Paradox Lost

by Libby Drew

  That the bomb had gone off? No, he couldn’t be, really. But was he sure D’arco wasn’t coming back? Very sure. “Yes. He’s dead.” He gritted his teeth. “A statue fell and crushed him. The bodyguards? One got hit by a falling tree. I can’t be positive, but I think the others are dead too.”

  In the corner of his vision, Silvia had gone still. Saul couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He wasn’t sorry in the slightest, but his feelings for D’arco didn’t have the deep ridges and valleys hers did. He wouldn’t have respected that in the past, but she’d taught him something these past few days.

  When she spoke, her words shocked him. “So we’re safe.”

  They were here. Saul couldn’t speak for how safe they were. He shrugged.

  Maxie harrumphed and shook his head. “That paperwork’s gonna suck monkey balls. Okay.” He jerked his chin at Saul. “Help me with Sleeping Beauty here. I need to think about how we’re going to handle this.”

  Saul came forward, lifting Reegan’s feet, and they carried him through the door into a room so very un-future-like, Saul did a double take. Antique wood furniture. Puffy upholstered chairs. Even a bar, complete with brass foot rail and crystal decanters. He regarded them blandly, without a flicker of want.

  They deposited Reegan on the couch, where he finally gave a sign of life, lifting his hands to his face with a pained moan. The desire to be near him felt as all-encompassing as his need for a shot of vodka had that night at Once in a Blue Moon. The beauty of this need was that Saul wasn’t going to fight it. He shifted Reegan’s legs against the back of the cushion and sat, taking up his limp hand. “Hey.” He squeezed unresponsive fingers. “You okay?”

  Eyes still closed, Reegan mumbled an answer, and Saul smiled.

  “Be still, my beating heart.” Maxie hovered at the back of the sofa. “I was kidding about the Sleeping Beauty shit, okay? You’re not going to kiss him, are you?”

  “I might.” Events were catching up to him. Social niceties didn’t top the list at the moment. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Only that you shouldn’t be here to do it. I can’t believe you survived the trip.” Maxie lifted his eyes to Silvia, who’d sunk into a nearby chair. “You need a drink, sweetheart?”

  Gaze blank, she shook her head.

  “Well, I’m having one.” Gun in hand, Maxie crossed to the bar, remarkably graceful for a man of his size, and poured three fingers of something dark into a tumbler. It disappeared in one swallow. “Better.” He set the gun down before pouring another. It got the same treatment. “Do you have any idea—” he waved the empty glass at Saul, “—the danger you put yourself in by being in the portal when it activated.”

  Saul’s gaze drifted to Reegan. He’d gone still again, but his chest rose and fell in regular increments. “Reegan explained it to me.”

  “He did? ’Cause I was being facetious.”

  Saul smiled at the genuine shock in Maxie’s voice. “Yes. He did.”

  “Just how long were you stuck there?” Maxie asked Silvia.

  “About two days.”

  Maxie’s eyes widened even further. “Two days? And you survived?”

  “Thanks to Reegan and Saul. Yes.”

  Reegan’s fingers wiggled in Saul’s grip. He moaned, and his eyes fluttered. It took all of Saul’s restraint not to crumple into his arms. “Hey.” He brushed a lock of dusty hair from Reegan’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

  “Yeah, hotshot,” Maxie cut in. “How are you feeling?”

  A frown crossed Reegan’s features. “Saul?”

  “Yeah.” Having his life turned upside down these past couple of days didn’t measure up to the shock of waking up over a hundred years in the future. What he’d left behind and what he might have to endure had just begun to filter in these past few minutes, and he’d been scared. Terrified.

  Hearing his name on Reegan’s lips washed that all away.

  “Why am I hearing both you and Maxie at the same time?” He blinked his eyes open, wincing against the bright light. “I’m in the jaunt room?”

  “You are.” Saul cut his gaze to Maxie. “We all are. Silvia too. We made it back.”

  “Alone?”

  The question confused Saul until Maxie glanced at his watch and shrugged. “Looks like it. Your boyfriend said the others wouldn’t be coming back. Looks like he was right. The portal never reactivated. It’s been nine minutes.”

