by Dawn Dagger
“U-um, Clayton.” I squeaked. “My name’s Clayton.”
“What are you doing on the floor, Clayton?” He rumbled.
“U-Uh, I’m not…” I stood up slowly, embarrassed. The tears kept coming, so I had to wipe my eyes with my sleeve again. “I was told to find the dining area or something to get water but I don’t know where that is or where I, uh, we are….” I coughed, clearing my throat. “I’m not very sure of anything. Dierdre! I’m with Dierdre. Accidentally, I think.”
I felt my face burn, and I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand. He was going to think I was completely stupid.
He nodded slowly, then gently extended me a broad hand. “I think I know where the kitchens are. Been here for… how many years? Months? You know,” I took his hand and stood, then began to follow him as he turned away, “when you exist outside of normal time, you really lose track of what’s going on.”
“‘Outside of time’?” I repeated dumbly, trotting to keep up with his long strides.
He turned to give me a sideways look, then frowned. “I suppose you haven’t been told much, have you?”
I shook my head, finally falling into step with him. The hallways were decorated with doors and fluorescent bars of lights above us, but nothing else was significant. “It’s all been going by very fast. And Dierdre hasn’t explained much.”
He nodded slowly, looking as if he were deciding what to tell me and in what order. “Well, this wonderful place,” he gestured regally, “is the MMEA. What it means? I haven’t a clue. It’s a place that exists outside of time thanks to a very cursed orb. Everyone here is a time traveler. They monitor the timelines. There are major ones and minor ones, and they make sure they stay in order.
“There’s been quite the cacophony this morning, so I’ll expect either a new time traveler popped up, or you and Dierdre messed something up quite grandly. No fault of your own, though.”
I nodded as he paused, taking the time to process the information. So, there was an orb. It gives this place a place outside of time. There was time travel. More than one timeline. I was outside of the timelines.
It sounded like some horrible, twisted superhero movie.
“Are there… more of me in the other timelines? More of you?”
He nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yes. Well, I’m not sure about myself. I was given orb powers and pulled from the Prime Universe. But, yes, there are at least more of yous for certain.”
I wondered if those mes were happy. Were the others of my mother happy?
You’re losing it. I thought to myself. Just don’t think about it or you really will go insane.
“However,” he continued, gesturing to me, “you come from a secondary timeline, not the most prominent one. Secondaries have infinite small changes, but it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Or so I hear, anyways.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about anymore. I lost my ability to understand the complexity of it. So I asked the simplest, dumbest question my mind could form.
“What are… orb powers?”
He looked pained, and I immediately felt bad for asking. He heaved a great sigh, the calm shedding off of him to reveal distress and regret, but he spoke anyways,
“They are powers given by the great time traveling orb that scientists concocted. It makes people go crazy. I... hurt... a lot of people. It’s all fixed now, but it still haunts me. You see, it makes you hear voices in your head and you become aggressive. You lose yourself…”
He stopped walking for a moment and his eyes became infinitely distant. I felt a pang in my chest. “Sorry for asking…” I mumbled.
“It’s alright.” He shrugged and began walking again. “It’s just something I must come to terms with.”
“Waitaminute,” I mumbled, stopping short. “Voices… in your head?” He nodded, his brows furrowing in concern. “Okay, listen, Dierdre… Dierdre keeps saying that she hears me in her head… suggesting things. I don’t recall really actually talking. What is that? Should I be concerned? Did she touch the orb or something?”
His eyes narrowed, deep in thought, and he pursed his lips. He slowly shook his head, filling my chest with relief. “No… There’s no way she could have touched it. The orb is lost, far away in a space between worlds. However… I can ask if she has been doing anything that has to do with the orb, if that would make you feel better, Clayton.”
I nodded. It would.
We continued walking in silence for a long moment, while I processed what he had said. It was a little hard to swallow; the knowledge that there were other mes out there, living their best lives. They were all happy, and all of those versions of my mother were happy.
