Afterimage

by Naomi Hughes

  “And because the timeline we’re in right now doesn’t have that many big differences, you think whatever change was made to create it happened recently.”

  “I would estimate,” he says, sliding his glasses back on, “about three weeks ago.”

  The numbness is slow, creeping through my bones and weighing down my breaths. Three weeks ago. The explosion. The agency. Matthew. Mom. The puzzle pieces jangle against each other, refusing to fit together.

  Lost in his thoughts, Quint takes a left turn. This part of town is mostly vacant housing and a few abandoned offices with nothing but stray cats and empty windows to watch me as I stride past. DEAD-END AHEAD, proclaims a yellow sign.

  “Camryn,” Quint says suddenly, “I know we’re not friends, but do you … can you trust me?”

  I want to tell him no, because that’s what my answer should be, and also because if I say yes he’s going to ask me to trust him now and run again—but he’ll know if I lie to him, the same way I know when he does. “We’ve been through several near-death experiences together,” I answer at last. “I’ve stopped ignoring you. Mostly. And you’ve been a manipulative bastard slightly less than you could’ve been in the last few hours. If that doesn’t make us friends I don’t know what will.”

  He gives me the ghost of a smile and opens his mouth—then freezes.

  A ten-foot fence rises before us, topped with wicked looking barbed wire and festooned in signs as brightly colored as candy wrappers. RADIATION HAZARD, they warn cheerfully. ARMY PERSONNEL ONLY. RESTRICTED AREA.

  Beyond them lies the remnants of the agency base.

  A thousand acres of char and ash spread toward the coastline. Half a dozen ships sit in an abandoned shipyard, hollowed-out hulls that’ll never see their research missions. Directly below us is what used to be a parking lot, with chunks of uprooted pavement littered throughout. In the desert of black and gray, a few structures still stand: a singed warehouse here, a skeletal dormitory there. But almost everything is flattened and scorched.

  The memorial was a sea of empty caskets.

  “Why—” Quint’s voice is choked. He steps forward, winding transparent fingers through the fence links. “Why have you brought us here?”

  I stand very still, because the panic of this place is welling up inside me like water through cracks in the earth. I form my reply with difficulty. “I didn’t. You did.”

  He turns to deny it, a frown cutting across his face. Then he stops—realizing how I’ve been staying a few steps behind him while he was talking and distracted, letting him lead the way without thinking about where he was going.

  He turns his back on me, staring out across the ocean of ash. “You think he’s here. You think I led you to him.”

  I make myself reach out. My fingers hover an inch away from the fence. The panic increases, winding tight around me, choking off my breath. I hate this place. I hate this place, and of course it’s where we’d all end up. “I think … I think all three of us are connected to the base, somehow.”

  He shakes his head, slow and deliberate. I’m not sure whether it’s a denial or a plea.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer, only half my mind on our conversation as I try to beat down the panic. I can’t allow it to prevent me from finding Matthew, if he really is on the base, but the anxiety is huge and threatening and I hate feeling this way yet again, hate the helplessness and the hopelessness and the sickening, all-consuming fear.

  Quint inhales. “I’m fading, Cam.”

  I jerk back. My hand falls to my side as I turn to him, panic attack momentarily forgotten. “What?”

  He’s still staring out at the base, head leaned against the fence. He holds one hand out and the sunlight cuts through it like he’s made of nothing but mist. “I noticed it after the train station,” he says, his tone thin, “but I thought I was imagining it. This morning it was worse. I’ve been trying to get up the courage to say something since dawn.”

  I remember standing in front of Dr. Lila’s computer, the green light making him look even more transparent than usual—and last night, the moonrise gleaming through his torso. I thought I’d been imagining it too.

  He closes his eyes. “If I could sleep, I think I’d have nightmares about this. I just keep fading and not knowing why until one day you get your wish and I’m gone completely. And then what happens to me?”

  His words echo in my mind: I’m afraid of the dark.

