"I don't know, Maya."
Jules slipped beside Addison. "Yeah. If Cameron's the real threat to Addison, we should stop him first."
Maya locked her gaze on Jules, frowning as she twisted the lid. She sipped from the bottle, then shifted her attention back to Addison. "Thomas wanted me to help. You've been an Inker for what, two weeks? I've been working with him intimately for years."
She had a point. His father had implored him to trust her. Besides, his track record to date as an Inker pretty much sucked. "Yeah, okay."
Jules protested, "Addison."
He raised a hand to stay her objection. "So what's our next move?"
"Did your father ever talk about the League or other Inkers when he was alive?"
"No, I didn't know anything about the League until after he died."
Maya, facing him with the island between them, took another sip from her bottle before speaking. "Maybe he said something to you in passing? Or did he travel someplace over and over again?"
"No, nothing comes to mind. We both liked baseball and we went hiking a lot, but I can't think of anything that points to other Inkers."
"Did he give you any special gifts? Maybe something expensive or just valuable as a memento." Her eyes focused on his right hand. "How about the ring on your finger?"
"This?" He lifted his hand to show her. "Dad gave it to me in the inheritance. I think Cameron has one too. I figured it was something from when they were in college together."
"Have you looked it over carefully?"
"No. Life kind of went crazy after Dad died."
She held out her hand. "May I look at it?"
He twisted the gold ring from his finger, placing into her open palm. She turned it over in her hands, studying its curves and edges.
“Follow me.”
She guided them into a back room with a small one-foot-square metal platform and a flat screen. Placing the ring on the platform, she pressed a button at the side of the mechanism which emitted a low hum. The ring levitated, while an image of the object filled the flat screen.
"Zoom in. Rotate right."
The image zoomed in until a small section of the ring filled the screen, moving from left to right.
"Scan for writing."
The image stopped on a section with the words, Magnus Koehler, etched clearly into gold so fine the engraving would not be visible to the naked eye.
"Ah, found it. Continue scan."
A second name appeared. Yuji Takahashi.
"Cross-check database. ID."
Addison leaned in, studying the screen. "So you think these are the two remaining Inkers? Maybe something happened since the engraver put the names on the ring."
"It's an alchemical ring, Addison. The names change as Inkers come and go. You're name's on the ring too."
"And what about Cameron?"
Their eyes met. "I think you already know the answer. The League banned Cameron's family from guarding a pen. He's a member of the League, but not an Inker."
"Yeah, Dad did mention it."
The computer's synthetic voice acknowledged the completion of the database check. "Database check complete.
"Magnus Koehler, Animus. Location: Tonkaweya, Tejas Border District. Encrypted contact number.
"Yuji Takahashi, Incogitata. Location: Shinjuku District, Tokyo, Japan. Last known address from 2004, London, United Kingdom."
"London? But the ring said Tokyo."
"Yeah, he might be able to drop off the grid, but he can't run from a League ring. Computer, background on Yuji Takahashi."
"Last data point March 12, 2005, online purchase of two antique computers and one radio, circa 1927. No data points beyond last date. A reclusive antique dealer specializing in digital antiquities."
Addison studied the hyper-magnified image of his ring. "So he's somewhere in Tokyo. We'll never find him."
"Hmmm. I've got some resources I may be able to tap."
She turned off the scope, pocketing the ring in her robe.
"The ring?" Jules held out her hand, blocking the doorway.
"What? Oh, of course." She placed the gold ring in Jules's open palm, pressing Jules’ fingers closed around it. "Don't want to lose a League ring."
Jules handed the ring to Addison, who put it back on his finger. "So we go find these guys?"
"Why don't you go to the Border District and I'll locate Yuji Takahashi. Hopefully you'll get to Magnus before Cameron does."
"And what am I supposed to do?" Jules still blocked the way out of the room.
"I have no idea dear. Maybe you can make us some muffins."
"I'll make muffins, you—"
Addison put himself between them. "I'm sure Maya didn't mean it that way, did you?"
