by Pintip Dunn
Huh? I sneak a glance at Tanner, and his raised eyebrows mirror mine.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “We have to travel to the past. That’s the entire mission.”
“You have to complete the mission, true.” Mikey taps on the wall screen, and the equations disappear. “But it is vitally important that you leave as little a trail as possible. One flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. The killing of a single moth in the prehistoric era can set the world on an entirely different trajectory. A single action, no matter how small, may cause ripples that extend far into the future.”
He takes a deep breath. “Our world developed the way it did because of the events in our past. Change one of those events, and you’ll change our present. Now, most of these ripples are minor. They’ll fade away long before they reach our time. But certain events are so big, so determinative of our world now, that changing them could alter everything.”
His gaze pierces me, and my heart flutters. Clearly, he’s trying to tell me something with life-or-death importance.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” he continues, when neither Tanner nor I respond. “Do not try to save Callie. Do not try to prevent her from injecting herself. It happened. And because it happened, this is the world we live in. These are the children that populate that world.”
As if on cue, Remi starts wailing, her tiny fists pummeling the air. Angela rushes over and lifts the baby to her shoulder.
Mikey spreads his palm across his daughter’s back. “Do you understand what I’m saying? When you return to the past, you will be tempted to save Callie. You must resist. Her action was huge; she changed our entire world. If you try to change it back, if you try to stop her from stabbing the syringe into her heart, you will erase the lives of all the children who were born in the last ten years. You will risk Remi’s very existence.”
Angela gasps. “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Jessa? You wouldn’t take Remi away from me, even if it meant you could save Callie. Right?”
I look at the baby on her shoulder. At the chubby cheeks, the perfectly formed lips parted in an O. I reach for her, and Angela slowly hands her over, as though she’s loath to part with her daughter. Especially now.
The second the warm, delicious weight of Remi settles against my chest, the moment I feel her silken-flower skin, the instant I smell that clean baby-fresh scent, I know. This life is precious. It is exquisite and unique. As are the lives of the millions of other children born in the last decade. I’m not at all interested in extinguishing those lives. I’m not remotely similar to Chairwoman Dresden. I will never, ever be her assistant.
If I had any doubts, they’re erased right here in this moment.
“You have my word, Angela.” I brush my chin against the soft down on the baby’s head. “I would travel to the end of time to keep her safe.”
“Thank you,” Angela whispers. I pass the baby back to her, and for a moment, all four of us watch Remi sleep. The most uneventful pastime in the world—but somehow the most meaningful.
Angela lays Remi back in her cradle and shuffles to the holo-doc. “Now get your butt over here and memorize this blueprint.”
42
Twenty-four hours later, the air whispers across the nape of my neck. My robe is cinched tightly around my waist. I’ve gone over the events of that ill-fated day so many times I’ve got the entire schedule memorized down to the minute.
Logan’s been telling me stories for years about what happened on Callie’s last day. But I had to be sure. I couldn’t leave anything to guesswork. So I holo-called Logan and asked him to run down the day’s events again, making up some story about how I wanted to memorialize the day in my journal.
I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Besides, I’m used to going on adventures. Sure, this will be the first time my escapade takes me across time. The first time I’m without my usual sidekick, Ryder. But this is nothing new for me. In fact, you could say all my other exploits were just a preparation for this one.
Doesn’t mean my heart’s not trying to race out of my chest.
“Relax, Jessa,” Tanner says. He’s wearing a similar robe, and I can see his bare collarbone. “Preston says it’s more difficult to push a stressed body through time.”
I roll my eyes. I was there, right along with Tanner, when my dad gave us those instructions. In fact, that’s precisely why we’re waiting in the mudroom. My dad doesn’t want us to go into the living area of the cabin, where the time machine is located, until the very last moment. Something about not wanting to elevate our heart rates.
Too late.
I press my hand against my chest. “Gee, thanks for the reminder. Have any brilliant ideas on how to make me more relaxed?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He shifts closer, his eyes as bright as solar flares.
I can’t help it. My mind knows I’m mad at him, but my body automatically leans closer, too.
“You’re freaking out about us seeing each other naked for the first time,” he says, his tone placid and reasonable. “So I say we go ahead and take off our clothes, in the privacy of this room. Without your parents looking on. Without something as heavy as a mission hanging over us. Then you won’t have anything to be nervous about. Am I right?”
I blink. He can’t possibly be serious.
He puts his hand on the knot of his belt and begins to loosen it.
Oh. Dear. Fates. He is serious.
“Wait,” I screech, lunging over to him and holding his robe closed. “That won’t make me feel better at all.”
“It would make me feel better,” he whispers.
My hands are on his chest, so I can feel his heart sprinting. In a race, it would rival mine. His lips are inches away. If required, I could reproduce their shape on a holo-screen. His hot breath mixes with mine, and if I lean forward just a little bit, we’d be kissing.
