Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23)

by Robert J. Crane

  “How did they find us?” she asked, white-knuckling the wheel.

  “If I had to guess,” I said, voicing a notion I'd had a couple miles back and worked through mentally to an unsatisfactory conclusion, “That cop that slipped behind us just before we turned into the Walmart ran your plates. Omega must have some sort of...I dunno. Mole, wiretap, something...in the DMV, or the local police.”

  “If they've got the police penetrated, that's a scary thought,” she said. “How do you know Omega?”

  “We've had...dealings,” I said, once again wondering how much I could tell her. Like that I'd essentially destroyed the organization in question? Probably too much information. Vague was good. “You?”

  “Same,” she said. “Seems like they're always causing trouble in the meta world.”

  “Yeah, they're good at that,” I said, trying to mentally run through where Omega would be in this. They had, after all, captured my mother – via Wolfe – and come after me at my house. Again, via Wolfe. After he'd failed, they'd sent in Henderschott and James Fries and vampires and the list went on, all the way up to Janus and Bjorn, or even Bastet and the ministers. Probably wouldn't include Rick, the Primus of Omega that I'd killed by beating him to death with his own chair. He'd be a baby at this point. “They've got a strong bench. Lots of powerful metas on their team.” Most of whom I'd killed or had a hand in killing.

  “Why are they after us?” my mother asked.

  It didn't take much thinking to get to the bottom of that. “They're hunting for succubi,” I said. “To run experiments on, I think.” I remembered Andromeda – well, Adelaide. “And... other stuff.”

  They'd been looking for a bride for Sovereign when they'd come after me. Kind of a dirty plan B, but dirty was Omega's watchword.

  My mother seemed to miss the last part. “We need food.”

  “Stop at a gas station on the way home,” I said. “I'll run in and get some stuff while you two wait in the car.”

  She glanced at the dashboard display. “I'm going to need gas soon, too, and I'm down to my last twenty.” Her voice held an edge of worry I was not used to getting from my mom.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “We'll figure something out.”

  “How?” she asked, still staring straight ahead, her shoulders stiff.

  A little twinge of pain ran through my back where I'd tweaked it when Full Metal Jackass had thrown his plate into me. “That's a fantastic question and I wish I had an immediate answer to it. But I don't, so I guess we'll improvise.”

  She furrowed her brow, concentrating ahead. “Let me lay this out for you as I see it – we have no money. No food after we eat whatever overpriced crap you're about to buy at the convenience store. No way to get more of either, short of stealing-”

  “Which is an option that should be on the table, Valjean.”

  “-and now Omega is going to flood the zone in this town,” she said. “They have an army.”

  “We have a Hulk,” I said, and she took her eyes off the road to stare at me blankly. “Never mind.”

  “They're looking for us,” she said, turning back to the road. “And they know what to look for now. They have a description of this car, which means we have to ditch it, which is going to leave us without transport-”

  “Again, I'm coming back to stealing. It seems the time, and we've got a powerful need.”

  “-Okay, fine, you're into thievery. But this is still a laundry list of problems.” She shook her head. “We have to get out of this town.”

  “I'm with you on fleeing Iowa. As with you as I could possibly be.”

  “But where the hell do we go?” she asked, shaking her head. “And how do we get there? No money, no car – come on. No resources left to draw on.” The first crack of worry appeared in mom's seemingly impenetrable facade. “What...what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  My forehead wrinkled as her face opened up in a way I hadn't seen from her before. She seemed to awaken, at last, to the steady, muted sobs coming from the back seat. “It's okay, sweetie,” she said, draping her right hand over the seat. Little me reached forward to take it, and she adjusted little Sienna's grip so she could hold onto mom's wrist, which was covered by her sleeve. “It's okay. It's going to be okay.”

  But she spoke breathlessly, and I knew in the moment she didn't believe it. It caused a strange shock to run through me – how many times had I heard her say things like that when I was a child and not realized that this was how my mother sounded when she lied?

  “Look,” I said, feeling just a little rattled at watching my mom come apart more than I'd ever seen before. “There has to be someone we can call for help.”

  She snorted. “Like who?”

  “Alpha fights Omega,” I said. “Dad was part of Alpha.”

  She shook her head. “I don't trust them.”

  “Dad did.”

  “Fine,” she said, taking a breath, “how do we get ahold of them?” She looked sideways at me, and a gleam of triumph replaced the despair, just for a second. “Yeah. Exactly. Your dad was their only operator in this area, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. And Reed would be the next one that I'd know, and right now he'd be only a little older than little me in the backseat. And thus, not of much use unless one required a blankie and a bottle. Or whatever kids that age were into. He-Man, maybe. “Okay, so I don't know that many people in this era, but...” I strained, my neck muscles pulling tight as one idea occurred.

  “What?” she asked, catching my discomfort.

  My sudden flex and clench had again aggravated that pain in my back. “Nothing. The name 'Erich Winter' floated to mind, but I don't think that's a great idea.”

  “Yeah, that'd be a wonderful call,” she said, shaking her head. “He's after me, too, and has been since the night I stumbled away from the burning ruin of the agency. I hear he's putting together some new operation now.”

