Infiltration (Infiltration Book 1)

by Susanna Rogers

  While the other kids headed for the door, Ben seemed to be dawdling, which was unusual for him. I still had to speak to him, sooner rather than later, and placed my hand on his arm to attract his attention.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” He motioned toward the teacher at the front of the room. “I just want to have a quick word. You can stay if you want.”

  Mr. Rodriguez stepped closer. “Ben, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve been reading up on black holes,” he replied.

  “Shouldn’t you be more interested in issues like the curfew? I hear you kids have organized an anti-curfew party for the weekend.”

  “Yeah, we have.”

  With the goatee and fine chinstrap of facial hair, Mr. Rodriguez didn’t look like a teacher. He also seemed interested – in our protests against the curfew, in us and what we had to say.

  “Instead you want to know about cosmic phenomena?” he asked.

  “I was reading about the possibility of traveling through time,” Ben said. “Some of the books say we could do it if we were able to travel faster than the speed of light.”

  The teacher nodded. “That’s the theory, all unproven of course.”

  He wasn’t far off. I hung back a little behind Ben. “I think you were closer when you mentioned black holes and wormholes.”

  “I think so too,” Ben said. “There’s a lot we don’t fully understand about the universe. These cosmic phenomena, we call them phenomena because we don’t know exactly what they are.”

  Mr. Rodriguez smiled. “You’ve got a point, though wormholes have been widely accepted as a hypothesis.”

  “Physicists have been formulating theories on this subject for decades,” Ben said. “It’s got to be more than a hypothesis.”

  “We were talking about this the other day,” I added. “If mankind understood wormholes better, perhaps we could use them as a bridge to allow passage between two times.”

  “That was the theory Einstein postulated,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “Wormholes are also known as the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.”

  “Bridge doesn’t quite encapsulate it,” I said. “If mankind could capture, stabilize and enlarge these wormholes, anything could happen. If you could take one end of a wormhole and manipulate or move it, then return it to a different position, surely we’d be able to travel through time.”

  People much more highly educated than myself couldn’t always get a grasp on the concept so I could hardly expect to be an expert. I didn’t fully understand the theory, only that it was possible. I was living evidence of that.

  “Nicola, you’ve given this lots of thought,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “You too, Ben, but I thought your main interest was in medicine.”

  “It is,” he said. “This is just something we were talking about, and I wanted your opinion.”

  A soft hum of noise resonated through the closed door from outside the classroom. It only emphasized how quiet it was in here now the other students had left. Too quiet. I wished Mr. Rodriguez would say something.

  Eventually he did. “I think anything is possible, and if you’re interested in the subject, I can refer you to some books and other information or even to the appropriate college course.”

  Ben nodded. “I wouldn’t mind some reading material. There’s a lot of information and it can be hard to tell what’s reliable.”

  “No problem.” Mr. Rodriguez leaned across the desk to gather his books and materials.

  “Thanks,” Ben and I said in unison, then turned to leave.

  I only had four more days. This was the time. I could feel it.

  “Ben, I need to talk to you,” I said.

  The hallway was bustling with people and activity, the noise abrasive after the silence inside the classroom.

  “I told you,” he said as we walked. “I’m okay with what happened.”

  “This is important.”

  “I can’t,” he insisted. “I’ve got training.”

  And I didn’t. I’d been avoiding martial arts and Mr. Matthews.

  “What about straight after training?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  I was getting much better at reading people and could tell I was annoying him, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Besides, what I was about to tell him would go beyond ‘annoying’.

  With a couple of hours to kill, I went home, had something to eat, made a pathetic effort to do my homework, then went back to school. Outside the martial arts arena, the girls I’d trained with previously were leaving.

  I stuck my head inside the door of the arena, stepped inside and sat on the floor to one side to take off my shoes and socks. Mr. Matthews stood to one side of Ben who was wrestling with another guy. The sounds were amplified, the grunts, the scrape of clothing on the mat, the thuds as they rolled. Everyone else had gone home.

  “Let’s call it a day,” Mr. Matthews said. He strode across the mat on his way out, and said to me, “I don’t have time for you now.”

  The other guy left too. I stepped onto the mat and made my way over to Ben.

  I frowned. “What is with Mr. Matthews?”

  Ben stood up. “Don’t you get it? He’s nobody and he’s going nowhere. This is it for him. We’re all getting out of here, going to college, moving on. He’s not.”

  “You’re right. I should forget about him.”

  Ben curled his index finger. “Wanna have a roll?”

  A wrestle was tempting. There was a lot about Ben that was tempting.

  I shook my head. “I’d like to talk, that’s all.”

  His eyes narrowed as he stared, sizing me up. It was understandable if he didn’t want to talk to me. I couldn’t blame him.

  “I need a shower,” he said.

  He was wearing faded gray martial arts shorts and a dark blue tee shirt with a band motif, both of which were covered in sweat. That was okay. I wasn’t afraid of a bit of perspiration.

