Chapter 26
2058 A.D.
TEM Enterprises
At Cynda’s request, Morrisey began filling in more of the missing pieces: about the Transitives and how they could look like anyone, how the Virtuals could appear invisible, and why it was the shifters held their secrets so closely. He spoke of what Harter had learned from a Future, someone ahead of them in the time stream. How it all would go to ruin in a few years’ time.
With some difficulty, he’d spoken of Chris’ death, his eyes filled with barely staunched tears. The longer he talked, the angrier she got. Not at him, but at those who’d played God with her life. Killed Chris. Used that silver tube and put her into the Nothing Time. They’d expected her to become a harmless child, giggling and building sand castles forever.
Not even close.
The bottom line: TPB was her enemy, and that wouldn’t change.
“I know you won’t remember everything I’ve told you,” Morrisey had said. “I’ll put a series of reports on your computer with multi-level encryption as most of this is very sensitive. That way, you can review them when you need.”
That was good, but what Cynda really needed was to hit someone. Repeatedly.
Sensing her internal upheaval, from that point on Morrisey gave her a wide berth, as did about everyone else in the complex. To curb the desire to give TPB more ammunition for committal, she worked out at the gym and practiced Tai Chi to calm the ants. She perfected her kicks and punches, but still had trouble with some of the other moves. To break up the long periods of exercise, Sigmund taught her chess and how to strategize. She studied Victorian history. Most important, she worked through things in her head. Day by day the red haze slowly lifted, replaced by icy resolve.
Whoever had made her this way were going to reap what they’d sown.
“Cyn?” Ralph prompted. He was sitting a discreet distance from her, just out of range. She gazed down at the sandwich he’d brought her as a peace offering. This had to be Morrisey’s doing. Probably figured she wouldn’t hit her best friend. She hoped he was right.
“You always liked Eli’s food before,” Ralph complained as she picked at the interior of the sandwich critically.
“You sure I like tuna?” she asked.
“You used to. You eat raw fish now; you should be able to eat the cooked stuff, for heaven’s sake.”
To make him happy, Cynda took a bite. The taste was unbelievable. She moaned. “This…is good,” she said through a mouthful of food. “Better than chocolate, even.”
“That’s more like the old you.” He smiled. “Oh, Eli and his wife send their regards.”
She raised an eyebrow. He took the cue. “Eli Greenwald the Third. You call him E3. We used to eat there all the time, or go up to the park and have a picnic. You used to smuggle tomato seeds through him to your parents Off-Grid.”
E3? She shuffled through the files and then came up with a matching memory. She’d hand him her sandwich tote, the seeds hidden in the bottom, and he’d swap the contraband out for a sandwich and pickles. To the casual observer it didn’t appear they’d broken any laws.
Once she finished swallowing, she set the sandwich down reluctantly. “Thanks, Ralph.”
“No problem.” She noticed his own meal sat still wrapped in front of him.
“Wait a minute, let me work on it…” She screwed up her face in thought, hovering her hand over the wrapper like she could divine what was inside. “Roast beef and…something, right?”
“Roast beef, mayo, and American cheese,” he confirmed with an approving nod.
“We’ll go to this place together someday.”
Ralph’s smile faded. “We won’t get that chance if you go back to ’88, Cyn. They’ll kill you this time.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“It’s not just about you. Rumors are floating around that TPB has threatened to jail Morrisey if there are any further unauthorized transfers. They’ll close the company for good, sell it off to the highest bidder.”
“I doubt they’ll be able to pull it off,” she said, hoping that was the case.
“Is one Victorian’s life worth all that?” he argued.
Though the question annoyed her, it was a valid one. “I believe it is, Ralph,” she told him. “Keats cannot die that way.”
“Was there something going on between you two?”
Cynda looked up, startled. “There might have been, before this.” She tapped her temple where the mark still darkened her skin. “I don’t know now. I think we took a left turn along the way.” She took another bite of her sandwich.
“What about Dr. Montrose?”
“Same story, I think.” Is he jealous, or just curious? Another thought surfaced. “Were you and I ever...you know?”
Her friend shook his head. “We would just drive each other crazy.”
That made sense. She set the sandwich down again. “You’re not eating, so what’s really going on here, guy?”
Ralph’s oval glasses were off in a heartbeat, being polished with the bottom of his shirt. She’d learned that was his way of dealing with stress. “You’re my best friend, Cyn. Hell, almost my only friend. We’ve been like twins since we first met. If you go to ’88 and don’t come back…”
“We’ve always been there for each other, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, we have.”
“Then we will in the future. I’ll know you have my back, Ralph. That’s why I’ll be the one kicking butt this time, not the other way around.”
“You’re too damned stubborn,” he grumbled. “Morrisey said you’d get better, that you wouldn’t give in. I wasn’t so sure.”
“So the Genius wins this round,” she joked.
“Don’t remind me.”
“You don’t like him, do you?”
Ralph’s brows furrowed. “Sometimes I do. Mostly I’m not sure. It’s funny. I used to think he was a god. Now I can’t figure him out.”
“Makes two of us.” She pointed at his sandwich. “Eat, will you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes back at him and returned to her own meal, savoring both the sandwich and the unshakeable love of her best friend.
~??~??~??~
The moment Cynda heard the door to the botanical garden whoosh open, she sighed. So much for her quiet meditation. Morrisey stopped a short distance away, not joining her on the bench as was customary.
“I’m sorry for interrupting,” he announced. “I’ve run some computer models. The alternate thread is gaining ground.”
