Flyday

by Laura E. Bradford

  A single gunshot lit up the elevator car; a sudden pain ripped through Thomas’s shoulder and radiated down his arm. Caught off balance, especially with his hands cuffed behind him, he toppled over, on the floor, bleeding, gasping. But he couldn’t die. Not when he’d survived a bullet through his head.

  Delacroix strode over, looking down at him. “If I were you,” he said, “I would start being a lot more cooperative right now.”

  2.

  Ariel lifted the map. They were actually blueprints, but they were a map to her. The architect (who had designed the prison hundreds of years ago) had either been very absentminded, or several secret parts had been built into the prison.

  Probably the latter.

  Dimitri had once drawn her the plans of a jail that made it easy for secret agents to get in and out if they knew the way. These looked strikingly similar.

  “Put an office building across the street,” he had said. “In the cellar of that, there could be a door to an underground passageway to the jail. Put a fingerprint reader on the door; only secret police can get in and out.”

  Ariel stared at the door. She stood in a dusty basement, with piles of boxes stacked everywhere.

  A fingerprint reader stood between her and the tunnel.

  She looked down at Jamie’s pocket watch. It ticked softly, but she knew it could be tracked whenever she moved in time. She had to save it for when she really needed it.

  The plan was that Thomas would get inside, find out Damien’s location, and text her. The shift change occurred from 11:00 to 11:30, and it would not be extraordinarily difficult to sneak Damien out through the secret police’s tunnels, if they had to.

  Yet here she was, blocked by the first barrier.

  She heard a creak behind her; someone had opened the door to the cellar. Ariel turned off her flashlight, but the intruder pulled out his own.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Lt. Watson sent me to help you.”

  Ariel put a hand over her eyes and stood blinking in the dusty light.

  “I’m John Caxton,” said the sandy-haired man. “An agent of the covert ops.” He stepped off the stairs, edging closer.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Or, rather, kind of a liaison between the covert ops and the uniformed—”

  “All right, I get it. What are you doing here?”

  He strode over to the door, put his hand on the fingerprint reader, and the steel door slid open, revealing a dark tunnel.

  Ariel stared at him.

  “This passageway has been abandoned for awhile,” he said. “We’ve got newer facilities for holding our suspects.”

  “Uh-huh. Why are you helping me?”

  He strode forward, and she followed him.

  The door clicked shut. Locked. No matter. She would have a different, more trustworthy agent to help her get out.

  Caxton’s flashlight lit their path. Pipes dripped above in the stone passageway. “This was all built at Dimitri Reynolds’ request,” he said. “You should be very proud.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “I’m the lieutenant’s assistant now. I know all her projects.” He shined the light. “The ghost. That’s what they call you. They’re still looking for you.”

  Ariel pulled out the map. “Then I’ll need to be careful.”

  The flashlight shined for a moment on the inner walls’ graffiti. Beside numerous curse words in various languages, someone had scrawled Kilroy was here.

  Ariel saw the metal ladder and rushed up to it. She took out her phone, dialed, then waited. A pause, and she looked up, wide-eyed. “Where’s Thomas?” she asked the voice on the other end of the line.

  She stared at Caxton as she listened. “Let him go.” After a moment she snapped her phone shut, then put a hand to her mouth and turned away.

  “Were you expecting that?” Caxton asked.

  She climbed up the ladder. “They’re arresting him to try to get me to give myself up.”

  Caxton didn’t reply.

  “Why are you helping me?” Ariel asked. “Kira must have ordered you to arrest me.”

  “I have my doubts about Damien’s guilt,” he replied. “Kira will keep Huxley safe.”

  “Right.” Ariel climbed off the ladder and onto the next level—a hidden part of the first floor of the prison. “And why not release him yourself? You’re in the secret police.”

  “Delacroix is tightly supervising the prison. But I informed the guards to let a red-haired intruder through,” he called.

  “And if they don’t?”

  He shrugged. “Do what you have to. You’ll need that watch to get out, in any case.”

  She nodded and sprinted down the hall.

  Caxton took out a radio, and flicked it on, hearing a buzz of static. He could just arrest her now ... but she would use that pocket watch to escape. He lifted the radio to his lips.

  “Kira,” he said, “she’s headed your way.”

  3.

  The Halcyon drifted through the sky, making its way across the cities below, where lights flashed like jewels among the darkened streets.

  “It’s beautiful,” Emily murmured. She sat in the co-pilot’s seat, and Jack stood off to the side.

  “You’ll like France. I spent some time there as a teenager. My dad was a diplomat.”

  “Yes. I knew him.”

  Zoë smiled faintly. “You would’ve been about twelve when he died.”

  “I still remember him. I’ve been meeting public officials since I was baby.”

  “Ah.” The pilot’s smile widened. “Always on top of everything, huh? You’d make a good queen.”

  Emily stared out at the sky.

  The ship’s radio sputtered. “Pilot, what is your direction?”

  “East, to Paris.” Zoë read the navigation directions on the screen for him.

  A pause. “You need authorization to fly out of North American airspace. How many passengers are you carrying?”

