“This is Noah.” Dom looked down at the boy. “Meet your Uncle Coru, Noah. He’s come to take you to a safe place.”
Coru moved awkwardly forward on his seat, ignoring the pain of his wound, and reached a hand out to the boy. “Hello, Noah. Glad to finally meet you.”
The boy looked first up at Dom, then reached out hesitantly and wrapped his little fingers around Coru’s thick ones. In a bell-like voice, he said “Hello, Uncle Coru.”
Coru’s heart shattered into pieces and a shiver of adoration swept through him so violently that he shuddered. This boy was his destiny. Everything that had happened here in this world had led him to this moment, to this small child. He needed facts, he needed information, he needed a solid plan to save this child.
Not in front of him, Wren warned. She moved forward in her seat as Coru had done. “And I’m Wren, Noah, your uncle’s friend. And this is Nelson.” Wren stood and asked, “Can I see your room, Noah?”
He looked up at her through thick dark bangs that slanted across his forehead when he tripped his head to look up at her, and nodded solemnly.
Wren took his hand and let him lead her from the room.
Coru’s eyes followed the child until the door closed softly behind him and Wren, then snapped back to Dom. “Tell me everything.”
“Yeah, everything,” Nelson echoed, sending Coru a baleful look. “Before we get started, indulge me. You’re talking about some kind of parallel universe. Something like that, right? You and your brother aren’t from around here? You know, just so I’m on the same page.”
“Same universe. Different time.”
Nelson’s eyes widening. “Like… Time travel?” His voiced ended on a high note of disbelief. It seemed Nelson had arrived at the pinnacle of his ability to take in any more information and was waiting for, no, Nelson was pleading for Coru to talk him out of it.
“I’m from three hundred years in the future.”
Nelson sat rock still and stared at him in silence.
Dom sat heavily into his chair. “Yeah. It’s quite the tale,” he told Nelson. To Coru, he said, “Here’s the quick and dirty version so you’re up to speed. Payton was passing in this WEN as Mike Eggers. He knew the markets, so he became very wealthy. He used his wealth to get close to Zhang. Within striking distance, he told me once. Now he goes by Professor Red for the masses, what’s left of them—you guessed that much. I knew him before he became a monster. He fell under the spell of Zhang while trying to corral the man. I watched it go down and was helpless to stop him.” Dom grimaced, his sorrowful eyes meeting Coru’s.
“Payton married here in our time. A woman named Cherry Yee. Mike adored Cherry.” His voice cracked and he faltered, taking a moment to pull in his emotions. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and laced his long fingers together. After clearing his throat, he said, “They had a history, she and Payton. I won’t go into all the details now, they’re not important to this story. That shared history held them together, until Cherry lost their first son. It was an event Cherry never recovered from. One night, your brother took exception to her form of grief. He was drunk…it was ugly.” Here he paused once again. This was difficult for Dom. “Noah… Noah is the result of an unwilling…”
Dom stopped, swallowed, shook his head.
Nausea swept through Coru, the soup he’d just forced down fighting its way back from his stomach. What happened to you, Payton?
Dom continued, his voice stronger, resolute. “When Noah’s mother Cherry realized that she was pregnant, she came to me for help. She was terrified for the child she was now carrying. What kind of life was this child destined to have? She begged me to take her away, to a safe place to birth her child, to raise her child. Away from Payton. I knew she’d never make it on her own, and I knew who Payton had become, so I agreed.”
Coru asked, “Payton knows nothing of Noah?”
Dom shook his head.
“How old is Noah?”
“Six. Birthday is September 3rd, 2041.”
“His mother?
“Died in the plague.”
“He killed…” Coru fell back in his chair and closed weary eyes. “God.”
“Lily… Cherry was a good woman. I grew to love her myself. She changed her name to Lily after we escaped Payton.” Dom’s voice thinned with emotion. “I thank Lily every day for entrusting Noah to my care. He gives me reason to go on. The boy is immune. As am I. Though I can’t help wondering if we might not be so lucky the next time around.”