“Oh, boy.”
“This is something different than a Time Incursion. Usually an alternate thread dies out rather quickly. It’s my guess that the instability in 1888 is contributing to the problem.”
“Defoe’s there. Why hasn’t he fixed it? He’s Rover One, after all.”
Morrisey sat next to her. “I don’t think he can. I think it has something to do with you.”
Me? “You mean if I do go back, it will resolve?”
“Perhaps, but not necessarily the way we would like.”
Which meant Keats might die no matter what. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” she murmured. “How ugly can it get?”
Morrisey went quiet. He doesn’t know for sure.
“No clue?”
“If this disconnect becomes firmly embedded in the timeline, it will methodically rumble forward. What sort of changes would occur?” He shrugged at his own question. “Time travel may not exist as we know it. You…me…we may never have been born.”
Then I have no choice.
“Jacynda…”
Their eyes met. She saw the desperate plea in them. “I would argue that you’re not entirely whole yet.”
Cynda agreed. Someone had dropped her box of puzzle pieces and there were a number of them that had vanished under the furniture for eternity. In all likelihood, this was as good as it was going to get.
“The clock is running,” she told him. “TPB will eventually realize I’m a lot more with it than they think. I can’t go on fooling the shrinks forever.”
“I have connections. There are places you can hide where they won’t find you.”
And have them throw you in jail?
“I’ve been thinking about this: I’ll go back to the night Nicci was killed and intercept Keats before he gets to my hotel room. I will insist we go somewhere public, where he’s known, so he’s seen by a number of people during the time Nicci dies. He won’t meet with Flaherty, go on trial, or be up for the noose.”
“Sounds too simple.” Morrisey rubbed his forehead in thought. “You might meet yourself. That can be very disconcerting.”
“You’ve done it?” Cynda asked. To her knowledge, he’d only made a couple of time trips to deliver information to her in ’88.
Morrisey shook his head. “Harter has. Said it was very…” He struggled for a word.
“Creepy?”
“Exactly.”
“Does it cause any harm to the timeline?”
“Not that we can tell,” Morrisey replied. “You should still avoid it.”
Fulham appeared in the doorway to the solarium. “The post has arrived—from Victorian London.” He held out a letter. And something else. “Apparently you left this behind, and the doctor felt you would want it.”
She’d know that furry face anywhere. “Fred!” She leapt to her feet and snatched him out of Fulham’s hands. “Fred,” she repeated, squishing the stuffed animal in an enthusiastic embrace.
The assistant bent over and whispered something in Morrisey’s ear. He gave a curt nod. “Tell Klein we’ll be ready very soon.”
Impatiently, Cynda tore open the letter and immersed herself in Alastair’s flowing penmanship, Fred in her lap. The first couple of paragraphs were full of the doctor’s supreme delight at hearing of her improvement. Then his tone turned dark when he wrote about Keats.
She heard Morrisey’s throat clearing, and knew what he wanted.
“He writes, ‘All seem to be against him, except for a loyal few. Lord Wescomb’s second, Mr. Kingsbury, performed a masterful job of defending Keats, but the end result is that he has been found guilty of Nicola Hallcox’s murder. Wescomb is profoundly upset, dismayed at being unable to navigate the vicious politics that swirl around our friend like a maelstrom. You may well wonder why Kingsbury was in charge of the case: his lordship, Keats’ staunchest defender, was nearly assassinated the other night in what can only have been a bid to ensure conviction.’ ”
Cynda looked up at Morrisey and saw a troubled expression.
“That’s not in Wescomb’s timeline,” he said. “Things are starting to unravel faster than even I had anticipated.”
She returned to the letter. “‘I truly fear the worst. I beg of you, if there is anything you can do to save him please do so, history be damned.’ ”
“History be damned?” she repeated. “Sounds like it already is.”
Cynda handed over the letter, knowing Morrisey would want to study it further. One of the butterflies swirled around her. She set Fred aside and followed it a few feet until it landed on a nearby flower. It fanned its purple iridescent wings as it drank deeply of the nectar.
You don’t care about the future, do you? You just live in the now. Wish we could.
There was a rustle of paper being folded. She found Morrisey studying her intently.
“Klein says if you’re going, you need to leave within the next twenty-four hours. TPB is getting edgy. He thinks they know you’re better off than we’ve been letting on.”
“You kept them off my tail longer than I expected.”
A weary shrug. “He wants you to depart from their facility, not ours.”
“Why?”
“Harder to track, for one.”
“Where else would I go but ’88? Why cloak ’n dagger it?”
“Klein has his reasons. So far, he’s played straight with us. I would suggest we do as he asked.”
He’s hiding the real reason. “Klein’s trying to keep TPB from shutting down the company, putting you in jail.”
Morrisey looked dismayed. “Yes, that would be one reason.”
For a daring moment, she imagined smuggling him to 1888 with her. Just as quickly, she dismissed the idea. Even though Morrisey understood the inner workings of time travel better than any Rover, he was a neophyte when it came to the actual realities of life in another era. He was safer here, no matter what TPB did to him.
“You realize how dangerous this trip will be,” he warned. “It is more like a war than anything and we still don’t know all the combatants. You may have to kill to stay alive.”
“I know.” In the past that would have bothered her, but not now. “Have you ever…done that?”
“No,” her companion replied.
“Ever wanted to?”
At long last, Morrisey nodded.
“Who?”
“Myself,” he replied. “After Mei’s death, life no longer seemed important.”