Time, page 6
“Not necessarily,” I said, still picking at the firewall. No, it wasn’t going to be an easy task. Probably a little too Herculean for me, in fact. “Revelen’s a hotbed of IT meta activity and spying. Hell, this could be a VPN masking—”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Augustus said. “Bottom line it for me.”
“Bottom line? I don’t know who did it.”
“What the hell is the point of you, then?” he asked, full-on crabby.
“Keeping your ass from getting crushed by a car you deserved to catch in the face, mostly.”
“Why did you grab my phone?” Augustus asked, looking more than a little beside himself. “How did you know there was one of those LifeStyles—”
“Trojans.”
“Right. How did you know one was on there?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “But I was about to tell you why Arche sent me that article, and I didn’t want anyone else to overhear it.” I regarded his phone carefully. Now that I’d deactivated the Trojan, there were only about a dozen more devices in this car that could potentially be hijacked. None of them carried a microphone, fortunately, so we were probably okay.
“Oh, yeah?” Augustus asked. “Why’d she send you that article, anyway? After—what? A year of radio silence?”
“Because,” I said, “she was pointing me in the right direction on something.”
“Oh, you trust her to do that, do you?” he asked, eyes wide, looking at me like I was an idiot. “She’s a super trustworthy person?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, trying to avoid getting into an argument about Arche’s honesty that I couldn’t possibly win, “but … she knows stuff. And this might be something she knows.”
“About what?”
“About … Sienna,” I said quietly. “About finding that evidence you mentioned. The kind that would exonerate her.”
Augustus didn’t freeze, exactly, but there was a definite moment of pause before he answered, and his tension ratcheted up another notch. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” I said, and pulled up the family photo on the article. “Because what Arche is saying … is that these folks?” I stared at the Custis family as I showed them to Augustus. There was an older man with greying hair, his wife of about the same age, and their grown kids all spread in front of them like some sort of grown-up family Christmas photo, “They’re the ones holding the lock and key on the evidence.”
CHAPTER TEN
Sienna
Things to do when you’re stuck on a private plane in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and everyone around you is frozen in time:
Try the internet and discover that the wi-fi is not working. Because time is frozen.
Talk to the people around you, who show as much reaction as statues. Because time is frozen.
Go to the bathroom and realize the toilet won’t flush. Because—well, you know.
Try the TV—no signal or replay or whatever.
Attempt to make your electronics work—not a chance, they’re as stuck as the people around you. Can’t even trigger the lock screen.
Look through the luggage of everyone else on board until you find a very aged paperback copy of Richard Stark’s The Hunter and settle down to read it while frantically glancing around every few minutes in hopes that time has resumed its normal course.
Spoiler alert: It hasn’t.
Feed yourself from the limitless bags of peanuts and chips in the steward’s galley, until your blood has the same approximate salt content as the water somewhere far, far below you.
Consider breaking your two-month sobriety with the approximately ten gajillion miniature bottles of liquor in the galley. Who would even notice? Or give a damn? Pass on that, mostly because drinking has never, not once, ever made me feel better.
Reach the middle of The Hunter and realize you’ve seen the movie of this, and it had Mel Gibson, and was maybe less mean in some places and yet meaner in others. Nervously glance around, hoping time has unfrozen.
Still a no.
Pace endlessly, probably wearing down the jet’s carpet. Take particular care in moving for fear that imparting too much strength to any particular motion will end up destroying the entire plane when time unfreezes—if time unfreezes—like Quicksilver speed-beating the shit out of people in the X-Men movies.
Begin to question whether this is it. That time is now frozen, forever, in this state, and that I will live out the rest of my days with a toilet that will not flush and eventually be forced to resort to cannibalism of people who won’t even feel it when I kill and begin to eat them.
I miss you, Wolfe.
