by Claire Davon
“Sonder?” There were so many questions she didn’t have time to ask behind that simple word.
She could tell he understood what she was asking. The answer was obvious. It had to be incoming time travelers, there would have been no other reason for his belt to explode in a cacophony otherwise. Whether the incoming people were Guardians or Liberators, she couldn’t tell. Probably not Rogald, she thought wildly, looking at the teen. She didn’t know what would happen if the older and younger intersected, but she didn’t think it would be good.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell which ones are coming.”
The teen froze, his eyes wild. The whoosh and roar grew louder, and Fiona realized that that must be what it sounded like, when time wasn’t frozen at the other end. Maybe that was why there was the jewel toned, misty ground when they shifted and time was stopped. It took a minute to catch up.
Maybe she should freeze time. She had done it once before, and it had saved them. Fiona was caught, not knowing what to do, looking at Sonder and then Rogald. A person started to come into focus and she recognized the outline of the Commander. Of all the other time travelers she wanted to see, the large, burly older man who had tried to kill her was the one she feared the most. A second form started appearing as if summoned, the smaller form of a woman. There was only one person it could be. Illiria.
She had to act. Now. Fiona looked at the clock and focused. If it was one o’clock now, it could be…she concentrated, sinking her mind into time. It felt like a tangible thing, a living entity. Fiona reached for it. It could be midnight. Tomorrow. She fixed on a mental image of a calendar, flipping the day over to be the next day. She then pictured the sky outside in full darkness, only the lights of the hotels on the hill and the stars showing the way.
“Sonder!” she cried and rushed to him. He was still straightening his belt and looked up at her cry, holding out his hand. She was so focused on the clock that she could do no more than grip onto Sonder. In doing so she brushed the younger Rogald. On instinct the teen reached out and grabbed her sleeve.
The forms continued to materialize and Fiona saw she had been right. It was Illiria, shifting moments behind the almost fully formed Commander. He was holding a weapon in his hand, something she hadn’t seen before, something big and nasty and no doubt lethal. Something not of her time. She glanced at Sonder and saw that his eyes were on the weapon, his face hard. From the recognition in his eyes she thought he had seen the weapon before.
Sonder spared a glance from the weapon to her, and then the teen. He swallowed hard, and nodded at the boy. “Go now,” Sonder said, his voice urgent.
“Fiona!” Illiria shouted behind them, the words distorted and long. “Run.”
Right before she shifted them she thought she heard Rogald shout in dismay. Then there was nothing but the black.
Chapter 7
If not for the lights, Fiona might have thought they were still time shifting. It was dark, but not the absolute blackness of a jump. Outside the room, stars twinkled and she assumed they were in their hotel room, thirty-six hours later. Sonder stood next to her and Rogald was still in his grasp. The LED display of the clock showed 12:00. She focused and saw the AM next to it and breathed a sigh of relief. She had done it. Fortunately, there was no sign of the Commander and his lethal looking weapon, or Illiria.
Rogald jerked free of Sonder before he stumbled and collapsed. He still held the bag of takeout in his hands and it tipped over, the Styrofoam container of tsatiki rolling out of the bag, spilling its contents on the floor of the room. A moment later, Rogald groaned and his body heaved. A small stream of bile and food ejected from his mouth. Then he buckled, almost in slow motion, his body crumpling to the ground in a heap.
Sonder looked at the boy and then at Fiona. “Time sickness,” he said. He went to Rogald and rolled him on his side. Sonder felt the carotid artery at Rogald’s neck, checked his mouth for objects and nodded. He rose, and looked at Fiona. His Guardian belt, firmly secured across his waist, beeped.
“Should you…have that?” she asked, eyeing his belt with the trepidation she would usually reserve for a deadly snake. Or the Commander.
