Departure

by A. G. Riddle

  The only person not working the panels is Yul. He stands in the center of the room, deep in thought.

  “You know what all this means, don’t you?” I ask him.

  He glances up at me slowly. Reluctantly, he nods. I can’t tell if it’s guilt or fear in his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Nick

  GRAYSON, HARPER, AND SABRINA TURN AWAY FROM THE frosted glass panels to focus on Yul and me in the center of the room.

  I step closer to Yul. “You said you’d give us answers after Titan Hall. What happened here, Yul?”

  “I only know about some parts.”

  “Which parts?”

  “Q-net.”

  “What about it?” I ask.

  “I created it.”

  Interesting. “I thought the Titans did.”

  “I’ve been working on it for years. I think the Titans only invested in it, provided the money, to make it accessible to everyone.”

  “What is it?”

  “A quantum network, a new Internet. It’s a way to move data around the globe instantaneously, using quantum entanglement. It will revolutionize computing. Or rather, it did revolutionize computing.

  “It was all experimental until a week ago—a week ago our time—when the first Q-net nodes went active. For months I’ve had this problem with data corruption. Every time I sent a burst of data, it came out wrong on the other end. There was a pattern to the corruption, so I wrote an algorithm to filter it out. When I looked at the data the filter had extracted, I realized it was organized.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It was a message.”

  “From?”

  “The future. Now.”

  Yul’s words hang in the glass room for a second.

  “The sender claimed to be from the year 2147,” he presses on. “I thought the stress had finally gotten to me. I took a day off, went to the doctor, got a full workup. I was fine. The next messages proved beyond a doubt that they were from the future.”

  “How?”

  “They predicted events that would happen the next day. The exact vote tallies for parliamentary elections in Poland, for example—right down to the votes cast for every candidate for every office. The arrival times, down to the minute, of every flight that landed that day all around the globe, including every delayed and canceled flight. A few days went by, me demanding proof again and again, them answering correctly every time.”

  “How’s that possible—messages from the future?”

  “They were altering entangled particles that existed in their time, organizing them to make a readable message in our time.”

  Oh, now that makes sense.

  Yul reads the expressions around the room and spreads his hands like a high school science teacher giving the complex lecture that’s over his students’ heads, the one he dreads every year.

  “Imagine we’re back on the beach we just saw, but we’re in the year 2147. Imagine we can put on a special glove, and when we reach down to touch the grains of sand on our beach in 2147, it makes a copy of that beach, in every instant in which it’s ever existed. There’s a string that reaches across space-time, connecting the grains of sand on our beach to those same grains on that beach in every other moment. We can adjust its length, choosing which beach our string connects to. So now the grains of sand on our beach in 2147 are connected to the same grains on the same beach in 2015. We bend down and draw a message in the sand, and it appears in 2015. I saw that message—on my beach in the past. That shared beach is Q-net, and the data on my hard drive, the digital bits, they’re the grains of sand. Because this was the first moment that Q-net existed in our time, it was their first opportunity to send a message back—this was the first instant when the quantum particles that form the network became entangled. Those particles are the grains of sand in the analogy.”

  The four of us just stare at Yul, no one quite sure what to say. Grains of sand on a quantum beach? I’m so far out of my league here. I ask the question that seems most relevant: “What did the sender want?”

  “To help us. They told me that a global catastrophe was imminent, an event that would cause the near extinction of the human race, an event they had barely lived through and were trying to prevent. They asked me to contact Sabrina, whom I didn’t know. I was asked to pass a series of instructions to her. They didn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Nor to me, at first,” Sabrina says. “Then I realized what it was: a breakthrough in my research—a new treatment.”

  “For?”

  “Progeria syndrome.”

  Now that surprises me. Since we reached London, I’ve nursed a theory about how humanity might have vanished from the face of the earth: a pandemic. To me, it’s the most viable theory as to how the human race could have fallen so far, so fast. My suspicion was that Sabrina, more than Yul, was connected to it. But this doesn’t add up.

