Tomorrow

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  “And obviously you came back to her room. I’m just telling you how it looks. Or how it could be made to look. Don’t you see?”

  No, I didn’t. Did he expect us to just walk away and leave her body sprawled on the floor?

  Isaac bowed his head. “You have to trust me on this. I’ve heard about other murders like this one. Security forces could nail you for her death if you’re not careful. You need to get out of here immediately.”

  I didn’t move. My shoulder had stopped throbbing. Either the Bio-net had already healed it or I hadn’t hit it as hard as I’d thought.

  “Look, I’m going to spell it out for you and then you need to stay away for your own safety.” Isaac folded his hands in his lap and said, “I believe someone’s infiltrated the movement. This is the third death like this I know of in the last couple of months. In one of the other cases, security took someone from the Sidney camp and framed him.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t guilty?” My eyes kept flicking to Seneval’s face. The room was so small there was nowhere you could look and not see her body. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I was ready to snap the neck of whoever had done this to her. So much for wanting to avoid violence.

  “Because I knew this guy,” Isaac said. “He wasn’t the type. Didn’t have an ounce of aggression in him. And the likelihood that there’s more than one person running around Montana breaking the necks of members of the grounded movement is slim. I don’t know who is doing this or why but I’m making it my business to find out. And you”—Isaac stood to his full height. From my position on the floor he looked as imposing as any politician I’d ever seen—“you need to go now or you might not be able to go at all.”

  “What about you?” I couldn’t think straight. I’d probably never have seen Seneval again after Friday’s class but I’d have known she was somewhere out there. The thought of that seemed so hopeful that its opposite crushed a part of me I couldn’t name.

  “Don’t worry about me. I have an important name to protect me and people who will be happy to give me an alibi if I need it.” Isaac watched me stand up next to him, nodding his approval. “I’m sorry we couldn’t work things out. Maybe we’ll catch up with each other down the road, but for now you need to steer clear.” He flinched as his gaze drifted down to Seneval’s body on the floor. “This should never have happened to her, of all people. She was so generous, so intelligent.”

  I didn’t need to add that she was brave. He knew that too.

  “I can’t leave her here like this,” I whispered. The second I left the room, her fate would become real and irreversible. As long as I stayed, Seneval was only dead to me. Isaac and me. The idea didn’t make sense, but it was all I had.

  “Yes, you can. It’s what she’d want.”

  Even in my shock, I thought I knew the truth when I heard it, and I fought to find my voice. “Goodbye, Isaac.”

  As I spun to leave he said to my back, “You should call me Minnow now. I’m Minnow to my friends.” It was the last thing I thought I’d ever hear him say.

  Eight: 1986

  “Freya?” Scott repeats, puzzled as he follows me into the living room. “Who’s Freya?”

  “I mean Holly. Freya’s her real name. We had to—”

  Just then Dennis reels into the room in a light linen suit, asking, “What was the ruckus?” His expression changes from annoyance to alarm when he sees me. “Robbie, is everything all right? We got a phone call from Holly a little earlier telling us about her concussion. She’s not worse, is she?”

  “Not worse, she’s gone.”

  “What?” Dennis and Scott ask in stereo. They stand close to each other while I face off against them, hurriedly telling them about the men who took Freya. The whole truth would only make me sound like someone in need of a rubber room, but from the sketchy details I offer, Dennis says he assumes that Holly and I somehow got ourselves involved with criminal elements back East.

  “We’re not criminals,” I counter. “But we know things they don’t want to come out. And now that they have her I need help finding her.”

  Dennis’s eyes widen. “We have to call the police. You two should’ve been under their protection already. You would’ve been safer.”

  I shake my head. “Not from these people. You don’t understand what they’re like. And now they’ll question Freya and try to find out what she knows.”

  “But the worst has happened,” Dennis insists. “These people have gotten their hands on Holly. There’s no advantage to keeping secrets from the police anymore.”

