Now, Then, and Everywhen (Chronos Origins)

by Rysa Walker

  Jack seems more ambivalent about the move than any of the others. In general, he’s been more on edge the past few days, and I wonder if he’s having second thoughts about being involved in all of this. Maybe he’s worried, like he said before, about the two of us pushing things too far too fast. Or about being involved with me at all, after the revelation about the enhancements. To be fair, that would be a deal breaker for most guys. Everyone living in the house is committing a class 3 misdemeanor by not turning me in.

  He left yesterday morning before anyone else was awake and didn’t show back up until we were at the house unpacking the first load from the truck. I didn’t ask where he went, even though I wondered, because I don’t want to seem pushy. Alex, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He got a vague answer about an upcoming test in his History of Science class, which Alex didn’t seem to believe. Neither did I.

  Maybe the old girlfriend is back in the picture? This prospect bothers me far more than it probably should at this stage in our relationship.

  My Dryft arrives at the curb as my mind is cycling through all of this. It’s a shared flight, in deference to my dwindling credits, and also one of the older, less secure models that always make me a bit nervous about the piloting system getting hijacked. The old man sharing the pod seems pretty unperturbed about it, though. He’s already half-asleep by the time we reach our cruising altitude, and he snores all the way to London. I take my earplugs from my bag to drown out the racket, hoping to spend the hour reading more of Katherine’s diary. As I’m inserting the earplugs, my thumb slides into the curved hollow between my ear and the base of my jaw, and it occurs to me that it’s about the same size as the odd, almost-transparent stickers that I found in the bag with the diaries. I fish around inside my bag for the vial, and when I finally locate it, I peel off one of the adhesive disks . . .

  Disk. Damn, that’s what Kate’s note meant. Not a computer disk. Not even a thumb drive. This tiny, rubbery sticker. I feel a little stupid, but to be perfectly honest, it’s not round. It’s more oval in shape, and that’s really not a disk.

  The sticker fits perfectly, though. Once it’s in place, I discover that tapping the links in the diary with the tiny pencil pulls up a holographic screen that hovers a few inches above the page. It looks a lot like the navigation display for the CHRONOS key.

  After a bit of trial and error, I figure out how to get the videos to play. At first, I’m worried about disturbing the old guy, but the little disk must function like earphones, because he doesn’t react in the slightest when the audio kicks in. The bulk of the recordings are personal diary entries of a petite blond woman who I assume is Katherine Shaw. She spends a lot of time talking about her work partner, Saul, who is apparently also her romantic partner, although they haven’t gone public with that yet in the early entries. Some of the entries are reflections on her work, but most are snippets of her social life. Parties, dinners at some place called the OC, and occasional grumbles about a nonhistorian friend of Saul’s named Morgen Campbell who was apparently a pompous jerk.

  After watching a few of these early videos, I realize it might make more sense to work my way backward. When I click on the last video, however, I gasp out loud. The old man sharing my pod gives me a querulous look and readjusts in his seat, but I barely notice him.

  This entry was recorded several years after the ones at the beginning of the diary, in April of 2305. It’s instantly clear that the romance between Katherine and Saul has soured. In fact, it turned violent, right after she made two discoveries. First, he’d been breaking some rules at this CHRONOS place, rules that could get him fired, apparently. Second, her birth control had failed. She never got around to telling Saul the last part, though.

  At some point, I’ll need to go back and watch the entries that lead up to this. Maybe some of them will have clues as to how this woman wound up in the mid-twentieth century, eventually becoming Nora’s great-great-grandmother. But the shock of seeing her in the video, with her face swollen and a red mark around her neck, is too raw. I just stare out the window, watching the scenery below until the Dryft touches down on the roof of a building a few blocks from my mom’s flat.

  This is not the best area of London, and the flat is without a doubt the least expensive place Mila Randall Grace has ever lived. There were no complaints on that front when I helped her move in a few months back, however. She knew better. If the accommodations are a step down for her, she really has no one to blame but herself. The building is safe and reasonably modern, and the flat is plenty big enough for one person.

  Once I’m outside her place, I find a spot behind the building that’s relatively inconspicuous and set a stable point. It will be nice not to have to go through all of the hassle and expense of paging a flight-pod if I want to visit again. I’m definitely not going to let her know that I can blink in anytime I want to, however. That would only amplify the chaos the next time she’s in a dramatic mood. Better to have her assume that I’m a three-hour flight that neither of us can afford away.

  I take the lift up to the fifth floor and ring the bell. She’s not expecting me. I thought about calling. It’s a bit rude to show up unannounced, even when visiting your mother. Also, since she doesn’t know I’m coming, there’s a slight chance she won’t even be here, and I’ll have to come back later, something Alex mentioned when we were discussing my itinerary this morning. As we talked about it, though, I realized that it wasn’t really a problem. Coming back later simply means setting another stable point in her hallway, then scanning forward and jumping in when I see her approach the door.

  And although I didn’t go into this with Alex, the simple truth is that I have to catch my mother off guard. I need some answers on this whole genetic-enhancement thing. Honest answers.

