by Jill Cooper
I don’t think I can walk away no matter what.
****
I count myself lucky, I still have a job. Back at my desk, I file some paperwork and review who needs to be apprehended for the day. I flag some cases that I have time to handle and put in a quick call to Katie Jackson, to arrange a time that I can ask some follow-up questions.
“Sure,” Katie coughs. “I’ll be here most of the day.”
“This afternoon. I promise it won’t take long. I just have a few things I need to wrap up first.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then. Do you want me to put on some tea?”
“No thanks,” I push my hair back and watch the other officers move around the room, as if them just being there they are able to read my mind. My intentions. “I’ll pick up something special for you, though. A snack.”
Katie laughs and I think it’s been awhile, a long while since she’s done so.
Hanging up, I head out to catch up on my caseload, but first I head across the street to the small convenience store for a snack. Maybe even a soda. Nothing says I’m treating myself like carbonation.
I pull the door open and someone pins me from behind. Throwing a glance over my shoulder, I see a man in a trench coat rounding into the alley. He’s wearing a super old-school fedora and when he turns to look at me; he lifts his sunglasses to give me a penetrating stare.
What the hell is this about?
Letting go of the door, I follow him into the alley. It smells like rotten fish and mildewed laundry, as if wet clothes have been left in the washer too long. Against the outside walls of the buildings are discarded boxes and trash blows in the breeze.
The man walks toward the fence as if he’s going to go through it. I put my hand on the baton at my waist and call out to him. “Stop in accordance with Global Law.”
He stops and spins around slowly. His hands are up and in the air. “Is there something wrong, officer?”
Damn straight there’s something wrong. “Hold out your hands. And do it slow.” I flip my wrist over to activate my Link and bring up the TTD database, but my eyes are drawn toward the pavement.
There’s a growing shadow approaching from behind. I unclip my baton at my waist and pivot to clash with whoever is behind me, but I take a blow to the head.
I crumble to the ground and stare up at whoever it is, but I can’t see anything as the sun’s glare is shinning right into my eyes. Squinting, I take another strong blow to the back of the head and fall unconscious.
****
Water.
There’s the sound of running water. Dripping. Splashing.
I snort awake and sit up. My neck clenches as if I have whiplash and I moan, grabbing the back of my head. The room I’m in splits in two and I rub my temples.
Gazing around, I see I’m not in a room so much as a cargo bay stacked with boxes. There’s a small table with empty chairs slid beneath. Over in the corner is a counter stacked with boxes of shelf stable food—cereal, canned stew, and something horrible called spam.
Swinging my legs around, I try to stand, but realize they won’t support my weight yet. Frightened, my chest clenching with anxiety, I try my comm, swiping my fingers across my wrist.
Red and yellow flashes against my skin: BLOCKED
Blocked? Whoever heard of such a thing??
I use the table to pull myself up and my fingers feel along the calluses of the wall; it’s almost like stucco. The windows are round and small.
A boat.
I’m in the cargo hold of a boat and my nose burns with the scent of salt. The pain floats into the front of my head and I pinch the skin between two fingers and roll it. I need to figure out where I am and how to get off.
Behind me, I hear the sliding of the door and the click of footsteps. I expect the sound is from their high heels. On instinct, my hand reaches for my baton, but it’s long gone. I slap my hands on my hips. “I might appear to be at your mercy, but when Rewind discovers what you’ve done…”
I turn and I stutter into silence. I haven’t seen the woman in front of me in ten years, but there’s no mistaking the silver curly hair pinned to her head or the soft wrinkles of time that line her lips and nose. She’s dressed in all black from her boots to her pants and even the light jacket she wears. Her bright red lips beam at me and tears shine in her eyes. “My dear Cassidy.”
For a dead woman, her makeup is flawless. “Granny?” My voice is a mere whisper, maybe something even shallower.
