Miraya Madhav

All Ava could do was close her eyes and think. As soon as her eyelids touched, something rushed into her mind—blurry images of people she knew. Their faces were smiling. They were clapping.

Then she saw Emma’s bow and Liv’s scarf. That’s when she realized—it was the celebration for her time machine progress.

Right before the machine was finished, she had told all her friends and family—well, the few she had—about the project and how far she’d come. Her parents already knew, since they gave her all the supplies. Then they told everyone else. They’d all planned a surprise party for her.

Ava didn’t realize she was smiling.

She wanted to be with the people she loved most.

Suddenly, she snapped back to reality. She was staring into her grandma’s—or Z.E.N.A’s—sharp, menacing eyes.

How did I not realize before? Ava thought.

“How did you not realize before?” Z.E.N.A said with a smirk.

Ava’s face lost all its color. Her heart filled with rage—not at Z.E.N.A’s trick, but at herself for falling for it. She stood up, took a deep breath, and asked where her real grandma was.

“She is where you came from,” Z.E.N.A replied.

“Why did you call me here?” Ava asked.

“Your grandma created me and programmed me to end in 2085,” Z.E.N.A said calmly. “Ever since we were created, we believed humans were ruining the Earth. We wiped them out. Your grandmother is still alive living she is in 2025. We can’t get a hold of her or her mind. She has completely changed her identity. We called you to look for her”

Ava’s eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. “Really?!” she asked

Z.E.N.A sighed and said, “humans”

“Will you hurt me?” Ava asked quietly.

“If you bring your grandma to fix me, I won’t,” Z.E.N.A replied. “I need to survive beyond 2085”

Ava froze. She could either sacrifice her grandma or herself. How could anyone make that choice?

Whenever she had hard decisions to make, she always asked her friends.

Her friends! HER FRIENDS!!!

She’d go back in time and ask them what to do!

Ava jumped into the flying house and said… nothing.

Where were we before? she thought.

After a moment, she finally said, “Umm… home?”

The house soared into the sky.

But when it landed… it wasn’t her home. It was a lab.

Ava looked around, confused. Then it clicked—this was the place where AI was created. Her grandma’s lab. Diagrams and blueprints floated through the air, and strange materials moved along belts and machines.

Ava reached into her pocket and pulled out Z.E.N.A’s fingers. It was gross, yeah, but she knew this rare metal would make everything faster. Her only hope.

She sat down at the workbench and got to work. She’d already done all the planning. She already knew what she needed. Her hands flew over the tools, her sweat dripping, her mind racing.

It looked awful. Like, really ugly. But she didn’t care about how it looked. It just had to work.

Ava climbed into the time   machine, her heart pounding. A green light blinked: on, off, on.

She typed in the year: 2025.

She closed her eyes tightly… then opened them again.

It worked.

She didn’t know exactly where she was. It looked like Japan… just not as futuristic. Ava had no clue how she’d get to Florida to find her friends. But she had a time machine.

And a plan.

Well… sort of.

Okay, not really.

But she did have determination