of one of my fondest dreams; namely, the transmission of power from station to station without the employment of any connecting wires.”
Spoiler alert: he did not see the fulfillment of his fondest dream. He was super wrong about everything. He spent a year at his lab in Colorado Springs, ran through all his funding, went into debt, and ruined his reputation. At one point, he seemed to think he was communicating with other planets. When we first met, he assumed I was a martian (ha!).
Now, though, while we know that it’s not possible to transmit energy across vast distances using the power in the earth’s surface, as Nikola posited, we do know that it’s possible to transmit mass through time using an anil. Hence time travel. The research Nikola left for me seems to be a sort of mash-up of his research and mine. He argues that the earth’s crust is made up of millions of tiny anils, and that it should be possible for me to harness that energy from anywhere—not just inside of an anil. To stabilize the energy, he recommends injecting a very small amount of exotic matter directly into my person (he’s drawn a rough prototype for a tool that should help me accomplish this).
The science holds. And yet, I’m reluctant to test his theories. Nikola is well-known throughout history as being one of the most brilliant men to ever live. And yet his experiments in wireless energy ruined his reputation and sent him deeply into debt.
Am I really going to trust him with my life?
4
NOVEMBER 13, 2077
Black water swirled around her slowly moving boat. A cool breeze tickled the back of her neck, messing with her curls.
Dorothy stared into the darkness, watching for movement. She had Roman’s dagger in one hand, the weight of it a familiar burden at her side. In her chest, her heart rose and fell like hammer blows.
She was ready. She would never be ready.
The darkness broke open and there, in the near distance, she saw the anil undulating on a blanket of black waves. It was a sharp splinter in the night sky; a soap bubble bouncing gently on the waves; a deep, dark tunnel.
She tore her eyes away, and only then did she see the figure standing in the boat just before the tunnel, waiting for her. He didn’t move or wave to her but only stood, waiting for what he knew was about to come.
Dorothy shifted the dagger beneath the folds of her cloak, swallowing. He might know what she came here to do, but she had no intention of making it any harder than it already had to be. She pulled her boat alongside his and stared into the darkness until her eyes adjusted and Ash’s face began to take shape.
Lips and nose and mouth. Long eyelashes. Gold eyes.
“You came.” Her throat constricted around the words.
“Dorothy,” Ash said, and reached for her.
She allowed him to pull her close to him, arms wrapping around her narrow shoulders, and then his lips found hers and they were kissing and everything else fell away.
Oh, how she wished she could stay in this moment.
But the dagger was still there, in her hand. Between them, always.
She pulled back and saw, immediately, how the light seemed to dim from his face. He studied her.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said.
Dorothy, raising the dagger, said, “Of course it—”
Dorothy jolted awake, her skin burning, sweat coating her forehead and palms. Darkness swirled around her, and for long moments she couldn’t remember where she was.
Then, shapes began to take form: tall buildings and trees and sky. She was on the Fairmont roof. She must’ve fallen asleep.
She closed her eyes, gathering herself. Her hands were trembling. She could still feel the give of Ash’s skin and muscle beneath her hands, Roman’s dagger sinking into his body with frightening ease, the damp warmth of his blood coating her fingers.
What was that?
It had felt like a memory of some sort. She knew that it was possible to remember things that hadn’t happened yet, but she thought that only happened inside of an anil. So, what was this? A dream? A nightmare?
A premonition?
Whatever it had been, it seemed real. Like something she’d lived through before.
Dorothy closed her eyes, shaking the remnants of the dream from her head. When she opened them again, she saw that the sky above was tinged with pink. Dawn was approaching. She felt a crick in her neck and stretched, cringing. Perhaps the roof