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Year: 3037. Two months after leaving the safety of their friends found at Soran and Gemma’s farm, and before the events of Something Left Behind have taken place, Alan Pete, Noni and Galen have successfully left the Teyonara behind. Will the past repeat itself? Or will time take a different turn?
The wind whispered down the cracked boulevards, carrying the scent of rust and dust through the silent remains of a once thriving metropolis. Time had worn the buildings to skeletal shadows of their former selves, but there was still an eerie dignity to the forgotten city, as if it were holding its breath.
Alan brushed aside a curtain of vines draping over a rusted sign. Public Library.
"Looks like knowledge might've survived after all," he murmured.
Pete gave a half grin. "Or what's left of it."
Galen followed them with cautious reverence, his fingers brushing the scorched stone pillars as if the very air whispered history into his mind. Noni held tightly to a cloth satchel, her eyes wide with curiosity. She had seen a city like this one before, when Urko had found them and taken Alan prisoner. But this one, it felt different. She couldn’t explain it.
The heavy thick library doors creaked open, protesting years of silence. Inside, the gloom swallowed their footsteps. Shelves stood like sentinels, many collapsed under the weight of time, others miraculously upright. The books, what remained of them, were brittle, faded ghosts of another age.
"These are… human writings, human books, so many of them," Galen said in awe, lifting a fragment of paper with the tenderness of a priest handling scripture. “Some of them predate even The Scrolls.”
Pete chuckled at that. “How ‘bout all of them.”
Noni paused, her gaze fixed on a metal stairwell half buried in rubble. She pointed toward it, then signed fluidly, ‘What is down there?’
Alan followed her gesture, then glanced at Galen and Pete. “Good question.”
Galen adjusted the strap of his pack, peering down into the shadowed stairwell. “It looks like some kind of lower level, perhaps storage. Or something they wanted to hide.”
Pete gave a half smile. “Either way, it’s worth a look.”
Without another word, they began clearing the debris together, the rhythm of their movements practiced, almost synchronized. The bond between them had become as natural as breath, shaped by survival, strengthened by trust, and forged in the fires of too many close calls.
They dug through the debris, clearing a path. The stairwell groaned under their weight as they descended, the air growing colder. At the bottom: a heavy steel door, sealed tight.
Pete knelt by the control panel. “Looks like some kind of lock. Maybe magnetic.”
Alan tilted his head. “Vault? Bunker? Storage?”
With effort, and some luck, they forced the door open with a long screech. Inside was a narrow chamber, dimly lit by what little sunlight filtered through a cracked ceiling panel. The walls were lined with sealed cases and blackened screens.
Galen stepped away from the others, his gaze drawn to a low pedestal half shrouded in dust and shadow. His fingers brushed aside a curtain of cobwebs and settled gently on the thick glass case protecting a single, aged volume. The pages beneath were a soft brown, curled at the edges, inked in looping, intricate script that meant nothing to him, and everything, somehow.
“Alan,” he called softly. “Pete, come look.”
Pete crouched beside him and squinted at the strange text and faded botanical drawings that danced across the exposed page. His brow furrowed, then slowly rose.
“I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “That’s the Voynich Manuscript.”
Alan came up behind them. “What?”
Pete nodded toward the glass. “It’s a book. Fifteenth century. No one ever cracked it. Language, script, illustrations, completely unknown. Scholars, codebreakers, even ANSA tried to figure it out. No one did. It’s still a mystery.”
Galen stared at it, eyes wide. “So, it was never understood?”
“Not in our time,” Pete said, almost reverently. “And yet someone thought it was important enough to lock in a vault like this. Not a weapon. Not a formula. A mystery.”
Alan exhaled slowly, his gaze heavy. “This place wasn’t just about what we knew. It was about what we were afraid to forget.”
Pete straightened slowly, gaze sweeping the vault with new awareness. “This wasn’t just a library,” he said quietly. “This was a time capsule.”
They moved deeper into the room now, past rows of sealed cabinets and drawers marked with strange catalog numbers, past glass cases containing relics of art, science, and memory. Each step echoed faintly, as if the room were listening.
Then Galen stopped again, silent, still, his eyes locked on something in the center of the chamber.
There, surrounded by the wreckage of collapsed shelves and rusted filing cases, stood a cylindrical container. It was about the length of a small duffel bag, matte gray, its sides etched with a seal Pete and Alan immediately recognized. A faded eagle. Stars. The outline of a rocket. Alan’s breath caught in his throat.
Pete moved first, wiping away the dust with the sleeve of his shirt. The letters beneath the grime were unmistakable.
A.N.S.A.
Pete’s voice was barely a whisper. “No way… here? Hidden in a sealed vault in a library?”
Alan stepped closer, his face pale, lips pressed tight. “That’s not supposed to be here,” he muttered. “Anything ANSA should’ve gone down with the base.”
