There’s a framed photo on the corner of the desk. A dozen people in fine clothes standing in front of a freshly dug hole, wearing gleaming silver hard hats, holding up golden shovels. Pretending they themselves were the ones who dug the hole, and not the laborers they shuffled to the side for the photo op.
Melody Fairbanks stands on the far left. A tall, busty white woman with a megawatt smile and silky brown hair that catches the sun. Dorothy Simms is to the right, cradled between two men who look like melting ice cream. A tall, lithe Black woman with a shaved head, who probably has a smile as brilliant as Fairbanks’s, but hers isn’t turned all the way up for the picture, and I suspect I know why.
The Einstein Intercentury Timeport should have been named after her.
The woman who actually invented time travel.
There’s a flutter on the edge of my vision. A vaguely humanlike shape ducking out of view. I turn to look, at the empty expanse of hallway.
I’m alone. I know I’m alone. Not counting Ruby.
Kolten was right about the ghosts. I mean, the whole reason I’m here is so I can keep seeing my dead girlfriend, though it’s not so much her ghost as it is flashes of her from previous moments in time.
But isn’t that a kind of ghost?
“Picking up anything in the vicinity, Rubes?” I ask.
“Anything what?”
“Temperature fluctuations. Movement. Whatever.”
A few whirs and a second of silence. Then: “No.”
“Fine,” I tell it. “Miles to go, as they say.”
I give another look over my shoulder, wonder whether I need sleep or a drink or both, and head for the ramp that’ll bring me back to the lobby. The room suddenly feels claustrophobic. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something following me. Probably just the bad feeling. I’m on edge. Hypersensitive, probably picking up on the movement of people who’ve been through here recently.
The joys of being Unstuck.
Just as I’m feeling a little better, I see it again. Movement in my peripheral. I turn, and at the far end of the hall is the little girl, peeking around a corner. Again, my heart leaps into my throat. God, that kid is quiet. She’s a little closer now.
I call out to her. “Still looking for the dinosaurs? They’re locked up now, but if you don’t get back to your parents I’m going to throw you in there with them.”
The kid darts around a corner and disappears.
Now I’m annoyed. I run after her, but by the time I reach the corner, all I find is an empty hallway.
“Damn it,” I say. “Ruby, send a note to Cameo. Tell them to find whichever family is staying here with a kid, and then tell me what room they’re in, so I can go give them some shit.”
“What do you mean?”
“The kid at the end of the hallway.”
Ruby is silent for a moment. Maybe it’s only a few seconds but it feels like about three hours, and then finally it says, “Didn’t pick it up. Must be more camera issues.”
I glance back down the hallway. Hoping the girl will peek her head back out.
Just to confirm I’m not losing my mind.
No such luck.
I head back for the lobby, wondering what fresh hell awaits me this time, and as if on cue, Grayson and his two-dollar buzz cut step out from around the corner.
He’s wearing a different suit than he was earlier, and when he looks at me, he is somehow angrier than before. The light catches his silver tie clip as he pulls a gun from the inside of his jacket, points it at my head, and fires.
From the accompanying jolt in my brain, I know this is a slip.
I know this is a future moment.
I know he is not actually shooting me.
But he will. And I don’t know when.
So it’s not exactly a great comfort.
CONSERVATION OF SUFFERING
Allyn is alone, pacing outside Lovelace, tapping away at his phone. When he sees me approach he shoves the phone in his pocket and says, “We need to talk.”
“We do, because…”
“What was that shit you pulled with Drucker?” he asks.
I shrug. “She was being an asshole.”
“She’s a senator. She’s practically our boss. She could have either of us reassigned or fired with a phone call. I don’t like this surveillance nonsense either, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “We have to move the summit.”
He runs his hands through his hair like he wants to pull it out. Given how long it’s gotten, it ends up in disarray, like he just got out of bed. He says, “Not happening.”
“Allyn, we’ve been compromised,” I tell him. “Someone is in our system.”
“What are you talking about?”
I point over my shoulder at Ruby, who says, “Someone broke into our video feeds and has been erasing data. I’ve locked them out for now but I don’t know why they were doing it. The obvious theory is someone is trying to hide something.”
Allyn exhales. “Okay, that’s not great…”
“No, it’s not,” I tell him. “And I just had a conversation with Kolten Smith. You know why he wants this place? So he can go back in time and fix climate change. It sounds like a nice enough idea, except for, you know, the potential it has to destroy reality. Which I think underscores a larger point: you think any of these knuckleheads are here to play nice and follow the rules?”
“The TEA isn’t going anywhere,” he says. “That was made very clear before we even considered taking bids. We’re still the enforcement arm of this place, and we will continue to operate under the authority of the federal government. I’m not worried about them screwing around with stuff.”
“You trust these guys? You trust Drucker? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“No, I don’t. But we don’t exactly sit around all day with our thumbs up our asses. There are checks and balances in place.”
“Like what? What if Drucker decides to replace you, or…”
Allyn puts his hand on my shoulder and locks me in a tight stare. “January, I need you to trust me on this. It’s complicated, and…need-to-know. That’s all I can say. But trust me, no one’s going back and changing anything, okay? Our system is secure.”
“You know I trust you. But how secure is secure, exactly? What do we do about the video feeds?”
He sighs. “I’ll talk to Jim Henderson in digital ops. I’m sure someone is just playing dirty pool, which honestly, I expected. But until something turns up dead, it’s not a priority.” I must twitch a little at that because he narrows his eyes and hyperfocuses on me. “Unless there’s something else you’re not telling me?”
Yes.
“No,” I say.
He sighs. “I’ll talk to Jim.”
We’re at an impasse. It feels like he’s holding something back too. I don’t like the way we’re standing, with some invisible thing between us.
“Teller and the prince are en route,” he says. “I know it’s hard, but try not to deliberately offend either of them. Please. I’m asking as your friend. Just toe the line for twenty-four hours. Hell, at this point I would take five minutes. Five minutes of good behavior.”
I’m about to say something when he puts his hand on my shoulder.