So I keep the train from entering Oriel, and then society doesn’t fall?”

“Yes,” Shears agreed. “From there, we monitor the media to make sure it sticks.”

“Agreed,” said Solomon. “But explain something… why did they make me Vice Chancellor of Tarcis, and how did they do it in under a third of an orbit?”

“Oh,” said Shears, “no, I think you misunderstand. They couldn’t have done that in so short a time… They didn’t send you back a third of an orbit. They sent you back twenty orbits. In order to become VC, you had to win it from the ground up, otherwise you couldn’t even get close to...”

Before Shears could whisper the next word, Solomon identified the high-pitched squeal of a handheld anti-proton generator but was powerless to stop it. Two adjacent energy beams crossed the car, one ice blue, the other blood red, engulfing Shears within a cocoon of energy. Solomon watched the surprise in Shears’ eyes, then the horror of realization before his flesh sublimated into an acrid vapor. Shears’ drink spilled forward across the oaken table, a metallic thud striking the floor. The barely-clad woman at the end of the bar screamed, running to the next car, and a series of muted gasps about Solomon dissipated into nothingness, just as the man named Shears had vaporized.

Solomon slowly turned to glare at the man who Shears had prophesied would end their conversation. The man lowered his energy pistol, the projector heads still glowing the ghosts of their primary colors.

“Why…” Solomon began.

“He was to discharge his weapon at you,” the man interrupted. “It’s at your feet. See there.”

Solomon had previously identified the source of the thud. “Would you refrain, then?” he asked, nodding at the man’s pistol. The man nodded.

Solomon retrieved the firearm. “Safety was engaged,” he noted.

“My apologies, Vice Chancellor, I couldn’t determine that from here, and seeing him take aim, I wasn’t prepared to gamble.”

Solomon nodded, blinking a long blink to lower his heart rate and his adrenaline output. “Are you Shield?” he asked.

“Retired, Your Honor,” he replied. “I am sorry for startling you...”

“Your name, then,” Solomon asked as he stood from the table.

“Alberio, Your Honor, at your service.”

“Are you still in possession of your credentials, Alberio?”

“I am, Your Honor.”

“Have they expired?”

“No, sir, they are valid still.”

“Good. On my authority I am deputizing you back into service.”

“Yes, Your Honor, but…”

Solomon approached and placed his left hand on Alberio’s right shoulder. “The mission we are on will change the balance of power in this hemisphere in our favor for a hundred orbits to come,” he offered sternly and in low volume, using Persuasive Harmonics, squeezing Alberio’s axillary artery against his clavicle, matching the frequency of his pulse. “We will stop this train at Eddarin and remove all non-essentials in the least obtrusive manner. If there are more assassins or conspiracists among us, they will not stop us from Oriel. See to this immediately.”

Alberio stomped his feet together. “I swear it will be done, Vice Chancellor.”

The Shieldman sprinted to the front of the lounge toward the security car as Solomon demanded the attention of the others there. “I want everyone in here to move into the passenger car ahead of us, now, and take a seat. Speak to no one of what has just occurred here.” Then he looked at Melony behind the bar, and approached her, asking softly “Are you alright, love?”

She appeared vacant of emotion, perhaps in mild shock. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“I’m sorry it happened,” he whispered as the last passenger left the car. “I know it’s hard to see, but please listen to me now. I need you.”

The young woman received the words as if they were exactly what she needed to snap her out of shock. “What can I do?”

Solomon leaned as close to Melony as he could, and for the first time, he saw his own image in the mirror behind the bar. He was a man twenty orbits older than he could have imagined. He tried to elucidate something wise from a mind purged of the memories from those orbits, time spent becoming a leader of a country not his own. There must have been conventions and rallies, all in which his training had been used to win the minds of people simultaneously being corrupted into Fascism. He wondered how much of that corruption had been of his own doing to achieve his goal.

“Vice Chancellor, what can I do?” Melony again asked.

“I believe that young man’s death will only be the first,” he explained, and grabbing a napkin and pen, began to write. “I want you to get off this train at Eddarin, Melony, and get this message to a professor at Torin Academy named Wellsfleet. Have you an envelope?”

“I do…” she reached to a shelf, grabbing an envelope capable of sending a small package.

Solomon laughed. “I could write a book of napkins to stuff in that,” he joked, and Melony giggled. He finished writing, slid the note into the envelope, sealed it, and wrote his name over the seal. “I’ll write the professor’s name on the front for you. Fold it tightly and keep it at the bottom of your purse.”

Melony took the envelope with a worried expression. “Will I be in trouble?” she asked.

