by Karen Akins
And, of course, for the cure.
Ugh. Why was I allowing this family a single crevice of my brain? They’d all been dead for over a hundred years.
And I did know one thing about them: No one could ever know they existed.
So what was I supposed to say? After I took a kid hostage, I wandered aimlessly on the beach and caused a family meltdown? Oh, that would be after I recluctantly gave up on my black market delivery. No. I needed general information, stuff that would slip past Quigley in the stack of reports, that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows or questions.
“Search all files: Muffy van Sloot.” Nothing. Odd.
Chincoteague Island. More than I ever wanted to know about wild ponies, but nothing with a Muffy or van Sloot. I drummed my fingers against my thigh, then said, “Finn Masterson, Virginia,” and the year I’d visited. Maybe the house could be traced back to a van Sloot.
Nada.
Neither his parents nor sister registered either.
After the second Cold War, pockets of off-the-grid communities had popped up in North America and Europe, but that was well after Finn’s teenage years. Besides, I’d never heard of anyone who managed to live undetected and in the lap of luxury at the same time. I’d also never heard of anyone living in such a way without a good reason.
There couldn’t be no trace of them.
I almost started to enter the search term “Haven Beacons” but paused.
Wait. If there really was no trace of them, it could work in my favor. As long as I kept my presentation tomorrow believable and I didn’t raise any alarms, I could make some stuff up and Quigley would never know. I had reached out to close all the search results when I suddenly couldn’t see them anymore. Warm, calloused hands covered my eyes.
“Guess who,” a gravelly voice whispered in my ear.
“Hey, Wyck,” I said as I shuffled the rest of the results away blindly.
His fingers curled away from my face. “How’d you know it was me?”
Umm, because you smell like a wad of yummy wrapped in a layer of delicious?
“Lucky guess.”
“I thought you’d be in bed by now.” He leaned against a stack of stools pushed up against the far wall of the lab. A lock of dusty blond hair fell across his forehead. He swept it back, but it returned to the same spot the moment his hand fell to his side. I looked down and realized I’d brought my own hand up to push it back again. I lowered it before he noticed.
“You’ve been moving nonstop since you left for your midterm,” he said. “How’d it go by the way?”
“Fine,” I said a little too fast. I smirked and added, “No thanks to you.”
“Ahh, now that’s just mean.” Wyck slouched down farther. “Besides, who’s to say I didn’t land you right where I wanted you?”
“Ha! In the middle of a musket battle?”
“A musket battle?” His left eyebrow formed a perfect arch over those ice blue eyes. “In the twentieth century?”
“Twenty-first. And, okay, it may have been a reenactment.” I let out a little laugh. “More like a parade, actually.”
“Oh, no.” He rushed over and grabbed both my hands. “Were there clowns?”
I let out a fake shudder. “They were everywhere. Ye Olde Clowns. I farce you not.”
As I stood there, hanging out with Wyck, the stress from the assignment faded. He was like a Buzztab for my nerves.
“Sorry you were so far off your target,” he said. “I saw the word ‘island’ and the thought of you landing in water…” His shudder was real. “Guess I erred a little too far on the safe side.”
See, that’s what I loved about Wyck O’Banion. Most transporters would have snipped at me for even joking they’d done their job wrong. But not Wyck. There wasn’t a splinter of a chip on his shoulder.
I realized he was still holding my hands and pretended to cough so I could pull them away. “For a minute there, I thought you missed by two hundred years.”
He leaned in close. “I never miss with you.”
His words made me feel warm inside. I’d never felt that way before, at least around Wyck. We were just friends. I covered my cheeks, sure they were burning up.
“There you are!” My roommate, Mimi, marched into the room, hands on her hips. “Charlie said he almost had to trigger a forced fade. Are you okay?”
Wyck snapped his head up. “A forced fade?”
“No!” No red flags. I waved the question off and walked toward Mimi. “It was nothing. Log out! ’Night, Wyck.”
