Wearing the Cape

by Marion G. Harmon

  "Now you're going to tell me you're the Teatime Anarchist but not the man who's killing people?"

  I almost bit my tongue. Don't confront!

  "If you're ready."

  I nodded shakily.

  "It would be more accurate to say I'm the first Teatime Anarchist. You've read my manifesto? My predictions were observations of what I've seen in the future: by 2028 a totalitarian government will be in power, using superhumans to control the rest of the population. I wrote the manifesto hoping the warning would be enough, and when it wasn't I began my career as a goad and a prankster. My plan was to discredit the government badly enough to prevent it from taking absolute power. And I succeeded, but only temporarily."

  "I don't understand."

  "I revisited 2028 to find the totalitarian future again in place, this time by a slightly different historical route. That's when I began paying much closer attention to how future events play out, and I realized that many of the changes occurring couldn't have been caused by me. Even second or third hand, the dominoes shouldn't have fallen in that direction. Then came the first bombing that 'I' claimed credit for: the government office in Portland. When I went back to observe the bomber, what do you think I found?"

  I really, really tried. "I have no idea."

  "The bomb had been set by another time traveler. He did it the same way I got in here tonight. I simply went back to when the Dome was under construction and didn't have any real security yet, found this room, and returned to the present. I'd expected to find you sleeping, by the way. So there is a second time traveler, and his goals are the opposite of my own. Remember that."

  Leaning in too fast for me to react, he tapped the pain-killing disk he'd stuck to my forehead and I'd completely forgotten about. And that was that.

  Chapter Ten

  The problem when dealing with time travelers is that they're nearly omniscient—they can discover anything known in the past or future, just by going and having a look. Tell me how you keep a secret from someone who can peek whenever they like. You have to assume that everything you do is completely transparent.

  Astra, Notes from a Life.

  * * *

  I woke in the morning with a lurch. That dream had been way too real.

  Then I realized that under the blanket I wore my t-shirt and shorts, and saw the neatly folded letter on the nightstand by my bed.

  I picked it up, opening it like I was lifting the cover on a bomb.

  Dear Astra, it read. I hope you will forgive my method of introduction last night, but I felt it best to be safe. I realize that nothing I have said or shown you is real proof of my claims—after all a gadgeteering Verne-type breakthrough could as easily be responsible for the restraints and other items you saw last night.

  I rubbed my wrists.

  I would have liked to have taken you for a time-trip as proof; alas, I cannot carry anything bigger than a breadbox with me on my journeys. In any case, I don't think you would have been a cooperative passenger. Instead, below you will find a list of events that will take place should you follow your routine for today. We will talk more later if you wish. If you do not, all you need to do is share last night's conversation with your teammates.

  Below it was a list: your mother will call at 7:05; Quin will join you for breakfast; Dr. Mendel will give you a clean bill of mental health and so on through the day.

  My cell launched into Ode to Joy and I bit back a shriek, I was just that wigged. It was 7:05, and Mom calling to see how I was doing. My response ("I'm okay," while trying not to cry) set off her mommy-radar, and she asked what was wrong. Where could I possibly start? Everything. A mask is a necessary fashion accessory. I can't lie to my friends. A probably psychotic time-traveler dropped by last night. I want to come home.

  I picked the last item—surprisingly one of the biggest. It's not like I hadn't been away from home before. There'd been summer camps, and I'd been going to move on-campus in just a couple of weeks. But then I'd expected to be with my friends, and now I didn't even know when I could come home, even for a weekend.

  Mom just clucked sympathetically and drama-checked me; there wasn’t any reason she and Dad couldn't drop by the Dome through the back door—"it's not like we need to get preapproved visitation-times, dear." Before we hung up she calendared three lunches and three dinners over the next couple of weeks. She also asked if I could talk to a couple of the Sentinels about some events coming up. I had to smile. That was Mom.

  Hanging up, I felt a million pounds lighter; I didn't even mind knowing Dad would take advantage of the dinners to press me to settle for being a "safe" reservist once my training ended. After a few minutes more talk I was able to get up and shower.

  I'd decided to tell Atlas everything. But first I had to test the letter.

  Andrew had sent over several spares for my costume along with mask-cleaner and instructions, and I dressed quickly before heading down the hall to the common dining area. Willis kept the pantry stocked with healthy cereals and a selection of breakfast breads, and the fridge had juice, milk, fruit, anything else I could want. I drowned a bowl of oatmeal and fruit in milk, and was half-finished when Quin walked in with a planner in her hand. I inhaled my cereal and spent a minute coughing.

  She had a full day planned. First they had to satisfy the team's insurance company. This required a psychiatrist's statement that I wasn't an 'unacceptable risk,' likely to twist anyone's head off because of 'issues.' Then she needed to introduce me to a military recruiter flying out just to meet me. Like all other Crisis Aid and Intervention teams (including us, Chicago had eight) the Sentinels were part of the state militia system. We were under the command of the governor of Illinois in civil emergencies, not part of the US military, but good relations were important so they needed to give the recruiter his chance to pitch me.