  “What happened?” Reegan pushed to his elbows. Saul pushed him back. “Just stay put. You’ve got another nasty bump on your head.”

  “Silvia’s okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She joined them on the couch, slipping in behind Reegan before resettling his head in her lap. Smiling, she trailed her fingers over his uninjured cheek. “You did it. You kept your promise.”

  “Two days?” Maxie shook his head. Looked to the decanter and smacked his lips. “I’ve never, never read another account where a jaunter survived two days in the past.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. I was shot at, hit by a car, almost hit by a truck…” Reegan covered his face. “There’s more, but I’m not telling you.”

  “Why, is it something embarrassing? You didn’t fall in the shower, did you?”

  Saul couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  “Oh, Christ.” Maxie covered his ears. “Don’t say any more. I don’t want to know what sexual acrobatics you were attempting when that happened.”

  Reegan glared. “I was alone.”

  “Like I said.”

  The levity dropped from Maxie’s voice. He came around the bar to face them, arms crossed while his eyes took in how the three of them were huddled together on the couch. He homed in on Saul. “If Reegan did actually warn you about the portal, why did you risk it anyway? That’s what I want to know. Please don’t say true love. I might keel over under the force of my amusement.”

  Saul stroked a hand over Reegan’s arm. “You don’t believe in true love?”

  “Now you’re just fucking with me.”

  He hadn’t been, but now wasn’t the time to admit that. Not in the present company. “I didn’t have a choice. D’arco had a bomb. His plan—as far as I could tell, ’cause I didn’t stop to have him explain—was to grab Silvia and bring her back, but leave Reegan stuck behind.”

  Reegan hummed agreement. “Changing the landscape of the physical location wouldn’t have necessarily accomplished that, but it would have made it much harder to travel back unobserved. If I’d even survived the blast. I don’t think I would have.”

  “And just how did that leave you with no choice?” Maxie waved his cigar. “I’m lost.”

  Reegan’s fingers tightened into a painful grip, drawing Saul’s gaze. “It didn’t. You shouldn’t have taken the risk.”

  The memory of it made Saul shiver. “You were unconscious. I tried to wake you up, but you were out cold. Someone had to hit the button to activate the portal. Before the bomb went off.”

  Reegan tilted his head backward. “Silvia.”

  He hadn’t been addressing her, but she spoke up. “I was unconscious too. I don’t remember anything after Emilio grabbed me at Cammie’s.” She probed the back of her head with a grimace.

  Already, Saul found the topic tiresome. What was done was done. “I made it back with you. I didn’t disappear or whatever it is that happens. It’s fine.”

  “You shouldn’t have made it. It was a death sentence. I told you that. You had a choice.”

  Saul shook his head. “A choice to what? Save myself and leave the two of you behind to die?”

  “Yes!”

  Saul traced the deep lines of agitation on Reegan’s face. “You’re right. I did have a choice,” he said, tone quiet and final. “And I made it. End of story.”

  “Not exactly the end.” With a resigned sigh, Maxie set his empty glass on the bar. Then he fished a transparent palm-sized device from his pocket and pressed a button, glaring at Reegan. “What does it say about you that I h
ave the National Time Travel Agency on speed dial?”

  “That your life would be extremely boring without me around.” Despite Saul’s protests, Reegan struggled to a sitting position. “You love the attention. Don’t deny it.”

  Maxie gave him the finger. “You’re fired.” A tinny voice reached Saul’s ears, and Maxie squeezed from between the bar and the wall as he answered. “This is Max Humes. Blast in the Past. Washington D.C. Comm-district seven. I need to report an incident.”

  Saul held his breath as Maxie paused to light the tip of his cigar. “Casualties? I’m afraid so.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “How’re you holding up?”

  Reegan perched on the edge of the sofa and examined Saul critically. He was pale beneath his bruises. Dirt-smudged. His ripped hospital scrub shirt had slipped off one shoulder. War-torn was the word that came to Reegan’s mind. Definitely in shock. Now that the immediate danger had passed, they’d all fallen into a shallow stupor.

