by Zach Milan
Leanor’s people.
Eating, drinking, chatting and laughing as if nothing were wrong. As if their world had never been ruined by time travel and ice. Birds wheeled through the air. Nearby a chipmunk sprinted across an open space between the plants.
Everything clicked into place. This wasn’t just Monroe’s plan for how to stop the bombs. It was so much more than that. So much goddamn more. He was doing precisely what Charlotte had wanted to do once she realized who Ana was. Who Ana could become. Monroe had convinced the Council to get her to regret.
The lights flickered off, and the room was once more encased in glass walls and a lit ceiling. But after the memory, this room seemed gloomy. A mere shadow of what it had once been.
“You see?” Alek said. Charlotte turned and saw Monroe look at her, nod—grimace slightly—then grin. “Good. Just a little recalculation, and we’ll send you on your way.” He lofted the marble across the room to Paris, who fitted the tiny sphere into the pedestal and kept typing.
“What’s he doing?” Charlotte asked, stepping closer.
“As I said”—Alek stepped in front of her—“recalculating. No need to scare the locals with a bizarre vista. Paris is making sure that only you three and Leanor will see the memory.”
Charlotte glanced at Bill, who lifted his shoulders. She looked at Monroe, and he ever so slightly shook his head. This wasn’t a part of his plan. Wasn’t something that they should trust.
“Fair enough,” Charlotte said, but her heart sank. If whatever they were doing diminished the view of Leanor’s city, she wouldn’t be affected. Monroe’s great plan, his perfect method of stopping Ana once and for all—of turning her into the Leanor they knew—would fail.
More than anything, it meant Monroe’s plan wouldn’t work. They couldn’t use the memory. It was too risky, too probable that the Council had rigged it to do something awful.
“Done,” Paris said gruffly, and Alek ushered them over to the pedestal. The middle rose, lifting a familiar device. The orb Paris had used to hound them, constructed from dozens of metal plates, bound together with wire. The pieces of metal were different colors, different sizes, and hooked together at odd angles. It was barely a sphere.
Charlotte reached out and took the heavy object. This, though, they had to use. However Monroe had come back here, he didn’t have an astrolabe on him.
“Re-calibrated for English,” Paris muttered. He touched it, made a C, then crossed through it, and light sprang out from between the panels. Below a date shone, the year a series of zeroes.
“And here is the memory,” Alek said, offering the multicolored marble once he’d plucked it from the pedestal.
Monroe lifted a shaking arm and took it.
“The cuff?” Bill asked.
“Will fall off once you’re finished,” Alek said. “Remember? Incentive.”
“Good luck,” Cora said. “But I doubt you’ll need it.”
“Yes, it should be simple enough,” Alek agreed. “Once you activate the memory, you will be finished. What is it you people say? Godspeed and best wishes.”
With his tongue at his teeth, Paris grinned. “Be seeing you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE FINAL BOMB
1,803,241 BCE
Outside the Council’s spire, icy snow blew in a torrent. Across the street, a few unlucky New Yorkers cowered inside the doorways that had been transported back in this new Blast. For the first time, Charlotte saw the new devastation—smaller than what the Blast was before, but still enough to transport a thousand New Yorkers. Frost clung thickly to the New York Public Library’s windows, dozens of faces visible through the dim whiteness.
Charlotte clutched the Council’s makeshift astrolabe. The lights made the flurries glitter.
“’Roe? You okay?” Bill asked. Even though Monroe was walking on his own, Bill still had him propped under one of his shoulders.
“Good to go,” Monroe said. But his head hung low, his hair covered his face, his hand still scratched at the spiral cuff. If it was still burning, he hadn’t said a thing.
“When?” Charlotte asked. “Someplace historical? With us out of the way, maybe Ana’d go back to sightseeing?” She needed to see the old Monroe. Not this man suffering, this man dealing with unknowable pain and not saying a word about it.
“That’s what I was thinking. Prior to the New York Public Library was built, there was a reservoir there. Bryant Park was called something else entirely. And before that, for only three short years … That’s where she’ll be. Try 1858. Fall. October?”
