Here and Now and Then

by Mike Chen

  Akasha stirred, probably confused by the activity at such an odd hour. She walked around him, doing figure eights between his feet. Her tail wrapped around his ankle, something that she usually saved for Penny.

  Maybe cats really were smarter than dogs. Bamford would have never picked up on this.

  He left the note on the bathroom counter and checked the time—still forty minutes before he planned on going. Enough to begin one last look at their living space.

  Kin toured the apartment like a captain surveying his ship before a final battle. Details came crashing back, memories that had been quiet for years. In the kitchen he pictured Penny rushing about while she prepped for their first dinner party—back before he excelled at both planning and cooking. Her hair had whipped around in its ponytail as she bounced between the stove, the oven, and the counter, her frantic words the only things going faster than her movements. Finally, she put a lid on the last pot to simmer, and she looked over at Kin, totally unaware that a glob of pureed butternut squash had found a home on her forehead.

  He moved on to the living room and sat on the couch they’d selected together—their first joint purchase. They went back and forth at the store, sitting on different couches and pushing down on the cushions and asking each other the same questions over and over about softness and support before Kin ultimately urged her to “go with your gut.” When the delivery people finally brought it in and took off the protective coating, they settled into it, Penny sinking into Kin’s arm, only to have Akasha sprint out of the bedroom and sink her claws into the bottom corner.

  Kin knelt down, his finger tracing over those very same claw marks—their early reminder that with nice furniture, cutting Akasha’s claws became a high priority. They’d taken that into account when Penny decided to foster three rescue kittens for several very stressful yet adorable months.

  Akasha must have known he was thinking about cats; she sprang out of nowhere to land on the coffee table. Her rolling purr left a rumble in the room, and when he held his hand out, she forced her head into his palm and rubbed it back and forth.

  She rolled on her back to entice him for belly rubs. However, time was limited, and the countdown crept forward far faster than he liked.

  When Kin opened the bedroom door, he heard the soft rattle of Penny’s snores—one of her biggest insecurities. The first night she’d stayed over at his apartment years and years ago, she even made an apologetic post-sex speech about how she sometimes snored and that it was okay to wake her up if it bugged him.

  She’d moved to the center of the bed without him, her arms splayed out in an X. He sat down, and although he tried to remain careful about waking her, the mattress still squeaked and dipped. The movement must have triggered something because she rolled halfway over and blinked for a second.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she said, her eyes closing again. “Did I wake you up snoring again?”

  “No, Penny. You’re fine.” He leaned over, and her lids fluttered when he kissed her cheek. “You’re more than fine,” he whispered. “You’re my lucky Penny.”

  She mumbled something incomprehensible, a half-conscious mutter that ended with the slightest of smiles before her mouth returned to the neutral half-open pose of deep sleep.

  Kin wanted to turn the lights on so he could see her one more time in bright, full color rather than the dim shadows of a darkened bedroom. But he wouldn’t risk waking her up. Instead, he marched out into the hallway a few minutes earlier than planned. His back sank into the wall behind him, the thump causing the kittens in the bathroom to stir.

  Kin took in a deep breath and reminded himself that in order to get this done, he had to shut everything down—any worries about getting to Miranda, any guilt about leaving Penny, any hesitation about what he’d committed to doing.

  Sheer will stilled the turmoil, and Kin moved with swift efficiency, just as they’d trained him at the academy. He grabbed his backpack, gave Akasha one last scratch behind the ears, and stepped toward uncertainty, ready to go to where the proverbial ball was heading.

  CHAPTER 23

  Knees bent. Head down. Arms tucked. Left foot. Right foot.

  Kin crept through the darkness, moving by muscle memory more than anything else. The wind kicked up from time to time, blowing bits of leaves and dirt around, and for the most part, that was the only noise that broke the silence. A sliver of moon provided some visibility, along with the city lights across the bay from the Marin hills. The TCB rotated jump points every week—usually middle-of-the-night ventures to remote wilderness spots inaccessible by general public flight paths and ground roads—and Kin’s calculations for this time were correct.

  After a good forty-five minutes spent contemplating in the dark, a skycar flew overhead following standard TCB jump protocol: lights off and running on low-power batteries for minimal audio-visual disturbance. It touched down in a patch and shut off about a half mile from where he waited, the only sound coming from the opening and closing of doors and moving of cargo.

  Kin had done that very same drop-off dozens of times. Each sound ticked off a vintage checklist in his mind, echoing his own memories of unloading gear and confirming that the tech was ready to go.

  The skycar powered up and hovered for a few minutes before flying away, presumably back to the dispatch dock on the main TCB building’s fourteenth floor. In most cases that meant that the field agent and retriever were the only people in a several-mile radius, allowing them to initiate a jump across time safely ignored by the rest of the sleeping Bay Area.

  Except this wasn’t most nights. And this wasn’t most cases. This time the pair was being tracked.

  Not all of Kin’s agent training had faded away. Clad in all black with only a small backpack, he remembered basics about staying low, moving when the wind picked up, and other details that helped him remain stealthy while he crept up to the target. Except unlike the old days, he didn’t stalk a criminal tonight.

