Incident Report: Project Evolution

The fuel cell ruptured at 1423 GMT, three hours into what should have been a routine supply run to Shackleton base. We were going down. Commander Adrian McGregor kept his voice level. Twenty years of military training doesn't disappear during an emergency. Edward, secure for landing. Marcus, give me what you can. I strapped into my seat. The moon's far side stretched below us through the viewport, crater fields, ancient impact sites, nothing but grey desolation. We hit hard. The landing gear buckled on impact. I felt the vehicle tilt, heard metal screaming, then the secondary systems kicked in and stabilized us. I checked my panel. Life support intact, hull breach and cargo section sealed automatically, landing gears gone. Last storm incoming, Reed said. Big one. Through the viewport, I could see it building on the horizon, a wall of lunar regolith churned up by solar wind moving fast. The dust would shred our equipment, scratch through seals, make EVA impossible. We can't stay in here, McGregor said. The holes compromised, that storm hits, were dead. There, Reed said, pointing at his scanner, structure, two clicks north, showing thermal signature, emergency power, maybe. "Soviet era," I said, reading the architectural profile. 1970s construction. "Big." "Don't care how old it is," Reed said. "It's shelter." McGregor made the call. Suit up, we move now. The EVA across the surface took 20 minutes. The storm was building behind us, visibility dropping. The structure emerged from the gray landscape like a fossil, massive blast doors built into the crater wall itself, Cyrillic warnings painted across them, faded, but still visible. "What is this place?" I asked. "Doesn't matter," McGregor said, "can you get us in?" The airlock still had power, emergency systems, decades old but functional. I cycled us through and the interior pressurized with a hiss that sounded like something waking up. Red emergency lights activated as we entered. The facility stretched ahead into darkness, tunnels carved into lunar rock. "Ares breathable," I said, checking my scanner. Stale but within limits. We removed our helmets, the air-tasted metallic, old. We moved deeper. The facility showed signs of abandonment, dust on every surface, equipment left in place, no sounds except our footsteps. The living quarters came first, small rooms with beds still made, personal photos on walls yellowed with age, newspapers dated 1972. "They left in a hurry," I said, examining a desk. Peacups still there, contents mummified. Mealtree on a table, fork beside it. One photo caught my attention, a group shot, eight people in Soviet uniforms standing in front of the facility's airlock. They were smiling, young, excited. One man held a bottle, clearly celebrating something. Behind them, someone had painted project evolution on the wall. I set the photo down carefully. Where did they go, read-asked? We followed the main power conduits to what looked like a central hub. The door to the control room had been sealed from the inside, furniture piled against it, welding marks along the frame. We forced it open. Four skeletons sat at their workstations, slumped over consoles. They died where they sat, facing the door. The desks around them showed evidence of a long siege, empty water containers, food wrappers, scratch marks on the walls. "They were waiting for something," I said. "Or keeping something out," read said quietly. "I moved to the nearest terminal. It still had power. The interface was old, Cyrillic labels, but I could navigate it. Medical systems are medical systems, regardless of language. "There are files here," I said, classified. Project evolution. What kind of project McGregor asked? I pulled up what I could decrypt. The words made my stomach drop. Human enhancement trials, psychological conditioning, containment failure, do not send rescue. They were experimenting on people, I said. I kept reading. There was a draft transmission, never sent. A warning, subjects adapted beyond parameters, enhancement protocol irreversible. Volkov became. The file cut off there. "Whose Volkov," McGregor asked. "I didn't have an answer yet." "There's a medical section," I said, checking the facility map. "Eparin, that's where the primary research would be." We found it 20 minutes later. The research lab was large, clearly the facility's center of operations. Six cylindrical tanks dominated the room. Massive iron constructs with glass port holes residue coating their interiors. Five of them stood empty, lids open, decades of dust inside. The sixth one was different. The glass port hole was shattered from the inside. The lid lay on the floor, heavy bolts still attached. The lid gel pooled around the base, not dried, not old, fresh. Large footprints led away into the darkness. A monitor bank beside the tanks still glowed with power. I moved closer, reading the Cyrillic labels. Vital signs. Tank six showed a flat line from 1972 than nothing for decades. Then at the bottom of the log, a single entry time stamped three hours ago. Research spike, pressure