The Astral Traveler's Daughter

by K. C. Archer

  “No!” Teddy screamed, but she was powerless to stop it from happening. She’d failed to protect Eli, and now she’d failed to protect Miles. It had cost them their lives. It would cost all of them their lives.

  As Nilsson and Stanton walked away, Jeremy stepped inside. “Guard them both until it’s time,” Maddux said. With that final order, the general left the room. The door slammed shut behind him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  EVERY TIME TEDDY HAD WALKED into a room with Maddux, he’d made her skin crawl. Caused the small hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Made her stomach churn. She remembered the day she’d met him at Jeremy’s New Year’s party last year. His formal military attire. His hawkish dogma. His domineering presence. Her most basic survivalist instinct—her sixth sense, her gut—had told her no, but her mind had rationalized, and she’d ignored it.

  Jeremy stood in the corner of the room, staring at her. From the day she met Maddux, Jeremy must have already been working for him. Part of the whole setup.

  Teddy thought back to the Jeremy Lee she thought she’d known at Whitfield. Looked for something in his personality that she remembered, something she could use, something that might sway him over to her side. Unlike Maddux, he wasn’t an egomaniac. False flattery wouldn’t get her anywhere. But he was a quintessential misfit. Like all of them, he was lost and had seemed thrilled to be accepted as part of their group. Maybe that was something she could use.

  “Jeremy, think about what you’re doing. Maddux claims that the PC is protecting the world from the bad guys.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How is killing your friends a good cause? What possible good will come of that?”

  “There are always casualties of war. Collateral damage is regrettable but necessary.”

  Teddy’s mind circled back to Molly. Out of all of them, Jeremy had cared most for her. “Like Molly? Where is she?” Teddy said, pushing harder. When Teddy had mentioned her name earlier, he’d reacted. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage now. Play on whatever sympathy he had left. “Or was she collateral damage, too, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy’s mouth twisted, in derision or pain, Teddy didn’t know. He leaned over, hands on his knees.

  “I thought you loved her.”

  He paused. For a moment he looked like he was going to tell her what had happened, but then Miles began to stir. Jeremy straightened. “What you don’t realize, Teddy, is that there can’t be friends at times like these. We’re only what we can contribute to the cause. Your new friend here, do you realize what he can do?” He walked over to Miles and checked his restraints. “He’s basically a giant conductor. A human coil that absorbs active energy and then transfers it. Not intentionally, of course. Or that well. He has no control over his powers.”

  “Sounds like someone else we know, doesn’t it?” Teddy said, practically staring daggers at Jeremy, then looking over toward Miles. If only he’d had the opportunity to go to Whitfield. He might have learned to use his gift. She saw the small red mark in his neck where Nilsson had injected something.

  “Not that it did her any good,” Jeremy said.

  Teddy brushed off his remark. That wasn’t true. Whitfield had helped Molly. Teddy refused to believe otherwise. “What did Nilsson give him?”

  “Triacetone—liquid explosive.” Jeremy moved to the door. “Won’t be long now.” He turned back to Teddy, hovering at the door, then clapped his hands together. “Boom,” he said.

  That answer was worse than anything she could imagine.

  The soft click of the door behind Jeremy sounded like a detonator.

  Teddy lay helpless, scanning the ceiling. The PC had turned Miles into a bomb. Loaded his body with an explosive agent. When Miles woke up, once whatever power that was dormant inside him ignited, he would be the bomb that caused the helicopter to explode.

  Unless she could come up with some way to stop it.

  Henry Cummings’s words in the quad came back to her in a rush: You have to let it explode.

  No. She couldn’t let any of this happen. She’d bent bullets and blasted a door off its hinges. She could summon what little energy she had left to get out of these restraints. She centered her thoughts, slowed her breath. Pictured the padded leather restraints weakening, pulling apart, the leather snapping—

  The door swung open. A soldier stepped inside, his helmet riding low over his eyes, his manner brusque and efficient. No doubt ready to do his duty.

