There was only one rule: do not visit family or friends. And Dawit had broken it, twice.
When he saw her, her father wrapped his huge arms around her and hugged her affectionately. Evelyn smoothed her cheek against her breastplate; she gave a deep breath in order to stop the tears that filled her eyes. Her father’s shirt smelled as she remembered it: detergent, lemon, wood.
When they separated, her father looked at her face with eyes full of tears; that moved her even more.
Then those dark blue eyes hardened to fix their gaze on the agent of the future, standing at the head of the stairway. Of course, her father only knew that Dawit came from the future, but not that he was the son of Tabita.
But if she believed her father’s acute perception, then she could say that he had already drawn his own conclusions during the time he spent at the agency. Perhaps he did have suspicions about Dawit, but Tadhg and Rhys knew how to maintain discretion; stooping down when they passed by, avoiding the same rooms where Mr. White was, and that sort of thing. Although Evelyn considered them counterproductive.
Her father smiled broadly.
“Came with us?” He asked Dawit.
Dawit opened the eyes of milestone to milestone
“Me, sir?” He barked as he aimed at himself with his hand.
“Yes. You. Who else?” The voice of her father never sounded so fickle.
Dawit was about to smile with happiness, but the hint of a smile vanished almost instantly from forming on his lips. He cocked his head and frowned.
“No. sir.” He squared his shoulders. “I'd better wait here. I do not think this visit will last.” He gave Evelyn a look that reminded her of Tabita on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
* * *
When the elevator doors opened, Evelyn and Dawit found the agents of the future gathered in the circular room of the hall. She sensed a sharp tension that reigned in the fresh air. Something was not right. She left the elevator, frowning.
“What happen?” Dawit asked; because of his cautious tone, Evelyn noticed that he had sensed the same tension in the atmosphere.
“Something terrible,” they heard Rhys say. She approached Evelyn, barely taking a couple of long strides, and took her hands urgently. A mask of uneasiness covered his beautiful face, making it even paler.
Suddenly Tadhg’s voice cut off that tension.
“Where were both of you?” He said.
Rhys turned her head, not letting go of Eve's hands, and perhaps glared at her brother; Eve was at the right angle to watch when that happened.
“Not now, Tadhg,” she snapped. “The situation is urgent, as you well know,” she added, turning her attention to Eve. “Kerr has made a mistake in translating the last message,” she reported. “The pyxis will not attack Helen McGraw tomorrow. It will be tonight.
“Tonight,” Evelyn thought, shocked.
The tension returned at that moment. “Tonight.” It was as if everyone in the room held their breath. Eve thought that she must demonstrate a better face to the mission she was about to undertake. She sighed deeply. “Tonight.”
“Good,” she finally said; she concealed her surprise with the serenity with which her voice came out. “I've discovered where to find Helen.”
“I knew it!” Tadhg exploded. He made a move to pounce on Dawit, but Rhys interposed.
“Stop, STOP!” She cried; her hand flattened against her brother’s chest. Tadhg pressed his lips, ice blue eyes fixed on the other agent. Rhys stood before him, interrupting his arid gaze. “Look, it was necessary for Evelyn to meet her father, otherwise it would have been more difficult to find the exact address of Helen McGraw. In addition to finalizing other details.”
“What details?” Tadhg said.
Rhys turned to Evelyn.
“Did your father tell you?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “It’s right here, as the professor said, it’s here in Manhattan. East Village. My father has arranged a romantic date with the mother of the girl as a distraction.” —Although Evelyn knew that her father was going to be quite distracted that night too.
Facing her father, that afternoon, was more difficult than she originally anticipated. She had to gather all her energy to confess that she knew—in some way she could not reveal—about his divorce and that he was aware of his new relationship with a woman named Phyllis McGraw. Her father, who was good at disguising certain emotional states such as surprise, and always maintained a hard and impassive face, could not help but show his stupor at Evelyn’s confession. A minute passed, then two, until at last one of them decided to speak.
“I know and I understand,” Eve had said. “She abandoned us. She has another family, a wonderful life from which we were excluded. I don’t hate her for that, I don’t hate her at all. She is my mother.” She had extended her hand to touch her father’s on the table; she looked at him solemnly. “But I love you more. And you have played a fantastic role. You are the best father. My friend.”
After that, the conversation fell. Evelyn and her father embraced, and sobbed, and held each other stronger against each other, as if clinging to life for fear of losing it. She would never forget that moment. Too bad she had to interrupt to get the information to her father. Once he said where the McGraw lived, Evelyn proceeded to spray him with ettalim. Her father blinked, dull, and she persuaded him to invite his new partner to a dinner that night. Afterwards, she took the opportunity to leave without leaving the slightest trace of her visit. Eve would never know why she had asked her father to invite Phyllis McGraw that night —just that night!—But, apparently, what was an attempt to alleviate her discomfort ended up favoring her situation even more.
