Future Shock (8 page)

06:13

The taxi stops outside a drab two-story apartment building with bars on the windows. It reminds me of places where I’ve lived in similar shady neighborhoods.

“You’d think they could do better in home security by now,” says Adam, eyeing the barred windows as he zips up his jacket.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Trent asks Chris.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “Zoe didn’t go crazy, right?”

I’m not one hundred percent sure that’s correct. She’s still huddling against the window of the car, her blue hair hanging in her face. But no, she only went into shock after she heard she was murdered. Aether was wrong about what would happen to us if we found out about our future selves—or they lied to us.

“Zoe, can I get my jacket back?” I ask.

“Oh.” She blinks at me as if in a dream. “Yeah.”

She pulls my coat out of her backpack and hands it to me. It’s nice and dry, and I slip it on and yank up the hood. Like before, Adam and I will be on point, while the others wait behind and watch through our feeds.

The instant we step out of the car, we’re drenched again. “A backpack full of stuff, and they couldn’t pack us an umbrella?” Adam asks as he raises his own hood.

We trudge around the building through dead weeds now muddy from the rain until we find the right door. It has a smooth, black panel, which I recognize as being for fingerprint scans. Otherwise, it has no locks, knobs, or anything to open it.

“3A, right?” I ask.

In my head, I hear Chris’s voice. “Right.”

I knock on the door and wait. A moment later someone calls out, “Who’s there?”

“Shawnda Jones?” I ask, using the name Chris gave me.

“Yeah?”

“We’re, um…”

“We’re old friends of Chris,” Adam says. “Can we talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Chris who?”

“Your boyfriend, Chris…”

“Duncan,” I supply, remembering his name badge. “Chris Duncan.”

“You’re too young to be friends of his,” Shawnda says, her voice closer now. There’s no peephole, but she must be able to see us somehow.

Adam glances at me with raised eyebrows. “What we mean is, our parents were his friends.”

“They lived in the same foster home,” I add.

“Right,” Adam continues. “And we just have some questions about what happened to him.”

“Which foster home?” Shawnda asks.

“Tell her the Lees,” Chris says, and I repeat his words.

There’s a long pause, and I don’t think Shawnda’s going for it. No surprise. I doubt I’d open my door for some weird teenagers either. Adam looks pretty geeky in his glasses, and my tattoos are hidden under my jacket, but we’re still strangers to her.

“Tell her something personal,” Trent suggests.

“Yeah, tell her I used to work at Downey Automotive,” Chris says. “That’s how I met Shawnda—she brought in her dad’s car, and I asked her out to dinner.”

“Chris used to work at Downey Automotive,” I repeat. “My mom said that’s how you two met.”

Finally, the door opens, and inside stands a black woman with braided hair and dark, suspicious eyes. She must be forty-seven or forty-eight if she’s about Chris’s age back in the present. She wears a moss-green uniform with her last name on the front, sparkling in digital letters, and her flexi is clear. “I’ve only got a few minutes before I need to head to work.”

“No problem,” says Adam. “Thanks.”

She lets us inside, into a small living room with furniture that looks like it might have been new back in our time. I stand in the middle of the room, wondering what to do. I have no idea what to say to this woman. How do you ask someone why a guy they knew thirty years ago doesn’t seem to exist anymore?

I sit on the edge of the sofa, feeling like an intruder. “So…when did you last see Chris?”

She cross her arms and stands a little away from us, mistrust clear in her eyes. “Thirty years ago, obviously.”

“Thirty—are you sure?” Adam asks, adjusting his glasses.

“Hard to forget. I was pregnant at the time.”

I shoot Adam a startled look. Chris didn’t mention this. Maybe he doesn’t know?

“Dude, what?” Trent asks in my head.

“Shut up,” Chris snaps. “I need to hear this.”

I notice a photo on the wall behind Shawnda of a guy who looks a lot like Chris. “Is that your son?”

“Yeah, Chris Junior. Named after his father.”

“My
son
,” Chris whispers.

“He looks like his dad,” Adam says. “I mean, from photos we’ve seen.”

She digs around in her purse for something. “Mmm-hmm. Now what all do you want? I need to get going.”

I lean forward, anxious to get some answers finally. “We just want to know what happened to Chris.”

“Some bitch shot him. What more do you want to know?”

“He—he died?” I don’t want to believe it, because if he and Zoe are both dead, that means there’s little hope for me. But then I process the last thing she said. “A girl shot him?”

“Yeah.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“This is bullshit,” Chris says in my head. “I can’t be dead. No fucking way.”

“Yes,” Adam says, answering her question. “We just wondered if you knew any more details.”

