by Rysa Walker
“Mom’s phone is still going at nine twenty-five. Around nine thirty Kiernan will grab her phone and—” Smash it? Turn it off? He never said which. “And he’ll disable it. Somehow. At that point, you need to be ready to come in the side door. Trey, it’s the one we ran through when the Dobermans—”
He gives me a wry smile and shakes his head. “Wasn’t there.”
“Oh. Right. Could someone pull up the temple on Google maps?”
“That reminds me,” Connor says as Trey takes the tablet out of my backpack. “Charlayne and Bensen, you need some new jewelry.”
He pulls two medallions from the pocket of his jeans and tosses one to each of them. They catch the keys and stare down at them as though they’re holding tarantulas.
“Yeah, I know,” Connor says. “I don’t like the damned things, either. But we don’t have any idea when the next shift will occur. We could be in the middle of this rescue attempt, and suddenly the two of you . . . well, I don’t know. It depends on how many tracks the time train jumped.”
Charlayne and Ben give him a blank look, and I say, “Connor means that you might still be here, still be holding the rifle or whatever. Or you might not. We don’t know. Katherine was worried about Trey initially—worried that wearing the key during a shift could harm him since he doesn’t have the gene, but he’s been okay. So has Jess, the friend of Kiernan’s who hid the keys for us.”
“But . . .” Charlayne glances over at Ben and then says, “There’s a duplicate of you now, right, Kate? Because she was under the key when there was a time shift. Wouldn’t we be creating . . . duplicate usses? Which isn’t a word, but . . .”
“There’s no duplicate me,” Trey says, still looking down at the tablet. “I’ve been under the key during two time shifts.”
“He’s right. Unless Simon or someone goes back and changes the path of your grandmother, or parents, or something, and I think even then they’d have to be time travelers.” I stop and think about it. “Or maybe not . . .”
“No, no, no,” Trey says as he puts the tablet into my hands. “Do not follow that rabbit down the hole, Kate. It. Doesn’t. Matter. There won’t be duplicate Bens or Charlaynes because there are no duplicate Treys. No extra me at my house or in Peru or anywhere else. I checked, okay?”
“Yeah. No extra Connors, or Harrys, either,” Ben says, putting the medallion into his pocket. “We’ll be fine, Char.”
She nods and stashes the medallion in the zip-pocket of her shirt, but she still looks nervous about it. And I don’t blame her at all.
“Okay,” I say, leaning forward to show them the map that Trey pulled up. “If you’re facing the front entrance, it’s the road on your left.”
“That’s Lotus Lane,” Charlayne says. “Don’t even get me started on their street names—the road on the other side is Cyrist Way. Get it? Ha, ha.”
“You seem pretty familiar with the area,” Trey says. “Maybe we don’t need the map.”
“This is my dad’s church. Until a few years back, I was there every other Sunday and sometimes during the week, too. Seventeenth Street runs along the back. The playground is over there,” she says, tapping one spot on the screen, “along with the basketball court. We used to go out and shoot hoops while we’d wait for Dad to finish sucking up to the other elders. Lotus Lane runs between the parking garage and the temple itself.”
“Then the door is the second-to-last entrance on Lotus,” I say. “Two of you will need to enter from there—the door will already be unlocked.”
“By Kiernan?” Dad asks.
“No. Probably by me. Kiernan will be getting Mom and Katherine out of the gym and into that hallway for you to pick them up. Someone needs to have the van running as close as possible to that entrance . . . but there are security cameras on the grounds, so try not to be too conspicuous.”
Pulling the sheet of paper from my pocket—as Pru promised, it has a nice Velcro seal—I show them Kiernan’s rough sketch of the grounds, which, unlike the map, has the buildings labeled. “This side over here with the entrance along Cyrist Way is the employee parking lot. That’s the day care center and kids’ playground Charlayne mentioned. There aren’t any activities going on tonight, but the café and bookstore are open until eight, so there could still be people around. And there will be security cameras and at least two guards on duty even after the others leave—and that’s not counting the two guys in the gym watching Mom and Katherine. We need to be subtle.”
