by S. E. Babin
It had not been a good way to gain my trust. I’d given the guy a second chance when he told me he was forced to work with Lila, the woman supposedly after the serum, but he betrayed me again and left me for dead that time.
He was not a man I would so easily trust next time around…if ever.
We fell silent as the ramifications of what could come next settled into our thoughts. Either way, the consequences would be grave. We could not allow time travel to fall into the hands of the untrained. Imagine a teen behind the wheel of a car and how terrifying that was for the normal population. Now imagine time travel technology in the hands of a teen without a fully developed amygdala or impulse control. It would be Jurassic Park on crack. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the shit that would go wrong if this technology were mass produced and sold for profit.
In the back of my mind, I also knew the destruction of the health care industry would be devastating, but I had to put myself in her shoes. If I were an evil mad scientist, or simply a stupid kid—I had no idea which she was—my goal probably wouldn’t be to cure disease. I suspected we already had the capability, yet we refrained from doling it out because of the mind-boggling amount of money to be made in drugs and hospitalizations. My goal would be to put a technology everyone wanted, but no one fathomed could exist, into an easily accessible format.
Now…someone could already do that if they landed their hands on one of our DARs, and I’d wondered about that for a little while, but my father seemed so unworried about it, I’d let it go. He ran a tight ship and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had exerted a deadly promise out of each and every one of his wardens and soldiers to prevent just that from happening.
Since I was on a decent path to a relationship with my father, I decided I wouldn’t ask how he’d done it.
Sometimes it was easier that way.
However, now that someone with fewer scruples than my father had gotten their hands on our technology, we would need to move, and quickly, to stop the distribution and find this person. Since Aaron was the only one who knew who she was and her last whereabouts, we were going to have to bring him into our fold.
Again.
But this time, if he came within two feet of me, I planned to shoot him. Multiple times. With great pleasure.
My father finally said the words we were all thinking. “Aaron, please plan on moving your things back in, at least for the foreseeable future.”
A sound of shock emitted from Watson, but Sherlock stopped him. “Any danger to Penelope will be mitigated by the fact that Aaron will have a serum injected into him.” My father bared his teeth in a terrifying grin. “It’s a brand new invention of mine. Untested and very, very volatile. If you focus your thoughts on my daughter in any way that will do her harm, the serum will morph from something harmless into a deadly poison. Immediately.”
Aaron sat down heavily and stared at my father, forlorn.
“And as only I, and now Penelope, will have the antidote, you’d do well to ensure your thoughts of my daughter are pure and wholesome.”
“If I do not consent?” Aaron asked, his voice monotone.
We all knew the answer.
“The guards will be called to escort you out. Whether or not you reach your home safely, I haven’t quite decided yet.”
I blew out an impressed breath. I tried never to underestimate my father, but rarely had I seen him in action. He was quite terrifying.
“Fine,” Aaron muttered, holding out his arm.
My father reached over and pressed a key on his telephone. His young assistant marched in seconds later holding a silver tray. Normally, there would be tea on it. Today, there was a small chrome gun filled with a sparkling purple liquid and a tiny needle. I leaned forward to get a closer look. It was almost pretty, yet I didn’t doubt the sincerity of my father’s words. While he possessed a witty sense of humor, my father was not one to kid around in matters of loyalty.
He’d said it was a brand new, untested invention, but part of me wondered if every soldier working and training in this compound received the same injection. It would certainly explain the safety of our DAR technology. The other part of me wondered whether this serum came after the Lila days and if she were the one partially responsible for it.
Something to ask later. I held my tongue as my father motioned for Aaron to roll his sleeve up higher. Once he’d done so, he gently reached for the gun, and with no warning, clicked the button. A soft whoosh of air and Aaron’s shocked gasp of breath told us it was finished.
“What if I get angry at her?” Aaron asked.
My father’s merry laugh broke through the tension. “These are questions you should have asked before getting injected, chap.”
Aaron rubbed his arm and glared.
Sherlock sighed. “Anger is not enough to trigger the serum. When violence is imminent, the body triggers certain responses and floods with hormones. The serum is sentient. It will recognize the difference between mild annoyance and the threat of violence.”
Which means my father had tested it, and thoroughly so. Hopefully Aaron realized Sherlock had just thrown him an enormous pitying bone. Rarely did he give out so much information in normal conversation.
But from the mutinous stare on Aaron’s face, he was too angry to realize it.
He was dismissed from the room and as soon as my father’s assistant and Aaron left, Sherlock turned back to us.
Watson stared at Sherlock with amusement. “Brand new and untested? That was quite cruel, yet highly amusing.”
“Thought you would think so, friend. He rightfully deserved it.”
“Is this the same serum you give to the Time Soldiers?” I asked, not expecting an answer. My father rarely answered direct questions without some kind of song and dance.
His nod surprised me. “Anyone who comes into these quarters signs a contract and is injected with the loyalty serum. Anyone who refuses is turned away immediately.”
