by Karen Akins
“Yes, I do. Doctrine of Inevitability. People would have noticed a mini flying cow in the twenty-first century.”
“But—”
“No but. Doctrine of Inevitability. You can’t change the past.”
“Can’t or shouldn’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Have Shifters ever tried?”
Have Shifters ever tried? “Name an atrocity. Any atrocity.”
“The Holocaust.”
“2167. A group of fifteen freedom fighters Shifted back to assassinate Hitler.”
“What happened?”
“You know what happened. They failed. They emergency faded out of a gas chamber in Auschwitz. You can’t change the past. Those Shifters’ tendrils had always taken them to that spot in time. They’d always failed and always faded back.”
“But—”
“You can’t change the past!” My stomach clenched, and my voice broke.
“You’ve thought about it.” Something about Finn’s voice soothed and rankled me at the same time. “With your mother.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
I’d swum an ocean of if-onlies for the last six months. But all my if-onlies had floated around one of two things: preventing some sort of accident and talking my mom out of something rash. Never had I imagined staring her attacker in the face.
An attacker who was still after me.
“All right. Let’s do this.” A spark blazed in my voice, a fire that even I didn’t recognize. The sooner we figured out this Truth saying, the sooner I was rid of Finn. Then ICE would pay for Mom’s treatment and I could beg Leto for mercy (which I’d already started in reply to his note).
“Oh-kay.” Finn drummed his fingers against a terra-cotta pot and studied me. “Mind telling me where this enthusiasm came from?”
“You don’t like it?” I asked.
“No, that’s not it. It reminds me of … you.”
Good. At least I didn’t turn completely helpless. Still, fear soaked the flame that was growing in me. With each passing minute, I drew nearer and nearer to the Future Bree who asked Finn for help. I hadn’t stopped to consider the things that had to happen in the intervening time to prompt me to do that. Bad things. Would it be my mom’s attacker? Or Leto? Or some other threat I hadn’t even considered?
“So when are we going to the Infobank?” Finn hopped up and plucked a pear off a tree.
“Tomorrow.” I traced my initials in the dirt, then, for some ridiculous reason, Finn’s beneath. I wiped it away before he saw. “There’s a student trip to the Pentagon, and we should be able to sneak away for a few hours.”
He gagged on the pear. Mush sprayed across the surrounding flowers. “Excuse me. Did you say ‘Pentagon’?”
“Yeah.”
“As in the Pentagon? Across the river, that giant building shaped like a … pentagon?”
“Yes.”
“So they’re going to let us waltz right into the Pentagon?”
“Yeah. Well, no.” What a silly question. “We’ll have to pay the admission.”
Finn blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?”
We stood there blinking at each other until … “Oh, yeah.” I smacked my forehead. “It used to be a military thing.”
“The military thing.” His eyes widened. “Is there world peace now?”
“As a general rule, I don’t like to discuss current events with pastlings.”
“Pastlings?” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes like the word tasted bitter to him. “I saw a flying cow today. Humor me.”
“You have a point.” I curled up and tapped on the end of the vial, trying to figure out what color the strand was. Dirty blond? Light brown? Gray? Hard to tell with one strand. “But sorry to disappoint you. Human beings are still human beings. They built a bigger Defense Building.”
“And I’m sure the other guys built bigger ones, too.”
I shrugged. “Some before us.”
He leaned against the pear tree, his head swaying slowly. “And we’ve got forty-nine states now.”
“Forty-three.”
He held up his hands. “I don’t want to know. I only want to know how we’re going to access your mom’s file.”
“Like I said, tomorrow we’ll go to the Pentagon. You can slip out early from the Institute and take a Publi-pod. Once we’re there, we’ll ditch the group and use this”—I held up the vial—“to access her records. Then, we’ll sneak back in and rejoin the group before the end of the day.”
Easy.
* * *
“Watch out for the—” Eww. Someone hadn’t cleaned up after their flying cow.
I was sitting on my window ledge, watching Finn as he shimmied down the drainpipe and looked for a Publi-pod on the street below. Finn scraped his shoe along the sidewalk. He looked bizarre standing two feet away from a machine that could clean it.
“Who are you talking to?”
I whirled around from the window. Wyck stood in the doorway, waiting for my answer. Dang it. Mimi had left our door open when she ran down to breakfast a few minutes ago.
“No one. Just … people watching. What are you doing here?”
“Came to see if you wanted to split a Pod.”
“Sure!” If I snagged us a double, it would be the perfect time to ask him for his help with Finn. I’d do it now, but anyone could walk by. I was feeling paranoid after the locker room yesterday. Of course, I wasn’t sure if it classified as paranoia when someone was really after you. “I actually have something I wanted to ask you about.”
He stepped into our room and sat on my bed. I plopped down next to him and nudged him on the shoulder.
He nudged back. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, too. I thought maybe sometime we could—”
He was interrupted when Mimi dodged back into the room, snatching something off her vanity. “Forgot my speak-eaz…” Her voice trailed off when she noticed Wyck. She suddenly looked confused, bordering on disturbed.
Crap. She thought I was “cheating” on Finn.
