Loop

by Karen Akins

  In a voice of mere breath, she said one word: “Safe.”

  “Soon, Mom. Soon.”

  As Finn situated my mother in the Pod (it was a double and would be a tight squeeze with all of us), I turned to Quigley.

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Quigley’s face relaxed into an actual smile, be it small, and that was when I saw the resemblance. With her lipstick smudged off and her hair pulled loose next to her heavyset eyelids.

  “You’re Mona Lisa.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Their secret.

  “Told you he owed me one.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  Quigley stepped into the Pod and scooted over. There would be just enough room for Finn, and I could squeeze onto his lap. He had a foot in the Pod and was pulling me toward it when the tinkle of shattering glass destroyed the last shreds of daybreak quiet. A blast of whirs, buzzes, and beeps, exploded behind it.

  A swarm of tru-ants had blasted through the front doors. They pulsated in one giant blob. Coach Black stood in the middle of the metallic cloud, sneering. Bergin was hunched over behind him.

  “Oh, blark.” We all three said it.

  I had to get my mom away from them. I stuck my head in the Pod and whispered, “Destination: Resthaven. Go.”

  “Keep it safe!” I could barely make out Quigley’s muffled shout as the Pod sealed up. Finn and I jumped out of its path, and it shot down the street. It disappeared into a dot as it turned the corner past the Capitol.

  “Two on two,” said Finn. “We can take them.”

  Spoken by someone who’d never been stung by a tru-ant.

  I grabbed his hand and ran.

  chapter 31

  “NOT THAT I’M TRYING to pee all over this parade,” said Finn, “but you do realize I’m going to be no help with hiding places.”

  His cheeks had turned all splotchy, and he drew a deep breath when we slowed our sprint to a jog. Nice thing about tru-ants, the longer they’re at it, the more apathetic they get about the chase. After three blocks, most were like “meh.” After five, I started stomping the few remaining motivated ones. But as soon as Bergin locked my position through my microchip, we’d have a lot worse than ants after us.

  I desperately needed that position to be a few centuries away.

  Where the heck was I going to find a Shift Pad to use? There was one at Mom’s work, yes, across the National Mall, but if I tried to break into the National Gallery of Art … Might as well head back to the Institute.

  The PayPads wouldn’t open for a few more hours. Not that I had any money. Or even knew where the nearest one was. I’d have to access a database to find out. That would give away our location, sure as a strand of hair.

  We needed to find a private Pad. It was the only solution.

  Easier said than done. Their cost was astronomical—more than our house, Mom’s hospital bills, and my Institute tuition combined.

  I’d never even heard of anyone who had their own Pad. Well, except for … “Molly!”

  Finn looked at me like I’d yelled something in Bulgarian.

  “Molly Hayashi,” I said. “She’s a First-Year student, and she likes me.” This could work; this could actually work. “Her family owns a Shift Pad.”

  I ran harder. I had no idea where Molly’s family lived. Guess I could talk a stranger into using their hair to search for her address. That way our location wouldn’t pop up automatically. Okay, maybe I couldn’t talk someone into it, but Finn could. That boy could needle a nudist into a nightgown.

  We’d reached the edge of the Mall, halfway between the Smithsonian Castle and Freedom Orb. As I dashed past the floating sphere, the irony didn’t escape me. I’d never felt more ensnared in my life. The sun crested the horizon and turned the many monuments along the wide-open expanse a fiery orange. It was normally my favorite time of day. Sometimes, when I returned home from a mission near dawn, I would go sit in the greenhouse and watch the city glow. Today, running on much confusion and zero sleep, it had a disorienting effect.

  A few hundred yards to the west, the Washington Monument rose above everything, its long, thin finger set ablaze. The compass of the city. That great bastion of democracy.

  I always thought it looked like it was flipping off the politicians.

  But, more important, it was out in the open. Soon, joggers and early morning commuters would descend on the area. It would be harder for the ICE goons to attack us here. I clutched Finn’s shoulder and steered him across the street toward the lawn.

  “I think Molly lives nearby. She must be in the city or not too far, because her parents come every Family Night. There’s a database search station up by the Lincoln Memorial.”