  This is his last-ditch effort to make me turn around. He’s laying all his cards on the table—and it doesn’t matter. I can’t change my mind, not now that I know Matthew has something to do with the base explosion, something to do with Mom.

  And something to do with time travel.

  The desperate hope is back, the same kind that made me go with Matthew in the first place when he told me my brother wasn’t exactly dead. Because if time travel is possible, if there are more alternate realities, if there’s even the tiniest chance that some version of my mother isn’t exactly dead either … then I can’t turn back. Not until I know. Because the thing is, I don’t think I care anymore what it means that she was shaking hands with Matthew. I don’t care if Kyle was right to doubt her, and I don’t care if she was conspiring with rogue agents. Even if the very worst of it is all true, even if I never really knew her at all—I still just want her back. And if there’s any chance Matthew can work that miracle, I’ll do anything he wants.

  Quint turns, sees my expression. Neither of us has to say anything. He gives a nod, half bitter and half resigned, and steps through the fence.

  He waits, exactly ten feet and three inches ahead of me, his back turned as I get up my courage. The panic ebbs and flows, peaking when I find a slit in the fence a few yards away—and then it glues my feet to the ground, weighs me down and locks me up, digs its claws deep and doesn’t let go. I can’t move. The fence and the fear both loom in front of me, insurmountable, impossible. If I set foot through that barrier, the panic will spiral out of control and it’ll never stop.

  But I’ve failed my mother once in this place already. She’s dead because I couldn’t face my fear. I can’t, I won’t fail her again.

  So how do I stop the panic? Maybe she was right and the only way to fight it is to stop trying to fight it. I thought I didn’t know how to accept something that felt so awful but now I think maybe this is how. Stepping through the fence, even if it kills me.

  So I do.

  And we search. For hours we search: fields of barrels filled with potentially radioactive ash, sealed and left behind until the Army can dispose of them properly. Vast, gutted warehouses that echo with my footsteps. I even venture out onto the decks of a few of the ships, but they’re eerie and lifeless and I quickly return to land. The same smell lingers no matter where we go—burnt steel, charred plastic, something toxic and inescapable. It feels right.

  The anxiety rages through me like a forest fire the whole time, and I do my level best to accept the hell out of it. I think maybe Mom would’ve been proud. The thought keeps me going.

  The sun is low in the sky when we stop. I’m running on two hours of sleep and no food, and no matter how much I need answers, I can only push myself so far. I find a warehouse at the edge of the shipyard and settle down in a corner, desperate for rest, for an escape from the still-crushing fear. Sleep comes slow and blurred, a subtle, unsettled shift into unconsciousness.

  Despite my best efforts, I dream.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THREE WEEKS AGO

  COOL MARBLE UNDER MY FINGERS. The earth shaking beneath my feet. A handsome] stranger in a lab coat, knocked to his hands and knees by the unexpected earthquake.

  He staggers and lifts his head, peering around himself like he’s not sure how he got there—and then his head jerks like he’s been slapped and he stares to the north. “No,” he breathes. “Oh, no.”

  I reach out to steady him. The ground throws him off balance again and his fingers grip mine, strong and solid, but he’s no
t looking at me and the expression on his face is as terrified as my own probably was just a few seconds ago. At least he has a good excuse, not some crap anxiety disorder he should’ve beaten months ago.

  “It’s okay,” I offer, nearly shouting to be heard above the rumbling. The ground quivers one last time and then goes still and I lower my voice to a normal volume. “Just an earthquake. Though it’s rare for them to hit this part of the coast.” I tighten my grip on his hand a little, trying to anchor him the way I’d want to be anchored.

  His gaze jerks to me then, bright green and frantic. He yanks his hand away and pats his pockets like he’s searching for something. He spots a pen and a cracked phone on the ground and sweeps them up, then stabs at the power button on the phone.

  “Sorry, you’re SOL there,” I say, gesturing at it. “The towers are down or something. Everyone’s been complaining, no one can get a signal.”

