“I am not old,” Constance exclaims.
The room bursts into laughter. Vance leans over to me. “Why do we need to leave tonight?”
“I can’t explain,” I say. “But you have to trust me.”
“If we leave tonight, then Longdale will know we’re up to something.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing?” I say.
“What?” Vance starts, but he’s cut off by Quincy.
“So Ellis,” Quincy says, turning to me. “Constance here has been telling us about your last boyfriend.”
I turn to them, mouth agape, and feel a flush rising to my cheeks. “You what?” I say.
“Oh, get over it,” Constance yells. She turns to Quincy. “He was a real bore. Not nearly as interesting as you.”
“Is that so,” Quincy says with a small grin.
“He was worse than a bore,” I say. “He was a cheating bore.”
Constance shakes her head, turning her attention back to Quincy. “They really weren’t good together.”
I turn to Longdale. “Vance tells me you’ve invited everyone up to Constance’s place for the weekend?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he says. “Bright early. But none of these losers have said if they’re coming to yet.”
“Well, I’m in!” I shout, and take a slug of my beer.”
“All right!” Longdale shouts.
Vance grabs my arm. “Ellis, what the hell?”
I shrug out of his grip, turning to the group. Quincy and Jane are sharing worried glances. Aleisha meets Vance’s gaze with a questioning look. “And why wait until tomorrow,” I say. “The mountain’s only an hour or so away. Let’s move this party up there and leave tonight!”
“That’s a great idea,” Longdale says. He turns to Constance. “Why not leave tonight?”
“Why not?” Constance says.
Longdale turns to the rest of the group. “Are you guys in? Come on, you have to come. It’s going to be a great time.”
“Connie,” I say. “You’re place is real close to Lake Arrowhead, right?”
“It’s right on the water,” she says.
“And how far is that from Silverwood Lake?”
She thinks for a moment. “Twenty minutes, maybe.”
I turn to Jane. “We have to,” I say. “I insist. In fact, I was just talking to a friend of yours. You remember Vic? He was telling me that it’s really time you had a vacation.” I look at Quincy and Aleisha. “I think it applies to all of you really. Grad school is getting the best of you. You’re working too hard. What you need is a weekend in the mountains.”
“Listen to Ellis,” Longdale says.
Jane leaps up, grabbing my arm and leading me toward the hallway. Vance rushes after us.
Jane whirls on me as soon as we enter the hallway. “Vic talked to you?”
“He did,” I say. “He knows what we’re planning.”
“You told him?” Jane says, her eyes narrowing.
“He already knew,” I say in a hiss. “He figured it out, okay? He also said there are other ISD agents on our tail besides him. He didn’t tell you not to go. He said the opposite. He said we should leave tonight.”
“But with them?” Vance says, jerking his thumb back toward the living room.
“This solves a lot of our problems,” I say. “Now we have wheels and a place to stay. And so what if Longdale and Connie and Jim are there. We’ll have no problem ditching them. But it has to happen tonight. Trust me on this.”
“Because Vic said so?” Jane asks.
“I think he wants to help you,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Okay. We’ll go tonight.”
February 16
The kitchen of Constance’s family lake house is electric with activity. Longdale makes eggs while Constance squeezes oranges, fresh from the Arrowhead Village Market, and Quincy holds court with everyone not otherwise engaged in making breakfast.
“—Ellis is driving, and Longdale and Constance are playing a game of War while Jim, Aleisha, and—well, damn near everyone else is asleep in the back, when the red and whites start spinning behind us. The cop comes up and asks ‘why were you speeding?’ and Ellis, he’s not saying anything but looks like he’s about to vomit a lung because the marijuana cloud is so thick you can’t even see your own hand, so Aleisha leans over to where the cop can see her and yells, I mean yells, that there’s a man running down the middle of the street wearing handcuffs who tried to get us to stop so he could hijack our wheels, and the cop, he says, ‘wait here, don’t move, I’ll be right back!’, and he actually goes and checks it out! So what did we do? We got the hell out of there!”