“—but dresses like he dropped out of Leave It to Beaver,” Kat resumed, picking up right where she left off. I jumped so hard I threw The Hunter into the bulkhead with enough force that it exploded in a cloud of bindings and torn pages. Kat jerked her head to look at me, now on a small sofa behind her, and saw the pages of the book floating down around me. “What the …?”
“It happened again,” Harry said, all memory of Kat’s insults apparently forgotten as he stood, wobbly-legged and looking kind of haunted, eyes vacant and searching. He touched his temple, closing his eyes for a second as though he’d just experienced a headache of the sort Kat used to cause me on the regular.
“Yeah,” I said as the flight attendant walked carefully up the aisle, looking at me as though I’d just managed some sort of miracle. Which I had. When she’d started from the galley I’d been in my seat; now I was twenty feet away, standing up from the little sofa. “It did.”
“This is what you called me for?” Kat asked, taking a drink from the attendant’s tray without even looking at her. Harry did the same and gulped down whatever she’d brought him in one good slug.
“Yes,” I said, and looked at the attendant, then made a shooing motion with my hand, which she got the hint on and started back up the aisle toward the galley. I moved closer to them and whispered, meta-low, “I’ve been stuck out of time for the last—I don’t know—a day, maybe? It was hard to tell without clocks or phones or—”
“Ewwww,” Kat said. “I hope that never happens to me. No wi-fi? Sounds like my version of hell.”
“Sounds like my version of heaven,” Harry muttered, passing his empty glass to the attendant as she went by.
“It’s terrible,” I said. “I was reading that book,” and I chucked a thumb at the remains of the novel, which was just coming to rest over a several square foot space next to the bulkhead, “and that was basically all I could do.”
“I wonder if your powers would work while time is frozen …?” Harry asked, still seeming pretty glazed.
“Why does that matter?” Kat asked.
“She might need to defend herself in a time freeze when we get to Japan,” Harry said with a shrug. “Just thinking ahead.”
I was pretty sure that was not what he was thinking of, but kudos to him for coming up with a graceful answer on his feet. “That’s not a bad point,” I said, “I—”
“Whoa,” Harry said, blinking, now staring straight ahead again. “That … is not good.”
“What happened now?” Kat asked, turning to face him. “Did you accidentally set off the creeper alarm in here?”
And a point to Kat for unexpected spiked sarcasm delivered with a straight face. She usually wasn’t good at that; Harry seemed to really bring out her mean streak. “No,” he said, seeming to take no notice of her flippant cruelty, “I’m looking forward—trying to see—” He was speaking quickly, frazzled, and I recalled the time he’d come to me in Chicago, seeking my help because of something about to happen that was the end of the metahuman world. He hadn’t seemed this shaken then. “It’s so much worse,” Harry said, still staring blankly at the bulkhead. Slowly, he turned to me, eyes wide and haunted. “So much worse … there’s … nothing … in three days …” He quivered, staring empty-eyed at me.
“In three days … what?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around this.
“In three days … it’s all over, Sienna,” Harry said, still staring at me, horror creeping into his gaze in a way that wrenched my stomach, “in three days … the world—the whole world … time … it just … stops.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Well, that’s grim,” I said after giving Harry’s world-ending pronouncement a moment to settle. It felt like someone had popped a window and sucked all the atmosphere out of the plane. Kat stared straight ahead, blinking a few times. Harry, for his part, said nothing. “Time just stops? Forever?”
Harry nodded. “It all ends. No more forward motion, no more probabilities after that. It’s going to happen, 99.9%—unless somehow we get you where you’re going by then.” He latched on to me, put his hands on my shoulders, eyes wild. “You’re the only one of us in this plane that has a future beyond that.”
“Well, having just spent what felt like days absent your company and that of anyone else,” I said, “trust me when I tell you I’m going to do everything I can to stop this. And not just because I accidentally destroyed the only thing I had to read.”
“Please, Sienna,” Harry said, and he wrinkled my shirt as he grasped me, “you have to. You have to save us from—this.”
