There’s a bus approaching and I dash for the nearest stop. Since I don’t know where to search next, public transit is as useful as a cab. Soon I’m heading south on Second Avenue, my eyes glued to the window and my mind filled with visions of pink and red. I can’t think straight. Can’t believe this has happened.
Fifteen minutes later I hop off the bus and start pounding the pavement, light-headed again. My feet carry me in random directions, zigzagging by late nineteenth century brick and stone buildings. Art galleries, cafés, nightclubs, and book stores dot the area but it’s anything but gentrified. As I walk the people’s faces become harder. Lower East Side people. People like the Cursed of 2063. Many of them homeless or otherwise down on their luck, like me.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this is the spot Elizabeth ended up in search of passports. With her help, I’d have a better chance of finding Freya, and I wonder if I should head back to the motel to see if Elizabeth has returned, or at least call our room.
I’ve only begun scouting out a payphone when I spy a totem pole across the street. Accordion music wafts in my direction as I near the public square where the totem pole is rooted. I’ve seen these in Vancouver too—a collection of vibrantly painted totem poles nestled in the middle of Stanley Park—and I guess that’s what tugs me towards the square, the eye’s fondness for familiar things.
When I reach the square, which is really more of a triangle, the accordion player launches into “American Pie,” his feet moving in time to the music. The man’s wearing a fedora and brown plaid suit and he smiles jauntily as I pass.
I can’t smile back.
Not in that moment.
Then everything changes. I see her. In that pink miniskirt she’d never pick out for herself, her red hair a beacon in the sunshine. She’s sitting on a park bench next to a homeless man with a grizzly grey beard and oversized hood pulled over his skull, the two of them deep in conversation and unwrapped Big Macs in their laps.
The totem pole is directly behind them and I approach quickly, my eyes smarting as my world hastily reassembles itself. I stand in front of Freya, the man next to her noticing me first. “Can you spare any change, buddy?” he asks, his eyes leaping to my face.
I don’t answer him. I sit on my haunches and touch Freya’s knee. “What happened to you? Why did you leave?” It would be easy to shout at her now that I’ve had the good luck to find her again, but the anger’s already dissolving. “You had me worried sick. How did you even get here?”
“You were asleep,” Freya tells me, without the slightest note of apology. “I didn’t think it could matter when none of this is real.”
“This is real life.” I say it with complete conviction. I should’ve made the point more forcefully before she had the chance to run away. “It’s not a dream and you’re not in gushi.”
Freya’s neighbour on the bench frowns. “She’s a bit touched,” he says under his breath. “I’ve been looking out for her. Got her something to eat.” He glances at her half-eaten Big Mac, then back at me. “It seems you know her well.”
“Very well. I’m going to take her home. Thanks for watching over her.” I reach out to shake his hand.
The man pumps my good hand and then tips an imaginary hat to Freya as she rises to accompany me, leaving the remains of her Big Mac behind. She waves goodbye to the man before turning to face me. “I don’t understand any of this,” she says, distraught. “It can’t be real.” She runs one of her hands over the hip of her skirt. “The clothes, the transportation. They must be nearly a hundred years old.” Her gaze soars to the architecture surrounding us. “The buildings are even older. Like in Moss or parts of New York. But this is the West Coast—the deserted West Coast.”
“It’s not deserted. Not yet.” I point to the first greasy spoon I see. No more waiting. I’ll tell her everything right now, but I need something to eat while I do it. I’m wobbly on my feet. Feel like I could collapse at any second. “This is 1986 Seattle. Not a simulation or any kind of game, the genuine article.”
“Not possible,” Freya counters as the two of us slip into the restaurant. A waitress gestures in the direction of an empty booth with two menus in the middle of the table. I order sausages and eggs with French fries without looking at the menu and Freya asks for ice water.
Our eyes lock across the table. “Tell me the last thing you remember before waking up in the car,” I say. The din from the other customers will prevent anyone from hearing us. Besides, who would believe the things we have to say?
Freya shivers and wraps her right hand around the salt shaker, pulling it closer. “Playing veloxball at Thomas Jefferson. In Gym C. You know, the one near the general auditorium.”
Thomas Jefferson is the school Freya and I went to together in Montana before we were sent through the chute. Veloxball…I haven’t heard the word in so long it freezes my brain. As it sputters to life, it’s jerked nearly eighty-years into the future. Veloxball is essentially soccer played in a simulated low-gravity environment—much faster and wilder than traditional sport, which is seldom played in the future, except by people much older than us who aren’t as aggravated by the slower pace. My mind yo-yos, crashing back to the here and now. Freya. Seattle. 1986.
“What year was that?” I prod. If she doesn’t remember anything of her time in the 1980s it’s no wonder she can’t accept this as reality. There’ve been so many occasions, late at night, lying in bed sleepless, that I’ve found myself nearly losing grip on the truth myself.