She nods slowly and reaches for me. “I had no choice but to leave you ten years ago. If I hadn’t I’d be dead. Real. I had no choice, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.”
I stare at her wrinkled hand that still waits for me to accept it, but I can’t. “You lied to me. I lost Mom and Dad. And then…” my chin quivers, “and then you too.”
Tears twinkle as she gazes at me. “It was hard but it had to be done. I was needed, but now I’m back to help you. I’m back to teach you everything. Who you really are in all of this.”
“In all of what?” I don’t understand any of it and if Granny doesn’t start explaining soon, I think I might lose my mind.
“Out of everyone, you always had questions, but for a long time,” Granny sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulder, “a long time I remained silent. When I couldn’t deny what was happening anymore, I knew I had to act. Too many people were getting hurt.”
I have no idea what Granny is talking about and I wish I did. Maybe she’s losing her mind and there’s nothing of important for her to tell me, but inside I’m twisted up. “Granny—.”
“Then your parents died and I was terrified. Terrified I’d lose you too. You became so close to him and if I hadn’t left when I did, I would have been dealt with.” Granny’s face is sad as she stares off at the wall.
“Who are you talking about?” I ask quietly.
She pats my hand. “Who do you think I’m talking about? You know, don’t you? How he’s manipulating everyone and everything. He’s seen the future and now…now he controls it. He’ll do whatever he has to in order to protect his empire. Stay in control.”
Daniels. But how…I dare not say his name aloud. “You were friends. When I was little you were friends.”
“I was deceived. Mislead.” Granny’s eyes darken. “He looked into your future and he saw everything he needed. He saw how you would be his undoing. And he kept you close. He knew your parents, my sweet Julie, would stop him. That’s why they’re no longer here.”
I try to digest what she’s saying, but I can’t. It’s seems the ranting of a mad woman. My parents died in an accident. They weren’t killed. “I have no future.”
“Or,” Granny’s mouth twists with sadistic sour, “he had them deleted. Haven’t you ever wondered if the data is being manipulated?”
My heart patters along. I don’t know how Granny knows so much, suspects so much, but it can’t be a coincidence.
“Reynold Jackson--.”
Granny nods. “My friend and an enemy of his. And now Reynold is dead. Convenient or something worse, don’t you say?”
I gaze around the ship. We’re on the open water in a boat with no tracking or Rewind cameras that I can see. The open sea is one of the few places Rewind can’t watch everything. We’re on a floating privacy vessel.
“You’re with the resistance.” I hold my breath when I say it. I can’t believe my granny is alive and worst of all has been working against Rewind all this time.
Why didn’t she tell me? Why couldn’t I know?
Would I have turned her in, back then, when I believed in Rewind so thoroughly?
She nods. “I’m their leader, for lack of a better word.”
My face flushes red. “I always knew Maria James was a figurehead, speaking for someone else. So does Daniels, he’s said as much to me.”
Granny crosses her wrists in front of herself. “Maria James is a good friend and…like family. I wish I could say more about her, but there’s n
o time, Cassidy, to go into everything we know. I hope someday, but not today. Not if we’re going to stop Daniels.”
Stop him? There’s no stopping him. I laugh at how absurd it sounds. “There’s no proof. Never is. Just my word against his.”
“The proof is everywhere. It’s around us all the time, Cassidy. You’re smart. You know everything, even this is being cataloged. Just have to find where. The source files.”
She’s right. But even if I can get it before Daniels catches me, I’ll never get it in the hands of someone who can do something about it.
Granny smiles. “She’s waiting for you already. You just have to find her.”
“Who?” I’m on the edge of my seat.
Granny doesn’t answer. I understand why she doesn’t come out and tell me. Could it be so horrible she can’t even say it aloud? Instead, she reaches around her neck, and takes off her necklace and places it in my hand. She’s worn it for as long as I can remember. A heart shaped pendant.
“When you find her, show her. She’ll trust you if she sees that. She’ll help you stop Daniels.”