change, seal breach. This just happened, Reed said. His voice had gone tight, higher. He backed toward the door, eyes scanning the shadows. We need to leave right now. McGregor hadn't moved. He was studying the room with the cold assessment of someone trained to survive hostile environments. Two exits, he said quietly. Then door we came through and that maintenance tunnel. He pointed to a narrow passage in the corner. I knelt beside the tank, touched the gel, still viscous, still cool, hours old, maybe less. Something was in here, I said. Something got out. That's when we heard it. Footsteps, heavy, wet, deliberate, coming closer through the tunnels. McGregor's hand went to his tool belt. We weren't armed, civilian mission, no weapons protocol. Everyone stayed together, back toward the control room. The footsteps echoed through the corridors, impossible to pinpoint the direction. Then they stopped. Complete silence. We stood there in the red emergency lighting, waiting. The storm was raging outside. We were trapped in here with whatever had broken out of that tank. And it knew we were here. We retreated to the control room and sealed the door behind us. It wouldn't stop anything determined to get in, but it gave us a psychological barrier. Something between us and the footsteps. McGregor wedged a chair under the handle while I brought the terminal back online. Reads stood by the door, flashlight in hand, watching the corridor through the gap in the frame. What are we dealing with, McGregor asked? I don't know yet, I said, but these files mentioned subjects, plural, enhancement protocols. This wasn't just a research station. It was a human trial facility. Illegal experiments, Reed said, Cold War era. They did whatever they wanted out here. I pulled up the surveillance system. It was ancient, but functional. Cameras throughout the facility, most offline, but a few still recording on emergency power. I started scanning through saved footage, looking for anything recent. Nothing. Just empty corridors bathed in red light. Then I found the archived files, thousands of hours of recordings from 1972. I started with the most recent dates before the facility went dark. There, McGregor said, pointing at the screen. A timestamp, December 12, 1972. The video showed the research lab we'd just left. The six tanks were intact, sealed. A man in a white coat stood before the camera, speaking in Russian. I didn't need to understand the language to recognize what I was seeing. A scientist preparing to document something important. I pulled up the subtitle translation software we used for international medical journals. The text appeared slowly across the bottom of the screen. My name is Dr. Alexei Volkov, I am the director of Project Evolution. He was maybe 40, confident, excited. Our goal is to create soldiers capable of operating beyond normal human limitations, no fear, no hesitation, no pain response, perfect warriors who can function in any environment under any conditions. He gestured to the tanks behind him. Six subjects have undergone preliminary trials. Results are promising, but incomplete. The enhancement takes hold, but the subjects retain too much of their original personality. Many question orders, they experience doubt. This is unacceptable. Volkov moved closer to the camera. I have identified the problem. The dosage is insufficient. The conditioning period is too short. I have recalculated the protocol. To prove its efficacy, I will demonstrate on myself. Jesus Christ, read whispered. On screen, Volkov prepared a syringe. He rolled up his sleeve, found the vein, and injected himself without hesitation. He sat down in front of the camera, activated a vital signs monitor, and waited. Beginning documentation, time zero. I fast-forwarded through the next several hours. Volkov sitting there, occasionally noting symptoms, adjusting the monitors. Then, I let it play at normal speed. Day two. Volkov was still in the chair, but something had changed. His movements were stiff, mechanical. He spoke into the camera, but his voice had lost its warmth. Muscle density increasing, bone structure reinforcing, pain threshold, elevated beyond measurement, cognitive function. He paused, searching for words. Cognitive function, experiencing interference, psychological conditioning, engaging faster than anticipated. Day three. Volkov stood before the camera, no longer speaking. Just standing there, swaying slightly. His eyes were open, but empty. The intelligence was still there, but the humanity behind it was gone. A woman approached carefully, touched his arm. He grabbed her wrist. She screamed. The others pulled her away. Volkov released her and stepped back, but his eyes had changed, still empty, but focused now. Locked on them. The team evacuated. Volkov turned and walked toward the door. His gate was different, purposeful, efficient. I switched cameras, the corridor, the team running, Volkov following at a measured pace. Day four. The team had barricaded themselves in this room. For people, the same four skeletons we'd found. On screen, alive, terrified, staring