“All I know is this girl killed him and a few other kids, then blew her own brains out.”

My fingers dig into the thin fabric of the couch. I knew it. We’re all dead. Murdered. Shot by some girl. Maybe it has nothing to do with Aether Corporation after all. I can think of a couple of girls who might want me dead, but I don’t know of any connection with Zoe, Trent, or Chris. It might explain why Adam is still alive in the future though.

Adam stares at me, his forehead creased with concern. The others are silent in my head. Maybe they’re in shock. I know I should ask more questions, should try to find out as much as I can, but my tongue is frozen. Maybe a part of me doesn’t want to know more. All I can do is stare at the tan carpet and think about how I’m going to be dead soon.

I don’t get it. Why would some girl kill us and then kill herself? Maybe it’s a setup. Aether could have framed some girl to take the suspicion off themselves. But that doesn’t make any sense either.

“Do you know this girl’s name?” Adam asks Shawnda.

“Listen, that was a long time ago. Why are you digging this up now?” She strides over to the door. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

“Of course,” Adam says, jumping to his feet. “Thank you for your time.”

“Ask her about my son,” Chris says, his voice strained. “Ask her!”

“One more question,” I ask, standing up slowly. “Can we talk to your son?”

“Is that why you’re really here?” Shawnda asks, hands on her hips. “He owe you money?”

“No—” Adam starts.

“You want revenge? Just let it go. He’s already in prison.” She throws open the front door. “Now get out.”

“What?” Chris roars. “
What?
”

I cover my ears to block out his voice, but of course it doesn’t work. Trent yells, “Chris, wait!”

Oh shit, not again. Adam and I rush outside, and the door slams shut behind us. Chris stomps across the grass toward the apartment. “Shawnda!” he yells. “Shawnda, where’s my son?”

“Dude, knock it off!” Trent says, grabbing his arm. Chris turns and punches Trent in the face. He falls to the ground, into the muddy weeds.

“Stop!” Zoe yells at Chris, bending down to help Trent. “Stop it!”

“Chris, get back in the car,” I say, blocking his path. Adam stands beside me, but Chris towers over both of us. I dig my feet into the earth, taking a fighting stance.

“I need to find my son.” Chris glares at us, his mouth twisted with rage. “Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”

I raise my hands to try to calm him down. “Chris—”

He slams between me and Adam, trying to get by. The force knocks us back, but we hold our ground. I can’t let Chris talk to Shawnda—not like this anyway.

I don’t want to fight him. I really don’t. Not anymore. Not when we might be dead in a few days. But he leaves me no choice.

Chris tries to get by us again, and I shove him in the chest. Not that it does much good—it’s like shoving a mountain. But it sure makes him mad.

He takes a swing at me, but I duck, coming up under his punch. With my hands in fists, I slam a quick jab into his side. He tries to grab me, but I dart away, out of his reach.

Adam’s yelling something, but my focus has narrowed to just Chris and his massive, tattooed arms. He’s a big guy, but I’m small and quick. I just have to make sure he doesn’t hit me.

That thought doesn’t last long. Chris swings at my gut and I dodge it, only to be punched in the face a second later. Everything goes black and then I’m on my knees somehow, my vision blurry. My face throbs with heat and pain, but I see Chris standing over me.

I reach around, hands shaking, and open the pouch on the side of my backpack. Then the gun is in my hand, pointed at Chris. “Stay back!” I yell.

“What the…” Chris freezes. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“It was in my backpack.” The gun wobbles in my grip, but I don’t lower it. “Get back!”

“Why would they give you a gun?” Adam asks. He looks more scared of me holding the gun than he did of Chris a minute ago.

“I don’t know!”

Chris stares at me, and I prepare myself in case he’s about to attack again. My finger twitches on the trigger. We lock eyes for a minute, an invisible cord of tension connecting us, the threat of violence heavy in the air. Finally the moment passes and he steps back, his shoulders slumping.

“I was gonna propose to Shawnda as soon as we got paid. She told me last week she’s pregnant. That’s why I took this job.” He stares at the ground. “I just wanted to be a good father.”

I lower the gun, hands shaking. I can’t hate him now that I know he’s doing all this for his family. It’s more than Papá ever did for me.

“We’re going to stop this.” I have to believe it, or I might as well turn the gun on myself right now.

Chris nods. “Sorry about…” He gestures at his face. “All that.”

I struggle to my feet and he holds out a hand to help me up. I take it and then wipe my burning nose with the back of my jacket. Red blood mixes with the rain, which has slowed to a trickle now.

I put the gun away in my backpack. “I wouldn’t have shot you, you know.”

