Flyday

by Laura E. Bradford

  Kira looked at her phone, and saw that he’d transferred the clip. It was from that evening and was rather dark, but the image was unmistakable: a street in Tenokte, with Thomas Huxley speaking to a red-haired girl. Their time traveler.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Has anyone seen it?”

  “Someone e-mailed it to Delacroix.”

  That made things complicated. “Tell me you haven’t sent out a team yet.”

  “They’re waiting on your order. Huxley has been sighted near the canals. We’ve got a team following him.”

  “Right. I’ll meet up with them. Thank you, Caxton. You’ve been incredibly helpful.” She closed her phone and ordered her driver to change course. Then she sat back, perplexed. Thomas had lied to her. He didn’t trust her.

  And that’s exactly the way I trained him, she thought.

  4.

  The night seemed unusually cold for summer, but the sky was clear and speckled with stars. Thomas wandered around, making his way to the canals. He knew that evening curfew had already started, but he didn’t feel like going anywhere else. Finally he reached the bridge at the edge of the city, then leaned over the railing, looking out at the water.

  Zoë would probably be in a better mood in the morning—maybe. But what if Ariel backed out of the deal, and he couldn’t secure a release for Damien? What then?

  Things were looking bleak.

  His phone started ringing, and he opened it. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  He flipped it shut and turned around. Heading toward him were two Celestial patrols, their footsteps muffled by the sound of the water. Thomas took a step back, but they were already on the bridge.

  “ID,” said one of the Celestials.

  He pulled it out and held it up. The helmeted officer walked over, pulled out a flashlight and read the card. Thomas put a hand over his eyes to block the light, and the Celestial turned it off.

  “You’re under arrest.”

  “What?” said Thomas. “It’s after curfew, there’s just a fine—”

  A white car swooped down from the sky and slid down to hover a foot off the ground. Lt. Kira Watson stepped out, then slammed the door. The cruiser flew away. When she spoke, her breath let out a cloud of mist.

  “Thomas,” she said.

  She looked otherworldly in her brilliantly white coat. Behind her was the distant sparkle of city lights.

  “Out after curfew, and speaking with a wanted criminal,” she said, grinning. “You’re slipping, Thomas.”

  He looked at her, puzzled. “What’s going on?”

  “Ariel Midori,” said Kira. “Does that name sound familiar?”

  He moved his eyes to the guards, and he understood. So Ariel had been right: they were tracking her.

  “We just want to talk to her. Our signal’s gone dead, probably won’t work again. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kira’s eyes flashed. “Yes, you do.”

  “She left. She’s not coming back.”

  The lieutenant considered. The wind whipped her hair and jacket, and she pressed her lips together. “Guards, leave us.”

  The Celestial soldiers walked off the bridge, leaving him alone with the lieutenant.

  She smiled at him, but looked as if she would cry. “You were the best we had, did you know that? I personally oversaw the execution of the people who shot you.”

  He stared at her.

  “Perhaps I owe you an explanation, Thomas. Ever since the Federation started, there have been classified projects. The Commander wanted me to investigate Project X, opened just a few years ago—after unknown individuals were seen aboard a Celestial ship. Time travelers, so it would seem.”

  “Right,” he said. “Time travel. Sure. You’ve been lying to me for four years. Why should I start believing you now?”

  “Trust your instincts,” she said. “I always knew that she would come back for you. It was a mistake to let those two go. Imagine how their skills would benefit the secret police.”

  “Kira, even if I knew where she went, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “You wouldn’t exchange that knowledge for the safety of others? Your family, perhaps? Or Zoë?”

  The Celestials approached again, and he didn’t bother to struggle as they pinned his arms back, handcuffing him. He was too heartbroken to fight.

  Kira pulled out her blaster, checked the settings, and held it ready. She looked out at the street a moment, then back to Thomas.

  “Look at you,” she said, smiling. “They tried to kill you once, and here you are, alive as ever.”

  “I’m not going to help you.”

  “Oh, you will, Thomas. Trust me. I could always depend on you.”

  5.

  When Ariel, a quiet shadow of her usual self, walked into the base, Bailey immediately noticed that something had happened. Ariel walked past without even a murmur of greeting and slumped into a chair.

  “Bad night?” Bailey asked.

  “The worst.”

  “Well, you saved Jude’s life. He’s fine now. When can I expect to see Thomas again?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t want to join the Order.”

  Bailey knew this was a possibility, but had hoped against it. “You’re sure?”

  Ariel thought back. “Well, I don’t know. He’s not the traveling sort.”

  “Did you tell him that if he doesn’t go, he’ll die?”

  “…that came up, yes.”

  “Go back and try again. Ask him one more time.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Ariel, if he won’t help you, then he could turn on you. He could be in contact with Celestials already. If he tells them what he knows—”

  “He won’t.” Ariel strode past her and walked down the hall. She found Jude in the laboratory, studying something under a microscope. He looked up when he heard her come in, then smiled.

  “Hey, kid. That was some rescue.”

