Time's Echo: A CHRONOS Files Novella

by Rysa Walker

  "Try thinkin' about that when you're makin' out and see what happens. It's a real buzz kill. Every single person in this city, aside from you and me, is dead. You ever think about that, Kier?"

  "Sometimes. We all die eventually."

  He's wandered over to his room in the suite before I finish the sentence. I hear him tossing a few things around, and there are some muttered curses, then he comes back into the room holding up a pint of Johnnie Walker Blue.

  "Pack light, but never forget th' essentials."

  He sloshes a bit into two water glasses and hands one to me, even though he knows I hate scotch. Then he resumes his place by the window.

  "Yes," he says, in the pompous, professorial tone that always makes me want to smack him. "We all die. But they die after seein' only one slice of life. They get this one itsy-bitsy sliver. We get to sample the whole pie."

  So, it's going to be that drunken rant, the one where Simon waxes philosophical about the boring lives of ordinary people. The last time we had this chat, I said that given the choice between bouncing around time and space, and being stuck in a single day with Kate, I'd take the latter. I know exactly which day I'd pick, too—July 21, 1848 in a cabin on the Finger Lakes. Just me and Kate, the lake, and a wheat field where we spent the better part of the afternoon. I could live an entire lifetime in that single day and never complain.

  Simon seems to have picked up on the fact that my mind is wandering, because he comes back over and sits on the sofa, leaning into my field of vision. "And I know what you're gonna say. You've said over 'n' over that they get to fully experience that one little slice, to savor every single boring monotonous bite. And while I still doubt it, let's say I grant you that."

  "Generous of you."

  He ignores the comment and pulls the medallion out of his shirt, holding it in the palm of his hand. "Think about this. A guy on the street pisses off some gangster with a machine gun, and yeah, the gangster can end his life. If the gangster's caught, the state can take the rest of his life away, too. But tha's all they can do. He still had twenty, thirty years, maybe more. If that same guy pisses you or me off, assuming we wanna bother with it, we could go back and make sure he never happened at all. He never happened. You don't just take the rest of his life, you take his whole damn existence, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Tha's real power."

  I lean back into the armchair, keeping my tone casual. "So, a cashier gives you the wrong change. Do you track down her parents and make sure they never meet?"

  "No, dumbass. It's not worth the bother. The point is, I could. So could you."

  "We could also go back and make sure Hitler's parents never meet, but last I heard, Saul doesn't recommend that."

  Simon shrugs. "Somebody else would just come along and do the same thing he did. Stalin and Mao were right on his heels. You need somebody in charge who sees the big picture."

  "Saul?"

  "Brother Cyrus," he corrects, tossing back the last of his drink and pouring another. He starts to do the same to mine, and is annoyed to see that my glass is nearly full. "Drink up. You're makin' me do all the work here. How are you gonna follow my brilliance sober?"

  I take another swig of the scotch, bracing myself for the aftertaste.

  Simon shakes his head in disgust. "Remind me to pack a wine cooler for you next time. I swear, Kate has better taste in—"

  He stops and takes another gulp of his drink, his eyes bugging out a little the way they always do when he's nervous.

  I'm sure he's kicking himself for letting her name slip, but that's not what caught my attention.

  Has. He said Kate has.

  "And who exactly is Kate?" I try to keep the tone light, like I'm just asking out of idle curiosity.

  His eyes narrow for a moment, but apparently my poker face is convincing. "Just a piece I shacked up with down in Miami for a while. Don't think you ever met her."

  It's amazing that the glass I'm holding doesn't shatter, because my hand tightens around it, as though it's Simon's neck. I put it on the table and force myself to relax back into the armchair. "Another one, huh? What happened this time?"

  "Hmph." Simon shakes his head and pours the last of the scotch into his glass. "What does it matter? Like all the others, she's nothing more than bones in a grave in my day."

  It takes every bit of willpower I've got to stay in that chair. To keep my face neutral.

  But I do, because no matter how he's trying to spin it now, he said has. Present tense. Not had.

