The machine counted down from eleven.
I had always disliked countdowns.
They suggested that someone, somewhere, knew exactly when things would go wrong. In my experience, the people who claimed to know such things were usually responsible for making them go wrong in the first place.
11.
The laboratory lights dimmed.
10.
Adrian stood on the other side of the observation chamber, staring at the screen as if it had personally betrayed him.
9.
"Adrian," I called.
He didn't respond.
"Adrian Vale!"
His head snapped toward me.
"Step away from the console."
"Gladly. Tell me why the machine is counting down."
"Because I haven't shut it down yet."
"An extraordinary explanation. Truly. I feel much safer."
8.
I moved toward the emergency switch.
Adrian crossed the room in three strides and caught my wrist.
"Don't."
I looked at his hand, then at his face.
"Would you like to release me before I demonstrate how much I dislike being restrained?"
He let go immediately.
"Sorry."
The apology was so quick, so genuine, that it unsettled me more than the countdown.
"Tell me what's happening."
He glanced at the screen.
"I don't know."
"That's twice you've lied to me in less than a minute."
His expression hardened.
"You think I know everything because I helped build this machine. I don't."
"Then explain what you do know."
He hesitated.
"The countdown isn't coming from the machine."
I looked at the console.
"You're going to have to make that sentence considerably less ridiculous."
"The system is receiving a signal from somewhere else. Something is using our equipment as a display."
"Something?"
"I haven't identified the source."
"Adrian, is there a reason you're speaking as though the laboratory might be listening?"
He looked directly at me.
"Because it might be."
7.
Every monitor in the room flickered.
My profile appeared on the central screen.
SUBJECT 02: DR. S. SAYE.
Below it, a new line began to type itself.
MEMORY RESTORATION: 87%
I stared at the number.
"Memory restoration?"
Adrian went completely still.
I turned to him.
"What did you do to my memory?"
"Nothing."
"Try again."
"I didn't erase your memories."
"That is a remarkably specific denial."
He dragged a hand through his hair.
"Saye, I was trying to reverse what happened."
"What happened to me?"
"I can't tell you everything."
"Then tell me one thing."
His gaze met mine.
"You asked me to forget you."
For a moment, the countdown became the only sound in the room.
6.
I laughed, because the alternative was admitting that those words had hurt.
"That sounds like something I would say to a man who deserved it."
"You didn't hate me."
"How fortunate for you."
"You were frightened."
"Of you?"
He didn't answer.
I looked back at the screen.
MEMORY RESTORATION: 89%
A sharp pressure bloomed behind my eyes. For a fraction of a second, I saw a white room, a chair surrounded by electrodes, and Adrian sitting beside me.
Not the Adrian standing before me now.
A different version of him. Exhausted. Unshaven. His fingers wrapped around mine.
I heard my own voice.
If I remember what happens, you'll die.
Then the image disappeared.
I gripped the edge of the console.
Adrian stepped toward me.
"What did you see?"
"Nothing."
"Saye."
"I said nothing."
"You always do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend you're fine until you can no longer stand."
I stared at him.
"How long have you known me?"
He looked as though I had asked him to name every star in the universe.
"Longer than you remember."
5.
The emergency lights switched on.
A low vibration travelled through the floor, rattling the instruments on the nearest table.
Then the observation glass turned transparent.
Someone was standing inside the chamber.
A woman.
She wore a hospital gown and had electrodes attached to her temples. Her dark hair hung over one shoulder. Her face was pale, her expression strangely calm.
Subject 01.
The woman who had vanished.
I approached the glass.
"Who is she?"
Adrian came to stand beside me.
"Subject 01."
"I know her designation. I want her name."
He didn't answer.
The woman raised her head.
Her eyes found mine immediately.
"Doctor Saye," she said through the chamber speakers. "You look well."
I glanced at Adrian.
"Have we met?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"Many times."
"Then perhaps you'd be kind enough to explain why I don't remember you."
"Because he asked you not to."
Adrian moved toward the controls.
"Don't speak to her."
The woman laughed.
"Still protecting her, Adrian? You haven't learned anything."
"End the transmission."
"This isn't a transmission."
He stopped.
The woman pressed her palm against the glass.
"I'm standing right here."
I examined the chamber. There was no movement on the security feed. No heat signature. No sign of an actual person.
"Adrian, is she physically in there?"
"No."
The woman tilted her head.
"He's telling the truth. For once."
I folded my arms.
"Wonderful. A mysterious woman who may or may not exist, a machine that predicts events, and a colleague who has apparently been editing my life. Is there anything else I should know before lunch?"
The woman looked directly at me.
"Yes."
Her smile vanished.
"You're going to remember the eleventh second."
4.
The machine emitted a piercing tone.
A new file appeared on the screen.
ARCHIVE: TOMORROW
I stared at the timestamp.
"That's impossible."
"Don't open it," Adrian said.
I turned toward him.
"Why?"
"Because the last time you watched it, you tried to stop the experiment."
