CHAPTER SEVEN

As I walked toward my house, I was met with an unsettling sight—crowds of black vehicles, dozens of them, lined the entire street. I recognized the emblem on one of them:

TIME PATROLLERS

Keeping Time Safe Since Time Began.

My heart sank as I hurried inside, only to be greeted by two investigators speaking to my parents. Their expressions were stern, full of suspicion. They were looking for me, questioning everyone around in their hunt for any sign of illegal time machine use.

It was all starting to hit me. Last night hadn’t been a dream. It was real. The things I’d done, the power I had, it was all real. And now, my ability to manipulate time—without a machine—was raising serious questions.

The investigators fired off a series of questions, their tone cold and methodical. Every answer I gave seemed to lead to more inquiries, as if they were trying to catch me in a lie. I could feel the pressure mounting with each passing second.

But then, a thought occurred to me—if I reversed time, maybe I could throw them off my trail, maybe I could make it all disappear.

I stepped outside, focusing on the power I had, and began to reverse time. But then I froze. Standing at the end of the driveway, I spotted a line of Time Patrollers waiting. The trap had been set.

I realized then—this had all been part of their plan. They were trying to get me to prove I was using an illegal time machine, forcing my hand.

Without thinking, I dropped the reversal and ran straight for Chloe’s house.

When I arrived, I found her sitting in her living room, looking lost, still grappling with everything that had happened. I rushed in and quickly filled her in on what was going on, explaining everything as best as I could. I told her I had the perfect way to prove my innocence: I would ask her a question, and she’d answer it like she had the first time I asked after the time reversal.

Before she could respond, Time Patrollers burst through the door. I grabbed Chloe’s hand, pulling her with me as we dashed out of the house, hearing their footsteps pounding behind us.

They were relentless, showing up at every turn, tracking us like hounds.

“Amber’s old place,” Chloe suggested, out of breath. “We can hide there.”

I didn’t argue. We had no choice but to run.

Hours passed as we crouched in the dark, abandoned house. I couldn’t feel relief. Not after everything that had happened. My mind was consumed with the thought of my parents. They were dead—killed because they’d been harboring someone suspected of illegal time manipulation. My chest tightened at the thought.

I wished I could’ve done something, anything, to save them. But what good would it have done now?

At least they didn’t have to experience this decaying society we lived in.

Then, I remembered the file I’d discovered in the garage a week ago. I turned to Chloe. “Stay here,” I said. “I’m going to check something.”

She nodded, but I could see the worry in her eyes.

I made my way to the garage, Chloe following close behind. I pulled the file from the desk and began scanning its contents, trying to find something—anything—that would make sense of the strange time machine I had.

“What is it you’re looking for, Shari?” Chloe asked.

“Answers,” I replied.

We pored over the paperwork, piecing together the mystery. The name “Yisrael Slattery” kept popping up—an inventor tied to the Catch-22 time machine. According to the files, Slattery had disappeared after its construction, his name fading into obscurity. But there was more—Slattery was also a co-founder of Abysmal Enterprises, a company he’d been cheated out of, according to the records.

I felt a pang of sympathy for him, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was understanding what had happened.

Then Chloe froze. Her finger pointed to a photo in the corner. There was a metal casket, and inside it—frozen in suspended animation—was Slattery.

I felt a chill crawl up my spine. Something wasn’t right. Chloe’s face drained of color as she recognized the room in the photo. It was the same as the garage—my garage. The dartboard, the exact spot where we stood. She pointed to where the dart still pierced the bulls-eye.

I pulled the dart from the board, my heart racing. As soon as I did, the ground beneath us shifted. The floor groaned, and suddenly, three cryo-chambers rose from beneath the garage floor. Two of them contained bodies, frozen in time.

“Shari,” Chloe whispered, her voice shaking. “Come see this.”

I walked toward her, dread swirling in my gut. Inside one of the chambers was Yisrael Slattery, his body encased in ice, but his eyes opened. He wasn’t surprised.

"I guess it’s time now, isn’t it?" he said, his voice raspy. "What year?"

“3098,” I answered, my voice barely a whisper.

"Why build the Catch-22?" I asked, my pulse pounding in my ears.

"Catch-22? That’s what they’re calling it now? Last time it was the Anex300," Slattery replied, climbing out of the chamber with a slow stretch.

“I built it so I could travel back to 1970. To take revenge on the company that betrayed me. It became too much of an influence in the world,” he said, his tone bitter.

Slattery moved to the next chamber, and with a swipe of his hand, he wiped the frost from the glass, revealing another body—Amber Rose.

Chloe shook her head, disbelief written across her face. “No. No. No. No. This isn’t real.”

But it was.

Slattery opened the chamber. “What you saw in the video,” he said, his voice soft, “was Amber attempting to end her life in another timeline. I stopped that from happening. I placed her in cryo-sleep while I returned to the past."

A cold chill swept through the room. Chloe was speechless, the weight of it all crushing her.

Slattery continued. “It’s the butterfly effect. Alter one thing, and the entire world changes. But if you loop it, if you keep it going long enough… it’s all in your hands. Time is the fire in which we burn.”

I couldn’t help but wonder: if Amber had gone back to end her life, did that mean my future self had returned to kill me? Would I be the next person in a cryo-chamber? The questions kept swirling, but nothing made sense.

“Why?” I asked. “Why all of this?”

Slattery seemed lost in thought, not answering. Chloe had gone to Amber, who had just woken, her mind clearly fractured.

“What's going on? Where am I?” Amber asked, her voice shaking. “How am I alive? She… she stabbed me! I stabbed me! How could she…?”

Amber’s trembling hands reached out, her gaze locked on the metal disk in my bag. “Give me that! I need an answer!”

Before I could react, she lunged at me, grabbing the time machine. I struggled to keep hold of it as the Catch-22 began to glow bright, a loud hum echoing through the room. Time began to warp, first a day, then a night, then a day again, over and over. The machine roared with energy, and I braced myself for whatever would come next.