Vortex: A Tempest Novel

by Julie Cross

  “Time,” I finished for him.

  “Time.”

  “And you think my dad did this? He went back to 1952 and met your grandfather and took a picture with him?” Was it possible? Could he be like me? He looked right around the age he had in 1992.

  “I really don’t know,” Agent Collins admitted, letting out a sigh.

  This was the first indication or sign of stress that he’d revealed during the entire questioning. “What’s going to happen to Holly? You picked her for this project and now you’re here…?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve done everything in my power to keep her out of anyone else’s control, but now … it won’t be easy for her.” He ran his fingers through his hair—another sign of stress. “She’s on her own and I’m not sure she can survive.”

  I had never appreciated honesty more in my life than I did right then. So much that I decided to return the favor. “I’ve messed around with time … a lot … but not how you think. And Holly doesn’t know me, but I know her … or at least I used to.”

  He looked completely mollified. “So it is true … your father can—”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be like this. I’m still trying to figure everything out, just like you. I haven’t really chosen a side, either.”

  Agent Collins glanced at his watch. “You’ve exceeded the standard time limit. They’ll come in here soon to make sure I haven’t attacked you.”

  “Right.” I couldn’t think straight enough to ask the questions we had left hanging.

  He placed the photo of Dad and his grandfather in my hand. “Keep it … Find out what it means.”

  “Okay.” I tucked the picture into my wallet and headed for the door.

  “Jackson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “As far as Agent Flynn goes … be very careful. If anyone in my division suspects she’s even a little less than an enemy to you, she’s dead. You’re not doing her any favors by surrendering and handing over your weapon.”

  I sucked in a breath, but made an effort to force a nod and say, “Thank you, Agent Collins.”

  Parker jumped up from his chair outside the door. “Dude! Why’d you turn off your communications?”

  I shrugged and turned my back to him, glancing around the hall. “That was pointless. I got nothing. The guy’s a brick wall.”

  Regardless of my proclamation that Collins had given no useful information, I still couldn’t be saved from a couple hours of note-taking and dictating with Parker and Freeman. We went over the record and recordings (if we had them) of every interrogation from today and then analyzed them from multiple angles. By the time we had finished I wasn’t even sure if Kendrick had left or stuck around. But it didn’t take me long to find her.

  Kendrick was in the lab, deep into some unknown project. The second I walked into the room, I was immediately overwhelmed by the absence of Dr. Melvin. This was his place. A room he used to create projects—like Axelle.

  My entire existence revolves around this exact spot.

  She removed the goggles from her face and glanced at me. “You okay?”

  I shook all thoughts of Dr. Melvin from my head and focused on the newly acquired information. “Uh … yeah. But we need to—”

  “Right,” she said, catching on to my distress. “Two minutes.”

  It only took her one minute to finish and then we took the journey aboveground in silence, not wanting to take the chance of anyone hearing. The second we were on the sidewalk outside again, I yanked her into a crowded restaurant and started spilling the whole story.

  JUNE 20, 2009, 11:00 P.M.

  “I don’t know why he’d keep his time-traveling skills from you,” Kendrick said as we walked through Central Park.

  After a dinner that neither of us ate, I decided we needed to give the secret room inside Dad’s apartment another look.

  “Seriously, it makes so much sense now … even though I’d never want to trust Agent Collins. But the matches from that bar that closed fifty years ago or whatever it was … and the records, the books. It’s almost like he wanted me to find out.”

  Stewart had texted us during dinner to tell us what she had found out about Billy’s Tavern, and none of us knew what to think of that. She found tax records showing the bar closed in 1959.

  “Yeah, I agree with you. Collins wouldn’t send you on this kind of hunt if he wasn’t also concerned with the same thing. Most of the present-day Eyewall agents probably don’t even know about time travel. Maybe not any of them,” Kendrick said. “Collins came up with this on his own time.”