“Sure,” Charlotte said. It wasn’t quite the history lesson she was hoping for, but it was something. Shifting her fingers along the metal plates, Charlotte found October 5, 1858. As good a time as any.
Time sped up; storm clouds roiled; the flurry grew into a blizzard. Snow piled up outside the spire, encasing Charlotte in a world of bluish white. A glacier sliced the snow away, slamming through nearby buildings, mere shadows through the ice. Only a barren landscape was left in the glacier’s wake. Trees grew—swamps, lakes, even humans were visible as history flashed in front of her eyes.
New York City blossomed in an instant, a dirt road appearing under Charlotte’s feet, small buildings popping up like sprouting flowers. The city grew from huts, to houses, to skyscrapers. Right before time slowed, a structure of glass and iron struts built around them.
The sun glowed above, filtered through a glass-paneled ceiling. They’d appeared at the side of the entry, a crowd wandering in, rushing forward to see a variety of items on display. Without a word, Monroe stepped along a marble walkway in the center. Steps led down on either side into two different exhibition areas, and in the distance, Charlotte could see two more. In the center, between all four areas, stood a statue of George Washington riding a horse, triumphant.
“The Crystal Palace,” Monroe whispered. “An exhibition hall, crafted after the one in London. There’s no place better in Bryant Park’s history.”
Being here was helping; Monroe’s focus was outward, his head held higher. “What’s the best thing here?” Charlotte asked.
Monroe turned, eyes alight. “An automatic break for an elevator.” He smiled. “So people wouldn’t be scared about a cable snapping. Skyscrapers without them? Impos—” Monroe winced, gripping the arm with the spiral cuff.
“’Roe?” Charlotte touched the cuff and found it warm. What was it like against his skin? This close she could smell the smoke from his burning flesh. “What’s happening?”
“It’s hurting again, building, almost as if …” He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, they were harder. Stronger. “It must be a timer. So we’ll keep our promise and not run off. So we won’t think.”
Clutching Monroe’s hand, Bill said, “Because it’s a trap.”
Monroe’s steely eyes watered. “Of course it’s a trap. Paris was at that console too long. For a language shift? To ‘calibrate’ the memory?” Monroe sneered.
Watching Monroe struggle through the pain, turn it into hatred, Charlotte wished he’d never come to save them. His encounter with the Council had changed him into someone else, someone stronger. Someone she didn’t even recognize.
Dropping Bill’s hand, shoving away from Charlotte, Monroe said, “We can’t use the memory.” His voice was so calm. Certain. “It must trigger something. A bomb, maybe? Who knows?”
Charlotte knelt beside him, plucking out the toolkit she’d brought with her to Liberty Island. “We’ll get to that.” She grabbed his fingers, pulled his arm to her and wouldn’t let go. “We gotta get this thing off of you.” If she freed him, he could go back to being the man she’d left at the Statue of Liberty.
She traced the edges of the spiral metal up his arm. It was sealed tight against his skin. At the base, near his wrist, lay a thicker segment of the cuff, but there weren’t any seams. No way to get in. No way to get it off.
“Be quick,” Bill said from above. Nearby, a few
tourists watched, but eventually their interest was drawn back to the exhibits of the Crystal Palace. They wandered away, only to be replaced by other onlookers.
Charlotte pressed lightly against the thicker part of the cuff, hoping for a magnetic seal.
“Oh, shit,” Monroe said.
“Is it getting worse?” Charlotte asked, looking up.
Monroe’s face wasn’t contorted in pain. He wasn’t even looking at her or the cuff around his arm. His gaze was away, toward the entrance of the Crystal Palace.
“Shit,” Charlotte agreed. A platinum-haired woman had just walked inside, the final bomb under her arm.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
As she strode down the marble walkway, Ana’s eyes darted to each side.
“Back, back!” Charlotte said, gripping Monroe and tugging him behind one of the metal columns holding the glass dome above. When would be the best time to confront Ana? Not now—she’d just run away. She had to be distracted. She had to be setting the bomb first.