  We raced along the edge of the Reflecting Pool. The excitement of getting to the Hayashis’ private Pad sped me along and I didn’t even shudder at the water a few feet to my right. Luck had finally turned to my side when I remembered that the Hayashis had their own private Shift Pad.

  I halted mid-step. My big toe jammed against a crack as I stomped the sidewalk. All my pain and frustration funneled out my mouth in a muted howl.

  A private LaunchPad that Molly wouldn’t receive until Christmas.

  I sank to my knees and pounded my fists against the ground. Tears blurred their way out. After the night I’d had, it was a shock I had any left.

  “We can’t cut a break. It won’t work,” I said. “She doesn’t have it yet. I don’t know what else to do.”

  And why should I? Who appointed me She Who Must Fix Everything? Oh, wait. I knew exactly who: Future Bree.

  “I could really use some help here!” I yelled to the sky. “Come on. Tell me what I’m supposed to do! What? You’ll talk to Finn? Confide in him but not me? I’m the one who needs you. I’m the one whose life you’re screwing with.”

  Finn knelt beside me. “She can’t hear you.”

  “Yes, she can. She remembered this moment, Finn. She … she left all these half clues and nothing hints. She knew, Finn. She knew what she was doing. She knew you had no future with her. It’s impossible, don’t you understand that? We’re an impossibility. And yet she went back and she toyed with you. She convinced you she cared about you to get you to do what she wanted.”

  “She isn’t a liar,” he said. “You don’t become that.”

  “Then how do you know my tell?”

  “One time.” His jaw stiffened. “She lied once, the last time I saw her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That we would never see each other again.” He nudged me gently with his foot. “It’s pretty clear she was wrong.”

  “Oh, Finn.” I couldn’t bring myself to point out the obvious. Nothing was clear anymore. ICE could change the past. Which meant ICE could strip us of our future. Future Bree knew that.

  Fog rose above the surface of the water and licked the edges of the sidewalk. We were alone except for two joggers on the far side of the pool. Finn sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder.

  “It is going to be okay,” he said. It wasn’t. But that was still the right thing to say.

  It was chilly out. I rubbed my hands together to warm them. The heat of Finn’s body softened my shivers. He wrapped his hands around mine and lifted them up to his mouth to blow on them.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder. If it weren’t for the whole being-chased-by-an-evil-organization-bent-on-warping-the-time-line thing, it would have been a nice moment.

  The two male joggers across the way stopped running and began to argue with each other. I glanced up at them. That must have been what Finn and I had looked like so many times. What a waste. Pointless bickering. I would have been lost these last twenty-four hours without him. Kind of hard now to remember why I’d pushed him away for so long. Might as well throw him a scrap.

  “You’re not bad, you know,” I said in a tiny voice.

  “Hmm?”

  “As a kisser,” I blurted, “you’re … not that bad.”

/>   Finn tightened his arm around me. “‘Not that bad.’ High praise.”

  “Okay. Fine. Quite skilled.”

  “Well, I learned from the best.”

  “Who have you—?” Jealousy flared before I realized who he was talking about. Warmth flooded my cheeks. “Oh. You’re being nice. I’ve never even kissed anyone.”

  “You’re, uhh, you’re good at it, all right. But maybe you need to practice between now and our first kiss.”

  Our first kiss.

  The warmth moved down my neck and chest. I would survive this somehow. I would see Finn again. Well, not my Finn, but a Finn. We might not have a future, but at least we would have a past.

  If I could stop ICE in time.

  “I’m sorry for all this,” I said. “I never meant to drag you into it.”

  “Don’t apologize. You didn’t force me here against my will. And I realize I haven’t exactly been the most cooperative of accidental time travelers.”

  “But I’m still the one who—”

  “Bree,” Finn said reproachfully, and took his arm off my shoulder, scooted away from me.

  The warmth vanished. It left a cold hollow where my heart should have been. After all we’d been through, he was rejecting me. Not that I blamed him. I’d been so horrible at times. But it still stung. I shrank from him, but then he pulled me close against his chest.

