I stood over her, speaking words I couldn't understand. Her eyes, covered in a film.
Distant. Lost. Searching.
She couldn't make connections. Could barely recognize me.
I barely recognized her.
This was our truth. Our reality. Our sickness.
Two souls torn apart. Minds incapable of remembering that which they forgot they'd forgotten.
I pounded my forehead, scouring for what I'd lost. Frustration overwhelmed me. A fever ran through my body. Chills followed by sweat. No consistency. No structure.
A moment of lucidity.
Mine.
Through Malcolm's virus-induced amnesia, I remembered.
Diana's mind, gone. Stolen. Taken by the man who'd taken mine. But it wasn't meant for her.
This was my fault. I couldn't stay away. I infected her.
Her memory, chewed through and left to rot. Rancid with the stink of maggots squirming through the worm-riddled holes of her mind.
I wanted to fix her, but I was broken, too. The moment drifted. A cloud across the sky.
Slipping away. Again.
I was forgetting her.
Forgetting myself.
I closed my eyes.
BLINK.
Diana on the edge of our bed. Toes skimming the floor. She kicked her feet back and forth; a child on a swing set.
I stood over her, speaking words I couldn't understand. Her eyes, covered in a film.
Distant. Lost. Searching.
She couldn't make connections. Could barely recognize me.
I barely recognized her.
This was our truth. Our reality. Our sickness.
Two souls torn apart. Minds incapable of remembering that which they forgot they'd forgotten.
I pounded my forehead, scouring for what I'd lost. Frustration overwhelmed me. A fever ran through my body. Chills followed by sweat. No consistency. No structure.
A moment of lucidity.
Mine.
Through Malcolm's virus-induced amnesia, I remembered.
Diana's mind, gone. Stolen. Taken by the man who'd taken mine. But it wasn't meant for her.
This was my fault. I couldn't stay away. I infected her.
Her memory, chewed through and left to rot. Rancid with the stink of maggots squirming through the worm-riddled holes of her mind.
I wanted to fix her, but I was broken, too. The moment drifted. A cloud across the sky.
Slipping away. Again.
I was forgetting her.
Forgetting myself.
I closed my eyes.
BLINK.
Sitting in traffic. Raines beside me. Following a lead. Something pinged me and I slipped into the Stream.
Diana. She was different, but I couldn't say how.
"I remember," she said, her eyes heavy with the weight of knowing.
"What do you remember?" I asked, confused.
"Everything. Everything he did to us."
"Who?"
"Malcolm."
I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't.
"I know where he is," she continued. "I'm going to stop him."
I tried to find traction. Progress. But clarity wouldn't come. Understanding eluded me.
"No." The word came out harsh. I yelled it into my mind, screamed it into the Stream. Diana didn't flinch. "Tell me. I'll take care of this. It's my responsibility. Don't go."
"I have to. While I still remember. It's my job, now. I'm sorry, love."
Then she was gone.
BLINK.
Crying.
Tears mixed with the traces of my soul, covering my cheek.
Covered in blood. Still warm.
Something heavy in my arms. Limp.
I looked down.
Diana's eyes were glass mirrors to the other side. Gone. Truly gone this time.
Her skin was pale. Too pale.
Streaks of red painted her cheeks, a warrior going into battle.
I cradled her neck with my arm. My other pawed at the strands of her blood-soaked hair, smoothing it back.
I rested my cheek against hers. Still warm, but losing its heat so fast.
Trapped.
The world was fracturing, dragging me down through the cracks.
Memories faded.
Something in my hand. A cube. Harsh metal, obscenely bright for the occasion.
I don't recall how it got there, but now I remember what it is, what it holds...
Oh, God. Who it holds.
Slippery with blood. Cradled in the palm of my hand. Afraid of dropping it. Afraid to damage its fragile contents.
BLINK.
Standing in the Vault. Alone.
Forever alone.
Thumb pressed to the wall. A hole appeared.
I placed the cube inside. It disappeared into the bowels of the building, lost amongst the billions of data flitting through its veins.
Leaning against the wall. Forehead pressed to the smooth surface.
A single breath.
Followed by a second.
That's the only way through this.
Another breath.
It wouldn't be long until I forgot.
I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in, please fix me.
Fix me so I can fix her.
I pressed my palm to the wall. Said goodbye.
Told her I would be back.
That I wouldn't forget.
But then I did.
BLINK.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Love Is A Prison
Memories snapped into place and I startled awake. Thoughts long abandoned strobed across my mind's eye. Everything came flooding back.
I remembered.
Life before the Lowers. Before Diana's death. Before Malcolm's virus. I remembered everything and Malcolm was right—I wished I hadn't.
A dull rhythm pulsed in the back of my skull as a lumberjack ground his ax against my spine.
The sky was a black eye turning purple. The last rays of light straggled behind the rest, loitering on the horizon. It was going to be a clear night. No clouds. Rare. Perhaps even a starry night, if not for the lights of the city outshining them like a younger sibling desperate for parental approval.
I said goodbye to the sun. It'd be back tomorrow, indifferent and unmoved by those suffering through the remainder of their lives. I wouldn't be one of them. Wouldn't be one of the billions of people living under the delusion that they were the center of the universe.
