Flyday

by Laura E. Bradford

  “You’re not joking,” he said.

  She made a snowball. “No. Afraid not.”

  In a moment they stood on a similar bridge, but it was old and rusting, and the buildings weren’t sleek skyscrapers, but crumbling, abandoned brick factories. The roads were made of cracked asphalt, with painted yellow and white lines. The constant buzzing of flying cars had disappeared, but he heard something else in their place. A blue machine on four wheels zoomed by, roaring and clunking as it passed them.

  “Automobiles,” said Ariel, at his puzzled expression. “Cars. Non-flying, obviously.” She tossed the snowball into the canals, where it sank and melted.

  He had never seen a land-moving automobile of that sort before, save for museums and old photographs. “Where are we?”

  “Where I lived. From your perspective, it’s about five hundred years ago.”

  He turned to look at her again, and found she’d changed. The cut of her clothing looked different; it seemed older, more outdated.

  “How—?”

  “Hologram,” she said. “What you see me wearing now is only an image projected into your mind. In your day you have a similar technology, but it’ll be awhile before people perfect the little details.”

  Thomas took a sharp breath, then let it out. “Okay, I’m officially impressed. Confused, yeah, but impressed. I’m dreaming, right? How can you travel in time?”

  She held up the pocket watch. “This is my time machine. It takes me anywhere I want to go.”

  “Right.” That didn’t quite answer his question, but he let it slide. “So why come to me? Why not pick winning lottery numbers, or stop murders, or—”

  “Lottery winners attract attention. And we could stop murders, in theory, but it’s not recommended.”

  “Why not? This is incredible. You could change the future.”

  “That’s what I need to explain. You can’t, at least not easily. Things are set one way, and it’s not a good idea to change them. If you try, bad things happen.”

  “How bad? End of existence bad?”

  “No. But bad. I need to ask you something. You understand that I’m from another time?”

  “Uh—” He glanced around at the cars, the buildings, at her clothes. “Sure, I believe you.”

  “I need your help. The people of your time tracked my signal, which means they know I exist.”

  “Your signal?”

  Ariel held up the pocket watch. “This lets out a very faint signal when it jumps from time to time. I’m not sure how it works, but the Celestials figured out how to track it. You were one of them once, and the agent who caught up with me mentioned a lieutenant. Do you know someone who would work on secret projects like that?”

  He did. But his head was buzzing, and he couldn’t think. Suddenly he felt a migraine coming on.

  “This is a trick,” he said. “Did she set this up?”

  “Who?”

  He looked around, feeling lost. He felt as if he were staring at an old photograph—only his surroundings were real, tangible. But it didn’t make sense. His mind told him he should be seeing a skyline of elegant silver buildings, not rectangular brick ones.

  Another booming automobile passed, and panic suddenly took over.

  “Take me back,” he said.

  “Thomas—”

  “Take me back!”

  He blinked, and a white light washed out the world.

  Like a painting in progress, everything reappeared in pieces: the skyscrapers, the streets, the early morning sky with a touch of mist, now burning away from the summer heat. Then the flying cars emerged, crisscrossing underneath the clouds. He was back in Tenokte, back home.

  He still felt dizzy, and the world seemed upside-down. Left became right, and he stood on the bridge but had the sensation of falling and spinning.

  “Ariel—” he said.

  He saw the girl’s lips move, forming words that he couldn’t hear. A golden glow blinded him, and he fell backward in time.

  2.

  “He’s awake.”

  “No, can’t be.”

  “Look.”

  Thomas’s eyes opened, and he blinked, seeing the bright lights of a hospital room. A dozen faces surrounded him, and his head throbbed with a pain that he couldn’t quite identify.

  “Thomas,” someone in blue-green scrubs said, “we’re going to do a quick surgery to fix you up. Stay with me…”

  Someone slid a clear plastic mask over his face. Sure, he thought. He could stay with them…

  Thomas sat up, awake. He’d been lying on a cot in a wide, windowless room. The red-haired girl sat by his bedside, reading a book. Only, it wasn’t a file on an e-reader: it was a paperback book, a rare thing in his time.

  “Hey,” she said, and put down the book. “You were out for a few minutes. How do you feel?”

  He put a hand to his head; he had a migraine. “Ow. Dizzy. What year is it?”

  She smiled. “No idea, but I just took you from 2507.” She paused. “The disorientation is a side effect of the rapid travel. The world moves around you about a thousand times a second, and your body stands still. Freaks out your brain for a minute or two. There are no long-lasting effects, and it goes away after you travel a few times. But I’ve never seen anyone pass out...”

  He grabbed her arm. “I had a brain injury a few years ago. You could’ve killed me.”

  She pried his fingers from her sleeve. “Then maybe you should rest a bit longer.” She brushed herself off. “You know, I never felt anything, but my old partner did. Dizzy spells, that sort of thing. Used to drive him mad.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said tonelessly.

  “He was also into hallucinogenic drugs, though ... time travel probably seemed normal for him.”

