Captain Campbell found himself chest-deep in water. The moon shone bright enough for him to see Lieutenant Weaver and Sergeant Gordo. The rest of the team was missing. Must have been a faulty temp-shell.

 

Campbell was wearing his uniform. He assumed the others were, too. The way their jumps had been going, he wouldn’t put money on it. The Temporal Pilot program was new, and the results had been unpredictable. He took inventory: no wet suit, no combat gear, but they were all dressed.

 

Familiar city lights glowed in the fog behind them. Skyscrapers. Electricity. We can’t be that far off temporally. Though he couldn’t explain the spatial shift; they had ended up in the water outside the laboratory complex. That one’s for the physicists.

 

“On me,” Campbell whispered, slogging to shore. “Let’s figure out when we are.”

 

Campbell knelt on the rocky beach of North Brother Island, touching his wet finger to his tongue. The smell of seaweed and motor oil filled his nostrils. 20th century? No, twenty-first, he decided.

 

Gordo and Weaver sloshed onto the island. Moonlight put the treeline in silhouette.

 

“Wha da ya think, boss?” Gordo asked. “2050? This water’s pretty clean, relatively speaking.”

 

Spotlights cracked on, blinding the team.

 

“Captain Campbell, stand your men down,” a familiar voice popped through a bullhorn. Campbell couldn’t place it.

 

“Standing down ain’t gonna be hard, since they lost our luggage,” Gordo muttered, raising his arms with Campbell and Weaver. “Not to mention half our team.”

 

They placed their hands behind their heads as shadows cut through the limelight. Campbell couldn’t make out any faces or insignias.

 

“This is just a precaution, Captain. We’re here to help,” the voice announced through the bullhorn. Who is that? Campbell struggled to place the familiar tone.

 

“Sure they are,” Gordo said in the captain’s ear as zip ties cut into their wrists.

 

Campbell turned to see the skyline behind him as they marched single file into the dense foliage. He recognized most of the spires shining through the fog. 2050 is about right.

 

North Brother Island was not as easily recognizable. The teeming complex of their time lay in rubble. Vines and branches covered the now ancient ruins. The moon shone through blown-out windows of crumbled walls. What happened here? Did we lose the war? The faceless soldiers led his team through rusted debris and busted concrete.

 

“You seeing this, Cap?” Gordo whispered as they walked through the decayed remains of the hospital complex. Too dark to see Gordo’s face, Campbell imagined his characteristic smirk. He nodded.

 

A bulkhead stuck out of the forest like a black obelisk. Their escorts pulled the camouflage aside and opened an airtight door. Campbell waddled down the metal stairs, pants dripping, shoes squeaking and oozing. The base personnel led them through familiar tunnels to an unfamiliar decontamination chamber. A conveyor moved them through chemical, ultraviolet, and mechanical cleaners.

 

“Face forward,” a voice ordered over the loudspeaker. That same familiar voice Campbell couldn’t place. He looked back at Gordo and Weaver. Weaver looked pale and anxious. The perma-smirk plastered Gordo’s face.

 

* * *

 

Sitting in paper coveralls in a second UV bath, Campbell looked at his team. “When are we?” he mouthed to Weaver.

 

“What happened to the complex above us?” Weaver asked back, face twisted with worry. “Did we lose?”

 

“What about the city?” Gordo added. “Why wasn’t that bombed?”

 

“Silence, soldiers.” That same voice shrilled over the static loudspeaker.

 

Captain Campbell had enough. “I want to speak to the base commander. This is our station.” He walked to the glass door, the only opening in the cinderblock quarantine. Weaver and Gordo slid along the concrete benches flanking the door.

 

A hissing sound reached Campbell's ears. Knockout gas poured through the vents.

 

* * *

 

Campbell woke up to the fluorescent lighting and one-way mirror of an interrogation room. The hard metal chair putting his leg to sleep was familiar. At least I’ll get some answers.

 

A spectacled inquisitor sat across from Campbell. He smiled, his teeth crooked, his glasses reflecting blue light from a computer screen.

 

“Who’s in command?” Campbell croaked, clearing his throat.

 

The inquisitor’s eyes darted behind the blue reflection.

 

Yanking the chains, Campbell barked, “What happened to the compound?”

 

The interrogator’s attention shifted as he listened to the voice in his earpiece. He was getting an earful from whoever was on the other side.

 

“I want to speak to the officer in charge,” Campbell growled.

 

Squirming in his seat, the interrogator mumbled, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.”

 

The door whooshed open. “It’s not a matter of when or where exactly,” the familiar voice said. “It’s more a matter of who.”

 

Without the hiss of amplification, Campbell knew where he’d heard the voice before. The officer standing in the doorway was him.

 

“Put 35-Campbell with the others,” the clone said as soldiers filed through the door.

 

Others? Campbell's gut twisted like a paradox unraveling.

 

“Have Gordo and Weaver meet me in the briefing room, along with those damned physicists,” the commander ordered.

 

The soldiers dragged Campbell to the brig, where multiple iterations of himself debated in a cell. Some sat staring blankly. Others tried to make peace between their temporal clones. The guards pushed 35-Campbell inside.