at the door. Outside, Volkov standing there, waiting. I fast-forwarded. Days passed, Volkov remained. The team grew weaker. They tried transmissions, repairs, everything. Day seven. Then collapsed. Then another. One by one, they stopped moving. Volkov stood outside the entire time. When the last person died, he tested the door, found it sealed, then walked away. Back to the research lab. He climbed into a tank, pulled the lid closed, and went still. The foot agented. He killed them, and then he returned to containment, like a programmed behavior. Till we re-activated the systems, Reed was shaking his head. That's not possible. That was 50 years ago. Nothing could survive that long in stasis, and even if it did, it would be. old. weak. I thought about the wet footprints, the shattered glass, the timeline on the monitor. The enhancement protocol, I said. It wasn't just psychological, it was physical. Whatever he did to himself. It worked. McGregor pulled out his emergency beacon. I'm calling for rescue, now. He activated it, and the signal transmitted. A few seconds later, the response came through. Message received, rescue dispatch, and progress. ETA 36 hours. 36 hours. I checked my chronometer to confirm. The display showed 36 hours, counting down, steady, normal. When we last that long, Reed asked. His hand was shaking where it gripped the flashlight. He noticed me looking and steady did, but the tremor came back a few seconds later. The cynicism he'd worn like armor since we met was cracking. We have to, McGregor said. That's when the lights went out. Not the emergency lights, though stayed on, powered by the facilities ancient backup generators. But every other system, every terminal, every monitor, dark. Something had cut the main power. In the silence that followed, we heard it again. Footsteps. Closer this time, right outside the control room door. Then they stopped. We waited in the red light listening. The door handle moved, slowly, testing. It was checking if we'd locked it. We had. The handle stopped moving. Footsteps retreated down the corridor. It's learning, McGregor said quietly. It's testing our defenses. Reed's voice was barely a whisper. What do we do? We survive, McGregor said. And we stay together. He didn't say what we were all thinking. That thing out there used to be human. It used to be brilliant and somewhere buried under the conditioning and the enhancement. It still remembered how to hunt. We couldn't stay in the control room. The air recycling system was centralized. Without main power, we had maybe eight hours before CO2 build up became a problem. We needed to reach the environmental controls in the eastern section and restart them manually. McGregor laid out the route on the facility schematic. Eight shot down the main corridor, then left at junction 4. Should take ten minutes if the path is clear. And if it's not, Reed asked. Then we find another way. We moved out in single file, McGregor leading, me in the middle, Reed covering our rear. The emergency lights created pools of red visibility every 20 meters, darkness between them. The facility was silent except for our footsteps and the distant hum of the backup generators. No movement, no sounds, but I couldn't shake the feeling we were being watched. We reached junction 4 without incident. The environmental control room door was sealed, but not law. McGregor forced it open and we slipped inside. The room was small, cramped with machinery. A manual restart panel sat on the far wall. I moved to it while McGregor and Reed kept watch at the door. How long? McGregor asked. "Two minutes," I said, working through the start-up sequence. The system was old, but the logic was simple. Reactivate the circulation pumps, restart the scrubbers, bring the air filtration back online. The machinery groaned to life. Ventilation began cycling through the facility. I could hear it in the ducts overhead, air moving, pressure equalizing. "Done," I said. That's when Reed stepped away from the door. "I've been thinking," he said. "The lander. The damage wasn't that severe, landing gear, some fuel line connections. If I can get to the engineering bay, grab the right parts?" "No," McGregor said immediately. "I can fix it," Reed continued, talking faster now. "Yet us out of here before rescue arrives. We don't have to sit here for 36 hours waiting for that thing to find us." "We stay together," McGregor said. "That's not negotiable." Reed's jaw tightened. "You stay together. I'm a contractor, not military. I don't take orders from you." Reed, I started. The engineering bay is on the way back to the airlock, he said. "I grab parts, I move fast, I'm back in 20 minutes. It's a better plan than hiding." McGregor moved between Reed and the door. "It's a suicide plan. That thing is out there. It's faster than us, stronger than us, and it knows this facility better than we do." "Then it's my suicide," Reed said, "get out of my way." For a moment, I thought McGregor might physically stop him, but Reed had already made up his mind. I could see it in his eyes, the same fear that had been building since we found the broken tank, now converting into desperate action. McGregor stepped aside, "20 minutes," Reed said. He left before either of us could respond. McGregor and I stood there in the environmental control room, listening to Reed's footsteps fade down the corridor. "They stopped. We should go after him," I said. "He made his choice," McGregor said quietly. And he's right about one thing. Splitting up gives us two chances instead of one. If he makes it to the lander, we all survive. 