Vortex: A Tempest Novel

by Julie Cross

  “I’m okay.” I closed the door behind me.

  Dr. Melvin turned off his computer monitor and pointed to the exam table.

  I could never get away with visiting him and not at least have my vital signs checked. I waited for him to wrap the blood pressure thing around my arm before speaking. “I’ve always wanted to ask this: Do you have other patients? Like, regular people?”

  He smiled and put the stethoscope in his ears. “I have plenty of patients, and they’re quite convincing at being regular people.”

  “So, it’s just the Tempest agents?” I concluded. “What about Stewart? Do you ever see her?”

  He shook his head. “No, she’s been cleared to see a regular physician as needed, assuming she’s somewhere with access to another doctor besides myself. I’ve never had any reason to study her medically.”

  “Just me,” I said. “Because I’m a freak of nature.”

  He chuckled lightly, pressing the end of the stethoscope to my back. “If by freak you mean one-of-a-kind, then yes. But I monitor almost everyone else.”

  “Except Stewart?” I pressed.

  He stuffed the stethoscope into the pocket of his white lab coat and sat down on his chair. “Is this why you’re here? To talk about Agent Stewart?”

  “Yeah … I would have asked my dad, but he’s on that mission with Marshall.” I paused and watched Dr. Melvin’s face tighten for a second. He was too readable. Too easy to get information out of, and I had to be very careful what I revealed, because there was no guarantee it wouldn’t get unintentionally passed along. “She was acting really weird this morning. Weirder than usual, anyway. She kinda freaked out about something she remembered. Basically, she thinks I found out about the CIA a long time ago and both of us were given memory-modification drugs.”

  The way Dr. Melvin shot up from his chair sent butterflies flapping in my stomach. “Did she remember a specific event … or conversation?”

  My heart pounded and I ignored it because there was no reason to hide anything when Dr. Melvin looked just as worried. “So, it’s true? She was drugged … or we were drugged?”

  “No,” he said right away. “It’s worse than that … maybe … I can’t be sure.”

  “Is it true about her being in prison and everything?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I’m surprised she told you that.” He flipped through folders in his file cabinet until his fingers rested on one and it was removed from the drawer.

  “I was just wondering if … well … maybe she’s not mentally right?”

  Dr. Melvin shrugged, with his nose buried in the folder full of papers. “I’ll admit that her behavior was a bit extreme in her teen years, but she was bored and underchallenged. Never given a creative outlet. And lately … well, she’s showing some signs of depression … mild ones, which isn’t uncommon in her line of work, but it was concern enough that Marshall asked that she attempt to form some real companions.”

  “Marshall wanted her to make friends?”

  Maybe that was what Senator Healy intended when he asked me to spend more time with her? The message was supposedly from Marshall.

  The old doctor plopped down in his chair, and, the way he stared at me, the intensity in his face, I knew the subject was about to change to something much more serious than Jenni Stewart making friends. “Do you remember the first time you told me how you could time-travel? The very first time.”

  “You mean in 2007? That other timeline?”

  He nodded. “Did I ever ask you if you saw yourself during a jump?”

  I was totally confused. He already knew this. Dad and I had told him everything back in March. “Yeah, but you know exactly how it works.”

  “I was sitting on the edge of a coffee table … in the secret headquarters. You were on the couch, wearing a blue shirt,” he recited, looking over my shoulder. “Is that correct?”

  “Uh-huh, but why—”

  “You and your dad would have never bothered telling me what color shirt you were wearing. The two of you gave me all the information in a ten-minute cram session.” His eyes widened to the size of hail, like his giant brain had just provided him with an answer. “I’m remembering events from another timeline … and so is Stewart.”

  “What? How?”

  “I had this vision two days ago and I just brushed it off, thinking either you or your dad had told me the story … but I think part of my mind wouldn’t let it go and I’ve been analyzing these half-jumps. The ones the others can’t do.”

  Except Emily. She could do a half-jump.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, you understand how a true full jump works, right? A complete jump. The kind where you don’t create a new timeline or jump to a former timeline.”

  “I think so … things can change … instantly, right?”

  “Your father and Marshall have been concerned with giving you too much information—for your own well-being, of course.” Of course. “Thomas is the only one we know who can do it without it killing him. If you were able to do this, like Thomas, maybe jump five years in the past … you would see yourself.”

  “I thought the other me disappeared in a full jump.”

  “Correct.”

  “Wow, so it is like Hollywood … if you do it that way,” I muttered.

  “When you do these half-jumps, I think you’re very close to doing what Thomas does,” he said quietly, almost like he didn’t believe it himself. “It’s possible your abilities are evolving and these timelines you’ve made are merging.”

  “Does that mean my brain is going to explode or the world is gonna end or something?”

  “I don’t think so and it’s possible nothing more will happen … That little snippet of 2007 I saw, and Stewart’s behavior this morning, may be related to the fact that we have well above average intelligence. Our minds are trained to be alert to even the smallest detail or vision. I doubt that it would affect a normal person, and there’s a good chance that’s all we’ll see.”

  “Are you just saying that so I don’t completely flip out?”

