Future Lost

by Briggs, Elizabeth;

  “We’re hoping Adam returns safely on his own,” Dr. Walters says. “We’re opening the aperture every half hour for a few seconds. He might still make it back.”

  “If he’s not back by now, he won’t be coming back on his own. You have to send me after him. Our future needs Adam in the present—and I’m not leaving here without him.”

  Vincent rubs his chin, then looks between his team and the accelerator as he considers. When I’m about to start pleading my case again, he sighs. “Fine, we’ll send you. Shall we contact the rest of your team?”

  “No. I won’t risk anyone else’s lives, not after what happened last time. I’m going alone.”

  “That’s what Adam did, and look how well it turned out for him. At least let me send Nina with you.”

  I glance at the girl with the tight ponytail, who looks like she’d rather knock me flat on my back than help me. “No offense, but I’d rather work alone. I don’t trust anyone who works for Aether. It’s your fault we’re in this mess at all. I’ll fix it on my own, thanks.”

  Vincent’s lips flatten into a tight line, but he nods. “Very well. But if you don’t return with Adam through the aperture at the scheduled time, I’m sending Nina after you.”

  “That won’t be a problem. How soon will the accelerator be ready?”

  “An hour,” Dr. Walters says.

  Perfect. “I’ll need some things before I go.”

  “Such as?” Vincent asks.

  “Weapons. Food. Water. A lantern of some kind. I’ll make you a list. I want to be prepared for anything.”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “We’ll get you whatever you need.”

  An hour later, I’m standing in front of the accelerator with a backpack on. I don’t get déjà vu, but if I did, it’d probably feel a lot like this.

  Dr. Walters moves beside me, looking at his creation with resignation. “There’s something else you should know. This accelerator isn’t fully ready yet. I warned them not to use it. I wanted to do more tests. But Adam didn’t listen.”

  “What are you saying?” I ask.

  “The temporal navigation system isn’t as precise as I’d like it to be. I’ve done my best to program you to arrive as close to Adam’s arrival as possible, but there’s no guarantee.”

  This keeps getting better and better. “Adam was the first to use it?”

  “Yes, he was.” Dr. Walters pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I wish neither of you had gotten involved with this.”

  I want to ask him why he’s here, but there’s no time. Vincent walks over and clasps both of us on the shoulders. “Ready to get started?”

  Dr. Walters drops his head like a submissive dog. “The accelerator is powered up.”

  Vincent looks me over. “Thirty years in the future for five hours. By yourself. You sure you want to do this?”

  I grip the straps of my backpack. “‘Want’ is the wrong word. But I’ll do whatever it takes to get Adam back.”

  He nods. “Good luck. I hope you both make it back safely.”

  Dr. Walters opens the accelerator door, and I step inside the small, smooth metal dome. While the other was built for five people and could hold double that if needed, this one is built for maybe half as many. If I stretch my arms out, I can almost touch either side of the walls. When the door slams shut, it’s like I’m trapped in a metal coffin.

  Every other time I’ve gone to the future, it was with Adam at my side. Now I’m alone, but I won’t be coming back that way.

  I will find Adam. I will bring him back. Or I won’t come back at all.

  There’s no other choice. I have no future without Adam.

  The countdown starts. The walls and floor begin to tremble. I stand in the center of the dome with a wide stance, ready for what comes next. The shaking grows violent, and the golden light appears, falling on my shoulders like pollen. This part used to excite me and scare me, but this time-travel thing is old news for me at this point. This is my fifth trip to the future. I’m a pro at it now.

  But damn, this better be my last trip.

  PART II

  THE FUTURE

  00:00

  My first thought when I arrive in the future is: not this again.

  It’s pitch-black and bitterly cold. I can’t see a damn thing, just like the first time I went to the future. But this time I’m prepared.

  I reach into my backpack and pull out a hand-held camping lantern. No flashlight—electronics get shorted out by the accelerator. This one runs on gasoline and spreads a ring of light around me as soon as I light it.