The whole kitchen erupts in laughter and Jim hangs his head in shame. “You mean to say I slept through that?”
“It was the performance of a lifetime!” Constance exclaims.
“You know,” I say to Aleisha, “I sold a movie script last night. You want me to give you a call when casting starts?”
“Another one?” Vance asks. “I thought you were still finishing the first one you sold.”
“I never finished it, did a page one rewrite, had some mafia goons coming after me to get the advance back, and Ray Brenner bought new script, sight unseen as a spite deal against Bob Carr.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Vance says. He pours a shot of orange juice for each of us. We raise our glasses and drink together.
“What’s the new script about?” Jim asks. He’s got a look in his eyes that says I haven’t forgotten about the money.
"Time travel," I say.
I lower my glass. Had I just said that? There’s a choking sound and I turn to see Jane, coughing over her shot of OJ. She looks at me, her eyes narrowed.
“Time travel?” she says?
“That’s—that’s right. It’s just a silly science fiction thing.”
“What got into her?” Longdale asks.
“Orange Juice,” says Jim, and the room laughs, the tension released, but Quincy, Aleisha, and Vance are all turning back to me with narrowed eyes. I give a noncommittal shrug by way of apology.
“What’s the story about?” Longdale asks.
I feel like I am visibly squirming, but I carry on. “It just came to me last night in a flash. I wrote the whole thing in your pool house in one eight-hour writing binge.
“No one cares how you wrote it,” Vance says. “What is it about?”
I shrug. “You guys wouldn’t be interested.”
“Is this it?” Jim asks, pulling the script from my bag. I curse myself inwardly. I had left the bag on the floor by the couch where I dropped it last night and had, apparently, neglected to close it. I stand to grab the script but Jim jumps out of the way.
He examines the title page. “The Girl Who Fell Through Time… Catchy. I like it.”
I snatch it out of Jim’s hands. “The only reason Ray Brenner bought it was to spite Bob Carr, so who knows if it’ll ever get made.”
“Eggs are up!” Longdale exclaims. I slip the script in my bag and turn to look for Jane.
After several minutes of searching the house, I find her standing out at the end of the dock, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Water laps at the dock, puffy white clouds dot the sky, and a hummingbird buzzes past my head while fisherman cast off from their dingy and early morning swimmers cut through the waves. Out training most likely, as the water is far too cold for us mere mortals. Across the lake, the red tile rooftops of Arrowhead Village hug the shore and shoppers dot the lakeside strip of clothing stores, book shops, and eateries. Meanwhile, my friends and I are mentally preparing to walk wide-eyed into the hands of a shadow-branch of the government whose existence the President probably isn’t even aware of. All of this because of the dreams of a girl from the future.
I walk up behind her, shivering in the cold. The 50 degree fahrenheit weather might be warm enough for tourists, but for us locals it’s like walking into an Arctic storm.
“Enjoying the morning a
ir?” I ask.
Jane shrugs. “Between you and me, the people are nosey.”
I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise. “Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”
“I may have been living under a rock for the last few months, literally, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. It’s fine by me if you want to make money off of my life, but don’t forget that it's my life.”
She turns to me, and I’m surprised by the clear, cold anger in her eyes. “You’ve had this conversation before,” I say. “Or one like it. Since you haven’t had any friends or family to speak of in the last five years, I’m guessing it was Vic?”
She shakes her head—not an affirmation, but also not a denial. “I wish I knew what he was planning.”
I turn back to the lake house, a stately two-story affair set right up against the water. Complete with a private dock and trio of kayaks, though their seaworthiness are, by my estimation, questionable. Through the back patio windows I see Constance, Vance, Quincy, Aleisha, Longdale and Jim, already seated around the kitchen table.
“Come inside, have something to eat. We can talk after breakfast.
Jane turns her head into the sunlight. She closes her eyes, breathing in the air.