5. If he doesn't, he didn't finish the sentence. We gave him 5 minutes, then headed back. The facility felt different now, emptier, more hostile. Halfway back, we heard it, a brief cutoff sound, like someone trying to shout and failing, from the engineering bay, nothing after. McGregor keyed his radio. Read, report, static. Read, respond. Nothing. He tried three more times than lowered the radio. He's gone, I said. McGregor stared toward the engineering section. We need to verify. We moved to the engineering bay. The door was open, scattered tools and parts. Read's equipment bag, his flashlight on the ground, still on, no blood, no body, just absence. McGregor knelt examining the floor. Lunar dust showed to disturbance, heel tracks, then a smooth, drag path. He traced it to the doorway, dragged him, North corridor, toward the research lab. He pointed at a scuff mark on the doorframe. Under height, it carried him through without slowing. Why? Doesn't matter, McGregor said, standing. We're going back, staying there until rescue. We retreated fast. The facility remained silent. At the control room, McGregor barricaded the door. He checked his cronometer. "Thirty-one hours," he said. I glanced at mine. The display flickered, showed something else for a split second, longer, much longer, then settled back. "Thirty-one hours." I blinked, must have misread it. Thirty-one hours until rescue. Just the two of us now. I thought about read, about the choice he'd made, about how fear could make you do things that felt rational in the moment, but were really just panic with a plan attached. McGregor sat down at one of the terminals, pulling up the surveillance feeds again. "What are you looking for?" I asked. "Patterns," he said. "It's not random. It's hunting methodically. If I contract its movement, predict where it goes." One of the monitors flickered. Camera feed from the research lab. The entity stood in front of the broken tank, utterly still. Just standing there, the way Volkov had stood in the 1972 footage, waiting, watching the empty room. Then, slowly, it turned toward the camera. Those eyes, empty but focused, looking directly at us. McGregor shut off the monitor. Thirty-one hours, he said again, quieter this time. I didn't ask if he thought we'd make it. We both already knew the answer. The hours crawled, McGregor and I took turns monitoring feeds and resting. Neither of us slept. At hour 26, we ran out of water. Storage cash in the Western Hab module, McGregor said, checking the map. Medical supplies, rations, water filtration. "That's across the main junction," I said. One ground. We don't have a choice. He was right. We needed water. We moved fast, stay quiet, 10 minutes maximum. We left the control room, moving through redlit corridors. We reached the main junction, a large circular space where five corridors converged, 30 meters of open ground to cross. McGregor scanned with his light. Nothing, no movement. Stay close, he said. We started across. Halfway through, McGregor stopped. He pressed his hand to his ear, tilting his head. "What?" I whispered. He held up a hand for silence, listening. "Did you hear that?" "Hear what? Read," he said. On the calms, said he's in the storage bay. "I listened to my own radio. Nothing but static. McGregor, I'm not hearing anything. It's clear, he's injured, but alive. McGregor, that's impossible. We heard him. It's my responsibility." He stepped toward the branching corridor. "Stay here, I'll signal when I have him." Adrian, wait. But he was already moving faster now, following something I couldn't hear. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, purposeful, quickening. "McGregor," I called. "No response. I ran to the corridor entrance. My light showed an empty passage. No McGregor. No entity." Adrian, silence. He'd been right next to me. Then he wasn't. I backed away. My radio crackled. "Dward, can you, McGregor, where are you?" Static, then fragments. The transmission cut off. I tried calling back. Nothing. I was alone. I made a choice. The storage cache. I still needed water, and I couldn't help McGregor if I was dying of dehydration. I'd get the supplies, return to the control room, and wait. If he made it back, he'd go there. The Western Hab module was close. I reached it without incident, found the storage cache exactly where the map indicated. Water containers, medical supplies, ration packs. I filled my bag, moved fast, didn't let myself think about McGregor. On the way back, I passed a window, an observation port looking out onto the lunar surface. The storm had cleared. Stars, visible. Earth, a