And Kirin had only to Travel into the past to get beyond the reach of whatever authorities might be seeking justice for Harold.
Sam knew she had been given the responsibility for stopping Kirin. The woman had murdered Harold, and Sam was a witness, the only witness to the evil act, the only one who knew. More than that she understood the further crimes Kirin could commit with Harold’s device and the access it gave to Travel throughout history. Clearly the woman was without the conscience which would prevent her from doing terrible things. Sam was the only person who was in a position to stop that.
So she kept running, trying to ignore the pain and the fear, to avoid thinking about the extra damage she was doing to her ankle. But she failed.
Sam felt the tears welling up again even as she ran. Not for Harold this time, or even for the pain, though she could blame that if she wanted. No, she cried because she was destroying herself.
Sam had always been able to run like the wind, ever since she was a little girl, and it made her feel alive and free. Now she was likely doing permanent and irreparable injury to her ankle. She might not run again. She’d be fortunate if she could still walk properly after this, and she couldn’t imagine being that person. It wouldn’t be her.
She turned her tears into flight, increasing her speed as she stoked the fire of anger burning in her belly. Even so she could tell she was losing ground to Kirin. The woman would be checking her watch, so Sam didn’t have to worry about slowing down to check her own in order to know whether or not she was still in range. She focused on her quarry.
She also needed to pay attention to the people and objects in her path. People tended to get out of Kirin’s way, but they ignored small Samantha and forced her to weave around them. That slowed her down almost as much as her ankle.
Sam ran down one painfully long block, then a short one, and by the time she had crossed the next intersection, the distance between herself and Kirin had lengthened considerably.
Sam estimated that she might’ve already fallen out of range. She tried to pour on more speed, but her ankle refused to comply—it wasn’t just the pain she was fighting, her foot wasn’t working right. She found herself slowing down.
She struggled forward, but all the willpower she could pour into her legs failed to transfer into faster movement. Soon she would likely catapult herself into the pavement.
With the tears flowing freely now, Sam looked into the distance where she saw Kirin crossing over to the entrance into a massive park in the middle of the city. The woman almost danced up some stairs, even wearing those heels, and it almost made Sam want to cry. She had failed.
Kirin turned at the top of those stairs and gazed behind her, searching. Sam was too far away to see the woman’s eyes, but she felt them connect, and it seemed they were staring right into each other. She knew when the other woman glanced down at her locator. Sam didn’t need to check her own to know she was well outside the range of the Travel field.
She could sense Kirin’s smile of triumph as the woman fiddled with the watch, Harold’s device, so she could Travel—away from Sam and away from justice.
Sam stopped fighting the tears then, and her eyes flooded. The whole world blurred through the water. And then it vanished.
Chapter 4
The Former Farmer’s Tale
June 30th, 2000 Midtown Manhattan
ANYA felt like a mother duck leading her children across the street. Turner would be the more mature since he followed her lead as she took them into the park. Nye came straggling after.
Now that the girl had her coffee she’d returned to mooning after her colleague. She didn’t seem to be obsessed—she appeared to enjoy ogling the man as a pastime. If it kept her from straying from their little flock, so much the better.
Both of Anya’s helpers had begun a barrage of questions as soon as they’d left the oppressive office building and returned to the open, if unhealthy, air. She had cut them short. Discussion of their myriad problems could wait until they had found the other Travelers, then they could all talk it over.
Of course Turner went quiet. Nye clearly wanted to continue pestering Anya about what they were going to do, but the girl was too busy trying to drink her coffee and keep up with Turner’s long strides at the same time to press the issue.
Anya herself focused on following the directions indicated by her locator because she wanted to find the other teams as soon as possible. It also kept her from thinking too much about what had happened to John. An added benefit. And gathering the rest of the her brood was paramount.
Anya had hustled down block after block along the busy morning sidewalks with only the barest of glances for potential hazards. She had no attention to spare on seeing the sights. When her watch led to the giant park in the middle of the city though, she decided to enjoy it.
So she entered the park with her ducklings trailing, then began gazing back and forth between the lush surroundings and her locator screen. She was startled when she glanced down and saw the red bar had been replaced by a white blip. She lifted up her head and looked into the distance and saw a fellow Traveler—who had raised his own head in a similar fashion and was staring at her. Wait. Was there no more red bar?
She was distracted by Nye piping up from behind. “I know there were references to this ‘Central Park’ but I never expected it would be so big. By the time—”
Anya glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure we’ll discover a lot of what we thought we knew was wrong. But please save the discourse for later. We’ve found Tate.” Or he’s found us.
She turned back to try to see her friend’s face as she strode toward him down the cement walkway. Dear Tate. The tears wanted to well up again, this time in joy. She had lost John, but this farmer also held a special place in her heart.
Like her, he’d given up his life and his former career in order to work on this project—despite the fact they were both too old for all this gallivanting around. She dashed ahead to speed their reunion, trusting Turner and Nye would catch up.