I pushed Mimi out the door and down the hall before Wyck had a chance to ask me anything else. Her blond ponytail whacked me in the face as she swung her head around.
“Seriously, are you all right? Do you need any of my meal rations? That was a long mission … how are you on Buzztabs?”
“Bergin took pity and gave me an override,” I said, “and I’m fine on Buzztabs.” Too fine.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Pennedy and Teague broke up. Can you believe it?”
When I didn’t chime in with a comment about our friends’ romantic woes, Mimi waved her hand in front of my face. “Are you really okay? You usually put the rest of us to shame on mission times.”
Used to. I felt a fresh wave of thankfulness that Mimi had known me long enough and was kind enough to not judge me by the last six months.
“I lost track of time,” I said.
I turned away and wrinkled my nose. I’d never lied to Mimi. But something about the … the weirdness of it all held my tongue. That and the fact that if one breath of my encounter with a Shifter got out, there would be no chance of another job from Leto. No chance to pay off my mother’s bills. I’d face suspension and be lucky if they stopped there.
When Mimi and I got to our room, I flopped face-first on my bed. The pillow wrapped my head in sateen silence. I tried to lift my arms, but the most I achieved was a thumb twitch. Ehh, pajamas shmajamas. Images from the day swirled against my eyelids—green lights and lip gloss tubes and Finn’s sandy sneakers. Thinking about his shoes gave me a sunken feeling in my stomach for some reason, but I pushed it away. And then I felt a gentle tug on my own boots.
I lifted one eye off the pillow to watch as Mimi lined them up perfectly under the funky-painted chair Mom had made for me. It really was a miracle Mimi and I were as close as we were, given our opposite everything. Her side of the room was all white and pink and sleek. Mine was … me. Piles of clothes sorted into clean and not-quite-dirty-enough-for-laundry. My pet fish, Fran, who was still alive by some miracle. (Although that miracle probably went by the name of Mimi.) A bunch of movie posters. I even had a real paper one. I’d inherited Mom’s obsession for anything antique, along with the inability to keep it organized.
“Mimi?” I asked. Only my face was still in the pillow, so it came out, “Mrehmreh?”
“Hmmm?” She sat down at the vanity and ran a brush through her honey silk hair.
My own chin-length bob was a windblown mess. I blew a few brown hairs out of my face as I turned to talk to her. I was one of the only girls at the Institute who kept their hair short. Most Shifters wouldn’t take the risk. On a whim the year before, Mimi had cropped her hair into the cutest pixie cut, then had to trigger an emergency fade two days later burning at a stake in Salem. Needless to say, she used a wig while her hair grew out.
“I’m glad you’re my roomie,” I said.
I expected her to respond with a simple, Me, too, but instead she tossed her hairbrush on the counter mid-stroke. Before I could say anything else, she bounded across the room and flounced on my bed next to me. She smooshed me up in a lung-crushing hug.
“As you should be.”
We both busted out giggling, and the tension of the day dissipated. Mimi sat up next to me and smoothed my hair down, or at least the worse-offending side.
“Seriously, though,” she said, giving my hand a tiny squeeze, “I’m the lucky one.”
I
started to squeeze it back until she added, “Remember that weirdie that Pennedy got stuck with first year? I could’ve ended up with her.”
I slapped Mimi’s wrist instead. “So I’m better than … what was her name?”
“Jennily? Jeffiny?”
“Jafney!” we both yelled at the same time.
“Wow, I haven’t thought about her in forever,” I said.
“I doubt anyone has.” Mimi hopped up and moved back to the vanity. “Except maybe the poor transporter who had to do it.”
“Yeah.” It was the only forced fade I’d ever heard of at the Institute. Jafney had left soon after. I wasn’t sure if she’d been kicked out or her family had brought her home. I’d never wondered before what had happened on that girl’s mission to force them to drag her writhing and screaming back to our time.
I wondered now.
Mimi ran her thumb over the neat row of lotions and elixirs lined up on her vanity. A standing open invitation existed for me to use any that I wanted. Unfortunately, every attempt to try them out, when not under her watchful and expert eye, had resulted in me smelling like a rotten petunia or looking like a drowned water rat.