  That didn’t make Thomas feel much better.

  “Anyway, you’re in the headquarters of the Saturnine Order. We’re a small band of time travelers.”

  He looked shocked. “Saturnine? We’re not on—”

  “No, still Earth. Named after the planet Saturn, though, and right now we’re a few centuries in your future, give or take. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

  He slid out of the bed. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No?”

  “How are you doing this? Drugs? Mind simulations?”

  “What are mind simulations?”

  “You know, virtual reality games. The Celestials use them to train police.”

  “Did they use them to train you?”

  He stared at her.

  “Yes, I know about your time with them. And that could really help me right now.”

  “I can’t help you,” he said, backing away.

  “I didn’t mean to freak you out. This is all really hard to explain. My friend Jude had this amazing way of describing it…”

  Thomas had to get out, if only to prove her wrong, prove that none of what she said was true. He stumbled out the door and looked for an exit, but he couldn’t find it, and soon he lost the way back.

  He heard her in the halls, calling his name, but he ignored her. Eventually he came to an open door leading into an office, and he slipped inside. A golden clock and several paintings adorned the walls, and shelves of books lined one side of the room.

  A plastic tank sat on a desk. The cover had tiny holes in it, and inside, several brown beetles were flying around or crawling on leaves and grass.

  “Fireflies,” came a voice.

  Thomas looked up and saw a woman standing on the far side of the room. She had dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, and wore a white lab coat. “Here.” She flicked off the light, and Thomas looked at the tank. The insects glowed with a green light, flashing in a pattern. There was a sort of indifferent elegance to them.

  “Bioluminescence,” said the woman. “I’ve been studying it.” She looked at the test tubes, the vials, the equipment. “Among … other things.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Bailey Tyler, the leader h
ere. If you do well, you’ll probably never see me again.”

  “And if I don’t do well?”

  “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” She winked, then picked up a microscope and put it on a shelf.

  “Is any of this real?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course. It’s just outside your reality. A long time ago, people didn’t understand how fireflies glow. But it’s simple science.”

  “What I mean,” he said, “is that I could still be asleep, dreaming about this.”

  “But you’re not. I’m pretty sure someone your age knows the difference between dreaming and real life.”

  Obviously Bailey had never been in a coma. She had never woken from what seemed like a long night’s sleep to find that weeks had passed and that many of the people she knew were dead. If she had, she would be more careful about these things.

  “Thomas?” said Ariel. She stood in the doorway. “I can take you back, if you’d like.”

  He turned to Bailey. He wanted to ask her to divulge everything about what was going on, to start at the beginning and keep going to the end, but he could see from her pleasant smile that she wouldn’t. She was the leader here: that’s all he knew, and that’s all she would ever let him know. So he glanced down at the fireflies, watched them shine.

  “Thomas?” Ariel repeated.

  “I can stay a little longer,” he said.

  She took him to the Saturnine Order’s tiny museum. All of the artifacts the group had collected, representing ancient history to the far future, lay on shelves in a dusty room. Everything fascinated Thomas. He observed a stone figurine from Sumeria, a bronze arrowhead from the Stone Age, and gold jewelry from ancient Egypt.

  “I am, at heart, just an explorer,” said Ariel. “I can take you anywhere in the world, at any time, and get you back before anyone knows you’ve gone.”

  “So you just .... wander around and study everything?”

  “Wouldn’t you do it if you could?”

  He had never been much of a traveler, but he thought of the possibilities.

  A dark-haired young man walked past the doorway, but stopped when he saw them. “Hey, Ariel.”

  “Hey. Oh, Jude, this is Thomas. Thomas, this is Jude Fawkes, Bailey’s partner.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Jude. “You’re the newest member, huh?”

  “Possibly,” said Thomas, eyeing Ariel.

  “Well, welcome to the team. Oh, and Ariel, I’m still trying to track down the signal for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Jude nodded and walked out.

  Thomas turned to Ariel. “I have a feeling you don’t just need me for one problem.”

  “Sort of. My partner left a few days ago. If you’d like, you can take his place.”

  “You can’t travel alone?”

  “It’s more conspicuous that way. People don’t look twice at a couple walking down the street, do they?”

  He could see her point. “Let’s just take one thing at a time. You can go to the future, right? Does the king survive?”

  “Who?”

  “King Richard Montag II.”

  “I’m not exactly an expert in your century’s history … is he the one who gets assassinated?”

  Thomas gaped.

  “Oh, I mean, the one who might get assassinated. Perhaps.” She glanced down at the watch. “We left on June 16, 2507, right? Let’s go see.”

  Before he could stop her, Thomas found that their surroundings had shifted. Instead of the dark museum, they stood in the bright hallway of a hospital. A doctor wearing a white coat passed by without looking at them.

  Thomas put a hand against the wall, feeling overwhelmed. He thought of his last major trip to a hospital.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, his eyes closed. “Just a headache. Can they see us?”

  “In a second. There’s a filter involved. We come gradually into their field of vision.”

  He glanced up at a clock: 8:45 a.m.

