As you sit in your cell you wonder what the Amazons were going to do with you. They hated men and you were evidently on their turf. You think that you're trapped until you remember the bracelet. You look at your wrist to see that it's still there. At least you have that going for you. You briefly contemplate using it to return to your own time but decide against it for now. You wanted to know what happened. Maybe you could prevent it from happening.
You hear a door open and two Amazons came in escorting a third who looked familiar to you though you couldn't place her. The third Amazon came up to your cell and looked at you. After carefully inspecting you she said "So you've decided to reappear after fifty years."
You recognized the voice immediately. You two had worked together for two years now but it couldn't be. She should be about seventy- five now. Instead she looks about nineteen, younger than when you worked with her. "A-Amanda" you begin, "i-is that... you?"
"Of course it's me" Amanda said.
"Wh-what happened?" you asked.
"I'm glad you asked that" Amanda said. "It started when you disappeared fifty years ago. After a month with no word from you management figured that you had been kidnapped, killed, or gone to a competing company. They decided to rush the project in case you had gone to another company. I had told them it was a mistake but they wanted to be the first to market with it. I refused to rush it so they fired me. I heard that they put a couple of inexperienced guys in charge. Three months later there was an accident."
"What sort of accident?" you asked afraid of the answer.
"They overloaded the coils" Amanda said. "The transformation wave leveled most of the lab and spread across the globe."
"What was transformed?" you asked.
"Just about everything" Amanda said. "Parts of buildings were transformed into the fog you saw along with some humans and animals. Some people and animals were changed into plants and inanimate objects. People were turned into animals and animals were turned into people. Others were modified somehow. I became nineteen and my body became like that of the legendary Amazons. Others became like me and others became monsters. Some had their sex changed. Basically if you can think it it happened."
"What did you do?" you asked.
"Since I knew why it had happened the other Amazons looked to me for leadership" Amanda said. "I'm surprised that you haven't figured out where you are."
You look around and saw familiar markings though they were faded. "We're in the lab" you said. "This is where we held the animals we used for testing the ray."
"That's right" Amanda said.
"What happened to the sky?" you asked. "It looked black to me."
"That's because a large portion of it is black" Amanda said. "The wave transformed the upper atmosphere so that almost no sunlight gets through. There are patches of unaltered atmosphere that drift about continually and some that stay in place for various periods of time. They follow patterns and it took us a couple of years to figure out what those patterns were. We're due for a couple hours of sunlight around noon tomorrow."
"Are people getting enough food?" you asked.
"There is enough for the current population of the world" Amanda said. "Many people died during the first two years. They starved to death because they refused to eat much of anything afraid that they would be eating a transformed person."
"That's horrible" you said shocked. You had no idea that going into the future would have this effect.
"Yes it is" Amanda said. "Now I have to decide what to do with you."
"Wh-what do you m-mean?" you asked.
"Well you were on our turf" Amanda said. "We can't just let you go."
You decide that you've heard enough and place your hand on the bracelet. You concentrate on going back to your own time and place. Something was wrong though. It wasn't working. You looked up to see Amanda smiling. "I'm afraid that won't work now" she said. "Your former genie told us what happened."
"H-how do you know about her?" you asked.
"She told us when she became mortal" Amanda said. "She said that when you decided to go to the future she didn't have a master anymore. She said that it wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, you could still return. However the bracelet was linked with her magic and once she became mortal she lost her magic."
"So I can't go back?" you asked shocked.
Amanda sighed and shaking her head she said "I'm afraid not unless you can find where Dave is now."
"What does Dave have to do with this?" you asked.
"He was the one that found the bottle and became the genies new master" Amanda said. "He wasn't careful though and someone found out about her. She was freed and Dave took her place. Of course Dave may have been freed too by now. You may not find a genie to get you back for quite awhile if you ever do."
"I have to try" you said desperation in your voice. "If this happened because I disappeared then my going back should prevent this."
"That bottle could be anywhere in the world right now" Amanda said. "It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's very slim odds that you'll find it. You could be here for the rest of your life. Which brings me back to what I should do with you."