  Under my jacket my sweatshirt is clinging to my skin, damp with sweat. “No one would believe us,” I say truthfully. “That’s one of the reasons we never told. The things we know…the police would think we’re crazy.”

  Scott’s left foot is twitching. He leans anxiously forwards, one hand smearing at the beads of perspiration on his forehead. “If you’d never be believed why are these people so worried? It doesn’t add up.”

  “So I’m lying, is that it?” My heart can’t beat any faster but my voice spikes. It’s just like with Isaac that time in Seneval’s room. Accusations punching at my ribs.

  “No, of course not.” Dennis reaches out to grip my arm. “You said you need help and we’re just trying to figure things out.”

  “I need help now.” The director’s people would be travelling in a pack. They’d have money and weapons and they’d be secretive, but they’d have to have dealings with someone over here at some point. Somebody must have an idea where they are. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Scott’s sagging jaw and bewildered eyes say it all. I should never have come here. Dennis and Scott probably think I killed Holly and buried her body in Stanley Park.

  “Do you have cash?” I snap. “Can I take one of your cars?” Somehow I need to find the men from my apartment and follow them back to Freya without being taken myself. Dennis and Scott won’t help me; they don’t even believe me. The enormity of the job ahead of me sucks the air from my lungs.

  Dennis and Scott trade wary looks. “I’ll get you my keys,” Scott says woodenly. “They’re upstairs.” He slips out of the room, leaving Dennis and I staring at each other.

  The sound of Scott’s halting footfall on the steps flashes me back to the afternoon Freya and I visited the man we thought was our grandfather. He went upstairs, leaving us in the living room too. He went to call someone that would take us away. “Is Scott calling the police?” I growl.

  Dennis’s hands compulsively smooth down his linen blazer, like I’m scaring him. “He’s only getting the keys like you wanted,” he says, his watery grey gaze flitting away from my face.

  Upstairs I hear a door close. Dennis is lying. There’s no doubt in my mind that Scott has a phone in his hand. “Holly told me you guys were like uncles to her,” I say. “If that’s true you should be able to tell that I’d do anything for her.” I never had fathers but everything Freya said about Dennis and Scott led me to believe that if I had, I’d have wanted my fathers to be like them. The probably think they’re doing the right thing by Freya but I can’t help feeling disappointed in them.

  “Freya,” Dennis corrects, like he’s trying to trip me up. “You said her real name was Freya.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have told you her real name. And you wouldn’t believe the story of who she really is, either. But what you should know is that she hasn’t done anything wrong. She doesn’t deserve what these people will do to her.”

  Dennis freezes like I’ve begun to get through to him. If I had more time, maybe I could convince him to help me. But with every moment, Freya’s likely carried farther away from us. I watch him extend his arms, palms up in a show of helplessness. “You have to understand how this sounds,” he murmurs.

  Before I can respond we both hear a creak from the stairs. “Just do me one favour,” I plead. “Don’t tell the police anything about Holly and me when they get here. Tell them you thought you saw a prowler or somethi
ng.”

  I stalk into the entranceway and snatch my duffle bag from the floor. “Wait!” Scott cries from behind me. I swing around to catch sight of Dennis grabbing Scott’s arm.

  “Just let him go,” Dennis advises. Scott stalls next to me, suspicion hanging heavy in his jowls. “What if there’s truth in what he’s saying?” Dennis continues.

  “And what if there’s not and the police could find her?” Scott fires back. “What if he’s made the entire thing up and—”

  My fingers reach for the front door at the same moment we hear a series of sharp raps from the other side. Just my luck. The cops must’ve already had a cruiser in the area. Dennis taps his lips with his finger and glowers a warning at Scott. The three of us ease away from the door, Dennis whispering, “You can go out the back. I’ll show you the way.”

  “This isn’t right,” Scott complains, stopping in his tracks.

  “Just give him a chance,” Dennis begs on my behalf. “You know as well as I do that Holly’s never had a bad thing to say about him.”

