There’s no mistaking who she’s talking about. Minnow isn’t dead. He survived the gunshot.
“I don’t know what it means—why I keep seeing him when he has nothing to do with me,” Freya continues. “Unless I have brain damage and these visions, along with everything else I’m seeing, are because of it.”
“You’re not seeing me or any of the things you saw out there in Seattle today because of brain damage.” I keep my voice level and calm, the opposite of how I feel. “They’re real. I know it might take a while for that to sink in. The man you’re seeing is real too. He’s one of the people I thought I’d killed early this morning.” Most of the U.N.A. personnel Isaac and I shot definitely weren’t going to get up again. Their Bio-nets must have been modified before they were sent through the chute—the wipe sequence programmed in while advanced healing was switched off. Otherwise they could’ve attracted unwanted attention, seeming to be superheroes compared with the rest of the 1980s population. But Minnow’s Bio-net wouldn’t have been modified in the least. I didn’t consider that when I shot at him. My single bullet should’ve been an onslaught.
Freya’s teeth graze her bottom lip. “If what I’m seeing is true, he doesn’t look as if he’s in any condition to come after anyone. And this feeling coming from him, I can’t explain it but I don’t think it’s about us. It’s like an all-consuming dedication. A darkness inside him. A longing for something I can’t put into words. I don’t know how, but I think something terrible is going to happen.”
“The man—could you tell if he was under guard?” I’ve never known Freya’s visions to be outright wrong, but they’re not always entirely accurate either. The future is subject to change and in this case she hasn’t actually seen destruction. Maybe it’s only the strength of Isaac’s intentions that she’s picking up on.
“Why would he be under guard if he’s working for the U.N.A.?” she asks, like she’s trying to catch me out, looking for holes in my story.
“But is he being watched?” My heart thwacks at my ribcage. “Is he in cuffs or strapped down?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen snatches of things. But nothing that gives me the impression he’s being guarded. I think whoever he was with only wanted to get him to safety.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” she says sharply. “I’m not sure of one thing. He just keeps popping back into my mind like a poison.” Her fingers chafe at her forehead. “I wish it would stop.”
And I wish her visions of Minnow had never happened in the first place. Because now that I know Isaac’s alive, and there’s a possibility the U.N.A. don’t have him in custody, I have to go back. Cross the border into Canada and hunt him down.
Billions of lives are at stake. He can’t be allowed to release the virus.
The future isn’t written in stone. President Reagan’s assassination proves that. Possible outcomes can be changed.
With the help of Freya’s second sight there’s a chance I might be able to find Isaac and succeed where the U.N.A. have so far failed. It will mean putting Freya on a plane with Elizabeth, so she won’t be taken again. And it will mean I might never find her, because they won’t be able to risk leaving a trail. But if I don’t try to stop the deaths of so many, I won’t be able to live with myself. So there’s no real choice, no easy way out.
I didn’t want Freya to be burdened with some of the things I know and now those secrets will be spilled in less than a day. A wisp of regret escapes my lungs. Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t believe me after all.
But then Freya’s eyes vault to mine, her gift perhaps already warning her that what I’m about to say will change everything.
Nineteen: 1986
Freya’s face lengthens as she listens to the potential doom the chute has brought to 1986. Then she questions me about Isaac and the people who escaped 2071 only to see their nightmare begin to unfold anew. I hear the doubt and fear in Freya’s voice and with every reply I give I’m afraid I’m offering her another reason to run away again. Worse, she can’t see anything more about Isaac, even when she tries.
“I don’t know how to bring on the visions,” she says when she opens her eyes. “They usually spring out of nowhere.”
Elizabeth’s bed creaks. Freya’s body is partially blocking my view but we both turn at the sound of the second creak. Elizabeth’s voice rasps into the blackness of the room, “What is it?”
I explain quickly: what Freya’s seen, what I believe it means, and what I intend to do about it.
