Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23)

by Robert J. Crane

  Gerasimos made a harrumphing deep in his throat. “Sierra Nealon, for all her reckless use of force, was never that casually brutal. What type of meta is she?”

  “Uncertain,” Bast said. “Energy projection seems unlikely. She's had opportunities where those abilities would be very handy and she has not employed them. Her strength is top of the charts. She broke big boy's neck with her bare hands. Excellent marksman. Could be a Reflex-Type-”

  “A Diana?” Gerasimos looked up from the photograph. “She looks a little like her. The angry eyes.”

  “They remind me of Sierra Nealon's,” Bast said. “Everything about this girl reminds me of Sierra Nealon. Standing next to each other. Helping each other. They could be sisters.”

  “Does Lethe have another daughter?” Gerasimos asked. “One we don't know about?”

  Bast shook her head. “There's much we don't know about Lethe. Or Sierra. Or Charlie, for that matter.”

  “I like her already,” Gerasimos said, putting down the photograph, centering it on his desk. “I want her. Want to know who she is, where she comes from. Get her, get the mother. And the child, of course.”

  “Of course.” Bast nodded, short and sharp, filled with displeasure. “It will be as you say, but don't expect it to come easily. Five dead already. And now with Lethe in the mix-”

  “Lethe is old,” Gerasimos said, taking up the casualty list. It featured the manner of death and injury, and he found himself nodding in respect as he read it. “Her days draw to a close. And we have means to counter her.” He looked up. “You know who to send?”

  Bast nodded once. Smiled. “I know who to send.”

  “Send him, then.” Gerasimos found himself looking back down at the security footage of the dark-haired girl, and smiling. “Send...whoever you have to. See it done, Bast. I want this girl. Both these girls. And to hell with anyone who gets in your way.” He looked up. “Even Lethe.”

  23.

  Sienna

  We pulled up to the house about an hour later, having taken a circuitous route back and having switched out the car with a freshly stolen model lifted from a parking garage near the bus station. With luck, whoever had left it there wouldn't notice it gone for a while, because I'd had about my fill of stealing cars. Hell, I was beginning to feel like a one-woman crime wave hitting Des Moines.

  “Just be cool,” I said, slamming the door and looking around. The neighborhood was quiet, mid-afternoon laziness having settled on the place and all the residents presumably inside to hide from the stifling summer heat.

  Lethe raised an eyebrow at me. “You think my coolness is going to be a problem? You're the one who was looking around furtively while you stole this car.”

  “I'm not really used to being a criminal,” I said, doing a little more furtive looking around, seeing if anyone was staring out of windows at us. The last thing we needed right now was some troublesome do-gooder reporting us for a noise violation and rolling us up for grand theft auto while we were on the run from Omega. “I'm kinda more used to...smashing them.”

  “You really followed in your mother footsteps, didn't you?” she asked as we made our way up the front walk.

  “Well, I'd have followed in yours, but being a pillaging Valkyrie isn't really a viable career path these days.”

  Lethe raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. We were already to the front door, and it swung open to reveal my mother standing behind the storm door, peering out at us with a hard squint.

  I braced myself. This was bound to be a hell of a thing.

  It wasn't. My mother took Lethe in with a casual look, then opened the door for us. “Mother,” she said.

  “Sierra,” Lethe said, and walked past me into the house.

  I was left standing on the front steps, waiting for something more to happen. An explosion, a yelling contest, a gentle breeze to knock me over.

  Something other than, “Mother,” and them both to just disappear inside.

  I followed, expecting some sort of furious fight to be going on, meta-low, in the living room, but I just found Lethe looking around in mild curiosity and my mother standing a few feet away from her, looking pretty casual overall. I waited a minute, then two. Nobody said anything.

  Finally, I'd had enough. “Okay,” I said, “get it out.”

  They both turned to look at me, and did so in exactly the same way, with the same expression on their faces. “Get what out?” my mother asked.