  “This can’t wait,” I said.

  Ben sidled closer, his chest nearly against mine. He smelled steamy. He smelled like Ben. My heart swelled and sank. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  He reached to grab me around the waist but I was too quick and shot away. The grin on his face told me he was playing with me. Maybe he knew something serious was coming and wanted to avoid it.

  As much as I couldn’t blame him, this wasn’t a game. I had to make him listen.

  I shunted him in the chest, hard. Shock in his eyes, he looked surprised, then laughed. For me, that was the last straw.

  I shot in for the takedown. My hands around the back of his thighs, I took him to the ground but wasn’t on top for long. I tried to use my flexibility but he was bigger and far more skilled in ground fighting than me. Still, it felt good to use some energy, to wrestle for position, to be close to him. I wanted to get closer, to be more than physical, to be there always.

  Ben was on top but I had my legs wrapped around his waist in the guard position.

  “Shall we call it a draw?” he asked.

  I might have agreed if it wasn’t for that grin. He wasn’t concentrating and had left his right arm out ready for me to take. I grabbed the arm, levered my foot against his body, spun around and got him in an arm bar.

  He tapped. Game over.

  Sitting on the mat opposite me, he rested his arms on top of his knees. “Not fair. I can’t hit a girl.”

  “I’ll make you want to hit me,” I said.

  Still grinning. “You’re good.”

  “No, I was ready. There’s a difference. I’m not as good a grappler as you, but I was aware. I saw an opening and took it. That’s what you have to do. You have to be ready.”

  “Why so serious, Nic?” he asked.

  “Because this is very serious.”

  “Is this about your mom?”

  The cure hadn’t arrived from Lucien. He’d let me down. I couldn’t think about my mom now, not with what I had to say.

&n
bsp; I shook my head. “It’s about me and it’s about you.”

  His eyes hooded over and he held my gaze. “Look, the last time a girl said she wanted to talk to me, it was to tell me she was seeing someone else behind my back. So I think you can see why I don’t want to do this.”

  “There’s no one else,” I said. “There could never be anyone else.”

  “That’s a good start,” he said, though he didn’t look particularly relieved.

  “If I hadn’t come to Altabena, I’d never have met you. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. It has changed me. I used to be a different person before.”

  “You’re still different.” His expression told me that was a good thing. “It’s one of the things I like about you. You’re not like everyone else.”

  I sat back onto my knees opposite him. “You’re a very special person, more special than you know. You’re going to do amazing things that’ll be remembered for decades. You’ll discover cures and help people and go down in history.”

  Eyes down, he looked momentarily embarrassed. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know. I was sent here.”

  He held my gaze. “That’s a strange way of putting it. You came here for your dad’s job, didn’t you?”

  Where to start? He wasn’t my father, not in the sense Ben meant, and he wasn’t the reason I was here.

  “I’m a soldier, Ben.”

  He smiled. “You’re tough enough to be one.”

  “I’m different. You said it yourself. I really am a soldier. I was raised far from here in a military installation where the emphasis was purely on training. That’s where I learnt my martial arts skills. That’s why I’m tough. It’s also why I’m so out of place here.”

  He shrugged. “You can be a soldier if you want to. You’d make a damn good one.”

  Not exactly the response I wanted, but not that far off. I didn’t know how to make him take notice so I just came out with it.

  “I was sent here to get rid of you. To eliminate you.”

  He kept smiling. “Excuse me?”

  “I wish it was different but that’s the truth. You’re going to make some amazing medical discoveries that will change the world. You’re really going to be a doctor, and not everyone approves of what you’re going to do.”

  “Back to this again.” He sounded annoyed. “How do you know what I’m going to do?”

  “There’s so much we don’t know, so much you don’t know. Open your mind. The universe is a huge place. There are alternate universes, various spaces, different times. Space and time are closely related, almost the same thing. There’s a future and a past and they’re all linked. That talk about wormholes wasn’t just a theory. I know a lot about the future.”

  I told him everything. About New Nation in 2120 and how the world had been devastated by a deadly virus, also how that was connected to the cure for cancer he was going to discover. I told him about being sent back to Altabena to infiltrate the community, about the mission, and how there was no way I could complete it. I told him how I’d returned to New Nation, how my superiors and my mentor Lucien had betrayed me. I tried to explain how changes in society would lead to a strict authoritarian regime that held tight reigns over the people and controlled their lives. I told Ben how I’d come back to try to warn him, to protect him. Also what they would do to me in New Nation on my return.

  And he listened. I had to hand it to him.

  He listened to every word.

  After I finished, he sat there and I gave him a few moments. He didn’t look at me. Though that was a bad sign, I sat there hoping for a miracle I knew wouldn’t come.

  His eyes stayed glued to the floor in front of him. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because–”

  “Don’t answer that. Wouldn’t it be easier just to say you don’t want to go out with me? That, I could handle. But not this bullshit, this I can’t handle.”