“No shit,” he says with a faint grin.

I can’t help but let out a small laugh. This whole situation is just so messed up.

The other three watch us like we’re crazy, but I know something’s changed between me and Chris. We understand each other now, in a way only people who have fought each other can. My face still throbs, but he didn’t actually hit me that hard. I’ve been in worse fights. Chris turns to Trent and apologizes, and the two slap each other on the back.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say. Even with the rain, we’re too visible, too exposed standing out in the open like this. The police might still be looking for us.

“Guys.” Adam stares at the street. “The taxi is gone.”

“Oh yeah,” Trent says. “It asked for more money while you were in there. It probably ran out and drove off.”

Back at the apartment building, I see Shawnda’s face at the window, glaring at us. And then I hear the sirens in the distance.

06:34

I whip my head around, trying to gauge how close they are. We take off running, down rain-slicked sidewalks, past beat-up apartments and stores, in the opposite direction of the sirens. For a few minutes all I know is the feel of my legs pumping, my heart racing, and water splattering against my face.

“Under here,” Adam says when we can no longer hear the sirens. The five of us duck under the awning of a store that’s been closed down, that once sold candles or bath lotions or something. It provides shelter from the rain but not much else.

I lean against the front window, trying to catch my breath. My face still aches, and I’d give just about anything for dry clothes right now. But worst of all, everything Jasmine and Shawnda said replays in my head.

“We’re all dead,” Zoe whispers, tugging on the strings of her hood. “Dead, dead, dead.”

“We don’t know that,” Trent says. He pulls out a cigarette but then shoves it back in his jacket, probably remembering what happened the last time he got caught smoking.

I take a breath and try to clear my head. “Okay, Chris and Zoe are going to be shot by some girl after we get back to the present. We need to find out more about their deaths, and also…” I pause and look at Trent, my throat dry.

“Find out if we’re really dead too,” he whispers, finishing the sentence for me.

I turn to Chris. “Do you know of any girl who would want to kill you?”

“Nah. Just you.”

I roll my eyes. “There has to be some connection between the four of us. Maybe some previous foster home or someone we all knew.”

For a few minutes, we go through all the group homes and foster families we’ve lived with, and list anyone who might hold a grudge against us. The only overlap is that Trent and I both lived at the Bright Haven group home, but he moved there a few months after I got kicked out, and that doesn’t link Chris or Zoe to us.

“We could go to the places we were shot,” Chris suggests. “Look for evidence.”

Adam shakes his head. “That was thirty years ago. There won’t be anything there now.”

Chris grunts but lets it go. Frustration churns inside me, and I want to slam my fist into the store window. How are we going to find out more about our deaths? I gaze out at the street, watching the egg-shaped cars scroll by. The rain has started to thin out, and I can see the faint outline of the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles towering above us. And then I have an idea.

“We should go to the library,” I say.

“Huh?” Chris asks.

“The library,” I repeat. “They should have records or old news articles or something, right?

“Good idea,” Trent says. “We’re only a few blocks from the Central Library.” I blink at him, surprised he knows that, but he shrugs. “It’s a good place to go when you have nowhere else. I used to hang out there a lot.”

“Me too.” It’s weird agreeing with Trent on something, but I know exactly what he means. There were many times I had to escape—from Papá, from foster homes, from life in general. Sometimes libraries and the books inside them were the only places I felt safe.

“Good news, Adam,” Chris says, slapping him on the shoulder. “You’re not the biggest nerd here after all.” Adam rolls his eyes but gives him a faint smile. The tension between all of us has vanished now that we have a common purpose: fighting for our future.

A map with directions to the library appears in my vision, sent by Chris. We pull up our hoods and venture back into the rain.

The Central Library is in the financial area of downtown Los Angeles, a beautiful oasis in the middle of a desert of sleek stone skyscrapers. The short, beige building is topped with a small pyramid in the center, covered in tiles depicting a sunburst. It’s surrounded by a garden of tall, lush trees and fountains with sea serpents spraying water. The tiered steps leading up to the entrance are carved with letters in different languages, and Greek statues stand guard over the doors.

I can’t believe how little has changed in the past thirty years. They finally fixed the tricky step at the front that everyone tripped on, but otherwise the library looks almost identical to the last time I was here. There’s still a tiny food court to the right as you walk in, although now it looks automated like Frosty Foam was.

We pass by it and into the front lobby, where chandeliers with illuminated globes hang from mosaic-covered ceilings. The walls are lined with colorful murals, the kind you’d see in a church. I remember coming here as a kid and thinking the place was like something out of a movie. I get that same feeling now, as if I’m somewhere magical.

