15 Minutes- The Complete Saga Boxset

by Jill Cooper

  But I have to be careful because the suits are never far. They’re always listening, even if they look like they aren’t.

  “Things looked pretty rough on CSPAN,” Donovan says. In the last year, his voice has husked up, grown—matured and the sound of it sends shivers down my spine. My skin tingles as if it’s come alive just to hear him.

  I can picture him sitting in his new place on what was one day going to be our sofa, overlooking the city. Me, nestling against his chest with cups of coffee in our hands. It was supposed to be good. Supposed to be easy. Normal.

  Instead, we got this. Our reality.

  “You, watching CSPAN. Who knew?” I quip, but a tear forms in the corner of my eye. Blinking it away, I take a deep breath. “Things went the other way. Guess we always knew it could.”

  His voice is soft. Sad. “I was hoping for better. For the world. For you, Lar.”

  “I know.” My voice drifts off. “How about you? You ready?”

  “Bags packed and ready to go,” Donovan says. “I’m going to miss this place.”

  “Me too.” My mind floats right away to Mom and Molly. The ones I couldn’t wait to save and now the ones I was going to leave behind. But to keep them safe, to keep the world safe, I don’t have a choice. It’s the only move I have left on the board. “I love you.” The words are more to give me strength than him.

  I glance out the window at the plane’s wing and see the runway is moving beneath us. It puts an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “We’re going to take off now so I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  “I’ll be at your parent's place. Wait until you see the homecoming they have planned for you.” Donovan laughs. “I love you. Be safe, Rockstar.”

  Rockstar. I certainly don’t feel like one anymore, but when he says it, my heart fills with love.

  I slide my phone into my purple purse and lean my head back. The plane picks up speed to ascend into the clouds. The pressure pulses my head with pain and I hold my breath, I wait for it to pass, but it intensifies.

  I taste metal and flashes of color dot my vision like July 4th fireworks. The sunlight streams in through my open window and the dust glowing in the beam dances at half speed. One of the agents stops at my seat and leans over. His voice is slow, twisted and sounds as if he is a demon rather than a man, thanks to the slowdown of time. “Are you okaaaay Laaaraaaa…?” His voice drones.

  I begin to nod as his jacket falls open and I see the glint of a handgun. But he’s an agent. He’s there to protect me, so why do I feel so nervous?

  So scared?

  Like a clap of thunder, the headache is gone and time resumes like normal.

  “I’m all right.” I force a short laugh. “Just scared of flying.”

  “I could get you something to help you rest.”

  “Nah.” I shake my head and turn my attention out to the window. The discussion is closed and the agent moves on, thank God.

  If he knew how easily I can freeze, pause, or slow time, I’m afraid what it would mean. He would tell his bosses, the government would find out.

  And then they’d never let me go.

  ****

  The rest of the flight I spend eating peanuts and drinking soda.

  When they’re gone, I watch a little television, and then check the time. We’ve been flying for almost forty minutes and we’ll be landing in fifteen. I take a deep relaxing breath. I don’t know why I was so worried, but part of me felt as if we’d never land. That somehow I’d never see my family again.

  And I have to. At least one last time.

  “Anxious to see everyone?” The agent sitting in front of me folds his hands across his lap. He’s probably not quite middle-aged and his wavy hair is thick.

  “I’m that obvious, huh?”

  He gives me a smile a dad would. “I know all these trips to DC are rough on your parents, but your cooperation is appreciated. It doesn’t go unnoticed.”

  Unnoticed. But, unnoticed by whom? Rewind? The senate? Or does it go all the way to the top and straight to the president?

  I force a smirk. “I live to cooperate. Especially if it means one day this will be over.”

  With the chitchat done, I lean back in my seat and rest my eyes. Before I know it, the vibration of our wheels touching down stirs me. I unsnap my seatbelt and stand to grab my bag from the overhand bin.

  It’s just a backpack so I swing it over my shoulder and head toward the front of the plane. In front and behind I’m flanked by agents. Agents at the front lean to each other and whisper, their eyes never leaving my face.

