Middlegame

by Seanan McGuire

  “Roger?” she says quickly.

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.” They don’t say that as often as they should, because it’s an odd love, philia and agape and distance and time. It doesn’t fit the modern definitions. Neither do they.

  She hears him smile. “Thanks, Dodge.”

  “She loves you too. Future-me. There’s no way she doesn’t.”

  “I knew that. But … thank you for making sure.” Then the line goes dead, and she’s truly alone, not talking to the future, not able to reach out to the present.

  Dodger Cheswich sinks to the floor, looking at the phone in her hand, and is silent.

  Orbits

  TIMELINE: 14:31 PDT, JUNE 16, 2016 (THE PRESENT RETURNS).

  The younger Dodger stops talking. Silence falls. Finally, awkwardly, she asks, “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” confirms the older Dodger, the one who exists in 2016, the one who just hit a man in the head with her toaster. She remembers the call now. Remembers the sound of gunshots behind Roger’s voice, and the calm fear that swept through her like ink through cotton, coloring her from end to end with dread.

  (She also remembers going back to the house, filling her suitcase, and leaving without speaking to another soul. She remembers thinking that if he was going to turn his back on her, she was going to turn her back on him. This version of events is already going fuzzy, smearing like those earthquake equations. Soon, it will be nothing but a faded “what if?” and not her timeline at all. It should be terrifying, losing a moment that shaped so many years. Instead, it’s soothing, comforting, like she’s putting things back the way they should have been all along. The déjà vu that has haunted her all her life is finally starting to make sense.)

  “Okay, cool,” says younger Dodger. Then, in a voice filled with wonder, she says, “I really did it, huh? I called the future. That’s amazing. Do we have a flying car in the future?”

  “Thankfully, no,” says older Dodger. “Can you imagine some of the drivers we know with flying cars? Can you imagine Roger with a flying car? We’d all be dead inside the week.”

  Younger Dodger laughs. “I guess that’s true,” she says. “I want to ask you about … oh, everything, but I don’t want to create more of a paradox than I already have.”

  “That’s probably smart,” says older Dodger. “If I told you about my life, it might change the things you’d do, and then I might never exist at all.”

  “Better not to risk it.”

  “Exactly.” She needs to exist. It’s not selfishness or self-preservation that puts that thought in her head: she needs to exist because she’s the version of herself with an unconscious man on her kitchen floor. She’s the version someone wanted to kill. She can’t risk becoming someone more trusting or less isolated. What if she’d been a mother, and he’d taken one of her children hostage? What if she’d had pets? What if she’d been a little fonder of lighting up in the afternoons, and had come home stoned and slow? No. This is the version of her that can survive the situation at hand, so this is the version of her that has to endure.

  “I don’t know if I can call you again. I mean, it might not be a good idea, and I don’t have anything else to tell you about. Yet.”

  “Call if that changes; otherwise, leave well enough alone, and let this be a one-time gig,” says older Dodger. “It was nice talking to you.”

  “You, too. I always wondered how my voice sounded to everybody else.”

  That seems like a good place to end it. Older Dodger laughs and hangs up the phone, becoming present-Dodger, only-Dodger once again. The version of Dodger who has Dr. Peters lying, unconscious, at her feet.

  With a sigh, she drops her phone back into her purse and goes looking for her emergency earthquake kit. She’s going to need the rope.

  * * *

  Dr. Peters wakes tied to one of Dodger’s dining room chairs. It’s sturdy oak, part of an antique set she bought on Craigslist, and the rope holding him is rated for rock climbing: he strains against the knots and is rewarded with nothing more than a bit of rope burn.

  “You can open your eyes,” says Dodger. She sounds annoyed, like this was in no manner the way she intended to spend her afternoon: it’s the voice of a woman who has found the limits of her patience and gone past them, into the blasted hinterlands of irritation. “There’s no point pretending you’re still out, not when you’ve started wiggling around like a hooked fish.”

  He opens his eyes. Dodger is seated in a chair identical to the one he’s tied to, legs crossed at the ankles and hands folded on her knees. He’s seen that position before: she assumes it every time they have a session, confessing her confusion and sorrows to him one small, belabored word at a time. Language has never been her forte, and the language of her own inner workings is no exception. Sometimes he’s wondered whether she ever stopped to listen to herself, to the contradictions and unnecessary complications she’s built her life upon.

  He’s never asked her. That wasn’t his job. He was her therapist because she needed a therapist, and because it was an easy way to keep tabs on their highest-profile project. Even Reed had been surprised when the girl had gone into publishing; she’d been pigeonholed as a researcher. The math children were always flashier than the language ones, with more striking coloration and faster movements, naturally designed to draw fire. That didn’t mean they enjoyed being the focus of attention. Most of them seemed to want to disappear whenever possible, sinking deeper and deeper into their private projects, coming out only when coaxed.

  Dodger has broken so many rules she didn’t even know existed that he’d be impressed, if he weren’t terrified. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding,” he says, trying to sound earnest, trying to sound like her friend. “Untie me, and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Was the misunderstanding you trying to shoot me, or the part where you missed?” She sounds genuinely curious.