"That sounds reasonable."
"You also tried to kill me."
Silence.
His face changed as soon as the words left his mouth.
I felt the room grow colder.
"Did I hurt you?"
Adrian looked away.
"Not in the way you're thinking."
"That is not an answer."
"No. It isn't."
For the first time, I noticed the faint scar running along the inside of his wrist. I had seen it before, though I couldn't remember where.
Without thinking, I reached for it.
He flinched.
I withdrew my hand.
"I'm sorry."
He looked at me with an expression I couldn't interpret.
"You used to say that whenever you remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"Me."
3.
The archive file opened by itself.
A video appeared.
I was on the screen.
My face was pale, my hair tangled, and my hands were trembling. Behind me stood the same laboratory, except its walls were covered in handwritten equations.
I leaned toward the camera.
"If you're watching this, the experiment has failed again."
I stopped breathing.
The woman on the recording looked directly into the lens.
"Dr. Mercer will tell you that the anomaly is a prediction error. He's lying. Adrian will tell you he can fix it. He's lying too."
The recording flickered.
Then my expression changed.
I began to cry.
"Adrian, if you're there, I'm sorry."
The man beside me took a step toward the screen.
"No," he whispered.
My recorded self continued.
"I tried to change the outcome. I thought if I knew what was going to happen, I could prevent it."
A pause.
"But the future isn't something we see, Adrian. It's something we remember."
The video distorted.
Then I said the words that made my stomach drop.
"Whatever you do, don't let me fall in love with you again."
The screen went black.
I could hear the ventilation system. The hum of the machine. My own heartbeat.
Nothing else.
Finally, I turned toward Adrian.
"Again?"
He closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"How many times?"
He didn't answer.
"How many times have we done this?"
His voice was barely audible.
"Eleven."
2.
The countdown accelerated.
The laboratory doors locked.
I grabbed Adrian's sleeve.
"Eleven trials?"
"Eleven recorded cycles."
"And every time, I forget?"
"Not immediately."
"Then what happens?"
"You start remembering."
"And?"
He looked at me.
"And you try to save me."
I searched his face for some trace of exaggeration, some sign that he was inventing this to frighten me away from the machine.
There was none.
"Why would I need to save you?"
His lips parted.
For one terrible second, I thought he might finally tell me everything.
Instead, he said, "Because you always believe you can."
1.
The machine stopped counting.
Every light went out.
A single line appeared on the central screen.
ELEVENTH SECOND: EVENT CONFIRMED.
Then came a sound from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate.
Someone was approaching the laboratory.
Adrian stepped in front of me.
"Stay behind me."
"That depends entirely on who's coming."
The door unlocked with a click.
Dr. Mercer walked in carrying a white folder.
He looked at the darkened monitors, the observation chamber, and finally at me.
"Dr. Saye," he said calmly. "I was hoping we could speak before this happened."
I stared at him.
"Before what happened?"
Mercer placed the folder on the table.
Inside was a photograph of Adrian standing beside a hospital bed.
I recognized the woman in the bed immediately.
Myself.
But I wasn't the person who had appeared in the recording.
My eyes were closed. My face was covered in electrodes. And a date had been written beneath the photograph.
Tomorrow.
I looked at Mercer.
"Explain."
He folded his hands.
"The experiment has reached its final stage."
Adrian's voice cut through the room.
"You said there would be no more trials."
"There won't be."
"Then why is she still connected?"
Mercer glanced at the monitor.
"Because the experiment is no longer being conducted on her."
He turned toward me.
"It is being conducted by her."
I looked at the screen.
A new line appeared beneath my profile.
SUBJECT 02: ACTIVE
Then another.
SUBJECT 03: IDENTIFIED
The photograph on the table began to change.
A second figure appeared beside my hospital bed.
A woman.
The same woman who had stood behind the observation glass.
Subject 01.
Mercer leaned closer.
"There's something you need to understand, Doctor. Subject 01 wasn't the first person to experience the anomaly."
"Who was?"
He looked at Adrian.
Adrian looked at me.
And I suddenly understood why neither of them wanted to answer.
Because the screen had already supplied the name.
SUBJECT 00: DR. ADRIAN VALE.
The laboratory lights flickered.
On the monitor, Adrian's profile began to fill with data.
Enrollment date: six months ago.
Memory status: restored.
Outcome: DECEASED.
I turned toward the man standing beside me.
He was staring at the screen.
"No," he whispered.
For the first time since I had met him, Adrian Vale looked genuinely afraid.
And then he disappeared.
Not in a flash of light.
Not in a cloud of smoke.
One moment, he was standing beside me.
The next, the space he occupied was empty.
His handprint remained on the glass.
Still warm.
The machine restarted.
11.
A voice came through the speakers.
My voice.
Calm. Clear. Familiar.
"Good morning, Dr. Saye."
I backed away from the console.
The voice continued.
"We need to discuss Adrian."
A pause.
"More specifically, we need to discuss why you keep bringing him back."