  As we walked through a deserted part of the park, something on my far right side caught my eye. Something that sent my heart beating faster. What I saw wasn’t an Eyewall agent … or an EOT … or even an adult … It was a little redheaded girl stumbling through the dark park, alone. I grabbed Kendrick’s sleeve and pulled on it. “Oh, God … you won’t believe this—”

  “Wait … is that…?” Kendrick asked, now looking in the same direction as me.

  “Emily,” I whispered.

  “Is it her?” Kendrick asked again.

  My eyes returned to the child, now sifting through a large trash bin. “I’m not sure. Usually she finds me … like she’s on a mission.”

  Kendrick kept her eyes on me and lifted her phone to her mouth. I hadn’t even seen her dial a number. “Stewart … meet us at Senior’s place, okay?”

  I walked in the direction of the little girl and could feel Kendrick following me.

  “She looks smaller … too small,” I mumbled.

  “How will we know if it’s her?”

  The tiny head popped up from the trash bin, clutching the remains of a bagel. I couldn’t see her face clearly in the dark, but neither of us needed to. The white of her eyes were visible and her trembling voice spoke in jumbled, frightened Farsi.

  “Yeah, I don’t think many homeless kids in New York are fluent in Farsi,” Kendrick whispered.

  “Not ones with pale skin and red hair, anyway.” I moved closer and little Emily backed away, gripping her dirty bagel pieces. “I don’t think she recognizes me.”

  “Emily?” Kendrick said, moving next to me.

  She instantly turned around and started running.

  “Emily, wait!” I called after her.

  “She’s not jumping,” Kendrick said as we took off in her direction. “Maybe she can’t. We’ve got to stop her, even if it means tackling her.”

  And tackling this frail child was exactly what Kendrick did. We didn’t have a choice. The police would find her, or someone more sinister than the police. She kicked and wiggled for a minute and then gave up, tears streaking down her face.

  “Speak to her in Farsi,” I said to Kendrick.

  I knelt down in the grass, looking her over. She was so tiny. The other versions of Emily had been thin, but this child was sickly thin. I knew Kendrick had to be worried about Emily’s health, too, because she could probably feel the bones nearly poking through the little girl’s skin.

  “Emily, we won’t hurt you, I promise,” Kendrick said in Farsi. She nodded her head toward me. “Do you know him? Do you recognize him?”

  Emily shook her head vigorously.

  “What year did you come from?” I asked.

  Emily didn’t speak. Instead she lifted her hand and held up three fingers.

  “Three?” I asked.

  “Does she mean—”

  “Three two zero zero,” Emily said in Farsi.

  Kendrick and I both sucked in a breath. “Damn,” she muttered, releasing Emily and sinking back onto her heels.

  The kid didn’t miss a beat. She leaped up from the ground and started to run again, but she must have been too scared or dizzy, because seconds later she fell down on her hands and knees, panting.

  I scooped her up and she didn’t even fight me. Her head bobbed, like she was losing consciousness. “Do you think it’s the time jump? Side effects?”

>   Kendrick held her wrist as we walked, pressing her fingers to it. “Her pulse is racing and she’s halfway out of it … and look at her … she’s skin and bones. Probably dehydration, malnutrition.”

  We kept walking quickly toward the path that would lead to Dad’s place, our original destination, though we had no real plan.

  “Kendrick?” I finally said.

  “I know … you wanna take her to the hospital, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We can’t … I mean, we can, but Healy will find out and they’ll have their own personal lab rat to study … or worse.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Jackson, I know more than most doctors,” she said firmly. “And she’s a time traveler. She might not even be around very long.”

  Emily fell asleep or passed out and didn’t wake up until we were safely in the soundproof confines of Dad’s place.

  “God … how long do you think she’s been here?” I asked Kendrick. “If she can’t jump back to the future, for some reason, maybe she’s been stuck here wandering around New York for days.”

  “Well … someone hasn’t fed this child in weeks,” Kendrick said, her voice shaking.