Galen looked between them, Silent and attentive.
Alan’s eyes didn’t leave the container. “Whatever’s in there, someone made damn sure it would survive.”
And in that moment, the silence deepened, like the vault itself was holding its breath again. Waiting.
Alan stepped forward, his hand trembling slightly as he wiped away the thick dust. He reached for the lid of the cylinder, tight, stubborn against years of neglect. With Pete’s steady grip beside him, they worked together, muscles straining until finally, the seal gave way with a soft, reluctant hiss. The cylinder opened.
Inside lay a thick file held together in a yellow manila envelope, but intact. He opened it carefully, revealing images, photos of Earth from space, vibrant and whole, and documents marked OPERATION WONDERLAND and MISSION DEBRIEF: VIRDON AND BURKE, 1996. SPECIMIN 1, SPECIMIN 2.
Galen looked between the humans, confusion written on his face. Both Pete and Alan had slipped into military mode, their faces stark of emotion. “What is it?”
Alan met his eyes, “I’m not sure.”
“There’s something else in here,” Pete said, as he carefully opened one of the folders, pulling out a simple white envelope, its paper brittle with age. Tucked behind it were several more photos, edges curled and yellowing with time. Across the front, written in firm, fading handwriting: To Colonel Alan Virdon.
Pete stared at it, breath caught in his throat. “Alan....”
Alan turned. The moment he saw the name, he went still. Confusion masked his features, confusion, and momentary fear.
“How…,” was the only word he could manage.
Pete stepped in beside him, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder, his voice a low drawl laced with that familiar edge of sarcasm.
“Well, guess somebody left you fan mail.” He gave Alan a sideways glance and a half smirk. “Go on. Let’s find out what they said.”
The vault remained silent as Alan slid his thumb beneath the flap, the past reaching out across centuries, not just to be remembered, but to speak again.
He unfolded the worn and creased papers carefully and began to read, the ink was faded, but still legible.
Dear Dad:
I know this is going to sound crazy right now, but hear me out. First, don’t worry. Mom and I are fine. We missed you a lot, but we did ok, we made it.
Alan’s breath caught in his chest. His son. The words blurred for a moment, not from age, but from the sting behind his eyes. He blinked hard and kept reading.
You were pronounced dead two years after you disappeared, you, Uncle Pete, and Jones. Mom took it hard. But even before it became official, I think she already knew you weren’t coming back. Still, she held onto hope. For a while, anyway.
Stan Burgess, you remember him. Well he helped us out, both of us, really. He was around a lot in the beginning. Eventually, he and Mom got married. That was about a year and a half after you were declared dead. I know this might be a shock, She really loved you Dad, and still does. She has a whole binder full of pictures and clippings. She’s happy Dad. Stan was good for her. I know you would want that.
As for me, I’m a full fledge Doctor now, Annie, oh that’s right, you don’t know Annie now. She’s my fiancé. We were going to get married, then, all this happened. Maybe in a few more months. The world is just too crazy right now. I sent some pictures. Hope they aren’t too faded. Some of them you might find, well, strange, so read this before you look at them, So you’ll understand.
Alan’s fingers tightened around the paper, the words sinking in like stones. Stan? He knew the man, trusted him. But hearing this felt like a punch. He forced himself to keep reading. This wasn’t about resentment. This was about answers.
Here’s the thing, Dad. You did come back. sixteen years later. For you it had only been under two years, but it was sixteen. The only thing you did figure out about this time thing is that it was unpredictable. You see, you came back. Through some sort of time portal. I never really understood how it worked. About six months later, Noni and Galen followed. Noni ended up in the hospital. I was there and helped you sneak her out. Galen somehow ended up in a zoo, but, I’ll get to that in a minute. I never got the chance to meet Galen, but I did meet Noni. She’s great, Dad. Kind, smart, quiet, strong. She makes you happy, happier, even than I think you were with Mom.
Alan looked up sharply, as if the walls of the vault might somehow offer an explanation. His eyes flicked to Noni, who stood watching him in silence, concern etched across her face. He couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze, not yet. But he could feel her presence like a steady warmth, her quiet understanding reaching for him.
She wasn’t reading his mind, she didn’t need to. She simply felt him. The ache, the confusion, the weight of everything. It passed between them like breath.
I came back? he thought, bewildered. I made it home, and then what? Left again? Stayed?
His hand trembled slightly as he returned to the page, while beside him, Pete thumbed through the file, his heart racing, his brows drawn together in a deepening frown as he read what was in it.
Anyway, dad, when you came back, you brought a disk with you. You gave it to General Harwin. He told you it was corrupt, but it wasn’t. He lied to you. It held the data from the space anomaly you hit right before you crash landed. They used it. They studied it. And they learned how to open more anomalies, like the one you and Pete came back through. They tried to harness time travel, Dad. But it backfired.