  It's just one letter. And I know he's drunk enough that he could easily have misspoken.

  Either way, that one letter is the only thing that keeps me from picking up the empty bottle and cracking it over his bloody head.

  ∞8∞

  Washington, DC

  April 06, 2015– 3:17 p.m.

  I've no idea why we're at a suburban subway station or what possible connection it could have to the upcoming "adjustment." But I don't ask. I'm just ready to get this over with.

  At least it's not a bank lobby. The platform is outdoors, it's a nice spring day, and I'm in comfortable clothes again, rather than the variety of suits I've been wearing over the past ten days. Last, and most certainly not least, this is the final set of coordinates on Simon's list, and therefore this should be the final day I have to spend with him, at least for the foreseeable future.

  The bad news is that I'm stuck waiting with Simon and he's been in a foul mood for the past two days. He clammed up tight after our night on the town and hasn't touched a drop of alcohol since. He hasn't pulled any more time-tourist stunts, either—it's been strictly business. We marked the other two locations in DC off the list, and he's even taken meals in the hotel room, something he never does.

  I'm guessing his disposition on that first day was at least partly due to a massive hangover, but I think Simon also remembers that he let something slip and he doesn't want any more close calls. And while his mistake may give me hope, it doesn't bring me any closer to finding Kate. Maybe I'll have better luck with Pru, if I can catch her in a reasonable mood.

  When the train arrives at the platform, we wait until a couple of people get off, then board and move to a seat facing the other passengers. The car is pretty empty—just a middle-aged guy going over some business papers, a woman trimming her nails and listening to music, and a teenager who's slouched down in her seat reading a book.

  I glance at Simon as the train begins moving. He's watching the girl, whose face I still can't see. He's trying to be subtle about it, stealing an occasional peek in between scribbling in his notebook. After once again crossing through the coordinates listed on the page, he's now doodling in the margins—exaggerated female body parts, which is pretty much all that Simon draws. And he keeps looking at me, too, like he's waiting for something. Like the other night just before the speakeasy was raided.

  I realize the girl is Kate before I ever see her face. I'm looking out the window, watching as the rows of shops zip past, when I catch a familiar movement from the corner of my eye—the girl's hand, holding a pen of some sort.

  The hand is only visible for a moment, but it's something about the way she holds the pen.

  I'm not sure how long it is before I remember to breathe.

  The train enters a tunnel and maybe it's the change in the light that causes her to shift slightly toward the aisle. She's bending the corner of a page in the book and I can see now that it's a CHRONOS diary.

  Simon sees it, too. His elbow bumps my arm as he starts writing in the notebook again. He's grinning, and tracing over the word "BINGO," written in large letters. He underlines it several times before looking over at me.

  I stare out the window to avoid catching his eye. None of this makes sense. Kate never lived in DC. She visited twice, as a kid—once passing through with her dad on the way to visit his parents in Delaware, and once on a school trip when she was in the eighth grade. She never lived here.

  I sneak another fleeting look an
d then turn to Simon, who's still watching me.

  "The girl over there," I whisper. "Thought she was Pru for a minute. Younger Pru."

  "Yeah, well she's not."

  "It's not coincidence, though, is it? Who is she?"

  "Someone who wouldn't be here if Pru had done her job. Get your key out, I've seen what we needed to see."

  Kate looks up just after Simon speaks, and I see that she is younger, even younger than when we first met at Estero. It's a subtle difference—her face is fuller, her eyes a bit more innocent. She's wearing a school uniform of some sort—blue and green plaid.

  And then her eyes lock onto mine. I clutch the cushion of my seat, unable to look away. She doesn't look away either.

  It's almost like she recognizes me.

  Almost, but not quite. It's more like she's seen my face somewhere, and she's trying to place it. She looks confused. Frightened. And I'm worried that she has very good reason to be.

  Simon digs his elbow into my ribs and says, "Your key, Kiernan?"