I’m about to ask her something else when a knock comes from the closed door. “Molly, we’re ready.”
Granny nods. “Leave us.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Where are we going?”
“We have to return you before you’re missed. We can do a lot of things, but accounting for large chunks of time isn’t one of them.
“None of this should be possible. Daniels should have been able to see you were going to abduct me and stop it before it happened.”
She smirks as if she holds a secret. “The future is always in flux. That most important truth is one Daniels doesn’t want to get out. Things we do now, affect the future and sometimes the trail can’t be so easily followed. Some people are able to affect the future just by merely existing. We Montgomery’s are better at it than most.”
Her maiden name. It’s been such a long time since I’ve heard it, I almost forgot it.
“I have a lot of regrets, Cassidy. My husband. You. My daughter,” Granny takes a deep sigh. “I lost your great Uncle Mike so many years ago now. I just wanted you to be safe. But none of us are safe. None of us has ever been safe. If we’re going to fix this, if you’re going to fix it, you have to be quick.”
But how can I leave her here? How can I just get up and go? My heart is heavy as she squeezes my hand and I hug her. “I just got you back.” The truth of my words paralyzes me. I don’t want to let her go.
“I’ll be just fine if you fix this problem. Maybe one day, we’ll even get to have another cup of tea. But for now,” Granny closes my hand around the locket. “Go do your job and don’t forget, tell Lara how much I’ve missed her these last fifty years.”
Lara?
My knees go weak. “Lara Crane?”
Granny shrugs. “I called her Montgomery. But they’re one and the same.”
My mind spins and my body threatens to give out on me. “She’s your sister….the one who disappeared seventy years ago?” I scowl as everything I know collides in my brain like a big ball of glue. I can’t begin to unravel it.
“And now she’s here. This is where she disappeared to. This day and this time. And wherever Lara goes,” Granny shakes her head, “trouble follows. She was first. The first real time traveler. She took down Senator Patricia James and she unknowingly put Daniels in power. If anyone can undo all this damage, it’s her.”
“How do you know? How do you know she’s here?” I’m breathless.
“I saw her face on the news this morning.” Granny smiles and there are tears in her eyes. “And she hasn’t aged a day since that day I got lost in the mall to see the puppies. She was so angry and I never knew why.”
She dots her eyes with a tissue. “How we looked for her. Everyone. Don. Momma. Dad and Daddy John. Mikey. We all looked for her. It just gave Xavier something to hold over us. Promise us. A way to manipulate us. He’d find a way to get her back. And now it’s up to you. To set her free.”
I stare at the holo-screen on the wall as Granny turns it on. She changes over to the all-news channel and there I see a teenage girl, dressed not much differently than most teens, in tight jeans and a leather jacket.
But this one is scowling and her hands are handcuffed behind her back. Long brown curls similar to my blond ones flow down her back. Unconsciously I touch my hair and feel connected to this girl.
On the bottom of the screen, the words read ‘woman with no identity or past brought into Rewind Custody.’ Then the hotline number if anyone suspects who she is.
“If she put Daniels into power….”
Granny nods. “Then he’ll recognize her. He’ll have her killed before anyone can stop him.”
That means I have to go. There’re a million things I want to say to Granny, but I can’t. I have a date at Rewind. It’s time to meet my great aunt and say hello.
13: Lara
I’m taken and held in a cell. People come and go. Most are wearing uniforms some aren’t, but they talk as if they’re the police. I don’t have any ID on me and that seems to disturb them the most.
I’m in the precinct I remember from my dream. It’s exactly as it was then and when the detective from my dream interrogates me, my mind unravels. I ask for a lawyer and then they leave me alone. I’m grateful for that, as I try to figure out what to do.
Because I don’t know what to do. I always have a plan. An option, but right now I’m out of plans. Out of ideas.
Maybe I’m just out of hope.
