by Daniel Price
The cartoonist shrugged with drowsy accord. With all his friends alive and breathing, he didn’t have the strength to hate anyone at the moment, even Rebel.
Peter studied Zack’s spooning embrace with Amanda, then cast a pensive gaze at the eastern horizon.
“We’re in the halo now.”
“The what?”
He swept a slow gesture from the skyline. “The Cataclysm started in Brooklyn and blew five miles in every direction, stretching all the way out here. Over sixty thousand people were caught right outside the blast, in a ring of space we call the Halo of Gotham. Those folks were considered blessed because, aside from some blindness and emotional trauma, they survived just fine. It wasn’t until the pregnant women started having their babies that . . . well, some were born healthy and some weren’t. And some were just born different. Those were the first of my people.”
Peter jostled a loose chunk of concrete with his cane. “There are over a thousand of us in Quarter Hill, in forty-four family lines. We’ve lived in quiet for four generations. Now it’s all coming undone.”
“I am sorry for my part,” David offered. “I should have been more discreet with my lumis.”
“I appreciate it, son, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. And even if it was, Zack’s right. You don’t owe my people a damn thing. It kills me to see what Rebel’s doing. I don’t care if you’re all from another world. You’re blessed and cursed in all the same ways we are. You’re kin.”
A large shadow enveloped them. The group looked up to see a massive metal saucer floating 150 feet in the air, casually drifting north on bright white wedges of aeris. Luminescent letters on the hub informed everyone below that Albee’s Aerstraunt never closes. Ever.
While the Silvers followed the saucer’s progress, Peter clambered back to his feet.
“All right. Enough jawing. I see one lovely woman in need of an ankle brace. The rest of you could use some heavy gauze and epallays.” He put a hand on Mia’s back. “Hold on now.”
Peter closed his eyes and concentrated until a six-foot portal swirled open on the concrete wall. Mia sucked a pained breath.
“You all right?” David asked her.
“She’s fine,” Peter said. “All part of our connection. It’ll hurt less and less each time, just like the jaunts.”
Despite his assurance, nobody lined up for a second teleport. Peter exhaled glumly.
“You folks have traveled a long, hard road. I can’t say your troubles are over, but I can promise you that shelter and aid are right on the other side of that door. Just a few steps more and you can finally rest. I swear it.”
His new acquaintances studied him through busy eyes, caught between their desperation and their well-paved cynicism. The urge to flee was overwhelming, but they were out of steam, out of options, out of money, out of everything. A few steps were all they had left in them.
They rose to their feet and shambled toward the light like the weary souls of the departed. Two by two, limbs locked together, the Silvers disappeared into the shimmering white depths.
Only the orphans stopped at the portal. Mia held her nervous gaze at the glowing white surface.
“I—I can’t. I can’t.”
David wrapped his arm around her. “It’s all right. We’ll walk through it together.”
“I can’t do it. It hurts.”
Peter loomed behind them like a shepherd. “Go on ahead, boy. I got this.”
David eyed him suspiciously. The Irishman gripped his shoulder. “I got off on a bad foot with you, son, and I will make amends. But for now I’m asking you to trust me. Please.”
After a silent consultation with Mia, he squeezed her arm, then stepped through the portal. Peter watched the ripples settle.
“You weren’t kidding about him. He’s a lion, that one.”
She lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“This whole thing could have been avoided. I should have . . . she should have warned us not to go in that building.”
He shined a droll grin. “Right. If only she had, you’d all be alive and together now.”
“It’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not,” Peter admitted. “It’s tragic that a girl so lovely can be so cruel to herself. I’ve seen the way you talk about you. I swear, there’s no worse combination than adolescence and time travel.”
Mia peered up at Peter. “Do you get notes from your future selves?”
“Me? Nah. I blocked those fools out years ago. One of me’s enough for everyone.”
“How did you do it?”
“I’ll show you, Mia. I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” Peter jerked a thumb at the portal. “That thing over there? That’s your future. You’re just making keyholes now. Soon you’ll be making doors.”
Mia sniffed at the great white breach. To think how easily they could have escaped all their past calamities if she’d been able to rip an exit in the nearest wall. It seemed unbelievable that anyone could do such a thing.
“I still don’t know how we got these powers,” she confessed to Peter. “None of us were born like this.”
“I can’t answer that, darlin’. But it’s on the list of things to find out.”
He scanned the distant city, then put a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “Come on. Before the boy comes back in worry.”
As they moved toward the portal, Peter stroked the back of her head, a warm and fatherly gesture that made her as conflicted as the two messages she’d received about him. All at once, she wanted to hug him and run from him. She trusted him with her life and she feared he’d be the death of her. She had no idea what lay behind any of those feelings. Apparently she wasn’t immune to paradox after all.
“Where does this go?” she asked him.
“Brooklyn,” Peter replied, with a cheery grin. “Home.”
—
His brownstone lay in the middle of a chain, a slender construct of red brick and glass that stood all but invisible among its siblings. Every room in the four-story building teemed with taped cardboard boxes, bulging department store bags, and hastily placed furniture. Half the lamps still had price tags dangling from the bases.
