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CHAPTER1
Dr. Naomi Vaughn
Year 2672
Oh. My.God.
This.Thiswas a truly unexpected find.
I was almost afraid to reach out and touch the thin plastic that had kept the creamy white lacey fabric pristine and safe for centuries.
How had something like this survived for more than five hundred years? It should be nothing more than a disintegrating pile of threads, but here it was right in front of me, fully intact. Perfect.
More important, though, how had it come to be in my office and not kept from the eyes of society by the council?
When the handwritten cargo manifest had arrived on my desk this morning, it had hardly been legible. It had been written in pencil, probably by some lazy intern that had been too preoccupied to get a pen, and several places had been rubbed off. All I knew was that the contents were artifacts that were carbon dated to somewhere between the years before the worldwide cyberwar that had changed life here on Earth as we knew it. Not wanting to spend too much time deciphering it, I’d swept it aside and had turned back to more pressing work with the full intention of going back to it later. I hadn’t gotten around to it before there was a knock on my door and a shout from someone outside saying I had a delivery.
Dammit. No time to prep.
When the massive crate had been rolled into my office, I’d raised an eyebrow.
Bigger than I expected, really.
After the delivery man left, I dug through the papers on my desk, searching for the detailed log that had somehow gotten buried. I narrowed my eyes as I tried once again to read it.
There was only one word that caught my eye.
Bridal.
My heart started to pound. I glanced at the door, making sure I was alone.
It was a forbidden word in my city state. To be honest, this shipment probably would have been halted, searched, and destroyed before I could catalog any of it if even a single person had gotten wind of what it contained. Whatever was inside that crate would never be able to be displayed or studied in the museum and if anyone found out I had any of it in my possession, getting fired would be the least of my worries.
I’d be lucky if I survived the night.
There were stories about those who supported the ways of the old world. Some said that they just disappeared and were never heard from again. Some were apprehended by the governing council. Some wound up dead.
I swallowed heavily.
The smart thing to do would be to pretend it had never existed, to send the shipment back to where it came from before anyone got hurt.
But… I kind of wanted to see what was inside before I did that.
This was truly a piece of history. Everything even remotely like it had been lost long ago. I wanted to understand it. It was a part of what made me who I was, and this kind of forbidden knowledge fascinated me.
I’d made a whole career out of it.
I looked over my shoulder, feeling wary, like someone was watching me even though there was no one there. I pulled back my hand when I realized that my door was still open, choosing instead to go and close it quietly as I checked the hallway for anyone that might have seen. It was empty. I closed the blinds, giving myself complete privacy.
I glanced back at the large crate, walking hesitantly toward it. I gripped the sides and turned it away from the door, grateful that it was still on the rolling cart that it had been brought in on by our internal mail service. If anyone walked in, I’d have enough time to hide the contents or at least I hoped I would. It was late enough in the day that most of the museum staff would be clocking out soon. There weren’t many employees that stayed late on a regular basis other than me. The only true regular was my co-worker Corinne, and even then, I often stayed later than she did.
Apart from the security team that monitored the grounds twenty-four/seven, I was always one of the last to leave. Most of the guards knew my face by now and hardly gave me a second glance when I left the building.
Already the sun was beginning its descent. The brilliant glow highlighted the broken fragments of what had once been the moon, the remains of which were now orbiting the Earth in a disjointed ring that spoke to the tumultuous history of our planet. I’d seen faded images in old books of what it had once looked like before it had been blown apart in the war. I’m sure it would have been a magnificent sight in person and a part of me was sad that I would never see it that way.
With a deep breath, I summoned all the bravery inside me that I could manage, and I finally turned back to the crate, allowing myself to really look at the contents for the first time. I held my breath as I took hold of the plastic garment bag that lay on top.
It was heavier than I’d expected. With a soft gasp, I lifted the gown from the crate. Thoroughly stunned, I held it there in front of me for a long moment, just staring at it. My brain felt like it had short circuited. Was this just a figment of my imagination? Was it time for another cup of coffee?