Coru didn’t speak; his brain felt like sludge, unable to move in any direction, stunned, frozen, bogged down with despair. He had no time for these feelings. No time. He forced his eyes open and stared at Dom. He murmured, “So, you know?”
“I suspect.”
“Good soup!” Nelson declared, standing suddenly and gathering up the dishes. “You can fill me in on all the pesky time travel details later. For now, we have some planning to do, gentlemen.” He walked the dishes into the miniscule hotel room kitchen, deposited them into the sink with a clatter and returned, stretching their worn map out across the crumb littered table. He glanced over at Dom. “You’re coming with, I’m guessing?”
Dom smiled weakly. “You’d be guessing right.”
Coru added, “The boy comes with us.”
Dom’s eyes darkened. “Absolutely.”
Nelson ran his palm across the wrinkle paper and settled his fingertip north of Hume Park and past the highway. “We’re heading into SFU by way of the tunnel.”
Dom’s brows rose. “Tunnel. There’s still a tunnel? I thought that was abandoned when the funds collapsed.”
“There is. And I can get us coming out here by the Quad. It’s getting across the highway that’s the challenge.”
Dom smiled wide. “That I can help you with.” He sprang to his feet and rummaged inside a nearby cabinet, coming out with a map of his own. “Before I left Zhang Corp and Ocean Renew and New Earth, yada yada, I got myself some schematics.”
Nelson burst out in laughter, “My kinda guy, you are.”
Coru smiled faintly, still catching up in his head. He had a nephew. Noah was his blood.
Dom’s smile transformed into a frown. “I haven’t just been yanking weeds here gentlemen. Before I hooked up with Payton, I lived on the streets for years and learned a thing or two about survival, and about honor, something that’s thin on the ground here in New Pacifica. Yes, I took Lily, and hid her, but I protected her. I had money, connections, and street-smarts. Payton had no chance of finding us. And I’ve protected her son.
“When the plague happened, and Lily, and everyone around me and Noah died, the fact that Zhang and Payton were just fine was hard to miss. Then “Professor Red” stepped forward and seized power over what he labeled “New Pacifica” through the POE, who just happened to be waiting in the wings, outfitted, armed, and immune. I knew then who had loosed the virus on the world. I knew I’d been right to take Lily and Noah away from your brother.
“I decided to prepare for Zhang and Red’s end. I couldn’t do it on my own, but I knew one day I’d get the chance, and I wanted to be ready. I’d had access to all of Zhang’s holdings—I’d been head of security, a position of trust. They thought I was too stupid to put all the pieces together. Turns out they were wrong. Once they’d shown their hand, I started mapping out all I knew, recording everything for when the right person showed up, the person who would take them down.
“I’ve got Professor Red’s whole set up mapped out, and better yet, I have detailed drawings of Zhang’s hideout.”
Coru rocked forward at hearing this. “They’re not together?”
“Are you kidding? Your brother’s been Zhang’s puppet from the start. He took a bright, naïve kid and made him into a monster.”
Coru wanted to put his hands around Zhang’s neck and squeeze. “Where? Where’s Zhang’s hideout?”
“Able Island, out in the Strait of Georgia. He’s been building it since
before Mike and I came on board at Zhang Corp, along with dozens of sanctuaries, built up and down the west and east coasts of North America.”
“There are more, beyond the Kootenays?”
“Yes. Freeland was the prototype. By year two of Freeland, Zhang was satisfied it was a go. He partnered with others to build them along both coasts. They were sold as secure and impervious places to preserve the finest minds—meaning, the richest—should the bombs start dropping. Foolish people are so easily parted from their money. Wanna guess how many of them survived the plague and made it to sanctuary? Wanna guess how many were immune?”
Coru didn’t want to play this game. He wanted Zhang’s blood. “You think he’s out on this Able Island now?”