The fact that time travelers existed weren’t quite so hard to come to terms with. I had been through a lot in 52 hours. It actually made a lot of sense.
He suddenly turned to a set of double doors and pushed them open. He led me into what looked like a restaurant kitchen. He walked to the back and I followed, then stopped in front of a very large refrigerator.
“Hungry?” he asked, opening it. I nodded.
He rummaged through the fridge and produced two wrapped subs, a carton of juice, and a travel mug. He handed me a sub and the juice, then wandered toward a nearby silver counter. He leaned against it and took a long drink from his mug while I set my sandwich on the counter, fighting with the clear cling wrap.
“So… uh… why is Dierdre looking for the figurines?” I asked, hoping for some more information on what was even going on.
The man shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich. He swallowed his bite then spoke. “I’m not really sure about much of what goes on around here. Thomas and Marcus never tell me anything. They say they’re still trying to find something for me to do but…” He took another long drink, shrugging again.
I nodded and we finished our meal in silence. We threw the cling wrap and juice box away, then he gestured for me to follow him out of the kitchen. We wandered back through the long hallways, and he pointed to the door I had been pushed out of.
“Let’s get you back into the meeting room. Might as well know what you’re up to next.” He stopped beside the door and waited. I waited with him. He gave me an amused half-smile as I rocked on my heels. “Clayton. Just knock on the door and go in.”
“Oh! Yeah, okay.” I wiped my palms on my jeans, nervous to just barge in. I made no move to knock.
He snorted softly, giving my shoulder a squeeze with his strong hand, then turned away. “Good luck on your next mission. I hope to see you soon. It was nice meeting you, Clayton.”
“Yeah, you too!” He began to walk away. “Wait!” I trotted after him. “Wait, what’s your name?”
He turned and gave me a small smile. “Tiberius.”
Before I could say anything else, he walked away, signaling our conversation was over. I wandered back over to the door. I took a deep breath, then knocked softly. The door swung open and I stepped inside.
Dierdre and a girl with short hair and narrow eyes sat at the long table. Dierdre turned toward me, waving her silver hair out of her face. “Okay, Clayton. We have a half plan.”
“Is a half plan enough to work with?” I asked cautiously as I crossed over to the table. The man with the mustache closed the door behind me.
“Well, considering Dierdre left with no plan initially, we are doing exponentially better than before.” The black-haired girl snarked, giving a snort.
“I’m sorry that I was given the wrong information by someone you said was reliable!” Dierdre protested.
“Dierdre, please introduce us to your friend.” The man said, crossing behind me and sitting down. He had a small goatee I hadn’t noticed before, and he had taken off his gloves.
“His name is Clayton. He helped me.”
The man stood again and extended his hand to me. “Thomas Borgia. I’m the director of the MMEA. This is my vice, Biyu-Chen. Our usual lady, Agent Rossi, is… preoccupied. It’s a pleasure to mee
t you.”
I shook his hand nervously. “Um, Clayton. Nice to meet ya…” The girl did not offer me any welcome, instead giving me a cold glare.
“Please sit so we can discuss our next course of action.” He gestured to the rolling chair beside Dierdre and I sat down as he did. “As you know,” he continued, addressing me, “we are seeking the four Mayan?” Dierdre nodded. “Mayan artifacts, one of which is this owl. We have reason to believe they may have powers, but that only one person may possess them at a time. We have good reason to believe that whoever is screwing up the timeline is trying to steal these artifacts for their own gain.”
“Now,” ‘Biyu-Chen’ started, her voice biting, “you both not only lost the rattlesnake, you murdered a museum guard and now we have to go and fix that mess.”
“I’ll have you know that--” I started, indignance welling in my chest.
“I don’t care!” she snapped, standing suddenly, her eyes blazing. She slammed her hands on the table and I shrank. “You both messed up, and now you’re going to find a way to fix that mistake.”
