Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  “Roommate? What roommate?”

  He pulled off his shoes and jacket, setting them next to the mattress on the floor as though he worried he might need them in the night. “I don’t know who your roommate is. They don’t give me information like that.” He slid into the covers he’d placed over the top of his mattress, and tucked his arm under his head as an extra pillow.

  I slid under my covers, too, and then leaned over my bed, resting my chin on the edge of my mattress so I could look at him better. “Tag?”

  “Hmm?”

  “We’re friends right? I mean, you said in the beginning that we didn’t have to be enemies. I assume that means we can be friends. So we are . . . friends, right?”

  His eyes closed. I couldn’t tell if he’d closed them out of irritation or if he really felt tired. “We’re friends, Summer.” His voice certainly sounded tired. Even still, my stomach flipped a little at the sound of him saying my name so softly.

  Stop that! I chastised myself. “Then I have a favor to ask, as a friend.”

  His chest rose and fell with the deep breath he took. He rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Then ask.”

  “I told you I’d give your future a shot, that I’d try to be part of the solution. But if I hate it there—in your future—if I hate it and really hate it, will you take me home? Will you take me back?”

  He studied me for a long time. We were close enough I could reach out and touch him, but I didn’t move. “Things will go well for you there, Summer. You will have prosperity, wealth, advantages that no one else on the planet will have. There will be many others your age; you will have many friends. You’ll find someone you care about. You’ll have a family and access to education far greater than anything available in your time. And no one will have you labeled as the lesser half of the Rae twins. You’ll no longer have to spend your time figuring out the system and cheating it. You’ll have no need to hide your abilities and your intelligence. You’ll have no past with an unfit mother to haunt you. No school records stating you to be despondent and unyielding. You won’t hate it.”

  I blinked hard at him calling me the lesser half of the Rae twins, of him knowing how I figured out systems just to cheat them. He must have been watching very closely for those eight days to know so much about my background. “But what if I do?” I pressed, inching farther off the bed to force him to look me in the eye.

  “If, after three months, you hate it, come find me. We’ll talk again.”

  “What do you mean, find you? You’ll be around, right? I mean you’re not going to take off on me, right?” Even as I asked, I thought of his calling out the name Janice when the thunder woke him up. Maybe he was already married. I had no idea how old he was. Tag looked like he might be twenty, but maybe twenty was like old-maid old in the future. Maybe they got married when they were thirteen. Maybe he had a wife and a couple of little crazies of his own. I glanced at his hand; the only ring he wore was his IDR. But he wore it on his left hand—on the ring finger . . . stupid!

  The scrolled silver band looked sickly green in the glow-stick light he held. It made me feel sickly green. Maybe in the future no one wore traditional wedding bands. Maybe they just put their IDR on their married finger and called it good enough. Maybe inscribed on the inside of the band were the words, “True love always, Janice,” or some such sappy nonsense.

  He didn’t answer my questions. His eyes were misted, and he focused on the Orbital. “You won’t hate it.”

  “Look at me and tell me where you’ll be so that if I have to find you, I can.”

  He looked at me again, his eyes no longer looking as though tears might fall. In that moment he’d fiddled with the Orbital, he’d composed himself enough that I wondered if I had imagined that he might cry, cry for me, or himself . . . or us.

  Stop that!

  “I live in the barracks beyond the Coliseum Library, where all the soldiers live.”

  I almost asked if he lived in married housing, but bit my tongue. It was none of my business. “So do you promise? If I hate it, will you take me home?”

  “If you hate it, come find me.” He turned his body and settled onto his pillow so he faced away from me. He did that a lot—just turned away when he felt the conversation to be finished. He stuffed the glow sticks under his mattress, dousing any light we’d had.

  “But you didn’t promise.” I persisted. “Doesn’t my free will matter at all in the future?”

  “Free will . . . isn’t what it used to be. It can’t be, not with crazies and disease, and a dying world. Go to sleep, Summer. Tomorrow promises a new adventure.”

