Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

Tag set the screen and said to the regent’s wife, “I’m sorry.”

  The room spun around us until it blurred into obscurity.

  The tightening at my chest accompanied the pull at my stomach. I closed my eyes and gripped Tag’s hand. When my chest stopped feeling like someone was trying to squeeze out all my oxygen, I opened my eyes again. The sun was high in the sky, and my feet were planted firmly in sand. Gulls cried out in the air. The regent housing hadn’t been built yet. I smiled at Tag and threw my arms around him. “Are we really in her time? Tell me I’ll really see her.”

  “You’ll really see her.” He let me hold him and even seemed to be holding me back.

  “I love you, Tag.”

  He didn’t tell me not to say those words, but he didn’t say them back to me, either. I shrugged off my disappointment.

  “It’s a long way to Washington. We’d better find a place we can rent a car.” He pulled away.

  I halted. “You mean steal a car. I don’t have any money.” I almost suggested we try to shift place, but remembered he’d said most people didn’t survive it. What good would coming all this way do us if we killed ourselves upon arrival?

  He opened his jacket pocket. “When I took the Orbitals, I took the liberty of financing us as well. We have enough. And I have several driver’s licenses from several different decades just in case.” He tried to move again.

  I tugged his hand back. “Can we just sit a minute? We’re safe, and I need a minute. My legs feel like water.”

  “Orbitals can track Orbitals. And we’re in the same year you came from. They’ll expect that. We’re not safe.” He brought me in and held me a moment longer. “I know you’re tired. So am I. But we’re not done. You can rest in the car. It’ll be several hours before we get to Washington.” He pulled me along and this time I let him.

  We took turns driving and made good time to Washington. It took just over nine hours and the sun had already set on the city of Orting. I was driving, the roads familiar and yet dreamlike at the same time. Was this really my home? Was Winter really here? Had I changed over the last year? Would her face still be my mirror, or would the stress of what I’d seen and been through show in my face?

  I shut the car off in front of Aunt Theresa’s house and stared at it for a time before the lack of movement in the car woke Tag up.

  He stretched. “We’re here?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  We exited the car, Tag a little slow as he tried to wake himself up. It was late and the house was dark with the sleep of its occupants. I put my hand on the door to knock, but Tag seemed to have awoken enough to realize what I’d planned and pulled my hand away. “You’re dead as far as these people know. You’ll give your aunt a heart attack if she sees you.” He tapped on his screen and then wrapped his arms around me. I melted against him, loving the feel of him as things shifted around us. I opened my eyes and found that the world looked gray as it had the day of my accident, gray because we were outside of time as Tag had described it all those months ago. Tag was the only thing that had color. He let me go and went to the hide-a-key inside the little garden gnome by the porch.

  “How’d you know that was there?” I asked.

  “I was watching, remember?” He used the key and entered the house. He bumped into the entry table and let out a yelp. “That’s the second time that thing’s done that to me.”

  “Shh!” I waved my finger in front of my mouth.

  “We’re outside of time, Summer. No one can hear us.”

  “Oh. Right. I remember that.” I took a moment to breathe the house in, to feel the hominess and rightness of it. Aunt Theresa had pictures of us on her wall and on the mantel over the fireplace. She had the ceramic handprints we’d made in second grade, and carried around with us from home to home until we ended up with her, hanging by the TV. And I knew if I were to look in the kitchen, there would be report cards and more pictures on the fridge. “She really did love us, didn’t she?”

  “Your aunt?” Tag looked confused. “Of course she did. Would she have raised you if she didn’t?”

  “Right. You’re right.” I smiled and went to the stairs taking them two at a time, hurrying to get to my room, where Winter was sleeping. I opened the door and found myself face to face with Winter’s wide frightened eyes staring at me. Her eyes widened even more upon seeing me—the surprise evident. Her mouth had been gagged. She sat on the bed right next to Professor Raik.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Winter!” I moved to go to her, but Winter let out a squeal through her gag as Professor Raik tightened something he held to her side. A knife. I halted.

