Lyon's Legacy: Catalyst Chronicles, Book One

by sandra ulbrich almazan

  “It’s too late for other deliveries anyway.” The woman picked up an open box and started to move it closer to the door. She saw me before I could flee. “Hello,” she said. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  I shook my head; I didn’t want to get into explanations.

  “Is that the new lab tech?” Ferdie asked, not turning around.

  The woman turned back to him. “Don’t you remember? She got bumped at the last minute for that traveler.”

  Ferdie swore in German.

  I wondered uneasily if they were talking about me. “Actually, I used to be a lab tech back at Golden Helix.”

  The woman glanced at Ferdie, then approached me. “A lab tech? What’s your name?”

  “Joanna Lyon, but everyone calls me Jo.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows, but if she recognized my surname, she didn’t comment on it. “I’m Elizabeth Tappen. So, what did you do at GH, Jo?”

  “Mostly I sampled developing organs, with some occasional work in testing experimental media and additives.”

  “Any cell work? DNA analysis? Cloning?”

  I winced at the mention of cloning. “I did some DNA analysis in undergrad, but I’m out of practice.”

  “Some is better than none. Who was your boss?”

  Why did she want to know? Could she be offering me a job? I tried not to assume anything, but excitement tickled my throat. “Rhonda Banerjee.”

  “Thanks. If you’ll excuse me...”

  Elizabeth retreated to the back of the lab. I wondered if she was calling my supervisor. At least Rhonda had appreciated me, even if Guzman and my co-workers hadn’t. Ferdie had gone back to scanning boxes. I wasn’t sure if I should interrupt him, so I put my hands in my pocket and pushed my way through the maze, examining the lab equipment on the benches. Cell and DNA prep stations, sequencers and analyzers, microcentrifuges...they all reminded me of the science labs I’d studied in, even though these machines were newer. I itched to use them.

  Elizabeth returned, grinning. “Rhonda spoke highly of you, Jo. She said she complained to upper management when they let you go, but they wouldn’t listen to her. How about it, Ferdie?”

  “How about what?”

  “How about we take Jo on as a part-time tech, at least for now?” She turned back to me. “That is, if you’re interested—and if Dr. Pluckenreck lets you. You are one of the travelers, correct?”

  “If you mean one of the people who’s supposed to go to the other Earth, then yeah.”

  She peered at me. “What’s your mission?”

  “I’m...meeting my ancestor.”

  “That’s it? They normally don’t encourage that sort of thing. Who is it?”

  I repressed a sigh. “Sean Lyon, the musician.”

  Elizabeth and Ferdie both went still for a moment. Then she said, “I thought you looked familiar. Maybe that’s why.”

  Ferdie rubbed his hands together with an expectant air. “Are you going to record some of his music? I love the classics!”

  “He played rock’n’roll, not opera,” Elizabeth said. “Are you a musician too? I didn’t think the travelers were arranging music lessons now, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  I didn’t want to share with them the repugnant mission my uncle had assigned me, or my secret one. What could I say? After a few seconds of tapping my fingers while I thought, I forced my hands to stay still. Maybe I could tell them the truth, just not the whole truth. “I used to play guitar, but I gave it up. I prefer genetics.”

  Elizabeth perked up. “Where’d you get your Ph.D. from?”

  “I don’t have it yet.”

  Ferdie and Elizabeth looked at each other, then Ferdie put his scanner down and stuck out his red, meaty hand. “There aren’t nearly enough scientists to go around these days, and anything we can do to get another one off of the ground…ah, we are off of the ground, aren’t we?” He chuckled. “Perhaps we can steal you away from Pluckenreck. Would you be interested in helping us out? Maybe we can set up some classes for you through Net University in return.”

  “I...I’d love to.” What had I done for them to be so nice to me?

  “Welcome to our lab, Jo. I’m Ferdinand Hessthal, but everyone calls me Ferdie. I manage this lab—and Lizabeth manages me.”

  I beamed for about a minute before he thrust a pair of safety glasses at me. “You can start by helping us put all our supplies away, before the others come in and waste them.”

