Manfred stared at the tiny Korean girl who had crept over to his area of the basement. The others all huddled in other corners, talking in hushed voices or sleeping. The energy in the room was muted and sullen, but there was a strange spark of determination in the girl before him as she stared back.

She was taken shortly after he was, and he could still recall how she'd brazenly offered herself to the man who ran the show here. He wondered what sort of life she'd led that she would be desperate enough to do such a thing.

The reason he remembered her, however, was not because of what she'd done upon arrival. He remembered her because no fear had shown in her, and when the men turned her offer down, she had only appeared relieved.

She tilted her head, watching him.

"What do you want?" He rested his chin in his hand.

She blinked. "No English..."

Manfred shook his head. How am I to communicate with her if she doesn't speak English? "I don't speak Korean."

Her shoulders slumped, and she cast a furtive glance back at the other group. She pointed to a pale, tall man who clearly enjoyed food too much. "He explain."

Explain what? Manfred eyed the tall man. Given the odd powdered wig and the cut of his clothing, Manfred guessed he was an American from some point in the Revolutionary War. Most of them looked similar to him with their powdered wigs and pallid faces, but he was fairly sure the man was Benedict Arnold. Assuming I was correct about the time travel, that is.

"Talk. He explain." The girl took his hand in hers and tugged.

"Very well." Manfred exhaled slowly. "Talk it is."

He crossed the chilly concrete floor to where the American was speaking to a group of those nearest to him. Others from around the room drifted over as well, listening intently to what the American was saying.

"He messed up the timeline." The American's bushy brows drew down over his brown eyes. "And now we have to fix it."

"Why do we have to fix it?" Someone in the crowd pushed to the front.

Manfred squinted at them, unsure who they were. Perhaps they were just a normal individual who was living life until Kenneth and his thugs came along.

Still, he owed those thugs his life. His hand drifted unconsciously to his chest where the bullet had hit him, nearly ending his life. Caught up in his memories, he almost missed what the American was saying. A tug on his shirt sleeve from the Korean girl brought him back to the present.

"We go because Kenneth ordered it." The American seemed to view this as final, and he shuffled through the crowd to an empty part of the room.

Manfred watched him go, pondering what they'd just heard. If Kenneth ordered it, we may as well accept that we're going and wait for the inevitable.

***

In-Sook's gaze flicked around the machine, examining her companions. Kenneth had grouped them together yesterday, and he had paired her with the strange man she'd dragged to yesterday's announcement. Kenneth insisted Manfred would teach her English.

With Manfred's help, she'd learned the others' names.

She looked at each individual.

Nefertiti. The bronze-skinned Egyptian woman was cold and regal.

Benedict Arnold. He was the one who had taken charge and told them Kenneth had demanded they save the fraying timeline.

She still didn't understand what the fraying of the timeline implied, but if Kenneth wanted them to fix it, it must be bad. He never let them leave the museum.

Medekhgui. The young Mongolian's funny clothing was the most distinctive thing she noticed about him. Well, that and the weapons strapped to his back and his hips.

Esther. Kenneth had explained the gentle young woman was a Persian queen of Jewish lineage. In-Sook didn't know enough history to be certain where Persia had been, but she knew that being Jewish wasn't often considered a good thing.

Aetius. Her gaze roamed over the Roman centurion Kenneth had boasted about. Apparently, he was the last Roman centurion alive after the final fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Manfred—whose last name she couldn't pronounce—the final member of their group drew her attention to him as he strode to where she stood. He pointed to the yawning opening that provided passage to and from the time machine. "Door." He spoke only one, strange word, but she could understand that the object barring their exit from the machine was what he was pointing to.

She sidled up to the object and pressed a hand against it. "Doh-ur?" She rolled the foreign word around on her tongue.

He nodded with a smile and pointed at her. "Your name?"

"Nay-muh?" She frowned and shook her head.

He pointed to himself. "My name is Manfred."

She crossed her arms, squinting at the odd man.

"Manfred," he repeated, still pointing at himself.

Comprehension dawned on her. He was asking for her name. A smile crept across her lips, and she repeated what he'd said earlier. "My name is In-Sook."

He patted her head. She frowned at him, but she didn't slap his hand away. Fighting soldiers back home hadn't ended well, and Kenneth had said Manfred was a soldier. She stared at him for a moment after he withdrew his hand.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry..."

Her frown deepened. More words I don't know. This is not going to work.

Manfred exhaled slowly, his shoulders slumping. He looked lost and guilty. Does he feel bad for something? "Sorry?" She tried the word out, savoring the sounds.

He nodded, but the nod seemed unsure.

She smiled, hoping to reassure him.

"This is going to be a long trip." Manfred rubbed a hand across his face.

