Nomad

by JL Bryan

  Raven arrived in her apartment the previous night, smelling sauteed mushrooms and spices. "Touch of Grey" played on the record player while Audra danced. Her past self stood at the stove, cooking, now gasping at the sudden flash of golden light in the apartment. Kari would be outside, watching on thermal, her sight trained on the girl-shape closest to the door.

  Raven grabbed Audra and pulled her aside, and Audra screamed. They tumbled to the carpet as the plasma burst through the center of the door and whooshed over their heads in a wave of intense heat, then struck the breakfast bar and set it aflame.

  "What the hell?" Audra gasped.

  "What's happening?" Raven's past self crawled around the counter, her eyes wide. Kari, in her hardened armor, kicked down the door.

  "Go get your gun!" Raven snapped at her past self, who seemed to be moving in slow motion. "Now!"

  Raven's past self crawled away while Kari entered the apartment, her face still concealed inside her faceplate. Kari turned her plasma rifle on Audra and the version of Raven that held her.

  "Time to go." Raven activated the return sequence on her timepiece, represented by the arrow curving back on itself.

  The air shimmered around her while Kari shot at them, and then the timepiece transported Raven, with Audra clutched in her arms, to the moment that Raven had just left--the same location a little more than twenty-eight hours in the future, the burned ruins of the house.

  The blackened floor trusses broke beneath them, and they fell into the art-student apartment below, along with a rain of charred and shattered wood. They struck the fire-warped hardwood floor, narrowly missing the giant clay penis, now spotted with ash and soot.

  "What?" Audra gasped, struggling for air. When she could speak again, she asked, "What just happened? Who attacked us?" Audra pulled free of Raven's arms and stood, looking up at the burned ruins of the apartment above. There was little left besides coal-like lumps of furniture. The remnants of bare floor trusses through which they'd fallen resembled a spiderweb through which someone had thrown a rock. The night sky was clearly visible above. Audra sputtered, "Did our apartment just burn down? In two seconds? Where did that guy in the mask go? What the fuck is happening, Riley?"

  "Someone attacked us," Raven said. "I saved you by traveling through time."

  "What?" Audra spun with a look of exasperation on her face. "What are you talking about? Why is there a giant penis here?"

  "The art students."

  "Oh. Why did we fall through the floor?"

  "Our house burned last night. Someone attacked us--attacked me, but you happened to be there. It was my fault you died."

  "I did what?" Audra asked. "Which one of us is completely insane right now? I seriously can't tell."

  "I travel through time." Raven gestured at the concentric circles of her timepiece's holographic display. "I'm not really a student at Albertus Magnus. I'm here as a researcher..." She'd automatically segued into the backup story she'd invented for Logan, but she stopped herself and shook her head. "I'll tell you the truth. I'm a revolutionary soldier from the future. I came back to change the course of Logan's life. I'm trying to get him to block some very bad events instead of helping them happen."

  "Logan? Really? And you trust him to do it?"

  "If he disappoints me, I'll kill him," Raven said.

  "I don't understand what's happening."

  "I'm going to take you back to last night and drop you off an hour before the fire."

  "The fire?"

  "The one that burned down our house," Raven said. "Go somewhere public and stay with people who know you. Act surprised when you hear about the fire. With your alibi established, you won't be expected to answer many questions. If they ask about me, tell them you don't know where I went."

  "What do you mean? Where are you going?"

  "I have work to do after I drop you off." Raven activated the display on her timepiece again. They needed a safe, open place to arrive. With her sunglasses, she looked up the exact coordinates of the New Haven Green: 41.3080 degrees north by 72.9270 degrees west. She plugged these into the display, then set the time destination to the previous evening.

  "What is that? Holograms?" Audra asked. She watched with huge eyes as Raven's fingers interacted with the glowing concentric circles, moving from one to the next like a nested set of tabs.

  "Yes. Hold on to me. We're going back in time." Raven wrapped an arm around Audra's waist.

  "Are you serious?" Audra asked, and then the golden glow filled the world. They emerged onto the New Haven Green long after sunset, but a gasping voice nearby told Raven they had a witness.

