Lena Mercer was trying to decide whether she actually needed another package of toilet paper when a translucent blue screen appeared over the Charmin.
She stopped with one hand on the cart.
The screen hovered at eye level.
Lena looked left.
It moved with her.
She looked right.
Still there.
She blinked.
Nope.
A man squeezed his cart between Lena and a pallet of paper towels without reacting to the impossible floating rectangle.
“Sorry,” Lena muttered, moving aside.
He didn’t even look at her.
Words appeared.
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION
Planetary Transition detected.
Planetary designation: EARTH
Time until Transition:
28 DAYS : 13 HOURS : 17 MINUTES
Civilizational survival projection:
CRITICAL
Evaluating intervention parameters…
Candidate evaluation complete.
Primary Intervention Candidate selected.
Establishing Precursor Access…
Lena stared.
The timer changed.
28 DAYS : 13 HOURS : 16 MINUTES
“No.”
The screen remained.
“Nope.”
Nothing.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
A woman selecting paper towels glanced at her.
Lena pulled out her phone and held it to her ear.
“Work,” she said.
The woman immediately lost interest.
Lena walked quickly away from the toilet paper.
The screen followed.
She ducked into a relatively quiet aisle containing industrial quantities of aluminum foil and trash bags.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“What is Transition?”
Information restricted by Pre-Transition Protocol.
“That’s useful.”
Acknowledged.
Lena stared at it.
“Was that sarcasm?”
Nothing.
Fantastic.
Another window appeared.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
Improve probability of successful planetary integration.
Current projected probability:
11.8%
Eleven point eight.
That sounded bad.
“Successful integration of what?”
Information restricted by Pre-Transition Protocol.
“What’s going to happen in twenty-eight days?”
Planetary Transition.
“I gathered that.”
Nothing.
Lena rubbed both hands over her face.
There were two obvious explanations.
The first was that she was experiencing some kind of neurological event.
The second was considerably worse.
“Why me?”
The response took longer.
Primary Intervention Candidate selection is complete.
Selection criteria unavailable at current Access Tier.
That was somehow even more unsettling.
Before Lena could ask another question, the interface changed.
PRECURSOR ACCESS GRANTED
Initial functions available:
STATUS
APPRAISAL
SPATIAL INVENTORY
Lena forgot her next question.
“Spatial what?”
The words expanded.
SPATIAL INVENTORY
Capacity: 50 m³
Eligible contents: Nonliving matter
Temporal state: SUSPENDED
Stored objects experience no measurable passage of time.
Mass within Inventory does not transfer to User.
To store an eligible object:
Establish physical contact and intend storage.
To retrieve:
Select stored object and designate an unobstructed destination.
Living organisms cannot enter Spatial Inventory.
Lena read it.
Then read it again.
“No.”
She looked around.
There was a box of gallon freezer bags sitting in her cart.
She picked it up.
Store.
The box vanished.
Lena screamed.
Not loudly.
More of a strangled—
“Ah!”
A woman at the end of the aisle looked over.
Lena stared at her empty hand.
The woman stared at Lena.
“Sorry.”
Lena looked down at her cart.
No freezer bags.
She checked under the trash bags.
Nothing.
Her pulse started pounding.
“Inventory.”
Something opened in her mind.
Not exactly another screen.
She simply knew.
Kirkland Signature Gallon Freezer Bags — 1
She selected it.
Retrieve.
The box dropped into her arms.
Lena nearly dropped it again.
“Oh my God.”
She put it in the cart.
Stared at it.
Picked it back up.
Store.
Gone.
Retrieve.
Back.
“Holy shit.”
Store.
Gone.
Retrieve.
Back.
Store.
Gone.
She started laughing.
Not because it was funny.
Her brain had apparently reached the point where laughter was preferable to screaming in Costco.
She grabbed the giant package of trash bags.
Store.
Gone.
A package of aluminum foil.
Gone.
A box of parchment paper.
Gone.
Lena stared at the empty section of her cart.
She retrieved all three.
They appeared exactly where she intended, stacked somewhat crookedly.
She looked around quickly.
Nobody had seen.
She pulled out her phone.
If nothing inside Inventory changed, then…
Lena opened the stopwatch.
Started it.
00:01.
00:02.
Store.
The phone vanished.
Lena counted slowly to thirty.
Then retrieved it.
00:03.
The stopwatch continued ticking.
Lena stared.
00:04.
“Oh.”
She stopped it.
“Time doesn’t pass in there?”
Correct.
Her breathing had changed.
This wasn’t a hallucination.
Or if it was, Lena had apparently developed a hallucination capable of removing physical objects from reality.
She pinched herself.
“Ow.”
That accomplished nothing.
Lena pulled out her phone and turned on the camera.
She placed the freezer bags on a shelf.
Started recording.
Put her hand on the box.
Store.
The box vanished from the video.