  “None.” Zoë gestured for Emily to get out of the pilot’s cabin. Emily clicked off her seat belt and scrambled out.

  “What is the purpose of the flight?”

  “A vacation.”

  “Pilot, reduce speed. Prepare to be boarded and searched.”

  Zoë saw a Celestial ship approaching on one of the main screens.

  “Oh no, not again,” she groaned. She grabbed the thruster. “Jack, has anyone resisted a Celestial ship and won?”

  Jack’s eyes flashed. “You are piloting a Celestial ship, Miss Martínez.”

  Her eyes turned toward the screen, and she pushed in the thruster.

  The ship blasted off into the sky.

  4.

  Ariel rushed up a stairwell and pushed the door open. Five minutes remained until the end of the shift change.

  She managed to skirt past guards’ blasts until now, but when she turned a corner and skidded to a stop, she stood face-to-face with a dozen guards.

  “I—” she started.

  They fired.

  Ariel’s hologram blinked out, revealing, instead of dark clothing: her actual attire: a white jacket over a flak vest, jeans, and Converse shoes. She didn’t flinch. “Anything else?” she said.

  None of them moved.

  “Right. Here goes.”

  She went into a rage. A flashlight clicked on from the other end of the room, and the guards only saw the girl spinning and whipping her sword in the air, a silhouette that danced and struck. She only had to strike two or three to send the rest running. When she had cleared them, she leaned against one wall, catching her breath.

  Caxton stood on the other end of the wall. “Nice work. How’d you survive those blasts? No one should be conscious after that...”

  “Long story,” she replied. She darted up a stairwell.

  He followed. “You can’t expect to make it, kid. Let it go. Kira won’t let them hurt Huxley.”

  Ariel ignored him, and emerged from the stairs in a hallway. It was completely deserted.
She took a breath and walked through, taking hesitant steps.

  “Do you—”

  “Shh!” She held up a hand. “Do you hear that?”

  She could hear heavy breathing—no, gasps. She started to run, and saw someone sitting in the hall up ahead, against the wall. Thomas.

  “Don’t,” he said, but she came closer and dropped to her knees.

  “Oh my God.”

  Thomas’s right hand was cuffed to a pipe, and he’d been shot in the left shoulder; he was bleeding profusely. All thoughts of Damien evaporated from her mind.

  “Ariel, get out of here, they’re going to surround you—”

  She blinked, and everything froze around her. The pipe had been leaking, but a drop of water hung suspended in the air. She turned, and saw guards who had been in the shadows now half in step toward her, still as statues. The only thing she could hear was Thomas’s ragged breathing.

  “Huh,” she said. “My grip’s slipping.” She stumbled, leaning against the wall for support; she dropped her sword, and it clattered onto the linoleum.

  “Ariel, go. Just leave me and get Damien.” Thomas was wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m getting worse.” She swallowed and looked at his wound. Not fatal, but it had damaged the bone. It had to be extremely painful, and required immediate medical attention. “I’ll get you to a doctor.”

  “Ariel, the soldiers, they’re moving—!”

  Before she could react, someone grabbed her from behind, slipping a gloved hand over her mouth.

  “Well, well,” said Commander Delacroix. Several guards appeared around her; the watch had apparently slipped back to the normal timestream. “You’re going to be very helpful to us, Miss Midori,” said Commander Delacroix.

  “Let her go,” said Thomas. “She’s sick, for God’s sake—”

  Ariel, dazed, couldn’t form any resistance. They injected her with a sedative, but their efforts were unnecessary. She had the falling-sickness, and was lapsing into the falling stage: complete unconsciousness.

  The last thing she heard was Thomas yelling her name.

  Chapter Seventeen

  June 21, 2507, 4:14 A.M.

  “We’re not very good at this,” said Ariel.

  “No. We’re not.”

  They sat in a windowless cell in the prison. It was cushy, at least, with the walls painted white, like a hospital. A sort of secure waiting room, she realized. She sat on a cot, and had just woken to find Thomas pensive. His hair was messy, his arm in a sling.

  “How long was I out?” she asked.

  “All night.”

  “Well ... it’s pretty normal to sleep at night, isn’t it?”

  He stared at her. “You just sort of … froze. Even before they grabbed you. So no, I’d guess that’s not normal.”

  “You were screaming,” she pointed out.

  He didn’t reply.

  The idea to break into a prison, which seemed totally logical the night before, baffled her now. Maybe a sense of fate had been tugging them back, some inescapable destiny that defied reason—after all, Thomas couldn’t die in Tenokte if he were flying to Paris—but Ariel realized they had made a mistake.

  She had put both of them in danger, and had to set it right. How? What could possibly save them now?

  Her thoughts were muddled. “Did you sleep at all?” she asked.

  Thomas shook his head. “It was Kira,” he murmured. “She knew I’d come for Damien, and she knew you’d come for me.”

  “And they shot you.”

  He heard the blast in his head, the blast that recurred in nightmares every few weeks, the echo of the shot that should have killed him years ago. “Yes. Why didn’t you run?”

