A Chronetic Perspective (The Chronography Records Book 2)

by Kim K. O'Hara

  Shock. Cold, icy shock that started at his jaw, stiffened his neck, and settled into the pit of his stomach. Marielle had— He couldn’t think the words. How could she have done this and kept it from him? He didn’t know which hurt worse. He stood up, his eyes darting for an exit. Before he could think or even breathe, he bolted for the door and ran outside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Anxiety

  NEW HARBORVIEW HOSPITAL, Seattle, WA. 0710, Monday, September 18, 2215.

  When Dani woke up the next day, she resolved to talk to Dr. Benson about checking out and continuing treatment as an outpatient. The doctor usually came by on morning rounds around 1000. Dani would be seeing her physical therapist one more time before that.

  She needed clothes to wear home. That wouldn’t be easy, to find something that fit around these sheaths. But that was only a small complication. Kat could probably help with that. Or her mom. It was strange to have her mom in town, and even stranger to think of her mom having free time to spend with her.

  It would be easier for Kat. Her door’s irisscan already recognized Kat, and it would be a simple matter to connect to it and give it permission to let her in. She made a quick call.

  “Hey, could you get me some clothes from my apartment? Something that’ll go over these sheaths?”

  “Sure. I’ll call you when I get there and you can tell me where things are.”

  Next order of business. Gather up her stuff, both medical and personal. There wasn’t much personal stuff, actually. Her clothes were in shreds. She couldn’t put on her coat or shoes until she got out of these silly hospital shorts and tunic.

  The things Dani’s mother had told her did not look good for her dad. When a man said he wanted to change things, make a threatening situation go away, it would seem, to someone who didn’t know him, that he was planning to confront the source of the threat and deal with it. It even seemed that way to Dani herself. And there was no uncertainty that the source of the threat was Drummond Morgan.

  And then there was that box that she was supposed to look at today. When Detective Rayes had described it, she knew what he was talking about. She’d seen that box in the back of the rental car when she’d had the WindoWand in her observation box. She closed her eyes to reconstruct the image. “It looks like someone’s memory box,” she had said at the time. Funny that she didn’t recognize it, but it had been years. The bracelet, she was almost sure, was the one she had been given at birth. But it was the ragged blue fabric that poked out of the box that sealed it for her. It looked like the corner of her old softee blanket, the one her mother hadn’t remembered seeing lately.

  Her dad must have taken it with him, and now she was on her way to look through the box and, if she recognized some of the objects, identify it as his. Which would, presumably, identify her father as the kidnapper. But she had no choice, unless she wanted to lie. And that was pointless, because soon they’d be delivering the ransom money to Blake Island, and then everyone would know who it was anyway.

  One thing she refused to believe: Whatever her father planned to do to Drummond Morgan, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. He could not have caused her fall at The Float.

  And one thing she was determined to do: She was going along on that trip tomorrow, whether they wanted her there or not.

  She did her morning exercises. Then she paced around the room, forcing herself to walk more than the minimum. The better she worked to get her blood going, the more likely they’d be willing to release her.

  Kat called from her apartment, and they figured out an outfit that could be split like hospital shorts to accommodate the sheaths. The weather was probably too chilly to wear pants open along the bottom half, but the sheaths should keep her legs somewhat warm. A half hour later, Kat arrived with her clothes and Jored.

  “Can you stay?”

  “Sure, we don’t have anywhere to be for a few hours or so. Want to stay, Jored?” She laughed, because he had already darted past her and was perched on the chair, a meter up into the air.

  Dr. Nebanyu came in and scanned her leg. He was pleased with her progress. “The blood flow is good. How are the exercises going?”

  “They don’t hurt any more. Do you think I can be released today?”

  He scrolled through some data on his handscanner. “There’s still a lot of work to do. Those nanobots are working their tails off in those sheaths. You have to give them time.”

  “I could walk more if I got out of here.”

  He looked up. “Well, there is that. Do you live nearby, so you could come in on an outpatient basis? You’d have to be back here in two days, for both PT and consults with your doctor and the osteoengineers. Have you talked to them yet?”

  “No, not yet.” How long was this going to take? She was eager to get out of here and back to work. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Well, talk about it with Dr. Benson. If she says it’s okay, I’ll sign off on it. But you’ll need to come in Wednesday morning at 0800 before I start my floor rounds here.”

  “I will!”

  “You can make an appointment via connexion if she approves it. Keep up with your exercises in the meantime.”

  Dani promised, and he left.

  “Wow, you are pretty desperate to get out of here,” Kat said. “What’s changed since yesterday?”

  “Detective Rayes came by. He wants me to look at something tied to the kidnapping case I was helping with.”

  Her friend looked at her sideways. “And that has you coiled like a spring to get out of here? I don’t think I’m hearing the whole story.”

  Dani stopped her pacing and sat down on the bed. She adjusted the settings to let her lean back to do the leg exercises. She pointed her left toe up at the ceiling. “He said my dad has probably been in town.”

  “Oh! How would he know that before you?”

