Future Lost

by Briggs, Elizabeth;

  Zahra scowls at me. “We’re supposed to be a team. We should have been involved from the moment you got back from the future, if not sooner. Hell, we should have been there to help you rescue Adam in the first place.”

  “You told Ken and not us. Why did you leave us out?” Paige glances at Ken, who she’s scooted away from on the sofa. “And how you could keep this from me?”

  “We had no choice but to tell Ken,” Adam says. “We needed his help when I got shot.”

  Ken’s head drops. “I wanted to tell you. Believe me, I did. But they made me promise not to say anything, and I agreed with them. It was too dangerous.”

  “You should have come to me right away,” Zahra snaps. “I could have found all sorts of info on this neo-Nazi guy for you or on the place he works.”

  I lean forward, meeting her stern gaze. “That’s why we’re here now. We need all of your help because we’re out of options. And with this mysterious attacker coming for us over and over, we seem to be out of time too.”

  Paige stretches out her legs, which end in bright-pink running shoes, and gets a thoughtful look on her face. “What if we break into the place where this neo-Nazi guy works and check if Adam’s samples are there?”

  “That’s illegal,” Adam says.

  “Barely,” she scoffs. “We won’t actually take anything. We’ll just do a little recon. Maybe Zahra can get into their computers too.”

  Paige has always been partial to stealing, so it’s no surprise she’s come up with this idea. Probably why she gets along so well with Zahra, who has no trouble hacking into off-limits computers. I often think they would have gotten along well with Trent, if he survived. He also had a knack for breaking and entering and a disregard for laws and authority.

  Zahra grabs her laptop and pops it open. “You’ve been watching this guy for days, and he hasn’t revealed anything yet. It can’t be a coincidence he works for a pharmaceutical company. Once I’m inside, I can find out everything.”

  I hesitate, but there’s really no better idea I can think of. “What about the person trying to kill Adam?”

  “You can crash in our apartment until we figure out who they are,” Paige says.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Trust me, Zahra has this place sealed up like Fort Knox. No one is going to get close to Adam without us knowing it.”

  I sigh. “Fine. We’ll stay here for a few days.”

  “One thing at a time,” Zahra says. “First up, we break into Aceso Pharmaceuticals.”

  “How soon can we go?” Adam asks.

  Zahra’s dark eyes gleam. “Tonight.”

  We spend the next hour making plans, and then we split up. I head back to our apartment to pick up fresh clothes for me and Adam, along with some other things we might need. The tricky part is making sure I’m not followed on my way back to Zahra and Paige’s apartment. I spend an extra hour driving all over the city to make sure I don’t have a tail, just in case.

  When I get back, the apartment smells like disinfectant or some other strong chemical. Adam and Ken are in the kitchen, wearing paper masks over their noses and mouths while they lean over something on the counter. They’re so engrossed in whatever geeky stuff they’re doing that they don’t even hear me come in.

  “Hey,” I say. “I got you some clothes and everything else you wanted.”

  Adam glances at me over his shoulder. “Thank you. I’ll change when we’re done here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Adam’s showing me how to make chloroform,” Ken says, in the same voice someone might announce they’re going to Disneyland.

  “Have fun with that.”

  “Oh, we will,” Adam says.

  They return to whatever they’re doing, but I linger in the doorway and watch them work for a minute. Adam made chloroform with Trent on our first trip to the future too, allowing us to break into Aether Corporation’s building. My heart tightens painfully in my chest thinking about all we’ve lost since then. Adam and I are the only ones left from our original team. Zoe, Trent, and now Chris…all gone, their lives snuffed out way too soon.

  How much more will we lose in the fight to save the world?

  I leave them to it and take a much-needed shower. As soon as I’m alone, the grief overwhelms me again, and my tears mingle with the running water. I cry so hard that my chest hurts and my sinuses burn. But this time I manage to shake myself out of it. Chris wouldn’t want me to stand around crying over him. No, he’d want me to get out there and find whoever’s responsible for this. He’d want me to make sure the future is safe for his wife and son. As I shut off the water, I silently swear to myself that I will do whatever it takes to avenge Chris’s death and take care of his family.

  By the time I’m dressed, Zahra and Paige have returned, and everyone’s converged in the living room.

  “We’re back,” Paige announces. “And we’ve brought pizza!”

  “My heroes,” Ken says, gazing with fondness at Paige, but she turns away from him.

  Zahra rolls her eyes and sets the pizza boxes down on the coffee table, then grabs some plates and napkins for everyone. The guys practically launch themselves at the food, so I guess I’m not the only one who is starving.

  “How’d it go?” I ask after we’ve all served ourselves and settled around the living room.

  Paige picks at her slice of pizza. “We didn’t find anything suspicious in his apartment. I was super disappointed.”

  “Did you have any problems?” Ken asks.

  “Nope. Breaking into his place was easy peasy. He’ll never even know we were there.”

  I shake my head. “It’s disturbing how good you are at that.”

  She shrugs, grinning at me. “We all have our own skills. Mine happen to be a little bit shady, that’s all.”

  “Was there anything on his computer?” Adam asks.

