by Ekeke, C. C.
Hugo eagerly approached the truck, which had a growing line. “What kind of bread do you want?” he asked over his shoulder.
No answer. Hugo turned back around. “Jodie?”
Jordana stood motionless, mouth open. Even more worrying, Hugo heard no heartbeat or breath.
Hugo reached her in one stride. “Jordana.” Snapping his fingers in her face got no reaction. That was when he noticed the silence around him.
Bystanders were frozen in mid-stride, mid-conversation, living mannequins on sidewalks and intersections. Cars on the streets weren’t moving.
Downtown Paso Robles halted, the freezeframe of a bustling city.
And Hugo was the only living person left. “What…the…hell?” he murmured slowly. Was this a supervillain attack? And why was he unaffected?
His growing panic got interrupted by the only other heartbeat for miles.
Hugo whirled around. A solitary figure slowly weaved through the frozen pedestrians, clapping. “You and Jordana confessing your love in realtime really pulled at the heartstrings.”
When this new arrival stood about ten feet away, Hugo got a good look.
Travel-worn fatigues, obnoxious neck scarf, compact physique, shock of white hair, Asiatic features.
Hugo’s throat felt constricted. “Saracen.”
“Aegis.” Saracen bowed melodramatically. “It’s time you and I had a chat.”
Chapter 51
Saracen’s here. That thought sliced through Hugo’s shock. Which meant Saracen had to be freezing downtown Paso Robles. Hugo clenched his fists, studying the pathway to knock out this bastard and not harm any citizens between them.
Saracen held up a finger in warning. “I’d reconsider that. Or else I’m gone and you’ll get some awkward questions from Jordana.”
He instinctively stepped in front of Jordana, hating feeling so helpless. “Let them go. Please…” He gestured to the frozen hostages surrounding them.
Saracen laughed, but not in a dastardly villain way. “Relax, Hugo.” Walking to the grilled cheese food truck, he swiped the sandwich from a customer’s hands. “They’re now moving at one-trillionth of a second of our speed.” He leaned back on the truck and began eating.
The wording shattered Hugo’s theories of Saracen’s powers. “You’re a chronokinetic.” The calm in his voice opposed his rising terror.
Saracen chomped on the sandwich. “I prefer time traveler.”
Hugo’s brain was close to imploding. “I thought chronokinetics didn’t exist.”
“You thought wrong.” Saracen took another bite. “We’re rare.”
Hugo studied this odd little man with cool contempt. Saracen had a wiry build despite his stylishly mismatched attire. The best thing Hugo could do was get info to free Jodie and the people around him. “What do you want?”
Up close, Saracen’s eyes appeared pitch-black. “A hot meal.” He inhaled the rest of his sandwich and pushed off the truck. “Becky says you don’t trust her.”
Hugo bristled thinking about Becky. “Why should I trust your minion?”
Saracen wiped crumbs from his mouth. “Becky works for me.” His humor dimmed. “But she's no minion.” He brushed off his gloved hands. “I had her get your friend Max settled in San Miguel and send her to you.”
“I knew that felt sketchy,” Hugo exclaimed. Helping Max was too generous of Becky.
“Knox is a good, loyal person.” Saracen’s eyes narrowed. “And has tons of respect for you. Give her another chance.”
Another incident came to Hugo’s mind. “Did you send Cherry Blossom to Blackjack and Domino?”
Saracen’s smile returned. “You’re sharper than I expected.” He raised, then dropped his hands. “I broke her out of prison…with help.”
Hugo erased the distance between them in a heartbeat. “You helped Rainmaker?” The damage done by those escapees paraded through his mind. Hugo fought the urge to uppercut Saracen into orbit. “You let dangerous convicts loose on the public!”
Saracen never flinched or showed remorse. “That prison break would’ve happened a year later,” he dismissed. “And it allowed me to free an orphan who’d been a lab rat most of her life.”
The lies and manipulation were too much. But Hugo wanted—needed answers. “What about Jodie and Brie? You abducted them!” His anger soared. “And sent a robot to attack me!”
“I saved their lives,” Saracen replied evenly.
“Bullshit!” Hugo seethed.