  I flipped on the light before setting Emily down on the couch. She stirred and started to open her eyes. With the bright light on, I could see her better now. Pieces of twigs and leaves were tangled in her hair. Her black shirt and jeans were torn. And looking at her emaciated body made me nauseous.

  Kendrick returned from the bathroom with an armful of supplies. She handed me a wet washcloth and I held it up to Emily’s face, but she jerked away.

  “Maybe she’s hungry?” I suggested. “She was digging through a garbage can.”

  Kendrick sat on the couch next to Emily. “Do you want something to eat? Food?” she asked in Farsi. Emily looked hesitant and then finally nodded. “Okay, then you have to let us help you. No running away … or leaving any other way, all right?”

  Emily nodded, and more tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t bribe her like that. She’s still scared.”

  Kendrick held up a hand to shut me up. “Get her some food.”

  I dug through the fridge and took out a can of Coke and a container of leftover sushi. When I returned to the living room and handed the stuff to Kendrick, she rolled her eyes at me and got up, stomping into the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong with Coke?” I asked when she returned. “Sushi’s healthy.”

  “Imagine not eating for days and then stuffing your face with a bunch of sushi and carbonated beverages. She’d be puking her guts out in five minutes.” Kendrick handed Emily a small container of Gatorade and half a slice of pita bread.

  We watched as she nibbled the ends of the bread and then started taking bigger bites. Kendrick drilled her with questions while I tentatively wiped her face with the washcloth.

  “How old are you, Emily?”

  “Three thousand one hundred and ten days,” she said with her mouth full.

  I glanced at Kendrick, who said, “Eight … she’s eight.”

  “Do you think she speaks anything besides Farsi?” I asked.

  “I speak everything,” Emily said in perfect English.

  “Do you know what time travel is?” Kendrick asked her, holding up the bottle of Gatorade, encouraging her to drink more.

  She took a long sip and nodded. “I just did it, didn’t I? Dr. Ludwig said I couldn’t, but he’s wrong.”

  “Dr. Ludwig?” Kendrick and I said together.

  She pulled herself upright and looked from one to the other of us. “I don’t want to tell you any more.”

  “Okay,” I said immediately. “You don’t have to tell us anything, and we’ll let you stay here and you can eat anything you want. That’s how it works in this time period.”

  “In 2009,” Kendrick added with a smile, “we actually feed children.”

  “Children?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah.” I held my hand up a few feet above the carpet. “You know … little people, like you.”

  “The undeveloped?” she asked, sounding less frightened than earlier, and the bread had already disappeared.

  Stewart arrived before we were forced to fully describe our version of the difference between adults and kids. After Stewart’s brief but shocked reaction to Emily, Kendrick took her to the bathroom for a bath. Before turning on the bathwater, she rattled off a list of items we needed from the store and ordered me and Stewart to both go. Probably so we could discuss our options for hiding this child from the CIA and mostly from Tempest.

  That is, assuming no one came for her. Or came after her. I wasn’t sure which it would be.

  * * *

  Rite Aid was pretty much the only place open at this hour. Stewart and I split up and dumped items in separate carts. Mine was filled with vitamin supplements, children’s pain relievers, and electrolyte solutions. Stewart came up behind me while I was sifting through the medicine aisle.

  “Should I get the gummy vitamins?” I asked Stewart.

  “Those are the best.” She grabbed three bottles and tossed them into the cart. “So, what are we going to do with this kid? Assuming she hasn’t time-jumped herself out of there by the time we get back.”

  “Healy’s really our only concern now.” Now that Dr. Melvin is dead. “But I did have an interesting conversation with Agent Collins.”

  She looked up at me, curiosity filling her expression. “All right, you’ve got my attention.”

  I filled her in on my strange interrogation with Agent Collins and the photo of Dad and his grandfather. She looked as flustered and confused as I felt. “So … yeah, my dad’s apparently in the future … and in the past with some man who died decades ago. Seriously, how fucking crazy is this gonna get before we figure out where he really is?”

