A Chronetic Perspective (The Chronography Records Book 2)

by Kim K. O'Hara

  Althea raked her hair with her fingers. It fell back perfectly into place. “My mother and I haven’t had to worry about things like this in Sydney. Things are pretty calm there. Before we left this area, there were incidents, of course, but my father handled all of that.”

  Dani was still wondering how she got her hair to behave so well. “I’m going back upstairs to finish up some reports. Would you like to come along?”

  “I’ll walk you up,” the detective said.

  “Oh, not yet.” Althea walked forward to where she could see through the plastiglass of the Special Projects lab, where Lexil was working. “I wanted to visit Lex first. But make sure you’re available later. I’m going to take you with me to go out when my bodyguard gets here. But you don’t have to come get me. I’ll find my way up there. Or ask my boy to take me.”

  Her “boy” looked up and saw them. His eyes went from Dani to Althea, and a big smile broke out across his face. Dani felt a twinge of regret at having passed up something with Lexil, something that could have been good. But how deep could his feelings be if he was willing to be Althea’s “boy” so quickly?

  He was heading their way.

  “All right. I’ll see you later.”

  She followed Detective Rayes down the hall, willing herself to look straight ahead, resisting the impulse to look back over her shoulder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Complicity

  WALLACE HOME, Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, WA. 0940, Thursday, September 14, 2215.

  The oilskin bag sat, still unopened, under the kitchen table. Kat had really meant to go through it the night before with Marak, but when she and Jored had finally gotten home from the boat trip, Marak was home already and had started dinner. Then Jored wanted a game, and Marak challenged the two of them to a card war.

  In short, the evening had gotten away from her.

  But now Marak was at work and Jored at school, and it was still a few hours before Kat had to leave for the office herself.

  She eyed the bag. “Let’s see what secrets you’ve got.”

  The first thing she pulled out of the bag was a folder, bent on the edges. Inside the folder were five loose sheets of paper, carefully lettered with categories and numerical codes. She leafed through them and set them aside for later. Underneath the folder were hundreds of memory rods, banded together in groups. How was she ever going to find what her uncle sent her for?

  She picked up one group of three rods to examine. Each rod had a six digit number written on it. She opened the folder again. Under each category, the numerical codes also had six digits. She scanned the category names on the first sheet. Drug dealers. Drug users. Infidelity. Corporate espionage. Criminal connections. Crime in the family. Terrorist connections. When Kat realized what she was looking at, she dropped the papers and memory rods and leapt up as if they had burned her fingers. She shook her hands in disgust and walked to the other side of the room.

  He can’t believe I’d have anything to do with this!

  Did he know so little about her? It was as if he were throwing all his twisted evil in her face, invading her kitchen with the sordidness of blackmail. She didn’t want to know anybody’s dark secrets.

  Maybe he just wants me to get rid of them. But no, he’d signaled with such urgency. Indicated pretty clearly that something in the bag would help to get him released.

  Reluctantly, she picked up the folder again. The first paper had categories of crimes. The second paper had numbers listed by amounts of money—blackmail amounts, perhaps, or the net worth of the people being blackmailed.

  All these people had been suddenly freed from her uncle’s demands. What relief they must have felt! She looked again at the first page. These people were all criminals too, in one form or another. Weird thing about blackmail: It only preyed on people who had something to hide.

  The third page was a table of dates, with the six-digit codes listed across from them. The earliest was almost ten years ago. Dates of the recordings, perhaps. Or dates of first contact, or first payment.

  What had he meant for her to do with these?

  She turned to the fourth page and caught her breath. Here was the answer, if she chose to use it. The fourth page was classified by profession, and right at the top were senators and judges. She stared at the page for long minutes, weighing the costs if she did, weighing the price if she didn’t. She felt dirty even thinking about it. But what if the stability of the timestream was really at risk? She had no reason to doubt Lexil and Dani’s work. If anyone would know, they would know.

  She could not make a decision like this without Marak. She tucked the papers in the folder, and the folder in the bag. She took it in the bedroom and shoved it in the back corner of her closet.

  And then she went and washed her hands, again and again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Anti-Gravity

  RIACH LABORATORIES, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1612, Thursday, September 14, 2215.

  “I’m having trouble believing that. You’ve lived in Seattle for almost a year, and you’ve never gone shopping at The Float?” Althea had made her way to the second floor and found Dani’s work area without any trouble. Now she was busy planning their evening.

  Dani shrugged. “There are other things to do besides shopping, you know. And The Float isn’t actually in Seattle anyway.”

  “Close enough, Bellevue. Twenty minutes from here by helicar. That’s it. You’re going.”

  “I thought I was supposed to be showing you around.”

  Althea laughed. “It’s been a lot of years since I lived here, but some things you never forget.”

  Dani was glad to see her new friend in good spirits again. Being with Lexil and the gang down in Special Projects must have lifted her mood. They were good for that—a great group to work with.

  She hated to be the one to dampen Althea’s enthusiasm, but wasn’t she holed up here for safety?

  “We’re not going anywhere until your bodyguard gets here.”

