by Pintip Dunn
No, that can’t be right. I wasn’t here all those years ago. But I was. I am. She said that my future self told her that I would forgive her one day. That time is now, and now is then.
I clutch my forehead. Dear Fates. I’m so confused.
Well, one thing’s for sure. She can’t know how the future will turn out. She’ll try to stop Callie, and little Remi will be as good as gone. Vanished without a trace. As if she never existed.
“You’re the one being silly.” Summoning all of my acting ability, I plaster a smile on my face. “Everything turns out just fine. Look at me. I’m standing right here, aren’t I?”
“Thank the Fates for that. You scared me, dear heart.” Reassured, she moves to her closet and taps a button. The clothes rack begins to rotate, and she grabs her shirts as they pass.
I lick my lips. I have to find the right words for this next part. I have to convince her to stay, or this very moment won’t ever be possible. “It’s just that…you can’t come with us to Harmony tomorrow.”
She grabs a dress that’s about to turn the corner. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m going. You don’t expect me to let my girls go to the wilderness by themselves, do you?”
“Mom.” I grab her shoulders and tug her away from the closet. “You have to trust me. You can’t go to Harmony.”
“Why? Callie can take care of herself, sure. But you’re six years old, Jessa.” She pulls herself to her full height. “You must be mad if you think I’m going to let my six-year-old run away from civilization without her mother.”
I exhale slowly. Maybe if my breaths are even, my words will be, too. “You have to stay exactly where you are because you’re the anchor.”
She blinks. “Is this about your father? Because if it is, you can forget it. I want him to come back as much as anybody. You know that. I love him more than anything in this world. Except for two people. You and Callie.” She lifts her chin. “I’m sorry, but Preston’s just going to have to stay stuck in a different space-time. I will not send my six-year-old to the wilderness with just her sister. And that’s final.”
Heat pricks the backs of my eyes. I didn’t know. I didn’t know she wanted to come with me. I didn’t know she tried this hard.
“It’s not about Dad,” I say hoarsely. “It’s Callie. She’s sick in the future. Really sick. The only way to save her is for me to come back here to this time. She has a condition called Asynchronicity.”
As quickly as possible, and without giving away that she’s been in a coma for the past decade, I explain how Callie’s mind is not in sync with her body. In order for her to find the right time, I continue, I need to plant a seed here in the past, so that we can trigger it in the future.
When I finish, my mom limps to the bed, her dress crumpled in her hands. She stares at the material like she doesn’t recognize it. “Will that actually work?”
I move my shoulders. “It’s the only hope we have.”
She is silent for so long I think she might’ve passed out. But when I peer closer, I see a single tear rolling down her cheek before it plops onto the dress.
“What about you, Jessa?” Her voice is low and anguished, as if her very limbs are being ripped away. “Oh, my baby. Who will take care of you?”
“Callie will,” I lie. I crouch on the floor in front of her, so I can look up into her face. “You know what a good sister she is. These last six years, she’s been like a second mother to me.” I catch her eyes. Time for truth now. The most honest truth I know. “Mom, you have to trust me. If there’s any chance of the three of us being together in the future, any chance at all, then you have to do this. You have to let me go.”
She holds my gaze for a moment and then nods. The dress slips out of her grasp and falls to the floor.
“So you’ll do it?”
“What choice do I have?”
The breath I didn’t realize I was holding rushes out of me. “You can’t tell Callie, okay? Say whatever you have to, but she can’t know you’re staying here to save her in the future. It will mess up everything. Please, Mom. You’ll do that, won’t you?”
“For Callie, and for you, I’ll do anything.” She holds out her arms, and I fly into them. We hug, for the last time in the next six years. I close my eyes. The wool of her sweater scratches my cheek, and the light, fresh scent of vanilla surrounds me. I know I’ll remember this moment forever. No matter what time I’m in.
“Over the next few years, I’m not going to be very nice to you,” I mumble into her neck.
“Oh dear heart, that’s to be expected.”
“It’s not just teenage brattiness, okay? The six-year-old me thought you abandoned me. And she holds it against you. I’m sorry, Mom. So sorry.”
She pulls back, wiping away my tears with her thumbs, even as the moisture springs up in her own eyes. “You don’t have to apologize. What have I always told you? I will always love you, no matter what.”
“Just remember what I said. Please. It’s never too late for love. Over the next few years, when I say terrible things to you. Remember that I don’t know.”
“I will,” she says. “I’ll know in my heart that you love me. Even if you don’t know it at the time.”
46
The building glints in the early morning sun, looking remarkably like the skyscraper of our future. The same tall spirals, the row after row of reflective windows. The only difference is FuMA was bigger and more powerful than TechRA at this time. So, even though it was already shared between the two agencies, everyone called it the FuMA building.
Tanner and I walk nonchalantly to a side door, a lightly trafficked entrance that faces the woods. We’re wearing the navy slacks and white short-sleeve shirts that constitute the FuMA uniforms. He has a mustache attached to his upper lip, and we’re both wearing wigs provided by my mom. Hopefully the disguises will suffice to let us pass as employees.
