A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring #1)

So she ran harder.

Dust billowed up from her footsteps and stuck to the sweat that had broken out on her legs. The dry heat nearly sucked her breath away. As she made her way down the lane, she thought of the earthquake at the museum and the SQ officials who’d insisted it was no big deal and all the other things that seemed to be wrong with the world. She also thought of Dak, her BFF Forever (which was redundant, but she still liked to say it that way) and how something deep inside her felt that there was a reason for their friendship. That something great waited on the horizon of their lives.

She reached the little grassy meadow that circled the barn, and stopped in the same spot she always did. A single granite boulder had stood there longer than anyone could remember — it probably went all the way back to the Precambrian age. It would probably outlast people. Leaning against it, Sera stared at the barn’s warped wooden slats and the faded red paint that flaked away a little more with each passing year. And then she waited.

She waited for the Remnant.

There was a part of her — a rational side — that knew she didn’t have to do this. That she could choose to ignore the craving to come here, could go do something else, avoiding the pain that was about to envelop her. But in some ways she welcomed the pain. Did she understand it? No. Did she enjoy it? No. But she welcomed and relished it because she knew it had something to do with a life that should’ve been. She knew it like she knew her hands were connected to her arms. And she couldn’t pass up the only opportunities she’d ever have to experience it. Not even if it hurt.

And so, she kept waiting.

It began just a few minutes later.

There was a rushing behind her ears, within her head — a pressure that wasn’t audible but was there all the same. An ache pierced her heart, a sadness that opened like a gate within her, a gaping maw of darkness that wanted to suck the life out of her and pull it down to the depths. She stared at the double barn doors, and even though they didn’t budge, every part of her yearned for them to do so. She could almost see it, could almost feel the breeze that would stir as they swung open and slammed against the side of the barn.

Nothing happened, of course. But something should have. Those doors should have opened and two people should have walked through, calling her name with smiles on their faces.

Sera didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand it in the slightest.

But she knew. Those two people were her parents.

She’d never met them, and she never would.





THE FIRST thing Sera wanted to do when the Remnant faded was go tell Dak about it. She always did. He himself had never experienced a major one — nothing that couldn’t be explained away as déjà vu or a simple forgotten memory — so he didn’t totally understand. But he tried to, and for her that was good enough. Plus, his parents were out of town for the weekend, so she knew he could use the company. Usually his grandma came over when his parents were gone, but she was older than most trees and spoke about as often as one.

Dak was in a lawn chair when she arrived, sitting under the branches of an apple tree as he read from a gigantic book. Normal people used their SQuare for such a thing, but not Dak. He’d search every library in town until he found the printed version of what he wanted, no matter how old it was or how battered.

“What’re you reading?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer, his nose buried in the pages and his eyes’ focused stare moving across and down, across and down. This was classic Dak. She waited a few seconds to be polite, then kicked him in the shin.

“Ow!” he yelled. The book slipped out of his hands and tumbled off the chair to land in a heap of brown leather and torn paper. The book was so old it had completely fallen apart.

“Oops!” Sera said. “Sorry. That’s why you should do your reading on a SQuare.”

“Yeah, because it’d be way better to drop an expensive computer. Mrs. Pierce is gonna kill me!”

An empty chair stood on the other side of the tree, and Sera dragged it over to sit and help collect the destroyed book’s remains. “What was this anyway?” she asked, turning over the yellowed pages to get a look.

“It’s called — it was called — The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Roman Empire. I don’t need to tell you how fascinating —”

Sera held up a hand to cut him off. “Yeah, you’re right, you don’t need to tell me. I can only imagine the magic you felt as you tore through its riveting pages.”

“Quit being a smart aleck,” he said with eyes narrowed. “It was riveting. Only you could think making guesses about junk that’s smaller than an atom is more exciting than reading about evil emperors cutting people up and bathing in their blood.”

She stared at him, blinking once in exaggerated disinterest.

“Hungry?” he asked with a sly grin.