by D. S. Murphy
“I’m going to find a way to stop this.” I promised the turkey, and myself. “No matter what.”
We didn’t have school the next day, but I was up at 6am. I knew the parade started at 9am in New York—that was 8am in Missouri. I didn’t know what time the bomb was supposed to go off, it hadn’t said in the article. I was getting frantic imagining it. What if the woman I talked to hadn’t believed me? What if nobody got the message? I decided to try again. This time I found the number for the NYPD.
“There’s going to be a bomb at the parade today. Check the mermaid float,” I said. Then I hung up. If they asked me more questions I couldn’t answer, they’d doubt the message. I prayed they’d take the anonymous threat seriously and send some police to check it out.
I fixed myself a bowl of Fruit Loops, then turned on the TV and waited. I switched back and forth between news channels, but they were just talking about the parade preparations. Two announcers, a blonde woman with a red blouse and a dark haired guy in a jacket, made cheesy jokes and semi-flirted with each other, killing time with their inane comments. At 8am the parade started. My eyes were glued to the screen, looking for the mermaid float. My chest tightened when I finally I saw it. I expected it to explode at any moment. Maybe I hadn’t done enough. I should have tried harder. Warned them earlier. Maybe I should call again.
And then, there it was.
“We’re just now getting news of a bomb scare, apparently police received an anonymous tip that led to the discovery of a bomb hidden in one of the floats. For more on that story we go to Ted Dawson, who is live at the scene.”
“Thanks Marsha, all the floats were checked the night before the parade, but it looks like in this case someone got underneath one of the floats just minutes before the parade started. I’m here with officer Todd Bunson of the NYPD, who discovered the device. Todd, what can you tell us?”
“Well, security during the Thanksgiving Day Parade is always a huge priority, and we have a lot of man power. Like you said, we sweep the floats a day before, but with so many people it’s hard to keep track. We got an anonymous tip about a bomb on the mermaid float, but we didn’t find anything. This morning I had a nagging feeling about it, so I went under there with a flashlight. That’s when I found the device. We’re not actually classifying it as a terrorist threat yet, that’ll be up to the FBI, nor are we sure who is behind the attempt, but we’ll put our best men on it. I think, bottom line, we’re all just real thankful we found it and saved lives today.”
My phone rang. It was Brett.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Are you watching the news?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You saved those people. I don’t know how, but I’m sorry I blew you off. We’re having a football party, why don’t you come over? We can watch the games together, and then talk about what to do next.”
What to do next?
I didn’t like how he was trying to take control, after shutting me out for several days.
“You sure you want me there?” I asked.
“Cody and Crys will be here too. I am sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I didn’t want to believe it. But now that we know… I think we need to discuss things, don’t you?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“Need me to pick you up?”
“Nah, I’ll call Crys, or take my bike.”
***
Crys picked me up an hour later. I spent the time worrying about what to wear, and feeling stupid for caring. I settled on jeans and a gray hoodie. I stood awkwardly on Brett’s doorstep as Crys rang the doorbell. It had only been a week and a half since we were here for the party. So much had changed since then, I felt like a different person.
I was expecting there to be a lot of people, but it was just Brett, Cody and Crys. I was relieved Courtney wasn’t there. Brett’s parents were in the kitchen, they waved as we came in.
“Hi there,” Mr. Peters said as we came in.
“This is Alicia, and Crys,” Brett introduced us.
“Tamara’s sister, right?” He was cutting up bread into cubes for stuffing, but he looked up and smiled at me.
“Yeah, sorry for ambushing your public debate the other day,” I said.
“Nonsense, that’s why we have those things. It’s natural to have questions. We’ve ordered some pizzas for lunch, there’s snacks and Coke downstairs. I’ve got some work to do but I’ll be in and out. I’m not exactly a huge football fan.”
Downstairs they had a game room with a massive TV screen. A table was filled with snacks and drinks.
“My dad was actually surprised when I said I wanted to watch the games,” Brett said. “We used to watch when I was younger, but neither of us are very into them.”
“What’s your mom do?” I asked.
“She’s a writer, and a college professor.”
“Are we going to talk about the bomb?”
“Let’s watch the games first,” Crys said. “Okay? I mean, I just don’t want to jinx everything, and we should be sure.”
I nodded.
I pigged out on junk food and tried to get into the games, but it was hard to focus since I didn’t care which team won. After each game, Cody took a red marker and crossed out a line.
» Philadelphia Eagles @ Detroit Lions 51-23
» Carolina Panthers @ Dallas Cowboys 24-20
» Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers 13-9
By the time we were on the third game, we were pretty quiet. I think we were all in a daze. Except Cody, who still cheered whenever the Bears scored. It was afternoon when the last game ended, 13 to 9. I was three for three.
“That was awesome,” Cody said. “I just made $1200.”
“You bet on the game?” I asked.
“$100 on each, with 4 to 1 odds.”
“That was dumb,” Brett said. “A winning streak like that might call attention to you.”