“Will you ever forgive me, Jessa?” Tanner asks, breaking the spell. Bringing me back to myself. “I messed up. I failed to see the bigger picture.” He moves his shoulders, as helpless as the little boy who lives inside him, the one who lost his parents and was raised by an institution. “I was doing the only thing I knew. The only thing I was taught. Everything for the sake of science. Progress is life, and life is progress. That motto was hardwired into me when I was a kid, and so, I invented future memory without thinking about the consequences. Without thinking about your sister or the future. I know better now, and I’m sorry.”
I take a breath and slowly release it. A part of me weakens, that soft underbelly of my soul that has yet to be scarred by tragedy. That part wants to hold him tight because we’re in this life together, this sucky, sucky life where people die and the chairwoman rules.
Tell him you forgive him, that voice inside me pleads. You’re about to leave on a highly dangerous trip through time. Hasn’t your father’s example taught you anything? You may never get this chance again. Tell him now.
I let go of his robe and take a step back, gathering my courage. “I…forgive you. I believe you couldn’t have known. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. But you did, and that means we can’t pretend it never happened. We can’t go back to before.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” he says softly. “Our mistakes are as much a part of our lives as anything else. We have to embrace them, to learn from them in order to grow. I don’t want to go back, but I’d like to start over. Could you give me another chance? Pretend we’re just now meeting each other? I promise I’ll be less obnoxious this time around.”
I look at him, this boy who’s been in my class but whom I really didn’t know for years. He infuriated me from our first conversation at the hoverpark. And yet, with each passing day, he peeled away the layers of his confidence and arrogance, bit by bit, to show me his true heart. Would I forget everything I’ve seen just because he made a mistake? In a world where we can’t change our past without significant consequences, would I throw away our future?
<
br /> Fike, I’ve made mistakes, too. Just ask my mom. And yet, she continues to love me.
I take a deep breath. “I’ll try,” I say. That’s the very best I can give him at this moment.
43
A rail suspended from the ceiling runs down the center of the living area. A thick metal arch hangs from one end of the rail, nearly as wide as the room. On the other end, my dad stands in front of a computer terminal, his hands dancing over a keyball, while my mother reviews a holo-doc of her notes. In the center of the room is a glass platform with two sets of footprints imprinted on the surface.
That’s where Tanner and I are supposed to stand.
Sweat breaks out along my hairline, and I tug at the neck of my robe, trying to get a little air circulation. And my heart rate? Just as Preston predicted, it’s climbing off the charts.
“How, uh…how exactly does this time machine work?” I ask.
Preston looks up, two parallel lines creasing his brow. “What do you know about the Einstein-Rosen bridge?”
I exchange a shrug with my mom, the other non-scientist in the room. “Nothing? Lovely name, though.”
“Wormholes,” my dad says patiently. “What do you know about the physics of wormholes?”
“Are they a kind of tunnel?” I wrinkle my forehead, trying to remember the cartoon drawings from my intro-level physics class. “If space were a two-dimensional surface, the entry point would be a hole, which leads to a three-dimensional tube emerging at a different hole along the flat surface. Except every dimension is increased by one.” I try and once again fail to wrap my mind around the concept. “That’s where the teacher lost me.”
“That’s the gist of it.” He presses a button on the terminal, and the time machine comes to life. The arch moves forward a few inches, clanking and groaning against the rails. “When the arch passes over you, it will send you down a wormhole that will allow you to emerge in a different time. The anchor—in this case, your mother—ensures that you will surface at the right location and moment. So long as you and Tanner are touching, she’ll serve as his anchor, too.”
As if to demonstrate, the arch continues to creak forward, and a loud whir fills the room.
Preston raises his voice. “I know that’s a simplistic explanation. I know you’re capable of understanding more. But the machine’s warming up, and I need you and Tanner in your places.” Hesitantly, he lays a hand on my arm. “Maybe, when you get back, I can walk you through the details. What do you say?”
I meet his eyes and know he’s asking for more than a rain check. Implicit in his question is the promise that I’ll come back. The promise that he’ll still be here. And the fervent hope that this is the beginning—and not the end—of our father-daughter bond.
I leap into his arms for a hug he’s clearly not expecting, and after a moment, he wraps his arms around me tightly, so tightly, as though he never wants to let me go. “I never knew you were born,” he says, and I almost can’t hear him above the increasingly loud noise of the machine. “But that doesn’t make you any less my daughter. Sometimes, the biggest holes in our lives are the ones we aren’t aware of. Come back to us, Jessa.”
He releases me, and my mother’s next. She grabs my hands, and hers are clammy and cold. “Dear heart, I know you love your sister. I know you want to save her at all costs. But please, if the choice comes down to it…save yourself.”
“But Callie’s the good one. The one who deserved to live.” An ache rises from my throat to the backs of my eyes. “She’s the one we all wished had survived.”
“What?” Her eyes, her mouth, her face go rigid with shock. “Jessa, what are you saying? How could you believe that?”
“I’ve always believed that.”
“No, Jessa. No. You’re so wrong. Or maybe I’m the one who was wrong.” She pulls me into an embrace, her hands gripping my back. Something hot and wet drips onto my shoulders. Tears. She’s crying. Over me?