Maya sighed. "Just a little joke. I assume you'll be going with Addison to Tonkaweya. Is that okay with you, dear?"
"The name's Jules and yes, I'm going with Addison. Do you need help making your plane reservation? I know old people sometimes have difficulties using computers."
Maya uttered a guttural sound somewhere between laughing and vomiting. "You're sweet. I'll see you in a day or two, and hopefully we'll have the Inkers and their pens in tow."
The plan decided, Addison ushered Jules quickly out of Maya's apartment before their razor-sharp words shed real blood.
Tonkaweya
Magnus Koehler didn't sound surprised when Addison called him on an encrypted line.
"Addison. Thomas' son?"
"Yeah."
He spoke with a relaxed South Border Tejas drawl, a region of what Addison remembered to be Texas in a previous continuum. "Hey, we didn't have a chance to talk the first time we met. Sorry about your father. He was a good man."
Addison recalled the confidence and sure actions of the Inker who helped them in Fort Myer. "Thanks. You were the guy who ripped the Inker from Charlie Taylor."
"One and the same."
Good. At least that mission happened in this continuum.
"So why would Thomas' son call me out of the blue? Having trouble with your penmanship?"
"No, my penmanship is fine. I need to talk with you and I'd rather not do it over the comm, even if it's encrypted."
"Okay. I'm happy to meet with you. Where do you live?"
"I'm on my way to Tonkaweya. I should be there later today."
Magnus' voice took on a more serious tone. "Can you tell me what this is about?"
"No. Not on the comm. We'll talk when I get there. Where can we meet?"
"How about Criterium at three? It's a cafe on 4th Street. Do you know where it is?"
"I'll Google it."
"What the hell's a google?"
Right. Different time continuum. "I'll find you. See you at three."
Addison had to locate the city, which was nestled between the Hill Country and the Black Prairie exactly where his memory in a previous time continuum placed the city of Austin. Apparently in this continuum, Stephen F. Austin and several Native American tribal leaders gathered all the tribes, along with the English, German, and Swedish settlers, as well as a small group of Spanish missionaries into a great alliance that kept the Inca Empire at bay for almost two centuries. The translation of Tonkaweya was they all stay together. Appropriate. But why put Magnus so close to the Great River and an active war front? The only reason Addison could think of was to maintain connections with military and civilian leaders close to the action. Kind of an early warning system to warn the League of any danger.
Addison and Jules boarded the plane for Tonkaweya, taking window and center seats, keeping to themselves, although Jules got into a conversation with the aisle passenger about wedding dresses. They spoke of bodices, hemlines, fabrics, and finishes. Addison stared out the window watching large dirigibles lumbering at lower altitudes, as their supersonic Alaska Airlines flight hurtled toward Tonkaweya. He couldn't remember if supersonic travel had been the norm before he made his last inking. He had a dream memory of the Concorde. Something about a cra
sh. But if he was sitting on a supersonic flight, the technology must have continued to advance, at least in this time continuum.
Before calling Magnus, he spent a few frantic minutes searching for his cell phone until Jules reminded him he had an implant providing audio and video feeds directly to his brain. All he had to do was say his password, and think commands. He had odd memories of small, handheld devices holding only a hundred or so apps versus the infinite array of resources available to him with his comm implant. Cellular phones seemed a hazy dream viewed through a prism. Were his fragmented memories artifacts of past inkings, his brain trauma from the war, another continuum? He had to hurry before he lost his consciousness, as well as Jules and Nikki, to this continuum.
Once on the ground in Tonkaweya, they picked up a rental hovercar, and input coordinates for the Criterium Cafe into the autopilot. Wheeled cars like his dad's Citroën had manual steering, acceleration and braking systems, which left a smile on his face as he sat in a far superior, finely engineered, fully automated hovercraft. Why anyone would want to manually manage transportation devices struck Addison as a question for the driver of a horse-and-buggy of the nineteenth-century. A vague recollection of driving one of the old cars eked across his mind, but before he could get any detail, the image slipped away. The previous continuum, Jules, Nikki, a planet not at war with the Inca seemed like a fantasy in another world.