When he caught her looking at him curiously, he shook his head and strode to sit in another corner of the time machine.

***

Manfred watched the rest of the group as they tried to decide amongst themselves which of the three doors to go through. They stood near the time machine's control panel, bickering over what to do. Most of them didn't speak each other's languages, but fortunately for them, Kenneth had been kind enough to supply them with whatever technology allowed him to understand each of them.

Unfortunately, they only had enough to allow a few of them to communicate. To make things easier, they had distributed the three they had to Esther, Nefertiti, and Aetius. However, that still left Medekhgui and In-Sook without the ability to understand any of them.

In-Sook stood quietly beside him, observing the people. He wondered what was going on behind her bright, quick gaze. The question was answered when she pointed at them and rattled off a question in Korean. He didn't understand the Korean, but he understood she was asking about the group.

"Door." He pointed to the door. "Choose door."

She blinked, seeming uncertain what he meant, though she clearly remembered the last word. "Door?"

He shook his head and pulled a pencil stub and paper from his pocket. Crouching on the floor, he drew three doors and arrows to each. Then he repeated his response. "Choose door." Pointing the pencil to each, he counted. "Door one. Door two. Or door three. Which door?" He drew a question mark above each door.

She examined the drawing for a long moment. Then her eyes widened. "Choose door?" She pointed to door three and the question mark, then asked him another question in Korean.

He frowned.

She pretended to open a door and then motioned for the pencil.

Handing it to her, he watched quietly as she drew animals behind one door, trees in another, and buildings in the last. Then she repeated her question. He inclined his head, his gaze brightening with understanding. He took the pencil back and drew people, dinosaurs, and mammoths above the doors.

Manfred wasn't the best artist, but he thought she got the idea. He peeked at the group around the terminal, wondering if they'd made any progress. Their voices were rising, and he could see a few pushing each other. No one seemed to agree on any one thing.

Shaking his head, he turned back to In-Sook, who was watching him instead of the group. "Idiots, the whole lot."

She cocked her head to the side and jabbered something at him in Korean. His shoulders slumped, and he rubbed his aching temples. For all the advanced technology here, they couldn't fix the lingering pains in his head from the shot he'd survived months before the near fatal air battle that had landed him here. This is impossible. I'm stuck with a team that can't work together, and I'm supposed to teach this girl, who barely looks fifteen, how to speak English. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that the last one might be significantly easier than getting the squabbling team to work together.

Someone shouted in English over the loud bickering. "I'm pushing the one for prehistoric people! So, all of you just shut your mouths!"

Arnold.

Predictable. He seemed to be one for attention-grabbing.

There was a loud clanking sound, and the time machine shook. When Manfred glanced over to see what had happened, he saw that Arnold had pressed the button for the third door in the time continuum.

In-Sook tugged on his sleeve. "Choose door?"

He exhaled and closed his eyes, rubbing vigorously at his temples. "Yeah. They chose a door." Opening his eyes, he jabbed the pencil at the third door with the people above it. "Choose door."

***

The group stepped out onto a lush green plateau. Trees surrounded them, and a river cut through the greenery beside them. The sound of rushing water and the crashing of waves against rocks from nearby told them a waterfall was located somewhere close by. Benedict Arnold was heading up the group, but Manfred thought he looked as awestruck and confused as the rest of them.

Manfred's sharp blue gaze wandered over their surroundings. He spun to look at the scenery behind the time machine. A steep slope led upward from the plateau and into the cliffs. From here, he could see a tiny path cutting through all the greenery toward the top of the cliffs. Towering high above, a city perched atop the cliffs, its spires piercing darkly into the azure sky's brilliance.

His eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his chin. In-Sook tugged on his sleeve. When he looked at her, she pointed to the city.

He shrugged. "City."

She tried the word out.

Glancing back, he saw that the rest of the group looked as confused as he felt. Kenneth told us we had three doors leading to the ice age, the first humans, and the dinosaurs. So, what are we doing here?

He wracked his brain for an explanation. The traditional story of Adam and Eve wouldn't allow for a city like that. It can't be the theories held by modern scientists or nothing would even be here. He continued searching through the things he'd learned throughout the years. This was obviously closer to what the creationists argued for. It couldn't be prehistoric man like the scientists talked about because prehistoric man couldn't build the city in front of him.

One theory came to mind. What if the people who found a blend between creationism and science were correct? He bit his lip.

Arnold pulled him from his reverie. "What do you make of this?"

He glanced over at the man. "I'm beginning to think the people who claimed there was pre-Adamic man might be right."

Arnold squinted at him. "Pre-Adamic man? What are you going on about, Richthofen?"

