by Ellen Smith
More screams. Cartoon Will ran out of the mailroom and toward the screaming. Mara watched him picking up her limp figure. Jason dropped the gun and ran offscreen.
When the simulation stopped, Dr. Hendrix flicked on the lights. The silence in the room was profound.
“That is some crappy-ass animation,” said a voice from the back. “My little sister designed a better video game when she was five.”
It was Jason. His voice was so unfamiliar that it took Mara a full minute to place it. When she did, she turned around slowly, moving her entire body so she wouldn’t have to swivel her neck and set off her shoulder.
Jason was sitting back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head. Like he was critiquing a movie, not watching footage of his own crime. Something inside Mara snapped.
“Seriously?” Mara said. “Seriously? You put us through all this and you’re going to make smart remarks about the video quality?”
“What?” Jason said. His eyes looked like they were laughing at her. “What am I putting you through? Sorry, I’m getting ready to go back in time and make everything better for you. I’m such a jerk.”
“Asshole,” Mara hissed.
“Okay, okay,” Dr. Hendrix interjected. “Let’s go ahead and take a recess to regroup. We’ll meet back in ten minutes and move on to Phase Two. Get a drink of water, use the restroom. The next phase is going to be a bit intense.” He looked back and forth from Jason to Mara. “We’re all here to make a difference in each other’s lives. I expect everyone to come back ready to work together.”
BREAKING: Will and Mara Sterling Reported Missing
Sterling Family Pleas for Public’s Help
April 15, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC—Christopher Sterling, who gained notoriety in recent days with his popular FundItUp campaign, has reached his brother and sister-in-law’s home in Washington, DC and reported that they are missing.
According to the FundItUp campaign, Sterling had requested funds to cover time off work and gas money so he could drive the nearly ten hours from the family home in Deer Hill, North Carolina, to Washington, DC, where William and Mara Sterling live. Christopher believes that his brother and sister-in-law were offered a timeline rectification, or “time wreck,” for the 2002 Adams Morgan University shooting, which wounded Mara (née Gaines) Sterling. Christopher made the journey to try to talk them out of it. The cause has been taken up by One Life, One Time, an anti-timeline rectification lobbying group.
“When I arrived, the windows were dark and there was no response to my knock on the door,” said Christopher in an impromptu press conference on the apartment building’s front steps. Due to the notoriety of the FundItUp campaign and William and Mara Sterling’s suspected involvement in a timeline rectification, reporters and protesters have been camped outside the building for days. “I was worried for their safety and then I saw the door had been forced open.”
Witnesses report that the chain lock on the inside of the front door was broken and there was some splintering around the door frame. William and Mara Sterling were not present in the apartment.
“We’ve reported Will and Mara missing to the authorities, but no one seems to be concerned,” said Christopher. “My mother and sister are on their way up to join me in the city so we can search for our missing loved ones. We ask for the public’s help but especially for your prayers.”
Comments:
KingDiva said:
Saw the door had been forced open, huh? And none of those reporters happened to see who did it? Yeah, right. Bloodthirsty vultures broke and entered the home, straight up.
MsSimoneSays replied:
I think the brother was the one who broke in and all the cameras just conveniently turned away.
LoveLaughLive said:
My thoughts and prayers are with this poor family! I am out in Oklahoma and cannot travel to Washington, DC to help with the search due to a recent knee replacement but just know that I am holding you in my prayers! Good for you for trying to stop this time wreck!
Ilikecake said:
OMG those poor people. They probably ran away to get away from the cameras. Can you imagine being at the center of this story? I don’t know if they were really offered a time wreck, but I sure hope so and I hope they take it.
MsSimoneSays said:
Bonus: if they DO have a time wreck, then this whole stupid FundItUp campaign and “human interest story” will disappear into the ether or whatever. If the shooting never happens, then they’ll never be offered a time wreck and then there won’t be this dumbass controversy taking over our news feeds.
PhilosophicalAtheist replied:
Amen to THAT.
MrBrightSide replied:
Small quibble: The shooting will have happened, time wreck would be offered, and news story will have gone down . . . just not in the life map we’re aware of. Timeline rectifications are a shifting of consciousness to a different life map more so than a literal changing of time.
llamallamallama replied:
Duuuuuuuuude. *mind blown*
Chapter Twenty-Six
WILL
Mara was shaking when she and Will filled up their paper cups with water. They walked the halls until they found a small conference room. It was private enough, even with Ken trailing behind them.
The second the door closed, Mara exploded. “I knew it. I knew it! He’s not sorry at all. He’s an entitled, egotistical brat who finally found a loophole to get him out of jail.”
“Take a drink. Calm down,” Will said, passing her a cup of water.
“Calm down? We just upended our whole lives for this asshole while he sits there smirking and you want me to calm down?”
“We upended our lives for us,” Will said. Something about comforting her made him feel stronger too. “And even if he is a jackass, it’s still going to work out for us. I promise.”
“How can you promise that?” Mara cried. “Will. You cannot control him. I cannot control him. The Department of Justice cannot control him. This all depends on whether Jason chooses differently. Otherwise, we’re just signing up to get shot again.”
