Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  We clicked on several links moving through Winter’s rise to fame and her fabulous career, to the clinics she opened around the globe to help teens get the medical care and advice they needed as they moved into sexual maturity. She began a foundation that researched level one infections and found cures—cures that happened before the infections mutated. Winter spread the message and changed the world.

  “What does this mean?” Tag asked. He turned to face me directly. “Are there Orbitals still out there? Are the soldiers still there, the New Youth? What does this mean for us?”

  His questions spawned one of my own. “Do you still have the HTH infection?” I asked slowly.

  He tensed. His eyes flickered with hope. “I can test myself. I have the test strips I used for when I was collecting the New Youth.” He scraped back his chair. “I’ll be back.”

  My heart filled with hope like never before. We can be together. While he was gone I ran a search for Kirk Shaw and Taggert Shaw. According to the news, Kirk Shaw and his wife lost their son Taggert in a drowning accident when he was nine years old. So there was no other Taggert running around this time. I wondered how Tag would take that news when I told him.

  To take my mind off Tag and his test, I went back to the search on Winter. Someone wrote a biography called One Long Winter. In the article I read, the writer mentioned a dead sister’s ghost coming to Winter and warning her about the future. The devil was also there fighting her angelic sister, and Winter knew at that moment that she had a purpose in life and she owed it to her sister to live a great life.

  “Wineve, you sound crazy.” And I laughed at the computer screen. Laughed at the irony and perfect beauty of my sister changing the world.

  Tag strode purposefully to me. “Time to go. We need to see the barracks. We need to be sure everything is really gone and fixed.”

  “What about your test?”

  He didn’t look at me but placed the test strips with his blood samples on the counter in front of me. “I’m the same. Nothing’s changed.” I picked them up and followed him out, wishing I could make the test strips in my hand magically change. I finally shoved them in my pocket.

  He managed to use some of the cash he had to buy us train tickets to San Francisco. Neither of us spoke on the ride there, which took only three hours compared to the nine it had taken by car. Tag seemed lost in thought as he fiddled with the Orbital. I was exhausted and slept for a good part of the time.

  We arrived in San Francisco at street level. The street was clean and well cared for. And it wasn’t so dark it felt like night. No one avoided my glance. Cars were still tracked but the tracks were street level and sky level. I looked up at the sky levels where I’d lived. There were structures up high, but they were built to allow light to the street.

  Tag interrupted my moment of awe. “I need to go somewhere. Will you stay here? You can maybe go to a restaurant and find food. I just, there’s something I need to see.”

  “Um, no. You are so not ditching me in a strange city.”

  “You lived here for over a year.”

  I snorted at him. “I lived in a totally different here.”

  “Fine, then come on.”

  I assumed he was taking me to the barracks, but we walked a long time until we were in a residential area. He walked down a tree-lined street and then backed up to stand behind one of those trees. He watched a brick house for several moments before I asked, “Whose house is this?”

  At that moment a little girl and boy spilled out the front door and into the yard. They were wrestling. A woman followed them out, her hands on her hips as she scolded the kids. She looked half-amused with the kids so her scolding was only halfhearted.

  Tag straightened when he saw her. “Janice,” he whispered.

  “Taggert! I mean it! Give that back to your sister now!” The mother finally interrupted in the argument.

  He jolted a little at hearing his name but realized she had addressed the child. “She’s alive and grown up.” Tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched. “Grown up, with kids of her own.”

  Janice looked our way and Tag ducked behind the tree. We stayed out of sight until we heard the kids go inside, all thoughts of arguing gone as their mother asked if they wanted to help her with a puzzle.

  “My sister’s all grown up, and she named her kid after me.” Tag’s head leaned back against the tree. “Does that mean there is another version of me somewhere, walking the streets right now in this time? Or did I disappear from their lives somehow. Am I a missing person?”

  I reluctantly told him about the drowning accident from the news feeds I’d read.

  Tag lifted his head. “So, where do I fit in the world now?”

