“Boss, this could be too dangerous. You should let me go. I’ll scope it out. Send me a few years forward, and I’ll see what’s what. If Lom has visited Hanrion by then, we’ll know,” Slate suggested.
It was my job. My fingers tingled, and I wondered if that was the feeling all past Recasters had felt when they were about to change the universe. My gut had led us here today, and I was going to learn if Lom had this technology or not. I nodded, flipping on the translator. “I’ll do it. Send me forward a decade for five minutes, then have me return to this present moment.”
Hanrion smiled, a strange sight on his flat triangle-shaped head. His eyes sparkled as he pointed to the hallway. “Come with me.”
“You don’t have to do this, boss,” Slate said, grabbing my arm.
“Yes, I do. Pardon the pun, but we’re running out of time.” I followed Hanrion, trying to push the nervousness from my bones.
____________
The transport landed outside Dean’s old house, and Jules quickly noticed how unkempt the grounds were. The grass was too long, the fields out back grown wild and unharvested. Auntie Natalia was obviously not doing well, and Jules reproached herself for not paying more attention to what was going on. They should have demanded she travel with them on Light, and then Jules recalled they had, but she’d refused to leave.
“This isn’t good.” Dean’s voice was low. “I should have been here with her.”
It wasn’t the time to agree with him. She exited the shuttle, and a dog barked and ran toward them. The second one was quickly behind, as Carey followed Charlie from the front porch.
Dean knelt, petting the family dogs as they went crazy on him, rubbing their scent all over his pants. “I’ve missed you two.”
Carey barked, rolling onto his back, and it was Jules’ turn to scratch his belly.
“Dean, is that you?” Auntie Natalia’s voice was coarse, and Jules saw her rise from a rocking chair on the porch. The daylight was waning, the shadows from the house long, and she walked toward them, onto the few steps to the rocky pathway.
Dean rose, the dogs still rolling in the grass. Jules stayed behind as son went to mother. They didn’t say a word: only stopped two feet apart, staring at one another, before embracing. Jules heard the tears form both of them, and snippets of the conversation.
“I couldn’t find her. I failed you, Mom,” Dean said.
Natalia’s expression softened as he folded into the hug. She spoke quietly, calming the boy, and Jules felt tears forming in her own eyes. This family had been through so much; too much. They needed one another now, and Jules wished she wasn’t invading this private moment.
“Jules, come over here,” Auntie Natalia said, and she did, hesitantly. When she was near enough, Nat brought her into the hug, and she kissed Jules’ wet cheek. “You did everything you could. Dean, your father would be proud of you.”
That did it. Dean broke down. Jules couldn’t imagine how difficult the last few months had been on the young man, all alone in the wake of his father’s death. Magnus had been larger than life, and he’d cast his own long shadow over his family. Now Dean was here with his mother, the woman who’d raised him with firm rules and a soft heart, and he was that little boy again.
“I wanted to find her so badly,” Dean whispered.
Natalia broke their contact and wiped Dean’s tears with her finger. She looked tired, older, and thinner than she had, and Jules saw the same changes in her son.
“This has to end,” Jules said before thinking.
“What does?” Dean asked.
She pointed, her indicator finger moving between them. “This whole thing. You aren’t going to do Patty any good by not eating, not sleeping. She needs you both to be happy and healthy when you find her. You guys have each other, and the Parkers. Auntie, we left you alone to mourn, but that time’s over. Now we’re asking for your assistance.”
Natalia stared at Jules, her face impassive for a moment. Jules prepared herself for an onslaught of lectures from her auntie that never came. Instead, she smiled, kissing Jules on the forehead. “I can see why he likes you so much.”
“Mom…” Dean started for the house, the dogs chasing after him.
Nat waited, keeping Jules there for a moment. “Thank you for bringing him to me.”
“You’re welcome, but it’s time to move forward. What do you have in the house? Anything to make dinner with?” Jules asked.
Natalia shook her head. “Not much. I haven’t had an appetite.”
Jules smiled, returning to the shuttle to grab a bag of supplies her mom had forced her to bring. “Then it’s a good thing Mom sent this.”
An hour later, the three of them were seated at the kitchen table. Dean and Natalia tidied the house up while Jules cooked the spaghetti and meatballs. It was one of the few things she knew how to make, and she remembered helping Papa roll the balls when she was a little girl.
The dogs finished their dinners and flopped to the floor under the table, breathing softly. Being here was surreal after scouring space for seven months in search of Dean. This was comfortable, so different from being in their suite on Light. Jules could see the attraction to living on New Spero, away from it all. Could she ever have a life like this? With her Zan’ra gifts, she didn’t see how it was possible. Even without them, would Jules be able to leave the adventure of space travel behind?
“This is so good,” Dean said, slurping up a noodle.
“Da, it’s delicious, Jules.”
They spent the meal telling Dean’s mother about the past months, and she listened intently, not saying much as she ate. Jules fed them seconds, and neither of them objected as she spooned extra meatballs onto their plates.
“What’s next?” Natalia asked.
“I need to locate Dal’i. We’re going to check the two new portal worlds,” Jules told her.
“What do you mean, new worlds?”
