"Legions in Time" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novelette by Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.-Biography:...

. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette

Hugo Award for Best Novelette

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

in 2004.

Plot summary

An elderly widow with the strange job to sit in an empty office and guard an empty closet, decides to take action and steps through— and falls into a cosmic, time-spanning adventure that ends with her becoming an entire organization spread throughout time with a goal of destroying the evil Empire of the Aftermen.