Page 191 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

Nicholas Boothman
Above him, the missiles hung motionless in the sky, perfect, impossible stillness.
And for a fraction of a second he had the overwhelming sense that the moment wasn’t frozen. It was being held.
Observed.
The phone crackled.
Then a voice, still Jinji’s, but not, spoke, perfectly clear: WE DO NOT EXPERIENCE TIME LIKE YOU Henry’s breath caught.
“Jinji?” he whispered.
Silence.
Then her real voice snapped back in, sharp and panicked:
“Henry? What just happened? You dropped out for a second. Did you hear that? There’s something inside the signal. I can’t isolate it. It keeps—”
He looked up at the sky again. Nothing had moved.
Nothing had changed.
Except everything.
“If it wasn’t bound by time,” he said slowly, more to himself than to her, “how long has it been here?”
“Henry, listen to me,” Jinji said, urgency flooding back in. “Get to the server farm. Basement level. Now. Bring Vincent if you can find him. We’re out of time.”
The line went dead.
Henry ran. The streets were still chaos. People were fleeing, screaming, and praying. Above them, the frozen
191