Here and Now and Then

by Mike Chen

  “Okay then. Theoretically how do you rescue her?” Penny’s question came across as more of a demand than an inquiry.

  Various scenarios played out in Kin’s head; he bit down on his lip, filtering through the list until it was whittled down into the most plausible option. “Convince the AD to remove her from the assignment list.”

  “No, see, there you go again,” Markus cut in. “That’s impossible.”

  “Think outside the rules,” Penny urged. “Kin, if we could do anything, what would it be?”

  “Well...” An alternative future projected out, one where things went their way and somehow covered all of their tracks and ensured a clean debriefing report. “First, we’d convince the TCB that the mission was a success. All traces would confirm that the subject was eliminated. Then someone hacks the era’s official county records to match so no one asks questions. Then the field agent has to successfully jump home without any problems, and Miranda has to escape somewhere with a new identity. No connection to her old life. And she has to agree to even do that.” Kin stopped, pausing to gaze up at the stars sprinkled above him. “You see the problem here? She can’t escape if the TCB ever discovers that the job isn’t complete. We can travel through time, but we can’t perform magic.”

  Penny had her nervous tics, the ones that surfaced when she was unsure or anxious. Yet she also had another familiar movement, the one that only came about when deep in thought—usually when trying to figure out the missing piece to a recipe, one that might mean the difference between disaster and brilliance. Her eyes looked up and to the right, and the forefinger of her left hand tapped against the tip of her chin. It sped up and slowed down and sped back up again. Whenever Kin saw this, he pictured synapses firing off in her head to the rhythm of her tapping finger.

  If that was the case, then after a lull of twenty or thirty seconds broke, her mind went into overdrive, finger tapping at a breakneck pace. “What if,” she said, words coming out at a measured rhythm that belied her excited gestures, “we substituted the ingredients?”

  Kin shot a look over at Markus, who was already looking back. “Substitute what?”

  “The main ingredient. When we need to make our customer happy with a special request, like a food intolerance or something, we substitute the ingredient for something else, something that doesn’t change the recipe and still gets the job done. Can we do that here? Can we do something to fake her death? Convince your bosses that the mission was finished? I mean, look, we have a person on the inside,” she said, pointing at Markus. “And we have someone who’s done this, what, dozens of times?” She pointed at Kin. “That’s gotta get us somewhere.”

  Kin expected Markus to do his usual spiel about regulations and rules. But maybe the challenge from his sister—or more accurately having his younger sister one-up him at his own game—got him to think a little differently for once. “You know,” he said, “there might be a way to make this work. We falsify records all the time. Maybe even get a medical cadaver for show. Messy car accident, lots of fire. Then plant the falsified records so no one actually looks any closer.” Kin often wondered what Markus and other retrievers did when they brainstormed missions before passing the intel to field agents. This was probably as close as he’d get. “Only I can’t do it myself. I’ll need someone else to jump. No, Kin—” he put his hand up “—don’t even volunteer. I’m not sending you to your death.”

  “Too late. I volunteer. There’s no guarantee that we’ll get someone to agree before your jump tomorrow night.”

  “This plan won’t work if you’re having seizures upon arrival. Unless you know how to give yourself stabilizers while you’re unconscious. And even then, that’s no guarantee. There’s a reason why the medical staff doesn’t want you jumping anymore.”

  “It’s the best we got.”

  “He needs someone to go with him? Hello—” Penny put up her arm “—right here.” She stood straight up, a tangible clarity in her expression despite only the light of the stars overhead. Pride surged through Kin, a warmth that melted through the chill air. If Markus hadn’t been there, he’d have hugged her and not let go for at least an hour.

  “No, Penny. You’re a chef. You’re a civilian. It’s far too risky.”

  “You think I really care about that risk when it comes to my family?”

  “I am trying to keep you safe. That’s what I do. You’re my little sister. There’s stuff that you have to do to physically and mentally prepare for this sort of thing. Classes, training, certifications and qualifications and all kinds of stuff,” he said, counting off his fingers.

  “Markus, stop telling me what to do—”

  “No, Penny, you’re not ready.”

  The tone shifted into sibling rivalry; Kin and Markus literally traveled through time, but this hillside argument might as well have been a portal to Markus and Penny’s life as children. Nostrils flared, feet stomped, they both pushed their voices to higher and higher pitches.

  If so much hadn’t been at stake, Kin would have been endlessly amused.

  “Penny, this is extremely reckless. Listen to me—”

  “No, Markus. You’re always trying to shut me down.”

  “There is a huge difference between running a kitchen and traveling through time.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m telling you, I’m doing it.”

  “You’re only saying that out of spite. Think of the risks—”

  Finally, Penny threw her hand up to stop Markus in midsentence. “Stop!” she said to her brother, with a forcefulness in tone if not volume that seemed thirty-some years in the making. “I am not doing this out of spite. We take risks out of love. You’re just too afraid to see that. You’ve always been.” She turned to Kin. “What would I need to know to be ready?”

  “Honestly,” Kin said, running the procedure through his head, “close your eyes, hold on, and then take a deep breath when you get to the other side.”