  “He is,” I said. “But yeah...best not call him. Save him as an...'in case of emergency, nuke everything' card.” I drummed my fingers on the door's arm rest. “Okay, fine. How about...” I closed my eyes, my voice trailing off.

  “Don't say 'Charlie'.”

  “I'm not going to say it, but I did think it – briefly,” I said, opening my eyes again, bright sunshine threatening to blind me through the windshield. “She's crazy but kinda useful in a fight. Nominally believes in family. Or something.”

  “And is a psychotic, thieving murderer. How about 'no'? Also, I don't see how she helps with the money or escape problems. In fact, I can see at least ten ways my sister would compound both those problems.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can't argue with that. But we're running pretty thin on ideas.”

  “No kidding,” my mother said, employing her famed talents for understatement and dryness all in one. “Maybe that's why I'm feeling this lingering malaise. Because I don't have any friends, really, or family I can call.”

  “Not even that person in Wyoming?” I asked. I started to put two and two together; after my mother had left me way back when Wolfe had captured her, she'd fled to Wyoming, too. Whoever was out there, maybe they were an ally we could use.

  She shook her head slowly. “That's not a road I want to go down right now. Call it a dry hole. I only want to go that way if I have no other options.”

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath, thinking of my own prospects. Who could I call on in 1999? No one would know me. If I could find Harry, maybe he could look ahead and see the future-

  But how the hell could I find Harry in 1999? And what good would that do? He didn't have any idea who I was at this stage of life. Hell, he was firmly ensconced in the 'drinking and gambling himself to oblivion' phase of his life and would be for another fifteen or more years.

  So who else was there? All my friends were still too young – Reed, Augustus, Scott, Jamal. I blinked. Veronika Acheron probably had some miles on her by now, but I didn't know where to find her, and I didn't really class her
as a friend the way I would the rest of those guys. Same with Friday, though he was probably an adult...ish...at this point. As much an adult as Friday ever was. Either way, he didn't know me from Eve. Which brought me around to Winter again, and his little quartet of trouble – Kappler, Bastian, Parks and Clary would be alive and probably adult. But again, none of them would know me.

  None of these people would have any damned reason to answer my call for help.

  None of the people I knew in my life in the present would come running for me now. I was in a time prior to their loyalties to me, and way before they had any cause to give a damn about me.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath, “I'm in the temporal version of no man's land.”

  My mom nodded slowly, whether she understood what I was saying or not. “Yeah. No friends. No family. No one to call-”

  You can call me anytime.

  Anytime.

  “We're on our own.” My mother tightened her hands around the wheel as she turned us, slowly, down a side street. There was a convenience store ahead on the right.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  You are family to me.

  Anytime.

  “Or maybe not,” I said as my mother guided us into the convenience store parking lot.

  She pulled into a parking space then favored me with a puzzled look, pursing her lips together. “What do you mean?”

  I'll see you soon, Lethe had told me as she left me behind in the Revelen war room. I hadn't known what she'd meant then.

  I had a feeling I knew now.

  The car idled as we sat there, and I glanced at the store front. There, right next to the pile of firewood for sale was an artifact of the times, something that had once been on every corner and in my day was now rarer than diamonds, a curiosity that had been replaced by technology's mad march:

  A pay phone.

  “I mean...” I said, staring at the phone, and remember what she'd said when she made me memorize the number:

  It's been the same since the 1950's...

  You can call me anytime.

  Any.

  Time.

  “I mean...” I said, staring at the phone, little chills causing goosebumps to pop out all over my body, “...I might know someone I can call...”

  14.

  “Collect call from: Sierra Nealon.”

  The words were a jumble of computer voice for the first part and my own recorded speaking of my mother's name for the second, another strange throwback to the way phones used to work. I'd called the operator in Revelen collect, and now they'd put me through to whoever was answering the phone in the castle today.

  There was a long pause. I heard the voice when it answered, but it was short, clipped, barely recognizable as female.

  Hopefully it wasn't General Krall. She was probably still hanging out with 98 Degrees at this stage of her life rather than answering phones in Revelen, but it didn't give me a lot of hope hearing that voice answer. It definitely wasn't my grandmother.

  “I will accept the charges,” the voice said, still clipped, but English. A noise indicated the calling being connected, and through the frizz of electronic background noise, the woman asked, “Who is this?”

  “Sierra Nealon,” I said again. “I need to speak with Lethe. Immediately.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Sierra. Nealon.” I put a steady emphasis on each word.

  There was another long pause. “Please hold,” she said, and without waiting for me to agree, she put me on hold.

  “Sonofa,” I said as smooth jazz filtered out of the earpiece.

  My mother slammed the car door behind me and I turned as she opened the back door. “I'm going to get the food. You going to be a while?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “They put me on hold. With Kenny G as company.”

  My mother pursed her lips in abject disgust. “Who are you calling and why would you put up with that?”

  “Because we're pretty much boned if I don't wade through the mellow saxophone and get what I need out of this call, that's why.”

  “Transferring,” came a robotic voice on the other end of the line, then a long, long pause before the phone started beeping in my ear like it was ringing somewhere else in the world.