  He refused to say another word to me. I found myself angry all over again at him, angry at him and afraid to lose him. Stupid!

  I could tell from his breathing he wasn’t sleeping. He lay perfectly still. What did a soldier who stole people from their deaths and delivered them to a crazy professor think about before he went to sleep at night? I groaned inwardly. If he hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d be dead. Like it or not, that part was totally true. I’d be dead like Nathan. Gratitude for being saved shouldn’t have been so difficult to feel.

  Of course, maybe dead wasn’t such a bad alternative. Aunt Theresa believed in heaven. I believed in something—something would follow life. When I was much smaller, I remember watching one of my foster fathers boil water. The steam rose up from the pan like a ghost. I asked him if it was a ghost. He was a smart man, one of the nice fosters we got to stay with for such a short time.

  He sat me down and explained steam and water and the transfer of energy from one form to another. “So is the water dying?” I’d asked, still thinking about how ghostly it looked.

  “No, it’s just changing to a different level of energy.” He was likely frustrated trying to explain something so complex to someone so young, and I had simply nodded that I’d understood and went along my way.

  But I didn’t agree with him. I thought the water had died, in a way. And the water’s ghost went off to do whatever ghostly business it had. Since that moment, I hadn’t believed in death as permanent. I would not end in a box under the ground. Somehow energy would transfer and I’d be something else, someplace else. And I’d go along with my own ghostly business. Perhaps my ghostly business would be far superior to Tag’s frightening future.

  I didn’t sleep for a long time. From the sound of Tag’s breathing that never seemed to even out properly, he didn’t sleep for a long time, either. After a while, I reached out and found his hand in the dark. He didn’t pull away. After several moments, he rolled in my direction and his fingers tightened around my hand. Only then did we both manage to drift into sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Would you pass me the salt?” Tag asked, holding out his hand. We ate a rather leisurely breakfast considering all that the day held for us.

  “What if I decided I didn’t want to go to your future?” I ignored his salt request.

  “I’d make you.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  He grunted. “Yes. I can.” He reached around me and got the salt for himself.

  “You and what army?”

  “I am my own army.” He reached around me to put the salt back. He was weird that way—compulsively putting things back where he felt they belonged. If only he would’ve compulsively put me back where I belonged.

  “Well, your army isn’t all that effective or I’d already be there. Now that I’m rested and fed, I think I could take you.” I smiled and flexed my arm for him.

  “You and what army?” His lip twitched at the corner. I wondered how long it would take for me to make him laugh.

  “I am my own army.” I mimicked back at him. His lip quirked again, but no laugh. I’d grown to like his almost smiles.

  “You should complain to your general about how sloppy your regiments are kept.”

  I ate my powdered eggs and tried to scowl at him and not laugh at the same time. It took considerable focus to k
eep my mouth from turning up. We finished breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, made the beds, and readied ourselves for the time change. I put on Winter’s shirt and my own jeans. They were stiff from being washed and hung to dry, but it felt good to wear my own clothes. We left no trace we’d ever been in the house.

  The temptation to steal the book, A Sliver of Midnight, overcame me several times, but I put it back each time I’d eased it out of the bookcase.

  At eleven, after all we could do had been done, Tag led us from the house out into the woods. He was careful, watching to make sure no one noticed us, watching to be certain we hadn’t been followed.

  He led us back up the mountain, not pushing us hard as he had when we’d needed to get some distance while those people were at the house. “Can’t we just click the Orbital and have it zap us to the spot we need to be?” I asked.

  “We could, but shifting place is different from shifting time. It makes people incredibly sick. Sometimes people don’t recover from the shift. I’ve seen strong soldiers slip into comas they never recover from due to a spatial shift.”

  “Have you ever done a spatial shift?” I took his hand to steady me while we scrambled up some rocks.

