Time Series: Complete Bundle

by Claire Davon

  Rogald shrugged. “The temptation is always there. Stop the assassination. Save the ship. It’s what makes us Liberators. Part of our Traveler lore is about fixing time. We thought it was like the rest of Liberator canon. We thought that the Traveler would make things better, but she’s just here to fix things too. She’s,” he looked at Fiona, “you’re,” he amended, “changing things, but you’re changing them back to what they were.” He sighed, and pushed a hand through his short brown hair. “In the end we were all after the same thing.”

  “How many anomalies are there?” Fiona asked and she saw all three of them shrug.

  “We don’t know. We’ve run Sonder’s information through our machines and much of the time the anomaly makes the tragedy worse, but that’s all.”

  “But…the Butterfly Effect,” she sputtered and saw Illiria nod.

  “Yes. The end result is that we don’t know. We know about some, and thanks to your travels and efforts we’ve been able to find more, but we can’t go back far enough to find them all.” She looked at Fiona. “We have to accept that the anomaly, whether caused by the Commander’s descendant, or utilized by him, changed our world in ways we will never discover.” She tapped the photo. “We know about this one and we can fix it. Keep your head in the game, Fiona.”

  “This is no game,” Fiona said, wanting to shout.

  “You’re the last person I would have selected to do this,” Illiria said, and her voice shook. “You have no training, no skills, nothing to recommend you. I ran your history. You were nothing special until that day. You weren’t supposed to survive. None of the dead were to be given a choice. That was why we were there, to make sure that happened. That is what I was told.” She glanced at Sonder. “I was lied to. I don’t understand it, and I don’t like it, but this is for you to do. Fiona you’ve been playing at it like it a hobby. You’ve been traipsing around with your boyfriend, lounging in Santorini and then popping from disaster to disaster, flitting around. God!” She slammed one fist against another and Fiona saw small drops of spittle fly from her mouth. “Do you know what any of us would give for what you have? To travel anywhere we wanted to? You waste it on islands and lotteries! I could use it to go back and meet Lincoln, watch the Revolutionary War in progress. I could observe the Romans, Julius Caesar. I could see the truth in so many questionable historical events and you, you go to Bali for lunch because you want to. These powers are wasted on you.”

  Fiona flushed. There was more truth to Illiria’s words than Fiona cared to admit. She had stumbled into this had behaved like a child with a new toy for a while. But that was no longer her. Fiona straightened.

  “How can we go back in time to Tunguska?” she asked. She pointed to Sonder, who was talking in low tones to Rogald. “We…it was the first place we went to after…” she looked at Rogald, who inclined his head. “Anyway, we’ve already been there. I can’t go somewhere twice. I’ve tried it. It’s like there’s a membrane or something and I bounce out of the black right back to my original spot.” The only time she had was when she was yanked back from the Event into her past, and that entire sequence now seemed implausible. It shouldn’t have happened. She shouldn’t have been back in her body, at that time, now that she knew the rules of time better. That had been something engineered by the Voice, and nothing Fiona could have accomplish.

  Rogald nodded. Illiria still looked mad enough to rip Fiona’s head off. It was the anger of someone thwarted. It was personal in a way that was outsized for the situation. Illiria was the competent one, the soldier with people under her command and a dozen years of time experience. Fiona was a civilian caught in a time war she hadn’t known existed until half a year ago.

  Maybe that was the point. Maybe Illiria wanted this to stay with the professionals. But the Liberators and Guardians had been fighting a battle of tie games, neither side winning or losing, and neither coming any closer to the real answer.

  “You’re sure that the meteor strike is meant to take place over Tunguska?” Fiona asked, her heart in her mouth. “You’re positive that is the right timeline?”

  “That is what our records show,” Illiria said, looking to Rogald for confirmation. He nodded. “None of us have any memory of a disaster of that size two years after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. If there had been twin disasters on the opposite coasts of America, we would have known it, no matter when it happened. You don’t lose sight of something like that.”