  “I figured that would give you enough time to get here, in case someone saw you at the canals, or noticed you left the hotel,” she said.

  “Right.” He still didn’t fully understand the implications of time travel. “How did you know where I’d be this morning, anyway?”

  She only smiled and walked on.

  They passed several rooms, and came to one with two guards standing outside it. A group of workers wearing scrubs wheeled a gurney down the hall.

  A white sheet lay over the gurney.

  “Is that—?” Thomas whispered. But those were the king’s personal security guards. “That can’t be the king. Can’t be—”

  “Come on.” Ariel walked around a corner, to the other end of the hall. Thomas spared one more glance at the stretcher, then followed her.

  Near the front of the hospital, a Celestial officer was speaking to a group of reporters. Other people had also gathered, most of them stunned or in tears.

  The travelers couldn’t hear what was being said, but Thomas immediately ducked into a side hallway once he saw the scene.

  “What’s wrong?” said Ariel.

  “See that officer down the hall? He’s my father.”

  She peered at the man. Full officer’s uniform, with a white beret. “What is he, some sort of captain?”

  “Police commissioner,” said Thomas.

  She whistled.

  “Yeah. I want to avoid him, if at all possible.”

  “Then we will. Come on.” She took his hand, and he reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled out. They walked to the back of the crowd and listened.

  “The time of death was 2 a.m.,” Commissioner John Huxley said. “Cause of death is believed to be trauma. An autopsy will be performed. No further questions.”

  Thomas and Ariel stood in the lobby, expressionless, as the reporters filed out.

  “He just died in the middle of the night?” Thomas said, stunned. “They couldn’t save him?”

  “I guess so. How old was he?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Wow. What did he do to get murdered? Make any enemies, bad policies, something like that?”

  “Nothing. Everyone loved him.”

  “Someone didn’t.”

  “They think my fiancée’s brother killed him.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah … that pretty much sums it up.”

  “Where did you get kings, anyway? Rulers of the world, I mean—when did that all start up?”

  “Oh, the royal family’s descended from Dimitri Reynolds. He started the Federation in the middle of the twenty-first—”

  “Wait, who?”

  “Dimitri Reynolds,” he repeated patiently. “He’d be alive in your time, I think. Did you ever hear of him?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “We’ve met.”

  Thomas barely registered her response. “The king just died, and his sister’s too young to replace him. And—aren’t you interfering with time by being here? What if you do something that changes history?”

  “I won’t change history. I’ll explain later.” She turned around, and they walked back the way they came.

  “Tom!” someone shouted.

  Thomas cringed, then turned around. Ariel stopped, too. The police commissioner walked up to them, smiling.

  “It’s been a long time,” said Commissioner John Huxley. “Audrey said she talked to you this morning.”

  “Yeah…”

  “You should stop by with Zoë tonight. I don’t think we’ve met her. And…” He looked at Ariel. “Who is this?”

  “Oh, I’m just a reporter,” said Ariel. “Investigating … you know. This is all terrible, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, a tragedy.”

  “Yes. So … sorry, silly question, but if any suspect is charged and convicted, how long will he have to wait before execution?”

  “It depends. It might take less than a week to assemble a trial.”

  “Wow,”
said Ariel. “That’s … not very long.”

  “It’s actually quite standard for regicide. Are you a local reporter? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

  “Oh, Ariel’s just visiting the city,” said Thomas. “So, tonight! Maybe dinner? I’ll bring Zoë.”

  “Good. I can’t wait to see her. Pleasure to meet you, Ariel.” He gave a nod, and walked down the hall.

  Thomas and Ariel watched him go.

  “Not very close?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you move to London to get away from your parents?”

  “Not them. The whole city.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kiddo, it’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  He turned to her. “When I was twenty-one, someone shot me in the head and left me to die. I was found alone on a street, unconscious, with a broken leg and wrist. When I woke up, I found out that I’d been in a coma for eight weeks, and I’d lost most of my memories. Wouldn’t you want to run away if that happened to you?”

  She paused. “Did they ever find out who did it?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I can help you with that. But…” She looked up at a security camera above a door. The lens had been shattered, and shards of glass lay on the ground beneath it.

  “That’s just vandalism,” said Thomas. “People break cameras all the time.”

  “How many are there in this city?”

  “I don’t know. Thousands? They’re to deter crime.”

  She looked up at it. “I need to be careful. The police are already looking for me.”

  “Great. So my future brother-in-law’s an assassin, and I’m walking around with a fugitive.”

  “I’m not a fugitive. I just need to find out why they tracked me and get out of here. But I really do want you to consider coming with me.”

  “Hm, travel through space and time? Sounds nice, but I have to worry about Zoë right now.”

  “Then I’ll investigate her brother’s case for you, if you’ll consider being my partner.”

  “Fine.”

  She stepped in front of him, blocking the door. “A Celestial followed me and mentioned a lieutenant. You know which one he was talking about, don’t you? One who works on secret projects. You said someone was searching for me.”