Strange Days

by Constantine J. Singer

  I’m already shaking my head, but it’s mostly just habit. “That’s not . . .” I’m about to say it’s not possible, but everything happening is impossible, so instead: “How?”

  He nods his head. “Time, Alex, is not what you think it is. Einstein called time a stubborn illusion, because even though he knew it was different than it appeared to him, even he had trouble wrapping his mind around the truth—and in the end, even he hadn’t fully understood what time is or how it works. He thought time—past, present, and future—had all already occurred, and that there was no such thing as free will. But he was wrong.” Richard leans back, smiles. “He got the past right—that’s fixed and can’t be changed, but he didn’t understand the role of the present and the future.”

  He pauses, waiting for me to let him know if I get it. I think I do, even though I don’t have any idea where he’s headed. I wait for him to continue.

  He nods. “Good.” Then: “The Gentry know that the future is not fixed—it’s an endless field of possibility where every single thing that could happen already exists. The present acts like the shuttle on a weaver’s loom, setting the threads in place and locking them in. The present creates the glue that holds the past firmly in place forever.”

  He looks at me again, his eyebrows raised. There’s hair falling forward again over his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to notice; he’s too into what he’s telling me. “Okay,” I say.

  “Well, the Gentry have developed a tool that allows them to scan all the possible futures and find the exact moments that they want to make happen—the moments we need in order to implement our plan to save ourselves. It’s a device that they call the Oracle. The Oracle can see the whole sweep of possibilities, but it can’t fix human futures in place—only a human can witness human futures—and not just any human, either, it takes a special sort.”

  “Special how?” Then: “I’m . . .”

  “There are genetic variations that occur naturally in a very few people—fewer than one in a hundred million—people to whom the Gentry can attach a Live-Tech device, which allows them to see the future.” He points at me and then Corina. “You both have those variations, and with the proper Live-Tech aides, you can visit the desired future events and lock them in, ensuring our survival.” He pushes lightly at my shoulder. “You, Alex. You can save the world.”

  Part of me wants to nod and be done with it, but I can’t. They’ve made a big mistake. Jeffrey Sabazios, Richard, the rest of them, they’re wrong about one thing.

  “I’m not special.” I say it slow so he’ll understand. “I’m not . . .” But I don’t know what I’m not because I don’t know what they think I am.

  But Richard just smiles. “Oh, Alex, you are special. Very special. You remember how Jeff called you a one-fifty plus?”

  I don’t want to let on how curious I am about that, so I don’t say anything.

  “That means you’re not one in a hundred million, you’re not even one in a billion. You are a near-perfect genetic match for the Gentry technology that allows people to see the future—you’ve got one hundred and fifty-three of the genetic markers that facilitate witnessing—more than anybody in our history.” He reaches for Corina. “Corina’s very good at what she does, but she has less than half the genetic markers you do. She can see and sense many things when she witnesses, but compared to you, she’s blindfolded and wearing earplugs. You’re going to be the most powerful witness we’ve ever had. The futures that you witness, they’re going to be so clear that they’ll be impossible to change.” He looks at his watch. “Listen, we’ll get you up to speed and ready tomorrow, but we need to leave now.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s time to meet your team.”

  Nineteen

  There are people in the commons when Richard and Corina bring me back. I hesitate at the door, not ready for strangers.

  Corina nudges me inside, and Richard follows, making it impossible for me to back out again. He’s still standing behind me, just in the doorway, when he blasts my name to the room. “Hey, everybody, I’d like to introduce you to Alex.”

  A black kid with a big messy afro looks up from his book. He smiles at me, nods. “Hey, man.” He’s got sharp features, and something in his eyes that makes it feel like he can see right through me. “Calvin,” he tells me. “Alex?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Welcome to it, man.” He looks up at Richard. “Marcus already gone?”

  I feel Richard nodding behind me. “Yeah. We pulled his patch and put him on a flight to Denver this morning.”

  Calvin nods. I look around to the other people in the room. They’re all kids about my age. Corina pulls on my arm a little bit and I turn to her.

  “I’m gonna introduce you around—everybody here’s cool, so don’t stress.”

  “I’m fine,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “Sure.” She points to the couch where there are two kids watching a soccer game. I don’t recognize the teams. One’s a white girl with a long blond ponytail. “That’s Maddie.”

  “Hey,” I try. The girl, Maddie, looks up at me and nods before turning her attention back to the game.

  The other one, a guy, is big, white, built like a football player. He’s been watching me since we came in, but he hasn’t turned to face us yet. Instead, he’s pretending to watch the game. I don’t like him on sight.

  “And that’s Damon,” Corina says.

  He turns around slightly and raises his eyebrows at me.

  I raise my chin back at him, but he’s already turned away.

  Corina takes my arm. Her fingers feel cool against my skin. “Nobody can talk to Maddie if there’s a game on, and Damon . . .” She pulls at me to follow her over to another kid. “This is Paul—he’s our resident teddy bear.”

