I peered around Beck to the cradle. Both babies were on their sides, Phoenix so much bigger than Keller, but I saw what Beck did, and it made me gasp. The precious sleeping babies were holding hands.
“They’re meant to be brothers,” Beck said. “There is something remarkable. They feel it, I feel it.”
“Mera?” Michael called.
I snapped out of the memory. It was the same scene, only the boys were older, and Keller was the one who was bigger. “When we first got Keller, he and Phoenix held hands in the cradle. Beck said it was like they were meant to be brothers.”
“I believe that.”
“You know, Alex didn’t expect either Phoenix or Keller to live. He was wrong about them. What if he is wrong about this baby?”
“You saw him. You said he was a Sleeper. You said he seemed to attack like an animal. Mera, he’s a newborn. If he is the next breed, imagine how deadly each generation can get.”
“But what if we can tame him?”
“Like an animal?” Michael said. “Not all animals can be tamed. I am one for preservation of life, Mera. You know that. But this situation …it’s different.”
“When I first met you, you believed it was God who did this. Have you have gone back to that thought?”
Michael smiled. “That’s out of the blue. And no. No.” He lowered his head and shook it. “We as people always want an explanation, and God is a believable explanation for us all. While there are so many religious implications in all that has happened, truth is, God did not do this. God did not cause this, nor did he cause people to turn into murderous creatures. Man did this. Man killed the children and turned the people. Not God. And as cold as it sounds, at any extreme, if man can fix this, I believe God is going to be just fine with it. Even if it starts with just one baby.”
Michael was trying to make me see reason. I wanted to. Maybe more than just an innocent-appearing baby, I was still reeling in the reality that a child was born to the Sleepers and getting rid of that baby was going to do nothing. We had already lost control long ago.
12.
Alex Sans
Mera was doing exactly what I expected when I approached our home after being released from the clinic. She was sitting on the porch step, doing her nightly thing of having a drink, the bottle next to her and a glass in her hand. She looked up at me and passed on a slight smile.
That made me feel good.
When I got closer, she stood, stepped to me, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “I was worried.”
“Thank you.”
“Join me? Or are you too tired?”
“Mera, I’ve been in a room all day.” I sat down on the step next to her. “Is Phoenix sleeping?”
“Yeah. He’s great, Alex. Wait until you see him and talk to him. Oh boy, can he talk at his age. I don’t remember any of my kids talking that well.” She poured another drink then handed me a glass. “I was waiting for you.”
“I really appreciate that.”
“Do you want to see Phoenix?”
“I’d love to see him. But he’s sleeping so I’ll just peek in on him in a bit. I want to talk to you.”
“I tried to see you today. To bring Phoenix, but Levi and Javier didn’t think that was a good idea.”
I exhaled slowly from my mouth as my lips hovered over the glass. “How about how close I was to being a Sleeper?”
“Yeah, I heard.” She took a sip. “Speaking of Sleepers...”
“How did I know this was coming?”
“He’s a baby, Alex, and I have a hard time looking beyond that.”
“I know you do. But you can’t mother and save all the children or abandoned babies. Some aren’t meant to be saved.”
“You said the same about Phoenix and Keller.”
I nodded. She was right. “I know I did and if you don’t think that weighs on me, you’re wrong. It does. But this baby, a day old, is showing violent tendencies. It’s like something about us as noninfected makes it react. This is what Randy didn’t want to happen. This is why Randy came back. In his future, man still had a chance. In other futures, like where Marissa lived, man was dying. These things continued, populated, and destroyed the planet. We have a chance to stop it.”
“With one baby?”
“With all babies. No Sleeper child should be allowed to live. Stop the species before it gets going. I don’t want to be the King Herod here, I don’t.”
“Sonny says he’s leaving. He wants to go. He thinks me and the kids and him should be on a farm away from Grace. That here, we’re in trouble.”
I moistened my lips and took another drink. “I don’t know about the trouble. But moving to a farm isn’t going to change the future. It just makes you immune from it.”
She sighed heavily. “This is a weighted decision.”
“It’s a very weighted decision. This means eliminating all Sleepers. No more living here peacefully and getting them as they come. This means going out for them.”
“What about Jessie and Michael?”
“I’m not talking about them.”
“What if the decision is out of your hands?” Mera asked.
“Then we leave.” He shrugged. “We can trek somewhere else. No one is hurting Jessie or poor Mike.”
“I’ll accept and believe that,” Mera said, refreshing my drink.
“Thanks. So…” I exhaled, “I hear you hate me because Beck died instead of me.”
Perhaps I should have waited until she fully swallowed, because Mera started to choke.
“I’m sorry.” I patted her on the back.
“Who told you?”
“Levi.”
She gasped. “So much for patient-doctor confidentiality.”
“I don’t think that applies when you’re asking to use the Cerebral trip.”
“In my defense,” she lifted her glass, “he brought up the trip. And I didn’t say I hated you. I said I got angry with you. Resented you. I didn’t want to Alex. I didn’t.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I wish I was the one who died instead of Beck.”
