Summary

Chapter 127 is written backwards. It summarizes Tom’s initial trip back to the past and how it caused the engine to fail.

In Chapter 128, Tom arrives back in Goettreider’s lab back on July 11, 1965. He is too disoriented to control his body because there are too many consciousnesses inside his head: his own, John, the Tom who traveled back originally, and a new identity with memories from a darker timeline.

In Chapter 129, Tom describes the memories of an apocalyptic timeline that are flooding in from this new presence. In this timeline, Goettreider’s engine is never turned back on and the meltdown continues, destroying half the world. In the wake of this destruction, civilization descends into warring factions, each trying to claim one of the few remaining livable places on Earth as their own. In this version of reality, Tom’s (here his...