“You can’t go back.” Elizabeth’s tone is unbending. “They’ll catch you if you show up anywhere near Vancouver again. They’ll have reinforcements assembled by now and they’ll be all over the area looking for Monroe. You’re not even sure he’s not in their custody. You heard Freya, she doesn’t know anything else. There’s not enough information for you to go on. No point in crossing back over the border. It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack. They’d have more chance of finding you than you would of finding Monroe.”
Everything Elizabeth said is the truth, but I can’t let go of the catastrophe facing humanity. “Keep trying,” I urge Freya.
Sleep has been chased away by the danger on the horizon and Elizabeth continues to argue with me about the uselessness of returning to Canada while Freya slips into the bathroom to shower. Someone from the neighbouring room pounds on the wall behind our beds, sick of the early morning bickering. We revert to antagonistic silence. I flip the TV on but switch the sound down. A scratchy black–and-white print of some John Wayne movie is playing. I stare at the moving images on the screen, not really seeing them.
Amorous sounds from next door begin to shake our shared wall. The people we woke up have decided to make the most of their wakefulness and I resist the urge to rap back in complaint. Everyone on the planet may not have long—why should anyone be quiet?
The wall’s still rattling like an earthquake has hit Seattle when Freya rushes out of the bathroom in the black jeans and frilly blue halter top I stole for her yesterday, her hair dripping down her back. “I saw him again,” she says. “He was on his feet. Weak but walking. Towards another trans, I think.”
“Was anyone with him?” I choke out.
“I didn’t see anyone. It felt as though he was alone.” Freya grabs her elbows, cupping one in each hand. “The bad feeling’s stronger now. Or maybe it’s only because of the things you told me. It feels like devastation lying in wait. Terrible.” She shakes her head, flecks of water spritzing the air. One of them lands on my bottom lip.
“I need details. Street names. Descriptions.” Her memories of Vancouver have been erased. She won’t know places by sight. That will make this more complicated. “Do you know where he’s going?”
Freya’s gaze leaves me. I watch her attempt to reach into the future, stillness surrounding her as the present begins to drift into the distance. For a minute we feel worlds apart.
Then her eyes return to mine. “I’m sorry. It comes and goes. I can’t control it. Maybe as we get closer…”
“We’re not getting any closer. You and Elizabeth are getting on a plane.”
“You can’t do this on your own.” Freya’s fingers anxiously thrum her elbows. “Look, I still don’t know what to think about all the things you’ve told me—I don’t remember any of it—but when I see this man you say is Isaac I know in my bones he’s planning something that will touch us. Touch everyone. If there’s a chance the horrible feeling I’m having is linked to a deadly virus the warren engineered, how can I get on a plane with someone I never laid eyes on before yesterday and run away with her instead of helping you stop it?”
“It’s not running away,” I protest. “You won’t be safe if you come with me. You don’t know anything about how this place works—you’d be a sitting duck.” If it weren’t for the kindness of the people of Seattle, she’d probably have been picked up by the cops minutes after wandering away from the motel.
“You�
�ll never find him without me.” The determination in Freya’s cheeks sends a shiver up my back. “Like Elizabeth said, it would be the same as searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“No.” My hands have begun to tremor. I won’t let her do this. “You have to get away from here. As far as you can so they won’t be able to find you again.”
“You’re the only one here I recognize, Garren.” Freya’s tone pleads for understanding. “If this is the truth then it’s just us, isn’t it? Everybody else is gone. Years away from existing. Except my mother, and from what you’ve said I can’t see her ever again. I can’t afford to be wrong and stay out of this. Either this isn’t real and it doesn’t matter what happens to me anyway, or it’s just you and me here. Us and the people on the planet with us right now. Did you see the little boy in the lobby with his mother earlier?” Freya doesn’t wait for my answer; she knows I saw them: a moon-faced toddler in a jumpsuit who waved at us from his mother’s arms when Freya and I arrived back at the motel late this afternoon. “If this virus does what you say it’s designed to and kills sixty percent of the world’s population, who would die—the mother or her son? Both of them maybe? Because I didn’t help you stop the virus and ran away to hide. Do you really think I could do that?”