My surroundings aren’t much, but I explore them. A cot, a sink. Nothing out of the ordinary and exactly what you’d expect from a jail cell. It’s a walking nightmare. I’ve jumped further in time than ever before and I’ve never stuck around this long. I don’t know how long it will last. If it’s permanent.
A way out is the only thing I can think about. That and how it seems everything I’m afraid the government would do, it has done. So my big problem is how to get back to my time and how to stop it. How do I unravel all of this?
It’s making me kind of miss the simplicity of Rex, strange as that is. But being back in a cell again? No, that I didn’t miss. That fear is wedged in my mind, distracting me from strategizing what I should do.
I grip the bars of my cage as a metal door opens and closes, the sound resonates in a booming echo. Footsteps follow. Taking a deep breath to center myself, I get ready for the next round of questions that are sure to follow.
A middle-aged officer approaches. He’s wearing a Rewind jacket, but not a cap like the men that arrested me. There’s something kind about his face, it is supposed to disarm me, but I have to be steadfast in my resolve. If these people find out I’m from the past, I don’t know what they’ll do.
He unlocks my cell and I stare at him with questions. “We’re moving you to holding. A lawyer is on his way to talk to you like you wanted.”
“Thanks.” I’m on guard, but I allow my face to relax.
He takes me by the arm and leads me down the hall, as we approach a door I can make out a green light shining down from the archway. When it scans me, the light turns red. I stiffen, don’t understand what it means.
“The system can’t find you. No future. No past. It’s like you don’t exist.”
“That’s me. Grown in a test tube.”
The officer slides his ID through the door and it opens. He pulls me through, a firm grip on my arm. “My name’s Mahoney. I can get you through this if you’d just open up. Tell us who you are.”
That’s the last thing I think I should do. I fall silent and Mahoney waits for an answer and after a few paces, shakes his head.
“Have it your way, kid. But someone has to miss you eventually.”
Eventually. Maybe they already did. Maybe they were already dead. I don’t even know what year I’m in and that’s everything I plan on finding out, once I see my lawyer. I hope he can secure my release, as Mahoney opens a door to a small holding
area and escorts me in.
There’s a metal table and the man sitting at it stands. He’s wearing a dark suit and his briefcase is laid out in front of him. “Thanks, Officer Mahoney.” His eyes lock with mine and he extends his hand to me.
I reach for it and for a split second, time slows down. My third eye zooms in on the ID dangling from his lapel and I read the words Global Law Counsel printed on top of Rewind’s logo.
My hand hovers in mid-air. As this lawyer tries to shake my hand, I side step him. Crossing my arms, I move over to the other side of the table. “I didn’t want a lawyer from Rewind to show up here. I want a defense attorney to help get me out of here.”
The lawyer is smiling as if I’ve said something very funny. I definitely don’t feel funny. “Miss, Ma’am, there aren’t any defense attorneys anymore. What are they teaching you kids in school these days?”
That can’t be true. No defense attorneys? But the headache pounding against my temporal lobe says it’s true. I rub my forehead. “I created a fascist state,” I mutter quietly to myself.
“Pardon?” My lawyer asks.
“Excuse me?” I counter.
With impatience, his foot taps. “Listen, I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m Jeffery Davis. I’m lead counsel for Rewind, and for some reason that makes you feel defensive, but I’m not here to railroad you.”
“Feels like it.” I narrow my eyes at the beady little fish. “If the guy that is supposed to help me is also the guy who wants to keep me in jail, you have a problem. A system that can’t work. Doesn’t work. How can I trust anything you say?”
“Are you with the resistance? Is that why you won’t give us your name?”
A resistance? So there is still hope. I sit down in the chair and cross my legs.
“Look, we just want your name. If we have your name, we can look you up. Find out why the system can’t find you. If everything checks out, you’re free to go. Global Law exists to keep the world safe. If you aren’t going to do anything wrong in the future, if your nose is clean in the past, then you have nothing to worry about.”