“You sure you’re okay?” she said, all Mother Hennish. “That last-minute fade must be smarting. You need to rest.”
My head was throbbing. It was like all the Buzz had built up and hit me when my feet hit the twenty-third century.
“Mimi, have you ever not gotten the Buzz on a mission?”
“You mean like a really light Buzz?” Mimi stared at me in her mirror without turning around.
“No, I mean like none at all.”
“You have to report it.” She spun around, her eyes agog. “Anything out of the ordinary, you know that. I mean, Bree, what if this could help them figure out what happened with your mom? She mouthed the word “mom” as if the pain of my situation could be lessened by not saying it out loud.
And she was probably right. The Buzz was one of those weird things that Shifters found strangely comforting, like a pregnant woman yacking with morning sickness. Crapawful, yes, but reassuring at the same time. Proof that your microchip was working as it should.
Any other mission, I would have marched straight to Nurse Granderson’s office and blabbed. But not this mission. Mimi meant well, but the thing that would most help my mom was paying her hospital bills. I shuddered at the thought of her ending up in Resthaven because of my failure. I needed things to smooth over, and I needed to get ahold of Leto for another delivery pronto.
“You misunderstood,” I said with the lightest of laughs. “Nothing happened. Y’know what? Forget it. I’m being stupid.”
“You’re probably just tired and forgot how many Buzztabs you took.” But she still looked worried.
“Absolutely. And I have to get up at the keister crack of dawn to finish prep for my Pre-Tri report.”
“Sweet dreams.”
I wish. I turned over to face the wall. The antique sterling bracelet Mom gave me when I left for the Institute clanked against the bed frame as I did so. I rubbed the heart charm and kissed it as I did every night, the “Bree” engraving almost as worn off as the shallow original etchings on the other side. As the busyness of the day ground to a halt, grief and uncertainty slithered up as usual and squeezed my throat. I pulled the soft, frayed edge of my tatter-loved quilt up to my chin.
Mimi’s shoes squeaked as she tiptoed past my bed to go to the bathroom.
There it was again, that burr in my stomach when I thought about shoes. Why did I—?
I sat up straight with a gasp, heart slamming against my rib cage. My shoes! I’d dumped the sand out of them on Finn’s deck earlier.
Along with Leto’s delivery.
chapter 5
RULE NUMBER TWELVE OF SHIFTING: Never be late for Quigley’s class. Of course, that rule went for transporters as well. And general passersby.
It was one that I almost broke as I scrambled to my seat in Pre-Tricentennial American History while a disembodied voice overhead warned me of my tardiness. Shut up, Sassy Computer! I slid into my desk.
“Ahh, Miss Bennis, thank you for joining us.” The Quig was never in a good mood. At that moment, she looked extrahorked. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back so tight into its usual bun it lifted her prominent cheekbones even higher. Myself, I looked like a Pod wreck. If I fell asleep at all last night, it was a fitful nightmare for half an hour before my alarm went off so I could throw together whatever it was I was going to present in class today.
Every time I’d closed my eyes, all I could see was Leto’s sneering face tattooed on the back of my retina. Instead of counting sheep, I counted the number of times I told myself that he wouldn’t be that upset about the lost flexiphone. I’d lost track somewhere around five eighty-six.
I mean, it was an honest mistake. He couldn’t fault me for that.
Five eighty-seven.
“For those of you waiting on anxious bits and bytes for today’s quiz, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,” said Dr. Quigley. Not surprisingly, Emmaline Walters was the only one who looked the slightest bit put out. “The time has come for you to declare your Intent of Specialization. I have been designated the caring adult to guide you through this process. So make a decision and enter it. There. You’ve been guided.”
Quigley pushed a button on her podium and soligraph forms materialized in front of all our desks, simple check-the-box questionnaires. I picked up my stylus.
