The Future Was Now

by J. R. Harber

  “Asa, look,” Eve said, picking up her pace.

  Catching up to her, he squinted into the distance, then saw it: a small house backed up against the concrete, almost as if it had been built into the wall.

  “That must be David’s cottage,” she said in an excited whisper. Asa put a steadying hand on her arm.

  “We have to stay calm,” he whispered. “They all think we’re with the State, but what if someone checks?”

  “Right.” Eve slowed. “Asa, what am I going to say to him?” There was a note of panic in her voice, and Asa stopped, guiding her off the path for a moment to stand beneath a pair of tall, leafy trees. Eve looked as if she were about to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked in a low voice. “Eve, we’re almost there. You still think David will help us, right?”

  She met his eyes, and for a moment the few years between them felt like a palpable lifetime.

  “But what will I tell him about Daniel?” she whispered.

  Asa felt a thud of shock in his chest; he had almost forgotten about Eve and Daniel, or at least he had not considered what this moment must mean for her.

  “We’ll tell him the truth,” Asa said, and she looked at him helplessly.

  “What’s the truth? That he loved me and I couldn’t save him?”

  Asa hesitated, searching her face for a hint of what she wanted him to say. At last he gave up. “Yes,” he said. “No one could. Even Saul said as much. You can tell David that he loved you, and you tried to help him, but you couldn’t save him.”

  She nodded, but her gaze was distant, as if she hoped still for another answer. Asa waited, and finally she sighed and adjusted her backpack, gripping the straps tightly. Asa kissed her cheek, and she put her hand on the back of his head, holding him close for a moment before stepping away.

  “Let’s go, then,” she said grimly and nodded toward the path.

  The cottage was small. As they walked to the door, Asa thought it could hardly hold more than a single room. The building itself was made of large irregularly sized stones, held together with pale, sturdy-looking mortar, and the roof was tiled with gray slate shingles. It was cheerful-looking and reminded Asa of a picture book he’d had as a child. Eve raised her hand to knock on the wooden door, then hesitated, glancing at him as if for encouragement. He nodded and gave her a smile. She knocked.

  The door opened almost instantly, and Asa and Eve drew back in surprise. A tall, gray-haired man who looked more weather-worn than elderly glowered down at them, his jaw set and his dark eyes hard as iron.

  “We’re looking for David Micah Founder,” Asa managed to say, and the eyes swept up and down him like a scanner.

  Asa shivered with the fleeting sensation that everything he had done, good and bad, had just been seen and judged. The man turned to Eve and did the same to her, assessing her in an instant with an impassive expression. He said nothing. Eve straightened her shoulders, steeling herself.

  “It’s about your grandson, Daniel,” she said shakily. The man’s eyes widened with a hint of surprise, then he stepped back and held the door open.

  “Yes, I’m David,” he said roughly. “You’d better come in.”

  They obeyed, and when they were inside, he closed the door behind them. The cottage went dark. Eve gasped, and Asa moved protectively closer to her.

  “Sorry. Let me open a window,” David said.

  There was shuffling in the darkness, then the click of a switch, and a screen on the back wall began to rise, flooding the room with daylight.

  “I was working with … something else,” David added by way of explanation, gesturing at the adjacent wall, which was spanned by a long workbench and a half-dozen monitors, their screens blank.

  “Oh,” Eve said softly, leaving Asa’s side, and he turned away from the impressive private collection of technology.

  She was staring at the back wall of the cottage. It was now a huge window, and beyond it lay an immense landscape of water, undulating like a field of wheat in the wind. Asa hurried to join her, staring down; the concrete wall plunged all the way down into the water, which crashed against it rhythmically, sending up sprays of white foam that almost reached the little house.

  “Is it real?” Asa asked, and David chuckled.

  “It’s the ocean.”

  Asa and Eve stared at each other, then back at the window and the waves below.

  “It can’t be,” Asa whispered, but it could be nothing else.

