by Ramy Vance
“Yeah. Believe it or not, he was going to be a computer engineer.”
“I’m sorry, Marshall Peet was going to be a computer engineer?”
“That’s what he went to college for.”
Rueben didn’t know his father had gone to college. He’d never said anything about it, ever. After all the grief Marshall had given him about sitting around on his ass playing with circuit boards…
Carolyn continued, “As soon as he got into the computer science field, Marshall hated it. He sat in a cubicle day after day, and it drained the life out of him. Then one day when I was pregnant, he was at work, and Thorne broke into the house and threatened me with a gun. He held me hostage for hours. I finally managed to get away and called the cops. They didn’t really do anything, just took some reports and that was it. I was so traumatized that I lost the baby.”
“You had a miscarriage?” He was supposed to have had a sibling?
She nodded. It took a few moments for her to compose herself and continue. “Your father was so broken up about it. He saw it as the government had failed us. That we couldn’t trust them to find the psychopath that had ruined our lives. He became convinced he could do better, so he decided to become a cop.”
Rueben’s mouth dropped. “I never knew any of this.”
“Of course you didn’t. Who would have told you? Marshall?”
“You have a point there.”
“Thorne was convinced that I could give him my power somehow. No matter how many restraining orders, no matter how many times he got thrown in jail, no matter how many times I tried to explain to him that I couldn’t, he’d always come back looking for us. The rest of the cops thought he was looney and didn’t take him seriously as a threat to my family or me.”
The truth of Rueben’s life began to dawn on him in layers, and he suddenly felt utterly drained. “So the hostage situation, he was using me to get to you...”
“He held you hostage because he believed that I would finally give him my power.”
Rueben mused. “Like a vampire.”
“Something like that. Except it doesn’t work that way. I don’t know how it works except I die, and I warp back in time anywhere from a few seconds to about three days.”
With a tired groan, Rueben leaned back into the couch and sank deeper into the luxuriously soft leather.
She continued, “You wouldn’t believe how many times I died trying to save you from Thorne—and not only on that bus.”
He shook his head. “This is crazy. I know I was only a kid at the time but how did I not know any of this was going on? You said yourself that I was smart.”
“You were. It wasn’t easy. Your father and I decided early on that we didn’t want you to know about my power to protect you. We didn’t want my problem to be your problem.
“We knew there was a chance you had the gene too—if that’s what it was that caused the ability—but God in heaven, we weren’t going to try to find out. So we kept it from you and all of the secrets that went with it. I guess they got more and more complicated over the years. Maybe we should have told you, but when you’re a parent, you make the best decision you can and hope it’s the right one.”
Rueben’s head was hurting. He rose and grabbed his glass. “You want another drink?”
She handed him her empty glass. He poured the drinks and handed hers to her. She continued as he sat. “You know I died almost five hundred times trying to protect you from him.”
That shouldn’t have surprised him after all he had been through recently, but it did.
“You don’t know how many different times I warped back in time to prevent Thorne from getting you before the bus incident. One time he kidnapped you from school. Another time it was while you were getting ice cream from the ice cream truck in front of our house.”
His head spun with the new information. Or was it the booze?
She continued. “The repeated exertions and always looking over my shoulder…it drained me completely. It killed your father to have to see me that way. And Thorne just wouldn’t leave us alone.
“By the time he attacked the bus, I was at my wit’s end. It was far from the best scenario, but…I was ready for it to be over. Not that it would ever be over. If Thorne ever stopped, another threat would come up sooner or later. Someone else like Thorne. Or maybe government scientists. As long as I was around, you and Marshall were in danger.”
Carolyn drew in a breath. “But back to the bus incident. The last twenty times, I was training your dad how to save the kids on the bus. I kept having to die and go back and relive it again.”
That explained why Carolyn had been there that day after the bus had stopped. “You were there, helping Marshall. Showing him what worked and what didn’t.”
She nodded. “The last time I died, I realized the only way to be free of Thorne would be to kill him.” Carolyn steeled herself. “After he was dead, and you were safe, I thought...” Her eyes welled up, and she tried again. “I thought the best thing would be to leave.”
She began to sob, and after a few moments, Rueben got up and sat next to her. He wrapped his arm around her. The distance between them still felt awkward, but for the first time, he was starting to understand her and her difficult decision. If he’d been in her position, he didn’t know that he would have done things any differently. Years of confusion and frustration that had begun to build to anger started to melt away like a glacier.
Eventually, she calmed and sighed. “It took too many years before I realized I had made the wrong choice. I always thought you and your father would make it together. He’s a strong man, a good man. I knew he would take care of you and keep you safe.”
“Well, he kind of went crazy after you left. He’s, he’s broken.”
“I know. It was a mistake.” She paused. “Tell me, does he get his hash browns?”
Rueben laughed hard, partly from the tension release, partly because he was a little buzzed, but mainly because after all these years, she’d remembered. “Marshall Peet and breakfast.”
She rolled her eyes. “He always has to have his breakfast food just right, or the man loses his mind.”
Rueben chuckled. “Hash browns. Gotta have the hash browns.”
