Thieves

by Lyn South

“Given that you’re the Benefactors’ bulldog now, I doubt that,” I say.

  There’s an audible sigh. “You’ve got me all wrong, kiddo. There are things you don’t know about how you were chosen for this mission.”

  “What do you mean ‘chosen?’”

  “You’ve been set up.”

  “Set up?” Nico’s jaw drops. “Dodger, what’s he talking about?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” I say. Then, to Carter: “You have thirty seconds to explain that or I’m cutting the transmission feed.”

  Nico holds a finger to his lips, then taps the communications panel, switching to an alternate frequency. “Fagin?” Nico says. “Are you hearing this?”

  No answer.

  “I’m afraid Ms. Delacroix can’t come to the communicator right now. She’s in deep discussions with my compatriots, at the moment,” Carter says. “And, yes, we have full control over all of your communication frequencies. We need to talk, Arseneau. You’re trying to climb a slippery slope, and you know it.”

  Nico leans back in his chair and shoots me a loaded-for-bear look. “What in the hell is he talking about?”

  Fuck. “It’s...complicated.” My mouth goes dry.

  Carter makes an annoying tsk-tsk sound. “It sure sounds like you haven’t kept your boyfriend in the loop regarding your extra-curricular activities.”

  “Dodger, one more time...what’s he talking about?” Nico’s eyes turn pleading, like he knows he’s going to hate my answer, but he needs to hear it anyway.

  I settle into the co-pilot’s seat, and stare into my lap. I can’t meet his gaze anymore. A few minutes pass in silence, until Carter’s dangerously thin patience disappears.

  “Enough playing around.” His voice turns hard. “You have five minutes to surrender, and allow me onboard, or I’m coming in there after you. If I have to do that, I promise you won’t like the outcome.”

  Chapter 24

  “Four minutes left.” Jackson Carter’s voice blares over the speakers. “It’ll go a lot easier for you if I can tell my bosses you voluntarily cooperated.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t make that offer to Fagin as you hold her prisoner,” I reply. “You playing good cop to get her to cooperate, too?”

  “She’s not a prisoner. Fagin is free to leave protective custody at any time.”

  “Protective custody. Is that what the kids are calling time traveler jail these days?” Usually sarcasm rolls off me like butter across warm toast. Right now, though, my stomach feels ready to turn cartwheels, making it hard to enjoy trading witty comebacks with Carter. “I have no freaking clue what’s going on, but—”

  “Don’t you? This party is all because of you, Arseneau.”

  Nico leans forward in the commander’s chair and rests his elbows on his knees. The expectant look on his face makes my stomach churn. It’s all about to come spilling out and while I’m convinced I won’t receive better treatment from the Benefactors by cooperating with their errand boy, I’m equally convinced the little toad is right about one thing: Bad things get worse when you don’t face them head-on.

  Because he’s the kind who gets quieter the angrier he gets, Nico’s silence as he shifts from annoyed curiosity to active agitation is alarming.

  “Does your boyfriend know what you’ve done?” Carter says. “Was he in on your little scheme? I’m sure my superiors will want to interrogate him, too.”

  Nico continues to stare. After several long seconds, he takes a measured breath and says, “He’s not talking about this disciplinary training mission, is he?”

  It takes two hard swallows to force saliva down past the lump in my throat. “Do you believe someone can do the wrong thing, for the right reasons?” Desperation crowds into the edges of my voice. “Even if it’s something horrible? I mean... sometimes you really don’t have options when your only choice is between bad and worse.”

  “There’s always a choice.” Nico says, his voice quiet. Resolved.

  “Three minutes.” Carter says.

  Fuck.

  The corner of Nico’s left eye twitches. He pushes himself out of the chair, hands clenched in fists at his side. “What. Did you. Do?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. You have to believe that. Just...” I press my palms flat on his chest, hoping—for even a second—to keep his fury at bay. I swear I can feel his heart pounding. “Just tell me you believe I didn’t intend for things to go down—”

  “If you don’t quit dancing around the issue and tell me what you did, I’ll open that fucking door myself.”