  “I couldn’t leave you,” she said. “And like you said, I just froze.” She bit her lip, looking at his shoulder. “That must hurt.”

  “Only when I move.” He tried to lift his arm, and winced. “They pulled out the bullet, though. I just have to wait for it to heal.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “They’ll want what you know about time travel. Listen, kiddo, no matter what they threaten to do, don’t tell them anything. Even if they…” He bit his lip.

  Ariel stared ahead. “They’ll torture us.”

  “No. Maybe. How are you feeling? You’re looking better.”

  “Do I have to answer? We’re both locked up, with imminent death approaching.”

  “That’s redundant. Imminent and approaching?”

  She blinked. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

  “I’m just saying, maybe you got over that illness. You’re from another time, one with more germs. Your immune system might be stronger.”

  “You think so? Then we still have time. I’ll stop Damien’s execution, get us out of here, and get you back to Zoë.”

  “Uh-huh. Didn’t you say that the assassin is coming after me?”

  “Jude’s figured out that you know he’s the shooter, but there’s no way I can turn him over to the Celestials without killing him first. And how are they going to release that on the news? ‘Time traveler shoots king.’ No way that’ll fly. They’ll still want Damien as their scapegoat.”

  “Uh-huh.” He closed his eyes. “That is hard to explain, come to think of it.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Those glasses look good on you.”

  “You’re a bit late. I’m already engaged. Or at least ... I thought I was.”

  “I’m just saying.” She leaned her head back. “There’s got to be more than a chance we can get out of this alive. Let me think. I’ve got a good immune system. And Jamie had some theory—said he had a plan to change things.”

  “Oh, great. My life’s in the hands of a rock star. But for what it’s worth, I’m starting to remember more.” He opened his eyes. “No wonder Kira didn’t want to tell me. Do you know?”

  “I have a vague idea,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “Those glasses! I could read minds with them, figure out a plan to get us out of here. You have to let me wear them.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can read minds with them.”

  It had happened slowly, but once she recognized that the whispers she heard were really thoughts, she had focused on them more.

  She could tune in to anything: hear a person’s breathing and heartbeat, sense the movement of a fly in the next room, and see shadowy outlines of people passing through the hall, even though an opaque door separated them. She knew when the guards would try to strike almost before they could move, and she could see every fragment of memory that Thomas saw.

  It didn’t always work, though. If she focused on something else and stopped listening, well...

  “You can’t read my mind,” he snapped.

  She knew that he meant that she shouldn’t, not that she couldn’t. “Why not?” she said. “You wanted to do it to everyone else.”

  “But—” He sighed, put a hand to his eyes. “You’re not doing it to save your life. You’re just doing it out of innate curiosity. And sooner or later you’re going to see things—”

  “What the ...”

  “That maybe someone your age—”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “—shouldn’t see.”

  She put a hand to her mouth, grinning. “Okay, now you read my mind.”

  “What?”

  Ariel took off her sunglasses, then handed them to him. He switched them with his own, and in a moment saw her swimming in a lime-green filter.

  “Looks like a video game,” he said.

  “Do you see anything?”

  “Uh, no.” The last time he had tried these, the images rushed into his head like a wave. Now he didn’t even feel a trickle.

  “Give it a second. Do you think there’s any chance of Kira going to the Council?”

  “Over what?”

  “Over anything. Damien. Emily.”

  “I guess. But w
ho knows? Why do you care about Damien’s life, anyway? People die every day, people who don’t deserve it, and you’re not breaking down doors to save them.” He tapped the sunglasses, then looked at Ariel and realized the glasses were doing something. He could see her clearly, as if the glasses fit his prescription. Nothing else came.

  “Because time travelers messed up here, and I need to set things right.”

  “Hm. So by that logic, you’d have to let me die.” He sighed, took off the glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Do you believe in an afterlife, kiddo? That we go somewhere nice when we die?”

  “No.”

  “Dimitri did.”

  “Well, I’m not him.” She looked away.

  “Huh,” he said. “I’ll never even see my daughter. What’s she like? Have you looked that far?”

  “No. Didn’t think to.” She looked at the glasses in his hand. “They didn’t work?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hm. Maybe you need some curiosity to read thoughts. Maybe they show what you want to see, whatever you need to see. The first time you used them, you wanted to see everything they could do, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  Ariel pondered a moment. “How do they plan to execute Damien?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe lethal injection? The Council will be there to witness it, in any case.”

  Ariel leaned back. “I see. Have you ever watched anyone die?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure I must have.”

  “It’s horrific. It’s about the worst thing anyone can see.”

  “Then why do you always go looking for it?”

  “I don’t,” she said, perplexed. “I don’t go around watching people die—why, is that what you think?”

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t be remembered. Time travelers need to be at least partially anonymous. People who are about to die, not necessarily dying, never have much time to talk about someone they met.”

  He considered that. “Explains why you like me so much.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Anesthetic. That would explain the telepathic field of the lenses not working. Did they knock you out when they took out the bullet?”