The Cassandra Complex

by Wendy Nikel

  “Sounds like you already solved the problem.”

  “Not entirely.” Dr. Wells frowns. “See, it is well-documented that my employee was born in the 20th century, just a few years after your father. The births of her parents are well-established as well, and her grandparents before them, all the way up until… you. Your parents have been protecting you here, in the future, until you were old enough to return to the past.”

  He hesitates, and the pieces fall into place. I push away from the table, letting the chair legs scrape noisily across the floor.

  Until me.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Though the protest was directed at the white-haired man, it’s my parents who scramble from their chairs to try to appease me.

  “We’ve tried to prepare you as best we knew how,” Dad says, his voice deeper and gruffer than usual.

  “Those history classes, you mean?” Hot, angry tears bite at the corners of my eyes, and I brush them away, embarrassed at my emotional reaction. “You really think that listening to a bunch of 22nd century professors lecture on the past would prepare me for living there?”

  “And all those museum trips and History Today subscriptions and the summer internships with historical researchers…” Dad says. “We tried to get you to come home a few weeks early so we could prepare you before Dr. Wells showed up—”

  “You’re sending me away!” I burst out.

  “We may still be able to visit you,” Mum says. “Dodge has been trying to work something out, and as long as we’re careful not to leave any records of our presence there—”

  “But you won’t come with me?”

  Dad and Mum exchange glances again. I feel like throwing something at them.

  “We’d like to,” Dad says, “but it’s not possible. I could only bring your mother here because, in the past, she’d disappeared from the historical records. To go back now would alter established history.”

  “But there’s records of me there? Established history?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Dr. Wells says. “Your future is there, not here. You’ll meet someone and—”

  “Stop!” I put my hands on my ears. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. You’re telling me that my entire life has already happened. That it’s in the past. That you could look it up now and tell me exactly what happens to me for the rest of my life. Who I marry. Where I live. What I do. When I die.”

  Dr. Wells frowns. “I understand why you may feel that way, Cassandra, but—”

  “Cass,” I correct him.

  Dad’s hand is on my shoulder. “I think we need to talk. This way, Cass. Everyone else… excuse us for a minute.”

  As much as I don’t want to go with him, I have to go somewhere. To move, to flee, to try to shake the anxiety creeping through my marrow. We ride the elevator down to the lobby in silence, but in the doors’ reflective surface, his wrinkles appear deeper than they ought to be, and his eyes look downward, not meeting mine.

  Neither of us speak until we step outside. Without discussion, we set off down the paved path that curves around the pond, a walk we’d often taken when I was growing up. Would we ever travel this path again after today?

  “I want to apologize,” he starts.

  I don’t answer. I’m not feeling particularly forgiving.

  “What you said upstairs, about not wanting to live in a past that’s already happened… It’s because I felt the same way that you’re in this situation today. Knowing about the future changes you, and there’s no going back from that. Once I’d seen what this time offered, the past seemed so… static. Forced. Fated. Like nothing I did would ever make any difference. So I stayed here instead and set this whole chain of events into motion.”

  I lean against the railing, looking out over the pond to the busy city. An airtrain speeds by, a flicker of light between the sleek, black buildings. The city is bright with movement and people and noise, all things I thought I’d have forever to explore. Things I’d taken for granted.

  Dad sighs. “I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself at the time. Well, except maybe Dodge, once I’d met him. He needed someone, and I thought we could help one another out. But I wasn’t thinking of you. I couldn’t even imagine your existence at that time. And when I met your mother and brought her here…” He shakes his head. “I hate to do this to you, Cass, and if there were any other way…”

  “You should have told me.” I chuck a stone into the pond, sending koi scattering.

  “We thought this was the best way.”

  “To surprise me on my eighteenth birthday? What about my friends? My teachers? What are you going to tell everyone?”

  “We’ll tell them that you took a job overseas.”

  “Right. That lie worked so well for Dodge, why not use it again?”

  “We didn’t tell you because we wanted your decisions to be authentic,” Dad says. “I was wrong all those years ago: even in the past, your life isn’t predetermined. You still have choices to make, and they’re still important. But tell me, honestly, if you’d grown up knowing that you’d need to live your adult life in the past, that you wouldn’t have tried to search for records of yourself? To see what happens to you? What you’d do with your life? We didn’t want you to have to go back with all that knowledge hanging over your head, weighing you down.”

  To be honest, I’ve been itching to pull my PVD from my pocket and search the historical records since I heard the news. The only reason I haven’t yet is because I haven’t had a moment to myself. Now, I clutch them in my pocket, testing their flexibility, pressing them until I think they might crack, but never quite reaching that point. Never quite willing to let go.

  “We’ve tried to avoid learning anything about your life in the past,” Dad says, “so that we couldn’t inadvertently influence you, because we wanted you to be free to choose your own path, not live according to some predetermined record. You’re free, Cass. Free to do what you want with your life—”

  “Just so long as it’s in the early 20th century,” I mutter. Another airtrain passes by, and I briefly consider running away. I could jump on one and be halfway across the country in an hour, but what good would that do? What would I do then? Live the rest of my life in hiding, always looking over my shoulder for a gray-haired man with a time machine?

