Rett shot to his feet. “Where’s Bryn?”
“She’s fine.” Wells held up her hands, as if Rett were a spooked animal she needed to corral. “She’s resting now. Everything’s fine. Please calm down.”
“I want out of here.” Rett jerked toward the door. “I want to see Bryn and then we’re leaving.”
Wells stood, smiling at him as she smoothed her lab coat. “That’s fine. But you need to rest first. You’ve been through a lot.” She tapped at her tablet. “I’ll have a medic come back and run some tests to make sure everything’s checking out okay. And then you can go.”
Rett raked his fingers through his short hair. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted to go now.
Wells put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done a huge thing for this program, for this country.”
The country?
She must mean the wasteland—now Scatter can go back in time and make sure the government never carries out its terrible experiment. Is that it? Could they really undo all of that?
“The government was guarding your device,” he told Wells. “In the future—six years from now, in the wasteland.”
The doctor’s face went as pale as her lab coat. “The government?”
“I don’t think they want Scatter to use it to go back in time and prevent them from carrying out their experiment.”
For a moment there was only the sigh of the air in the vent, the rustle of leaves outside the window. Wells turned toward the door. “You should rest. You’re back in your own time now, back where you started.” She brushed her hand over Rett’s head, like his mother used to do ages ago, before he’d gone to Walling, before he’d left Walling and come to Scatter Labs. Rett’s lead-heavy heart lightened a little. “None of those things has happened yet. That’s all in the future and you don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
Everything will get better. Rett could hear his mother promising it in his head.
His mother—
“The money?” he asked.
“Fifty thousand, as promised,” Wells said over her shoulder as she slid a keycard through a slot over the door handle.
Rett went numb with disbelief.
“If there’s anything you need, I’ll make sure you have it,” Dr. Wells said, smiling at Rett as she opened the door. “You’re safe here.” Her face glowed in the sunlight coming through the window, and for a moment, she could have been his mother singing over him to wake him from a dream.
Then she closed the door, and Rett sank onto the bed, weary to his bones. You’re safe here, he told himself, basking in the soft light filtering through the leaves, the quiet hum of the air vent. You’ll have your money, you’ll have everything you need.
His hand brushed a crumpled paper.
He froze, wishing he could forget what was written on the other side. Maybe I imagined it, maybe it wasn’t real.
He turned the paper over.
They’re lying. Don’t trust them.—Bryn
4:39 P.M.
Rett woke to sunlight and stirring leaves. Late afternoon, by the slant of the light. He must have slept for hours.
A plate of food waited on the desk. Rett devoured cheese and crusty rolls and the largest plums he’d ever laid eyes on. An entire pitcher of chilled water vanished next. He was unwrapping a Hershey bar when his gaze fell on Bryn’s note. They’re lying. Don’t trust them.
The food in Rett’s stomach shifted. What does Bryn know that I don’t?
Or …
Wasn’t the truth that Bryn had a hard time trusting anyone? Hadn’t she told him that she felt better off on her own?
Annoyance hummed underneath Rett’s thoughts. What’s so bad about waking up in a nice place with real food and someone to take care of you?
Was he wrong for wanting to be here rather than in Walling’s cold dormitories? Scatter’s nightmare depot?
He plucked the note from the desktop. He needed to put it out of sight. Not for his own peace of mind, but because he worried what Dr. Wells might think if she saw it. Rett would ask her to take him to Bryn, and then he’d find out why Bryn had written the note. The two of them would figure this out together.
He went to the bookshelf, rows of gleaming leather spines that seemed to prove Scatter thought better of him than Walling ever had. He could tuck the note into one of the books, keep it secret.
He tugged on one of the spines to pull the book from the shelf, but it didn’t budge.
He tried another book, but it didn’t budge, either. Tried reaching to the back of the shelf. His fingers jammed against wood.
Fake. They’re all fake. The spines were only thick foam glued to the back of a too-shallow bookcase.
Just then the door clicked open. Rett stuffed Bryn’s note into his pocket as Dr. Wells entered the room.
“Rett? How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” Rett wasn’t sure why he felt guilty, but he turned away from the strange bookshelf. “Where’s Bryn?”
Wells’s smile seemed to say that she was pleased Rett had thought of his partner. “She’s fine. She’s in her room. She said she needed some time to rest. I thought you two wanted to leave together, so I assumed you would stay until she’s ready.”
Rett noticed for the first time a pouch Dr. Wells held at her side. She held it out to him. “As promised.”
Rett took the bulging pouch and slowly unzipped it. His heart stopped.
Inside lay a thick wad of bills.
“You know…” Wells went to the armchair and sat, this time leaning on one chair arm like she wanted to divulge a secret. “There’s more where that came from.”
Rett pressed the pouch of money between his palms, reassured by how solid it felt.
“You and Bryn have achieved something incredible,” Wells said. “There’s so much more you could do for us.”
Rett zipped the pouch shut. “You want us to go back and stop the government from carrying out whatever experiment created that wasteland. Gave my mother cancer.”
“I would like to do that very much. But it isn’t possible.”