  He curses, still scanning the ground around his feet. “Paper,” he snaps. “I had a piece of paper too, and a—a rock.”

  “A rock?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer, so I shrug and bend down to search beneath the fountain’s rim. A piece of paper is fluttering in the shadows, pinned beneath a strange shimmering chunk of what looks like metal. I scoop up both. The paper is scribbled with a string of illegible numbers and the rock is strangely soft and pliable, like I might be able to dent it if I squeezed hard enough. Some sort of gold alloy maybe? It’s the wrong color though: a crisp quicksilver gray, like a lake in the wintertime.

  I turn back to the boy and offer him the paper first. Relief washes over his expression as he reaches out, lifting his pen like he’s about to write something else on it. Our fingers touch—

  All the birds on the base scream, throwing themselves from trees and buildings and statues. They swirl into the air, climbing, clawing for the sky. Feathers float down from the chaos; one lands on the fountain, balancing delicately on its edge before it teeters into the water.

  Together, we stare up at the birds. A shiver traces across my skin.

  “Why …” I start, and then the world explodes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WHEN I WAKE UP, THE nooks and crannies of the warehouse are heavy with the smell of coffee.

  Quint is leaned against the wall keeping watch. He stirs, looks down. His gaze is flat and tired as he scans my expression. “You remembered more,” he guesses.

  I sit up, run a hand through my matted hair. The anxiety is still present but it’s died down a bit—more like a hot coal than a forest fire now. “Yeah,” I say blearily. “About you. Us. The day we met, when you were alive.”

  “I don’t want to know.” The words drop through the dark like stones in a pond.

  “Okay.” I stand up.

  “You still sure you want to find him? Sure you want to know what he knows?” he asks, pushing off the wall and turning toward the exit at my side. The shadows wrap him up and blot him out, but only in the way they do for everyone. In the dark, all anyone has is a voice.

  I take a breath: ash and coffee. Half toxic, half tempting. “I have to.”

  We step into the starlight.

  The ruined base is quiet and calm, the cold moon shining dully overhead. On the distant horizon lightning flickers over the ocean and heralds yet another unseasonable storm. We wander, following the out-of-place smell of coffee, and end up at the shipyard. A newly lowered plank leads to the deck of a defunct research vessel, one of the ships I didn’t get to explore earlier. In its past life, the boat must’ve been green and white, but now it’s covered in scorch marks and bird droppings. Three-foot-tall letters splash white against the bow: The McKay.

  I hesitate, squinting at the deck. I test my weight on the plank and then step out. Twenty feet below, algae-clogged water waits.

  Half a dozen pigeons are perched on the ship’s rail, heads tucked down in their feathers, murmuring sleepily to themselves. A few yards away from them sits a steaming mug and an empty coffeepot.

  I wrap my fingers around the chipped blue cup and pick it up. Fissures run through its sides, fine cracks that would probably split wide open if I pressed hard enough.

  The coffee smells amazing. I dump it over the rails.

  Behind me, someone sighs. Matthew. “I thought you could use some, that’s all. I didn’t poison it if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “That’s right,” I answer, my voice steely and my eyes still on the water. “You’ve already established your preferred murder methods.”

  He steps out onto the deck. I turn. He’s traded his black hoodie for a button-down gray shirt, and the effect makes him look almost normal—hands in his pockets, exasperated look on his face, glasses endearingly crooked. But the handle of his gun is poking out of one pocket, and I can still remember him giving me that same exasperated look while he was ignoring the janitor who was dying right behind him.

  We watch each other. The leftover heat from the cup seeps into my hands.

  “Aren’t you worried about the radiation?” I ask, nodding at the fence lined with warning signs.

  His mouth quirks humorlessly. “Aren’t you?”