  He brushed my bangs away from my face. “Anything you want. Anything.”

  The glow worked its way back to my heart. A fleeting moment of perfection in chaos. Anything I wanted. Anything.

  “I … I want you to—”

  My breath cut off. Across the Reflecting Pool, one of the joggers turned to face us.

  Wyck.

  He must have followed us here. To warn us. Or … something.

  “Finn.” I poked him in the rib and jerked my head in Wyck’s direction.

  Finn swore under his breath. “How did he find us?”

  I started to defend him, but somehow I couldn’t. I had a bad feeling. Then a horrible realization slammed me.

  “He’s the only one who could have told Bergin about our Shift earlier. And—” Oh, crap. Ohcrapohcrapohcrap. When I had still suspected Dr. Quigley of something heinous, it was because I thought she was the only person who had overheard my conversation with Mimi at the Pentagon. But there was another person who had heard it. Mimi must have seen something odd with Wyck, not Quigley. He’d been standing right by her at the time.

  “Hand me the reverter,” I whispered.

  “No. It’s safer with me.”

  “Which is what he’ll assume as well. Y chromosomes haven’t changed that much in two hundred years. Give it to me. You just said anything I want.”

  “Is there ever going to be a point in the past, present, or future when you don’t get your way?” He slipped the reverter in my pocket as he pulled me to stand. “I’ll distract him. You—”

  Finn didn’t finish his thought.

  I didn’t blame him.

  The other jogger had turned around.

  It was another Wyck.

  * * *

  We stayed there for a few moments, all four of us, darting back and forth like we were dancing a complicated tango. It gave me the chance to look at the other Wyck, the Not-My Wyck. It was surreal—Wyck’s body, but gaunt and emaciated. Wyck’s hair, but scraggly and unwashed. His face, but the vicious sneer it wore was one I had never seen on another human before. And certainly not on my wisecracking friend.

  Something terrible had happened to him. With a nauseating lurch of my stomach, I realized what it was. One of those Wycks was from the future. He must have used the IcePick to Shift here.

  As I tried to decide what to do, one version of Wyck turned to the other and said something in a low voice I couldn’t hear. I shook my head. This situation could get ridiculously confusing. Fast. So I decided to separate them in my mind as Real Wyck and Evil Wyck. Although, given the look of scorn on Real Wyck’s face, he didn’t look like he planned on snuggling kittens or herding unicorns anytime soon.

  “We have to get out of here,” I whispered to Finn.

  He nodded.

  “Okay. Now.” I took off running east in the direction of the Capitol. Commuters would head in that direction and might be able to see us from the road. And if we were lucky, we’d lose the Wycks in the blinding sunrise. Finn trailed close behind me. The Wycks kept pace across the Reflecting Pool.

  When we reached the end of the water, I made for the outer edge of the World War II Memorial. One of the Wycks, Evil One, went the long way around and followed me. The other cut through the center of the pavilion. Finn ran toward Evil Wyck, but when it became apparent Real Wyck planned to ambush on far side Finn veered off and ran toward him, fists clenched.

  There was a loud splash behind me. The smack of flesh hitting flesh. I glanced over my shoulder. Finn and Real Wyck had come to blows. As they wrestled each other in the memorial’s shallow fountain, every bit of me ached to fly to Finn and help him. But Evil Wyck who still pursued me was gaining ground.

  I ran down the path approaching the Washington Monument. I hadn’t been up in the monument since my mom had dragged me kicking and screaming to the top at the age of nine.

  It hadn’t gotten any shorter.

  Now it was draped in metal scaffold-like netting for renovation work. It was as if a hive of giant bees had built a honeycomb over the towering obelisk.

  Evil Wyck gained a few more feet on me. A stitch caught in my side, and I wheezed. I’d already run so much the last hour. So much. The Mall stretched on and on. I couldn’t go another step. And I didn’t want Finn out of earshot.

  Evil Wyck slowed, as if he sensed my exhaustion and was working out a way to use it to his advantage. I backed against the scaffold net. The frigid alloy stung my arms. Evil Wyck coughed up a coarse snarl of a laugh. I curled my fingers around the metal scaffolding. There was nowhere to run. I gulped and looked up the looming pillar.

