by Liana Brooks
He would have given anything to trade places with the man in the coffin. Done anything to bring the men back to their families. He closed his eyes and let the funeral end around him as tears ran down his cheeks, and his fingernails dug into his skin.
The scent of an overly floral perfume made him open his eyes. An elderly woman with an American-flag pin on the lapel of her black dress suit stood in front of him. “Captain MacKenzie?”
“Yes.” It was a shaky whisper, and he was aware of Sam’s moving closer, getting ready to intervene if need be.
“I’m Mrs. Hastings, one of the Arlington Ladies. I thought it would be appropriate to present you with a condolence card, too.” She held out a white envelope with beautiful calligraphy handwriting on the outside. “Thank you for your service to our great nation. You are an example to us all.”
He couldn’t move his arm.
Sam took the envelope with a small smile. “Thank you for your condolences. This has been a very difficult time, for both of us.”
Mrs. Hastings frowned politely at Sam. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Samantha Rose.”
“Of course. Thank you for supporting our soldier. Being an army wife isn’t the easiest job in the world. But, Lord, do they need us. You take good care of our captain here.” She patted Mac’s arm gently and walked away to fuss over someone else.
Sam tucked the envelope into her purse. “You okay?”
“Are you going to ask anything else?”
“I don’t know what to say. The only funeral I’ve ever been to is my father’s, and at that point we were so estranged, it was like being at the funeral of a stranger.” She leaned against him for a second and moved away. “What do you need?”
He shook his head. “To go back four more months and stop all this. It was an insane plan to start with. Jerry-rigged to hell. We couldn’t get negotiations to go through. Everything was stalled out. I wasn’t even supposed to be in the unit—I was on leave—but they needed a medic.” He shrugged.
It had been raining that day, too. A summer deluge was washing the streets out, and he’d remembered grinning as his truck dipped through potholes. The plan had been to stop in to see his old buddies at Benning. Maybe go out for dinner or hit the town. Drive up to Atlanta for a day. Then he was flying home to Idaho to finish out his R&R before reporting to the medical unit at Fort Carson. He’d walked into a planning session. Colonel Kawsay was trying to talk some sense into his troops. The mission was too dangerous, and they’d never get permission. Flying in without backup was risky. The army was being held together by duct tape and tradition as it was; one more good push, and they’d all be gone.
Then Mac opened his big, fat mouth. Said he’d go along. A medic to back up the six-man team. He had the training. He was a good battlefield surgeon with an amazing record. Kawsay had finally allowed it. A few favors were called in, a commercial jet took them to a friendly port in the Middle East. A navy helicopter had taken them to a no-fly zone to drop them under the radar. They’d hiked in, infiltrated the base, got their guys out, and almost been home.
Almost been safe.
“You’re shaking,” Sam said as she took his hand.
“We were almost home.”
“I know.” She gave his arm a tug. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”
He let her lead the way to the abandoned seats, still warm from the mourners who were leaving. “Sam . . .” He stood up. “I don’t belong here. I’m on the wrong side.” There should have been a grave for him.
She followed his gaze, understood the despair in his voice. “No, you aren’t.” Wrapping her arms around his she pulled in close. “You weren’t meant to die with them.”
He closed his eyes. It would have been so much easier to take the bullet there in Afghanistan. A moment of pain in exchange for a lifetime of anguish.
“Eric?” a quavering but familiar voice from his nightmares asked. Bring my baby home.
He turned, tears running down his face. “Mrs. Matthews, I am so sorry for the loss of your son.”
She launched herself at him, wrapping skinny arms around his chest and squeezing him tight. “I didn’t see you here. I thought you were angry with me.” She sobbed. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned back and reached up to pat his face. “All my babies.” She hugged him again. “I thank God every night you came back. I prayed for you all. I prayed for Daniel. Lit candles for him every day while you were gone. I was so selfish, praying only for my son.”
Mac shook his head. “No. That’s the right thing to do.” His family had prayed for him, he knew it. He hated knowing that only their prayers were answered. Hated God and himself for failing to bring his fellow soldiers home.
“I still pray for them. Every night I tell God to keep them. And I pray for you.” She patted his cheek again. “To survive all that? If this is what God chooses to train you with? What must God have in store for you?”
“I don’t know.” He looked to Sam, elegant in a simple black dress, black hair framing her face, and wondered if she was the reason. Prayer wasn’t something he’d wanted. Answers . . . he kept asking why he was alive, and there she was, smiling at him, caring for him, silently standing beside him at his worst. He reached for her.
Sam took his hand and stepped closer.
“Mrs. Matthews, this is Sam, she’s um . . .”
“His girlfriend,” Sam said.
Something like that. No—something much more than that. She was his lifeline. His heart and soul. The reason he woke up in the morning. “Sam, this is Dan Matthews’s mom.” He stumbled over his friend’s name, not sure if he’d ever mentioned Dan or the rest of the soldiers to her.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Sam said. “Mac has told me so much about your son. He was an amazing young man. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Of course she had the right words. Sam always did.