  “Hello, Summer. Taggert. Nice of you to finally join me. I’ve been waiting a long time. We were starting to think you wouldn’t come here after all, and it would have been such a bother to have to include the soldiers to hunt you down.” When he smiled, the dark stain of blood under his nose crusted and flaked in spots. His head had several large purpled lumps from our earlier battle.

  I realized that the room was gray, but Winter was filled with color and so was Professor Raik. They were outside of time, too. That was why Aunt Theresa wouldn’t have known to help Winter.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I should think it obvious. I want the babies back—it’s bad business to have to offer refunds. Mr. and Mrs. Savage . . . well, we can work the rest out later. Hand over the Orbital, Taggert.”

  Tag held my gaze as he undid the bindings at his wrist. “I’m sorry, Summer,” he said as his hand moved to the last latch. With a quick flash of movement, Tag pulled a small knife from his jacket sleeve and flung it at Professor Raik.

  In Raik’s distraction, he released his hold on Winter. She threw herself to the side to avoid the knife. Tag and I both dove at the same time—Tag diving at Professor Raik; me diving at Winter. I grabbed her arms, pulled her free from the bed, and yanked her to her feet, racing from the room with her. In the hallway, I ripped the gag from her mouth.

  She fell into me, her shoulders convulsing with sobs. “An angel. I’m seeing an angel!” She repeated over and over. Her embrace tightened around me so much that I could barely breathe, but I didn’t pull away.

  “I’ve missed you, Wineve. I’m sorry I left you. I would take it all back if I could. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Who’s that man in there?” She asked, her voice muffled against my shirt.

  “He’s evil, Wineve. Pure evil. Go and hide somewhere. Don’t come out until I call for you or until Tag calls for you. Tag’s a good guy. But go hide. I have to help Tag.” I shoved at her. “Go! Now!”

  Without waiting to see if she’d done as I told her, I went back into the bedroom. Tag and Professor Raik were gone. One of the Orbitals lay on the floor half shoved under the bed as though it had been kicked in the scuffle. I hurried and picked it up, my heart hammering against my chest. “Tag!” I screamed.

  Winter’s face popped into view from the doorway. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I told you to hide!” I said, trying to think of what could have happened. Who was winning the battle between them? Who had won? Would the winner return? And if so, would I have to prepare for a fight or a reunion?

  “Is the evil gone?”

  “I don’t know. He is for a while, anyway. Let’s go downstairs. We need to be ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  I gripped the Orbital in my hands. “For anything. We need to be prepared for anything.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and led her downstairs and to the kitchen. I pulled out a few knives and settled them on the counter for easy access but did so quietly, remembering that the things I touched would make noise, even if I didn’t. Aunt Theresa couldn’t help us now, not when she couldn’t see us, not when she couldn’t see the enemy. And for reasons I didn’t understand, I wanted desperately to protect Aunt Theresa. I turned to face Winter, not knowing how long we had before someone came back, not knowing if I’d have
time later to tell her what I came to tell her.

  “Wineve, you look terrible,” I whispered, wanting to cry at how thin she’d become, how sunken and dark her eyes looked.

  Those dark eyes filled with tears. “That’s not a nice thing to say to the person who shares your face. But your face, it’s so different. You look older.”

  I laughed. Laughed, cried, and grabbed her up in a hug. “I’ve missed you! You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you over the last year.”

  “You’ve only been dead for three months,” she mumbled.

  I let her go a little so she could breathe. “Yeah. Well, time’s been a little different for me.” I felt her relax against me, and we both sat, simply crying.

  “I came back to tell you something.” I moved out so I could look her in the eyes when I told her my message, so she could see my sincerity.