  Paul hops up from the couch, bounces once and sticks his hand out to me. He’s my height, so medium, but he’s white and he’s built thick. “She’s totally exaggerating—I don’t have stuffing.”

  When he speaks, I immediately figure he’s gay. I shake his hand. “I’m Alex.”

  He tugs my sleeve and steps away toward the hallway with the bathroom. “It’s supercool that you’re here.”

  Richard jogs up to us, takes my hand. “Welcome aboard again, Alex.” He looks at Paul. “Paul’s going to take good care of you.”

  Paul smiles, wrinkles his nose at me.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Paul, can you get Alex set up to write his letter?” He looks to me. “Get settled and then we’ve got some notes to write and we need to record that video you saw.”

  Paul leads me down the hallway. “So LA, huh? I’ve never been there, but we drove by it once on the way to Comic-Con. Did you ever go to Comic-Con? It’s supercool if you’re into that sort of stuff. Are you?”

  I don’t say anything because I’m not ready for a future filled with comic book references I don’t get.

  “I’m from Arizona—between Phoenix and Tucson. Ranchland hell, eight-five-one-two-three.”

  I still don’t say anything. He’s like having a spastic puppy jumping up at me.

  I turn around to look back at Corina. She’s at a table. Damon’s sitting with her. He says something. She laughs. She’s already forgotten about me. I look back down at the floor.

  Fuck both of them.

  “Yeah.” Paul waves his arm. “This place is too much. Corina just got you this morning? It’s weird now, but you are going to absolutely love it here—witnessing’s amazing.” He ducks his head down into my sight line so we make eye contact. “We’re going to save the world!”

  I nod a little and look away. I know I’m being a dick, but I can’t stop it. His whole way of talking just agitates me. He can tell, too, which makes me feel even worse.

  “Yeah. That’s what they told me.”

  He stops in front of a door
, opens it. “Welcome to your tiny shared plain ugly dorm room.” He shakes his head. “You’d think a billionaire fronting for aliens would invest a little in making things nice, but . . .”

  I make myself smile and look inside. The room’s nice but small. Two beds—one against each long wall with four or five feet of space between them—two dressers and a set of desks. One side is obviously occupied—the wall is covered with an American flag and a collection of cowboy hats. The bed isn’t made, papers litter the desk. An Ibanez acoustic guitar sits on a stand between the bed and desk.

  “You play?” I ask him before I can stop myself.

  Paul nods, smiles. “I can pick a tune. You?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

  He’s looking at me and I realize I’m staring at his guitar. “You can play it if you want to . . .”

  I do want to. Nothing would make me happier right now than losing myself in music, but it feels weird to do it right now, in front of this kid. I make myself look up at the other side of the room. It looks like it’s never been touched.

  “That side’s yours. It’s all been cleaned and restocked for you.”

  The other kid just left. I’m a replacement. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to leave—nothing to go back to. My stomach begins to burn and I look away to keep from losing it.

  Paul walks past me to my dresser and opens the top drawer. It’s filled with clothes. “They just bought you new clothes. Take a look.”

  I walk up behind him and look at the neat stacks of underwear and socks in the top drawer. Boxers, which is what I wear. The socks are all variations on green and beige, which are the colors I usually pick. I pull open the next drawer and find a selection of T-shirts. There are jeans in the drawer below that and the bottom drawer holds a pile of hoodies in red, gray, and brown.

  “They got it right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We show up here and there’s clothes waiting for us and then, a little later, we’ll tell them what to get us—give them our shopping list—and they’ll send the list back in time so all the clothes are there waiting for us. It’ll freak you out if you think about it too much, so I try not to.” He shakes his head. “A trip.”

  I’m trying to listen, but my mind’s having trouble keeping up. It takes all my will to make myself pay attention.

  Paul’s saying, “When I first got here I was sure they’d been spying on me and I told them they got it totally wrong—like I would never have ever considered wearing what they gave me in a million years, but they knew I was lying.”

  “How?”

  He laughs again. “I just told you—I told them what to get.”

  I feel dumb. I hate feeling dumb.

  He waves me down. “Don’t stress. It takes a while to get used to these things.” He suddenly claps his hands together. “You’re going to travel in time!”

  “Yeah.” I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about anything in life as he sounds about everything. “Yeah, how do we do that?”

  “We use this.” He lifts up his sleeve to reveal something that looks like a big square Band-Aid on his arm just below his shoulder.

  I look at it up close. It’s made of the same leathery stuff as my pod. “Is that Live-Tech?” I reach up and touch my ear. The pod’s still there, but I’d nearly forgotten about it.

  “I wish they’d come up with less dumb-sounding names for things, but, yeah.” He cocks his head and looks at me. “Do you want some time to relax? Maybe take a nap? I’m supposed to get you started on writing your letter, but . . .”

  The letter.

  When he says it, I’m flooded with relief I wasn’t even aware I needed. I can write it different. I’m going to be able to save my parents. My chest expands and my jaw slips out of the clench it’s been in for the last week. I open and close my mouth a few times, relishing the feeling of freedom. I find the key chain in my pocket. “Nah.” I shake my head. “I’m cool. I’m ready.”