  “I don’t want to break up with you. That’s not what this is about. I don’t know how else to get through to you. You have to keep a low profile and be careful. You have to be prepared.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet mine, his eyes overflowing with rage and disappointment.

  At me.

  It was all directed at me and I couldn’t blame him.

  “Why are you screwing with my mind?” he demanded.

  “Because I don’t have much time left. Once the time travel program is set, there’s no changing it. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “So you’re an assassin? Then you must’ve killed people, lots of people.”

  His sarcasm cut into me. He couldn’t know what a sensitive subject that was.

  I dropped my gaze. “Not that many.”

  An image of the school auditorium flashed in my mind, children and teachers shaking, crying, screaming. And at the front of the room two madmen with guns taking pot shots and laughing.

  It was only luck I’d been there at all. I’d been on a promotional school visit with my sergeant, who’d frozen. I hadn’t.

  After I worked out what was going on, I’d shot the locks off the auditorium door, then aimed and fired at one man, crouched to miss a bullet from the second, and shot him too.

  Timing and training – both things had worked in my favor.

  The way I’d seen it there hadn’t been much choice. I wasn’t a hero. I just did what I had to do. It helped that I was a damn good shot.

  But Ben didn’t know any of this. He didn’t know that Nicola.

  He kneeled, his hands hanging by his side. “You’re telling me you were sent back in time to kill me? Go ahead. Do it. My guard is down. Take a shot. Pull out a knife. Do whatever you want.”

  “I can’t do it,” I said. “I won’t.”

  Goading me now. “Go on.”

  “No.”

  He sneered. “Maybe I can learn to hit a girl, after all.”

  “I won’t stop you.”

  “Come on. Hit me. Eliminate me. This is your big chance.”

  “You have to be vigilant, not just now but always. You have to be careful.”

  The sneer turned to disbelief. “You’re really serious?”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  Silence.

  “I’m telling the truth,” I said. “The theories about time travel and wormholes are formulated by physicists and scientists and people smarter than me. They might be theories now but one day many of them will be proven.”

  “Don’t give me that shit. This isn’t about science. It’s about some weird mind-trip you’re taking. If you change the future so dramatically, you won’t even be born. You won’t even exist. None of this can work. One event causes another and creates a chain of events. Have you forgotten about the laws of causality?”

  “They’re not laws,” I said. “It’s all relative. We can choose. We can make a difference.”

  “Then choose to stay here.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you’ve said.”

  “I can prove it.”

  I peeled the PR device from my arm and explained what it was.

  His mouth fell open. “Let’s see you do that again. Put it back.”

  I placed it on a different part of my arm where it melded into my skin. Ben pulled my arm closer and smoothed his fingers over the device and my skin.

  He inspected the area more closely. “There’s a freckle and hair growing on your arm. What happened to that thing?”

  I peeled the device off, waited a second until it went rigid, then tapped the screen.

  “Take a look,” I said. “It’s plithium. This started off as cellular phone technology.”

  “That’s so sci-fi.” Surprise in his voice. “How did you do it?”

  He still didn’t believe me. Maybe he couldn’t believe me, even though I was telling the truth for the first time.

  “I know,” I said. “There’s a photo of you ta
ken in the future. I’ll show you.” I located the picture and passed the PR device across. “Information on you is very limited and this is the only picture my superiors could locate.”

  He stared, a combination of recognition and confusion in his eyes.

  “That really looks like me, only older,” he said. “It must’ve taken some seriously good digital manipulation to get a picture like that. I can’t even remember the photo being taken. Why would you go to all that trouble?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

  I tapped the device. “How else can you explain this?”

  Ben’s shoulders slumped and his arms hung down. His posture told me what I already knew.

  It was over.

  And nothing would change that.

  “You lied to me,” he said.

  I had. I’d lied to Ben, my friends, my family. I was a liar and a fake and I was ashamed.

  “You can’t get out of this,” he said. Also true. “You say you came here to kill me, took on a false identity, and lied to everyone you know. If that’s not true, then this whole story you’ve spun to me this afternoon is a lie and you’re taking me for a ride. Either way, that makes you a liar.”

  “Everything I told you this afternoon is the truth. You have to believe me.”

  He brushed his hand aside as if swatting a fly. “You’re no better than my mom or the rest of them.”

  “The rest of…?”

  I saw it in his eyes. He was talking about his mother, the woman he’d trusted more than anyone, the person who was supposed to take care of him, but had instead taken another way out.

  “You think your mother lied to you?” I asked.

  “Lots of women have lied to me.”

  There was his ex-girlfriend, Shannon, the one who’d cheated on him. Surely he couldn’t be comparing me with her as if I’d betrayed him in such an intimate way.

  Ben stood, looking down on me. His arm flinched and I thought he was going to take a swipe. I wished he had, but I wasn’t even worth that much to him.

  One last chance.

  I’d been willing to die for New Nation. Had never even questioned it. Ben was a much better cause. My life in exchange for his. It didn’t seem like such a bad deal since I was going to die anyway.