Loop

by Karen Akins

  “That was the original plan, yes. But during initial test runs, we discovered an unexpected side effect. We’ve had to modify the plan accordingly, be more selective.”

  “Meaning?” asked Finn.

  “We can change the past.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said. This was beyond preposterdiculous. Bergin was crazier than those unchipped Shifters at Resthaven.

  “I assure you, we can.”

  “So somebody can finally go back and kill Hitler?” said Finn.

  “No,” said Bergin. “If I were to travel to 1939 Berlin, I would only be able to observe and participate, much like any Shifter does now.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I should clarify,” said Bergin. “NonShifters are able to change their own pasts. A nonShifter is able to interact with his or her past self to … correct course, if you will.”

  “You claim people have already done it,” I said. “Then why has no one noticed these supposed changes?”

  “The alterations only have a significant impact on the changer’s life. They create a new, improved time line. Everyone’s quantum tendrils—”

  “Is he talking about the brain tentacles?” Finn whispered to me.

  “Shhh.”

  “Ahem, everyone’s quantum tendrils adjust seamlessly to this new time line—leaving everyone, including the changer, blissfully unaware that any alteration has taken place.”

  “Everyone?” The question came from Quigley. She’d gone unusually pale during the conversation.

  “Of course everyone.” Bergin’s billion-watt smile didn’t diminish the creepiness factor of it all. In fact, it added to it.

  “Fine,” I said. “Say any of this is true—heck, say all of it is—what does it have to do with my mom?”

  “As I said, we want to use the IcePick to restore things to good. With your cooperation, we can prevent two tragedies from ever having occurred.”

  “Two?” I asked.

  “My wife’s untimely death and your mother’s unfortunate coma.”

  “I don’t follow how they’re related.”

  “Directly, they’re not.”

  “Then—”

  “Bree, my wife’s accident never should have happened. If she’d left home one minute later … if the Pod had corrected course one second earlier … one inch to the left … it wouldn’t have happened. And then for her to have had an allergic reaction to the collision foam? It was a statistical anomaly. Implausible! It shouldn’t have happened.” Bergin slammed his fist down on the desk. “For decades, I’ve been hounded and hunted by that thought.”

  “Everyone thinks that way after a tragedy.” I should know. “It feels like your life has been blown to smithereens.”

  “Exactly.” He tapped the drawer where he’d stowed the Pick thing. “This will put those pieces back together. My wife is supposed to be alive. I can change that.”

  For a smattering of a moment, I felt sorry for Bergin. He wasn’t some monster who wanted to control the world. He was a man who had never healed. And yet, somehow, that made him all the more dangerous.

  “So do it,” I said. “What’s stopping you? Go back and prevent your wife’s death. If what you’re saying is true, I’d be none the wiser.”

  Given that his appointment to headmaster was a sympathy vote, I would probably never have even heard of him.

  “Yes, well, that brings us to the dilemma. We’ve encountered a … problem.” He lifted the stolen device from his desk. Click. In and out. “A problem only you can remedy.”

  “Why would I help you?”

  “In return for your help, we’ll alter the past so that your mother never falls into her coma.”

  “You just said that as a Shifter I can’t change my past.”

  “You wouldn’t be the one doing the altering.”

  “But you also said a nonShifter can only change events in their own past.”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “So how could you stop my mother from going into a—?” I gulped and looked over at Finn. He was already shooting me a get-there-faster look.

  “You did this to her,” I said. “You attacked my mom and induced her coma.” I had been so blind. Bergin was the first one on the scene when my mother had landed at the Institute.

  But that also meant he could take her out of it in a blink. He could go back in time and stop his past self. He said it himself … I would never know it had even happened.

  “What is it you want me to do?” I asked. I could see that blank canvas in my mind, the one propped on the fireplace. Only now it was a completed painting, full of my mother’s vibrant colors and bold strokes.

  “Simple,” said Bergin, holding the stolen device out toward me. “Destroy this.”