blue crescent on the horizon. The view should have been beautiful. Instead, it just reminded me how far from home I was. I made it back to the control room and sealed the door. My chronometer read fifteen hours until rescue. I sat there in the red emergency lighting, listening to the facility breathe around me. Every sound could be footsteps. Every shadow could be the entity. But nothing came. Hours passed. I forced myself to drink water to eat a ration bar. My body needed fuel even if I couldn't taste it. At hour ten, I checked the surveillance feeds. Most cameras were still offline, but a few showed scattered views of the facility. I cycled through them, looking for any sign of McGregor. Empty corridors, empty rooms. I thought about read about the choice he'd made. About how fear could make you do things that felt rational in the moment, but were really just panic with a plan attached. Then one feed showed the research lab. I watched for ten minutes. It didn't move. Just stood there, staring at nothing. Maybe the conditioning had stripped away so much of its humanity that all that remained was the mission. Hunt, contain, return. An endless loop with no endpoint because the mission parameters never changed. I thought about Volkov. About the man he'd been before the enhancement. Brilliant, dedicated. So convinced he was creating something important that he'd sacrificed himself to prove it worked. It had worked. Just not the way he'd hoped. At hour five, my radio crackled. Rescue. This is Recovery 6 to Stranded Personnel, approaching your position. Estimate touchdown in four hours. Please acknowledge. I keed the transmit. Dr. Edward Gibson. I acknowledge. Be advised. Facility is unstable. Approach with caution. I acknowledge. Sit tight, Dr. Gibson, we're coming. Four hours. I just had to survive four more hours. I checked my chronometer. The display flickered just like before. For a split second, a different number, days, not hours. Then it corrected. Maybe I was losing it. Sleep deprivation. Stress. Trauma. I waited. Three hours later, footsteps in the corridor outside. Heavy. Wet. Deliberate. The door handle moved. Testing. The barricade held. The footsteps retreated. Then deeper in the facility. Metal groaning. Terring. Something forcing its way through. I grabbed my bag and ran. Not toward the airlock. That's where it would expect me. I went deeper. Maintenance tunnels. Storage areas. I found a small equipment locker, climbed inside, sealed it from within. Cramped, dark, barely roomed to breathe. One hour until rescue. I waited in the darkness. Footsteps passed by. Once, twice. Quiet returned. My chronometer alarm went off. Rescue time. I waited ten more minutes than emerged. The corridor was empty. I moved toward the surface airlock, slowly, carefully. The airlock lights were on. Fresh boot prints in the lunar dust. The rescue team had arrived. I cycled through, emerged onto the surface. Two figures in EVA suits stood by their lander. They turned when they saw me. Dr. Gibson, one of them, said, "Thank God we were about to come in after you. Don't," I said. "Don't go in there." helped me to their crown. got me inside, pressurized. I removed my helmet, breathing air that tasted clean and safe for the first time in what felt like forever. "Where's the rest of your crew?" one rescuer asked. "Gone," I said. "They're both gone." The lead rescuer, a woman with lieutenants in Cygnia, studied me carefully. "Can you describe what happened?" I told them everything. The crash, the facility, the entity, McGregor and Reed disappearing. They listened without interrupting. When I finished, the lieutenant exchanged a glance with her partner. "We'll need to search the facility," she said. "Verify your account." "It's still in there," I said. "I'm telling you." "We'll be careful," she said. "Just rest. We'll handle it." They left me in the lander with the third crew member, a medical technician, who started checking my vitals. I watched through the viewport as the lieutenant and her partner entered the facility. I waited. The lieutenant and her partner were inside for 40 minutes. I sat in the rescue lander with the medical technician, watching the airlock. He'd checked my vitals, given me water. I wasn't listening. I was watching that airlock. At 43 minutes, it cycled. The lieutenant and her partner emerged carrying equipment cases. They moved without urgency. They boarded, removed their helmets. The lieutenant's expression was carefully neutral, the face of someone trained to deliver bad news. "Well," I asked. "We found your crew," she said. "Relief hit me." "They're alive?" Her tone stopped me. We found remains. Two bodies, skeletal. "What?" Advanced decomposition, decades old. The uniforms match your mission parameters. I stared at her. "That's not possible. Read died yesterday." McGregor disappeared eight hours ago. She pulled out a tablet, showed me photos. Two skeletons, EVA suits laid out in the research lab. Fabric degraded, equipment corroded. The remains were found separated, doctor. One near the tanks. One near the main