by S. E. Babin
It was hard for me to accept, not only because I considered myself to be a smart cookie, but I was a problem solver and I’d rarely had any problems I couldn’t find a solution to.
That was, until I came here and the problems were no longer mundane, but world altering.
I measured my steps carefully until I came to the chiller. I set the tube in, pulled out a permanent marker. and wrote “MASTERS” on the plastic encasement. There was a tiny bit of my father’s serum inside the newest remedy, but I wouldn’t know whether it worked until I had the opportunity to test it.
One thing I didn’t want happening was what happened to me. When I first met Masters, he’d been working for Lila only because she was on the trail of the serum. He had no desire to secure immortality for himself, but he was willing to give it to his daughter if it meant her survival. Batten disease had ravaged her body and she was at the age where she was on borrowed time. I didn’t have long before she succumbed.
No pressure.
I’d made a deal with Masters. He’d come to my side and I’d try my best to help his daughter without the immortality serum. As much as he loved her, giving her the serum could result in tearing them apart. I offered all my assistance and the tools at my disposal and he’d agreed. Thank goodness for that too. Masters was not the kind of person I wanted to go up against.
So here I was.
I shut the chiller softly, shrugged out of my lab coat, and headed the short distance to Watson’s sparring room.
I knocked briefly and entered before I heard him speak. A large table was set up with food, plates, and drinks. I shook my head at it all, but still made myself a plate. The room looked deserted, but few people knew Watson’s quarters were hidden behind the room. I stepped up to his door, knocked, and waited for him to allow me entrance. I didn’t mind entering the sparring room at my convenience, but these were his private rooms, so I afforded him the courtesy a friend would.
The door opened and Watson’s handsome face peeked out through the crack. “Ah, Penelope,” he said in his dry, dusty British accent. “Enter if you please.”
I snorted at his archaic speak and stepped into the room only to see my father, Masters, and…Aaron sitting there.
I dropped my plate unceremoniously and pulled out the pistol secured at the back of my waistband.
“Penelope!” my father shouted.
Aaron blinked rapidly, but made no sudden moves.
A wise decision on his part. A gun shoved in your face doesn’t give you a lot of decision making options.
My eyes flickered to Watson. His face was grim, but he looked unsurprised by my action.
“A little warning next time,” I snapped to him.
“Speak to your father, love,” he said in a calm manner, much like one you’d use to approach a rabid dog.
I frowned, the gun never wavering. “Sherlock?” I snapped and saw my father’s disapproving stare at my use of his first name.
“Really, Penelope. Aren’t we past that yet?”
“You have five seconds, Sherlock, before I shoot him in his pretty, pretty face.”
Aaron didn’t move a muscle. “You think I’m pretty?” he asked.
Normally his smart ass quips amused me. I pulled the hammer back. “Four…three…two…”
“Enough!” my father roared.
I fired the gun.
Several things happened. Watson stood in place, both unsurprised at this recent turn and unmoved I was about to kill someone in his quarters. We both had the same feelings over Aaron.
Masters jumped out of the way with athletic grace that belied the bulk of his body. As I would have done if there was the possibility I was about to be unceremoniously splattered with brain matter. My father stood and waved his hands, sending a shimmering blast of golden light toward me.
Time stood still.
Normally, no matter how cool someone pretends to be, they cannot stop a bullet. It comes at you with the force of a train, tearing, rending, and damaging anything it passes through. Bullets are not gentle, nor are they kind.
I’d made a kill shot and I didn’t regret it.
But my father, who has never pretended to be cool, was packing some quirky powers of his own. I knew he was hiding things from me, but as I stood there and watched my bullet slow, then eventually stop completely and drop like a stone inches from Aaron’s face, I realized I didn’t really know anything about him.
What I did know was he had just stopped me from taking revenge on the person who’d almost killed me and stolen something precious from our family.
I knew I was not God, nor any of those other awesome beings that took and gave death on a daily basis, but I did know when someone had done something deserving of death, and in the case of Aaron, he was more deserving than most.
I lowered my weapon and stared at my father, slack-jawed. His face was torn in a grimace of concentration and anger as his hands swayed in a back and forth circular pattern. When the bullet lay inert on the floor, my father let out a slow breath and turned his accusing gaze to me. By then, Aaron had stood in a mad scramble to avoid his death, his hands held out in front of him in a defensive manner. When he heard my father speak, he slowly lowered his hands and stared at me, shaken and white-faced.
“You would have done it,” he whispered in awe.
“I did do it,” I corrected him.
Sherlock stood with his feet wide apart, giving me a grave stare. “Watson, disable her.”
Watson didn’t move.
“Watson!” he shouted in an angry, disbelieving tone.
An aggrieved sigh came from him as he stepped up beside me. “Penelope?” he asked.
I gritted my teeth and made no move to give him my gun.
