Sirens always sound the same, no matter what building you're in.
Sharp. Accusing. Final.
The moment they blared through the lab's metallic corridors, I knew they were for me.
My name is Aren Vale, and according to the Multiversal Security Directorate, I murdered thirty-four people this morning.
Funny thing is – I was asleep.
The steel door of my apartment exploded inward before I could even stand. Three armored agents stormed inside, rifles humming with containment fields. The room flashed white as they fired suppression foam across the floor, freezing my legs in place.
"Hands where we can see them!" oneshouted.
I raised them slowly, heart pounding so hard I could barely breathe.
"What...what is this? What's going on?"
A woman stepped forward, helmet retracting. Agent Riven. I recognized her immediately - the MSD's top investigator, infamous for catching criminals before they jumped timelines.
Her eyes were cold, professional. And when she looked at me, something like disgust flickered across her face.
"Aren Vale," she said. "You're under arrest for the Timeline 73-C Research Facility Massacre."
My stomach dropped.
"That's impossible," I whispered. "I wasn't even..."
But she activated a hologram before I could finish.
And there I was.
Standing in the center of a burning lab, covered in blood.
My face.
My voice.
My body.
Laughing as the world collapsed around me.
I stared at the image, my breath freezing in my throat.
"That's not me."
Riven didn't blink. "DNA, biometrics, retinal signature – all match you at a hundred percent."
"It can't. I didn't...this isn't..."
"Save it," she said. "We know you have access to divergence tech. You're coming with us."
They dragged me out into the hallway, hands bound, legs immobilized by hardened foam. My mind raced – I hadn't traveled. I hadn't even finished calibrating my prototype QDD. None of this made sense.
Unless,
Unless someone else had.
Someone who looked exactly like me.
They shoved me into a containment vehicle. The doors slammed shut. The engine hummed as dimensional dampeners came online. Riven sat across from me, arms crossed, studying me with unnerving precision.
"You're unusually calm for a mass murderer," she said.
"I didn't do it."
"Everyone says that."
"No," I leaned forward, voice shaking, "I mean I literally wasn't there. I've never even been to Timeline 73-C."
She narrowed her eyes. "Then explain the footage."
I couldn't.
Because the man in the hologram had my face but not my eyes. His were cold. Empty. Wrong.
Before I could speak, the entire vehicle shuddered violently. Lights flickered. Riven grabbed the wall.
"What was that?" she barked.
Then the alarms screamed.
A dimensional breach.
A hole tore open in the air beside the vehicle – a glowing fracture in reality itself. Energy ripped through the chamber, tearing restraints free.
Riven tried to regain control. "No...no! Containment fields up! Seal it."
But it was too late.
The breach exploded outward, and for an instant I saw something – a silhouette inside the fracture. A person.
A person who looked exactly like...
The blast knocked Riven unconscious.
I stared at the fracture, adrenaline pounding through my veins.
I didn't know who triggered it.
I didn't know how it opened.
But I knew one thing:
This was my only chance.
I sprinted toward the glowing tear in reality
and jumped.