Now, Then, and Everywhen (Chronos Origins) Page 6

  Or maybe she thought I was one of the people opposed to the program. It’s being billed as a mandatory vaccination against a particularly virulent strain of the avian flu that the CDC and World Health Organization are predicting for this year. That’s true, in a sense, but they left out the part where the virus has been genetically altered. And the part where we dodged this very same bullet fifty-five years ago by destroying the virus before Saul’s people could distribute it.

  The main difference between now and 2015 is that there’s been plenty of time for the US and our allies to stockpile a vaccine and be sure it’s distributed. There may still be a few deaths, but it will just seem like a nasty flu season for us. Back then, we had almost no warning. The only hope was to stop the attack before it happened.

  Although it feels like this current vaccination program is altering the timeline, I don’t think even Katherine would object. My grandmother was always adamant that a CHRONOS historian was only there to observe, but as I pointed out, I’ve never been a CHRONOS historian. For all I know, something CHRONOS did could have caused this disaster in the first place. And even if this attack was supposed to happen at some point in world history, whether or not time travelers screwed things up, the death toll would have been staggering. I saw that in my own time travels. Rules or no rules, you don’t just let something like that happen if you can stop it. Not if you have a soul.

  So, I was perfectly okay with the government taking the vaccine that Dr. Tilson and his colleagues developed and saving hundreds of millions of lives. Tilson had hinted that this was likely before he died. I was even kind of proud as I watched the rollout of the program, the careful coordination between allied governments that frequently squabble, and the decision to train unemployed people to go door-to-door to administer the vaccine. It was how governments should function, but all too rarely do.

  And that’s why the images on my newsfeed today have shaken me to the core. I know we are currently at war, even though it’s been so long and so low-level that it feels like a constant state of affairs. I know that this virus was planned as a terrorist attack on civilian populations. I know it was an illegal weapon under international law, and I’m not so naive that I think you can let something like the use of biogenetic weapons slide without punishment.

  I’d be perfectly okay with punishing the supposed doctor, Elizabeth Forson, who developed the weapon, fully aware that it would kill many of her own people, too. She’d been willing to risk that as long as it meant killing far, far more of the enemy.

  But at least some people within our government knew that this attack was going to happen. The fact that they distributed a vaccine to protect the US and our allies proves that they knew. And yet they did nothing to protect the innocent people on the other side. They could have sneaked the serum into a vaccine program sponsored by a group like Doctors Without Borders, which still operates in most of those countries. They had over nearly six fucking decades to plan this. They could have done something.

  But they didn’t. I opened my newsfeed today to see stacks of bodies piled twenty or thirty high. They looked a lot like the bodies Kiernan and I saw at Six Bridges, Georgia, so many years ago—desiccated, dried-up husks, consumed by the virus.

  Trey, who I could tell was as horrified as I was at the images, tried to calm me down. He said the government was probably worried about a conundrum. If the war in Africa didn’t unfold the same way, would we even have had the sample to develop the serum?

  Maybe he’s right. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to see those bodies in my dreams for a very long time.

  And that is why this will be my last diary entry. I don’t know how much time Trey and I have left in this world, or how much time we have to spend with our sons or our grandchildren. Kell stops by on a regular basis, since he works downtown, but Nora hasn’t been to the house since her father’s trial five years ago. She’s met me and Trey in New York on occasion, but this time, I think we’ll go to her. I’ll schedule a flight to London for next week. Trey and I can treat it as a late fiftieth-anniversary trip. We haven’t been to London since our ill-fated excursion in 2015, when Cyrist bodyguards chased us across Forum Magnum Square. Maybe we can relax and take in the sights this time, with Nora as our tour guide.

  It’s time to let go. Trey has spent fifty-two years married to a woman obsessed with the things I didn’t change. Things that I could have changed, maybe should have changed, when I was young enough to use the CHRONOS key. And I’ve continued to wear it long after I could use the thing because, as I told President Patterson long ago, if there was a time shift, I wanted to know.

  The CHRONOS key is in its pouch—the leather pouch Kiernan made—inside my dresser drawer now. My neck feels bare without its weight, unnatural, like my ring finger does on the rare occasions when I remove my wedding band. And when Trey and I go to London, the key will stay here. If there’s a time shift, I can’t fix it. My sons can’t fix it. Their children can’t fix it.

  Even though it’s a bit late, I will learn to accept the things that I cannot change. But the only way I can be serene about doing that is to make sure I never, ever know if another time shift happens.

  ∞4∞

  MADI

  ESTERO, FLORIDA

  OCTOBER 7, 1906

  I don’t actually lose my balance when I blink in, but it’s a close call. The problem is partly the loose sand beneath my feet and partly the slope of the hill. Mostly, however, it’s the wind, which is far stronger than I’d imagined when I viewed this location through the key.