  “Close eyes. Hold on. Deep breath. Got it.” Penny nodded at Kin before reaching over to take his hand. They turned together, a united front attacking Markus’s by-the-book logic. They stood alone in the clearing, only wind and dirt at their sides, though Penny’s words made Kin feel taller, stronger, brighter, as if anyone in the Bay Area could look over and see the bold decision Penny made. She didn’t pick up on the surge in his emotions, though; instead, she stood stone-faced, not out of apathy, but out of determination. “What else do we need? We’ve got a daughter to save.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Penny’s bravado disappeared once they were alone, as if her furious confidence only surfaced when powered by the bubbling cauldron of sibling rivalry.

  But with Markus gone, the new reality of their lives settled in, seemingly stealing all of her words. In the morning, they’d dropped the kittens at the rescue and bought supplies, including stops at antiques stores to purchase whatever twenty-one-A era cash they could find. In the afternoon, they reviewed time-travel logistics and the massive amount of noninterference guidelines provided by Markus.

  In between, Kin cracked open the topic of Heather, just so Penny might be able to release whatever pressure built up in her mind. Per her family style, she gave a stoic tight-lipped smile and said, “I’m fine,” when she was clearly not.

  Kin brought tonight’s final drop-off from Markus to the bedroom. He opened the large composite case and spread the items out on the bed: an unlocked accelerator with two sets of proxy handles, the right amount of pre-and post-jump injections despite Kin asking for a few backups. Next to them sat an era-specific gun, more era-specific cash from Markus’s personal antiques collection, fake IDs, communication earpieces, and a small notebook with a handwritten outline of the plan they’d discussed for the fourth time mere minutes ago. This didn’t include the additional ration packs, disguise for Mirand
a, or era-specific clothes that Markus said he’d leave at a storage facility for them. “Come check it out.”

  “I thought Markus said you couldn’t explain classified equipment to me.”

  “Well, you are risking life and limb to do me a favor. And helping me not die in the process.” He motioned for Penny to come closer. “That probably squares things up.” They went through the gear, item by item, Kin explaining the how and why behind them. Penny absorbed all the information, her expression fixed in deep concentration like she was building a recipe. “And we’ll have to bundle up. Pre–climate change weather. The Bay Area’s about five degrees cooler.”

  He then broke down the plan he’d conceived with Markus: the night prior to Miranda’s assassination, Markus planned to lace the field agent’s food with some of Penny’s Mars colony spices. At the right dosage, that would give the agent flu-like symptoms for a good seventy-two hours, so Markus would transmit back to TCB headquarters and suggest the monitoring/active roles be swapped because of apparent illness. Since the mission involved faking a car accident rather than chasing criminals and dodging gunfire, he was certain they would approve, particularly because he’d helped plan it. In that era, Kin and Penny would land, with Penny giving the additional injections to him for stabilization. Kin left out the part about feeling unsure whether that would necessarily be enough; the TCB doctors were vague when they told him about the risks, and he didn’t have anyone to consult now. Assuming he did survive, they’d use the cash to get a rental car and drive up to the city of Davis, where Miranda was finishing grad school, and then stake out the parking garage where history recorded her car’s location. As long as they got to her before 8:20 p.m., they’d be able to whisk her away when Markus took her empty car and staged the false execution and car accident. They’d drop Miranda off at the airport to start her new life while Markus hacked records to confirm Miranda’s official death. And they’d time-jump back to the same night they left, landing safely within the range of avoiding detectability.

  Best-case scenario, anyway.

  Penny picked up the lone unopened box in the equipment case, one that Kin had purposefully passed over. “What about this one?”

  “That,” he said, holding his hand up to keep her from opening it, “needs to stay secret. Even to me.” He guided her hand to lay it back down in the case. “Especially to me. That’s Miranda’s new identity.”

  Her new identity—falsified passport and birth records, along with cash in both American dollars and euros. “When I knew I was stranded, I paid people to build a new identity for me. In that era, it’s not that hard to do. There were how-to guides posted on the internet. It’s a pre-DNA/retinal world, so once you get two or three official records established, everything else propagates. A passport, a driver’s license, a Social Security number. Any of those. Having Markus to hack records and fake documentation makes it easier. She’ll be this new person. Only I can’t know anything about it,” he said over the lump in his throat. “All I get is the chance to make it right. After that I can never know where she goes or who she becomes.”

  “I don’t get it.” Penny straightened up, hands on hips. “You’re not a time traveler after this. Why can’t you look her up to see how her life played out?”

  To almost anyone else, Penny would have made perfect sense. Yet Kin knew—he knew—that being both a parent and a former agent would create a level of irresistible temptation should he ever have access to a DTP portal or an accelerator or any possible means of reaching Miranda under her new identity. If he found her, if he connected with her, then so could the TCB. And that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. “I just can’t. It’s my promise to her. She’s suffered enough because of my choices. I can save her but I’ll never get to know who she truly becomes.”

  Penny sat on the bed, examining the spread of top secret equipment in front of her. “There’s something you haven’t told me about Miranda,” Penny said. “What’s she like?”