  Forget all the Rules of Shifting. First rule of classic horror movies: Every idiot who climbs one inch above normal human height is a goner.

  Evil Wyck bared his teeth and prowled closer. I’d never beaten Wyck in a single sparring match in Gym. And whatever had happened to him, he didn’t look like he’d lost his fighting instinct. I looked up at the monument. I was going to have to be that idiot climber. I said a quick prayer and hiked my foot up on the net. There was no other choice but to take my chances with the beehive.

  Noiselessly I climbed as the hardened version of Wyck circled beneath me, shaking the metal links when he passed them. I clenched my way higher and higher. From my perch I could see Real Wyck and Finn battle it out in the World War II fountain. Finn landed a heavy punch and in the pause turned and ran toward me.

  “Come down, come down, wherever you are.” The Wyck below me jostled the scaffolding. “I just want to talk.”

  One of my feet slipped behind the net. I had to hook my elbow around the links to yank the boot free with my other hand.

  Oh, blark, I was almost thirty feet up. Okay, stay calm. Evil Wyck moved back toward the base of the monument for another shake. I grabbed the flashlight from my pocket and chucked it at his head. It ricocheted off the ground several feet from him, splintering one of the stones. His features changed from taunting to ticked.

  “Shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I never wanted to hurt you, Bree. Never.”

  “Then don’t. Walk away.”

  He laughed. It was a hollow thing. “You Shifters think you’re so high above the rest of us. You don’t deserve that gene.” His voice turned shrill and mocking: “Can’t you get me closer to the target, Wyck? Why did that fade hurt so much? I haven’t complained once. And all of you whine, whine, whine about your Buzz. The pain is a pittance.”

  He winced as he said it. Finn had crept silently up the path to the monument’s base. I had to keep this demented Wyck distracted.

  “Looks like more than a pittance to me,
” I said.

  “They’re working out the kinks.”

  “So you’re one of their test subjects?” It made even more sense, why Bergin hadn’t already gone to alter his own past. He wanted to make sure they took care of any unforeseen risks. And from the look of Wyck’s future self, there were plenty of them. “I can’t understand why you’re doing this.”

  “That’s because you can’t see beyond that pastling,” he spit, pointing back toward the arches of the World War II Memorial. At least he didn’t realize Finn was behind us. “I can offer you a real life, a real future. Bree…” His voice trailed off and something softened in his eyes. But it passed as soon as it came. “He can’t offer you anything on that pony-infested island of his in the past.”

  “How did you know he’s from—?”

  “I wanted to size up the competition.” Evil Wyck put his foot on the first rung of the scaffolding.

  “He’s not your competition.” Wait. “That comment Wyck made in the Launch Room … about the wild ponies…”

  “Yeah. Heh, heh.” He snickered, and for a flash it reminded me of my Wyck. “I told him to say that, to rattle Finn’s cage.”

  Finn had been right before. He had seen Wyck in Chincoteague.

  “So how much did you have to pay to use ICE’s little contraption?” I asked, trying to buy time.

  A fierce glint in Evil Wyck’s eye made me wonder if the answer was his soul.

  “Me? I got a freebie. In exchange for this errand.” The scaffolding trembled as Wyck yanked on it. “So toss down that device and nobody gets hurt.”

  Finn had stealthed his way over to a few feet behind Evil Wyck, but I could see something neither of them could. The other Wyck who Finn had been fighting, Present Wyck, was headed up the path behind Finn, trembling in rage.

  Couldn’t get worse.

  Second rule of horror movies: Oh, yes, it could.

  chapter 32

  “LOOK OUT!” yelled Real Wyck as he raced toward us.

  Evil Wyck turned around and pushed a surprised Finn to the ground, then scrambled back to the scaffolding. His ascent was rapid. He made it up ten feet before I had time for any reaction at all. I threw the only other thing I had, my pocketknife, at him, but it only made him angrier. He quickened his pace. I climbed faster as well.