  The illumination reveals the first change to this timeline. I’m still inside the accelerator, which has always been gone in the other futures I visited. The door is open slightly, and it’s just as dark and empty outside it. And silent. Utterly, painfully silent.

  I raise my lantern and step through the door into the basement of the Aether building downtown. Almost everything from the present is still here, including desks, chairs, and computers, each now coated in a thick layer of dust. I flick a light switch, try to turn one of the computers on, and check the phone line, but nothing works. A calendar on the wall is dated ten years after the present. I can’t be sure of the current year, but if they sent me to the right time, then this place has been abandoned for twenty years.

  I check each desk and search every room, looking for clues or any signs of life, but there’s nothing here. Instead I find a dusty sweater hanging from the back of a chair, a very old, unopened bag of chips on a desk, and forgotten pictures of someone’s kids on one wall. As if the people who worked here expected to come back sometime for the rest of their things, but never did.

  The elevator doesn’t work, so I take the stairs up. The floor above me is a parking garage, with one lone car in the middle of all the empty spaces. I take a moment to study it, circling it with my lantern held high. It’s a blue Nissan Sentra and the back left tire is flat. The license plate’s registration sticker has the same year on it as the calendar. But the most unusual thing is that it’s a normal car, not a driverless car or a flying car like I saw in the other futures I visited.

  The other basement floors all lead to other parking levels, each one of them empty. I keep going up until I reach the lobby level.

  A few hours ago, I walked through the lobby, and the place was filled with people in suits and security guards. Now it’s as empty as the other floors. And this time, all the tall windows have been shattered. Glass and other rubble are scattered everywhere. A warm breeze flows through the open space, sending dead leaves skittering across the marble floor.

  But the worst part, the part that makes me stumble forward through the rubble to one of the broken windows with my mouth hanging open, is that the rest of downtown Los Angeles looks just as deserted.

  I’ve never seen downtown empty. Even late at night there are cars driving by, people playing on their cell phones while they wait for a bus, and the smells of exhaust, fried food, and piss in the air. As the sun beats down from high in the bright-blue sky, making sweat bead on my forehead, I should hear the sound of air conditioners kicking on, of people talking to one another at outdoor cafés, of sirens blaring in the distance. But there are no sounds except for my rapid breathing, my heart pounding in my chest, and the dry wind pulling at my hair.

  As I step over the broken glass and into the outside world, I almost believe I’m in a dream. Or that I’ve wandered onto the set of a horror movie and at any moment something is going to lunge at me from a dark corner. But this isn’t a dream, and it isn’t a movie. This is the future. A really messed-up future.

  The stillness of the city is unnerving, as is the destruction all around me. The Aether building isn’t the only one with shattered windows and crumbling walls. Storefronts across from it sit barren, as if they’ve been ransacked. A broken sign hangs lows over the door of a restaurant, the letters bleached by the sun. The lone car I see has crashed into a streetlight, the fender dented around
the pole, the driver’s door still hanging open.

  I move to the middle of the silent street, then whirl around to take it all in. Other shops and restaurants have collapsed roofs and broken windows, some with scraggly trees growing out of them. A chain link fence is covered in ripped and faded posters, but I can’t make out the writing on them. One wall of an office building is decorated with graffiti that says The end is nigh.

  This future is nothing like the others I’ve been to. Something must have gone horribly wrong in the last thirty years. I need to find Adam fast and get us the hell out of here.

  But I haven’t seen any hint that Adam was here. Did Dr. Walters send me to the wrong time? Did I go much further into the future? If Adam did come here, where would he go?

  A dirty orange flyer slides toward my feet, and I stop it with my boot. Across the top of it is a biohazard symbol. Below it, evacuation orders to the Palmdale quarantine zone.

  What. The. Hell.

