Here and Now and Then

by Mike Chen

  Kin knew what he was fighting for. With only hours remaining, he hoped Penny felt as sure.

  CHAPTER 26

  One of the first lessons during agent training involved the psychological approach to missions: keeping a clear mind to avoid any potentially fatal distractions.

  Despite Markus’s crash course in protocol, Penny didn’t seem to abide by this one. Her pensive face still barely hid a lurking uncertainty. “I’ve got to catch my breath,” she said, kneeling down against the shrubs. At three in the morning, they’d almost finished the steep climb up to a remote spot in the Santa Cruz mountains, a familiar walk fueled by muscle memory, probably because Kin had taken Miranda on this hike several times. Back then he never understood how he navigated the terrain so easily, only that it felt like instinct. Now he recognized it as another hidden memory from his agent life, the journey up to the Santa Cruz jump point.

  “Another ten minutes or so. We’re close.”

  “Right,” she said, taking a drink of water. “If you’d asked me earlier what I had planned for the week, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

  “I know it’s a bit much to take in.” He crouched next to her, a hand on her knee. “Do you need a few minutes? Any last-minute questions?” He cleared his throat and paused, opening the opportunity for her. “Anything on your mind?”

  Penny huffed in and out, nervous tic after nervous tic unrolling before him. He was about to brush it aside, move forward, when she spoke. “We should talk about Heather.”

  He’d held out hope that maybe she’d simply accepted that his relationship with Heather was part of his warped situation, that maybe she wouldn’t let it affect her. Looking at her slumped silhouette in the shadows of trees and shrubs, he knew it had, and he owed her anything she might need to help her cope. She’d made the extraordinary leap, not him. “I know it’s been strange. We have some time. What do you want to know?”

  “How did you meet her?” She retied her ponytail, pulled her backpack over her shoulder, and then motioned upward to move on.

  “College,” he said, beginning the final ascent. He responded quickly, not giving in to anxious hesitation. “She was a student at UC Berkeley. I worked there.”

  “Were you two happy?”

  Sticks and brush snapped underneath their feet with each step. Kin tried to form a response, though nothing definitive wanted to come out. “I think so.”

  “You think so? Like you can’t remember, like how you couldn’t remember me?”

  “No, it’s just hard to sum up your time with someone that simply. We were together for sixteen years. The last six months were rough, actually. I was losing parts of my memory. Fainting. Dizzy spells. I was pretty sure that it had something to do with my time traveling, but I couldn’t tell her that. I didn’t even absolutely know. So I played it off as PTSD. To protect my past, I resisted getting help. And we fought about it.” Kin pulled himself up a steep ledge, his heel digging into half-soft dirt for traction. He turned and held his hand out to Penny. “She’s a lawyer. She can be brash at times. She’s quick. Very practical. Sometimes takes herself too seriously. Sometimes has the biggest laugh in the room.” Kin stopped when he realized he used the present tense. “She’s dead now. I mean, not dead because we’re in the future. She got cancer a few months after I left. They didn’t have the technology to save her back then.”

  The path ahead proved to be less strenuous, allowing Kin and Penny to walk side by side through redwood trees that reached upward forever. Whether it was the shadows and moonlight or how she actually felt, her face revealed nothing. She remained silent over the next few minutes, and only when Kin stated that the jump point was close did she stop them.

  “I’ve been thinking this over,” she finally said, her eyes clear as the moon above despite the lack of light.

  “Don’t think about it too much. These jumps can mess with your mind. Hold on and—”

  “No, not that. Accepting time travel actually came easy. It’s kind of reduced to a footnote when you find out the man you love has a secret family,” she said with a quiet laugh, though the tone behind it was indecipherable. “Your...wife. Heather. That’s the hard part. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

  The cool air carried voices from around the bend, presumably of Markus and the field agent doing their pre-jump check-in. Kin reminded himself to not look at the agent’s face when they got closer. Nothing could ruin a soccer team’s chemistry more than knowing a teammate tried to kill your daughter. “She’s not my wife anymore.”