  The day followed the schedule the Teatime Anarchist left for me. He could have gotten some of it, like Dr. Mendel and Lieutenant Dahmer, from access to the team's computers (a whole different nightmare if he had), but lots of it was like Mom's phone call: unscheduled stuff. I got dizzy trying to figure out how even a time traveler could know everything about my day. Did he have super-sneaky future tech bugs watching me? What?

  I never figured it out, but by the end of the day the last line of the letter, We'll talk more later, didn't make me want to run screaming. I forgot my resolve to tell Atlas.

  In hindsight, things might have gone better if I had.

  When I got back to my rooms that night I found an undelivered FedEx envelope on my nightstand, the kind of stiff cardboard envelope used for mailing computer disks. Opening it, I found a computer disk with a note stuck to it. I thought you might like to have this.

  The disk was labeled with a flower sticker with SP 15 scribbled on it. My hand started to shake. It was the home movie of the last sleepover. I'd thrown it out the day of the funeral.

  Now I held it in my hand.

  I don't remember skinning out of my costume and into an athletic shirt and sweats (a joke-gift from Megan, a lily-pad green shirt with a cute cartoon frog and "Kiss the girl" printed on it). I watched the movie twice. Then I got up and brought Superpooh down from his place in the closet to join me on the apartment couch as I relived the night again, with its games, dares, and jokes on the boys. Shelly was as amazing as I remembered.

  I'd just started into the fourth viewing when, between one second and the next, the Anarchist appeared by the apartment door. It looked like the stop-and-go photography they used on old TV shows: he wasn't there and then, pop, he was. I paused the recording so that I could give him my full attention.

  "Care to join me?"

  He relaxed, but stayed where he was with his hands in his coat pockets and probably one foot in the past, looking ready to leap back if I so much as leaned in his direction.

  Despite the sudden tension my lips twitched. "A time traveler who doesn't know what's going to happen next?"

  "I can't see the consequences of my
actions till I've taken them, any more than you can. I just get to see them sooner." If anything he looked even more tired than he had last night. "So, what are you going to do?"

  "Tomorrow I'm going to light a candle and call Shelly's mom. Thank you."

  "Are you ready to listen?"

  I nodded guardedly.

  "My copycat has been killing in my name, trying to trigger a political backlash that will create the police state in my manifesto. He killed Senator Davis because the senator was too radical too soon—he made people nervous but, dead, he's a martyr and a bloody shirt for his supporters to wave. His attacks are getting worse, and he'll kill as many as he has to to get the future he wants. He needs to be stopped."

  He pulled a small jewelry box from his left pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it.

  "Open it."

  A pearl nestled inside.

  "It's future technology," he said. "The same kind that made your restraining cuffs. You can swallow it, and it will attach itself to your digestive tract and nervous system until activated."

  I laughed. "You can't be serious."

  "I am. It's undetectable, and once triggered it will dissolve and be flushed out. I'll show you how to trigger it, and when you do it will send out a pulse that will allow me to zero in on your location instantly, through any kind of interference. It will also short out all unshielded technology in your immediate area. Activating it would kill anyone not as tough as you are, which is why it has to be you. You trigger the beacon, and I'll be there to do what needs to be done. I should also add that if you try to have it analyzed, it will simply break down into inert particles."

  I took it out. It looked so harmless sitting in my palm, but it scared me.

  "You think your copycat will come after me."

  "I know he will. From his perspective he made you. Astra didn't exist in any future before the Ashland bombing. Now that you do, future-you is getting in the way of his plans. I know him well enough to know you fascinate him, and that he'll try and enlist you before you become too big a problem. That will be our chance. I have to stop him, one way or another."

  I shook my head in denial.

  "Hope." His gray eyes were sad, haunted even. "This man has killed dozens of people to put the future on the track he wants. If I can't stop him, he'll kill many, many more. Whatever his motives, he can't be allowed to continue."

  I rolled the little sphere between my fingers and tried to think. "How is it happening now?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "The future. Who's winning?"

  "Right now it looks like a draw. His Washington players are mostly all in place, and the National Safety movement is getting traction—you've seen their protestors outside the Dome. But I've managed to link the new populist movement up with the localists, and the American Civil Liberties Union is slipping into bed with the New Federalist Society and other constitutional conservatives. Other events are eventuating. Metaphorically speaking, I've been flapping my wings in Dallas to generate a perfect storm in Washington. It should arrive just on time for next year's election season. After that his core conspiracy will have almost no political power left and if I can remove him from the picture they probably won't recover."

  I drew my legs up and rested my chin on my knees.

  "You make it sound like a political campaign."