  Palmdale is over an hour outside Los Angeles, out in the desert with a military base and not much else. I lived in a group home there for a year, and it wasn’t pretty. Why would there be a quarantine zone there?

  Why would they need one?

  I’m starting to get an idea of what happened to the world, but the more I see, the less I want to know—and the more desperate I am to find Adam.

  There’s nothing for me to do but walk. I head west, toward the scorching sun’s descent, because I assume Adam would go that way too. Our apartment and his lab are in that direction, as is our future house, the one we’re supposed to live in one day with our daughter.

  The desolation continues on every block. The sun beats down on me; the air is dusty and dry, the ground cracked and hard. There’s no life, except for the weeds that have grown up between the sidewalk cracks. Trees that were once planted along the side of the road are all dead now, their brittle branches twisting up like skeletal fingers. I spot the familiar arches of a McDonald’s, but the golden plastic has fallen off, leaving behind a rusted metal frame. I pass another lone car covered in rust, with broken windows and flat tires. Where the hell is everyone? Are they all…dead?

  Something moves near my feet, and I jump back with a shriek. It’s just a small lizard, the kind you see out in the desert, but it nearly gave me a heart attack. It’s strange to see it here too. The only animals I’ve ever seen downtown are stray cats and dogs on leashes. The lizard darts under a boarded-up door and vanishes.

  I take a moment to gain control of my breathing, then continue down the road more cautiously, taking care not to disturb anything or make a sound. There’s something about the empty streets that makes me want to keep quiet. Probably just paranoia, but it’s kept me alive so far, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.

  There’s a sound behind me. The brushing of fabric. A quiet step. A quick breath.

  I’m not alone.

  00:54

  The hair stands up on my arms, and I get the feeling I’m being watched. A sharp glance around the area tells me nothing. If someone is there, they’re hiding. Waiting.

  I duck behind an abandoned city bus on the side of the road, then reach inside my backpack. My hand grasps the cool, hard metal of the gun inside, but I keep it held low as I survey the street. Might be nothing. Could be someone walking by who can tell me what the hell is going on with this future. Best possible scenario: they know where Adam is. Worst: I have to use my gun.

  Movement bursts from the shadows. Multiple figures, running toward me, and they don’t look friendly. I have only an instant to react, and I swing my gun toward one, but I’m tackled by another. The gun goes flying down the street, just as my body hits the cement.

  Dirty hands grab at me. Tangled hair hovers over my face. Teeth snap near my ear. My training kicks in, and I shove the person off me, hard. She stumbles back, but another one reaches for me. With a burst of adrenaline, I jump to my feet and narrowly spin out of the way. As he passes by where I was, I slam his head into the side of the bus. He drops to the ground, but there are two more, still coming at me like rabid animals.

  I grab the gun off the ground and aim it at them. “Stop!” I yell. “I’ll shoot!”

  They don’t even slow down. If anything, they get faster at the sound of my voice. Their movements are rigid and jerky, and one of them has a slight limp. They’re wearing ripped clothes resembling rags, and underneath them, they’re so thin their ribs stand out. Their hair is long and matted, their teeth are yellow, and their nails are caked with dirt.

  But the worst part is that their faces look…melted. Their skin sags and droops like a Saint Bernard, giving them big, hollow eyes and hanging jowls.

  I hesitate too long. I should shoot them, but it’s harder to kill a human being than you might think, even if they look like something out of a horror movie. I keep expecting them to see the gun and stop, but they don’t. My hand shakes as they get closer and closer.

  The nearest one lunges, and I whip the gun against his face. The woman reaches for me and I duck, then knock her back with a hard kick. But no matter how much I fight back, they keep coming for me. And behind them, two more emerge from a dark building, drawn to us by the sound of the fight.

  I spin around and try to run, but one of them grabs my backpack, yanking me back. The others close in. I’m surrounded.

  A gunshot rings out from somewhere above me, and the guy holding my backpack drops. I jerk free and stumble forward as more bullets rain down on the attackers. I cover my head as I run past them, ducking under a rusted table outside a former café.