  Everything tumbles out in a rush of words I hope make sense. “English soldiers murdered my parents. They killed Papa right in front of me. My maman died when our ship to the colonies sank in a storm. And then...” Nico tries to side-step around me; I clutch fistfuls of his shirt to keep him in place. I know it all sounds like pathetic excuses. He doesn’t look me in the eye. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t look me in the eye, either. Still, I hold tight to his shirt like it’s a lifeline to his heart. “After that, I was sold into indentured servitude.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks. He’s got to see what they did to me. Why I had no choice. “I was nine years old! It’s like fate pointed her cruel, twisted fingers at me and cursed me with surviving alone. So, that’s what I did: I survived.”

  A slow, rhythmic clap echoes through the cabin. “Brava, my dear,” Carter says. “You should resurrect the Penny Dreadful tales of old. You’re quite the storyteller. Dial it back a little bit, though, you’re overacting.”

  “I swear to God, Carter,” I say, clenching my teeth, “if you say one more word, I’ll—”

  Nico interrupts. “I know you’re a survivor. That’s not the point.”

  “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.” Why can’t he fucking see that?

  “You’re dancing around the question. What did you do that caused the king to execute Anne before she gives birth to Elizabeth?”

  Carter’s voice breaks in. “I can read him the letter, if you like. I’ve got it right here.”

  “What letter?” Nico says, folding his arms over his chest. His jawline is hard set, like marble.

  “I forged a letter from Lady Anne to Sir Thomas Wyatt that made it look like she’s still in love with him.”

  “Shit,” Nico swears under his breath.

  Carter reads part of the letter.

  “My Dearest Thomas, I weep for our lost love as I prepare to marry the king. I beg you, do not exile me from your heart. I could not bear it if you do. Please, my dearest heart, do not abandon me in my greatest hour of need. The child I carry is yours, not the king’s.”

  He pauses, then adds: “As love letters go, this is particularly poignant.”

  “I didn’t write that,” I say, shaking my head.

  Nico sighs and his eyes narrow. “You said you wrote the letter.”

  “The one I wrote said nothing about Anne being pregnant because, I overheard her uncle and Charles Brandon at the scaffolds today, I wasn’t sure she was with child.” My shrug feels as helpless as it must look. “I guess it was easier to ignore the whole scenario.”

  “You’re saying someone faked your fake letter?” Nico says.

  “Someone changed the letter, yes. No wonder Henry went ballistic and executed them both. He thought Anne carried Wyatt’s child.”

  “Who died and made you God? You think you can judge who is born and who isn’t?” Nico says it softly, but it hits my heart like a neutron bomb. And his pained eyes tear me in half.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” My eyes fall to the floor.

  “Like what? Like I don’t know you anymore? Like I can’t fucking believe you would do something like this?”

  “I saw a way to stop my parents’ murders before they happened. I had to save them. I had to try.”

  Nico pushes past me. He interlaces his fingers and cups the back of his head with his hands as he stares at the ceiling. “Your actions killed Anne Bole
yn and the future queen of England,” he says, sounding exhausted.

  “I didn’t think anyone would die. I thought if I convinced the king that Lady Anne was still in love with Thomas Wyatt, he would just banish her from court. I didn’t know—”

  He turns and we lock eyes, and it’s a glare that pushes my heart off a cliff. I open my mouth to apologize for the whole mess, but he holds up a trembling hand. A cascade of shifting emotions flickers across his face: anger, hurt, bewilderment, sadness, disappointment.

  “You told me you wouldn’t do anything stupid, but you were planning this all along.” He lets out a long, ragged breath. “You lied to me.”

  “We lie all the time.” I offer a half-hearted shrug. It’s a shitty move, I know, but I feel like I’m hanging onto him with my fingertips and my grip is slipping. “It’s what we do on every job. We lie all the time. To everyone.”

