Time for the Lost

by Chess Desalls

  “You’re lying,” I said. “You just fired him, remember? This is a cover-up for all of your disgusting tests.”

  President Bree glared at me.

  “I’m right, aren’t I? The Place of the Lost was one of the TSTA’s experiments, wasn’t it? All that suffering. All that pain.” My body tingled with memories of the agony and fear I’d felt in Susana. The Uproars there didn’t feed off the blood of the Lost to collect travel talents—my father’s theory had been wrong. The Uproars collected travelers, guinea pigs for the TSTA’s benefit. “You let people get Lost, you charged talented travelers with searching for the Lost, in hopes that they’d also end up in Susana. And for what purpose? To hand select a few travelers to rise up against Aboreal? To test a kind and intelligent Detail Technician—which caused his own sister so much pain? I don’t buy it.”

  President Bree didn’t budge. Not a single hint of flinch. How could Ray and Lily think they’d confirmed anything? She’d go as far as she needed—she’d say anything—to be set free.

  Personally, I was done with the TSTA’s games. “I think we should just leave her there,” I said. I turned to leave Ray’s office.

  “Wait!”

  Glancing back, I caught a glimpse of terror in President Bree’s eyes. A moment later, a manipulative smile spread across her face.

  “Think about it,” she said. “Two Remnant Transporters, two Detail Technicians, and a World Builder with no fear of getting in trouble. Valcas has no affinity for Aboreal, even though half of his blood comes from that revolting failure of a society. Oh, and don’t think I don’t know about the Time Keeper. It’s only a matter of time before he’s sent back to Aboreal. They will deal with him as they see fit.” Had her wrists not been bound, I imagined she would have sliced her finger across her throat. “And then the Clock Tower will be mine. Aboreal will never have control over the TSTA.”

  Only a matter of time. That must have been TSTA officials’ favorite expression. It was as if time was theirs, a substance to control. Just like lives.

  If the TSTA hated Aboreal so much, then why bother hiring Ivory as a Chauffeur? I answered my own question in my head, grateful that I hadn’t blurted it out without thinking. Ivory was the TSTA’s only other lead to Nick. Surely the agency suspected Nick’s part in the contributory infraction. It just couldn’t find him…or the Clock Tower. Had Nick done something to make the Clock Tower inaccessible to the TSTA? Valcas had been able to find it using his travel glasses, and my father had no problem traveling back and forth between the Clock Tower and other worlds. Did all this have something to do with the contributory infraction?

  I stifled a laugh, knowing the Time Keeper that President Bree claimed to know so much about had tied her up. He’d infiltrated the TSTA, right under her nose, and had prevented her access to where he was hiding.

  I flashed President Bree a glare that finally made her flinch. “You had the TSTA name its Place of the Lost project after you, and you had your name tattooed on Ray so that he’ll never forget it. You even convicted him of an infraction when he was without blame. I don’t know where or when you’re from, but tell me something. Does the TSTA punish itself for leaving Daily Reminders in others’ pasts?”

  Without waiting for an answer that I was sure I’d never get, I blurted out one last piece of my mind before slamming the door behind me: “There’s definitely something revolting here, but it’s not Aboreal.”

  I REGRETTED not having said good-bye.

  I’d miss Mom. But I resolved to contact her in some other way, as soon as I could trust that the TSTA’s control over her wasn’t a danger to anyone else I loved.

  I ran into Valcas and my father in the hallway. “We have to leave,” I said. “Now.”

  In a rush, I told them what happened in Ray’s office. I wanted out of there, before President Bree was released and before she was needed for the Gala auction when somebody would notice she was missing.

  “Let’s go back and get Ray and Lily,” Valcas said. “We’ll all go together—to the Clock Tower.”

  “No, I can’t. I have somewhere else I need to go first.”

  Valcas’ face fell. “Where?”

  “Trust me. Please. I have to learn something that I hope can fix all of this. I’ll meet you back at the Clock Tower. I need to visit someone.”