  “No, but that’s what I would tell you either way.” He shook his head a little.

  If there was ever a good time to ask Dr. Melvin some of the questions I’d had ever since Heidelberg, it was now. I hopped off the table and scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen from the desk.

  I drew the timeline diagram I had put in my journal.

  Dr. Melvin rolled his chair over and watched me. “World A? World B?”

  “It’s just names I made for the different timelines I’ve been to.”

  He laughed under his breath. “Reminds me of that video game you and Courtney used to play all the time … what was that called?” He moved his thumbs as if playing a handheld game.

  “Super Mario Brothers.” I slid the paper toward him. “Okay, so … if I left World A and created World B … then returned to World A, but not on the exact date I left … instead it was a couple months before October thirtieth, 2009 … then I’ve technically altered the future, right?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true. Even the slightest change in the date you landed in in World A the second time would forever change the future.”

  I pulled the extra chair over and sank into it. The answers were already falling into place … Thomas-jumps aren’t the only way to alter things … The EOT guy in Heidelberg wasn’t lying. “Let’s say, hypothetically, at this very moment I decided to do a full jump back to World B … maybe to October 2007 … then I come right back to here—”

  “World C,” Dr. Melvin said, humoring me.

  “Except it’s two hours ago and instead of coming to your office I decide to go to…” I paused for a second. “I don’t know … Starbucks … and this conversation never happened. I’ve changed the future, right? It’s not that much different than a Thomas-jump. The full jump in the same timeline.”

  The weary expression that consumed him now made it more urgent to push him for answers. “Jackson—�
�

  “And then, if I wanted to get back to where I left … I jump back to World B … for a few seconds … then I can come back to World C, but two hours further in the future from the last time I left, so it would be this exact second—”

  “You can’t,” he said firmly.

  “It’s just hypothetical … I know Marshall said not to—”

  “I mean you can’t.” He pulled the pen from my hand and flipped the paper over to the blank side, drawing his own diagram. “Let’s go back to what you’ve actually done … leaving World A, jumping to World B, and then returning to World A, but not to October thirtieth … to August thirteenth. Once you make that mark, coming from the other timeline, there’s only one way to go further forward … no matter how many times you bounce off World B, August thirteenth will be the present for you. I think you might refer to that as your home base?”

  I let out a breath, sinking back into the chair. “I have to live it … stay … September and October would be different from the first time around but the change isn’t instant.”

  “Correct.”

  “Thomas-jumps work like that, too? Complete jumps, I mean.”

  “Correct. Think of it like half-jumps … you return at almost the exact moment you left. But of course alterations aren’t possible with half-jumps.”

  “Wait … then how did Thomas take me—” I stopped abruptly, realizing I’d just told him about my jump to that freakishly perfect future with Thomas. I hadn’t told anyone about that. Not even Dad, because it would have meant telling him about Emily, and I couldn’t do that.

  Dr. Melvin’s eyebrows lifted. “Take you where? When did Thomas jump with you, Jackson?”

  My heart pounded so fast. “Before … the last timeline I left … World A … it was way, way far ahead … it had to be…” Another answer also came to me, and it completely blew my mind. “If he was from that year … if he’d lived it, then he could do it, right?”

  “Right.” Dr. Melvin held perfectly still, waiting for me to draw the conclusion out loud. Based on her recent slipups, I could almost guarantee that this was what Kendrick spent all her time studying in her specialty. It appeared that Biological Advancements was a very loose term in Tempest. “The EOTs are from the future? Marshall was lying when he told me … in World B, in 2007 … that the Tempus gene evolved naturally over time … and it’s been traced throughout history or whatever bullshit he fed me that day?”

  “He wasn’t lying. The Tempus gene does evolve naturally over time. It just hasn’t started yet. And for someone like Thomas, the Tempus gene can be traced throughout history. His history is your future.”

  “So the EOTs are up there.” For some reason, I’d always envisioned the future as above me, like Canada. “Teleporting, taking vitamins, and having babies that climb around like mini-superheroes, and then they just decide it might be fun to do this time-travel thing and kill the … chancellor of Germany or someone equally as important so they can legally make clones or super babies or something two hundred years from now?”

  I was fully aware of how ridiculous my examples were, but dumbing it down for myself was how I came up with these answers in the first place. And two hundred years? I just made that up, and honestly, I wasn’t really sure all that crazy future stuff Thomas had shown me could happen in just two hundred years.

  “It’s not quite that simple—”

  “That’s why you couldn’t really give me a straight answer … the other you … when I asked if someone was going to stop Dr. Ludwig and his clone-making habit. He’s probably not even born yet. Won’t be for who knows how long. I could be his great-great-great-grandfather, for all we know.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but these revelations about Enemies from the very distant future was actually somewhat reassuring. Sure, it made the world seem much bigger … like way higher up than Canada … but all this crazy shit like time travel and cloning wasn’t naturally part of my world, or at least it wasn’t supposed to be. I could believe it and accept it as something that happens around the same time cars start flying and driving themselves.

  “Jackson!”

  My mind forced itself back to Dr. Melvin’s office after the impulsive diversion my imagination had just taken. He had his hands on my shoulders, shaking me gently.