It's a strong delusion, but death has a way of pulling back the curtain on that lie, revealing the awful truth.
I saw that truth now. Understood my role within the bigger picture. We are not the center of the universe. We are not even the center of our own lives. We are not the heroes of our own stories. We are supporting roles on the stage of life, pulled along by fate's whim.
Sadness crept into me, an intruder in the night, a breeze slipping through the screen door. It clung to everything like a thick tar, coating my insides and stalling my engine with gunk. Blood trudged through clogged arteries. My heart strained with every shuddering beat.
I wrestled with gravity and sat up. The stimheal had worn off, leaving me every bit as sore as I was tired. I traced circles with my toe; the ankle rolled smoothly. The nanobots had done their job in mending the damaged bone, but to what end?
I scanned the suburban neighborhood Malcolm had been kind enough to dump my unconscious body in. Cookie-cutter houses in all directions. A world of sameness. Some would call that unity. I called it conformity.
The suppression tech Devers had given me hours earlier had worn off. Somebody pinged me, meaning I was back on the grid. The Peacekeepers would arrive shortly to collect me. I was tired, beaten, used, and bruised. Giving up moved higher on my to-do list, but it wouldn't jump to the top. Malcolm and I had unfinished business.
He had something of mine. Something I should have guarded more closely. Something I would have sacrificed myself for if I'd know what pr
ecious cargo was riding shotgun in my brain.
An engine thrummed. The air vibrated. I looked to the sky expectantly. A shadow moved against the backdrop of night, its shape barely discernible. A Peregrine descended quickly, pulling out of a steep dive twenty feet shy of the ground.
It held its position, stalking me like a predator waiting for any sign of weakness. A door plumed open, breaking the Peregrine's perfect symmetry. A silhouette appeared in the opening, paused, and then jumped out. Hair fluttered around the figure as it landed softly.
Light, the color and consistency of egg yolks, streamed from lamps lining the street, combating the encroaching darkness. The Peregrine absorbed the ambient light into its colorless sides before refracting it in a jaundiced haze onto the approaching woman.
Raines.
She stopped an arm's length away. We held each other in the hard embrace of a stare. The last time we were together I'd pushed her off the roof of the Vault. A gamble with her life I had to take.
I remembered the helplessness in her eyes. That was gone now; only the betrayal lingered.
Raines didn't try to conceal it. It hurt to see that.
Three steps separated us. I could have reached across the gap to touch her, but I didn't. Something in the gulf repelled me.
So we stood there.
Only a couple seconds, but anybody who has ever looked into the eyes of a loved one, with thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow pushed into nothing, can tell you a moment isn't defined by time.
"Should've figured I'd find you in the gutter," she said.
"Surprised it wasn't the first place you looked."
"It was. This city's got a lot of gutters."
The banter was there. Familiar. Warm.
I opened my mouth and said, "I'm sorr—"
"Why did you leave?" Her shoulders slumped, and the skin beneath her eyes sagged. Parts of her were crumbling. I watched, helpless to put those pieces back. “I woke up in the hospital alone, Tom. You didn’t even say goodbye.”
The regrets, the mistakes of a former life, had chased me to that moment. They’d trailed me until I was too tired to run. Too tired to do anything but confront them.
“Staying would only have hurt you worse. I couldn’t pull you down with—”
“That wasn’t your decision to make alone.” Her fists clenched. Muscles tensed. I wished she would hit me. I could take a punch; I couldn’t take the tears.
I saw her desire to release the anger and frustration through the physicality of violence. I understood that urge better than most. I’d followed that road to the Lowers, to fighting for the amusement of others, desperate to feel something more than the gnawing guilt. Desperate to inflict my suffering on another person, just to know I wasn’t alone.
Couldn’t stand being alone.
And yet, that’s how I’d left Raines. My negligence put her in the hospital once. My addiction. I couldn’t face what I’d done. I ran.
“Waking up alone wasn’t the worst part,” she said, her hands relaxing. Her head tilted forward, obscuring her face beneath waves of black hair. “It was that I knew you weren’t coming back. That you didn’t need me anymore.”
“I do need you,” I said.
Raines knew that was a lie. Deep down I knew it, too. But there was nothing we could do to change that fact. It was out there, now. It drifted in the space between. The silence and distance were different. I didn't know how to bridge them.
Neither did she.
A tear dripped from her chin. My nanocomp adjusted time, slowed the vibrations of the Peregrine's engines agitating the air around me. I lived a lifetime in that single second, watching the droplet fall slowly before shattering on the ground. I wanted to wipe away the next one like I would have done for Diana.
But Raines was not Diana, a truth that hurt in my marrow.
I had forgotten that truth, once. The pain left in the wake of that mistake could be measured by the length of the scars on Raines' heart.
"You're back on the grid," she said, turning to walk back to the jet. "Let's go."
I followed her into the Peregrine and stopped short. A young man wearing a suit with a level of shine indicative of an Upper waited in the doorway. A soft light from the Peregrine's interior backlit the man, casting him into shadow. Even so, I recognized him immediately.
Derek Hamilton, Leader of District Two.