Anyway; although her father forgot that conversation and that they spent an entire afternoon with her at home. Although he forgot that they embraced and sobbed, or the confessions that were made. Evelyn would never forget it, and keep that memory in her heart forever.
“So what will we do?” Juno inquired with her usual balanced tone.
“Evelyn must choose a partner,” said Dawit.
Everyone looked at her.
Unconsciously, Eve put a hand to her chest, where she felt the cold touch of the reliquary. Silence reigned expectantly.
Evelyn turned to her possible companion.
“I?” Tadhg wrinkled his face in bewilderment. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“Yes, if your pride allows it,” she would have said. She did not.
Instead, she shook her head affirmatively.
The others exchanged smiling glances. While Tadhg kept a troubled expression, as if he had received a shock. Maybe he had not expected it, Evelyn thought, given his behavior over the last few weeks as Caleb fled.
“Come on, Tadhg,” Dawit said, patting his friend’s back and laughing from ear to ear like a mouse. “Do you expect Fury, no more and no less, to kneel to ask for it?”
"Fury."
Eve thought that she had not yet earned that nickname, so she dismissed the feeling of iron pride that tried to take her.
“No,” Tadhg said in a quiet voice; he was staring at Eve, as if it was the first time he had. And maybe that’s how it was, maybe for the first time he admired how similar they were physically. Mother and son. “Of course not.”
Rhys, with a gleaming smile, approached her brother.
“So, what do you say?”
Tadhg walked gradually to his colleagues in the agency of the future, he noticed each of them with an expression on his face that did nothing but fill the air with a cold anxiety. Finally, he turned his attention back to Evelyn. He nodded.
CHAPTER THIRTY
She mustered the courage to ask the next question before getting off the car.
“Do you have any advice for...” she paused “reassure me?”
Tadhg was slightly confused. Maybe it was the first time someone asked for advice of that nature, or anyone. Eve felt a hard tension i
n her chest; nerves, possibly. Fear. It was the first time she was going to face the pyxis on her own, though not alone at all. In addition, her mission was to remove the sheltered from home before the arrival of the creatures, so that if everything went well there would be nothing to fear.
Tadhg looked troubled in front.
“Advice,” he repeated as if pondering the etymology of that word. He looked at Evelyn. “Do not ruin it.”
She stayed still. She had expected him to remind her of some of the recommendations he gave her during her training room lessons. “Never let your guard down”, “Never forget your assignment”, or things like that. But “do not ruin it” was a response she would value, despite her lack of assistance.
More, coming from the source from which it came.
If Eve had learned anything in recent months in the Agency, it was not to question Tadhg's advice. For starters: if she had not let her guard down two months ago, when Wayne took her father captive, she could have avoided Ed's death. And do not tell about the first night...
Eve giggled, more from nerves than from Tadhg's comment.
Then she sighed deeply, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw that a layer of snow had covered the front window of the black truck. Outside it was snowing copiously. Inside, the street light plowed through the empty spaces left by the snow on the glass; the lighting was dim, somber. However, Evelyn could fully see the face of Tadhg, who watched her with those blue eyes able to pierce any darkness however intense. She saw him smile, barely a hint.
“The agents and I agree that it is prudent for us to stop calling you Evelyn,” Tadhg commented. “It is for your own good, now that you will be part of our organization.”
“And what will I call myself now?”
He smiled.
The answer remained tacit.
“But...”she was going to protest.
“I know what you're going to say,” Tadhg interrupted. “That you have not earned the nickname yet. That we should wait a year or two. That is not correct.”
He was right, so she stayed quiet and quiet.
“Look,” he continued, as if trying to keep his own calm. “Someday you will be a heroine. I know Rhys told you before, this time I heard them through the door.” Shrugged. “I am sorry. I could not avoid it. Anyway: what I try to tell you is that the consequences of the future depend on your actions in the presentation.” He looked at her with an incredible, thrilling fixation. “You will be a heroine.”
Eve blinked, absorbed. For the first time she was able to believe that she could be a heroine. She had not noticed the cold that was enveloping her until the warm touch of Tadhg covered the icy palm of her hand. She shuddered.
“My mother once told me never to forget my purpose,” Tadhg said, taking Evelyn's hand in both of hers. “She said that it was up to me to be the kind of hero I wanted for others. Only I could make that choice.” His smile gleamed in the darkness. “It depends on you.”
“Thanks,” Evelyn said. And she never knew why she did it, but she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
Tadhg looked at her stunned.
She smiled, blushing, and got out of the car. The cold and the night waited for her outside.
She pulled up her hood and walked through the dark, silent streets of the East Village. It was snowing copiously. It was before the cold front of the first onslaught of winter. Entire Manhattan was covered in thick layers of snow, and there, in that quiet East Village —perhaps the only silent area in the entire city— residential buildings stood on both sides of the street like loose pieces of a game of Legos. Only more somber and dangerous.