“2061.” Freya’s voice bubbles with impatience.
2061: two years before Toxo hit, which means any of her surviving memories are from when she was fourteen or younger.
“So that’s where you remember me from—Thomas Jefferson?” I think of the day we spoke about her family’s domestic Ro being taken into custody. Freya would’ve been a couple of years younger than fourteen then. Her stares in the hallway came later. I can’t remember exactly when —I didn’t pay much attention at the time. But is that why she let me hold her hand in the car earlier? Had she already begun to develop an attraction to me in 2061? It’s been a long time since Freya’s crush on me was a secret, but she never pinned it down to a date.
Freya nods and swallows a mouthful of the water the waitress has delivered to the table.
I choose my words and tone carefully, remembering how difficult it was for me to accept the truth in 1985. “This is going to be very hard to believe, Freya, but try to keep an open mind.” The waitress has brought me coffee. I forgot to order it but I must look like I need it and I loop my fingers through the mug’s handle and gulp down caffeine before continuing. Then I begin with 2063, explaining about the Toxo outbreak—the convergence of biological weapon P-47 and the terrorist-created virus Mossegrim. Together they created too big a threat for the U.N.A. to neutralize and I hate to be the one to take Freya’s brother from her this third time but she has to know.
Freya freezes when I tell her about Latham and Kinnari. She’s motionless for so long that I wonder if she’s going into shock. Then her shoulders quiver. She shakes her head, pounds the table with her fist and tells me to stop. “This is crazy!” she yells. “Latham’s not dead. There’s no such thing as Toxo. Latham’s probably never even spoken to your sister.”
Freya’s eyes are wet and that makes it tougher for me to keep going. I tell her what I know about her and her family. Details about Latham and her parents that it would be impossible for me to know if she or Latham hadn’t shared them. Freya’s second sight too. The numerous times she forgave her father for being “too tired for children’s voices.” I offer it all as proof of our unbelievable story before confessing the most staggering part—the Nipigon chute, an unexplained natural phenomenon. Real life magic that hurtles anyone or anything that encounters it seventy-eight years, seven months, and eleven days back in time. And how the U.N.A. used the chute to save us from Toxo, giving the world a second chance but also making us victims of a wipe and cover.
Freya’s eyes are dry again by the time I stop talking. Pity battles with anger in her face. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” she says. “Every minuscule detail. It’s like a paranoid delusion from the old days. Is that what’s the matter with you? Some kind of sickness?”
I’ve overloaded her with her information—it’s too much to process at once. “How would I know about your second sight if I was delusional? That was your family secret. You told me your mother even made you hide it from your father later on because he wanted you to be tested. He thought you might be able to use your gift to help the U.N.A.”
“Then this isn’t real,” she insists. “Something’s happened to my brain. You’re not here. I’m not here. There is no here. This place doesn’t exist outside my head or gushi.”
“What’s happened to you then?” I challenge. “You know there hasn’t been any gushi cementing in decades.” And if we were in the 2060s, the Bio-net would correct nearly anything else that could be wrong with her.
“I don’t know what’s happened.” Freya stands up quickly, knocking over her empty glass in the process. “But not the things you’ve said.”
I stand up with her, blocking her way. “Don’t run again.” I grab both her arms and hold her in place. “I know it sounds insane. I felt the same way when you told me the truth last year. But if you take off again they might find you and try to finish the job they started. Even if they don’t find you, you have no idea how to survive here. It’s not like where we’re from.”
The two things I haven’t mentioned yet are Isaac’s virus—a threat that could still be out there—and the nuclear war of 2071. I can’t tell her about either of them now. They would only sound like more outrageous lies and she has so much to digest already.
Freya doesn’t struggle with me but her stare is stubborn and icy. “Let go of me.”
I try using her own logic against her. Whatever will keep her safe. “If you think this is all in your head maybe I’m here in your mind for a reason, to look out for you somehow. You protecting yourself.”
Freya breaks our visual connection and focuses on the table. “You’ll say anything, won’t you? It’s like a game. If you get me to stay with you, you win.”
“How does that fit with your theory about everything being inside your head?” I argue.
I have her there. Freya shrugs listlessly, her arms tense and her hair falling into her face.
“Please.” I release her, our bodies still less than a foot away from each other. “Come back to the motel with me. We can talk more. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t disappear on me again. I thought I lost you. Twice in two days.” I’d drag her back to the motel by force if it wouldn’t cause a scene. If I had Elizabeth’s car with me I might risk it. Without it, we’d never make it that far. I know how tough Freya can be, even if she doesn’t realize it herself yet. She’d scream her lungs out and fight me so hard that we’d attract police in no time.
Freya shifts her weight and brushes her hair out of her face. Out of the corner of my eye I spy our waitress behind her, waiting to be paid. I yank a fistful of cash out of my pocket, afraid to take my attention off Freya for even a few seconds.