  “Where do we fit in the world now?” I tossed his question back at him.

  “You’re right. I need to figure that out for you. Come on, let’s go. We’ve seen what I needed to know here.” He smiled at me. “You saved your sister. Then your sister saved my sister.”

  “I save her, and she saves everyone else. I told you that’s how we work.”

  Our walk back from the barracks, which didn’t exist, was slower, less purposeful. He stopped at a restaurant and took me inside to get us some food. Once we were seated in a booth, Tag said, “I’ve called in on all the Orbitals. We can’t track them. I think . . .”

  “What?”

  Tag focused on the tracked cars zipping down the road. “I think we didn’t change because we were outside of time when the change took place. We’re still the same but the world shifted from under us. Everything else after the moment we left your aunt’s house is different. That means that the New Youth never happened. All those kids we saved still died in whatever tragedy came to them. That means—”

  “Jay and Jen?” I took off my Orbital and placed it on the table.

  He frowned. “I don’t know. They weren’t outside time, but they weren’t in its path, either. They were behind that time, so maybe they’re okay. Maybe not. Maybe the fact that the New Youth never happened means that they got erased from the past because they would have still died in their accidents.”

  We scooted back in our seats as the waitress brought us glasses of water and menus. “But we didn’t. We didn’t get erased. I’m still here. You’re still here with your soldier’s uniform and Orbital.”

  “Like I said, we were outside time when time changed.” His eyes searched mine, and then he looked down at his menu.

  We ordered, got our food, and ate to the sound of idle meaningless chatter. Tag wouldn’t focus on real conversation; instead he asked me weird questions about my favorite foods, music, and animals in the world. By the time we’d finished eating, I was ready to slap him. We were in an alternate universe and he wanted to know what animals I liked?

  “I can’t stay with you, Summer,” he said finally.

  “What?” I looked around. “Where are you going to go?”

  “I don’t know. But I can’t stay with you. You have your whole life still. You can get married, have kids, become a biologist. I can’t be part of that. I’m still . . . If I stayed, I’d be like poison to you.”

  “Don’t be stupid! I don’t have anyone else!” I waved to the restaurant around me. “Look around, Tag. I don’t have any family or friends. I don’t have any skills. I don’t know how this new future works. I don’t know what their technology is. You leave me here alone and I swear I will hate you forever.”

  He threw a wallet on the table and slid out of his seat. “But you’d hate me more if I stayed. You’ll be fine. Just know this means I love you more than anything. I’ve loved you from the first time I ever laid eyes on you. I love you enough to keep you safe from the poison that created me.” He then took a book from out of one of his many jacket pockets and put it in front of me on the table.

  A Sliver of Midnight.

  Him saying the words I’d wanted to hear rooted me to the spot. He’d told me he loved me. I was so stunned, it took me a moment to get over the word
s and realize he was already out the door to the street. I scrambled out of the booth and shoved open the door. I turned in circles to try to see in all directions.

  Tag was gone.

  Numb with shock, I stood in the middle of the sidewalk like a lost child in the park. Some part of me just knew he’d come back if I waited long enough. Stupid! He wasn’t coming back.

  With a sharp intake of breath, I remembered the book and things left on the table. Maybe he left some clue . . . something. My shaky legs carried me back into the restaurant to our booth. I scanned the table and through the contents of the wallet and the book. I lifted the napkins and plates. Nothing.

  I slid back into my seat and leaned my head on the table. He left money, enough to get me started in a new life. He wouldn’t leave me with nothing. But by leaving, he had left me with nothing. And I remembered how I felt after reading A Sliver of Midnight. I’d never felt such sacrifice.

  And that’s what Tag had done. He sacrificed his happiness. But he got it all wrong. By sacrificing his happiness, he sacrificed mine, too.

  I couldn’t cry. It felt like my tear ducts had dried up, and besides if I got a crying headache, who would massage it out again?

  “Stupid jerk!” I said out loud.