You see Galen somehow ended up in a circus. That’s where you found him, and that’s where they got him, You went to the circus to get him out, to bring him home, But the military had beat you to it, and they ended up taking Noni away, too.
Alan lowered the letter for a moment, his jaw tight, his mind reeling.
“We made it home, and they turned it into a weapon. Or a doorway they couldn’t control. “It’s our fault Pete, mine, the disk…it’s the reason the world went to hell.”
He exhaled slowly, staring at the dim light flickering through the broken ceiling. The irony wasn’t lost on him, he had fought so long to return to his time, to his family, only to learn he’d made it, and somehow, it still wasn’t the end.
He looked over at Pete. His friend met his eyes, less cocky now, more somber.
“You okay?” Pete asked, voice low.
Alan nodded once. “I don’t know yet.”
Then he looked at the letter again. There was more. And he wasn’t ready to stop reading.
General Harwin thought Noni and your friend Galen had something to do with the anomaly. They ran every kind of test you can imagine on them. They thought Noni had some kind of telepathic power or something. Pete said that was his fault, he opened his big mouth and regrets it like you wouldn’t believe. But he made up for it in the end.
They locked them both up for a while. You, you were a wreck. I remember thinking you were going to lose your mind if you didn’t get her back.
But Pete, well, Pete being Pete, called in a few favors. Or, let’s say, he knew some less than scrupulous people. He got forged documents saying Noni was his long lost half-sister. Somehow it worked. They let her go.
Galen was tougher. Remember Jake Evans? He and I used to play baseball together, hung out at each other’s place a lot. Well, it just so happened he worked at ANSA.. He’s the one who helped you and Pete break Galen out. It was risky, but it worked. And Jake’s also the one who helped devise the plan to get this letter to you. Because Dad, I don’t know quite how to say it, you can’t come back, you can’t come home again. None of you. The disk, it’s how you die. You, Noni, and eventually Pete.
That night, when the anomaly opened again, you were determined to get Galen back to his world. And he made it. At least we hope he did. He stepped through, and for a moment, you thought it had worked. No one really knows.
But the military had been running their own tests. They opened their anomaly at the same time. The two converged. And it blew. The envelope and files you found with this letter tells everything. Jake snuck out copies of all the files.
When it blew, it destroyed Magnolia Park. Everything within ten miles, gone. Vaporized.
You and Noni were killed instantly. Pete survived. Barely, it tossed him clear across the park, he got buried under a building, that’s where they found him, but he was hurt pretty bad. The doctors never expected him to recover. But he hung on long enough to help me write this, so I could tell you what happened. He was the one who told us where to bury this cylinder and when you’d find it. He knew where you’d be because he remembered being there with you.
So you see, Dad, if you come back, if you bring that disk, it starts the end. The end of our civilization. It will be Sixteen years into the future Dad. Things won’t be the same. Please don’t risk it.
Remember us the way we were. Remember the happy times, then, let us go. Noni loves you. Pete told me you love her, too, but you’re just too stubborn to let go and admit it. You were together here. Pete said you were going to marry her. You’re good for each other.
Don’t forget us Dad, but let us go. For your sake, and for hers. Take Noni. Disappear. Live a quiet life.
And Pete, this is from you, to you: Whatever happens, don’t go south. When you leave the city, go west. Trust your gut, like you always do. Get them out. Keep them safe. Just, don’t go south. Please. You’re not in the military anymore, neither of you are.
Dad, Pete died. Right after I finished this letter. He wanted to make sure I got everything right. He wanted to be sure it was somewhere you would find it, before you made the same mistake again. He said that you’d understand. So I hope you do.
Please. Just go, live the life you never got to. For all of us. Be happy Dad. I am so proud to call you my father. We love you.
Your loving son,
Chris
P.S. Pete, Beth sends her love. She hopes wherever you are, that you will be safe and happy.
Alan stood frozen, the letter shaking slightly in his hands. The air in the vault felt too still, like even time itself was holding its breath, waiting for him to move. To decide.
He lowered the envelope, eyes catching on the photographs tucked beneath it, images half hidden, curling with age. With trembling fingers, he pulled them out. And stopped breathing.
There he was. Exactly as he was now, same face, same age, standing beside a man in his twenties, standing tall in his doctor’s scrubs. His son, grown, a proud smile on his face.
In another photo, the same young man stood arm in arm with a woman about his age, dark hair, brown eyes, both of them grinning wide, happy. Then another, Alan, his arm around Noni, and Pete beside them, together, smiling. Not aged. Not changed. Just as they were now. Noni wore a plain modern dress, a soft blue skirt and a white blouse, her expression radiant and self assured. And finally, his wife with her new husband. Proof of life. Proof they had moved on.
He stared, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. His legs gave out, and he sank to the floor, the photos slipping from his hands.
