by Melissa Faye
Guardian of the Present: Book 2
THE DARE
By Melissa Faye
© 2018 Melissa Faye
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Thank you for reading!
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About the Author
Appendix A: June’s Rules for Time Travel
Chapter 1
The stand-off didn’t last very long. We were in the ladies room at Port Authority, which was a good enough setting for a stand-off with a time traveler from the future who needed to be sent back to her own time.
Even a short stand-off slows down time. A clock on the wall ticked away, and the time between each second seemed to expand indefinitely. The fluorescent overhead lights flickered sadly, and the smells of the bus station lingered in the air. I was itching to get out of there. Maybe one day I’d have a stand-off in a luxury hotel. Someplace that smelled like vanilla.
The woman gawked at me. I didn’t look like much, so my presence was usually a surprise. A short seventeen year old college freshman with a gun that looked like a prop from a science fiction movie. What can I say? I like imagining the future to be just like people imagined it to look like in the 1960’s.
“What is that?” The woman nodded towards the gun. I stood still in front of her with the Some Gun aimed perfectly at her chest. She had a cuff on her ear like most travelers, and could have used it to get back to her own time whenever she wanted. Even with my Some Gun, travelers couldn’t take a hint.
It hadn’t even taken very long to find this woman. She was a traveler traveler, as Ridge liked to call them. Visiting the Present like a family would visit Niagara Falls. I wouldn’t have even noticed she was here if her picture wasn’t all over the internet. She’d gone to the New York Botanical Gardens up in the Bronx, and someone took a picture of her having a leisurely conversation with someone in her Present via some sort of strange holographic device. In the picture, she stood in front of a row of flowers, speaking to what looked like a pale green floating head.
The kid who took the picture put it online, and it spread immediately. I first saw it the day before. I was sitting in my engineering class next to my suitemate Lacey, and an email popped up on my phone from one of my grandmother’s friends.
FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ IN THE ROSE BUSHES
Luckily, the picture was grainy enough for people to assume it was fake. I nudged Lacey’s shoulder.
“What’s that, June?” she whispered. Technically, it was lab time, but Lacey was nervous around the two other people in our group. We were working on a project that we’d have to present later in the week, and the very thought of talking in front of people about engineering classwork terrified her. I slid the phone over so she could take a look.
“Someone messing around.” Lacey handed back the phone and I forwarded the email to my mentor/sidekick/partner-in-crime Ridge. Our professor approached and I slid my phone under my notebook. Her name was Professor Garvey. She was the most put-together woman I knew. That day she was wearing navy slacks and a crisp white button-down. She was also the smartest person I knew at school. She was a chemical engineer, and knew far more than my other professors about math and science. I furiously scribbled down everything she said in class, constantly in awe.
“June, you had an interesting technique in your last problem set. Problem #24. I made some notes on it that I’d like you to look over.” She passed me the packet. I slipped it out of sight. Lacey was antsy about comparing grades.
By the time we got out of class, everyone had seen the picture. My roommate, Honey, thought I would like it.
“You know, science!” She looked pleased with herself. I tossed my messenger bag on the bed and pulled out my tablet. “Holograms. I mean, you have all those circuit boards and wires. Holograms require lasers, right? Something like that?”
“Something like that,” I murmured.
“Did you see that the kid found the hologram device?” Honey pulled up a picture on her laptop. “It’s this round white disc. Why do sci-fi movies always portray futuristic technology as round and white?”
I shrugged. Probably because it’s accurate, I thought.
Sure enough, the kid who took the picture of the hologram call scared the woman off, and she dropped the device on the ground. It was definitely future technology, but not much fancier than the latest cell phone. That was why I suspected she was here legally. Probably time travel had only just been invented in her Present.
I had a new text from Ridge.
Which rule did she violate?
Rule 2-D, I typed.
My time travel rules were recorded on a faded piece of cream colored construction paper. I left it in my desk drawer in my grandparent’s house when I moved into the dorms in August. It didn’t matter; I had them memorized. Rule 2-D of June’s Rules of Time Travel: Don’t introduce technology before it’s invented.
With a picture of the woman, it was easy enough for my Face Finder to track her movements over the next twenty-four hours. I stayed up late with Lacey working on our part of the group project, then got up early to catch her before my first class. I took the subway down to the Port Authority and headed her off in the restrooms.
“Where’d you even get that? It isn’t anything I’ve seen before in the future.” The woman nodded again at the gun.
I didn’t answer her question. I had my own agenda to accomplish.
“Spread the word. You can’t come back to my Present with your hologram phones and get caught. It could mess up our timeline. We don’t have stuff like that yet.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the woman scoffed, waving me away. “I don’t see you getting worried about that apparatus you’re pointing at me. And that boy in the garden came up behind me so fast. You don’t by chance have the Grammer with you, do you?”
