The Flight of the Silvers

by Daniel Price

  The tempic leaves withered. The vines retracted into Amanda’s skin. Zack checked her grim expression.

  “I just pissed you off again, didn’t I?”

  She shook her head. “No. I understand your hesitation. It’s smart.”

  “Then why do I feel so stupid right now?”

  “Because you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That we don’t have much longer to live.”

  Amanda struggled to her feet. Zack watched her as she moved to the shuttered window.

  “You know they’re going to get us sooner or later, Zack. Whether it’s the Deps or Rebel or Esis, it’s just a matter of time. And yet here I am, worrying about being a proper widow. Here you are, worrying about the fights we might have a month from now. There is no month from now, Zack. Not for us. Maybe we should just . . . I don’t know . . .”

  Zack joined her at the window and gently turned her around. When she realized he was simply drawing her into a hug, she fell into his arms with maniacal relief. Yes, yes, yes. Hugs were good. Hugs were safe.

  “I’m sorry, Zack. I’m all over the place. I don’t know what I’m saying right now.”

  He caressed her back. “It’s all right. You had a crappy day by anyone’s standards.”

  “Make it better. Say something sweet to me.”

  “Can it be about your looks?”

  “No.”

  “Because you’re very, very pretty.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, though she held him tighter anyway. She cared a little.

  “All right. Give me a moment to think it over.” He rested his chin on her shoulder, amazed that her hair could smell so good after twenty hours of captivity.

  “You remember when we were on the balcony—”

  “Oh God, Zack.”

  “No, no. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the moments before, when you and I were cracking each other up with silly wordplay. I said I was antaganostic. You called yourself a tempis fugitive.”

  She bloomed a wobbly smile. “I remember.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s when I started to get nervous, because there aren’t a lot of people who can crack bad puns in Latin, or go joke for joke with me like you did. I knew from the start that you were strong and smart and very, very pretty, but nobody told me you were funny.”

  The widow’s lips curled in a wavering smile. Zack pulled back to look at her.

  “I have no idea what’s going to happen with us, Amanda. I just know that women like you are jackpots to guys like me. You don’t think short term with jackpots. You don’t screw them on the couch when they’re feeling vulnerable. I’ll wait as long as it takes for us to get our shit together. I don’t want to go the way of Hannah and Theo. We do this right or we don’t do it at all.”

  Amanda held him so fiercely, she feared she’d break his ribs all over again. When she first met Zack, she had no idea that he was a rigid perfectionist, an uptight moralist, a minder, a mender. No wonder it felt so good to hug him. They were practically twins.

  She ran a gentle hand down his cheek. “I really want to kiss you right now, but I won’t.”

  “I wasn’t saying it to—”

  “I know. I’m just thinking ahead. Wherever we end up running, whether it’s Brooklyn or Canada or God knows where, the six of us are going to rest and heal. And then once we get our act together, you and I are going to slip away for an evening. I don’t care if it has to be the second room of our criminal hideout, we’re going on a date. Some things have to be done the normal way. Even for people like us.”

  His responding smile was warm enough to melt her. Amanda embraced him again, speaking stern but trembling words over his shoulder.

  “Just don’t die on me, Zack. Don’t you dare die on me.”

  He pressed her back and let out a glum sigh. “I can only promise to try.”

  “Well, if you ever need more incentive, you think about our third date. I’m not Catholic about everything.”

  Amanda covered his loud laugh, and then tensely bid him good night. She would have loved to rest with him down here on the couch, but the temptation to do something—

  (do not entwine)

  —would mess up their wonderful new plan.

  She scrambled upstairs in dizzy haste, then conducted a stealthy check on the others. Theo and Mia were visible in their rooms. David and Hannah were tucked away behind closed doors. Amanda stowed her concerns, then climbed into bed with Mia.

  As her eyelids fluttered with teeming fatigue, the widow’s mind shot like fireworks into the many branching futures. She pondered all the obstacles between her and a happy life, counting her issues like sheep.

  Just as she began to drift off, the dangling wires of her memory connected and Esis breached her thoughts once again.

  Do not entwine with the funny artist.

  Amanda’s eyes sprang open in hot alarm. She stayed awake and disturbed for hours.

  —

  At the jagged tail end of his twenty-hour slumber, Theo fell into a dream that by now had become painfully familiar. He existed as a disembodied spirit, a formless being drifting slowly through a silent gray void. A bright white wall stretched endlessly in front of him like a vertical tundra, radiating a bitter coldness that chilled him to the core.

  Theo dreaded coming here, but this was his job now. There was something he needed to find on this wall. He was the only one who could do it.

  He kept moving without any idea of direction. Up, down, left, right. It all looked the same. It was only when he moved toward the wall that he could make out the infinite beads of light that comprised its surface. Each one was burning agony on his thoughts, like a magnified sunbeam. He kept his distance and never stopped moving. He had so much area to cover. Too much. Whenever he thought about it, an arch panic overtook him. I can’t do it, Peter. The wall’s too big. The string’s too thin. I’ll never find it. I don’t even think it exists.