  There’s no immediate response to the doorbell. I set the stable point while I’m waiting and then push the button again. This time, the little camera nested in the door scans me and the lock clicks open.

  “Madison. What are you doing here?” Mila Grace’s voice is thick-tongued and heavy. It might be from alcohol, but the mood meds that her doctor friend prescribes all too freely are a far more likely cause. She’s lost weight, too—something she can ill-afford—and the dressing gown she’s wearing hangs loosely over crumpled pajamas. Her hair, which is almost always pulled back into a bun, is a mass of dark curls, streaked with the silver that’s been creeping in over the past few years.

  She gives me a perfunctory hug and then steps back so I can enter the front room.

  It’s a mess. This would never have been the case before my father died. For one thing, we had household help. But even when we were on holiday and it was just the three of us, she liked a tidy house. I’m more my father’s daughter in that respect. When it gets so cluttered that I can’t find things, then I’ll take the time to pick the place up.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she asks, scooping up a pile of clothes so that I can sit on the sofa. “And how long are you staying? Can you really afford travel right now?”

  “I’m not staying. A friend of a friend at university has a private copter. They were coming over for the weekend and asked if I wanted to tag along.” As soon as the lie leaves my mouth, I realize that it’s Monday. “We’re . . . we’re heading back in a few hours. I just had something I needed to discuss with you.”

  Her blue eyes narrow slightly. We used to be close, and she’s my mother. So even with her senses dulled from whatever she’s on, she’s had years of experience and probably knows I’m lying. She definitely knows that whatever I came here to discuss has me on edge.

  “Do you want something to drink? Or eat?”

  I kind of do. The food unit here is a lot better than the one at the house back in Bethesda. I don’t know if it’s the regional settings or just because it’s ancient, but even though I entered Nora’s recipe exactly, I’ve yet to coerce a palatable curry of any sort out of the machine. I’m not at all sure how the discussio
n I’m about to embark upon will go, however, so I decide it might be better to wait and eat when I get to Nora’s house.

  “No, thanks. Like I said . . . I really can’t stay. I just wanted to see you and ask”—I take a deep breath and then just plunge straight into the deep end—“and ask why you never told me that you and Dad were both genetically enhanced.”

  The question catches her off guard, exactly as I’d planned. But whatever sedative she’s on makes it harder than usual to read her expressions. “Why on earth would you think that, Madi?”

  “Because I have test results that show I inherited changes from both my maternal and paternal lines.”

  “Then someone has made a mistake. You can’t possibly think that I would—or even could—keep something like that a secret from you and your father.”

  “There’s no mistake. And I never said you kept it a secret from Dad. I said that he was enhanced, too.”

  I spend the next few minutes grilling her, but she hems and haws, mentioning the minor gene therapy I had as an infant to protect against an increased risk of a rare eye cancer. When I press her, asking her directly whether she or my father was enhanced, she says no. Repeatedly.

  But she’s lying. And she’s never been especially good at lying. I can only remember a few times before my father’s death where I noticed her not telling the truth, and those were fairly minor white lies. Still, she has a few telltale signs, like speaking a full octave above her normal tone or fidgeting with her hair.

  What bothers me most isn’t the lying, though. I sort of expected that. It’s more that she seems scared. She definitely doesn’t seem surprised to learn that I inherited genetic enhancements. The revelation itself got almost no reaction, and while that could be the drugs dulling her senses, I’m pretty sure she already knew. Her second most obvious reaction was annoyance, although I don’t know if that’s because the secret is now out or because I showed up unannounced.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone,” I say, hoping to reassure her. “That would be practically suicidal. I just want to know why . . . and how, I guess. The friend who did the test isn’t going to turn us in, either. Maybe it was one of your parents who was altered, and it didn’t show up with older equipment.” I pull one of the syringes Lorena gave me this morning from my bag. “If you’d be willing to give us a blood sample, Lorena may be able to figure out exactly—”

  “Absolutely not. This is ridiculous!”

  And now she’s crying. Mila has always been emotional, and even more so since my father died, but this is borderline hysteria. She drops into the chair opposite me and pulls her knees up, clutching them to her chest. It’s almost a fetal position, and I remember it well from the weeks after my father died. She just keeps repeating “Why now, why now,” as she rocks back and forth.

  After a few minutes, she pulls herself together and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “You can’t just storm in here with these . . . insane accusations and demand a blood sample. Someone is lying to you, Madison, and I won’t be part of it. Do you hear me? I won’t!”

  Until this moment, I was planning to tell her about finding the CHRONOS keys. I wasn’t sure if I’d go into the time-travel side of things, but I wanted to see if she had any knowledge about the medallion itself, or even of the Cyrists. Her own mother, Thea, has spent her life cycling through weird religions. I’m guessing she cycled through Cyrisism at some point. Mom lived in several different communes with Thea when she was a child. Almost every time we meet, Thea tells me about this fabulous guru or cleric who is helping her find her true self.

