by Megan Crewe
“You seemed so disoriented already, when I was explaining why we came here,” he says. “And it doesn’t really matter. When the time field’s destroyed, when Kemya has no business with Earth anymore, it may as well not be true. We’ll be two separate peoples.”
“But we’re not,” I say. “We’re—You’re—”
He nods, with a shamed curl to his lips. Every time he forms another distinctly human expression, my awareness of it prickles deeper.
“The story I told you before was true,” he says. “Except there wasn’t any fully sentient species on Earth when we discovered it. All the plants and animals you know, yes, some quite similar to what we had on Kemya, but . . . no people. And we needed people down here to participate in the experiments, to test our survival strategies, to make sure that even if all the tech we had stopped functioning before the rest of us landed, or if we crashed, or anything else that could go wrong, we could still survive. To try out different techniques and different situations, to see what worked best. It was going to be our only chance to do things right . . .”
“So you sent some of your people down.”
“A few hundred Kemyates volunteered. I don’t know how much they were told—it’s usually glossed over when we talk about our history; everything’s about their valiant sacrifice. You heard the way Kurra thinks about it. They were sent down with no tech, no way of communicating with the scientists above, prepared to face the worst and let their experiences guide the rest of us. But they must have assumed that after a decade or two, everyone else would follow. Once we were confident we could handle any problem the planet presented.”
He pauses, his expression miserable. I know the rest: “But then your experiments started screwing up Earth, and it wasn’t good enough for the rest of you anymore.” I should be horrified, but mostly I’m numb. The idea refuses to sink in.
“And the people we’d left down here, they had children, and their children had children, and they slowly lost the story of where they came from,” Win says. “You can see echoes of it, in some of the myths . . .”
We’re all just aliens who forgot we were aliens. I start to laugh, but it catches in my throat. No. Not aliens. Humans who didn’t know we didn’t belong on Earth.
“There are fossils,” I say. “I know archeologists have found—There are remains in our evolutionary tree, going back millions of years.”
Win shrugs. “Faked. Like I said, there was already some similarity between the species here and what we had on Kemya. The scientists planted missing links when they noticed you were looking. To see how you’d react. To erase any lingering doubt. I’m not totally sure.”
“But . . .”
What argument do I have that defeats the vast reach of Kemyate technology? These are people who can leap through time, travel across galaxies, heal a near-fatal wound with light. Why shouldn’t they be able to make a skull read as millions of years old?
“I know it’s awful,” Win says. “I can’t even explain how everyone just kept going along with it for so long . . .”
“You don’t really think we’re part of your people anymore,” I say. The way he talked to me when we first met. The way Kurra talked about us. Shadows. “Because we’ve been fading away, just like our history. Because of what you’ve done to us.”
What they did to us not as aliens looking down on some less advanced species, the way Earth scientists poke at rats, which was horrible enough. They conducted their experiments and played with our lives as one set of human beings manipulating another. The figures I’ve imagined up there, staring down into their goldfish bowl from orbit, think and feel almost the same ways I do. And somehow they could do this.
“It’s easy to see other people as hardly people at all when you’re watching them from a distance,” Win says quietly. “When they live so differently from you. When you’ve been trained since you were born to think of them as something apart. Earthlings do it all the time, to each other. How many of your wars have been fought because one group of you decided you had the right to conquer another group, to enslave them or slaughter them?”
How many of those wars were started because of Kemyate interference? I want to ask. But the question dies before I open my mouth. I watched the revolutionaries in France, the soldiers in Vietnam, the boys lording their power over Noam and Darryl in the marsh. Humans have always known how to hurt each other. Maybe we’ve been nudged in new directions from time to time, but no one forced war or oppression, genocide or terrorism, on us.
“A few of us are trying to make it right, at least,” Win adds. He rubs his face.
