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purebred humans are recreated in the future and came back in time,” he said with humor she didn’t find remotely funny. “I don’t think you can get home. The gods used to travel through time, but their war has drained the energy needed to open a star gate between times.”
    “But it is possible.”
    “Yes, it’s possible. Akkadi can open a star gate. But the chances of him doing so are not good.”
    She ignored his last statement, concentrating on a deep-felt sense of relief at the acknowledgment she wasn’t trapped.
    “You could stay,” he said. “I never knew how beautiful purebred humans were.” He spoke too matter-of-factly to be hitting on her, but she couldn’t help the blush that warmed her face. His considering gaze lingered on her before he shook his head to clear it and rose. “Rest here. We require food and water only sporadically. I’ll have to find someone to supply us with enough to sustain you and arrange to have you smuggled out of the city.”
    “Can I ask you something else?”
    “Of course.”
    “What is this?” She turned around and lifted her hair to show the metal circle at the base of her neck.
    “Ah. Good Gonor,” Urik replied. “It allows us to reprogram your brain’s electrical impulses. It’s probably why you’re able to breathe this air. It’s got a heavy concentration of heavy metals that would otherwise poison you. I’ll send the cyborg up to see what Gonor’s already programmed.”
    Mandy twisted to stare at him. He spoke too candidly about reprogramming her brain for her to be anything other than uncomfortable.
    “We’ll get you fixed up,” he assured her.
    “Thank you, ” she replied. “Hey, where’s the bathroom?”
    He gave her a long look.
    “You know, the place you go when you have to go?”
    After a moment, he answered. “Waste room,” he corrected her. “Right next door.”
    Half afraid of what a futuristic bathroom entailed rose. He walked her to the room next door then into it with her. It was empty.
    “I’m not getting this,” she said.
    “It’s easy. The radiation vaporizes any waste in your body.” He held out his hands on either side of him.
    Mandy echoed his movement, doubting it would work. Heat went over her from head to foot from a source in the wall. When it reached her toes, she no longer had to pee.
    “Wow,” she said. “That’s awesome.”
    “It decontaminates you, too.”
    “Good to know.”
    He led her back to her room. Mandy settled with her back against a wall and squeezed her knees to her chest. She watched him go, taking in his muscular body.
    She dwelled on his story and this new place and finally decided she just couldn’t quite accept it all yet. Maybe, if she took a nap, she’d awaken on the plane. Mandy stretched out on the bed but couldn’t sleep with the thrum of panic running through her body. The sounds of movement from the auditorium drifted to her. Her thoughts returned to Akkadi and the sense she’d felt standing so close to him. Any doubt that this place was real had melted away.
    Now, the doubt returned. The sense she was dreaming again softened the edges of the world around her. The air conditioning didn’t seem as cold, the walls didn’t seem like they’d be solid.
    As she drifted into a doze, she thought she heard the flight attendant ask the man beside her what he wanted to drink.
    Diet Coke.
    There wasn’t Diet Coke in the future. Her body eased into slumber as she realized the dream was over, and she was safe aboard the plane again. The beverage cart rattled away.
    Something warm was against her chest. Mandy swiped at it sleepily. It grew hot, and she snapped awake, disoriented once more. She wasn’t sleeping in a seat on the plane but was on her back, staring at a ceiling made of big blocks.
    She dug through the necklaces and shirt until she saw the medallion Akkadi had given her. She held it away from her chest. Its unusual glow faded, along with its heat. She touched it. It was cool