  The question seemed so simple, so generic. Yet the answer itself was somewhere far-off and elusive, and its distance only amplified the guilt that lingered whenever Kin thought of Miranda. “I’m, uh,” he replied with a sigh, “actually, not sure. She’ll be an adult when we find her. I’ll have missed half her life.”

  “What about the Miranda you knew? What was she like?”

  Kin considered the question while opening the other small bag to bring, the one that held his items from the past. Not that anything in there could really help, but if he didn’t return, the last thing he wanted was to leave Penny with incriminating evidence.

  His old smartphone came to life with its archaic bright screen, and he tapped away at it to load his photos of her. “She was smart. Very sharp. But guarded. She knew how to read people. She had empathy, especially for her parents. Perhaps too much. She bore a lot of burdens herself. She thought my time traveler’s brain was PTSD.”

  “PTSD?”

  “Sorry, they called it post-traumatic stress disorder. What our doctors call the trauma recovery period. They didn’t know how to handle it back then.” He handed the phone over to Penny. “She called her ability to read people her ‘bullshit detector.’ I didn’t approve of the language.” He slid his finger across the screen to load another photo and nodded at her to do the same. “See there. That was a few weeks before I left. High school soccer. Turns out she hated it the whole time and I was oblivious to it. Feels like I never really knew her. I don’t know if I ever will.”

  It took several seconds for Kin to realize that Penny stared at him. Not a wide-eyed look of shock, but rather a piercing inquiry, an unblinking commitment to dig past layers down to the truth at Kin’s core. “You love her very much,” she said as they locked eyes. “I can see it in your face.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  Penny nodded, the edges of her expression softening enough to project a sincere but subtle sympathy. “And this, this is her as a baby?” she asked, holding up the phone.

  “Yeah.”

  Penny continued to swipe through the baby photos, though he heard her take a sharp inhale and linger at one particular picture: Heather in the hospital holding an hours-old Miranda. Heather’s long red locks were matted and sweaty, joy and fatigue both on her face. Though he pretended not to notice, Penny glanced up at him and swiped through the photos at a rapid-fire pace to snapshots of Miranda’s life—not Heather’s.

  “Parenting,” she said after a pause. “Did it come naturally?”

  “Well, it’s different from being a secret agent.” Kin held up the accelerator and visualized the start-up sequence in his mind. Even though Markus unlocked it, he still had a tiny fear that powering it up would send TCB Security forces down on them. Or maybe he’d mess up the start-up configuration; agents knew the ins and outs of accelerators only as a precaution—retrievers handled it in all but extreme circumstances.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t even work. This was, after all, the same hardware that made Markus late for his son’s party. He’d reported that this unit had a malfunction in its chrono sensors and requested a replacement, then conveniently forgot to return the problem hardware. Markus made Kin swear that he’d return it without a scratch because he’d promised Resources that they’d get it back tomorrow after they landed back home. “Or a computer guy. That was my job in that era. Computer networks for a video game company.” Penny’s eyes softened, and she put down the smartphone, leaning her shoulder into his. “The first year of parenting, you hold on for dear life. Nothing can prepare you for it. It’s like entering a different world. And then you adapt. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, especially the beginning. And it’s also probably the best. You know what’s funny,” he said, picking up and examining the injections, “we have it so much better here because of these. As parents, I mean. Living to two hundred. Back then you really had to choose between career and family. Even if you balance both, usually th
ere was always one side asking for more.” Bedroom light bounced off the syringe’s chrome casing, and the reflection of Kin’s eye came through surprisingly clear. “Heather always joked about ‘if only we lived twice as long.’ We didn’t plan on Miranda. It just happened when Heather was in law school. We improvised. If she had had metabolizers, all that stress would have gone away. So we’re lucky, you know? You can choose kids and your career or your second career or whatever. You can open your restaurant, then have a baby or vice versa. Or do them at the same time. Heather didn’t have that choice.”

  It took several seconds for Kin to realize that Penny’s entire posture had gradually stiffened into a tight wire. She looked away from him, either at Akasha lying on the carpet or the three-tiered cat tree in the corner or maybe out the window at the twinkling skycar lights.

  “I’m sorry,” Kin said, “it’s awkward bringing up Heather, isn’t it? This whole thing is—”

  “No, no, it’s all right.” Penny’s words picked up their pace, which usually meant that things weren’t all right. “I mean, it makes perfect sense. It’s, you know, logical considering how long you were there, your memory, everything.”

  “It’s still gotta be strange for you—”

  “It’s fine. It really is.” Penny’s tone didn’t change from its sudden flatness. “We have to leave in, what, four hours? I’m going to freshen up and get some sleep.” She stood up without a word and walked to the bathroom. The door shut, followed soon by the sound of rushing water.

  Kin remained, standing in the bedroom with only Akasha and the gravity of the situation as company. While he battled the paradox of past and future, Penny must have fought something else. Despite the brave face put forth to Markus in the name of love and justice, the weight of the past twenty-four hours crushed her enough that Kin heard muffled crying from the shower.

  He didn’t need anything else to understand the seismic shift Penny wrestled: there really was another life with another family, one that existed in the not very distant past for her fiancé.