“Biyu-Chen, sit down,” Thomas said tiredly. Her lip twitched, but she sat down slowly anyways.
Dierdre pursed her lips before slowly saying, “We had a plan to go back and fix it… I just didn’t realize you were going to pull us back so quickly.”
“If I remember correctly, you were supposed to contact us every night and update us on your progress. If we didn’t hear from you in 24 hours we’d pull you back,” Thomas said calmly.
“Things happened! Nothing went as planned.”
“Obviously,” Biyu-Chen said coolly, crossing her arms. “Now, we decided on furthering the quest by going back in time. If you can manage to do your jobs and grab the artifacts before whoever is after them does, then it’ll save us a good deal of effort. Now, you’re going to go after the jaguar first.”
“Do we know where it is?” Dierdre asked, staring at her owl figurine, which sat in the center of the table.
“It’s in transit at the moment. The year is 2015. You just need to go in, grab it, then wait. We’ll have to pull you back manually.”
“2015?” I repeated dumbly. “That’s…”
“A long time ago for you, yes.” Thomas said. A long time ago? It was before the Great Fall! “We know. Do you think you’ll be okay? Do you have any questions?”
My mind was reeling. “Do we… do we know where my mother is?”
Thomas and Biyu-Chen looked at each other, then Thomas shook his head. My stomach sank. “I’m afraid not. Dierdre told us about that, so we may be able to locate her soon but… Time is of the essence at this moment. We need you to go after the jaguar before we can continue looking into your mother’s location.”
I nodded and Dierdre stood up. She threw me a worried glance as I stood, then I followed her over to the weird, circular platform in the center of the room. “Are you feeling up to this?” she whispered.
“Not really. But we’ve got nothing better to do…”
Dierdre nodded, then stepped onto the platform. I followed suit and we stood inside. My heart thumped against my ribs, but I couldn’t figure out why. I was scared. Dierdre gently held my hand.
Thomas walked over to the control pad and punched a few buttons in. The platform hummed underneath us, then, all of a sudden, we fell through the floor, and into sunlight.
6
This time I landed on my feet, but I don’t think I could take credit for it. It just happened to be that this time around I wasn’t thrown mercilessly onto my face. I steadied myself with one hand on Dierdre’s arm, and I rubbed my eyes.
We were standing in an open field, where tall, brittle grass grew in all directions around us. I squinted at the sky, which was a brighter blue than Dierdre’s eyes, then I peered around.
In the distance stood a city. Even its tallest buildings seemed short and stout to me. Was everything short in 2015? Dierdre began wandering through the grass and I trotted after her, dredging downhill. As we moved, I had to swat away small, green creatures that kept flying in our faces, startling me. I noticed that these weird insects seemed to have replaced the lizards, which were nonexistent in the strange field.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we began to near the city. I could hear the distant sounds of angry honking.
“The zoo.”
“Why?” I stepped around a very large rock.
“There’s an exhibit today. It’s showcasing big cats, but more specifically jaguars. The artifact is going to be there, because some big posh donated it to the zoo.”
I stopped short. “W-waitaminute. We get to see the jaguars?”
She glanced behind her shoulder, then smiled a little at me. “Yes, Clayton. We get to see some jaguars.”
The zoo was more crowded than I had expected, and it made me feel anxious.
I had never seen so many people in one place. Not even in the city gatherings, not even on the highway. It was bordering on insanity, the number of people crowded, squished all in one place. Children ran around, squealing excitedly, bumping off of adults who bumped off of each other. I was surprised by the lack of security, and the amount of trash on the ground.
I was very unsettled by the number of people streaming in and out without a single person checking them. In my city, you were checked everywhere you went, unless it was somewhere no one cared about.
All of the clothing crowded around me was flashy and vibrant. People sparkled and shone and wore brightly colored clothing. I was used to dull, naturally made clothing. Even the suits of the casino-goers paled in comparison to these extravagant outfits.
