Dark Stars Danielle Rollins (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📖

Roman stared back at her, not blinking.

“That’s not possible!” she said again. Her heart was beating very fast inside her chest.

“I wanted to be wrong. But the numbers don’t lie.”

Dorothy shook her head as cold fear oozed through her, leaving her numb. She thought of the neighborhood they’d gone back in time to loot, that little old woman and her dog, Pumpkin. Roman’s sister.

The earthquake that had occurred after they’d left that time had killed all of them.

Oh God . . .

She sunk to Roman’s bed, her entire body feeling, suddenly, very heavy. She lifted a hand to her mouth, thinking of all the times they’d traveled back into the past, all the silly, frivolous things they’d done.

How many lives had been lost because of them?

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked.

“Why indeed.” Roman lowered himself to the bed beside her, sighing deeply. “To be perfectly honest, I only accepted it myself a few hours ago. It was after you and I went to the future with Mac and saw what was going to happen to our city. I realized then that my hypothesis was correct. If humans keep traveling through time, we’re going to destroy everything. We have to stop.”

Dorothy closed her eyes. She felt a sort of nagging sensation as several ideas that had seemed so separate attempted to come together.

The Professor said it was possible to travel through time without a vessel.

Mac wanted to travel through time.

Time travel was going to bring about the end of the world.

And she had, apparently, killed Ash.

Were they connected, somehow? She just couldn’t tell, it was like looking at a jigsaw puzzle without half its pieces. She was still missing something.

Out loud, she said, “Ash knows how to travel through time without a vessel. We see him tomorrow, when we go back for the medical supplies.”

Roman frowned. “The only way that would be possible is if there was a very small piece of exotic matter lodged inside of his body.”

Dorothy cut her eyes at him. “You’ve read the Professor’s missing journal pages? His experiments with Tesla?” Of course he did. She found the pages in his room, after all.

“And, apparently, so have you,” Roman added, eyebrows raised. But he didn’t sound altogether surprised. “I considered attempting the experiment myself, but it seemed . . .”

“Utterly terrifying?” Dorothy filled in.

“Exactly.”

“I had the same experience,” Dorothy admitted. “I think I actually might’ve tried it, but Mac interrupted me before I could work up the nerve. He has the journal pages now.

Roman cut his eyes at her. “Mac knows it’s possible to travel through time without an anil?”

Dorothy nodded. “You said that the only way to stop the city from being destroyed is to stop traveling through time, but Mac won’t stop, not ever. Now that he knows it’s possible to time travel without a ship, he’ll be even more desperate to do it himself.”

Roman frowned, and there was a moment of quiet while he appeared to be turning this new information over in his head.

“Time travel without a ship might be possible, but he still needs exotic matter. So we’ll just have to destroy the exotic matter.” Roman paused, giving Dorothy a meaningful look. “All of it.”

Dorothy studied Roman’s face for a long moment, certain that she had misunderstood. “You mean that I need to destroy the exotic matter inside of Ash,” she said. “I need to kill him.”

Roman gazed back at her. “To save the world.”

16

“You think that’s why I kill Ash?” Dorothy asked, numb. She felt her heart fluttering inside her rib cage like a trapped bird and pressed a hand to her chest, willing it to stop.

This is a mistake, she told herself. Just some big mistake.

“If you don’t kill him, time travel will continue and, eventually, bring about an earthquake that will destroy us all,” Roman said. “I don’t think you have any other choice.”

Dorothy stared at Roman. When he said it like that it all sounded so simple. It left her feeling cold.

“No.” She started shaking her head. She wouldn’t believe this. She couldn’t. “This is Ash we’re talking about. Ash doesn’t want the world destroyed any more than you or I do! If we were to find him, talk to him—”

“I’m sure we could convince Ash to stop traveling through time, sure.” Roman sounded frustrated, like he couldn’t believe that he had to explain something so obvious. “But what happens when Mac gets to him? You said New Seattle is crawling with Cirkus Freaks whose only job is to bring Ash in. And that was before Mac found out that your boy’s capable of traveling through time without a vessel. Gives him a bit more incentive to figure out where he’s gone, doesn’t it?”

Dorothy said nothing. She didn’t want to give Roman the pleasure of letting him know that he’d made a fair point.

“Consider this,” Roman continued. “Once you destroy the rest of the EM and Mac realizes that he has to actually live in this shithole he’s created, how long do you think it’ll take before he realizes Ash is his only chance of traveling through time? The entire city’s already out looking for him! It’s only a matter of time before someone finds him.”

“Even if that’s true, Ash has no idea why he’s able to travel through time without a vessel. If you and I are too terrified to experiment with exotic matter, what makes you think Mac won’t be?”

“How much of that journal did you read before Mac took it off your hands?” Roman asked, frowning.

“Enough. Almost all of it.”

Roman cocked an eyebrow. “Did you get to the part where the Professor starts experimenting with whether a single person with EM in their body can transport others?”

Dorothy felt suddenly cold. “No.”

“It’s complicated, but not impossible. Which means Mac doesn’t need Ash to understand how he’s going through time, he just needs him to give him a ride. Do you honestly think there’s a chance in hell he’ll