  “I have bigger problems,” I say, my tone flat. It’s true in more ways than one. It’s only because I’ve been so preoccupied with my anxiety, which exists only inside my own head, that I haven’t had time to think about potential radiation poisoning, which is what I should be scared of. But in any case, I’m pretty sure I’d have to stay out here much longer than a single night to get a lethal dose.

  Matthew nods. “Same here.” Then, after a moment: “Sorry I couldn’t let you know where I was sooner. The north end of the base is still manned by a handful of agents. Couldn’t risk revealing myself.”

  “Maybe I should reveal you,” I murmur. “My brother tells me you’re a terrorist. Even your own ghost is afraid of you.”

  Quint looks away.

  Matthew lifts one shoulder in a shrug, but his eyes are sharp and careful. “You could turn me in. But I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”

  “So tell me why I’m here,” I challenge.

  “You’re here because you have no one else to turn to,” he says. No hesitation, no uncertainty. “You’re here because I have the answers you’ve been searching for. But mainly, you’re here because you’ve figured out I know your mother, and because you think I can bring her back.”

  Silence. Stillness. The pigeons rustle and settle.

  He waits. Gives me one last chance to run, now that he knows I can’t.

  The mug creaks and grinds under my grip. “Tell me everything,” I order.

  And he does.

  Six months ago, Dr. Matthew Lerato was a pacifist.

  When he was first recruited by the agency, they placed him on teams that were creating weapons, new types of exploitable energy, anything that would give the military an edge or keep them funded. He requested reassignment. They resisted. So Matthew compromised with nonlethal weaponry, clean energy resources, and groundbreaking physics research.

  But he had a pet project.

  Leratonium, he called it. A brand new lab-created element that, combined with the right type of radiation and an electricity based trigger, could remove and store souls. The consciousness of a human being, transferred to inanimate storage until science could find a way to build it a new body. He couldn’t prove it worked, of course. Not until they did human trials, which wouldn’t take place until after years of research and testing.

  The agency disagreed.

  Where he saw the Holy Grail, they saw a power source. He’d developed a way to analyze the unique energy signature of a human consciousness, and it was vast—more than the yearly power output of the whole of North America. The agency took his research to Washington, and they quietly approved it for human trials.

  Dual usage, they said: a weapon plus a near-endless energy source. Plug in the consciousness of your enemies and use it to power your country.

  Matthew was horrified. He went to h
is department heads, but they did nothing. So he went to the psychiatric division, the team that was partnered with his to study the psychological repercussions of consciousness storage. He chose Dr. Marianne Kingfisher and told her everything. She agreed the experiment had to be stopped and started working overtime, quietly gathering evidence that could be used to obtain a court order against the agency. But her methods took too long, and a week before the first Leratonium trial was scheduled, Matthew decided to sabotage it himself. A few recalibrations was all it took to ensure his research would self-destruct with no collateral damage.

  But his bosses suspected he was getting cold feet, so they’d told him the wrong date. And five minutes before the real trial took place, Matthew realized that in his rush he’d gotten the calibrations for the electric trigger wrong. With the present settings the experiment was likely to destroy half the base and spread radiation over the coast. He started writing down the new calibrations and headed back to the base to correct them.

  He was too late.

  There was also a girl.

  In her timeline, she was holding the brand new element when the experiment started leaking radiation into the base.

  Leratonium was a stable element.

  Under normal circumstances.

  I squeeze the mug. My knuckles are white, and my breath is coming too fast.

  “The radiation changed the Leratonium’s properties, fused it to your cells,” Matthew concludes. His hands are still in his pockets like this is nothing more than a casual conversation for him. “Kind of like lead poisoning. Though I’d need to take a sample to be sure.”

  The darkness is thunder in my ears. A kaleidoscope tumbles through my mind: holding Matthew’s hand while the world exploded. Waking up with his consciousness tied to mine. My veins, glowing ghostly white with a metallic signature.

  My mother, gathering evidence to stop the experiment. To save people’s lives, not take them.

  Her empty casket. Telling the ghost on her voicemail that I loved her.