  There was nothing else but water, as if it had taken over the world. He had known the ocean existed, but in the way he’d known the stars and the void of space existed: he didn’t expect to walk into someone’s house and find them out the back window. He watched the crashing waves, mesmerized by the constant motion.

  “Is it safe?” Eve asked faintly, taking careful steps back from the window, and David shook his head.

  “No,” he said firmly. “It’s no safer than freshwater. Don’t get any ideas.”

  “I meant, is it safe to live so close to it?”

  “Oh.” David peered past her, looking down at the water as if considering the question for the first time. “So far, no one’s died while visiting.”

  Eve laughed.

  “What?” he growled, and Asa spun around to see him glaring again at both of them.

  “You’re just like him,” Eve said.

  David’s face hardened. “Yes, well. Maybe you’d better have a seat and tell me whatever it is you have to say about Daniel, and why you want to tell me about it.”

  He grabbed the chair from the workbench and flipped it around to face them, sitting and crossing an ankle over his knee. He moved like a man Asa’s own age, hinting at the answer to one of the rumors about Sanctuary. They make you young again.

  “Asa,” Eve hissed, tugging at his sleeve.

  He sat beside her on a couch he had not noticed before, a well-worn piece of furniture that sagged in the middle, pushing them together. Eve looked down at her hands in her lap, fidgeting for a moment, then looked up to meet David’s hard gaze.

  “Your name is David Micah Founder,” she asked. “Is that right?”

  David nodded, then smiled sadly. “It used to be Pasternak,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Before the Founding, the names were different—I couldn’t be called ‘Founder’ before anything was founded, could I? I was David Pasternak.” He looked at their faces amusedly. “It means ‘parsnip.’”

  Eve shook her head, her mouth slightly open; then she swallowed, regaining her composure.

  “I’m sorry, I … I don’t think I ever quite believed him.”

  “Daniel,” David said quietly.

  “Daniel, yes.” Eve said. “He told me you were one of the Founders, and I … well, I believed that he believed it.” She laughed, and her face turned grave. “David, I’m so sorry.” Asa saw her eyes shine with tears. “Daniel’s dead.”

  The tears spilled over, and she covered her face with her hands, wiping them away. Asa started to reach out to her, then stopped, aware that it was not his place, not here. He shifted on the couch and turned his attention to David, whose expression was stony and illegible, his eyes fixed on Eve as if Asa were not even there.

  “Who are you, that you’ve come here to tell me that?” he asked, all the warmth gone from his gravelly voice. His frozen tone seemed to shock Eve back into a kind of calm, and she straightened, folding her hands in her lap.

  “I’m the closest thing Daniel had to family, apart from you,” she said with calm assurance, as if, having said the worst thing, the rest had become simple. “My name is Eve. We were a couple when he died—for the last four years—and I knew him much longer than that. My brother, Saul, used to help him with … honestly, I don’t know what they did. Daniel was always careful not to tell me too much.”

  David was watching her keenly, and now he narrowed his eyes. “What do you think they did?”

  “Plenty.” Eve smiled suddenly. “You k
now he was brilliant, don’t you?” David’s face remained immobile, but something sparked in his eyes. “He was always playing with something. I know most of the tech he dealt in was illegal, but it was more than that.”

  “You tell me,” David said quietly. “I haven’t seen the boy since he was very young.”

  “He used to go off on these rants,” Eve said, a faint smile still on her lips, and Asa felt a rush of jealousy. “We would go out—or sometimes not—and he’d, well, have too much to drink.” She glanced at David, looking embarrassed, but he showed no reaction, and she went on. “Daniel would start talking about personal liberty, about abolishing the security protections on scientific research outside the State apparatus, about ending the safety restrictions on childbearing—he scared me. He didn’t make any sense. But from what I saw, all it was all about, really, was these.”