He didn’t follow her gaze. “We might need it.” There was no room for compromise in his tone. Without her he was helpless to control or modify the time stream. She hadn’t realized until that moment was how much he had given up in handing over the reins of the time journeys to her. With his belt he had the freedom of time travel. He had refrained from using the only tool he had to go through time, relying on her abilities, because he was afraid for her safety. For a powerful, strong man, it must have been quite a change. She had taken it as her due, accepting it without even thinking what it might cost him.
They had been together for three months, but she suddenly realized how little she still knew about him. And how much more she wanted to know. Oh, she’d been so unaware, tripping through Santorini with him, uncaring of the dangers lurking. She had played around, fiddling while Rome burned.
“We don’t have much time,” he said, easing Rogald onto his feet and arranging him in a chair. Rogald’s head lolled, his mouth opening. Small flecks of vomit clung to his lips and Sonder wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Is he…okay?”
Sonder opened Rogald’s eyes one at a time, checking his pupils. He nodded. “He will be fine. He’s young and strong. Time sickness affects everyone differently, but he should be okay in a few minutes. Come. We need to decide where we go next.”
She thought of London, of Brazil, of her “safe places” that didn’t seem very safe. They had many choices but she thought there might not be anywhere they could run to where they wouldn’t be found. The Guardians and Liberators might have let her and Sonder alone this entire time, all the while knowing where they were. They probably had never been free. One look at the younger Rogald told her the truth. Freedom had been an illusion. The boy, the one who would be a man and a Liberator, gave her all the answers she needed.
“Any suggestions?”
He looked grim, his mouth set in a thin line. “Jumping this close to the last time was clever. They aren’t going to expect it and you may delay them when they think their instruments are off. Guardians never time jump within these tight time frames. It’s too risky.”
Even as he said it, they started to see a shimmer again, an indication of an incoming time jumper. Sonder looked at Rogald and then, with a sigh, grabbed him and hauled him up.
“I got this.”
He took her hand and pressed some buttons on his belt. Then, with a flourish, he punched one more button and the blackness descended again.
#
The clock told her it was a week in the future, but still within the confines of their room. She thought she understood why Sonder continued to include the boy Rogald with them. He had jumped with them the first time and now he wasn’t safe. She could shift him back when they got away, a day or two later than their original jump. She only had to focus on the clock, and the calendar. It might be disorienting to Rogald, and she didn’t know what would happen to someone who shifted that many times in such a short span, but it was the only answer she had. Nobody would believe him about time traveling tourists. His sullen teenager ways may come in handy. She realized Sonder had jumped them to twilight, and dusk lay over the island.
She saw a flicker, and a haze. Then Illiria was coming into view, slowly as if she was being stalled by something. Fiona reached inside to push the Guardian away, hoping that her powers would grant her some means to stop Illiria.
Sonder stood a short distance away, his belt flashing. He looked at the teenager he still held.
“Run, Rogald. Get out of here.” He shoved at the boy but he didn’t move. The takeaway containers lay where he had dropped them, and the mingled smells of the food and Rogald’s vomit were now dried and distant. The room had a musty smell, as if it hadn’t been aired out in a while. They had had no choice but to take the boy with him, but didn’
t have a clue what to do after that. She shot a look at Sonder, who pressed more buttons before slamming one fist into another.
“I don’t have enough power. I’ve used it too much. These need to charge. It has to be you.”
“Where did the sun go? What the fuck?” Rogald looked around, his expression confused. He looked drugged, and slow, like the time jumps had taken a dramatic toll.
Focus. She needed to focus. She was bone weary, time sick from her travels, her body aching from all the activity. The volcano and collapsed city still hovered in her mind and she was having trouble clearing it.
Illiria materialized, staggering just a little as she became whole. Without preamble, she looked at the three of them. Sonder moved in front of Fiona, shielding her with his body but facing his former leader without hesitation. The world was shiny and bright and Fiona knew that they were caught in the frozen before of a time shift about to come into being. Illiria’s eyes went to the teenager between them, and Fiona thought she saw sorrow on the Guardian’s face.