  “Fine.” I whacked it across the corner of his desk. It dented the oak, but otherwise nothing.

  “Stop this dangerous nonsense.” He snatched it back. “You know what I meant. Destroy it safely. All the components.”

  “I don’t even know what it is.” Other than what my future self had told us, that it was the Truth. The Truth about what? It looked almost exactly like that ICE contraption, but the IcePick was the very opposite of the Truth. The Truth was that life is painful and messy and complicated. By changing the past Bergin wanted to rid himself of those things, but it was all a lie. Because in the middle of the pain and the mess and the complications, life is also full of beauty.

  I loved my mom more than breath, but even if I could blink and have her back it would still be a lie. She’d been attacked as she’d tried to warn me, to tell me the clue that led us to this device. The Truth mattered to her. It mattered to me.

  That’s when it hit me. What the device did. Maybe it reversed the changes the nonShifters had caused. Restored the true time line, the Truth. The fact resonated deep in my soul, as if I’d always known it. Almost like a memory from my future self.

  But I still didn’t know why he needed me of all people to destroy it. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t know how.

  “I see you’ve put it together.” Bergin slipped the device into his lapel.

  “I think so. It’s a … reverter, isn’t it?”

  Bergin nodded.

  “When this device is used to reverse the changes, it creates an echo of sorts in the IcePick user’s brain. A faint memory of the way things should be.”

  “You mean the way you manipulate them to be,” I shot back.

  “Semantics. These echos are causing unnecessary pain and confusion. We want to stop people’s suffering, not add to it.”

  “To those who can afford it, I’m sure,” Finn pointed out.

  I nodded. It was like those billionaire astronauts from Finn’s time who bought their way onto space shuttles. Only they weren’t screwing up the space-time continuum. I didn’t care what Bergin claimed. Even the tiniest change in the past could have staggering consequences in the present and future. And stopping someone from dying wasn’t a small thing. But now I understood why he needed the device gone before he went back to prevent his wife’s death. He didn’t want any chance of that change being reversed. And to then be plagued by the memory of what he’d attempted to do would be torture.

  “You’re messing with things you don’t understand,” I said. “You said so yourself. You don’t even know how the Pick works.”

  “But it does. That’s all that matters. Your choice is quite simple, Miss Bennis. Destroy this reverter, and I will go back and prevent your mother’s coma.”

  “I don’t want any part of this,” I said. If my mom’s coma was medically induced, it could be medically uninduced. Yes, I could never get the last six months back, but if that was the price for the Truth, so be it.

  “What if that Pick thing fell into the wrong hands?” I pointed out. There would be no way to undo the damage without the reverter.

  “I wanted to offer you a positive incentive, in aiding your mother,” said Bergin. “But there are other ways to motivate you as well. Your m
other’s recovery tonight may be miraculous, but it’s by no means permanent. In fact, last I remembered, her condition was worsening. It would be such a tragedy if further loss were to befall your family.”

  My blood boiled in my veins. “You haven’t even told me why you think I, of all people, can destroy it!”

  “My. Your personal time line is in a tangle, isn’t it?” Bergin looked downright amused. “Because, Miss Bennis, you’re its creator.”

  The news shouldn’t have surprised me one bit. I mean, I already knew Future Bree was up to her belly button in this mayhem. But for the first time, I wasn’t furious at her, wasn’t angry at all.

  I was proud.

  Looked like that Biology Specialization would come in handy after all.

  I had no idea when or how I’d come into possession of one of their IcePicks in order to modify it, but I made up my mind then and there. I would. I would create that reverter so Bergin and his rich cronies couldn’t turn the space-time continuum into their personal playground.

  “Bree”—Bergin slid into his grandfatherly façade with ease—“it’s unfortunate what happened to your mother, but—”

  “Liar!” I screamed. “You did this to her. You and your insane desire for control. You drugged her and are holding her hostage until I do your bidding.”

