by Daniel Price
On a better day, Zack would share in his godly thrill. All he wanted to do now was scream. The federal posse on their trail kept pushing them into becoming bigger and better criminals, larger and meaner threats. Zack could only imagine the cycle would spin faster and faster, until he and his friends were killing just for the privilege of living.
—
Mia and Hannah waited quietly on the porch swing, their collective belongings stuffed into duffels with little semblance of order. They’d packed their bags in grim silence, refusing to speak for fear of ghost drills, refusing to cry for fear of never stopping.
“The Deps wouldn’t hurt them,” Mia insisted. “I mean they still have rules.”
The actress nodded her head, scrambling for the sunniest scenario. “They’re probably sedated. I bet they’re just sleeping right now.”
Mia cast a dismal glance at the lightning. “She called it a storm.”
“Who?”
“The girl Theo and I met in the library. She said everything that was happening right now was a storm and we just had to weather it. Maybe that means we’ll get them back.”
Hannah hoped to God she was right. She’d just made peace with Theo. She’d finally started getting along with Amanda after ten years of thorny distance. Now the two of them were probably in a government plane, speeding away to some top-secret lab in the middle of nowhere.
Soon the stolen Tumbril pulled into the driveway. The Silvers threw the bags into the back, then sped away in a splashing screech.
The moment he crossed the intersection, Zack glimpsed headlights in the rearview mirror. A trio of ash-gray vans hung a sharp left behind him, speeding toward the lake house. His heart hammered.
Seconds, he thought. We missed them by seconds.
—
Three hours after the dramatic capture of two federal fugitives, the Marietta health fair returned to its normal chaos. A lone Dep remained at the scene, patrolling the grounds as a volunteer organizer. Melissa didn’t think Zack and the others would be foolish enough to come here looking for their friends, but then she’d underestimated their recklessness before.
For all the same reasons, Hannah was not a fan of the current plan. While their stolen Tumbril idled in the library lot, she studied the tempic structures at the far end of the park.
“It’s all right,” David assured her. “I’ll be in and out before anyone can spot me.”
“That’s just what my sister said to you.”
“Yes, well, I plan to be more careful.”
“Just watch out for cameras,” said Zack.
“Watch out for everything!” Mia added. “Please.”
David exited the car, tightened his rain hood, then shined a breezy smile through the window.
“Don’t you fret, Miafarisi. You won’t lose me today.”
Hannah shook her head at him as he hustled toward the fair. “That kid is unreal. Nothing scares him.”
“He’s amazing,” Mia said, with sheepish self-consciousness.
Zack tapped a nervous beat on the steering wheel. “He was right. Amanda should have never come here. I should have helped him convince her.”
“You wouldn’t have stopped her,” Hannah said. “You know how she gets when someone’s hurting. She was always like that, even as a kid.”
“Why didn’t she become a doctor then?”
Hannah hesitated to reply. It seemed crass, especially now, to talk about her sister’s stillbirth, a devastating trauma that had knocked Amanda’s whole life off trajectory.
“It’s complicated,” she sighed.
Zack shut off the windshield wipers. Soon the outside world drowned away. Nine minutes passed before a wet and winded David hurried back into the car.
“They’re okay. The agents used some kind of sleeping gas on them.”
Hannah covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Did anyone say where they were going?” Mia asked.
“The Deps? No. But I think Theo might have.”
“What?”
“Start from the beginning,” Zack said. “What did you see?”
Through hindsight, David had seen everything. As he walked the crowd with his hooded face lowered, he scanned the past in his thoughts. He watched the entire federal ambush from setup to takedown, then stood at Theo’s gurney as the augur mumbled something odd. David had placed his ear near Theo’s retrospective lips, parsing every syllable of the message.
“Archer Lansing Private School?” Hannah asked.
“That’s what he said. I replayed it three times.”
“But why? Who was he talking to?”
David smirked in bright amazement. “Strange as it sounds, I think he was talking to me.”
Soon Mia returned to the library and sat at a terminal. She learned through Eaglenet archives that Archer Lansing was once a small but prestigious boys’ academy in Charleston, West Virginia. A cross-reference search of the address revealed that the building was now a regional office for the Broadcast Crimes Division of DP-9.
When Mia brought her results back to the car, Zack brimmed with guarded optimism.
“That can’t be coincidence. That has to be where they’re holding them.”
David nodded excitedly. “Theo knew I’d come to ghost him. He gave me the future through the past. It’s kind of brilliant, actually.”
“It’s just one future,” Mia cautioned. “We don’t know if it’s the right one.”
Zack scoured the road atlas he found under the passenger seat. Charleston was eighty miles south of here, a straight shot down Highway XLI.
“It’s the only lead we have. If they’re not there, we’re screwed.”
“And if they are there?” Hannah inquired. “What then?”
The cartoonist matched her uncertain expression, then told her to ask again later.
Two hours after sunset, on the chilly balcony of a West Virginia high-rise, she did.