I gaze out at the lake. “If he had a problem with your plan, then he wouldn’t have told me we should go ahead with it.”
Jane doesn’t respond.
“What was it like?” I ask. “After you got back?”
She looks at me, her face impassive. “I was homeless, traveling across the country with a man three times my age that I barely knew, in a time that wasn’t my own, and with the knowledge that I could never go back home.” She pauses, turning back to the sunlight. “You're the writer, what do you think that would be like?”
I nod, scratching my chin. It’s been ages since I’ve had a proper shave. “Either an incredible adventure or a living hell. Probably a little of both all the time, though whichever one you felt more would depend a lot on the person.” I look at her for a reaction and see none. “I’m guessing, because of what you’re planning on doing, that it was pretty hellish.”
She turns to me, but says nothing. The emptiness in her eyes tells me all I need to know.
“What happened between you two?” I ask.
“He found places for me to live. It was usually with one of his assets from a different mission. We never left South America because he thought it was safer. After he would set me up with someone, he would leave. Sometimes for a month or two, sometimes longer.. One time he left, he was gone for over a year.” She turns to me. “I was a teenager, Ellis. Living on my own in South America with people that… They were normal enough, but they weren’t family. So I left him. I hitchhiked up the coast. Vic had told me a few names. Former contacts of his. I tried to track them down. But I never got anywhere. And then I found Vance and the others. And you came along.”
“If you kill him, this all changes. We never met. Is that what’s going to happen?”
“Vic always told me you can’t change the past. But that’s not true because… I’m here. I think what he meant was that you shouldn’t because it’s dangerous. But he’s not allowed to choose that for me anymore.”
I stare at the waves. “This Phaedrus guy, is he connected to why the tunnels are here in the first place.”
She looks down, kicking at one of her shoes with the other. “Not all of them.”
A horrible thought occurs to me. “Wait, so you kill this guy and the tunnels could still exist. I could still get lost in time for a month and have my hellish childhood, and I would never meet you or have any hope of closure on this whatsoever?”
“I don’t know,” she says again.
I take a step backward, feeling lightheaded. “Is that what could happen?”
She clenches a fist, continuing to stare down at her feet.
“Well, is it?” I demand.
She spins around, eyes blazing. “I. DON’T. KNOW!” And then she brushes past me, stalking up the dock toward the house.
Damn it! Why did I say that? I always knew there were risks going into this. This is only another one of those risks. But I’ve been pushed out of going on this mission. To now have to sit here, wondering if I could be dooming myself to repeat it all… I don’t know if I can take it.
I turn back, looking for Jane, wanting to say something, to apologize, but she’s gone. Retreated back inside the house.
“What’s her deal?” Jim asks, when I return inside.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I say. “Where she’d go, anyway?”
Vance points down the hallway. “To her room.”
“I can talk to her,” Aleisha says, rising from her seat. Jane and Aleisha were sharing one of the rooms. Longdale and Constance had the master suite. Quincy and Vance were sharing another. Jim had the fourth bedroom, and even though it had two twin beds, I was relegated to the couch. Such is my lot for having so thoroughly pissed off my former roommate.
“No!” I say loudly. Aleisha turns back to me, surprised. “I think she just needs space.”
“Well, somebody needs to talk to her” Aleisha insists, and continues down the hall.
“Is Jane also in the graduate program?” Constance asks?
“There’s no way,” Longdale says. “She’s too young.”
“She just looks young,” Vance replies, leaving it at that.
“Well, I want whatever she’s having,” Constance says with a smirk.
“Eggs?” Quincy asks, pushing the skillet across the table toward me.
“Thanks,” I mutter, scooping them onto a plate. Quincy watches me as I eat, making me feel like a bug under a microscope, stuck and wriggling on a pin.
Jim pushes his plate away, rising from the table. “I’m going to go to my room, maybe read for a bit.”
He leaves and Constance’s eyes swivel toward me. “Talk to him!” she hisses.