Saracen backtracked to put distance between them. “That night, your girlfriends would’ve been in a car accident while you were handling an apartment fire. One or both would’ve have died!”
That splashed water over Hugo’s fury. He vaguely recalled a raging fire that night. Nothing else had mattered with Jordana and Briseis missing. Hugo calmed down and kept listening.
“That event changes you forever.” Saracen shook his head of fluffy hair, sadly. “And not for the better. The Aegis robot was supposed to rescue them in your stead. But Polymer misconfigured the controls, causing its attack. So I had to involve myself.” He adjusted his scarf.
Polymer again. Hugo frowned, still unsure about that choice. “Why him?”
Saracen shrugged as he meandered through the maze of human mannequins. “Polymer wanted your help in reviving The Vanguard.” He looked over his shoulder, his expectant gaze beckoning Hugo forward. “In one future, you two would be teammates on the Young Vanguard. Just like you'd eventually teamed with Arclight.”
Hugo went rigid. “Jesus! You got to J-Tom?”
“Indirectly,” Saracen amended. “Decha Benjawan would’ve debuted as Arclight six months from now. You and he would partner up a year later.” He smiled at something unseen. “But with so many shifts in the timeline, you needed Arclight as an ally now.”
“So you created your own Arclight,” Hugo said bitterly. Everywhere he turned, Saracen had tainted his career like slow poison. “One you can control.”
“An Arclight for you to nurture and mold and groom into a hero.” Saracen meandered through the motionless pedestrians. “Crashing two of Dynamo’s training androids in the Thomas’s backyard was part of my long game. For three years, I had Jen's ‘Aunt’ Stephanie Madden to foster her interest in robotics, even inspiring the Arclight codename.”
“Madden,” Hugo echoed. That last name felt too convenient.
Saracen clapped mockingly. “She goes professionally by her middle name, Helena. And she almost helped me expose the OSA’s corruption.”
“You let Paxton-Brandt kill her!” Hugo clutched his head as the consequences piled up. “J-Tom has no clue.”
Saracen had the gall to look annoyed. “Only Quinn Bauer and Paxton-Brandt think Madden is dead. But she’s alive in OSA custody.”
Hugo recalled how devastating Helena’s “death” had been for Quinn. “Why does the OSA still have her?”
“Before Madden worked at SLOCO Daily.” Saracen treaded past Hugo. “She almost broke a story about America’s failed regime change in Amarantha. OSA abducted Madden before it published. Then after torturing her for days to find the whistleblower, they mindwiped the detention and story from her memories.” His expression softened. “I approached her years later to compile a bigger OSA exposé.”
Hugo wasn’t sure who disgusted him more, the OSA or Saracen. “When the going gets tough, Saracen gets going? And you’re lecturing me on loyalty.” He was over this coward. “Go fuck yourself!”
That rocked Saracen on his heels, but he recovered. “I protected her once, at great risk to the timeline.” He circled Hugo with shark-like focus. “Saving her life again would’ve destroyed yours.”
Hugo was lost. “What does that mean?”
Saracen smirked at his confusion. “Madden was jealous of Quinn Bauer’s relationships in the superhero community. But after the bombing at your school, which Jen Thomas attends, Madden had impetus to investigate who helped Quinn solve Titan’s murder.” Saracen stopped in fro
nt of a riveted Hugo. “Thanks to Quinn’s reimbursed lunch receipt the day of the bombing, Madden dug deeper until she learned all about you.” He jabbed a finger at Hugo’s chest. “Madden’s piece would have exposed you, giving Baz’s, TJ’s, and DeDamien’s families cause to press charges over Fall Fling. You would’ve gone to jail.”
Horror flooded every inch of Hugo. One question came to mind: Did Quinn help her?
“Quinn knew nothing,” Saracen said, as if reading his mind. “Nor would she betray you.”
Fall Fling reared its ugly head again. Hugo had almost lost everything and didn’t know it. “Oh my god.”
“With the help of technology,” Saracen went on, circling him again. “I erased you and the story from Helena’s mind. Madden’s capture was a setback. But she still plays a role in my plans.”
Hugo shook off his stupor and faced Saracen again. The time traveler’s obsession with him made no sense. “Why?” He grabbed Saracen’s collar to hold him still. “What’s this hard-on you got for me?”