  “I get it, though. This situation’s not fair to anyone. Not you, not me, not Heather or Miranda. Not even Markus. The guilt that he’s feeling. The burden of his decision. He’ll never let you know, but I can tell. The colder he seems, the worse he feels. We Fernandezes excel at stifling guilt—thank you, Mum and Dad.” She stood up at the peak of the mountain. To her left, bits of the ocean were visible in the distance. To her right, remnants of the city blinked. And below, about a hundred feet or so down a slope, was their launch point. “We can’t change what happened—”

  “Technically, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

  “Okay,” Penny said with a grin and slap to his shoulder before returning to a more serious posture. “You know what I mean.” She angled back, her ponytail dipping downward as her chin turned up. Above them stars burst through the blackness of the night sky, so bright that any twinkle seemed like a direct message from the universe. “I know that Heather is dead but that doesn’t mean you owe me anything. I mean, you loved her. You had a family with her,” she said. “Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean you have to go back to the default. And I—” she let out a tiny exhale, a puff of air rolling out and illuminated by the moonlight “—wouldn’t want you to. For either of us.”

  “Penny—”

  “No, listen. You say she’s not your wife anymore. Technically, sure, but what about in your mind? In your heart?” Her finger tapped him in the chest before she spun away.

  “You’re not a default.”

  She turned back to face him, gaze locked in with a wide intensity he’d rarely seen. “We’ll never know, though, will we? I will never know.” She spoke quietly, barely audible over the sound of the wind whipping through the mountains. But it was enough. “And I don’t know if I can live with that.”

  The truth of her insecurity crawled out from behind the bravado she’d displayed since last night, probably because he’d wondered the same thing about himself. If he could have chosen between Penny and Heather, who would he have picked?

  She deserved to know where she fit in.

  The question should have whirlpooled doubt and debate. Somehow, Kin’s mind remained surprisingly calm and clear. Despite Markus getting extra injections from Resources, Kin knew there was a chance he might not survive the jump, and even slimmer odds on the jump back. That didn’t quite matter in this moment, the present snapshot of intersecting lifetimes. Worries and fears disappeared for a fraction of moving time, enough for Kin to see clearly that the future he wanted stood on the hillside beside him.

  “I want to show you something, something I couldn’t have before you knew about...this.” He took her hand, and though they both wore gloves to handle the terrain up the hills, her touch remained soft. “When I was stuck in the past, I couldn’t remember you after a few months. My brain lost the details closest to me as a survival mechanism. Only...you were always with me,” he said, releasing her grip to pull off his backpack. Out came a smaller bag, one with his items from the past, and his fingers felt in it until they came across a weathered old coin. “They still used physical currency back then. This is called,” he started as he beamed at her, “a penny. I took it everywhere. Protected it from everything. I didn’t know why because I couldn’t remember—I only knew that I had to keep it safe. Whenever I looked at it or touched it, everything felt right. And I know it’s because
if I was with my lucky penny, then I was home.”

  “Lucky penny.” She took the coin from him, holding it up so that it caught the light of the moon.

  “You stayed with me. Every day for eighteen years in the past. Even when I didn’t know it.”

  “God, now you’re going to make me cry,” she said, still looking at the stars. “Are you sure this isn’t a really elaborate practical joke to impress me? That there’s no such thing as time travel, and you’re not some sort of secret agent—”

  “Former secret agent,” Kin said with a laugh.

  “Right. You’re not a former secret agent. There’s no daughter to save. You’re just a really sweet fellow with a romantic side, trying to make up for missing our wedding, right?”

  Penny’s wide eyes glistened over, and as they locked on to his, a flutter rippled through his chest.

  Like how he used to feel when he touched the lucky penny. Like how they looked at each other on that engagement night.

  “My life is stranger than fiction.”