  “Oh, don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  I bolted upright expecting Tag, and instead I faced a young teenage boy, maybe fourteen years old—fifteen tops. I glanced around the restaurant.

  “Are you lost, kid?”

  The boy smiled. He looked like Winter a little bit, which in a weird way meant he looked like me. “Nope. Not now. I did got lost today and ended up somewhere that totally nicks, you know?” He lifted an eyebrow at me. “No. I guess you wouldn’t know.”

  He reached over and helped himself to Tag’s leftover fries. It was then I noticed the Orbital strapped to his arm. “Where’d you get that? Did you steal that from Tag?”

  He smiled. “Nope. It’s mine. I made it myself. One of my better moments. Dad was totally proud.”

  I gasped. “You’re a soldier.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, like any military would take me, though Dad threatens to send me to military school all the time. Nope. Guess again.”

  I stood up. “Look, you little punk, you would not believe the year I’ve just had. You can’t come in here, eat my friend’s food, and freak me out. I have no problem ripping out your tongue and stapling it to the wall as an example to other idiots who think I can be messed with!”

  He didn’t look at all phased by my outburst. I reached over to make good on my threat, but he put out a hand. “Whoa there! Take a good look. My Orbital is green, my favorite color, by the way, which you never remember when you buy me clothes. Dad’s was black . . . so boring. Mine is cool, Dad’s nicks. Mine—cool. Dad’s—nicks. Got it?”

  I grabbed his arm and looked at the Orbital strapped there. His was green. Tag’s was black. But he’d said Dad. I sat back down, confused. “What’s going on? And quit talking in circles.”

  “I’m your son.” He grinned wide for me then. “Ta-da!” He grinned wider, if such a thing were possible.

  I stared at him.

  “What, that doesn’t fill you with joy? Any mother would be thrilled to find she has a kid like me, and you stare at me like I just grew a zit on my forehead while you watched. Hello? That was a big announcement. You should be, well, something . . .”

  “Is this a joke?” My mind was tired. My kid? He had to be joking. I was nineteen years old. I didn’t have kids. I didn’t even have a boyfriend because mine just ditched me to who only knew when and—“You’re my kid?”

  He nodded.

  “And you’ve got an Orbital?”

  He nodded again.

  “Tell me your dad’s name.”

  He laughed. “What? You don’t know the guy you made kids with?”

  I shot him a look that shut him up.

  “Sorry, Mom, just messing around. Taggert Shaw is my dad, though he doesn’t always like admitting to it and has actually denied it on an occasion or two if you can believe it.” The kid stole some more fries and shoved them in his mouth, continuing to talk around the fries so that he sounded garbled.

  Do we never feed him or something?

  “You told me you’d be here at this exact moment, sitting in this exact booth, and feeling kind of bad because Dad dumped you. Not one of his finer moments. Sometimes Dad totally nicks, but you love him, so what do we do? Anyway, you told me this was your worst day ever. You told me you almost gave up. I just wanted to come cheer you up and let you know you’ve got several great reasons not to give up—me being among those reasons. Also, me being here will hopefully prove to you I’m not a total lost cause. In the back of your mind as you raise me, you’ll know I cared enough to visit you on your worst day ever. I think this should make me your favorite.”

  He slid out of the booth. “If you think about it long enough, you’ll know what you need to do.” The kid mopped up the rest of the ketchup with the few remaining fries and stuffed them in his mouth. “I’ll see you back at home.”

  He moved to leave but stopped. “When you find Dad, will you let him know that when his son comes home escorted by the police, it really wasn’t his fault, and he’s really sorry for what happened to the car? Thanks, Mom. Love you.” The kid actually planted a kiss on my forehead and then disappeared from where he’d been standing.

  Did that just happen? I blinked and then groaned. No! He left with the Orbital! I let him leave with the one thing I needed more than anything. Stupid!

  I pondered everything he said, trying to piece together the puzzle. If I think about things long enough . . . I’ll know what I need to do?