  “Whatever awkwardness there is between you two,” I said.

  They exchanged a look. “I'm fine,” my mother said.

  “Same,” Lethe said.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. “You...did not know your mother was alive,” I said to my mom.

  She shrugged. “I didn't rule it out as a possibility.” She traded a look with Lethe, who nodded. “It was a closed casket funeral, after all.”

  I felt like I wanted to scream, so I stuck my right index finger in my mouth and bit down. Not too hard, because I could take that finger off easily if I wasn't careful, but enough that a warm trickle of blood ran down into my mouth, a long-familiar sensation and taste of copper. “Okay,” I said, “that's...fair. But-”

  There was motion at the far end of the room. Little me stood there, clutching a teddy bear and rubbing her eyes.

  “Sienna,” my mother said, making her way over and kneeling next to little me. She looked up at Lethe, and mini me's attention followed. “I want you to meet your grandma.”

  I felt like my head was going to explode. I didn't remember any of this at all. Had I already broken time and didn't know it yet?

  “Hello, Sienna,” Lethe said, way more sweetly than anything she'd said to me yet. She dropped to a knee. “It's so nice to finally meet you.”

  Little me just sort of stared for a minute, like she was trying to make sense of everything, trying to figure out who this new person was.

  That lasted about a second, and she shouted, “Grandma!” and boom, she was off and in grandma's arms.

  I just stared. It seemed a little strange to me that she'd know what a grandma was and be that affectionate out of the gate, but apparently. I didn't really know myself.

  “Huh,” I said, watching the scene unfold, “this is...quite something.”

  Lethe was being very careful not to touch skin to skin, her hands placed strategically on little me's t-shirt. “What's that?”

  “This is kind of a big moment,” I said, dropping my voice to meta-low. “Feels like I would remember this. I'm starting to worry we're breaking the timeline.”

  My mother looked around. “Wouldn't breaking time result in actual breakage of the sort we could see?”

  I shrugged. “What do I know about breaking time? We could have created a completely different future for me in the last five minutes.” I touched my forehead gently. “I hope this doesn't erase me from existence.”

  “You seem fine,” Lethe said, still hugging little me. “You're not fading away or anything. Got a picture of yourself we can use as a frame of reference?”

  “I like that everyone's seen Back to the Future and thus we're all on the same page about the perils of time travel,” I said, “but I'm not sure it works exactly like that. I will say, though, having a flying DeLorean feels like it would solve a lot of our current problems vis-a-vis Omega.”

  That took some of the wind out of mom's sails. “What are we going to do about Omega?”

  “No idea,” I said. “It's not like we're presented with an abundance of options. We still don't have any money thanks to grandma leaving her suitcase at the airport during the attack-”

  “You were attacked again?” my mother asked.

  “She was, mostly,” Lethe said. “I only did a little, and mostly against the man in the black armor.”

  My mother's eyes seemed to glow with rage. “You should have killed him at Walmart. Like the others.”

  I shook my head. “Can't. I fight him in the future.”

  She roll
ed her eyes. “Stupid time. How did they find you at the airport?”

  “I'm going to hazard a guess here,” Lethe said, now bouncing little me up and down slightly, producing a little series of giggles in the process, “Omega's thick on the ground in Des Moines. They've infiltrated the police and other institutions in the course of this operation, and they're looking at everything they can get their hot little hands on. Flight records, traffic reports – anything that will generate a lead to you. They've probably inserted their agents posing as federal ones with local law enforcement, maybe even the civil government, and they're using all these assets to turn up anything related to you. That's their MO when they move into a town. Usually they exploit these connections for criminal purposes, but they're doing something different here.”

  “Not so different from my experience with them,” I said. “But if you've seen this from them before...what comes next?”

