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remains unknown at this time...Providence Security chairman Logan Carraway has placed all federal buildings and embassies under full lockdown..."
    "Congress today named Logan Carraway Secretary-General of the United States, a position with full control over the executive branch, as an emergency measure until order can be restored..."
    "The new Secretary-General began his administration by granting Providence Security an emergency contract to hire three hundred thousand domestic security troops to safeguard the American people..."
    "...anti-government radicals attacked a convoy of Providence Security officers in Washington today, in a failed attempt to interrupt Secretary-General Carraway's Senate confirmation for another five-year term..."
    "...the new federal prisons bring much-needed jobs to blighted communities like this one..."
    "Pause everything," Raven said, and the babbling news reporters froze and turned silent. She clutched her pounding head.
    Secretary-General Carraway was the dictator of the United States, granted his title by a corrupt and frightened Congress after he'd seized power. She remembered that much now--how could she have ever forgotten? He was the enemy, the king of all enemies.
    Raven double-checked the dates on the news reports. He'd run for President in 2048 and lost narrowly. He'd seized power amid an economic meltdown, riots, and chaos in 2049. His own security agents had already controlled U.S. government buildings and bases all over the world through federal contracts.
    The newspapers she'd seen told her it was currently October of 2013. Those newspapers had themselves been pre-printed on paper and sold in vending machines as though it were the twentieth century, before the Internet had ever been woven. Every car she'd seen, and even the bus on which she'd ridden, had seemed like an antique. She hadn't seen a single hologram ad floating above a single business. Most of all, the cities she'd seen were not war-torn by fighting between the pro-Carraway and anti-Carraway factions.
    I'm in the past , she thought. I've gone back in time . How? Why?
    A white light swept the storage yard through the chain-link gate. She dropped to the ground and deactivated the data cube, making all the holograms vanish. She avoided the moving spotlight as she crawled to the carousel and hid behind a green dragon with a giant forked tongue.
    Flashing blue lights joined the spotlight, and Raven shuddered. Police. She would be sunk if they caught her--trespassing, no identification, a strange gun in her backpack.
    "We know you're in there," a harsh male voice barked over an amplifier. "Come out slowly. Keep your hands where we can see them. We're watching you."
    Raven doubted they could actually see her, because they kept sweeping the light from side to side as though searching. She crawled across the floor of the carousel, past pink unicorns and a lion wearing a crown, then climbed one of the candy-colored support posts to the tent-shaped golden roof.
    She lay flat as the spotlight passed again, then she stood on the lip of the carousel roof, facing the sheet-metal fence. It was only a few feet away, but it would make a terrible crash if she struck it, giving away her position. She needed to leap over it altogether, and that meant a drop of twenty feet to the concrete sidewalk on the other side.
    She heard the cop calling for backup. She had no choice but to get moving.
    Raven backed up along the sloping, plastic-gold carousel roof, took a deep breath, and ran down the slick surface. She jumped off the lip, glided over the fence, then curled up into a ball as she fell to the sidewalk.
    She slammed into it on her side. The flexible armor in her jacket took the brunt of it, but her teeth clacked together and pain flared along her ribs. She wanted to lie still until the agony passed, but there was no time. She pushed herself to her feet and ran toward the bus station, crouching and hiding whenever she heard an