  It was a good way to learn the layout of the lab, though at times it was almost impossible to open the cabinets. Before long, we uncovered a stack of perishable items mixed in with the normal equipment. I had to take the perishables to the walk-in cooler, which felt more like Antarctica than a mere cooler. A lab coat had been abandoned on a bench, so I borrowed it, rolling up the sleeves before returning to work.

  I was squatting in the cooler, organizing reagents on the bottom shelf, when I heard the door open behind me. “Er, excuse me,” a man said in an appealingly low voice, “I think you’ve got my lab coat.”

  Chapter Three

  I turned around and looked up at one of the cutest scientists I’ve ever seen. He had reddish highlights in his otherwise light brown hair, which was cut short but still wavy. His face was strong and gentle, and his mouth looked like it laughed a lot. His eyes—deep blue, sheltered by long, dark, eyelashes—widened as he looked at me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Lizabeth just said Jo took it, so I thought you were a boy Joe, not a girl Jo.”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m a girl.” Where was the famed Lyon wit when I needed it? “Last time I checked, anyway.”

  He smiled. I liked the way he smiled; he did it with his whole face.

  I left the chemicals on the floor and stood up. “Sorry about taking your coat, but I didn’t want to become part of any cryogenics experiments you were running in here. I’m almost done; you can have it back.” I hesitated before undoing the top button. Despite the chill, my face felt flushed. I was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved turtleneck under the lab coat; why did I feel like I was doing a striptease?

  “No, no, that’s all right. It looks better on you than me. I mean, I don’t need it this afternoon. I’m just sequencing a couple of mutants I’ve been working on.”

  He was babbling too, I realized. He must not meet that many women in space. I looked down at the lab coat, trying to read the blue, upside-down embroidery. “You must be…George, then?”

  “Yeah.” His grin widened, as if he were trying not to blurt out the punchline of a joke. “I’m George Harrison.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said before I realized it. Damn it, this wasn’t the kind of Lyon wit I wanted to display!

  He didn’t seem to mind. “I’m not the guitar player, or even a relative. My mom named me for him, since we share the same birthday.”

  “Boy, I’d have killed my mom if she had done that to me.” Mom always said my dad had picked out my name while she was still doped up from giving birth, claiming it was family tradition to pass on some form of Sean’s name. Since “Sean” was the Irish form of “John,” my relatives had names like Jack, Ian, Johan, Evan, and so on. Sometimes I wished Mom had refused to call me Joanna, but I’d never been able to decide on a name that fit me better.

  “Actually, it inspired me to play guitar when I was in school. I wasn’t great, but it was fun.” He raised his dark eyebrows. “But Ferdie said there are two musicians in the lab now.”

  No getting away from it, not even with a cute guy. I took a deep breath. “My name is Joanna Lyon.”

  “Really? Are you related to Sean Lyon?”

  “I’m his great-granddaughter. Can’t you tell?”

  He reached for me. I wasn’t sure what he meant to do; part of me wanted to flee or hurl insults at him. I had to force myself to remain still and trust him.

  He nudged my cap off of my face. “Well, yes, you do look like him,” he said, “only you’re much prettier.”

  My
face burned hot enough to set the cooler on fire. No one ever looked at me for prettiness, just traces of Great-Granddad.

  I was trying to think of a graceful response to his compliment when my stomach grumbled. “Did you miss lunch?” George asked.

  With all the traveling, I had no idea what mealtime it was anymore. “I haven’t eaten since the spaceport.”

  “What was Ferdie thinking, putting you to work without letting you eat first! If you can wait ten more minutes while I load the sequencer, I can show you around the mess hall.”

  “That’d be great.” I hurried to put the rest of the chemicals away. “I’ll see you out there.”

  My two new supervisors were a little too eager to send us off to lunch together.

  * * *

  I spent most of the next few days in the lab practicing cutting and splicing DNA and transferring it into cells. I hadn’t had much chance to perform these techniques since undergrad, and though everyone, especially George, was eager to help me, I wanted to prove myself by doing them on my own.