  Eve unzipped the backpack at her feet and pulled out one of the metal strips she had used to purchase the train tickets out of Horizon. She handed it to David, who gave it a passing glance, then reached behind him and pulled on his workbench. Part of it separated from the rest and glided out across the floor on wheels. There was a large screen on top and a keypad. Asa decided it looked like something a State Bureaucrat would most likely have, the kind of tech desk he had only seen in the background of broadcasts.

  David pressed a few buttons on the keypad, then fitted the strip into a slot on the side of the desk. A string of incomprehensible symbols appeared on the screen, and a faint smile crossed his face. Then he yanked the metal strip out, and the screen went blank. He pushed the desk away, and it drifted a few feet across the floor as he turned his attention back to Eve, absently rubbing the metal strip with his thumb.

  “I see,” he said dryly.

  “He called them mayflies,” Eve said.

  “So, Daniel was making money,” David mused. “I did teach him to take a direct approach.” He chuckled to himself, then sobered. “Is that what got him killed?” he asked Eve.

  She shook her head, tears spilling over again. “It was my fault.”

  “That isn’t true!” Asa half rose from his seat, realizing as they turned that he had nearly shouted. “It’s not true,” he said more calmly.

  David looked at him as if just recalling that he was there, and Eve had covered her face again, her shoulders shaking as she cried silently. Asa took a deep breath and addressed Daniel’s grandfather.

  “David, Eve feels guilty because she thinks she should have been able to help Daniel. But the fact is, he killed himself. The three of us had dinner in their apartment. It was at the top of one of those tall buildings, and that morning he jumped from the window. I tried to stop him, but I just … couldn’t. I’m sorry. But you can’t think it was Eve’s fault,” he finished.

  David stood abruptly and came toward them. Asa stood belatedly, and David gave him a curt nod, then sat where Asa had been beside Eve, who sat up straighter, wiping her eyes.

  “Of course it wasn’t your fault, my dear,” he said softly. “Daniel struggled all his life. I have feared this moment for years.” He took her hand. “Daniel and I have not seen each other in a long time, but we did communicate, as I suspect you already know. He spoke to me several times about you. The light in his abyss. Eve Layla Ashland.” David looked away, stifling a cough. “He was unhealthily poetic, I think, but the sentiment was real. You meant a lot to him.”

  Eve smiled briefly. “I know,” she said. “I’m glad I gave him at least some happiness, anyway.”

  “I believe you gave him a great deal.” He reached up to brush a tear from her cheek, and Asa cleared his throat nervously. Eve looked up at him, and David stood, giving Asa a small ironic smile, and gestured to the couch. “I believe I’ve taken your seat,” he said, returning to his chair.

  Asa sat, flustered. David gave him a cool, appraising glance, and once again Asa had the unpleasant sense of being measured.

  “I don’t think you are here only to tell me this news and share in my grief,” David said sharply, startling them both.

  He gave Eve a kind look; then his demeanor changed again, his face as harsh as it had been the moment they entered the cottage. Asa shifted in his seat. The man’s quick changes, from hard indifference to compassion and sorrow and back again in fractions of a second, were unsettling.

  David went on. “There are no easy ways to get to Sanctuary for you two, other than waiting for about forty years, so I have to believe you endured a great deal to come here. Why?” He settled back, waiting for an answer.

  “You said you have been afraid Daniel would kill himself for a long time,” Asa said slowly, and David nodded. Asa took a deep breath. Please believe us. “When he jumped, I tried to grab him. I leaned out the window and reached for him. Eve was right beside me, and then we realized there was a drone watching the whole thing—from the angle it was hovering, I know it looked like I pushed him.”

  David frowned, his thick eyebrows furrowing almost comically. “There are drones everywhere. There must have been three more that saw it from other angles. The Contract Enforcers will have seen every feed. You have nothing to worry about.” He looked at them perplexedly.

  Eve shook her head. While Asa was talking, she had pulled her backpack up onto her lap, and now she was hugging it to her chest as she had when they first boarded the train to Rosewood. “Daniel limited the number of drones near our building,” she said.

