by M. G. Harris
My dad steps back. “Don’t you know you can’t trust your memory when you use that device?”
I falter again. “Memory?”
“Amnesia . . . is a risk with the Bracelet. That’s what Vigores told me. Use it and you risk losing your memory. Even worse, you risk ending up inside a mountain – or in space. There’s only one safe way to use the Bracelet – that’s the default.”
“How do I do that?”
“It’s simple. Press hard on the crystal. It triggers the safety mechanism.”
I stare in astonishment. “Safety mechanism?”
“You just used it, Josh. It takes you back to the same place, ten minutes before you last used it.”
“Ten minutes?” I’m so baffled by everything that I can’t quite follow or believe what my dad is telling me.
My dad points to his own Bracelet and the empty crystal chamber. “You said you fixed the Bracelet. You used it and it brought you here. That means that the Bracelet returned you to the place and time it was last used. Don’t you see, Josh? In a few minutes I’m going to use this Bracelet. . . If I don’t, then you wouldn’t be standing here.”
I push forward, my voice urgent. It’s all beginning to make a horrible kind of sense.
Amnesia.
“Not you, Dad, me! Take your Bracelet off . . . give it to me!”
He looks sad. “I can’t. It’s locked into position. When the NRO captured my Muwan, I panicked. I started the countdown . . . and then I stalled the countdown. The Bracelet is locked on my wrist now until it’s used to transport me.”
“You stalled the countdown?”
“Well, it was kind of a crazy thing to do in the first place. To use the Bracelet without the crystal is practically suicide! Without the time-control circuit, the most likely thing is that you get zapped into space!” He grins ruefully. “I decided to take my chances with those NRO bastards. So yes, I stopped the countdown.”
I stare at my dad in sheer frustration. “Dad! You have to get that thing off your arm! It’s not safe. . .”
Now I get it: if my dad uses the Bracelet, he’s going straight to Mount Orizaba . . . he’s losing his memory and everything will unfold just the way it did.
My plan will be ruined.
My dad gazes at me curiously. “Where did you say to meet you, Orizaba? You don’t want me to use the Bracelet to go there. . . Yet somehow you believe it’s safe for you to go to Orizaba. . .?”
I start to shake my head. “Don’t use it.” I’ve changed my mind – maybe the best thing is not to use the Bracelet at all. We’ll both stay, tackle the NRO together, change the timeline a different way. . .
Dad echoes, “Don’t use it. . .? Josh, what’s going on here? Who sent you . . . why are you here?”
“No one sent me. I’m here because I want to save your life. And Dad. . .” I stare at my father, dreading what I have to tell him. “If you go to Mount Orizaba, you’re gonna die.”
That doesn’t faze him as much as I’d expected.
“I’ve faced death a few times since we last saw each other, Josh,” he says, leaning forward suddenly.
He’s no idea how literally true that is from where I’m standing. . .
“Death doesn’t worry me,” continues Dad. “But you . . . you do. What’s been going on? Why are you involved?”
“I found the Calakmul letter,” I say bluntly. “I found Camila. I found Ek Naab. I found the Ix Codex.”
He staggers slightly, a smile spreading across his face. “You . . . you did all that?”
“It should have been you, Dad. Take my Bracelet and get out of here. I’ll find another way out of this place.”
“Josh,” he laughs, “this is Area 51! They will never let you out of here!” He faces me with grim resolve. “No. This is how it’s going to be: I’m going to use my Bracelet – complete the countdown. I’ll go to Orizaba and everything will pan out just the way it did. You’ll use your Bracelet – to go right back to where you came from.” He winks once. “Except . . . ten minutes before you set out. Safety mechanism, OK?”
I shake my head in desperation. “No . . . Dad, NO! I came back here to save your life! To change the past . . . to stop everything from going wrong. . .”
“You think I’m going to risk the life of my own son to save my skin?” He shakes his head. “Josh, you don’t know me very well.” He grips my shoulder hard, makes me look him right in the eyes. “How do you know I die on Mount Orizaba?”
I stare back at him, lips trembling. “Because I was there. I saw it.”
He nods. “But you didn’t die.”
“No, Dad,” I whisper. “You died saving me.”
That silences him. For a second or two we just stare at each other. Dad’s stereo is still playing the same song. It breaks across our silence, tugging at some part of my memory.
My dad takes a step forward, stretches an arm through the bars. An expression of fierce pride crosses his face. He pulls me close, presses his lips against my forehead. “That’s good enough for me,” he breathes.
After a few seconds he releases me, a quizzical, faraway sort of look in his eyes. “You look so different with blue eyes. You remind me of someone I knew . . . a long time ago.”
I stare at him . . . hardly able to believe what I’m thinking.