Rett’s heart was a stone dropping into deep water.
“Of course we’ve thought about how we could do that, but it wouldn’t work.” Wells folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head to show her regret. “You couldn’t travel back any farther than the time at which the mechanism was implanted in your brain. So our only option at the moment is to look to the future.”
“Then what kind of job do you want me to do?” Rett cradled the pouch of money against his stomach.
Wells leaned toward him, her eyes shining. “With your ability, we can know about disasters before they happen. Prevent the kinds of horrible things that made your mother and all those other people sick. All you would have to do is get the information from the future and then give it to us now.”
“I don’t exactly know how to do that. Last time I ended up in the middle of a wasteland.”
“We need to perfect your technique, that’s all.” She gave him a patient smile. “We could start with something very simple. And if you complete the job, we could give you, say, another fifty thousand.”
Rett’s fingers went numb. He almost dropped the pouch of money.
“Scatter could make sure your mother is well taken care of, you know.”
Rett looked down at the brick of cash in the pouch he held. It really was his after all, enough to make his mother well again. “And if I don’t want to do it?”
Wells gave him a small, sad smile. “Then I give you a code, you say it aloud, and that’s it—your mechanism dies and your work with us is finished.”
“Simple as that?”
She nodded. “You don’t have to decide right now.” She stood and gave her lab coat a brisk tug. “I just came in here because I thought you might want to go to the common room. There are a few new operatives there, and I remember you play a mean game of checkers.”
Rett flushed, and then felt stupid for caring that she knew ab
out his one and only skill in life. Well, maybe not only. His drawing was improving, if the sketches in the desk were any proof.
“Why don’t I remember more about this place?” he asked her.
“It’s understandable, considering you’ve been jumping around in time. It’ll come back to you as you get your bearings.”
Rett felt she must be right. Already, he knew to expect the click of the cooling system turning on, and to avoid the nicks in the desktop if he was going to sketch. Other memories were starting to surface, too, mundane visions of tiled hallways, wooden checkers sets, padded chairs.
And then, as if those few memories had opened a gate in his mind, more rushed through: The director of Walling calling him into his office, telling him about an “exciting opportunity with a company named Scatter.” The surgery he’d undergone—the hospital bed, the bank of lights, the smell of antiseptic. Coming to live at Scatter Labs. Recovering in this very room, waiting for the day Scatter would call on him to use the mechanism in his head to force his consciousness into a time in his own future. Time travel, Rett thought, awestruck.
Wells held the door open, waiting for Rett to walk through. He shut the pouch of money in a desk drawer and then gave Wells an uncertain look.
“No one else will come in here,” she assured him. “It’s safe.”
He followed her into a tiled hallway. White walls and heavy doors guarded by keypads. Is Bryn behind one of these doors?
A single poster interrupted the white expanse of a long wall. It showed proposals for three identical, humped buildings.
Scatter 3. Rett stared at the label, startled by its familiarity. Three different depots, planned for construction. Three shelters to house the workers Scatter planned to send to the wasteland to collect meteorites so they could use the alloy to build their device.
A device that doesn’t exist yet, that will exist in the future, just like these depots.
He fought a wave of dizziness.
“Rett?” Wells put a steadying hand on his arm.
“That’s where I was,” Rett said, pointing at the depot in the poster. “It’s some kind of shelter for workers collecting meteorites. For Scatter.”
He watched her reaction, wondering if she would lie to him about the danger Scatter had put its workers in.
But she only nodded, her face smooth and calm as ever. “The meteorites have been there for some time, but we recently discovered that they’re traced with a rare alloy that’s hard to re-create in a lab. We’re still experimenting with making our own version of the alloy, but so far it’s proven unstable. We hope there are enough meteorites to provide us with the metals we need to create the device you found in the future.”
“If you find a way to make the alloy in your labs, you won’t need the meteorites? No one would have go into the wasteland?” And I won’t end up in your depot in six years.
Wells pursed her lips. Her gaze flicked toward the end of the hallway. “The truth is, the future echoes into the past. If we were going to find a way to replicate this alloy in the future, you wouldn’t have seen the depot six years from now. There wouldn’t be a depot.”
“So … that proves that the meteorites are the only source for the metal you need?”
The look in her eyes changed from intrigue to pity as she realized why he wanted to know. “I said before that the future isn’t set in stone. We can’t be sure exactly what will happen, can we? If you decide to stay here, I can promise you that I’ll do everything I can to make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
She waited until Rett gave her a reluctant smile and then steered him down the hallway. At the last door, she said, “I’ll be back to check on you.”
The common room was like Walling’s rec room but without the holes in the walls or stains on the furniture or busted lights sending the place into gloom. Basically, nothing at all like Walling. Gleaming leather couches clustered around a television, where a couple of teens in jumpsuits watched a show with a roaring laugh track. Arcade games lined another wall, and a pool table hunkered in a corner. Rett realized he already knew where he could find the checkers set (underneath the table along the far wall) and which movies he could play on the TV (mostly comedies and patriotic thrillers). He felt he’d spent hours slumped on the couches and scratching up the pool table. He even remembered that he could get snacks delivered if he asked—
—the guard standing next to the door.