  David made an exasperated sound. “Of course he did. I can’t say I blame him, but things like this are exactly what the drones are for. Still, with only one feed, it’s got to look inconclusive, at least.”

  “The night before, Daniel and I got into a fight at some nightbar. We were both arrested,” Asa said miserably. “We’d worked it out, honestly, but … it wouldn’t make things look good. The dots would have been connected, and there’s little doubt the State would have passed swift judgement, charging me with murder. We had to run. We escaped into the Waste, then crossed the river to get here.”

  “I see.” David gave them each a wary look. “What is it you think I can do to help?”

  “Daniel said you had a back door into the system,” Eve said. “He used it once, that I know of—to help my brother, Saul.”

  “I know of this as well,” David said curtly. “Saul is a good man.”

  “We thought you could help us change our records,” Asa pressed. “Rule Daniel’s death officially a suicide, take away any marks we’ve been given so we can go home.”

  David looked thoughtfully at Asa, then sighed. “If I had any doubt of your innocence, I would send you back into the Waste with no help whatsoever. But I happen to believe that you did no harm to my grandson. So I will help you.”

  Relief washed over Asa, dizzyingly, and he closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself.

  “I have Daniel’s computer,” Eve said.

  David looked as if he heard it from far away. He opened his eyes as she handed over the thin black box. He put a hand to his temple, and for a moment he looked ancient, the years settling on him all at once. Then he opened the object, revealing a screen and keypad.

  “I gave this to Daniel when he was a child,” David said quietly. He placed his hands on the keypad lightly, then sighed and closed the computer.

  “David … would you tell me more about Daniel?” Eve asked hesitantly, and Asa raised his eyebrows, then quickly smoothed his expression.

  It’s her only chance, he reminded himself. They knew each other a long time. David was staring down at Daniel’s computer, rubbing the edge of the screen with his thumb.

  “You knew him better than I did, Eve,” David said in a hollow voice.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said insistently. “Daniel was so absorbed by all his secrets—those were his life—and he never told me anything important, just hints when he was drunk. Then he’d catch himself and stop. I wanted to know more, but he said I’d be in danger. He wouldn’t even tell me from what. David … I want you to tell me abou
t him. I want to understand why …” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I want to know why he was so sad.”

  David reached out and grabbed the edge of the desk, dragging it back toward him. He switched it on and pressed a series of buttons, hunching forward over the keys; Daniel’s computer was still balanced on his lap. Asa glanced at Eve, and she gave him a distressed look and held out her hand. He grasped it briefly, then let go as David snapped his head up to look at them.

  “What’s your name, young man?” he asked, and Asa was startled.

  “Asa Isaac Rosewood,” he said.

  David started typing again. A moment later he sat back and sent his desk rolling away again. “You’re no longer fugitives,” he said.

  Asa and Eve exchanged a glance.

  “Wait—really?” Asa asked.

  David shrugged. “It’s a simple, rather elegant system, if I may say so myself. User-friendly.”

  “What-friendly?” Asa repeated.

  “You built it, didn’t you?” Eve said, and David gave her a hint of a smile.

  “I did indeed. Every computer system the State depends on, it’s all the work of one poor old man who used to be called David Pasternak.”

  “And is that what Daniel was doing? Interfering in the State system?” Eve asked, horrified but transfixed.

  David gave her one of his measuring stares. He got up and placed Daniel’s computer gently on the desk, then sat again and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, knotting his hands together.

  “Please, David,” Eve pressed. “I have to know what happened to him—what was so bad that he would do what he did.”

  David nodded gravely. “I will tell you everything you want to know, Eve. In fact, I must. If you both are thinking of returning, you must know the full truth of what you are returning to.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DAVID LOOKED DOWN AT HIS HANDS PENSIVELY, as if deciding where to begin. He touched the tips of his fingers together, making half an orb, then flattened it, bringing his palms together.