  Well, that can’t be good.

  Something is wrong and my fight or flight response triggers. I back up toward the galley where the peanuts and drinks are kept. I bump right into another agent and fear lines my face as I glance down and see a syringe in his hand. No. I won’t let them drug me. I won’t go through captivity again. I don’t care who it is or the reason. I can’t.

  My heart skips a rapid beat and I spin as an agent steps into view. Terror is screaming in my heart and I don’t know what to do. How to escape.

  “Lara, we don’t want to hurt you. We’re here to help you.”

  “Help me?” My voice breaks. “Control me, you mean.” My eyes narrow into slits. “Use me. I’ve had enough help from people like you.”

  The agent in front of me raises his hands as if to show he means no harm, but I don’t believe him. Can’t trust him. “We know what you can do. We know it’s getting harder to control. We need to help you before it gets worse. Before the only solution is a bullet. Now if you can’t come with us quietly…”

  I need to get out of there. I need to flee. My mind races as I turn to run and I think back to a safe time. Back at the capital with Marcus. He can find a way to get me out of there, so I don’t need to be on the plane.

  Around me, my vision starts to swirl. I can feel the smooth chestnut table at my fingertips and smell the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Someone clamps my shoulders and I’m jarred like a fish hooked with live bait.

  Ripped from its home. I’m ripped straight forward into time.

  I gasp for breath and the vision fades like fresh morning dewdrops fall from springtime flowers. My vision blurs, but the face of one of the agents, with his snarling teeth and clenched jaw, becomes crystal clear.

  I struggle under his arms and against my neck; I feel the cool tip of a needle slip beneath my skin.

  Snarling, I grab at my neck as the agents let me go. I glare at both of them and their steel set faces. “You can’t do this to me,,” I whisper except it’s clear they can. Everything slows down around me. I walk between them like stepping through time itself.

  But my vision spins like a Ferris wheel and soon I won’t be able to stand straight. I go through one of their pockets and I find a folded piece of paper.

  Through the creases, I can make out the emblem of the Rewind Agency at the top. Quickly I unfold it and can barely make out the words, but the few I can make out horrify me.

  Lara Montgomery…proprietary tech of the U.S. Government. Emergency custody.

  No. Every muscle fiber in my body screams.

  I’m no one’s property. My teeth clench and the cabin goes dark. I grab the back of a leather seat as my vision fades.

  When I hit the carpet floor hard, time speeds up. The coarse hands of an agent heft me into his arms and my limbs are like rubber.

  I can’t fight him.

  “Sleep now, Lara.” He speaks to me as a father would and it revolts me. My father would never treat me this way. “Be calm. Soon it’ll all be over.”

  Over? It’ll never be over.

  2:Future: Cassidy

  There are no more secrets. No more mysteries. No more surprises.

  Everything scanned, cataloged, checked.

  The city is a series of motion sensors and cameras that check your face, vitals, and future activities with the TTD, or the Time Travel Database. It is constantly monitored and updated by offic
ers who enforce Global Law.

  I’m one of those agents. My name is Cassidy Winters and I live in a time and place where time travel is a way of life, a way to maintain order. Privacy no longer exists and it keeps the world, our country, safe. No one is ever murdered; no one is ever beaten, robbed, raped, or taken advantage of.

  It’s a perfect utopia and for that perfection, some sacrifices have been made.

  Privacy is a thing of the past. If life were a changing room, it would be all windows, nowhere to hide. Everything on display

  Along the sidewalks are lime green and yellow rectangular billboards advertising the latest flavor of chewing gum and blockbuster movie. When someone walks by, a green light shines down from the camera centered at its top. It scans their faces, searches the database, and if it comes up clean, nothing happens.

  If a future indiscretion is found, an alarm sounds and the suspect is confined until an agent can be summoned.

  We are all suspects. No one is innocent. We are all waiting time bombs.

  Except for me, I have no future that can be read. I’m an anomaly.