  “Hello,” came a voice on the other end of the line. Less clipped, but no more patient.

  Lethe.

  My grandmother.

  “Hey, it's-” I started to say.

  “Call from Sierra Nealon,” came the operator's voice stepping all over mine. “Unsecured, from a pay phone in Des Moines, Iowa.”

  There was a pause. “I'll accept the call,” my grandmother said.

  “Connecting,” the Euro lady said, and then there was a beep.

  “Who is this?” my grandmother asked, voice surprisingly calm considering.

  “It's not Sierra,” I said, “though she is right here.” I waved at my mother, who was just getting little me out of the car and threw a frown my direction.

  “Who are you, then?” my grandmother asked. “You sound familiar.”

  “I'm Sienna,” I said. “Nealon. I'm-”

  “I know who Sienna Nealon is,” Lethe said, and now the tension was ratcheting up in her voice. “But clearly you don't, because Sienna is all of five and you sound a lot older.”

  “Well, I'm not the 1999 Sienna, that's for sure,” I said. “But I am Sienna.”

  Another pause. This was a woman who'd lived thousands of years and seen some serious shit in her time. Calmly, she asked, “How?”

  “Akiyama,” I said. “There's a... time crisis. It's hard to explain.”

  “Akiyama is not in play at present.”

  “He's in play in my present,” I said. “Playing like a toddler, wrecking everything. No, that's unfair. He's trying to save time from crazy paradoxical nuttiness going on. He brought me here to...fix...stuff. Related to Sierra. And... other Sienna. The little one.”

  My mother had made it up to the sidewalk and was standing a foot or two from me, looking at me like I was a particularly bizarre circus sideshow. “Who are you talking to?”

  “You are with Sierra,” my grandmother said on the other end of the line. Her voice sounded like the temp had fallen twenty degrees instantly, she was so chill.

  “Yeah, and little Sienna, too,” I said. “We're in Iowa, and we just had a close encounter with Omega assholes in the local Walmart. We're skint as the Brits would say, and a little outgunned. Meaning we need guns. Also, cash. Because I don't really have any that works in this time period.”

  “Just a minute,” she said, and I heard her put down the phone, a rattling going on at the other end of the line. I heard her talking, muffled, to someone else, but I couldn't make out any of the conversation.

  “Who is that?” my mother asked.

  I took a breath, held it to a five count, then answered as diplomatically as I could, bearing in mind that at this stage of her life, my mother thought grandma was dead. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

  That made her frown all the more. “I don't think being a hundred percent honest about where you come from is going to work out all that well for you here.”

  “Because it sounds crazy?” I asked, still holding the black receiver up to my face, waiting. How had people managed, dealing with these damned things? I mean, it had a cord. I couldn't even pace around while I was standing here.

  “Yes. I'm still not even sure I believe you, and I watched Akiyama stop time back there,” my mother said.

  My grandmother's voice came back on. “How did you know how to reach me?”

  “Long story, but you gave me the number for the castle,” I said. “In the future, obviously. And told me to call...any time. So I took you literally.”

  “Very literally, if you're not lying,” she said.

  “I'm not,” I said. “Nor am I crazy, though I am fully aware that I sound like I am.”

  Another long pause, and my mother was looking at me with just the
same suspect level of, “What is wrong with you?” as I'm sure my grandmother was evincing on the other end of the phone.

  “You told me you'd do anything for family,” I said, after she didn't speak for a long while. “Well...I need help. And there is literally no one else I can call.” I locked eyes with my mother, and her curiosity was getting deeper by the second. “We...need help. All of us. We got bushwhacked by Henderschott. You know who he is?”

  “The Man in the Iron Everything,” Lethe said.

  “I put him through a freezer case,” I said. “We took out three other Omega metas, but...they've got more. They're swarming into Des Moines and we've got no way out. Sierra's down to her last twenty bucks, and we're about to have to ditch the car because I'm pretty sure that's how they found us.”

  Another long pause. Like she was trying to figure out what to make of all the cards I'd just thrown on the table.

  “You took my invitation very literally indeed,” Lethe said.

  “I have no one else to call,” I said. “Or at least no one I could find. No one else who's seen what you've seen. Who could absorb the story I'm giving you without dismissing it out of hand as impossible madness.”

  “It does sound like impossible madness.”

  “Well, if you don't believe me I'm really screwed,” I said, “because there's not a chance in hell anyone other than maybe your dad has seen any more than you have and would believe a word I'm saying.”

  A pause. “You know about my father?”

  “'Vlad'?” I asked. “Yeah. We've met. He's a heckuva a guy. Kind of a smartass and lives up to his reputation. Reputations, I should say, since he has several.”

  “Just a second,” Lethe said, and put the phone down again. I heard soft murmurs of another conversation, but again couldn't hear a word of it.

  I held tight to the phone, and my mother stared on at me. I didn't dare spare a look for little Sienna, who was huddling against my mother's leg, snug against it like she'd never let go again.

  My mother didn't ask again, though. Which was good, because I didn't know how to tell her...yet.

  “I'll be there in five hours,” Lethe said when her voice came back on the line.