by Craig Allen
I turned my head.
Her eyes sparkled. “Every day since I was ten, I’ve wondered who you were. I’ve only been in your life for a few days, but you’ve been a part of mine for over half of my life.” She took my hand. Her smile broadened. “You’re my guardian angel.”
Her song ran through my head. “I’m no such thing.”
Her lower lip quivered. “Don’t you care?”
My mouth fell open. “Of course I care. I saved you, didn’t I?”
“But why?”
“What do you mean why? I only did what I had to.”
“And why did you have to?” She squeezed my hand. “What am I to you?”
I stared at her. Back in the future, Max was drilling through a wall. He could turn off the machine and strand me there with her. Part of me hoped he would.
“There’s so much ugliness in my world. There’s no joy, no desire, and no hope.” I tried to pull my hand from hers, but she held tight. “For me, your music didn’t exist until a few days ago. When I first saw you play guitar at fifteen, I’d never heard anything so beautiful. I couldn’t let someone like you die.”
She sat quietly, but I saw the emotions brewing behind her eyes.
“You’d had surgery a few days before. You were in pain, but you sang to those children anyway. You stayed with them until the doctors insisted you go back to bed. You were in tears as you hugged them. Some of them cried, but you soothed them until they calmed down. They mattered more to you than your own health. No one in my world is like that.”
I squeezed her hand. “No matter how many people they send back, I’ll stop them. If the universe wants you dead, it’ll have to kill me first.”
For a while, we sat there. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay there with her all day, but I knew I couldn’t. The irony was that I had a time machine, but I was running out of time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She bit her lip. “What do we do now?”
“We wait, at least for now.” In truth, I didn’t know what to do. “When I transition back, I’ll return again, giving myself more time. Like I said earlier, if they knew we were here, they would already be here.”
“Shouldn’t they already know where I am?” She waved her hand through the air. “If this viewer can see me anywhere, does it matter where I go? Why can’t they find me if you found me?”
“I found you at the beach by chance,” I said. “From there, I was able to track you to this time. They knew about the concert and could follow you from there. That’s how they caught you at the light rail tracks.”
“They knew where I crashed the car. They could have followed me from there.”
I shook my head. “The viewer is unable to view places a traveler has visited in the past. I’m not sure why, but I think the power of the machine sending someone back overwhelms the viewer. I think of it like dropping food coloring into the ocean. The surrounding water overwhelms the colored fluid. The scene gets distorted when you try to view someone in the past, like in the alley. Their man was there, so they couldn’t see what happened. I’m sure they’re searching the entire city for you, but it’s the old needle-in-a-haystack routine.”
“But they have all the time they need, don’t they?” she asked. “I mean, they could spend months searching every house, and they’d eventually find me.” She grew more animated as she went on. “For that matter, why can’t they send back hundreds of people to deal with me? They have the entire future open to them. They can send someone back for four hours, and then four hours after that, send back someone else. They could do this for weeks or longer. They could have hundreds of people scouring every part of the city. Or even the entire country.”
I raised an eyebrow. All good points. People liked to think of her as some silly girl who was as shallow as a puddle of rain in the street, but she had wrapped her brain around the subject quickly. Beautiful, smart, and talented. Definitely out of my league.
“The machine is breaking down,” I said. “I don’t have the parts or the time to fix it. The farther back you travel or search, the more power it requires, but it can’t use as much power as it used to. Distance is a factor, too. Apparently, the farther away from the point of the machine you open the tunnel, the more power is required. This applies to both traveling back and to using the viewing system itself.”
“So that’s why you told me to leave the city earlier. If I’m out of the city, they can’t see me.”
“Essentially, yes. Currently, the machine’s viewing capabilities are limited to the downtown area.” I rubbed my chin. “Now it’s best to stay here, since we know they don’t find you here.”
“Because they would’ve been waiting for us if they knew.”
I nodded.
“So how long until the machine breaks completely?”
I shrugged. “Maybe a few more trips and it’ll be done for. They’d be lucky to send back five people.” I looked at my watch. “I have enough time to get you out of the city.”
“And then you’ll leave me.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Part of me hoped that was for me and not from fear of being alone.
“Yes,” I said. “The machine will pull me back.”
I wanted to say more, to say I’d be back as soon as I could. What I needed to do was to track down the cause of the next power spike and then travel to that point, but I didn’t want to alarm her by telling her I’d see her again the next time someone tried to kill her.
Before I could say anything more, someone pounded on the apartment door. Anna let out a shout, standing abruptly as she covered her mouth. I reached for the revolver in my pocket. Was it one of Max’s goons? But he would’ve simply appeared in the room, and he would’ve done so long before.
“Vince!” The door creaked under the pressure. “You think you can run from T-Ray?”
“Oh, God, Oh, God,” Anna whispered. “Who is that?”
“Open up, goddamn it, you stupid junkie.” He hammered the door again. I could’ve sworn the door gave a little. “I got my boys here with some chains and a pair of pliers. We gonna work on you unless you got the cash.”