I sigh, abandoning my eggs. “Fine, I’ll grovel and beg.”
“Are they a thing?” Quincy asks as I retreat down the hallway.
Jim is in the bedroom, nursing a bottle of whiskey he had smuggled from Longdale’s house. He glances up at me and then looks away. "What do you want?"
“Look, I feel like shit.” I say. “For the rent, for Nancy, for everything. I hope to have money in a week or two. Longdale says I can stay with him until then. Assuming I can pay you back,” I nearly stumble over the words, damn my pride. “I’d like to move back in.”
Jim sits up in bed and runs a hand through his wavy brown hair. I notice that its thinning in front, but decide not to say anything. He contemplates the bottle for a moment, then looks up at me. “Is Jane single?”
I open my mouth, then close it again. How quickly the wounded can heal… “Okay, if we get through the weekend and we don’t all hate each other’s guts, then I’ll give you her number.” What number will that be? The number to the Camton Psychology department’s secretary? It won’t matter, because we’ll all either be captured, dead, or time will have been rewritten and they will have never met.
“It’s a deal,” Jim says, and resumes his position on the bed, whiskey bottle nestled in the crook of his arm.
“Let’s call this final meeting to order,” Vance knocks a beer bottle on the coffee table to formally begin. Vance, Quincy, Jane, Aleisha, and myself are gathered in the den, beers in hand.
“We need a name,” Quincy says.
“Why do we need a name?” I say. “This could be our one and only mission.”
Vance wags his beer bottle in Quincy’s direction. “Yes, yes, yes! We need a name so that when we win and those ISD bastards lose, we can tell them who’s responsible!”
“This isn’t about taking down the ISD,” Jane says. “It’s about Phaedrus.”
“Wasn’t that the name of some Greek guy?” Quincy asks.
Aleisha nods. “It’s from The Phaedo. It’s one of Plato’s Dialogs.”
“Are people from the future all named after Greek philosophers?” Van
ce asks, turning to Jane.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“But you’re from his time,” I say.
She let’s out a frustrated sigh. “Yes—but I don’t feel like I am. I still feel like I was born in the seventies.”
“So, you’d rather be Molly from the 70s than whatever your real name is from the future.”
“That’s the life I actually remember,” she says, quietly. “So, yeah. That’s what I want back.”
I nod. Jane stares at me with narrowed eyes. I know she’s remembering our last conversation. I had accused her, essentially, of selfishness. But how could I compare myself to her? My pain to hers? I turn away, unable to hold her gaze.
“What about The Time Patrol?” Quincy asks.
Aleisha coughs, nearly choking on her beer.
“That’s horrible,” Vance says.
“Well, Ellis is the writer!” Quincy says, making a sweeping gesture toward me.
I shake my head. “It needs to be something… mysterious. Something that, when you hear it, it makes you want to know more.”
“Something unusual?” Quincy asks.
“Something strong,” Vance says.
I shake my head. “No, we’re not talking about time travel with fancy time machines. I mean, those exist, apparently.” I glance at Jane. “What we’re trying to do is harness a basic power of the Universe. These—what did you call them?—Recursion Events? They’re something deeper than all of that time machine stuff. It’s the Universe wanting things to happen in a certain way. That’s something more… basic. More…”
“Elemental,” Aleisha finishes.
Jane looks up at her, sharply. “What did you say?” Jane asks.
“The Elementalists,” Quincy says, letting the words roll of his tongue. “Now I like the sound of that.”
“Genevieve would’ve loved that,” Aleisha says. “She would’ve sounded great saying it with her French accent.”
“Ze Elementaleeests,” Quincy says, and laughs.
“Did you say Genevieve?” Jane asks, her eyes wide as saucers.
She’s the one that disappeared in the tunnel.” He says. "We call her Jenny, but her name is—was Genevieve. She was spending a semester here from France.”
Dispersion: Book Two of the Recursion Event Saga Page 14
