“That’s why you didn’t come forward with us?”
Mym nods. “I had to keep them from doing what I did: going back and trying to save him and making even more timestreams.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes, but it’s still going to be hard. There are four of me now from different timestreams, with one Dad between us. It’s not really fair to not let them see him, since I’m the one who caused this.”
“I’d never really thought about that.” I consider the Mym before me. Her eyebrows are furrowed in frustration.
Her voice gets softer as she speaks again, “You’d think with all these people around, you’d never get lonely. It’s the opposite. You can’t keep any of them for yourself.” She looks up to my eyes. “When I saw you again and knew we would succeed, I didn’t really know what was going to happen, but I knew—I knew I didn’t want to share you.”
I get a flutter in my stomach and resist the urge to grin. Mym’s face is still serious. I reach my hand across the table toward hers, but she draws it away.
“But now you signed yourself up for a chronothon; a race that can take you thousands of years away. You’ll be so far, I could never find you, no matter how hard I tried.”
“Mym, I didn’t think about that—”
“No. You didn’t.” She reaches under the table and yanks her chronometer charger out of the socket. She bundles the cord into her bag and slides out of the booth.
“Mym—”
“We should go.” She turns her back on me and heads for the door.
I fumble through my pockets for some tip money and stuff it under my milkshake glass before chasing her out of the diner. Mym is across the street by the time I catch up. I reach out and grab her arm. “Mym, wait.”
She turns and looks at my face, her blue eyes locked on mine, expectant, maybe even hopeful, that I’ll have something to say that will erase the predicament we’re in. I falter. “Look . . . I’ll fix it. Somehow.” Her eyes drop to my chest. She stretches her hand out till just her fingertips are pressed over my heart. I’m suddenly more aware of my heartbeat.
“It’s okay.” She withdraws her hand. “Some things just aren’t meant to be.” She turns away again.
I can think of nothing else to say as we make our final jumps to 2009. We arrive in my neighborhood at a mailbox a few blocks from my apartment. Mym immediately starts degravitizing her next anchor. I can’t see the photo, but the anchor is a glass ball like I used in my initial training. Hers looks much older, the interior a whirl of purples and blues. I wonder how many places it could take her. She adjusts the settings on her chronometer pendant and holds the anchor out to me.
“Would you mind holding it for me?”
I let her lay it in my left palm and orient it correctly. She touches my hand only briefly as she raises it to the correct height. She’s careful not to touch me again as she places her hand over the anchor. It occurs to me that it would only take a touch, a stretch of my fingertips to make contact with her, and I could go along for the ride. I keep my hand straight, and watch her face. Her eyes finally meet mine when she has her other hand to the pin of her chronometer. I struggle with what to say, but the words won’t come.
Her expression is impassive. “Goodbye, B—”
My other arm shoots out and I grasp the hair behind her head, pulling her face toward mine as I press my lips abruptly to hers. I can feel her breath catch, then the movement of her lips on mine. Accepting, responding. Then they pull away. I open my eyes to find Mym staring into them, searching. Her expression is no longer impassive but, what? Surprised? Excited? I only have time to register the faintest of smile lines crinkling the corners of her eyes, when I notice her hand still on the pin of her chronometer. She vanishes.
The image of her face lingers in my vision as if my brain refuses to acknowledge her absence. Finally I look down to the glass anchor in my hand, her innocuous, unassuming exit, to when? Where did you go, Mym? I attempt to stop my train of thought before it reaches the real question I want answered. Is she ever coming back? I’m too late. I can think of nothing else as I trudge the couple of blocks to my apartment.
I’m still in a daze when I get the door open. I stare at my hallway and then the coffee table in total disinterest. Finally I register the blinking light on the end of my cell phone. I pick it up and flip it open. Three missed calls and two voicemails, all from my job. I check the calendar date on the phone. Shit. I’ve missed two days of work. I consider the fact that I’m most likely fired as my thumb hovers over the “return call” button. I realize I don’t care, and toss the phone at the couch. I move into the kitchen and reach for the refrigerator, contemplating the memory of my boss’s face turning red whenever she’d chew someone out. The fridge is bare.
“God, Benjamin. You can bend space and time, but you can’t keep groceries in your refrigerator?” I shut the door in frustration.
“Those were my thoughts exactly.”
My heart jolts in my chest. I search for the source of the voice and freeze at the sight of the man sitting at my kitchen table. Everything about him is dark. Black eyes are shadowed by greasy black hair. His dark skin and even his leather trench coat and military boots seem to be dimming the natural light in my usually sunny dining room. The only things light about him are the scar running through his left eyebrow, and the gleam of sunlight off the gun at his fingertips. His hand is resting gently atop the stainless barrel that’s lying casually pointed in my direction.
“There were bets on how long it would take you to come home. Some thought we’d never find you here.” His voice is gravel. His fingertip gently strokes the length of the gun before he returns his hand to his lap. “Luckily I gave you credit for more guts than most. Looks like I’ll be the winner.”
“Where else would I be?” I try to sound calm.
“Running for your life. Trying to get lost. Going somewhere I could never find you.”
“You didn’t want to bet on that?”
