I’ve learned from their conversations that something went wrong on our journey from Earth to Yuggoth. The Mi-Go who was carrying my brain cylinder passed through a spatial anomaly, a disruption in the space-time continuum, and came out the other side insane, or so the others think. When we arrived on Yuggoth, they had to force it into hibernation because it was frightened and confused. It claimed to have been displaced in time, that it was reliving its many thousands of years of life, experiencing every moment of it simultaneously, although with its present-day memories and knowledge intact.
But they’re wrong; that Mi-Go wasn’t insane. It’s happening to me, too. I felt us pass through the anomaly and mistook it for a collision. The anomaly is what broke me into pieces and scattered me throughout my past. That’s how I was given this second chance.
I have to try again. There has to be a way to change what happened. I concentrate, reaching into the blazing white supernova in my mind, and I go back.
After Professor Vaughan’s office hours, Emily slung her backpack onto her back and looked at the framed photo on the desk. Vaughan’s family. The ones whose deaths had set him on his insane quest for Arneth-Zin and its all-seeing watcher. She hated them for dying in that car wreck. If they’d lived, none of this would have happened. She and Sean would be fine. They both would have become doctors. Maybe they would have married and started a family.
Maybe they still could.
“Professor,” she asked, just as she had the first time, “where does that door go?”
“Nowhere,” he replied. “It’s just a small closet for the heating pipes. Why?”
“No reason.” The words were another echo through time, spoken by a weaker, more naïve Emily who didn’t share her current resolve. It infuriated her. Professor Vaughan infuriated her. The Mi-Go infuriated her.
“You’re a liar!” She hurried to the other side of his desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out his gun.
“Miss Bannerman, put that down!” Professor Vaughan started toward her.
This time, she didn’t hesitate. She took great enjoyment in shooting the smug bastard. He dropped to the floor in a spray of blood. She stepped over him and opened the door in the wall. The room beyond was the same as she remembered, but the surgical table was empty. They hadn’t gotten Sean yet. There was still time.
The Mi-Go wasn’t behind the door this time but fussing with some machinery. It turned toward her in surprise, and she shot its spongy head to bits. A second Mi-Go moved swiftly toward her from the corner, but she was ready for it this time. She shot it, too — just as a hypodermic needle pierced the side of her neck. Professor Vaughan, his argyle sweater splashed with blood where the bullet had hit him in the shoulder, injected the glowing orange liquid into her veins. She crumpled to the floor. Her sight dimmed as she began to lose consciousness, but not before she saw four more Mi-Go loom over her. Together, they lifted her off the floor and brought her over to the surgical table. She’d failed again.
I ’ve refused to answer the Mi-Go’s questions about Earth. They don’t like that. Their interviews have become more like interrogations, with machines that cause me pain if I resist. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.
I have to keep trying. I must find a way to change the past. I reach through the white.
“In essence, you are your brain, and your brain is you.” Standing at the front of the lecture hall, Professor Vaughan glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a few minutes left. Are there any questions?”
Maybe I can trip him up, Emily thought. If she let him know that she was on to him, maybe it would spook him. Maybe it would be enough to make him call it off. She raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Bannerman?” Professor Vaughan said.
“Can a human brain continue to function outside of the body?”
Vaughan’s face fell. He looked surprised and confused. She had to bite her lip not to smirk in triumph.
“That’s an interesting question,” he said. “Yes, I suppose a brain could exist independently of the body. It would need to be protected, of course, without the skull to shield it.”
“Like in a cylinder of some kind?” she asked.
Vaughan’s mouth went tight. She could see his jaw muscles clenching under his skin. “Yes, I suppose that could work. There would be no circulatory system to feed it oxygen, so it would need to be submerged in an oxygenated solution to keep it from starving. But I’m afraid the technology necessary to keep a human brain alive outside the body hasn’t been discovered yet.”
Bullshit, she thought.
Professor Vaughan glared at her, the surprise on his face melting into suspicion and anger. “Does that answer your question, Miss Bannerman?”
“Perfectly,” she said.
“Actually, I’m glad you brought it up. If you’d be so kind as to stay after class for a few minutes, I’d like to discuss it with you further. I know of a special project you might be interested in.”
She barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Some of the students gasped. Others tried to stifle their laughter.
Sean leaned over in his seat beside her and whispered, “What are you doing?”
Sean! The sight of him alive again, his brain still in his head, made her want to throw her arms around him and never let go.
When they left the lecture hall, Emily noticed Professor Vaughan glaring at her from within the crowd of students. She’d definitely touched a nerve, but would it be enough to change the course of events?
“Try not to piss off the professor, okay?” Sean said. “He emailed me earlier about working with him on the project, and I’m going to do it. I’d be a fool not to.”
“Don’t,” she said, grabbing his arm. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Just promise me you won’t, okay?”
“But this could be something really good for me.” He broke away. “I have to get to class. I’ll come by tonight.”
Emily didn’t go to Professor Vaughan’s office hours this time. She couldn’t stand to see that man again. Instead, she stayed in her dorm room and waited for Sean. The moment he arrived, she blurted out the truth to him. She told him she’d already seen what was going to happen to him, to both of them. She told him about Professor Vaughan and Arneth-Zin and the Mi-Go.
“It sounds like you had one hell of a nightmare,” he said, sitting on the bed. “But I would be stupid to turn down an opportunity like this just because you had a bad dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” she insisted. “It’s real. It already happened to us, but now I’m back and I can change it. I can make it so it doesn’t happen.”
He stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, you’re back?”
“Sean, don’t go to his office tomorrow,” she said. “They’ll cut your head open and steal your brain—”
He stood up. “Come on, you can’t be serious.”
“Come with me. Tonight,” she said, her voice growing shrill in desperation. She grabbed his arm. “We’ll get in my car and just drive. He won’t be able to find us.”
“You mean leave school?”
“I don’t know how else to keep us safe. I’ve tried everything else I can think of, I shot him twice, I shot the Mi-Go, but—”
Sean yanked his arm out of her grasp. “Stop it. I don’t know if you’re on something or if this is some kind of joke, but I’m not in the mood.” He opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Emily chased after him into the hallway. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back. “Sean, no! We have to leave! It’s the only way!”