  Well. She had, Fiona thought. History had never been her strongest subject and Tunguska an unfamiliar name until recently. She had known about San Francisco, though. Everyone in her time frame knew about the giant 1906 San Francisco quake, even those with a sketchy grasp of history like Fiona. If it had happened the way the screen shown, if the meteor had exploded over New York City and flattened it, she would have remembered. Who knows how long New York would have taken to recover, or if it would have. It could have shifted the balance of power of the East Coast cities and New York may never have been the same. The people of the time would have found other shipping ports, other ways to get their goods into the middle of the country. It would have changed the history of the United States, and the world. Much as she had an inherent dislike of New York sports teams and preferred her city to that bigger one, she had no desire to see it destroyed. Fiona warmed to the task, her doubts put aside for the moment, but not forgotten.

  “Okay,” she said and crossed the room to Sonder. “Let’s do this. We’ve got a meteor to set straight.”

  Sonder shook his head. “It’s too far for us,” he said, indicating Illiria. Fiona frowned. She’d jumped all over time with Sonder, uncaring of the time frame. The fade had no effect on him when he was with her – she didn’t know why, but it made him able to jump past his hundred year stopping point when he was with her. They could all go, if they wanted.

  “Of course you can,” she said, echoing her thoughts. She looked at the three other travelers. Sonder shifted. “We’ve done it before.”

  “We agree,” Illiria said, and Fiona saw Sonder shift again. “It’s a risk and we are not willing to take it. Yes, you and Sonder have jumped and you can take a passenger on your adventures.” There was wistfulness in Illiria’s tone, as much as she tried to hide it in the snap of command in her voice. “However, we don’t know if the drain on your energy is part of the reason you have not been that successful in working with the anomalies. It’s too big a chance. We can’t run the risk that the anomaly will win and the meteor will explode over New York. Rogald will go with you. It’s within his time frame, especially after…”

  After I shifted him back to the 1950s, Fiona thought, and her mind spun.

  “Sonder and I will stay behind,” Illiria finished.

  Fiona frowned, and looked at Sonder. He returned her gaze but she couldn’t read his eyes. Something had changed in him since his adventure with the Commander. Every time she mentioned the topic he shut down. No matter what she asked, he stayed adamant on the point of keeping quiet. He had told them everything valuable already, and the rest was irrelevant.

  “We have messages to send,” he said, and pointed to his belt device. “How else are we going to get us to where we need to be?”

  Fiona looked at Rogald. She could hear the surf outside, the pound of waves against the Hawaii lava beach they were near. She remembered the teenager he had been. Fiona bet that the kid liked to surf as well as skateboard. She opened her mouth to ask him, but it was a frivolous question, and she closed it as quickly as she had opened it.

  Fiona nodded. “Okay. It makes sense, I guess. I’m not crazy about it, but you guys are the experts.”

  If Illiria could have smiled, she would have. “It’s about time you remembered that.”

  “How are we going to solve the problem of us already having been there?”

  Rogald waved to his belt. “Leave that to me.”

  #

  Rogald explained to her that they were going to go back to the minutes before she and Son
der had arrived in Tunguska, to New York instead of Russia. They weren’t going to be in the same place and the same time, but near enough to it that Fiona was nervous. She’d seen that it was possible when she had shifted Rogald back, but she also had seen the genuine distress it had caused the older man and the discomfort he had felt around the teenaged version. He had been unwilling, or unable, to touch his younger self. Maybe something happened if they overlapped. She shivered at the wayward thought.

  “I don’t like this,” she said. Illiria barely spared her a glance.

  “It will be fine, my darling,” Sonder said. He had only nodded when they’d suggested the elaborate plan, looking distracted.

  Now she had her answer about how and when she and Sonder had sent those messages to themselves. She had coded one with the selfie she’d taken in Paris, and given Sonder the password to her still working email.