Tate kept walking at the same steady pace, continuing to check his watch even though he could see her rushing at him. Good old Tate. His sunburned face smiled at her when he was looking up.
“Tate!” His broad, weathered face was surely a sight for sore eyes. Anya reached him and grabbed his large, calloused hands with relief.
Tate took her hands in his. “Professor Anya.”
She frowned. “Call me ‘Leader’. John was the only true professor.” His death was too raw and her title too new. She hadn’t felt as if she’d earned the upgrade and doubted she ever would.
“Was?” Tate’s smile slowly faded.
Anya’s own face fell. “When we came through, the professor landed in the middle of the street. He never even had the time to realize—”
“Then consider that a blessing.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Trust Tate to see right to the heart of things. People tended to think he was slow, and he was in a way, but he tended to know right off the important things. “And his device was smashed in the accident. I haven’t had time to look closely, but I suspect it’s beyond any hope of repair.”
Tate’s smile returned. “Well, I trust you’ll work something out.”
His eyes drifted over her shoulder and she assumed her helpers had caught up. “Before we worry about solving any of the other problems we need to hurry up and find the rest.”
Anya checked her locator screen and frowned at what she saw. She could feel the other three staring at her. Her brain must have frozen over for her to just stand there like a statue.
Nye was the first to pipe up. “What is it?” She’d finished her coffee now, and Anya wouldn’t be able to keep her quiet or put off answering questions.
“I’m not sure.” Anya hesitated to speculate out loud. She lifted her head and took a good long look around. She spotted an empty table and benches in the distance and nodded in that direction. “Let’s sit down and relax while w
e talk.”
Tate followed her gesture. “I would appreciate giving these feet a rest.”
He and Anya walked to the table with Nye and Turner following. When all four had sat, the three helpers turned their waiting eyes on Anya, but she didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Their watches would be no help while she was anywhere near, so she scrutinized her own for a long, drawn out moment, thinking.
“My locator app isn’t showing anything.” Anya corrected herself immediately. “I mean, you three are all showing up as blips right in the center. But a red bar should be blinking to show the direction of the nearest Traveler outside the range of the field. But there’s nothing.”
Nye looked clueless and confused. Turner was thoughtful. Tate frowned at the ground and cleared his throat before he lifted his eyes to meet Anya’s.
“I think maybe you should hear my story.” Tate shook his head. “I don’t understand it myself, but it might explain some things.”
Anya gave him an encouraging smile.
Tate glanced at the other two to include them in his tale. “When I arrived and couldn’t see any of the rest of my team, I started searching for Page.”
Anya nodded. Tate would’ve been most conscientious about tracking down his leader. “Bailey and Page should’ve arrived close to you. Closer than the rest of us anyway.” She cast a narrow glance at her two helpers. “Using your device to home in on your team leader right away. Exactly what you should’ve done. Quite proper.” She looked back to Tate. “But couldn’t you find Page?”
“No.” Tate frowned. “I got a direction on her. At least that’s what I assumed. And I was following the trail.”
Anya assumed he’d followed it at a slow, steady pace. “Go on.”
“Well, I was keeping a close eye on the screen and then all of a sudden the direction changed.”
“Yes, when you get close then—”
But Tate was shaking his head. “It went from north to west. I stood and stared at it for a while, and then it went back to pointing north.”
“Perhaps if another leader, and I mean Harold since it wasn’t me, happened to be close enough—” Anya paused. “And if Page were moving away from you, that might account for it.” She shrugged. “The locator apps on your helper devices were meant to lock onto whatever leader device is in closest physical proximity. So it might’ve switched between the two of them if the conditions were right. Was Harold anywhere around?”
Tate scratched his head. “I think I understand what you’re saying. But if Harold was there I didn’t see him.”
“Even so, it’s the only explanation I can think of that makes sense.” Anya smiled. “I’m sorry. I need to let you get on with your story.”
“No apology necessary, Leader.” Tate frowned down at the surface of the table. “So I started heading north again, but it wasn’t long before it switched to the south. I waited for a while, but when it stayed that way I turned around. I followed the directions and eventually my watch brought me into the park and straight to you.”
Anya adjusted her long skirt on the bench and sat thinking things through again. They’d all gone through the orientation. Even if they’d paid attention though, none of them were as familiar with the devices as she was—how they were to be operated, and how they’d been programmed.
She made eye contact with each one of the helpers in turn. “I’ll take this one piece at a time but I’ll start with the only logical conclusion based on what we do know.” She sighed and lifted her eyes to the sky. “Everyone but the four of us sitting here must have already Traveled away.”
Nye piped up immediately. “What? How could they even do that so soon after we’d arrived. There’s a twenty-four hour limit isn’t there?”
Turner followed with his own question. “Leaving is what they were supposed to do, wasn’t it?”
