The Mojave at 2:00 AM was a graveyard of silence.
Max crawled through the scrub brush, his pulse thumping in his ears. He wasn't wearing the high-tech tactical gear of the future Plumbers.
He was wearing a standard-issue flight suit and carrying a Colt .45 that felt woefully inadequate against what he knew was waiting in that hole.
He peered over the edge of the impact site.
It wasn't a satellite. It was a Vulpimancer scout ship a precursor to the species Ben would eventually call Wildmutt.
In the original history, this scout ship was supposed to be empty, its pilot dead on impact. Max was supposed to find the wreckage, recover a piece of unidentified alloy, and get promoted for it.
But the memories shifted. A cold sweat broke out on his neck.
Wait. In the 'original' timeline, this ship was supposed to be empty. but I remember a different report. A redacted one.
A report about a survivor that killed three Plumber recruits before disappearing into the desert.
Max realized his "past life" wasn't a perfect map. It was a collection of fragmented data, some of it corrupted by time and perspective. A low, guttural growl vibrated through the ground.
Max looked down. In the center of the smoldering crater, a lean, orange-furred beast was sniffing the air. It had no eyes, its gills on its neck huffing out steam in the cold night air. It was young, barely a pup, and it was terrified. It was wounded, a jagged piece of the hull sticking out of its hind leg.
Max's hand went to his holster.
Kill it.
That's what the manual says. Dangerous extraterrestrial predator. Secure the site.
But then he saw it. A small, charred object the creature was guarding. It was a translation device a primitive one.
The creature wasn't a scout; it was a refugee.
"Max?"
Phil's voice crackled through the radio earpiece, hushed and tense.
"I see movement. Big movement. I've got a bead on it. Permission to fire?"
"No!"
Max hissed into the mic.
"Phil, do not fire! It's a sentient being. It's injured."
"Sentient? Max, that thing looks like a nightmare from a nuclear test site! It's moving toward you!"
The Vulpimancer turned its head. It couldn't see Max, but it could hear his heartbeat. It could smell the copper in his blood. It lunged.
Max didn't draw his gun. Instead, he reached into his pack and pulled out a ration bar. It was a gamble a stupid, human gamble. He remembered Ben telling him once, years in the future, how Vulpimancers responded to high-protein scents when they were stressed.
"Easy,"
Max whispered, sliding down the loose dirt of the crater.
"I'm not the enemy."
The beast snarled, its teeth like rows of glass shards. It was inches from his throat. Max could feel the heat radiating off its body.
If I die here, there is no Ben. There is no Gwen. The world burns in 2006.
But Max didn't move. He held the ration bar out, his hand steady even as his soul screamed at him to run.
The Vulpimancer paused. Its gills flared. It sniffed the bar, then Max's hand.
Slowly, the tension left the creature's limbs. It let out a soft, whining sound a sound that was heartbreakingly small for such a monster.
"I've got you,"
Max whispered, reaching for his field medic kit
. "I'm going to change things. For both of us."
Up on the ridge, Phil Billings lowered his rifle, his face pale in the moonlight. He looked at Max Tennyson the man he thought he knew and felt a cold shiver. Max wasn't acting like a soldier. He was acting like a guardian. And in that moment, Phil felt the first crack in their friendship a crack born of awe and a strange