  “Not much,” Zahra admits. “I found some right-wing extremist websites in his browser history, but it seems like he’s just perusing for now.” Her mouth twists into a scowl. “You should see what they say about people like me. I need a serious brain cleanse after looking at that stuff.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “That must have been tough to read.”

  She waves it away. “It is what it is. I’ve dealt with that stuff my entire life. Anyway, I get the feeling he’s testing the waters, but might not actually join up and go full white supremacist for a few years still.”

  Paige grabs another slice of pizza. “He’s like one of those men who shoots up a mosque, and then the neighbors all go, ‘Well, he seemed like such a nice guy.’ But all along he’s been hiding that racist, hateful garbage inside him and it was just waiting to be let out.”

  “Except he’s going to help release a pandemic that takes out the entire world,” I mutter.

  “Not if we stop him first,” Zahra says. “How’d you guys do?”

  “Ken and I are almost finished with the chloroform, but we need a few things from the store,” Adam says with a nod from Ken. “We can make some smoke bombs too, if that will help.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Zahra says.

  I wipe my hands on a napkin. “I’m all set. I got everything we needed from the apartment, and no one followed me.”

  “Good,” Zahra says. “I’m going to dig up some blueprints for the building Aceso Pharmaceuticals is in. We’ll move around midnight.”

  We finish up, and everyone gets back to work. Zahra buries herself in her laptop, completely oblivious to anything else going on around her. Ken heads back into the kitchen, with one lingering glance at Paige, who ignores him. Adam makes a list of supplies they need, then sends me and Paige off to get them.

  We head to the nearest supermarket and browse through the aisles, grabbing all the household cleaners and other things Adam needs. It’s shockingly similar to when Zoe and I did the same thing to prepare for our Aether Corporation break-in. I pause and lean on my shopping cart, overcome with memories of Z
oe’s shy smile and her bright-blue hair. She was small, like Paige, and scared of dark, enclosed spaces, but she was brave enough to crawl through the air ducts anyway. I barely knew her before she was killed, but we both grew up in foster care and we understood each other in a way that is missing with Zahra and Paige. They both grew up with loving, upper-middle-class families. But Zoe? She was like me. Same with Chris and Trent. They knew what it was like to have the people you love ripped away from you, to live in a new house every year, and to worry about where your next meal might come from. They knew what it was like to live in fear every single day.

  I miss them so much. But the three of them are gone, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I have to move on and do whatever I can to protect the friends I still have left.

  “Hey,” I tell Paige, who’s grabbing some granola bars. “I’m sorry for dragging Ken into this before and not telling you and Zahra about it. But don’t take it out on him. He cares about you a lot.”

  She gives a big, dramatic sigh. “I know. I just thought he and I were connecting, that we had something real, and then I find out he wasn’t being honest with me.”

  “I get that. After Adam went to the future on his own without telling me, I was so mad at him. I’m still not sure I can forgive him.” I draw in a long breath. “But you should give Ken a chance. He was only trying to help us out.”

  Paige rests a soft hand on my shoulder. “What Adam did was wrong. But if you were in his shoes, would you have made a different choice?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  “You did the same thing to me and Zahra by keeping us out of the loop for our protection. I forgave you anyway, and Zahra did too, because we both know you were only doing what you thought was best.”

  “That was different,” I mutter.

  “Was it?” She cocks her head, her blond ponytail twitching. “All I’m saying is, we’ve all made mistakes. But our motives came from a place of love. That has to count for something.”

  I open my mouth but don’t know what to say. She steps forward and gives me a tight hug, and I hug her back just as hard, emotion clogging my throat.

  When she steps back, I wipe at my eyes and give her a fake scowl. “Why are you so damn nice all the time?”

  She gives me a wink. “Mainly because I know it makes you and Zahra crazy.”

  Getting into Aceso Pharmaceuticals is a lot easier than breaking into Aether’s building was. Paige picks the lock on the front door of the office. I knock out the sole security guard with chloroform, and then Zahra hacks into the security system and wipes out all traces of us. The whole thing takes less than five minutes. It’s almost too easy.

  “I think we might have over-prepared for this mission,” Ken says.

  I survey the drab, gray lobby again, just in case. “No such thing.”

  “Don’t jinx us!” Paige tells Ken. She raps on the nearest door-frame. “Knock on wood.”

  I lead them farther into the office, going first in case there’s another security guard lingering around or someone working late tonight. Zahra and Paige are good with guns, but I’m the only one on the team who can throw a punch properly. The office isn’t very big, just one hallway with a few labs and other rooms leading off it, and I’m relieved that it appears to be empty and no one’s working late.

  The others split up to search the different labs, while I remain on lookout. The lack of security makes me think we won’t find much, and that this place has nothing to hide, but I could be wrong.

  After a few minutes, Adam emerges from one of the labs and leans against the wall near me, his face tired. “There’s nothing here. Nothing related to my work, to the cure, or to the virus.”

  “Not yet, at least,” I say. “They might have something in another few years.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think they’re the ones who destroyed my lab.”

  “What kind of research do they do here?”