"Give me a pen, Jules."
"What?"
"I need to write something down."
"Write? You really are from another time continuum. I think the last time someone wrote anything by hand was in 1982. Since then, it's all been digital. About the only place you're going to find a writing thingy…"
"A pen."
"Yeah, right, a pen. Well the only place you'll find one of those is in an online antique auction along with analogue books. I thought you had one of those antiques."
"I do, but it's not safe to carry around."
"I get it. I suppose I wouldn't want to be walking around with something so valuable either. Did you see the Bic ball point that sold for $20,000 a few days ago? Crazy!"
"So, I can't write a note?"
"Use the dictation module."
He knew this. Why did he want a pen? Addison tapped his ear. "Passcode, Jules." She took his hand smiling with a tinge of lust in her eye. “Dictation."
A voice in his head, his dictation module, responded. "Ready."
"Remember Nikki and Jules."
"I'm right here."
He glanced her way, a brief smile crossing his face. "Yeah, of course."
Jules didn't say anything, but her look told him she knew he meant someone else. Someone other than her. He continued dictating, exhausting his memories of the previous continua.
Jules listened quietly until he finished. "Do I exist in the previous continuum, the one you're trying to get back to, or is the Jules you're talking about someone else?"
He glanced her way, then focused forward as the hovercar drove them into the city. "This is bigger than you and me. I opened a door to war on this planet on a scale we have never seen before. I've got to find a way to stop this, to shift the continuum back."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yeah, you're there. Look, I've answered this question already." He could feel her gaze like a hot spotlight on him.
"Am I alive or dead?"
Crap. "Like all of us, some of the time you're alive and then you're dead."
"Don't be a shit, Addison. You and I. Am I alive for us to be together?"
If he told her the truth she might try to stop him, but could he keep lying to her?
"I'm sorry. I've been afraid of telling you the truth—"
"I'm dead? So, you and I aren't together?"
"You—the Jules I know from another continuum— inks to sixteenth-century Peru before you die. I go there to find you, but I…I can't save you."
She looked out the window, and back to Addison. "You left me in Peru five hundred years ago?"
"Yeah, although you don't know how often I've wished I had found a way to save you. I'm sorry. I wish things were different."
"But they are different. Don't you see? Just let this time continuum be what it is. We're here, now, together."
She cradled his face in her hands, drawing her lips up to his. Her soft, moist kiss pulled him into her. He couldn't think. He couldn't remember what he wanted to remember. He pushed her away.
"No, Jules. I can't. It's more than how we feel about each other."
"Yeah, the war. Right." She turned away, shaking her head.
"Yes. The war."
She turned back, her eyes red with tears, her face flushed. "I'm right here in front of you. In the present. We've got a good thing. How can you just throw it away?"
"I'm sorry, Jules. I'm not… Look, I honestly don't know what's going on. Hell, I had to dictate my memories of the other continuum to make sure I didn't forget. But I do know this war has killed and will continue to kill millions unless I do something about it. Maybe you and I will still be together afterwards, or not. But it doesn't matter. Don't you see? Too many are depending on too much for me to walk away or to fail."
They rode silently the rest of the way, parking across the street from the shop. Cyclists in brightly colored, skin-tight lycra and other patrons in shorts and sandals filled the attached cafe on a warm autumn day.
Addison looked over to Jules. "We okay?"
"Of course, we're okay. I'm not giving up on you without a fight, but I'm not up for destroying the world to have you."
He proffered a sad smile. "I'm glad you're not giving up on me. I won't give up on you either." He turned to scan the bike shop across the street. "I'm going to meet Magnus in the cafe. You stay here."
"I'm coming with you."
"No need. I'll only be a minute. Program a return trip to the airport and wait for me. Just in case we have to leave in a hurry. Okay?"