She rubbed her forehead. “The hash browns. God forbid if I ever got the frozen ones. I always had to make them from scratch.”
“I remember that. Sorry, I cheap out and get the frozen ones.”
“Well, you should. It’s good for him not to be so spoiled.”
A silence passed between them, and finally, Rueben broke it. “Have you seen him yet? Aside from when he happened to see you at the Exit Bar, I mean.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. He tried to run after me, but I wasn’t ready to confront him yet.” She touched his shoulder, then engulfed him in a hug. Rueben was shocked at the emotions that came up in him. Then they were both crying. She released him and wiped her eyes.
Rueben couldn’t believe what was happening. The story, her being a Repeater. It was all so unbelievable, but he knew it was true. He wanted to sink into it all, accept it, but he’d died too many times to do that. There were so many questions.
Why hadn’t he known any of this about Marshall being in computer science?
Why hadn’t he heard about Thorne? God, what had Marshall mentally gone through after shooting Thorne the day of the bus incident? Had it been in self-defense or had it been a cold-blooded killing? Either way, it could help to explain some of Marshall’s behavior after Carolyn left. He’d have to talk with Marshall soon to clear the air between them.
Rueben rubbed his head. After his mom had left, he’d have thought Marshall would’ve let something slip. There was so much his parents had kept him in the dark about.
All of that could wait.
“The danger you mentioned,” Rueben said. “And Pete. He said he’s from a parallel universe. So how do you know about him—”
“There is something else I need to tell you,”
Carolyn said softly.
What other life-changing revelation could Carolyn possibly make? Rueben steeled himself by trying to make a joke of it. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re not from this world either?”
Carolyn pursed her lips.
Rueben’s gut sank. “Wait. So you…you’re not from this universe? Oh, God. Oh God, no. That’s how you know about him?”
She nodded and dropped her head to her knees for a few moments before straightening to face him. A fresh batch of tears stained her cheeks. “I’m from the same parallel Earth as him. I’m his mother. I’ve been trying to run from Pete, and this isn’t the first world I’ve gone to try to escape him.” She paused before turning to him with a grave look on her face.
“Wait,” Rueben said. “You look like you’re the same age as Marshall and Pete. If you’re Pete’s mother, you should be like sixty years old…” His world was spinning. There was so much that didn’t make sense.
“Listen, Rueben. There’s more going on here than you know. I promise I’ll explain everything—including my age and what happened to the Carolyn on this Earth—but now he’s found this world. That means a very dark future is coming. A future that I hoped to spare this universe from.”
Chapter Three
Monday, May 22, 11:20 p.m.
These people had some fucked up family issues.
That thought was on Martha’s mind as she and Aki picked their way through Buzz’s mansion. She could only imagine the conversation Rueben and Carolyn must be having right now. Had they made up? Were they shouting at each other? Why had Carolyn come back? She must have had a good reason. Surely she hadn’t known how hard her leaving would have been on Rueben and Marshall for all these years.
Martha had tried her best to put Rueben and Carolyn at ease together, but the effort had made her feel like some kind of referee. Especially after that limo ride. Since Rueben had looked like he wanted to be left alone so he could rest, she’d mostly blabbered to Carolyn about mundane topics to pass the time until they had arrived here. Now, Martha felt like another drink, not that the CIA champagne hadn’t been good. Oh, the CIA and their agents…
Speaking of agents…Aki. The woman intimidated her, and not many people daunted Martha. She was a cop in NYC for crying out loud, and she could handle herself well, especially in a department dominated by men. So what was it with Aki?
Aki was nice enough, but Martha always felt like the bottom-rung street cop around her. Plus, she had Rueben’s attention big time. She worried that he was falling too hard and too fast for her, and Aki would break his heart. Martha knew Rueben, and she knew how hard he’d taken his breakup with his fiancée Rachel. Of course, Rueben was a much tougher guy these days. He’d saved the world not once but twice in the past few months.
Regardless, she’d keep an eye on Aki.
“Hey,” Aki said. “What’s a girl got to do to find a drink in this place?”
The two of them were meandering down a hallway. Martha found a staircase at the end. Neither she nor Aki had ever been here without Buzz, but she knew the genius loved his liquor. “I don’t know, but there’s gotta be a bar somewhere around here.”
They climbed the stairs. Along the way, they found a mini wax museum dedicated to famous scientists, a room devoted to “Pi Day,” and a goat.
Martha jumped back two feet when she opened the door to that room. “A goat? Why does Buzz have a goat?”
Aki grimaced as it nibbled at her shirt. “I couldn’t tell you, but it’s eating my shirt. Shoo, goat, shoo.” The goat turned its attention to her shoe. “Hey!”
They were in a narrow room with vinyl flooring like you might find out on a porch deck or veranda. The room smelled fresh and clean and directly ahead of them were tall potted bushes. It was humid.
Aki muttered, “Buzz is so weird.”
Choosing to investigate, they closed the door behind them and stepped toward the bushes. There was a walkway between two of the plants, and they went through it. On the other side, they both gasped. They’d just stepped out into a huge garden conservatory a few stories high that stretched farther than they could see. Overhead lights hummed to life since they’d inadvertently tripped a sensor, illuminating lush vegetation below and to the sides of them.
