by Daniel Price
Conversely, she pictured what would happen if the portal closed without any warning sent at all—a revised chain of events in which Rebel and his people killed everyone in their sleep. It was too terrible to think about. It was worse to think that it could still occur retroactively, just because Mia didn’t have the right pen.
Mia rolled up the note and deposited it into the breach. As the portal vanished silently into the ether, she wrapped Hannah in a delirious hug of relief.
“Oh God. Thank you so much. I’m sorry I made you go running like that. And I’m sorry if I was ever cold or mean to you. It’s just stupid jealousy. You’re so pretty and you have this amazing body. But I know you’re a good person too. And I promise from now on . . .”
She suddenly realized that Hannah wasn’t returning the embrace. Mia pulled back to find her white-faced with horror, stammering as if Mia had stabbed her.
“You knew.”
“What?”
“Your note. I saw it. You knew we were going to be attacked today and you didn’t say anything.”
Mia tensely shook her head. “No. Hannah. I didn’t know. I mean not for sure.”
“‘They hit you all at sunrise’? ‘Get ready to run’? What did you think it meant?”
“You don’t understand. I’ve gotten bad notes before. Conflicting notes. I wasn’t sure what was happening and I didn’t want to worry people without—”
“You didn’t want to worry people?”
In hindsight, it sounded pretty bad to Mia too. “Hannah, I’m so sorry.”
The actress didn’t care about Mia’s remorse. She didn’t care how this whole scene looked to the bystanders who were watching. Her mind was trapped six hours in the past, lost in battle with the Motorcycle Man.
“I went out jogging at sunrise,” she cried to Mia. “Do you think I would have done that if . . . do you know how close I came to dying?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Sorry doesn’t fix it, Mia! People died! Czerny died! Erin got cut in half, all because you didn’t want to worry people!”
The tears flowed wildly on both of them now. Hannah held up a trembling hand.
“I can’t even look at you.”
She retreated down the aisle, crashing into a fellow shopper as she brusquely turned the corner. Both their handcarts fell to the floor.
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
“My fault,” the man assured her.
He wasn’t wrong. It took five rewinds for Evan Rander to stand in just the right place for a spilling collision. Now he shined a cordial grin as he stooped to gather Hannah’s belongings.
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“No, no, no. I insist. What kind of gentleman would I be?”
Even in a better state of mind, Hannah wouldn’t have recognized him from their first encounter. Evan had swapped his ostentatious cowboy getup for a simple gray business suit. His hair had been respectfully parted to one side, and he wore soulful blue contact lenses behind rimless glasses. He was the humble good Samaritan now. He was Clark Kent.
Soon he presented Hannah with a refilled handcart. She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Thank you.”
“No worries. I sense you’re not having the best of days.”
“Yeah. That’s putting it mildly.”
“I saw you arguing with your sister back there. Listen, I have siblings myself. These things always blow over.”
Hannah rubbed her eyes. “She’s not my sister.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I really need to go.”
“Of course. Of course. I understand. You take it easy now, all right?”
There was very little for Hannah to find creepy or suspicious about this incarnation of Evan. And yet as she made her brisk journey to the restroom, a dark voice in her head urged her to not look back. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was still standing at the scene of their accident. Still watching her. Still smiling.
—
David studied the map on the picnic table. The nearest cradle of civilization was ten miles to the north. Their abandoned van lay a scant eight miles to the southwest. It wouldn’t be long before the police search made its way to Ramona, if it hadn’t happened already.
“We can’t do ten more miles today,” Amanda insisted. “We can’t even do two miles. Look at us, David.”
Over the boy’s grumbling objections, the Silvers bought two rooms in a cheap motel off the main drag. The accommodations were pitiful compared to their suites in Terra Vista, but each room had two beds and each bed was soft. By three o’clock, they were all out cold.
Mia woke up four hours later, groggy and alone. Purple clouds peeked in through the curtain gaps. She could hear the shower running.
As she sat up, her hand brushed a small object on the blanket, an eight-inch cigar tube. Future Mia must have sent another delivery in her sleep.
She unscrewed the lid and shook out a roll of blue currency. Her jaw went slack as she counted fifteen hundred-dollar bills.
Mia used her finger to fish out the other two pieces of the parcel: a small white scrap containing a Brooklyn address and an eight-by-ten sheet of notebook paper densely crammed with text. The lettering was blocky and angular. A man’s handwriting.
Hello, Mia,
You don’t know me yet, but I’m a friend of your future. In fact, you’re sitting next to me as I write this. The Mia I know is fourteen, just like you. But this one traveled across the country to get to me. She made it here with flying colors, along with all her friends.
Mia spotted her own scribble in the margin. Hey girl! See you on the other side!
The author continued:
It’s of great importance that I earn your trust, which makes this next part all the more difficult. I’m sorry to say that the people who attacked you in Terra Vista are my people. My clan. There’s a group of us who live in the outskirts of New York: forty-four families, all natives of this world, all gifted like you and your friends. We even have a few folks who can fly on wings of aeris, though they can’t do it as often as they’d like. Through discipline and the occasional use of misdirection, we’ve managed to keep our talents hidden from the public at large. We don’t want to be lab rats any more than you do. For us, the price of living free is living quietly.
