Punctuated Equilibrium

We can't really control time, if time paused we can't really do anything about it. If the time starts to move again then take chances before it's too late. During their past life, they already know will come to an end. But a chance was given for them to live and find each other to love again.

In the dead of this frozen apocalypse, the shelter's fusion core was on the verge of overload. I grabbed my repair kit and sprinted for the basement, only to have the guard captain's girlfriend, Miranda Dunn, step right into my path. "Everyone, come look! Zach’s about to dump poison into the vents. He's gonna kill us all!" Her voice cut through the air as she shrieked. "I didn’t approve a private room for him two days ago, and now, he wants us all dead!" The guards didn't bother asking questions. They slammed me hard against the freezing metal door. "Zach, are you going to kill us all over a room? We're taking you in for interrogation!" I stared at the control panel, its readings spiking into the red, and shouted, "If the core blows up, none of us will make it out alive!" But they were too busy trying to impress Miranda and brushed off my warning, thinking I had lost it. Nineteen minutes remained before the core exploded.

Some people are trained to disappear. Others are trained to make problems disappear. Reid Calder operates in the space no one admits exists. His team is untraceable, unacknowledged, and brutally efficient. They are deployed when the mission cannot fail and cannot be traced. Control is the only reason it works. Distance is the only rule. Alexis Harper is not part of his system. She’s a linguistic and counterintelligence specialist designed for environments Reid’s team can’t survive. Unassuming when she wants to be. Invisible when it matters. Dangerous in ways that don’t leave bruises. She’s placed into his unit without his consent, into a world built on silence and authority, and she refuses to play small. They clash immediately. Reid sees her as disruption. Alexis sees him as arrogance wrapped in control. Their arguments are sharp, relentless, and impossible to ignore. Every room tightens when they’re together. Every exchange feels like a challenge neither is willing to lose. The closer they’re forced to work, the more volatile the tension becomes. Because some battles aren’t about dominance. They’re about restraint. And when two people trained to never lose control are pushed into constant proximity, the fallout is inevitable. Proximity Hazard is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance packed with covert operations, razor-sharp banter, forced proximity, and tension so thick it borders on reckless. Perfect for readers who crave dangerous men, brilliant women, and chemistry that feels like a threat.

My mother was a veteran HR director, so she built a performance scorecard for my entire childhood. A perfect test score earned me ten minutes on my phone. Finishing first in school earned me a milkshake. Whatever I wanted, I had to earn with grades. After I entered Crestmont Institute of Technology, I spent three straight years at the top of my program. According to her rules, that was worth one thousand dollars. When I came home, she tossed a single dollar bill at me. "So what if you're still first? Your GPA has slipped by a tenth of a point every year. You have the nerve to ask for a reward?" Beside her, my brother lounged with the keys to his new Hawthorne sedan spinning around one finger. My stomach sank. "When I got into Crestmont Tech, you said I wasn't valedictorian, so all I deserved was a used scooter. "Why does he get a new car for barely making it into community college..." Mom's eyes flashed. "You and Tyler are completely different. "He went from having no chance at college to getting accepted somewhere. That's progress. You're moving backward. "Since you've chosen to coast, I'm cutting off your living expenses next semester. We only invest resources in people who improve. "Raise your GPA by finals, then come trade your grades for money." I walked outside without another word and made a call. "You really are me, ten years from now. You were right. Her performance system only applies to me." Future me answered calmly. "Tomorrow, sell the artwork Dad left you. Three of the pieces are genuine old masters. "Put every dollar into your research project. No matter what anyone says, don't abandon it. That project is your way into Crestmont's tech elite. "Let this family lose a future multimillionaire over one thousand dollars."

Peter Cooper lives in the town of Capistrano. After being dumped by girlfriend Amelia his friend James arranges a job at Trans-Port, bossed by the famous Professor William Carver. Carver’s assistant is an American woman called Claire. Peter is pressurised into being a guinea pig for the company’s teleportation experiments and gets sent to another reality ‘The Projection’. On returning he's told Trans-Port have mentally imprisoned him in Capistrano slnce ten. The programme is a wormhole to another reality and Peter is forced to go back there and bring home its creator, his brilliant scientist father John, so Trans-Port's teleportation system can work successfully. The Projection is only programmed for John and Peter’s DNA. Peter finds the alternate reality called ‘Guildford’ similar to Capistrano but landscape and identities have changed. He meets another ‘Claire’, now English. She helps him find his ‘parents’ who informed his doppelganger (Other Peter) is a successful scientist, married to Amelia and working for Kilgore Industries in ‘Cambridge’. They are also building a teleportation device. Realising 'his' John might have gone there, Peter follows. At Kilgore he finds another ‘James’, now ‘Other Peter’s’ Project Manager. He pretends to be his doppleganger's non-existent brother to find out about an 'accident' on the site. That night a dream shows ‘Other Peter’ involved in a metaphysical reaction to the accident. John asks Peter to help him find out more about it. They force Amelia to take them to ‘Other Peter’ at Kilgore. They find him trapped between two states of reality just like Peter’s dream. Peter forces John to return to Capistrano but Carver appears telling him neither realty actually exists. The accident killed Peter and he is now purely cyber intelligence. But is this true? Can Peter’s REAL life still be saved?

I was nine months pregnant and days away from my due date when my husband vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a handwritten note. 'Babe, there's a planetary alignment that only happens once every 77 years, and I just got pulled through a time portal. Don't miss me. See you when I see you.' In our three years of marriage, he had made a habit of inventing some absurd excuse just to take Fiona Crest on another vacation. That same night, the rage and heartbreak sent me into premature labor. My water broke, and I was rushed to the hospital. While I was suffering through contractions so brutal that I wanted to die, he was in Nordvalen watching the aurora with Fiona. While I hemorrhaged on the delivery table and barely clung to life, he was riding a hot air balloon with Fiona above the clouds. While I fought my way back from the edge of death to bring our son into the world, he was kissing Fiona under a cascade of fireworks at the foot of the Aurelian Tower. A few days before the baby turned a month old, he sauntered back carrying a two-dollar bootleg action figure and announced, "Babe, I'm back! Look what I brought our son. We're all going to be so happy together." I finally saw through every last lie, and whatever hope I had left died on the spot. On the day of the celebration, I vanished too, leaving behind a single note of my own. 'The Gamma homeworld has summoned me back to my planet. I'm taking the kid and ditching the dad. Don't miss me. Don't wait up.'