Invictus

In the 24th century, humanity has mastered time travel. The Corps of Central Time Travelers sends licensed crews aboard Central Time Machines (CTMs) to record history from Central, the capital of the Central World Republic. Recorder Empra McCarthy, stationed aboard the CTM Ab Aeterno, breaks protocol during a yearlong survey of ancient Rome in 95 AD by falling in love with Gaius, a gladiator. Nine months pregnant, Empra watches Gaius fight in the Colosseum. Her water breaks, and Burg, the ship's Historian, urges her back to the ship. The Ab Aeterno enters the Grid, the timeless void through which time machines travel between eras, and Empra gives birth to a boy outside of time, breaking the laws of nature. Burg, who has deduced Gaius's paternity, vows to bribe lab technicians so the boy's DNA tests will be fudged.

Seventeen years later, Farway Gaius McCarthy is the top cadet at the Academy. His mother vanished ten years earlier when the Ab Aeterno was declared lost, along with Burg, Far's surrogate father figure. Far believes earning his license will let him find them. His final exam Simulation places him at the Palace of Versailles, where a hologram of Marie Antoinette, a protected historical figure he is forbidden from engaging, walks directly to him, signaling a catastrophic failure. Far insists the Sim was hacked, but Instructor Marin, who holds a grudge because Empra once broke off their engagement, expels Far permanently.

A mysterious letter invites Far to the Roman Forum that night, where a guide leads him to an underground warehouse of illegal time machines. Lux Julio, a black market mogul, offers Far a captaincy stealing lost historical treasures. Far signs the contract, names his ship the Invictus, and assembles a crew: his cousin Imogen McCarthy as Historian, Gram Wright as Engineer, and Priya Parekh, a Medic from the Academy, as ship's doctor. Over the following months, they complete 30 successful heists.

Their next target is the Rubaiyat, a jewel-encrusted book that sank with the Titanic in 1912. Gram's navigation equations malfunction during the jump, landing them four hours late. In the cargo bay, a girl in a yellow dress appears holding the book. Far recognizes her face as the Marie Antoinette from his Sim. She runs, and Far chases her through the Titanic but loses her as the iceberg collision approaches. Back on the Invictus, the girl is already hiding aboard. She introduces herself as Eliot, claims to be a freelancer in the black market trade, and demands a crew spot, holding the Rubaiyat as leverage.

Far reluctantly agrees. Priya secretly collects Eliot's DNA, and the results show Eliot does not exist in Central's databases. When Far accidentally removes Eliot's wig, revealing she has alopecia universalis, a condition in which the immune system destroys all hair follicles, Priya notes the condition is extremely rare in their era, suggesting Eliot is from another time. During a vacation in Las Vegas, Eliot bonds with Imogen and encourages her to act on her unspoken crush on Gram. At a dance party, Far realizes he has a large gap in his memory from the Titanic mission. Eliot panics and forces the crew back to Central.

Eliot meets with Lux and produces the Rubaiyat from an invisible pocket universe strapped to her wrist, negotiating a new mission to recover scrolls from the Library of Alexandria before it burns in 48 BC. Far presses Eliot for answers, but she refuses. The crew's memories continue deteriorating.

The Invictus lands in Alexandria on December 16, 48 BC. Inside the library, Far encounters his mother, alive but stranded because the Ab Aeterno ran out of fuel. Eliot bursts in screaming that they must flee. Through the windows, the world begins to vanish: not fire but nothingness. Eliot calls it the Fade, a force that erases matter, time, and memory. Empra is steps from the ship when the Fade dissolves her before Far's eyes. Eliot initiates an emergency jump.

Results from the Ancestral Archives, a program that cross-references DNA databases, reveal Eliot shares 50 percent of Empra's DNA. Cornered, Eliot pulls a blaster on Far, but Saffron, the crew's red panda, deflects the shot. Eliot reveals her full identity: She is Eliot Gaia McCarthy, daughter of an alternate Empra in a parallel universe, and Far's counterpart born as a girl. Using a hologram chip, she explains the crisis. The Multiverse Bureau, a cross-universal organization, discovered that the Fade annihilates entire universes by tracking a countersignature, a unique cosmic energy signature emitted by all of Far's alternates. The Bureau recruited Eliot to find the alternate whose countersignature is a complete match and kill that individual to stop the Fade. Far is the catalyst: He is the only alternate born outside of time, and his birth in the Grid is the aberration the Fade hunts.

Gram proposes an alternative. Far himself is not the aberration; his birth in the Grid is. If they travel to 95 AD and ensure Empra returns to the Ab Aeterno before labor, they can create a pivot point, a branch where a new universe forms and Far is born normally. The crew acknowledges the cost: Their current selves will cease to exist. Priya devises the crucial addition of saving the crew's memories onto the Bureau's chip, which is immune to the Fade, and passing it to Empra to give to the new Far on his seventeenth birthday. Gram and Imogen finally confess their feelings for each other as the crew prepares for its last mission.

Eliot hacks the Corps' servers to download the Ab Aeterno's 95 AD datastream, which reveals Far's father is the gladiator Gaius. Agent August Ackerman, Eliot's Bureau handler, arrives to kill Far using Bureau-issued teleportation technology, but Imogen maneuvers him into a security camera's view and Corps guards stun him, temporarily disabling his systems. During interrogation, Ackerman tips off the Corps, prompting Marin to authorize pursuit. Far devises the final plan: He will take Gaius's place in the arena while Gram and Eliot free Gaius and reunite him with Empra. Far's death will sever the countersignature before the new universe forms.

In 95 AD, Far swaps places with his father. Eliot transports Gaius to the rendezvous while Gram finds Empra in the Colosseum and convinces her Gaius is free. Ackerman's teleportation reboots, and Marin's unit arrives. Eliot draws pursuers away through jumps across Rome. On the Invictus, Priya makes the devastating choice to leave Far's death watch and stuns Ackerman, ensuring Eliot can deliver the chip and a letter to Empra with instructions for Far's seventeenth birthday.

In the arena, Far fights with Priya guiding him through the comm. He wounds his opponent but takes a devastating blow. He whispers his love to Priya and tells her to meet him at the tea stand. The gladiator's sword falls. The Fade sweeps through Rome, finds the countersignature extinguished, and erases everything.

In the new universe, Far is born on April 18, 2354 AD. On his seventeenth birthday, Empra gives him a blue velvet box she has kept since his birth. The hologram chip activates at his voice, displaying files labeled TU FUI, EGO ERIS: "What you are, I was. What I am, you will be." Far watches the datastreams of his other life. In the epilogue, Eliot, who survived by jumping to an earlier time before the Fade, intercepts Far at a tea stand and offers him the co-captaincy of the Invictus. Far, who has watched the chip and knows everything, accepts. As Eliot steps back, Priya approaches. Far introduces himself, offers her a chai, and tells her she once asked him to find her at this very stand. Priya feels an inexplicable familiarity and agrees to walk with him.