Quickly Mera looked at me.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “He was such a good guy. His decisions were for the good of you and the kids, not the good of the many. He had a quality no one could touch.”
“I think I resent you because you would never have made the decision I made. You would have handed Phoenix over.”
“Yeah, I would have.”
“I blame myself for Beck’s death.”
“You can’t.”
“I do. I blame myself for asking him to take Phoenix. To hide him. To break the rules. He did it because I asked.”
“He did it because he wanted to.” I placed my face closer. “Trust me. It broke my heart to see him go down. It broke my heart to watch him die.”
That simple memory for an instant brought back the pain.
“Mine, too. We don’t talk about Beck, you and I.”
“You have him in some sort of sainthood; I can’t mention him. I can’t be Beck and not that I tried, but I wanted you to depend on me like you did with him. Be a team with me. You never did. You just pulled further and further away.”
“Because you could never be Beck,” she said. “And I’m not saying that to disrespect you or hurt you, I’m saying that because that is where my anger comes from. You two handled things and decide things completely opposite. So when you didn’t give me a ‘Beck’ response, I got mad.”
“Let me ask you a question,” I waited until I had her attention. “Do you think the Cerebral thing is gonna do anything, if indeed it even works? What do you hope to get from it?”
“I need to see him. Hear him. Know things were said that needed to be said. Perhaps, just some resolution will help me move forward.”
“Can it hurt? In your opinion, can it hurt?”
“Unless I remember things differently. Alex, this is a man who made the decision to die with my daughter and
me. This man walked into a pen of Sleepers to get my child. If I got to hear him, see him one more time, it would be enough for me to just get on and past it. Maybe even stop resenting you.”
I raised my glass to her and clinked. “Then let’s go.”
“Let’s go what?” Her eyes lifted as I stood.
I held out my hand to her. “Then let’s go see Levi.”
“Don’t you think it’s late?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “He told me all about this thing. It takes a minute. One minute to resolve a lifetime ahead? That’s nothing, and we need that resolve to move ahead with any plan. Especially if we want to be a team.”
“We?”
“We.” I left it at that. If Levi agreed, and I hoped he would, then I had a feeling what point in time Mera was going to choose. If I was right, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I remembered, and I remembered more than she thought. I needed resolution for that moment as well.
Science fiction time travel stuff, I hated it. But if it could help, I’d use it and never bring it up again. At some point in all the madness, we need a break, some relief. It was worth a shot. After all, we weren’t physically going anywhere, just taking a detailed and vivid trip down memory lane.
13.
Mera Stevens
The fact that Levi was getting a visit from us at a little after one in the morning didn’t seem to surprise him as much as the fact that we wanted to do the trip right then and there. We explained how it could help resolve things and allow me to accept Alex’s decisions as leader. He summoned Noah, and they made the decision.
We would go.
There were two tiny vials; they reminded me of perfume samples that they used to give away at the department stores. Of all the things I envisioned regarding the Cerebral trip, never did I think it had to do with a drug.
“You will take the vial in one dose,” Levi explained.. “It is potent, so before you down it, set your destination. If anything else enters your mind, you’ll end up there. And that can get messy for the assurance. Choose your destination carefully.”
I looked sharply at Alex who sat in a chair across from me. He had laughed. “What is so funny?”
“I feel like I am one of the Ghostbusters.”
I shook my head in annoyance and returned to Levi. “What about him? What about if he thinks another place?”
“Doesn’t matter. His vial merely connects the trip to you. You’re driving. When you arrive, you’ll see through your own eyes, feel what you felt back then. You will be inside of you. It will be very real.”
“Will the 'me' of the past know I am there?”
Levi shook his head. “No. Anything you say or do, your past body will think it was its own thought. So be very careful.” He looked at Alex. “You’ll experience the same. So be prepared.”
Noah, who had been silent, added. “And for God’s sake, don’t try to change anything.”
“Once you arrive you have fifty-four seconds,” Levi said. “When that Cerebral Travel drug is done, at the fifty-four second mark, there’s no fading, nothing. It leaves and you are back. You may have trouble breathing because your heart rate will instantly speed back up and you’ll open your eyes as if awakening from a dream.
“You’ll take the drug, close your eyes, and be asleep for one minute. Hopefully you’ll find what you need.” He handed me the vial. “Prepare your destination.” He then gave Alex his. “Good luck.”
I was all too aware of the destination I wanted, but before I secure it in my mind, I said a small prayer. I just needed everything to work out. I needed to move on.
14.
Alex Sans
I believed, I really, really believed the entire Cerebral time travel thing was a bunch of bull, especially when they handed me the vial. I was certain they were feeding us some sort of mind-altering drug like LSD and we would tap into a memory.
All that changed after I took the drug was that flashes of light appeared before my eyes. I held on to the fact it wasn’t real until I felt the pain. My chest crushed and it felt as if a hand reached into me and twisted my heart and gut.