“Relax, I made three bets with three different people. And if she can see the future, what’s the harm in making some money?”
“What do you mean if she can see the future?” Crys said. “We aren’t still debating that are we? I mean, come on. Picking the winners would be luck. Knowing the exact score of each game? That’s beyond remarkable.”
“Crys is right,” Brett said. “The bomb was one thing, but seeing the exact scores like that was unnerving. I didn’t want to believe it, but I can’t doubt it now. Plus, if you were right, you saved twenty-three people today.”
“So we can change the past,” I said.
“Or the future,” Cody said. “I mean, you must have already changed things.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You won’t know until you go back again,” Brett said, nodding.
“If she’s going back at all,” Crys said. “I mean, she doesn’t have to. You said it was dangerous, right? With the modifieds?”
“I think you better tell us everything. I get the feeling we still haven’t heard the full story.”
“You didn’t exactly give me a chance to explain after the debate,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I’m listening now. You said something about Zamonta?”
I repeated what I knew: Zamonta was still around in the future, and they had people picking up and bringing in children. I described the modifieds and what I knew about them, and the information I’d pieced together from Jake and the mercs. I told them about the remnants, and seeing Mrs. Neary in her office. I still didn’t tell them about Tracy though. That seemed like it would only add to the confusion.
Brett took out a small whiteboard and drew a line on it. He made a small line on the far left and wrote the date. “You said it’s about twenty years in the future?”
“I think so. That’s what the guys said anyway, that it happened twenty years ago. De-evolution day. May 14th, 2017. But the note on Mrs. Neary’s desk said an evacuation was scheduled for May 19th.”
“Maybe they never made it that far. I mean, by
then it was too late, right?”
Brett made another line on the far right and marked it May 14th, 2017. Then he labelled it “D-day” with a question mark.
“Ok, so what do we do about it?” Cody asked. “I mean with the bomb, we just called in an anonymous tip.”
“Wait—you did?” I asked.
Brett looked sheepish and ran his hand through his hair.
“Yeah, since we hadn’t talked, and I wasn’t sure if you were going to… You were right, I couldn’t know that it might happen without doing something about it. We called this morning.”
He gave me a small smile, and all the anger and frustration I’d been feeling for the last few days melted away.
“So you’re asking, how do we warn people?” Chrys said, turning back to Cody.
“Right,” he said. “With the bomb threat, we just needed to tell them where to look and they found the bomb. Easy. But we can’t do that this time. Who do you call about the end of the world? CIA? FBI? And what are we dealing with, was it a terror threat? Some kind of virus? I mean, a species doesn’t just evolve overnight. Anybody we tried to warn wouldn’t believe us, without proof.”
“But what kind of proof would it take?” I asked. “Tamara’s been saying it’s the end of the world for years. Global warming, climate change, overpopulation, rising sea levels… there’s a dozen likely scenarios for the end of the world. Scientists are telling us it’s happening, that it might be too late already. Everybody knows the world is ending. But nobody is doing anything about it.”
“Because those things are slow. This thing is going to happen fast, it sounds like,” Brett said.
“Maybe we don’t have to warn everybody,” Crys said. “Like you said, they wouldn’t believe us anyway. Maybe we just have to find out exactly what happens, and be there to stop it.”
“We’re just a bunch of kids,” I said. “What can we do against something this big?”
“So that’s one of the things we need to change first,” Brett said. “We need people to take us seriously, so they listen. If we just announced the end of the world, they’d dismiss us. But what if we made a bunch of micro-predictions. Very specific things, and a lot of them. We build up a reputation for telling the truth, for predicting the future and being right. We keep doing it until people believe us, then we tell them about the bigger stuff.”
“I thought you wanted to stay anonymous,” Crys said. “It sounds like you’re volunteering Alicia to be a public prophetess.”
I frowned. “I don’t want that. Can we keep our names out of it? Maybe make a website?”
“Maybe,” Brett said. “Whatever works.”
“I also think we should talk to your dad.”
Brett’s face darkened.
“I’m not saying he’s involved, I’m sure he isn’t. But if he works at Zamonta, he might have answers. Maybe something they are working on goes wrong somehow? It’s worth checking up on, right? Also, we need to know what that stuff really is, phylia. We need to know where it came from and why it affects me.”
“I’d really rather not tell my dad we stole his stuff,” Brett said.
“We don’t have to,” I said. “We can just poke around, ask some questions. Can you get into his office again?”
“I did that already,” Brett said. “After what you said at the debate, I was curious, so I looked through his home office. I didn’t find anything.”
“What about his work office, at Zamonta?” Crys asked.
“That place is a fortress,” Brett said. “I’ve gone to work with my dad before, but there were a dozen security checkpoints to get through.”
Crys grabbed the pen and started making a list.
Find out exactly what happens, and when.
Find a bunch of hard proof to demonstrate we can really see the future.
“So, it sounds like I’m going back again.”
“We only have a tiny bit of phylia left,” Crys said. “What you didn’t smoke last time.”
“It’s enough,” I said. “Last time I took too much, anyway. I don’t want to be gone that long.”
