Freeze Frame

Lina wins a prototype smartwatch that can freeze time for everyone but her, sixty seconds at a time, and must decide how to use it when a real crisis explodes around her.

Lina almost dropped the package when she saw her name on the label. She had entered the QuantumTech Young Inventors contest months ago, mostly for fun, and forgotten all about it. Now a sleek silver box sat on the kitchen table with a little glowing card that read: CONGRATULATIONS, GRAND PRIZE WINNER.

Inside was a smartwatch. Not a normal one, either. It was matte black with a single blue ring around the screen, and it hummed faintly, like it was alive and thinking.

'It is a prototype,' Lina whispered, reading the folded note. 'They picked my essay out of ten thousand. Mine.' She slid the watch onto her wrist, and the blue ring flared once, scanning her like it had been waiting for her all along.