  “Because my dad hasn’t seen fit to be in touch with me for almost eight years.” She let her leg fall to the bed with a thump. “And now he’s in town and doesn’t even go to the effort of a connexion.”

  “What? That’s…that’s…”

  Dani held up a hand to cut her off. “Now understand, he left because he was getting threats. He and my mom decided we’d all be safer if he left. Not that they asked me,” she added, bitterly. Then she thought better of it. “No, ignore that. I understand now. My fifteen-year-old self still feels miffed, though.”

  “Where’s your fifteen-year-old self?” Jored peered around, looking.

  Dani laughed. “Inside me. The part of me that doesn’t want to grow up.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to grow up? I want to grow up and be tall like Lexil.” He zoomed the chair up to the ceiling again.

  “We’d never have guessed that,” Kat said. “And remember what I said about not going up too high in that?”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry, Mom.” He lowered the chair.

  Dani watched till he was safe. Then she raised her right leg to do the same exercise. “Anyway, Detective Rayes thinks my dad’s tied into this kidnapping in some way.”

  “Your dad is the kidnapper?” Kat stood up and gaped at her. “Are you serious?”

  “I didn’t say that!” Dani snapped.

  “Oh. I thought that was what you meant.”

  “He can’t be. I won’t believe it. But I guess it’s pretty clear that he rented the helicar the kidnapper has been using to get back and forth from the island to town.”

  “What island?”

  “Blake, I think he said? Not too far away. Just north of Vashon.”

  “Oh.” Kat sat down with a thump. “I know where that is. We got close to that last weekend.”

  Jored hopped off the chair and ran around to get between them. “Mystery Island! Is it Mystery Island, Mom?”

  She nodded. “But Dani, nobody can go there. They have a some kind of EMP that activates when people get close.”

  “Makes your boat stop. We almost got stuck out there. But I remembered in time, didn�
�t I, Mom?”

  Dani frowned. “Well, I don’t know for sure that’s where he’s coming from. I guess he could be in town somewhere, or on a different island. But the ransom is supposed to be delivered to Blake Island tomorrow by noon.” She sat up. “And I plan to go along on that trip.”

  “Why?”

  “If there’s even a small chance my father is there, I want to see him. And if he is there—.” She swung her legs over the far side of the bed and stood up again, pacing along the wall by the viewglass. “If he is, they will assume he’s guilty. I need to be there. I won’t assume that.”

  “But Dani, what if he is guilty?”

  “Then I should be there to talk to him, so he doesn’t get killed or something. Maybe there’s a little bit of love left, and he’ll give up for me before he gets hurt.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “I’ve waited too long to lose him now.”

  Kat walked over and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  Dani hugged her back. “You’re better at this than I was when you found out about your uncle.”

  “Ha. You’re probably right. But I wasn’t really willing to talk about it, so I don’t blame you.”

  “For what it’s worth, I understand now.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  They walked back to the other side of the room to sit down again.

  “Are you done with your funny exercises, Dani?” Jored asked.

  “For now.”

  “’Cause the doctor lady is here.”

  The door whooshed open—Dani was getting tired of that sound—and Dr. Benson came in. She smiled broadly when she saw Dani sitting up. “Oh my! Quite a change from Friday! This is good.”

  The doctor scanned her legs—everybody had a scanner, it seemed—and nodded approvingly. “How are you feeling?”

  “I want to get out of here. I’ve been doing my exercises. I can walk—a little more slowly than normal, but I can do it. I can shower and stuff without help. Is there anything else I need to do before I go?”

  “Hmm. We haven’t had you talk to the osteoengineers yet, have we? For instructions on operating those sheaths?”

  “They have to be operated? I thought they just followed the programming.”

  “They may have to send you updated programming as your condition changes. They can do that for you, if you stay here, but you’ll have to know how to do it yourself if you leave. Or they may want you to come in every day or two.”

  “I can do that. I already promised Dr. Nebanyu I’d be back to see him Wednesday morning.”

  “Oh, you were that sure of yourself, were you?”

  Dani looked down at the floor, a little guiltily. “Uh, no. He said if you said it was okay, I had to promise to come see him. So I did. And I will. If it’s, uh, okay with you?”

  The doctor raised one eyebrow. “We’ll see. Let me get one of the engineers to come see you. I’ll be back in a bit, after I see a couple of other patients.” She whooshed back out the door.

  Dani lay back on the bed with a deep sigh, crossing her arms across her forehead. “I hope this works out. I hate waiting.”

  “Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee?” Kat asked. “They’ve got a machine on the next floor down.”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Can I stay with Dani?” Her son was back on his perch.

  “Yes, you may,” Kat corrected automatically. “If Dani says yes.”

  Dani nodded, and Kat left.

  “You’ll be there, you know,” Jored said softly.

  She dropped her arms to one side and rolled to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “On the island. You’ll be there. I saw you last night in my dream. On the main ribbon. This one.”

  She sat up. “What else did you see? Did you see Mr. Morgan? Or my dad?” Somewhere along the way, she had crossed the line to trusting what Jored saw in his dreams. Or whatever they were.

  “I don’t know who they are. I only know you. And you were with a pretty lady. She had black hair.”