I turn toward Charlayne. “How good are you with that jet pack thing?”
“I’m okay, I guess. But if you’re thinking we should use those, it’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“They’re loud. Really loud. It sounds like about a million cans of whipped cream being emptied at once.”
Ben nods. “Over a hundred decibels. Definitely not an option if you’re going for subtle.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “That complicates things.”
“But . . .” she says, with a familiar, devilish twinkle in her eye, “that could make them an excellent diversion if we need one.”
“So why did you need the jet packs?” Trey asks.
“To come in from the back, go over this narrow building, and drop down into the courtyard”—I tap the space in the middle—“right here. That’s just outside Conwell’s office—or what used to be his office. I guess it belongs to the other Templar now. There’s a large fountain in the middle and a door along this glass wall. The goal was to have two of you come in that way as backup support for getting Mom and Katherine into the hallway. I was in that office once. It looked like this was a private courtyard, and I didn’t see another entrance. I would have asked Prudence, but . . . she sort of took a little vacation while we were discussing that part.”
Charlayne’s brow creases. “I think there is another way in. I remember a walkway—kind of an alley—between the two buildings here, leading out to the employee parking area. I think it’s gated, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If Ben and I make it into the courtyard, will the office door be open?”
“Um . . . it’ll either be open or there’ll be someone there to meet you. But you and Ben are the only two who have really trained with those rifles, so I think we need to split you up—one at the side door on Lotus and one coming in from this way.”
Charlayne clearly doesn’t like it, but she nods and then asks again, “So you’ll be the one meeting me at the office door?”
“Possibly me. And . . . possibly Prudence.”
There’s a collective exhale and a wide array of emotions, mostly negative, on the faces in front of me, and they’re all talking at once. Dad says something that ends in “nutcase,” and Connor clearly agrees.
Charlayne is the only one who seems remotely pleased. “See, Ben? I told you Prudence wasn’t behind all of this—”
As much as I hate to burst her bubble . . .
“I don’t really know on that count, Charlayne. All I know is that she’s angry Simon has her sister. Kind of angry that Simon . . . breathes. No love lost between the two of them. She still seems kind of torn on the whole Culling thing, half believing it’s a necessary evil and half not. I think maybe she’s been in it so deep and so long that it’s hard to see things clearly. And Dad’s right. She’s crazy. Totally unstable. But she knows that building better than any of us do. She also knows the Cyrist organization.”
“What about the last set of vials?” Connor asks. “Even if you get the other five, you said Simon still has the last one—the one intended for North America.”
“Yeah. Forty or so church officials from the U.S. and Canada meet—or met?—at the Sixteenth Street Temple on the 9/11 anniversary, at eight forty-five Eastern Standard. But Conwell and Other-Kate haven’t done that one yet.” Their expressions are a mix of pained and slightly confused. “Yes, I know it’s September 12th, which means it already happened. But Conwell has a key, so it hasn’t happened for him or for Other-Kate yet, even though it�
�s already . . . happened. I don’t know why.”
“Okay,” Trey says. “That’s headache inducing. So does that mean it wasn’t part of the whole shift that you felt earlier? That we’re going to get another one? Or . . . what?”
“I don’t know. We’re in Schroedinger’s cat territory, I think—it’s both happened and not happened. And since our goal is to make none of those events happen . . .”
I’m even confusing myself at this point, so I just shut up.
Dad has been kind of quiet. He has that look on his face he always gets when he’s trying to figure something out. I assume it’s just the temporal confusion everyone else is trying to sort through, but then he says, “How are they going to distribute the virus? I mean, I know it’s spread from person-to-person contact after the first round of infection, but initially. We assume they’re putting it into the water supply, but I remember reading a few years back about Homeland Security beefing up their protection at reservoirs, treatment centers, etc. In some of these less developed regions, it might be just a matter of dropping it into the local river or whatever, but here, and in Europe, and in the more urban areas elsewhere . . . they’ll have security.”