“We might not come out of this, Freya.” Desperation hollows my words. “What if I tell you it’s all in your head?”
“It doesn’t matter what you tell me, I’m coming with you anyway.” Freya’s eyes beam my distress back to me. Her left hand moves tentatively towards my right, her fingers fitting between mine just the way they always have. “Like I said, if it isn’t real there’s no cost to me.”
But it is real and it could cost us everything. I wish I could tell Freya I’ll run away with her instead, let the world stand or fall on its own. But that’s not the people we are.
Behind us Elizabeth noisily clears her throat. “If you really think there’s a chance we can stop Monroe, I’m travelling back with you both.” Minutes ago she thought trying to find Isaac was an act of futility and my eyebrows tug together in confusion. “I know I said everything didn’t have to be decided tonight but now it looks like it does. And I’ve made up my mind.”
Freya nods her acceptance and I think of what Elizabeth said while Freya was sleeping, about making a choice that her life would be a secret one. Does she feel responsible for us after what she did to Freya’s memory or is it the rest of humanity she can’t turn her back on?
“We should go now,” I say, my puzzlement turning to respect. Whatever Elizabeth’s reasons for doing this are, they hinge on self-sacrifice. “We don’t know how long we have.” With Isaac on the move it’s possible we’ll already be too late.
It’s almost five o’clock in the morning and within eight minutes we’re filing out of the motel room, each of us quiet and on edge. Elizabeth checks us out of the motel and I climb behind the wheel of the Volkswagen, Freya next to me and Elizabeth in the back seat. Seattle blurs into the distance, the morning sky grey and lifeless.
Twenty minutes from the border Freya has another vision. “He’s surrounded by trees,” she says. “And there’s dirt at his feet. No people nearby, only nature. He’s lying down to rest. He’s not as badly hurt as before but he’s not finished healing.”
The damn Bio-net is doing exactly what it was programmed to. Saving human life. Judging by Freya’s visions some uninvolved civilian must have found Minnow, probably after he’d been crawling wounded for hours, and called him an ambulance. Then he was likely taken to hospital but escaped as soon as he could, aware the U.N.A. would be hunting him.
“And the bad feeling?” I ask. My eyes are dry from lack of sleep and my wrist aches. I probably shouldn’t be driving.
Freya narrows her eyes in concentration. “It’s as strong as before. He’ll do whatever he can to carry out his plans. But right now it seems as though he’s waiting. For someone or something. I’m not sure which.”
“We should check hospitals in and around Surrey,” Elizabeth advises. “If Monroe was admitted to one, even for a short time, someone must have seen him.”
I cradle my damaged wrist in my lap, my good hand on the wheel. “But we know he’s not there now. And the U.N.A. will be checking medical facilities too. Maybe we’re better off searching parks.”
We agree to search heavily treed areas, beginning with any Surrey parkland. I pull over so Elizabeth can take possession of the driver’s seat before we reach customs. She’s composed a new border crossing story in keeping with the one we used yesterday. The three of us were en route to Sacramento for Amy’s mother’s wedding. When we stopped to spend last night in Oregon, Mrs. Lewandowski placed an apologetic phone call to our hotel. She’d had second thoughts and was cancelling the wedding to jet off somewhere secret by herself and ruminate on her life.
The female Canadian border guard grimaces sympathetically as Elizabeth relays the tale with just the right amount of detail, emitting a faint, unspoken embarrassment at having such a flighty sister. “And so,” the guard says lightly, “anything to declare?”
“Nothing.” Elizabeth’s lips pucker into an uptight smile. “There wasn’t time.”
The guard stares pointedly as me in the backseat. “Not bringing back any alcohol or cigarettes?”
Is my thirst for cigarettes leaking through my pores? “No,” I reply truthfully. “I’m trying to quit smoking.”
The final thing the guard says to us before waving the car through is, “Welcome home.”