  Maybe Kate hears him or maybe she's just reached the point where my eyes are making her uncomfortable. Either way, she breaks our gaze, and looks back down at the diary.

  What I want to do at that moment is run to her, pull her into my arms and never let go. Of course, that would just frighten her more, because she doesn't know me.

  And Simon is watching. So what I do instead is pull up the coordinates for the hotel and blink out.

  Simon is eyeing the stable point suspiciously when I arrive in our room.

  "What was that about?" he asks.

  "She looks too much like Pru. I'm still not sure it isn't Pru. What aren't you telling me, Simon?"

  He shrugs. "Doesn't matter. We're done, Kier. Let's get you back to Boston, back to where you belong. And I think Saul is going to be needing your key."

  ∞

  Estero, Florida

  May 30, 2030– 6:50 pm

  People who have a CHRONOS medallion can be tough to track down. It's not like they have cell phones and you can just call. You can text them, sort of, thanks to something one of Saul's guys rigged up, however, that only works if they're at Nuevo Reino. Prudence is notorious for ignoring messages, anyway, and I've no idea where she went after Saul's meeting.

  I do, however, know that she'll be in the conference room at seven p.m. on May 30, 2030, so I can make a pretty good guess as to her whereabouts just prior. Simon may have taken my official key, but he doesn't know about the backup. And since I decided to hang out down at the river the first time I jumped back for this meeting, I don't have to worry about bumping into myself.

  A few of the Templars are already in the meeting room when I blink in, but they're deep in conversation and barely give me a glance. Given how tense things are between Pru and Saul, I doubt she's in a hurry to get there. I head down the corridor to the other side of the building, hoping to catch her before she leaves Planetary Court—which isn't actually a courtyard, or even a court, just the weird name for the house where the female leaders lived back when the Koreshans were in charge. Pru adopted the place for herself a few years after Saul's arrival in 2024 when she got tired of living under her daddy's nose.

  Security will be pissed if they come this way. Someone's propped the door open with a rock. Cigarette smoke drifts through the opening and as I approach the exit, I see the source.

  It's Younger Pru, sitting on the bottom step. I can tell exactly how young because her hair is about six inches long on most of her head and shaved almost bare on one side just above a heavily bejeweled ear. There's a bead of some sort embedded in her nostril, some sort of ring in her eyebrow, and a large Cyrist symbol on her left shoulder—inked in red and black, upside down. It still looks a bit pink around the edges, so I'm guessing this is right after her sixteenth birthday.

  I didn't know her then other than to see her around the Farm a few times, but she still had faint echoes of that tattoo for the first few months we were together, before the removal treatments were finished. She said Saul was livid when she got it, and from the pleased little smirk on her face, I'd lay odds that was her goal.

  The last time I saw Pru this young, I was twelve, maybe thirteen. And even though she's much closer to sane at this age, I'm always leery of talking to her, scared I'll give something away that she doesn't know yet. Spoilers, Kate calls them. I think I did that once, because there's a day Pru and I spent together at the beach that I remember. After I mentioned it to a younger version of her, however, I also remembered that she wasn't with me that day. I think maybe she decided not to go. I only have two or three memories like that, and they make my head pound like a bloody drum, so I can only imagine what it's like for her.

  But this isn't an ordinary situation. I have to risk it.

  I push the door open, leaving the rock in place. "Hey, Pru."

  Her eyes dart in my direction for a split second and then back over toward the barn. She seems confused. "Thought you came in at the stable?"

  "No," I lie, although I guess it's only a partial lie, since this time I actually didn't jump in at the barn. Still, for her to know where I came in either time, she must have been watching the stable points through the key, waiting for me to arrive. That has me wondering why.

  "Should you…you know, be here?" I ask, looking over at the house where I suspect her older self is hanging out.

  She sniffs and stubs the cigarette out on the steps. "The old lady won't be out for another ten minutes or so. Saul's in his secret lair, meditating or eating babies, or whatever he does in there, now that he's finished going over his grand plans with the Rat Bastard."

