“It’s all weird, as far as I can see.”
He chuckled. “I’ll give you that.” The headphones went back on. His face settled into a smile and he began tapping his fingers in time to the music. He’d said it was a band called Jefferson something or other.
She began reading through the final few reports, which covered her tours of duty in Victorian London and her encounters with two gentlemen: Dr. Alastair Montrose and Detective-Sergeant Jonathon Keats. When she’d finished, she asked Ralph about them.
“Montrose sent you home,” he explained, headphones off again. “I’m still amazed a Victorian pulled that off. Of course, the boss didn’t breathe a word about that to TPB; they’d have gone nuts.”
Montrose. The kind man who’d wept for me. The doctor looked back at her from a scan of a vintage photograph taken when he’d graduated from medical school. Nattily dressed, he radiated confidence, but she thought she saw hidden pain behind the celebratory image.
With a wave of her hand, the screen changed. Now hanging in the air above the keyboard was a photograph of Jonathon Keats. The twinkle in his eye seemed to call to her. “And this sergeant guy?”
“You helped him recover some explosives.”
Her gut told her there was more to it than that. Ralph was right: not everything went into the run reports.
“Handsome,” Cynda murmured. Both of them. Suddenly, she could see herself walking arm and arm along a street with Keats as her exuberant escort. Had he been courting her, then? Possibly. The pleasant memory withered: now she saw herself inside a carriage as he lay dying in her lap after some street battle. She closed her eyes, still feeling the brush of his kiss on her lips. Tears began to form. She fought them back, not wanting her friend to see them.
Just then, a name surfaced out of nowhere. “Who’s Fred?”
Ralph grinned. “I wondered when you’d remember him. He’s your stuffed ferret. You carried him on your trips, though it was against the regs.”
“Then where is he?”
Ralph shrugged. “He went missing in action in ’88.”
For some reason, it seemed important that she know where he was. Something else was absent, something blue with legs, but she had no idea how to ask Ralph that question.
A beep sounded at the door; a moment later, Morrisey entered. He hadn’t waited for her to give him permission, which was unusual.
Ralph was instantly on his feet. “Gotta go,” he said, clearly uneasy at being in the same room with the man.
The moment the door whooshed closed behind her friend, she spoke up. “Is something wrong?”
Morrisey shook his head. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I have just received permission for one of your family members to visit you from Off-Grid.”
“Off-Grid,” she repeated to herself, rummaging through her mental filing cabinets.
“It’s a place where people go to live if they don’t like the rigid lifestyle required by the Government,” Morrisey explained. “Once you’re outside society, you stay out.”
She tried to remember why her family was out there. When she couldn’t retrieve the answer, she put it to Morrisey.
“From what I gather, they went voluntarily,” he informed her. “Some people do that for political reasons.”
That didn’t sound right.
“I have petitioned for this visit since the moment you returned,” he continued. “There has been considerable…resistance against this.” Morrisey paused for a moment. “It’s your brother.”
“Brother?” Cynda shivered involuntarily. “I don’t want to see him! He tried to kill me. Threw me into the Thames and…” She paused, dismayed. “That wasn’t him, was it?”
“No,” he said, looking relieved. “Your brother doesn’t time travel.”
Another stray memory. She blew out a stream of air. “His name is…”
“Blair.”
Cynda nodded her thanks. “Why not my mom or dad?” she asked, suddenly skeptical.
“I gather your mother has not been well, and your father didn’t want to return without her.”
That doesn’t sound good.
Morrisey leaned toward the computer. A moment later, a family photograph appeared. Her mother, father, brother and her. All smiling. Before everything had changed.
Blair. As she studied her brother’s face, emotions began flooding back with an intensity that nearly overwhelmed her.
Morrisey cleared his throat. “From what Mr. Hamilton says, you dislike your brother intensely, and I gather the feeling is mutual. If you don’t want to see him, I’ll not finalize the arrangements. I would, however, counsel the opposite course.”
“I…”
Just how much effort had it taken for Morrisey to do this? He’d said he’d been working on this since she’d first come back. Months now.
“How much does he know?” she asked.
“That you sustained a head injury. I didn’t reveal the exact nature of how that happened, and it’s probably best that they not know that.”
What would it hurt? She’d endure this for Theo Morrisey, though it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I haven’t annoyed…” A sigh. She couldn’t remember the name, though she’d just heard it. “…in a long time.”
“Thank you.”
~••~••~••~
She could have met Blair in the privacy of her rooms. Instead, Cynda chose the pagoda, right out in the open where anyone could see them. Perhaps it was some juvenile payback, though she wasn’t particularly sure why she felt the need. Neither of them were kids anymore.
“Cynder?” her brother called from the walkway. She’d forgotten his pet name for her. He was taller than she was, his hair a bit darker. His muscles were corded, like someone accustomed to physical labor.