The time traveler jerked from Hugo’s grip, and not easily. “I’ve travelled as far into the future as the late twenty-third century. Earth goes through a lot of shit. Every probable future where humanity comes out on the other side or even thrives has one thing in common.” He backed up, pointing at Hugo again. “You.”
Hugo didn’t—couldn’t—believe such rubbish. “Me?”
Saracen spread his arms, baffled as well. “In any futures where you don’t become a hero, your powers never manifest or you die prematurely.” He paused at the choked reaction that last option got. “Humanity is doomed. Those hopeful futures where Aegis exists are more certain when you’re part of the Paragons, Young Vanguard, or whatever. I could only position possible allies around you.” Saracen gestured again at Hugo, his weathered face perturbed. “Joining a team had to be your choice, despite your stubbornness.”
“Hey!” Hugo snapped. He was strong-willed.
“Jennifer Thomas was the most important piece.” Saracen glanced at Jordana. “Training her opened you to being on a team.”
Hugo was desperate to hear more. “But Titan. The Vanguard—”
“Remnants of a bygone generation,” Saracen dismissed with a lazy handwave. “You inspire the next age of heroes who save this world. Titan understood that.”
The last words Hugo’s father had uttered to him in Alaska sprang up. ‘This world’s going to need you far more than it ever needed me.’ His throat tightened. “Is that why you told Titan to train me?”
Saracen’s smile grew sad as he strolled ahead. “Had you attended Steinholt, in most futures, someone leaked your paternity to Titan’s enemies.” He turned sharply. “If that happens, they attack Steinholt, and you along with thirteen other students get slaughtered.”
Hugo’s legs gave out. He dropped to a crouch as the stock-still world swam. “I’m gonna be sick,” he mumbled. So much of what Saracen revealed tied together like a cruel prank. Through his nausea, one question had gone unasked. “What happens in the future that’s so terrible?”
Saracen chuckled without mirth. “As someone who grew up during the Sino Civil Wars, I thought I’d seen humanity’s worst.” Something on his face shifted. “Until five years ago, when I jumped to the end of the twenty-first century. Any supers who weren’t killed or in hiding had been imprisoned. In most countries, superheroes had been outlawed.” He spoke as if discussing some generic Hollywood film. “A coordinated attack on London and Washington DC by a superhuman terrorist ring in 2025 was the trigger. Titan or Lady Liberty training you prevented that future.”
The cryptic tone spurred Hugo back to his feet. “What changed?”
“Instead of superhuman apartheid…” Saracen closed his eyes as if in pain, “a virus kills most natural-born supers by 2033. What follows is madness. America, Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the French-Belgian Republic, and Southern China unite. They'll use surviving and manufactured supers as weapons to form a global dictatorship.” He opened his eyes to reveal unmistakable fatigue. “My attempts to prevent this future keep getting overridden.”
“By another time traveler?” Hugo realized he’d said “time traveler” unironically. How. Is this. My life?
“That’s what I thought,” Saracen said. “But as I studied what kept changing these last five years, I realized I’ve been battling a clairvoyant.” He scanned his surroundings in helpless frustration. “Someone with enough power and resources to bend the future to their will.”
The answer seemed logical to Hugo. “Then change the past.”
Saracen’s reaction was reproachful. “Too unpredictable. One of three things occur.” He raised a finger. “Averting something like Martin Luther King’s murder can cause worse events years later.”
Hugo remembered how time travel dominated one season of the Battalion show. “A butterfly effect?”
Saracen nodded as if his lackwit student had finally caught on. “I know from personal experience. The SeaTac earthquake wasn’t supposed to happen.” He raised two fingers. “Two. Altering a past event can either delay or accelerate its occurrence. Titan was supposed to die in battle at least a decade later. But we both know why that changed.”
Hugo clutched at his chest, struggling to breathe. Brie, Simon, Ms. Ortiz, J-Tom, and Max knew about his suicide attempt. No one knew that Titan sacrificed himself for Hugo. “And number three?”
Saracen watched him in silence for several moments. “Your change alters nothing.” He gestured around him. “The present, however, is malleable until it has already happened.”