The man gives me something close to a smile. “I know there’s no such place.”
I take a step toward him. “You don’t need to chase me because I’m resigning. I don’t want to race.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“I disagree. I think you’re going to decide it’s in your best interest to participate in this event.” His eyes fall on the gun in front of him. He considers it with curiosity as if it’s some exotic foreign specimen newly arrived on my kitchen table.
“So you’re the authority on who resigns from chronothons?”
His gaze shifts to me. “I suppose I am. I act on behalf of your authorities. Some of them in any case. The ones that apply to you, for sure.”
“I want to speak to them myself. I’m going to tell them that Geo coerced me into this dishonestly.”
“Coerced? That’s a strong accusation. Let me clarify this situation for you, since you are having trouble grasping it.” He gestures with his right hand and a holographic image springs from the floor between us. It’s a scene of Geo’s dining room. “You recognize the diners?”
I see myself at the table, contending with the plate of Meatball Parmesan. I remain silent.
“The man sitting next to you is Judge Ciril Heperly. I’d say he’s been on the race council for, oh, about thirty years. Mr. Gioachino Amadeus has a written statement from him, that he witnessed you volunteering for the race of your own free will. In fact, he says you jumped at the chance.”
“The old mustached guy? He was asleep for half the night!”
“That’s not what he says. He claims he was awake the whole time.”
“He’s asleep right now!” I point to the holographic image of the old man, but the hologram vanishes. I’m left staring at the man in black, my finger pointing at his chest.
“Your word against his. Who’s the committee likely to believe?”
I drop my hand back to my side. “So what do you want? Are you just here to intimidate me?”
&n
bsp; He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and extracts a rectangular container. “I’m here to set your timer.” He places the container on the table and flips open the lid. Scooping inside the box, he lifts out a metallic bracelet and lets it dangle at the tip of his finger.
“Timer for what?”
“You’re a racer. Racers get timed.”
He grips the bracelet and stands up. He’s tall, at least even with my height. His proportions are angular and lean, and I would guess I outweigh him, but his manner as he shoves a chair aside suggests a hardness of temperament that I’m not ready to tangle with. And there’s the gun. I inch my other hand closer to my chronometer.
“Uh-uh.” He wags a finger at me. “You’re not going to make me chase you now are you? After we just had this discussion?” He appraises me from a few feet away. “You’re going to end up tagged with this bracelet one way or the other. You might run for a while. Hell, you might be fifty and living under some rock in the negative primes by the time I catch you, but make no mistake, you’ll be attending this race. Wouldn’t you rather compete while you’re young enough to have a chance at winning?” He picks his gun up from the table and holsters it. I put my hands to my hips. He smirks. “Good decision.”
The man slides a section of the bracelet apart and presses a number of buttons on a miniature keypad. The bracelet springs open.
“Who are you?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Too irrelevant for you to have a name?”
“Names get overused when everyone knows them. I prefer to not have my name sullied by the mouths of the undeserving. Hold out your arm.”
“At least I don’t have to worry about you flattering my ego, to rope me into some event I shouldn’t be involved in. Oh, wait. That was your buddies’ jobs. And that already happened.” I extend my right arm.
“Gioachino Amadeus has one job. To make money. His methods simply vary.”
“And your job?”
“I make sure people keep their promises.” He snaps the bracelet onto my wrist and closes the control panel. “My methods also vary.” He reaches into his jacket again and extracts an enormous syringe. “Roll up your sleeve.”
“Whoa!” I step away. “What the hell is that?”
“Your vaccine.”
“Vaccine against what? Elephantitus?”
The man considers the length of the needle as he removes its protective wrapper. “Maybe. I just give the shots, I don’t ask what’s in them.”
“Even more reason. You’ve got to be crazy if you think I’m getting stuck with that.”
“Your prerogative, I guess. You want to retch your guts out with the Spanish Flu in some outdated hospital, I guess you can.” He moves the syringe back to the container.
“Spanish Flu? They’ll send me somewhere with Spanish Flu?”
“Could be Ebola for all I know. No one knows the course prior to the race. So they can’t very well tell you what you’re being vaccinated against, can they? It would ruin the suspense.”
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter as I roll up my sleeve. “If I do get Ebola, I’m coming back and infecting you.”
“Just think of this as a free health care perk.” The man slides the needle into my shoulder. “The side effects are usually mild anyway. A little blurry vision, maybe a nose bleed or two. Involuntary time travel . . .”
“What?”
“I’m kidding.” The man extracts the needle and tosses me a piece of gauze. “Or who knows? Maybe I’m not. Either way, just tell yourself you had no choice.”
“I thought you said it was my prerogative.”
“Yeah, you could take it in the arm, like a man, or I could have beaten you unconscious and stabbed it into your ass. Those were your options. Now don’t you feel like you’ve made wise decisions so far? Cheer up.” He smacks me in the shoulder where he injected me. I wince from the pain.
I look at my wrist and note the display on my new arm ornament. “This looks like a countdown.”
The man pulls a degravitizer and a matchbook from his pocket. “It is. You’re going to be at the start line of the chronothon by the time that reaches zero.”
