Present For Today

by W. J. May

  His heart pounded as he waited for her to reply. Thudding unevenly in his chest as he fought to maintain eye contact, determined not to be the one to look away first. It lasted only a moment. A moment that seemed to last much longer.

  She glanced down with a curt nod. “Come by tomorrow at eight a.m. Sharp.”

  A wave of relief coursed through him, but he kept his face carefully controlled.

  Eight a.m. Sharp.

  Chapter 4

  Gabriel took a cab the next morning and showed up at Natasha’s apartment at exactly eight o’clock sharp. He was afraid to be too early, and didn’t want to think what might happen if he showed up late. For all he knew, there was another little robot for just such an occasion. One built specifically for truants, gleefully waiting to impale them with a spork.

  To be honest, he’d almost called the whole thing off last night. Staring at the ceiling in a sort of unending panic attack, trying to remember anything he could on memory manipulation. It was intimate—he knew that. And it was intense. Not only would you be seeing the memories from afar, but a part of you would be reliving them. Reliving them together. This poor girl had no idea what she was getting herself in to. These weren’t your run of the mill flashbacks. Trying to revive a long-lost love, or revisit a favorite birthday party. She’d need a mnemokinetic of her own by the time they were through.

  He’d loaded up on pain medication that morning to prepare. Truth be told, he’d taken a few more pills than were prescribed. He’d even tried drinking a bit of chamomile tea to help calm down. Nothing worked. At eight a.m. sharp, he stood in front of her apartment just as blindly panicked as he’d been since the moment he’d left.

  “Hey,” she pulled open the door before he could touch it, her damp hair trailing over a towel on her shoulders, “I heard you on the steps. Come on in. I’ll be just a minute.”

  He cautiously followed her inside, glancing around for renegade cyborgs as he ventured a tentative joke. “Eight a.m. sharp, right?”

  Much to his relief she actually smiled, toweling off her hair as she headed into the bathroom. “Give me a break. The water heater broke this morning.” A bottle of shampoo was perched on the edge of the sink. “I had to improvise...”

  An unexpected emotion surged through him as he watched her through the open door, followed immediately by a frown. “Do you want me to take a look at it for you? It would—”

  “No, it’s fine.” She emerged a second later, wearing a pair of sweat pants with a tight-fitting tank. No makeup. No shoes. A loose ponytail tumbled down her back, curling slightly in the humidity; she looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  He glanced self-consciously at the couch before pushing slowly to his feet. “Sorry, I didn’t know where...do you prefer to do it standing?”

  His eyes snapped shut with a painful grimace as she tilted her head with a little grin. A second later, she pointed down the hall. “The shelves are that way.”

  He followed her gesture, then turned back in blatant disbelief. “Really? You’re really going to make me do that first? We can’t just get this out of the way?”

  “Time is money.” She headed briskly down the hall, expecting him to follow. He did, but with extreme reluctance. “Besides, it won’t take you too long. There aren’t that many...”

  With a grand flourish she pushed open the door, revealing a narrow rectangular room just beyond. The floor of which was completely covered in unassembled shelves.

  “They’re going to circle the whole room,” she gestured with her finger, eyes lighting up as she imagined it, “about twelve or so on each wall. Floor to ceiling. Tools are in the bag.”

  His mouth fell open in dismay as he ventured a step inside, staring around at the enormous task that lay before him. A task that was going to be made slightly more difficult by the recent gunshot wound to the chest. A wound he may have neglected to mention whilst trying to convince the infuriating memory tyrant to give up her time.

  “Sure,” he said with a tight smile. “No problem.”

  She grinned broadly and patted him on the shoulder on her way out. “Just think, the sooner you get done the sooner we can crack open that pretty head of yours.”

  His eyes tightened but the smile remained as she flounced away down the hall, leaving him behind with nothing but a hammer and what had to be fifty unassembled shelves.

  Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

  WHEN NATASHA CONCOCTED her little scheme, she obviously thought she’d just run out the clock. Assign so much hard labor that, by the time he was finished, there would be only an hour or so left to delve into the recesses of his mind.

  But she didn’t know Gabriel Alden. And she didn’t know his tatù.

  With a wave of his hands, the metal frames lifted into the air—spiraling and connecting in a strange dance before pressing themselves neatly against the walls. The wooden shelving was a bit more difficult with his wound, but after one or two failed tries, he simply concocted a pair of metal hands from a spare unit to do the heavy lifting for him.

  It was like something out of Beauty and the Beast. Where the entire castle comes alive, a hundred inanimate objects uniting to accomplish a single task. Before even ten minutes had passed, he was putting on the final touches. Adding flourishes for no reason. Trailing waves and arches in the intricate metallic design with the sweep of his hand.

  Finally, when he became bored with overachieving, he left the room behind him and wandered noiselessly down the hall. Natasha was nowhere in sight—assumedly off hatching her next plan in her bedroom—and for a few minutes he was able to study the flat undisturbed.

  Two decades’ worth of training had made Gabriel careful. And two days of having known Natasha had made him curious. He walked in a slow circle around the place, taking mental notes of everything he saw, pausing occasionally to pick things up and examine them for himself.

  It was an eccentric apartment, to say the least. Filled to the brim with books, and music, and more electronic gadgets than he had ever seen in one place. The girl was a collector, that much was certain. But what it was she was collecting, he had no idea. Technology dominated the aesthetic, but it wasn’t technology he was used to. It had been reduced to its very core. Completely disassembled, the pieces and raw metal sorted into separate bins, for her to rebuild in any way she so desired. Taking new form in the delights of her imagination.

  When the living room was complete, he did a quick tour of the other rooms. From the barren kitchen, to the threadbare linen cupboard, to the bathroom that sported just a lone towel, and a lone toothbrush, with a lone bottle of shampoo.

  Another frown clouded his handsome face as he pictured Angel’s vanity back home. Or Rae’s. Or, Heaven forbid, Molly’s. Between the three of them, they could open a small pharmacy.

  But this girl...aside from the scattering of books lining the microwave and the bins of raw materials in the hall...he hadn’t the faintest clue who this girl really was.

  So, go find out.

  With the grace of a seasoned spy he ghosted down the hall to her bedroom, making not a single noise as he pushed open the door. Not that she would have noticed otherwise. Her head was bobbing up and down to the music in her headphones as her fingers flew over the keys of her computer, blurring with an almost supernatural speed.

  Gabriel’s eyes flickered up to see what she was working on but, even having been trained in basic programming himself, very little of it made sense. A stream of binary cascaded down one side of the screen, while a row of signs and numbers stacked slowly on the other. She didn’t blink as she stared at the monitor. Didn’t move an inch, except for every couple of seconds when her hand would reach blindly inside a crumpled bag to pull out a Cheeto.

  A little grin pulled up the corners of his mouth as he took a step forward. Before his foot could hit the floor, a robot appeared out of nowhere and slapped his hand.

  “Crap!” He cursed under his breath, jumping back in surprise.

 
; Natasha whirled around in her chair, pulling off the headphones in a single motion. “What’re you doing in here?!”

  “I finished your bloody shelves.” He shook his hand in the air, glaring between the angry red welt and the tiny robot, hiding smugly behind her feet. “Came here to get you.”

  Her eyebrows shot into her hair, but she didn’t move. “You finished? Already?”

  “You want to check,” he almost hoped she would, “be my guest.” When she did nothing he took another step inside, his face lighting up with the glow from the monitor. “What are you working on anyway?”

  “Counter-surveillance,” she answered promptly, then shot him a sideways glance. “Do you have any idea what that is?”

  “No.” His eyes hardened with a dry smile. “Because, despite speaking eight languages, studying at the Sorbonne, and having been tutored by an ageless reincarnation of Machiavelli himself, I am, in fact, exceedingly stupid.”