entrance, as if trying to leave. These were found in the primary research lab, positioned near the tank array. No signs of recent disturbance. "No," I said. "You're wrong. I was just there. Read was dragged away. I heard him." Check the surveillance footage. "We did," her partner said quietly. Younger unsettled. The system has recordings from 1972. Nothing recent. No activity in the past 50 years except you. We found footage of you moving through the facility. Alone, talking to empty space. The words hit like decompression. "What?" She showed me another video file. Security camera footage from the past 36 hours. Me in the control room, speaking to no one. Gesturing at an empty chair, moving through corridors alone, stopping to look back at nothing. "I wasn't alone," I said. McGregor was there. Read was there. We found evidence of the 1972 incident. Four skeletons in the control room. The remains in the lab. Everything you described matches events from 50 years ago, not yesterday. "The entity," I said. "Volkov. Did you find him?" Another glance between them. We found six tanks, five empty. One broken from the inside exactly as you described. Gel residue dated to 1972. No recent disturbance. "The gel was fresh," I insisted. I touched it. It was wet. All physical evidence dates to the 1972 containment failure. The broken glass, the footprints. Everything is decades old. I grabbed the tablet, scrolled through photos, the broken tank, the gel dried and cracked. The footprints faint impressions in ancient dust. But I'd touched it. I'd felt it. The lieutenant's expression softened. Her longed isolation can cause temporal disorientation, stress-induced hallucinations. "I'm not hallucinating," I shouted. Read was real. McGregor was real. Check your own records. The partner pulled up a file. Mission log shows single pilot supply run. Dr. Edward Gibson, solo assignment. No other personnel listed. That's wrong. But I was already pulling up my own mission files. I scrolled to the crew manifest. One name. Mine. No, I whispered. Dr. Gibson, you've experienced severe trauma. Your mind created companions to help you survive. It's a documented phenomenon. I didn't imagine them, I said, but my voice had lost its conviction. I thought about Read's hand shaking. McGregor's tactical assessments, the conversations we'd had. Had any of it been real? I was thinking about the chronometer. The way it had flickered. Days. Not hours. How long was I in there? I asked. What? My chronometer said 36 hours, but it kept flickering. How long was I actually in that facility? The Lieutenant-Chector tablet. Your emergency beacon activated 73 hours ago. You were in there for three days, Dr. Gibson. Three days. Not 36 hours. I looked at the photos again. The skeletons and EVA suits. Modern equipment. Decades of decay. The suits, I said. What's the model designation? The partner checked his notes. EVA seven series. Current generation. Same as yours. I met the lieutenant's eyes. Run the forensics, I said. On the bones. Tell me when they died. Dr. Gibson. Do it. She nodded to her partner. He pulled out a handheld scanner, loaded the data, ran the analysis. We waited. The scanner beeped. The partner looked at the readout, frowned, ran it again. His frowned deepened. Well, the lieutenant asked. This can't be right, he said. The skeletal degradation suggests decades, but the equipment corrosion rates don't match. Neither does the fabric decay. It's like he trailed off. Like what, I asked. Like the bodies aged 50 years, but the environment only aged three days. The lieutenant took the scanner, checked it herself. Her professional masks slipped just for a second. What does that mean, the technician asked? Nobody answered. I thought about the facility. The way time had felt wrong. The chronometer flickering. The footage showing weeks when I'd experienced hours. But I didn't say anything. What could I say that would make sense? The lieutenant stared at the scanner for a long moment. The forensics don't make sense. Body's aged 50 years, equipment aged three days. She looked at me. We're sealing the facility. I thought about the four skeletons in the control room, the two in the lab, the entity that used to be Volkov. I thought about McGregor vanishing into the dark. Reads cut off scream. The facility keeps it, I said quietly. Keeps everyone who enters, forever experiencing the same loop. Nobody responded. What could they say? We need to get you to medical. Full evaluation. It won't matter, I said. It'll still be there, waiting. We're marking it as hazardous, quarantine zone. I looked out the viewport. The airlock still stood open, red emergency lights glowing within. From here, it looked harmless. An old Soviet installation abandoned and forgotten. But I knew better. Watched through the viewport as the facility receded below us. The moon's surface, gray and barren and timeless. The rescue team had found me after three days. But the bones had aged 50 years. When had redied, when had McGregor vanished? I looked at my hands, solid, real. But the chronometer on my wrist was still flickering.