By one o’clock, all wounds were bandaged, all faces washed, all bloody garments swapped for fresh cotton loungewear. Peter secured Amanda’s ankle with broken broomsticks and duct tape before leaving the house in search of better aid.
The Silvers convalesced in the hardwood living room, slouched among the mismatched chairs and sofas. Their twelve lazy feet faced one another on the circular glass coffee table like ticks on a clock dial. Only Hannah and Theo ruined the uniformity by bundling together on a recliner. While the actress wallowed in apocalyptic grief, the augur felt downright euphoric. Azral had offered him a shortcut to this very moment and Theo stubbornly insisted on forging his own path here. Now the thrill of success was incomparable, like winning two marathons at once.
Nobody moved or spoke for fifteen minutes, until Hannah retreated to the kitchen to make tea. She returned with a tray of steaming mugs, placing one on the end table near her sister.
“He doesn’t have milk. I looked. Sorry.”
Amanda stared ahead blankly, her senses dulled by exhaustion and painkillers. “Okay.”
Theo followed the exchange with grim interest. When he’d viewed this scene with Azral, it was Mia who served the hot drinks. The girl had looked fairly healthy in that string. But this one was listless, sweaty, and jaundiced. He feared something didn’t go entirely right with her reversal.
At two o’clock, Peter returned with a cartload of gifts for Amanda—a hospital-grade ankle brace, casting tape, ice packs, crutches, even a portable tomograph to gauge the extent of her bone damage. When David asked him how he managed to score such items on a major holiday, P
eter merely shrugged and said he knew people.
He sat down with Amanda and pulled her legs onto his lap, peeling away her splint with the gentle grace of a lover. Zack took a forced and sudden interest in the red-leafed sycamore outside the window.
“Where in Brooklyn are we?”
“Greenpoint.”
Zack gazed outside in absent marvel. “Jesus. I grew up here. The other ‘here.’”
“I can show you around tomorrow, if you want.”
“You think that’s wise?”
Peter flicked a breezy hand. “Some hats and sunglasses and we’ll be fine. It’d be awfully cruel if you folks couldn’t get out once in a while.”
“Wait. Didn’t you tell us the Brooklyn address was compromised?”
“I said our meeting address was compromised. This place is safe. Purchased with cash through two intermediaries. No one knows I’m here. Not even my son.”
Mia snapped out of her addled daze. “Where is he?”
“With my people. He’s safer there. My godmother will take care of him.”
“Can you call or write to him?”
“No. Too risky. I can’t even see him by portal without tipping off Ivy.”
Six brows curled in sympathy as the Silvers realized the extent of Peter’s sacrifice. Amanda held his wrist. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, come on now. None of that. I’ll tell you exactly what I told Liam. This is just temporary. As soon as matters are straightened out with my people, I’m going home and I’m bringing you with me. Quarter Hill is where we all belong.”
“What about the Deps?” Hannah asked. “They’ll be looking for us there.”
“They’ll be looking, but they won’t see. Trust me. Our town was built for secrets.”
David pursed his lips, lost in thoughts of young Freddy Ballad. “You really think the other Gothams will embrace us after everything that’s happened?”
“That’s not . . .” Peter chuckled with forced patience. “First of all, we don’t call ourselves that, ever. Secondly, yes. This whole mess started with Rebel. It’ll end with him.”
“You’re saying we need to kill him.”
“Absolutely not. If we kill him, he’ll become a martyr to the cause. The clan will forever see things his way. No, we have to do something even harder than that. We have to change his mind.”
Zack’s face coursed with hot blood as he rediscovered his hatred. Rebel had murdered his brother and then bragged about it. He nearly shot Mia to death. Even if the man could be persuaded to abandon his jihad, Zack couldn’t imagine waving hello to him at the Quarter Hill Shop & Save.
“I still don’t understand why he’s trying to kill us,” Zack said. “I mean he’s acting like we’re all walking A-bombs, or future Hitlers.”
Peter shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s wrong. None of this is your fault.”
“None of what?” David asked. “What are your people so afraid of?”
The sisters watched Peter carefully as he stared out the window, tapping his lantern jaw. The melancholy in his deep blue eyes was enough to kill their last strand of hope that Evan had lied. They covered their mouths and wept.
Theo leaned forward and rubbed Hannah’s arm. “Hey. Hey. Why are you crying?”
Zack studied Amanda in ardent concern. “What happened to you back there?”
“Someone talked to them,” said Peter.
“I’m asking her.”
“And I’m answering for her. The moment I saw the sisters, I recognized the look on their faces. It’s the same look my people have been wearing for the last ten weeks. Someone told them the bad news. Some bastard gave them the cloud without the silver lining.”
“Silver lining?” Hannah cried, in a wheezing rasp. “How is there a silver lining?”
Mia tugged tissues from a box and passed them to Amanda and Hannah. On her way back to her sofa, David gently pulled her into his easy chair and locked his arms around her like a seat belt. He threw an uneasy nod at Peter.
