And just like that, the hardened killer I knew was gone, replaced by a friendly, innocent, and oddly sympathetic teenage girl. It was a performance unlike anything I’d ever seen, displaying a wide array of emotions. Jane looked so happy when she talked about her “brother.” Smiling, too. I didn’t even know she was capable of smiling. Even though I knew it was a lie, Jane had crafted and delivered a believable story that sucked both me and my dad right in.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” my father asked.
I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to say something that would back up Jane’s beautifully concocted tale, but nothing came to mind. I was usually quite good at this, one of the reasons why I’d been able to rise up alongside Christine, but today was completely off-kilter. Even still, I opened my mouth to speak, unaware of what, if anything, would come out.
But Jane stepped in before I could even utter a word. “I met Robbie at the hospital. Some of those H.O.P.E. thugs got the drop on my brother. Fractured his cheekbone and broke a couple of his ribs. He’s going to be out of commission for a few months.”
Again, this mysterious girl from the future had transformed herself into a different persona, one which struck an emotional chord in a man I never knew could experience sympathy.
Looking almost proud to be in Jane’s presence, the “sister” of the kinds of people he admired, my father gave her a quick nod and said, “I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m sure he’s a tough one to keep down. All those Monarch roughnecks are.”
“Yeah. He applied for the job after two tours overseas.”
My father’s eyes lit up. “Marines?”
And continuing her act, Jane’s face beamed with pride as well. “Army, actually. Thirty-seventh Infantry Division. I had to be in foster care while he was serving. Both our parents are dead. But when they discharged him, my brother took me in.”
“Sounds like a dedicated soldier.”
“Thank you, sir. He signed on with Monarch to pay the bills. It’s tough but we get by. At least I’m living with family.”
Jane’s final sentence was, I’m sure, purposefully crafted with just the subtext she needed to ensnare my father in a trap, and it appeared to work. Lost in their own conversation, the two of them were carrying on like I wasn’t even there. My dad had been completely ignoring me, talking to Jane with a look of delight in his eyes that I knew I would never see on my own. A part of me wanted to feel jealous that in only a few short minutes Jane had received more affection from my own father than I ever could, but a bigger part of me knew it was only because she was playing him for a fool.
That look in my father’s eyes quickly vanished though, replaced by his earlier scowl when he shifted his gaze over to me. “Was my boy one of the tree huggers that hurt your brother?”
I was shocked speechless by the accusation, although I don’t know why. The old man always assumed that something was my fault. It made sense that he would try to blame a made-up beating for a fake person on me, too.
But Jane came to my defense, stepping up and placing a hand on my shoulder like she was vying for an Academy Award. “Oh, no. Robbie broke it up even before he knew it was his cousin. Got himself nailed in the chest in the process. That’s why he was in the hospital with us.”
“Really? Bravery’s never been my son’s strong suit,” my father said with his eyes wide in genuine surprise.
Jane then leaned in to get closer, delivering a joke to my dad made special just for him. “Well, it doesn’t take much courage to get punched.”
The quip had the dual effect of playing to my dad’s tough guy attitude while simultaneously putting down his son. Needless to say, he found it hysterical, and the two of them shared a laugh at my expense.
I just sarcastically snorted out a “thanks” while rolling my eyes.
When her giggles faded, Jane turned to look at me again, this time with a smile of genuine appreciation that, for an instant, I almost forgot was totally fake.
Jane held the subtle smirk until my dad was listening and then began the coup de grâce of her performance. “But your son is kind, I’ll give him that. He overheard my brother telling me to go on ahead to New Detroit and that he’d catch up with me when he healed. I wanted to stay with him, but I’ve already registered for school here. Problem is, I just didn’t have a place to stay. That’s when Robbie offered me a spare bedroom. I had no idea he didn’t ask you first and I’m sorry. But Butterfly is very accommodating. I’m sure they can find some cheap motel for me to…”
My dad had heard enough and cut her tale short. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Jane.”
“Well, Jane, you can call me Uncle Paul.”
My father had never allowed any one of my peers to call him by his name. In fact, he demanded most of them refer to him as “officer.” The fact that he wanted to be on a first-name basis with a strange girl, even one claiming to be his niece, showed that he bought her story hook, line, and sinker.
Jane didn’t take the bait, though. In order to protect her cover of respect, she smiled and said, “I prefer Mr. Stone, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. And I want you to know that family is important to us, too. It’s been a long time since we had a woman living in the house. Not since your aunt passed. But we have the room, if you’d like to stay. At least until James is well enough to make the move.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Maybe you can even convince your misguided cousin over here what working for Monarch’s really like.”
If it weren’t for that comment, I would’ve sworn my father had forgotten I was even here. If this situation weren’t going to plan, then I would’ve been ashamed by the bond Jane and my father had formed in regards to putting me down.
A fire to which she had added fuel by subtle winking in my direction. “I would love to.”