  “I assumed you worked in infectious diseases,” I say to Sabrina, unable to hide my suspicion.

  “I don’t. Never have.” Sabrina pauses, searching for the right words. “That was, however, a logical assumption, given what we’ve seen.”

  “Progeria syndrome . . .” I whisper, trying to reconcile the information with my working theory.

  “It’s an extremely rare genetic condition that causes premature aging. Affected individuals die of old age in their teens. The messages asked me to take several actions, what I believed were preventive measures against some biological event: an outbreak or mass mutation, perhaps. I believed I was distributing a vaccine that might propagate, saving the human population in 2015. It seems, however, that I was only inoculating some of the passengers on the plane.”

  It takes me a few seconds to process that. Everyone’s studying the dark floor, trying to wrap their heads around it. Finally Yul breaks the silence.

  “I also received instructions. Schematics. I used them to build a device they said would allow enhanced communications. Both of us”—he motions to Sabrina—“were told to come to London, and that we’d receive another message when we landed.”

  “That’s why you wanted to come to London, even after the crash?”

  “Yes,” Yul says. “Those were our last instructions. They were all we had to go on.”

  “The device you built—you think it crashed the plane, or played a role in bringing us here?”

  “I’ve . . . entertained the idea. The plane broke apart roughly where my carry-on was. The device, however, survived the crash unharmed.”

  “You’ve been working on that device since the crash?” I ask.

  “No. I’ve been trying to connect to Q-net, to make contact with them.”

  “And?”

  “Q-net is different now. The protocols have changed. It’s like dial-up in the nineties: every time I connect, I get booted off instantly. My hardware is okay. It’s like I don’t have the right software. The data packets I’m sending aren’t formatted correctly, and I have no guide to how they should be formatted.”

  I consider that for a moment. “Or they are formatted correctly, but someone’s trying to keep you off. Maybe connecting would reveal your location, endanger you.”

  “True,” Yul says.

  “How long have you known we were in the future?” I ask. It’s not strictly relevant, but it’s a hot button for me. I feel we could have saved some time, and maybe even lives, if Yul had at least told some of us, enlisted help earlier.

  “The first night,” Yul says. “The stars. At first I thought the crash event could have caused a widespread blackout, eliminating all the light pollution. The first clue was that the international space station was gone. Where it should have been I saw a large, lighted ring in orbit. That’s how I knew we were in a different time completely.”

  “And you told no one?”

  Yul shrugged. “Who would have believed me? You?”

  I can see where this is going. There’s no time for replay or the blame game. We need to focus. I wonder if we
should move. We’ve been here too long . . . but the panels might reveal details we still need. I motion to the cracked, spray-painted panels.

  “You think the Titans sent the messages?”

  “I don’t know,” Yul says. “They were involved in Q-net, and seemingly in the catastrophe that occurred. In 2015 the senders identified themselves only as the Friends of Humanity. For all I know, it could have been the Titans’ enemies; they seem to be at war.”

  “The question, to me,” Sabrina says, “is why it took the . . . rescue teams four days to reach the crash site.”

  “Yes. Very curious. When I returned from Stonehenge, two factions were at war. What were the tents? Some kind of medical experiment?”

  “Perhaps. I’m only certain of one thing: they were treating the passengers for wounds.” Sabrina glances at Harper. “And doing an excellent job.”

  Through the doorway, I hear footsteps. The intro restarting?

  I open my mouth to ask another question, but stop. Figures. In the doorway. Suited. The beings from the crash site. They stop ten feet from us. No one moves. I glance behind me, desperately hoping someone activated another simulation from the menu.

  The closest figure raises his arm, pointing it toward us.