  But given my mother’s reaction and her current precarious state of mind, I’m not willing to risk sharing any information with her. She’s keeping things from me, which means I can’t trust her. That saddens me, even though I can’t say it really surprises me.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Listen, I need to go. I have to meet up with my friends so we can get back to DC. I’m sorry I upset you.” She doesn’t respond, so I lean down and press a quick kiss to her cheek. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

  Just as the lift arrives, I hear a door open behind me. I look back to see my mom leaning against the doorframe of her flat, looking small and defenseless. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.

  “Madison? I love you. You know that, right?”

  “Yes. I love you, too. Take care of yourself, okay? Eat something.”

  The flight to Nora’s house takes about an hour. I try to focus on the diary again, but it’s a lost cause. For the first half of the trip, my mind keeps going back to my mom’s reaction, and her general state of mind. Is she even stable enough to live alone? And then the pod stops to pick up a father with two small children near Manchester, and any hope of concentration is lost.

  Nora’s cottage is near Bray, a seaside town about twenty kilometers south of Dublin. We sold the larger house in London, and at some point, we may have to sell this place as well. But I hope we can keep it, at least as long as Nora is alive. My best childhood memories are connected to this cottage, to days at the shore with my grandfather and Nora, and to long walks in the Wicklow Mountains with my dad.

  The landing pad closest to Nora’s cottage is at a hotel about a kilometer away. The sky is clear today, and despite the slight nip in the air, it’s nice to get a bit of exercise outdoors. I sent Nora a message while we were in the air to tell her I was coming by for a very short visit, so she’s waiting in the garden when I hike up the cliff walk to the cottage path.

  Her gray pantsuit, with faint silver stripes, is far more formal than what most people would choose to wear on an afternoon at home. It’s possible that she went out this morning—she plays euchre with friends a few times a week and occasionally volunteers at a local school. But I doubt it. On days when she goes out, she usually wears a skirt. My grandfather once said that she was determined to fit in with the people in his social circle when they married. Everyone knew she was James Coleman’s daughter, but most had long forgotten the plagiarism case. Nora still felt that she had one strike against her going into any social situation, so she was determined to be the epitome of a proper, refined member of British society.

  “Madison Grace, you don’t really mean to tell me that you’ve crossed the goddamn Atlantic and aren’t going to stay the night?”

  Well, proper and refined except for the cursing. Although to be fair, a few of her euchre buddies swear pretty fluently, too. Her comment about crossing the Atlantic makes me laugh, although she doesn’t really understand why. I guess I crossed the Atlantic to get to Liverpool, but it took a lot less time than my hop across the Irish Sea a few minutes ago.

  “I’m obviously delighted to see you,” Nora says as she hugs me, “but seriously, what are you doing here? I thought you were busy with classes and . . .” She trails off, probably not wanting to say that we can’t afford last-minute transatlantic travel.

  “It’s a long story. Feed me and I’ll tell you everything. I’ve been craving rajma masala for weeks.”

  The youngest of Nora’s two cats, Mercury, greets me when we step inside. Mars, the older and more restrained of the two, gives me a little head tilt of recognition and then goes back to his nap. For as long as I can remember, there have always been two cats, each named after a planet. I guess at some point, Nora will have to cycle back through, although these two are fairly young and they’re genetically tweaked for longer lives, since there are few restrictions for genetic enhancement of pets. If you have the money and you want a dog who will live forty years, there’s a geneticist out there somewhere who’ll be happy to help you.

  Once we’re both at the table—me with my red-bean curry and Nora with a cup of tea—I tell her about the test results. Unlike Mom, she’s completely baffled, and it’s clear that she doesn’t entirely believe me, even when I show her the report that Lorena gave me.

  “It has to be a mistake. I can’t vouch for your mother’s family, of co
urse, although Matthew took the standard genetic tests before you were conceived. I can, however, tell you with complete certainty that we absolutely did not have your father enhanced. Even if I’d wanted to—and I sure as hell did not—your grandfather would never have allowed it. You know how he felt on that issue. Have you asked Mila about this?”

  Nora’s mouth presses into a tight line when she says my mother’s name. They’ve never been what you would call close, but they got along well enough prior to the financial debacle. Now, they speak only through me.

  I fill Nora in on my mother’s response, toning down her reaction and entirely omitting the part about her seeming half-stoned. “She said she doesn’t know anything about it, but . . . I didn’t get the sense that she was being entirely truthful.”

  “Maybe you should ask Thea, then. Assuming you can track her down. After all, she’s the one who would have procured any illegal alterations on Mila.”

  This is true. Thea raised my mother on her own, so my maternal grandfather has always been a mystery. Mom claims she met him once when she was small, but when she talks about it, she does that thing with her hair—stretching out one of her curls and then tucking it behind her ear—so I’m pretty sure she’s lying.

  “I tried to contact Thea on her birthday last month, but the call bounced back. I’ll give Mom a few days to cool off and then ask if she has more recent contact information.”

  Nora makes the same slightly exasperated face that she always does when we talk about Thea Randall. She’s still annoyed, twenty-five years after my parents’ wedding, that Thea dictated the venue and countless details of the ceremony, and then didn’t even bother to show. Or help pay for it.