  “Oh, he’s on his way. He finished his other assignment an hour ago, and he’ll be ours for the rest of the evening. C’mon, Dani. You can’t be such a Timid Tim. You’ve got to live a little.”

  The reference to the popular childhood cartoon made Dani smile. And moving between display floors in the anti-gravity tubes that gave The Float its name—well, she had always meant to do that someday. Might as well be today. Besides, it might be good for Althea to have someone a little more cautious along.

  “We’ll see what your bodyguard says when he gets here. I’ll go with you if he approves it.”

  “He will.”

  Dani’s eyescreen signaled an incoming call, and soon they were on their way down to meet the bodyguard.

  “Doyle Darry. I’m with Secure Guard, Inc.” He held out his hand to to Althea. “Miss Morgan.” She shook it.

  Dani gave him a once-over. He was professionally dressed in a dark blue suit, which did little to hide the defined muscles beneath. He looked to be about forty years old, with close-cropped hair and bronze skin the color of a harvest moon. He fit the part of a bodyguard to a tee, but just to be sure, she asked, “May we see your credentials?”

  A smile flickered across his face. “Of course.” He extracted an identification badge from his inner jacket pocket. The validation symbol, keyed to his individual biometrics, shone blue. He was who he claimed to be.

  “I’ve known Althea since she was a toddler. Her father has called on us numerous times to guard her safety and his.” He turned back to Althea. “The last time I saw you, your hair was curly and tinted purple. A lot has happened in the last seven years, hasn’t it?”

  “That was just a phase I was going through. I got rid of the curls right after we moved. I still change my hair color once or twice a year, though.”

  “The purple made you easy to follow.”

  “As if anyone could escape your eagle eye.” She turned to Dani. “He’s the best. Can we go now?”

 
; “Let’s ask him. Mr. Darry—”

  “Call me Doyle.”

  “Okay, Doyle. She wants to go to The Float and go shopping.”

  “That should be fine. We’ve escorted many clients safely through there. They have cams we can monitor from the home office, and they’ll let me know if there’s any indicators of hostility in the crowd. Do you want to go right away?”

  “Yes. We’ve been waiting for you. Are you ready, Dani?”

  THE FLOAT SHOPPING TOWER, Bellevue, WA. 1731, Thursday, September 14, 2215.

  Happily, none of the stores in The Float offered champagne as part of the shopping experience. Dani had to admit that the trip was nowhere near as fun as the first one, but with her wits about her, she was even more impressed with Althea’s knowledge of fashion and fabric.

  After her initial protests about Althea buying any more clothing for her, Dani finally gave in when her friend said, “You wouldn’t buy anything otherwise, and I’d be bored if I only got to buy for myself. Besides, I like to spend money. Especially my dad’s money. He won’t miss it, I promise.”

  She had a knack for knowing exactly the right cut and color of garments to pull off the racks. Of all the items she coaxed Dani to try on, only one didn’t make her stop and stare with mild astonishment at her own holographic image.

  “You’re giving me a whole new look, you realize.”

  “That’s definitely the idea. You’ll have your pick of men—don’t pretend you wouldn’t like that—and you’ll charm your way right up the ladder at the institute. The trick is in accentuating all your positive attributes and minimizing the less desirable parts.”

  “That’s pretty cynical. Are you the kind of cynic who thinks a person’s appearance is the only thing that matters? You realize ability is a lot more important than looks at a scientific institute, right?”

  “Oh, sweetie. You misunderstand me. None of this is for anyone else’s eyes. It’s for how it will make you feel. When you feel fabulous, you’ll have a whole different outlook on life, and it’ll show in everything you do. Nobody can resist that kind of confidence, and nobody should.”

  So Dani let her suggest more and more outfits and accessories. Each time they approached the dressing rooms, Doyle had a quiet word with the attendant, who efficiently cleared out an entire wing of the rooms. He carefully checked each one. Then he allowed them to enter two of them while he stationed himself outside, a sentinel protecting their safety.

  And every time they had an armful of purchases, They went to the delivery tube, which packaged up their purchases and shot them skyward toward a waiting helicar. The delivery vehicle would fly the packages directly to similar tubes waiting at Dani’s apartment building and Althea’s hotel. The delivery service itself was way too expensive for Dani’s normal budget. She’d never even used the tube before for anything but fast-food deliveries. But it would be fun to get home and have seventeen new outfits waiting, each with the perfect accessories. Nineteen, if these last two combinations looked as good as the others. She’d lost count of the ones Althea bought for herself, but it had to be at least as many as she had bought for Dani.

  “Do you ever get tired of shopping?”

  “Never!” Althea smirked. “No, that’s not true. When I’m alone, it’s not nearly as much fun, and sometimes I just decide not to go. I can’t always find someone who is as willing as you have been to let me redesign your whole wardrobe.”

  “No, I mean, do you ever get tired of shopping for the day? Would you stay here till the stores closed if I didn’t say anything?”

  “Are you getting hungry again?”

  “No, just tired.”

  “Are you sure? There must be twenty or thirty stores we haven’t tried yet.”

  Dani realized she was being teased. “We could ask Doyle to have a word with the managers and ask them to stay a couple of hours past closing.”

  “He could probably pull it off.”