“He’s not going to do that,” Will said.
“How do you know?”
Will started to explain until he realized that he really couldn’t.
Because Jason wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Why not? Most people don’t even make that mistake once.
Because he’s sorry. Jason definitely wasn’t as sorry as he could be. Will agreed with Mara there.
Because it doesn’t make sense for him to do all the work for another opportunity and then waste it.
What about Jason Mann had ever made sense?
Will opened and closed his mouth before he realized that he probably looked like a fish. Mara was waiting, a fresh I-told-you-so barely contained in her expression.
“I guess I don’t know,” Will said. “But I hope so. I really hope he’ll do right this time.”
“Hope isn’t a strategy,” Mara said.
“So what do you want to do?” asked Will. “Are we going to walk out of here and say we’re not doing this anymore? We can, can’t we? They can’t force us to go through with it. We’re the victims.”
“The judge already ruled,” said Mara. “And besides, what would we be going back to?”
Will found himself looking at the door, as if Cliff and Chris and his in-laws and the media were literally standing on the other side. They weren’t, of course. Just Ken and his all-hearing ears.
“We’d have each other,” Will said.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. If having just him were enough, they wouldn’t be here right now.
But when he looked at Mara, she didn’t seem to think it was stupid. “There’s always a choice,” she said.
“Now you sound like me.”
Mara one-shoulder shrugged. “I always knew you’d make a rule-breaker out of me someday.”
W
as it wrong of him to feel hopeful? Will knew they had no right to back out now. They couldn’t keep running away from their problems.
Or could they? What if they just . . . disappeared? Will pictured grabbing Mara’s hand and running away with her, out of this strange building complex and across the long, plain fields and highways that separated them from DC. They could run and keep running. No time wreck. No Jason Mann. Just him and Mara, going whatever direction they wanted to go.
A knock on the door startled them both. “Two minutes, please, and then we’d like everyone back in the conference room,” Nayana said through the door. “Are you two all right?”
“Fine,” Mara called back. She drank the rest of the water and crumpled the wilting paper cup in one hand. Will felt his heart disintegrating with it.
* * * * *
Traci gave them both a wide, warm smile when Will and Mara walked back into the room. She was the only one who did. Jason, his corrections officer, and Nayana all looked at Mara a bit warily. What, you afraid of someone telling you the truth? Will was privately glad he got to see Mara tell Jason off a little bit. Even if they wouldn’t remember it in the next life map.
Thinking like that made Will’s head hurt.
Dr. Hendrix sat at the computer now. He watched Will more than Mara, with the type of squinty-eyed consideration that made Will feel like a textbook case study instead of a person. Will looked down and took his seat next to Mara.
“Good, we’re all here,” Dr. Hendrix said briskly. “Now, for the next portion, I’ve created a simulation of the rectified life map. It begins at the same point in time as the incident we just saw—three minutes before the first shot was fired. This is my understanding of the most likely trajectory of events if Jason chooses not to shoot in the next life map. What I need each participant to do, particularly, is to think about how realistic this course of events is for you personally. I know it’s difficult, but try to think of any factors at all that would cause you to take any different actions. Ms. Patel, Ms. Bryant, obviously your input is appreciated as well.” Will noticed he had left out the name of Jason’s corrections officer. Whether on purpose or by accident, Will couldn’t tell.
Dr. Hendrix turned off the light, and the projected image of the animated Student Union shone brightly on the wall. It felt strange, seeing himself onscreen, even if he was just a computer-generated cartoon. Animated Will was standing at the mailboxes, just like he had been before.
The screen panned out and revealed Jason pacing in the hall. He still looked upset, but not with the same panicked motions as before. He walked slowly toward the mailboxes, stooped low, and turned the combination dial. It was empty. Cartoon Jason stood up, stretched, and leaned his forehead against the wall.
Onscreen, the animated Will seemed to notice Jason’s distress. “You okay?” he asked, walking over and putting a hand on Jason’s shoulder.
The animated Mara walked past the mailroom, balancing her Styrofoam containers and remaining completely oblivious to them both.
The simulation ended and Dr. Hendrix turned the lights back on. Will felt as though he’d been slapped. I have to talk to Jason? And comfort him too? He glanced quickly at Mara, who was frowning slightly at the screen.
“Any remarks? Suggestions? Questions?” Dr. Hendrix asked.
“Nope,” said Jason quickly. “Looks right to me.”
“Not to me,” Will said. “Seriously, I don’t feel like I would walk over and talk to him. Not in this life map or any other.”
Nayana raised an eyebrow at him, but Dr. Hendrix nodded for him to keep talking. “Why not? You present as a very empathetic person. All the information from your childhood seems to indicate the same. If you didn’t know him—which, in this life map, you don’t—it’s predictable that you would reach out to someone in distress.”
Will tried to think of something to say to that. If Jason were just anybody, sure, he probably would have. But Jason wasn’t just anybody.
Was he ready for Jason Mann to disappear back into the crowd of people he didn’t know?
“Maybe I would have, but maybe I wouldn’t,” Will said. “I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking about before it happened. Maybe I was distracted, like Mara.”