Anya shook her head. “We did plan to split up eventually, yes—that’s why the leader devices even have a limited Travel capacity. But first the professor was going to help us get accustomed to this time period.”
She laid her hands flat on the table and turned to Nye. “And twenty-four hours is the maximum amount of time it might take for a leader device to recharge before it can be used for Traveling, but we came through the field generated by the professor’s. Only a minimal amount of power from our individual devices would have been depleted.”
Tate frowned. “But Harold and Page both must have noticed how we were all separated on arrival. They should have waited.” His face made it clear he couldn’t understand why his leader had left without him. “Why didn’t they wait?”
Anya sighed. “We can only speculate. But Page is flighty enough that she might have Traveled without making sure you were in range. I hope Bailey at least is with her, because she really needs a helper.” Anya closed her eyes. “I’m surprised about Harold though, but he can be a pushover. Kirin or Sam or both might’ve prodded him into leaving early. And he must have taken them both along, since they’re no longer here.”
Nye was still energized. “Well, how do we find them then?”
“We don’t. There’s no way we can track them through time.” Not without the professor’s device. “And it would be foolish to try and chase them down blind. They’ll have to find us.” And what are the odds of that?
Tate was watching Anya think. “So what do we do now? Leader.”
She gave them a weak smile. “We’ve got three challenges. The most important must be bringing the others back somehow. They won’t know about the professor’s death or the destruction of his device. So when he fails to show up and check on their progress, they’ll have to realize something is wrong. And try to find out what. So, since we can’t really go searching for them, maybe we can leave them some breadcrumbs to follow, to catch up to us where we’ll be going.”
Turner frowned. “Follow? Catch up? Where do we go? Wouldn’t it be better to just stay where we are? Make it easier for them to find us?”
“Probably.” Anya removed her hands from the table and folded them in her lap. “But how long do we wait? Because we have a couple other concerns. One is the research we came to do. The others are surely hard at work doing their research. The four of us could stay right here and do ours, but—”
Nye’s hand shot into the air. “I vote for that.”
Anya ignored her. “Our other problem, which I was getting to—if we can’t get the professor’s device working, how can we return home? I know we just left, and none of you are worried about that yet, but if we don’t start thinking about it now...”
She felt the tears wanting to well up again and pushed them back down. The professor was home now, and she needed to focus on what she had to do. So she continued on. “My device can only Travel up to three years at once. It would take an awful long time for us to get home that way, and that’s ignoring the problem of how we got separated when we came through. So we need a way to shoot three birds with one arrow.”
Turner stood up and stretched his legs, gazing out across the park. “And how do we do that?”
“We’ll have to Travel as a group, but that’s too dangerous here in the city.” As we’ve found out the hard way. “So we find someplace out in the country where we’ll be able to find each other again easily if we get scattered. A home base.”
Nye raised her hand to object. “But there’s so much to learn studying this city.”
Anya waved the girl down. “I’m not suggesting we leave it alone—just that we Travel to and from a more isolated location, a safer one. We can utilize the native transportation to return for research.” If anyone other than Nye wished to come back to this city.
Nye lowered her hand. But it was Turner who’d been asking most of those questions.
Anya shifted off the bench and stood. “I think we should spend some time researching—it is what we came to do. But I propose that we make regular trips into the future. Say a year at a time. In that way, we’d at least be making our way slowly toward home at t
he same time.”
Nye stood as well. “That would be good methodology for our research, too. We can document the changes over discrete periods of time.”
Turner sucked air through his teeth. “I want to know what we’re going to do about the others. The breadcrumbs?”
Anya nodded. “If we have a base of operations, if we’re traveling in regular intervals we’ve decided on before hand, then we can find some way to leave messages for the rest. Telling them where and when they can find us.”
Tate stood and smiled. “I guess you must have practiced with that metaphorical bow and arrow of yours, Leader, to shoot like that.”
They were all on their feet now, looking to Anya. She was their leader, and she’d have to try her best to take care of them, and she imagined it would end up being quite a job. But who else is there?
Anya smoothed her dress and considered for a moment. “Our difficulties are only beginning. I’m just pointing out the only way I can see to start trying to address them all.” She looked to make sure they were each paying close attention. “We’ll have to figure out how to put this plan into action.”
Tate nodded at her. “You don’t have to manage all on your own, you know. We can help make it all work.” He looked at Nye and Turner. “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t each have something to contribute. So let’s put our minds together.”
Anya smiled at Tate. He’d be a real helper, and he was the only one of the three who wasn’t hers—but she thought he understood what she was going through.
“Before we make any decisions, we need to eat. We’ll think better on full stomachs. But before we can eat, we’ll have to go to the bank and get access to our money. First things first, though.”
Anya reached out and grabbed Nye’s hand on her left and Tate took her right. “You’re the former preacher, Turner, why don’t you lead us in prayer?”
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