Time Will Tell

by Chloe Garner

“No kidding,” Tina said.

  He watched her and she nodded.

  “I’m going,” she said. “I’ll decide when I get there if I’m going in.”

  “Next door,” Tell coached, and she nodded.

  “Next door, yes. Not the Order central operations. No matter what, I won’t go in there tonight.”

  “All right. Keep your cell phone on silent, but pay attention to it. I’ll let you know if I manage to track down where she might be, in the meantime.”

  “Yeah,” Tina said, the successes of the evening feeling a bit flat now. “I can’t believe she came.”

  “She cares about her brother,” Tell said. “I can understand that, even if he is a jerk.”

  Tina shook her head.

  “I’m going. Let me know.”

  “Be safe.”

  The Order building was in the middle of a block, and Tina chose to climb the building at the far corner of the block and approach along the roofs, just to have the benefit of avoiding most of the cameras. She went and sat on the roof of the next-door building, resting her back against the Order building and looking at her phone.

  She couldn’t hear conversations through a car door.

  What hope did she have hearing important things through a layer of brick?

  She could hear voices inside, and they were distinct enough tonally that she thought she could tell one from another well enough, even though she couldn’t hear the words, but the words were just gone. How did better hearing help that?

  She remembered being able to follow the plots of the television shows downstairs, when she’d been an original.

  Surely the quality of the sound wasn’t any better with sharper hearing.

  Was it?

  She wrestled out the physics of that for a while as her limbs got stiffer, but in the end she couldn’t make it make sense, and she was beginning to feel the effect of the sun.

  She unlocked her phone.

  They don’t seem that excited, and I haven’t heard a woman’s voice. I can’t understand what they’re saying, though.

  She waited, and Tell’s reply came about five minutes later.

  Come back. You’re done. I’ll find her today and you can go get her tonight. I’ll try to have a plan ready for what to do with her.

  Tina nodded, standing. It felt like she needed to stretch, but she knew it wouldn’t help anything. She wondered if she was still able to climb down, like this.

  Put her back on a plane.

  She sent her reply to Tell, then went to climb up the adjoining building. Her fingers were stiff, but with enough focus she could make them work.

  Like to see you talk her into that.

  Tina could see his point, but she was all but certain she could do it.

  There was no point in Colette being here. All she could do was die. She couldn’t help.

  She needed to go.

  Tina climbed down the far side of the last building, rushing to her car for heat and driving quickly back to Viella, just barely beating the sun.

  “Go on,” Tell said. “We’ll talk tonight.”

  “Wish I could tell you more,” Tina called from the stairs. She was dragging by the time she hit the landing, and barely walking by the time she got to the door to her room.

  She opened it and went through, closing it behind her.

  “Are we together, then?” she asked.

  “My bed,” Hunter answered. “You need help?”

  “I’m sleeping in my clothes, but I’ve got it,” Tina told him.

  “Don’t mind helping with that,” Hunter teased, sitting up. She waved him back down, climbing over him to find one of the luxurious pillows.

  “You accomplish what you set out for?” Hunter asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Tina said.

  “Didn’t like what I heard about you committing suicide to not accomplish anything,” he said. “I was worried you might actually do it.”

  “I know,” Tina said. “Me, too. I just don’t know if I could sit back and listen to a woman die.”

  “That’s why you’re the best of us,” Hunter said quietly, coming to put his arm under her neck and laying on his side. “I don’t care what Tell says. You really are.”

  She smiled and tipped her head to lay along his arm, closing her eyes. He ran his finger down her nose, then lay down next to her.

  “Rest well,” he said.

  “You, too,” she answered.

  She listened to Tell talk on the phone all day, hearing his words clearly enough to feel like he was doing it from her room. There were so many connections to make, and it was so much easier to get them done while the sun was up.

  He went to bed a little after noon, and the penthouse went quiet, save when a set of deliverymen came up with boxes. Load after load came off of the elevator, but they didn’t do anything to install the new equipment; they just left it there in the entry.

  Which was what they should have done.

  Tina didn’t like the idea of them wandering around.

  Evening came and Hunter got up, kissing her forehead and going to shower and dress. He went downstairs by himself and had a cup of coffee, then she heard him in the den on a conference call, speaking in a language she didn’t know.

  Finally, the sun let her up and Tina rolled out of bed, following Hunter’s sequence to downstairs where she poured herself a second coffee and sat across from his empty mug, reading her e-mail.

  There was one from Tell that indicated that there would be four technicians residing in the apartment every night for the next four nights, and that they would help her get the equipment validated and then run the tests. There was a package on the counter that she opened to find a cell phone and a pair of numbers. She tried the first one, and got an uninitialized voicemail, so she tried the other.

  “Hello?” Tony answered.

  “Tony,” Tina said. “Good. I’m going to start getting imagery from my equipment in a day or so, and I’m going to send it to you by expedited mail.”

  “Like, snail mail?” Tony asked. “Why?”

