I always had this bloody problem when airport security staff changed, always. It didn't matter if I made sure I always presented the certified medical clearance for my Chronal Accelerator, it was the same old story. Beeping security gates, having to explain that, no, I couldn't just take it off and walk 10 a few feet away from it while they put it through the scanner separately, and then staff crowding around me looking suspiciously at the contraption on my chest.

I stood holding my top-secret envelope while people buzzed around me, hoping all this silly fuss wouldn't make me miss my plane. My clients didn't pay top dollar to have packages hand-delivered internationally by Velocity Couriers for their deliveries to be late!

The new security guard, who definitely didn't have a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics like Winston did, was taking his sweet time in reading my clearance word-by-word. He probably had to spell them all out. "'Chronal Disassociation'," he said sceptically. "I've never heard of it."

Privately, I thought there might be a great deal this fellow might not have heard of; he seemed like the sort of person who didn't want to hear about new things. I wasn't going to pick a fight with anyone today, though. I wanted to actually get on my plane. "It just means I need this," I told him as politely as I could, tapping my accelerator. "But don't worry, it doesn't do anything dangerous! It just stops me from slipping out of the timestream, that's all."

He looked at me like I might actually be mad. "We're going to have to scan you again," he warned me. "And we might need to examine your device."

Nothing new there. "Well, whatever you need," I told him, sighing internally as they dragged me through loads of machines, ummed and ahhed over my accelerator and then eventually sat me down in a back room to make a few telephone calls, just to make sure 'it wouldn't interfere with the equipment on the plane'.

"It won't," I promised them, "it doesn't contain any sort of transmission device, and I fly all the time."

"Let's let the experts make that call, shall we?" the security guard told me like I was a little child.

I am an expert, I thought a bit sullenly, resisting the urge to tell him that I got my pilot licence at 16, that I had an undergraduate in flight engineering, and that I could probably do a better job of flying the plane than the actual scheduled pilots. It was no use, because I knew from experience that they only got shirty if you argued with them. Arguing with airport security staff was the number one way to make sure you definitely didn't make it on board your scheduled flight.

It wasn't until I could hear the final boarding call for Budapest that I began to genuinely worry these bumbling idiots would make me miss my plane, though. I was debating whether or not I should have it out with them—if I was going to miss my flight anyway, what did it matter if I let them have it?—when a familiar face wandered into the interview room.

One of the older security guards, I recognised him immediately. He was a sight for sore eyes, let me tell you.

"Lena!" he said, surprised. "What are you doing on here? Did you accidently try to take firearms onto the plane again?"

I shook my head; I'd learnt my lesson about checking my bracers were empty a long time ago. "No," I said, and then opened my mouth to tell him what was happening when the other security guard put his hand over the phone receiver and talked over me.

"We're concerned about her 'life-support device'," he explained ever so properly, saying 'life-support device' like he thought it might be some sort of bomb instead.

Thank goodness the old security guard had his head on straight. "Did you check her medical clearance?" The new security guard nodded. "What was the date on that, just out of curiosity?"

He checked, propping the receiver between an ear and a shoulder. "The 20th of August, 2059."

"And on her passport, exactly how many times has she flown out of Gatwick, incident free, since that date?"

It took a moment. When it hit the new guy just how many hundreds of times I'd flown since that date, the he stared at the older guard for a second, swallowing and letting the receiver fall from his ear. It was ever so satisfying walking him flounder, let me tell you. "…Oh."

The old security patted my back. "Sorry about that, Lena," he said, "let's get all this nonsense sorted out, shall we?" He rushed all the paperwork for me so I could get on board.

When he handed it to me, leafing through the clearance to make sure he'd not forgotten to return anything, he was shaking his head. "Do you get bothered about it a lot, then, that old thing?" His eyes dipped to my accelerator.

Hah. "All the bloody time," I told him. "You'd think an official medical clearance would put the matter to rest, but it never does."

He nodded slowly. "So I imagine," he commented. "You must be so angry about it. I know I would be."

Angry? "What, about being stopped by security all the time?"