“When Mara passes by, you and Jason are completely outside her field of vision,” Dr. Hendrix said. “You will be in the same vicinity as Jason, and he will obviously be upset—not volatile, but given his life circumstances at the time, he will be under some stress.”
Will shrugged. “So what? If I don’t talk to someone I don’t know in the new life map, is time going to unravel?”
He heard Traci laugh, which somehow annoyed him more than Dr. Hendrix’s condescending smile.
“We’re simply trying to imagine the most likely course of events for this point in time. If Jason doesn’t shoot, how would he act instead? How would those around him react to those actions?” Nayana asked the questions smoothly. But Will wasn’t in any mood to be soothed.
“If Jason doesn’t shoot?” he asked.
“When I don’t shoot,” Jason corrected. Something in his voice made Will turn around. If Jason didn’t look exactly humble, at least he wasn’t smirking anymore. “I don’t really want to think about this part of my life either, you know. I’m not proud of what I did. I’m not proud of a lot of what led up to it, either. I screwed up. I know that. I didn’t go to class and I didn’t study because I didn’t think I had to. There’s a whole building on campus named after my dad, for God’s sake. Who’s going to expel the kid whose family practically funds the engineering department?”
Will didn’t move. He could barely breathe. Everyone in the room was watching Jason now.
“And then when I got suspended, it was just like—I was a nobody. I went to the dean and he didn’t even make time to speak with me. I asked, ‘How do I get an academic suspension when I’ve only been here half a semester? Can’t I just go to class the next half and make it up somehow?’ And he looked at me like I was the biggest idiot he’d ever seen and said, ‘There are no classes to go to. You were dropped from all of them for lack of attendance. Don’t come back to this school until you’re serious.’”
Will did not want to feel sorry for Jason Mann. He and Mara had spent the last eight years cleaning up the mess Jason’s terrible decisions had made. He did not want to feel sorry for him. He did not want to pity him.
But he kept listening anyway.
“That should have been my wake-up call. Hell, a lot of things before that should have been my wake-up call. I should have left, gotten a real job, and spent years clawing my way back into my father’s good graces. I thought I was going to. But—” Jason slid his eyes downward. For the first time, Will saw Jason look ashamed. “I wanted to be notorious.”
* * * * *
“Dr. Hendrix is right, you know,” Mara said. “You probably would have reached out to Jason.”
Will locked the door of their motel room and double-checked the chain. “Maybe.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Mara said. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”
“That I comfort attempted murderers?”
“That you’re kind to people.”
“Aw,” Will said. “Thanks.”
People don’t turn their heads and notice the kind guy by the mailboxes.
Mara was already settled in on one of the two double beds, remote in hand. “Should we risk watching the news? See if we’re still headliners?” she asked.
Will shrugged. “Why not?”
Mara flipped through the cable channels, skipping over a home-decorating show and a Lifetime movie before she got to the news. The reporter was talking about a traffic jam in southeast DC. The images felt so familiar to Will—definitely the rows of taillights stretched out along the highway—but here in the motel, it all felt so far away.
Will was about to say, “See? For once people aren’t talking about us,” when the news anchor
said, “And after the break: has this young man’s search to reunite his family hit a dead end? Find out what’s next in the case time wreckers are calling hashtag YSOLO: You Should Only Live Once.”
To Will’s horror, there was a clip of his brother, surrounded by microphones. “I haven’t been able to find my brother and sister-in-law. I’m just asking everyone to help, however they can.” The news station’s logo and theme played, and then it cut to commercial.
“Fantastic,” Will said flatly, at the same time that Mara said, “Jackass.” Will raised an eyebrow at her.
“Sorry,” Mara said. “I’m sorry. He is your brother. I should probably get a swear jar or something. Put in a quarter every time I cuss.”
“Why? It would only have fifty cents in it. You never had a problem with it before today.” Will waited a beat before adding, “Besides, it wasn’t cussing when you called Jason an asshole this morning. That was just telling the truth.”
Mara shrugged. “Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought.” Will’s expression must have revealed the sinking feeling in his stomach, because Mara hurried to add: “I’m not saying it’s right or even understandable what he did. I feel like he’s sorry, though. I feel like he really does want to go back and fix things.”
“Let’s hope so,” Will said.
“Well, obviously we want him to be sorry, or else this whole thing is for nothing.”
“Yeah,” Will said. “I guess . . . I want to forgive him. I really do want to move on.” He left the rest unspoken. But I’m still struggling.
“I know how you feel.” Mara said. “Believe me, I know.”
Statement of Congressman Gaines Regarding the Safety of His Daughter and Son-in-Law
Press Release April 16, 2011
Congressman Gaines Responds to Concerns That Daughter, Son-in-Law Are Reported Missing
On behalf of my wife and myself, I want to thank the many concerned constituents, friends, and citizens across the country who have reached out to share their support when my daughter and her husband were reported missing yesterday. We want to assure you that Will and Mara are indeed safe and sound. They are staying with relatives for the time being, as their home was unfortunately no longer safe due to the intense public scrutiny surrounding their rumored timeline rectification.