  Except for Maxie. He made call after call, barking words into the fiberoptic microphone connected to his earpiece. Brewed tea for Silvia. Fetched a clean rag for Reegan to hold to the seeping wound on the side on his head. He avoided Saul altogether, as though acknowledging his very presence might birth a spontaneous wormhole and suck the three of them back in time.

  Silvia clutched the Blast in the Past mug Maxie had handed her and stared into the distance. Her eyes held a touch of the dazed shock Saul’s did, but they also swirled with purpose. More than once Reegan had seen her lips move as she regrouped. Planned. Twice, she’d borrowed Maxie’s comm to make calls of her own. To whom Reegan had no idea, but if she had any allies at all, any people loyal to her, they’d be needed.

  As soon as the truth about D’arco hit the streets, her life would change. Whether for the worse or better would be determined by how she handled the next several hours.

  Oddly, the prospect didn’t worry him. You could kick that kid, but she didn’t stay down. The main threat to her well-being was dead. Maybe that was the fact that had eased the bulk of Reegan’s anxiety.

  Or maybe he was too twisted up by Saul’s presence, his brush with death, his sacrifice, to effectively process any higher thoughts at the moment.

  He waited until Saul shifted his bleary gaze. “Hang in there.”

  Saul snorted, then jerked his chin at the three people who’d just come through the door into the jaunt room. “Who’re they?” Dressed head to toe in deep sapphire jumpsuits, the two men and one woman ignored Maxie’s offer of a handshake. The woman got right down to business.

  “Mr. Humes? I’m Ann Silas, from NTTA.” She retrieved her comm tablet from her bag, swept a finger across the screen and started firing off questions.

  Maxie dropped his hand, answering each in turn, tone skirting the edge of belligerent. The abrupt shift in the power dynamic left Reegan edgy. The NTTA managed their investigations with a heavy hand. Their agents had a nose for code violations and a vicious desire to weasel them out. Reegan and Maxie ran a squeaky clean operation, but two incidents in a year would raise an eyebrow or two. It would pay to be cooperative, but that wasn’t one of Maxie’s strengths.

  Saul eyed the group with open distrust and let loose a grunt of pain as he pressed further into the arm of the sofa. “Love the outfits.”

  Those uniforms were legend. Reegan had taken more than one bet at time travel-conferences that the NTTA must have held a contest among their employees for most unflattering dress code ever. “NTTA agents. National Time Travel Agency. We’re required to report all irregular jaunts to our local office immediately.”

  Saul started to nod, then winced, leaning his cheek carefully against the sofa cushion. “I take it this trip was irregular.”

  “This jaunt pretty much covered every clause in the definition of irregular, yeah.” He frowned at the way Saul folded in on himself as the room began to fill with more people. “Medical just got here too. They’ll have something more effective than an X-ray.”

  Saul’s eyes drifted closed. “Okay.”

  Reegan buried the pressing need to offer comfort, settling for a tentative touch to his arm. “That’s not all.”

  “I didn’t figure it was,” Saul mumbled.

  “Because Maxie reported the incident as a level five—that means a death occurred on the jaunt—the authorities will be here soon too.”

  He’d tried to keep the uneasiness from his voice, but Saul heard it. A frown touched his lips. He cracked one eye to check the whereabouts of the NTTA agents before speaking in a hushed tone. “We didn’t have time to corroborate our stories.”

  “Corroborate—don’t worry about that.” He’d have to keep in mind that Saul’s basic knowledge was more than a century out of date. “Listen.” He leaned close, daring to set a hand on Saul’s knee. His body blocked the gesture from the people behind him. The last thing he wanted to do was raise questions about their relationship before they’d had time to give their statements. There’d be no hiding it then.

  “There’s only one story to tell, okay? The truth.” A sharp squeeze to Saul’s leg ensured his attention. “Lots of things have changed since you were a cop. Especially detective work. I’m sure you’ll be asked to give a statement tonight. But that’s where the familiar part’s going to end. They’ll use a soothsayer.”

  “Is that a person?”