He shook his head. "About the accident that caused you to need the device in the first place," he said. "I read all about it in the news after the first time you came through here. Terrible business, that."

I winced. It had been a very tough time; I didn't want to think about it. "Well, the important thing is that it's all solved now with this!" I told him, gesturing at my chest. "And I can't really be angry at anyone. No one knew it was going to happen, and I was the one who put my hand up to do the test flight in the first place. If there's anyone I should blame, it's myself."

He didn't look convinced. "How old were you?"

I never did like that question, it was far too loaded. I was top of my class in everything, anyway, it wasn't as if I didn't know what I was doing. "I was old enough, don't you worry! Honestly, sir, it's completely fine. It's in the past, and I can do some wicked tricks now because of it. It's no bother, really."

His lips were in a thin, tight line, but he didn't push the point. "Well, that's that, then," he said, and then stood aside so I could leave. "Best you be off so you don't miss your plane!"

Like I'd let that happen after I'd gotten this far! I thanked him, and since hurrying was sort of my thing, I zipped through their airport and made the boarding gate about 0.5 of a second before they closed it.

The flight attendant gave me a startled look as I suddenly appeared in front of her. "Sorry to nearly cut you off!" she stuttered, holding the ribbon aside so I could pass through to the gate. "I could have sworn that man before you was the last person waiting to board!"

Rather than explain, I just laughed nervously. "Well, I'm quite small, you probably just couldn't see me behind him!"

Then, I let myself be ushered onto the plane and took my seat, breathing a big, fat sigh of relief as the crew closed and cross-checked the doors: I'd made it. Putting the envelope on my lap, I fidgeted about and tried to make myself comfortable.

I couldn't, though; my accelerator was poking into the middle of my back and making me lean forward at a really odd angle in the seat. I probably would have just taken the blasted thing off and put that in my lap with the envelope, but after all that fuss at the gate, I was a little worried people would claim it couldn't possibly be a life-support device if I wasn't wearing it. More arguments were the very last thing I needed today.

Sighing, I stared at my knees and waiting for the plane to take off so I could undo my seatbelt.

The flight itself was only three hours, but it was a long bloody three hours. Even though my client had bought me first class seats, it was uncomfortable and there wasn't much to do. I'd already seen all the movies and documentaries on the entertainment system, and I didn't have any new emails or messages. Because it had been a while since I'd been to Budapest, I had a bit of a look at a tourist site, and then, when I ran out of ways to entertain myself, I ended up staring down at the package in my lap.

It was just papers, I think. Since I normally flew very expensive gifts or actual packages across the world, I figured whatever was in this tiny little envelope must be really important and really confidential for someone to bother printing it out and physically flying it.

It was fun thinking about what it could be. Maybe it was a secret formula, or some sort of secret message? Or maybe it was even secret photos of something terribly illicit? Whatever it was, for someone to be paying top dollar to receive it, it must be very important. I was pretty chuffed they'd chosen me to do it, despite all the awful things The Sun had said about me after Overwatch was decommissioned.

"That must be a pretty important document."

I looked up; there was a woman seated across from me in the centre of the plane. She had an accent that was really pleasant to listen to—Spanish, I think? Or something like that?—and as soon as I saw her I immediately felt really self-conscious. She was like the popular girls at school: wearing really fashionable and expensive clothes, cybernetically augmented to the nines, and her hair did this really impressive gradient from black to white through purple. I was torn between worrying that she was going to tease me like the popular girls always did, worrying about how much cooler she was than me, and also thinking that she was rather pretty—not that that mattered, of course. People like her didn't date people like me. They married millionaires and then killed them for their—

"Cat got your tongue, chica?" She was smirking at me, leaning an elbow casually on the armrest.

Whoops, I was staring. Nice one, Lena. I closed my jaw and laughed nervously, realising she'd asked about the envelope. "Oh, this? I suppose it is very important, yes. I don't know. I like your hair, it's very," Lena, stop talking, for the love of god, stop talking, "um, well, it's n-nice."

