JACKIE:

I's made my way inside Life Rite's top secret R&D department. Shelves lined the walls; full of robotic parts and gadgets, old computers, and tools. I walked past the shelves and found Mark alone, tinkering with a drone at a steel table surrounded by a wall of monitors.

He looked up from his work, surprised. “Jackie? What the hell are you doing in here?”

“It’s here.” I moved toward the table.

An Alpha style drone lay on the table staring up at me with its mechanical eyelid open. It only had one arm attachment. An early model.

Flashes of some other reality played in my mind. This machine once spit fire over a lush forest. It collected blood samples from me and synthesized my DNA. The memory of countless drones sliding in and out of my precious slipstream like a bad infestation shook me to my core.

“You’ve got to destroy Alpha.”

“What’s Alpha?” Mark asked.

“This thing!”

“Huh, not a bad name for the first generation. What do you know about it? I’ve been tinkering with it for decades,” Mark replied. “The Universal DNA Identifier took eleven years to crack. I’m not one to give up easily.”

“These machines are dangerous,” I said, struggling to make eye contact. My grandfather was a tough guy. People never told him no.

Instead of getting mad like I expected, he laughed. “What are you talking about, Jackie? It’s a hobby, a side project… but it seems promising. Wanna see it? Take a seat, dear.”

“Really?” His invitation disarmed me. I felt honored to be allowed to watch him tinker.

“Sit.”

My mom always told me stories of watching Mark work when she was a teenager, but he’d never invited me in. Most of the time, I wasn’t sure he knew I existed.

“What does it do?”

“I have state-of-the-art optics on this thing. It can scan any Universal DNA Identifier within a mile radius. Facial recognition, administering serums, taking blood samples, it can even deliver our creams to clients in ten minutes or less.”

Mark laughed at his own sales pitch. He had a nice smile.

I studied Alpha as it lay on the table, offline. I looked at the wires and belly. Something was missing, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“Here, let me show you.” Mark powered Alpha up. The drone’s eyelids clicked several times. It flew up and hovered over the table. Its clicking noise was unmistakable, but it wasn’t exactly as I recalled.

“It’s broken,” I said casually.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not glowing green.”

I remembered the green glow flowing through Alpha’s veins, and even worse, when that glow mixed with my blood, synthesizing into… something else.

“Huh,” was all Mark said.

I felt relieved that the drone wasn’t working. Beatrice’s sacrifice must have truly reset the timeline, but Life Rite wasn’t completely cured. There were more pressing matters to discuss.

“Mark, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, dear.”

The words felt heavy on my tongue. I hesitated.

“I don’t have all day. Time is money.”

I quickly wiped away a tear before it could fall and finally spit it out.

“Where do you keep the mutants?”

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He froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

What could I say to make him understand? Did I even understand it all?

After an awkward pause, I said, “Please tell me we aren’t creating mutants so rich people like Feraz Tal can live forever. Beatrice didn’t want that.”

Mark’s face fell like he’d seen a ghost. The ghost of Beatrice, no doubt.

“Get out!” he yelled, but I wouldn’t relent. Not after all I remembered about the probable future.

Even at the risk of my holiday bonus, I doubled down.

“Beatrice refused the treatments, didn’t she? She wanted to end all the suffering.”

My heart ached to see Beatrice again. She felt like a mother to me despite the fact that I never met her in this life.

The weight of her sacrifice suddenly fell on my shoulders. I had to make sure it wasn’t in vain. I would ensure Mark’s drone never got access to the slipstream. I had to stop Life Rite from causing all those mutations. But how?

“Everything I do is for her,” Mark declared. “All the lives we save are in Beatrice’s honor.”

“It doesn’t end well, and she knew it. Beatrice used the slipstream to explore probabilities and…”

“What are you talking about?” Mark asked. “Are you using drugs again, Jackie? I’ll strip you of your duties if you are.”

“I’ve been clean for nine months. Promise.”

“You better be. My assistant will reach out to schedule a mandatory drug test.”

I sighed. My family was so stifling. “Fine, whatever.”