Alina Matthews reached out and patted Sam’s face. “Thank you.
Mac shook as she walked away. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Everyone was leaving. All but the dead. He leaned his head back, letting the rain wash away the tears. Sam wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her tight, needing the warmth. And then he rested his head on hers and cried.
Sam slid down the wall until her rump hit the faux hardwood of the floor. The only sound aside from the lashing rain were the snores and occasional whimpers of Li’l Eric MacKenzie sleeping in his bedroom.
Mac sat down beside her. “How you doing?”
“I could be worse.” He offered her a can of a soda—a brand she didn’t recognize. She opened it and tasted it gingerly. It was better than the tap water, but not by much. Was everything so sickeningly sweet back then?
“I realized today I’ve never been to a funeral that wasn’t related to a murder investigation. I don’t know what to do when I’m not looking for a killer. It’s a little surreal.”
“You did fine,” Mac said. He chugged his pop, then crushed the can. “You did . . . amazing.”
She blushed slightly. She’d been hearing things like that from him for so long, but she had never really let herself listen. Now, though . . . it filled her with warmth. Warmth she wanted to share. “How are you holding up?”
He did an odd, one-sided shoulder-to-ear shrug. “I’m empty. I know they say that funerals are for the living, one last chance to say good-bye, but I never really believed it. Most funerals I’ve been to have been celebrations. You don’t grieve someone who dies peacefully in their sleep at ninety surrounded by friends and family. You break out the old journals, read about their school-yard crushes, and tell stories. This felt like good-bye. Good-bye to my friends, good-bye to my life, good-bye army, good-bye everything. This is where it all fell apart.” He gestured vaguely at the molding walls. “I thought I’d die here.”
“Here in D.C.? Wh
y?”
“That’s what all the alcohol was for. I thought it was a poison, I guess. The news always had stories about someone drinking too much and getting alcohol poisoning, so I bought all the liquor I could afford.
“I was trying to drown the pain. Not the injuries. There was something inside, stabbing me and smothering me. I felt trapped in my own body.” He looked at her. “Does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t have to, Mac. Don’t you get it: You didn’t kill yourself. All on your own—for whatever reason—you lived in order to meet me in Alabama. And look how far you came from that person. Do you feel better now?”
“Most days.”
“We’re getting you back to therapy once we figure out where we’re staying.” She took a deep breath as the enormity of the situation hit her. “We are going to find somewhere else to stay, aren’t we? Somewhere not here?”
Mac nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Oh, you have a plan?” She drank some more of the carbonated sugar water and hoped it kicked her brain in gear.
He grimaced. “Part of a plan?”
“You fill me with such hope.”
He scrambled to his feet, went into the bedroom, and brought back a large black duffel, shutting the door on the sleeping Eric as he passed. “On my way up to find you at Fort Benning, I stopped at a little pawnshop to see if I could find an unregistered gun.”
Sam covered her ears. “I’m not hearing this.”
Mac pulled her hands away from her face laughing. “Who broke into a government building and stole an ID card? That was you. Don’t give me a hard time. I paid for the gun.”
Mac unzipped the duffel to reveal faded green rectangles of United States currency. “My reup bonus. I took it out in cash because I thought it was better than a bank at the time.”
Sam held up a stack of twenty-dollar bills. “Your country had really ugly money.”
“Thanks, remind me to compliment Canada sometime. What was on them? An old woman and a crazy bird?”
She made a face and stuck out her tongue.
“Right now, this currency is good, but the exchange rate after the nationhood vote was ridiculous. Five thousand USD got you thirteen cents of Commonwealth cash. The United States dollar was dead, and everyone got a check to help them start over.”
“How far away is that?”
“The vote is on November 11, but the polls will close early when it’s obvious the overwhelming majority of the citizens want to join the Commonwealth.” Mac took the cash back. “The spring after we joined the Commonwealth, the online DIY sites were full of ways to use cash to decorate. People used them for wallpaper and covered lamps in them.”
Sam’s eyes went wide with horror. “That’s beyond tacky. Why didn’t I hear about it?”
“Eh, it was only in style for a minute or two, and it’s not like Canada had the same problems with the transition that we did.”
“Okay, so we have capital. It’s a good way to make a fresh start. The question is: Where Do We Go?”
Mac pulled a piece of glossy printed paper from his back pocket. He unfolded it and passed it to Sam.
She read it aloud, “ ‘Come visit beautiful Australia and find your new dream home’?”
“Australia lost nearly eighty percent of its population in the plague.”
“Only because they were trafficking sex slaves from all over Asia,” Sam said. “They shut down the ports in time, but they didn’t shut down the human traffickers.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Ancient history.”
“Nineteen years ago isn’t ancient history.”
“Listen, right now, Australia is taking skilled immigrants and offering them a move-in bonus, a job-signing bonus, and housing. There are houses sitting empty, and we can have one.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s the catch?”
“The offer is going to expire in four days, when several major politicians come out in favor of the nationhood vote.”
“And?”