“You’ll have to be super careful,” Brett said. “It’s dangerous. We can send you with some supplies this time.”
I thought about the gun in Brett’s locker. Would it still be there this time? Who put it there? I had no idea where to get a gun from.
“Want to trip from school again?” Crys asked.
I shuddered, thinking about the mods I’d run into.
“There weren’t any answers there,” I said. Suddenly I knew just where I needed to go. The only place I could go. Tracy’s house. I didn’t know who he was or how he was involved, but after seeing his crazy stalker bulletin board, I was pretty sure he had the answers I needed.
***
We didn’t have school the next day so we decided to do it then, so we’d have the weekend still to do whatever else we needed to do. It was afternoon, Cody and Crys had to get home and eat dinner with their families.
“Home for Thanksgiving dinner, huh?” Mr. Peters said when we came upstairs.
“No, not really. My sister came over last night for a family dinner. Tonight it’s just my dad and I.”
“Why don’t you stay and eat with us?” he asked.
I looked at Brett. He didn’t seem horrified by the idea.
“I don’t know, isn’t it kind of, family time?” Staying seemed like it would be weird.
Brett shrugged. “We have lots of food. You’re welcome to stay.” I wondered if he was just being nice to me because he’d been a jerk for the past few days. Even so, it felt nice. And the food smelled amazing, I could smell the turkey cooking in the oven.
“Ok,” I said finally. “But only if I can help.”
I helped Brett’s mom make a salad, then helped set the table. Brett was an only child, but his mom had two sisters, who each had several kids. They were younger than us.
We kept them entertained downstairs until dinner was ready, rough-housing and playing video games. We came up when the food was ready—Brett and I sat at the kid’s table.
Brett mostly ignored me but sometimes I’d catch him watching me. It made my heart flutter, and then I’d have to remind myself that he was with Courtney. I may be able to see the future, but Courtney had boobs. At least that’s the only redeeming quality I could see in her. If there was more Brett found attractive about her, I don’t know what it was. Still, free food. I stuffed myself on turkey, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, and pie. It was the first real Thanksgiving I’d had since my mom died, and it just could be my last. I wasn’t going to waste it.
I joked around with the kids, Brett’s cousins were adorable. I even read a story to Susie, the youngest. Reading, with Susie on my lap, and Brett pretending not to listen from across the living room, was a moment to remember.
Brett gave me a ride home.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said when we pulled up to my house.
“It was nice to have you there,” he said. “Usually it’s just me with all the kids.” He leaned across from me to open the car door, I could smell his warm skin.
I’d forgotten how small my house was. Compared to Brett’s house, mine was a hovel. Or maybe it just seemed cold and empty, after being around so many people. Dad was watching TV, and there was a plate on the table with saran wrap over it.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Thanksgiving leftovers,” he said. “Mrs. Patton dropped them off. I thought we could eat together.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were waiting for me. I ate at Brett’s. You should eat. I’ll fix you a plate.” I microwaved a plate for him. It was nice of Mrs. Patton to bring food over. Did she do it every year or was this the first?
I sat with dad and watched TV for a while. It was nice to be distracted by bad sitcoms. Tomorrow I’d trip again, and instead of feeling terrified, like I should, I found myself feeling excited. Almost looking forward to it. Which was crazy. Was my own life so boring t
hat I looked forward to putting myself in danger? Or was it just that I’d been given the chance to make an impact, to do something that really mattered?
“Happy Thanksgiving, Dad,” I said, giving him a hug and a kiss on the forehead. “See you tomorrow.” Or maybe, I wouldn’t.
13
We planned to do it at the Rockwoods reservation this time. I told the others I saw a house I wanted to check out nearby. Rockwoods was a public hiking area, so there were lots of picnic tables and benches. Plus it was near the St. Louis Community College. Nobody would think it was weird for a group of kids to hang out during the day. We parked and Brett pulled out a backpack and a shovel.
“I did some shopping,” he said, opening the backpack. Inside was a twelve-inch hunting knife, some granola bars and a couple bottles of water, a first aid kit and some other emergency gear. He dug a hole big enough for the backpack and placed it inside. Then he covered it back up with dirt. Cody picked up a large rock and hauled it over.
“That should keep the animals out,” he said.
Brett took out the package of phylia, with the tiny bit I hadn’t used last time.
“Last time you took in three big breaths, right? I guess you breathed deeper than you should have, and held it in too long. The less time you spend there, the better, it’s too risky. Just find some answers and stay safe. Also, find out as much as you can. This is the last we have. You might not be able to make another trip.”
I nodded. Crys gave me a hug, then Cody handed me the pipe and lighter. I held the flame over the phylia and sucked in smoke as it lit up. I watched the leaves burn. I was beginning to appreciate the taste, slightly floral and sweet, like honeysuckle. This time I only took two breaths. And I was going earlier in the day—it was just before 11am. I didn’t want to spend the night there again. Brett put out a blanket, and they lay me down on it with a pillow.