  “How did we get onto the island, if there’s that EMP thing there?”

  “I didn’t look at that.” A sheepish look crept over his face. “I was looking at the pretty lady.”

  Of course. First Lexil, and now her seven-year-old buddy. She had to admit, she wasn’t liking Althea very much at the moment.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “I can look tonight, if you want me to.”

  That’s right. They had one more night before the ransom was due. Maybe he could see something that would help. “Do you dream every night?”

  “Almost. What do you want me to look for?”

  What would be the most useful? She considered that angle for only a few seconds before she gave in and asked the real question—the question that hadn’t left her mind since the detective had come to see her. “Can you find my father and tell me what he’s been doing this last week?” These last eight years, she added silently. But she knew he couldn’t look at all that in one night.

  “I can’t.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “I don’t know him. I told you, remember?”

  “That’s right. I do remember. But you saw something about Dr. Brant? Wasn’t that the first time you had met her?”

  “Oh, yeah. But I know Uncle Royce. I visit his ribbon a lot. He was with her. He’s not very happy where he is, is he, Dani? But he’ll be back soon. My mom’s going to get him tomorrow.”

  “She is? She didn’t say anything about that.”

  “I don’t think she knows. I don’t tell her the things I tell you.”

  That started a whole new train of thought. If Jored saw a future happening, and told her about it, and then her own actions changed as a result, could she change the timestream? She resolved to be a little more careful with what she asked the boy.

  Kat came back with the coffee. “Just the way you like it.”

  Almost on her heels, Dr. Benson arrived with a man carrying a holographic projector. “This is Egan Dool. He’s one of the engineers on your team. Once he’s done with you, you can go ahead and get dressed and we’ll let you go. I’ll have a nurse send you your instructions with eyescreen reminders you can set up if you want. And then I guess I’ll see you Wednesday morning.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Benson. I really appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad we could get you fixed up so fast.”

  It took Egan two minutes to set the projector up. “Here’s an image of your sheath. It’s not the latest model, but we’ve had lots of success with it. It’s an amazing piece of equipment! Do you want all the details or just an overview?”

  His voice fell on the last part. He was probably used to being told that an overview was plenty. But he clearly loved his work, and he reminded Dani of herself when someone got her talking about chronography.

  “Tell us everything,” she said, even though she would probably understand only half of it.

  Ten minutes of enthusastic demonstrations later, Dani had grasped the basics of the sheath’s operation, and retained all the important stuff: Don’t get it wet. Here’s how to check progress and install new programs. Frame is a Faraday cage to shield from outside interference and hacking.

  She had to stop him at that. “Hacking? You mean someone could reprogram my legs?”

  “No, no. You’re quite safe. Maybe 100 years ago, you’d have been at risk. We were using them without Faraday frames and there were some incidents.”

  “What kind of incidents?”

  “The kind that set the whole field of nanotech back decades. Did you know nanites can attack your DNA and change it?”

  “That’s so cool!”

  Dani jumped. She hadn’t realized Jored was so close behind her.

  “Yeah, kid, it was. Amazing stuff. Powerful. Hacking nanites was, shall we say, a very attractive kind of criminal behavior. But we’re a lot smarter now.”

  He wasn’t doing much to put her mind at ease. “What h
appens when I get the sheath off? Will the nanites still be in my legs? Can they be hacked, then?”

  “No, really. You don’t have to worry. We program them to deactivate, and they’re flushed out of your system with sweat. And then we remove the sheaths.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.” She was still a little doubtful. “Another question: How do you osteoengineers know how well my leg is healing if you can’t get remote access? The frame would block any kind of signal, wouldn’t it? Sorry if these are stupid questions. I’ve never had a serious injury before.”

  “It’s no trouble. We want you to be able to take care of yourself for the next few days while the nanites finish their work. And to answer your question, when we need to update the programming, we insert an access device.”

  After a few more questions, Egan deemed her ready to go. With that final approval in place, Dani was formally discharged and Kat and Jored helped her to the car.

  Jored wiggled into his seat in the back. It adjusted to his size and shape. “Wow. I want to program nanites when I grow up.”

  His mom eyed him skeptically. “I thought you wanted to be a scientist like Dani.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I want to do both. I can do that, can’t I, Dani?”

  “Whatever you want, bud.”

  He settled back against the seat, satisfied.

  Kat got in behind the controls. “Where are we going? Do you want me to drop you off at your place, so you can get your own car?”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry to take so much of your day. You probably have plans.”

  “Not for a while yet. So it’s fine either way. We can be your chauffeurs or take you home. Which do you prefer?”

  “I’d like the company, if you really don’t mind. And I’m not sure how easy driving will be with this sheath.”

  “Looks like it would be hard. Are we heading for the police station, then?”

  “Let me call Detective Rayes. He may want to bring the box to the lab so somebody—not me; he won’t let me do it—can put some of the items in an observation box and search for clues.”

  As Kat raised the helicar into the air, Dani activated the call using her eyescreen. Detective Rayes answered immediately. “I’m already at the lab. We’re getting stuff set up with an intern here. Smart young man.”