I knew Mera’s destination, I just forgot where I was in that moment.
Her moment and my moment were simultaneous.
When my past came into focus, my body trembled, and I was crying. I wanted to scream. I had this urge to bellow my agony as if doing so would release it. The first thing I saw was that precious little girl Marissa, her limp and bloody body in the arms of a soldier.
She had died in my arms, asking me to hold her. I’d failed her. I failed a little girl who wanted nothing more than to live. Sleepers had gotten her and all I could do was cradle her in the final moments of her life. Locked and protected in the jail cell.
That was nothing.
I was condemned for my mistakes and doomed to relive it.
“I’m sorry,” the soldier said. He had just opened the cell. “I am very sorry.”
I winced in pain. It was not the moment I thought I wanted or needed for reconciliation, though as I looked at the soldier, I realized that perhaps it was.
15.
Mera Stevens
It was real, it was happening, and I knew it the second everything flashed and I sped through some sort of dark passage. Before I saw anything, I felt grateful. I knew the moment, when everything came into focus, that I was face to face with Beck.
My God. Beck. I was there. I was with him.
I didn’t need to say anything; inside my past self, I was happy to see him. I just wanted to absorb it. Take it in, pay attention, let the past lead what happened, relive the memory and know exactly what happened at that second.
I handed him the backpack that had Phoenix tucked inside. “The most precious cargo you will ever carry. Wait until they are occupied, take him, and go to the auto parts store.”
“Why won’t you take him?” he asked.
“They asked for me. I’m a great diversion right now.”
“You’re a great everything right now.” Beck gently took the bag and gave me an embrace. “I have this. No worries.”
“I don’t.” I reached up to his face. “You are wonderful. I’m so proud to have you with me.”
Beck, emotional, nodded. “Ditto. Let’s finish this up and head to our new home. Our new life.”
Stop.
That was it. That was the moment. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have it in my mind to change it all. To take back that pack, say it wasn’t right and for us to trust Javier.
But I didn’t.
I had the moment, the precious seconds, the opportunity to change it all. To bring him back. However, what happened in the past had a reason. I was given a moment with Beck.
For that I was grateful.
“I couldn’t agree more.” I told him, pressed my hand firmly to his cheek, stood on my tiptoes, kissed him, and slid my hand from his face.
Our last moment. The last time I touched him, and he knew. I told him how I felt. He knew.
That was what I truly needed.
Then I was gone.
As if in the blink of an eye, all went black for a second and I opened my eyes with a heavy gasp. Levi was right. I had a hard time breathing. Everything was dark. Alex was no longer sitting across from me in Levi’s house. Levi and Noah were no longer standing by. I was in my bed.
What the hell happened?
When I opened my eyes, I had gasped and sat up in my dark bedroom. Had the drug caused a blackout like a bad night’s drinking? I was drinking beforehand; I should have told Levi that. What if that caused a bad reaction? How did I get into my bed?
“Mera, you all right?” a deep male voice asked from next to me.
Slowly, I turned my head. Beck was staring back at me, lying in bed next to me.
I screamed. That was about the best I could describe it. I screamed. Long and deep, scared half out of my wits, my entire body not only jolted a foot off the bed, but I rolled out and onto the floor, hitting my head a
gainst the nightstand.
* * *
Knocked out again. If I hit my head one more time, I’d get brain damage. I had a headache, it throbbed at the temples, and for a second, everything was surreal, like Beck being in bed with me was all a dream.
The sound of Alex’s voice caused me to stir. It didn’t help my headache.
“I told you not to let her drink like that before bed.”
“You try telling her not to drink,” Beck said.
What the fuck?
Just as I was about to open my eyes, something weird occurred. Flashes of memories I had no recollection of having.
“I have to go, you know that,” Beck said. I saw him. In that town where he had died, standing there holding Phoenix. Javier was behind him.
“We’ll bring them both back when we’re done.”
“For us, Mera, I need to watch Phoenix.”
I saw him step from that truck, the same truck that had pulled up with Javier. Beck was holding Phoenix. He had a beard. He had a beard? I ran to him.
“Mera?” Beck called.
My mind kept racing. What did I do? What should I say? How did this happen?
I opened one eye first and couldn’t help it, I screamed again when I saw Beck.
“I shaved the beard,” Beck said.
“Sorry. I just…I just…” I stammered for the words. “Seeing you.”
Beck nodded. “It’s still new. I’ve been gone a while.”
“I’d say.” I reached out and touched him. He was real. I looked around, I was in my bed. But the bedroom was different. There weren’t any toys or kids’ things. Where was Keller’s dresser and crib?
“Where are the boys?”
“Which boys, Mera?” Beck asked.
Oh, God, who did I kill with my changing of time?
“We have a lot. Seems while I was gone you took on all the strays,” Beck said.
“Keller and Phoenix.”
“In their room. Oh…” Beck nodded in understanding. “Okay, you’re confused. We moved Keller into a room with Phoenix tonight. He’s been sleeping with you while I was at the ARC.”
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