  Sonder. Was he wondering the same thing she was? That maybe the Commander had a point? He’d been so close mouthed, even more so than his usual reserved demeanor. He’d agreed to all their plans, but he hadn’t seemed like the same man.

  She turned to Rogald, but he was engaged in an intimate embrace with Illiria. She still wasn’t used to the idea of the Liberator and the hostile woman together. Rogald had a devil-may-care quality that she wouldn’t have imagined would go well with Illiria’s no-nonsense self, but she couldn’t deny the spark she saw between the duo.

  Sonder looked at her, and something shifted. He strode across the room and gathered her to him. She felt his arms hard around her back and his breathing was rapid.

  “Stay safe,” he said. “Come back to me. I can’t lose you.” He pulled his head up and looked at Rogald. “I’m charging you with her protection. Bring her back to me.”

  Illiria looked at them, her face flushed and her hair a little wild. Fiona blinked at the incongruous look.

  “I would say the same to your girlfriend, but Rogald can take care of himself.”

  It would have been nicer if Illiria liked her, but Fiona supposed she couldn’t blame her. From the other woman’s point of view Fiona had been wasting her talents, and after all hadn’t Fiona thought that about herself a time or twelve?

  “How do we do this?” She had the image of Tunguska in her mind and on her SmartPhone, but the timing was tricky. They needed to be in enough time to be where the meteor was and the time anomaly surfaced in order to be effective. They would have one shot at this and then she would be bounced from the time frame forever.

  “I’m going to have to use my belt,” Rogald said. “Sonder, I need your exact coordinates and time. I’m going to calibrate the time and move it back a half hour before you arrive. The meteor will be coming in then, but it may not be visible over the sky yet. You landed,” he frowned, and ran some numbers, “twenty minutes before the meteor strike.” He looked up at Sonder. “That must have been an amazing sight.”

  Sonder nodded, his arms still around Fiona. “It was. We stayed long enough to see it explode, but we were leaving as it did. It was risky. Fiona felt the time anomaly along its path, right?” She nodded.

  “I thought we went there to study the time anomaly,” she said, her voice uncertain. “But if I fixed it then how…” She trailed off.

  “You fixed it but the repaired anomaly remained,” Illiria said, and her voice was brisk. “I am trusting you can do this, Traveler. I have family in New York. We go back centuries.”

  She was probably a Yankees fan, Fiona decided. Or she was a New York Jets fan who hated the Patriots. She no doubt thought Boston was a provincial little city and not as good as the great metropolis. If Illiria’s family could be traced back to the 1800s that meant that the meteor strike exploding over New York instead of Tunguska could wipe out her ancestors. She may never be born. It was no wonder she looked so avid, with such a stake in this incident.

  “I wish we could go with you,” Sonder said, “but it would be too much of a drain on you. We need you to focus.”

  We meaning the Guardians. She supposed he would always have some loyalty to that group. She didn’t have to like Illiria to know she did a good job. Fiona had read somewhere, and had to put into practice, that you didn’t need to like someone to work with them. Every team had personalities, and they didn’t always mesh. If Rogald liked, maybe loved, the woman then she must have some redeeming features.

  “Come back to me, Fiona. Fix this and come back to me.” His voice was intense, and dark with feeling. She nodded, fear crawling along her spine.

  Sonder stepped forward and offered Rogald his hand.

  “I trust my most precious gift to you,” Sonder said. “Keep her safe.”

  “She’s the one with the time gifts, pal.” Rogald and Sonder looked at each other for long moments and Rogald nodded.

  “I’ll do my best, Guardian,” he said. He turned on his belt and Sonder did the same. They glowed in red and blue. Fiona vowed to learn all the things Sonder’s belt and wrist device could do, and everything that the lights meant. When – if – she returned. “Beam the information to me.”

  She watched as Rogald and Sonder pushed buttons. Then there was a short burst of yellow light from Sonder to Rogald. Sonder turned his belt off and the lights died, winking out like a shutter had closed over them.

  “Got it,” Rogald said, and turned to Fiona. “We need to go. “Illiria, we’ll meet you in Paris. If all goes well you will see us in one minute.”

