Seize Today (Forget Tomorrow)

by Pintip Dunn

  My mind whirls. “But you didn’t have a bracelet the first time you traveled to a parallel world.”

  “I was lucky. More importantly, I was the only one traveling, which meant I was in the ether for only a fraction of a second. Here, with so many people funneling through, it will take time to move through the realm. Two seconds. Four seconds. With each passing instant, more energy attacks your body.” She presses her lips together. “I give you about a one percent chance of surviving without the bracelet.”

  My stomach plunges to my feet. I knew it couldn’t be this easy. Everything I’ve always wanted, right at my fingertips. I knew it was too good to be true.

  “You have to try,” Jessa says fiercely. “What’s the alternative? Staying here and fading away? You never know. Maybe you’ll be that one percent.”

  “I have a better idea.” My mother unsnaps the band from her wrist and puts it in my hand. “Take mine.”

  I gape. Shock flows through my bloodstream, numbing my senses. I can no longer see the people pushing and shoving as they make their way to the entrance of the tunnel. I can’t hear the ever-increasing thuds of the battering ram as it weakens the doors. I don’t smell the fear that’s permeating the air, a heady mix of sweat and oil. I don’t even taste the blood that’s pooling in my mouth, where I must’ve bitten my tongue.

  All I can do is stare at my mother. The woman who’s placed me second (or fifth or tenth) my entire life. The one who’s offering to sacrifice everything for me now.

  “Why?” Out of my hundreds of thoughts and thousands of feelings, it’s the only word that finds its way from my mouth.

  Her eyes travel up, up, up to the window near the top of the warehouse, one that’s accessible by a flimsy revolving ladder. “Another point of entry,” she says. “If they haven’t already spotted the window, they will soon. We have a matter of minutes before they swarm the place.”

  She looks back at me. “The people have always needed something larger than themselves to reassure them. To make them feel safe. In the pre-Boom era, this took the form of religion, an all-powerful God, the Universe. And in our era, this wisdom came in the form of future memory, if only for a little while. Before it all went wrong, before the world came tumbling down around us.”

  She sucks in a mouthful of air and then another, but the action is too fast, too…wet. She’s not just breathing, I realize. She’s holding back her tears.

  “For the same reason, they need a hero or heroine. A symbol of strength and goodness and hope, which is what the Underground had in Callie. Which is what the Mediocres had, just recently, in you.” Her shoulders become still. “They also need a scapegoat. A face of evil. Somebody or something to hate. This is what I’ve given to the world. This is what my life has stood for. They’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done. The people I’ve killed. The sins on my hands. But I hope you do. You…and your father.”

  Her eyes drift to the red shed. My father lies inside, holding the window open for as long as he possibly can, saving as many people as he possibly can. “I love him,” she continues thickly. “Did you know that? I love him with all my heart. As I love you. But you know what? I love this world more. And I did everything in my power to preserve even a portion of it.” She takes a few stomach-deep breaths. “This is my gift to you, Olivia. To all of you. You won’t get through that window without my help. They’ll swarm the place first and destroy the arch. They need a distraction. Me. Perhaps this is the only time I’ve ever been able to show you how I truly feel. I hope you’ll accept this gift.”

  “Mom, no.” In three strides, I close the distance between us and seize her hands. Her fingers have always been so cold, so clammy. But now, they’re as warm as the fire burning in her eyes. “You don’t have to do this. We can find another way. I know there’s another answer. We just have to find it.”

  She pulls her hand from my grip and places it on my cheek. “Please, Olivia. All your life, I’ve never been able to be the mother I wanted to be. The mother you deserve. Give me this moment. Let me do what I’ve always wanted to do: sacrifice for my child.” She looks over my shoulder and meets the eyes of my friends. “Sacrifice for the people whom I’ve always admired, even as they tried to defeat me.”

  With one last smile, she walks away and climbs on the rickety revolving ladder.

  “What is she doing?” Callie steps forward, panic whipped into her voice. “Olivia, what is she doing?”