—
The Kanewha was the oldest and most prestigious hotel in the state, a blond brick high-rise in the center of the capitol district. History buffs knew it as the place where President Irving Dudley died of a heart attack just days after his 1960 reelection. Had David sprung for the $4,200-a-night penthouse suite, and had he felt the urge to push his ghosting talents, he would have learned the death wasn’t entirely natural.
He sat on the patio of his decorous new room on the fourteenth floor, keeping a binocular vigil on the DP-9 building in the hilly distance. He could spy the familiar frame of their Royal Seeker in the parking lot. He’d caught Melissa Masaad, the exotic-looking leader of the Marietta raid, sneaking a cigarette behind the generator towers. Now he watched Ross Daley push Theo up the wheelchair ramp of the building. David smiled at the augur’s serene expression.
“I’ll never doubt that man again. He’s a true prophet.”
The Silvers in the living room didn’t share David’s cheer. They still had no confirmation that Amanda was inside, nor did they have a rescue plan. Shortly after check-in, Mia visited the business center and printed every online photo she could find of the old private school. Hannah and Zack raided the department store, purchasing black clothes and radio transmitters for everyone.
Now the cartoonist rooted through their bag of dark keepsakes from Terra Vista, finding Czerny’s small electron chaser (dead), the Salgados’ stun baton (dead), and the imposing revolver that Rebel had painfully introduced into their lives. It looked quite functional, with five .44 caliber bullets remaining in the chamber.
Hannah paced the carpet, nervously eyeing the gun. “Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy?”
“No,” said Mia.
Zack chucked a hopeless palm. “I’m open to alternatives.”
“This is our best chance,” David insisted. He returned through the sliding screen and cl
osed it shut behind him. “It’s a small building, isolated from its surroundings. From what I can see through the windows, there are only nine or ten agents in there.”
Hannah scoffed. “Oh, is that all?”
“You seem to forget we have talents they don’t. We also have the element of surprise.”
“How do you know they’re not expecting us?”
“They can’t possibly know we’ve divined their location,” David insisted. “We have the advantage. It’s just a matter of using it. I can create a distraction that lures most of them outside. While I keep them blind, you and Zack can look for the others.”
“What about me?” Mia asked. “What should I do?”
David regarded her with tender concern, mixed with an insulting amount of doubt. “I think you should stay here and watch from the balcony. You can let us know through the transmitters if reinforcements arrive.”
Mia shook her head. “Are you insane? You guys are outnumbered enough already!”
“He’s right,” Zack said. “I mean none of us are commandos, but at least our weirdness gives us a fighting chance. It’s not like you can throw notes at them.”
“But what if you get captured?”
“We won’t,” said David.
“We might,” Zack countered. “If that happens, use the money to get to Peter. He’ll take care of you. He may even be able to get us out.”
“You can’t . . .” Mia choked on her words. The thought of being alone on this world made her knees buckle. She failed to notice the tiny new glow in front of her chest.
“You can’t ask me to do that.”
“Mia . . .”
“You can’t ask me to sit here while you guys risk your lives!”
“Mia, you’re getting a portal.”
“What?”
She looked down at the glowing circle, yet another breach at the worst possible moment. She only seemed to get them when she was sleeping or stressed.
“Oh shit. Not now.”
“No, this is good,” said David. “It could be useful intel.”
She fished her journal from her bag. “It’s not. It’s a past portal. I’m sending, not receiving.”
Hannah’s brow rose with cautious hope. “Wait. Where does it go? How far back?”
Mia blushed, thoroughly grateful that none of them could see through the keyhole. Her younger self sat on a toilet in the Marietta library, her pants bunched around her ankles.
“Three days ago,” she replied. “Right before Theo and I met the girl with two watches. I need to tell myself about a passage in one of Quint’s books.”
“Oh my God. That’s perfect!”
Zack eyed Hannah cynically. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? You said you were open to alternatives.”
“Yeah. Realistic ones.”
“How is it any less realistic than storming a building full of Deps?”
Mia was relieved to see David share her confusion. “What are you two going on about?”
“Changing the message,” Hannah said. “We can tell Amanda not to go to the health fair!”
David blinked at her like she was selling rainbows in a jar.
“I don’t think that’ll work.”
“How do you know? We never tried it before.”
“If it were truly possible to alter past events—”
“It is possible, David. Look.” She pulled the license of Jury Curado from her pocket. “We used to know this guy. Now we don’t. Evan changed the past. Why can’t we?”
Zack eyed the license with a raised brow. “That’s a good point, actually.”
“Thank you. See?”
Mia blinked in addled stupor, her mind filled with images of apocalyptic carnage. “You’re talking about deliberately causing a paradox!”
“Your notes are already paradoxes,” Hannah attested. “Just because you write the same words with the same pen color doesn’t mean you’ve created a perfect duplicate of the message you got. There’d be dozens of tiny inconsistencies. Apparently the universe doesn’t mind.”