“It’s true,” Bensen says. “One of the men at the meeting at Langley—the one with the bow tie—was some DHS bigwig. He told us that there was no way. But the Cyrists have members in every agency, probably with direct contact. There could be sleeper agents. And they might even think they’re protecting people rather than—”
Ben stops midsentence, as though he’s just had an epiphany. He points straight at me, or more specifically, at my hand, which is holding a bottle of water. “Or they could take the commercial route. How many people drink a few of those every day? Hit one of the main distributors and . . . you’ve easily infected enough people in an urban area to reach maximum spread for the virus.”
I recap the bottle and put it down. For some reason, I’m not very thirsty anymore.
∞23∞
ADDIS ABABA
September 11, 8:45 a.m.
The gigantic cathedral here in Addis Ababa is probably twenty times the size of the tiny chapel at Six Bridges. There are no dead bodies in the pews, just forty middle-aged clerics settling in and chatting with their neighbors. Still, the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, the intense dread I’m feeling as June and I wait for Conwell and Other-Kate to appear, stirs up a strange sense of déjà vu. I’ll breathe much easier when these vials are with the others inside the bleach-filled tub in the bathroom at June’s clinic.
Things went incredibly, unbelievably well at the first three temples. Jeanine, the Templar in Sydney, looked positively relieved when she saw June in the wings standing next to me. June whispered something in her ear, and I handed her our substitute—an identical communion tray with vials of plain saline. I don’t think any of the Templars in the audience even knew we made the exchange. The same thing happened in Rio. The Templar there was the same man who translated at the “Sister Pru” press conference we saw on the Cyrist news. He looked a little confused, especially when he glanced at me, but he nodded vigorously and said, “Obrigado!”
Brussels was different, simply because there was nowhere to hide. The temple is a large theater-in-the-round type, with an open stage. All eyes were upon me when I blinked in alone holding the duplicate tray of harmless vials.
I just said, “Sorry. I gave you the ones for Africa—there won’t be enough!” Which was total bullshit because all of the trays have exactly forty openings, all filled.
The men and women in the pews laughed good-naturedly, apparently amused that even a demigod or prophet or whatever they think Prudence is can make a stupid mistake.
The Templar smiled, too, although I could tell from her eyes that she didn’t believe a word of it. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the tray. Kiernan and June were watching through the key, and I was about to give the hand signal indicating that I needed backup. I tried a simple appeal to the woman’s humanity instead. “I think you mean well,” I whisper. “But this isn’t the way.”
I hadn’t really planned what I was going to say in advance, and I believe she may have interpreted my the way as The Way. Whatever. It worked. She took the substitute I was holding, and I blinked out before she could change her mind.
Even New Delhi, where June and Kiernan were both pretty sure we wouldn’t be welcomed, went much better than we’d feared. The Templar, Martin Something-or-Other, wasn’t important enough that he’d been issued a key, but June said he sucks up to Simon and Saul so much that the other Templars call him Hoover behind his back. She didn’t think there was any way he’d hand over the vials without a threat. I followed the same plan that I did in Brussels, except this time June had a rifle pointed at Martin from behind the curtain. At the first sign of resistance, she’d shoot and I’d grab the tray. If for some reason that failed, the Colt was in my pocket, and as a last resort, Kiernan was watching, ready to jump in.
All I had to do, as it turned out, was utter the magic words—Simon says. As in, “Simon says I gave you the wrong tray—that’s the one for Brussels!” Martin didn’t even look uncertain until a couple of seconds later, when his eyes strayed down to my no-longer-pregnant abdomen as I blinked out. But by then, it was too late.
This, however, is Addis Ababa, the African regional headquarters for Cyrist International. The head Templar, Edna Sowah, wears a key, has three armed guards in this room, and by all accounts won’t be handing over the vials or her key without a fight. June says Simon recruited Edna, rescuing her from a thirteenth-century African village when she was a girl. June confirmed our suspicion that Edna’s mother may even have had an idea that Saul was planning to destroy CHRONOS when they made that last jump. While neither Kiernan nor June know the exact circumstances of Edna joining the Cyrists, they’re positive that her loyalty lies with Simon.