I'd met him earlier that afternoon, moments before Raines and I took the Time Bank slip and slide down to the parking garage. He'd been hiding something then. My nanites had detected him trying, in vain, to conceal his emotions, but despite his status as a professional politician, the kid couldn't lie to save his ass.
"What's he doing here?" I asked Raines.
Hamilton descended the steps, meeting me on street level with his hand extended. "I'm sorry about earlier."
I scratched my nose and studied his hand, trying to figure out why he would be apologizing to me when I'd been the one holding him at gunpoint less than twelve hours earlier.
"You went and got yourself caught." Raines shrugged. "The rest of us decided to do something more productive."
"So you kidnapped a District Leader?" I said, hooking a thumb in Hamilton's direction.
"Oh, they didn't kidnap me." Derek's eyes were filled with a youthful earnestness. "I came willingly. I want to help."
"And what makes you think we need your help?" I asked.
"I can prove President Jennings helped Malcolm Wolfe escape." Hamilton puffed his chest and smiled.
Actually, that could prove useful. "Why haven't you gone to the Peacekeepers or Division Security?"
Hamilton gave a laugh that was half an octave too high. "You're kidding, right? Have you seen how Jennings works? He'd have me killed without a second thought."
I fitted the pieces together in my mind, arranging what I knew of the kid from earlier to fit my opinion of him now. In the Time Bank board room I'd seen him leak something, an emotion that made me think he was hiding something about Wolfe's escape. Turns out I'd been correct, but only slightly wrong about what and why he was hiding.
"Tom, I know you're not interested in what happens to the world after tonight,” Raines said. “But to stop Malcolm we have to stop Jennings, too. Hamilton's our best shot at that."
"And what does he get out of this?" I asked.
"The Presidency," Hamilton said. "Somebody has to fill the position once Jennings is gone."
"Might as well be our guy," Raines added.
Everything was happening so quickly. I turned to Raines, who'd had the last couple hours to consider the ramifications of allying herself with Hamilton, and nodded. "Sounds like you guys have this all figured out. Not sure what you need me for."
Raines walked up the steps into the Peregrine, saying, "Good question."
Hamilton lingered a moment longer, hand still extended. Raines was right. We would need help from people high up in Unity if we were to have any hope in removing Jennings without facilitating a complete collapse of the system in the process. I couldn't shake the picture of Captain Nash lying dead in his bed. It seemed this kid would be sprinting towards a similar fate by aligning himself with us.
I ignored Hamilton's hand, patted him on the shoulder as I brushed past, and said, "Welcome to the team."
Inside the jet Ash and Devers sat beside the open door. My guts twisted into a kinked hose at the sight of them.
"You're working with Malcolm," I said. It wasn't a question.
Devers nodded, his old head bobbing like a heavy weight he could no longer support.
Raines froze, her ass floating inches above her seat. "What?"
“Those nanites they gave me to repair my memory…they were Malcolm’s.”
Raines’ face played through the implications and possible reactions before concluding that if it came to a fight against Ash, we'd both be evicted from the vehicle before another word was spoken. She chose a simpler fate, and sat down.
"It was a gamble." Devers s
poke first. "But we needed what he had to offer."
"And what did he have to offer that made giving me up an acceptable trade?" I spat the words like daggers.
"Adam's Mobius Cube," Devers said.
I rubbed my temples between thumb and forefinger and slumped into my chair. That was the finish line. The whole point of my existence distilled into a single objective.
Raines stared at me, her face reflecting the same confusion I'd worn for years. "Who the hell is Adam?"
She deserved to know, but finding the beginning was like unraveling a knot.
I exchanged glances with Devers and Ash, a three-way of passing the buck. But Raines was my partner. Filling the gaps of her knowledge was my responsibility. Gaps I'd been trained to cultivate during my time on Time Vice. Designed to keep her, and the rest of the people I was trying to protect, at arm's length.
But she sat shoulder deep in shit now. Keeping her in the dark would only hurt our chances of success.
"What about him?" I nodded to the corner where Hamilton sat quietly with hands folded neatly in his lap. He followed the conversation with the slight head tilt indicative of a man deciphering a conversation taking place in a foreign language.
"If he is our best hope of succeeding Jennings," Devers said, "then he'll have to learn eventually."
My eyes flitted between Hamilton and Raines. The world sat poised on the brink of change. Might as well start with theirs.
I went for the most direct method I could think of, and said, "Adam was the first Artificial Intelligence."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It Began With A Kiss
Raines stared blankly, daring me to continue a story that sounded entirely delusional.
"Thirteen years after the Japanese flipped the switch, and the Stream came online, something happened." I paddled softly through the conversational waters so as not to dump all the information on Raines at once. "In the void between thought and perception, in the trillions of interactions occurring instantaneously across billions of human minds connected by the neural network of nanites, a consciousness formed."
"Lovely," she said, crossing her arms and biting her lower lip to avoid launching into a counterargument.
Hamilton leaned back slowly in his chair, as if maximizing the distance between himself and the crazy man. No sudden movements, I imagined him thinking. I admit making the young politician uneasy gave me a perverse kind of satisfaction.
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