Recent developments, however, have put us all in a bad state. In the weeks since your arrival, several of our own have gone missing. Worse, the augurs of our clan—the ones who can see the future, live the future, and hear from their future selves—have all gotten wind of a terrible event coming. A second Cataclysm, of sorts.
Shortly after our troubles began, a man named Richard Rosen (you know him as Rebel) determined that the disaster ahead can be averted by destroying all the new people who arrived in this world. He believes you’re all living ruptures in the fabric of time, breaches that need to be plugged. Though his theory isn’t entirely based in fiction, it’s deeply flawed. Unfortunately, fear won out over reason and Rebel got the clan to see things his way. For your sakes, I wish I’d fought better. All I managed to do was get myself banished from the councils.
But I’m not out of the game yet. I’ve got my own plan to stop what’s coming, one that doesn’t involve murder. Unlike Rebel, I don’t think you and your friends are part of the problem. In fact, I believe you’re part of the solution. One of you in particular.
So I’m writing you now, Mia. I’m asking you to come find me at the enclosed address. I can provide you all with shelter, safety, and crucial information. For those of you looking for a purpose on this world, I can sure as hell give you that too.
Come to Brooklyn. You won’t have to worry about Rebel for a while, but there are other people on your trail. I’ll let your older half tell you about those folks, on the other side of this note.
I’d say I look forw
ard to meeting you, but I already have and I’m already glad. I’ll just say I look forward to you meeting me.
All the best,
Peter Pendergen
Beleaguered by all the new information, Mia turned the letter over. The other side was written in Mia’s hand, an assortment of quick thoughts scrawled at various angles. A passage at the top caught her attention. It was circled twice and garnished with a smiley face.
Apology from Hannah in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Mia jumped when the door opened. Hannah stepped out of the steamy bathroom. She adjusted her towel wrap and aimed a soft expression at Mia.
“Hi.”
“Hey. Where’s, uh . . . ?”
“She’s checking on Theo. How are you doing?”
Still reeling from the letter, Mia could only shrug. Hannah fixed a somber gaze at her feet.
“Listen, I talked to Amanda. She told me you spent all night in the security room with Erin, looking out for intruders. She also said you’re the one who pulled the fire alarm and warned Zack about Rebel. I’m . . . I don’t know what came over me. When I learned about your note, I just flipped out and assumed you didn’t do anything with the information. But it turns out you did a lot. So, I’m sorry. And I’m so sorry for saying you were responsible for Erin and Dr. Czerny. Can you forgive me?”
Mia bit her lip, nodding in warm accord. Hannah leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms.
“Okay. Now that I got that out, I have a favor to ask. In the future, should you get another—”
“Evan Rander.”
Hannah blinked at her. “What?”
“A note I got. A warning. If you see a small and creepy guy with a ‘55’ on his hand, run. That’s Evan Rander. He’s bad news.”
Though Hannah had failed to notice any numbers on anyone’s hands, she could think of two different men who’d set off her creep alarms today.
“Okay. Wow. I don’t know what to make of that yet. But I’m glad you told me. Thank you.”
Hannah glanced at Mia’s journal on the end table, then nervously scratched her neck.
“Is there, uh . . . is there anything else from the future I should know?”
With a flustered sigh, Mia looked down at the fresh new dispatch in her hand. Yeah. There was something else.
EIGHTEEN
Nobody knew what to make of Peter Pendergen. The Silvers convened in one motel room, debating all the revelations and implications of his letter. When they didn’t talk over each other, they fell into a pensive silence, one so deep they could hear the slow drip from the showerhead.
Hannah dumped the empty plates and wrappers of their takeout dinner into the trash, then reclaimed her spot on Zack’s bed. She peeked over his shoulder as he sketched a man’s face on motel stationery.
“I don’t trust him,” she uttered.
“Me neither,” Amanda said from the desk chair. She kept an eye on the muted lumivision. The nine o’clock news would begin in five minutes. She fully expected to be the top story.
“I don’t think any of us are ready to marry the guy,” Zack replied, “but are you both suggesting we avoid him completely?”
Zack had made it clear that he was very much in favor of meeting Peter. He admitted that his vote was influenced by his desire to go to New York and search for his brother. It also didn’t hurt that Brooklyn was 2,500 miles away from the site of their police standoff.
Amanda flicked her hand. “I don’t know. It just feels like a trap to me.”
“What are you basing that on?” David asked.
“Azral let us go. Maybe this is the reason why. After everything we learned about Dr. Quint today, is it really such a stretch to believe that Peter’s also working for the Pelletiers?”
David shook his head. “I think you’re being overly paranoid.”
“I think she makes a damn good point,” Hannah said. “I also find it weird that he didn’t include a way for us to contact him. No phone number. No e-mail.”