  He studies me for a moment, then shrugs. “Paper’s in the center drawer along with pens and envelopes. Just give it to Richard when you’re done.”

  “Alright.” I start edging toward the desk and Paul moves toward the door.

  “I’ll be in the commons if you need something.” When he leaves, he closes the door behind him.

  I sit down at the desk, taking a pen and paper from the drawer. I don’t even know what I want to say this time, just that I need to start the whole damn thing off with a big warning about Mom and Dad being murdered.

  I start to write:

  Hey Alex,

  This is you. Really. Please listen up, man, your stupid life depends totally on it. Can you please open your ears right now?

  It’s not what I tried to write at all. It’s what the letter already said.

  Panic edges in. Sweat. My hands are shaking. I crumple the paper and grab another sheet.

  I think through what I’m going to say. I say it out loud as I write:

  “Alex, whatever you do, get your parents out of the house tonight or they’ll be killed.”

  But that’s not what comes out on paper:

  Hey Alex,

  This is you. Really. Please listen up, man, your stupid life depends totally on it. Can you please open your ears right now?

  “What the hell?!” I’m having trouble breathing.

  Again.

  And again.

  I don’t know what’s happening. They’re stopping me somehow. Making it impossible. Making sure my parents stay dead. Making sure I don’t save them.

  I’m ready to kill, but I don’t know who. Somebody needs to give me answers and the only one who’s been with me from the beginning is the voice in my head.

  I lie down on the empty bed and slip underneath. Even though I’m upset, it happens fast.

  HELLO?

  She’s there. I feel her. She’s quiet though, not talking.

  WHY WON’T THEY LET ME CHANGE MY LETTER? WHY ARE THEY STOPPING ME FROM SAVING MY PARENTS?

  Eventually, she speaks: “So sorry, scared boy. Runaways can’t change what’s been witnessed, boy. No scared boy runaway can change it. Seen time and all that.”

  DON’T LIE TO ME! YOU’RE SIDING WITH THEM. YOU’RE HELPING THEM.

  I’m so angry it’s hard to stay under. I’m fighting with everything I’ve got to keep from breaking back up to the surface in a rage.

  “No sides. Sly’s got skin in your game. Bones in your game. In your game, Plugzie, and what’s done is done. Seen is seen.”

  NO!

  “Your letter didn’t lie. Every way ends with dead parents. Other ways end even worse for runaways and the rest. Can’t be changed, anyway. Seen time is the only—”

  She’s still talking when I come back up. I’m not even mad anymore.

  I just feel defeated.

  I grab my backpack and take out the photograph from the time capsule. Nobody here seems to know about it, so I decide to keep it hidden. I fold it carefully and slide it up into the lining of my pack where I keep my knife, then stick my pack into the bottom drawer of the desk.

  I lie back down, my mind tossing back and forth between home and what I saw in the telescope.

  The Locusts. The woman in the cage, waiting to be eaten.

  There’s a knock on the door. I don’t say anything.

  “Alex?” It’s Corina.

  “Yeah?”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “I wanna come in,” she says eventually.

  “Do what you want.”

  She opens the door and stands in the doorway. I look at her with my eyebrows raised. She looks at me and raises her own eyebrows. “You’re friendly.” She comes in and sits on the chair at my desk.

  I sigh. I don’t even know why I’m being rude to her. “Sorry. This all got me . . .” I wave a hand.
>
  She smiles. I feel it deep in me like she’s giving me gold. “It’s cool,” she tells me, “I don’t know how I’d be doing if my parents had been killed on top of how much of a trip this place can be.”

  “Where are your parents?” I ask.

  “It was just my mom,” she says. “My dad died in a car crash when I was two. My step-dad left a few years ago.” She shrugs. “She’s still in Portland with my half siblings, I think.” She makes a face. “We don’t talk.”

  “What happened?”

  She sucks on her lip for a second, then tells me, “I wasn’t always good at handling my business.” She shrugs. “I used to run wild, did things that my mom didn’t approve of”—she points at herself—“things I don’t approve of. My mom, she tried to stop me and I ran away.” She looks sad now, distant.

  “But you ended up here.”

  She nods her head and touches her chest. “While I was on the streets, I started to hear things, then a letter and a bus ticket showed up at the house I was staying at.” She shrugs, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so . . .” She pats my knee. “Anyways.” She walks to my desk and opens the drawer, pulling out a single sheet of paper, which she tears in half. She doesn’t say anything about the crumpled-up letters. She comes back to where I am and hands me the half sheets and a pen. “Take a minute and write out the note I showed you earlier today.”

  “What?” I look at the paper, then back at her. “The one at Burger King?”

  She nods. “We have to send it back.” She hands me the other half. “On this one, write your sizes and what clothes you like.”

  I follow her instructions. The first note slides out of the pen without me thinking, just like the letter did.