  Teddy braced herself. Prepared to fight. Because she would. Fight to her—to all—their deaths. She wouldn’t make the same bullshit deal Marysue had made.

  They’d sent only one escort. That was a mistake she could take advantage of. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she planned her assault. The moment he released her, she would deliver a sharp kick to the spleen, followed by a—

  The soldier pushed back his helmet and looked at Teddy. “Theodora, I expected more from you.”

  Yates.

  I expected more from you, she wanted to say. But she’d thought he’d been in on it. And now she was sure that he wasn’t, she still couldn’t figure out why he was here to help her. He would always have an agenda, and it would always be a secret one. Teddy’s head pounded.

  “Thought that bastard would never leave,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” she sputtered, but Yates was already behind her, opening her restraints.

  “I would think that’s perfectly obvious, Theodora. I’m saving you.”

  Though the blood began to course back into her numb hands, she felt numb with disbelief. Once he’d finished, Yates moved to Miles. He put his fingers on Miles’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

  “They said he was alive.” Teddy almost didn’t want to know.

  “It’s faint, but he’s still with us.” He moved to untie Miles’s restraints, but she grabbed his arm.

  “He’s going to die. We’re all going to die.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps both.”

  Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. “Jesus, Yates! I don’t have time for your messed-up nonspeak!”

  “Or you could have all the time in the world,” he countered. “Do you have the necklace?”

  Teddy stared at him. “Of course I do, but I just traveled. I don’t—I can’t—I’m not powerful enough.”

  His eyes turned fierce. “This will go on and on,” he said. “With Clint and you and your friends out of the picture, Whitfield will give Maddux control of the school. He will have an unlimited supply of young psychics to experiment on. Before long, he will have an elite army of superpsychics to do his bidding, working outside the law. But you can stop him before any of this ever happens. Before Maddux ever set foot on this base. Before your father was tortured and killed. Before your mother was blackmailed. Before I chose the wrong side.”

  “What you’re suggesting is messing with time.” Had this been his plan all along? She thought back to her mother in that room. How Teddy had tried to change the past and something had stopped her. Maybe the necklace itself. “I’m not supposed to—”

  “Supposed to. Not supposed to. Who’s the arbiter here? Clint?” Yates shook his head. “His rules are subjective. I’m talking about something bigger. What we are discussing is fate, what this has all been adding up to. What is the story you have seen? What has that necklace shown you about the past? That is what’s important.”

  Teddy thought back to before she’d ended up in a hospital room, in a bunker, working with the person she’d thought was her enemy. She’d had to learn about her mother’s bargain. She’d seen her parents in Sector Three, seen the bombing in New York unfold over and over again. If she stopped it all—

  She wanted to save her friends, but Clint’s warning about time travel was burned into her brain as hot as the necklace had burned into her skin moments ago: the risks were too great. They included her own life. Her own soul. She could mess with time in such a way that she’d never return.

  “
There have been other travelers, Teddy. They’ve done it. Go back in time to before all of this happened,” Yates said. He handed her a gun. “Kill Maddux.”

  Other travelers. None her mother had met but . . . the Polson case. The traveler on the plane. He’d been from another time, Teddy knew. The weapon hadn’t matched. The logistics were impossible. Travelers weren’t supposed to rewrite history. But just because they weren’t supposed to didn’t mean no one had tried. Had this been what everything was leading to? This moment?

  “Theodora,” Yates said. “You know what you have to do. If you don’t come back—”

  Their eyes met.

  “If I don’t come back . . .” She could make sure everyone survived. But it meant taking a chance that she wouldn’t. That was, after all, the point of Wessner’s Secret Service lessons. She took out her mother’s necklace. Turned it over in her hands.

  Yates handed her a piece of paper. “I’d suggest returning here, if you could.”

  Teddy looked at the date, scrawled in handwriting she used to fear. Voices echoed in the hall. Maddux’s soldiers returning for Teddy and Miles. It was now or never. Time to be a meat shield.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  TEDDY’S PALM BURNED AGAINST THE ametrine stone. While parts of astral travel had become easier thanks to Clint’s guidance, she still felt the same heat from the necklace every time she jumped into a Pilgrim’s Tunnel. This time, she welcomed the pain as a reminder of what was at stake.