A little girl at my elbow let loose a growl and leapt forward, tackling her brother playfully. I realized they were both dressed as spotted wildcats as they chased each other around.
“Amy! Amy come here! Patrick, you too! Oh, you little beasts!” their mother called in a flute-like voice, shouldering past me while exclaiming apologies. “My wildcats, wait up! Don’t get lost!”
I smiled at the tiny balls of spots, still rolling away. They were adorable.
Dierdre glanced around coolly, moving one hand to latch around my wrist tightly so we weren’t jostled away from one another. As we wandered, we passed a gift shop full of toys, a donation center, a—
“Whoa! Dierdre, look!” I gasped, pointing to some giant, grey beasts that stood docile behind tall glass. They lived in what looked like some sort of grassland. One waved its massive, twisting trunk and flapped its giant ears lazily as it turned to look at a small child, who was staring in amazement.
She stopped and glanced at the creature, then gave me an odd look. “It’s… an elephant?”
“I’ve never seen one before! Look how awesome they are, Dierdre!”
She shook her head, pulling me along gently. “You know,” she began as we wound through the crowd, following a row of signs that pointed towards the ‘Big Cat Exhibit’, “elephants have the same brain waves when they see people as we do when we see small creatures. Therefore, elephants believe that we are cute.”
I grinned at her. The information made me very happy.
After what seemed like forever wandering through people and coolers and strollers, we stumbled into an area crowded with even more people. This crowd, however, was not milling like the other people. They stood patiently waiting. Enclosures stood on all our sides, penning in lions, tigers, leopards, and, at the very front, where I could not see, was the jaguar. Little children held plush copies of the cat, and mothers and fathers hoisted the tikes up to see better.
Dierdre bounced on her heels, trying to see above the heads of the crowd, but apparently to no avail. “Come on,” she reached out and grabbed my wrist, “let’s go to the other edge, closest to the exhibit.”
We pushed toward the very edge of the crowd, where fences stood, then we followed the fence up toward the exhibit. None of the people holding food and drinks in animal-shaped cups, wearing sunglasses and ball caps minded us walking past, stuck a
gainst the posts, the sun in our eyes.
“You know what?” Dierdre mumbled, coming to a stop beside the corner of the fence. “Your time period sucks. Remind me to buy you some Dippin’ Dots before we leave, ‘kay?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I nodded anyway.
I peered inside the enclosure now that we were towards the front of the crowd. It was impossible to see anything in all the long, tan grass and rocks. Just as my stomach started to sink, thinking I would never see the cats, movement caught the corner of my eye.
“There she is!” I gasped, pointing to the majestic beast, who lay sunning on the rock, her long tail flicking while a small version of herself, a pinprick in the distance, danced around her head.
“She’s even got a baby,” I whispered, gripping the fence, feeling myself grin in wonder.
“Yes.” Dierdre nodded. “Nindiri and Valerio. He’s only a few months old, and that’s why this is such a huge exhibition. Not only was the artifact donated, but we have a new jaguar cub. It can finally be seen by the world. It’s a very hopeful day.”
The whole idea sent a thrum of excitement through my body and I felt myself grin. Then the grin faltered and fell off as my stomach twisted. I felt suddenly sick. It didn’t matter. This new cub didn’t matter. The jaguars did not live to my time. This whole fiasco, none of it mattered.
Nothing mattered. This place did not exist. In the real world, every single one of these people were dead. Beyond dead, not a single one of these smiling faces would be remembered.
It was such a horrific, sudden realization that I gasped out loud, feeling my stomach lurch.
Dierdre put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Just don’t think about,” she murmured, staring into the distance, past the jaguars. “You eventually get used to it… mostly. Just think about our job. Pretend it’s a dream. It will be okay.”
Despite her reassurances, I was dizzy. Nothing made sense. All of these people were dead. The whole wide world I stood in was. Jaguars were. The cub, so important now, with thousands of people coming to see him eating his mother’s black ears, did not exist in the future.