“Is it really going to be all right?” I ask. “You’ll blow up the time field generator, and then what—find some shiny new planet to explore while we’re left here?” I grope for a concept that could apply—restitution? Compensation?—but the scope of the injury done to this world is so immense it’s hard to comprehend. I’m scared to ask how long it’ll take for us to bounce back. Thousands more years?
Win’s lifted his gaze. “I just know that it’ll be better for you if the time field is gone. Does it make that much of a difference that we’re not as alien as I let you think? Would you have decided to stay home and not help if you’d known?”
It makes a huge difference. Just the sight of him strikes me with a jab of betrayal. Because he’s one of them, part of this setup . . . And not. It all started so long ago. He didn’t have any more choice in how his people first came to Earth than I did.
He’s right too. I’d still be here. The Traveling, the great experiment, it still needs to be stopped.
“Did you want to stay home?” Win says suddenly. “There wasn’t really a chance to ask when you came to meet me, back in your city. I can still bring you back, now that I’m . . .” He gestures at his healed side.
“No,” I say. “I decided I want to keep going. To see this through to the end, to make sure you get all the pieces of the weapon. So I know, for sure, it’s over.” I pause. “And I would still have been here, even if I’d known. I just wish you’d told me before.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I—I think it’s mostly that I didn’t want to see you look at me the way you are right now.”
I bite my lip, closing my eyes. The shock keeps reverberating through me. I’ve got nothing left to say.
The silence stretches between us. There’s a whisper of fabric as Win eases out of the chair.
“You’re hurt,” he says. “Your forehead . . .”
I reach up, finding the spot where the shattered office light hit me. A sticky line of congealing blood just below my hairline. It stings at my touch. I’d been so worried about Win as we fled that I hardly noticed it before.
“I’m sorry,” Win says again, his voice dropping. “I thought I could avoid the Enforcers completely if I moved fast enough—I didn’t mean to lead you straight to them. I would have gone back for you, if you hadn’t found the trail I left.”
“What were you thinking?” I say, abruptly angry. “They were shooting at you—you were bleeding to death—you should have gotten out of there.”
The look he gives me is bewildered, as if I’ve suggested he should have scared the Enforcers away by dancing a jig. “You were there. I didn’t know how close you were. I didn’t know how quickly they’d leave if I did. I couldn’t just abandon you there with them.”
Except he could have. It would have been easy. But his regret over my little scratch is so palpable, I can’t bring myself to say that.
“I’m fine,” I say instead. “It’s nothing.”
“I have another . . .” He bends down, lurches, and grabs his satchel. With a shaky hand, he fishes out a patch like the one he gave me for my ankle. “It’s my last one,” he says apologetically, “but there’s probably a few more here I can take, just in case.” He raises his hands toward me, and then hesitates. “Can I?”
I nod and dip my head, tugging my hair aside. My words from earlier echo in my memory: Don’t ever touch me ag
ain. I shut my eyes as his fingers brush across my temple, patting the bandage in place. The contact is actually soothing. A more recent image rises up: Win stalking through the maze of desks and dividers, trying to find me before Kurra did, so focused on my safety he didn’t even notice how deeply the glass had cut him. He didn’t even know if I’d found his answer. But he’d promised to wait. He’d promised not to leave without me.
“Thank you,” I say as he lowers his hands.
He gives me a tight little smile. Then he sneezes, and stumbles, and I have to catch his shoulder to stop him from falling over.
“You’re supposed to rest, after the med seat,” he mutters. “I’ll be all right, though. But the cloth . . . If we’re going to Travel again, we should charge it.”
He takes the time cloth from me and crouches down, rocking on his feet. A tiny glinting string unhooks from a spot near the top of the arch. He pokes it into a similarly sized hole by the base of the cabinet. Then, as if he can’t help it, he leans forward so his head rests against the cabinet door, holding him up.
“It’ll take hours to charge fully. But we just need a bit. And then we can go.”
“Then you should rest,” I say. “You obviously need it. Do you think—Are we really safe here?”