  The doors surge as the battering ram hits it one more time. Three more thuds, tops, and the entry will burst wide open.

  “She’s distracting them,” Ryder says. “She’s trying to buy us time.”

  My mom reaches the top of the ladder, and it all becomes clear to me. Not just this moment, but also the rest of my life. I was right to believe in her. I was right to love her. She has her faults—maybe more than most people. She’s made bad decisions—definitely more than everyone else. But she’s my mother. All those times I indulged in an alternate future, I wasn’t wishing for a different mom. Because those pathways are a part of her, too. They may not be the woman she was, but they comprise the woman she wanted to be.

  And now, in the final seconds of her life, that’s more than enough.

  My mom pushes open the pane of glass, and the rebels’ yells blast into the warehouse.

  “Mom! Mom!” I wave my arms, desperate for a few more words.

  She turns, pushing back a strand of hair that’s fallen onto her cheek.

  “I love you, Mom!” I shout. “I love you!”

  She smiles, as beautiful as she was in that old holo-image, the one where she cradled me as a newborn and looked into my eyes. “I love you, too,” she mouths.

  Turning, she pokes her head out of the open window, and her hair whips wildly behind her. “I’m the one you want,” she screams. “My name is Chairwoman Dresden, and I’m the one who killed you all.”

  And then, she jumps right out of the window and into the mob.

  56

  For a moment, none of us speak. Maybe because all our mouths are still open. Outside, the rebels roar, primal and frenzied. Their excitement is so loud, so all-consuming, I can’t hear anything else—and I’m glad. I don’t need to hear the sounds of my mother being ripped apart. Imagining it is bad enough.

  And then, the emotions hit me. My knees buckle, and I stuff a fist into my mouth, damming up the cries. My heart mourns. It yells and screams and rages, and if it were outside my body, it would slice through the air, leaving bloody red streaks everywhere. I want time to stand still. I want the world to cease spinning, so that I can properly grieve my mother.

  But it doesn’t, and I can’t.

  “The window is closing,” the robotic voice intones. “The window is closing.”

  I jerk up my head. The voice, from wherever it emanates, is right. The filmy gauze of energy is now half its former size, and the crowd waiting to walk through the tunnel has diminished to a few scattered clumps.

  Logan rushes up to us, his eyes bulging. “Where have you been? We have to move, now! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  He grabs Callie’s and Jessa’s hands, and the three of them take off toward the tunnel at top speed. Tanner’s words flit through my mind. It’s a good thing Logan already won his gold star. He’s so weak now I doubt he’d be able to swim a length of the pool. You need muscles for that, and his are…faded.

  So, if Logan’s fading away, where is he finding the energy to sprint? Is it just adrenaline? Or something else?

  Shakily, I slip my mother’s bracelet around my wrist, and Ryder starts to sweep me up.

  I shake my head. “I can run. I promise. It’ll be faster.”

  He nods, and hand-in-hand, we run. Images flash through my mind, no longer pathways from the future, but memories of the past. MK’s redheaded little boy and his wistful hope that he’ll someday swim as well as Logan. The blond girl in detainment who continued to sing in spite of the excrement in her hair. The memory technician, Kany
a, who was so concerned about losing her job.

  These people’s lives intersected with mine for only a few minutes, and yet, they left an indelible mark on my heart. That’s who we’ll be leaving behind when we walk through that window. Those people—and millions of others like them.

  A feeling rises within me, washing over me, threatening to pull me under. An underlying edge of fear. A vague sense of things ending. I can’t quite grasp what it means. I reach for it, I stretch my mind for some kind of understanding, for even a handful of words.

  It’s big. Bigger than me, bigger than my life. A decision point. The weight of the world resting on the fragile point of a pin. Like a house of playing cards, like a long line of dominoes. Something that took a person a lifetime to set up. One false move, one wrong action, and it could all come crashing down.

  My dream. The recurring nightmare I’ve had. It’s here, now. The backdrop is different—an enormous realm machine, pulsing with energy, hundreds of people trying to break down the doors of this warehouse—but the feeling is the same.