  And yet he kept traveling, searching the wall for the one little strand that meant everything to everyone. The only thing worse than being in this cold and dreary hell was leaving it, since he knew he’d have to face his companions and tell them once again that he failed.

  Though they always thanked him for trying and assured him that tomorrow would be a better day, Theo could see the heartbreak behind their expressions. They knew as well as he did that there were only so many tomorrows left. While he flittered and flailed on the other side of the wall, his friends were merely waiting. Waiting for the sky to fall again.

  —

  He jerked awake on the futon, his chest moist with sweat. He did a double take at the clock when it told him that it was 2:12 in the morning. Theo had slept nearly a full day in this dingy little office. Even his coma didn’t last that long.

  He relieved himself in the bathroom, gargled a shot of mouthwash, then lumbered down the stairs. The smell of sizzling bacon made his mouth water. He’d barely had a bite to eat since Nemeth.

  The moment Hannah saw him, she dropped her spatula in the frying pan and hugged him.

  “Thank God. I was starting to get worried. How you feeling?”

  “Like Rip van Winkle.” He saw Zack and Mia at the table. “You’re having breakfast at two A.M.?”

  “We did some heavy sleeping ourselves,” Zack said.

  The cartoonist seemed awfully chipper for a man on vampire time. Mia, by contrast, looked thoroughly morose. She aimed a dull gaze at her lap through her tangle of bangs.

  Hannah pushed him to the table. “Sit. I’m making waffles too.”

  Theo studied her carefully as she returned to the stove. He knew her well enough to recognize the “everything’s fine” voice she used when she was bottling her anger at someone. He could practically hear the creak of the crossbow string. Mercifully, the quarrel didn’t see
m to be aimed at him.

  He took a drowsy gander at the map book in Zack’s hands. “We leaving today?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on David.”

  “Well, you know what he’ll say.”

  “I’m talking about his health, not his preferences. If Amanda says he’s not ready, we’re staying.”

  Theo gazed out the window at the lumic lamppost. “She’ll be waiting for us in New York.”

  “Who, Melissa?”

  “Yeah. She knows exactly who we’re going to see.”

  “Peter’s a dozen steps ahead of the Deps,” Zack replied. “He knew just where your truck would be, how many agents were guarding you. I don’t think those people are a problem for him.”

  “You think Peter’s an augur too?” Hannah asked.

  Zack shook his head. “No. I’m guessing he’s more like Mia. The two of them have some kind of portal juju going on.”

  Mia’s expression grew darker. She’d received two new messages from her future self earlier, neither of which offered any practical value. One of them was cruel enough to make her cry. If Peter shared her affliction, she pitied him.

  Theo jerked a lazy shrug. “I’m still not sure what to think of the guy, to be perfectly honest. I just hope—”

  A sudden stabbing jolt caused him to wince and press his temple. Hannah rushed to his side.

  “Theo!”

  “I’m all right,” he assured her. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. If your problem’s coming back—”

  “It’s just a headache. I’m fine.”

  Zack eyed him warily. “Have you had any premonitions since they drugged you?”

  “Not a one,” Theo said, hoping that was true. The great white wall still loomed large in his thoughts.

  Mia’s stomach gurgled with stress as she recalled the first vague note she’d received from her elder self today.

  Don’t get too comfortable. You’re not out of the storm.

  —

  Amanda sat quietly on the guest bed, tending David’s wound with edgy distraction. Though the widow had steeled herself with five deep breaths before knocking on David’s door, she was pleasantly surprised to find him genial. His pain was just a fraction of yesterday’s. The stumps of his fingers showed no signs of infection. Amanda thanked God for the double mercy. She couldn’t have handled a second attack of scorn. Not in her state.

  David studied Amanda warily as she unwrapped a new roll of bandages. “How’s Mia?”

  “She’s all right. Worried about you.”

  He sighed with lament. “The way I acted, I don’t blame her. I’ve never experienced pain like that before. It was . . . enlightening.”

  Amanda eyed him strangely. “Enlightening?”

  “Ever since it happened, I’ve been thinking about the people of the past, the way they accepted agony as just another part of their lives. With all our advancements in technology and medicine, I’m wondering if perhaps we lost something as a species. A certain fortitude.”

  “No one can accuse you of weakness, David. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”

  “Well, I appreciate you saying that.” He cracked a dour smirk. “If Nietzsche’s right about the things that don’t kill us, then Zack’s really going to be afraid of me soon.”

  Amanda felt a hot stab of anguish at the mention of Zack. She clenched her jaw and kept working.

  “He’s not afraid of you,” she uttered.

  “Then why did he call me a psychopath?”

  “For the same reason you called me stupid, okay? He was upset. If you had stayed in the kitchen ten more seconds, he would have apologized.”

  David eyed her with sharp surprise. He’d noticed her tension from the moment she entered the room. Now the woman who’d handled him so calmly yesterday seemed to be coming unglued.

  “Amanda, I’m sorry for the way I behaved yesterday. I really am.”