  I bent down and unbuckled the sequined straps on my shoes and kicked my feet. The formal shoes flew across the floor, where they’d be just as useful. I pulled my pair of travel glasses out of my purse along with a pair of fold-up flats, slipped on both and ran.

  I focused on the person I needed to talk to: Edgar, one of his silhouettes. He’d told Valcas about the truth being frozen within the slices of time. I had some questions about that, especially where it concerned Nick and Ivory, and their Overwrite.

  A white glow faded as quickly as it appeared, dropping me in another time and place, this one shrouded in darkness. The spicy sent of pine lingered in the chill of the air. It was nighttime at Edgar’s Workshop in the Woods. I’d traveled to a version of him that would remember me, a silhouette who stayed up all night to run experiments on the travel glasses and eventually made contact with Enta.

  I’d spent most of my time there, in the adjacent room, reading Shirlyn’s diary. I hoped to keep this visit, and our conversation, short.

  My knuckles made dull drumming sounds when I knocked. The door opened a crack. Light from the room haloed Edgar. His droopy eyes squinted at me over round glasses. He gasped.

  I lifted my finger to my lips. “Can I talk to you for a minute, out here?”

  Edgar looked behind him and stepped out into the darkness. “Calla? I—why, I thought you were in the living room, reading.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, “the version of me that is with you. I’ve come back to visit you, from the future.” I told him this in confidence, knowing he’d forget all about it without a Daily Reminder.

  He smacked his lips. “That’s wonderful. You have escaped Valcas, then? You’ve found a way to avoid him?”

  I smiled. “No, you found a way to help me, Edgar, by contacting Enta and using the communication feature Valcas added to the travel glasses.” I wasn’t sure whether telling him this mattered either. I paused to chew on my lip. If he was a silhouette, then he’d forget the next day. Or, maybe I’d had something to do with it by traveling to this past. Maybe that version of me had been there all along. I wondered what a slice in time would show. I no longer trusted the TSTA’s rules about not changing the past—constructs they’d invented to try to control travelers through harsh fines and penalties.

  Valcas had told me about his conversation with one of Edgar’s silhouettes—about multiple versions of the truth, and how the purest form of truth was fixed in time. I needed to know how Overwrites affected that; because if it worked and was more powerful than a Daily Reminder, I would have a lot more planning to do before returning to the Clock Tower.

  “Are you in trouble?” Edgar looked over his glasses at me with his droopy eyes. “More trouble, that is?”

  “If not, I’m sure I will be soon. But I don’t care about that anymore. I have questions you may be able to answer.”

  “Of course—if there’s anything I can do.”

  “There’s not much time,” I said, glancing at the Workshop door, hoping my past-self was fully absorbed in reading. “What can you tell me about Overwrites? How do they affect the past and others’ attempts to change the past with Daily Reminders?”

  Edgar sucked in a breath. “I wish I were able to explain. I have not been able to resolve the paradox.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated.

  “But perhaps my colleague could help—someone who has made advances toward many inventions, far beyond my own.”

  “Someone from a future world?” I blinked. “You mean Enta?”

  His breath hitched. “That would be an excellent place to start. Do you need me to take you there?”

  I grasped his hands. “No, thank you,
Edgar. I’ve visited her home before. She may not be there now—” I swallowed my words, remembering the last I’d heard of Enta, back behind the Fire Falls when Valcas contacted her just before we made our escape. Valcas had expected she was traveling through time and space to try to forget her troubles, that she was in danger of becoming Lost.

  My heart skipped a beat, not with fear but with hope. I hadn’t seen Enta in Susana the entire time I was trapped there. My father and I hadn’t freed her. I smiled. Enta hadn’t been Lost. Susana was gone now, and it was likely that she was still alive. I needed to contact her, to see if she was using her pair of travel glasses and warn her that I would be on my way.

  I squeezed Edgar’s hands once more before I let them go. “Thank you, Edgar. I need to go, and you should probably get back to your lab before the version of me in the living room checks in to see if you need tea.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. This would be awfully difficult to explain if she came out here, wouldn’t it? And she’s just learning…”

  I smirked, noting how Edgar referred to my past-self as a separate person. Perhaps she was. I wasn’t the same person I was before my travels started; and I would never be the same again.

