A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring #1)

Something to the left caught Sera’s attention. She walked over to see a glass case, about the size and shape of a small refrigerator. Behind the glass, on a felt stand, there was a silvery band of metal an inch thick, shaped like a figure eight and about a foot long. Except for a small touch screen on one side, the object appeared completely smooth and shiny, almost shimmering like liquid. It looked alien — and very advanced.

“That must be it,” Dak whispered. She didn’t know when he’d appeared at her shoulder. “Their really, really big project. What in the world is it?”

There was a small label affixed to the glass case, three words that made Sera’s heart skip a few beats.

The Infinity Ring.

Sera shifted her gaze to the right. Next to the display case, a whiteboard stood over a large desk on which several SQuares rested. Three more words were written across the top of the board — The Missing Piece — and a series of formulas had been laid out below them. Sera scanned the scrawl of letters and numbers and symbols, her fascination growing, and something tickled in her brain again. This time, she knew, it had nothing to do with a Remnant.

“Dak?” she said.

“Yeah?” He’d already wandered off.

“I’m going to need some time to myself. Your parents left behind quite a puzzle.” She turned her head to look at him. “I want to know exactly what this is.”





AFTER AN hour of wandering his parents’ lab, Dak had had enough. Sera hadn’t moved from the desk next to the Infinity Ring — whatever that meant — where she pored over his parents’ notes and formulas. Dak wanted no part of that, figuring she’d find out some cool stuff then tell him about it later in terms he could understand. So he fiddled around, peeking at diagrams and models of things he couldn’t name, jars full of gross stuff he couldn’t identify, and books that seemed interesting at first glance but proved to be incomprehensible.

Sera didn’t speak the entire time. Every once in a while a grunt or an “Ah!” would escape her, but nothing else. She was onto something, and when that happened, Dak knew he might as well leave her to it.

“Hey,” he said to her. “I’m going to fix something to eat. Want anything?”

She didn’t respond, didn’t even look back at him. Instead she moved from one SQuare to another, flicking on its glowing display and leaning closer to read.

“Hey,” he said again. “I’m gonna go down to Mrs. Jackson’s place and murder her whole family. Then I’m gonna fly to the moon and eat some chickens. Be right back.”

“Okay,” she murmured.

Man, is she onto something, he thought as he went out the door.



Several hours later, stuffing his face with potato chips, Dak still hadn’t heard or seen from Sera. He was sitting on the couch flipping the TV back and forth between a fluff piece about the upcoming French royal wedding and news reports about twin hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, both category fives and too unpredictable to project where they might make landfall. Such things had grown almost tiresome to track, but there wasn’t anything else to do.

He knew Sera would work until she died of starvation if left to her own devices, so he whipped up a couple of ham sandwiches and took them out to her. She accepted the plate without so much as a thank-you and started wolfing the food down, her eyes still on the SQuare in front of her.

“The moon was awesome,” Dak said. “The chickens, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Sera said under her breath.

Hating what a waste the day had become, Dak slouched back to the house, wondering why he’d ever thought it a good idea to let Sera loose in such a place.



The shrill ring of the phone woke him up.

With groggy eyes, his mouth feeling like someone had stuffed a dirty sock in there, he looked over at the clock. In a panic, he shot to his feet. It was almost ten p.m.

Shrieking curses at no one in particular, he ran to the phone and answered it. Just as he expected, Sera’s uncle was ranting and raving on the other end, wondering where she was — it was nearly curfew, and officers could pop in for a random check any minute. Dak apologized profusely, saying he’d get her right away. He thought Sera knew better than to risk being out past ten. Plus, her uncle had a really annoying nasally voice when he was ticked off.

“Sera!” Dak yelled when he burst through the iron door — as much as he could burst through it when the thing weighed more than the limestone blocks used to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza. “Do you have any clue what time it is? Your uncle’s having a hissy fit! He says he won’t cover for you if the SQ come around asking why you’re out past curfew.”

She didn’t panic like he thought she would. Instead, she slowly stood up and turned to him. Somehow her face looked both exhausted and full of energy.

Dak almost wanted to take a step back. “Um . . . you okay, there?”

“The Infinity Ring is a time-travel device,” she said, as calm as he’d ever seen her. “And I figured out the missing piece. I know how to make it work.”