I had spent the better part of my career explaining why the impossible was merely the improbable wearing a dramatic coat.
I had never expected to meet my future self.
I had certainly never expected her to inform me that I had a daughter.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I believe I misheard you."
The older Seraphina shook her head.
"Liora was our daughter."
"Our?"
"Adrian's and mine."
I turned to Adrian.
He looked as if someone had removed the floor beneath his feet.
"You had a child," I said.
His eyes remained on the glass cabinet.
"Yes."
"And you never thought to mention her?"
"I didn't remember her."
The answer silenced me.
The little girl inside the cabinet pressed both palms against the glass. She looked about eight years old, with dark hair tied into two uneven braids.
A small paper flower rested in her hand.
"Can someone please explain why a child is appearing in a room full of alternate versions of me?"
The older Seraphina moved toward the cabinet.
"Liora, sweetheart?"
The girl smiled.
"You came back."
Her mother's face crumpled.
"I promised I would."
"No," Liora said gently. "You promised you'd stop."
The older woman stopped moving.
I glanced at Adrian.
"What does she mean?"
He didn't answer.
The girl looked at me.
"Hello, Mum."
"I am not your mother."
She tilted her head.
"You always say that first."
The words sent a chill through me.
"How many times have we had this conversation?"
Liora counted on her fingers.
"Eleven."
Of course.
Eleven.
The number had become the universe's favourite way of making my life unbearable.
The older Seraphina pressed her hand against the cabinet.
"I'm getting you out."
"You said that last time."
"I know."
"And the time before that."
"I know, Liora."
The girl lowered her eyes to the paper flower.
"You always bring Dad back first."
Adrian stepped forward.
"Liora, look at me."
She did.
For one beautiful, terrible second, she looked like an ordinary child seeing her father after a long absence.
"Dad?"
Adrian's face broke.
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Are you the real one?"
He couldn't answer.
Liora nodded as though she had expected that.
"That's what you said last time, too."
The cabinet emitted a low hum.
A warning appeared on its frame.
MEMORY CONTAINMENT FAILURE.
The older Seraphina turned toward me.
"The experiment began after Liora died."
The room seemed to shrink around us.
"How did she die?"
"She was caught in the first temporal event. Her brain registered the eleven-second anomaly before the rest of the world did. By the time we reached her, her neural activity had stopped."
I looked at the child in the cabinet.
"Then what is that?"
"A reconstruction."
The word sounded uglier than it had before.
The older Seraphina continued.
"I couldn't accept losing her. Adrian helped me preserve her last neural recordings. We built the machine to restore the memories, then the person."
"But it didn't work."
"It worked too well."
She pointed to the cabinets.
"The system began reconstructing every version of us contained in its records. Every remembered conversation. Every possible outcome. Every version of the experiment in which we made a different choice."
"And Adrian?"
"Died trying to stop it."
He stared at the floor.
The older woman continued.
"After he died, I reconstructed him. Then I reconstructed myself. Then we tried to reconstruct Liora again."
"How many times?"
"Eleven cycles. Eleven failures."
I looked at the girl.
"Why does she remember?"
"Because she's the only one who never agreed to forget."
Liora lifted the paper flower.
"You gave this to me."
I shook my head.
"I don't remember."
"You made it when the machine first started. You said flowers were proof that beautiful things could grow out of places that looked dead."
My throat tightened.
"That sounds sentimental."
"You cried when you gave it to me."
"I don't cry."
Liora smiled.
"You said that, too."
For a moment, the laboratory faded. I could almost smell rain on warm pavement, hear a child's laughter, feel tiny fingers curling around mine.
Then the memory vanished.
I gripped the cabinet.
"Tell me what to do."
The older Seraphina looked at the countdown displayed above the door.
00:00:11
"Destroy the core."
Adrian turned sharply.
"If she destroys it, every reconstruction disappears."
"Not just the reconstructions," the older woman replied.
Her eyes met mine.
"The original memories will disappear, too."
I understood.
Every trace of Adrian. Every fragment of Liora. Every impossible version of myself.
Gone.
Liora pressed her paper flower to the glass.
"It's all right, Mum."
"No," the older Seraphina whispered.
"You can stop now."
The countdown began.
10.
I reached for the emergency release.
9.
Adrian caught my hand.
"Wait."
I stared at him.
"You said you didn't ask me to save you."
"I didn't."
"Then why are you stopping me?"
His eyes filled with something I could not name.
"Because I finally remember what happened the first time."
8.
He looked at the older Seraphina.
"She didn't die in the experiment."
The older woman's expression went blank.
Adrian turned back to me.
"Liora wasn't the first person we lost."
7.
He pointed at the screen.
A hidden file had appeared beneath the countdown.
ORIGINAL INCIDENT: SUBJECT 00.
IDENTITY: DR. SERAPHINA SAYE.
I stared at the words.
Adrian's voice shook.
"You were the first person who died, Saye."
6.
The older Seraphina took a step back.
"And I was the one who brought you back."
The countdown continued.
5.
Liora's paper flower slipped from her fingers.
It floated inside the cabinet, caught in a current of invisible air.
4.
I looked at Adrian.
"Was any of it real?"
He held my gaze.
"I don't know."
For once, I believed him.
3.
The older Seraphina reached for the console.
"Whatever happens next, don't let the machine choose for you."
2.
Liora smiled at me through the glass.
"Remember me."
1.
The countdown stopped.
Every screen displayed the same message.
RESTORATION COMPLETE.
Then the machine spoke.
Not in my voice.
Not in Adrian's.
In the voice of a little girl.
"Thank you for bringing me home."
The cabinet opened.
It was empty.
And from somewhere deep beneath the laboratory, a child began to laugh.