I wish I’d never had to see it again, but the British Columbia landscape genuinely feels like a second home, as perfect as any spot on U.N.A. soil could be. In 2071, all this beauty could be destroyed. Blasted to bits. Irradiated. Ash from the burning destruction blocking out the sun and sending the planet into nuclear winter. If I was as certain this was the earth’s future as Isaac seems to be, maybe I wouldn’t want to stop him.
But from a place eighty-five years earlier, I have to believe there’s time for humanity to change without being brought to its knees. The world isn’t destined to be annihilated. There’s no such thing as destiny. There are only the choices we make now.
Outside, it’s begun to drizzle, the sky stubbornly drab. Once we reach Surrey we veer off the 99 and stop at the first convenience store we see. While Freya and I head inside to pick out a map, Elizabeth takes the car into the McDonald’s parking lot across the street so she can use their bathroom.
I glance at the maps and tell Freya to look for umbrellas—as much to hide us as to keep us from getting wet. My throat’s as dry as my eyes and I’ve shuffled to the back of the store to peer into the fridge when someone clasps my arm, fingers tightening into a steely grip. I jump in my skin, my neck snapping to the right. Freya’s standing a half-step behind me, her blue eyes startled and enormous.
“Someone’s coming.” Freya’s hand falls away from me. “They recognized the trans and are turning around. Coming back to get us.”
Freya and I race to the front of the store to stare out the window, our eyes searching the road. A mud-flecked station wagon with wood panelling peals into the McDonald’s parking lot as Elizabeth steps out of the restaurant and nears the Volkswagen. There’s no time to warn her. I see her body brace, grasping imminent danger. A thirty-something-year-old woman in an oversized shirt and teased hair jumps out of the station wagon and grapples with Elizabeth, trying to force her into the station wagon.
Elizabeth drops to the ground, resisting with every muscle in her body and screaming blue murder. The sound torpedoes towards us like a bull’s eye, hitting me in the centre of the chest. She’s trying to warn us. She doesn’t want us to be taken too. I pull Freya slowly backwards, further into the store so we won’t be spotted from across the street. A gunshot splits the air. The sound urges us nearer to the window again, to the sight of Elizabeth’s inert body on the pavement. The woman fires a second shot directly into Elizabeth’s temple, the barrel of the gun kissing her skin. If Elizabeth wasn
’t dead after the first shot, there’s no hope for her now.
The woman spins to survey the parking lot and then reels towards the station wagon, her eyes scouring the immediate area. Looking for us. She leaps inside the open passenger door and the station wagon spurts back into the street.
Freya’s fingers tighten around my arm again, yanking me in the direction of a door I hadn’t noticed. The man behind the cash registers roars at us as we stream through it and into a crowded stock room. “They’re still coming,” Freya cries. “They think we must be close.”
They’re right. But between the well-stocked wire shelving units that line the walls, we discover a rear door. Freya and I burst through it and into the open air. A three-foot-tall cement wall edged with trees separates the back alley from a suburban neighbourhood. I clear the fence easily. Freya drops her hands onto the fence to push herself over. I reach for her with my good hand but she doesn’t need my help. She drops into the line of trees with me, the two of us sprinting through them and into a road flush with semi-detached houses. An upended tricycle lies at the top of one of the nearest driveways and at the far end of the street a man with a long black ponytail is walking a pair of identical white dogs, talking to them like they’re human.
The dogs bark excitedly as we fly past them. “Where are they?” I ask Freya, neither of us slowing.
“The store. But they’re not following us through the stockroom door. I don’t think the clerk told them which way we went.”
We keep running, our clothes soggier and heavier by the minute. Even when Freya thinks the U.N.A. personnel have deserted the convenience store and are searching for us by car again, we don’t stop. We sprint from street to street, and through cut-offs channelling us into adjoining neighbourhoods, avoiding busier roads.
The U.N.A.’s first choice couldn’t have been to shoot Elizabeth. They would have wanted to question her—look into her head and find out where we are and exactly what our plans are. Us and Isaac. There’s no question that they assume we’re working together now. But Elizabeth caused too much of a commotion outside the McDonald’s. They had to cut their losses.
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