  “That’s not why I’m . . .” Her eyes darted back and forth in quandary. “Can I pick your brain about something? In absolute confidence.”

  “Of course. What about?”

  “Esis.”

  His sandy eyebrows rose in intrigue. “Wow. Okay. I mean I’m not sure how much insight I can give you. I only met her once.”

  “Well, you’re the only other person I know who’s spoken to her. She . . .”

  Amanda fought to explain her conundrum. All throughout her sleepless day, she’d replayed her back-alley encounter with Esis, reconstructing it word by word. By sundown, she’d pieced together the woman’s full warning. Do not entwine with the funny artist. I grow tired of telling you this. You entwine with your own, you won’t be a flower. You’ll just be dirt.

  David listened to the story with abject fascination, stroking his chin with the arched brow of a sleuth.

  “Wow. That’s . . . huh. At the risk of embarrassing you, it seems fairly obvious who she was referring to, and what she meant by ‘entwine.’”

  Amanda nodded brusquely. “Yes. I know that. But how did she even . . . I mean . . .”

  “How did she know that you and Zack would become intimate?”

  She flinched in discomfort. “We haven’t. Not yet. But she gave me that warning before I even met him.”

  “Well, clearly Esis is an augur of some sort. It’s not like we don’t know any.”

  “But why would she care who I . . . entwine with?”

  The boy gazed ahead in deep rumination. He started and stopped himself twice before speaking.

  “She did say something odd to us, me and my father. He was with me when she gave me my bracelet. She just popped into our living room through a glowing white portal in the wall. Now that I think about it, I wonder if it’s the same temporal mechanism that Mia uses for her notes.”

  Amanda wound her finger impatiently. “What did she say?”

  “She told us the world was ending in minutes, that I was moving on and my father wasn’t. Had the portal not lent her a certain latitude for wild assertions, we might have dismissed her as a lunatic. But my father certainly listened. The whole thing made him rather . . . Well, if you knew him, you’d know how rarely he shows emotion. But at that moment, he was overcome.”

  David pressed his knuckles to his lips, his face marred with twitchy grief.

  “I half expected him to plead for his life, so he could continue the work that was so important to him. But to my surprise, his one pressing question to Esis was ‘Will my son be all right?’”

  Amanda held his arm. She could understand now how David had become so resilient. The poor boy had practically been raising himself since he was ten.

  “Anyway, Esis was sympathetic,” he said. “She assured my father that I’d be in good health and excellent company. I remember her exact words on this. She said, ‘He’ll only be alone for a short while. Then he’ll be joined with his brothers and sisters.’”

  The floor of Amanda’s stomach dropped. The room suddenly felt three times smaller.

  David shrugged pensively. “I’d always assumed Esis was being figurative. But now—”

  “That’s not it,” Amanda stammered. “That’s crazy. I know who I come from.”

  “And I know who I come from. I’ve seen the video of my birth. Doesn’t rule out the possibility that our mothers were surrogates.”

  “How can you even say that?”

  “I’m just exploring the options, Amanda. We know the Pelletiers existed on our world. We know they chose us. We just don’t know when. Maybe they had an active role in our creation, forging us all from the same genetic template. If that doesn’t describe siblings, what does?”

  Amanda stood up on watery legs. She leaned against the dresser.

  “That’s insane. We can’t all be related. I mean Theo’s . . .”

 
“Asian. Yes. He might be an exception. Or perhaps their genetic engineering capabilities are more advanced than we realize.”

  “But no one warned Hannah about entwining with Theo.” Did they? she suddenly wondered.

  David chucked his good hand in a listless shrug. “I don’t know. In any case, if the Pelletiers are indeed augurs, then perhaps they knew that Hannah and Theo were destined to fail as a couple. Maybe they foresaw a more lasting union between you and Zack.”

  Her throat closed tighter. “That’s not . . . You’re just guessing all this. None of this is proof.”

  “Proof? No. But Esis did warn you about entwining with your own. And there’s one other thing I neglected to mention, something I’ve pondered every day. Maybe it’s why he didn’t ask more questions . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  David sighed. “When Esis appeared in our house, my father already knew her name.”

  Amanda closed her eyes, fighting to hold herself together. She thought back to the incident on the Massachusetts Turnpike, seventeen years ago. Her father never uttered the Pelletiers’ names. But then he never asked for them either. Did he already know? Did both her parents know them?

  She rushed to David’s side, squeezing his biceps with rigid fingers. “Listen to me. Whether you’re right or wrong about this, we have to keep it to ourselves. You hear me? Until we get absolute proof, we don’t breathe a word of this to the others.”

  “If you wish.”

  “You especially don’t tell Hannah and Theo. They don’t need this.”

  “I said okay, Amanda.”

  David watched her cautiously as she cleaned up the bandage debris. “Guess you have strong feelings for him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fair enough. But Amanda, there’s something you need to consider . . .”

  “No.”

  “Yes. This needs to be said. Whether you believe we’re all siblings or not, you know for a fact that Esis doesn’t want you entwining with Zack. You know she gets angry about it.”