  A purple rage spread over Bergin’s face, but he didn’t deny my accusations. His hands shook as he grabbed his stunner and dialed it to the maximum. He thrust his hand at my mom’s neck, but I dove in between them and pushed it away. It missed her skin by a millimeter. Bergin let out an animalistic roar and unleashed his anger at me instead. He lunged at me, and I ducked at the last moment.

  “Wait.” Finn stepped forward and blew out a slow, sure mouthful of air. “I’ll tell you how to destroy it.”

  What are you doing? I mouthed. Had he held more information back from me?

  Bergin’s face filled with relief. His lips split in triumph. “I knew someone would see reason.”

  The men in red smiled at each other and stepped back next to the poster. Bergin held out the reverter to Finn.

  Finn took it gingerly and clicked the end a few more times. “The trick is to—”

  A splintering crunch cracked the quiet. Flecks of red dotted the collar of my headmaster’s starched white dress shirt.

  Finn had slammed his fist into Bergin’s nose.

  chapter 30

  I ONLY HAD TIME for a quick, what-the-heck-did-you-just-do? glance at Finn before Bergin threw himself at me. I grabbed the QuantCom out of Bergin’s hand and shoved him backward. The Com’s stunner was still turned up to max. He made another move toward me. Zaap! I got him on the arm.

  Bergin lurched forward, his muscles stiffening. It left him in a bizarre sprinter’s pose as he crashed to the ground. Red flashed in my peripheral vision. The two ICE guys ran around Bergin’s desk. I kicked the QuantCom out of the bald one’s hands and ducked as a meaty fist slammed into the spot where my face would have been. Finn tried to hit the other guy but only grazed his chin. The guy elbowed Finn in the head, and I landed a jab to his solar plexus. He doubled over, and I zapped his neck. He tumbled behind Mom’s chair.

  The bald guy had backed up. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a metal cylinder, turning it around and around in his hand. It looked like my grappling handle until—

  Berrzzzz

  A foot-long laser blade shot out the end.

  Finn almost sounded excited when he said, “It’s a flippin’ lightsaber!” The blade sizzled through the air and sliced the corner off Bergin’s oak desk. “And, holy crap, it works.”

  I diverted Baldy to the right while Finn kicked him in the side. The smell of burnt cloth filled the air as the blade swiped a swath off Finn’s jeans. I seized Baldy’s blade arm and twisted it backward. Finn grabbed the corner of the desk from the floor and smashed it against Baldy’s shiny head. The guy’s hands flew open in surprise. The laser blade swung through the air toward my mother, missing her chest by inches as I caught the handle.

  Baldy regained his senses and clutched my arm, lowering the blade toward my mom’s heart. Finn snatched the QuantCom from my other hand. He zapped the guy between the eyes. There was a blur of red as Finn shoved him over the desk.

  I stuck my head between my knees and tried to breathe. It was kind of hard, as all the air had been sucked out of the room from it spinning so hard. Bergin’s rigid fingers dug trenches into the plush Persian rug that lined his office.

  “So much for the plan,” said Quigley. She was frozen in the corner in shock.

  I’d completely forgotten she was there. Thanks for the help, Quigley. She tucked the single strand that had worked its way out of her bun back into place and rushed over to the windows.

  As she tugged at the curtains, she said, “We have to hurry. Finnigan, bring that blade over here.”

  He smiled. “For the laser curtains?” he said in a robotic voice.

  I let out a reflexive laugh but then looked over at my mom, her pupils drops of ink in pools of bloodshot pink. I wouldn’t let them touch her again.

  Quigley and Finn went to work slicing the window treatments into silky strips of fabric to fashion a makeshift rope.

  “Tie them up and gag them,” Quigley said. “Tight.”

  While I triple-knotted the two ICE goons and Bergin to opposing corners of his desk, Finn gently picked up my mother. By the time I finished tying my headmaster up, his hands had already begun to twitch. Thankfully, the two men in red were out cold. I grabbed the reverter off the desk and tried to break into the drawer to get the IcePick, but it was locked down.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Let’s stun them again,” offered Finn.