  “He probably could. But no, after we buy these two outfits, and your three, I think I’m ready to go home.”

  By this time, they’d worked out the routine on the anti-grav tubes. Doyle would stand guard until they entered their individual cylinders, ensure the doors were firmly locked, and then step into his own and swipe the panel to initiate the ascent or descent. He always waved cheerily as his platform retracted back into the wall, poised for just a moment in the air, and then disappeared from view as the faint 1% gravity took hold. Dani wasn’t fooled by his cheerfulness. It was a pleasant veneer over a professional core. She guessed that he had been hand-selected for his good humor because the young woman beside her wouldn’t have tolerated him all these years otherwise.

  After allowing him thirty seconds, she and Althea would swipe their own panels, and when they arrived at whatever floor they were aiming for, he’d be there, waiting for them.

  They’d used the tubes five or six times by now, sometimes for short one-floor trips, sometimes for longer ones. The thrill of feeling weightless had not lost its novelty for Dani, and she knew Althea was enjoying her expressions, because she’d asked Doyle to check the cams later to get close-up holograms of their landings on the longer trips.

  “You’ll want to see these later and laugh at yourself. It was a tradition when I was young. No reason why you can’t join in on the fun, even though you went to school somewhere else.”

  They dropped off the last of their purchases at the delivery tube and walked back to the anti-grav cylinders for their last ride of the night.

  “Thanks for asking me to come along.”

  “You had fun, didn’t you? Admit it.”

  “I did. But I’m glad we’re going home.”

  Their final fall was going to be the longest—from the seventh floor to the first.

  Althea nudged her over toward the last tube. “You have to take the outside tube this time. The view of the mountains is spectacular. And no, I’m not going to listen to any excuses.”

  Althea had been claiming the outer tube all night, which had been fine with Dani. She was just getting used to the idea of floating down through clothing and furniture by now, and she wasn’t sure how she’d feel about the illusion of hanging out in midair with a scenic view of the whole city and the mountains beyond. “Are you sure you don’t want it? You like that one.”

  “No, you take it. This is your last chance to see the scenery. You can’t go back and say you’ve gone to The Float and not taken a ride in the outer tube.”

  Well, okay, if she put it that way.

  Doyle waited while they secured themselves, checked the doors, and then waved as he floated out of sight. Because the tubes were soundproof, they both counted down on their fingers for the last few seconds—five, four, three, two, one—and they swiped their panels simultaneously.

  But Dani knew, as soon as they started their descent, that this ride would be different. The anti-gravity field stuttered in intermittent bursts, catching, holding, releasing, and they were falling much faster than the constant 1% gravity setting standard on descent tubes. Her frantic swipes at the panel to restore the platform or stabilize the anti-grav field did nothing.

  The slick walls of the tube gave no purchase for her hands. A micro-second glance at Althea showed that she was just as frantic. They passed the sixth floor, and then the fifth. The fourth and third floors flew by even more quickly, and Dani could do nothing but brace herself for the impact, leaving her knees slightly bent to minimize the jolt and wrapping her arms around her head to cushion it.

  She saw Doyle’s shocked face as her feet hit the ground and gravity yanked her body to the floor.

  And then, mercifully, she blacked out.

  DANI’S UNCONSCIOUS MIND.

  Dani felt no pain. This was only remarkable because she had a vague idea that she should be hurting for some reason. But she couldn’t worry about it; she was too distracted by sparks and filaments of light, ribbons that twined around her. She was standing on…nothing. How strange that she couldn’t f
eel anything with her feet. No pressure, no sensation. She had read somewhere of a sense called proprioception—the ability to know where your hands and feet were even in the darkness. She didn’t have that sense at the moment. She wasn’t sure she had feet.

  Or eyes, for that matter. How was she seeing without eyes? It reminded her of the images that danced across her eyelids when she squeezed them shut. She tried relaxing her eyes, but she didn’t have any sense of having eyes, or a face, for that matter. Yet somehow, she was perceiving all this.

  She focused on one of the ribbons. It grew—although she couldn’t tell whether it was growing closer or larger—and she was amused to see tiny figures inside. People. She noticed that one part of the ribbon branched off from another. At the end of the branch, it burned brightly, but it wasn’t consumed. She backtracked away from the brightness. By experimenting, she found that even though she had no hands to reach with, she could reach by willing the ribbons to grow closer/larger. She couldn’t tell which, and it didn’t matter.

  She turned her attention away from the branch to the main ribbon. It ran straighter than the branch, and continued as far as she could focus. She’d come back to that one later. As soon as she made the decision, the main ribbon faded and the branching ribbon returned.

  She ran her focus back along it. The figures inside grew enough to be recognizable, and she gasped without sound. That was Kat…walking backwards? But no, when she ran her focus in the other direction, Kat walked normally. Her house took shape around her. She laughed with Marak. Dani saw herself there too, a little further on, bringing chocolate truffles, and then running down a hall and screaming. Interesting, that she could hear without ears.

  Odd. She had never lived those events.

  But as she watched, something nagged at her, like a memory that never was. Familiarity, as if she had, in fact, witnessed and taken part in the life playing out on the line before her.