  Even Natasha had the decency to blush. The robot retreated farther under the chair.

  “Of course, I know what counter-surveillance is.” He leaned past her to get a better view of the screen. “I usually came down on the other side of it, is all.”

  “The other side?” She let out a burst of sudden, incredulous laughter. “You mean, you were in the habit of actively surveilling people?”

  Oh, honey, you’re not going to like what we’re doing today. He shrugged stiffly, not thinking it to have been a strange thing to say until she laughed. “In my job, I found it necessary.”

  “That’s right.” She leaned back in her chair, eyes twinkling with that same insatiable curiosity. “Canary told me you were a spy. Worked for the Council as an undercover agent.”

  He tried to smile back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Something like that.”

  She pushed abruptly to her feet, ready to see for herself. “Well, let’s begin, shall we?”

  The two of them walked silently back to the living room, settling down on the same couch with their legs touching in the middle. Gabriel mimicked her every gesture, trying to control his nerves as he prepared to get a glimpse into a world he had dreamed of for longer than he cared to remember. One that had remained hidden, lost in the shadowy recesses of his mind.

  Once they were settled Natasha held out her hands, resting them loosely on her knees. “Are you ready?”

  His chest rose with quick, shallow breaths as he stared down at her palms. “How does this work?”

  She softened infinitesimally, catching his eye with a steady gaze. “It’ll get easier in time, but for now why don’t you focus on a particular question? A single thought you can hold in your mind. It’ll give us a sort of roadmap to get back to.”

  He nodded quickly, wondering suddenly if there would be pain. It was something he was willing to deal with himself, but he didn’t want to hurt this girl. She struck him as someone who had been hurt enough as it was. And she was already so fragile. So tiny.

  “You have a question?”

  He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. “How about my birthday...”

  AUGUST 11, 1993.

  That was the day Gabriel was born. He’d never known what it was until that day. Never even guessed the month, until he and Natasha saw it on a birth certificate that was handed over to Cromfield the day he was taken to the church.

  There was no pain. There was no struggle. There was nothing but a gentle series of images—images depicting some not-so-gentle things as the two of them started from there and worked their way forward, walking hand in hand through the twisted corridors of Gabriel’s mind.

  At first, he could tell she didn’t believe it. At first, he could feel her shock and horror as clearly as it was his own. Not that he blamed her. She was living his nightmare.

  It was so much more vivid than he could have imagined. So much more graphic than the surreal, dream-like quality he had experienced with Julian before. He felt the smoothness of the rock beneath his hand. Felt the warmth of the sun on his skin. Heard the whisper of the breeze as it danced through his hair in the cemetery.

  Together, he and Natasha slowly made their way forward. Standing close together as the memories played out in front of them, one by one.

  They saw everything. Saw him learning everything. From languages, to weaponry, to the fastest way to hotwire a car. Faster and faster the memories seemed to come. First, he was a four-year-old kid, reading Kurt Vonnegut by the light of a flickering candle. Then he was sixteen, tall and lean, squaring off against three armed men in a training circle as Cromfield looked on approvingly. Sometimes he was alone, but for the most part he was accompanied by a regular cast of characters. There were hundreds of memories of Jason, Jen, and Angel. The only bright spots in an otherwise-darkened sky. When they came across a memory of Jason coming to get him when he was lost beneath ground, picking him up and carrying him gently back to his room, Gabriel felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

  Things drifted up and settled down in no particular order. Quite possibly because Gabriel’s thoughts were in no particular order. He knew that he had come here for a specific reason, searching for specific answers buried among the rest—but, for now, he couldn’t bring himself to go there. For now, he was content to skim along the surface. Basking in the faces of his old friends. His old protectors. The first people in the world to have ever shown him love.

  It wasn’t until the room lightened and they found themselves in an industrial office that everything suddenly went very wrong. Gabriel glanced around nervously, gripping tighter onto Natasha’s hands. He knew where they were. He knew exactly what he was about to do.