  Saul swallowed a smile. “No. It’s a fancy biofeedback monitor. Hey,” he soothed when Saul’s eyes widened. “It’s standard. Perfectly safe. And also foolproof. Don’t lie. They’ll know right away.”

  “So it’s like a lie detector.”

  “In theory. That’s like comparing a horse-drawn cart to a jet, though.”

  “You can’t beat it?”

  Reegan shook his head. “Don’t even try.”

  “That’s…amazing. And actually quite terrifying.”

  “It did make a huge impact on premeditated crime rates.”

  As well as birth a new generation of lawyers who learned how to manipulate the system. Truth was subjective. Reegan was sure every law student had that phrase tattooed on their ass before graduation. He, Saul and Silvia could still be held accountable for the deaths of D’arco and his men. All it would take was some creative spin.

  He glanced over his shoulder as more people arrived. One uniformed officer and two plain-clothed cops. Detectives, was Reegan’s guess. They’d mastered that timeless aura of bored intimidation all servants of the law possessed and were casing the crowd with hawklike interest.

  The NTTA contingent met them halfway across the room, and the respective groups flashed their badges at each other, the holographic images fluttering in the stirred-up air.

  Reegan turned back to Saul. “Some quick advice. Keep it as simple as possible. No unnecessary details. Just the straight-up story, beginning to end. You should be good at that. Answer their questions directly. Don’t embellish.”

  “But—” Saul licked his lips.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong. It’s going to be fine.”

  Thank God he wasn’t hooked up to those machines at the moment. For once, his half-truth slipped under Saul’s radar. Whether it was his injuries, the jaunt, or plain old-fashioned shock, Saul did little more than nod and wrap his arms around his torso. It took all of Reegan’s will not to reach out to him when he looked so lost.

  The truth about what happened would come out. The variable that worried Reegan was how it might be twisted to suit the desires of all parties involved. Losing his job was turning out to be the least of his problems. He drew a cleansing breath and exhaled slowly.

  “Dr. McNamara?”

  Showtime. Reegan turned to greet the two most recent guests to the party. Both held out their standard-issue comm tablets and presented their credentials—holographs of their badges. Police detectives with the fourth district. His guess had been spot-on. A trickle of sweat ran down between his shoulder blades.

  The first spoke. “I’m Detective Perry. I
understand there was an accident on your jaunt this evening.”

  Reegan couldn’t help it. He laughed despite his nervousness. “Something like that.”

  “Councilman Victor D’arco was involved?”

  “He was.”

  “You believe he was killed?”

  “I can hope.” He pressed his mouth shut before he could incriminate himself further.

  Perry barely batted an eyelash. “We’d like to take your statement first, if you have no objections.”

  No objections. The sooner, the better. Recounting it while all the details were fresh might be their only hope of avoiding prison. People on D’arco’s side of the equation were probably already searching for a convenient scapegoat. Or three.

  “That’s fine.” Then he could come back and watch over Saul. He eyed the small briefcases they carried that housed the soothsayers. This would be his second statement of record in less than eighteen months. The interrogation process wasn’t painful, but knowing his thoughts and memories would be an open book to complete strangers, at least for a short time, left his mouth dry.

  “There’s an empty jaunt room across the hall. We can use that.” He caught Saul’s gaze, pasting on an encouraging smile. “Be back soon.”

  Mistake. Detective Perry’s piercing gaze swung toward Saul. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Hello,” Saul answered, eyes swimming with uncertainty.

  “May I see some identification, please?”

  Reegan spoke up when Saul looked to him. “He doesn’t have any. He just arrived.”

  “Arrived?” The detective keyed a short sequence into his comm tablet and the transparent surface turned opaque. He pointed it at Saul. “From where?”

  Going into this now was a bad idea. Reegan had wanted the chance to explain Saul’s presence before these guys got a hold of him. Teeth clenched, he watched Perry snap a picture, then send it through the facial recognition database. He studied the information scrolling across the screen, frown growing more pronounced.

  Reegan suppressed a shiver. Maybe they needed their own lawyer. “He’s from the past. Returned with us on the jaunt. He’s not a criminal,” he growled. “He’s a cop. From the year 2020.”