  Holding my hair back to keep it from whipping into my eyes, I scan the area again to make certain I’m alone. This small hill is the highest spot on the southern end of Estero Island. The bay lies to the east, the ocean to the west. Both are visible—not because the hill is especially high, but simply because this strip of land is less than a kilometer across. Looking northward, the stark, white beach stretches on as far as the eye can see, empty aside from clusters of birds scattered along the shore. Off in the distance to my left is the southernmost point, where a narrow inlet separates this stretch of land from the next in a chain of barrier islands. A beach house sits between here and the point, but I know from my last visit that it’s probably empty. June, the doctor who helped me get back to my own time, said that the Cyrists rarely use the place this time of year, aside from Saturday excursions.

  Now that I’m sure I’m alone, I kick my shoes off and place them in the shadow of the tall, white Cyrist cross behind me. The wind whips one of the shoes away as soon as it leaves my hand. I retrieve it, then turn both of them over and shove the toes down into the sand, wishing I’d had the foresight to leave them at home.

  Once I’m reasonably certain the shoes won’t go flying off, I tuck the medallion back into my shirt and hike the hundred meters or so down to the beach. Shorebirds are scavenging along the tide line. They scurry out of my way as I approach, except for one curious creature that cocks its head to the side and tries to stare me down. I don’t know what the bird is called in the United States—my summers at the shore were mostly with my grandparents in Ireland—but it looks a bit like the bird that Nora called a gannet. The creature seems to have found something tasty that it doesn’t want to abandon. I’ve no desire to disturb it, so I veer a few steps to the right. Apparently, this is still too close for comfort. The creature squawks loudly, flaps its wings, and takes off toward the ocean.

  Now that the feathered sentry has abandoned its post, I step closer and let the water swoosh over my feet. It’s warm, at least ten degrees warmer than the surf at Bray in the height of summer. Even though my last experience with this beach wasn’t exactly pleasant, I would love nothing more than to dive in for a long swim along the coastline. There are very few locations in my own time with water this pristine, and those spots are in such demand that I could never afford to vacation there. And even if I could afford it, the crowds and the noise would make it unappealing. I’d rather swim in the ba
sement pool. There’s no sunshine or ocean breeze, but at least it’s peaceful.

  This particular strip of land is completely submerged in my time. In 1906, however, it’s a paradise. Not a soul in sight, and the only sound is the gentle rush of the waves and the screech of the seabirds. It would be nice to spend a day here. I need some alone time. Or maybe alone-with-Jack time. One annoying thing about finding this medallion is that the excitement has kind of overshadowed the relationship we’re starting to build. I’d love the chance to spend a little time with him to figure out exactly what I’m feeling.

  But even if I could somehow transport Jack here, which I can’t, it would probably be hard to relax on this beach knowing that the weird colony of Cyrists is only a few kilometers away. Some of them know far more about this medallion than I do. Last time I was here, June seemed to be wavering between her duty as a physician to keep me from harm and her duty to her god, or prophet, or whatever she believes this Brother Cyrus character to be. I think there’s a good chance she’d make a different decision if she stumbled upon me casually soaking up the sunshine instead of washed up on the shore like a drowned rat.

  I drag my thoughts back to the task at hand. Four people are waiting for this sample of ocean water two centuries and nearly two thousand kilometers away, so I’d best get moving. Although . . . I guess I could take a weeklong vacay here on the beach and still blink back in with their blasted proof and they’d be none the wiser. Truthfully, I’m getting a bit tired of scientists and their skepticism. It’s not too surprising for Lorena and RJ, since this is the first they’ve seen me time travel. Alex, on the other hand, has watched me use this key at least a dozen times now. He knows this is real, and yet he still can’t seem to fully tamp down his inner skeptic. When I blinked out, he was slumped down into the sofa, arms crossed, almost like he’s angry at me for disrupting his worldview.

  Jack says it’s not anger so much as frustration. Alex is one of those people who isn’t happy with unknown variables. He wants to know what makes the thing tick, and he won’t be content until he’s able to take the key apart, analyze it, and replicate it, preferably with a few new-and-improved features. The first step toward that goal is to learn why I’m the only one who can use it, which is where Lorena comes in. She is a geneticist, and she wants physical proof that I’m telling the truth, preferably something she can analyze and quantify. And so here I am on a Florida beach in 1906, scooping up seawater.

  I collect the sample, seal the vial, and reluctantly hike back up the beach toward my shoes. I’m nearly halfway there when I hear a popping sound, followed by the faint putt-putt-putt of a motor. A small boat has just rounded the bend of the island.

  Did they even have boat motors in 1906? I suppose that’s a moot point, though, if some of the locals can travel through time. I’m taking a vial of seawater back from the past. Who knows what these Cyrists might have picked up on their travels to bring back from the future?

  Since I suspect I’m trespassing on their land, I pick up the pace. The boat is moving faster than I’d have thought, and the engine backfires again in protest. I’m certain I can make it back to the stable point and my shoes before it arrives. But I’ll have to lock in my return location, which takes a few seconds, especially with the wind whipping my hair into my eyes. June seemed to think it would be a bad idea for any of the Cyrists to know that I have one of these medallions, and I know next to nothing about the damn thing. What if they have some way to track me? What if they have some way of blocking the signal or whatever it is that enables me to jump home?