“How?” Charlotte asked. Was this coincidence another of the Council’s calibrations? Or was this the same random, horrible bad luck that had followed her from the beginning?
But whatever luck they had held. Ana’s gaze passed over the column where they waited, and she didn’t pause. They were safe.
In the very center of the Crystal Palace—where Charlotte, Monroe, and Bill had just been—Ana squatted before George Washington. The top of this bomb was a plate of glass, held in by metal sides that curved at the edge. There wasn’t a single screw in sight. Whether the device was impregnable or not, there was no way there’d be enough time to defuse it. Charlotte would have to stop Ana before she activated the bomb.
But Ana didn’t trigger it immediately. She gazed up at the statue of George Washington. Staring him down. Her bottom lip pulled under her teeth. Squinting. Not saying a word, but making an internal decision that she would act on soon.
Exactly as Leanor would. This was the woman Charlotte had been searching for this whole time. A woman who wanted to change the world instead of destroy it. A woman who regretted what she had done. All this time she’d been buried inside this young girl. At last she was revealed.
Charlotte had to act now.
She stepped from behind the metal strut. “Leanor.”
Ana’s regret vanished. She twisted, stood, and squared her shoulders. Ready for another fight.
“Don’t do this,” Charlotte said. “Don’t destroy this beautiful city.”
“How’d you get free? What did they give you? What did they promise?”
“Nothing,” Monroe said, stepping beside Charlotte. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “Only pain. But you can’t do this.”
“I can,” Ana said. “I have.”
“We know what you’ll do,” Charlotte said. “How you’ll feel once you’re done.”
“I won’t regret this.”
Charlotte shook her head. “You will.” How could she get through to Ana without using the Council’s memory? “I think you already do.”
“If I don’t?” Ana braced herself. “Is this round four? Or did the Council give you some other way of stopping me?”
Charlotte drew in a breath. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. The woman they’d been fighting had never seemed smart, just angry. Leanor was so close, barely hidden.
Monroe held out the marble-memory for Ana to see. But he didn’t activate it. He didn’t say anything.
“At least you’re smart enough not to trust them too much,” Ana said. She knelt back to the bomb, holding out the screwdriver she used to activate the devices.
Charlotte leaped forward and clutched Ana’s wrist. “You can’t.”
Monroe knelt beside her. “It’s a memory of your time. Before.” Then a violent shudder coursed through him. The marble slipped from his hand, clinking onto the marble floor.
“My God.” Ana’s eyes traveled up Monroe’s arm. “That’s what they did. They promised to take it off if you stopped me?”
Monroe gulped, clenching his jaw. “They won’t. It’s increasing so we don’t—agh—think things through. We know. We know it’s a trap.” Then he yelled, gripping his arm and crumpled to the floor.
Charlotte released Ana’s wrist and bent to Monroe’s side. Now the cuff was hot to her touch. His pulse raced. Gripping his chin, she tried to get him to look at her. But his eyes were fixed on Ana. Staring.
Charlotte followed his gaze.
With Charlotte occupied, with Monroe down, with Bill worried, Ana could’ve vanished. She could’ve set the bomb, or taken it to another era. She didn’t. Perhaps Monroe’s pain had sparked a memory, maybe even something as intense as the one that he had dropped on the floor.
But Ana’s regret hadn’t taken hold yet. “I’m sorry,” Charlotte whispered. It was a trap; they knew it was a trap, but it was the only way. She plucked the marble from the floor and squeezed it between her fingers.
The memory illuminated around them, exactly as it had in the Council’s tower.
Plants fluttered in a nonexistent breeze. The sun of Ana’s time beat down from above. Birds wheeled in the air. But Charlotte kept her focus on Ana.
At first Ana’s jaw dropped. Then she stood, forgetting her actual surroundings, taking in the visuals that only the four of them could see. She brought her hands to her face, wiping away tears as they fell.