  Lethe just shook her head. “Hard to say, but they seem quite determined to find this little one.” She pulled her face back so she could smile at little me, who let out a peal of laughter at the play. It was kinda sweet, melted my stone-cold heart by a few degrees. “I would guess more of the same, and maybe worse to come if they feel like redoubling their efforts. If the death of this many of their operatives discourages them, maybe we'll see a reduction in our troubles. Either way,” she said, squeezing little me tight to her shoulder again, “we need to lay as low as possible. If they don't find anything for a while, if the trail goes cold, they'll start to pull out of the area. Once the noose loosens enough, then we can slip out of town.”

  My mother and I exchanged a look. “There is another problem,” I said. “We're light on money and low on food.”

  “We have enough to last a couple days if we stretch it,” my mother said. “But that's about it.”

  “I would have been able to help with that if I still had my luggage,” Lethe said. “Unfortunately, now it appears we're all in the same boat.”

  “And it's a leaking boat,” I said. “With no treasure chests. Ahoy, mateys. I think we might need to do some plundering, unless you can orchestrate a bank transfer.” I looked at Lethe.

  She shook her head. “That would be a bad idea. Omega has a very definite toehold in the banking world. I promise you they're watching transactions in this town right now, and possibly for several hundred miles around. That would be a quick way to call the lightning down on our heads.”

  “Great,” I said, looking at the white ceiling, which was starting to show its age in the form of lines indicating the seams of the plaster. “So we're broke and we have no way to get more money short of one of us getting a job. Or thievery.”

  “I saw the way you stripped that ignition,” Lethe said. “I wouldn't rule out the thievery option so quickly.”

  I sighed. “The things I do to save my past self, I swear.” Another long sigh made me feel a hint of sleepiness creep in. “So... what now?”

  My mother looked to Lethe, who pulled mini-me off her shoulder again and made a face, drawing a giggle out of the little girl in her arms, one that was so very...un-Sienna. “Well, I can't speak for you two, but...I think I'm going to play with my granddaughter for a little bit if we have nothing else planned.” She raised her voice out of meta-low. “I see some dolls and a doll house in the corner over there. Those must be your mother's.”

  Little me giggled. “Noooo, grandma. Those are mine.”

  “Yours?” Lethe mimed absolute shock. “Why, I love playing with dolls. I should go play with them right now. Do you mind if I play with your dolls all by myself?” She put little me down.

  “No,” little me said, “you can't play with those by yourself. Those are mine.” So serious.

  “Well, can we play with them together?” she asked, and got a nod for her troubles. With a glittering of eyes, she made her way past us to the dollhouse in the corner, holding little Sienna's wrist all the while. “Oh, my, this is a precious little doll. What's her name?”

  “It was Bertha,” little me said, “but now I call her 'Debra'.”

  I straightened as little me looked at big me. Just a quick glance, then away.

  Oh, right. Debra was what I'd called myself to her. I blinked a few times.

  “She doesn't know that many people,” my mother said, back to meta-low. “It's been a rough few years.” She had her arms folded in front of her. “I'm going to make some tea to try and hold off these hunger pangs. You want some?”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling a rumbling in my stomach unrelated to hunger. “Please.” I looked at Lethe, and she nodded at my mother. Three teas. Sierra disappeared into the kitchen.

  “'A rough few years',” I repeated, under my breath. Running and hiding from Omega, from whatever other troubles there might be out there. Sovereign, for instance.

  What my mother didn't know...what she couldn't know...was that the next years, the ones filled with me locked in a house while she worked to support us, the years of training, of my youth...

  …of the box...

  Those years weren't going to be any better.

  And I stared at the little me, in the corner with her grandmother, happily explaining why the driver of the car couldn’t possibly be Debra the doll, silly grandma! And my stomach rumble did not get any better.

  24.

  Mom had turned on the stereo at low volume, tuned to a classics station, bluesy, beautiful saxophone blaring the opening bars of Etta James's “Sunday Kind of Love,” as I sat on the couch, my belly full of the last of the ham and eggs, a mostly-drunk glass of milk on the end table next to me. The last strains of day cast an orange glow outside the living room window.