  While tomorrow’s scheduled jump would see Markus and his partner depart to eliminate Miranda, this target was a different TCB agent-and-retriever pair waiting right in front of him.

  If he couldn’t break into the equipment repository to steal an accelerator, he’d simply have to be at the exact time and place an agent brought one.

  The two TCB operatives moved up to a small clearing, a patch of about fifteen square feet that the TCB kept clear of weeds and debris to minimize any field interference. Kin moved in a low crouch to the edge of the clearing, the arches of his feet burning as he steadied himself, and watched the field agent go through the motions—an equipment check, a radio check-in with home base, and a review of mission notes.

  Agent and retriever. They always traveled together, the retriever the pilot for the accelerator and the agent the payload for the journey across time. He’d have to take them both out. Most likely, he’d target the agent first, as agents were the ones trained in aggressive combat techniques. It would have to be quick, and the cover of darkness certainly helped. From there, he hoped the element of surprise was enough to get a jump on the retriever.

  Once accelerators were out in the field, they became locked by a retriever’s individual biometrics. Kin let beads of sweat roll down the side of his face while looking for the telltale sign that the lock had been bypassed and the system powered up. The retriever knelt down and put a hand on the top panel until a tiny voice announced identity confirmation. First a hum kicked in, low-frequency buzzing undetectable to those who weren’t used to it. Then a small light activated, bright enough to illuminate the pair’s respective faces, followed by the appearance of several floating holo screens.

  That was the signal Kin needed. His plan visualized, projecting the path to target.

  The retriever began punching in coordinates on the holographic interface, pausing only to look down at the tablet in his hand. The agent had already gripped the proxy handles, kneelin
g in the prep position.

  He was prone. A silent takedown was possible. Maybe the retriever wouldn’t even notice.

  Kin sidestepped quietly to the right, one leg crossing over the other until he remained undetected directly behind him. The holo changed from blue to green, indicating that the jump coordinates had been set. The retriever crouched low and gripped the accelerator handles in textbook fashion—head tucked in, elbows set against the knees to minimize the impact of any dizzy spells that might occur upon landing.

  This was it. This was his moment—the moment to knock out the TCB operatives, grab their equipment, reprogram it to Miranda’s time, and see what fate had in store for him. Each muscle tensed up, burning with anticipation as they locked together into a tightly wound machine, ready to pounce.

  Kin leaped up and took a step toward his only hope.

  He got one step farther before crashing back down to earth.

  The ground slammed against his back, causing shock waves up and down his vertebrae. He blinked and focused from the light of the moon, only to have the silhouette of a head block his vision. Cold steel pressed against his forehead, and as the accelerator’s hum ramped up to a palpable buzz, the figure leaned over and whispered.

  “Don’t move.”

  Before he could say anything, a bright light flashed through the field. It came and went fast enough that the uninitiated probably thought it to be lightning, nothing more. But Kin knew better than that. He inched up, only to have the distinct weight of a knee land on his throat and the metal barrel guide him back down to the ground.

  It didn’t matter, though. The flash meant only one thing: the agent and retriever had jumped through time.

  CHAPTER 24

  The steel held hard against Kin’s forehead, enough for him to identify the rough size and shape: a charge pistol with plasma rounds—TCB standard issue, although local law enforcement used them, too. “Just stay there,” the voice whispered again, followed by indecipherable mumbling.

  The TCB operatives—and their equipment—were gone, somewhere in time. His captor leaned back to look at the now-empty field, enough for Kin to feel the weight shift off his throat. In a split second, Kin pictured four quick moves capable of taking the man down.

  “Stay there and listen to—”

  First, with his left arm, Kin pushed the gun off angle and pulled the man’s wrist down hard. He jerked forward, the gun landing somewhere in the field. Second, Kin met him with a head butt. The man staggered, arms flailing in the moonlight. Third, Kin propped himself up on his hands and then ran his legs with a sweep through the man’s calves. The man fell to his knees, which was all the time Kin needed to do the fourth move: grab the man’s arms and bend them back into submission.

  Maybe he didn’t have all the nuances of his agent training, though basic survival skills combined with being in athletic shape proved to be successful enough. Was he really that good, or did this guy not get rough-and-tumble that often?

  Kin looked into the blackness of the empty hillside. Empty. No accelerator to hijack. His vision adjusted; the vague dark of the night slowly coming into focus, and indeed, the only movement came from a slight tremble of weeds and plants blowing in the wind.

  It was definitely gone. Kin’s lip curled at the thought, and the tension in his body returned tenfold. It was gone.

  “That was my ride,” Kin said through gritted teeth. He yanked down on the restrained arm again, causing the man to yelp out. His only way to Miranda, now gone thanks to some overzealous Security guard or would-be vigilante. A new list ramped up in Kin’s mind, sending his brain into a highway of questions on overdrive. If his old self, the man living in a suburban home with a nuclear family, if that person could see the list, the deterioration of his own mind into dark and violent places would have shaken him to the core.