“No, you won’t, I promise,” consoled Solomon. “Go about being you, go to the Academy, drop this off, and leave. You’ll be fine.”

“I believe you,” she said. Solomon looked at Melony and imprinted her image into his memory.

Had I been twenty orbits younger, I’d have quit the Bureau to ask you for a date… “You know…” he grabbed the bank notes from his wallet and forced them into her hands. “Buy a bar on Capital Street for me and invent drinks with lavender. Then meet someone, sell the bar and go anywhere you wish together.”

Melony slipped into shock again. “This is… twenty orbit’s salary, at least.”

Solomon smiled as he felt the magdrive begin to depolarize, the momentum of the train shifting. “Twenty orbits seems fair,” he said. “You’ll do as I ask?”

“I give you my word, Vice Chancellor,” she replied, a large tear beading in her eye and cascading down her cheek.

“Solly,” he said, wiping her tear. “That’s what my friends would call me if I had any.”

Melony smiled again, and Solomon held on as the train decelerated sharply. Outside the viewports opposite the bar, he saw that Alberio had ordered the stop at Eddarin just in time. Then the recorded piano playing over the hidden speakers gave way to an announcement:

“This is Shield Service Colonel Alberio, your attention please. We are making an unscheduled stop at Eddarin Station where all non-military and all non-essential magrail staff are to disembark immediately. Further instructions will be provided by Eddarin Station personnel. Anyone in noncompliance will be arrested. That is all.”

Solomon raised his eyebrows at Melony to make her smile. “Well,” he whispered, “an unusual take on ‘unobtrusive.’” Melony laughed. “Go get ready. It was lovely knowing you, Melony,” he bowed, and retreated to the rear silver doors.

“Solly,” she called out, and he stopped. “I’m actually brunette, so y’know…”

Solomon smiled, feeling a throat-lump this time. “Thank you,” he said, activating the sensor and passing into the vestibule to the next car.

The train had fully stopped, the passengers rising to their feet when Solomon stepped in. The travelers suddenly had expressions of urgency as the central outer doors hissed open, and as Solomon glared, they darted out and onto the platform.

As Solomon approached the next sensor, a porter stepped through those doors. “Is that car empty?” Solomon asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” replied the porter, “I’ve already secured the outer door in there.”

“Outstanding. Secure these outer doors immediately, then make sure the young server in the lounge car gets off safely. You disembark with her, understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” the porter replied, and jogged to close the side doors. Solomon entered the next vestibule.

He raced through the empty passenger car and into the couchette, where patrons were hurriedly getting dressed, gathering their bags. “I’ll arrest anyone not through that exit in two eyeblinks,” Solomon threatened, then paused to look under his bandage. The etching began again:

WELLFLEET MSSG RECEIVED

MINISTERS MUST NOT REACH LIBERTAS

“It’s changed from ‘train can’t reach Oriel’ to ‘Ministers can’t reach the capital.’”

The couchette emptied. Solomon secured the door, then walked to the rear, placed a hand on the metal doors, and breathing a deep ra breath, emitted a single pulsebeat to scan the shapes in the last two cars: there were no people among the few crates of expensive Tarcissian liquors onboard. Alone, he took inventory of the sidearm Shears had unintentionally bequeathed him. The reservoir held nine radiative darts and would be nearly silent if fired.

Solomon raced back through the cars, stopping before the lounge as he felt the magdrive engage and the train swoon forward. Suddenly he realized why the second message held a new directive: the plan to stop the train in Eddarin had worked, but keeping it there never had the opportunity to come to fruition. The train was fated to travel to Libertas.

Preparing to look under his bandage again, Solomon decided to ask a question first: “What if the ministers don’t reach the capital… alive?” He peeled back the bandage, not expecting an answer...

ACCEPTABLE

“How should I..?”

The single word faded and was not replaced. He continued forward through the now empty lounge car, where only the hint of lavender remained. “Good girl,” he whispered dejectedly. He placed the firearm in his pantleg and covered it with his jacket before entering the coach he had awoken in.

Albiero awaited him at the front of the otherwise empty car. “Your Honor,” he said, “the Ministers are not pleased.”

“I didn’t think they would be,” Solomon replied. “How would you handle them?”

“Sir?”

“Not a hard question, Shieldsman, how would you...”

“They collectively outrank you, Your Honor,” Albiero responded. “While I agree with your actions, protocol dictates that now they can deal with you as they wish, not the other way around.”

Solomon smiled. “Then you pass the test.”

“What test, Your Honor?”

“You’re loyal to them because they outrank me, therefore you are not the imposter.”

“The imposter, Sir?”