  “Well, then.” Penny handed the coin back to him, took in a heavy breath, and wiped the corners of her eyes. She rolled her hand and motioned him onward. “Let’s go rescue Miranda. Isn’t it time we both get to find out what she’s really like?”

  They marched downhill in short, silent steps toward the small grove the TCB used as a jump point. Kin’s legs locked with tension as they crouch-walked to blend in with the brush, every muscle in his body tingling with anticipation.

  So many things could go wrong, yet a certain calm resonated in the face of potential disaster. Perhaps underneath all the years of office work and child raising, his agent instincts had remained intact, even hardened. Or perhaps the real difference came from knowing he went into this trying to do the right thing while being honest with Penny. And if he was going to fail, at least this let him fail heading in the right direction instead of running away.

  * * *

  “Why here?” Penny asked while Kin unpacked the accelerator equipment. She turned and surveyed the sprinkling of city lights far beneath them. “Besides the nice view.”

  “The TCB has transponders planted in the ground at all jump points,” Kin said, motioning to the brush and trees surrounding the grove. “They boost the accuracy of the jump, at least when coming back here. Going to the past is a little trickier.” The accelerator hummed to life, bypassing the usual identification step thanks to Markus’s override settings. “It’s not the most accurate process, so standard jumps usually target three days before the mission executes. The unit we’re using has had more accuracy problems than usual—it’s why Markus was so late for Benjamin’s birthday. Still, it’s the only one we’ve got.”

  If it deviated Markus’s return by several hours, who knew how it might affect them? Markus’s warning about the signature from accelerators tickled Kin’s anxieties regarding the TCB possibly detecting unauthorized landings outside the safe range. His matter-of-fact explanation projected something steadier to Penny. “We have to land within five days of the other field agent to avoid detection. Miranda uploads the project on August 28. On her thirtieth birthday. So we’ll set it for the twenty-third and hope for the best. If we’re lucky we’ll get some sightseeing time before the plan kicks in.”

  “Sightseeing in the past.” Penny’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to try the food. Compare the MOME to the real thing.”

  “Your brother thinks the same way.” The navigational holo lit up in front of them. Kin punched in the coordinates and sanity checked the equipment in his backpack: accelerator, Miranda’s new identity, paper cash, gun (“only for emergencies,” he promised Penny), and communication earpieces. Behind them the far echoes of an unintelligible voice rattled the air.

  That wasn’t the same voice they’d heard before, was it? Didn’t Markus and the field agent already come and go?

  “What’s that?” Penny grabbed his shoulder, fingers digging in.

  “Not sure,” Kin said, punching a chrome syringe for the pre-jump booster into his neck. Penny craned her neck out and winced as he did the same to her. “So we better hurry.” He handed her the post-jump stabilizers, which she shoved in her jacket pocket. “Once we arrive, you’re going to feel disoriented. Close your eyes until you feel like you’re not spinning anymore. Then inject this. Remove the cap, stick the needle in four finger widths below the ear, and press the plunger. You’ll have to do me next. If I don’t make it—”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I have to.” Kin’s mission sensibilities took over with a rhythmic reflex that made spouting out instructions and preparations easy, even when discussing his own possible demise. “If I don’t make it, I have a detailed plan in my left jacket pocket. Markus can contact you based on that to get you home. Okay?”

  Penny responded with several seconds of silence. “You better come home. I haven’t gotten to see you cook yet.”

  “Things will be fine. We’ll land, coordinate with Markus, eat some historic food, and save Miranda.”

  The voice rang out again, and even though it came through muffled, it almost sounded like it was calling Kin’s name. He glanced at the coordinates one last time, and then met Penny’s wide-eyed stare. They gripped the proxy handles connected to the main unit, and the accelerator began audibly counting down from sixty. A quick check on Penny showed that she had a textbook time-jump posture. “Ready?”

  “Not really, but it’s okay.” The countdown continued, a steady, nearly hypnotic march to the unknown.

