Nova Riggs

# Nova Riggs and the Broken Timeline The first thing Nova Riggs noticed about the 1920s film studio backlot was that it smelled like sawdust and burnt electrical wire. The second thing was that absolutely nothing made sense. "Okay, so let me get this straight," Nova muttered, adjusting the vintage camera hanging around their neck—a prop they'd grabbed instinctively when they crashed-landed here through a tear in spacetime. "I'm in 1924 Hollywood, the timeline is shattered like my mom's favorite vase, and there are apparently ghosts running the projectors. That's... fine. Everything's fine." Everything was decidedly not fine. Nova had been minding their own business in 2024, working on what they thought was a school science project, when their exceptional luck—which usually manifested as conveniently placed ladders and mysteriously open windows—had taken a catastrophic turn. They'd knocked over a prototype temporal stabilizer (which, in retrospect, probably shouldn't have been left unsupervised in a high school physics lab), and now the timeline was fractured into a thousand impossible pieces. The symptoms were everywhere. A Victorian-era throne sat abandoned next to a Wild West saloon. A medieval knight's armor was propped against a fake Parisian street corner. And somewhere in the distance, Nova could hear what sounded like a dinosaur—or a very committed actor—roaring at full volume. "Nova! Nova, where are you?" A voice crackled through the static of Nova's temporal communicator—a device that was barely holding together, sparking intermittently. It was Alex, Nova's best friend, stranded back in 2024 and very stressed. "The timeline fractures are getting worse. We're reading massive anomalies at your location. Multiple historical figures in the same space-time. That shouldn't be possible!" "Yeah, well, lots of things that shouldn't be possible are happening right now," Nova whispered back, ducking behind a papier-mâché Greek column as a shadow passed overhead. "I'm currently hiding from what I'm pretty sure is either a ghost or Buster Keaton. Jury's still out." As if on cue, a figure emerged from the artificial fog rolling across the set. It was a man in 1920s costume, his face pale and expressionless, moving with an eerie, jerky gait that no living person should have been able to achieve. "That's definitely a ghost," Nova confirmed. The apparition didn't seem to notice Nova. Instead, it drifted toward a massive arc light—a klieg light—and simply... passed through it. The light flickered and died. On the far side of the backlot, another light burst to brilliant life, burning so intensely that Nova had to shield their eyes. "The spirits are getting stronger," came a new voice. Nova spun around, hand instinctively reaching for the nearest prop—a rubber chicken, because of course—only to stop when they saw who was standing there. It was Marlene Dietrich. The Marlene Dietrich. Except she was very much alive, very much solid, and very much annoyed. "You're the one who broke everything, aren't you?" Marlene's accent was thick, her eyes sharp and intelligent. "I can see it on your face. That's the look of someone who's already apologized five times in their head and is working on apology number six." Nova's sarcasm defense mechanism kicked in immediately. "You know what's wild? In my timeline, you're dead. And yet here you are, looking absolutely fabulous and slightly translucent. So either I'm hallucinating, or the universe's filing system has officially gone haywire. I'm gonna go with option two." Marlene didn't smile, but something flickered in her expression. "Come with me. We need to reach the sound stage. That's where the center of the fracture is. That's where you'll find what you're looking for." "And what am I looking for, exactly? A reset button? A really sincere apology note that I can mail to the space-time continuum?" "Your way home," Marlene said simply. "Also, possibly your death. It's unclear which." The walk across the backlot was like stepping through a fever dream constructed by someone with a very ambitious budget and no sense of reality. They passed a recreation of ancient Rome—complete with what appeared to be very confused extras in togas—adjacent to a 1950s diner set. A Charleston dancer in full sequins was arguing with a samurai about the proper way to strike a dramatic pose. None of them seemed to notice Nova or Marlene, which was almost more unsettling than if they had. "The other historical figures," Nova asked carefully, "are they... you know... actually here? Or are they ghosts too?" "Some are ghosts," Marlene said. "Those of us who died on this lot. The directors who worked themselves into heart attacks. The actors who fell from scaffolding. The cameramen crushed by equipment." She paused. "But the living ones... they're here too. The timeline fracture pulled them from their moments—sometimes from their deathbeds, sometimes from their greatest triumphs. And as long as they're here, stuck in the broken timeline, they're slowly fading. Being erased from history." Nova's stomach dropped. "So I need to unfade them? Send them back?" "You need to do better than that," Marlene said, stopping before an enormous soundstage. Its doors were decorated with golden art deco designs, and they seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. "You need to sacrifice one." "I'm sorry, you're gonna need to unpack that statement because—" "The timeline fracture needs an anchor," Marlene interrupted. "A single point of sacrifice. One person who stays here, frozen in this moment, erased from the timeline completely. That person will become the foundation that holds everything else together and allows the rest of us to return home." Nova felt the weight of those words settle on their shoulders like a stage curtain. "And if I don't?" "Then we all fade. Everyone here. Everyone pulled from their moments. And the fracture spreads, consuming more and more of the timeline until reality itself unravels." The soundstage doors swung open without anyone touching them. Inside, it was magnificent and horrible. The legendary Stage 9, where the greatest films of the era had been shot. And it was absolutely crawling with ghosts. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, flickering in and out of visibility like poorly tuned television signals. They were moving props, manipulating lights, creating the supernatural phenomena that had been terrifying the living actors. They weren't malevolent—Nova could see that now. They were desperate. They were trying to communicate, trying to make themselves known before they faded away completely. But there were also living people on the set. Nova recognized some from their history classes. A silent film comedian, her timing impeccable even as she seemed confused about why she was here. A director, pacing and muttering scene notes that didn't apply to any film that had ever been made. And in the center of it all, a young actor—barely older than Nova—standing in a single shaft of light, looking terrified. "That's James," Marlene said softly. "He was one of the greats in my time. Brilliant, kind, and he died twenty-three years ago when a prop malfunction went wrong on this very stage. But the timeline fracture pulled him back to the moment just before he died. He doesn't know what's happened to him. He doesn't know he's supposed to be dead." Nova's heart was pounding. "So I can let him disappear? Erase him? Just like that?" "If you don't, everyone else disappears." "That's not a choice. That's just... picking which person you murder." "Yes," Marlene said, and her voice was sad. "Welcome to time travel. It's not as exciting as the movies make it look." Nova turned away, walking deeper into the soundstage, their mind spinning. They could feel the timeline fracture now—it was like an itch at the edge of perception, a wrongness in the air itself. The communicator in their pocket was sparking more frequently, the static growing louder. "Nova!" Alex's voice was almost unrecognizable through the interference. "Nova, I'm losing your signal. There's something happening with the fracture. It's accelerating. You have maybe five minutes before—" The signal cut out completely. Nova stood in the darkness of the soundstage, surrounded by flickering ghosts and confused living actors, and realized something. Their exceptional luck had gotten them into this situation. Maybe it was time to see if it could get them out. They closed their eyes and let their mind wander through all the impossible coincidences that had gotten them here. The way the temporal stabilizer had fallen at precisely the right angle to open a doorway. The way they'd crash-landed in the one location in 1924 with the highest concentration of timeline damage. The way they'd encountered Marlene, who knew exactly what was happening. Every coincidence had led them here for a reason. And then it hit them. The answer came to Nova not as a thought but as a feeling—that electric certainty that came with their luck when it was pointing them toward the improbable solution. "The sacrifice doesn't have to be a person," Nova said quietly. "What are you talking about?" Marlene asked, following them deeper into the soundstage. "The timeline needs an anchor. Something to hold all these pieces together. But it doesn't have to be a person. It could be something else. Something that's supposed to be sacrificed." Nova looked around the soundstage and saw it—the perfect, impossible solution. A prop. An old silent film reel, sitting on the projection table, labeled only with a single date: 1924. "The legendary lost film," Nova breathed. "The one that burned in the Great Studio Fire. Everyone's been looking for it for decades. It was supposed to be destroyed." "It was," Marlene said. "In your timeline." "But what if it wasn't?" Nova moved toward the reel, their hands trembling. "What if it stayed here, hidden? What if I use it as the anchor? The timeline sacrifice something that was already supposed to be lost. Something that doesn't matter anymore because it's already gone." Nova reached for the reel, and immediately the entire soundstage shook. The ghosts began to wail, a sound that was less terrifying and more achingly sad. The living actors looked up in confusion as light and shadow began to swirl around them. "If you do this," Marlene said, "that film is truly gone. Forever. Some director's masterpiece, lost to history. Is that a sacrifice you're willing to make?" Nova thought about James, the young actor who'd already died once. They thought about all the people on this backlot who'd been pulled from their moments, all the lives that would be erased if they didn't act. They thought about the living actors whose careers depended on existing in history, on being remembered. "Yeah," Nova said. "I think I am." They pulled the reel from the projector, and the moment their hands touched it, everything changed. The timeline fracture didn't close so much as reorganize itself. It was like watching a puzzle solve itself in reverse—the broken pieces snapping back into place, but with one crucial difference. The space where the lost film had been was now empty, a small void where something precious had once existed. The living actors began to fade back to their proper moments. James looked up in understanding, gave what might have been a grateful smile, and disappeared. The silent film comedian waved, her confusion fading into peace, and vanished. The others followed, one by one, returning to the moments they'd been pulled from—their lives resuming, their histories intact. The ghosts lingered longest. They looked at Nova with something that might have been thanks, might have been resignation, and slowly they too began to fade. They weren't disappearing entirely—Nova could sense that. They were returning to whatever came after, finally allowed to move on. Marlene was the last to go. She put a hand on Nova's shoulder, briefly solid, briefly warm. "You chose well," she said. "The lost film was a masterpiece, but it was one person's work. What you saved is infinite—all those lives, all those stories, all those moments that will now happen. That's worth one film." And then she was gone, leaving Nova alone in the sound stage, holding an empty reel. The temporal communicator crackled back to life. "Nova? Nova, are you there? The timeline is stabilizing. The fractures are sealing. What did you do?" Nova looked down at the empty reel in their hands and smiled despite the exhaustion crashing over them. "I made a deal with history. It took a legendary lost film, but I think reality's gonna be okay." "How are you gonna get home?" Alex asked. "You know what?" Nova said, looking around the suddenly empty soundstage, feeling the way the broken timeline was pulling them back toward their proper place. "I have a really good feeling about this. That's usually when things work out." And with a shimmer that looked a lot like the most perfectly timed special effect, Nova Riggs stepped out of 1924 and back into 2024, leaving behind only the memory of impossible choices and the smallest void where a masterpiece used to live. Some sacrifices, Nova thought as they reappeared in their physics lab, surrounded by astonished classmates and very concerned teachers, were worth it. Even if nobody would ever know what was given up to make the world right again.