  “Good-bye, Calla. I do hope to see you again soon, in another time and place within the Everywhere and Everywhen.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat, knowing he’d passed on to somewhere and somewhen that I’d never visited, but also grateful that he’d done so before experiencing Susana. “Good-bye, and thanks again.”

  Edgar hobbled back into his Workshop, gave me one last look and closed the door.

  I shuddered, wondering what would happen if I told the travel glasses to take me to a presently existing version of him. Would I find myself underground, inside Edgar’s grave? Or would I end up somewhere else? Had anyone tried traveling to such a place before? And, if so, would it be the same place that the Lost in Susana went when their lives had expired—to the other side of the shimmering light? Was such a place accessible to a living person like me?

  Terrified of the unknown, I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. Not too far, though, because one couldn’t have too many backup plans where the TSTA was involved.

  I pressed the travel glasses to my face to try to contact Enta. What I found was someone else, looking for me.

  “Calla?”

  My heart plummeted as Valcas’ face appeared against an all-white backdrop. Concern washed over his face. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

  I glanced at the workshop. “I’ve already made my first stop—to see Edgar. I didn’t find out what I need to know yet, but I’m working on it. Just one more visit, and if I’m not successful, I promise I’ll go straight to the Clock Tower.”

  “And if you find what you’re looking for?”

  Fear gripped my chest. I hoped my feelings weren’t plastered all over my face. “I’ll catch up with you,” I promised. Not necessarily at the Clock Tower, but somewhere, somewhen. I couldn’t tell him that, though. Or my plans, because I knew he’d resist. But it would be for his own good—for the good of everyone.

  My plan, if it worked, would change everything.

  Valcas stared back at me. Since he wore his pair of travel glasses while speaking to me through them, I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.

  “How are you?” I said. “Did everyone make it back to the Clock Tower?”

  He nodded. “We left President Bree the way we found her, mainly because Nick had come back through the portal. We snuck outside and traveled through the return portal located outside of TSTA Headquarters.”

  “So, what’s going on? Why did Nick go through the portal in the first place? Why did he tie her up?” Not that I’d minded; I was curious.

  “It has to do with the Overwrite that involves both him and Ivory. Events important enough for him to have ported despite his injuries.”

  My fingers clenched the travel glasses. I knew it. “Did you find out what it was—the reason behind their infraction?”

  “Yes. They told us everything. There are connections I never would have imagined, ties that bind Aboreal to the TSTA. You see, Aboreal created the TSTA, but the travel agency grew in strength so rapidly that it pulled away. A charter was formed, one that denied Aboreal any control over the TSTA. But rules were broken, and eventually Aboreal wanted to be set free from its rules and penalties. Aboreal tried to sever its association with the TSTA and develop a new set of rules.”

  “But as we all know, that never happened.”

  “Oh, but it did. According to Aboreal’s travel regulations, talents such as Nick’s were outlawed. In many ways, Aborealian travel laws were less tolerant. Nick was considered a pariah. Frustrated with his life there, he denounced Aboreal, left the world and became what he is now, a Time Keeper. That was before he knew Ivory had fallen in love with him.”

  I gasped.

  “She followed him as well as she could,” Valcas continued. “When she learned that their separation was a result of Aborealian law, she used her position with the TSTA to assist with a mission that involved Aboreal’s government. She used security clearance she’d obtained as a member of the Aborealian Forces to infiltrate the records. She knew that, before leaving, Nick had left a Daily Reminder in Aboreal’s past, in the form of a letter addressed to the Aborealian Prime Minister, naming the Time Keeper as a TSTA ally, one that would bring down Aborealian travel law. He threatened to destroy the Clock Tower. It was a bluff but a strong threat, regardless, because Aboreal had never disclosed the Clock Tower’s existence to the TSTA.”

  “Ivory found the letter?”