  Nico explodes, directing the force of his rage into his fist as he drives it into the cabin wall. “Not to each other! Never to each other.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” I shoot back. My face feels flushed with heat. “You’ve never lost everyone you ever loved. Never lost—”

  “How the hell do you know what I’ve lost? You push me away too much to know anything about my past.” He licks his lips and squares off to face me head-on. “Revenge. Is that really what this is really all about?”

  “What would you do to save your family?” I’m vaguely aware that what I intended to say with some semblance of calm has erupted as a primal howl.

  “Not this.” He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Anything but this. I could have helped you. We could have worked through all of this together.”

  “Nico—” I say, but he cuts me off.

  “You let her get to you. Goddamn it, Dodger, you let Trevor get in your head.”

  “Two minutes,” comes the next countdown warning.

  “Fuck off, Carter,” Nico bellows.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Nico rakes his hands through his hair. “You changed a fixed point in time. Do you know the impact of stopping the birth of a someone who is supposed to live?”

  “No.” I stop to consider the possibilities, and the first thought that comes to mind is—if I went looking for them—whether I could see my parents’ faces again. Merde. Are they still alive or did I fuck that up, too? “Do you?”

  He blinks and, for a moment, I’m distracted by a flurry of dark eyelashes. He’s standing close enough for me to catch his scent: clean male with a hint of the wood smoke from the bonfire. It’s a heady fragrance, and I wish we could fast forward through this mess and be okay again.

  “No,” he replies. “That’s the whole fucking point, Dodger. No one knows the impact of this level of meddling, because no one has ever done it before. Actually,” he lets out a snort, “What you’ve done can’t be labeled simple ’meddling.’ More like you’ve royally fucked the future. Who knows what we’ll find when we get home. If there’s a home to go back to at all.”

  “What if the future’s not fucked up? What if things are better because of this?”

  Hope is like a drug. It mollifies guilt and makes justifying insanity a tiny bit easier. I don’t know if I believe whether this surreal turn of events could possibly change history for the better, but one thing is sure: We’ll find out whether we like it or not.

  “Time’s up,” Carter says. “Open the door so we can have a proper chat about the fine mess you’ve gotten us into, or I’ll let myself in.”

  Nico pauses, a puzzled look flickers across his face. He moves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me and whispers: “Why doesn’t he barge in here and take us into custody like they did with Fagin? Why is he so interested in helping us look better to the Benefactors?”

  “No clue,” I whisper back. “Maybe he doesn’t want to attract any attention from the locals?”

  “Something doesn’t smell right. If Carter could get in the ship, he’d already be onboard. Keep him talking. I’m going to run a quick diagnostic to see if I can find which controls have been hacked. Could be they didn’t get any farther in than the CommLink frequencies.”

  “I’m waiting,” Carter says in an irritating sing-song voice.

  I swipe two fingers across the Comm Panel, and an exterior video feed hologram pops up on a nearby table. Somehow, reducing Jackson Carter to a six-inch tall action figure takes some of the bite out of his bark. Flicking a fingernail through his holo-head several times and watching as the light fragments scatter and reassemble themselves is childish, but satisfying.

  “Last time we saw each other, you threatened to sic your highly-placed friends on me. I didn’t take you for a guy who does his own dirty work. Or are you still sore that I almost torpedoed your perfect mission history on the de Medici job?”

  “Personal vendettas are a luxury I can’t afford right now. I have a job to do.”

  “What, exactly, is your job?”

  “You’re tap dancin’ on my last nerve, kid. Gotta hand it to you, though. When you fuck up, you do a whiz-bang job of it.” He sighs. “I’m here to fix what you’ve broken.”

  “Fix it how?”

  “Depends,” Carter replies. “We don’t know how much damage has been done. Our recovery team lost communication with the base back home the moment we arrived here. It’s possible the fabric of everything we knew began unraveling the minute you sent history to hell in a hand cart.” He pauses. “What we know for sure is that we can’t sit around and do nothing.”