  A pudgy, gray-haired woman in a pink jogging suit, walking a Pomeranian wearing a matching pink jacket, stood a few feet away with her hand over her mouth, shocked at the sudden flash of light and the inexplicable appearance of two girls right in front of her. The little dog barked at Raven, straining its shiny, pink-beaded leash.

  "We're just practicing a magic trick," Raven told the lady. "Sorry we startled you."

  The woman didn't seem convinced. She jogged away, tugging her dog along and urging the reluctant animal to hurry. The Pomeranian continued barking while the woman dragged it backwards across the grass.

  "Wow," Audra said. "So that's not possible, what we just did."

  "It is when you move fourth-dimensionally," Raven said. "Go ahead, see and be seen, so you can pretend you don't know anything. It'll be easier for you that way."

  Audra rubbed her eyes, still struggling to make sense of the situation.

  "If they ask about me, just tell them you don't know much about me at all," Raven said.

  "Apparently, I don't."

  "Go on. I have to get moving," Raven said. She brought out the cash she'd scavenged from Henry Sheffield's house and shoved it into Audra's hands. "That should help you recover from the fire."

  Audra gaped at the money. "I'm going to need a longer explanation here."

  "Maybe I'll visit you sometime." Raven activated her timepiece and vanished. She thought about Jebbie, but she wasn't sure how to save him without changing the entire course of her mission. She had all the time in the world to figure that out.

  She made some preparations, then jumped to the next critical moment--right back into the middle of the house fire. Her past self was already clambering away down the back of the house. The lights of police and fire vehicles pulsed through the smoke-clouded front windows while the uniformed men and women gathered in front of her house. The firefighters positioned a hose. For a moment, Raven was transfixed by the flashing lights, remembering the night the Providence Security vehicles had parked on her front lawn and the jumble of flashing lights had filled her parents' picture window.

  Raven shook it off. She frowned at the sight of Kari at her feet, stabbed through the neck, her blood still warm, her eyes open. She didn't want to leave her friend like this, to be discovered and examined by strangers. Leaving Kari's weapons from the future behind would also have been a dangerous mistake, changing history in unpredictable ways.

  She laid herself alongside Kari, wrapping an arm over her. As the blast of water from the fire hose shattered the window, Raven traveled away through time and space.

  She landed in the spot she'd prepared, a small, sloped meadow deep in one of the Connecticut forests, a place she'd noticed on one of her excursions with Logan. She'd already dug a hole and left the spade lying beside it. It was a cold night in December, more than a week after her house fire.

  Raven touched the cooling skin of Kari's freckled face, then winced as she drew the piece of wall stud from Kari's neck, unleashing more blood onto the soil. She wished she could go back and save Kari, too, but she wasn't sure how to save the life of someone who was determined to kill her on sight.

  "This isn't how it's going to end for you, Kari," Raven whispered. "Your life won't be like this. I promise."

  Raven kissed the dead girl's check, then activated the helmet controls on the armor. The helmet and facep
late came together like jigsaw pieces and sealed themselves around Kari's head. The black armor would be her coffin.

  With an effort, Raven pushed Kari's body into the grave.

  "I promise," Raven whispered again, and then she shoveled dirt on top of her oldest and closest friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Raven hopscotched across the decades, watching history unfold. She finally identified the critical date in 2049, three months before the coup had occurred in the original history, and paid it a visit.

  She walked a crowded shopping mall in Chicago, feeling nostalgic as she saw the funky hairstyles and gaudy fashions that had been trendy when she was a child. Somewhere, another version of her was just four years old, still living in the safe world of her parents, who were still very much alive. It was fifteen years before Raven would make her trip back in time.

  She entered an electronics store promoting the new home televisions, the ones that were the size of a shoebox lid and projected holograms into the air above them. She passed rows of data glasses, including the brand of sunglasses she wore, and assorted virtual-reality masks and gloves. She stopped at the display of hologram TV's. The air above it was decorated with silent but colorful holographic fireworks.