She was looking at me. "Thank you."

Then, there was this uncomfortable silence. For some odd reason, I felt like I needed to fill it. "I-Is it natural?" I asked, miming the shape her hair fell in, but realised it wasn't clear what I meant. "The shape, I mean." At her eyebrow twitch, I realised I still wasn't been clear. "Of your hair, I mean! Your hair, not—well, not anything else."

Her smirk deepened. She imitated the gesture I'd made, except it looked a lot naughtier when she did it. "The shape of my hair?"

Was she… flirting with me? I mean—okay, she was messing about with me, joking like, but—actually? I was both flattered and horrified by that idea. I almost hoped she was just teasing me.

"So," she said, while I was mutely staring at her. "The important envelope. What's inside it?"

I looked down at it a little blankly. I'd forgotten about it. "Um." I swallowed. "Well, I don't know. I don't ask people what's inside their packages, as long as they sign a thing saying it's not illegal for me to take them via plane."

She leant forward, eyes on mine. "But aren't you… curious?"

She was flirting. Help. "O-Of course, but it's not my business? I just deliver them. I don't need to know what's inside them."

While I was sweating, she reached a hand out towards me. Her nails were pink. They were also short. Oh, god. "Come on," she said, her voice at the back of her throat. "Let's have a little peek together. I can show you how to reseal it so that no one can tell you opened it."

This was… quite an odd way to hit on someone?

Unless…

…she wasn't just hitting on me?

"Wait," I said, realising aloud how odd her interest in my—erm, package, was. "Why do you care what's inside it?"

She gave me an odd look. "I don't," she said, and I wasn't sure whether to believe her or not.

"Really? Because you seem pretty interested in it. Too interested, in fact."

She sat back up in her seat, giving me a casual shrug. "I was just trying to make conversation with you, chica," she said, sighing at length. "I thought, you know, we could pass the time on this long flight together, but I guess not..." She put earphones in and pretended to be very interested in the holovid she opened in front of her.

I narrowed my eyes at her. I wasn't sure if she'd backed off because I'd inadvertently rejected her by being completely paranoid, or because I'd sprung her trying to steal information from inside my secret envelope. Either way, I wasn't sure what to do.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realised how ridiculous I was being. Of course she wasn't interested in my envelope! Why would she be? It was just the only thing about me to comment on—well, except my accelerator, and since it looked like a medical device, people usually tried to pretend it didn't exist and didn't even look at it when they talked to me.

That meant I'd just had this completely fit woman hitting on me, and instead of letting her, I'd turned into to some silly conspiracy and buggered it up. No wonder I was perpetually single.

I sat very uncomfortably in my seat, staring forward for the rest of the flight so I didn't accidentally look at her, rehashing the conversation in my head and feeling like a right idiot.

When the plane landed and I was finally able to escape it, my back was very stiff and I was pretty glad of the walk (or, honestly, the jog) away from the gate to the taxi rank.

The taxis were fitted with omnic heads and torso instead of human drivers. "Where to?" the driver asked politely.

Wondering what it would be like to have an entire car attached to me instead of legs, I opened a holovid to show him the address. "Here." Looking slightly concerned, he pulled away from the curb and into the air.

Budapest was the same since the last time I'd come. I knew Hungary was struggling economically, which explained why they weren't exploding with new buildings like London was. But I didn't really realise how much they were struggling until I noticed the heavy locks on the taxi door and all the security cameras everywhere. That meant only one thing: crime. I wished I'd been allowed to bring my pistols with me. My bracers felt really empty without them.

As we drove, the flashing skyscrapers faded to multi-story apartment blocks which blended into single-story houses and then factories as we drove further out to the west. There weren't even any street lights out here, which would have been fine during the day, but day was rapidly fading into dusk and with all these abandoned factories and old, empty manufacturing plants, this was not the sort of area I really wanted to be in after dark.

The taxi driver looked equally as worried. "Are you should you gave me the right address, Miss Oxton?" he asked, looking dubiously out of the window.

