Alternate future

  Lorenzo handled the final flask. “The third is the most powerful and potentially the most instructive. Whoever drinks it will gain the opportunity to explore a probable future.”

  “What does that mean?” Cole asked.

  “The potion will fix the subject to the point in the timestream when he or she drinks it,” Lorenzo said. “For the next three days, whoever drinks the potion will seem to move forward in time. It will feel like normal life. But nothing that happens will endure. At the end of three days, the subject will return to the point when he or she drank the potion and proceed forward through time like normal.”

  “It’s like visiting the future,” Jace said.

  “As near as has ever been managed,” Lorenzo said.

  “That’s not possible,” Violet whispered.

  “Going into the future and returning is not possible,” Lorenzo said. “The subject does not go into the actual future. The subject visits a highly probable future. A possibility. The rest of us seem to be there, but we’re really not. None of it is actually happening. To be candid, it sounds unlikely to me as well, and I do not understand how it is accomplished, but Kendo Rattan assured me that it will work as promised.”

  “What if the person gets killed?” Cole asked.

  “I asked the same question,” Lorenzo said. “If the subject gets killed, he or she will return to the moment when he or she drank the potion and miss the rest of the three days.”

  “And if you leave Creon?” Mira asked.

  “If the subject leaves Creon, he or she will return to the moment when he or she drank the potion.”

  “Otherwise, we get a peek at the future,” Jace said.

  “A probable future,” Violet corrected.

  “What if we stop Ramarro?” Cole asked.

  “At the end of three days, whoever drank the potion will return to the moment when he or she drank the potion,” Lorenzo said. “All that seemed to have happened will not have happened yet. Because it was not the actual future. But the subject could then try to replicate what occurred.”

  “How accurate is the possible future?” Jace asked.

  “It’s untested,” Lorenzo replied. “But it should be extremely accurate.”

(Additional text cut)

  Holding the flask, Cole glanced at Jace, who nodded encouragingly. Mira took his free hand and squeezed it.

  Braced for a nasty flavor, Cole put the mouth of the flask to his lips and tipped it. Somewhat viscous fluid reached his tongue, flowing slowly and tasting mildly sweet, like grapes and vanilla. After he swallowed three times he upended the flask until the flow stopped.

Chapter 21