“Wyck was asking me about splitting a Pod to the Pentagon,” I said.
“Charlie and I will ride with you guys,” she said.
“You don’t have to do that. You’ll want some alone time.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Wyck.
* * *
I was a chatterbomb the whole way to the Pentagon, worried Mimi might attempt to steer the conversation to my forbidden true love. But she was unusually quiet. When we reached the Pentagon, Wyck climbed out of the Pod and rushed over to my side to help me out. His hand disappeared before I had a chance to take it, though. Another one, which I recognized as Finn’s, reached inside the Pod. I took it with a sigh and stood up. He must have been waiting here for half an hour. He and Wyck stared each other down with thinly masked sneers on both their faces.
Mimi finally perked up when she saw Finn.
“Wow, Bree.” She sounded like she might pop at any moment. “What are the odds of meeting your distant cousin on an outing like this?”
Mimi’s face exploded in a melodramatic wink when the boys were busy finishing their impromptu handshake/wrestling match. The upside of Mimi’s pathetic acting skills was that I never had to worry about being lied to. The downside? Mimi, along with Charlie, would be providing the necessary diversion for Finn’s and my getaway. Of course, Mimi was under the impression we were headed to a cozy kissing spot rather than a secured database. But how much acting skill would it take to pretend to faint anyway?
Oh, sweet plaid knickerbockers of Zeus. We were doomed.
The chaperones started walking around, applying our admission tattoos. I shooed Finn off so he wouldn’t arouse any of their suspicions. Wyck threw his arm around my shoulder as we waited. My heart sped up. My first inclination was to flirt back, say something coy, lean into him. But something held me back. It felt
weird all of a sudden.
An agitated look crossed Mimi’s face, and she kept fidgeting like she wanted to lunge forward and rip Wyck’s arm off me. Charlie clasped Mimi’s hand and tried to act as casual as possible, but I could see his arm muscles strain to hold Mimi in place.
“Sooo…” The word dribbled off Wyck’s tongue like honey. “What was that favor you were asking about earlier, Bree? Because I could probably snag us some alone time today.”
Charlie gave up all pretense of casualness. He circled his arms around Mimi’s waist and forcibly held her back. I lifted Wyck’s hand from my shoulder to calm my roommate down, but she was still agitated.
“We’ll talk later,” I said to Wyck.
I walked over and wrapped my arm around Mimi. Maybe she was nervous about the diversion later. Charlie moved over by Wyck, and they started talking about sports.
“Are you okay?” I asked Mimi. “You seem on edge.”
“I’m fine.” She was lying.
“You know I have to keep up appearances with the whole Finn thing. It has to be a secret … because of his parents.”
“It’s not that. I saw something back at the Institute that seemed—” She looked up and snapped her lips together. When I followed her gaze, I could see why.
Dr. Quigley was standing in between Wyck and Charlie, affixing their admission tattoos. But she was staring straight at us. I squeezed Mimi’s shoulder. It trembled. What had Mimi seen the Quig doing?
Quigley walked over and secured the tattoos on our arms, her voice chilly. “This is your assigned meeting place. Four o’clock.” She started to walk away but paused. “I’ll be keeping my eyes open today.”
That sounded like a warning. I shot Mimi a worried look, which she returned. Wyck and Charlie, however, broke out laughing as soon as Quigley was out of earshot.
Charlie took Mimi’s hand and tugged her toward the entrance. He always turned into such a kid when we came here.
Wyck sauntered over and leaned down so his heady scent filled my nostrils. “What was it you needed help with?”
“It’s actually a transporting issue.”
He raised his eyebrows. He must not have expected that one.
“You see, I have this friend who was trying to Shift the other day—”
“Private Pad or public?”
“Umm … public. Anyway, he—”
“It was a guy?”
“Yeah.” Did that matter?
“I thought you were maybe talking about yourself, those crazy tendril surges you had on your last mission.”
“Oh, I didn’t—”
“Because I have a theory.”
“You do?” Uh-oh.
“Another Shifter.”
I froze. Panic erupted within me like a volcano, and I had to tamp it down before I said or did something I’d regret.
“What would make you say that?”
“I knew I’d seen spikes like that before, but I couldn’t remember where until the other day when the First Years took their class trip to the Early Years. All their Coms registered those surges. When they got back, this little guy said one of the pre-chipped Shifters they were visiting disappeared mid-sentence.”
“Wow.”
“What’s even wilder is you must have been in really close proximity to a Shifter on your mission. And not known it, of course.”
I’d been right in my suspicions earlier. John. My QuantCom picked up his tendrils somehow. I kept my face as neutral as I could. No one knew I’d spoken to another Shifter. People would assume what Wyck assumed, that I was oblivious to his presence.
“That’s, umm…”
“Y’know what,” he said, backing away. “We’ll have to finish this later. Your chaperone is here.”
“My what?”
But Wyck was already cutting in front of some Third Years to get to the entrance. Finn walked up behind me and slipped his hand around my waist. Arg.
“Thanks a lot.” I pushed it away. “I was this close to getting Wyck to help us.”
“I don’t want his help,” said Finn.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t trust that guy.”
“You don’t know that guy.”