“What happened to your hand?” Freya asks as I drop a couple of bills on the table, next to our dirty dishes. Her tone is muted and slightly curious.
“I think my wrist is broken. I fell while trying to escape last night.” Which she doesn’t believe happened.
“You look different,” Freya allows. “Older than I remember.”
“Because I am.”
“Right,” Freya says doubtfully, glancing at the café door. “I don’t want to go back to the motel but I can walk with you for a while, if you want.”
I’d rather we stay out of view indoors but at least she isn’t making me chase her. As we head for the door together I’m acutely aware she might break into a sprint at any moment.
Outside we begin walking down First Avenue. Freya makes me explain, a second time and in greater detail, about the Nipigon chute and the many things that have happened since we were sent back in time—the man who pretended to be our grandfather but was an agent of the U.N.A., leaving our mothers behind for their own safety, the hypnotherapy that returned our authentic memories, our jobs and apartment in Vancouver, and our old plan to settle in Ronda after travelling the world to see the animals we’d lost to extinction.
“It’s a good story,” Freya tells me, not unkindly. By now we’ve found our way into a secluded walled-in park where tables and chairs are laid out near a waterfall. The setting looks like a fairy tale, which doesn’t help my cause.
Freya’s sitting next to me, her toes scrunching up in her stolen sandals. “These clothes feel weird,” she observes, her fingers scratching at the fabric of her skirt.
U.N.A. fabrics had come a long way. As comfortable as a second skin; you were barely aware of them. I’ve grown used to the clothes here, along with most other things, but they must seem as rough and heavy as a burlap sack to her.
“That was one of the reasons they wiped and covered us, supposedly,” I tell her. “To help us adjust to life back here.”
A tiny bird lands on the small circular table between us. It hops towards Freya and the trace of a smile appears on her lips. The expression vanishes before it can take hold. “The first thing I remember is the trans hitting that crow,” she says. “I was in the school gym before that. Then I was here. I must’ve suffered a head injury or been infected by something. A new terrorist virus like the one you told me about.”
The bird takes flight, soaring away from us and into a nearby tree. We both watch it go.
“So you don’t believe this is gushi anymore?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt this tired in gushi.” Freya hunches over, her elbows in her lap and her chin in her hands. She should be resting back at the motel, but at least we’re well hidden here. The only other people in the park with us are a middle-aged couple sipping coffee out of paper cups and a college-aged girl with her head buried in a John le Carré novel.
“You don’t have any virus. You’re fine.” I slouch in my chair, my legs sloped in front of me like fallen tree trunks. “We’ve both been through a lot. I’m tired too.”
“The part of my brain that’s protecting me is tired,” Freya notes lightly. “I guess we need to get you an understudy.”
I smile, a chuckle escaping from my throat. Despite her weariness Freya smiles back at me. “You sound the same,” she says. “Not that we ever talked that much, but from what I remember. And in your…your story about us, you said we were together?”
“For the past fifteen months. Since just after we met back here and realized who we really were.” I don’t know what will become of us if the last three and a half years of her memories are gone for good. I’m practically a stranger to her. In Freya’s mind, the things I remember so vividly never happened. Will she grow into that person I remember? Can we start over or will it be different between us this time?
“What was it like?” she asks. “What were we like?”
I hesitate. The thought of discussing our shared past with a different Freya is too surreal for words.
Can’t she see in my face what were we like? How hard it is for me to sit across from her like a casual acquaintance when I want to pull her into my lap and bury my face in the crook of her neck?
I push my lips into a rigid grin. “You won’t believe me whatever I tell you.”
Freya rubs her eyes, tiredness overtaking her again. “I don’t know what to believe, Garren.”
My name on her lips makes me shiver. “We fought sometimes,” I volunteer. “But we were good together.” Better than good. “I can’t imagine being with anyone else.” A shyness that shouldn’t have any place between us steals into my ribs. I ignore it and continue. “I’m in love with you.”
Freya flinches. Her hands balance on either side of her chair. Her expression morphs from sheepish to dispassionate as she stares at me from under her lashes. “I must have felt that same thing if I went back in time to save you.”
She’s referring to old Freya. The very first Freya. The one who watched me die in the street and then hurled herself into the chute to give us a second chance.
I can’t tell if I’m making any headway with this Freya or whether she’s still convinced the present is some kind of illusion, a joke being played out in her mind. But what she’s just said couldn’t be more serious to me, and I don’t know how to respond. I hesitate for so long that she adds, “You don’t seem like a bad person but I wish you hadn’t said those things about Latham dying and the virus. Maybe you couldn’t help it because you’re only a part of my mind—some kind of manifestation of my deepest fears—but it was a cold thing to lie about.” Freya glares at me indignantly. “You should take it back.”
Tomorrow Page 20