  A young salesman approached her. He sported pimples and a patchy attempt at a beard, and he wore the store-employee green vest. His nametag said Hi, I'm KEVIN, ask me about: followed by a miniature video screen offering shifting images of different products.

  "Ready to make that big jump into true 3-D?" he asked her. He swept his arm at the cartoon cat and dog attacking each other with scissors and potato peelers in the air beside him. "Pretty sweet, huh? I can tell you're an edgy babe, you want the latest and hottest, am I right?"

  Raven gave her best smile.

  "Can you flip it to C-SPAN 2?" she asked.

  "Screw C-SPAN! If you want to see what this sucker can do, you need to check out Star Explorer Episode Twenty-three. I've got it right here..."

  "I like C-SPAN 2." Raven leaned closer to the device and spoke louder as she said it, so the device would take it as a voice command. The holographic display changed to the Senate floor. Logan Carraway stood before the legislators, his testimony already underway.

  "...sacred oath to the Constitution, each and every one of us," Carraway was saying. He was in his mid-fifties now, his hair kept a youthful brown by his stylist. Age was creeping in around his eyes and lips, but he was not yet the craggy old dictator who ruled in the future she'd known. "It is our duty to prevent any and all threats to our republic. I have come here today to reveal a dangerous plot, at the highest levels, to overthrow the executive branch of our government--"

  "He's such a dick," Kevin the sales clerk said. "He's just pissed he lost the election."

  "Quiet."

  "Oh, did you vote for him? I mean, he's not that bad--"

  "I voted for Vasquez. Sh."

  "--have personally met several times with the chief officers of the megacorporations. Brad Whitfield, CEO of XGRA; Jeremiah Lancaster, CEO of PLPY..." A commotion stirred on the Senate floor as Logan named the chief executives of the six largest megacorporations, which collectively controlled more than seventy percent of the economy and provided most of the funding for all three parties in Congress.

  "Yeah, Vasquez is octanes better," said Kevin the clerk. "She's hot, too. Our hottest President ever."

  "That's still JFK. Sh," Raven said.

  "Negatory. Vasquez is octanes hotter than JFK--"

  "Stop saying 'octanes.'"

  "--met with me and offered a deal," Logan continued. "They were afraid of President Vasquez's reforms. They said if I helped them by overthrowing her, they would make me dictator of the United States--" The senators shouted at him from the floor, hurling insults and trying to drown him out. The presiding officer, a young freshman senator from Ohio, banged his gavel, but everyone ignored him.

  "Hit the brakes, what's he saying?" the sales clerk asked, finally paying attention. The other shoppers and store employees ignored the live C-SPAN footage, accustomed to tuning out bombastic politicians making exaggerated claims.

  "--collaborators in Congress would give me a new position, Secretary-General of the United States, with full and unchecked control of the executive branch--I met with them several times, collecting evidence I am now prepared to upload into the Congressional record." Logan held up a small blue data cube.

  A mob of senators rushed him, swarming over the rostrum. The presiding officer banged his gavel once, called a recess, and ran for his life. The entire scene shuddered and wobbled, and then the C-SPAN projection vanished, replaced by a blank blue sphere.

  "Did everybody see that?" Kevin the clerk looked around the store, but nobody had been paying attention. Only a couple of people glanced his way when he asked the question, and they seemed annoyed. He looked back at Raven. "You saw that, right?"

  "I saw it. Thanks. You can go back to your cartoon dog show now." Raven walked toward the door.

  "Hit the brakes, chick!" He chased after her. "Don't you want one of these sweet new holo-def systems? I'll give you my employee discount. One percent." He winked.

  "No, thank you."

  "We've got financing, chick!" he yelled as she left the store.

  Raven crossed the central plaza of the shopping mall and pushed through a maintenance door, stepping into a dim, dusty back corridor. An alarm whooped above her--it wasn't exactly the discreet exit she'd intended. She activated her timepiece and disappeared in a flash of light before the mall security guards could find her.

