“You sure about this?” Clay said.

  Colt looked at the building. The guards by the doors. The people flowing in and out.

  “Maybe we should go in first,” Clay said. “Check it out. Make a plan. Then come back tonight.”

  “Yeah.” Colt nodded. “You’re right. Display case forty-seven. That’s what Kevin said. Let’s go see where it’s at.”

  They started up the wide stone steps. People came down past them, families mostly, kids pulling at their parents’ arms. A few of them looked at Colt and Clay and smiled.

  Colt smiled back. It felt stiff on his face.

  “Howdy.” A woman said as she passed Clay. He tipped his hat. “Howdy.” He said it again to a man in a gray suit. “Howdy.”

  The man nodded and kept walking.

  Clay grinned at Colt. “Looks like we fit in better than Kevin thought we would.” He adjusted his hat. “Guess he ain’t that smart after all, huh? Dummy.”

  Colt didn’t answer. He was looking at the banner stretched between two of the big stone columns. The letters were tall enough that he could read them from here.

  GRAND OPENING: THE WILD WEST EXHIBITION

  Below that, smaller words he had to squint at.

  OCTOBER 15-DECEMBER 30

  “Huh,” Colt said.

  “What’s it say?”

  “Wild West exhibition. Grand openin’.”

  Clay’s grin got wider. “Well ain’t that somethin’.”

  The guards at the doors nodded as they passed. One of them even touched the brim of his cap.

  Inside, Colt stopped walking.

  The ceiling went up higher than any building he’d ever been in. Stone walls rose on all sides, and light came down through windows near the top, falling in long beams across the floor. The place smelled like dust.

  But that wasn’t what stopped him.

  In the middle of the main room, rising up from a platform, was something that made his gut turn upside down.

  Bones. Huge bones, stacked together in the shape of something that shouldn’t exist. It stood on two legs with a tail stretched out behind it. The skull was the size of a horse’s body, with teeth as long as his hand. Eye sockets big enough to fit his whole head inside.

  “Holy shit,” Clay breathed.

  Colt walked toward it. His boots echoed on the stone floor. He stopped at the edge of the platform and looked up.

  Clay circled around to the other side, his neck craned back, his mouth hanging open. He stopped at the feet and stared at the claws. Each one curved down to a point, big as Colt’s Bowie.

  “What the hell would somethin’ like this eat?” Clay said.

  Colt shook his head. He didn’t have an answer.

  A metal sign stood next to the platform. He leaned in and sounded out the words.

  “Ty… ran… o… saurus.” He frowned. “Ty-ran-o-saurus rex.”

  “What the hell is a tyrannosaurus rex?”

  Colt kept reading. The letters were small and some of the words didn’t make sense, but he got the gist.

  “Says it was a… pred-a-tor. Ate meat. Forty feet long.” He moved his finger along the sign. “Lived sixty-five million years ago.”

  Clay walked back around to stand next to him. “Million?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ lived that long ago.”

  Colt looked up at the skull. At those teeth. At the empty sockets where eyes used to be.

  “Guess somethin’ did.”

  They stood there for a minute, both of them looking up at the bones. Other people moved around them, kids pointing and laughing, parents reading from little books they’d picked up at the entrance. Nobody else seemed bothered by it.

  Clay shook his head. “This world’s got some strange shit in it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Beyond the big skeleton, Colt could see more of them. Smaller ones, different shapes. Some had horns. Some had long necks that curved up toward the ceiling. One had plates running down its back like armor.

  “C’mon,” Colt said. “We gotta find that display case.”

  They walked deeper into the building. The rooms opened into other rooms, each one full of things Colt had never seen. Animals stuffed and posed behind glass, their eyes made of something shiny that caught the light. Rocks split open to show crystals growing inside, purple and blue and colors he didn’t have names for.

  Clay stopped at a case full of spears and clay pots. The spears had stone heads lashed on with cord, and the pots were painted with shapes that didn’t look like anything from home.

  “These ain’t Shoshone,” Clay said. He leaned closer to the glass. “Look at the heads. The way they’re tied on. All wrong.”

  Colt looked at the sign next to the case. He sounded out the words slow.

  “Says they’re from… Af-ri-ca. And somewhere called Meso-po-tay-mia.”

  “Where the hell’s that?”

  “Africa.” Colt pointed at the word.

  “I know. But where the hell is that?”

  “No clue.”