I checked it again. "Yes, this is it." I looked up from the map on my holovid to the building it seemed to indicate. It was a dodgy-looking factory that didn't have any lights on. "I think it's in that one."

He looked at me like I was completely mad. "I really must warn you about getting out of the taxi here," he said. "More than 21% of all crimes are committed in this district."

Looking about us, I didn't doubt him at all. Maybe that's why they were paying me so much money to deliver it here? "It's alright," I told him. "I've been to much worse places. I'll be fine, honest."

I wasn't sure he was actually going to let me out, but he did. After I'd paid him, though, he sped off at probably twice the limit towards the sky to get away, leaving me in the half-light on the side of an abandoned factory.

I looked at the package in my hand. I wonder what's inside you, I thought, taking a deep breath and heading through the (broken) front gate of the abandoned factory, wondering what was inside this place, too.

It was dead quiet in the yard. I could hear distant traffic on the highway over the hill, and also the creaks and groans really old buildings made in the wind. I felt like I was on the set of some low-budget horror movie; there didn't seem to be anyone else here at all. It occurred to me that maybe this package had a drop point rather than a handover—and since I was already shining like a bloody beacon in the dark thanks to my accelerator (so much for trying to keep a low profile), I opened a glowing holovid to check.

'Hand deliver to Istvan Kolacs,' it read. 'Payment on delivery.' Well, then. I suppose that settled that.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the creaky old door and went inside.

It was almost empty; just one big, empty factory with concrete floors and an iron roof and a few odd crates here and there. It reminded me of an aircraft hangar, actually—like the places Overwatch used to store their experimental planes. This place hadn't been used in yonks, though, it was musty, and dust wafted through the air in the light beam my accelerator was making.

I wondered what I was looking for in here. Surely, someone was here to collect the package? "Hello?" I called; my voice echoed off the concreate floor and smooth walls. "Hello, is anybody here?"

Silence.

Maybe he hasn't arrived yet, I thought, checking my watch. It was only just past the time the handover was set to take place, so I supposed it was possible. After all, if my time as an international courier had taught me anything, it was that rich people could be right wankers about wasting other people's time, especially people they were paying.

While I was standing there in the centre of the factory wondering what to do, something moved quickly in the corner of my eye; outside one of the windows.

Yikes! I blinked out of reflex; nearly back into a pile of old crates which I of course knocked over, making a royal bloody clatter as they fell all over the floor. I grimaced at them, twisting back towards the window.

There was nothing there. At least, nothing I could see. They'd be able to see me, though, because it wasn't like I could turn my accelerator's light off without losing my ability to escape if I needed to.

I thought I might have heard footsteps on the other side of the factory, too, but when I spun around and shone a beam of light where I thought they'd been, there was nothing.

Oh, god. This was beginning to seem like a really terrible idea. I'd been really excited about a top secret missive when I'd received it (adventure!) but now that I was actually here I wondered what the bloody hell I'd been thinking. I felt like I was being watched from all directions and I didn't know which way would be a good escape route. Nice one, Lena, I thought to myself as I backed up away from the window. Look at what you've gone and gotten yourself into this time…

This was a trap, wasn't it?

While I was trying to count my way through slow, deep breaths the way Dr Ziegler had taught me when I was lightheaded—should I call Winston, maybe? Was there anything he could do right now to help me?—there was this godawful clang and the far door swung open. A silhouette of two men in suits walked through the door.

Well, with this glowing thing on my chest, hiding wasn't exactly an option was it?

They walked towards me. They had heavy footsteps.

I gulped. They're clients, Lena, I told myself, clients! "Erm, hiya!" I called out to them, trying to play it cool. "Nice evening, don't you think?"

They glanced at each other. That glance made me sweat.

"Is one of you two a Mr Istvan Kolacs?"

Finally, one of them spoke. "I-sh-tvan," he said, correcting my pronunciation. Oops. "You have something for me?" He walked a little further towards me than his associate, his face lit from underneath by my accelerator. He had tiny little scars all over his skin like someone who knew war.