It’s not going to be easy to duck out of here to find Bryn.
Dr. Wells had already left, so at least Rett only had one person to shake off. “I have to use the bathroom,” he tried.
“Over there.” The guard pointed to a door next to the pool table.
Rett had been hoping he’d need to go out of the common room to get to the bathroom, but it looked like he wasn’t allowed anywhere without a guard.
When he came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he didn’t even notice the guard still blocking the door to the hallway—his attention was locked on the girl sitting in an armchair facing the TV.
“Bryn?” He lurched toward her, but when the girl turned, Rett realized he didn’t know her.
“Who are you?” she asked, her dark eyes full of uncertainty. “I’m new.” She gestured at the line of stitches showing through her cropped hair, then shrank down in her chair as if embarrassed by the wound.
“I’m Rett.” He turned his head so she could see his scar. “Don’t worry, it gets better. Mine’s actually kind of cool. I swear it plays music when no one’s around.”
The girl’s mouth quirked. “They did say the mechanism they put in my brain is like an antenna.”
“I just wish I could switch channels. There’s only so much country music one guy can take.”
Another form stirred on the couch nearby, a boy not much younger than Rett who angled to shoot him a sharp look for interrupting the TV show.
“Do either of you know a girl named Bryn?” Rett asked as the boy slumped back down on the couch.
“We’re new,” the boy mumbled, sipping from a can of root beer, “like she said.”
“Who’s Bryn?” the girl asked.
“She’s…” Rett wasn’t sure how to explain it. The girl I was trapped in a wasteland with. The girl who helped me escape. But if he were going to give her the full picture, he’d have to tell her that ever since he had woken up in this place, something had lodged itself in his chest, something that blossomed into pain whenever he thought about Bryn locked away somewhere he couldn’t get to her. He settled for, “She’s my partner.”
The girl gave him a pitying look. “I heard they keep synced pairs separate after the first week or so.”
The boy on the couch stuck his head up to say, “I wouldn’t mind that. Maybe I could watch my show in peace.”
“Why would they do that?” Rett asked the girl. A familiar pain throbbed behind his eyes.
“You’re supposed to report on each other. So Scatter knows you’re completing the jobs they give you, the right way.”
The throb turned into a drumbeat.
The girl pulled her knees to her chest. “But don’t you think it’d be better if they let you be friends? If you had a connection to each other, maybe you could help each other more.”
“They only need one person to do the job,” the boy said from the couch. “The other person’s just a backup in case something happens to the first.” He gulped root beer while Rett tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his own stomach.
I need to find Bryn.
He glanced at the guard, whose gaze was fixed on the TV. Rett moved to where the guard wouldn’t see him, and then shot a hand out and knocked the can of root beer from the boy’s grasp.
“Hey!” The boy sprang up from the couch. “What the—”
Rett kicked the boy’s ankle. The boy tumbled to the floor. Rett hesitated, horrified by what he had done. I have to get out of here. “Something’s wrong,” Rett shouted to the guard. “I think he’s having a seizu
re.”
The guard spoke into his radio as he hurried to the boy’s side. Rett didn’t wait for whatever was coming next—he bolted into the hallway.
He ran past locked doors until he found an opening to duck into. Three men in black uniforms and matching black caps sat at the desk, glancing between monitors and a television tuned to a news channel.
Great, I found the security office.
The men had their attention focused on the screens, but if they turned around, they’d see Rett standing there. He inched backward, grateful for the blaring news program.
“The president-elect has promised to honor the treaty that his former opponent argued placed too many limits on imports of rare earths, or metals, into the country. The announcement comes as the treaty falls under new scrutiny…”
A blast of radio static made Rett jump back. One of the uniformed men turned from the monitors to speak into his radio, and Rett scurried around a corner, out of sight.
“Nothing on the monitors,” the man said into his radio. “I’ll do a visual now.”
Another door opened and Rett ducked, trapped in the hallway with nowhere to hide. But the man who came through the door was in too much of a hurry to notice him. He went running down the hallway in the other direction, lab coat flying behind him. Rett shot toward the door he’d just exited before the latch could close, and pushed it open to slip through.
Electrical components lay strewn over every surface of the room. Rett hunted through wires and metal casings, searching for a stray keycard that would let him into the rooms that lined the hallway. Bryn’s got to be in one of those rooms.
His hand bumped a terrarium on the cabinet top. Inside, fat black beetles lumbered over strips of bark, their jagged mandibles no longer than paper clips. Rett edged away from the glass. He had a feeling he’d dread the sight of bugs for the rest of his life.
He moved to another table, where his gaze lit on a small, familiar box in a nest of wires and screws—a half-finished device, with a tiny bulb in one corner under the word signal. For a moment, the heat of the wasteland beat down on the top of Rett’s head, and dust choked his lungs as he examined the tiny box. It’s the alarm box. The one the government was using to guard Scatter’s time travel device.
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