  They’d given me a lab bench in the back of the lab, close to the cooler. I was peering through my microscope, trying to inject DNA into a mouse cell, when my handheld blared, “Urgent message for Ms. Lyon! Acknowledgement required!”

  I was so startled I shot the DNA into the media, not the cell. I bit back a curse and checked my handheld. A holo appeared of a graying woman in a TwenCen suit—with a skirt. A pair of gold-colored spectacles hung from a chain around her neck. Maybe she was pretending to be a businesswoman on the TwenCen Earth, but to me, she looked more like a prison warden searching for escapees.

  “Ms. Lyon, my records indicate you did not attend the orientation session for universe travelers this morning. Instead, you were in the genetics lab.” Her scowl deepened. “I don’t know what you’re doing there, but that’s not part of your job. You won’t be allowed to visit the alternate Earth if you miss your sessions.”

  Some threat. I would have been happier to erase the whole Sean Lyon mission like a strand of error-ridden DNA. But when I paused the message and looked away, everyone else in the lab was staring at me.

  Ferdie spoke as if he were giving a eulogy at a wake. “You’ll have to do what Dr. Pluckenreck says, Jo. Technically, you’re a traveler, not crew.”

  “That doesn’t mean we have to lose her, does it?” George asked.

  “Depends on her schedule,” Lizabeth said.

  I pulled up the schedule I’d been ignoring. Speech training, history, the money system, wardrobe...I’d be spending more time training to meet Sean than actually being with him.

  “Ridiculous.” I brandished my handheld and wished Pluckenreck were here in person so I could hurl it at her. “It’s like they think I know nothing at all about TwenCen Earth.”

  George came over and grabbed my arm. “Careful of the glassware. Did you double-major in genetics and history? Maybe you could test out of some of the classes.”

  Now that was a good idea. I hadn’t formally studied history, but I’d seen and read so many bios of Sean I knew some of the material. “I’ll ask Pluckenreck after the afternoon class.”

  * * *

  After lunch with George, I remained in the mess hall, since the travelers’ class would be held there. About thirty other people gathered in a corner, so I shifted my seat to be near them, in the back. It still wasn’t enough to hide me from Pluckenreck. As soon as she arrived, she scanned the crowd with her handheld. A notice popped up on my handheld, indicating I’d been credited with attendance for Time Travel Ethics 101. “So nice to see we have full attendance today,” Pluckenreck said. She stared at me for a moment, but I didn’t look away. I’d met her power-hungry type before. If she was going to be petty, then that gave me more reason to test out of her classes—if she let me.

  Pluckenreck stood in front of an ocean mural as she lectured us on what to do once we arrived on the alternate Earth. It wasn’t enough to learn how people acted during that time; we had to limit ourselves to their tech and knowledge too. We couldn’t tell anyone about our computers or medicine—and we especially couldn’t tell people what would happen to them or about upcoming historical events, even if that meant people would die.

  “I know it sounds cruel.” She put on a frown that probably was supposed to make her seem concerned and sympathetic. Instead, it looked fake. “There are so many people who died in natural disasters or by violence that could be saved if we warned them. But can they really be saved?” She shrugged. “So far, everything we’ve seen indicates that the history of this Earth matches our own in every detail we can compare. Our physicists think the similarity allowed the wormhole to open in the first place. If something significant is changed—like saving a person’s life—it could ripple out in ways we can’t predict. Maybe the wormhole will be stable; maybe it will collapse, and we’ll have to spend the rest of our lives there. No one wants to take that chance. Any questions?”

  A guy about my age who was sitting up front stuck out his hand. “How do we know we’re not altering the past just by being here?”

  “You’re not the first group we’ve allowed to visit the TwenCen Earth. When we started, our missions were much smaller and heavily supervised. We bought as many newspapers and magazines as possible, watched news broadcasts, and listened to whatever we could. But nothing changed; everything still matches our past. We’re counting on all of you to keep it that way.” She found me again. “No matter who you know who’s going to die young.”