Crap. That must be the infamous T-Ray the junkie had kept babbling about when I’d waited out the time with him. I felt for the gun in my pocket. If he was alone, I could probably take him. But even then, someone would call the police when they heard a gunshot. That would mean a record, and Max’s goon would appear.
“What do we do?” she asked.
I ignored her for the moment and darted for the window. I pulled the curtain aside. A fire escape lay just beneath the window.
“Open the window,” I said, keeping my voice low. I ran to the bedroom.
She hissed after me, “Where are you going?”
“Finding you a disguise.”
~~~~
I pried the cover off the steering column of the old Mitsubishi and dug for the wires. I wished I hadn’t tossed the keys into the drain the day before.
Anna stood next to the passenger-side door, keeping a lookout. We’d managed to get down the fire escape before T-Ray broke into the apartment. We ran around the corner to the junkie’s car down the street.
Anna tucked a strand of hair inside her hoodie. I had actually found a clean one in the junkie’s apartment. The jacket was much too big, but the hood covered her face well, which was all we needed.
“You can hotwire a car?”
I peeked at her through the steering wheel. “Just a trick I picked up at engineering school.”
“That’s a requirement for engineers in the future? Boosting cars?”
“No, but it is helpful when you’re part of the underground.”
She nodded, a wry smile crossing her face. I smiled back. I wanted her to feel at ease, as if the plan would work. I wasn’t so sure it would. The reactor’s log had shown five power spikes. I’d accounted for the man in the lighting rig—he was with Max in the future—the light rail operator—he appeared to be stuck in the past—and the
goon who tried to shoot Anna—his body rested in peace ten years in the future. That still left two more power spikes, two more chances for Max to take her life.
She looked up and down the street nervously. “You know, if I’m supposed to do something that saves the future, and I’m alive now, then doesn’t that mean this evil government of yours can’t exist at all?”
“Yeah, I thought of that.” I found the wires and pulled them loose. “I’m not sure. Maybe the existence of the machine means there is always the possibility the past can be changed.”
“Oh, God, I hope not.” She took a quick look up and down the street. “I’d be running for the rest of my life.”
“Not if the machine breaks down. Then they can’t use it anymore.” I touched the wires together, and the car roared to life. I crawled out from under the steering column. “Your chariot awaits.”
She shook her head. “Cute.”
I ran around to the other side of the car and opened the passenger door for her. She did a little curtsey and climbed into the car. At least she didn’t seem terrified anymore. I wished I could’ve said the same about me.
It’d been a while since I’d driven a stick. She put her hand to her mouth, smiling as I ground the gears a few times before getting the car out on the road and headed west toward the highway. I stuck to the ponderously slow speed limit. A traffic ticket would lead them right to us.
She spoke after a few blocks. “If someone reports the stolen car, there’d be a record of it, right?”
“Lots of cars get stolen in that neighborhood. They can’t go back in time to check them all out. At least not before the machine breaks down.”
“Can’t they fix it?”
I shook my head. “I’m the only one who knows how.”
“They’ll try to force you to fix it.”
“I won’t do it. They can’t make me. If they had, there’d be a lot more of them around.”
“What will they do to you?” she asked. “I mean after this is all over, after you go back for good?”
I shrugged. “Re-education, probably. Or…”
“Or?”
I didn’t look at her. She understood as well as I did. I wouldn’t fix the machine, which meant my life was over.
“Can you come back?”
“Not permanently,” I said. “The machine would just pull me back again.”
“Unless the machine broke down while you were here.”
I thought about it for a moment then grinned like a kid. Of course. I couldn’t fix the machine in the future if I stranded myself in the past. Just like what had happened to the light rail operator. That was the solution. Maybe Max had already broken into the lab and shut it off, leaving me in the past. But then, what could I do stuck in Anna’s time?
“Anna,” I said, “I don’t belong here.”
She smirked. “And I’m not supposed to be alive. What’s your point?”
I pulled into the right-hand lane and got on the ramp to the highway. “What would I do?”
“You invented a time machine. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You’re wonderful, you know that?”
“I know.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “But keep telling me anyway.”
On the highway, I headed north. I needed to get into Westminster at least. The machine certainly couldn’t operate that far. I glanced at her. She stared ahead, smiling. To her, everything was fine. To me, it wasn’t over. I didn’t know when it would be over. I’d have to destroy the machine somehow while I was in the past, and then I would remain there.
And then… what? What about us? I imagined us being together, living in a house in the mountains. We could sit together and watch the sunset. We could…
I shook my head.
She noticed the movement and turned to look at me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “When men say ‘nothing,’ it’s always something.”
“It’s just… after this is done…”
She reached for my hand. “It’s fate.”
“Fate?”
“Yeah. Don’t you believe in fate?”
I shrugged and let an eighteen-wheeler pull in front of me. “Not really.”
“You should.”
I glanced at her. She squeezed my hand again as she smiled. I checked my watch and frowned. Soon, I’d have to pull over and let her drive before the machine pulled me back. But not yet. I wanted to spend some time with her as she held my hand.