  I look up, searching for the source of the gunfire, and spot a woman completely covered in gray cloth, wrapped around her entire body and head except for her eyes and mouth. I can’t make out her features, especially with the sun behind her.

  There’s a guttural sound behind me, and another one of those things—I’m not convinced they’re people anymore—comes lunging toward me from inside the café. I raise my gun and pull the trigger before he gets to me, shooting the guy point-blank in the forehead. Blood goes flying. The boom is deafening. But the thing finally stops moving.

  The person on the roof is gone, but all the attackers are down. I slowly rise and look around, my hands trembling. Every second in this future makes me more and more worried about Adam, but if I think about what might have happened to him, I’ll scream.

  Soft footsteps sound behind me and I spin around, raising my gun. It’s the woman from the roof. She approaches slowly, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry I’m late. Got attacked by another group of Infected about two blocks from here.”

  I recognize that voice. She’s completely covered in that gray cloth, but her blue eyes and heart-shaped mouth are familiar, although they have new wrinkles around them. I lower my gun. “Paige?”

  “Did they bite you?” she asks.

  I glance down at myself, quickly checking myself over, then shake my head. “No. Why?”

  She rushes forward, grabbing me in a tight embrace. She smells like the desert, like dust and sun and wilderness. I hug her back, but soon realize this isn’t another of Paige’s normal exuberant hugs. This one is longer than normal, like she doesn’t want to let me go. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, her voice wavering. “It’s been so long.”

  My stomach twists at her words, but I have so many other questions that are more important than my own fate. “Where’s Adam? What were those things? And what the hell is going on in this future?”

  “We have a lot to discuss, but it’s not safe here,” she says. I can’t see much of her face, but her eyes look harder than in the present, and her skin seems more weathered. I can only imagine what kind of horrors she’s witnessed in the last thirty years. “The Infected will keep coming for us.”

  Both of our heads snap to the north, where we hear a sound from a nearby building. She gestures for me to follow her and dashes off down the road, her movements silent and nimble. Before I met her, she was a gymnast
and an Olympic hopeful, but she got kicked off the team for stealing. She’s always been graceful, but now she moves like a wraith, flitting through the desolate city like she’s a part of it.

  I try to follow her, but I’m not as quick and my steps aren’t as quiet. My hand tightly grips the gun, and I find it impossible not to glance at every darkened doorway, waiting for more of those things to jump out at us. I’ve been to a lot of futures now, and some of them were pretty bad. But I never expected to walk through the aperture into something like this.

  We reach Paige’s car, a big, black SUV with solar panels strapped to the top and bars over the windows. A guy on the roof of the car is covered up like Paige is, holding an assault rifle in his hand.

  “About time,” he calls out.

  “This is Jesse,” Paige says, nodding at the guy. “My trainee.”

  I peer at his familiar eyes and mouth, the only thing visible on him. “…Wombat?”

  He squints at me. “Huh?”

  Seems he only had that nickname in the first timeline where we met him. “Nothing. Sorry. You look like someone I once knew.”

  If Wombat—Jesse—is here, is my daughter, Ava, alive too? The two of them were dating in another future I visited, and she’d be about eighteen in this year. I start to ask but can’t get it off my tongue. Maybe because if the answer is no, I’m not sure I want to know.

  He eyes my clothes skeptically. “You’re really a time traveler?”

  “What did I say about questions?” Paige asks, but she grins at him as she says it. “Hurry up and get in the car.”

  Jesse shrugs but hops off the roof, staring at me the entire time. We climb into the car as more of those deranged people emerge from a building behind us, like dogs following a scent. Paige starts the car, and we tear down the empty roads, darting around fallen pillars, narrowly avoiding abandoned cars and other debris. The whole city has been deserted, looted, and forgotten. There’s no power anywhere. And other than those cannibals, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else alive.