by Zack Mason
Once the family was loaded and ready to go, everyone said their tearful goodbyes. Elisa was a good woman, a strong woman. She was taking her exile in stride. Robert was a lucky man.
Last of all, Mark said goodbye to young Robyn. He took comfort in knowing that, if nothing else, they'd saved this young man's life.
"Goodbye, Robyn Smith. It was a pleasure knowing you." Mark said.
His father interrupted, "We are Smith no more, my friend. Hoode. His name is now Robyn Hoode," he said, winking conspiratorially. "We must begin getting used to our new names."
The full import of who young Robyn must be hit Mark like a slap in the face.
Robyn Hoode.
***
October 4th 2013, Boston, MA
Late afternoon light gilded the rooftops in lonely warmth as the sun drew nearer to the tops of the building in its descent. She'd come up here to think, to get away from some of the modernity in the building below.
She was not only suffering severe future shock, but culture shock to boot. She did her best to hide it from the others. They'd been overly kind and considerate, attempting in every way to make her feel at home.
She came up here a lot, staying away from the roof line as Mark had warned her. These isolated sunsets let her escape, even if just for a moment.
If she squinted just right, instead of asphalt roofs lined by brick kicker walls, she could see the thatched roofs of her village, plumes of cooking smoke curling up before the sun, and imagine her dah sharing the view next to her.
She missed him. Too much at times.
What was God's will for her? Was she supposed to have come here to the 21st century? What if she was supposed to be back at home?
"So, this is where you got off to." Mark had come up behind her.
Abbie turned and smiled. "Yes, I came up here to think."
"Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt."
"Oh, that's okay. I was about to come down anyway."
"Abbie, you really shouldn't get so close to the roof line. We've got a truce with Rialto, but you never know."
"I know. I try to stay out of sight."
Over the past decades, Rialto had made sure Carpen's headquarters was constantly under surveillance by normal "mortals", i.e. men without shifters. It usually required no more than two or three hired thugs at a time who were given an apartment on the second floor of the opposing building. These thugs took shifts watching and noting any activity at the headquarters visible from the outside. They were armed but had orders not to fire unless given new orders. For the time being, at least while the truce was in effect, they simply watched and reported.
If the truce were ever broken, Rialto would send his men back in time to specific moments where the three men had been seen together in public and take them out simultaneously. Frustratingly, there had been virtually no appearances of the men outside the building. They were using some unknown method for entering and exiting which he had not yet discovered.
His hired investigators, however, had no understanding of his grand scheme. All they knew was they were supposed to watch the place and tell him if they saw anything. Rialto paid them a good bit of money for basically doing nothing, so they didn't complain.
The particular thug up at bat at the moment was Tony Cardoza. He'd grown up in Brooklyn. His parents had divorced at an early age and he'd dropped out of school before reaching the 10th grade. He'd dabbled in drugs and their sales to wealthy suburbanites for a time before he got hooked up with the mob in an official capacity.
That had been fun, but this job beat all. Working for Rialto, he made as much money or more than he'd ever made then, and he wasn't doing anything illegal that could send him to jail.
Still, it was boring. There were days he thought that if he had to sit in front of this window for one more minute staring at some brick building which might as well be empty for all the activity going on, he'd have to slit his own wrists just to end the boredom. But then he would remember the pay, bite his lip, and sit up a little straighter. It was only eight hours or so per day, after all, unless Ringo showed up late that is, which unfortunately he did all too often.
So, when he saw the tall figure of a man standing on the roof of that building, excitement coursed through him. At last.
Something different.
Something was going on other than an empty, brick wall with windows you couldn't see through.
The sight set his finger to itching. He was inspired to do something different. Seeing something different required doing something different. The cocaine rushing through his veins didn't help.
C'mon Tony, you're going to screw up this cush job.
He couldn't help it. The temptation was too great. He raised his rifle.
Abbie let out a little scream as something slammed into Mark's chest and knocked him backward. Blood poured from a large wound under his back and from a smaller one in the front.
Reacting instantly, she leapt from her chair and crouched low. She scrambled to the two foot brick wall which marked the edge of the roof and dared a peek over it.
There was a man visible in an open window of the second story of a building across the street. He was peering out like a fool to evaluate his success as a killer. Her blood boiled at the sight of his ugly, leering maw.
A whirring from behind her caught her attention. Mark's watch was loosening from off his wrist. That could only mean one thing. Her heart rent at the thought. She scrambled to his fallen body.
Without thinking, she slipped the watch on her own wrist. Whirring once more, it constricted itself. She'd seen him work it enough times to know how to operate it.
She dragged him to the other corner of the roof behind a low wall where neither of them would be visible to their former selves. Then, she grabbed his lifeless wrist and shifted his body back in time with her to a few minutes to before the shot struck home. She didn't know why she brought his body along, but she couldn't just leave him lying there.