“We all but forgot it occurred, but two portals surfaced on the Crystal Map last year. This hasn’t happened since…”
“Since Jules sent the Theos on their way and fixed the entire system,” Dean said, and Jules heard pride in his voice. He’d told her he loved her… did he still?
“And what do you expect to find?” Natalia asked.
“I don’t know. It’s either related to the Zan’ra or the Deities.” Jules was sure of it.
“Are you taking Dean with you?” his mother asked.
Jules spun some noodles with her fork and glanced at him. “Do you think I can convince him to stay behind?”
Natalia laughed at this and shook her head. “No. He’s like his father, isn’t he? All the trouble Magnus and Jules’ dad got in together. You two aren’t far off, are you?”
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” Dean said, wiping the last of the sauce on his plate with the crust of his garlic bread.
Natalia stood, starting to clear the dishes. She stopped, staring at Jules in the candlelight. “Thank you for reminding me what life can be.”
Jules didn’t know what to say. “We want you to come with us on Light.”
Dean frowned at her. They’d planned on asking her in the morning, but now felt like the right time. While Natalia was full and happy.
“I’ll think about it.” It was as good an answer as they could hope for.
They talked for a while, sipping warm tea, and Natalia eventually excused herself, saying she needed sleep, and that she guessed that for the first night in memory, she thought it might find her easily.
Jules and Dean headed for the porch to enjoy a few moments of serenity while they listened to the dogs snoring beside them and the insects chirping in the fields.
____________
“Don’t stray from the building. Stay within a few feet of your current location. When you return, do not tell me a thing,” Hanrion instructed me.
“Are you sure? What if it’s pertinent that you hear it?” I asked.
“Whatever it is, do not
tell me.”
I shrugged and peered at my two friends. They shared worried expressions. I almost sent them to advise Karo and Fontem of what we were doing, until I remembered that when we returned to the shore, no time would have passed. I didn’t think I’d ever wrap my mind around this time-travel stuff.
“All I have to do is go into this chamber?” I asked, pointing ahead. The room was dark, pitch black, the walls made of something similar to charcoal-colored stone. I walked inside and turned around. The entire chamber was able to accommodate no more than five people, and I could touch both walls if I stretched my hands out.
“Don’t move. You will be there soon.” Hanrion shut the door, leaving me in total darkness. I took a deep breath inside my EVA, suddenly grateful I had one on. The logical part of my mind told me a spacesuit was useless against some devastating time shift, but I appreciated wearing it nonetheless.
The air around me shimmered, and I froze in position. I heard a clap, and the black walls around me were gone, vanished. It took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing. I wasn’t in the same spot. I was in the middle of a crater where the complex used to be. I saw pieces of the metal walls adjacent to me, and I stepped over them, trying to comprehend why the entire place was destroyed.
“He did it,” I whispered to myself. Lom of Pleva must have visited in this future. He probably stole the nullifier technology and disappeared, destroying Hanrion and the complex as well. Or he’d kept Hanrion alive, at least one version of the man, in order to build something capable of merging the timelines.
I climbed up the crater, the incline gradual and not overly steep. I found myself near the shoreline, but the lake had receded a good fifty meters from the rocky beach. From here, I saw the entire region where the local scientist had set up camp, and it was a wasteland.
I felt the tug, saw the air shimmer, and just like that, I returned to the inside of the chamber. The door opened, revealing a concerned Slate.
“You okay, boss?” he asked, helping me out of the room.
“I’m fine. Hanrion…”
The four-legged man shook his head. “No. Do not tell me.”
I was at a crossroads. I wanted to warn him that Lom eventually comes, destroys all this man has worked for. I wondered what would happen if I convinced Hanrion to relocate operations, to go into hiding, but he wouldn’t do it. His fate was his own choice.
“Then tell me something. What is fueling the nullifier?” I asked.
Hanrion froze, glancing at the wall it sat behind. “There is a world with colorful stones. I found blue and purple-infused crystals, and found them the most conductive for the experiment,” he said.
“No way,” Suma said.
“Can’t be,” Slate added.
“The world where the Theos put the Iskios,” I whispered. “Can you share the location with me?”
Hanrion nodded and passed me a tablet. “It’s documented on here.”
“Dean, if those rocks power it, then that’s where Lom will build the nullifier,” Suma suggested.
“Then we don’t have a choice. We have to destroy it,” Slate said.
I shook my head. “If what we’re being told is true, that won’t help. Lom is in another dimension. What happens here doesn’t affect his timeline.”
“There has to be a solution,” Suma said, and I glanced at Hanrion.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I might have an idea.”
“Boss, I don’t like it when you get that look,” Slate said cautiously.
“Come on. Let’s go. Hanrion, I need you to come with me,” I said.
He staggered warily, mouth going wide. “I can’t leave my experiments.”
“I think you have enough versions of yourself to spare one.”
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“Build another of these, a bigger version… on the crystal world,” I told him, and all three gawked at me like I was the one who’d lost my mind.