“I remind you of someone. . .?”
He nods. “You do. A guy I knew when I was not much older than you.”
My voice drops to a whisper. “Was his name . . . Arcadio?”
It’s as though someone hit my dad in the face – he looks that stunned. “Josh . . . no . . . it can’t be.”
Am I Arcadio?
Dad keeps shaking his head. “No . . . no, Josh, please. That can’t be your life. It’s too dangerous.”
“What . . . what’s going to happen to Arcadio?”
I’m not getting through to my dad. He’s still reeling from the implications of what I’ve said, talking frantically to himself.
“Arcadio . . . you? No . . . it can’t be. . . You?” And finally he stops pacing the cell and stares at me. “It’s true. You remind me of Arcadio. How do you know about him?”
Where do I begin?
“Dad . . . is Arcadio a time traveller?”
Dad presses his lips together, deep in thought. Then he says something that astonishes me. “Promise me you’ll only use this Bracelet once – right now. Promise me!”
I’m dumbstruck. “What . . . Dad . . . why?”
Dad is becoming more serious and thoughtful by the second. He doesn’t speak again for several seconds. Then urgently he says, “Give me your arm, Josh.”
Baffled, I stretch my left arm through the bars. He grabs a pen from his bed and then takes hold of my arm, scrawling something into my inside wrist. When he lets go, I stare at what he’s written.
I am Josh Garcia from Oxford, England, son of Eleanor and Andres.
“Use the Bracelet just this once, Josh. Go back to where you came from. Then never use it again!”
I’m about to answer when there’s a sound from somewhere down the corridor. Hurried footsteps, and they’re on their way to us. Frozen, I stare at my dad. His eyes widen; he grabs my arm.
“OK. This is it.”
My mouth drops open. “What. . .?”
With his other hand, my dad ruffles my hair. He smiles, eyes shiny with emotion. “Goodbye, Josh.”
I’m too astounded by the speed at which things are moving to take his words in. “Dad, don’t go, please.”
With a nod, he steps back. “If it’s meant to be, we’ll see each other again, Josh. Don’t worry.”
The footsteps are right outside the cell. I’m paralysed, watching as my dad presses something on his own Bracelet.
“Press on the crystal, Josh,” he murmurs. “It’ll take you right back.”
The door to the cell opens, but I can’t take my eyes off my dad. A surge of white light emerges from the Bracelet and envelops him. For just a second he glows like so
me unearthly apparition. And then all that light seems to contract, as if it’s suddenly been sucked down a plughole.
He’s gone – to Mount Orizaba. To a life fractured by a lost memory, a few months living like a hermit and then to that final, fateful day of the avalanche.
Where he’ll save my life by giving his.
When the three uniformed soldiers barge into the cell, I hardly even give them a glance. They all train their guns at me.
“Get your hands up where we can see them,” barks one of them, aiming a semi-automatic rifle at my head. Then he screams, “Now!”
I sigh despondently, shake my head and raise my arms slowly. Another soldier steps forward to search me.
“What just happened to the prisoner?” shouts the first soldier.
I sigh again. “You know what. . .” Then I reach one arm behind my head and through my sleeve, press hard on the crystal.
“Stop moving! Get your hands back in the air!”
It’s too late. Already the soldiers are being ripped out of my field of vision. Instead, the surrounding air fills with the nearby walls, shelves and lab equipment of the cold room.
Just like my dad said, I’m back where I came from – the mysterious labs where the Sect took me and Ixchel after Brazil. Except that according to Dad, it’s ten minutes in the past – ten minutes before I first used the Bracelet.
Well . . . ten minutes? In ten minutes you can change the world.
At a time like this, you need a watch. But I don’t have one. I can almost hear the seconds ticking away in my head as I search the cold room for something that might help.
Ten minutes from now, the past version of me is going to walk through the door of this cold room. I don’t know much about time travel, but that sounds a lot like time paradox territory. . . I’m pretty sure I want to avoid being here for that.
On one of the metal shelves I find what I’m looking for – a grey plastic stop clock, like a kitchen timer. I set it for nine minutes. Not taking my eyes from the clock face, I begin to think.
Dad didn’t have time to show me how to use the Bracelet properly. But I can use it in safety mode. If I hit the crystal again, I’ll go right back to Dad’s underground prison . . . and probably meet myself!
But that’s not what actually happened. I know because I was there. If I do try to go back, I guess I might even cross over into a parallel reality where I do meet myself. Yet another paradox. . . My head hurts just thinking about it. I can’t risk something like that.
As I start to think through the possibilities, the potential power of this Bracelet begins to make me feel dizzy. I mean, it’s incredible.
Time travel!
It was just a dream before. Now it’s real. And I don’t know how to control it.