The building is quiet, our footsteps loud against the tile floor. People in suits walk in and out, probably on their lunch break. I check my watch, 1:27 p.m. We’ve been in the future for seven hours already.

Trent sucks in a deep breath of air, which still smells of old books. “I love it here.”

“What now?” Chris asks.

I hesitate, unsure where to go. The library is massive, with arches and elevators leading off from this lobby, and I don’t know what exactly we need to look for. Through the nearest arch, I can see bookshelves, along with cubbyholes and desks with people sitting at them.

While the others examine the murals, Trent and I walk up to the curved, wooden information desk, where a woman smiles at us. Her flexi depicts three tiny books flapping their pages and flying away, like birds.

“Anything I can help you find?” she asks.

“Yeah, we uh…” I’m not sure how to phrase it. “We’re looking for old records.”

“Do you have death certificates?” Trent asks.

“We do,” the librarian says. “Each computer has a subscription to a genealogy program that can access those records. Is there something specific I can help you with?”

“What about old newspaper articles, like from thirty years ago?” I ask.

“Thirty years ago…We should have all of those in the computers too, and we might have some of the originals in the back.”

“Thanks.”

We give the others the details, and then the five of us head under the nearest arch and split up to sit in different cubbyholes. Some of the cubbies can fit two people, but I think we all want to be alone when we read about our fates.

The cubbyhole has just one big screen with the Los Angeles Public Library logo on it, and underneath it says “Touch to activate.” I press my finger to it, surprised it doesn’t have newer, fancier technology. Probably due to budget cuts or some crap. I’d much rather use this one anyway, since it doesn’t mess with my head.

There are half a dozen different kinds of searches listed—for ebooks, paper books, videos, and so forth—but I find the one to the genealogy program. A search box opens up with different things you can input, such as name, location, date of birth or death. I’m not sure how much this genealogy site will have on me, since I’m both a foster kid and a child of immigrants, but I enter my name and birth date, and narrow the search to Los Angeles County.

But I can’t hit the search button. A part of me doesn’t want to know what my future holds. For this one final moment, I can pretend everything is going to be okay when we get back to the present. Aether will give me my money, I’ll get my own place to live, and I’ll start college in the fall. I’ll have a real future. I’ll be free.

I lean back to check out the others, but their faces are all intent and focused on their screens. I can’t tell if they’ve found anything yet or how bad it is. I sigh and turn back to my screen, where the search box waits, blinking cursor and all.

I hit Search and there it is. My death certificate.

My dream for the future crumbles at the sight. I’m dead, I’m really, truly dead.

I click on the image to make it bigger. No turning back now. I have to know everything, have to see if it’s true. Besides, this might be another Elena Martinez. There have to be hundreds, thousands even, in Los Angeles.

But the date of birth on the certificate matches mine, along with other things like my parents’ names and my current residence with the Robertsons. It has to be me.

Then I see the date of death, and it’s like someone’s taken my heart and crushed it in their fist.

Friday. Tomorrow. The day after this crazy time-travel experiment. The day we return to our normal lives.

The walls close around me. I can’t die tomorrow. I’m not ready. I need days, months, years to figure out how to stop this from happening. I’m not even eighteen. I can’t die yet.

But the others died thirty years ago too. It has to be true.

This is the last day of my life.

When I was a kid, Mamá would tap her watch and say, “Hay más tiempo que vida.”
There’s more time than life.
She meant it in a life-is-short-seize-the-day kind of way, but her words take on new meaning for me now. I check her watch, touching the cool face with my finger, trying to find some comfort from the familiar habit. There’s something soothing about the predictability of time. No matter what happens, there are always sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day. For years, this watch, with its steady ticking hands, was my one constant.

In all those years, even in my darkest moments, I’ve never wanted more than those sixty seconds, sixty minutes, twenty-four hours.

Now I’d give anything to have more time.

But I’m not dead yet. The ticking watch, my beating heart, the smell of the musty books around me, they all mean I still have time. Not much time, but hopefully enough to stop this.

I pull myself together, brushing hair out of my face. I told Zoe and Chris that we were going to fix this, that we were going to change the future, and I have to believe we can. But to do that, I need more information.

My time of death is 11:38 p.m., a little over twenty-four hours after we return to the present. The place of death says Santa Monica State Beach. Not very descriptive, since the beach is pretty big, and I have no idea why I’d be there so late.

I scroll down, but when I see the cause of death, I have to cover my mouth to keep from crying out.

Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound. Suicide.

I’m the girl Shawnda mentioned, the one who shoots the others and then herself.

I’m the killer.