Watson leaned closer. “He means for me to physically disable you and I’d rather not. I quite think you were right shooting that conniving bastard in the face, but your father seems to think he can be of some use to us.” He lowered his voice for my ears only. “I’ll give it back to you later, so maybe you can catch him unaware.”
I handed over the gun and crossed my arms against my chest. Watson patted me awkwardly on my shoulder. “He always ruins my fun too.”
My father busied his hands with straightening out his waistcoat and brushing off imaginary lint from his shoulder. I could see him gathering his thoughts.
“Quite inappropriate, Penelope.”
“I think it’s more inappropriate you bring a traitor into our midst,” I fired back.
Aaron still stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. I stared back at him and met his gaze with a challenge in mine. His eyebrows knit together as he saw the change in my iris color and he lowered his gaze once he realized I wouldn’t back down.
“I understand your feelings, daughter, and I assure you, I have him here with grave reservations, but I never expected you to shoot a guest of mine.” He paused. “In the face. Terribly messy that would have been, yes?”
Masters snorted and promptly pressed his lips together as he tried to control his laughter. Getting shot in the face wasn’t something that should be amusing, I guess.
“Aaron is here with information concerning the stolen serum.”
“Oh, you mean the one he stole?” I responded snidely.
My father rolled his eyes. “Regardless, he spent some time reverse engineering the formula, trying to duplicate our success.”
“I hope you failed,” I said shortly.
“Of course he did,” Sherlock said. “That is not the problem, nor is it the reason he is here today.”
I itched for my gun. “Did he come back for cake or a birthday party or did he forget his razor in the bathroom?” I rubbed the side of my right eye. I could feel a tic coming on. “Jesus. He damn near killed me and you invite him back for a nice lunch?”
My father’s mouth thinned and he looked heavenward. Counting to ten, probably.
“Aaron took an enormous risk coming back here. The least we can do is listen to him.�
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“I’d rather shoot him,” I mumbled.
“Yes, we can see that,” my father said in a droll tone. He flicked his attention back to Aaron. “Pray hurry up, man. As you can see, you aren’t the most welcome visitor we’ve ever had.”
With great effort, Aaron stilled his shaking and began to speak. “I can see that,” he said faintly. His voice trailed off, lost in his own thoughts.
I cleared my throat, startling him.
“Yes. Very well. I am here because of an…issue with the serum.”
I still wanted to shoot him. Bad. I bit my lip and waited for him to begin the story. He was shaken up, but I felt no remorse.
Watson shifted beside me.
“As you may have surmised, I was unable to duplicate the exact serum. I’ve had some successes, but none that matched the caliber of the serum in your genetic line.”
I watched as my father silently preened.
“Of course,” Sherlock said.
Aaron’s next words tumbled over themselves. “Our last batch ended in a moderate success based upon laboratory tests. As much as we would have loved to begin distribution of it, we knew we needed to test further, so we held off on any announcements.”
“What kind of success?” my father asked.
“We were able to repair damaged DNA at the cellular level. Before our very eyes, cancer disappeared and the infected cells became whole again. Incurable diseases gone in an instant.”
My father’s brows knit together. His immortality serum kicked in at the age of twenty-five. Most people had no illnesses before that time, or at least no one he had given it to had anything like that. His interest in Aaron’s statement made me wonder whether his serum repaired things like that or it was only an after effect. What would happen if a terminally ill patient was given the serum? I didn’t think my father thought enough about this to make that a priority, especially since he had begun experimenting on himself before he gave it to anyone else.
If Aaron’s statements were true, it was possible he’d discovered a literal fountain of youth—even if it was only a small amount of it.
“What about an extended life span?” Sherlock asked sharply.
Aaron shrugged. “No time to test that theory. Although, I suppose since we were able to cure all the illnesses, it wouldn’t be a far leap.”
Watson had straightened beside me. The tension in his body hummed next to mine.
“I fail to understand why you are here then.” It seemed like a statement, but Watson’s delivery was flat.
Aaron’s face betrayed his grief. “It was an incredible discovery and as much as we tried to keep it under wraps—”
My father snorted with laughter. “Someone stole it right out from underneath your nose.”
My lips twitched. “Did they almost kill someone too?”
Aaron glared. “That’s not all.”
Watson motioned for him to continue.
“Once we realized the theft, we began to test the serum even further. And we found some…anomalies.”
This time, I straightened. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where this was going. “What kind?”
“Although the serum repaired some of the cells it was exposed to, other diseased cells began to…disappear.”
“Excuse me?” my father said. “Disappear where?”
Aaron bit his lip. “We don’t know exactly where the cells went, but we have been tracking the person we believe stole the serum. Initially, at least. Our intel indicates she sold it off to a European lab.”
“Can we get to the point?” I asked, done with this beating around the bush. Aaron obviously needed our help, otherwise he would have never come crawling back to us.
My statement was met with a baleful glare. “The people given the serum have showed up in different timelines.”