“Intelligence indicated an imposter was onboard, and I had my doubts, but now that I know it isn’t you, I’m sure now I know who it is.”

“Only the Ministers, the engineer, and the Ministers’ servant remain onboard.”

“And none of them are armed?” queried Solomon.

“Why would they be sir?”

“If they were the imposter, they’d be armed,” said Solomon, and in a heartbeat drew his firearm and fired three shots. Albiero collapsed face-first to the aisle padding, his energy weapon tumbling conveniently to Solomon’s feet.

Solomon picked up the weapon and approached the Shieldsman who, gasping, struggled to speak. “I left the Shields… because my country had become… my nightmare.”

Kneeling near Albiero, Solomon attempted to soothe him. “I’m sorry, friend. I’m here to stop the same nightmare from taking Oriel, and perhaps then we begin to heal Tarcis also. I promise I’ll try.” There was no response. The radiative darts had worked quickly. “Saint Egon receive you,” he lamented, and before walking into the next passenger car, pointed the energy pistol at the body, then fired.

The magtrain reached maximum velocity as Solomon stepped into the vacant forward lounge, identical to The Tap except for the lingering scent of alcohol. “How do I approach this? The Ministers?” he begged. “Vaporize them? Have myself arrested in Libertas and hope whomever hides in Central somehow extracts me? A murderous fascist Vice Chancellor wouldn’t give even the most corrupt media any good speaking points, would it?”

Solomon jumped behind the bar, reached into a cooler, and removed an icy cold bottle of Oriellian Mountain Fig Brandy. He pulled the cork and sniffed. He didn’t need ra breathing to evoke memories of Kathy, the Northern girl he left behind when he joined the Bureau. He took a pull from the bottle, and the glacial bite was invigorating, so much so that he could almost see the aurorae and hear the music from the old theatre, all from that hill where he’d last shared a sip of ice fig brandy. “Here’s to you, Kathy,” he toasted. “Summer nights will never be the same again.”

He returned the bottle, and approaching the next door, realized there was a pain under his bandage. He lifted it.

LEFFIABRIDGE OVER KYE LAKE

DITCH TRAIN NO SURVIVORS

“I asked, didn’t I?” he sighed. “The only way is the most extreme.” Solomon looked out the viewport and recognized Kye Mountain approaching. There was not much time.

“I know how to do it. The velocity, the mass, and the fall will leave no doubt. I just have to get it done.” He hesitated, not to delay the conclusion of his life, but for one last meditation. He breathed his final ra breaths, then spoke: “Melony Jones,” and he caressed his own words.

Then he entered the security car, then the control car. And he did what he had to do.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Two men in a tiny room in Control monitored the seismic impact created by the crash, then saw the temporal induction gauges skyrocket, then drop to zero. One of them wept.

“No time for that now,” complained the professor, ignoring the irony of his own words. “Let’s observe the lateral comparison, see what the new 'now' looks like.”

“It’s quiet outside of the shell, did you notice?” sniffled the other.

“I did,” the professor replied, studying adjacent monitors. “There’s good reason why. Confirmed… this one’s done it. We’re back.”

“Third try’s the charm,” the Prime Clone said, spraying bioptileal on his wound, then rebandaging his wrist. “We’re a Democracy again?”

“As is all of Tarcis,” confirmed Wellsfleet.

“Swear by Saint Egon!”

“I swear it.”

“Give me a moment,” said the Prime Clone, drying his gunmetal grey eyes. “He was my favorite one of me. Identical.”

“You do him a disservice, Solomon. He was merely a cell pack we sent back in time fifty orbits to grow and train, a mass that then conquered Tarcis from scratch. Then he gave his life to save civilization in our hemisphere. You. You addressed him as the ‘imposter onboard’ in your very first message and I thought we’d have to send another clone back to start over again. Identical you weren't.”

“How did you know that his death would be the only way to restore things?”

The professor paused. “He told me."

"What!?"

"In his note. He realized he was the imposter, an enhanced clone, which explained why he lacked memories. He recommended the most extreme way was the only way he knew to end the nightmare, and he begged me for another way… because he liked a girl and wanted to live. But he was right. I had no alternatives, so now I'm giving him one last artificial memory of a girl to help him through what he had to. That was enough.”

Professor Wellsfleet programmed the memory into the module containing the cells, then set the quantum bridge to fifty orbits in the past.

“He deserved better,” said Solomon.

“He did,” replied Professor Wellsfleet, who waited for the last echo from the train impact to fade on the meter, then engaged the quantum bridge and sent the cells back in time.

When the bridge closed, Wellsfleet and Solomon unlocked the room's protective temporal shell, then rejoined their restored world.