  “No. If I died while retrieving a New Youth due to an inability to successfully make a spatial shift, I could be responsible for upsetting the entire future.”

  Made sense. The walk seemed deliberately rambling, and we arrived at the right place at noon exactly. Tag looked at the sky and down to his Orbital several times before nodding in satisfaction. “In another few minutes, we’ll be all done.”

  “I’m scared.” I felt an excited anticipation, too. The idea of saving the future, of being part of a solution rather than a problem, finally intrigued me.

  “You’ll be fine—better than fine. Professor Raik is brilliant. You’re lucky to be one of those chosen to work with him.” Tag pivoted to keep an eye on our surroundings. I would have thought he might be nervous except his movements all seemed confident and ready for action.

  “Should I trust brilliant professors from crazy worlds? And who ever heard of a professor controlling soldiers?” Even if Tag wasn’t nervous, I was. Whereas all his movements were swathed in confidence and surety, mine were definitely jumpy.

  “You only say that because you don’t understand. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried.” I crossed my arms over my chest and hunched into myself. Terrified was a better word. We watched birds flit from tree branch to tree branch, shaking water from the previous day’s rain to the ground. The world smelled clean and fresh.

  The minutes ticked by slowly, until, finally, Tag took my hand, not roughly like he had in the beginning. There wasn’t any force. My thumb pressed in at his wrist. His pulse throbbed, or maybe not his pulse, but mine. Blood pumps through thumbs, and I might have mistaken my heartbeat for his.

  He kept his arm up so he could read whatever numbers and messages flashed on the Orbital screen, his left hand moved to the Orbital that sat on his wrist between us. His silver scrolled ring caught my attention. “Tag?” I blurted.

  His fingers halted as I said his name. “What?”

  “Are you married?”

  The immediate grin split his face in two. I’d been wrong before about loving his almost smiles. They were nothing in comparison to the way his entire face warmed and brightened into a real smile. The back of his fingers swept across my cheek as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I am not married.”

  My breath caught in my throat at his touch.

  He looked away, down to his Orbital, and his fingers moved back to press in whatever equation or numbers he needed to enter to make it work.

  “Tag?”

  He looked up again. “Things between us will be different on the other side of time. I will have to be invisible to you. Be ready for that. And if we miss our window one more time, I’ll likely get executed when we do get there.” His voice wasn’t irritated or harsh, merely factual laced with a touch of . . . what? Regret?

  “It’s a time-travel thing. We can blink us to the right time no matter when we leave.” I tried to insist.

  “In theory, you’re right, except the Orbital has its own timer. It keeps track of how long it was gone. They’ll know we were delayed the moment we return.”

  “I’m sorry.” I said feeling genuinely sorry. “Let’s go.”

  “Ready then?”

  I gripped his hand tighter and held his level gaze. He didn’t look back at the Orbital so I was caught slightly by surprise when the tugging at my stomach and the compression on my chest heralded the spinning of the world around us. “I think I’ve decided to like you. You’ll never be invisible to me,” I whispered. The words were so soft I wasn’t even sure I’d said them out loud, but Tag’s hand seemed to tighten around mine.

  Then the spinning world stopped.

  ***

  We were still in the mountains, only everything seemed dead. The trees looked like petrified stumps sticking up out of hardened mud. Farther down the mountainside, flowers bloomed and wild grasses swayed against the light breeze, but the spot we stood on looked like a bald spot on an old man’s head. Mount Rainier’s eruption must have tumbled through this area.

  There were several hilltops surrounding us with houses still on them, one had a full-on neighborhood. “Do people still live in those houses?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me. Tag licked his thumb and pressed it against his ring. The silver band flashed a brilliant red color and Tag aimed his hand to the sky directing a red light—sharp and crisp like a laser beam into the sky.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Tag put his finger to his lips to indicate the need for silence.

  “Why should I be quiet? No one’s anywhere near us.”

  Tag wiped his hand down his face in frustration and pointed to his IDR.

