The next day, a man breaks into the apartment, kills Daniela, and takes Jason back to Velocity Laboratories.Īt the laboratory, Leighton explains that Jason invented a device-“the box”-that allows people to travel between different realities. Daniela lets Jason stay the night, and they sleep together. Ryan thinks Jason is mocking him he gets angry and leaves. When Jason expresses confusion, Ryan gets angry and says the company used him.Īt Daniela’s apartment, Jason tells Daniela and Ryan that he woke up in another world, and in his version of reality, they all have different lives. While they mingle, Ryan asks Jason how he used the chemical compound that Ryan developed for Velocity Laboratories. Daniela remembers Jason-they dated for a few months 15 years ago. He tracks her down at a crowded art exhibit and learns that Daniela is a successful artist who is dating his friend, Ryan Holder. Jason finds Daniela using her maiden name, Daniela Vargas. Jason notices that his wedding ring is gone and ties a thread from the hotel curtain around his ring finger to remind him of his real life. Jason flees the hospital and decides to find Daniela. His brain scans come back normal, but the doctor places Jason on a 72-hour psychiatric hold when Jason fails to recognize information about his life. Jason, worried that he’s hallucinating, goes to the hospital for an MRI. Confused and afraid, Jason escapes, but when he finds his way home, he sees no traces of his wife and son. Jason learns that he is in Velocity Laboratories, a high-level research facility, and that he is part of an important project. He claims Jason has been gone for 14 months.

A doctor, Leighton Vance, asks Jason many questions that Jason cannot answer. The man injects Jason with a drug, and when Jason wakes up, he finds himself in an unfamiliar medical facility. On the way home, a masked man abducts Jason and makes Jason drive to an abandoned power plant. Jason reluctantly agrees: He envies Ryan’s success and wonders what his life would have been like if he had persisted in his research, rather than choosing to have a family. Daniela urges Jason to go congratulate Ryan at his party. Jason and Daniela joke about having given up prestigious careers-his as a scientist and hers as an artist-when their son, Charlie, was born 15 years ago.

On the evening of October 1, Jason is making dinner with his wife, Daniela, when she reads that Jason’s friend, Ryan Holder, has won a prestigious science award. Chapters 4, 6, and 9 are written from the third-person present tense perspective of Jason’s wife, Daniela.

The novel takes place in October 2015 in Chicago and is written in the first-person present tense from the protagonist Jason Dessen’s point of view.

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