She peered over the roof line again and saw the ugly man preparing to shoot.
Mark had gifted Abbie with a long, black, cylindrical carrying case, the kind businessmen normally use to transport large blueprints or artwork. She popped the cap off and withdrew her longbow. In spite of the century, she preferred it to a gun and never went anywhere without it.
The would-be killer never saw the silent missile as it sailed through the open window and struck his throat.
Confident the gunman was out for the count and would now never take the shot, Abbie returned to the other side of the roof. Behind her, Mark's body had disappeared as if by magic.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Mark stood in the same spot as before he'd been killed. Now, his mouth hung agape, as if he'd been interrupted in mid-sentence, and his eyes were full of confusion. Abbie had just disappeared from the chair in front of him and reappeared on the other side of the roof.
The shifter was back on his wrist. Off of hers. The way it should be.
"Abbie...uh...why do you have your bow out? What happened?"
"It's nothing," she answered, "Why don't we get off of this roof? As you said, it's probably too dangerous."
I wake up in tear drops, they fall down like rain
I put on that old song we danced to and then I head off to my job
"These Days"
~ Rascal Flatts
April 14th 2014, Swansea, MA
"Mark..."
Her fingertips brushed the skin of his cheek lightly, sending tingles down his spine.
They stood in an isolated copse of birch trees, their trunks bright, like tall, white sentinels of the forest. Warm sunbeams shone through their lime-green leaves as they flitted and danced in the breeze, and the small clearing was carpeted with the short blades of a plush, vibrant grass.
Abbie had invited him here. She'd left a note asking him to meet, with specific directions leading him to this hidden hollow among the birches. She was already waiting when he arrived.
He tried to remember her as she'd been when he'd first met her, but it was difficult. Today, she wore a tan leather autumn coat, a silk white blouse, and jeans. Her current attire bore no resemblance to the dress of Puritan New England. Then, her hair would have lain long, falling evenly across her shoulders. Now, it was pulled back into a pert pony tail and held in place with a red scrunchie. Not a very sophisticated look, just straight forward and simple, like everything else about her, which was a big part of her attractiveness.
Why had she invited him here? This place was close to where her village had been back in 1675. His nerves fluttered as his mind debated whether this invitation would end in the breaking of his heart or the beginning of new joy. That she had something serious to tell him, one way or the other, was not in doubt.
"Mark..." She dropped her hand, pulling her eyes from his.
He reached for her fallen hand and took it in his own. "You said that already."
"Mark, I...I want to go back home."
Her words hit him like a ton of bricks. He'd always feared the feelings he had for her were not reciprocated. She'd never allowed the momentary, romantic sparks between them to fan into the flames he desired. He had tried to chalk her reticence up to her conservative upbringing, but apparently it had been more than that.
"Why, Abbie? There's nothing for you back there. What about all the good we're doing with these shifters?"
Reaching up, she touched his cheek again, smiling as she gazed into his eyes. "There's no doubt you are doing good, Mark. You're a good man. It's just not for me."
"Don't you want to help people?"
"Of course I do, but I don't believe the Lord wants me to live in this century."
First Ty, now her.
He was sick of this God talk. God had taken his children from him.
"If God wanted me to help you," she continued, "He would have given me a shifter too."
"What are you worried about? Being a burden to us, having to depend on us for safety? Don't. We'll never abandon you. I'll never abandon you."
"I know, Mark. That's not it."
"What then? Just because we don't have another shifter doesn't mean God doesn't want you to help us. I mean, think about my dreams. Why did I dream of you so much? Why was I led to come and save you? Didn't God give me those dreams?"
She ignored the last question. "It's not only that I don't have a shifter. I feel...well, I should say, I know what God wants me to do. He's spoken to me very clearly."
"God spoke to you?" Mark's tone was more than a little sarcastic.
"Not in my ear. In my spirit."
"How do you know it was Him?"
She laughed lightly, not mockingly, but with gentleness. "You are an adorable man, Mark. A good man. I know you have feelings for me, but...I cannot return them. I do not belong in this time...in your time. I belong back where you found me, with my people."
"But..."
"You cannot come with me, Mark. You belong here. You are doing what you were destined to do."
He blanched at her phrasing. Destiny was a traitorous word. He loathed that word.
"What will you do? Where will you go?"
"I will find a new village, a new home. I'll be fine. It's home to me there."
She saw him resisting the tears welling in his eyes. One escaped and she wiped it away with her finger, breaching his emotional dam. Quickly, he turned his face to hide his pain as more followed.
Grief built within like an ocean swell before a hurricane. The wounds deep inside, the wounds of his wife's abandonment followed by Laura's caustic infidelity had never really healed. If he didn't maintain control now, Abbie's leaving would hit even deeper.