  No, it’s not a simulation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Nick

  TIME STANDS STILL IN THIS GLASS-PANELED ROOM, DEEP inside Titan Hall. No one moves. Yul and I stand closest to the two suited creatures. Harper, Grayson, and Sabrina are behind us, still near the panels where they explored Titan history.

  Up close, the suits appear to be made of small, overlapping tiles, like a reptile’s scales. They shine slightly, like milky glass, but I imagine they’re made of a polymer we haven’t invented yet. Every inch of the helmets is covered in these milky scales—no opening for eyes, mouth, or nose. The lack of any semblance of a face make these beings look even more alien.

  There’s only one play here. I begin to reach for my handgun. I’ll get one shot—

  “Don’t.”

  The voice emanating from the suit is a computerized imitation of a human voice, neither male nor female, devoid of any intonation or hint of emotion. It makes my skin crawl. It continues before anyone can act. “We’re not here to harm you.”

  “What are you here for?” I ask.

  “To help you,” the voice answers.

  “Is that why you brought our plane here?”

  “Yes.”

  And there it is: they did this. For the past five days, we’ve been like rats in their postapocalyptic maze, struggling, scurrying, scratching to survive. Rage burns inside me. “Cut the shit. You brought us here to help yourselves.”

  “You’re here to help both of us. We can’t talk here. You have to come with us right now.”

  Too risky. Way too risky. “Take the suits off first.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not?” Why would they need suits, when we don’t? I’m not liking this.

  “You have to trust us, Nick. We don’t have time to debate.”

  It knows my name. And the voice . . . despite its computer camouflage, I know that voice. How? Who?

  A low drone rumbles above us, growing louder. I glance up, trying to place it. My mouth goes dry. I know that sound. It’s an airship, the same type that raided the crash site.

  The figures disappear without moving, their camouflage activated. I hear only their echoing footsteps pounding the frosted glass floor. The neutral computerized voice, disembodied in the dark cavern, calls back to us. “Stay here.”

  Grayson and I draw our guns. I glance around the group. Going by the look on their faces, not a single person favors staying here.

  We charge out of the small room, through the first chamber where the Titan history lesson played, and out into the reception area. Through the cracked wooden double doors, I see flashes in the night, what look like targeted laser blasts from two airships battling each other. Some of the vegetation is already burning, sending thick black smoke into the air. That’s the cover we need.

  I turn to the group, my eyes on Harper, who is clutching the two notebooks to her chest, and flash back to that day on the lake bank, when my eyes met hers as the plane was sinking, when we stood on the precipice together, ready to wade into the breach. A strange, almost intoxicating combination of fear and excitement, a feeling that I never knew existed until five nights ago, washes over me.

  Through the crack in the wooden doors, I watch the symphony of light and destruction playing out in the overgrown park, like a laser light show in Central Park. Shots rain from the sky. Fire reaches up like a crowd responding. The darkness flows toward us as thick black tendrils of smoke curl around the building. Time slows down, and my senses intensify. I feel a preternatural focus come over me.

  In slow motion, I watch Yul secure his bag. Sabrina stands still as a statue, gazing at the destruction outside. Fear clouds Grayson’s face as he glances between the gun in his hand and the battle outside. Harper pulls her shirt up and tucks the two skinny books against her abs, securing them at the bottom with her waistband. She nods at me once, silently saying, I’m ready.

  I turn to the group, speaking quickly. “Follow my lead. Grayson, bring up the rear, and shoot anything that shimmers. If we’re separated, run away from the ships and make your way to . . .” I pause. I don’t like it, but there’s only one place I’m sure everyone knows. “To Harper’s flat. Wait twenty minutes for any others, then move on in case they find it.”

  I push the door open. The focused firing from the two ships above slows as shots rise from cloaked figures below, the one-sided assault transforming into a back-and-forth. The quiet, overgrown park is now a full-on jungle war zone. Several large fires burn hot and bright, converging on one another, their black smoke rising, blotting out the airships as smaller clouds cover Titan Hall. Through the smoke screen, I hear quick, pulsing blasts. Every few seconds an explosion blows a wall of force and smoke toward us.

  I wade into the black cloud of smoke and break right. Behind us a bomb hits the structure, spraying us with fragments of stone and wood. I glance back, making sure no one is hit. I see only grimaces and determined looks.

  The dense vegetation was a nuisance on the way in. Now it’s a current fighting our every move, trying to pull us in. A fallen tree lies at an angle, and I try to slip below it, but the brush is too thick, tangled into an organic mesh fence. I back out, climb, and tumble over, waiting for the others, helping them down. I bound forward over the next wall of green, limbs and thorny brush scratching my face and hands. Four ships are above us now, pounding each other at close range, none giving an inch.

  Sabrina makes it over the web of fallen trees and vines, then Yul.

  Behind us, I hear a scream through the smoke. Harper.

  I jump and spin back over the vine-covered tree, rushing toward her.

  She braces herself on a trunk, reaching for her abdomen. Her eyes meet mine for a second, then she spins around as another shot hits her. She disappears into the undergrowth, swallowed by the green ocean. Grayson is twenty feet behind her, and he turns, firing wildly into the woods. The smoke is clearing now as the battle shifts to the air.

  One of Grayson’s shots connects. A shimmering figure, not ten feet from him, reels back into a tree. It flickers as it slides to the ground, falls forward, and lies there, a glittering hump of dull glass against the foliage.

  “Harper!” I yell.

  Grayson turns to me, and I’m about to call to him when a rapid barrage of fire fills the air, pressing down on us. It’s deafening, disorienting. I slip my gun in my jacket as trees bend and shatter all around me. A ship barrels down through the black cloud, nose first, right for me.

  I turn, stagger to my left, fall, and push myself up, leaping across branches, climbing over everything in my path. The trees and brush cut my hands, arms, and face, but I push on, clawing for every inch. The ground below me booms and disappears. I’m thrown ten feet forward
into a vine-covered tree. The ship is bulldozing the overgrown park, throwing dirt, plants, and bits of trees into the air.

  There’s no use running anymore. I’m just one of the pieces of debris riding a wave of scorched earth. Just when I think it might stop, the ship explodes, launching me again into the air, much farther this time.

  I land in a sharp, prickly bed of green, my head spinning. My hearing is gone. My limbs are numb. I sit up, but my head’s spinning. Have to get up. The fallen airship burns. Smoke fills the space from me to it. Harper. She’s right beside it. Fire will burn her. They will get her.

  I blink. Can’t keep my eyes open. Have to.

  Focus.

  In the air above, the chorus of death and destruction still plays, silent now, flashes through the clouds of smoke, ships moving, semi-synchronized, lighting each other up.

  I roll onto my stomach and push up, standing for a second, but I can’t control my body. It plummets back down to the ground as if a magnet’s pulling my midsection. I close my eyes, but the spinning gets worse.

  A faint sensation. For a few seconds, I can’t place it. Then I realize what it is.

  Hands, gripping me, dragging me through the park.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Nick

  I AWAKE IN DARKNESS, TO THE SOUND OF bottles clinking in the distance.

  My body is battered and sore, but hey, what’s new? The headache is ruthless, but my biggest concern is my left arm, which I must have landed on during the mayhem at Titan Hall. I was too pulverized to notice at the time. A single finger touching my elbow sends a radiating wave of pain.

  I reach for my jacket pocket, hoping . . . but the handgun is gone. The binoculars are in my other pocket. Still there. Yes, my captor removed the gun. Not an entirely positive sign.

  I have one good arm to fight with and no information to go on. Wounded and uninformed: the theme of my life since Flight 305 crashed.

  I wait for my eyes to adjust, to get a glimpse of where I am, but it never comes. The darkness is absolute. I’m indoors, I know that. The floor is hard and there’s no wind; it’s cold, but not unbearable.