  Ariel smiled faintly. “Don’t mention it. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, thanks to you.”

  She nodded, but behind her tinted sunglasses, which were translucent in the room’s light, her gaze was distant and careful. She tried to smile. “Jude, I need to show you something. It’s in Thomas’s time.”

  “No thanks, kiddo.” He lifted up a slide, looking at it in the light. “I’d rather not go to that century again.”

  “It’ll be great. Come on.” She held a pair of handcuffs behind her back.

  “Maybe later.” He put the microscope under the slide.

  She pulled her pistol out of her jacket. “I insist.”

  He looked up, alarmed by the gun. “Ariel? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know why you did it, but the king was practically my nephew.”

  Jude jumped up suddenly. “Ariel—”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “They stopped tracking you after that, didn’t they? Two bullets, and they stopped. No one’s followed you since. They would’ve moved on to the other timepieces if I hadn’t. Bailey’s; Jamie’s old one. How long do you think that would take?”

  Ariel was stunned. He said he’d been out investigating why they were following her; apparently they had different understandings of the task. He had gone back in time to look at their files—their security systems were updated late in 2503, making that time his best chance—but he must’ve reached a dead end. And now…

  “They tortured me,” he said. “Those people don’t deserve a king. And it was always going to happen, wasn’t it? So why not me?”

  “I saved your life,” she said, taken aback.

  “Yes, you did. And I saved yours. They took my timepiece, Ariel. It took them years to get it working, but they finally did. It’s all they needed to track you.”

  So now it was her duty to turn him in: but oh, what a duty. The tape itself wasn’t enough, nor were the fingerprints: without time travel, Jude Fawkes had no reason to be alive in 2507. As t
he forensic scientist had thought: computer error. Case closed. The Council would think so, too—at least, without the suspect in hand.

  Thomas had asked her to turn Jude in, but she couldn’t. It came between the Celestials having time travel and Damien dying … and the Celestials could never, ever have the power from those watches. But could she let an innocent man die?

  What if she stole the watch back? Was it even possible? … but even if she took it, they would torture Jude for knowledge of time travel instead of punishing him for murder … and if, out of revenge, he gave any information about where to find a time-traveler-turned-singer, or any location for them to dig to find a base…

  But she needed to turn him in; there was no question of it.

  “They’re going to kill an innocent man for this,” she said. “You’ve meddled with history.”

  “So have you,” came a voice.

  Ariel turned: Bailey stood in the doorway, holding a revolver. Ariel didn’t move.

  “How did she know?” Bailey asked Jude, calmly.

  “You knew?” said Ariel.

  “She’s going to turn you in,” said Bailey, ignoring her.

  “She won’t.”

  “This is psychotic!” said Ariel.

  “Even so ... if Huxley knows, he’ll find you.”

  “He doesn’t know,” said Ariel, flustered.

  “We’re going to make this easy on you, kiddo,” said Bailey. “If you agree to give up your watch and go back to your own time, you’ll never hear from us again. If not…” She raised her revolver.

  “Relax,” said Jude, holding up a hand. He looked at Ariel, who was still pointing a gun at him. “That king was five centuries removed from your brother. You were about as close to that kid as you are to anyone else in the world.”

  Her eyes flashed. “You’re right. I never knew him. But you’re still a murderer. And I’m going to deliver you to the Council, so they can do what they like with you.”

  “Ariel,” said Bailey, holding the revolver steady, “just hand over your watch.”

  “Try and take it.” She rushed forward at Jude, who seemed hesitant to harm her. She tried to grab him, and Bailey fired, barely missing her.

  Ariel tried to pull out her watch, but ducked; Bailey’s bullets lodged into the wall. She had to take care of Bailey, too, or she’d come after Thomas…

  Jude, however, knocked Ariel away. Ariel put the gun in her jacket and pulled out her sword—it felt much more natural in her hands.

  “Ariel, I was your partner once!”

  “Not anymore.” Ariel swung it at him, missing.

  Bailey was still shooting. A bullet cracked a tank of fireflies; a cloud of startled, luminescent insects took flight into the air. Ariel lunged, pinning Jude against the wall. She stopped her blade close to his throat, and he went still. The chain of her pocket watch was looped around her fingers, and she moved to touch the fob.

  Bailey fired again, striking the wall just an inch away from Ariel, making her involuntarily jump. Jude grabbed the sword and wrenched it away from her, pulled away her copper watch, and she stumbled back, knocking into a shelf. A few test tubes fell off, tumbling and shattering as they hit the floor.

  She was cornered. Bailey leveled the gun at her, Jude had her sword, but both of them were staring at the mess of broken glass on the floor, horrified. Ariel felt a sudden twinge of pain, and looked at the palm of her hand. She’d been cut by some of the shards of glass, and was bleeding.

  “Bailey,” said Jude, “when you said you were studying live falling-sickness viruses … you were joking, right?”

  The scientist was standing back. “Now you don’t have to worry about killing her. The disease will do it for you.”