  They kept walking. More rooms. More glass cases. Old clothes that looked like they’d fall apart if you touched them. Metal swords with rust creeping up the blades. A whole wall of masks carved from wood, their empty eyes staring out at nothing.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Colt kept his eyes moving, looking for numbers on the cases. He didn’t see any.

  “How we supposed to find display case forty-seven?” Clay said. “I don’t see no numbers or nothin’.”

  A voice came from behind them.

  “It’s this way, gentlemen.”

  Colt turned. A woman stood there in a dark dress with a little tag pinned to her chest. The tag had words on it but Colt didn’t bother reading them. Her hair was pulled back tight and she wore a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  She turned and started walking. Then she stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

  “Come on. You’re late.” Her eyes moved over their clothes, their hats, their boots. “The outfits are excellent, by the way. Very authentic.” Her nose wrinkled. “But the smell wasn’t necessary.”

  She turned and kept walking.

  Clay looked at Colt. Then he lifted his arm and sniffed his own armpit.

  “I don’t stink,” he said. “Hey. Colt. Do I stink? Hey, wait up.”

  Colt was already following the woman. He heard Clay’s boots hurrying to catch up.

  The woman stopped in front of a wall with metal doors set into it. She pressed a button and the doors slid open on their own.

  Colt stared. It was a small room, barely big enough for the three of them. The walls were metal. A row of buttons ran down one side.

  The woman stepped in and turned around. “Well? Come on.”

  Colt walked in. Clay followed, slower, his eyes moving over everything.

  The doors slid shut behind them.

  The room lurched.

  Clay grabbed the wall with one hand and Colt’s arm with the other. His boots slid on the floor and his face went pale.

  “What’s happenin’?”

  Colt shot him a look. The woman was watching them both with her eyebrows raised.

  “First time in an elevator?” she asked.

  Clay’s jaw tightened. He let go of Colt’s arm but kept his hand on the wall.

  The room stopped moving. The doors slid open.

  Noise hit them. Voices, dozens of them, talking over each other. Then light, bright flashes that popped and flared from every direction.

  Colt stepped out and stopped.

  The room was huge. Banners hung from the ceiling with pictures of horses and covered wagons. Display cases lined the walls, and in the middle of the floor stood exhibits made to look like scenes from back home. A covered wagon with wax figures posed around a campfire. A general store with shelves full of old cans and bottles. A blacksmith shop with tools hanging on the walls.

  Colt stared at the wax figures. Their faces were stiff. Their clothes looked right, but they wore them like they’d never worked a day in their lives. The fire wasn’t real. The smoke wasn’t real. None of it was real.

  It was his life. Behind glass. Turned into something for people to look at.

  His chest tightened for a second. Then he shook it off.

  People filled the space. Men in suits, women in fancy dresses, all of them holding little metal boxes up to their faces. The boxes flashed, over and over.

  “Just walk around,” the woman said. She waved her hand at the room. “Let people take pictures with you. Mingle. Answer questions if they ask.” She smiled that fake smile again. “You two really do look the part.”

  She walked away before Colt could say anything.

  Clay leaned close. “What the hell’s a picture?”

  “I think it’s them little boxes. The flashin’ things.”

  “Like Kevin’s eye?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Little fucker flashed the shit outta me.”

  They started walking. People turned to look at them. A few pointed. One man raised his metal box and a flash went off as they walked by.

  The first exhibit was the covered wagon. The wax figures sat around the fire in stiff poses, their faces frozen. A sign stood next to it with words printed in neat rows.

  Colt read it out loud, slow, sounding out the harder words.

  “West-ward ex-pan-sion. In the mid-nine-teenth century, thousands of families traveled west in search of new land and op-por-tun-ity. The journey was dan-ger-ous, with threats from weather, disease, and hos-tile en-count-ers.”

  “Hostile encounters,” Clay said. “That mean Indians?”

  “I guess. They ain’t never been hostile to us, that’s for sure.”

  Colt was still thinking about that white haired girl, the look on her face before Toyahdoh sent them back.

  Something tugged at Colt’s pants.

  He looked down.

  A boy stood there, maybe six or seven years old. He had big brown eyes and dark hair. He wore a brown cowboy hat and had a little toy gun on his hip. He was looking up at Colt.

  “Will you take a picture with me?”

  Colt looked past the boy. A man and woman stood a few feet back, both of them smiling. The woman held one of those metal boxes in her hands.

  Colt looked at Clay. “Uh. Yeah, bud.” He hit Clay on the arm. “Hey. Get over here.”

  Clay walked over, still looking around at everything.

  “What do we do?” Colt asked the woman.