  Teddy stood in front of Sector Three. The place looked different. The walks were swept, the windows sparkled, and tidy plantings of native succulents fronted the barracks and other buildings. Neat and orderly. But that made sense. This was before the uprising that had cost her father his life. Before decades of desert heat had reduced the abandoned facility to ash and debris.

  Teddy scanned the grounds, her hand tight around the grip of Yates’s gun, her index finger resting on the trigger guard, looking for any sign of Maddux.

  On a distant parade field, a unit of soldiers was being sent through a drill. Nearby, a pair of privates unloaded supplies and carried them into what appeared to be the mess hall. No one paid her any attention. But then, why would they? From their point of view, she didn’t exist.

  The sound of laughter startled Teddy out of her thoughts. She swung around. Marysue. Her mother, younger still than the last time Teddy had caught her in the space-time continuum. She carried a small bundle in her arms. Teddy’s birth father, Richard Delaney, walked behind her. Her family.

  Richard kissed Marysue on the forehead before turning away and walking toward Sector Three. Teddy tensed, knowing what waited for him there, even if he didn’t.

  She turned back to Marysue and watched her mother stumble over an uneven stone paver. She cursed and lightly kicked the stone. Teddy smiled. She would have done that, too. So much about Marysue was eerily similar—their build and appearance; the way she tilted her chin up, in seemingly unconscious defiance.

  Teddy wanted to make herself known to her mother. Yates had given her a chance to change the future. But he had also given her a chance to confront her past.

  “Marysue,” Teddy called.

  She turned in Teddy’s direction. Her mother’s eyes widened as she glanced at the gun in Teddy’s hand. She backed up a couple of paces, protectively drawing the infant in her arms closer.

  “Wait,” Teddy said. She put the gun down and raised her arms as a sign that she meant no harm. “I’m—I’m a traveler.”

  Marysue froze. Shock showed on her features, coupled with wary disbelief. Suspicion. “You’re from the future?”

  Teddy nodded. As she looked at her mother’s face, she realized that she didn’t really know Marysue Delaney. Sure, she had studied the news articles. Read the files. Tracked Marysue’s whereabouts. But she didn’t know the woman standing before her. No way to predict what Marysue might do next. What if she sounded an alarm, put the base in some sort of military lockdown mode? But it was too late for what-ifs. There was no way to correct her slipup now.

  The sound of a car in the distance. Teddy watched as it came into view. An army green jeep bounded toward them, Maddux riding shotgun with an even younger-looking Yates.

  “I’m supposed to complete a mission,” Teddy started, but her throat tightened. She didn’t want to do this. Especially in front of her mother. “Someone told me that I have to come back here to fix things.” She blinked. It was the option. The only option. She reached for the gun at her feet.

  “Wait!” Marysue’s eyes were trained on her.

  Teddy’s palm tightened on the gun’s grip. Her hand shaking, she raised the weapon.

  As she held her mother’s gaze, Teddy could see all the ways they were different, on closer inspection: her mother’s hair, a shade darker; the freckles on her nose; a scar on her forehead. How had her mother gotten that scar? In Sector Three? No, that was yet to come. As soon as Yates let Maddux out of that jeep, the terrible future would begin.

  Marysue took a step toward Teddy. She raised her hand but stopped before making contact. “I’ve never met another traveler before, but . . . Whoever sent you on this mission. Those who don’t travel will say that they understand it in theory. But they don’t. They can’t. It seems easy to go back to the beginning of things. To take our knowledge of the future and apply it to the past. Yates is always asking me . . .” She trailed off, clearly aware that she shouldn’t share more information than necessary.

  Teddy couldn’t tell her even the half of it. But she didn’t have time for theories. She thought back to Yates’s instructions. He had asked her to go so far back in the past. Too far? There were so many twists and turns that could forever alter her future. So many things she couldn’t predict.