Eight
Free me. The voice was different. Younger, possibly. Female, perhaps, but the desire to be removed from imprisonment was the same. Jules opened her eyes, gasping at the pressure inside her head. It subsided and she breathed normally, sitting up in the bed. The blankets had stars on them, and Jules remembered playing with Patty in here when they were little girls.
She’d slept in Patty’s room and noticed Natalia hadn’t changed a thing about it. Patty had lived aboard Horizon for the last few years, meaning the entire place felt like it was waiting for a little girl to come home. There were stuffed toy rabbits on a chair, with old books about princesses, unicorns, and magic wands.
Jules felt like she’d missed that part of life: the comforting make-belief world that every child experienced until their worlds were turned upside down and they were placed into a metaphorical box, being told who they were and what they could be by their parents and teachers, and later their employers. She’d never had it, not with her glowing eyes and mysterious powers.
Papa had tried to give her that life, to assure her that she could be anything, and he read to her every night: stories about justice, perseverance, adventure, and mistakes. She’d been on New Spero for one night, and suddenly, she felt too far from her parents, despite the fact that she’d been traveling alone for months.
Being in Patty’s room was too real, and the girl’s absence was palpable here. Jules had the crystal bracelet Professor Thompson once used against her, and she was going to use it on Patty when she found her, rendering O’ri’s power over her useless. They needed a way to trap the duo, and for that, Jules needed Dal’i’s help.
She slid out of the bed, her feet cold on the hardwood planks. Jules threw a robe on, which was too small, and sat at Patty’s desk. There were a few books scattered over it, pens, a tablet; and a heart was drawn on her mirror with lipstick. Two letters were written inside the symmetrical shape, in the same red color. L + P.
How could they have missed this? L + P. Jules ran to the next room, dragging Dean from bed. He was shirtless, and she almost blushed seeing him like that, standing there rubbing his eyes. He was still too skinny, but Jules would make sure he ate better if she had to feed him herself. Carey was on the bed with him, and he hopped down, shaking off the night’s sleep.
“L plus P.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean asked.
“Come here.” She ran to Patty’s room, pointing at the mirror.
“So what?”
“L plus P. Lan’i plus Patty.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe it’s something else. She was always thinking about some boy or another,” Dean reminded her.
Jules opened the desk drawer, pulling on the clear handle, and sifted through it. Inside were more books, and she found a stack of papers, each with felt markers bleeding through the thin pages.
“These say the same thing. L plus P. And look…” Her fingers trembled as she saw the child’s crude drawing. It wasn’t a great effort, and Patty had never been much of an artist, but it was clear what was in front of them.
“It can’t be.” Dean grabbed the sheet, staring at the paper as he held it up.
The figure was pale blue, with bright blond hair and sharp cyan for the eyes. “It’s Lan’i.”
“How is this possible?” Dean asked, but Jules didn’t have an answer.
“She said he came to her in her dreams, on Light. Maybe he’d been doing it for some time,” Jules suggested.
Dean dropped the paper and slumped to the bed. “She should have told us about this.”
“We have to tell your mom,” Jules said.
Dean shook his head, glancing at the doorway. “She’s already been through enough. I don’t think it’ll do her any good. If anything, it’ll be the opposite. She’ll blame herself for not seeing the signs.”
Jules sat beside him, the mattress sinking. “Like you’re blaming yourself?”
“It’s only natural. Hell, you probably are too.”
“Of course
I’m blaming myself. If I hadn’t stopped the Collector, Lan’i wouldn’t have been freed. Even if I did stop him, and if I’d agreed with Papa’s gut instinct to leave him frozen in time and buried on Shimmal, we wouldn’t be here now.” Jules saw her reflection in the vanity mirror and almost laughed at her wild curly hair. A few years ago, she would have freaked out having Dean see her like this, but those things didn’t matter anymore.
“Tell you what,” Dean started. “Let’s make a deal. You and I are done playing the blame game.”
Jules took his offered hand and shook it. It was warm. “Deal.” The smell of food wafted through the hallway, into the open door, and the dogs sniffed it at the same time as her. They took off toward the kitchen, and her stomach grumbled.
“Want something to eat?” he asked.
“I’ll be right there.”
Dean disappeared without another word, and she snatched up the kid’s drawing of Lan’i. She folded it in fourths, that number feeling important, and slid it into her jeans pocket, which were draped over the rocking chair near the closet.
____________
“I… don’t think so.”
I’d heard the tail end of Fontem’s reply to my question before we’d left the shoreline. Karo seemed shocked to see us materialize behind them, and doubly perturbed as the pair stared at Hanrion.
Karo moved for a pulse pistol, but Slate waved him off. “He’s with us,” my commander said.
“What happened?” Fontem asked. “You weren’t even gone a split second.”
“I’d say it was a couple of hours. We saw what Hanrion here was working on, and we think he can help us with something,” I said. “Suma will be leaving with some of the crew when we return.”
Suma was the best suited to the job, even though I didn’t really want to lose her from the bridge crew, and the science officer on Light. Hanrion suggested they could manufacture their own, much larger nullifier in less than a month, if they had the proper supplies. He’d brought the list with him, and Suma had assured me there was nothing on it we couldn’t procure and transport through the portals.
Old Secrets (The Survivors Book Thirteen) Page 8