I didn’t understand.
“In pieces,” he said, bending his head to rest in his upraised hands.
“Pieces?” I echoed. “What does that even mean?”
My father’s eyes went wide with shock. “I think he means the serum he took from your body wasn’t just serum. It had been in your body for so long, it was entwined with your DNA. I think it’s safe to assume it mutated.”
Watson’s inhaled gasp had me looking around the room. “Am I the only one who has no idea what’s happening?”
Aaron spoke. “You and your family are time travelers and have been centuries before the invention of the serum. The serum passed from your mother to you, so your gift at birth was not only immortality, but the ability to travel through time. The serum melded with your DNA, so when I took it—”
At least he had the grace to look ashamed. One of my eyebrows rose.
“When I took it,” he said in a stronger voice, “I didn’t realize I was taking anything other than the serum. But the serum had somehow changed over time to mesh with your time traveling ability.”
I still didn’t understand.
“Spell it out for me slowly. Why are there pieces of people scattered throughout time and what does it have to do with us?”
My father interrupted. “Aaron’s experiments have had an unexpected complication. Perhaps the new serum forces the body to time travel internally back to when the cells were healthy.”
“Internal time travel?”
My father shook his head. “I know, it sounds…strange, but since your DNA melded with it, perhaps once it hits someone’s blood stream, it forces the cells back to a time when they were healthy. So maybe it doesn’t repair them at all because it doesn’t have to.”
I stared at him openmouthed. “That makes a strange sort of sense. Is something like that even possible?”
“Apparently,” Aaron said morosely.
“But it still doesn’t explain why body parts are winding up all over time,” Watson interjected.
“Ah, but it does, I think,” my father said. “The new serum is faulty. It does repair some of the cells, but it forces them back in time. I assume those without our DNA cannot withstand the push. They do not possess the ability to time travel, so it forces diseased parts out.”
“So what happens to the people in their own time stream?”
Aaron spoke. “They wake up missing vital pieces of themselves. Most are dead. Some are missing limbs.”
“All are confused as hell,” I quipped. If I woke up without a leg, I know I’d wonder if someone had slipped me a mickey the night before.
“Penelope,” my father rebuked, unamused.
“How is this our problem?” Watson asked, staring daggers at the man who once tried to kill me.
“It isn’t,” he said. “But I know when I’m outgunned and outclassed. I need to retrieve what’s left and bring down the people who took it.”
Something occurred to me. “Why not just approach the company and let them know the effects of the serum?”
“I have. They refuse to speak with me even though I’m the creator.”
Silence fell in the room as Aaron realized his enormous gaffe.
My father let it go. For now, at least. I, on the other hand, itched for my gun.
“And the person who stole it?” my father asked after an awkward moment.
“Gone as soon as the money was in her hands. We’ve found no trace of her for a while. We believe she did not sell the serum in its entirety. We think she sold a portion to a company that has a local headquarters but does most of its business overseas. We assume the rest of it is still with her.”
“Why would she sell only a portion of the serum if her goal was to only make money?” I wondered aloud. “Does this person have the capability to alter it?”
“We only hire the highest caliber scientists and lab techs. The person who stole it has wide-reaching capabilities, so…yes. She would have had the means to alter it. Although, why she would, I’m not sure.” Aaron stood and paced around the room. “Also, we don’t know if her only goal was profit. Based upon this, we have to believe it isn’t.”
> “So what’s the goal?” Masters asked.
I startled, forgetting the quiet man was in the room with us.
Aaron shrugged. “I can only assume she’s trying to perfect the serum. If she does that, perhaps the goal would be mass distribution, then profit.”
“Perfect it how?” I asked. “To heal or to steal our time traveling abilities?”
My father stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. “Brilliant,” he murmured. “Bloody brilliant deduction.” He offered me one of his rare, maniacal grins. “My first thought would be to perfect it to destroy the pharmaceutical market. If no one was ill, then no one would need medications…” his voice trailed off. “It would decimate the market. No hospitals, no hospice, no doctors or nurses or medical schools…”
“But if the true key she searched for was to crack time travel, the money would be astronomical,” Watson said.
Aaron, already pale after his near death experience at my hands, grew even whiter. “It would become a cottage industry.”
“And a devastating one,” Masters remarked. He was unable to travel through time naturally, but could through the use of a tool called a DAR, a Dimensional Atom Relocator. Since we’d taken him from Lila, he’d come to understand the mission of the Time Wardens. We were here to ensure time flowed smoothly and that no one corrupted any of the timelines. My father was, for the most part, a silent observer, taking action to change the course of history only when he saw the consequences would be devastating by not doing so. I had no experience in this and had never participated in a true mission. I’d been here to train and work for my father as a warden until we’d all realized someone was coming after us for the immortality serum. To steal it, Aaron had tricked me into believing I was working toward keeping the timelines safe, only to leave me drugged and wounded in my father’s driveway.