Maybe Mark didn’t know what the slipstream was? I finally had a leg up. Or maybe I was going crazy and would be checked into rehab again by my overbearing family. I had to try again.

“Please listen.”

“You’ve got one minute.” Mark crossed his arms.

Alpha clicked, still hovering in the air.

I struggled to explain. I didn’t have all the answers, but hoped my role in this timeline could fix the same issues as the last one.

I took a deep breath and said, “What if I told you there was a better way to make the serum?”

Mark raised his eyebrow, intrigued. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t know if it will work, but test my blood to see if I’m…”

“If you’re what?”

“Still a gene carrier.”

This was dangerous information to divulge, but I needed to right as many wrongs as possible with what I remembered from the slipstream.

Mark chuckled. “What’s so special about your blood?”

“Firestorm… I mean, my father… well… you… he…”

I hadn’t thought this through.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“Hmmm,” was all Mark said.

I hate sitting in awkward silences, especially with someone as powerful as my grandfather.

“I’ve programmed Alpha, as you called him, to take blood samples. Let’s test your theory right now.”

Mark hit a button on his watch, and that damn machine zipped toward me with its signature clicking sound.

I swatted it away. “No, I’m being dumb. I was thinking about using again, but I haven’t. I swear… Forget I said anything.”

“There are no bad ideas. Only bad execution.” Mark pressed his watch again, and a needle popped out of Alpha’s faceplate.

Crap. I was stumbling into the same mistakes. The most probable mistakes…

The drone darted toward me, ready to prick my neck.

“Keep that thing away from me.”

I ran past the shelves of scrap metal with Alpha hot on my heels. It ran into the large steel door as I opened it, but didn’t waver from its task.

On my way out the door, I tripped over my own feet. I shooed Alpha away as I stumbled into the corridor, but it followed me out.

It chased me down the bright, clean halls of Life Rite. Past Beatrice’s corner office, which was now Mark’s, and past the luxury apartments Beatrice once locked me inside.

Firestorm’s voice echoed in my mind. “You’ve got to move fast. They’re coming for you.”

The overwhelming sense of déjà vu almost made me pass out, but Firestorm’s voice also comforted me. Maybe I wasn’t alone in all this.

“What does it want from me?” I ran down the hall, past Brent from accounting. He looked at me like I was crazy.

“If you don’t want to find out, keep moving!” Firestorm commanded.

My high heels fell off. I kept going without them.

That drone was quick! Click, click, clicking behind me with needle drawn.

I burst through the door to the stairwell, but Alpha was right behind me. I looked down at the long and winding staircase.

“Where can I go?” I asked in desperation.

Firestorm’s voice echoed in my skull. “Jump! Trust me.”

The blind trust I felt for him was unparalleled. Despite how clumsy I was, I took a deep breath and jumped over the railing. I fell down, but perfectly landed the jump that should have killed me.

“Woah. How did I do that?”

Alpha didn’t stand a chance now.

“Keep going. Get outta here,” Firestorm instructed.

I sighed relief when I stepped out into the city street, leaving the clicking evil drone in the Life Rite building.

Walking barefoot in a back alley, the savage homeless loitering in the dirt encircled. The poverty in the city was dangerous, too.

“Where’s my driver?” I asked under my breath, but didn’t get a response. “Firestorm, are you there?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are you actually with me, or am I imagining it?”

I walked around the Life Rite headquarters, disgusted at my filthy barefoot feet.

The knowledge of both timelines rattled inside my brain, trying to reconcile. I had to strategize and decide what my next move should be.

Life Rite’s shadow defined my whole life trajectory, but I always had an inclination that everything in paradise was not what it seemed.

Seeing Feraz rebirth did something to me. It triggered a watershed of memories, instincts, a deep knowing of probable outcomes. All the wisdom of the slipstream flooded into me, calling me to fix my family’s mistakes. I needed to process what I knew, and fast.

Luckily, I found my driver, Gus, parked nearby.

“Jackie, what happened to your shoes? Are you alright?”

“Take me to my mother’s house. I need to see Grace immediately.”

Was my mother still alive in this timeline?