Just one press of the crystal will buy me ten extra minutes with my dad.
Eight minutes to go before past-me comes crashing through the door.
In the past, Dad’s in a secret base in Area 51. In the present, he’s dead and buried. He died saving me.
For the first time, a shadow falls across my plan.
Past-me is going to come through this door. But only if someone frees me.
Ixchel is somewhere in this building. If I could find her, we could escape together. Right now, no one knows I’m free – for all they can see, I’m still lying in a hospital bed, until someone unbuckles the straps which tie me down. Until someone frees me – someone thoughtful enough to bring my clothes.
My heart begins to sink. It’s me – I’m the one. Who else?
I’m the one who sneaks in and unties myself.
If I don’t do it, I won’t find the crystal. I won’t fix the Bracelet. I won’t get a chance to go back in time to see Dad. I won’t even be here wondering what to do.
Seven minutes.
The way I see it, I don’t have a choice. If I don’t . . . this timeline might just disappear right now.
So I leave the problem with Dad to one side. I have problems to solve in the here-and-now. Like – where do I find the clothes to leave at the end of my hospital bed? How am I going to get out of this building?
Leaving the cold room is a tense moment. Behind that thick fridge-style door, there’s no way of knowing if someone’s in the corridor. Grabbing hold of the timer, I close my eyes, hold my breath and push. When I see the corridor outside is empty, I exhale.
There are some lockers a few doors further down. I dash up to them, try opening doors until one gives way. My clothes and shoes are heaped up in a pile. As I pick up the jeans, I notice some extra weight and bulk. In the back pocket is one of the drug pens I took from Lorena’s lab. My Ek Naab and UK mobile phones are in the front pockets.
Bonus!
I stash the drug pen and phones in my own pockets. Then, holding the clothes and shoes, I rush back to the room where they performed their experiment.
I’m inside the room in the next few seconds. I drop the clothes at the end of the bed, exactly where I remember finding them. I have to get this just right. No mistakes – or who knows what will happen. . .
I unbuckle the wrist straps, trying not to look at the sleeping body on the bed.
My own sleeping body.
That was me, about six minutes ago. Or even less. It strikes me then – this sleeping version of me still has to wake up, get dressed, find the cold room, fix the Bracelet.
All in less than six minutes. A heart-stopping thought hits me. Did I really do all that so quickly?
I have to wake myself up now!
I put my mouth right next to my own ear and whisper loudly: “Josh – wake up! Go to the cold room down the corridor. Find the Crystal Key, repair the Bracelet.”
Anxiously, I stare at the closed lids of my own eyes. There’s an agonizing second or two whilst nothing happens. Then they begin to flicker.
I glance at the timer. Five and a half minutes.
Time to leave.
I race down the corridor towards a group of doors. Something’s pumping through me; it feels exactly like adrenaline but it’s just a single word, an idea.
Freedom.
It’s so close that I can taste it. I only have to find Ixchel and we are out of here. For the next five and a half minutes it’s as though I don’t exist: I’m off the radar.
Passing the elevator lobby, I see I’m on the fifth floor of five. A lift is on its way to this floor. I dive into the nearby stairwell.
Time to make a choice. Where would they be keeping Ixchel?
Some companies put their restaurants on the highest floor – but not this place. I guess that a secretive pharmaceutical company puts its most secure facility on the top floor.
My guess is that Ixchel is somewhere on the fifth floor, too. But there are so many doors. . .
I take a deep breath. There’s nothing for it but to try every possible door. I peer from behind the glass in the stairwell door, waiting for the lift to arrive. Two passengers step out; both are wearing white coats. They’re deep in conversation. I don’t recognize either. I watch as they disappear down the corridor, then push the stairwell door open. I’m just in time to see them vanish behind a door about halfway down the corridor.
A door only metres away from the one where by now past-me is awake and getting dressed. . .
That could have been a close shave. . .
I stride to the door nearest to the stairs, which are at the extreme end of the corridor. It’s a solid door, no glass window. There’s a red light beside it, which isn’t lit up. I open the door to find a room full of camera equipment and trays of vinegary-smelling liquids. A photographic dark room.
The next door leads to a small lab – I can see that much by looking through the window. Looks like it’s unoccupied right now. The next door is solid, with a name plate. Someone’s office? I decide to give it a miss.
The next door is also solid. But there’s no name plate. I push it open slightly.
Amazingly, a voice I recognize says, “Who’s there?” Someone yank
s the door wide open.
It’s Ollie. Now that I see her I’m not totally surprised – I guess she goes where the Sect sends her. Still, it’s a bit of a jolt – for Ollie too. Seconds tick past on the clock as we stand, frozen, gaping at each other.