  And I told her about the future and how she would die and how much it hurt me to have her go in such a tragic mindless way—much like my own passing had been. I told her about the future where people were desperate to have babies but were sterile due to diseases and genetic mutations that no one seemed to be able to cure. I told her about the public nurseries and the sorrows involved in testing day.

  She listened, her pale face and dark sunken eyes, horror-struck at my news.

  “Promise me,” I said at the end of my narration. “Promise me you’ll be careful, and smart, and that you’ll grow to be an old lady with purple hair who shakes her cane at people.”

  She promised.

  And some of the weight that had been sitting on my chest lifted, and I started crying all over again. She took the Orbital I’d been twisting in my hands and put it in the pocket of her bathrobe so she could hug me without anything hindering us.

  I held my sister and wept.

  ***

  Tag entered through the kitchen door, his presence eliciting a scream from Winter and a cry of relief from me. I released Winter and ran to Tag, who looked like a ghost. He was covered in ashes, his lips bright red and his eyes a stark white against the gray filth covering him. “What happened? Is he coming back?”

  Tag smiled, the ash dripping onto the floor with his every movement. “He’s not coming back. He just met up with a mud slide on Mount Rainier.”

  I swallowed the sob and grabbed Tag around the neck, laughing and crying some more. “How? How did you get him to Rainier?”

  “I took a chance and place shifted. The good news is I’m one of the lucky few who can place shift without dying.”

  I laughed more and hugged him tighter.

  Tag realized Winter stood outside of time with us. He explained to her that she had to “change” in order to be part of the world again. Tag told her she had to be quiet once the change took place so as not to wake Aunt Theresa and Uncle Paul. She nodded her understanding. Tag took my hand, I took Winter’s, and the world shifted around us, seeming suddenly bright and filled with colors.

  “We have to go now, Summer. The regents are going to demand blood after what’s happened. I have to get the rest of the Orbitals, and we don’t have time. You know you can’t stay. They’ll always come here to find you.”

  “I know.” I hugged Winter again, knowing this would be the last time, and felt like I was dying all over again. I hugged her and breathed in Aunt Theresa’s kitchen. I had been right about the fridge. It was still littered with pictures of Winter and me, still littered by report cards and papers that had As on them. My stuff still existed there. The mug I made in pottery class as a sophomore, as wobbly and weird as it looked still sat on the counter, the hand towels I’d made in sewing class still hung on the stove handle. I’d been gone for three months according to Winter, and yet Aunt Theresa still kept my things.

  “Be nice to Aunt Theresa and Uncle Paul,” I said to Winter as I pulled away. “Tell them—”

  Aunt Theresa’s voice came from upstairs. “Winter? Winter honey, are you all right?”

  Tag gave me a look and said, “We need to go!”

  “I know.”

  Tag made some calculations on the Orbital and took my hand.

  “Wait!” I said, stopping Tag from pushing the screen that final time that would pull us away, knowing that Aunt Theresa would be rounding the corner to the kitchen any moment and wanting with all my heart to see her.

  When she showed up, I smiled at her shocked face. “I just wanted you to know, Aunt Theresa. I wanted you to know I love you, and am so thankful for you taking us in the way you did. You saved us. Thank you.”

  I squeezed Tag’s hand, letting him know I was ready, and called out, “I’ll love you forever, Wineve! Wonder twin powers!” as Tag touched the screen and the world around us blurred.

  Winter’s answering call of “Activate!” spun around us over and over and over.

  The world snapped back into view in the year 2114. Tag stepped aside, looking truly horrific, covered the way he was in ashes and dirt. Tag pivoted several times, looking worried. “I left it here.”

  “You left what here?” I asked.

  “The car. After I dropped off the professor into the mud slide, I spun myself a little forward and left a car here so we could get into the city faster to get the Orbitals. I’m not about to try place shifting with you.”

  I glanced around the mountain meadow skeptically. “Well, I don’t see a car.”