  “Harder to track,” Tina told him. “I don’t want anyone knowing you’re involved. You can call me at this number if you want to talk about any of it, but that’s how I’ll be getting you things.”

  “What am I looking for?” Tony asked.

  “Anything remarkably abnormal,” Tina said. “Or even a little abnormal, I think.”

  “What kind of…” Tony started, then paused. “I’m sorry, I’m still really excited to do this, but I feel like you’ve left out two or three key facts or steps or something. Are you trying to cure vampiricism?”

  She paused.

  That had come remarkably too easily to him.

  “Yes,” she said. “Why did you guess that specifically?”

  “Life-ending and life-saving,” he said. “Is it that big a leap?”

  “I guess it isn’t,” Tina said. “Um. Sorry, you took me by surprise.”

  “Are the scans of you?” he asked. “What kind of scans? I’m going to need to do some homework on how to read them before I’m going to be any use.”

  “I think that I can work out what the ultrasound and the X-ray are telling me, but I know I’m going to need help on the MRI,” Tina said.

  “Where are you getting the MRI done?” Tony asked. “I could just come there.”

  “It’s here,” Tina said. “And you can’t. You… You can’t come here until after all of this is done.”

  “All of what?” Tony asked. “You… What? Where is here?”

  “At Tell’s penthouse,” Tina said.

  “You have an MRI at that penthouse?” Tony asked.

  “I do now,” Tina answered, appreciating how difficult he respected the task to have been.

  “How?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have a technician coming to take the images, but I need you to help me read them. The technician isn’t going to know why I’m taking them.”

 
“I repeat: is it really that hard to figure out?” Tony asked.

  “I’m going to try,” Tina said. “Are you going to help me?”

  “How is this going to help find a cure?” Tony asked.

  “Would you stop saying that out loud?” Tina asked. “I don’t know yet. I’m still… I’m still trying to figure out what matters and what doesn’t.”

  Tony sighed, and she heard the sound of a pen scratching.

  “Don’t…” Tina started. “Be careful with how much you write down. I know it’s going to suck, but I’d like to have all of your notes here, when I’m done, and I don’t want your name on any of them.”

  “It’s not like you’d be able to read them,” Tony muttered. “Okay, so you’re looking for a general workup on a set of scans on patient X. Looking for anything that might have gone undiagnosed underneath a more obvious diagnosis. I can work with that. Are you going to do genetic testing?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Tina said. “I don’t think I can get the equipment to do it, and I don’t know that I want to involve anyone else, even anonymously.”

  “Fascinating,” Tony said. “The thought of what you could find out, if it was a genuine medical effort.”

  “I know,” Tina said. “Unfortunately the genuine political effort would cause mass extinction well before the medical effort got its funding.”

  Tony laughed.

  “You’re telling me. Okay. When am I going to get these?”

  “I’m hoping in the next couple of days. I’m working as fast as I can.”

  There was a pause.

  “Are you on a timeline?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I can’t tell you why.”

  “Why not?” he asked, and she laughed.

  “Exactly.”

  He sighed again.

  “When can I actually sit down and talk to you about… everything? I want to have a face-to-face conversation and ask questions.”

  “Over coffee, three weeks after everything is done,” Tina said.

  “So… are you politely blowing me off? That basically means a quarter past never.”

  “No,” Tina said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be next week or next month or three months from now, but there’s a lot of stuff going on right now, and it can’t keep going like it is. Eventually something is going to give and there’s going to be chaos and fighting and probably some people dying, and if we do our jobs right at all, you won’t hear a word about it. And after that, I can do whatever I want, including sit down to coffee with you.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” Tony said.

  “I won’t answer your calls during the hours that the sun is up or in the couple of hours bordering on sunlight. And I want to avoid talking frequently, in case there are people who are paying attention and might figure out that I’m using a phone other than my own and start looking for this number and find yours.”

  “Miss Matthews, I’ve been working for Kirsten for a couple of years now and I’ve met at least a dozen vampires, and every single one of them has been high maintenance and high drama in their own way, but none of them have ever suggested that the fate of the world is riding on their shoulders. Is it possible that this spy stuff is just in your head? You’re going through a really unique time right now.”

  “If it is, then it isn’t going to hurt anyone from in there,” Tina said. “I appreciate you saying it, but I’ve got two very experienced vampires watching over me. I’m not out here on my own living a conspiracy theory.”

  “Okay,” Tony said. “I just thought I’d ask it in case it was the right question.”

  “I appreciate that,” Tina said. “I’ll get stuff to you as soon as I can, and… yeah, I expect I will need to talk to you live after I start getting my hands around all of this. There’s just so much to learn.”

  “Yeah, it’s called ‘medical school’,” Tony said. “Well… You’ve seriously got an MRI just there with you?”

  “Just here under my elbow,” Tina answered. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “All right,” Tony said. “Night.”

  “Good night.”

  Tina hung up, turning to look at Hunter.

  “You make me sound old,” he said. “Experienced.”

  “You are,” she said. “Much more experienced at being a vampire than me.”

  “And yet we’re the ones who are grounded,” Hunter said. “He the one from last night?”