I tried not to stare at them. "That's right!" I said far too cheerfully so he couldn't tell how terrified I was, but when I held out the envelope to him, it was obvious to all of us that my hand was shaking. I laughed nervously. "A bit chilly in here, isn't it?"

Istvan accepted the package and opened it, his eyes never leaving mine. I must have been dripping with sweat; these two were bloody terrifying and both of them were at least twice my size.

My eyes did leave his for a minute to dip to the envelope, though, because despite the whole are-they-going-to-try-and-kill-me thing, I wanted to know what was in the envelope I'd just flown across Europe, so when he pulled out—

—a wad of blank paper?

My stomach dropped.

It was a trap.

I stared at the white paper, mouth open, wishing I had better judgment. What on earth had I been thinking?!

I should blink away now, I thought, eyeing the far door and the most attractive escape route, while they don't expect me to, while they can't—

"Very good, Ms Oxton," Istvan told me in the sort of a voice a teacher would use to congratulate a top student: condescending and satisfied. "I hear you can fight, too. Is that true?"

I stared at him. What on—"Eh, I suppose so?"

Without warning, he lunged at me.

Shrieking, I blinked away and backed into the wall, trying to mentally calculate how many steps/blinks it would take before I was out of the factory and out of—

He was chuckling.

I-I didn't—just, what? I must have been gaping.

He stood straight again, brushing off his suit. "Fascinating," he said, and then started walking over to where I'd ended up.

Pressing up against the cold concrete wall, I wondered if I should blink away again. What were these two playing at?!

Towering over me, he reached into his inner breast pocket and drew out—not a gun (I'd definitely expected it to be a gun), but another envelope. He held it at me. "Apologies for all this," he said, making a vague gesture about us, "but my firm handles rather—sensitive assignments and we like to make sure we're choosing the right contractors."

I couldn't even imagine what sort of expression I had. "What?" So he wasn't going to try and kill me?!

He didn't answer me directly, he just waved the paper envelope at me. "The address of your hotel is in there," he said. "It's booked under your name, and your payment is waiting for you in your room."

Okay, that was all very well, but I was stuck on the part where they'd lured me to this scary old warehouse and frightened the hell out of me on purpose. "This was some sort of test?"

I couldn't read his face. "As I said, we like to make sure our contractors can handle the jobs they're assigned to."

This was mental. "Why didn't you just say so, then?!" I asked him. "I would have been fine with it if you'd just told me what to expect!"

Completely bloody ignoring me, he pushed the envelope at my chest until I accepted it. "You say you'll transport anything internationally?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Thanks for your time today, Ms Oxton. We'll be in touch." He brushed his suit down, gave me a once over, and then he and his slickly dressed associate exited the way they'd entered, leaving me cowering against the wall feeling like a right idiot. Why were rich people always such complete wankers?

"Thanks!" I called rather sarcastically after them, but only once the door had shut. Then, I stood there for a moment, dazed, and wishing I did have my guns with me (not that shooting annoying clients was the best way to build my business). Well, I suppose I could get out of this dump now, at least?

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered no taxi or rideshare company was willing to pick me up from here. That meant my only option was to walk a good two or three miles to a residential area, avoiding several dodgy-looking characters on the way, and wait ages for a taxi to drive all the way out and collect me.

At least the hotel made up for all that nonsense. I was busy having a right old sulk in the passenger seat—what sort of people thought it was fair to scare the living daylights out of their contractors?!—when I saw what sort of hotel we were driving towards. It made me sit up in my seat.

It was so big that it was almost palatial, and it looked the sort of place rock stars and royalty stayed, not the sort of place some rich bastards would put up their freelance contractors. I checked the address on the bit of paper he'd given me—it was the right place—and then, wide-eyed, let the taxi drop me on the 20th level valet.

I didn't feel dressed for this. I was just wearing leggings and my old trainers, and all the other people being dropped off at the valet were all wearing dinner gowns, dinner jackets and they all had fancy hair and fancy jewellery. I got some pretty odd looks from them as I walked up to the concierge.