At this moment, somewhere in this very building, the seventeen-year-old Callie and Logan are walking around, searching for a precognitive to give them answers about the future. It was hard enough for my mom to sneak them in with the laundered sheets, so Tanner and I are on our own.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I whisper, even though we’re the only two people around.
“It should.” Tanner strokes his mustache like it’s a pet. It must tickle or something. He can’t keep his hands away. “My fingerprints have been in the system from the time I was five. Yours were entered a few days ago, when FuMA processed you as a lab subject. It’s the only biometric that doesn’t change in ten years. That’s why we’re at this entrance, where there’s no voice or face recognition.”
I lick my furnace-dry lips. “And you’re sure we have security clearance to enter the building?”
“Your mom checked. Our clearance gives us access to all the upper floors.” He smooths the synthetic hair over his lip again, and I realize he’s nervous, too.
So many things could mess up. The time travel could’ve altered our fingerprints. Or maybe somebody will check the logs and realize that the six-year-old Tanner Callahan and Jessa Stone have no business wandering around the building together. But it’s the best plan we’ve got.
“You go first,” I tell Tanner.
“If anything goes wrong, run to the woods and find Potts’s cabin. He’ll let you hide until it’s safe to go back to the time machine.”
I nod. I don’t know if Potts still lives in his cabin in my present, raising his bloodhounds. But I’ve heard all about him from Logan’s stories.
Tanner squares his shoulders and presses his fingertips on the sensor. Eternal seconds pass, and an awful feeling washes over me. We’ve been here before, with his fingers on a sensor. And it did not end well.
But then, the sensor beeps, and my shoulders droop. At least one of us is in.
Holding my breath, I mimic his movements. One…two…three…four seconds. Beep. Oh, thank the Fates. I lean forward and air-kiss the sensor.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Blushing, I hurry forward. He falls into step beside me, and we travel down the halls, trying to look like we know where we’re going. I thought the building would feel familiar. I thought that I would experience déjà vu or that old memories would flash across my mind. But so much has changed. I see only the skeleton of the TechRA building I know now, and any memory I have is from the future not the past.
A few employees pass us, but they do no more than glance at us as they hurry on their way. Our disguises must be working.
Following the map in my head, I stop at the apex of two hallways, at a window ledge stuffed with potted plants.
I pinch a pointy green leaf between my fingers, and a crisp, woodsy smell fills the air. Logan told me about the plants. The entire building is full of them. People in my time don’t have the same yearning for the natural. Maybe, ten years later, they’re simply accustomed to the metal sculptures.
I point down the corridor on my left. “Logan and Callie should be coming down that hallway in a few minutes. Along with a skipping Olivia.”
Tanner knows the plan, of course. He helped me form it. But it helps me to say the words out loud. To remind myself what I need to do. “A FuMA employee carrying a plant will come around the corner, crash into Olivia, and the pot will go flying. Soil, ceramic pieces, and green stems will fly everywhere.”
My throat works, but there’s nothing to swallow. “That’s my cue. In the middle of the chaos, I’ll walk by and say the jingle—our version of it. Callie might not register it, but her subconscious will. When she hears our version again in the future, she’ll remember.”
At least, we hope. But I don’t say that part out loud. No need to put my pessimism into the universe.
“She’s been primed,” Tanner says. “Your mom confirmed.”
That’s the other part of our plan. This morning, when my mom went to see Callie, she played the correct version of the jingle on her wrist com. If Callie noticed the background music at all, she would’ve just dismissed it as an advertisement from my mom’s newsfeed. But now, her subconscious will be primed to receive a jolt when it hears the tweaked version.
“After they leave us, they’ll go to William’s office. See Olivia’s vision of the genocide. And then, Callie will go see the younger me—and jab herself with the syringe.” Goose bumps erupt on my arms. I shouldn’t be this anxious. These events I am detailing are in the past. They already happened. Yet being in this time means they’ll happen all over again.
“You’re not going to try to stop her, are you?” Tanner asks.
“Of course not. We’ve been over this. I wouldn’t risk Remi.”
He nods slowly. “Keep that in mind when you actually see her.”
At that moment, little Olivia appears at the end of the hallway, her messy braids flying. And then, around the corner comes Logan…and Callie.
At the first sight of my sister, my knees turn to water. I sway forward, and all of my carefully laid plans fly out of my head. She’s here. She’s here, and she’s alive. She looks so young. So much like me.
My muscles bunch; my blood sings. Every nerve in my body urges me to spring forward and tackle her. All I have to do is move, and I can save her. I can keep her alive. She never has to go to William’s office, never has to see that vision of genocide.
She did everything in her power to save me. Shouldn’t I do the same? I can stop all of this. Right here. Right now. I just have to move.
“Think of Remi.” Tanner is suddenly in front of me, gripping my arms. “Sweet baby Remi. She’s innocent, defenseless. Would you rob her of her chance at life?”
I take a shuddering breath, and rationality seeps back in. I can’t do that to Angela. I can’t even do that to myself. I’m not the master of the universe. I don’t get to decide who dies and who lives. Who exists and who vanishes without a trace.