She leans back, and her eyes are devastated, but her jaw is clenched. “Now you listen, and you listen carefully,” she says fiercely. “I don’t know what I did to give you that idea, but I have never felt that way. Not for one second. Do you hear me? You are just as worthy, just as loved as Callie. The two of you are twins, but the only thing identical about you is my love for you.”
I blink. And blink. And blink. “It’s almost worth going on this mission just to hear you say that.”
She breaks down then, sobbing on my shoulder. “Then I should’ve said it sooner. I’m so sorry, dear heart. So sorry.”
I wrap my arms around her, and we stand like that for an endless moment. Making up for all the hugs we didn’t share in the last decade. My father approaches and embraces us both. I look at him over my mom’s shoulders, and his eyes are wet.
“I’m sorry, too,” he says hoarsely. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me.”
I sniff. “I was fine, Dad.”
“That’s when a girl needs her father the most. When she doesn’t even know it.”
And then, the time machine emits a particularly loud groan, and we break apart. I glance up to find Tanner watching us, his eyes wistful, his smile sad. With a pang, I realize no one’s here to see him off. I have both my parents, and he has nobody. And hasn’t for a very long time.
My heart squeezes. I can do more than just try, damn it. I can show him I’m here for him, even if it’s for only this moment. Leaving my parents, I walk to him and offer my hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to yesterday.”
He stares at me, his mouth closed. He may have already said everything that needs to be said. But I haven’t.
“Whatever happens…I do want to start over,” I say. “I don’t want a single mistake to erase the future. So…my name is Jessa. And I would very much like to go to the past with you.”
There’s more—so much more—in my head, in my heart. But those feelings have yet to coalesce into words, and I’m not ready to share my half-formed thoughts.
“My name’s Tanner. And I would go anywhere with you. You just have to say the word.” He takes my hand, and the contact is both jarring and familiar. I simultaneously feel like I’ve entered foreign territory—and have come home.
We walk to the platform and stand on the footprints. We keep our hands intertwined and face each other. Already, I can feel the zip-pull-prick of the currents flowing around us.
“Looking good, you two.” Preston takes his position behind the keyball, and my mother puts on a helmet made of thin metal strips and slips under the doughnut screen. She injects a black chip into the terminal. In a moment, the memory she recorded of that fateful day will play across the screen, and she’ll remember as hard as she can.
“On my count,” my dad says. “Three…”
Letting go of Tanner’s hand, I slide the robe off my shoulders. It falls to the platform, and cool air swirls around my naked breasts and stomach. Tanner mimics my movements. Despite his earlier joking, he looks directly, unwaveringly into my eyes. We join hands once more.
“Two…”
The currents nipping at my skin pick up speed and whirl wildly around us. I feel like we’re inside a tornado, but there’s no physical force. The vibrations skim along my skin, invisible gossamer threads that circle my legs, covering them, before moving up my torso, my neck, my mouth. I stare into Tanner’s startled eyes, but I can no longer talk. The threads creep up our faces, and I can no longer see or smell.
“One…”
There’s an impossible ringing in my ears. My body shoots out of itself, as though the molecular cells are trying to outrun their container.
And then…nothing.
44
My senses slowly return one by one. I feel the cool tile under my feet. Smell the burned remains of dinner left too long in the Meal Assembler. Hear the low, constant hum of com units before they went noiseless. Taste the sharp, acrid flavor of fear.
I open my eyes and see Tanner. Dark hair, bright eyes. Broad shoulders and well-de
fined pecs. Smooth, nicely muscled…and naked.
I jerk up my eyes before I can look any lower.
Oh Fates. That means I’m naked, too. Yanking my hand out of his, I glance around wildly and snatch up an afghan hanging over the back of a recliner. My mother’s recliner. The same water-filled chair on which I rock on the nights I’ve been invited to dinner. Except…there’s no scratch on the center cushion.
I wrap the blanket around myself and take stock of the room. It looks just like my mom’s living area, with a few small differences. There’s only one wall screen instead of four, and it is smooth and whole, minus the chink in the corner from the lobster cracker that flew out of my hands last Return’s Day. The revolving photo frame cycles through images of Callie and my six-year-old self, and the floor is regular old linoleum tile. My mom didn’t upgrade to the pressure-sensitive flooring until I was fourteen.
“So it worked?” I lick my dry lips. “Are we in the past?”
“One way to find out.” Tanner wanders to the computer terminal next to the wall screen, completely unselfconscious with his nudity.
I flush and train my eyes on the ceiling. I’m not going to look. It would be the height of hypocrisy when I asked him to promise not to look. There’s no way I’m going to—
I look. Just a tiny peek, really. Enough to see his very fine and very bare bottom.
I grab another blanket, march across the room, and hold it out. “Could you please cover yourself?”
His lips quirk. “That’s kind of you to offer. But I’m perfectly comfortable—”
“Just take it!” I squawk.
The smile widens, and he rolls into the blanket. Which brings him inches away from me. Damn the Fates. He’s covered up, all right, but now he’s standing in very close proximity. Naked. With nothing between us but a few loops of yarn.
His eyes flicker down—and I know he can’t see anything. I know that. But heat zips along my body, filling every cell and pore until I’m pretty sure even my toes are blushing.