  Either way, they now have a clear line of sight. The person driving that boat is going to know I disappeared into thin air, but maybe they’ll think I was an optical illusion if they’re still at a distance.

  Screw it. Money is tight, but I can afford to buy a new pair of shoes.

  I drop to my knees in the sand and pull out the key. When the holographic menu hovers above my palm, I navigate to the stable point I set a few minutes ago in the living room.

  As I blink, I hear the loud popping noise again. I have the fleeting thought that my back, clad in this red shirt, would make a nice, crisp target against the white sand if it turns out that it’s a gunshot and not a motor backfiring. And then my knees are on the rug, not in the sand, and I’m back in 2136.

  “What happened?” Jack has seen me jump in multiple times. I generally don’t land on my knees, so I’m not too surprised that he’s worried.

  “Had to make a quick exit. A boat came around the bend as I was hiking back up to the stable point. Pretty sure it was one of the Cyrists.”

  RJ and Lorena exchange a look. They’ve only been here for about an hour, but I’ve already seen them do this at least half a dozen times. It’s clearly a couple thing, and I get the sense that entire paragraphs of information are being communicated in those short glances.

  I give the vial to Lorena. “One sample of seawater from the Florida coast, circa 1906.”

  She holds the clear ampoule up to the light to examine it for a moment before opening it to sniff the contents. Then she hands it to RJ and searches in her bag until she locates a small handheld device.

  Jack laughs, shaking his head. “Madi just blinked out, right before your eyes. And then she blinked back in ten seconds later with sand all over her knees, holding a tube of ocean water. Do you really need to do a chemical analysis?”

  RJ shrugs. “The popping in and out of sight could’ve been a portable cloaking device. They’re expensive, and illegal as hell, but—”

  “Except you’re the ones who decided which one of more than twenty stable points I’d be visiting. Even if I’d anticipated the sand, I don’t think anyone could have guessed you’d want a sample of seawater. What are you even going to be able to tell from that?” I ask Lorena as she adds a few drops to a small window on the device.

  “Acidity. Rising CO2 levels mean seawater has become more acidic over time. That’s why some species of coral are extinct or endangered.”

  “And that meter is really going to give you the date of the sample?”

  Lorena looks up from the screen at my question, tilting her head in a way that reminds me of the bird I just saw on the beach. It’s not a physical resemblance—the bird was all white and gray angles, and Lorena Jeung is a study in browns, with a round, dimpled face. I think it’s more the expression. Her dark eyes have that same slightly imperious look, as though I’m a minor nuisance distracting her from something important.

  “No,” she says, with exaggerated patience. “It’s going to give me the level of acidity in the sample.”

  “Sorry,” I say, a touch annoyed. “I’m a literary historian, not a scientist.”

  “Then my final step should be more up your alley. Once I locate a table with historical acidity levels, I’ll be able to tell the date of the sample.”

  This exchange, of course, reminds me of the historical analysis I should be doing instead of trying to convince three people I barely know that this device allows me to time travel. As I’m thinking about that, Alex says something I miss. I’m about to ask him to repeat it, but then I realize he’s staring at my bare feet.

  “Yeah. Like I said, I had to make a quick exit.”

  He frowns. “You can’t leave high-tech joggers in 1906.”

  “I’m not the only time traveler who’s been on that island,” I tell him. “And if I go back now, the person in the boat will see me. I think the noise I heard was the motor backfiring, but I could be wrong.”

  “Then go back to a minute or so before he shows up,” Alex says, his voice taking on the same tone that Lorena used a moment ago. “If you walked down to the beach, your back was to the shoes, right?”

  That’s true. I feel a little stupid for not having thought of it myself. But I’ve spent my entire twenty-three years thinking of events occurring in proper chronological order. The habit is hard to shake.

  “Is that a good idea?” Jack asks. “The woman . . . that doctor y
ou mentioned. Didn’t she say it was dangerous to cross your own path?”

  “I think her exact words were that it wasn’t worth the headache. But I really shouldn’t leave them there, and Alex is right. There are several minutes where I’m looking at the bird and getting the water sample. I’m facing the water, not the shore.”

  Jack still looks worried. I’ll admit it’s nice knowing he’s concerned. But I am a bit troubled at the thought of leaving a historical anachronism behind. And truthfully, while I can afford to buy a new pair of trainers, they’d have to be off the rack, not custom-made Fleets like these, which Nora bought me before our investments went south.

  So I pull up the interface again, locate the stable point on Estero Island, and roll forward one minute from the time of my last jump. As I pan toward the beach, I see the earlier version of me has almost reached the tide line. The bird will have my attention for the next thirty seconds or so. And my thought about the red shirt making me a perfect target was spot on. My hair and skin are only a few shades darker than the sand, but the shirt stands out in stark relief.

  I glance up from the interface. Jack looks like he’s about to protest again, but I really do need to do this. I give him a quick, hopefully reassuring smile and blink myself back to the beach.

  As I expected, me-from-ten-minutes-ago is oblivious because she’s focused on the bird. I’d hoped that I’d be able to simply reach out an arm and snag the joggers, but unfortunately, they’re a bit too far from the stable point for me to reach.