Dom shrugged. “I can’t guarantee he’s there now. I’d bet that’s where he waited out the plague, like a coward. Professor Red’s his public face; Zhang stays hidden, pulling the strings. He may be with Red up at SFU, but I doubt it. He likes to be far away when he makes a move through Red. There’s a big rally scheduled for tomorrow night. Something’s going down. Which likely means Zhang is safe, and far, far away.”
Coru fisted both hands in anticipation of meeting Zhang, of stopping Zhang, finally. But, and though it pained him, he still had to add his little brother to his list of whom he needed to stop. This could not be allowed.
Nelson inserted himself into the conversation, obviously done staying quiet. “We’re headed to Red’s place now. We have to get there at all costs. Wren knows of a secondary virus that’s about to be released, a new threat to those outside of Red’s influence. There’s also an antidote, a new tool of persuasion to join Red, to stay loyal to New Earth. We’re here to get that antidote and bring it back to our people.” He looked apologetically at Coru. “Sorry man, I know you’re bummed about your brother, but times a’ wasting here. We’ve got to make tracks.”
“I can get you safe passage for the most part,” Dom told them, standing with them and producing two packs from behind a cabinet, one large, the other small, child-sized. It was the small pack that squeezed Coru’s heart, knowing what it meant.
Dom shrugged the large pack onto his broad back as if it were filled with cotton. “Stick with me—I’m your ‘Get-out-of jail-free’ card here in New Pacifica Wild. We go together. We bring Noah—he needs to be with his family. Then we all leave this place.”
Coru murmured, “You’re his family.”
Dom whirled to face Coru, his dreads whipping around his shoulders, his face transformed into a mask of fury. His dark eyes blazed, burning into Coru’s as if he thought Coru had lost his mind. “You think I don’t know this? Noah is my son. I will kill anyone who tells that boy different. He will never know who his biological father is, or what he became.”
Coru raised his hands in surrender. “I would never come between you. I can see the boy adores you, that you are his protector, his reason to still be here. No question. But…I’m to be his uncle…how?”
Dom stepped back, inhaled deeply, bringing his emotions back under control. “Sorry. Noah’s my trigger. Lily gave up everything to have her child born into a safe world. I wish you could have known her. You’d have loved her too.” Dom shook his head, his shoulders, shaking off his thoughts. “Sorry. My plan, if I ever found you, was to tell Noah you’re my brother.” When Coru raised one eyebrow, Dom grinned, that gold tooth again shining. “Brother from another mother. Stick with me; we’ll sell it.”
“And you knew I’d come?”
“Two came out of that portal, and according to Mike, he couldn’t return alone; he had to return with another. He tried several times to go back on his own, near the start. It always rejected him. When he first hooked up with Zhang, his plan was to go back as two with him, until that idea wasn’t so palatable to him. If his premise was right, that meant there had to be two that had come through.
“He…he blamed you. He believes you abandoned him. He was certain you had to be somewhere but had left him on his own.”
Coru was stunned. “How…? I’d never leave Payton willingly; he had to know that! I arrived in WEN 2046, ten years after Payton; after the pandemic. He’s been here ten years. I’ve been here one.”
“With the portal accepting only two, he thought you had to have come with him.”
“Why would the portal reject him?” Coru asked, more to himself than Dom.
Dom shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong guy. From what I was picking up, I needed to be prepared for all variations. You showing up; you not showing up; you being a jerk; you being a good guy. Whatever you turned out to be—I had a plan.”
Nelson was on his feet sorting through his bag, pulling a face at the mess the Shifters had made with their search. “Didn’t you say Payton was your little brother?”
Nelson’s question tossing out Coru’s concepts of Payton and reforming them into a strange new configuration.
Nelson bobbed his eyebrows at Coru’s expression. “He’s older than you, old hat at this twenty-first century crap. You’re the baby now.”
Nelson was right. Payton had had years in this world, years in which to subvert history in the most horrific way. How was Coru to undo what Payton had done?
Coru scowled. A secondary puzzle emerged. How had Coru been able to go through his own portal outside of Hope, alone? Was it how they’d come through in the beginning, in singles or in pairs that decided who and how they must return, or was it something else?
