Free False Future by Dan Krokos

and emptied, vegetables smashed in the snow.
    “What can I do for you?” Olivia says.
    “I need to know what the Key is.”
    She turns into a parking garage and drives right through the gate, snapping it off. We cruise up and around a few levels, fast, until Olivia slides into a spot.
    She sits with both hands on the wheel for a moment. “Your world is about to change.”
    “You don’t say.”
    She shakes her head. “I haven’t been honest with you. From the beginning.”
    I feel a pang deep in my stomach, the kind you get when you know bad news is imminent, but you can’t even guess what it is.
    Olivia lets the seconds tick away.
    “Tell me.”
    She sighs through her nose. “I can’t just yet. Because I don’t know what telling you will do.”
    “Okaayyyy.” Tick tick tick. “You have to tell me something.”
    A muscle in her jaw twitches. “I can’t tell you what to do next, and I can’t stop you. I can only offer a bit of guidance.”
    “What have you been lying about?” The heat is stifling inside the Thorn now, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Tell me. You have to tell me.”
    She ignores me. “I don’t think you should fight back this time.”
    “Excuse me?”
    A car door opens and closes on our level, then I hear an engine starting sluggishly in the cold. I watch out the back window as a car creeps by. When the driver spots the Thorn he peels out around the corner.
    “True Earth is here to do a very specific thing. And stopping that thing might end this world for good.”
    “So now you’re saying they want to save us ?”
    Olivia nods. “We’re here to release the Black into your world. It will no longer be a buffer between universes—it will be a part of your reality.”
    “Which means what?” My mouth is sticky with fear; I can’t swallow.
    “Releasing the Black into your world would re-create an event that we erased by accident.”
    “You’re not making any sense.”
    “Listen. I helped you in the beginning because I wanted to prevent something awful from happening, something only I knew about. Something I couldn’t share with the other Originals.”
    “Which is what?”
    She still won’t look at me directly. “Before I tell you, you need to understand that this world, the world you live in, is not a different universe. It is the past of my world.”
    “Come again?”
    Now she looks at me. “This world will eventually become True Earth, far in the future.”
    “Bullshit.” My hands are shaking.
    “It’s true. When the director decided it was time to cull this world, I wanted to stop her—”
    “Why didn’t you just tell her the truth ?”
    “I couldn’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I did something wrong!” She screams it. I’ve never heard her scream before. I’ve never heard any Olivia scream before. “The director knows the truth now. She knows what this world means for our future, for the future of True Earth. And, Miranda…if she doesn’t win, it’s going to be bad for everyone .”
    The silence in the Thorn is heavy.
    Finally, I ask, “What did you do wrong?” She looks down at her lap and it hits me. This being who has existed for a thousand years is unsure of herself.
    “I don’t know what would’ve happened if the eyeless were allowed to consume this world. I don’t think I can ever know. But I do know what happened after you stopped them….”
    “What?” It should be something good, but it sounds like it’s going to be bad.
    “I’ll show you everything,” she says quietly.
    Olivia pulls out a mask like the one I’ve used many times before. It allows the wearer to experience memories a previous user has stored on the device. But this one has a strip of wires running off it, wires that lead to another mask.
    “I will show you what you need to see. Just listen to my voice.”
    I slide the helmet on and close my eyes, waiting for the familiar sting as microscopic needles pierce my skull, but it never comes.
    When I open my