“For a while,” he says. “This is a general safe house, but Thlo was able to covertly set aside a period of time, and Isis put another scrambling code on it . . . But we know now the Enforcers can break those with enough effort. I’ll just rest a little.” He wavers to his feet and makes it the few steps to the bunks before collapsing on the lower one.
“As much as you need,” I say. It took the Enforcers days to start tracing Win, after he caught their attention stopping the courthouse bombing. Surely we have at least a few hours here. I sink down on the floor beside the bed, propping myself against the side of the bunks. “You sleep. I’ll watch for . . . for anything wrong.”
He nods against the mattress. His hand shifts toward me restlessly.
“Skylar,” he mumbles. “You’re not just a tool.”
I glance over at him, but his eyes are shut. A slow breath rasps over his parted lips. He looks so deeply asleep I wonder if I just imagined him speaking. I have the urge to take that outstretched hand and squeeze it, but that might wake him up.
He’s not just a lackey in this rebel group either. He deserves every bit of the respect he’s trying to earn. Sick and tired and exhausted—but nothing’s stopped him from working toward their cause.
From keeping his promise to protect me.
It wasn’t right, how he treated me at first. But he hasn’t only been thinking of his mission. The risks he took, the danger he put himself in just an hour ago—that was for me. So I could decide whether I wanted to go with him. So the Enforcers wouldn’t hurt me the way they’d already hurt him. Watching his sleeping form, I feel a little tug inside, as if whatever injury he did to me has been stitched back together with a thread of forgiveness.
As the minutes slip by, the lights in the ceiling dim. I pull my knees in toward my chest and clasp my hands in front of them. My stomach pangs, and my ankle pulses with a muted ache, but I ignore both. After a while, my own eyelids drift down. I jerk them up. Someone has to keep watch.
I get up and look through the cabinets again. Drink some more of the greenish water that smooths the jitters from my nerves. Prod the other packets, and decide I’m not quite curious enough yet to risk opening one.
In the second cabinet, the one I hadn’t checked before, there are bundles of folded Traveler clothes, packets of the alien bandages, and other bits and pieces I don’t recognize. I pull out one of the shirts, holding it to myself. About the right size. If we’re going a few centuries into America’s past, this’ll probably look better than my modern T-shirt. I pull it over my head.
When I sit back by the bunks, I pick up my purse and reach for the bracelet instinctively. My fingers graze the folded paper I stuck inside for note-taking. Didn’t need to use it after all.
Maybe it can serve another purpose. One more stop, and then hopefully I can go back to save Noam. I need to figure out what to write to him; what he’d believe.
I pull out the pen and the paper, setting the latter on the floor. Noam, I write. The m wobbles. I stop, staring at the blank page, and bite the end of the pen. When you get home, Darryl’s going to call you. He’s going to sound upset, but it’s just a joke. A prank he’s pulling on you.
Is that enough? If I try to explain how I know this, I’ll probably just end up sounding sketchy.
I’m composing the next sentence in my head when footsteps thud outside the door.
26.
The lights overhead flash brighter as I jump up. “Win,” I whisper, grasping his shoulder. “Win!”
Win flinches awake, rolling off the bunk onto his feet. As he teeters, swiping at his eyes, I shove my partly written note into my purse and reach for the time cloth. And the inner door hisses open.
The guy who strides in comes to a halt just inside, the door wisping shut behind him. His eyebrows rise. The comment he makes in Kemyate sounds amused. I pause, still crouched by the cloth on the floor. Win’s tensed, but he’s just glowering at the guy, his expression more pained than frightened.
Do they know each other? The guy doesn’t look much older than Win. He’s a couple inches taller, well built, with a sheen of black hair, and he’s wearing similar Traveler clothes.
“What are you doing here?” Win asks, his voice as stiff as his posture.
“Thlo set the safe house to send a signal if someone used it during this time,” the guy replies, following the switch to English with a nearly perfect American accent. At the mention of that familiar name, my frantic heartbeat slows to something closer to its usual pace. “She asked me to check in.” He chuckles, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin. “So you managed to get yourself into trouble even in the twenty-first century, Darwin?”