If Prudence has any information on that point, she didn’t share it. She was off in her own little world during that part of our conversation, stacking some sort of small containers from the clinic cupboards as high as she could until they tumbled down. She played there in the corner for a good ten minutes and then rejoined the conversation as if she’d never gone on temporary sanity leave. The memory of her playing with those cups, saying “Oh, no!” each time the tower collapsed, has me at least as nervous as anything we’re likely to face here in Addis Ababa.
We’re pressed against the wall here in the wings, so I can’t really see the pulpit, just June’s mass of gray curls in front of me. So I watch through the key, which probably makes more sense anyway, given that I’ll need to jump into the spot Other-Kate is currently occupying only a few seconds after she leaves. The Colt is in my pocket, but I doubt I’ll have a chance to reach it, since the hand not holding my key is brandishing a large pair of garden shears.
The plan: Cut the gold chain. Catch the communion tray when Edna vanishes. Snag her key. Blink out.
Edna is speaking now, something about the great honor, a rare appearance from the “mother of our faith,” a title that probably wouldn’t go over well with Prudence from what Kiernan has said. And then I hear Conwell’s voice, with the same message from Brother Cyrus he’s given on the other four jumps. The day of reckoning is nigh, but the faithful may know mercy. Yada yada yada.
The Creed follows, led by Other-Kate, whose voice is reedy and hesitant until the Templars join her. Then she blesses the vials. “We cleanse the Earth that we may find mercy.”
Immediately after, Patrick grabs Other-Kate’s arm, and they’re gone. That’s my cue. I draw a deep breath and blink in.
I start raising the shears toward the key on Edna’s chest as I open my eyes, hoping to benefit from the element of surprise. Edna startles, moving her arm in front of the shears. The edge scrapes against her forearm, but the blades snip easily through the gold chain holding the key.
The medallion clatters to the floor. I drop the shears as well, freeing my hands to catch the tray of vials when
Edna disappears.
Except, she doesn’t disappear. And when I bend down to grab the key, her knee connects hard with my shoulder.
She’s wearing a spare. I was afraid of this. I’m wearing a spare, Kiernan’s wearing a spare, so why wouldn’t at least some of the Cyrists have a spare?
Edna lets out a staccato scream. A fine mist of blood sprays from her head, and the tray falls from her hand as she slumps to the floor. I catch the tray one-handed and, unfortunately, at an angle. Two of the vials tumble out and roll away, one toward the Templars in the audience and the other toward June. She drops the rifle from her shoulder as she stares at Edna. Her face is ashen. I say a silent prayer that she doesn’t pass out.
Shouts arise from the audience. The two men in suits at the back of the auditorium come rushing forward just as a flash of blue lights up the space underneath the second pew. Three Templars spring up from their seats as if they’ve seen a snake. I catch a fleeting glimpse of a man’s hand scooping up the second vial, hopefully still intact, as I dive behind the pulpit. Someone yells for everyone to get down, and a few of them comply.
When I peek around the edge, the blue light has vanished.
Two shots ring out. I can’t wait any longer. I should have blinked out as soon as I had the tray and the key—something Kiernan stressed several times when we were planning—but I’m worried about the last vial and about the look on June’s face. I give one last glance her way before pulling up my stable point. The little bottle is maybe two yards from June, and she’s diving toward it when I blink out.
ESTERO, FLORIDA
July 13, 2030, 3:47 p.m.
The bleach fumes hit my nose before my eyes open, and I sense Kiernan nearby. He yanks me aside. June appears about three feet behind us, the last vial in her hand. Blood pours from her right arm, a few inches above the elbow.
“Flesh wound,” she says between gritted teeth. “Entry and exit points, thank Cy . . .” She stops and grimaces, then continues, “Thank God.” The two of them stick the vials they retrieved into the empty spaces in the tray, and Kiernan pulls on the long rubber gloves and stacks it on top of the other four already in the tub filled with bleach. Each of the vials in the other trays has already been punctured using the large ice pick on the floor by the tub, allowing the bleach to seep inside and destroy the virus.