  Ariel stumbled, wincing from the pain in her hand. And Jude did a quick set of mental calculations. First, this strain of the falling-sickness was spread by infected food or water—or by getting it into the bloodstream. There was no cure.

  And second, now he only had to worry about a journalist who had too much knowledge of time travel.

  “Jude—” said Ariel.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied.

  Bailey loaded a tranquilizer dart into the pistol, and closed one eye. “I’m not,” she said, and fired.

  4.

  Ariel Midori Reynolds turned over in bed and opened her eyes.

  She sat up, confused.

  She reached under her pillow to pull out her watch (for she always kept it there) but she did not feel the cold, ticking timepiece.

  A scrap of paper lay on the nightstand. She picked it up and read the scribbled note:

  Best wishes to your new life, short as it may be.

  - Jude Fawkes

  She looked around. Her window showed a sunny autumn morning. She wasn’t in her room at the base, but in her bedroom back home. A cell phone still lay on her desk, charged, though she had not used it in a year; Bailey had given her one that worked across time. But she picked it up and looked at the date.

  It was October. More specifically, the day she left.

  Jude had her pocket watch, she had the falling-sickness, and Thomas Huxley was five hundred years away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  October, 2007

  Ariel walked down the stairway, her hand on the banister, and took slow, plodding steps.

  Jude had been careful: he’d returned her to the same day she’d left, just an hour later. When she woke up, she found her backpack, and everything she had with her while she traveled, lying by her desk. Well, almost everything: her pocket watch and pistol were gone.

  Okay, she thought. Think, Ariel. No one should miss me, and I haven’t been gone too long.

  Just a year...

  “Ariel, is that you?”

  She winced. “Yeah, Mom.” She stepped off the final stair, walked through the living room and peered into the kitchen. Her mother was reading a newspaper, and looked up. “I didn’t hear you come in. When did you get home?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A few minutes ago?”

  “The car’s not in the driveway.”

  Ariel thought back: she’d taken her mother’s car to school. Why? Why not the Camaro? “Uh, someone gave me a ride home. I wasn’t feeling well. I’ll pick it up tonight.”

  Her mother nodded and looked down at the paper again.

  Ariel walked over to a pot of coffee on the stove. She poured herself a cup, and without adding cream or milk, she took a sip.

  She would be trapped here, in this century, for the rest of her (very short) life. Thomas would die in another century, and she could do nothing to stop it.

  She poured her coffee into the sink and sat down at the table, looking absent-mindedly at her surroundings. Yellow walls, a table under the light of a window. Appliances from the 1970s, or so it seemed. Security and solitude. It was maddening.

  On Monday she’d have to go to school, if she survived until then. She could barely remember what classes she’d been taking. It would take quite a bit of study before she was ready for any upcoming exams, to say the least.

  A low rumble sounded outside—a noisy car engine—and her mother looked up. “Ah, there’s our lieutenant.”

  Ariel, perplexed, walked into the living room to glance out the window.

  A yellow ’76 Camaro sat in the driveway. It had black racing stripes.

  The license plate read TNOKTE.

  The driver, back from a visit to his fiancée, had dark brown hair. In later years, he would be the founder of the Celestial Federation, the father of a long line of kings, and the maker of a new civilization. Now, he was just a soldier.

  He opened the screen door and walked inside the house. “Hey, kiddo,” said Army Lt. Dimitri Reynolds, to his sister.

  Ariel’s voice caught in her throat.

  “Hey, Di,” she replied.

  2.

  The morning’s rain (which, for Ariel, had been a year ago) stayed all day. Under cloudy skies, the lights of old-fashioned lamp-posts blinked
on early in the afternoon. The trees let their leaves drift to the ground, paving walkways with gold and orange.

  Ariel and Dimitri strolled through the streets around their house, feeling drowsy from the damp air. They were far from the rusting heart of the city, a former mill town, where boarded-up buildings stood over empty blocks.

  Dimitri looked up through the branches of a cherry tree as he walked, and could see shifting patches of sky. “I’ll miss it here,” he said. He looked down at his sister, who had her hands in the pockets of her windbreaker. “I go back tomorrow. It’s strange ... freezing cold one day, hundred-degree desert the next.”

  She understood.

  “So,” he said, “where’d you go?”

  Ariel stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know. You look like you went somewhere. You look different.”

  “Oh!” she said. “Di, I would need an entire year to explain it to you.”

  “Try me.”

  She took a sharp breath. “Have you ever given serious thought to the concept of time travel?”

  “Not really, no. Why?”

  “I had a clock that could stop time, and even send me to another place. I could go to ancient Rome, or the sinking of the Titanic, or even visit the colonies on Titan in the year 3000, and be back before anyone realized I was gone.”

  He paused. “That’s pretty good. Like something Isaac Asimov would write. Or H. G. Wells.”

  “I’m serious,” she said. “I’ve been to the future. You’re a hero there. A legend.”

  “Let’s go see, then. Where’s this clock?”

  “I ... don’t have it with me anymore.”

  “Good one. You almost had me going there for a minute.”

  “You have to believe me. It’s real. Why would I joke about this?”