  I have to do…something. I have to take one decisive action, but it has to be the right one, or the entire world will end.

  We proceed through the tunnel and join the group on the other side, right in front of the window. Tanner arrives a few seconds later, breathless, probably from searching the other side of the warehouse for us. Jessa’s family is all there, all waiting: Mikey, Angela, and Remi; Preston and Phoebe; even Zed and Lauren, whom I heard were on the list on account of Zed’s physical strength, but whom I haven’t seen until this moment.

  Panic rises inside me at seeing my former kidnapper and would-be batterer, but just as quickly, it fades away. I have much more pressing concerns.

  Phoebe presses her lips against Jessa’s forehead. “Thank the Fates you’re here in time.”

  But there’s no time for any other greeting. The screen of energy is now inches from my face, and my skin tingles with the enormous outlay of power. More importantly, the window has shrunk to a third of its original size—and is dwindling fast.

  Zed and Lauren move through the window first, perfectly unified even though he towers over her by at least a foot.

  “We’ll see you in our new world,” Preston says to all of us, although his eyes are only for his daughters. He and Phoebe walk forward—and disappear.

  Angela’s next, snuggling Remi to her chest.

  Mikey’s right behind her. I watch his foot move forward, as though in slow motion. Time decelerates to a crawl, and with every inch that Mikey moves, I’m able to think a million thoughts, feel a million emotions. Everything flits through my mind at the speed of the pathways, and yet, I don’t feel overwhelmed. I don’t feel like I’m able to focus on only one element or another. Instead, all my thoughts and emotions coalesce in my mind in one single resolution.

  “I can’t walk through that window,” I blurt out.

  Time speeds up to normal again, and everyone turns to me. Mikey freezes, with one foot inside the window, and Ryder picks up my hand, squeezing it as though he’s not willing to let go. “Why not?”

  “I just can’t abandon this world,” I say, struggling to put into words what I know in my head. What I feel in my heart. “I can’t walk out on these people. All our leaders are fleeing, leaving the Mediocres behind without any information. Other than their sorry attempts to decimate the population, the International Council hasn’t done anything to help them. Maybe they believe that the situation’s hopeless, that these people will disintegrate in a matter of days. But what if that’s not the case? What if there’s a way to save this time stream?”

  I lick my lips, afraid to continue my line of thought. Afraid it’ll sound ridiculous when I say it out loud. “What if the time stream isn’t unraveling because of future memory, after all? It could be a more easily solvable problem. It could be…me.”

  I take a deep breath. “Think about it. You’re all healthy now, when you were weak and fading away a few hours ago. What’s changed?” I move my shoulders. “Lots of things, perhaps. But one big thing that’s different is me. I lost my powers of precognition, which means I haven’t reached into the future for the last twelve hours.” I stumble through the words, working it out in my head. “We were certain that future memory was the cause of the virus because the symptoms slowed during the ten years that future memory was delayed. Well, I went into isolation those same ten years. I saw very few people, so I had very few opportunities to use my precognitive powers. The virus gained new life again six months ago. That was when future memory was discovered; but that was also when I rejoined society.”

  My voice gets softer and softer, until I’m no longer sure they can hear me. But the group of them presses closer, and the expressions on their faces tell me they’ve heard every sentence, every word.

  “Maybe I was the one making the time stream unstable all along,” I say. It is such an enormous conclusion, with such enormous implications, that I almost can’t bear to say it. I almost can’t bear to think it. Me, a single girl. The cause of the entire world’s destruction. But it’s too late to hide now. And if it was my fault, I need to make things right. “Maybe now that I’ve lost my abilities, time can heal itself and return to normal.”

  “That’s a lot of ‘maybes,’” Logan says. “You would risk your life on these what-ifs?”

  “I owe it to them.” My hand is so sweaty that it slips in Ryder’s grip. He simply readjusts his fingers and holds on more tightly. “Whether or not I’m the cause, they at least deserve to learn everything I know. So I’m staying.”