  On the other hand…

  Bits and pieces of history lectures whiz through my mind. Historians are always talking about how important and influential those years were, how the events that took place then changed the world. And they did, but not always for the better. Old nationalistic prejudices have taken centuries to die out; warfare led to destruction and poverty across entire regions; and we’re still cleaning up pollution from 20th century industrialization. How many disasters could have been averted if people had only known they were coming?

  I do know. And I can help.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  Dad looks up, his surprise apparent. “You will?”

  “I will.” I face him eye-to-eye, marveling at how this man I thought I’d known so well now seems like such a different person in retrospect. Learning his secrets has changed him in my mind. He seems smaller, slighter, more human.

  “You’re sure about this?” he asks.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “I’m sorry, Cass. You know this hurts us, too.”

  I take his hand like I’d done back when I was a little girl, back when things were simple and my father was just a normal 22nd century man, and not a time traveler who’d inadvertently condemned me to a life outside the era in which I’d been born.

  “Tell me what it’s really like back then,” I say, and this time, it’s me who leads him back toward the front door.

  “You’ll want to talk to your mother about that. I was only in her era for a few weeks.” Already, he’s more relaxed, as if a huge weight has been lifted.

  I attempt a smile as he tries to describe the world of two centu
ries earlier. From the sounds of it, it was a quieter, simpler place. People had to rely on slow-moving carts and automobiles and newspapers and postal mail, rather than having information available at the literal blink of an eye.

  I let him talk, hoping his train of thought won’t bring him too close to the subject of PVDs, or more specifically, the one tucked away in my pocket. I’ve spent years studying these people’s past, present, and future, but the timelines, history books, and newspaper archives uploaded onto my PVD will help me convince them to take me seriously.

  A knot of nervous excitement swirls in my stomach. I’m going to do it. I’m going to make a difference in the world and build a better future, and—unlike any of the contemporaries of the time attempting the same thing—I have the map laid out before me showing exactly how.

  CHAPTER THREE: April 15, 2133

  I’d never been at Dodge’s workplace before. From the outside, it looks like any of the other prefab storefronts on the ground-floor level of Main Street, with shining black solar panels and a single display window that flashes ads of exotic travel packages to places like the Mt. Everest Adventure Park and the Mariana Trench Underwater Resort. I stand, transfixed, as the images scroll past.

  “Those are terrible prices, you know,” I say as he pulls me through the front door. “And I had no idea people still vacationed in the Amazon since that flesh-eating bacteria plague.”

  “This way,” he says, crossing the dusty, dimly lit waiting room in three strides. “You’re going to want to see the real travel agency back here.”

  “Bet I am.” It’d better be more impressive than the front room; the furnishings here obviously haven’t been updated in decades, and even the retina scanners look like they’re from before I was born.

  Dodge holds open the door to the back room. The contrast between the two is so stark, I’m momentarily taken aback. This room is clean, sleek, and modern. It looks like a museum, with holographic projections swirling on pedestals, showing historical events and places, while soft music plays in the background. I pause in front of one display, and the music shifts to fit the scene of an unfinished Egyptian pyramid, with tiny figures pulling enormous stones behind them on log rollers.

  “Is this projection made from actual footage?” I stick a finger through the center of a massive stone.

  “One hundred percent,” Dodge says without looking away from the wall where a humming, blue light scans his retina.

  “Huh. Before Cleopatra’s time, though,” I say. “She was always my favorite. Hey, do you think someone could go back in time and kill that asp before it—”

  “Absolutely not.” Dodge looks away as a door beside him springs open from the flat, unmarked wall. He strides over and takes my shoulders, turning me from the projection. “Promise me, Cass, that you aren’t going to try to alter established history.”

  “I never said—”

  “Cass.”

  He knows me too well.

  “This is incredibly important,” he says. “Swear it.”

  “I thought you all said that I was free to do what I wanted.”

  “With your life. Your individual life. And one person’s ordinary life can make a lot of difference, but you can’t go changing history. It’s my job to stop things like that from happening, so if I have any reason to believe that you’re going to try to… I don’t know… kill Hitler or something—”

  “I hadn’t even considered it,” I say lightly. Though now that he mentions it, the dictator would only be a common soldier in World War I. He’d been wounded in the Battle of Somme—a shell explosion that injured his thigh—but that wasn’t until 1916. Maybe if that shell was just a little closer…

  “Cass.” Dodge’s tone is sharp and decisive. “Swear to me that you aren’t going to try to kill Hitler.”

  “You really think I’d be able to kill someone? Even if it was Hitler? I can’t even kill spiders, and you know how much I hate them.”

  “Cass.”

  “Fine. I promise I won’t kill Hitler.”

  “Or convince anyone else to kill him.”