“I don’t know what a Grammer is. Someone else must have it by now.”
“Well then shouldn’t you be looking for it, rather than pointing that thing at me?” She eyed the Some Gun with a mixture of fear and disgust. A woman flushed a toilet and came out of the stall to my left, but I didn’t move the gun. This other woman saw us and scampered away. I knew that enough strange things happened in the Port Authority bathrooms that our stand-off wouldn’t be newsworthy.
“Because you don’t belong here. I’m sending you home.”
“You? Sending me...?” The traveler cocked her head to the side.
“Ok, enough talk.” I had plenty of time to get to class but wanted to pick up a breakfast burrito at a cart halfway back. The woman gasped and I pulled the trigger. Back-U-Go. She disappeared into a tiny speck in mid-air, then she was gone completely.
THE SUBWAY WAS DELAYED, so I had to rush through the dining hall to pick up food before class. I tapped my feet nervously on the floor while I waited in line to swipe my meal card. The line moved forward ahead of me and I took a step, walking right into a person I hadn’t talked to in a few weeks. My upstairs neighbor, Harrison.
Ever since Harrison helped me save Ridge’s life by sending a traveler back to his Pres
ent – there were also some red pandas involved – and I erased his memory of the event, I tried to avoid him. Even though he was a year ahead of me, he kept appearing in my carefully tracked schedule, whether it was in the common room outside our suite, or in the Multivariable Calculus class I needed to get to, or now in the dining hall. Honey gave up asking me about him, although she noticed him acting strange when we passed in the hall. He didn’t remember me at all after a single dose of the Swiper Spray. Those memories were swiped away.
“Hey!” Harrison turned to me, backing up a little now that I was practically standing on his heels. “I know you, don’t I?”
Sometimes when I saw Harrison, my tongue tied itself into a knot.
“Yeah, you live below me. With that freshman girl, Honey. How is she?”
My face burned red. Harrison and his roommate Anton lived right above us with other sophomores. Of course he knows Honey. Everyone knows Honey.
“Yeah, she’s great,” I said sarcastically. He swiped his meal card and waited for me to swipe mine.
“And you’re June.” He scratched the back of his head like something was loose back there. That’s what happened when we saw each other. I couldn’t speak, and he got confused. “It’s so strange, I feel like we’ve met before.”
“Just one of those faces, I guess.”
Harrison followed me into the breakfast line and passed me a tray. He walked next to me in silence while I grabbed the last burrito – not as good as the street cart I had in mind – and he poured himself cereal.
“Look, I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure we’ve met, and...“
I stopped listening to Harrison and peered behind him towards one of the large televisions in the corner of the dining hall. He turned and followed my gaze. It was the morning news. The corner of the screen flashed BREAKING STORY.
“For those of you just joining us, we’re coming to you live from the Brooklyn Bridge where two men appear to be climbing up the bridge cables. Police have closed off the bridge and are surrounding the two men, but have been unable to convince them to come down. It’s currently unclear what the men’s purpose is or how they plan on getting down.” The anchorman was broadcasting from the side of the bridge itself, and the camera panned upwards. The two men were already fifty feet up the cables, with one breaking ahead.
I set my tray down on a nearby table and took a seat, my eyes plastered to the screen. I could be a few minutes late to class. Harrison sat next to me.
“Helicopters overhead are standing by to help as needed, and the fire department has sent a squad to rescue the men before they injure themselves or others. The highest point on the bridge is over 250 feet above the water, and a fall would likely be fatal.”
“Idiots,” Harrison muttered. Like everyone else in the room, we couldn’t take our eyes off the two dots ascending the cables. Idiot is right. The cables provided little to hold onto, and if they made it to the top, the only way down would be by police helicopter. I held my breath as one man slipped, then regained his footing. The other man increased his lead.
“Are they...racing?” Harrison asked, shaking his head. I couldn’t stop watching. It did look like a race. The man in back moved faster to catch up, but he couldn’t close the gap.
There was a collective gasp around the cafeteria as the dot who’d fallen behind slipped one more time. Tiny arms flew around the air as he tried to grab hold of the cable. One hand seemed to grasp a different cable, and the man’s body dangled from one arm. I sucked in my breath as his hand slipped, and he plummeted downwards into the East River.
The reporter was silent, and the cameraman zoomed in to the body drifting across the East River. The other man looked down momentarily before continuing his climb. Once he reached the top, he held onto the flag decorating the bridge. He raised a fist triumphantly in the air before someone hanging onto a ladder dangling from a helicopter grabbed him around the waist and pulled him up.
Chapter 2
I kept an eye on my phone while Harrison walked with me to our calculus class. There were no new updates, but several other websites picked up the story. I felt ashamed, like I was somehow a part of that man’s death because I watched it and didn’t do anything about it. What could I have done if I was there?