That’s when I understand why my dad suggested that Tanner accompany me. It’s not because he’s a scientist. It’s to stop me from doing something I’ll regret forever.
“Where’s the employee?” His voice interrupts my thoughts. “The one who crashes into Olivia. Shouldn’t he be here by now?”
I look down one hallway. And then the other. He’s right. There’s no sign of anyone.
“Don’t worry, he’ll come,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel. “Mustached man, carrying a plant. He has to. This is the past. It already happened.”
The seconds tick by. Olivia skips farther down the hallway. And still, he doesn’t show up.
Tanner grabs a plant off the window ledge. “Do you think we’re supposed to hand him one of these as he passes?”
I peer down the hallway, and then I look back at Tanner. Down the hall, and then back at Tanner once more.
Tanner, who holds a plant with broad green leaves. Tanner, with his mustache flopping over his mouth like a caterpillar. He looks so much like a FuMA employee. If I didn’t know better, I would think he actually was one.
I freeze. My lungs turn into blocks of ice. Oh. Dear. Fates. “It was you,” I whisper. “It was you all along.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Huh?”
“Don’t you see? Nobody’s coming. It was always you. You were always the one who crashed into them. The mustache. The plant.”
“I don’t understand—”
“I don’t, either. But you’ve got to get out there before the past gets messed up.”
I shove him, and he careens around the corner. Not a moment too soon.
Olivia slams into him, knocking him to the ground. The pot flies out of his hand, smashes into the wall, and breaks into a million pieces.
The ceramic remains scatter across the floor. A trail of soil leads like bread crumbs to the broken plant stalk.
Just like the memory. Callie’s memory from the future. Before her future self killed me in the vision, she walked past a scene exactly like this one. Logan told me about it so many times that I can see it in my head. Just as it’s playing out in the present.
Seventeen-year-old Logan runs up to Olivia and helps her to her feet. “I’m so sorry, sir,” he says to Tanner. “Are you okay?”
Tanner’s mustache twitches. It looks like he’s vibrating with rage, but he’s actually freaking out. We never planned this. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say.
“I-I don’t have time to deal with this,” he finally sputters out. “I’m late for a meeting.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” Logan says, so polite, so in control, even as his Adam’s apple bobs. “We’re interns here. We’ll call a bot to clean it up.”
Callie comes up to Logan’s shoulder. Tanner stares at her. It’s one thing for him to talk to a younger Logan. But for him to see Callie, alive and well, when he’s seen her only in a coma, is clearly throwing him.
Please, Tanner, I plead. Don’t let them suspect anything is off.
Tanner blinks and seems to pull himself together. “Out-of-control kids,” he says under his breath. “Irresponsible child-minders. You’d think, with all of FuMA’s resources, they’d get someone more appropriate to watch the chairwoman’s kid.”
He strides down the hallway and disappears around the corner.
Callie turns to Logan. She doesn’t see me, and I face the window, where I can watch her reflection. The scared eyes, the trembling fingers. I want to gather her in my lap and hug her. The way she used to hug me, with my knees poking into her chest.
“That broken pot was in my memory,” she whispers. “It looked just like that. The trail of soil, the bright green leaves. My memory’s coming true.”
This is my shot. This is when I need to walk past them and mutter the jingle. They’re so absorbed in each other that their conscious minds will never notice.
But I can’t. The hand of Fate presses do
wn on me, locking me into place. The same hand that tried to stop me from interfering with Zed’s memory. As much as we are bound by our future, we are also bound by our past. The loop of time fixes us into place.
Logan takes her hand. “Knowing the future doesn’t take away your free will. Only you can decide what you will do. We’ve come so far, Callie. Let’s finish this.”
I squeeze my eyes shut because there’s only one conclusion to this day. One finish to this chain of events. And neither of them is going to like it.
“I’m scared,” my sister says.
“Me, too,” Logan replies.
I mouth the same sentiment in my head. Me, three.
47
“What in Fate just happened?” Tanner asks a couple of minutes later. Logan, Callie, and Olivia have disappeared to fulfill their fate—at least, the one of their own making. We’re ensconced in a supply closet. My fingers won’t stop shaking.
“It’s like when I talked to my mom.” My voice trembles. My teeth clack. I might as well be standing at the epicenter of an earthquake. “I’m the one who convinced her not to go to Harmony. This entire time, she had a visit from my future self. We’re part of the past, Tanner.”
He inhales sharply. I’m falling apart, but this…this development is pulling him back together. Turning him into the person with whom he’s most comfortable. A scientist.
“This supports Preston’s theory,” he says thoughtfully. “There’s a debate among the scientists. Many of them believe that Callie proved the many-worlds theory of time travel, that her decision not to kill you shifted us onto a different, parallel path. But Mikey refused to accept this. He insisted that time isn’t linear—that instead, it is an infinite loop. Thus, it would be possible to travel to the past and talk to your younger self, without any paradox about how your two selves could exist at the same time.
“Preston suggested both theories could be true. Time is an infinite loop and there are many worlds.” He drums his fingers against his cheek. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Callie picked up our world and plopped us onto a different path. But now that we’re on that path, we’re in an endless, continuous loop.”