  The dishes were done, and my mother, my grandmother and I all sat arrayed around the living room, little me playing quietly in the corner, her entreaties to grandma to, “Come play with me,” sweetly rebuffed by Lethe, her, “I played with you all afternoon!” filled with a sort of kind exasperation. Eventually, little me had given up and retreated to her toys, leaving the three of us to sit in silence as night crept in behind us.

  It felt surreal, sitting here on a summer's eve in Des Moines, watching myself as a child play in the corner while my now-dead mother and my until-recently-thought-dead grandmother sat around me, all of us embracing the surreal feel of the moment and the silence it brought.

  “This is the weirdest day ever,” I finally said, prompting nods from both of them.

  “Tell me about it,” my mother said. “I find out my daughter grows up just fine and that my mother's not dead, all within about twenty-four hours.”

  I cringed. “I wouldn't go assuming that we make it out of this just fine. Akiyama brought me here for a reason, and he's already had to intervene once, that's how close we got to messing things up.”

  “Well, I'm guessing he'll intervene again if things get too serious,” my mother said. She seemed a lot more relaxed now than she had been earlier. “I mean...I know we're not out of it yet, but the fact that it looks like we will get out of it-”

  “Mom,” I said, shaking my head, “don't go thinking that way. If this was certain, I don't think Akiyama would have-”

  “She has a point,” Lethe said. “There is an element of destiny to this, it seems.” She leaned forward. “Think about it. You knew to call me in this time because I tipped you off to it. That suggests that I – well, future me – has already lived this moment, and survived it.” She nodded at my mother. “The fact you grew up with her also suggests that she survives.”

  “Nothing suggests I'll survive,” I said, looking at each of them in turn. “This could be the end of my journey, right here, and no one would know it.”

  “I don't think so,” Lethe said, settling back. “I would have known it in the future, when I gave you my number and told you to call me. Do you really think I would perpetuate a loop that ends in your death?”

  “Probably not,” I said, “but I guess I don't know you that well.”

  She quirked her eyebrow up
. “The answer is no, I wouldn't.”

  “Fine,” I said, “you both seem assured that we're going to make it through this. Here's my take: that's dangerous thinking.”

  My mother sighed. “How so?”

  “We're facing Omega here,” I said. “And again, Akiyama brought me here for a reason, and it's not because you're up against a threat that's so gentle we can just walk through it like a summer day in the park, okay?”

  “We had a summer day in the park yesterday,” my mother said. “As I recall it was filled with gunshots.”

  “Great, so keep that in mind,” I said. “We cannot play this like it's a sure thing. Because that is a definite way to lose this fight.”

  Lethe let slip a little smile. “That sounds...familiar.”

  My mother rolled her eyes. “It sounds like something you'd say, mom.”

  “And I learned it from you,” I said to Sierra. “Looks like it made its way down the line.”

  “Your point is taken,” Lethe said. “By me, at least.”

  My mother wore a sour look. “It's not lost on me, either. But forgive me if I hang on to a shining ray of hope in the darkness of this moment when we're broke and lacking direction. I just wanted to think we might be able to get out of this without excess difficulty.”

  “Nothing good comes easy in my experience,” I said.

  “Nor mine,” my mother and grandmother said as one. They looked at each other, then my mother looked away. Lethe just smiled, and my mother matched it a moment later.

  “This is so weird,” I said again. Because it really was.

  “I should put Sienna to bed,” my mother said, rising from the couch. “After that, I'm thinking...wine. Anyone else in?”

  “Me,” Lethe said.

  “I'll stick to water,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. “I don't want to...muddle my head. Not now, anyway. Not with all this trouble lurking over us.”

  My mother nodded as she picked her way over to the corner. “Sienna...” she said sweetly, “...it's time for bed.”