I couldn’t focus during class; the video footage played over and over again in my head. My thoughts turned from shame to curiosity. Something about the situation was strange. It sparked some little idea in the back of my head, but I couldn’t quite get a hold of it.
Since I was only giving him half my attention, I found I could carry on a normal conversation with Harrison without tripping over my words. He confided in me that his roommate, Anton, had a huge crush on Honey, and I confided in him that Honey knew and wasn’t interested. Honey was a girl with many suitors.
Harrison followed me back to the suite where I hoped to check the news; maybe my brain needed more information before it could tell me what it was thinking. Harrison followed me into the bedroom I shared with Honey as I put down my bag and notebooks.
“What’s that?”
I looked where he was pointing. The bedroom I shared with Honey was my new laboratory, and Honey had to constantly remind me to clean up after myself. I wasn’t very good at it. There was currently a long spool of wire and a slim silicon disk on the floor next to my bed. Harrison reached for the wire.
“Wires, huh?”
Harrison called me Wires for the six hours or so that we knew each other, but that was before I wiped his memory clean. I pulled the spool from his hand and dropped it into the half-open trunk under my bed along with the disk.
“Yup, wires,” I said. “I make jewelry.”
Harrison squinted his eyes and pursed his lips.
“No you don’t.”
I made a fake-offended face. “How do you know?”
“I’ve never seen you wear anything besides that.” He pointed at my necklace. It was a long silver chain with a large locket at the bottom. “Don’t get me wrong – it’s nice. Where’d you get it?”
I twisted the locket around between my fingers.
“It was my mother’s. She – she died when I was little.”
Harrison’s face turned beet red.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” I shrugged and let the locket drop back onto my chest.
“Maybe I make jewelry, but I don’t wear it!” I led Harrison back into the common area and turned on the television. He sat down to watch with me, doing that thing where you sit just a little too close to the other person. I could feel his body’s warmth traveling across the centimeter separating us.
My thoughts drifted back to my locket as Harrison watched commercials next to me in silence. My mother hadn’t actually died when I was little. She and my dad were kidnapped, and now they were trapped in the future with a man named Jasper. I talked it over with Ridge again and again. He was the one who couldn’t drop it. I knew no one named Jasper, and had no leads. My father’s last letter warned me to be careful, so that’s what I intended on doing.
“Turn it up, Wires!”
Wires. That nickname again.
Harrison leaned over my lap to grab the remote and I unconsciously smelled his hair. Brain, if you could focus on whatever it is you’re working on and ignore how close this guy is sitting and how good he smells, that would be great.
Harrison raised the volume and we watched the updated story.
“...The man’s family appreciates your thoughts and prayers after this tragic accident, but asks for privacy at this time.”
This time the reporter stood outside of a courthouse. “Meanwhile, the man who climbed to the top of the bridge was arrested and released on bail. Smith Johnson, 36, a Brooklyn native, climbed the bridge with the victim on a dare. Sources say this is not the first time Mr. Johnson has completed a life-threatening obstacle on a dare. His neighbors describe him as a habitual risk taker and claim they have never seen him lose a bet.”
Smith emerged
from the courthouse surrounded by police officers and a throng of reporters. He was tall and fit, and looked at least ten years younger than they said he was. He wore a small cuff earring in the cartilage of his left ear. I finally caught up to my brain. Smith was a time traveler.
“Um...” I mumbled to Harrison before half-shrugging and running into my bedroom. I pushed the door closed behind me and called Ridge.
“Did you see that guy who climbed the bridge?” I asked before he said hello.
“June? What bridge?”
“It’s a traveler! There were two men climbing the Brooklyn Bridge this morning. One fell off. The other survived. But I saw the one who survived, and I’m sure he’s a traveler. He has that time traveling cuff on his ear.”
“Why was he on a bridge?”
“Ugh! Ridge! I have to stop him before someone else gets hurt. They said on the news that he does stuff like this all the time. People in our Present can’t keep up with him.”
Ridge was silent.
“Ridge, a man died. I have to send this traveler home.”
I heard Ridge exhale slowly while my own heart raced. I kept seeing it in my head: the man dropping off the cable into the river. Over and over again. The traveler grabbing the flag at the top.
“Yes, June, it sounds like he’s a traveler.” I heard items shuffling around in the background, then the sound of the television turning on. I waited while Ridge watched something on TV – probably what I had on right now.
“I’m gonna use the Face Finder and track him down. Then I’m gonna kill him.”
“You’re not going to kill anyone, June.”
“Fine. Then I’m going to Stun him a few times, then I’ll send him back to the future.”
“That’s my girl. Keep me posted.”
A floorboard creaked behind me and I flipped around to see Harrison standing by the door I thought I had closed all the way.
“What’s up?” I tried to stand nonchalantly with a hand on my hip. Harrison gawked at me.