“Well, keep in mind this letter’s from Future Peter,” Zack said, aware of how silly he sounded. “Maybe the current Peter isn’t in a position to hear from us. It might put him at risk somehow. Or put us at risk.”
The sisters crossed their arms in synch, wearing the same dubious frown.
“I don’t buy it,” said Hannah.
“Me neither,” said Amanda.
“And what about the fact that Mia got a warning flat-out telling her not to trust him?”
Mia sighed from the foot of David’s bed. She’d spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the hot seat tonight, answering numerous questions on behalf of her future selves. She knew she couldn’t talk about Peter without mentioning the two conflicting messages she’d received about him five weeks ago:
Don’t trust Peter. He’s not who he says he is.
Disregard that first note. I was just testing something. Peter’s good. He’s great, actually.
After reading the messages aloud, Mia had glanced up to five dim and bewildered faces. “Yeah. Now you know what I’ve been dealing with.”
Sadly, there was nothing in this latest parcel to clarify the confusion. On the flip side of Peter’s letter, Future Mia addressed the matter with a virtual shrug.
I wish I could explain those notes, but I still don’t know why we got them. All I can tell you is that I’ve known Peter for six months now and I trust him with my life. He’s a good man. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, but he’s a good man.
Below her passage, Peter scribbled a brief retort. I am very funny.
“I’m honestly not sure what to think about him,” Mia said. “But if he is who he says he is, if he really does have shelter and safety to offer us, then I’d hate for us to blow our chance because I got a bad message.”
David nodded vigorously. “Exactly. This is an opportunity. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I still want the answers that Quint and Czerny promised us. Maybe Peter can provide them. On top of that, there’s also the matter of that second Cataclysm. If Peter’s right—”
“—then we’ll be walking right into it,” Hannah griped.
“He didn’t say it was happening in New York,” David replied. “He just said it was happening. He also said we’re potentially part of the solution. Don’t you think that’s worth investigating? Isn’t that a better way to spend our days than aimless wandering?”
Once again, the discussion hit a weary lull. Theo sat cross-legged on the desk, staring out the window at a municipal impound lot.
“Theo?”
He glanced up at Zack. “Huh?”
“You’ve been Johnny Tightlips over there. What are you thinking?”
There was no safe way to answer truthfully. From the moment Mia revealed her surprise cash endowment, Theo’s dark inner demon had snapped awake in its cage. It eyed the money hungrily, calculating the sheer amount of liquid solace that $1,500 could purchase. It would carry Theo for miles, all the way to the next world.
“I don’t know. I mean I understand what David’s saying. I respect it.”
“But?”
“But this is our first day out in the world. We’re still flailing around like newborns. And now you’re talking about crossing the country to help some stranger stop a Cataclysm? That’s not just ambitious. It’s nuts.”
Theo saw David’s eyes narrow to a cool squint. The dark demon smiled. The boy doesn’t like you. He sees you for the burden you are. You think he’s the only one?
“Looks like we’re split down the middle on this,” Amanda said.
David chucked a hand in frustration. “You guys can do what you want. If I have to go to New York alone, I will.”
“Hey, come on . . .”
“David!”
Zack raised his palms. “Okay. Stop. We’ve had enough drama for
one day. Can we just agree in the short term that we need to get the hell away from California?” His posit was greeted with soft nods. “Good. Then we can all keep going northeast. Maybe Mia will get more info along the way. Maybe we’ll dig up our own. The point is that we have days to decide.”
Everyone tensed up as the sound of police sirens filtered in from the street. The Silvers sat motionless, fingers extended, until the noise faded away.
Zack sighed exhaustedly. “We also have more pressing concerns.”
Mia’s older self had succinctly explained the scope of their legal problems.
It’s not the cops you need to worry about. It’s the Deps. DP-9 is the federal agency that handles temporic crimes, and they’re very good. They already know what we look like and what some of us can do. They’re extremely eager to meet us, especially Amanda.
The news had caused five stomachs to drop, and sent Amanda to the bathroom with dry heaves. But the warning came bundled with advice, three simple rules for avoiding detection:
1. Stay away from civic cameras. That means no hospitals, no bank machines, and no public transportation of any kind. They’re all heavily monitored. You will get spotted.
2. Don’t get friendly with the locals. The more you talk, the more you expose yourself as foreigners. They do not like foreigners here.
3. No public displays of weirdness, ever. Keep your talents hidden. Even if you think no one’s looking, assume they are. It’s the only way you’ll make it to New York.
David lurched forward in bed, matching Mia’s prone position. He playfully brushed her shoulder.
“Thanks to our invaluable messenger here, we have nearly everything we need to keep ahead of the federal agents. The one thing we’re missing is transport. If we can’t take buses or trains, then we’ll have to acquire a car.”
Amanda eyed him sharply. “I hope you’re not talking about stealing one.”
“I am, actually. Is your objection moral or practical?”
“Both,” she said.
“For the moral objection, I assume they have auto insurance on this world. Anyone we steal from will be reimbursed.”