She frowned, and let out a sigh. "I don't like it, but okay. Please don't do anything stupid."
Addison smiled again–to assure himself more than Jules–that this was just a meeting between two members of the League. Jules pushed a center console button, releasing the cockpit windshield, the side entry door sliding out of the way, his safety harness retracting behind the seat. He stepped out of the vehicle, crossed the street and strode up several steps to the shop's cafe patio. A lean black man with shaved head sat at one of the tables, watching him approach. He looked just like the kind of guy Cameron would hire to do his killing for him. Somehow Cameron knew about the meeting.
Addison walked past him and into the cafe. He ordered a latte, then strolled through the bike shop, attempting to act like a casual shopper while he searched for Koehler. He admonished himself for not asking Magnus what he looked like. However, the League member from Tonkaweya seemed to know Addison when they spoke on the comm, so he hoped Magnus would recognize him in the crowd. As he stood over an assortment of sprockets in a glass case, the man from the patio walked through the shop toward him. A hit man surely won't approach me in a crowd—would he? He told himself to keep moving and stand with other people. What am I thinking? I'm standing in a bike shop looking for a guy I wouldn't recognize if he stood right in front of me, one of Cameron's thugs is following me, and I've left Jules alone. He considered how his platoon buddies in Tawantinsuyu would have kicked his butt for miles for being this stupid. He circled around to some riding shorts, and paused at a wall of shoes, as if shopping for a pair. The man lingered by the jerseys, then walked directly to him.
Addison broke for the door, throwing the latte to the floor as he crashed through the threshold, hurdling over a railing to the road below. Automated hovercraft engines thundered into reverse to avoid him as he rolled to a standing position. He didn't wait to look back, but ran down the block taking a right past a kinetic stainless steel sculpture of a guitar. He ducked under a DANGER DO NOT ENTER barrier across a condemned wood railway trestle, and dashed dow
n a spiraling sidewalk leading to a bike path. His speed carried so much momentum, he smashed into a cyclist. With a thud from the impact of their bodies, he separated rider from bike. Addison flipped over a guard rail, rolling down a steep embankment in the brush toward jagged rocks and a creek below. Grabbing hold of a tree branch he stopped with a suddenness which shot a bolt of pain up his arm and shoulder. He lay there for a moment, getting his bearings.
The rider, sprawled above Addison by the railing, yelled in anger and pain. "What the fuck, man!"
Addison looked up the embankment for his pursuer, hearing his foot falls on the trestle bridge before seeing his feet. Crawling on all fours through the brush to get under the bridge, he heard the biker talking to someone.
"Yeah, the asshole went down that embankment. Friend of yours?"
"Yep. Which way'd he go?"
"I think under the bridge. Hey, tell your friend to watch where the hell he's—"
Thut.
The cyclist's rant ended abruptly. Addison had heard the sound before on night raids in Juarez. A suppressor on a 9 mil. He looked for options. Addison peeked out from under the condemned span to see his assassin's cowboy boots at the top of the embankment. He caught a whiff of sour air before noticing a homeless guy sitting above him under the bridge, a blue sleeping bag and green backpack resting beside him. Addison raised a finger to his lips hoping to God the guy wouldn't give his position away.
His assassin called from above, a Tejas drawl making him sound like a cowboy checking on his herd. "Howdy thah, pardnah. Not sure how things got all catty whompus. I jess wanna talk. Ya down thah, Addison?"
Addison called up twenty Tejas pesos on his comm, transferring them to the homeless man hoping to encourage his continued silence. Instead, a smile of yellowed teeth cracked wide, his voice loud and soaked in alcohol. "Hey, hey man. Thanks. You…you want…you want to know something, man?"
Addison dashed under the bridge, the muffled popping accompanying small explosions of dirt and rock as bullets impacted the ground around him. He jumped onto a rotted wood beam on the underside of the trestle, losing his balance, then catching himself on a crossbeam to look down to the rock-strewn, dried up creek far below.
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