“That’s what you say! For all we know, that’s what killed our world!”
David shook his head. “It wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, Mia, I don’t believe this trick will work. But you’re not going to tear the fabric of time just by changing a message.”
Hannah gripped Mia’s shoulder. “Sweetie, if there’s a chance to save Amanda and Theo without throwing us in the path of a thousand bullets, don’t you think it’s worth a try?”
Mia scratched her cheek in hot dilemma. She could feel the portal slipping away.
“Shit. Shit.”
She tore a scrap from her pad and scrawled a frantic message.
Tell Amanda not to take Theo to the health fair! The Deps will get them! Please trust me!
“God. I can’t believe I’m doing this . . .”
Hannah squeezed Zack’s arm. “If this changes the timeline, you think we’ll remember?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “If it works, I don’t care.”
Mia spun to face him. “And if this kills us all?”
“It’ll be fine,” David assured her. “Do it.”
Mia winced and looked away as she placed the note in the breach. The portal swallowed the paper, then vanished.
The Silvers stood rooted in place for thirty taut seconds. Zack and Hannah threw their wide gazes around the living room, nervously scanning for signs of change.
Soon Mia opened an eye and peeked at David. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, his expression dancing a fine line between annoyance and amusement.
“And here we still are.”
Hannah tossed up her hands. “Goddamn it. How does Evan do it then?”
“Obviously not through notes.”
“How did you know it wouldn’t work?” Zack asked him.
“Because multiple chronologies exist. This whole world is proof of that. The best I can figure is that Mia created a fork in time, a branching chain of events that runs parallel to ours. If that timeline’s Amanda chose to heed the warning, then I imagine these alternate versions of us are having a much better day than we are. They’re the ones who benefited from Hannah’s idea. Not us.”
The actress scowled at her feet. “Great. So they get a happy ending and we still get shot to death.”
Mia remained firmly unsettled. Between all her thoughts and apprehensions, she experienced a strange new sensation, as if someone tapped an undiscovered third shoulder.
Zack held her wrist. “You okay?”
“No. Something’s not right.”
“What, like some kind of—”
“Zack, move!”
She pulled him aside as a new portal arrived where he was standing. The shimmering gateway was the size of a dinner plate. It had a windy pull that was strong enough to ripple all drapes and garments.
The Silvers shielded their eyes at the blinding glow. For a maddening moment, Hannah feared Mia was right after all. This was the paradox apocalypse. It was the Rupture.
“Mia, what’s happening?!”
“I don’t know! It’s a portal but I don’t think it’s mine!”
“Past or future?”
“I don’t know! It’s not mine!”
A brown cloth bag suddenly popped through the surface, hitting the rug with the faint sound of clanking metal. A flat manila envelope fluttered out after it. Before anyone could process the new items, the portal shrank away.
Half-blind and teetering on lunacy, Zack reached for the envelope. A line of angular scribble stretched across the front.
To the damn fool Trillinger and his mad boy accomplice.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Mia scanned the cover. “I don’t k
now. That looks like Peter’s handwriting.”
Zack opened the envelope and emptied the contents. Among an assortment of maps and sketches was a hand-scrawled message on notebook paper.
You know, for two allegedly clever men, you don’t have enough common sense to fill a bee’s rubber. You cannot waltz into a building full of armed federal agents and expect to come out again. Hannah knows this. You should listen to her more often.
There’s a better way to save Theo and Amanda. At 4 A.M., a group of five agents will leave the building in a Tug-a-Lug truck, heading east toward Washington, D.C. Three Deps will be riding in the trailer, along with your friends. If you position yourselves at the stretch of highway I’ve marked, you’ll be able to intercept the truck at 4:45.
Use everything at your disposal, including the handcuffs I sent you. Be careful around Melissa Masaad, the black woman with the funny hair. She’s their leader and she’s smarter than you.
I’d come out and help, but my people are still watching me closely. I can’t join you without bringing Rebel back down on your heads. All I can say is good luck and godspeed. Don’t let Theo die.
—Peter
PS—Don’t go to the Brooklyn address I gave you. It’s been compromised. When you get to the city, have Mia—and only Mia—call 11-53-34855. We’ll arrange a meet from there.
The room fell to silence as Peter’s message passed from hand to hand. David dropped the note to the coffee table with a frustrated sigh.
“I have no idea how to react to this. I mean I don’t know if this is Future Peter using hindsight or Present Peter using foresight. If it’s Future Peter—”
“David . . .”
He threw a nervous look at Hannah. “I’m just trying to make sense of it.”
“I understand that. But have you ever hijacked a truck before?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, that makes four of us. Maybe we should focus on that.”
Freshly stung by Peter’s rebuke, the boy nodded. “You’re right. You’re right.”
Zack emptied the bag of handcuffs and spread out Peter’s materials. Among the maps was a sketch of a rental truck, and another of the rocky outcropping that would serve as the ambush point.