  His blood seems to chill, pulling his skin tight and trembling across his frame. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but—”

  “I already called the police,” she says. “I told them the neighbor kids were setting off cherry bombs in the gully. They came and went while you were passed out. Did you know I grew up less than a mile from here? I know how much like a gunshot a cherry bomb can sound, if you set it off under the right conditions. No one’s going to come looking for you. It’s just you and me and you telling me why you tried to kill me.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “I guess that’s true. I don’t have to let you go. That’s true too, isn’t it? Because no one knows you’re here.” The words come easy because they’re so sincere. She may not know Dr. Peters as well as she thought she did—and he’s her therapist, for God’s sake, he’s not supposed to shoot her—but she knows him well enough to know he wouldn’t have come alone if there’d been someone to help him. He wouldn’t have come at all if there’d been someone to do the dirty work on his behalf. She’s seen him telling his secretary to turn away patients whose insurance has lapsed, or whose problems are too much for him to handle. He’s not shy about passing the buck, as long as there’s someone he can pass it to.

  “They know I’m here,” he says, almost triumphantly.

  There’s nothing “almost” about the way Dodger’s eyes light up. In that moment, she’s won, and that means he must, somehow, have lost.

  “Who?” she asks sweetly, leaning farther forward. “Because see, we’re at a binary choice right now. If you tell me, I’ll know, and I might not blame you as much for trying to kill me. If you don’t tell me, I won’t know, and I’ll have to go with another course of action. I don’t know how much time you have. I don’t think it’s much. Tick tock, as they say. Think fast.”

  “Miss Cheswich, I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish, but I assure you, holding me captive won’t do you any good. If you let me go, right now, I promise not to press charges. You’re a very sick woman
, but working together, I think we can make you well again.”

  “Nope,” she says amiably. “Gaslighting me wasn’t one of your choices. You can tell me who sent you or you can keep your mouth shut, but you can’t convince me that I’m crazy. Do you want to try again, or do you want to call this a binary negative? I’m happy either way.”

  “No one sent me.”

  “Someone sent you.”

  “I assure you, I acted alone.”

  “You can’t even keep your story straight when you’re trying to decide between martyrdom and convincing me I somehow lured you to my house and attacked you without warning. Why would I believe you when you claim to have acted alone? You’re not cut out for this line of work.” She leans back in her chair. “Are you even really a therapist?”

  “I am,” he says, stung. “I thought I helped you a great deal.”

  “You did and you didn’t. I’m reviewing our sessions now. I always thought it was interesting how your response to my saying I was socially isolated was to tell me I needed to resolve my emotional conflicts before I attempted to make friends. I’d been expecting a referral to a support group or something, not ‘no, no, be a recluse until I tell you it’s time to stop.’”

  “But you did it.”

  “I did. Because it was what I wanted to hear you say, and what I wanted to do.” She looks at him calmly, and for the first time since his phone rang and Dr. Reed’s voice ordered him into picking up the gun, Dr. Peters feels true fear. She’s not uneasy. She’s not uncomfortable. If anything, she’s serene, a cat playing with its next meal. She shouldn’t be like this. The math children, the high-strung, headstrong logicians, they’re not like this. She should be folding, begging him to tell her what to do. A gun should not act independent of its trigger.

  “Don’t you think we should talk about why you’d want to be socially isolated?”

  She laughs—actually laughs—and says, “I was a different person then. Literally. People are like equations, doctor. They can always be revised.”

  There’s a knock at the door. She turns her head, eyes brightening, before looking back to him and saying, “Last chance. Who sent you?”

  “No one.”

  “Suit yourself.” She stands. “I’ll be back.” Then she walks out of the dining room, out of his field of vision, leaving him alone and helpless to do anything but wait for her return.

  * * *

  Dodger thinks she should be nervous. The day has been an equation of inevitabilities, from her therapist’s inexplicable attack to the phone call from her past self to the knock at her door. The reasons for the call are already becoming fuzzy when she doesn’t focus on them: she remembers Roger calling from the future now, and with those memories intact, she’d have no reason to call herself from the past. Living in a paradox isn’t exactly comfortable. She’ll still take it over the alternative. Without the paradox, this would all play out very differently.

  (She can’t stop the feeling that it has played out differently at least once: maybe dozens of times. Dozens of iterations with no careful cosine to connect the halves of the equation, no judicious cheating to make sure she’d be prepared to continue. She’ll take the discomfort of the paradox over the agony of that linear but imperfect world.)

  The knock comes again, more urgent this time.

  Dodger opens the door. Silence falls.

  Roger has gotten another gawky inch or so taller, finishing his growth as second puberty had its way with him. He’s still a rail of a man, skinny bordering on scrawny. His hair is too long to be neat and too short to be elegant; it falls scraggily in his face, making the circles around his pale, haunted eyes seem even deeper. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that look like they were pulled out of the laundry hamper, clutching a backpack to his chest.

  Erin, on the other hand, is perfectly put together, strawberry hair pulled in a sleek ponytail and face scrubbed clean. She’s wearing gray spandex and a plain hoodie; she looks like trouble about to start or an accident about to happen. Her backpack is smaller than Roger’s, less tightly packed. It has the look of a bug-out bag, something that’s been ready for a long time. She’s not frowning, but there’s a darkness in her eyes that speaks of bad times coming.