“All right. Tell us everything.”
The Irishman leaned back into the couch with a long, sorrowful sigh. He’d hoped to wait until they were better rested.
“The future’s a very peculiar thing,” he began. “The best prophets in the world couldn’t tell you what I’ll have for breakfast tomorrow, but they know for a fact that a volcano in Hawaii will erupt in four months’ time. They know a small meteor will punch the Gobi desert next April and that San Francisco will fall to an earthquake in two years. It’s easy as hell to see these things because they’re the same across all timelines. No one can stop them from happening.
“On July 24th, the day you all arrived, the sixty-seven augurs of my clan suddenly got a peek at a whole new future. The vision hit them like acid, the single worst thing any of them had ever seen. Four of them killed themselves before the day was done. We lost a dozen more the following week. And Rebel? He used to be a reasonable guy. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
The augur in the room could suddenly see where this was going. At long last, Theo understood the lingering dread that clouded the thoughts of his future selves, the same giant sword hanging over all their heads.
David reeled in bother. “I don’t understand. If it’s a second Cataclysm, as you implied, then why the suicidal despair? You’d have months, possibly years to evacuate.”
“It’s not a Cataclysm,” Theo said.
The boy looked to Peter. “But when you wrote Mia—”
“I haven’t written that letter yet, David. Those are the words of a future me. But I know exactly why he lied. He needed you all to get here. He didn’t want you losing hope.”
Zack opened and closed his mouth three times before speaking. “What . . . what . . .”
What could possibly be worse than a Cataclysm? he wanted to ask. As the words tangled in his throat, the obvious answer rolled over him like a sickness. He fell back in his chair, white-faced.
“Oh Jesus . . .”
Amanda drank him in through moist eyes. Worse than the pain of seeing Zack catch up to her was the realization that he was the only one in the room who wasn’t touching or holding someone. She wanted to leap across the table and wrap herself around him, Esis be goddamned.
Peter kept his dark gaze on the two spooning teenagers, the ones who could still count their years on fingers and toes. At long last, Mia understood why a future self had urged her to come to New York in a strong state of mind, why she demanded they take a week to relax in blissful ignorance.
Now her mouth quivered in a bow, stuck on the same jagged word. “W-when?”
“No firm date,” said Peter. “We know it’s between four and five years, closer to five.”
She fell back into David and the cruelest of math. I’ll be eighteen. He’ll be twenty.
“How?” asked the boy, in a cracked voice.
“I don’t want to bog you down in the gruesome details. Just—”
“Same way,” Hannah told him. That was all that needed to be said.
Peter leaned forward in fresh determination. “Okay, now that you have the bad news—”
“Why does this keep happening?”
“Mia . . .”
“Why does this keep happening?!”
All Peter could offer was a somber shrug. “I don’t know the how or the why, sweetheart. My guess is that the answer’s wrapped up in those Pelletiers who brought you here. I don’t know any more about them than you do.”
“You said there was a silver lining.”
He nodded at David. “There is, but you need to bear with me while I explain it.”
“Explain what, exactly?”
“Why I’m walking funny.”
Their heavy brows furrowed at Peter. He blew a long breath through his knuckles, deliberating his words.
/>
“There’s a unique state of consciousness that my people occasionally achieve, a place where all the branching futures stretch out before us like a great tapestry. We call it the God’s Eye, and by now one of you has become very familiar with it.”
Theo nodded skittishly, unsure where Peter was going with this. “I thought it was just for augurs.”
“Our blessings aren’t mutually exclusive,” Peter explained. “We all have a little tempis in us. A little lumis. A little foresight. We all have the chance to stumble into the God’s Eye when the right or wrong wires cross in our brains. Well, on July 24th, it was my turn. I’ll admit my stroke wasn’t the small deal I made it out to be. It actually put me in a coma for a day.”
Hannah pinched her lip in twitchy rumination. It seemed mighty odd that Theo and Peter suffered a coma at the same time, for the same duration.
“Anyway, Theo can tell you that time passes differently in the God’s Eye, if it even passes at all. I don’t know how long I spent there. Weeks. Months. Most of the details are lost to me now, like an old dream. All I remember is following the trail to the end of the world. I saw exactly what the augurs saw. I know why so many of them committed suicide.”
Mia curled against David, fighting her tears. He held her close and stroked her hair. For a moment Amanda saw the same heavy look of rue he’d worn at the Sunday mass in Evansville.
“I also remember going beyond the end,” Peter told them. “Somehow I punched through the curtain and entered this . . . I don’t even know how to describe it without sounding daft. I was floating in a cold gray void. I could see the end of every timeline—a trillion trillion points of light, all lined up flat as far as the eye can see. It was a cruel and beautiful thing, like a snowdrift or a desert, or—”
“A wall,” said Theo, through a dead-white face. Hannah could feel the new tension in his grip.
“You saw it?” she asked.
“Only in dreams,” he replied, though he knew that would change soon. He and Peter traded a dark look of understanding before the Irishman continued.