Lena stopped recording.
Played it.
There it was.
Her hand touched the box.
The box disappeared.
She watched it three times.
Then stood very still.
The System was real.
Which meant the countdown was real.
Lena looked up.
28 DAYS : 13 HOURS : 9 MINUTES
“Oh, fuck.”
This time she meant it.
She leaned against the shelving.
Twenty-eight days.
She had twenty-eight days before something called Planetary Transition happened.
The System thought civilization had an 11.8 percent chance of successfully integrating with something.
She had no idea what that meant.
But apparently somebody, or something, had decided Lena needed a fifty-cubic-meter hole in reality to deal with it.
That was not reassuring.
Her eyes moved over the Costco aisle.
For the first time, she wasn’t looking at products.
She was looking at resources.
Things made in factories.
Things carried across oceans.
Things that existed on this shelf because thousands upon thousands of people had done their jobs correctly.
And suddenly Lena had a question much more frightening than Is this real?
She whispered it.
“How bad is this going to be?”
The System didn’t answer.
“Of course.”
She pulled out her phone.
Who did you even call?
911?
Hello, I’d like to report the apocalypse.
FEMA?
NASA?
The White House?
She imagined sending an email.
Subject: Planetary Transition in 28 Days
Straight to spam.
Even if somebody read it, why would they believe her?
She had the Inventory video.
That proved something impossible had happened to Lena.
It didn’t prove the world was ending.
She could walk into a government building and make a chair disappear.
That might get someone’s attention.
It might also get her detained in a laboratory.
“System.”
Listening.
That was new.
Lena straightened.
“You said I’m supposed to improve the probability of successful planetary integration.”
Correct.
“I can’t do that by myself.”
A pause.
Correct.
“So I need other people to believe me.”
Logical conclusion.
Lena narrowed her eyes.
“Can you give me proof?”
Nothing happened for several seconds.
Then the interface flashed.
CONTEXTUAL QUEST GENERATED
MAKE THEM LISTEN
Human institutional preparation significantly increases projected Transition survival.
Provide credible advance warning to appropriate authorities.
Optional Objective: Establish credibility without exposing Precursor abilities.
Reward: Based upon outcome.
“That’s what I’m asking you how to do.”
The screen changed.
PRECURSOR FORECAST AUTHORIZED
A verifiable precursor interaction will occur in:
21 HOURS : 14 MINUTES
Astronomical designation:
2026 QX₄
Current status:
Near-Earth object.
Non-hazardous.
At the indicated time, 2026 QX₄ will undergo an anomalous trajectory alteration inconsistent with all current gravitational models.
The object will not impact Earth.
Cause:
Precursor-energy interaction.
Trajectory data supplied.
Lena stared at the numbers beneath it.
She didn’t understand most of them.
But astronomers would.
“Can they predict this?”
Negative.
“Will they notice?”
Probability: 99.997%.
“And nothing normal could cause it?”
Affirmative.
There it was.
Proof.
Not proof right now.
But proof she could hand somebody before it happened.
Then she looked at the timer.
Twenty-eight days.
She had proof coming in twenty-one hours.
Until then, there was very little she could do about governments.
But there was something she could do about Lena.
She looked down at her cart.
Two cases of water.
Rice.
Pasta.
Olive oil.
Toilet paper.
A perfectly normal Costco trip.
Then she looked at the towering warehouse shelves.
Fifty cubic meters.
She smiled slowly.
“Okay.”
If the world wasn’t ending, none of this stuff would exactly go to waste.
And if it was…
Lena turned the cart around.
She went back for the second package of toilet paper.
Then stopped.
Looked at it.
“No.”
Toilet paper was bulky, cheap and lasted forever.
Frozen-time dimensional storage was currently the most valuable real estate on Earth.
She put it back.
That realization earned her another flash.
SKILL EXPERIENCE GAINED
SPATIAL INVENTORY
Efficient preservation requires more than acquisition.
Lena grinned.
“Oh, we’re going to get along.”
She headed for the food aisles.
Rice first.
Then beans.
Oil.
Salt.
Sugar.
Canned meat.
Shelf-stable milk.
Coffee.
Medicine.
Batteries.
She needed lists.
She needed categories.
She needed to figure out exactly what fifty cubic meters actually looked like.
She needed to research disaster preparedness.
She needed to figure out where the hell someone in San Francisco was supposed to go if civilization actually collapsed.
She needed to warn her family.
Not yet.
Not until the asteroid moved.
Because Hey, an invisible video-game interface says the apocalypse is coming was not a conversation Lena wanted to have twice.
Twenty-one hours.
Then she’d have proof.
Until then…
Lena grabbed another twenty-five-pound bag of rice.
She hesitated.
Grabbed three.
The timer continued counting down.
28 DAYS : 12 HOURS : 57 MINUTES
And Lena went shopping.