“Hi…Blair.” She waved him over. Mumbling under his breath, he ditched his shoes and crossed the sand. Once on the platform he stared at one of the pillows, then pushed it aside with his foot.
He’s going to regret that.
He went somber as he sat down on the hard wood. “Been a while.”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with Mom?”
“She fell and broke her hip about the same time that you got hurt. It’s healing, but very slowly. Right now, she’s using a cane to get around.”
Cynda didn’t know what to say.
Her silence forced her brother to speak. “I know, if she hadn’t been Off-Grid, she’d be fine now. You’re thinking it, you might as well say it.”
From what Morrisey had told her, Off-Grid meant primitive medical facilities, if they existed at all. If her father hadn’t been a doctor, her mother might not be alive.
“Why did you go out there?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You mean, why was I sent out there?”
“Sent?”
“I told you I went voluntarily. I lied.” He looked down. “I nailed one of those little fascist CopBots. I’d been drinking, and when it started harassing some kid flying a kite, I smashed the thing into lots of little pieces. Then another showed up and I nailed that one, too. They really pissed me off.”
“You trashed a couple of CopBots?” she asked, amazed. As he nodded, her estimation of him rose by tenfold. She hit shrinks; he smashed CopBots.
Yeah, we’re family.
She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. “Good!”
Blair looked startled. “No, it wasn’t good. When Mom and Dad found out I was to be sent Off-Grid, they decided to come with me. They were worried about me making it, you see. They never would have worried about you like that. You were always so confident, so sure of yourself.”
“That’s bull,” she shot back, looking away.
“No, it’s not.”
There was more there, she could feel it. The shrink hadn’t been her first assault. Maybe Blair had a history of this sort of thing too.
“And?” she nudged.
He looked crestfallen. “Okay, I’ve
done this before. I was getting into trouble fairly regularly. When I refused to get counseling to deal with my issues, as they called them, the authorities decided I needed to go because I was a disruptive influence.”
She was astounded. “They tossed you out for that?”
“It was only supposed to be three years. Then we could come back.” He laughed hollowly. “To what? Mom and Dad had to give up everything to go with me. The money they got for the house went to pay off all those fines I’d racked up. Then the new Government took over and made all the sentences permanent.”
Endless exile.
Ants began to fire up. She doused them immediately. There was nothing she could do right now, but down the line some changes needed to be made.
“Why are you here, Blair? I understand why the parents couldn’t come, but why you? We never liked each other.”
He glowered at her. “They wanted me to. They want us to find common ground.”
“What’s the point?”
“They say it’s time we both grew up,” he replied.
Ouch.
“You never understood, Cynder. Even though what you do seems crazy, I’ve always been proud of you.”
“What?” she asked, baffled.
“You were so confident. I was just arrogant. There’s a difference.” He reached over and pulled a pillow under him. “That’s better. It was making my butt sore.”
Something told her the old Blair wouldn’t have admitted that.
“What’s up? You aren’t like this, or at least I don’t think you are. My memories are still jumbled.”
“The last year has been a bitch. Mom and Dad never said a word, never blamed me, but every time those tomato seeds appeared, I knew I’d failed. You were thumbing your nose at me, and I couldn’t tell you to go to hell.”
“Tomato seeds?”
He looked chagrined. “Sorry. I forgot you don’t remember a lot of stuff. You bought some of the rare, non-gen modified seeds and smuggled them to us. It’s against the law, Cynder. The smuggling, at least. You risked going to jail for us. Mr. Morrisey said it would have been a decade or longer.”
“But, I—”
He raised his hand. “Let me finish. If you hadn’t taken that risk, we would have starved. That’s the cost of my arrogance. Our parents could have died because I thought I had the right to tell Guv to go screw themselves.”
“Everyone has that right.”
“Not for the price we’ve paid. I was sure we’d make a living, no hassles. I was wrong, Cynder. It’s the Wild West out there. I was so wrong.”
She put a hand on his forearm. “You made it, though. You’re a tough S.O.B.”
“Not tough enough,” he said. “My little sis had to bail us out.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“That’s Mr. Morrisey’s doing. I wasn’t even sure if I should come. I wanted to see you, but you might not have recognized me.”
True. It was better to fib. “Fat chance,” she said. “Let’s start over.”
“You forgive me?” he asked, incredulous. “For everything?”
“Well…”
“Like painting your new puppy bright pink?” Another sin she didn’t remember. “I called him Pinkie Pup,” Blair recalled. “Really made you mad.”
Her brother broke out laughing louder than was expected. Just releasing tension. Then he grew solemn again. “God, Cynder, it’s not gone the way I planned. And when I heard you’d been so badly hurt…”
“Just keeps happening,” she said. He gave her a questioning look. He doesn’t know about the chest wound. Or most of the other things that had happened to her. “At least it seems like it.”
“The parents sent you a message.” Blair offered her a thick envelope. At her puzzled look, he said, “No hi-tech out there. Dad goes on and on about his new clinic, which is finally up and running. Nothing fancy, just basic medical care. It’s given us some extra income because they pay us in food. Oh, and Mom is really pleased with her beets.”
