Her partner, Marcus Cole, leaned against the tiled wall of the morgue, arms crossed. He hated the morgue. Not because of the dead, but because of the undead . Or, in this case, the un-alive-never-happened-but-here-they-are. “Doc, in English for the ex-cop? You’re saying Tuesday is giving us gas?”
“What was in the package?”
Dr. Elizabeth Bishop stared at the frozen body on the slab, the chronometer beside her clicking a slow, steady rhythm. Officially, it was 8:42 AM. Unofficially, it was 8:42 AM on a Tuesday that had already happened twice. Fringe
She picked up her coat. Marcus fell into step beside her. Outside the morgue window, the sky flickered—clear blue, then bruised purple, then clear blue again. A delivery truck drove past, then drove past again, the driver’s face a smooth, featureless mannequin. Her partner, Marcus Cole, leaned against the tiled
She placed the crystalline splinter into a containment field. The field hissed. The splinter pulsed. And for a single, sickening second, the morgue didn’t smell like formaldehyde and bleach. It smelled of rain on hot asphalt and the electric tang of a lightning strike that hadn’t happened yet. She saw herself, reflected in the shard’s impossible surface, but older. Harder. Standing in a field of white flowers under a purple sky. Elizabeth Bishop stared at the frozen body on