“Dude,” Kat said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder and trying to pry him away from me, “you need to relax, okay? Do you want a Valium?”
Harry swung his head around at her as though she were out of her mind. “What are you doing with Valium?”
Kat shrugged. “I lead a stressful life, okay?”
Harry stared at her, thought about it a second, and said, “Yeah, okay. Maybe I could use one.” He slumped back into his chair, all the strength gone out of his legs. “There’s nothing to do until we get to Nagasaki anyway.”
Kat froze halfway to her purse and cocked her head to the side. “Nagasaki? I thought we were going to Tokyo?”
I glanced at Kat. “No. We need to get to Nagasaki.”
Harry’s eyes darted around. “Oh, shit. We’re on track to Tokyo.”
I bit off an angry reply that would have scorched the air. It wasn’t his fault his powers weren’t fully working, or that he was so stressed he was likely to strain a muscle just sitting in his seat. Harry wasn’t used to things falling apart around him, at least not without being able to see a clear path around them. I remembered when he’d walked me out of being surrounded by almost the entirety of President Harmon’s military and FBI task forces in Salt Lake City, Utah, placid as a sunny spring day the whole time.
It was a stark contrast to the sad, sweating Harry who was sitting in front of me now. He really did need that Valium.
“That’s fine,” I said. “We can just change it up. Tell the pilot we need to go to Nagasaki—”
“You can’t do that,” the flight attendant said from just outside the galley. She’d leaned her head out to talk to us. “He already filed the flight plan. We’re on track, and we can’t change it now. But we can still get you to Nagasaki—after we land in Tokyo and clear customs, refuel and have some crew rest.”
I stared at her. She had a pretty sunny disposition, as you might expect someone who was charged with dealing with the uber-lux wealthy celebrity set. A huge part of her job was probably customer service. “How long do you think we’ll be on the ground for … refueling and crew rest and all that?”
“Probably overnight,” she said. “We’ll be landing in the late afternoon local time. The crew rest period is—”
“That’s not going to work,” I said, putting my hand into my hair and bowing my head. “Crap.”
“We’re going to need to catch the bullet train,” Harry said, almost croaking at this point. I wondered how much more stress he could take. Kat offered him a couple pills, her arm at maximum extension, presumably so as not to get too close to him. “Thanks,” he said, as she nearly dropped them outside his grasp. He had to work to catch them, too, but he downed them without anything to wash them down. “Then we can charter a boat. That’ll get us there quicker than waiting for the plane.”
“Ooh, traveling Japan like one of the little people,” Kat bubbled. “Sounds like fun!”
“Yes, being crowded on public transit in one of the most populous per-square-mile countries on the planet sounds like a real joy,” I said, “especially among those gropey guys who use it as an opportunity to get handsy with strangers. Sounds like a real great time—for Harvey Weinstein.”
“Nobody gets handsy with me and gets away with it anymore,” Kat said dismissively. “Broken fingers are a big price to pay.”
“Wow,” Harry said, looking up at her, his drink drained and all the color from his face gone with it. “That’s very … Sienna of you.”
“She taught me well.” Kat flushed a little then glanced at me.
I frowned. “That does seem a little less Kat than I recall. Remember when that douchecanoe producer guy was taking full advantage of you?”
“That was the catalyst for my change,” she said. “You held up the mirror and showed me how I was being taken advantage of. So … y’know … no more. I’m powerful … and stuff—”
“You come off as stronger if you don’t have to say it,” Harry mumbled. “Also, ‘and stuff’ undermines the power of your statement.”
“Good for you,” I said, nodding along, ignoring Harry, who I suspected was beginning to feel the liquor portion of his drink already. I kinda felt like once the pills hit home he’d crash out, which would be a good thing given his current state of disaster and the length of our flight ahead. “So—about this alternate route to Nagasaki—”
“I’ll get on it,” Kat said, heading back to her seat, bag in hand. “I’ll figure out the train schedules and get it planned. You guys just chill for a bit.” She frowned at Harry. “Especially you. Go full icebox, please.” And then she sat, phone in hand, browsing the net, lips puckered in concentration.
