Sherry Ficklin - Extracted

Next to me, Stein groans. I lean over and give her a shake. She rolls onto her side in the grass, pressing her face against the ground. I can see angry red burns crisscrossing her exposed skin. She’s breathing hard, probably trying to get a grip on the pain. A chunk of her hair is singed off just below her chin, but otherwise she looks all right. A flash goes off and I jump, covering my eyes.

A little old woman in a tan skirt, with her white hair tucked under a pink scarf, holds up a camera and snaps a picture. The flash goes off again. From the steps of the building behind us, an old man yells to her in Russian. She snaps one more picture and wobbles away. A young man is on his cell phone, speaking urgently to someone on the other end. He’s calling the police, I realize. He’s trying to get us some help. Whatever happened, our landing here in midday must have caused quite a ruckus for these people.

Lex crawls between us and props himself up on his knees. “You two okay?”

I look down at myself. No major parts missing. Beyond that, I can’t tell. I ache everywhere. My ankle might be sprained, and the lump on the back of my head is pounding. The pain in my chest tells me I’ve probably cracked a rib or two.

“Ethan,” I say, scanning the area. I don’t see him anywhere. “Ethan?”

“Over here,” he says with a wave as he stumbles into sight. He’s holding one arm at an odd angle but he’s smiling. I struggle to my feet despite the pain and limp over to him. Careful of his injured arm, I hug him, pressing my face into the nape of his neck.

“Where are we?” he asks as Lex and Stein join us.

I nod to the massive building behind him. The elderly woman is talking to a small group of people, one of whom looks like a priest. She’s pointing at us and chatting away in Russian.

I walk over to the man on the phone. “Excuse me, sir. My friend and I are lost. Can you tell me where we are?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy but he lowers the phone. “Ekaterinburg. The Church on the Blood.” He pauses. “Where did you come from? You just appeared out of nowhere. And you’re hurt. I have called for help.”

I mutter “Thank you” and walk back over to my friends.

“This is bad. We need to go, like now. Before a whole lot of people start asking a whole lot of questions we can’t answer.”

Ethan nods. “Let’s get out of sight so we can rift out.”

Together we walk around to the back of the church. There’s no one around.

“So, where to?” Ethan asks, ready to punch the numbers into the Tether.

“We should get Stein back to Nobel so he can take a look at her,” Lex chimes in.

She waves him off. “I’m fine. Just sore. And starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”

As if agreeing, my stomach rumbles. Ethan laughs. “Someone must have said the magic word.”

I slap him playfully and he winces.

“Ow.”

“Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I could eat.”

“Me, too. Tacos?” Lex asks, taking Stein by the hand. “I know a little place in Mexico City—”

Ethan cuts him off. “Shouldn’t we make sure everything is, I dunno, fixed?”

I look around. “No hover cars or ancient Greek armies. No massive, soul-sucking tornadoes. Not even any tiny soul-sucking tornadoes. I think it’s safe to say everything is fine.”

“And even if it’s not, Lex needs a shower. Seriously,” Stein says.

I laugh and it hurts, so I clutch my chest.

“Maybe we should go get cleaned up and bandaged first?” Ethan nudges, pointing to my foot, which I’m holding up gingerly. “Besides, Stein is pushing the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ policy.”

I look over and see that he’s right. Her shirt is mostly shredded. Somehow, it still manages to look good on her.

“Just take me somewhere with room service and I’ll be fine,” I say, turning to Lex. “Seriously, though. No tacos. How about hot dogs? Just a quick stop on the way home?”

Lex looks at Stein, who shrugs. “Chicago?”

“Why not?” I say. “How about 1965? It was a great year.”

EMBER

“How’s Stein?” I call down to Lex as he enters the room. I’m perched on top of the half-pipe, my legs dangling. Ethan is busy working with Nobel and I’m bored. We’ve only been back in Hollow Tower a few days, but I’m already itching to get out. It’s too noisy here. Too chaotic. I find myself longing for the calm routine of the Institute.

“She’s fine. Nobel’s salve is a lifesaver. No permanent damage, at least not physically.”

He gets a running start and leaps up the pipe, grabbing the lip beside me and pulling himself up.

“She still reading through that journal she stole?”

He sits next to me and nods. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s in there or why it bothers her so much. She’s just been distant lately. I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready.”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “She’ll be all right. Just give her some time.”

He snorts. “I have plenty of that.”

The lines around his eyes are deep. I know he’s worried, but there’s nothing I can do, so I opt to change the subject. “The new leg looks good.”

He runs his hand down his newly repaired leg. “It’s not bad. Better than that stupid contraption Nobel built. Still sore. Nobel took a lot of the hardware out to make it lighter and replaced it with that skin stuff. That junk he made in those petri dishes is amazing.”

For some reason, that kind of grosses me out. I think Lex can tell.

“Did you know the skin can grow new tendons? He took the main piston out and spread that stuff all over. It works beautifully.”

“Speaking of new and better things…” I reach behind me and pull a wad from my back pocket, thrusting it toward him.

He grabs it and shakes it out with a jingle, then stuffs the new jester’s hat on his head. He gives it a shake and the jingle bells rattle. It’s red and yellow, with a bright green patch and blue-thread stitches.

“It’s not much. I had to use scraps of old clothes to sew it together.”

He grins from ear to ear. “It’s perfect, thanks.”

Below us, Gloves chugs through the room, his train chair leaving puffs of black smoke in the air.

Lex shakes his head again, jingling. “I can’t believe how well the Dox worked. Everything is back to normal.”

I swallow. “Not everything.”

The Dox managed to seal off the paradox, repairing the stream from the point it was created forward. Most things went back to normal. No one here remembers the attack. It looks like only those who were in the blast radius remember the paradox at all. Everything that’s happened from the point the paradox was created until now has been rewritten, smoothed out, and put back on course.

But Flynn is still dead. The Tesla automaton is gone. I don’t know if his brain was in that suit or if it’s still tucked away at the Institute. We’ll probably have to find out at some point. But the immediate danger is past. Now comes the really scary part.

The future.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Lex asks, looking away as if he’s a little scared of what I might say.

“Well, first I have to go pay my past self a little visit.” Absently I reach up and touch my chin. Nobel’s salve has healed it to a faint scar. Soon, even that will fade away. “Then, Sisson and I are going to return all the keys you boys lifted. After that, who knows? Ethan thinks we should stay. Fight alongside the Hollows.”

Lex leans back on his palms. “I knew there was a reason I liked that guy.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Right. He also wants to take me on vacation. Disneyland or something. Says we need some R and R.”