  “They’re working on drugs to treat diabetes. One of them releases insulin through an inhaler or a spray so the person won’t have to give themselves shots. Genius, really.”

  My heart skips a beat. “An inhaler?”

  “Yeah, like the kind they use for asthma.”

  “Show me.”

  He leads me into the other room, to a cabinet full of small, white inhalers. Nearly identical to the ones I saw in the future in Harrison Weiss’s backpack.

  I pick one of them up and inspect it. “This has to be it.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam asks.

  “This inhaler thing. It’s very similar to the ones Harrison Weiss had the virus in.”

  “Hmm.” He picks one up. “There’s nothing dangerous in these inhalers now, but perhaps in a few years they’re used to release the virus instead.”

  “When we go to the future again, we can check. Now we have something to look for.”

  “Guys, I found something,” Zahra yells.

  I pocket one of the inhalers, and we head over to the lab she’s in. Paige and Ken walk in a step behind us.

  “What is it?” Paige asks.

  Zahra’s face is grim. “I tapped into this place’s finances to see who was funding it. Took some digging, but then I found it. The number one contributor is Vincent Sharp.”

  My stomach starts to free-fall. The world narrows to a sharp point, an arrow pointing to the truth. And it all leads back to Vincent. “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “It makes sense,” Paige says. “Vincent’s wife had diabetes before she died.” When we all turn to her, she shrugs. “Jeremy told me once. My dad has it too.”

  “Vincent’s behind it all,” I say, even as I struggle to believe it. But it all makes sense now. I hold up the inhaler. “We found this in the other lab. It’s nearly identical to the one I saw in the future on Harrison Weiss.”

  Paige gasps. “You think Vincent is responsible for the virus in ten years?

  Adam’s face has gone pale. “He knows about genicote. He knows about the virus in the future. He knows we were looking at Harrison Weiss.” He looks up and meets my eye. “You’re right. It has to be him.”

  “Hang on,” Zahra says. “I dislike Vincent as much as anyone, but we don’t know if he’s involved yet.”

  “Yes, we do,” Ken says. He’s gripping the table in front of him like he might fall if he lets go. “Oh God.”

  Paige is immediately at his side. “Are you okay?”

  He looks up at her. “I—I have to tell you something. Something bad. Something that will make you look at me differently.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asks.

  “I’ve done something terrible.” He sinks down into an office chair and buries his head in his hands. “I’ve been working for Vincent for the last couple months.”

  My jaw drops. “You what?”

  “What do you mean, working for him?” Adam asks.

  Ken looks up at us with grief-stricken eyes. “From working with Adam, I knew genicote could be the key to stopping Huntington’s. Vincent offered me funds and supplies to try to create a cure for Huntington’s disease, and I said yes. Not only because I know I’ll die from it in twenty years, but because my mom is dying from it right now. She doesn’t have much time left. Even if she’s cured now, she won’t be the same, but at least she’ll be alive. I didn’t want to work with Vincent, not after what we all went through, but to save my mom, I didn’t have any other choice.”

  Adam’s motivation for stealing the cancer cure from himself in the future was similar—to save his mother’s life. But that action triggered a chain of events that resulted in the deaths of Trent and Zoe and almost led to mine and Chris’s too. Now Ken’s decisions have led him down a similar spiral, all in the name of saving someone he loves.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Adam asks. “I could have helped you.”

  Ken bites his lip, looking away. “The last few months you’ve been uh…kinda difficult. Every week you became more and more obsessed with
creating the cure. I didn’t want to get in the way of that…but I also saw you starting to fall apart. I thought it might be better to keep this to myself until you got yourself together again.”

  “But why would Vincent help you out like that?” Zahra asks.

  “In return for my research, Aether would retain all the rights to the drug and would be able to sell it. They’d have a monopoly over the market because no one else has anything like it. I don’t care about the money though. I just want to save my mom. I want to live past the age of forty. And I want to make sure I can have kids one day without worrying about them getting this horrible disease too.” He looks at Paige and swallows.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Paige asks.

  “I knew none of you would be happy about me working with them, not after what happened with Jeremy and our last trips to the future. But Vincent seemed different after his son’s death, like he wanted to make a difference in the world and put the time-travel thing behind him forever.” He sighs. “But I was wrong. He hasn’t changed at all.”

  I thought Vincent had changed too. He acted like he cared about Adam, and the fate of the world, and his people in the future, but he had us all fooled. The only one he cares about is himself. “We’ve all made mistakes with Vincent,” I say, since I’m just as guilty as Ken is. “But what does this have to do with the virus?”

  He meets my gaze with haunted eyes. “Because I’ve done something terrible. Something I didn’t realize was bad at the time, but now, after learning the truth about this place and Vincent…” He trails off and shakes his head.

  “What is it?” Paige asks.

  “Were you the one who destroyed Adam’s lab?” I ask. “Or the backup at Chris’s place?”

  “No! Why would I do that?” He glances around at all of us, his eyes pleading. “Come on. You know that wasn’t me. I’d never destroy Adam’s research.”

  Zahra crosses her arms. “Then what’s this terrible thing you did?”