We were approaching I-70 when she spoke again. “Do you think we’re clear now?”
“Maybe. I want to get further north.”
She nodded. “When you think we’re safe, I’ll call my people.”
“What?” I looked over at her.
She had a smartphone open in her lap, the display lit. “I usually keep it off during shows,” she said. “I forgot to turn it on earlier.”
My blood went cold. “Throw it out the window. Now!”
“What?”
“I said no cell phones. Cell phone companies keep records. They can track it.”
She stared at the display for a second before the realization hit her. Frantically, she rolled down the window. Before it was halfway down, she tossed the phone out and onto the highway. It didn’t have time to bounce before a red sedan raced up beside us. Max sat in the driver’s seat, smiling as he pointed a gun at me.
I heard the gunshot as I slammed on the brakes. The glass from the half-open window shattered. Anna leaned forward, her seat belt catching her as she was flung toward the dash. Another gunshot ripped through the air. The bullet punctured the windshield, creating a spider-web crack through half of it.
I yanked the wheel, sending the Mitsubishi into the back rear fender of Max’s vehicle. The car jolted as it connected with the sedan. Max fought his car as it fishtailed, spinning around in front of me. I swung around and passed him on the right. We looked at each other for a brief moment. His classic smile was gone. Soon his car was behind me.
Tires screeched as other cars tried to avoid Max’s spinning vehicle. Metal crunched as some collided into each other.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and brought the car to a stop. My watch indicated my time was almost done, and I had no idea how long Max would stay in the past. “Anna, you need to take the wheel, now.”
I glanced up at the rear view mirror. Max had recovered from the spinout. One car clipped his rear end, but he kept driving. His rear bumper bounced on the pavement as he accelerated toward us.
“Anna, I said…”
One look told me everything was wrong. A deep crimson had spread across her chest, staining her hoodie. Tears ran down her cheeks. She smiled and took my hand in hers.
My head shook back and forth. “No, no… God, Anna.”
She squeezed my hand, not nearly as hard as before, and then her grip relaxed. Her head tilted forward. She didn’t move. I reached for her chin and lifted it. Her head lolled to the side, her eyes looking at nothing at all.
I sat staring at her lifeless body, still shaking my head as I held a hand that grew colder. She’d written songs that moved the world to tears. But she wouldn’t write again. I’d saved her so many times, but in the end, Max had won.
“Eric, Eric.” Footsteps approached. “You have a lot of explaining to do.” Max sounded cocky, as always. He’d just killed a young woman, and he felt nothing.
My world had fallen apart. I’d done so much for her, and it wasn’t enough. Nothing mattered anymore, except that Max needed to die. I reached for the gun in my coat. I had my hand on it when I heard another hammer click outside the window.
“Turn around, son. Slowly.”
I turned my head. Max stood there, his revolver aimed at me, a half smile on his face. Down the highway, traffic had snarled because of the accident. Max had left his car parked in the left lane. I wondered if I could reach for the gun and pull off a shot before
he killed me.
His smile grew wider. He had me, and he knew it. “A time machine.” He nodded. “Not what I was looking for, but it’ll do.”
“Bastard.”
“You need to watch the language, young man.” He gestured with the gun. “Hands where I can see them.”
I still had my right hand on the gun in my coat pocket. I could get him. He might get me too, but that would be just fine. I nodded and lifted my left hand.
“Nice and slow.” In the distance, sirens blared. He glanced back at the accident. “So tell me. How long—”
I brought up my right hand, gripping the gun. I raised the revolver just above the open window. He turned as I pulled the trigger, and his face lit up in surprise. Two shots rang out at once. His bullet whizzed past my head and went through the windshield.
I hit him in the shoulder, sending him reeling back into the road. I unlatched the door and kicked it open. I staggered out, pointing the gun at Max as he writhed in the middle of the highway. I took careful aim and squeezed the trigger again.
Everything flashed brightly for a brief second, just before the hammer fell. The gun report rang my ears as the bullet entered the far wall of the lab. I collapsed to the floor. I could still see her in front of me, blood staining her clothes. I could still feel her fingers around my hand.
She was gone. She’d trusted me, and I had failed her.
I stood and paced the lab. I upended a table, sending tools everywhere. Smoke filled the room, but I barely noticed it.
Max’s voice came over the intercom. “What’s going on in there?”
I pushed the intercom button so hard I felt it crack under the pressure of my thumb. “You bastard! You goddamn bastard!”
Max smiled at the camera. “So she’s dead for good now, huh?” He laughed as if I had lost a bet on a football game.
I moved away from the camera so he couldn’t see me. I continued pacing, still holding the gun in my hand.
“It had to be this way, Eric.” I heard the sounds of the cutters and drills in the background as he spoke. “Trust me. We’re all better off with her dead.”
I flipped open the cylinder on the gun. I had one bullet left. When Max came in, I could shoot him. He deserved it, and by God, I wanted to do it.
“I’m sorry you liked her, Eric. I really am. I even forgive you for shooting me.” On the security monitor, he pointed at his sling. “But you can make it up to me.”