  “Okay,” Nico replies, “there could be a wound in the time continuum, as you say. Or the communication channels could be jammed by the government so we can’t talk to the Benefactors. It could be any number of things that screw with the frequencies, like solar flares.”

  “Put two and two together, Garcia, and I’ll bet you still come up with four. What’s that old saying: The simplest answer is often the correct one?”

  Nico turns back to the command console. After a few minutes, he looks back at me. “We can’t get through, either. No response from Command Ops back home.”

  “Told you,” Carter’s voice brims with weary annoyance.

  “You’re a manipulative son of a bitch,” I say. “You could’ve sabotaged the communication frequencies, yourself, to convince us to cooperate. I’d like to know how much the Benefactors are paying you. Whatever it is, it must be a handsome sum for you to take this job on.”

  “Maybe I’m here just to watch you go down, Arseneau. That would be payment enough.”

  “That answer doesn’t inspire confidence in your Kumbaya pretension.”

  “You want inspiration to cooperate? Envision this as your last breath as a free woman. That oughta perk you right up.”

  Nico, engrossed in running system diagnostics, holds one finger in the air. He needs a little more time.

  “I need to talk to Fagin,” I say.

  “After you open the door,” Carter snaps.

  “Fuck off, Carter. Someone changed that letter to convince the king that Anne Boleyn got knocked up by another man. If anyone can help sort out this mess, it’s Fagin.”

  There’s a soft, humorless chuckle from Carter. “She can’t help you. You have no leverage. If history has changed so much that time travel is never invented, we could all be stuck in this time. It’s in everyone’s best interest to get along and work together.”

  Nico beckons me into the cockpit and points at the holographic display screen. “Only thing they hacked is the communication channels,” he says. “No other systems are compromised.”

  “Yet, Commander Garcia,” Carter says. I glance back at the hologram image of him, still projecting in the middle of the tabletop behind us. He’s wearing that dumb-ass smirk of his that I hate. “We haven’t compromised the rest of your ship’s systems, yet. Open the fucking door and cooperate with us or you won’t like what comes next.”

  I shake my head at Nico and mouth: [Can’t trust him.]

  Ni
co mouths in return. [I know.]

  Carter’s voice breaks in again, “Guess we have to do it the hard way. Open the door right fucking now and we’ll only wipe your memories and send you to a prison colony instead of executing you.”

  “You won’t do anything of the sort.” I say, spitting the words out. “You just said you need us.”

  “We want to get the job done faster, and it’s easier with your cooperation. We could do it without you, if we must.”

  “Bullshit. If our cooperation weren’t critical, you’d have stormed the ship by now.”

  “If you believe nothing else I say, believe this: If you don’t help fix the timeline, you’ll face a tribunal for your crimes. I’ll be the government’s star witness. Do you really want to stay on my bad side?”

  The lump in my throat is back. Jackson Carter is no friend of mine—or Nico’s—and he does have the power to make our lives shittier than they are right now.

  “Commander Garcia,” Carter continues, “We didn’t hack all of your ship’s systems as a gesture of good faith, proof we want to work together. But you leave me no choice,” Carter pauses. “Retraction of that good faith gesture starts right...now.”

  Nico lifts his hands from the command console, frantically scanning the controls as they erupt in a flash of rapid-fire color. “Damn it to hell.” His fingers fly across the display panel. “Those are unauthorized sub-routines trawling through the ship’s systems. They have the computer access codes.” He works the display panel feverishly, trying to slow the attack. “Betty, throw in more sub-net mask layers to slow them down.

  “Acknowledged, Commander, honey,” she replies.

  The rhythm of the display screens shifts to a dance at breakneck speed between the hackers’ attempts to breach our systems and Betty’s smooth countermeasures. These assholes don’t know what they’re up against. She’s going to wipe the circuit boards with their guts.

  “C’mon, baby.” I feel the need to offer moral support for the only sentient being on the ship who can keep our doors locked.

  Nico grimaces. “It it’s a temporary measure, at best. It won’t keep them out forever.”