“Where’s the reversal?” I asked, curious about the serum and its origins.
Both Watson and Sherlock gave me blank looks. “Reversal?” they asked at the same time.
“Yeeesss,” I drawled out. “There is a reversal, right?”
“Why would there be?” my father asked.
“What if someone wants to leave your service?”
My father shrugged, as if such matters didn’t concern him. “No one wants to leave. And even if they did, they would leave here with secrets. Why would I want to disarm the serum? My secrets would never be safe if I did.”
“You both are okay with highly sophisticated slavery?” I asked, appalled.
“Daughter, no one is forced to come work for me.”
At my knowing stare, he cleared his throat. “Most people are not forced to come work for me,” he clarified. “I reward those who do handsomely. They are paid a high salary, have all their health and wellness needs taken care of, and are given a place to stay. We provide three square meals a day. They want for nothing.”
“What about children? Marriage? A home of their own? Maybe a couple acres surrounded by a private pond?”
He stared at me in curiosity. “Not everyone wants the same things you do. Many people don’t like to be tied down to debt or saddle themselves with a family.”
Unfortunately for him, my mother had just walked in. “Saddle themselves?” Even though she was tiny, she had a glare that could make a T-rex sit down in shame.
My father gulped audibly and spread his hands out in an acquiescent gesture. “Maggie, dear, I was just trying to make a point.”
“About how children are an albatross? Continue, darling. I’m sure Penelope wants to hear all about your thoughts.”
He made a strangled noise within his throat and Watson snorted in amusement. “Maggie, always a pleasure to see you.”
My mother inclined her head. “Likewise.”
“What I am trying to say,” my father interrupted, “is the people who know to come here are people
who want to make a difference in the world. They know the world is not limited to houses, vehicles, two-point-five children, and soccer practice. They know we do a service to the world no others can do. If they find their way here, I will listen to them, and most times, offer a contract to work with me. If I sense they are unfulfilled and believe they can find what they’re searching for with a partner or something as trivial as a material possession, I will send them away and tell them to come back in three years. To this date, no one I’ve sent away has returned. These people are soldiers, Penelope, dedicated to making their mark on the world behind the scenes.”
“And you?” I asked.
His face softened as he stared at the stern countenance of my mother. “None of us are immune to love, darling.”
Sherlock’s statement made my mother snort and roll her eyes. But I noticed the softening of her brown gaze even as she dismissed him. They weren’t back together yet, I was aware of that much, but if I knew my mother, her heart was opening with each day she spent under his roof.
Watson took my elbow and led me out of his quarters. “Let’s give them some time,” he said in a low tone.
The warmth of his hand sent a shiver down my spine. Once he shut the door on them and we were back in his sparring room, I realized I’d forgotten to tell them something.
“Cass is back!” I exclaimed.
Surprise flickered over his face. “When?”
“She was in my room this morning.”
A scowl darkened his features. “Do you not think it convenient Cass showed up at the same time Aaron did?”
While I hadn’t thought of it that way, I guess the timing was a little off. “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if they kept in touch. She was working with him for a while, after all.”
“I don’t like this. I am not a man who sees things in coincidences. I am a man who follows patterns and I just happen to be an expert in timing.”
I shrugged. “I think Cass has much regret for what has happened in our friendship.”
His amber gaze flickered with disbelief. “After all she put you through…after all you’d been through, you would still trust her?”
“She had a good reason for her actions.” Reasons I didn’t plan to explain to him.
“There are no good reasons for betraying someone,” Watson said.
I wasn’t going to rise to his bait. Instead, I punched him on the shoulder. “Want to spar?”
He grinned and snagged a pair of gloves from the table he stood next to. “The answer to that question is always yes.”
3
I sprawled out on the floor, sweaty, bruised, and in some places, bloody. Watson never took it easy on me, and for that, I was grateful. I’d never been able to properly spar with anyone else in this compound. They either let me win or took it easy on me just by virtue of who my father was.
Watson was a true friend. One who beat the crap out of me in practice sessions, but a true friend nonetheless.
I rolled to my side and grinned as I took in his appearance. I guess I was the same kind of friend. Watson’s hair was matted to his head in exertion. I could see the beginnings of some fine bruises against his ribs. He still hadn’t realized he left his right side undefended when he reached in to punch me. I’d seen him fight before and knew he didn’t do it when he sparred with others. I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t think about it, he trusted me, or he was letting me get a few shots in to make me feel better about the pounding I normally took from him.
After I got out of the hospital, I’d had to relearn some things. The same abilities I had before were gone, replaced by…I wasn’t quite sure what yet. I felt like, in some instances, I was a little bit faster on my feet. But not always. Watson was still slightly quicker with some things.