  “Just crouch down next to him,” she said. “Both of you.”

  Colt dropped to one knee. Clay did the same on the other side of the boy.

  The woman raised the box to her face. “Alright, look here. Smile.”

  Colt tried to smile.

  “One… two… three.”

  The flash hit him like staring at the sun. White light filled his vision and he squeezed his eyes shut. He heard Clay yell something behind him and stumble back.

  “Oh, God,” Clay said. “What the hell was that?”

  Colt blinked hard. The spots started to fade. He could see the boy’s face again, grinning up at him.

  “Thank you, mister,” the boy said.

  “Uh.” Colt pushed himself back up to his feet. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

  The family walked away. The boy looked back once and waved.

  Clay was rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “They use them things as weapons around here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well they should. Damn near blinded me.”

  More people were looking at them now. A group of women whispered to each other and pointed. A man in a brown suit walked up with his metal box raised.

  “Could I get one with both of you?”

  Colt’s eyes were still watering. “Sure.”

  Another flash.

  “Wonderful. Thank you.”

  The man walked away. Another took his place. Then another.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  Colt lost count of how many. His eyes hurt. His face hurt from trying to smile. Clay had stopped trying and just stood there with his jaw set, squinting against each new burst of light.

  A boy about ten years old pushed through the crowd and stopped in front of Colt. He pointed at the bulge under Colt’s coat.

  “Is that a real gun?”

  Colt looked down at him. “Yeah.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide. “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  The boy’s parents appeared behind him, laughing. The father put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Sorry about that,” the father said. “He’s obsessed with cowboys.” He winked at Colt. “Great prop, by the way. Looks authentic.”

  They pulled the boy away before Colt could answer.

  Clay leaned close. “They think we’re playin’ dress-up.”

  “I know.”

  “They think the guns ain’t real.”

  “I know.”

  Between flashes, Colt kept his eyes moving. Looking at the cases along the walls. Looking for numbers.

  He scanned left. Glass cases full of old saddles and bridles. No numbers.

  He scanned right. More cases. Old boots. Spurs. Hats behind glass like they were something precious.

  Then something caught his eye.

  A brass disk sat on a velvet cushion, about the size of his palm. Markings covered the surface, lines and symbols that looked like nothing he’d ever seen. A small needle sat in the center, pointing at one of the markings.

  A few words flashed into his vision.

  MODULE DETECTED: SPATIAL ANCHOR MK-I

  WARNING: HOSTILE SIGNATURE IN PROXIMITY

  “Hostile signature?” Colt whispered.

  Colt looked at Clay. Clay was busy posing with a woman in a green dress who had her arm looped through his. He was grinning like an idiot.

  Colt walked over to the case.

  He leaned in and read the tag next to it, slow.

  Ceremonial Compass - Origin Unknown

  A man walked past with a tag pinned to his chest. Like the lady that brought them up here.

  “Excuse me,” Colt said. “What is this thing?”

  The man stopped and looked at the case. “Ah, this piece. Fascinating, actually.” He adjusted his glasses. “It was found with some Shoshone artifacts up in Wyoming. But the markings on it aren’t Shoshone.” He tilted his head. “Similar, in a way. Like a cousin language. But not quite right. We’ve never been able to identify the origin.”

  “Yes, that’s uh… fascinating.”

  “Colt.” Clay’s voice came from across the room.

  Colt kept looking at the compass.

  “Colt.”

  “What?” Colt said, annoyed. He turned his head.

  Clay wasn’t grinning anymore. He was pointing at the window.

  The whole room had gone quiet. The chatter, the laughter, the flashing boxes, all of it had stopped. People stood frozen, staring.

  Colt looked where Clay was pointing.

  Outside the window, the sky had turned violet.

  Purple lightning cracked across it, jumping from one side to the other. Then the streaks started. Dark lines cutting across the sky, falling fast, too many to count.

  One of them came straight down.

  It punched through the ceiling.

  Glass and stone exploded inward. People screamed and dove for the floor. The streak tore through the room and kept going, ripping through the wooden floor like it was paper.

  Colt stumbled back from the blast. Dust filled the air. His ears rang.

  The streaks stopped and the dust settled.

  People started to gather around the hole, boxes flashing.

  Colt grabbed Clay’s sleeve and pulled him towards the hole.

  They looked down.

  Three floors below, at the bottom of the crater, a ball of violet energy sat in the rubble. It pulsed once. Twice. Growing brighter with each beat.

  Colt’s gut went cold.

  Ninjas.