The 13th Continuum (Book 1: The Continuum Trilogy)

Chapter 0: The Doom

It was well past midnight when Sari woke to the alarm blaring through the White House. Frightened, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

A strobe light pulsed in the darkness and illuminated the room. On and off, she could see her backpack slumped astride the foot of her bed, a mess of clothes and toys strewn across the floor waiting to get her into trouble with her mother, and her desk with the shiny, new tablet computer that was a gift from her father for her tenth birthday last week (or so the card said, though it was probably selected and purchased by his staffers).

But the angles and corners of the room felt all wrong, just like the strangers in suits who now followed her family everywhere they went. "Mr. President," they called her dad. Those men gave her the creeps. Her pulse quickened as she regretted how much her life had changed over the last year, ever since her father won the big election.

New city. New house. New bedroom. New school. New teachers. New friends.

Everything had changed.

Everything.

The alarm continued its shrill cry.

Sari pushed herself up and hugged her backpack to her chest. Ever since the move, she kept it filled with her most prized possessions just in case—her antique picture books, dog-eared and crumbling to pieces, the snow globe of the Eiffel Tower that her grandmother had given her, and the porcelain doll collection that she should have outgrown, but never had, though it ashamed her to admit it.

She padded across the room, the creaky floorboards reg- istering her presence, and twisted the doorknob. The heavy door swung wide open. Soldiers with big guns, Secret Service agents, and staffers fled past her door. Some she recognized, but most were strangers. None of them noticed her. They were too afraid, she could tell.

They'd held emergency drills before, but they were orderly affairs with everyone following the safety procedures calmly. This time was different—something was definitely wrong. Her thoughts immediately leapt to her family.

Did something happen to them?

And, more urgently—where were they? She had to find them.

Even though her heart was thumping, Sari stepped into the hall, dodging a befuddled man who staggered past. She could hear him muttering to himself. "The doom, the doom, the doom . . ." His lips wobbled and his eyes darted around, seeing everything and nothing all at once. "The doom, the doom, the doom, the doom . . ."

She flattened herself against the wall and let him pass out of sight. The man never noticed her. Being short and scrawny had its benefits. She always won when she played hide and seek with her sister, who was five years older and tall like their father. She had reached the end of the hall when she heard pounding feet behind her. Though it was hard to see through the darkness, which was broken up by blinding flashes of light, a group of men in suits stormed into her bedroom. They might have been Secret Service agents, but she wasn't sure, nor did she think it wise to stick around and find out what they wanted. Besides, adrenaline was thumping through her heart, rushing through her veins, and screaming in her brain. It yelled one thing over and over:

Run!

The instinct to flee was primal, terribly strong, and impos- sible to resist. Sari took off running down the hall. The strobe lights lit her way. She dodged a bronze bust and an ornately carved table with a ceramic vase on it. Their shadows stretched out as if to grab her, but the dark tendrils passed over her harmlessly.

She heard shouting and pounding feet behind her—the men were closing in. She dashed around a corner, sprinted down a long hallway, and skidded to a halt at a dead end. That was when she heard the footsteps right behind her. She was trapped. Her mouth tasted like metal, which only happened when she was really and truly afraid.