  Interrogate him. Break his arm. Hold him for ransom. Torture him for information.

  Kill him.

  “Kin, stop!” This plea didn’t come from the man locked in his grip, but from a woman nearby.

  Penny.

  “Stop, Kin. Please. It’s me, Penny.” She rushed out of the black night and knelt down next to him, her breath against his cheek. “That’s Markus. Please, let him go.”

  “Markus. Markus put a gun to my head?” Kin pulled the crossed arms again, eliciting a cry from Markus. “What happened to all that stuff about friendship?”

  “Stop, please. The gun’s not loaded,” Penny said, arms on Kin’s shoulder. “It’s a prop.”

  A moment of quiet, broken with the sound of Markus hitting the ground. Kin felt with his hands in the dirt, stopping to grip the cold metal of Markus’s gun.

  From the weight and shape, he knew it was a real gun. The charge indicator on the back of the grip showed a dull red: empty.

  The earlier rage dialed down into something lesser, a palpable anger that at least released control of his mind enough so that he could begin to think clearly. “That was stupid, Markus. I could have killed you.”

  “I didn’t think your close-quarters combat skills were still so sharp. My mistake.” Markus teetered back up, finding his balance. The moonlight created shadowed lines across his face with each wince.

  “Kin, let’s just talk about this. We’ll figure something out,” Penny said. Her words sounded comforting yet cursory, a default to show empathy while she digested this strange new world where time travel existed. There would be no denying what she saw, and after the letter he’d left her, she had all the proof she needed.

  “Penny. Why are you here?” In another context, such a question might be seen as accusatory or threatening. But here, he asked it with outstretched arms, and she sank into his chest.

  “The kittens were stirring Akasha up. She woke me clawing at the bedroom door. You weren’t there, and I saw your note.”

  “I hated to leave you like that, but it was the only way.” They stayed in the embrace as he explained what he’d planned—to hijack another jump, steal the equipment, and then make a jump of his own—and though he couldn’t see her face, she wasn’t panicking or pushing him away at these revelations.

  “So, what you wrote... Time travel is actually real? Markus has been trying to convince me this whole time. Explaining that you two travel through time to arrest people, like some sort of time cops.”

  In the back of his mind, a memory flashed by, one where Heather showed Miranda a movie called Timecop. With a name like that, he remembered being unable to hide his smirk at the time. But now, it was just a reminder of what needed to be done.

  And who stopped him.

  Kin’s head tilted as he looked at Penny. “You called him?”

  “If all of this is true, it sounds like I already lost you once before. I didn’t want to give up without a fight.”

  “That’s what your brother wants me to do.”

  Markus let out an exasperated sigh, hands in the air. “Look, your plan is ridiculous! You’re just going to get yourself killed. Even if you survived the jump, the TCB would send someone after you immediately. Tonight’s jump was targeted for 2062, not Miranda’s time. The TCB would’ve detected the time discrepancy in the accelerator’s jump signature. Kin, it’s pointless. That’s what I mean when I say there’s no way around this. You have to give up. You know what?” The steely resolve dissolved in Markus’s face, leaving him weary. “It’s not even giving up. It’s giving in.”

  Markus was right—Kin hadn’t thought of those logistics. Scientific details were generally left to mission planners and the retriever agents who helped them; field agents like himself merely executed the job. But that nugget from Markus triggered a memory, a fact dug up from a lesson or lecture somewhere across another lifetime: time jumps left residual signatures detectable by TCB monitors, and those signatures created echoes in the arrival era for up to five days. The only way to muddy the TCB’s ability for
detection would be if a second jump landed in the same geographic area within that short time window.

  That was a risk he’d be willing to take.

  “Give in and let you kill Miranda?”

  Markus groaned in frustration. “Come on, Kin. I am not just killing her. I’m trying to do right by her, you know—”

  “Wait, wait,” Penny said. She broke free of Kin and faced her brother, hands on hips. “What’s Kin talking about?”

  “Penny, I’m not revealing how our mission protocols work. We’re breaking enough rules here tonight.”

  “Are you or are you not going to kill Kin’s daughter?”

  Markus remained silent, so Kin faced Penny and explained Markus’s role as a retriever, both from a procedural perspective and the specific instance of this case, including his push to change the mission parameters. With each classified revelation, Markus squirmed further and further, though Kin was far past caring. Penny, on the other hand, didn’t react at all. She took in the information with a blank stare, perhaps a result of having the curtain removed from two very significant aspects of her life.

  “You never said you were going to kill her,” Penny said.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “The difference is that if you’re going there, you could come up with something.” Penny crossed her arms and glared at her brother.

  “I can’t. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this. It doesn’t matter what I do, what anyone does. No one can save her.” He looked skyward in frustration and sighed. “Do you think I want to do this?”

  “Can’t you bring her here?”

  “She was born about a hundred fifty years ago. Her temporal frequency is different. She’d be detected immediately by the underground transponders, identified as an anomaly. They’d be on her in a day, maybe less.”