Was this time travel? Was this Payton destroying and Coru correcting?
Or was this a Time U-turn, always meant to happen, and how the histories were destined to unfold?
He fell back on his chair, abruptly weak, all sense of what was right, of what should be his next move, deserting him. Could he fix this timeline? Or would he be a victim of it?
Was he the puppet or the master?
Did what he thought, what he believed in, make any difference?
Was he harming instead of helping?
Did anything they were about to do ultimately matter?
21
MIKE: YEAR EIGHT: WEN 2043
“IT’S TIME.”
Mike looked up from his spreadsheet, taking a moment to mentally walk away from the figures he was absorbing to focus on Moses. “Time?”
“It’s time I introduce you to my latest—and greatest—project.” Moses’s eyes were bright with excitement. “This is that last layer, Mike. I know you’re totally committed to our mission, I know I can trust you completely. I’m done hiding this from you.”
“Hiding...?” Mike was taken aback. “You’re just now deciding you can trust me? Why? We’ve always been honest with one another. Or at least I thought we were. Now you’re saying you’ve been holding out on me?”
“Come, follow me and all will be revealed.” Zhang’s expression was merry, ignoring Mike’s annoyance as he led him through his private quarters to an elevator Mike hadn’t known existed. “Your apprenticeship is over. This is the first step in your awakening.”
Mike followed, his resentment of Moses’s condescending label—apprentice—and his cheery attitude growing as they stepped inside the elevator cab. What was Zhang playing at? A secret elevator? The one last dramatic reveal? This wasn’t a gameshow! Mike’s thoughts stuttered to a halt. Was it? Was this all a game to Moses? His skin pricked out a warning, skittering across his scalp.
They travelled one floor down, Mike frowning at Moses, who merely raised his eyebrows in answer. This was Moses’s favorite game; he liked to be mysterious.
The doors opened to what looked to be a medical facility. It occupied the entire floor, just below the New Earth division of the Zhang Corp Tower. Mike blinked in shock, a whole world, previously unknown, suddenly open to him. Why? Why now? How had he missed this place?
They stepped from the elevator out into a corridor that appeared to run around the perimeter of the building. Here, as in the New Earth’s offices upstairs were large screen videos plastered around the outer walls, all playin
g out evidence of man’s destruction around the world in gruesome detail. The usual clear-cutting and fire-clearing in the embattled and ever-shrinking rainforests, the sight of whales hoisted for their oils, the scenes of abandoned cities, their streets slowly filling with garbage-laden rising sea water because of global warming, beaches littered with dead animals, covered in oil slicks from abandoned and unsecured ocean oil wells, the drilling companies long gone with the billions of dollars they’d scraped from the bottom of the sea.
All this Mike could see up on the New Earth floor, anytime of the day or night. He knew what was happening out there; it drove him to work himself into exhaustion every day. Moses’s reason to play them—lest we forget.
Moses drifted to the right with a waved invitation, looped videos on their right, clear observer panels to their left.
Reluctantly Mike followed, and from a distance, silently toured the facilities with Moses, keeping to the perimeter and looking in through thick glass partitions. It was a massive, all glass and white space, with workers bent over microscopes, staring at screens, making notes, consulting one another, filling trays containing what looked like hundreds of compartments with tiny samples of liquid. Everywhere there was activity. Intense activity.
The scary part was what they were all wearing. Hazmat suits.
His skin prickled again, a wave covering his entire body this time, the memory of Harmony House, years ago, now back and crawling up his spine like it was only yesterday.
“What’s going on here? What are they studying?” He was afraid he would not like the answers.
Moses shrugged, an impish smile on his face, enjoying Mike’s confusion, and led him further around the glass-enclosed hive of activity laid out before them.
Mike could see Moses didn’t often get a chance to show off his machinations and was stretching this out for maximum enjoyment. Of course, Mike would have to be impressed. Dutifully, he asked, “What are you developing? Is this Wood’s work in action?”
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