“Hey, why do we have to be here?” asked Wyck from the back. He pointed to a few transporters sitting around him.
“Mr. O’Banion, there are thirty-seven areas of Shifter specialization. Pick one.”
“I’m not a—”
“Yes, but the Shifters have to get where they’re going, don’t they? Someone has to do it. So until we finish training the monkeys to do your job…” She waved her arm to mimic checking a box and mouthed the words pick one.
What a crapwench! Sure, I didn’t blame Shifters for resenting the fact that we needed transporters. But that was uncalled for. I flipped around to look at Wyck, but he didn’t meet my gaze. Every transporter in the room turned crimson. A few of them opened their mouths to say something, but she’d already turned her back on us and begun rearranging notes for the day’s lecture on the wall behind her. A few Shifters in the back of the class leaned over and punched Wyck on the shoulder in a sign of solidarity, but his face had already gone blank, unreadable.
I had known this day was coming, when I had to choose a path, a future. But now that it was here, the words danced around and seemed unfamiliar. The form was straightforward enough, from the most intense, “Chronocrime Investigation,” at the top, to the fluffiest down at the bottom. “Same-day chronocourier.” Phbbt.
Grandpa used to say all Shifter jobs fell into one of two categories: curiosity or altruism. Or, as he used to phrase it, “the ones who can’t help but know and the ones who can’t help but help.” For the most part, he was right. The majority of Shifters enter academia, studying some form of history, like my mom. And then there were expert witnesses, doggedly taking notes and measurements at the scene of an accident or crime. The rest usually went into public service—do-gooders. Activists who went back and filled out protest crowds or cleaned up the same ecosystems over and over. And medical consultants like Pennedy’s older brother, who prepped the ER staff for incoming trauma patients. But being the smarty-britches I am, I always tried to stump Grandpa with exceptions.
“What about trenders? They don’t do anything useful.” Trenders were personal stylists who went back to the recent past and got paid by rich people to dress them in the next big thing in fashion before it was the next big thing. They held the dubious honor as the only Shifters who were legally allowed to share information from the future. Apparently, rich people have some powerful lawmaker friends.
“Ahh, but isn’t there inherent goodness in beauty?” asked Grandpa.
“Do you remember the live-ferret coat fad
?” Then I thought of one that was sure to stump him. “How about temporal smugglers?”
“That’s not a calling.” He kissed me on the top of my head. “That’s a crying shame.”
I cringed at the censure of a memory. The form in front of me flashed and brought me back to my task. I’d been thinking about the field of Temporal Ethics, but after yesterday’s mission that probably wasn’t a stellar idea. There was always Quantum Biology. It seemed to be the one class I wasn’t in danger of failing right now. And, of course, anything in the here and now to unravel the mystery of Mom’s accident in the past I wanted to do.
“Done?” Quigley didn’t wait for a response. “Good.”
I managed to mark the Bio box right before the form piffed away.
“Are there any questions?” she asked.
Arms shot up across the room.
“Questions that don’t involve the phrases ‘what should I do’ or ‘rest of my life’?”
Every hand went down.
Except Mimi’s.
“Yes?” said Quigley.
“What would it mean if you didn’t get the Buzz on a mission?” Mimi kept her attention trained forward, but her eyes slid across the aisle in my direction for a fraction of a second.
Panic sprang up in my gut. I hid my mouth with my hand and hissed, “What are you doing?” behind clenched teeth.
Quigley’s lips transformed to a thin, red line. “Mild Buzzes are indicative of nothing.”
“But no pain?”
I stared at Mimi, willing her mouth to stop moving. But at the same time, this was my one chance to find out.
“Likely the Shifter would have ingested some Buzztabs without remembering,” said Quigley.
“But—”
“Miss Ellison, is there something you need to tell me?”
Mimi shook her head with a casual confidence only she could pull off, and our teacher let it drop.
“Today we’ll cover the Chinchilla Flu Epidemic of— Oh.” The Quig looked down at her screen. “First, Miss Bennis will present her midterm from yesterday.”