I moved to sit next to Harry, and caught a whiff of gin that made my eyes burn. “What the hell did you get? A gin and no tonic?”
“Tom Collins,” Harry said, not quite slurring but getting a little close. He held up his glass, which was a tallboy. “Extra Tom, low on the Collins.”
“Is the Tom alcohol and the Collins the … what, club soda?”
“For the purposes of this metaphor?” He smiled. “Yes.”
“Harry,” I said, lowering my voice, mostly for the sake of not having the flight attendant hear, since I would have had to go beyond meta low to keep Kat from overhearing us, “I know you’re a little … out of sorts because—”
“Because time is going to end? Yes,” he said, “I am out of sorts. Of all sorts. The sorts of patience and sanity and —” He stopped and stared at me. “Wait. This is how you people feel every time the world ends.”
I thought about it a second. “Yeah, probably. Sort of, anyway. Stress, panic, fruity notes of worry and fatigue—”
“Oh, God.” Harry sagged in his seat. “Seriously. You feel this way every time?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as desperate as you look,” I said, and he sagged a little more, like I’d let the air out of him. I took a breath, and tried to find a better answer. “Okay … yeah, I’ve felt that way before. Once. Maybe twice.” He kept staring at me. “Maybe a few times. But I never let it get me down for too long, Harry.”
He stared at me with these worshipful eyes. “That’s why you’re the hero, Sienna.”
“Oh, screw you, Harry,” I said, turning away from him.
“No, I’m serious,” he said, and when I looked back, he wasn’t making anime eyes at me.
He was totally sincere.
Naturally, this made me hideously uncomfortable, so I changed the subject. “Can I get you another drink?”
“Why does it bother you that people think you’re a hero?” Harry asked, dimestore psychoanalyzing me.
“Because I’m used to attaching my feelings of self-worth to being a terrible criminal,” I lobbed back, easy, with a smug smile. “My whole identity is tied up in it.”
“Bullshit,” Harry slurred. “I saw what happened to you in that bar back in Minneapolis. The woman who came up to you, thanked you for saving her granddaughter—and that was back before you’d even decided to really be a hero. It was in … what, your Directorate days? When you were just hunting criminal metas. Before Sovereign, even—”
“What’s your point?” I asked, feeling suddenly very restless, and jonesing—just a little—for time to stop again, at least long enough for me to escape this conversation.
“When time stopped,” he stared at me, all self-serious, “you were so excited about charging into this because you had something to do. A problem to attack, a potential villain to outwit … but every time I talk to you about heroics, you start poo-pooing it—”
“I do not poo-poo—”
“Everybody does it, sweetie,” Kat murmured from across the aisle. “Even you.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re gonna eavesdrop, Kat, you could at least get more than that part of the conversation.” I shifted my focus back to Harry. “Look—”
“I’m looking,” Harry said with a grin, already buzzing, no doubt, and the look on his face was … well, he was looking right at me, and not blinking. It was, uhm …
I squirmed a little in my seat. “Look, not stare awkwardly.”
“You really have problems with people who pay you the compliment of great attention,” Harry said, still grinning. “Come on, Sienna. We’ve been together for months. When are you going to accept that I genuinely—” I tensed, fearing the last word he’d throw in there. “—like you?”
I unclenched. Slightly.
“Maybe someday,” I said, trying to breeze past all that. I wondered if, given that his digestion was meta-enhanced, maybe the Valium would be sped into his bloodstream soon.
“You’re a hero,” he mumbled, putting his head back and breaking that intense eye contact that felt like it had lasted an eternity. “The sooner you accept that … the better off you’ll be.” And he turned his head away from me and closed his eyes, looking like he might finally go for some crew rest.