Even he was dressed much better than I was. "May I help you?" he asked, sounding like he didn't think he could.

Oh, boy. "Erm. I think I might have a reservation here for Lena Oxton?"

He looked pretty blood sceptical. "You think you might?" he asked, and then made at least a cursory attempt at checking. He must have found me, because even though he was omnic and had a neutral faceplate, I could see his surprise. If he'd had a throat, he would have gulped. "Apologies, Ms Oxton," he said, his whole tone changing, "right this way, please. Do you have bags?" I shook my head, and followed him inside.

The foyer was even posher than the valet circle. It was done up like some early 20th Century ballroom, and there was even gold-leaf and chandeliers and everything. The concierge had to prompt me to follow him a couple of times because I was too busy gaping at everything to pay attention to where he was headed.

The lift went up forever, and only stopped at the top floor.

"The penthouse, madam," he told me, gesturing politely for me to exit the lift. It opened up right into 'my' living room. "Should I send for some staff to make you comfortable?"

I couldn't even think what I'd need staff for. I shook my head, taking a few tentative steps out into the enormous room. It was made up like something out of those old Jane Austen adaptions, the ones where all the very rich people lived. The wood on the furniture was all carved into elaborate shapes and everything was floral and horribly expensive-looking. It certainly made a big change from my dingy little flat in the dodgy end of Kings Row. I was afraid to even touch anything.

"Can I bring you anything to eat or drink, perhaps? We have a chef on call who can come and prepare a meal for you, if you wish."

A personal chef? This was mental. "No, I'm quite alright, thank you."

He gave me this really deferential bow—a big change from the judgmental up and down he'd given me in valet—and then the lift doors closed.

I looked back the penthouse; you had to be kidding me.

I wandered around the room with my mouth wide open. Through a doorway on the side was a huge kitchen—it looked like it was actually for the staff to use, rather than me—and on the other side of the living room was a huge bedroom (I, uh, may have belly-flopped on the enormous bed just to test it) and a bathroom with a bathtub in the centre of the room. The tub looked like it could fit lots of people in it, too. I bet even Winston would fit in it!

I snapped a picture of it and was about to send it to him when I realised sending him a picture of this place would mean explaining how I'd afforded a penthouse in Budapest, which meant loads of questions I didn't want to answer. Honestly, he worried about me far too much sometimes. I'd better keep all this to myself.

Leaving the big bathtub, I went to explore the balcony outside the bedroom.

The balcony had something else Winston would definitely have fit in: a pool. Not a little spa-sized pool, either, a proper big pool. And it was one of those pools that had the glass over the side so you could see the whole city while you were underwater, too, and it had several deck-chairs around the edge so you could admire the view. I stopped for a moment to do just that, letting a big grin grow on my face. A penthouse, personal staff if I wanted them and this enormous big pool on the top floor?! This was definitely the sort of adventure I'd imagined when I'd decided to become an international courier!

Remembering being a courier was why I was here in the first place, I hunted around for the payment Istvan had said I'd find and located a little RFID-proof box on the bedside table. Curious, I read it before I transferred the balance into my account. "Hope this hotel room makes up for the surprise," it read.

Did it bloody ever! They could scare me as much as they liked if they were going to put me up in places like this afterwards!

I flopped back on the bed again, grinning up at the ceiling. This was brilliant.

After I'd taken photos of basically everything, I found a bottle of horribly expensive champagne in the fridge, took it out to the pool and drank it out of a real crystal wineglass, feeling like all those posh people downstairs. It would have been nice to have shared it with someone—maybe that girl from the plane?—but it was still fun by myself. At least if I was by myself I couldn't be a paranoid mess and make everything awkward.

When I was feeling pleasantly buzzed, I tried to decide if I wanted to risk my accelerator being submerged and go for a swim in the pool. Normally I would have been completely fine to get it wet, except I'd given it a good old knock a couple of weeks back and Winston hadn't checked it for cracks yet.