Darwin? Oh. Win—Darwin. Our code name conversation comes back to me. “Galápagos,” I murmur, and the newcomer’s gaze flicks to me. His eyes narrow, and the jaunty tone vanishes. He snaps out a question, back in their shared language.
Win’s flushed. “She is Skylar,” he says. He covers a sneeze, and moves a little in front of me as if to shield me. “And it’s thanks to her I’ve been doing your job for you, Jule.”
The guy—Jule—launches into what sounds like the start of a rant, throwing his arm in the air. Win’s hands clench at his sides. He cuts Jule off before the other guy’s gotten very far.
“If you want to argue about it, speak in English so she knows what’s going on too,” he says. “I’m not talking about it otherwise.”
Jule’s eyes flash, and in that second he looks almost as dangerous as Kurra. Then he sighs and steps over to lean against the bunks, folding his arms across his chest.
“How much have you told her?”
“She knows everything,” Win says. “She needed to.”
“I’m not going to give away your secrets,” I say. Jule’s gaze darts to me and back to Win.
“I think you’d better explain this directly to Thlo,” he says. He reaches behind him to a leather bag a little larger than Win’s satchel and pulls out a time cloth of his own.
Win’s shaking his head. “You don’t get it. We’ve tracked down almost every part of the weapon, Jule. We’ve only got one more place to go.”
“Sure you do,” Jule says. “You’ve managed to track down the meaning of Jeanant’s messages with some Earthling girl while the rest of us are still deciphering the first detail. I knew growing up with that rotter family of yours left you soft-brained, but hell. Did you sniff too much of your dad’s paint fumes before you left?”
“No, and I can think a lot better than some coaster who lets his grandfather’s accomplishments do his work for him,” Win retorts. “Look. What do you think this is?”
He pulls one of Jeanant’s plastic slabs from his satchel, holding it close enough fo
r Jule to read the characters etched along it. When Jule reaches for it, he jerks it back. “Just look.”
Jule’s expression transforms from skeptical to startled in a way I find immensely gratifying after how snarky he’s been with Win. I straighten up as he steps closer.
“You really did it,” Jule says in a low voice, and laughs. “How the hell . . .”
“It was Skylar,” Win says, motioning to me. “You know we talked in training about how there were probably Earthlings sensitive enough to be disturbed by the shifts—she’s one of them. She figured out exactly where Jeanant went in France, then helped me follow the signs after that. It’s because of her we have almost everything we need, and we know where to go next, where to get the rest, so we can finish the mission and go home.”
“It was still stupid, Win,” Jule says. “You know the rules are there for a reason. We have to bring this to Thlo. She’s the one who should decide.”
“So the rules are more important to you than getting the weapon?” I ask.
He looks at me, a little more thoughtful this time, and his mouth quirks into half a smile. “It’s nothing personal, Earthling. Most of us know there’s a good reason to follow the safety precautions.” He hesitates, and his gaze slides to Win again. His smile disappears. “Unless you were planning on following the standard protocol for data compromisation.”
Standard protocol? Win looks puzzled for all of a second before his golden-brown skin goes greenish. “Of course not!” he bites out.
“What’s—” I start to ask, and then it hits me. Data compromisation. It’s a local. He saw us. Kurra’s blast. My stomach flips over. “Win . . .”
“Before anyone hurts you, they’d have to kill me first,” Win says, more threatening than I’ve ever heard him, but his arm trembles where he’s clutching the plastic slab. Abruptly, I remember the way he evaded the subject of contacting the others, letting them know what we were doing, when I brought it up before. I thought the excuses were pride, his need to prove himself. But if standard protocol is eliminating any Earthling who sees a Traveler in action . . . maybe he wasn’t avoiding the subject because his reasons not to contact them were selfish. Maybe he just didn’t want to tell me that he was afraid of what the others might want to do to me, if they knew.