  And he didn’t want her to see it.

  “That’s enough,” he tried speaking aloud, not sure if it was working. He gave her hands a squeeze and she stared up at him, her face lit with the glare of the sun. “I’ve seen enough.”

  The next second, they were floating up into the air. Leaving the image behind them as they vanished into the sun and Gabriel slowly opened his eyes.

  The next second, he was gasping for breath.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay!” Natasha put her hands on his back, rubbing it comfortingly as he doubled over at the waist. “It’s hard to come out of it the first time. Your mind doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. Just focus on the sound of my voice.”

  He tried to do as she asked, reaching up without thinking and lacing his fingers through hers. The room steadied a bit, then tilted back into focus as he tried to catch his breath.

  “That’s it,” she encouraged, squeezing his fingers gently. “Just listen to the sound of my voice. You’re here with me now. We’re both here. Together.”

  The world stopped spinning. The colors and shapes around him sharpened and Gabriel sat up slowly, pulling in a deep breath. For a fleeting moment, he felt as though all was right again. Then he looked up at her, pale as a sheet. “This...this isn’t going to work.”

  He was on his feet the next second, swiftly walking out the door. She stared after him for a second, her mouth hanging open in shock before she leapt to her feet as well, flying through the door and struggling to keep pace as he bolted down the stairs.

  “Gabriel!” she called. “Where are you going? Are you okay?”

  He ignored her, picking up the pace. One hand gripping the banister as the other clutched tightly at his chest. Like he was literally trying to hold himself together as the world around him fell apart. He was out the door a second later, breathing in huge gasps of the New York City smog as his feet pounded against the pavement.

  This was a mistake, he thought as he swept down the sidewalk, hoping he was going the right way. This was a huge mistake, and I can’t come back here again. No matter what.

  “Gabriel!”

  There have to be other ways to get the answers I need. Other people I can track down, other records I haven’t looked in to yet. I could start at the—

  “HEY!”

  He blinked in surprise as two tiny fists slammed int
o his chest. For a second, he and Natasha simply stared at each other. Then he doubled over in unfathomable pain.

  “What the freakin’ A?!” he cried, frightening a group of passing pedestrians as he clutched at his ravaged skin. “Why does everyone keep DOING that?!”

  “Doing what?” Natasha’s eyes were as wide as saucers, giving an almost manic look to her enchanting face. “What’s going on, why are you...” She trailed off, pointing down to the sidewalk with a little shriek. “Why are you bleeding like that?!”

  He clenched his jaw, forcing himself straight and pulling her away from the crowd of gawking tourists at the same time. “Because I got shot. Now, would you lower your—”

  “YOU GOT SHOT?!”

  If he wasn’t in so much pain, he might have actually smiled. It was completely too much for her to process. The fact that someone she knew had gotten shot. By a bullet. With a gun. Let alone the fact that the same person had recently been sitting in her living room. It reminded him strangely of the time he’d told Angel there was such a thing as both horses and ponies. It was a total overload. Too much stimulation for one moment to carry all on its own.

  “Honey, I need you to work with me, okay?” Gabriel always slipped into pet names when he got nervous. And he was getting nervous right now. The initial crowd that had gathered when he screamed had at least tripled when Natasha cried out the word ‘shot.’ Given the American penchant for theatrics, the police were no doubt already on their way. “You’re got to calm down, all right? Just take a deep breath, let’s get you inside, and—”

  And then she fainted dead away.

  Chapter 5

  There is no easy way to resuscitate a fainted girl. Let alone on a busy street. With half the city watching. Gabriel’s first instinct was to simply pick her up and spirit her away from the crowd. However, given the fact that she was unconscious and he still had blood on his hands, there was little he could do without the risk of getting arrested twice in one week. In the end, he was forced to simply kneel beside her and wait. Hoping she would come out of it before the police showed up and started asking questions.