Two White Flowers

The machine hit the stop with a scream of metal and a hard sideways snap that threw Elias against the frame. Light shattered around him. The lab ceiling surged in and out of focus. For a second he thought he had missed his own time and landed inside some wrecked copy of it, because nothing sat where it should have sat. One of the side banks had blown its casing. Glass glittered across the floor. The air stank of hot wiring, oil, and the old sealed dust of the service level under the townhouse.

Then the carriage lurched again and was still, and Jonas was shouting his name from somewhere beyond the machine.

Elias tried to stand too fast. Pain tore through his side and bent him over the rail. Smoke scraped his throat raw. He coughed into his wrist wrap and tasted blood. The proof core banged against his ribs inside the future satchel strap-burned across his chest from the archive chamber. His other hand closed on the small bundle he had kept clenched through transit so hard his fingers had locked around it.

“Don’t move.” Jonas was there first, crossing the floor in three long steps, then slowing at the last instant as if Elias might explode. “Jesus, Elias.”