  “You’ll be fine. Penny, just rem—” Behind them, the voice became clearer and closer. It did call his name. A quick scan told him nothing. Did TCB Security stalk the jump zones? Would that pose a risk on any jump back? Maybe it was random hikers? Kin reminded himself to project something soft, something reassuring. “We’ll be fine. Just remember. You and me.”

  Four. Three. Two. Kin looked at Penny, who huddled tightly beneath the hair and nervous shoulders. “You and me,” he called out again. “Till death do us part.”

  Even from the hunched-over angle of the ready position, he could see Penny smile. The final second ticked off, and the accelerator began rumbling, causing the dirt at their feet to dance. “I love—” she started before the world froze and bled into an overwhelming brightness.

  CHAPTER 27

  White. A blinding white, an all-encompassing lack of color in an endless web around and through all points. It came with the totality of silence, something that, had Kin been conscious, would have lit all his nerves on fire.

  But he wasn’t conscious. Aware, perhaps. He was aware of a lack of form or sound, though details remained elusive, only arriving in flashes of silhouettes against the white and a stinging pressure closing in on him.

  The flashes grew more and more frequent, enough that he saw the white bleed into a bright sun and a cloudless sky for a sliver of a moment. Other details gradually melted into the images: arms waving over him, a brown swish of hair, wide eyes surrounded by concerned creases. The pictures blinked at a rapid rate until they formed rough movement, and although Kin couldn’t feel his arms or legs, he became increasingly certain of what unfolded before him.

  They made it. Daytime, no less. So much for accuracy and landings. Was this the vegetative state the doctors talked about? Aware, able to see and think, but lacking the ability to talk or merely blink? He wasn’t even sure if oxygen pumped into his body or if he was slowly suffocating via organ shutdown. Though no one could hear him, he screamed for Penny to hurry up and inject the stabilizers.

  Penny scrambled, seemingly moving in slow motion. The precision with which she operated in the kitchen disappeared. Her fingers fumbled and dropped the injection case, and despite a lack of hearing, he clearly read the series of curse words that escaped from her lips. She looked over her shoulder and then began waving her arms.

  Was she calling for help?

>   So much for Markus’s rules.

  Two new faces entered the frame, a sunburned man with cutoff sleeves and orange stubble and a woman with olive skin and black hair. Penny launched into her rapid-fire speech, the kind that rattled off words faster than thoughts. She tilted her head, the sun catching it barely enough to reflect the glisten of tears on her cheek.

  The other woman knelt down beside him, hands searching the area. Penny’s hands concealed her face as the wind kicked her hair in all directions. A mouth covered his, blocking out what little he saw, though it pulled back, and flashes of hands and faces came through. His body stayed numb, though he saw the woman take the syringe and place her hands on his neck while Penny leaned over, repeating the phrase “four fingers” over and over.

  In an instant the world went to black, and as sound faded in, Kin realized that the darkness didn’t come from any neural or ocular dysfunction but from his eyes reflexively closing with the booster flowing through his body. His lungs ate up the hillside air—shallow at first, then gasps out of his control. The post-jump scent, a burn similar to a day-old barbecue pit, tickled his nose and his memory, though Kin was simply happy that anything tickled. “Look,” the woman said, “he’s breathing. Come on, here you go.”

  “Kin?” Penny kneeled down, face-to-face. “Kin, come on. Say something. The injection went in four fingers below the ear. Like you said. Come on, come on, come on.”

  The very tips of his fingers came alive with the brush of dried grass and the cool kick of the wind. Movement worked its way up from the extremities, leaving him capable of a gentle flex of hands and feet. Tactile sensations returned, most notably with Penny’s tears dripping on his cheek. “We made it,” he croaked out as laughter stuttered out of Penny.

  “Sir. Sir, we think you had a seizure or a stroke,” the woman said. Her companion came closer, kneeling wordless next to her, and Kin detected a strange crunching sound with his movement. “We should get you to a hospital. I don’t know what that injection is, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get checked out.”