  “No. Another shock could permanently damage their nervous systems,” said Quigley.

  Finn and I both shot each other a so? look, but neither of us had the nerve to say it out loud.

  “Let’s move,” said Quigley. She wrenched a hair from Bergin’s head, shut the door behind us, and entered a code to lock it. Finn adjusted my mom’s weight farther up on his shoulder when we reached the hall.

  A muffled thumping started up behind us. Apparently, Bergin had already regained the use of his legs.

  “I need to get your mother to Nurse Granderson.”

  Quigley pulled a speak-eazy out of her pocket as we made our way through the halls. “Connect: Granderson.”

  A few moments later, a tired male voice said, “Do you have any idea what time it is?” It was our nurse, but I recognized it from somewhere else, too.

  “You were in the locker room,” I said, but she shushed me. I was right, though. It was Quigley and Granderson talking that day. I pieced the conversation together in my memory. They must have actually been discussing how they hoped I would figure it out. So when she had said to not underestimate me, she really meant “don’t underestimate me.” And when she talked about taking care of me, it was probably the plan to send me to Resthaven.

  “Poppy’s awake.” Quigley took a deep breath and added, “Bree and Finn are with me. We have the device back. But the situation’s worse than we realized.”

  Granderson said a word that I was sure would only squeak past Charlotte Masterson given the circumstances, then said, “How soon can you get Poppy over here?”

  “How can they protect her? They’re all insane.” I tugged on Quigley’s sleeve like I was a toddler.

  And she ignored me like I was a toddler.

  “Dev, ICE developed a contraption that allows nonShifters to change their pasts. It looks like this particular device has been modified to reverse the changes.” She pressed the speak-eazy up against her ear so I could barely tell what he was saying. Quigley let out a little groan. “That’s what I was thinking, too. And Bergin’s involved. I bet Black is, too. You were right about your suspicions. They’re the ones who have been drugging Bree’s mom. To control Bree.”

  Granderson yelled a word that wouldn’t get past Charlot
te no matter what.

  “I’m sending Bree and Finn to hide the reverter,” said Quigley. “I’ll be there as soon as I can with Poppy.” She ended the conversation with Nurse Granderson right as we reached the main entrance.

  “Right then. Let’s go.” She reached toward the door button, but I slammed my hand against the panel.

  “What makes you think Resthaven can protect my mom? They can’t even protect themselves from the Madness.”

  “Don’t you see, Bree?” She pointed to the reverter Finn still clutched in his free hand. “There is no Madness. Bergin said everyone’s tendrils adjust seamlessly to the changes they’ve brought about, but what if that’s not true? What if unchipped Shifters’ tendrils are clinging to the correct time line? They’d be aware of all these small changes. And it would come off as appearing—”

  “Crazy,” I whispered. “And the timing makes sense. The Madness didn’t begin until Shifters came into the open, so nonShifters wouldn’t have changed anything before then. The worst cases of the Madness are from Future Shifters.”

  “Who would have experienced the most changes,” said Finn.

  Quigley curled my fingers around the reverter.

  “This is our only hope to spare Future Shifters from the Madness. To return the time line to how it should truly be.”

  “The Truth.”

  “You have to hide it. I don’t want to know where. I’ll do everything in my power to keep your mother safe.”

  I lowered my hand from the panel, and Quigley brushed Bergin’s hair against it to open the door. There was a nip in the moist, pre-dawn air. Finn handed me his sweater, and I wrapped it around my mother’s flimsy gown. I wiped a spindle of drool from her cheek. We scurried down the Institute steps toward a docked Publi-pod.

  “Where should Finn and I hide the—?”

  “I told you I don’t want to know,” Quigley almost shouted, but then brought her voice back down. “As soon as we get to Resthaven, we part ways. Get it out of this time if possible.”

  She turned to Finn. “Whatever happens, keep Bree safe.”

  I leaned over to give my mom a kiss. She lifted her head an inch as my lips met her warm cheek. Her eyes shone in a way that I could only describe as Mom-ish.