He would not let another woman break his heart. Steeling himself, he sucked back the tears, wiping away the remnants with his sleeve. If it hadn't been for his history, he never would have been so sensitive to Abbie's rejection. Truth be told, he never would have let himself fall for her so easily if it hadn't been for his history. Abbie had been the perfect image of loyalty and purity, the two things most lacking in his ex-wife and Laura. That's why he had desired her so much.
He straightened and felt his heart harden. Like an iron fist slowly tightening its grip, the grief was squeezed from his core, leaving only inanimate cold in its wake.
She saw the change. Concern leapt into her throat, yet she could do nothing. When you have just hurt someone, any attempt to soothe their pain feels more like rubbing salt in the wound than a healing ointment.
She'd tried life in his time, in this century, and it didn't fit. She'd tried shoving herself into it like a foot in a shoe two sizes too small. Or maybe two sizes too big in this case.
She'd enjoyed working with Mark, and Ty, and Hardy. It was good work they were doing. Work not to be ashamed of. Yet, it left her strangely unsatisfied. She knew in her heart that she was not made for this century, that she must return to the life God had made for her in the time of her dah. For God's purpose, whatever that might be.
She liked Mark. You could even say she loved him — but as a sister loves a brother. Perhaps, with time, he could convince her to transform their relationship into a romance, but it would be short-lived. They were not made for each other. They were not a good fit. And as much as she was not made for this century, he was not made for hers. The watch on his wrist was proof of that.
She held out her hand. "Will you take me back now?"
"What about the others?" he whispered.
"I've already said good-bye to them."
He gave her the best smile he could muster.
"One last shift then."
Mark took Abbie's hand and depressed the magical button. They felt the shift and then they were a little over three hundred years in the past. The biggest change in the scenery was a little cottage which stood about two hundred feet distant. Abbie's home.
She'd known the lines of the local terrain so well she had oriented herself home without any historical landmarks to help, just the lay of the hills as a guide.
He held her hand longingly and then released it. Stretching her arms around him, she said good-bye with a hug. Then, she stepped away and walked toward home. After a moment, she turned back for a final look.
"Mark?"
"Yeah."
"Seek God."
He couldn't nod, he couldn't shake his head. He just stared and then flashed a quick wave good-bye. Then, he shifted out.
When I go, don't cry for me
In my Father's arms I'll be
"All My Tears"
~ Jars of Clay
July 18th 2027, Boston, MA
Mark clenched the paper in his fist, crumpling it so hard it almost tore. He reread the newspaper article for the third time.
Body Found by
Boston Common
Ty Jennings, 42, was found dead late last night near the Boston Common. About 2:00 AM, Jeff Williams, 47, of Worcester, was walking his dog along the sidewalk when he spotted Mr. Jennings lying on the sidewalk.
"He was just lying there," the computer programmer explained, "It was terrible. I've never been so shocked in my entire life."
Police interrogated Mr. Williams for several hours but released him soon after, stating the investigation was still ongoing.
"Whoever did this is still out there," said Sgt. Matthews of the Boston Police Department. "We're following a number of leads at the moment."
Mr. Jennings had been shot once in the head. It is believed robbery was the motive, though it is unclear what he was doing in the area so late at night.
Mr. Jennings has no known family in the Boston area.
Ty was dead.
After Abbie left, Mark had grown curious about the future. He and his team frequently traveled through the past, but for the most part, they'd left the future relatively untouched. On his own, he'd decided to change that and began exploring different years in the future.
For some reason that no one yet understood, not even their physicist Bobby Prescott, nobo
dy could shift past the year 2029. 2030 and beyond were out of bounds. Whoever tried experienced a strange bouncing sensation and ended up right back where they left.
Of course, Ty thought God was limiting them. In his mind, for some reason, God was not letting them view too much of the future. Hardy and Bobby thought it was some technical limitation of the shifter. Mark didn't know what to think and had resigned himself to a state of agnosticism about a lot of things. He'd learned by now that what he didn't know about life far outweighed what he did know.
Mark first traveled to the year 2029. He wanted to know what the future held in store for them, assuming he could find records. A simple search on the internet revealed Ty's death certificate, which showed the cause of death to be homicide.
He next traveled back to 2027, the day after Ty's death, looking for the story in the Boston Herald, and sure enough, he'd found it in the crime section.
Who could have done it and why?
First of all, who could have gotten the drop on Ty? Surely it couldn't have been some street punk. There was no way Ty could have been taken out by an amateur, unless the surprise had been complete.
Mark activated his shifter. There was an easy way to find out.
***
July 17th 2027, 1:47 A.M., Boston, MA
As with any operation, Mark's first objective was to simply observe. Observe the target and the events as they unfold. Take careful note of any details that might affect the outcome of any potential intervention. Then, once the situation has been understood and all tactical considerations have been explored, shift in to intervene and change the undesired outcome.
Protocol would be no different in this case. During their work together, Mark had already seen Ty die on several occasions, but either Hardy or he had always shifted back in time to save him. And Ty always did the same for them.