“I know enough.”
“Oh, what do you know?”
But he didn’t have the chance to answer. We’d reached the front of the line at the admissions booth. I still needed to buy Finn’s ticket. I’d actually had to borrow some money from Mimi to afford it, but I didn’t want him to know that.
Without saying a word, he began to scratch my back, starting up between my shoulder blades and working his way down to my lower back. Just the way I liked …
I edged away from him. He had no business knowing the way I liked it.
chapter 19
THE SMELL OF SPUN SUGAR and all-things-fried assaulted my nose the moment we stepped inside the Pentagon. All that junk food. It was a free-for-all with the younger students who rarely got to go on outings from the Institute.
Like twinkling fireflies high above, acrobats in glowing bodysuits of every color dangled and twisted from the cavernous ceiling. A man on ten-foot-high pogo stilts bounced into my path, sending me stumbling into Finn for support. Three bobble-racers zoomed overhead, and I ducked as one of the racers sliced the air where my left ear had been. When I looked up, Finn’s eyes were glazed over.
“I know,” I said. “Hokey, isn’t it?” The place was so dated.
But he didn’t answer. He was still all nyeh about Wyck, I guess.
“I need to be seen by as many Institute staff as possible before we dart. For an alibi.” I took Finn’s arm and stepped onto a nearby disk-dasher, hovering a few inches off the ground. He was still giving me the silent treatment as I tapped off with my foot. “Keep your eyes open for anyone who looks like an authority figure. And keep your distance,” I added, scooching away from him on the disk.
After we had made our way around one full wing of the Pentagon, Finn opened his mouth for the first time. “It’s an amusement park.”
“You’re just now figuring that out?” I asked. “Real quick there, MacGyver.”
“Okay, how do you keep doing that?” He turned to face me and the floating disk wobbled to the side. “I’ve never even seen an episode of MacGyver.”
“I told you. My mom went bonks for anything twentieth century.”
“Did her job take her there a lot? To study twentieth-century art?”
I looked down and picked at my fingernail. “Only one trip that I know of. A Picasso.”
“Hmm,” said Finn. “So I wonder why she was so obsessed with—?”
“She went all over.” I interrupted him before he could go too far down that particular path. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about with Finn. “A lot of her job was fact-checking, making sure the right artists got credit for their work.”
“Did she catch any fakes?”
“A couple early twenty-second-century sculptors.” I shrugged. “Oh, and she once caught an accidental switch-up on a painting in the Renaissance period.”
“That sounds exciting,” he said with sincerity.
“Not really. It was a family switch-up. The dad got credit for the son’s work. Or maybe it was the other way around. And, of course, her findings have an asterisk by them. As reported by a Shifter.”
“Why?”
“Nons still don’t entirely trust us. It’s not like they can go back themselves and double-check.”
We skimmed through two more sides of the building. Finn couldn’t keep the stunned expression off his face every time we passed another area. I tried to see the aging amusement park with fresh eyes. New eyes. But all I saw was the garish colors, the same old rides that had been there since I was a little girl. Probably the same ones that had been there since my mom was a little girl. The waterless swim tank, bubble tram, even the old “Guess Your Molecular Density” guy was still there. Mimi and Charlie both thought it was cheesy fun. I refused to ride anything
that took me more than four feet off the ground, kitschy or not.
When we were almost back where we started, the disk-dasher wobbled. Finn caught me around the waist and pulled me close to his chest. Closer than necessary. I inched to the side. We reached the entrance to the Pentagon, and he almost fell off the disk-dasher when it jolted to a stop. I hopped down. The ground always felt shaky after so long on an uneven surface. I kicked the floating disk into the corral with the other waiting ones and headed for the center courtyard.
“We should do a quick pass through the middle. There’ll be a couple teachers out there for sure. Then we’ll wait for Mimi to pretend to faint and we’re out of here.”
Only a handful of people strolled around in the expansive open space at the center of the Pentagon. Storm clouds had loomed on the horizon since early this morning. They pressed closer and closer. But I was right. Nurse Granderson and Mrs. Perez, my Biology teacher, meandered around the lawn on their dashers, poking students who were sitting too close to each other on the benches. I gave a little wave to make sure they both saw me. Finn and I headed back inside right as Charlie rushed past with a look of terror on his face.
I elbowed Finn in the rib cage. “Now that’s acting.”
“Nurse Granderson, you have to help! It’s Mimi.” The two staff members raced after Charlie across the courtyard without giving Finn or me a second glance. That was our cue. I smiled and grabbed Finn’s hand. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
We slipped out the exit, and the first raindrop fell.
The sprinkle turned into a deluge as we raced toward the street. There was a long line for the Publi-pods. As we waited, Finn lifted the edge of his jacket up and sheltered me from the worst of it.
“So they don’t control the weather yet? Disappointing.”
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
“You’re right. And I like the rain. I guess the more things change, they more they stay the same.”
“Except that’s not true,” I said as we moved one step forward in the line. “The saying should be, ‘The more things change, the more people try to keep them the same.’”
“You’ve got a point. But people can change. Here, I’ll show you; let’s take the Metro.” A big, fake grin spread across his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh.