Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Worst flight ever,” I said. “Though to be honest, that's happening a lot in the future.” My grandmother cocked her head in curiosity. “No peanuts on flights. People are highly allergic, so they're kinda going the way of the eight track.”

  “Or vinyl,” my grandmother said.

  “That's actually making a comeback,” I said, and she frowned. “I know. The future is weird.” I looked into the distance, where Full Metal Jackass had disappeared on his long, tumbling arc. “Though, honestly, the present here isn't much different.” The sirens were getting closer, and a dozen or so paces back I spied an unattended Cadillac with the engine still running. “Come on, let's get out of here before the cops show up, because past, present or future, I know neither of us want to get pinched right now.”

  21.

  “So...is this your first time traveling through...time?” my grandmother finished, a bit awkwardly, frowning as she tripped over the last word.

  I was behind the wheel of the Cadillac, trying to keep us on the back roads. I figured we'd get where we were going eventually if I just kept heading in the same direction. “Not really,” I said. “When I helped Akiyama get uncorked from his...uh...exile, sorry to mix the metaphor, I got some snapback time travel effects there.”

  My grandmother arched an eyebrow. “Did you see anything interesting?”

  I nodded, following the slight curve of the road. “I got a vision of my future, I think. A few of the things I saw then have already played out in the present. My present. Still your future, I guess.”

  “Hm. Care to share?” I couldn't tell if she was assessing me for baseline honesty, like a polygraph would, or if she was just curious to see how much info she could get out of me.

  “I'm going to probably be a little bit cagey about it as it relates to the future, but...sure,” I said. “One of the things I saw involved a lady named Angel I work with and me getting into an... I don't know how to describe it – chase scene? In a car.”

  “Angel?” Lethe's eyebrow maintained its perfect arch, a query behind it. Always, it seemed.

  “Angel Gutierrez,” I said. “We kinda got into a scrape with a cartel, it ended in... well, violence, as most things with me tend to. Anyway, I also saw your pops saying, in a very dramatic voice, 'This was always to be your fate'. Which he has said to me several times since.”

  “That's a perennial favorite of his,” she said. “Though I'm surprised you've met him. He's not the social sort.”

  “Neither am I,” I said. “But we got along well enough.” Considering I'd wrecked his country and beat the shit out of him.

  Hey, for me, just letting him live meant we'd gotten along all right. It was a sliding scale, and you had to take my extreme anti-social tendencies into account when judging.

  “He doesn't usually do that, either,” she said, frown deepening.

  I shrugged. “What can I say? I'm a real ray of sunshine.”

  She shook her head as if trying to dispense with the effects of a particularly dazing thought. “So...my daughter. Your mother.”

  I pursed my lips. “Yeah. I haven't told her about you yet. As far as I know, she's still unaware you're alive in my day.” Because she was dead. But her failure to mention her mother being still living up to then? Strong indicator she didn't know, or else was playing things so ridiculously close to the vest as to defy-

  Actually...it was well within the realm of possibility that my mother could have known and not said anything. After all, she hadn't uttered a peep about me developing superpowers until after I'd done so at age 17. I'd had to find that one out from the people at the Directorate. It was a little like learning about your cycle from random strangers you'd just met. Except maybe a little less awkward.

  “Though she's not exactly the warmest person and it's entirely possible she knew and just didn't bother to tell me,” I said.

  Lethe nodded slowly. “Mother-daughter relations in our family are not of the highest quality.”

  I snorted. “Mine locked me in a metal box to keep me confined in childhood. You can say that again.” I frowned. “Or...she will be doing that sometime in the near future.” I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it back. I needed a hair tie for it because somehow it had all gotten free during my fight with Omega back at the airport. “Time travel makes grammar annoying.”

  “Yes, it's all very tense,” Lethe said, utterly deadpan. Only the trace of a smile told me she was making a pun. “So... who's after you? And how did you know to call me?”

  “Those dipshits Omega,” I said. “And when we met, you did this weird thing where you made me memorize the castle number and told me it had been around forever and emphasized that I could call you anytime.”

  “Mm,” she said, taking it in, presumably to perpetuate this loop in about twenty years. “Omega? That'd be Gerasimos's criminal syndicate.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I never met the guy. Though I did have a lethal encounter with his son.”

  She looked at me sideways. “Rick?”

  “You should probably try and forget I said that. That's future info and all that.”

  “Was it a tough fight?” she asked.

  I cleared my throat, mostly out of awkwardness. “Not particularly, no.” Rick had turned out to be human, so it had basically been a slaughter. Not exactly my proudest moment.

  “Nothing like his father, then.” Lethe looked out the window as the Des Moines city landscape passed us by. “What does Omega want from your mother?”

  I frowned. “Little me, I think. They're seeking succubi.”

  Lethe's eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “You think they know, then? That you're one?”

  “Well, I'm five, so they can't know for sure,” I said. “And from what I know, mom was pretty low-key about being one-”

  “'Low...key'?”

  “She didn't advertise she was a succubus,” I said.

  “Why would anyone advertise being a succubus?” Lethe asked. “It's a fast way to get yourself exiled from any meta community.” She slapped her knee. “Damn. Forgot my luggage.”

  “Yeah, I'm running a bit low on fresh undies, too,” I said.

  “I had my purse in there,” she said. “Including my driver's license and... everything.”

  “Ooh,” I said, cringing. “Is that going to be a problem when the police show up at whatever address you have listed?”

  “No,” she said, “but it's going to be annoying the next time I go to buy a bottle of White Zin.” She must have caught my funny look. “What? I still get carded all the time.” She looked out the windshield innocently. “Makes my day.”

  “Okay, well-”

  “This does present a problem,” she said, “or at least a narrowing of options.”

  “How's that?”

  “I can't rent a hotel room without any cash,” she said. “So unless you have some...”

  “Nah, I'm tapped. Left my wallet in the future, which would be a convenient excuse if we went out to dinner and anyone else I was with had a buck to their names. But mom's broke.”

  “When it rains it pours, doesn't it?” she asked. “I might be able to help with that, but...it's not going to be as simple as going to Western Union and picking up some cash. Since I don't have an ID any longer.”

  “That's a secondary problem anyway,” I said. “Bigger issue – what do we do with you in the absence of sticking you in a hotel?”

  “Sticking me in a hotel was a bad idea anyway. How am I supposed to help you if I'm not near enough to fight?”

  I slumped in the driver's seat. “Damn. You have a point, there. And it's like a sword point, right to the heart.”

  “You don't like the idea of me staying with you to help you?” she asked.

  “I don't like the idea of mom's reaction when she learns you're not dead,” I said. “And I like even less the idea that she's going to keep that from me for the next...uh...however many years.”

  “And yet,” Lethe said, “apparently that is w
hat we must do, to protect the timeline so that you can go on living.”

  “Great,” I said. “Well, here comes a super awkward conversation for the ages. Almost as awkward as the one that's going to follow.”

  Lethe's brow furrowed. “What's the one that follows?”

  I took a slow breath. “How we stop Omega from getting what they want without tearing up the organization root and branch.”

  “That...is a bit more complicated,” Lethe said, nodding along as we made our way, slowly, through the afternoon traffic. At least, unlike the problem in front of me, the traffic seemed to have holes. The Omega issue?

  That one...I didn't see any easy way out of.

  22.

  London, United Kingdom

  The office was wood-paneled, its occupant of the oldest tastes when it came to style. It could have been pulled out of the 1600's, the full bookshelves lining one wall a remnant of an age when books were so expensive that reading was seen as the most powerful pastime, one only able to be pursued by those who were truly wealthy.

  And Gerasimos was a man of wealth. Oh yes, he was. He stared out the window over London's changing skyline. That atrocious Millennium Dome project made the ancient city's august skyline look...stupid. There were other architectural decisions he felt did similar damage, but that one...it rose like half a metallic fruit on the south bank of the Thames, surrounded with construction cranes, and his lips puckered in distaste just looking at it. He would not get used to it anytime soon.

  “...Revenues for continental Europe are up this month over the same month last year,” Janus said, shuffling through papers from the visitor chair across Gerasimos's desk. “The outlook continues to be excellent, mostly attributable to the people we have in place. They are all experienced, and we have managed to waylay some of the interlopers from Alpha who interfered in our business last year, causing the second quarter revenue to throw off the entire year.”

  “Hera,” Gerasimos murmured. “From the grave, Poseidon still haunts me, using her as his implement. She loved him, you know. More than ever she did her husband. Disloyal creature.”

  “I would not care to speculate on Hera's motives,” Janus said, closing his folder. “She never required Poseidon's lead before sticking her nose into the business of the day.”

  “They never understood our purpose,” Gerasimos said, thick eyebrows arched into heavy lines above his inset eyes. “We are above humanity, Janus. You know this. We were made to rule. Once, we did it from above them, as gods. Now, we do it from the shadows. The world does not work without a hierarchy. It descends, becomes low, is chaos, unbridled.”

  “I expect she sees it differently,” Janus said.

  “She sees it as a child would. Or a woman. Her compassion runs away with her.”

  “She is several thousand years old,” Janus said with a smile. “And compassion is hardly the worst weakness.”

  “That is also the thinking of a child,” Gerasimos said, rising from his chair. It clicked as he stood, pulling his powerful frame from it, wood creaking as he did so. “Don't let her Women's Auxiliary interfere with our business. Bloody their noses if you have to. Stop short of killing them, if possible.” He buttoned his jacket.

  “May I ask a question?” Janus stood as well. He probably sensed by Gerasimos's motion that their meeting was at a close.

  “You may,” Gerasimos said. “Come, Janus. We are old friends. Older than oldest friends. Why so formal?”

  “What is going on in America right now?” Janus asked.

  “Ah,” Gerasimos said, coming around the desk and putting an arm around Janus's shoulder. “I should have thought that would be the question you'd ask. It is a small matter, unworthy of your notice. I have Bastet tending to it.”

  “Yes, I know,” Janus said. “Rumors have reached my ears that you were running something sensitive over there. Des Moines, I believe?”

  “Yes, Iowa,” Gerasimos nodded. “Dreadful place. I hope to have our people cleared out of there immediately. Just a small errand, that's all.”

  “And unrelated to the project you have brewing in Eagle River, Wisconsin?” Janus's smile was small, the tiniest admission of victory.

  “I would ask you how you know about that, but secrets hidden from you seem to be impossible to keep,” Gerasimos said with a smile of his own. “Yes. They are related. I think.”

  Janus nodded slowly. “Very well, then. I will leave you to manage your secret project in peace.”

  “Janus,” Gerasimos said. “I did not keep it a secret out of lack of trust. Or spite.”

  Janus raised a greying eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “I know your limits, my friend,” Gerasimos said. “The edges of what you are comfortable with. This...is beyond that frontier.”

  Janus took off his glasses and took a cloth out of his tweed jacket's pocket, rubbing the lenses. “It deals with a child, then?”

  Gerasimos nodded slowly, once. “Indeed. So I handed this to Bastet. She is, of course, quite comfortable with such things.”

  “She is quite comfortable with almost anything,” Janus said, a trace of accusatory tone there.

  “We are who we are, Janus,” Gerasimos said. “You just read me a revenue report about our criminal operations. We hurt people. We take money. It is all rightfully ours to take, because strength is on our side, but...this is who we are. We live outside the laws of men, because we are beyond them.”

  “But...a child?” Janus asked. “Truly?”

  “The child will be unhurt,” Gerasimos said, waving him off. “I need her alive.”

  “Somehow I doubt very much you are seeking her, whoever she is, to make her your new ward,” Janus said. “So... how is she to be...'all right'?”

  “Because she will be in our hands soon enough,” Gerasimos said. “And our hands are the safest.” He smiled broadly. “Safer than in the arms of her mother.”

  A beep from his desk drew the attention of both of them. “Bastet here to see you,” his secretary's voice chirped over the intercom.

  “Send her in,” Gerasimos said, and the door opened immediately. “Ah. We were just talking about-”

  An august, ebon-skinned woman walked in, catlike in the smoothness of her movements, shutting the door behind her at meta speed. “Our Des Moines operation has run into a problem,” Bastet plunged in immediately, without waiting for leave to speak.

  “What sort of problem?” Gerasimos asked, eyes narrowing.

  Bastet flicked a gaze at Janus, who watched her with something akin to amusement. Probably mildly gleeful that he wasn't the one bringing bad news. “We have an unidentified subject interfering in our efforts.” She pulled a manila folder from beneath her arm and flipped it open. Black and white security camera photographs waited within.

  “If you'll excuse me,” Janus said, and opened the door. “I expect I am not wanted in this...endeavor.”

  “Janus,” Gerasimos said, taking the photographs in hand, “your help is always wanted. But forgive me, my friend, for wanting to protect your spirit from aspects of what we do that you might find...distasteful.”

  Janus just smiled. “I do appreciate it. In fact...I think I shall go and wash the distaste from my mouth even now.” And he nodded, closing the door behind him as he departed.

  Gerasimos shook his head. “A shame he draws his lines so carefully around matters such as these.” He snapped his gaze down to the picture. “This is Sierra Nealon, yes?”

  Bast shook her head. “No. It is not.” She produced another photograph, of a similarly dark-haired woman carrying a child. “This is Sierra Nealon.” She pointed at the photo in Gerasimos's hand. “This woman...same height, same build, but not Sierra. She is with Nealon, though, and helped her, killing two of our agents at the Walmart.”

  “Wal...mart?” Gerasimos asked.

  “An American store,” Bast said. “Surely you have heard of it? We believe she killed several more later in the day at the airport in Des Moines. We'd picked up a tip of a
high-value metahuman moving into the area-” She flipped up another photograph.

  Gerasimos's eyebrow raised. “Lethe...?” He stared. “I thought she was dead.”

  “So did we all,” Bast said. “But she is here, now, with her daughter and this woman.”

  Gerasimos tapped the photograph of the unknown, dark-haired woman. “Is it Charlie?”

  Bast shook her head. “We have eyes on Charlie. She's in Las Vegas.”

  “Curious,” Gerasimos said, puckering his lips. “No one knows that Lethe is involved in this? Other than you and I?”

  Bast again shook her head. “Henderschott clashed with her, but he reported her as another unidentified subject. Few would know her name.”

  “This confirms something we long suspected but could not verify,” Gerasimos said, taking the picture of the young woman and walking back toward his desk. “Lethe was indeed Lisa Nealon. And Sierra is her daughter, as is Charlie.” He looked up at Bast and saw her questioning gaze. “I know, I know. It's still supposition, you would say, but I ask you – why would Lethe come back now, from death, to this – Iowa, if not to help one of her daughters?”

  “Perhaps she wanted to visit the corn museum,” Bast said, voice dripping with irony. “I don't know her motives. I don't care. The linkage is undefined.” She brought over another photograph, this one showing Lethe and the new girl confronting Henderschott. “This unidentified subject killed two out of the three operatives of the Gustafson family. The mother and father. Quite brutally, I might add. The daughter is expected to recover, and the younger children survived-”

  “See they're taken care of,” Gerasimos said, frowning as he dropped his considerable bulk into the chair. “Scholarships, whatever they need. That family has done good work for us. We owe them, especially if they met their end as-” Bast lifted autopsy photographs of the Gustafsons in front of him. “Stars, that is brutal.” He felt a smile break across his face. “Who is this girl?”

  “No idea,” Bast said. “But she looks like a Nealon, doesn't she?”