  I haven't heard that particular nickname before, but there's no doubt she means Simon.

  Prudence doesn't much care for Simon. I get it—his personality issues aside, Simon has been her competition for as long as I've known him. He's made sucking up to Saul his sole purpose in life. And, in Pru's defense, it must be hard to feel maternal instincts for a child you never wanted, never carried, never raised, probably never even saw until he was ten and they began testing him with the key.

  At sixteen, this Pru is still a year away from pregnant, four years away from the whole egg donor thing. Even though she has to know Simon is her biological son, there's no reason for her to feel any connection to him.

  As annoyed as my mum was when I left, I know she never called me a rat bastard and despite everything, I feel a tiny twinge of sympathy for Simon. Cyrist family relations are a long way from normal.

  Pru is up and headed for the door.

  "You coming?" she asks, still not looking at me.

  "Yeah."

  I follow her inside and down the hallway. She walks briskly, taking a right at the first turn, away from the conference room and back toward the kitchen and living area.

  "Listen, Pru—I need to talk to you."

  "Not a good idea, Kiernan. You know that." She keeps walking, looking down at the floor.

  "Yes, but this involves you. It's about your sister and—"

  "God, Kiernan, how stupid are you?" she hisses, barely above a whisper. "Shut up or they'll hear you!"

  She grabs my arm and pulls me into the formal dining area. Two years back for me, maybe two forward for her, this is where we'll sit together waiting for the family dinner with Saul that never quite happens.

  Once we're inside, Pru pushes me up against the wall next to a large china hutch. Now she looks me square in the eye, motioning with her head toward the door that leads to the kitchen.

  Following her gaze, I take a slight step forward to look around the hutch. I'm starting to pick up voices beyond the closed door. They're growing louder, so they must be coming into the kitchen from the other hallway. One voice is Simon's, but I can't place the other.

  "Who is—" I begin, turning back toward her.

  I'm too late. All I see is a brief flash of green and Pru is gone.

  I bite back a curse and debate moving closer to the door. Pru seems to have gone to a bit of tro
uble to lead me here. Assuming logic where she's concerned is sometimes risky, but I don't think this was random.

  Glasses clink against the counter. I inch closer to the door so that I can hear.

  "Whoa. Easy with that stuff. I haven't eaten yet—" says the other guy. I think his name is Ronald. He's not a jumper, so he must be one of Saul's staff in this time.

  "Then have a banana or a sandwich with it. You really want to go into a conference room with Mother Prudence when you're stone sober?"

  Nervous laugh from Ron, but he doesn't say anything. A few seconds of silence follow, and I wish there was a stable point in the kitchen so that I could pull it up and see them, instead of just listening through the door.

  There's another clinking sound and then Simon says, "Listen, I know you've got mixed feelings about this. I do, too. We both know the sacrifices Prudence has made. I mean, aside from Brother Cyrus, she's given more than any of us. She's just not thinking rationally on this issue. I'm not sure she's thinking rationally about anything anymore. Brother Cyrus has been concerned for some time, even though I doubted for awhile."

  Ron mumbles something I can't quite make out.

  "True," Simon says. "I should know better than to doubt him, but I did. It was a lapse of faith. I prayed about it."

  I hold in a snort. Simon and prayer aren't well-acquainted.

  "I have a hard time disregarding Sister Prudence's wishes in this case," Ron says. "Isn't there another way? Are we certain that this is the woman in the Prophecy?"

  I don't know Ron well, but he's always struck me as a lackey. I'm a little surprised to see him showing some backbone.

  Simon doesn't sound pleased when he responds. "I think Brother Cyrus made that quite clear. Listen, he gave Prudence the chance to solve this herself. She either chose not to do it or she bungled it."

  There's a long pause, and then Ron says, "Prudence seems to think she's in danger if you do this."

  "Then maybe we should be questioning her faith, or at the very least, her judgment. Do you really think that Cyrus would put her—would put any of us, but especially her—in danger? We're his most valuable assets."