Dad then opened his shoulders and put a hand out towards the house, a sign welcoming Jane to join him inside. The two of them then walked together back towards the open front door as my father shamelessly tried to schmooze the girl to help his own career. “I’ve been trying to get a job with them for years. Perhaps when your brother heals up he can…”
Playing into the scene, Jane casually waved her hand and said, “Oh, absolutely. He can put in a good word for you. Most of their hires are from recommendations.”
They disappeared into the house, and just like that, Jane had made my father, the disgruntled hard-ass of a cop, an ally. I was speechless. Not just because of what she did, but by how easily she did it.
I had watched Jane fight like an action star and kill a man she said was her friend at the drop of a hat. But when faced with a situation that required tact and finesse, she flipped a switch and became an entirely different individual. She read my father like a book, manipulating her way into our house as if it were the easiest thing in the world. The lies just seamlessly rolled off her tongue.
I could never do that. I just wasn’t that kind of person. Someone with the ability and confidence to control those around me with nothing more than the sound of my voice. One loud word out of my father’s mouth and I froze. In fact, I was still frozen, standing on my front lawn wondering what the hell just happened.
CHAPTER EIGHT
By Monday, everything had returned to normal.
But nothing was the same.
It was strange walking down the halls of New Detroit High School as we all shuffled out for lunch. I couldn’t help but look at everyone around me with suspicion now. Any one of them could be an agent of the New Hope Army sent from the future to try and kill me. It was ridiculous. I’d known most of them since I was five, but everything set me off now.
Being paranoid about my classmates also distracted me from thinking about my destiny. Even though Jane insisted on the fact I was my own man and didn’t have to do any of the things the history book said I would, there was always the nagging sensation I was trapped on a road straight to hell.
That was
when Jane put her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, I’m all signed up now.”
“Gah!” I said, practically jumping out of my skin.
“Nervous?” Jane asked. She was wearing a blue sweater and blue jeans. She looked a lot better now that she’d gotten some new clothes and a chance to settle down. Jane was still scary as hell but could almost pass for a normal girl.
Perhaps better than normal.
“Hey, good-looking!” Rudy Chowder, a receiver for the school football team, made finger guns at Jane. “Come see me after school.”
I glared at him, protective in a way which I didn’t really understand.
Jane ignored him.
“I’m not exactly relaxed after two attempts on my life,” I said, watching Rudy leave. “So you’re registered in the school?”
“I’ve forged documents before. Getting into your school was child’s play,” Jane said, simply.
Every day was another reminder I was living with Solid Snake. “Hey, could I talk to you about something?”
“Go ahead,” Jane said, looking around. “I imagine if anyone overhears us, they’ll think we’re just discussing a video game.”
That had been another thing I’d discovered about Jane during my brief time with her. She’d been positively stunned by my video game collection and aside from taking time to shop and forage, she’d spent virtually the entirety of our weekend together playing with my Xbox. Apparently, she hadn’t grown up with such luxuries where she was from.
“Yeah, my life is Fallout,” I muttered. “It’s about that history book you brought from the future.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, I started translating some of the pages. It takes me forever but, honestly, there was a lot of stuff which didn’t make sense. I was hoping to go over it with you.”
Jane gestured down the hall. “Can we do it over lunch?”
“You can think of food at a time like this?”
Jane blinked slowly. “You have places where you can get your next meal for just a few pieces of paper. Food that is warm, plentiful, and delicious if a bit greasy. I suggest you not stand in the way of my next burger.”
That was another element of Jane I was still dealing with in that she was a pretty big eater and seemed to metabolize it without difficulty. I had speculated she’d been modified with nanotechnology, gene-therapy, or cybernetics to explain all the amazing things I’d seen, only for her to laugh at me. Apparently, some elements of the future were off limits to discuss or I was just being a dork asking about them.
“All right,” I muttered, figuring lunch was as good a time as any to discuss these things. “Sounds good.”
“You’re paying.”
“I am?” I asked.
Jane nodded. “I underestimated the amount of funds necessary to survive in this time period and will have to knock over another ATM before—”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “Try not to discuss that aloud. Robbery is a bit harder to disguise as a video game.”
“Foraging off the land, soldier,” Jane said, imitating the voice of an older gruff sergeant. I suspected he was a real person, but she didn’t want to elaborate.
As we exited the door of the high school and started walking to the collection of fast food restaurants a few blocks away alongside the rest of the student body, I tried to put my thoughts into words. “Well, we both agree I’m never going to become the Scorpion, right?”
“Yeah, because if you were then I’d kill you.”
I blinked. “Uh-huh, well, my becoming the Scorpion is dependent on a bunch of things happening which aren’t going to happen.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Like Christine being dead isn’t going to happen,” I said, trying to put into order the thoughts I’d been going over the entire weekend. “So the future is really entirely up for grabs, right?”
“No,” Jane corrected.