“Beets?”
“Off-Grid, it’s all about food and security. The gangs are active again. There’s talk of more raids on the settlements.”
“Geez.”
He turned away, caught up in his own thoughts. It was only then that she saw the ring on his left hand. She took a gamble that it was something new, not something she’d forgotten.
Cynda reached over and tapped the silver band. “Ah, bro, something else going on?”
He turned back, sheepish. “I got married a few months ago.”
Married? “What’s her name?”
“Amanda. Our first child is due in four months.”
“Whoa. You move fast.”
“Mom predicts it’ll be a girl.”
“Good. She’ll run you ragged.”
His face warmed with a smile that seemed to lift the years. “That’s why I wanted to see you. Once Mr. Morrisey said you were doing better, I knew I needed to put some things right.”
Marriage and a child had put her brother in a whole new category.
“Raise your hand,” she said.
“What?”
“Raise your hand.” He did as asked, though she could see he felt it was stupid. “Repeat after me.”
“Cynder—”
“I—insert your name here—do promise not to be an ass to my sister in the future.”
He repeated the sentence back, a grin on his face, purposely leaving his name out.
She matched his grin and raised her own hand. “I, Jacynda Lassiter, promise to treat my older brother, whatever the hell his name is, with the respect he deserves as long as he agrees not to be a complete jerk.”
They slapped palms in the air and then hugged, hard.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “Amanda and I want to name our daughter after you. Is that okay?”
Cynda pulled back, mouth agape. “I…all right.”
They fell back into the embrace, letting their old wounds wash away in mutual tears.
~••~••~••~
Saturday, 3 November, 1888
Spitalfields
“Dr. Montrose?”
A young man hesitated in the open doorway as Alastair set aside the instruments he’d been sorting. “I’m sorry, but the clinic won’t be open for another week or so.”
“I’m not here for that,” the fellow replied, already making his way toward the back of the waiting room.
Alastair studied him closely, carefully weighing whether or not he presented a threat. “Then how can I help you, sir?”
“By letting me play postman. I’m Hopkins. I’m an…associate of Jacynda Lassiter.”
“Jacynda?” Alastair hurried around the exam table. “How is she? Have her memories returned?”
“She’s much better,” the man assured him, reaching inside his coat to produce an envelope. “I was asked to deliver this letter to you. She needs some questions answered.”
“She is well enough to write me?” the doctor asked, unable to conceal his glee at the news.
“Yes. But if anyone from our time asks you about that, the answer is no,” his visitor advised. “I’ll come back tomorrow morning to get your reply.”
“But—”
The man named Hopkins was already out the door. Alastair eagerly slit open the envelope. A thick sheaf of handwritten paper was inside. He sat in his chair, propped up his feet, and began to read. The first full sentence made him whoop for joy.
Dearest Alastair,
I remember you now. I remember Keats, as well. This isn’t the way his life is supposed to be. We need to find a way to make it right again. I may need your help.
“And you shall have it, my dear lady,” he murmured, his eyes misting.
Chapter 26
2058 A.D.
TEM Enterprises
At Cynda’s request, Morrisey began filling in more of the missing pieces: about the Transitives and how they could look like anyone, how the Virtuals could appear i
nvisible, and why it was the shifters held their secrets so closely. He spoke of what Harter had learned from a Future, someone ahead of them in the time stream. How it all would go to ruin in a few years’ time.
With some difficulty, he’d spoken of Chris’ death, his eyes filled with barely staunched tears. The longer he talked, the angrier she got. Not at him, but at those who’d played God with her life. Killed Chris. Used that silver tube and put her into the Nothing Time. They’d expected her to become a harmless child, giggling and building sand castles forever.
Not even close.
The bottom line: TPB was her enemy, and that wouldn’t change.
“I know you won’t remember everything I’ve told you,” Morrisey had said. “I’ll put a series of reports on your computer with multi-level encryption as most of this is very sensitive. That way, you can review them when you need.”
That was good, but what Cynda really needed was to hit someone. Repeatedly.
Sensing her internal upheaval, from that point on Morrisey gave her a wide berth, as did about everyone else in the complex. To curb the desire to give TPB more ammunition for committal, she worked out at the gym and practiced Tai Chi to calm the ants. She perfected her kicks and punches, but still had trouble with some of the other moves. To break up the long periods of exercise, Sigmund taught her chess and how to strategize. She studied Victorian history. Most important, she worked through things in her head. Day by day the red haze slowly lifted, replaced by icy resolve.
Whoever had made her this way were going to reap what they’d sown.
“Cyn?” Ralph prompted. He was sitting a discreet distance from her, just out of range. She gazed down at the sandwich he’d brought her as a peace offering. This had to be Morrisey’s doing. Probably figured she wouldn’t hit her best friend. She hoped he was right.
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