  What an asshole. She was telling me straight out I couldn’t save Sean. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but now I wanted to, if only to piss Pluckenreck off. But I knew better than to say anything, so I just glared at her.

  After she resumed her lecture, I remembered my plan to ask her about testing out of some of the classes. Shit; I’d gotten her annoyed at me before I’d even spoken to her. Was it even worth talking to her now? I thought about spending time with George and performing experiments in the genetics lab. I couldn’t give them up without at least trying to persuade Pluckenreck.

  I watched her like a model student, but the only other thing she said that sank in was that there’d be a few exceptions to the TwenCen-tech-only rule. She finished by saying she’d bring along some disguised technology for us to play with next time. Most of the other students left. A few hung around to talk to Pluckenreck, but I pressed against the wall to watch. To them, she was polite, taking the time to answer their questions. But when the last one left and I came forward, she turned away and fussed with her handheld.

  “Dr. Pluckenreck? I’m Joanna Lyon. I wanted to talk to you about my schedule....”

  “You can access the classes you missed on the Sagan’s server,” she said, still not facing me.

  “I will. But I’ve looked at the rest of the syllabus, and since I already know a lot about history, I was wondering if I could skip some of the classes....”

  Now she turned to scowl at me. “Absolutely not.”

  “But I already know a lot about Sean’s era....”

  “Maybe, but it won’t be enough. Do you know how to use a rotary phone, dollar bills and coins, and paper books? Do you know what entertainers are most popular, and for what? If I gave you a dress, would you know how to put it on?”

  I hadn’t thought about the day-to-day details. I’d read about the era, seen holos, and even handled some of Sean’s belongings, but I didn’t know how to use them. I shook my head after each question.

  “That’s why you need training.” Now her scowl had turned into a smirk. “And you’ll have to demonstrate you can do all that before we arrive at the other Earth.”

  “What happens if I can’t?”

  “Then we can’t let you complete your mission, and the ISA will expect you to pay for your trip into space.”

  I didn’t want to know how much that would cost. I knew I could never earn that many credits on my own.

  “Mr. Jack Lyon will be very disappointed, too.” Her voice was casu
al, but her eyes pierced me like lasers.

  “I see,” I told her. What I really saw was that my uncle had recruited a watchdog to make sure I did what he wanted.

  Pluckenreck left. I ordered a cup of black coffee and sat with it in front of me for a long time, staring at the starscape projected one of the walls. Part of me wished I’d never entered the genetics lab so I wouldn’t know what—and who—I had to give up. The other part of me tried to plot a way to make things work—and get away from Pluckenreck. In the end, all I could come up with was the resolution to help out in the lab during my off hours, if they would still take me.

  * * *

  Ferdie and Lizabeth looked disappointed when I told them about Pluckenreck’s refusal to let me test out of some of the classes, but they agreed to let me work part-time as long as someone else was in the lab. “For safety,” Lizabeth said. Since the scientists tended to work long hours anyway, it wasn’t an issue. So for the next couple of months I juggled classes during the day and lab work at night. Even though I spent most of my time with the other travelers, I felt more at home with Ferdie, Lizabeth, Lizabeth’s wife Olivia, and George. Especially George. But George and I did disagree on one major thing: music. He liked to play guitar and sing, and I didn’t. When I told George I hadn’t brought a guitar with me, he said he understood why, but he frowned first. And every time he sang one of his namesake’s songs, I remembered the disastrous concert tour Great-Uncle Jack had insisted I go on as a teenager, when he’d tried to make me into someone I wasn’t.

  “Can’t you sing something else?” I complained to George one morning. I’d broken three big beakers in half an hour, and Ferdie had yelled at me. He’d apologized afterward, but my nerves still felt sharp. George’s choice of “Slivers in My Soul” cut too close to the bone.

  He broke off his tune, his blue eyes wide with puzzlement. “But Sean had nothing to do with that song.”

  “It’s still from his era.” I inspected my fourth beaker for hairline cracks. I didn’t want this one to split while I was heating my solution. “I don’t want Great-Granddad in my face all the time.”