“You told me, once, but I didn’t understand.” She directed the statement to the boy Rogald, who looked at her with a blank expression.
Fiona followed Illiria’s gaze. It was intent, running over the boy’s frame as if memorizing it…or as if it was already familiar to her. It would have been interesting, even fascinating, if Fiona didn’t know that the Commander had to be close behind Illiria. If nothing else, he would use her time jump as his beacon. There was familiarity in Illiria’s tone, an easy friendliness to a boy she would never have known under normal circumstances. It was the sort of personal ease that Fiona associated with her relationship to Sonder.
“You need to go,” she said, addressing her former Guardian team member. Sonder was looking at Illiria as well, a dawning understanding in his eyes. “I can’t hold him off for any more jumps. Go. Not to Brazil or London, we know about those. You wouldn’t get far there.”
Damn it. That took away her escape routes.
“The boy needs to leave.” Sonder nodded to Rogald, who rocked on his heels, looking around with a wild look in his eyes. “We need to put him back where he came from.”
Fiona wasn’t surprised when Illiria shook her head. “He can’t go back. I think you know that. None of you can stay here. You need to go. Now.”
“I’m not a boy. What’s going on?” Rogald’s voice didn’t have any of its former sullenness. It held fear, bordering on terror.
“No time,” Sonder said, but Illiria waved him silent.
“You will understand soon enough. Your life is going to be very different from this point on. You told me you hated your life growing up. You loved when it all became simpler. Did you mean that?” Rogald was staring at her. “It’s about to change. Don’t be scared. It will work out.”
She looked at Sonder. “The Commander is trying to transform things. Rogald’s future starts now and he is out to stop it. He’s gone rogue, attempting to alter the time stream from the beginning out. He doesn’t know how Rogald is involved, but he wants Rogald gone. He’s right. He did enough investigating to know that Rogald was out of his time when he was claimed by the Liberators. Now he wants you all dead.”
Fiona was trying to focus, but she knew that something strange was going on. She would need to find out what was happening – or rather, what had happened – later. Sonder was looking at his former leader and then back to the boy.
Rogald…and Illiria? Rogald and Illiria?
“My folks suck. They all suck. They treat me like I’m not there and tell me they wish I hadn’t been born,” the teenager said, as if the words were torn from him. Fiona doubted he confided in people and decided that the time shock and the crazy events, not to mention a woman seeming to know him out of nowhere, had made his tongue loose. “That’s why they stuck me with the relatives for the summer. They wish I would vanish and I can’t wait until I’m old enough to leave. Less than a year and I’m out. Way out.”
There was a ripple and the walls started to warp with the signs of an incoming time transfer. Fiona knew who it had to be. Her heart jumped and began a quick, staccato rhythm. She smelled something, an odd stench, and realized it was the acrid scent of her own fear.
“Fiona!” Illiria’s voice was sharp, with the crisp edge of a woman used to commanding people. “Focus. Look at me.”
She pulled out a picture and handed it to Fiona, keeping a careful eye on the thing that was resolving into the form of the Commander. It was slow to come through, as if it was being braked by something, perhaps the same thing that had slowed Illiria’s approach. Fiona looked at Sonder’s belt, at its winking lights and devices. They were going to need every weapon in their arsenal, and had been short sighted not to use his tools.
Fiona looked at the picture Illiria had handed her. It was an old time black and white photo, a shot of the last streetcar T-stop on her old subway line in Brookline. Cleveland Circle was the name of the stop and she was all too familiar with the modern day version. The image must have been around her grandparent’s time. It was of early Boston streetcars, looking a bit like ones from her childhood, but with many differences. “61” was on their marquee instead of “North Station”, and the cars looked old and drab, more like beetles than the sleeker modern versions. The image swam in her head. It was desperate and ridiculous, but it was all her time addled brain had. It was similar to the runaway subway car that had started this, and changed her life.