  “Yes, and she inked out the portion of the text that contained Nick’s threat because it ultimately hadn’t worked. Their laws were overwritten, but not their citizens’ minds. Nick was still an outcast. They couldn’t be together.”

  “The TSTA punished her for that?”

  “Yes, because of what she wrote to replace the text she’d obliterated. There, on the letter, she’d added that as long as the TSTA existed, Aboreal would not regulate time and space travel; but there would be a price: the TSTA would be shielded from access to the Clock Tower without the key. Nick, the Time Keeper, is the key who controls access. No one from the TSTA may enter without his permission and consent, regardless of their method of travel. This is why Ivory and Ray could appear at the Clock Tower even though they worked for the TSTA. Nick used his travel talent to allow them access, knowing that we needed our shared talents to find you.

  “Ivory hoped that her Overwrite would, ultimately, make the Aborealians more covetous and accepting of their own people’s travel talents. But, again, it didn’t work. Conversely, her words left Aboreal a clue that inflamed the TSTA.”

  I slowly exhaled a breath. “That Aboreal could regulate time and space travel…if the TSTA no longer existed.”

  I thought about the time spent behind the Fire Falls, when I’d teased Ivory about her Overwrite. I’d tried to grasp the concept of an Overwrite in terms of individuals harming one another directly: Person A created a daily reminder to harm Person B. Ivory protected Person B by overwriting Person A’s Daily Reminder. Everyone had agreed that I’d more or less gotten the concept. But Ivory was right; it was more complicated than that. From what Valcas just told me, Nick was the person Ivory wanted to protect; but he was Person A, not B, because Nick wrote the original Daily Reminder. Ivory protected Nick by overwriting his reminder.

  If what Ivory admitted was true, an Overwrite was a powerful weapon, one that could be used against agencies and entire worlds. One that could start wars. And one that could change lives.

  AFTER MY conversation with Valcas ended, I tried contacting Enta multiple times.

  No one answered. Unsure where she’d be, I battled with myself over whether I should travel to her homestead or ask the travel glasses to take me specifically to her, wherever she was. Since there was no guarantee she’d be at the homestead, I chose the latter, foc
using on a presently existing Enta as I ran through the clearing in Edgar’s Nowhere, hoping she wasn’t dead.

  Some part of me expected to find grasses swaying below pastel skies when the light faded. Instead, the sky was dark. I didn’t recognize my new surroundings. Warily, I looked around, disappointed with what I saw.

  Snow covered the ground. Trees bared of their leaves poked up through the snow, their branches glazed with ice. Flakes of snow fell from the sky. My body trembled from the chill of the wind. The cold seeped into my feet, burning the tips of my toes.

  I brushed my hands across my arms. “Enta?”

  A light shined in the distance. As it neared, a figure emerged alongside it, a person holding an old-fashioned lamp.

  “Calla, is that you?” Her voice was familiar. I puffed out a breath. The travel glasses hadn’t failed me.

  “Enta!” I reached out to embrace her, and then wrapped my arms around her snow-dusted cloak.

  A white bonnet peeked out through her hood. Honey-colored eyes stared into mine, judging how I’d changed. “What a surprise. What brings you here?”

  Glancing around at the wintry world, I hesitated. “Where exactly is here?”

  A gloved hand motioned for me to follow. Our feet crunched along the snow, trailing a path of footprints behind us.

  Enta exhaled, her breath visible in the air. “I’m inside one of the rooms at the White Tower.”

  “You mean Jim and Sable’s White Tower as it is now—in its present?”

  Slowly, she nodded.

  Blood drained from my face. “But, why?” Returning to the White Tower was how I’d gotten Lost—past versions of the world that I’d traveled to repeatedly, until I’d driven myself to Susana, with my Uproar following closely behind me.

  “I’ve been searching for something ever since Edgar’s death.”

  Her words shamed me. Valcas and I had thought she’d been traveling through time and space to forget about Edgar. We’d assumed she was trying to get Lost. But here she was as clear-thinking and determined as ever, on a mission of her own.