  Saying the words knocks the breath out of me. Not because I fear for my own life, but because this was my mother’s gift to me. This was her sacrifice. And yet, I know her death was not in vain. Because she launched herself into the mob, many more people were able to walk through that window. Lauren and Zed. Phoebe and Preston. Angela and Remi. And more I don’t even know about. One life to save many others. The greatest good for the greatest number of people. Right up to her last moments, my mother lived her life according to that philosophy.

  “What if you’re wrong?” Ryder asks quietly. “What if there’s nothing you can do to save them?”

  “What if I’m right?” I shoot back. “You were the one who taught me I was more than just a shadow, Ryder. You believed that I was fully capable of action. And that’s what I’m doing now. Acting.”

  Another flicker, another waver, and the window shrinks again. It’s a five-foot-by-five-foot square now. My friends will still be able to make it through, but they need to hurry.

  “Go,” I say. “Don’t miss this window because you’re talking to me. My mind’s made up, and there’s no changing it. So please, go. Now.”

  “Not a chance,” Ryder says. “I’m staying here with you.”

  My heart stutters. I never expected this. This is a decision about my own life. I never thought to persuade anyone else to stay.

  “You don’t need to do this, Ryder,” I say haltingly. “The people you love are what’s in your heart.” I repeat his words back to him. “So, go. Be with them now. Be with your family.”

  He brings up my hand and brushes his lips over my knuckles. And when he looks down at me, I know exactly why he is superlative, and it has nothing to do with his offer to execute a girl. He’s smart and resourceful. But more than that, he’s steadfast and loyal. His heart is kind. And once he’s given it, he will never, ever take it back.

  “No, Via,” he says. “You are my heart. You’ve always been my heart. I just didn’t know it until now.”

  Via. A nickname. For only the second time in my life.

  I smile, and he smiles, and he leans forward until his lips are an inch away from mine. But he doesn’t kiss me. Not yet. There’ll be time for that later, or maybe there won’t, but at least we’ll be together.

  Behind him, Jessa and Tanner whisper furiously to each other. And then, they turn to us with broad smiles on their faces.

  “Didn’t I say
we were in this together?” Jessa asks. “We’ll stay, too.”

  “And so will we,” Callie says. One of her hands is intertwined with Logan’s, and his other hand is splayed on her belly.

  The energy screen wavers and contracts by another foot.

  I step forward and put my hand next to Logan’s on her stomach. “Are you sure?” I ask in a low voice. “We’re risking only ourselves. You would be risking your baby. If you walk through the ether with an embryo in your body, you’ll have a baby like me. A true precognitive. Maybe the only one in the new world. Do you really want to give that up?”

  She regards me, her eyes steady. Logan’s hand on her belly doesn’t move. “That’s all the more reason to stay. If you’re right that your precognition was the cause of all our problems, then maybe it’s better if we don’t bring that wrinkle into the new world.” She winks. “Looks like you’re stuck with a family, Olivia. Through the rest of this time and all of the next.”

  And then, there’s Mikey, with one foot inside the window, and the rest of him outside.

  “Angela and Remi have already walked through the window,” he says, his voice anguished. “My family…”

  I go perfectly still. He’s faced this same choice before, between his wife and baby and his nearly grown son. It tore him apart then, and it’s tearing him apart now.

  The window shrinks, until it’s a tight outline around Mikey’s body. He’ll have to make a decision soon—or it’ll be made for him.

  Ryder approaches his adoptive father, placing his hands on Mikey’s shoulders. “Go. I can take care of myself, but Angela and Remi need you. And Preston and Phoebe…they’ll be devastated when their daughters don’t walk through the window. You’ll need to explain to them why. But most important of all, the new world needs a good leader. I believed it when I was six years old, arriving in Harmony for the first time, and I believe it now. Mikey, you’re the best there is.”

  Mikey nods, his cheeks wet. “I love you, son. You’ve made me…so proud.” His voice cracks.