“And I can’t fly right now. The airports are using fingerprint scanners, and I’m on the no-fly list because of my combat status. The soonest I can leave the country is when we hit the transition period between the vote and the Commonwealth government’s actually taking over. All the airports will lose security, but the airlines will do big business for a few weeks while people try to escape. Europe is the most popular destination, but there will be flights to Australia.”
“If nothing changes.”
“If nothing changes,” Mac agreed.
“That’s a really big IF.”
He shrugged. “It’s a way out. And you don’t have to wait: With a few bribes, we can get you on a plane by tomorrow night. You go to Australia, and you’ll have a house and job before the end of the month. You’ll be safe.”
CHAPTER 22
A strong man trusts to the strength of his arm. A wise man trusts to the wisdom of his learning. A great man trusts only that he is not yet perfect. Greatness can only come from a place of patient humility.
~ excerpt from A Greater Fall of Man by Indel Nazti I1—2070
Tuesday October 28, 2064
District of Columbia
United States of America
Iteration 2
Sam’s shoe stuck to a tar-like substance embedded in the low pile carpet. “What . . .”
“Don’t ask,” Mac said as he steered her forward. “This isn’t our world.”
“Marble tiles are fashionable flooring because they’re easy to clean.”
“And easy to break things on. Like heads.”
As if to remind her, the floor sank slightly as she stepped, like sinking into wet grass with her heels. “Is the floor padded?”
“All the government offices were given padded main floors after the suicide crisis in the thirties.” Mac led the way to a winding line filled with people wearing faded clothes and weary looks. He smiled at her. “That’s a joke, by the way.”
“Then make it funny.” She stuck her tongue out at him, then inched closer. “Do they go out of their way to make it depressing?”
Mac looked around and shrugged. “Dunno. I had a sergeant once who said that most places like this were designed at the epicenters of evil. It was some feng shui thing. If you mapped out government offices, they were always in the worst possible place for progress and enlightenment.”
A Canadian Marine walked past, a bleach stain on his hem making her eye twitch. “The last days of the old republic.”
“Shh!”
The people closest to Sam and Mac turned, eyes full of questions and fear.
“The vote isn’t until next week,” Mac said to her. She didn’t realize how bad it was . . . how bad it was going to get. He remembered. He’d been old enough to vote. She’d still been behind the ivy-laced walls of the all-girls Catholic school she’d lived at most her life. Even then, she’d lived in United Territories, safely hidden away from the horrors that rocked the United States.
For twenty minutes, they waited in mute terror as the past slipped by. Everything was ever so slightly out of phase. The faces, the clothes, even the colors seemed wrong, dulled by the national despair that finally drove the States to combine with the Territories and form the Commonwealth.
“Next!” A woman with naturally blond hair rang the bell at her station and smiled as Sam approached with her passport. “How can I help you today?”
“Well, ah . . .” Mac laughed and rubbed the back of his head before hitting her with an aww-shucks-country-boy smile. “My girlfriend’s about to leave for this college trip, and we had to get her a new passport and um . . .” He took Sam’s passport. “You can see the problem.”
The woman frowned. “Everything looks right for a Canadian passport.”
“The date,” Sa
m said. “There’s a typo.” There wasn’t. She’d gotten the passport when her Spanish one expired in 2066, but that was going to be real tough to explain to a customs agent.
“Oh my gosh!” The woman laughed. She tried scratching the date with her thumbnail. “How weird is that? I’ve never heard of a typo! Hey, Charlie!” she called to a coworker. “Chuck, come look at this!”
An older man with a handlebar mustache ambled over, shuffling a well-worn groove in the threadbare carpet. His glasses slid to the end of his nose as he peered at the passport. “Says 2066? Are you a time traveler, ma’am?”
Sam froze as her worst fears came true. There was no sane way to explain this. They were going to lock her in an insane asylum. She’d be executed as a clone . . .
Mac laughed. He nudged her, and she managed a weak smile.
“There’s no such thing as time travel,” Mac said with an encouraging smile.
“Exactly,” Sam said, trying to fake cheerfulness as she fought to remember how to breathe.
“It’ll take us a few hours to get the new one made,” the woman said. “I can print it here, but we have a backlog right now.”
“Can you have it before you close today?” Mac asked. His hand reached across the counter, and a stack of bills dropped down out of sight. “She’s got a flight to catch tomorrow night.”
The woman’s eyes barely dipped to count the money before she turned a sunny smile back to them. “Sure thing! Come back by four, and they’ll let you in to wait. I’ll make sure this gets done by then.” She waved Sam’s passport and walked away.
Mac took her hand. “Come on.”
“She has my passport,” Sam muttered, grabbing Mac’s arm in a white-knuckled grip.
“That’s fine.”
“No, it most certainly isn’t. I’ve got no ID on me!”
“So what? You’ll have one in a few hours. If anyone asks, just tell them the truth.”
“That I’m from the future?”
“That you’re getting a new passport made at the consulate.”
“Oh.” She looked up at him and almost fell into his glorious eyes. She caressed his face. “You’ll come after me, won’t you?”