  Marysue continued, “If I were ever going to take the kind of risk I assume you’re taking—let me be clear, I’m not saying I recommend it—I would stick as close as possible to your present day. Where did things go wrong with no hope of return?”

  Teddy’s voice shook. “I don’t know.”

  “Then wait.”

  “I can’t. I have to do this now.”

  “Now? Are you certain?” Marysue cocked her head. “I’ve always imagined traveling as being like a ball of yarn.” She picked at the hem of her shirt as if to demonstrate. “Close your eyes and feel for the right string, the right time line, and it will take you where you want to go. What is the moment when you are willing to make the smallest change? That is the moment you are looking for.” She took a step toward Teddy as if to reach for the gun; though they both know they couldn’t touch, not really, everything in Teddy wanted her mother to do just that—to shoulder this burden, to make it better.

  Teddy saw the truck pull around the corner of the field. She couldn’t stop Sector Three from happening. She couldn’t stop Xantal from being created. People would always try to use psychics to their own ends. She’d seen it happen once, twice, and it would happen again.

  But she might save her friends.

  She imagined the mess of the last few months, a ball of knots, of bad decisions so tangled it was impossible to see how to unravel it. If they never left for the base? Or earlier, if Miles had never disappeared outside Hyle, if she’d been focused on his safety and not on Yates? The answer came from the depths of her consciousness, and as soon as it surfaced, it rang strong, true, right. And in the voice of Henry Cummings, of all people.

  Let it explode.

  Teddy watched the truck pull out of sight. Clicked the safety into place. Released the tension in her arms. She could stop Maddux before this escalated. In her own time line.

  Marysue nodded. “You’ve found it. Now don’t let go of the string.”

  Teddy touched the necklace in her pocket. The IED at the holiday party. That’s what Henry had been referring to. That was the bomb she had to let explode.

  She and her mother looked at each other a moment longer. Time seemed to stand still, even though Teddy could feel her body being pulled
back to the present. Everything in her fought to stay just another second. “Don’t worry,” Marysue said. “It will work out.” For Marysue it wouldn’t, or at least it hadn’t yet. Teddy hoped it did. “What do they say—everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end?”

  Teddy nodded. She wasn’t going to cry, goddammit. She felt the beginning of the crash back into her physical body.

  Jesus Christ, not this again.

  “It’s not the end,” Marysue said.

  Teddy shook her head. “It’s not.”

  Her body was being ripped apart as she plummeted back to present-day Sector Three. At least she hadn’t passed out. Yates stood by her side. And he was furious. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “You were the one preaching about fate,” Teddy said. “I wasn’t supposed to. The necklace took me to my mother.” She searched her jacket pockets. Pilgrim’s Tunnels were connected to objects. Objects were connected to time lines.

  Find the thread. Pull the string.

  Her grip encircled the metal frames.

  “You didn’t kill him.”

  She turned to Yates. “Not yet.”

  Teddy rooted in her pocket for the second object. Miles’s glasses.

  “That’s not going to help,” Yates said. “That’s not a crystal.”

  Teddy shook her head. “It’s not the crystal, not really.” She tightened her hand on the glasses, felt the telltale burn. “It’s psychometry, objects of daily wear. Miles is the key, not my mother.”

  She centered her thoughts, demanded the glasses to take her where she needed to go.

  “It’s not the end,” Teddy said aloud. Both to herself and to Yates.

  Take me to the holiday party. Hollis Whitfield’s home, Thanksgiving Day.

  The pressure and the pain enveloped her again and sucked her back in time.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  EVEN THOUGH IT WAS FAMILIAR, everything about Hollis Whitfield’s house felt foreign. A mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the sparkling waters of San Francisco Bay. Sleek modern furniture, contemporary art lining the walls. Well-dressed guests strolling through the rooms, catering staff offering drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Stuffy and self-important, every bit as un-Thanksgiving-like as Teddy remembered it. No football blaring from the TV, no friendly arguments over how many marshmallows to toss on the sweet potato casserole.