“God,” Ana said. “God. How could I? How could I forget this? What happened? How could I … ?” Heaving sobs took the rest of her words away. Regret consumed her as she stared at what had been lost because of her invention.
Before Charlotte’s eyes, Ana turned into Leanor.
The illumination vanished as Charlotte released the marble. “Throw it away,” she said. If Monroe was right, there wasn’t much time. The Council would expect them to be distracted. To have a happy reunion. But they couldn’t. Not yet. She wound up and threw the marble at the glass wall in the distance, hoping no one was there. She told Bill, “Throw all of it away.”
Bill grunted, throwing the makeshift astrolabe through the air. It crash-landed into a display of plants, sending them flying. People screamed, jumping away. Good.
Then the astrolabe exploded, a cloud of fire roiling out and at Charlotte, sending her from Monroe, from Ana, from Bill, like a shock wave. She slammed into another column, pain searing along her back as she crumpled to the ground. New explosions erupted as the inferno blazed, a domino effect of explosions, fire, and smoke.
The Crystal Palace was on fire.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Screams filled the air, as thick as the pluming smoke above. Charlotte pressed her fingers against her eyes, trying to focus them. Then she heard Bill’s voice. “’Roe. ’Roe.”
Charlotte crawled over and found Bill shaking Monroe.
Monroe shook enough on his own, clutching his arm.
“Their device,” Leanor said, crouching under the smoke. She was still there, still the woman who had been killed thousands of years ago. Her fingers were pressed against the metal spiral. “Activated his cuff to full. A punishment for being smart enough—stupid enough—to live.”
From across the room, a man’s voice sounded, telling everyone to come toward him. That a fire truck was coming. Bodies swarmed by, the smoke billowing with their movement. But Charlotte didn’t move.
“Can you save him?” Charlotte asked. Leanor had escaped the Council so many times. They’d tortured her, too. “Can you get the cuff off?”
“I’ve undone one,” Leanor said, “but I had a computer then. I won’t be able to get it off without one. I can try to deactivate it.” She prodded at Monroe’s wrist, where the thicker segment lay, as Charlotte had done. As before, nothing happened. But Leanor kept pressing in different spots until a metal panel moved.
All the while, Bill cradled Monroe’s head. People were still stumbling past, crying for loved ones, pulling others around the
remains of George Washington and toward the exit. With all of these people in danger, Bill had eyes only for Monroe.
Charlotte felt a familiar flutter, a familiar worry, but she couldn’t place it. Something about Bill and Monroe. She shook it away, keeping focused on her brother.
He had grown so strong on his own. And Bill had learned to let others do the saving. Even Leanor had learned to regret far earlier than she once had.
What about Charlotte? All this time, she’d been fighting for her family, to reconnect. They’d all become so much better, and she was the same person she’d always been.
Leanor got the metal panel off and stared at the computer board below. Bit her lip in concentration.
The last few stragglers had passed minutes ago. No firemen came to find them as the flames blazed closer, the smoke pressed downward. There wasn’t time to work on Monroe’s cuff. “Leanor,” Charlotte said. They had to go, she had to get back to Charlie. And Bill was too distracted by Monroe’s condition to realize how in danger they were. Like it or not, this was who Charlotte was: a woman who wouldn’t let her family die. “We gotta go.”
Leanor shook her head, keeping her eyes on the computer board.
“The fire,” Charlotte said at last. Even that didn’t rouse Bill or Leanor.
“I don’t know,” Leanor said, looking into Charlotte’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
“We can’t just leave him,” Bill said.
He wouldn’t move until Monroe was safe. “Could we smash it?” Charlotte asked. “Destroy the thing?”
Leanor’s brow furrowed deeper. Whatever argument she had, it wasn’t good enough. There wasn’t anything else to do, and Monroe’s body had stopped moving.
Charlotte grabbed his wrist, gulped, and slammed the exposed guts of the cuff hard against the floor. Monroe’s wrist broke with a sickening snap, but Charlotte kept slamming the cuff into the marble. Again and again, until suddenly Monroe’s body jumped as if taking one final jolt of electricity.