  Dodger barely notices. It’s all data to be filed away and dealt with later. Her attention is on Roger, the way he breathes (he’s still smoking; she can see it in the slope of his shoulders), the way he stands, the way he’s looking at her, like she’s an impossibility. A paradox. The thought would be enough to make her smile any other time. But not now. Not now. This is an inherently unstable moment, and she can’t help thinking that all this back-and-forth between past and present and future has been an effort to shore it up, to make it slightly less likely to collapse. A smile could be a step too far. So she just looks at him, grave and quiet and waiting.

  Erin pushes past Roger, into the house. “Snap out of it and get your things,” she says, voice brusque as ever. She doesn’t seem to have changed since the earthquake: she’s still vital and angry, shivering under her own skin, ready to explode. “I’ll explain once we’re on the road, but there are some very bad people looking for you, and they’re going to be here any second.”

  “They already are,” says Dodger, taking her eyes off her brother’s face and turning to face the other woman. Erin looks nonplussed. That’s a nice change. She was always dismayingly difficult to throw off her stride. Dodger continues, “My therapist broke into my house and tried to shoot me. I knocked him out with a toaster. He’s tied to a chair in my dining room. Want to help me make him answer some questions?”

  Erin’s eyebrows raise. “Seriously?” she asks. “You didn’t call the cops?”

  “Oh, I called them.”

  Erin’s eyebrows drop again, into the beginning of a glower.

  “I told them there were kids setting off cherry bombs in the gully, which is a fire risk, and also a valid explanation for the gunshots. No one’s coming for him.”

  This time, Erin’s eyebrows rocket all the way to her hairline as she stares at Dodger in open-mouthed approval. “When did you get so vicious?” she asks.

  “When people started trying to kill me.” Dodger allows herself to look at Roger again. He looks confused but not afraid. As long as he’s not scared, she doesn’t have to be either. “I never gave up on you, you know. I was just waiting for you to be ready.”

  Roger steps into the room, covering the space between them in two steps, and when he reaches her, he takes her into his arms and holds her, so tight that there’s no space left between them. She works her arms free and wraps them around him in turn, closing her eyes and burying her face into his shoulder. Her vision shifts to a higher perspective, showing her hallway in less-saturated colors, with more distinct dimensions. She laughs a little at that, but the sound struggles to turn into a sob, and so she stops. If she starts crying, she’s not going to stop any time soon, and they can’t afford that. Not right now.

  “Fuck, Dodge, I missed you,” says Roger.

  She pulls away, opening her eyes. Her vision returns to its normal angles, its normal limitations. “Good,” she says. “I’d hate to think I was the only one.”

  “This is a touching reunion, but maybe we should deal with the man you have tied to a chair,” says Erin impatiently. “Where is he?”

  “This way,” says Dodger, waving for the others to follow her. She feels strangely serene. The omnipresent feeling of déjà vu is back, but weaker, like some foundational piece of the event has changed. In all the times they’ve been in this hall, on this day, she suspects this is the first time she’s looked at Roger and been able to forgive him for leaving her the way he did. The version of her who couldn’t let him back in is gone.

  She should be angry about that, demanding to know what gave him the right to pick up a phone and change the equations that make her who she is, but all she feels is relief. She needs him for the math to work properly. Anything that revises him back into her life can
’t be wrong.

  Erin follows by walking almost in step with Dodger, her whole frame vibrating with anger. Dodger glances in her direction, frowning.

  “Have you been with Roger this whole time?” she asks.

  Erin nods. “Someone had to be.”

  Dodger doesn’t have an answer for that, and then they’re stepping into the dining room, where Dr. Peters has been trying to free himself from the ropes. He hasn’t succeeded. He hasn’t even been able to knock his chair over. He turns to glare at the sound of footsteps, and stops when he sees Erin. Slowly, smugly, he begins to smile.

  “Why, hello,” he purrs. “I didn’t know they were sending anyone to check up on me. Come to finish what I started?” He shifts his focus to Dodger. “Shouldn’t have answered the door, Miss Cheswich. You would have been better off running while you had the chance.”

  “I think you’re working off some bad assumptions, old sport,” says Erin. She walks to the table, shrugging off her backpack. She opens the central pocket and removes a mummified hand. “I don’t work for your employers anymore. You could say I’ve joined the other team.”

  Dr. Peters goes pale. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying if they wanted to control the elemental forces of creation, they shouldn’t have turned us into people. People have their own agendas. Mine doesn’t match theirs anymore.” Erin produces a lighter and begins lighting the fingers of her terrible candle, one by one. She looks over her shoulder to Roger and Dodger. “Go pack a bag. We’re going to have to run soon, and I’d rather not hold your hand through this whole thing.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” asks Dodger.

  “What you can’t. If he knows anything I don’t, he’ll tell me. If he doesn’t, he won’t tell anyone else you got away. Take what you can’t bear to lose. I’ll burn this place before we leave.”