  Dennis leads me through the kitchen and to the door to the backyard, Scott remaining behind. Without a look back I race out through the doorway, past Dennis and Scott’s tulip bed, garden furniture, and barbecue. Nearby, a lawn mower’s running and kids at play are shouting into the night. It’s the end to another normal day for some people.

  I hoist myself over the back fence and into a laneway composed of household garages. Scott could be pointing the police my way already. I snake down side streets at first, then make a run for Cornwall Avenue where I’ll have half a chance of catching a cab or a bus.

  On Cornwall a couple about my age are out walking with their hands fused together, the girl in threadbare denim shorts and the guy in a Dire Straits concert T-shirt. The girl looks sideways at me as I pass, probably because I’m moving too quickly not to draw attention. For almost every piece of bad luck I’ve had today there’s been a good piece to counter it, and down the road I see a city bus. It doesn’t matter where it’s going; I just need to get out of here. I head quickly for the closest bus stop, only twenty feet away. Within thirty seconds I’m climbing the steps and dropping coins into the fare box, no police or thugs to stop me.

  I wasn’t intending to go back to the apartment, anyway, but now I have to assume that Scott’s made that impossible. If the police start searching for me, Greasy Ryan’s and Il Baccaro won’t be safe either. I’m on my own. It’s exponentially tougher than when Freya and I were on the run together. All we had to do then was get away, Freya’s sixth sense our early warning system. Even then we wouldn’t have made it without old Freya. It took two Freyas to get us clear.

  For the first time since they snatched Freya I wonder just how they were able to do it. She should’ve sensed them coming. The night a junkie tried to jump me outside the bar after closing I was able to dodge him and get away without a scratch because she’d called to give me the details of the attack before it’d happened. In February she saw Scott clip a cyclist with his van. The woman’s leg was scraped up where she fell on it but she was otherwise unharmed, just like Freya had seen in her vision. And there were less important things she sensed all the time. So many that I got the impression she didn’t mention half of them.

  But she would’ve told me if she’d seen any danger on the horizon. The concussion must have stopped her premonitions, at least temporarily. Either the director knew that or he got lucky.

  Because it’s long after rush hour, the bus quickly nears downtown. I jump off at Powell Street, my brain itemizing the only solid facts I know about these people.

  1. The two Toronto addresses where Henry Newland (the man who they had pretending to be my grandfather) lived up until the end of February, 1985.

  2. Nancy Bolton’s employer, as of February 1985: Sheridan College, Brampton. Nancy was the one Freya met at the Eaton Centre. Nancy swore she was followed and that she hadn’t turned Freya in. The money Nancy gave Freya helped land us that shitty first apartment and get on our feet.

  3. The address and phone number of my “aunt” Beverley as of February 1985.

  4. The work address for Doctor Byrne (who acted as family doctor to both Freya and me) as of February 1985.

  With Henry, Nancy, Beverley, and Doctor Byrne pretending to be fixtures in our mothers’ lives, it’s possible that they’re still playing their parts in Toronto. Worry for our mothers has kept me and Freya from calling home or contacting any of these people, but now I have to take the risk. Beverley and I were never what you would call close, but she seemed to care about me and Rosine, which only makes her fraud feel like a bigger slap in the face. Henry isn’t interested in helping; I learned my lesson with him last time. According to what the director told Freya, everyone here working for the U.N.A. is biologically incapable of sharing information about the future. If they try, a wipe sequence will be triggered by their Bio-nets, clearing their memory. But I don’t need anyone to tell me about the future, I only want to know where Freya is.

  Beverley’s is the only number I know by heart so I decide to start with her, squeezing into the nearest payphone and feeding it a chunk of coins. On the third ring the woman who’d been pretended to be family to Rosine and me picks up.

  “Are they listening to us now?” I ask, trusting that she recognizes my voice.

  Silence.

  “Did you know they’ve taken Freya?”