Evelyn was dressed in black from head to toe; black leather pants, dark shirt, and a jacket of the same color and material as the pants. The hood plunged her face into cave-like darkness. The contrast of the white snow on her black attire gave her a certain mysterious air, deleterious and furious, like the jaws of a rabid wolf.
Before starting to walk to the site of the job, she took a quick look to the opposite end, towards the end of the street. Tadhg had parked the dark van a block away from where she was. At that time, a couple was walking sideways with romantic attitudes. No one noticed the presence of the girl dressed in black who was in the middle of the road as a shadow confined by the moon. Eve came to the residence where the protected was to be hosted to save it from the threat of the pyxis
Knock the door. She knew that besides the girl, there was no other person in the house. This situation brought back living memories of not so long ago, of a girl who was in the same circumstances, alone and vulnerable, before the inexorable dangers of the world. She knock the door one more time. She knew that the buzzer was not going to be enough to rip the girl from the arms of sleep, so it was not an option. She knock harder.
No one answered. Evelyn brought to her lips what, apparently, was a digital clock on her right wrist. She was about to send a message to her partner when she heard a fearful voice from the other side of the door.
“Who you are?” Said the voice.
Eve do not answer. That would have been Tadhg.
“Who you are?” She repeated, more fearful than before. “Who…?”
It was the moment.
“Helen McGraw,” Evelyn said finally.
There was a prolonged silence.
“Yes…”
“They sent me for you,” she said. “There has been an accident with your mother.”
She felt terrible for the lie, but until then Evelyn had not considered what she would say once she had found herself in that situation.
She heard a bolt.
The door opened after a second. The girl who emerged from the shadows of the interior, timid and barefoot, looked more or less Evelyn's age. She had a shock of red hair curling down at the sides of her pale, freckled young face. Her coppery eyes looked at the other girl up and down, suspiciously.
“Who you are?” She hesitated, though maybe it was due to the cold.
They stared at each other. The wind blew the snowflakes between them.
“My name is Evelyn,” she was about to say. “Nobody, however, calls me that.” She took a step forward, conscientious, not wanting to scare the other girl. She had been in that same position for four months. She put a hand to the edge of her hood and, slowly, unfolded her face...
At that precise moment she glimpsed it out of the corner of her eye: over there, on Helen McGraw's shoulder, in the shadows that hung in the interior of the house, Evelyn noticed a distorted silhouette, with long and sharp shapes and dark eyes that shone in the abundant opacity.
“They are here,” she thought; “they have arrived first.”
AUTHOR NOTE
I’ve never been to New York City, so I have tried to be faithful to the places and their descriptions as much as the maps and images I found on Google have allowed; the edom nightclub is not real, but other places like the Public Library, in Manhattan, and Saint Savior High School, in Brooklyn. The City hall and the streets mentioned are all real. I do not know if there is a subsoil under the Public Library, but the Agency of the Future is definitely fictitious —or not?
La Vita É Bella “Beautiful Life, in English” is one of my favorite movies about the Second World War and in general; a long time ago a friend lent me the DVD and even today I have not returned it. Someday.
The Pyxirian language is based on a system of linguistic and grammatical estimation that I developed for the novel. Also, I also made an original soundtrack for the story that is freely available on the SoundCloud platform.
Then come Traveler, which will be published at the end of the year —I hope so—, in which we’ll travel together through the gates of time into the future.
THANKS
I want to thank my family; especially my brother, because without him I would have written this novel in pencil. The Young Reading Group, which lifts my spirits when the doubts come together: Esmeralda, who told me that “th
ere are two things a woman should never share”; Eric, for the help given for the creation of the pyxirian-language; Yetsimar, for being the first to evaluate the final result; Jordan, for those wonderful covers, and Helen, dear colleague, whom I thank for letting me use her name for one of the characters.
Thanks to Diana Gabaldon —although she may never read her name in this thanks—, for her fantastic works that inspired me to write about time travel and people of the future.
My friends from the university and future colleagues: Lenymar, Oreana and Yusnaika, thanks for their accompaniment and having snatched so many laughs (and secrets) while I’ve been writing this novel. Thanks to the guys from Booktube and literature for their wonderful opinions, one more addition to take a strong step in this job. Also to the First Readers —they know who they are— for their opinions on the manuscript, advice and suggestions.
And finally, but not much less important, thanks to the rest of the readers who took a little of their valuable time to read this work, a part of me... I will never forget it.
B. J. CASTILLO
December 2017
ORIGINAL BOOK SOUNDTRACK
The first book of Future Men Series is feature an original soundtrack by the same author of the novel. This musical work is consist of six tracks inspired by the atmosphere of the series and can be downloaded for free from the date of publication of Days of Fury, right now! On SoundCloud platforms.
FREE DOWNLOAD* (ON SOUNDCLOUD) HERE
THE FUTURE MEN SERIES WILL BE COMPOSE FOR:
Trilogy #1 Future Men:
Days of Fury (January 29th, 2018)
Traveler (November 16th, 2018)
Days of Fury (Future Men Series Book 1) Page 26