  “Jackson? We test agents … CIA, FBI … We take them through a battery of testing to see who is mentally capable of handling this information … knowledge about the future and what is to come.” Dr. Melvin dropped his hands from my shoulders and continued to watch my face carefully, maybe looking for signs of insanity. “Obviously, every agent in Tempest is able to deal with the concept of time travel, but not everyone can work properly and effectively knowing too many details. You’re one of those.”

  I laughed even though it really wasn’t funny. “I can actually time-travel, therefore I’m totally capable of dealing with it.”

  He shook his head immediately. “It’s not just insanity we’re concerned with. We need individuals who we’re certain won’t get impulsive or power-hungry, knowing what is to come. You aren’t supposed to know any of this, Jackson.” He rubbed his temples, briefly closing his eyes. “I’m not sure what to tell your father or Marshall. If I were following the rules, I’d tell Healy and Freeman right away. They’d pull you from this mission. But perhaps that’s for the best. At least until we can be sure—”

  “Sure of what?” Blood pumped furiously through my veins. “Sure I’ll do what I’m told without asking questions? Sure I won’t suddenly decide that I really need to take over the world?”

  “Jackson, calm down. This isn’t your fault.”

  I shoved the chair back and headed for the door. I’d already heard enough of this bullshit for one day. “No test will ever tell you what a person can and can’t deal with. And you … you have no idea what I’m capable of handling.”

  I left him sitting there, stunned to silence. I knew he wasn’t going to tell Senator Healy about Stewart, because Dr. Melvin had looked just as surprised as the rest of us about Senator Healy’s sudden appearance as a Tempest leader. He’d never throw something like this at him without running it by Marshall or Dad first. Plus, he hadn’t told Healy about his own weird, merging timeline déjà vu. And now I knew I was right when I assumed Marshall had me specialize in Advanced Defense because he was afraid of me turning against Tempest … getting power-hungry, as Dr. Melvin had said.

  Dad withholding information like this didn’t really bother me in the same infuriating way. I knew his intentions were always to make my life easier. He didn’t want me to have too much responsibility or be forced into anything. But on the other hand, his choice to keep stuff from me also proved he didn’t know what I was capable of, either. If I could deal with my girlfriend getting thrown from a roof, I could easily absorb—without going crazy—the fact that the EOTs are from the future and that some of them, if their abilities were strong enough, might be able to alter time by bouncing off another world and coming back. Maybe more of them could “Thomas-jump,” but I wasn’t allowed to know that.

  Maybe I can Thomas-jump?

  * * *

  Because of my chat with Dr. Melvin all the way across town, and my wandering through Central Park for nearly an hour trying to fill in the dozens of holes that this morning’s information had created, I was late meeting Kendrick at the Plaza for our assigned observation hours.

  Kendrick eyed me up and down with a look of disgust. “That’s classic. Showing up late in yesterday’s clothes.”

  “Sorry. I had a crazy morning and didn’t have time to go home.”

  “Yeah, spare me the details.”

  Kendrick didn’t say another word to me all morning other than work-related exchanges when she needed my data to record.

  When our four hours were up, we walked together without speaking and I could tell she was trying to keep up her silent treatment, but eventually she gave in and blurted out, “I can’t believe you spent the night with Stewart! Weren
’t you afraid of being attacked in your sleep or something?”

  “It was no big deal, seriously. We didn’t even—”

  She spun around to face me in the middle of the sidewalk. “No big deal? Are you really that dense? She’s got issues. You can’t take advantage of people like that!”

  She thought I was taking advantage of Stewart? The tiny little possibility that she might be right made me angry enough to redirect the conversation. “What about you? You’re stringing Michael along … for what? He doesn’t even know you.”

  Her face took on this horrible mixture of hurt and rage. She ground her teeth together and turned around and continued walking toward the bus stop. On the ride home, I tried to figure out my motivation for lashing out at her. I think the idea that I may be as impersonal as Stewart bothered me more than I cared to admit.

  And then I remembered Kendrick’s face yesterday when I asked her where she lived before moving to New York. Her secrets lay in that answer. I just knew they did.

  When we got back to our building, I followed Kendrick into her apartment and closed the door behind us. “Tell me what happened to your parents … your family.”

  She brushed the hair off her face and stood in front of me, arms crossed. “What happened to your parents?”

  I must have looked confused, because she rolled her eyes and elaborated on her question. “One of my first tests, when I got to France, was to analyze the DNA of every member of Tempest without their knowledge. I know your dad isn’t your dad … in a biological sense.”

  I held my breath for a second as theories spun through my brain. Does she know that I’m half EOT? Marshall never would have let her test me if he thought she could figure it out. And another thought occurred to me … She told me confidential information related to her specialty … again. We were fighting … again. What did this mean? Sharing secrets, getting pissed off at each other, her suddenly protecting Stewart. Was Lily Kendrick becoming my friend? That was never part of the plan.

  “I just found out about my dad not too long before you did,” I admitted, finally.

  Some of the anger immediately faded from her expression. “I’m sorry.”