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Our tracks already covered.

When we’re a block from the hotel, a sound like sustained thunder begins in the near distance.

The ground trembles beneath our feet.

Another building falls to its knees.

—

The box is waiting where we left it, in a remote corner on the parking garage’s lowest level.

We’re both covered in ash, and we take a moment at the door to brush it off our clothes, out of our hair.

Back inside, the lock shoots home after us.

We’re in a simple, finite box again.

Four walls.

A door.

A lantern.

A backpack.

And two bewildered human beings.

—

Amanda sits hugging her knees into her chest.

“What do you think happened up there?” she asks.

“Supervolcano. Asteroid strike. Nuclear war. No telling.”

“Are we in the future?”

“No, the box would only connect us to alternate realities at the same point in s.p.a.ce and time. But I suppose some worlds might seem like the future if they’ve made technological advancements that ours never figured out.”

“What if they’re all destroyed like this one?”

I say, “We should take the drug again. I don’t think we’re exactly safe under this crumbling skysc.r.a.per.”

Amanda pulls off her flats and shakes the ash out of them.

I say, “What you did for me back at the lab…You saved my life.”

She looks at me, her bottom lip threatening to quiver. “I used to dream about those first pilots who went into the box. Nightmares. I can’t believe this is happening.”

I unzip the backpack and start pulling out the contents to catalog them.

I find the leather bag containing the ampoules and injection kits.

Three notebooks sealed in plastic.

Box of pens.

A knife in a nylon sheath.

First-aid kit.

s.p.a.ce blanket.

Rain poncho.

Toiletry kit.

Two rolls of cash.

Geiger counter.

Compa.s.s.

Two one-liter water bottles, both full.

Six MREs.

“You packed all this?” I ask.

“No, I just grabbed it from the stockroom. It’s standard issue, what everyone takes into the box. We should be wearing s.p.a.ce suits, but I didn’t have time to grab any.”

“No kidding. A world like that? Radiation levels could be off the charts, or the atmospheric makeup drastically altered. If the pressure is off—too low, for instance—our blood and all the liquids in our bodies will boil.”

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