  But sometimes, when a crime so heinous hits our system, the suspect must be apprehended immediately and we cannot wait for him to show up on the grid.

  For those suspects, I’m dispatched.

  I’m a cleaner.

  Walking down Commonwealth Ave I don’t look much different from the average suspect. My blone curls are loose and rest upon the shoulders of my leather jacket. I’m in skinny jeans and tall black boots. I’m not that different from the average person except for the port in my brain and the electrical baton holstered at my hip.

  I grab some candy from a vending machine when my bracelet chirps. I straighten up and flip my wrist over as a face flashes from my TTD Link. A balding, not unhappy looking man flashes like a hologram.

  His name is Reynold Jackson and tomorrow he’s going to stab his wife to death over a piece of fish. Fish.

  I slide my finger over his face and it ripples like a puddle. His image fades and his current location flashes. He’s on the subway T and headed home. Looks like if I hightail it to the Park Street subway stop I should be able to intercept before he even gets to his front door.

  Changing direction, I quicken my pace. Those on the street part as I make my way. Their eyes wide with fear, darting away from mine quickly. Their moves are jittery, those with small kids, cling to them. I’m like the boogeyman. Everyone’s afraid when they see the Rewind logo on an officer’s jacket.

  They all fear I’m coming for them.

  Everyone feels guilty. No one knows what he or she is going to do in the future until they do it, but me? Those like me, we know. We can look it up with a few strokes of our fingers. They can’t deny they’vedone something until it actually happens. But, we know before it does. We always know.

  On Park Street, I bypass the retinal scanner by waving my pass at the machine. When it beeps green, I descend the stairs and the familiar smells of subway oil and fresh popcorn greets me. It’s a smell I’m told has been around for hundreds of years. I haven’t traveled that far back in time, but I hope one day to see it all.

  To go back in time to a period when time travel was just science fiction? How wonderful life must have been then. Carefree and unexpected? Scary too. You wouldn’t know if the man you were sleeping with would murder you in the morning.

  And he could get away with it. Able to move on to the next thing.

  I’ll take our utopia, even if it means…

  The train approaches and the breaks squeal as it comes to a stop. When the doors slide open, the green light brightens as it scans and catalogs each person as they exit. In the sea of people, I don’t see Reynolds, but my link vibrates.

  He’s been spotted.

  The TTD comm alerts me that he’s exited the train from a car further down the pike. I walk through the crowd; none of whom wants to be anywhere near me. Toward the rear of the train cars, Reynolds exits and he’s folding a newspaper under his arm.

  In his hand, a boutique of roses.

  My hand twitches as it always does before I apprehend a guilty suspect and I pull the black stick from my holster. “Reynold Jackson!” I call in a booming voice as I advance toward him.

  Startled, he glances up and retreats backward. “No,” he shakes his head.

  “Do. Not. Move.” I glare at him and aim my baton at him.

  He doesn’t. Reynold stops and he gapes down at the pavement. We generate an audience. All around us, people gather as if we’re a human spectacle on display in a fish bowl. We’re the accident you can’t divert your eyes from.

  But with that comes relief. Relief that they aren’t Reynold Jackson.” “What did I do?” Reynolds asks with a quiet voice.

  Before I answer, I hit a few buttons on my link to notify the system I have the suspect. It flashes with updated intel. “Stabbed your wife fourteen times over a piece of stinking fish.”

  “Fish?” Reynold blinks and his face pales. “No. I wouldn’t. I love my wife, you have to believe me.”

  I do believe him, that’s the hard part. And the part I’ve heard dozens of times before. They all love their wives and husbands when I catch up to them. It’s the moments after that bring the anger, the heartbreak.

  We can’t allow those moments. “In accordance with Global Law, I, Cassidy Winters of the Rewind Protection Agency, hereby find you guilty of first-degree murder.”

  Reynolds shakes his head. I haven’t seen denial this strong in a while. Most accept their fate, but instead he holds fast to his conviction. “I would never. I don’t care what your system says. I wouldn’t harm my wife. You’re wrong.”