  I sigh. “Or convince anyone else to kill him.”

  “Or cause him to be killed—”

  “Dodge.”

  “Okay, okay.” He drops his arms from my shoulders. “But you won’t try to alter the established timeline in any way, will you?”

  I roll my eyes. “I solemnly swear that I will be on my very best 1914 behavior.”

  He scowls and I pretend to study the pyramid hologram again. I’m a terrible liar, but what choice do I have? And what could he do if he knew, anyway? Force me to stay here in the 22nd century?

  “Besides,” I say, trying to sound casual and unaffected, “how much trouble can I really get into, knowing that you or Dad or Mum could drop in on me at any time?”

  “I suppose that’s a small comfort,” he says, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced. He takes my elbow and steers me through the open doorway. “The prop room’s this way. I’ve already prepared your clothing and supplies. We ought to Jump now before my coworkers come in; Dr. Wells thought it best that no one else know our family’s history, and that includes my present-day boss. I’ve made sure that everyone else is occupied this morning, but that only buys us about a half hour.”

  The prop room is fascinating—an enormous storage room filled with authentic costumes from any era or culture imaginable, and even some I can’t place.

  “People wore stuff like this?” I ask, holding up a pair of skin-tight pants of a stretchy material. “Why are there so many sizes?”

  “Early 21st century. Dad’s era.” Dodge busies himself in digging through the clothing racks. “It was a time between tailor-made clothes and Tru-Fit technology, when everyone had to purchase clothing in a particular size. You couldn’t just buy an outfit, hop in the shower, and shrink it to fit you like we do now.”

  Well. That would explain some of the strange fashion trends of that era.

  “Here. One early 20th century traveling suit.” Dodge hands me a pile of clothing. “Changing room’s the first door on the left.”

  “I’m supposed to wear all of this at the same time?” There’s a long skirt, a matching jacket, a blouse, stockings, and far more layers of undergarments than I know what to do with. I gather the kilometers of fabric in my arms and head for the changing room Dodge pointed out.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m ready to go, with my PVD glasses carefully hidden between the front of my blouse and the layers beneath, and when Dodge asks me to double-check that I’ve left everything modern behind, I confidently tell him I have. What’s one little lie?

  “We should be set then,” he says, obviously too distracted to see through my lie. “The DeLorean Box is this way.”

  Dodge guides me through yet another door and reveals a large, metal contraption that looks like one of those old-timey phone booths I’ve seen in historical film footage and vintage photographs. Inside, buttons blink and flicker pleasantly, but there’s something cold and strange about the machine. I can’t shake the feeling that it shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be anywhere, really. For the first time since agreeing to this crazy scheme, I hesitate.

  Dodge nudges me forward. “It’s a little weird the first time, but—”

  He stops short, as if suddenly remembering that this will be the only trip I’ll take, that there won’t be a “next time” for me to get used to it.

  “Look,” he starts again. “I know this is a lot to take in. It’s confusing. It’s weird. But we’re doing the right thing, setting history right. We have to trust that things will turn out as history dictates. That it’ll all turn out for the best.”

  I raise an eyebrow. I’ve studied history. How things happen definitely aren’t always “for the best.”

  But he’s right. I need to get a grip. This is what needs to be done to make the world a better place, and if Dr. Wells and Dodge and the rest of the time travelers aren’t willing to take some risks and change thing
s up for the betterment of the future, well, they’ll have to live with that themselves. I, on the other hand, am not content to let history pass by as it has before. Not if there’s anything I can do about it.

  “Are you ready?” Dodge asks, holding the door open to the strange, shimmering machine. In his hand sits a round, black orb.

  “What’s that?”

  “Wormhole device.” Dodge tucks it in his pocket. “It’s what helps me get back to the present-day.”

  It’s not lost on me that he doesn’t offer me one. I take a deep breath and step into the machine. It hums around me, pulsing with its unfamiliar power.

  “You’re sure this is safe?”

  Dodge squeezes into the box beside me and pulls the door shut. I can smell the mothballs in his vintage attire.

  “I reckon it’s safer than the airtrain,” he says, smiling.

  “You reckon?”

  “Just getting into the mood.” He shifts his shoulder to square up with the control panel on the device. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been in the early 20th century. Great food, for the most part, though not as convenient as Punch-In. Decent music, too.”

  “You look excited,” I say accusingly.

  He sets a final dial. “Yeah, I am. Are you?”

  “I don’t know. It all feels so rushed.”

  “I am sorry about that. Generally, clients have a couple weeks of debriefing and training, making sure they’ll be comfortable in the past. We do lie-detector tests and full-body scans, too, to ensure us that they aren’t trying to pull something over on us. No time for all that now, though, if we want to keep my boss in the dark about this.”

  “Won’t he be able to tell that someone’s used the machine?”

  “Generally, you’d be right,” Dodge says, “since the DeLorean Box records every Jump. But Dr. Wells has shown me a workaround so that it won’t log our little trip.”