  “I didn’t know,” she replies tonelessly. “I’m sorry.”

  Sure, she is. She sounds like someone who couldn’t give a fuck. Almost like a SecRo. “Why would they want her when we haven’t said anything to anyone?” I press. “And where would they take her?”

  “I don’t know the answers to those questions, either,” she says.

  Outside the phone booth, two women in stilettos, short skirts, and bleached blond hair totter by. Working girls. I’m on the border of the bad side of town. Everybody needs somewhere to be and in Vancouver the Lower East Side is often where the troubled people end up. It’s just as gloomy a place as the U.N.A.’s camps for the Cursed.

  A short guy with a hoodie pulled up over his head speeds up to overtake the women and as I begin to steer my gaze away from the sidewalk scene, something about him makes me give him a second look. In the fraction of a second it takes to refocus I lose the brief opportunity to look the guy in the face. Phone pressed to my ear, I watch the man stride away. There’s a confidence and sense of purpose to his gait that seem at odds with the direction he’s walking in. He doesn’t look like a guy on his way to buy drugs or rent a body. He looks like…

  The scent of cloves overcomes me. I drop the telephone. It dangles by its cord as I race after him, zooming by the prostitutes. He begins to speed up as the distance between us closes. Maybe I’m wrong about him. Most people will run if they feel like they’re being chased. But after what happened today I’m not about to let him go; I can’t afford to second guess myself.

  The rage and helplessness I’ve bottled up inside me erupt into action. I hurl myself at the guy’s midsection on the sidewalk, my arms closing around him and my weight plummeting us both to the cement.

  I rip the hood from his head as I flip him over. The prostitutes have caught up with us but give us a wide berth, lowering their voices as they pass. A lone raindrop lands on my ear and in the street a car roars past, the strains of INXS’s “What You Need” spilling from its open windows.

  Isaac’s Monroe’s baffled eyes stare up at me. “Garren,” he says incredulously, “is it really you?”

  Nine: 2063

  Because no one but the killer, Minnow, and I knew Seneval was dead yet, I was able to make it safely out of Wyldewood, back to my trans, and onto the I-90 without attracting any attention. The sight of Seneval’s lifeless eyes had been burnt into my mind and I was cold all the way home. When I walked through the front door Rosine took one look at me and wanted to know what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” I lied. Rosine’s disbelieving gaze spurred me to rev
ise my answer. “Mara was getting emotional about me leaving for New York.”

  “I thought you were at Lior’s.”

  “I was.” My friend, Lior, was the cover story I’d used. “Mara dropped by there to talk to me.”

  “Oh.” Rosine’s eyes popped. “I didn’t think you two were still as close as you used to be. Are you upset about having to say goodbye to her too?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?” I just needed my mother to buy my excuse and leave me alone. “It’s been sort of a rough night.”

  Rosine touched my arm. “Things will probably look better in the morning.”

  “Yeah. I think I’ll just head up to bed.” I felt Rosine’s sympathetic stare cling to my shoulders as I walked away.

  She must have warned Bening not to bother me because I didn’t see either of them again for the rest of the night. Upstairs in my room I did a zillion push-ups, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I could trigger exhaustion. I kept trying to count the push-ups in my head and then losing track of what number I was on. Seneval had likely opened the door for whoever murdered her; otherwise the SecRos would’ve been on the scene as soon as a security breach was detected. That meant she probably knew the person who’d killed her.

  Now her little sister would have lost her entire family. And my hands were tied; I had no way of helping her. I couldn’t even finish my vetting process at the Billings Library and do my part for the grounded movement.

  Then I started to wonder about the old people who might have seen me and Seneval together on the Wyldewood beach. Would the investigators try to track me down from their descriptions? Would they frame me like they’d framed the man at the Sidney camp?

  I couldn’t stop thinking. Seneval’s eyes. The heavy smell of cloves. The feel of sand still trapped between my toes. The gritty thoughts and sensations washed over me all night long.