Really, I could probably just pop it on the side of the pool and swim around without it (the range on the new model was a good ten feet), except I had this horrible mental image of it falling in and malfunctioning. Or, what if one of those staff the concierge mentioned happened to come in while I was splashing about and decide to 'put it safely away from the water' or something, and walked off with it?!

Frowning somewhat mournfully at the water—at least it looked pretty—I decided it was better safe than sorry, and only took my accelerator off when I went to go to sleep. I put it beside me on the mattress and coiled the straps around my wrist just to be very, very certain it was safe, and then let the champers and the enormous mattress do their work.

I didn't sleep very well, though. Maybe it was because of what happened in the factory; maybe it was because of the alcohol, even if I didn't drink that much. Whatever it was, I tossed and turned and felt like the night was one long combination of semi-consciousness and checking what time it was on the clock beside my bed.

At one point, I woke up—the ceiling looked a different colour, and much further away, for some reason—and when I turned over, I realised my wrist was free. There were no straps on it.

Panicking, I sat up.

Feeling around under the covers, I slid my hand across the mattress; my accelerator had to be here somewhere. I'd obviously just unwound it from my wrist by tossing and turning. I reached about under the 1000-thread sheets, feeling for the straps, or the hard alloy casing, but I felt nothing except bed clothes.

Oh, no, I thought, my stomach dropping. No, no, no… Springing out of bed, I felt around on the plush carpet as my heart pounded and my breath quickened.

That's when it started—that feeling. The sudden feeling of déjà vu, the sudden awareness of exactly where I was, in what century, what time, what place, like I was floating in a sea of events and, then, that I was sinking.

It's the sinking that I always felt. The slipping, the being sucked backwards or thrown fowards and glitching; jumping like a skipping record, flickering like a broken monitor, hurtling downwards, downwards in time like a rock in the ocean.

I couldn't grab anything when it happened; nothing was real. My hands glitched through the carpet, swept through the bed as I reached for it, strobe lights flashing in my face so I couldn't see. And just as I disappeared and heard my cry for help disappear, too, I was—falling out of the sky! The plane was gone, everything was gone, there was nothing, nowhere, never—the ground was approaching—was I going to glitch through it like light through a window?—or was I going to slam against it with all the force of a 1000-foot fall?—it was getting closer, and closer, and closer and just as my body impacted against the grass of a 10,000 year old moor and I felt the breath driven from my lungs and—

—was I screaming?

I was. That was my voice. I was shouting and—sweating?—and I was—

—Lying down…?

…In bed? I was in bed. I took a breath, terrified to open my eyes.

Everything was still.

I could hear the antique clock ticking from the living room and the whirr of the fridge in the kitchen. The duvet was still over me, sitting softly against my damp forehead. Aside from my pounding heart and heaving chest, there was complete and total silence.

…my accelerator! Was it—?

Scared of what I would find, I carefully felt around beside me… and my fingers closed around heavy straps. I exhaled a big, long, thankful sigh of relief.

It was just a nightmare. My accelerator was still here, it was still with me. God, though. God...

Well, I wasn't going to risk anything like that nightmare again, no way. Sitting up in the dark, I pulled the accelerator hastily over my t-shirt and strapped it so tightly around me that the straps cut into my skin. It was uncomfortable, but that was comforting, in a way? It was there, I could feel it. And I'd much rather be uncomfortable than risk having another nightmare or having someone take it while I was fast asleep.

I lay back down on my side—the only way I could lie with my accelerator on—staring at the clock beside the bed and watching the numbers slowly tick over one by one, and feeling an inordinate amount of comfort in how long it took them to do that. It felt right. I felt stable.

You're here, Lena, I told myself, the straps biting between my ribs. You're definitely here.

I couldn't sleep, though. Not for the rest of the night. And when cool morning light filtered through the big open windows of the bedroom, I was relieved I could stop trying and get up.

I stretched—boy, was I stiff—and I was just wandering out to the kitchen to get a glass of water before I tried to navigate the shower without getting my accelerator too wet, when noticed a purple envelope on the kitchen counter.

I stopped in my tracks, staring at it. That had definitely not been there last night.