  * * *

  In the year 2064, Raven approached a sand-colored two-story villa surrounded by lush, dense trees heavy with tropical flowers. She was on the island of Saint Martin, and it was nearly sunset.

  Nobody stopped her from walking through the unlocked front door. Inside, she passed through one large, empty, sandstone-tiled room after another. There was no furniture, the bare walls held no pictures or paintings, and the high windows had no curtains. Golden island sunshine flooded the house, and nothing remained to cast a shadow.

  The rear doors stood all the way open. Twelve feet high, five feet wide, and made of beveled glass, the two rolling doors were like sliding walls that opened up to bring the beach and sky inside the house.

  Beyond them, Logan occupied one of a row of deck chairs on the white granite patio, his back to her, watching the crystal blue waves shatter against the hard-packed ivory sand. The tide was moving out, away from him. On the little table beside him, he poured himself a drink from a dark bottle.

  "What are we drinking?" Raven asked. He froze in his chair, a seventy-year-old man in a straw hat hearing an intruder in his home. He settled, though, and managed to keep his cool. He didn't look back at her.

  "It took you long enough to visit me," Logan said. "I'm nearly dead. Is that it? Did you come to see me just before I died?"

  "You're not quite dead yet." She stood beside him. He was wrinkled now, his hair gray and turning white. He had grown a long, unkempt beard that ruffled in the salty wind.

  "Have a drink," he suggested.

  "I'm fine. I have to go soon."

  "When you make me wait fifty years to see you again, you can't refuse to drink with me. That's just bad manners. It's Cruzan rum, personal favorite." He poured the rum into a second glass.

  "Who's the second glass for?" she asked.

  "You," he said. "I set one out for you sometimes, when I'm drinking alone and I convince myself you might show up. This was the first time my hunch was right. Will it be the last?"

  "Maybe." Raven drank. The rum was strong and sweet.

  "You can sit." He gestured to an empty chair. In the version of 2064 she remembered, he was always seen in a severe black suit, leading to one of his many derisive nicknames, "the undertaker." Now he wore a Hawaiian shirt polka-dotted with pineapples, frayed khaki shorts, and flip-flops.

  "I'll stay for a minute." She took the deck chair beside him. "I just
watched the day you revealed the plot. Very impressive. I'm proud of you."

  He laughed a little. "The day that wrecked my life? When those senators grabbed me and pulled me from the microphone, I thought of how you once compared me to Julius Caesar. I believe you said, if I were in his position, I would certainly have crossed the Rubicon. Something like that."

  "You certainly would have."

  "What else was Caesar going to do at that point, though? Stop? Sit with a huge army and go nowhere?"

  "You stopped," Raven said. "It was the greatest thing you've ever done. Believe me."

  "My testimony was mysteriously deleted from the record. The mass media didn't report on what I said, but they did start calling me crazy every chance they got. Why wouldn't they? I'd just accused their corporate parents of high treason. Everybody came after me, hammer and tongs, as Uncle Henry would have said. Lawsuits, hostile takeover bids, IRS audits, SEC investigations. Providence Security lost its public contracts and went into Chapter 11. It's been gone for more than a decade now."

  "In my world, Providence agents were the blackshirts of your regime," Raven said. "I can't say I'm sad to hear the company's been destroyed."

  "Why would you ever be sad for me? You know what I am and who I was fated to be. You're the one who really knows me. Everyone else buys my act. I've felt like a fraud my entire life." He took a long drink and smiled. "For years, I was just following a script you gave me. I saw it all unfold as you said. On that day, the day I changed history...that was the first day I didn't know what happened next. Since then, I've felt free, even after I lost everything."

  "I think your life turned out better this way."

  "I married Macey. I suppose you know that."

  "I do."

  "Three kids, grown and gone now. Four grandchildren. Macey and I had forty-five years together. She went two years ago. Bone cancer."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Can't wait to see her again." He poured more rum for both of them. "I told her everything. Not the time-travel crap--even I think I'm crazy when I think about that. I told her about the attempted coup. She wanted me to expose it. She didn't care what happened to us. Never lost that idealism, Macey."