  He turned and was likely glaring, but it was hard to tell under all that crap on his face. “I noticed that. Thanks.” He spent several moments frowning at the Orbital. “I can’t get any readings on any of the other Orbitals, but one.”

  “One? Where’s that one?”

  “In Orting, Washington. It’s been there since 2010, but hasn’t been activated since then. It’s dead.” He looked as confused by this as I felt.

  “What does that mean? Did someone else go back to Winter? Is this a trap? What does that mean?”

  He shook his head. “Not a trap. The thing hasn’t been accessed in all this time.” He snapped his fingers and looked at me in wonderment. “The professor. He had an Orbital, too. We must have left it there.” He took my hands to calm me down before I flew into a panic over leaving Winter vulnerable to soldiers tracking the Orbital to her. “I can’t track any of the others. They don’t exist, Summer. Let’s not panic yet. Let’s just see what’s going on here before jumping back there. Winter will be fine. Trust me.”

  And so it was that we found ourselves walking into the city, Tag acting incredibly paranoid about who would have taken the car and how he knew they were waiting in ambush somewhere, but continuing to offer me comfort about Winter’s well-being. How he thought he could act comforting when he was acting like a paranoid lunatic defied all reason. We came across a stream where Tag cleaned himself up as best as he could.

  It felt like we’d walked half the day before we came into the city. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but Tag was as alert as I’d ever seen him. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, something’s wrong. Our ride is missing, and my sister is trackable because we left an Orbital at her house.”

  “No, I mean look around.” He stopped me and lifted his chin in the direction of the city sidewalk.

  “Yeah, people, and . . .” Were these people undercover soldiers? A degree of his paranoia for our present circumstances rubbed off on me.

  “The hair, the clothes, the way they walk; look at all the children!”

  And I looked again. He was right. The entire feel of the street and the people was different from the world I’d lived in for the last year. And there were children. Lots and lots of children.

  “Something’s happened,” Tag said. He passed by a doorway of a shop and waved his hand in front of it. A little boy inside the shop saw Tag wave and waved back. Tag frowned and waved again. The little boy waved again, too, but I realized what Tag meant. No light glowed around the door, neither red nor green, even though Tag still had his ring.

  I frowned at Tag’s ring aft
er offering a smile to the friendly kid inside the shop. “Do you think it broke in the ashes?”

  Tag shook his head. “No. The future’s shifted.” He checked the Orbital and frowned some more. “And I still can’t get a reading on any of the other Orbitals. We need a library.”

  “If the future shifted, are we different?”

  “I don’t know. We were outside of time during the shift. I don’t know what we are.”

  We asked around until we found the public library several blocks down. Tag sat at a computer terminal, where the computer asked in a friendly voice, “What would you like to search?” Tag had to voice all the commands to the computer, seeming frustrated that he had to use his voice rather than pulse power from his brain, since his ring no longer worked. He did several searches for the crazy war. Over sixteen million search opportunities showed up, but none of them on the crazy war. He ran searches for public nurseries and ended up with a million possibilities for day care services. He ran search after search after search until he finally shook his head in defeat. “The world’s changed.”

  His eyes filled with wonder and fear, he faced the windows that led to the street outside. “Everything’s different.”

  I scooted him out of his seat and ran a search for Winter Eve Rae. There were over eleven million searches available. I clicked the first one and read until the words blurred due to the tears stinging my eyes.

  Winter Eve Rae was a few steps ahead of the beat as she took to the red carpet for the premiere of her new movie, Iron Gate. Rae, who costarred with Allen Lucas was reported as being taken aback by the size and enthusiasm of the crowd as she returned to the red carpet for the last time. Rae is best known for her academy award winning movie The Revolution, which started a revolution all of its own . . .

  “We did it.” I whispered. “You said we couldn’t, but we did.” I tapped the screen. “We saved the future, Tag. She became a star, and she told people the message I gave her. She shared it with the world!”

  “I can’t believe it.” Tag scowled. “This isn’t real.”