Hugo blinked away the pain of never growing up with his biological father. But could he live up to Titan’s expectations? “Who’s this clairvoyant?”
Saracen shrugged. “Still looking. But from what every future consistently shows me, they chose the same agent of chaos.” He gave the video billboard a solemn stare.
Hugo followed his gaze. Frozen onscreen was a man not large or well-built in body.
But his aura and featureless mask of mirror-like gold seized Hugo’s attention. This was Damocles, a telekinetic or gravikinetic of terrifying power. Hugo gulped. “Is that who the clairvoyant is backing?”
“Sourdough.”
Hugo almost jumped in the air hearing Jordana’s voice. He spun to face his girlfriend, who was beaming at him and moving.
Immediately, the noises of Paso Robles assaulted Hugo. Cars driving by, overlapping conversations, pitter-pattering footfalls. A man nearby barked at his missing grilled cheese.
Hugo took in everything with panicked sweeps. Paso Robles was alive and back in motion.
And Saracen was gone. Dammit.
It took a moment for Hugo to regain composure. “Say what now?”
Jordana’s confusion didn’t dim her smile. “I’ll like my grilled cheese with sourdough bread.”
Hugo blinked, forcing himself to recall the blissful ignorance before Saracen’s arrival. “Right. Sandwiches.”
Jordana’s smile dropped. “You okay?” She moved closer. “You look spooked.”
Hugo wished he could’ve been honest. But he promised Quinn to keep her cousin out of this world. “I’m fine, babe.” Forcing the jitters out of his voice was harder than expected.
Jordana leaned back, worry dominating her face. “You’re not having…second thoughts about us?”
“Nonono!” Hugo grasped Jodie’s shoulders. “It’s just been a long week at school.” Another lingering kiss eased her discomfort. He felt her smiling against his lips
Jordana relaxed, her bubbly mood returning. “Totally. Let’s get in line.”
She took Hugo by the hand as he looked again at the billboard.
The newscast showed Damocles fighting three superheroes in Cedar Falls, Iowa, laughing maniacally.
Hugo shuddered and let Jordana pull him along.
Interlude: Spencer
Spencer had no use for Idaho outside of skiing in Sun Valley and Napoleon Dynamite. Sadly, Riva’s pr
ivate jet had taken them nowhere near Sun Valley.
She sat beside the entrepreneur in an Escalade, driving through the fringes of a town called Goldwater. Through tinted windows, a rural emptiness stretched on between pockets of hollowed-out factories.
Spencer turned in disgust, fixing her long-sleeved black dress with its white collar and matching cuffs.
Riva wore faded jeans and a white chunky turtleneck, her dark hair spilling down in wild and fluid sheets. She looked more like a ski instructor than an entrepreneur. Riva was chatting away on her cell. “Congratulations, President Braga,” she gushed. “I told you Operation Dom Pedro would succeed.”
“How long are we staying in this nowhereville?” Spencer whined once Riva finished her call.
“Check your privilege, Spencer.” Riva’s tight, reproachful expression had Spencer regretting her petulance. “Goldwater has its charms. In a few years, it will be like Sun Valley minus the crowds.”
Now Spencer was interested. While she loved Sun Valley, the crowds had become insufferable. “That sounds appealing,” She took another dispassionate glance out the window. “We’re here on business?”
Riva nodded. “Visiting one of my labs.” They arrived at a rundown barn several miles outside of Goldwater. Once inside, Spencer was startled by a platform lowering the Escalade underground.
When the ride stopped, the sterile walls surrounding them had no similarity to anything in Goldwater. From there, she and Riva exited their car and headed for an elevator, taking them farther underground.
Several technicians and scientists in lab coats worked in chambers of this laboratory on high-tech consoles. Despite her success, Riva warmly greeted her staff by name. She engaged the facility director Jimmy Drake, a sturdy man with a pockmarked face, like an old friend. That impressed Spencer.
They finally entered a smaller room with steel-grey walls except one wall-length window, a viewing room. On the other side of the window, four lab technicians fussed over a woman lying on a rectangular slab. Wide black cloth wraps over her chest and lower extremities were the only coverings on her doughy figure. A thin needle connected to a robotic arm pierced her navel.