“Or else?”
“Or else it turns into a different kind of race. You don’t want to sign up for that one, either.” He hands me a slip of paper and a pencil, then sets to work degravitizing his matchbook.
“What do you need me to write?”
“Nothing. That pencil is your anchor. It will get you in front of the registration committee. They can fill you in on the rest. The jump coordinates and elevations are on the paper.” He sets the matchbook on the edge of my kitchen counter and applies his index finger to it.
I turn the slip of paper over. “Ireland?”
“Yeah, but pack light. You won’t be staying long.”
He disappears.
“Anchor yourself. Firmly. Never make a jump without solid contact with your anchor. The ether of time is littered with involuntary travelers who couldn’t grasp the concept of holding on.”–Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2125
Chapter 6
The phone rings five times before Francesca picks up. “Hey, Ben. What’s up?” She sounds out of breath.
“I’m pretty sure I’m fired, and that’s not even remotely the bad news.”
She pauses. “You want me to come over?”
“Actually, I was hoping we could go grab some food. I’m starving. Did you eat yet?”
“I ate, but I’ll come get you. Be there in a few minutes.”
Of all my friends, only a few know about my recent experience with time travel. Those few only know because they were with me the day it happened. Our experience caused us to spend weeks in the past but I haven’t even had the chance to attempt to tell anyone else. Not that anyone would be likely to believe me anyway.
I snag the matchbook off the counter and take it outside with me to the sidewalk. I’ve watched about half the matches burn their way toward my fingertips by the time Francesca arrives. She turns down the radio as I climb into her Camry. She’s still in her workout clothes, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey, Fresca. I appreciate you doing this.”
“Sure. We’ve missed you the last couple days. Carson and I came by your place yesterday and left a note on your car. Did you get it?”
“You guys hanging out again?”
“Something like that. Everything’s different now, you know? It’s nice being around someone who knows what I’m talking about. And you’ve been MIA. What’ve you been doing?”
“I took a trip.”
“Like a trip, trip, or . . .” She nods toward my chronometer. “ . . . you know, a trip?”
“The latter.” I fill her in as briefly as I can about my excursion with Mym, as she exits my neighborhood.
“Spain? Really? Where did you sleep at night? Did anything happen? I need details.”
“Nothing like that. Money’s not really an issue for her, so we could afford separate rooms.”
“That’s no fun. So no romantic progress?” She alternates between watching my face and the road.
“Kind of. I kissed her.”
“Ooh, yeah? How did it happen? Tell me, tell me!”
“It was kind of weird timing. She was leaving, and I wasn’t sure she was coming back. I’m still not sure.”
“What? Why?” Francesca pulls into the Chipotle parking lot and shuts off the ignition.
I hold my wrist up and jiggle the bracelet. “I got myself into some trouble.”
“For wearing man jewelry?”
“It’s a little worse than that.” I wait till I’m through the ordering line and seated across a booth from Francesca before continuing the story. Francesca tears the top off the bag of chips while watching my face expectantly.
“I’m going to be in a race. A race for time travelers.”
Francesca cocks her head. “Okay. Go on . . .”
�
��Only it’s not just a race. I think these guys might be some kind of mafia. They’re big time, whoever they are. Powerful. Influential.”
“What do they want with you?” She dunks a chip into the salsa.
“I don’t really know. I just know they tricked me into signing up for this thing and they aren’t going to let me out of it.”
“Did you tell Dr. Quickly? What did Mym say?”
“They thought I should try to beg out from the race committee, tell them I got conned. I planned on trying that, but when I got home, a guy was waiting in my kitchen with this.” I finger the bracelet, watching the seconds ticking down. “He wasn’t messing around. He made it pretty clear that I’m not getting out of it.”
“He was from the race?”
“I don’t even know. I feel so far over my head on this I can’t even tell you. I just know somebody wants me involved in this thing, and they’re not going to let up. Until I have more pieces of the puzzle, I just have to keep going. I wanted to tell you, though. I don’t know why they picked me, but they may target you guys, too. If you or Blake or Carson see anybody suspicious lurking around, you should blink out of there first and ask questions later. And watch out for anyone peddling flattering bullshit, though I’m probably the only one who falls for that.”
“What are you going to do?” Francesca stretches a hand out to mine.
“I need to find some help. I’m tired of feeling clueless. And I need to figure out how to race a chronothon, apparently.”
“Are you going to find Dr. Quickly again?”
“If I can. He’s the only ally I’ve got, unless Mym turns back up.”
“She will.” Francesca pats my hand. “She has to recognize a good thing when she sees it.”
After lunch, Francesca pulls up to the curb in front of the Saint Petersburg Temporal Studies Society and lets the engine idle. The low industrial building where Dr. Quickly began his research is nestled in an otherwise residential neighborhood. A chain link fence has been left open for a team of electrical workers who are making adjustments to a transformer from the top of their bucket truck. A few other workers are replacing glass on some of the windows. I’m puzzled by the activity until I realize it’s only been a couple days in ‘regular time’ since the accident that originally sent my friends and me back in time. They are still recovering from the damage.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 49