  Oh. So the ring had a microphone, did it? He couldn’t have mentioned that before we left? I was tempted to grab Tag’s hand and let out an ear splitting scream into his ring, but refrained. Apprehension kept me in line.

  Within moments, a bright yellow car with wings that had big fans in them appeared in the sky over our heads. Tag dropped my hand immediately. When I gave him a startled questioning look, he frowned and shook his head imperceptibly.

  The car landed twenty feet from where we stood. It looked like a flying taxi cab. Tag walked toward it, showing no fear, apprehension, or any other butterflies-in-the-stomach-inducing feeling. He left me with no choice but to follow. He opened the cab door for me, revealing a soft white microfiber interior. Tag inclined his head indicating I should get in, which I did, ducking so I wouldn’t bang my own head on the bright yellow wing. Tag climbed in after me. He tightened a shoulder harness over me so it felt like I’d been cinched into the seat permanently.

  A muscular man with dark skin and darker sunglasses sat in the driver’s seat. His black hair was slicked back so perfectly tight and molded against his head that it looked like he wore a shiny hat.

  “You’re late, Taggert,” the man said.

  Tag didn’t respond. His mouth tightened into a grim line, and he looked out the window as we lifted off from the bald-patched mountain and into the air. It shot forward so fast, my head jerked back into the seat. I moved to grab Tag’s hand in a moment of panic at actually flying—in a car!—But Tag moved his arm out of my reach.

  Confused, I nearly forgot we were in a flying taxi cab going at speeds that seemed impossible, and occupied my brain with worrying why Tag was acting so weird. I stared at Tag while he stared outside. What had happened to cause such a change? Before we’d left, he’d been small smiles, and hints of humor, along with being vastly overprotective of me.

  Now? Now he acted as though he’d never heard of me, as though he was sharing a flying taxi cab with a perfect stranger, and remained quiet and out of reach in order to avoid having to make small talk. He stayed stiff and coldly silent until the space between us felt like a growing ch
asm—one that I would never be able to cross.

  We were in the air for a long time, an hour maybe, and yet landed where I felt we were still in the sky. I looked out the window and could see nothing but clouds beneath me. The clouds stretched around us forming a sort of false bottom to the sky.

  “Have we stopped moving?” The sound from hydraulics and machinery along with the jolts and shudders of the car unnerved me. We were definitely not going forward any more, but we were definitely still in the sky. The wings shadowing the windows folded into themselves the way a bird’s wings might, allowing the sunlight to shine in. On Tag’s side, I found myself staring at, well, myself.

  The mirrored building next to us reflected my confusion right back at me. With a final shudder, the car moved forward again, picking up momentum, a rolling vibration sound came from underneath us. Tracks occasionally broke through the clouds. The building on Tag’s side flew past and was gone. No building for me to feel anchored to anything.

  I looked to Tag to explain, which he did in a cool neutral tone as though telling a stranger what the time might be. “We’re on rails. Flying is prohibited in the city.”

  And we were in the city. As we rounded the building, there were suddenly dozens more. The car followed the tracks, speeding fast enough to make me feel slightly ill. The man in front had turned around to chatter with Tag, which meant the man was no longer looking forward.

  “What took you so long, Taggert? There’s talk that you crazed like your—”

  “Enough!” Tag’s loud and abrupt interruption made me jump. “No questions. I will answer to no one but the professor. It’s the way.”

  “Sorry.” The driver looked sorry, too. But he still wasn’t looking forward.

  “Um, hey, not to interrupt your conference or anything but—” I closed my eyes as the car sped along its tracks straight toward a tall building. I felt the swerve as the tracks prevented us from actually colliding with the building. “Don’t you guys think the driver, should be driving?”

  “It’s tracked.” The driver looked over the top of his glasses at me. His pupils were circled by a rainbow. Like Tag’s eyes were blue, and mine were hazel, the driver’s irises were like a rainbow.