Martha stood slack-jawed. “Oh my God.”
Aki stood there with wide eyes.
A vaulted glass ceiling crowned the conservatory. The black night sky was visible beyond the overhead lights hanging by chains from the greenhouse-like framework. On the ground level were plants and flowers and fountains. A warm breath of fresh humid air greeted them as they stepped toward a railing and observed the beauty. A ramp off to the side gradually led to the ground, and the goat scampered past them and down it.
Aki pointed at the lower level. “Look, it’s a river.”
A stream ran through the whole conservatory, powered by a waterfall fountain—the largest in the garden, but not the only one. They descended the ramp in awe and walked through the greenery. The sound of rushing water was calming, and like hidden treasures, they kept finding benches and more fountains and waterfalls and trees and plants and a gazebo. And there was a…
“It’s a monkey,” Martha exclaimed as a small monkey swung over their heads on a hanging rope.
Aki ducked as his flying rear came dangerously close to them. “What the hell? First a goat. Now a monkey?”
“Pretty crazy,” Martha agreed.
“I’m waiting for a pet tiger to show up any minute around the corner.”
“Or an elephant.”
“Buzz would have an elephant, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah, just so he could pretend to be an Arabian prince and go around singing Aladdin songs.”
They both laughed, and when Martha thought they had discovered everything, Aki bent and carefully lifted the biggest tomato Martha had ever seen, careful not to pick it from the vine. “Vegetables?”
The garden was full of luscious tomatoes, onions, and radishes, and what looked like carrot shoots. But the plants were all so brightly colored they looked like they’d come out of a Pixar movie.
Martha’s eyes lit up. “He’s doing food experiments out here.”
Aki nodded. “Maybe that’s what the goat and the monkey are for. To test the food.”
Martha knelt and grabbed a handful of dirt in a raised garden bed. She let it pass through her hands, soft and inviting. “Do you think there will ever be a time when we stop being shocked by Buzz?”
“I sincerely doubt it.”
They soon reached the stream at the bottom. In the middle of the shallow channel was an island, and they crossed a wooden footbridge to get to it. Martha was trying to figure out what materials he’d constructed the island from when Aki noticed its main fixture: the tiki bar.
Aki winked. “I knew we’d find a bar sooner or later.”
“What can I get you?” a male voice asked.
Both women jumped as a tuxedo-clad bartender rose from behind the bar. “I’m Webber. May I take your order?”
Aki and Martha looked at each other. This guy worked here, all alone in Buzz’s conservatory?
He stared at them, then lifted a glass and polished it with a white rag. His smile remained on his face, unmoving. He didn’t apologize for startling them and didn’t offer any further conversation.
That was when Martha noticed that while he polished, his hands repeated the same pattern. “Webber, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you a robot?”
“Why yes, I am. Now, what can I get you to drink?”
The girls exchanged glances that said Holy shit!
Not that they were too surprised. Buzz’s entourage of Binnie model robots had been a great help back at defending the summit from Pete’s drone attack. They suspected that Rosa, Buzz’s maid, was a robot although he’d never confirmed nor denied that. It stood to reason that Buzz had some “male” robots as well. Yeah, by this point, nothing would surprise them about Buzz.
; So now the only real question for them in this fantasy garden land was what would they order?
Aki looked at Martha. “What do you think Webber is programmed to make?”
“Considering he’s Buzz’s creation, he can likely make anything.” Martha decided on her classic standby. “I’ll have a daiquiri.”
Aki cocked her head. “Margarita.”
Webber smiled a hollow smile that kind of creeped Martha out. “One daiquiri and one margarita coming right up.”
“Thanks, Webber.”
Martha sighed as they strolled about the garden paradise, searching for a place to sit and relax. It had been a long day, and they hadn’t had a chance to wind down after the chaos of the day when Carolyn had shown up. With a tired grimace, Martha wondered if she’d have to serve as the Peet family referee for much longer or if Rueben and Carolyn had made amends.
She and Aki found a wrought-iron bistro table near one of the fountains and took a few photos. Once they finished with the photos, Webber came out with their drinks, and they sat and sipped them.
Martha glanced over her drink at Aki. Maybe she was too hard on the woman. She’d seemed all right as they had found their way through the mansion to this place. “You know what?” she said. “I’m glad we got a chance to spend some time together.”
Aki smirked. “Me too. To be honest, I didn’t know if Rueben had any friends. You seem like you’re close to Rueben and his family.”
The overly enthusiastic tone bothered Martha, and she wasn’t sure whether or not to trust Aki. God, she hated female games. The men she worked with might be crude and vulgar, but they said what they meant and meant what they said.
Aki kept going, “Speaking of Rueben, what can you tell me about his family? I figured his mom was out of the picture.”
“Yeah…” Martha knew how Rueben felt about Aki but did Aki feel the same way about him? Or was she passing the time with him until someone better came along? She started slow. “The Peets, they’re a complicated family, you know. You have to tread lightly with them all.”
Aki leaned closer. “So what’s the deal with Carolyn?”