  He smiled without humor. "Since the US is still a republic, that's exactly what it is. If it becomes something else, I've failed."

  Pulling out a notepad, he tore off the top page, and handed it to me.

  "If you need to get in touch with me, post this in the Chicago Times Online."

  I read it and laughed. It was a lonely-hearts personal ad; I'd be looking for the perfect man.

  "Why do you trust me?"

  "Because I've seen a hundred of your lifetimes, and in none of them do you break a trust."

  Wow. What can you say to that?

  "And if I say no?"

  He held up a green gem, the one he'd stuck to my head last night.

  "I squeeze this, and you're out again. Instant narcolepsy; it's tuned to your brainwaves now. And when you wake up you won't have any memories tagged to me from the past two days."

  I couldn't help it; I looked at the TV screen. His expression softened.

  "I'll leave the disk—you'll just never know where it came from."

  He told me how to activate the beacon when the time came, then left the same way he arrived. I sat, hugging Superpooh and staring at the frozen image of Shelly and me.

  Why hadn't I said no? I had only two real options now. I could trust him and swallow the beacon (if that's what it was), or take it to Blackstone along with the unbelievable story of the last twenty-four hours, and see if he'd told the truth about it being impervious to analysis.

  Sitting cross-legged on the couch, I rested my chin on Pooh's head and tried to think.

  I am only a bear, with a very little brain.

  If the beacon was really something else—some exotic poison meant to kill me, or a tracking device that would allow the Anarchist to monitor me intimately (like he couldn't do that already)—he could have force-fed it to me after knocking me out and I would never have known about it. So he had to be telling the truth, at least as far as needing my active cooperation. It could, I supposed, actually be a bomb, but he'd picked me—he said—because I would survive. If that wasn't true then he could have picked anybody he knew his nemesis would target; it didn't have to be me.

  I thought about his sad eyes. I couldn't imagine him being ruthless enough to trick me into becoming a suicide bomber.

  I turned it every which way, but at least that part felt right. He'd gone through a lot of trouble to talk to me, and left the decision in my hands. I even owed him. He'd given me a gift more precious than gold.

  Which took the second option off the table. I didn't think he was lying, and he'd extended his trust. He was right: I couldn't betray it. Not without cause.

  But could I go along with his plan? Not tell the team I’d become bait in a trap? Would it be the Right Thing? And could I really be that important?

  I rolled the little sphere in my hand, chilled by the thought.

  I'd barely gotten my costume, but he'd probably seen years of future-me in action. I tried to imagine what future-me was like.

  I’d come back to the first option; take it now, decide whether or not to use it later. Best case, I wouldn't have to. Worst case, I wouldn't have any other choice. Either way the only logical choice (like there was anything really logical about any of this) was to keep the option open. What would Shelly have done? I looked at her frozen, laughing face.

  With the chance to stop the killing? Save the world?

  There I had no doubts.

  I got a glass of water, tossed the beacon back and washed it down, and went to bed.

  Chapter Eleven

  St. Michael, defender of man, stand with us in the day of battle.

  St. Jude, giver of hope, be with us in our desperate hour.

  St. Christopher, bearer of burdens, lift us when we fall.

  Unattributed prayer for heroes.

  * * *

  I woke up Sunday morning knowing I had to spill everything. I was to "fly out" right after mass, so after breakfast and before I drove to St. Chris I called Julie. There's a reason why Julie has always been the ringleader of our merry band; she took it with minimal "no way" and "shut-ups." She immediately stomped on the idea of inventing another cover story for Annabeth—she and Megan would sit her down and let her get her excitement out in private, then zip her mouth shut with blood-curdling stories of things that happened to heroes—and sometimes their friends and families—whose identities were publicly known. They wouldn't have to exaggerate much; although it was usually no big deal, bad things had happened before. Really, really bad things.

  Julie made me swear to be in front of my webcam after dinner for a four-way chat-fest, and that cleared my conscience for church so that I could meet the paren
ts at St. Chris with one worry solved. But I still really needed to speak to Father Nolan.

  The family is practicing Catholic, but Mom is very opinionated about what Catholicism is. I've heard she broke a couple of priests before Father Nolan came to St. Christopher. To her the Church is all about good works; it's there to provide material aid and spiritual comfort and the rest is window dressing. Nice window dressing, but window dressing.

  St. Chris is not a humble church. Its large basilican hall is floored with marble imported from Europe and Africa. Pale marble columns march beside the pews and an extravagant square proscenium frames the beautifully gilded altar of the sanctuary. The trim and facings are from Florence, the stained glass windows are from Munich, and everything not gold or white is in earth-tones, rich browns and reds. Mom pretty much considers St. Christopher a beautiful stage and a target-rich environment in which to hunt her natural prey: people with money and the heart for good works (or just the wish to look good—she's never been picky about why people give their money).