But one thing I didn’t want to tell him was I was beginning to get a feeling of prescience every time I sparred with him. The next move he was going to throw at me popped in my head seconds before he performed it. I didn’t like it, and about eighty percent of the time, I didn’t move or switch my tactics because I was afraid of it—horrified, actually. Was I a few seconds ahead in the time slipstream? Did my father’s experiments screw with my natural ability to time travel? Was it an improvement or a terrifying side effect? I wasn’t sure yet, so I kept it to myself, only opening it up to examine it at night. It couldn’t be a bad thing when I went on missions, I didn’t think, but it would give me an unfair advantage over teachers and trainers. How could I learn if I knew what was going to happen in mere seconds?
I noticed I only felt this when my adrenaline was high, but not in all cases. In the course of day to day normality, I felt like myself—or at least as much as I could after my father’s ministrations.
I didn’t dare tell my father what I was experiencing in my weekly meet-ins with him. He’d have me strapped to a table and hooked up to every machine imaginable if he could. I would keep this to myself for now and if I felt like I couldn’t deal with it, I might take Watson into my confidence. He and Watson had a difficult relationship. From what my mother told me, he and my father were fast friends—inseparable—and sometimes, I could see that. In times of jest or when we weren’t talking about serious things, I could tell there was an easy camaraderie once shared.
But the serum came in between them. Watson was pressured into accepting the serum, immortality, and a life he never wanted.
“Penelope?” The concern in his tone made me blink. I must have been staring at him.
I turned away. “Sorry.”
“You were looking right through me.”
“I had something on my mind.”
“Want to talk about it?” Watson asked.
I grinned. He must have been concerned if he was actually asking me to bare my feelings to him. “Nah,” I said as I slapped the floor and jumped up in one fluid motion. “Maybe next time.”
I snagged one of the clean towels he always had hanging on the rack and wiped the sweat off my forehead.
I could feel the concern in his gaze as I made my way to the door.
“I’m right here, Penelope. Any time.”
I gave a sharp nod and saw myself out.
Cass was sprawled out on my bed reading the last edition of Cosmo. I had no idea where she’d found it. I was more of a Scientific American girl.
“Soooo,” I drawled as I lay down next to her. “What new lip gloss is going to bring him to his knees this month?”
She snorted and smacked me with the magazine.
“Berry Bliss, if you must know.” Cass turned her gray gaze to mine. “What happened in there?” She wrinkled her nose. “You smell.”
I watched her face for any betrayal. “Aaron showed up,” I said, and waited.
The gray in her eyes chilled to ice, but her face remained blank.
“Cass,” I warned.
She flung her head back on the pillow. “He asked me to come. Aaron said you missed me.”
I had. “What else did he say?”
She shrugged one slender shoulder. “Not much. I thought it was pretty ballsy he was coming back. Thought I might come along to see the show.”
Her grin was forced.
“I shot him,” I said.
She gasped in shock and sat up abruptly. “You shot him?!” Her tone was incredulous.
“He’s still alive,” I said, studying a hangnail on my pinky. “No thanks to my father.”
She blinked like an owl. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope.”
She lay back on my pillow, her long blonde hair spread across it like a princess. “Damn.”
We lay beside each other for a while, silent.
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Do I need to?”
She blew out a breath. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“I didn’t realize you were religious.”
“Everyone gets religious when the possibility of death is involved.”
“True dat,” I
agreed.
“I’m sorry, Nellie,” Cass said, clasping my fingers with her own.
“If you call me that again, I’m definitely shooting you.”
She snorted and squeezed my fingers.
We lay there for the next hour making fun of the weird clothes in Cosmo and catching up. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of her motives yet, but…I was lonely and there were few females here, and even fewer I felt comfortable striking up a conversation with.
Once our laughter died off, I said the words I dreaded. “I’m going to have to tell my father you’re here.”
“He already knows.”
It was my turn to sit up. “He knows you’re here?”
She shook her head. “I saw him in the hallway when I thought I was being a stealthy bad ass and no one was around. I have no idea how he moves so silently.”
“Like I cat,” I commiserated with her.
“He didn’t say anything to me at all. Just one sharp nod and he turned on his heel and left.”
“I bet he saw you come in,” I mused.
“No idea. But considering I’m still alive, I think he may approve of it.”
“Watson didn’t know.”
Cass brushed a strand of hair out of her eye. “Watson and Sherlock are scary individuals. I’m sure he knows a lot of things your father doesn’t. They share secrets only when they need to. The rest they keep for leverage.”
It sounded so like them both, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Have you two hooked up yet?”
I snorted. “Are we in high school? Hooked up? Seriously?”
Cass put her lower lip out in a pout. “The horizontal mambo? The lube dance? The mattress mambo?”
I smacked her. “Watson and I are just friends.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “That won’t last long.”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, I think it will.”
I realized Cass had no idea about the changes within me or the experimentation my father had done. I wanted to keep it to myself for a while. No doubt, Aaron would get to her soon enough, but he wouldn’t know everything. The only thing he could see was my eyes and that wasn’t enough information to go on. He hadn’t seemed terribly surprised to see me up and walking, though.