Noni stepped closer. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She was just there, solid, present, her heart reaching for him in the silence.
Alan swallowed hard. The paper crackled as his grip tightened around the letter. He looked at Pete, eyes wide and haunted, then silently handed it over.
For once, Pete Burke didn’t have a smart remark ready. Didn’t crack a joke. He just took the paper, his eyes steady on Alan, like part of him already understood.
He opened the letter carefully, the brittle paper nearly weightless in his hands. As he read, his brow furrowed, first with concentration, then with something deeper, heavier. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he reached down and gathered the scattered photographs, flipping through them slowly. His fingers paused on each one: Alan and his son. The young couple. The three of them, Pete, Alan, Noni, together. And finally, the one of Alan’s wife and her new husband. He knew that had to hurt, but it was something Alan needed to see.
Pete let out a slow breath, something unreadable in his expression. Maybe awe. Maybe grief. Maybe both.
After a long moment, he spoke, quietly, almost to himself. “I’ve always known we wouldn’t get answers for free. The stuff that’s in these files… it all coincides with the letter.”
Alan let out a slow breath. Then his hand moved down to the worn pouch at his side. He unfastened it, pulled out the disk, small, unassuming, the center of it all, and stared at it for a long moment.
Behind him, Galen stood silent. He hadn’t said a word since the letter was read, but he didn’t need to. His eyes, wide with sorrow and understanding, tracked every movement. He wasn’t just watching, he was witnessing. A truth too big for history. A sacrifice made quietly.
Alan met his gaze. The two shared a brief nod, filled with mutual respect and grief.
Then Alan turned and walked away. Not far, just enough. Enough to think. The cool air of the vault pressed in as he moved to a shadowed corner, away from the others. The disk sat heavy in his hand, heavier still in meaning. His mind raced. The letter, the warning, the photos, the lives that would end if he made the wrong choice. Futures unraveling before they’d even begun. His son’s voice echoed in his memory, not as sound, but as certainty. Not words, but the weight of something known deep down. Still, the path wasn’t clear. Alan stared at the disk, his jaw tight. What if he chose wrong? What if holding onto the past meant destroying the future? Or worse, what if letting go meant losing himself?
Every instinct told him to protect them. Pete. Noni. Galen. Chris. But protecting them might mean trusting something he didn’t understand, couldn’t control. He closed his eyes. His thoughts wouldn’t quiet, only circle tighter, sharper. What was right wasn’t clear. But what was necessary… maybe that was.
Minutes ticked by, half an hour, an hour, before he finally turned back toward the others, the disk still clutched in his hand. Pete looked up as Alan approached, holding out the rest of the file. Without a word, Alan took it and began thumbing through the pages, scanning images, mission logs, government directives. Pieces of a future he didn’t recognize, and a past that refused to stay buried. Each line drove the weight of the truth deeper. And by the time he reached the final page, he wasn’t uncertain anymore.
“I know what I have to do,” he said quietly.
He stared at the disk for a long moment, then turned and slowly walked to the far side of the vault, where part of the ceiling had collapsed, scattering broken concrete and rusted steel across the floor. The others said nothing, their eyes following him in tense, uncertain silence.
He set the disk down on a flat slab of stone and picked up a heavy rock with both hands. There was no ceremony. No speech. Just a decision. He brought the rock down. Once, Twice, A third time. The impact rang through the chamber like a bell tolling for a funeral. The disk cracked, then shattered, splintering into jagged shards of twisted metal.
Alan crouched down, scooped the pieces into the pouch, and tied it shut. There was no relief. No victory. Just the silence of a future unwritten, and a promise not to undo what had already been lost.
He removed the pouch from his belt and gently placed it inside the cylinder, alongside the photographs.
“Put it all back,” he said quietly. “The letter, the files, all of it.”
Then he turned. His gaze found Noni’s. She looked up at him, her expression unreadable, but her presence steady as always. He reached out and took her hand. She didn’t hesitate. Her fingers closed around his with quiet certainty. She could feel it, his heart letting go, reaching for hers.
Pete gave a small nod, half approval, half resignation. “Well,” he said, voice rough but faintly amused, “I guess we’re off the map now.”
Alan managed a small smile. “Good. The map didn’t lead anywhere worth going.”
Together, they stepped out of the vault, Galen lingering for just a moment longer, as if giving the past a final look, then he followed.
They left the dead city behind them, its ghosts buried, its warnings heard. The future was unclear, but it belonged to them now.
The road ahead was rough, carved through uncertainty and shadow, but they walked it together, scarred, changed, and still standing. Above them, the sun blazed in a clear sky casting warmth over them as they left the ruins behind.
Whatever came next, they would face it side by side. Not as survivors, as something more.
“That way,” Pete pointed. “West.”
“West?” Alan asked, raised an eyebrow.
“I gotta feeling.”