  If all went well they would meet Illiria and Sonder in Paris and jump, using Fiona, to another location where the Commander couldn’t trace them. It was going to be a lot for her and it all depended on her succeeding. If she did not, then the world as she knew it wouldn’t be the same. That sort of destruction in New York would ripple throughout history and these events wouldn’t happen. Illiria might not exist. They would be different people.

  But if it hadn’t happened, if she had been successful, why were they worried? If she hadn’t been successful, shouldn’t they wink out? But she hadn’t done it as of this moment, so the outcome was not yet known.

  A paradox, a paradox, she hummed in her head.

  “Time to go,” Rogald said, holding out his hand. They didn’t need to be touching, but with Illiria and Sonder jumping so close to them physical contact helped the transfer.

  Looking up at the man who had once been a boy, she smiled, glad that she liked the man. She had already been on several adventures with him and it seemed that their paths were going to be twined until the end.

  Fiona stepped up and, while looking at Sonder, placed her hand in Rogald’s. His palm was cool and dry. Sonder nodded and turned to Illiria.

  “I love you,” Fiona called, feeling like Princess Leia in Empire Strikes Back, except without the carbon freezing.

  She half expected Sonder’s reply to be I know, but he didn’t know the movies. Cultural references didn’t overlap their times.

  “I love you, kale mou. See you shortly.”

  With the palms waving in the background and the tropical breeze blowing through their windows, the two groups shifted. Fiona watched as the black overtook them and she couldn’t see Sonder anymore.

  The black claimed her and she relaxed into it. She couldn’t feel Rogald’s hand but she knew she gripped it. Then would be out of the black and in Central Park, where they could focus on the meteor.

  She had a job to do.

  #

  Everything was jeweled for a moment. She could see Central Park frozen around them, sparsely traveled in this area of the park. Rogald had chosen well. When they came out of the time travel and people started moving they would be in a sheltered zone, protected from prying eyes, with few people around.

  With a lurch, time began again. Nobody paid them any attention as they went about their daily business.

  The city skyline was so different she wouldn’t have recognized it if she didn’t know it was New York. There were no skyscrapers and no cars. Horse and buggy carriages dotted the streets around the park,
black hansoms with drivers and horses in tethers being encouraged via whip to keep moving. In another situation she would be fascinated and want to explore, but not this time. Things were too close. They needed to do this and get out before they bumped into her and Sonder’s jump to Tunguska in Russia.

  They’d been over the strategy a hundred times, but she asked anyway.

  “What’s the plan?”

  He shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky. “Meteor is coming. Do you see it?”

  She followed his finger. It was a streak in the atmosphere, as low as they had seen in Tunguska. The meteor had been dislodged from its time and space and was going to land too soon, in a city it wasn’t meant to strike.

  Fiona swallowed, her mouth dry.

  “You’re going to slow down our time while keeping time the same for the meteor. That will make it move across the landscape faster than it is now and if you release the time right, land where it is supposed to. I will tell you when. It will be tight.”

  It sounded simple, in theory, but she knew from experience how hard it was in practice. Fiona straightened, glad of the weeks of practice Illiria and Rogald had insisted on. She was even glad for the Philippines hurricane because it taught her that she could do this. She was the Traveler, for heaven’s sake, and this was up to her to fix. She would do it. She had no choice.

  She was going to include Rogald in the time slowdown in order to ensure that nothing would take away from her powers. That meant that the minute she was done, and released the time stream back to its normal self, he was going to have to be ready to propel them out of there. Their hope was that the Commander would be confused by the dual belt signatures, buying time while he sorted out whom to follow. By the time he figured it out, they hoped to be gone from both places. She didn’t know what would happen if a person tried to jump into a time that was being slowed down, or was in stasis. To the best of her knowledge, it had never been done before.

  Today would not be a good day to find out.

  High above them the sky was bright with a streak that spelled doom for the city.