  I’ve been trained to resist such claims of innocence. I’ve seen it before, of course, but there’s a level look in his eye that makes me pause. But the system is flawless. It can’t be wrong. “You will come with me to await sentencing. Come with me quietly, or I will be forced to use this.” I twirl the black electrical baton in my hand.

  “And if I run?” Reynolds asks, almost taunting me.

  My eyebrow rises. “You’ll never make it past the first checkpoint. Come with me Mr. Jackson and you’ll make it to the RPA. You’ll get your moment before the judge for sentencing.”

  It doesn’t take long for Reynolds to admit defeat. I pull his arms behind his back and handcuff him. “My wife doesn’t even like fish,” he whispers.

  But, I’ve seen it all. I’ve heard it all before. He might think he’s innocent but there’s no way he can be. The system is never wrong.

  Time doesn’t lie.

  ****

  Reynold Jackson is processed through holding. Fingerprints, DNA testing, mouth swab. Tomorrow morning, he’ll be sentenced

  But for now, I return home. It’s time for dinner, maybe a little wine and even a little romance, if I play my cards right. I’m one of the lucky ones with an apartment right in the city. Rewind likes its operatives close, just in case something on the grid is found.

  I work in Boston, so I live in Boston.

  One of the young ones, I was recruited right after college. Now, I’m a few years in and I’m a good fit with the Agency, but I know the reason they were drawn to me was because my future can’t be read. That means they want me close, studied, controlled. Someone with no future is dangerous to the country.

  The system isn’t perfect, but I trust it. I’m good at my job. It’s a good fit and I’m taking dangerous criminals off the street before anyone gets hurt.

  A win-win. But, I can’t shake Reynold’s eyes from my mind as I unload my groceries from the Whole Foods paper bag. I place them on the counter and think of what he said. His conviction. I’ve heard it all before, so why is this time different? Why can’t I shake this man from my mind?

  My link rings, it’s Rewind. A photo of the elderly Xavier Daniels flashes on my wrist. I swipe my finger across it to accept the call. “Mr. Daniels, good evening.”

  “Sorry to bother you at home, Cass. I just wanted to mak
e sure everything went all right for you today. You all right?”

  “Yes, Sir. Tip top. Processing went fine.” It wasn’t unusual for Xavier to catch up with me at night, but it hadn’t happened in a while. Rewind liked to keep me pressed beneath their thumb more than most.

  The fact I can’t be read, have no future, scares them. Can’t say it gives me the jollies either.

  “Good.” Xavier sounds more relieved than he normally does. I’m left wondering why, perhaps he was worried about me.

  “It’s been a long while since we’ve had tea to catch up. Maybe soon I can drop by?”

  “Oh yes, Cass. I know you’ve been busy but that would make this old man very happy. I always promised your grandmother I’d keep an eye on you.”

  Granny. I missed that old dingbat, but she’d died over ten years ago. After my own parent’s death, I was left a complete orphan—no one left, but me. Something that used to make me sad, but now it was just truth. “Yes, Sir. I’d like that.”

  Hanging up I’m left wondering about his random check in, but nothing registers as off. He’s done it once or twice before. Still, it lingers in the back of my mind. When you work at the agency, you tend to see everyone as guilty, which is my problem, not theirs.

  I slip into a black slinky dress and freshen up my face when I hear the front door open. Jeff is home early. I saunter out to the living room and lean against the wall. He’s in the kitchen, looking over the groceries as he loosens his tie. “You approve of the selection?”

  “Well, we are eating the colors of the rainbow, so how can I object?” Jeff comes over to me and I settle into his arms. A long drawn out kiss is just what I need after a long day. “Hungry?”

  I shake my head no, even though he’d make dinner if I asked. “Rather drink my calories tonight. Red or white? You stoke the fire.”

  “Red.” Jeff kisses my hand delicately.

  Pulling away from him is hard, but I hurry across the kitchen to the wine cooler and pull out a red. It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll do just fine. Balancing that in one hand, I grab two wine glasses and a block of cheese because I know despite what I say, I need actual food.