  The restaurant felt stifling, I paid the bill from the money in Tag’s wallet and left, walking the streets and wondering what I needed to do next. Where would I go? Was it safe to carry around all this cash? Should I open a bank account? Did they have bank accounts?

  I found myself feeling suddenly wistful for the days when Winter and I hid money in the closet under the floor—our own little pot of gold.

  I stopped short.

  Tag said he’d tracked a dead Orbital back to Orting, Washington.

  I needed to get back to Orting, Washington.

  ***

  The trip to Orting took no time at all. The rare flying cars from Tag’s time weren’t so rare in this alternate time and pretty cheap to rent, all things considered.

  Unfortunately, Aunt Theresa’s house had new owners.

  “Hi.” I said to the woman who opened the door.

  She had a baby on her hip and had the look of a woman in the middle of a full and busy day. She waited for me to get more articulate.

  “Hi.” I tried again. “My great, great aunt lived in this house a long time ago. And we think she left an old watch in a secret hiding place upstairs.”

  “You want to come in my house?” The woman asked, shifting the baby to her other hip.

  “No. I don’t need to go in.” I thought about crazy people and crazy wars. No one would let a stranger in their home under the best circumstances. “I definitely don’t need to go up, but I would be willing to pay you if you would go up while I sit here on the porch waiting. If you could look for me and see if it’s there, I’d be grateful.” I smiled, hoping I looked in some small way sweet and trustworthy.

  She let my request hang between us before saying, “Pay me how much? If the item’s valuable, it’s in my house which makes me the owner.”

  Why did people always play hardball? Why couldn’t someone say, “Oh hey, let me be nice and do you this tiny favor that will take me less than two minutes?”

  I kept the smile pasted on my face. At least I hoped I did. “The item is an old broken down watch. I’ll pay whatever you think it’s worth. You name the price.” If I named a price and she felt the price was too low after finding it, she might lie to me and say it wasn’t there.

  She shrugged, shifted the baby again, and said, “Whe
re is it?”

  I told her and then sat on the porch to wait. I heard the door lock engage and sighed. So the world wasn’t sunshine and roses in the future, but it wasn’t crazy wars and dead toddlers, either. I could live with that.

  Less than two minutes later, the woman was back. “This what you’re looking for?” She held out the Orbital.

  I sucked in my breath. “So it was there.” I tried not to look too excited. “How much do you want for it?”

  She looked skeptically at it. “It doesn’t look like it’s worth much.”

  “No. It doesn’t.” I agreed.

  “Eh. Take it. I don’t know what I’d do with it.” She handed it to me.

  Not believing my luck, I accepted her offering. I pulled a few bills from Tag’s wallet and held them out for the woman anyway. “Buy your baby something special—something that’ll last for a few years, past his third birthday.”

  ***

  I laid the Orbital out in the sun, letting it soak in power for the rest of the day. Once it had charged, it was time to go. I finally bound the Orbital to my arm and pressed the screen to make it show me where, and when, Tag had hidden himself.

  He wasn’t very original. He’d only moved a few years into the future from when he’d left me. I hired a car to travel to his location in my current time, took a deep breath and pressed my screen.

  Then, the tug at my stomach, the tightness in my chest, the blur of the world spinning around me.

  When the world snapped into vision again in the same place only a few years later—, it was 2121. He was in the park, sitting on a bench just down the street from the diner he’d left me in. I smiled at Tag’s surprise. He shook his head as if trying to clear his head from this “mirage” he had in front of him. He jumped to his feet. “What are you do—”

  He was going to ask me, yet again, what I was doing there. Honestly, the man could never just be glad to see me. I shut him up by throwing my arms around him and planting my mouth firmly over his. He tried to break away at first, but the attempt was feeble, and after the initial moment, he was kissing me back, his mouth tracing kiss after kiss over my lips. The heat between us felt desperate, melting all the pain of the years away until it was just us. Us in time—any time—it didn’t matter when so long as we were together. His hand went to the back of my head, his fingers lacing through my hair, pulling me closer.