Good question. "In my time, some of the Bible believers are beginning to suggest that the reason the earth seems older per modern science is because there was a race of men that existed before Adam. According to them, the race became so corrupt and evil that they were utterly destroyed, to the point where the earth became desolate. Then, God just started over with Adam."

Arnold snorted, gazing up at the city. "That worked out wonderfully, didn't it?"

Manfred shrugged. "Don't ask me. I didn't come up with the theory. But I do think it's a good possibility here. No Neanderthal could build that."

"I still haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, but if you say that's what's going on, I suppose we'll go off that. After all, if we were being traditional, we should be in a garden with only Adam and Eve." Shaking his head, Arnold looked over their companions. "How do you propose we go about figuring out what's wrong?"

"We start by examining the current situation." Manfred also watched their companions, who were still busy looking at all the odd plants surrounding them. "Since you seem to be the self-appointed leader, why don't you round them up?"

Arnold shot him a narrow-eyed glance. "Seems to me that you're the one really taking charge. You round them up."

Manfred released a long, heavy breath. "Fine." Turning back to the group, he resigned himself to the hassle of dealing with the rag-tag group.

***

Manfred noticed In-Sook starting to fall behind the group as she stared at the strange people and the bazaar surrounding them. He felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips, and he reached for her. She sucked in a sharp breath when his fingers closed around her tiny wrist, and he winced.

"Sorry. Hurry though." He pointed to the group disappearing into the crowd up ahead and silently thanked Kenneth's foresight in clothing choices when no one even gave him or In-Sook a second glance.

She relaxed and nodded, following him when he tugged on her wrist. They caught up with the others, who had stopped abruptly on the fringes of a large crowd. Manfred craned his neck to see what they were looking at.

There was a woman in the center of the crowd. She stood tall on a few overturned crates someone had turned into a platform, her firebrand hair waving in the soft breeze blowing through the market. Manfred couldn't understand what the woman was saying, but apparently those with earpieces did because they were looking back at Manfred with inquisitive looks on their faces.

He raised a brow at them. The Roman centurion jerked his thumb toward a quiet alley nearby, and Manfred shrugged. So long as they tell me what's going on, I don't care what we do. He led the way through the crowd to the alley.

Darkness cloaked them as the group huddled at the end of the alley, sharing the space with a mangy cat and a pile of bones and half-eaten meat that appeared to be from some sort of bird. Feathers covered the bloodied cobblestones near the corpse. Likely, it was the cat's dinner.

"What's going on?" Manfred leaned against the side of the house on the alley's left side.

"That woman is changing their minds about the path they're on." Nefertiti bit her lip. "I do not believe she is supposed to do that, is she?"

Manfred cursed, running his hands through his hair. "If she succeeds, this place will continue on, and we'll never exist."

"What do we do?" Arnold looked pale and sweat beaded his upper lip.

"Isn't it obvious?" Manfred scowled at the cat, who hissed back. "We assassinate her."

***

They returned to the square to watch the tail end of the woman's speech, and it was clear that the crowds were listening. Some scoffed, but most were either undecided or agreeable. Manfred gritted his teeth. She's doing a good thing. Why must she die? He missed the end of her speech and realized he'd been lost in thought for too long when the people began dispersing.

The earpiece fit snugly in his ear, translating the chatter flying past. The others had decided he'd need that if he was to evade capture once the job was done. And he would have to do the job because no one else would. By now, only he and In-Sook remained. He bit his lip. Why did this have to be my job?

Shooing In-Sook in the direction the others had gone, he stepped up to where the young woman was clambering down from the makeshift platform. "Excuse me, miss."

She spun to look at him, her caramel eyes widening when she saw him standing there. "Are you the promised one?"

Manfred frowned. "Ah... Naturally?"

She bowed her head, red curls flying in the wind. "I wish I could've done more, but He said I couldn't. He promised I would be spared the suffering of my people's judgment."

Is the earpiece broken? Who in their right mind is this calm about their own execution? "Err... How kind." Manfred cleared his throat.

"He is a merciful God." She bit her lip. "Where will you take me to end this?"

"The back alley with the cat?" Manfred nearly choked on his words when he processed what he'd said.

What am I doing? I'm about to kill this innocent woman, and I'm joking around about it?

"Well, I suppose some company is better than none. I always did like cats." The woman's lips quirked upward. "Shall we go then?"

Manfred bit his lip. "Ah, yes... We should." He took her wrist in his hand and headed for the alley, still shocked that she was cooperating so willingly with him.

I can't do it. He glanced back at her, and she gave him a warm smile. Tearing his gaze away, he gritted his teeth. I can't murder her, but I can't leave her here. He exhaled softly. I'll just have to take her back to the museum. There's no other option. This had better be worth it because Kenneth is going to have my head.