“Huh?”
“The Butterfly Effect is a concept that is about how small changes can lead to big changes,” Jane answered, going over a common trope which was unfortunately named. “However, there’s a lot of social forces and events that are still going to happen regardless of the personal changes we make to your life. For example, the New Freedom Party is going to keep handing over U.S. power to the corporations while the rest of the world either collapses or follows suit.”
I grimaced at that. “Yeah, I read about that. In ten years, Butterfly is going to rule most of the continent and Monarch will be its secret police.”
“Yeah. So what are you getting at?”
“Well, I don’t think we can avert the Scorpion by just stopping me.”
“Excuse me?”
I tried to figure out how to explain my thoughts. “It’s just like the World Wars.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of those,” Jane said, as if she was discussing an obscure comic book.
“Well, it’s like this, the Nazis never would have risen to power if not for the events of World War One,” I said, feeling weird having to describe such a well-known fact. “It was all the destruction and chaos from the war along with the economic damage that created the fertile recruiting ground for them and their ideology. People wanted someone to blame for all of their problems. A scapegoat. And the Nazi Party gave them just that, which, in the end, resulted in World War Two and the Holocaust.”
“I sense there’s a comparison I’m not getting here,” Jane said, sounding like she knew exactly what I was getting at but didn’t like it.
“Well, I’m saying Butterfly taking over the United States and the collapse of the world governments is World War One and—”
“No,” Jane interrupted.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” I said, upset.
“You want to work to stop the megacorporations,” Jane said, her voice low and disgusted. “Despite the fact this is exactly what resulted in the rise of the Scorpion to begin with.”
“Not exactly,” I said, holding on to that point. “This is different. You’re here.”
“There’s no difference.”
“I don’t want to kill innocent people.” I paused. “I don’t want to kill anybody. I think that’s a pretty big difference.”
Jane shook her head vigorously, stopping on the sidewalk. “No. Innocent people will die in this conflict if you do this. Starting with you—”
“You saw what happened in the history books,” I said, my fists balling as I turned around to face her. “How Denver was sealed off from the rest of the country and everyone was forced to starve when they rose up against Butterfly? How they eventually dropped a nuke on San Francisco? They’re evil.”
I’d hated Butterfly before, but after the “riot” and what I’d read, I truly believed they had to go. The criminal atrocities they would commit in the future would be dwarfed by the Scorpion, but that didn’t mean they weren’t wrong. If I had foreknowledge of what they were going to do and did nothing, then wasn’t I complicit in their activities? Wasn’t I responsible for everyone they killed?
“We don’t know they’re going to do anything they’ve been recorded as doing,” Jane said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than me. “Like you said, the future is changing rapidly.”
“It doesn’t mean they’re not going to do it,” I said, not at all happy I was having to forward this argument. “What’s your solution? Sit back and do nothing?”
“Yes,” Jane surprised me by saying.
“What?”
“We need to de-escalate the situation,” Jane said, looking over at Burgertown longingly. “Going to war with Butterfly is only likely to make them crack down harder. They won’t have to go to the extremes they do in the original timeline if they’re not being subjected to nonstop terrorist attacks.”
“You sound like my father,” I said, bitterly disappointed in her.
“Your father isn’t such a bad guy,” Jane said, looking over her shoulder. “He loves you and wants what’s best for
you.”
Great, she’d bonded with my dad.
“He doesn’t believe in anything but order,” I said, shaking my head. “The law is all that matters to him. The law and making money.”
“Your father grew up very poor and in a dangerous neighborhood,” Jane responded. “Violence was a part of his life and he only sees Butterfly fixing it so the people of Detroit don’t have to suffer the way he did. So you don’t have to. I understand that motivation.”
I didn’t really have anything to say to that. “I just think it’s the right thing to do.”
“More evil has been done in the name of the right thing than has been done in selfishness and greed,” Jane said, looking sympathetic for the first time in this conversation. “Just barely, but it’s still more.”
I started to speak again, but Jane looked into my eyes with a grave expression on her face. “Besides, we’ve got bigger problems.”
“What?”
Jane lifted my cellphone. “Your communicator.”
“Hey!” I said, grabbing it back. “I was looking for that!”
“No, you weren’t,” Jane said, frowning. “You were contacted all weekend by your living partner.”
“My what?”
Jane blinked. “I think you call them boyfriends or girlfriends in this time period.”
“Girlfriend,” I replied. “Oh, crap, no wonder Anna has been giving me the stink eye all day. I bet she was worried sick.”
“She was, but I texted back to her in your name,” Jane said, frowning. “I indicated you were uninterested in communicating right now and had more important things to do. Which was true.”
My eyes widened. “You did what?”
“We have more important things to worry about.” Jane shrugged her shoulders. “Not the least being that I’m missing my lunch.”
I clenched my teeth. “What?”
Jane stared at me. “Check the news post I highlighted on your phone.”
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