“Illiria, this is the nineteen fifties,” she said, trying not to show the doubt she felt. She looked first at the print and then at the other woman. “You can’t mean…can he even go?” Her voice trailed off and she looked at Rogald. She calculated back, thinking about the things they had told her about time jumps. Approximately a hundred years in either direction was pretty safe, after that people began to fade. But she had jumped with the older version of this man to two hundred years in this current future, and he had been fine. The nineteen fifties should be okay. She wasn’t sure about Sonder. The era would be borderline for him.
“The Commander is trying to change it, but it is what happened. You need to go there, and Rogald needs to stay there. If he doesn’t, the time stream will transform and we have no idea what the consequences of that would be.” She looked at the boy again and there was nothing maternal about the look she gave him. “If he doesn’t go back then he doesn’t become a Liberator. The effects of that would be catastrophic.”
“You guys are weird,” Rogald said. The words appeared rote, like an overused phrase he trotted out when other insults failed. He should have been running, but instead he seemed fascinated by what was happening. It was as if this younger version of the Liberator she knew understood that there was more going on here than he could fathom.
The ripples started to solidify and the bulky form of the Commander became more visible. He had an angry look on his still blurry face. Fiona swallowed, her stomach turning over at the idea of what he would be like once he materialized.
“Now. Fiona. Now.”
Fiona was still holding the picture of the familiar yet unfamiliar final stop on her trolley line at home. She knew they only had a little time, but she was unsure of her next move. She couldn’t afford to make the wrong choice. She needed to concentrate and not take the chance of stranding the men somewhere. Most importantly, she had to have a plan in case it was too far for Sonder and he faded out.
Illiria seemed to understand her hesitation and looked at Fiona impatiently. Her voice was curt, the words clipped, when she spoke. “If you don’t do this now, the time stream implications will be grim. When I realized what the Commander was going to try I ran some scenarios. None of them are positive. He thinks stopping Rogald’s fate will shift yours, change your past in a more subtle way, but alter it enough to affect this outcome. He wants to stop you from discovering your powers, or being able to use them if you do discover them. He disappeared with his belt and weapons and has been hard to track.” She looked at Sonder. “He designed
much of the training we all received, so he’s quite adept at using the belts.”
Fiona looked at Rogald, who was staring at Illiria with horror and a strange fascination.
“Do I…know you?” the teen asked, a curious mix of emotions on his face.
“Not yet,” Illiria said.
“I don’t understand,” Fiona said, and her words were echoed by the boy.
Illiria looked at the boy again, her expression soft. In the short time Fiona had known the woman she had never seen such a look on her face. Behind them the Commander continued to solidify, more sluggishly than Fiona would have thought. She cast a questioning peek at Illiria. The older woman spared her a quick look, and a tiny smile pulled at her lips.
“There are ways to slow the transfer down,” she said, and looked at Rogald again. “Rogald, you have to trust us.”
“Fuck that. I don’t trust adults.” His words were angry, but he made no attempt to move.
Illiria just nodded. “Stubborn. You’re so stubborn.”
It wouldn’t be long now. The Commander was almost formed and Fiona could see a strange, lethal looking weapon in his hands. Last time he had tried to kill her it had been with a pistol, but from what she could see of this one, it looked twice as deadly. She shot a glance at Sonder and then back at the firearm.
“We call them blasters,” Sonder said. “It’s from a movie – Star Wars, I heard that it was called. It will kill you, and the people behind you, as well as the wall behind them. We need to go. Will that,” he pointed at the picture in Fiona’s hands, “take us somewhere safe?”
She looked at Illiria. The woman swallowed, shrugged, and looked away.
“I hope so. We won’t know until you go. I’ll block him here so you should be able to get away clean, but you must go. It’s vital.”
Why, Fiona wondered, why was this particular jump, and Rogald, so important? She looked at the Commander and knew that they would have to figure that out later. There was no time to wonder.