  Stewart was lost in thought, not really having any answer yet. The only response she gave me was, “Let’s go back to the secret room later on, see if we can figure out anything else.”

  When we returned to Dad’s place, lugging several bags full of stuff, Kendrick had tucked Emily into the bed in the guest room. Emily looked like a tiny wet rat, passed out with red hair sprawled across the pillow.

  “I sedated her,” Kendrick said right away. “I was afraid she might jump accidently and—”

  “And maybe she should,” Stewart chimed in. “Who knows what it’s doing to her to stay here … coming from that year?”

  “Three two zero zero,” I mumbled under my breath. All of us were quiet for several seconds, absorbing the impact of that year. We had all wondered—everyone in Tempest—where the EOTs came from, or when they came from. None of us had ever considered it would be that far in the future.

  Kendrick fiddled with a bag of clear liquid dangling from the side of the bed. “I had to sedate her to put in the IV as well. She’s severely dehydrated. I also added a nutrition supplement that will help her gain weight rapidly.”

  Stewart’s arms were crossed, eyebrows raised. “What are you doing, Kendrick? Are you gonna raise this kid until she’s Junior’s age and starts time-jumping on purpose? She could be putting us in a lot of danger. She’s some kind of freakish clone of Jackson.”

  “Chill,” I said to Stewart, holding an arm out in front of her to keep her closer to the door and farther from Emily. “We don’t have to decide anything right this second.”

  Stewart groaned and pointed at Kendrick. “She’s already decided. We both know that. She’s like one of those people who rescue dying birds with their heads falling off.”

  Kendrick stood up, her expression completely livid. “Fine. You can wake her up and send her back outside and let her wander around eating out of garbage cans. I’m sure Emily will figure out exactly how to get back home before she dies of malnutrition or gets mugged … or worse.”

  She shoved Stewart out of the way and stormed into the hallway. I glared at Stewart and then followed Kendrick into the kitchen. She didn’t even
look at me … just leaned over a notebook on the counter, scribbling furiously. I hung back for a second, trying to muster up the courage to talk to her when she was this pissed off.

  “Stewart’s just letting off steam. I told her about Agent Collins tonight … She’s got a lot on her mind,” I said, finally.

  Kendrick sighed and her pen stopped moving. “Yeah, I know.”

  Her dissolving anger gave me a little more courage. I set my hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “This is what we had to do. I don’t know if it’s gonna be okay or not, but keeping Emily here is the only option we have at the moment.”

  “She’s right, you know. I was a kid who rescued dying birds. I probably exposed my family to a dozen diseases by dragging wild animals into the house.” Her eyes met mine, searching for something. “She’s worried about you, too, that your night with Agent Flynn is gonna make you do something stupid or even … join Eyewall.”

  I rubbed my eyes and felt the renewed Holly-anxiety hitting with full force. Where is she right now? Is she okay? “I don’t think either of you get it … what it’s like to stare at someone you once knew so well and she looks the same, has the same mannerisms, same sarcasm, and know that you’re supposed to see her as a different person. Sometimes I can do it with no problem, and other times she does something that’s so much like the Holly I knew, and I can’t just make those feelings go away. It’s not like I’m trying to be sneaky or become a double agent or whatever.”

  Sympathy filled her eyes. “I know. Not exactly like you know … but I have a pretty good idea what it’s like to not be able to let go.”

  “Well, I’m glad we at least know not to trust you.”

  I jumped backward so fast I nearly tripped. Stewart stood in front of the refrigerator, arms folded across her chest, glaring at me.

  “I better go check on Emily,” Kendrick muttered, leaving us alone.

  “Look—” I started to say.

  Stewart pressed her hands over her ears the second I looked at her. “Not now, Junior. You’ve given me way too much shit to deal with already tonight. Let me absorb one thing before I have to figure out how to keep you from getting yourself killed by a pint-sized, barely out of high school agent … Can you just do the fingerprint thing so I can go down and check out the fallout shelter … alone?” She added that last word firmly, and I knew this was not the time to argue.