  “Yeah,” Tina said.

  “You need to watch out for feeder syndrome,” Hunter said.

  “You just made that up,” Tina challenged, and he shook his head.

  “He wants you. Bad. And I don’t care how good a guy he is and how smart he is and how aware he is of why it is he wants you, he still does. And if you start spending a bunch of time around him like you’re friends and you know each other, he’s going to get the impression that you’re in love with him. Guarantee it.”

  “You’re not very good at relationships,” Tina said. “What good are you for advice on them?”

  “The experienced vampire has spoken,” he said, going to the fridge and getting out a pitcher of blood.

  “Ha,” Tina answered. “Actually, would you be willing to be a test subject for my scans?”

  “No,” Hunter said, pouring a glass and leaning on the counter to look at her.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, I don’t dig this modern technology, because I’ve got secrets and I don’t like people prying in them, and because if you put me in that MRI, I think half a dozen things I’ve been too lazy to go digging out of my body would come splattering out all on their own, and I’m going to take a hard pass on that.”

  “Ew,” Tina said, nodding. “I could go get them, if you wanted.”

  “Look who’s all confident in her surgical skills now that she knows she can’t kill me,” Hunter said. “No, if I was going to let someone go rooting around in my stomach, it would have been Ginger. She’s been dying to try out her new toys on me since the industrial revolution.”

  “Yeah, seems like I’d trust me a lot more than her to do it without, like, pinning you to the table with dissection needles and going to town.”

  He pointed at her.

  “You make an excellent point, actually. I’ll think about it. But I’m not kidding about the lazy. It really isn’t worth it, once everything has closed back over the offending bodies.”

  “Uh huh,” Tina said. “Except if you ever go to a junkyard and accidentally get too close to one of the big magnets.”

  He grinned.

  “When was the last time you think I was in a junkyard?” he asked.

  “When was the last time Tell dragged you to a junkyard?” Tina countered.

  “Then,” he said, nodding. “You’re right, that was it.”

  “So how many calls do you have today?” Tina asked.

  “My public demands me,” Hunter answered with a sideways grin. “You going to create string art today? I keep waiting for you to make string art on one of the walls, like the crazy people in the movies.”

  “Not today,” Tina said. “I’m supposed to have technicians here tonight to help me get the equipment set up.”

  “Sounds very sexy,” he said, and she shook her head.

  “It’s the next step,” she said. “And then I’m going to see if I can’t pick up where Tell left off, trying to find Colette. She’s here, somewhere. It’s just a question of how close anyone is to finding her.”

  “Pro tip?” Hunter asked. “Tell is going to want to deal with her alone, because he was alone dealing with her last time, but I wouldn’t let him do it. Vampire or not. He’s got a soft spot for that girl and she was so hard in love with him I was shocked she agreed to leave the city. He doesn’t see it. She just spawns drama, her fault or not, and if he gets in it, he’s going to disappear again. I lost track of him for almost six months, last time, going underground and hiding from everyone trying to keep her ‘safe’. It may
be legit that those guys want to kill her. I’m not saying it isn’t. Just that I’m not convinced that it was that hard to keep a bunch of lunatic humans away from her.”

  “You think he overreacted?” Tina asked.

  “I think that he can’t make rational decisions when she’s in the room, and I never did figure out why,” Hunter told her. “And I wouldn’t have even said anything, except that I can hear him snoring upstairs, human-sleeping, right now. He would be pissed I even thought it.”

  Tina considered this for a moment, then nodded.

  “I can see exactly what you’re saying. He… You think he did the same thing with me, don’t you?”

  Hunter stuck out his tongue.

  “I’m not stupid enough to answer that.”

  Tina took the second half of his glass and drained it, handing it back to him.

  “I’m going to go see how far he got,” Tina said. “Can I have another one of those?”

  “Your wish is my command,” Hunter teased. “You want to meet up for lunch?”

  “How domestic,” Tina answered, and he grinned.

  “You prefer a nooner?”

  “Don’t be gross.”

  “I ought to have a couple hours without meetings. Now that I’m taking them, they’ve all come in on top of each other, and… It’s so much less fun than when I’m actually there. They bring in girls and food and they try to impress me or bribe me or get me drunk or whatever their nefarious goals are. From Tell’s movie-room, all they can do is tell me what they want and why things aren’t going right.”

  “Poor locked-in vampire. You got yourself into this mess in the first place.”

  “I like to think that you share ownership,” Hunter told her. “If not for you, I’d have won the auction three decades in a row.”

  “And turned yet another over-indulged woman into a vampire?” Tina asked. “Is that really the legacy you want to leave to the world?”

  He laughed.

  “I try to avoid thinking about it.”

  Tina paused halfway to the couch where Tell had left his laptop.

  Turned.

  “Do you ever check in with the others?” she asked.

  “No,” Hunter said, pouring another glass of blood. “They’re Sophie’s problem.”

  “No, like… These are women who are used to getting what they want, and they won a bid on you. Do they ever come find you again?”