Interesting Places (Interesting Times #2) (17 page)

Chapter 19

Half an hour later they sat next to a
large fountain in an open-air park adjacent to a shopping mall. Hundreds of
people walked all around them drinking coffee, shopping, and chatting as if
they didn’t have a care in the world. If Oliver hadn’t known better, he’d have
guessed that none of them knew the outskirts of their city were burning.

Oliver wondered for a moment if the
conversation with Sally meant they were fugitives now, but decided against it.
Sally would have had no reason to think she was actually speaking with another
version of Artemis. She may have taken it as a very strange prank call, but
even if it had been reported, nobody would know who to be searching for. Nobody
except the other Artemis, that was.

Tyler was halfway through his third
sausage roll. “So how are you going to find us?” he asked between bites. “Or
how are you going to find
you
, I guess. Time travel gives me a
headache.”

“That is a normal side effect,”
Artemis said.

“Oh,” Tyler said. “I was just using
it as a figure of speech, actually. I don’t really have a headache.”

“Then you are indeed fortunate. Mine
is getting worse. I do not expect it to improve until we leave this place.”

Oliver didn’t have a headache,
either, but he also didn’t have another version of himself running around the
city. “Do you feel
anything
weird?” he asked Tyler.

“Nope. I mean, I guess there’s some
déjà vu. I never expected to see this place again after Sally smashed the
mirror.”

Oliver didn’t think that really
counted as déjà vu, but he didn’t see the need to correct him. “So how will you
find us?” he asked Artemis.

Artemis nodded at a nearby security
camera. “I have been gazing at that camera since we arrived.”

“Great,” Oliver said. “And that is
going to help us…how? Are we planning on robbing someone?”

“No, Mr. Jones. My other self will
have known I was not an impostor. Even if I could not recognize my own voice
over the speaker, there is likely nobody else in the universe who speaks my
first language.” She glanced at Oliver. “Before you bother to ask, it does not
have a name. It did not need one, back then.”

“How long will it take?” Tyler asked.

“I will have instructed Seven to
check the security feeds. I would think…” she trailed off as a sedan marked
with military insignia pulled up and parked a dozen feet away from them. “Well,
I thought it might take a little longer than
that
.”

Oliver watched as the rear door of
the car opened and another Artemis stepped out. To his surprise, she wore a
dark blue military uniform with gold patches on the arms and a large number of
ribbons pinned to the front. “Did you actually join their army?” he asked.

“No, of course not. It was a ceremonial
uniform. Sally asked me to wear it as a show of solidarity.” Artemis sighed.
“She said I would be a beacon of hope for her people.”

“Sally used the words
beacon of
hope
?” Tyler asked. “Really?”

“She did.” She gave Oliver another
look. “She was not always the person you know, Mr. Jones. Do endeavor to
remember that.”

Oliver wasn’t sure why that comment
had been directed at him, but it didn’t seem like something worth arguing
about, particularly when the second version of Artemis was approaching their position.

The uniformed Artemis stopped
directly in front of her counterpart. “It appears we have a serious problem,”
she said.

“We do,” Artemis said. “We are aware
of Linnea Rain’s disappearance.”

“Our presence here suggests the
foreshock we felt here a week ago was in fact that of a timequake.”

“We are correct in that assessment.
The timeline has been corrupted.”

“This is getting a little confusing,”
Oliver said. “Can we call one of you
Artemis One
and one of you
Artemis
Two
?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Fine,” Oliver said. “I’ll just shut
up now.”

“It is imperative that we locate
Sally Rain,” Oliver’s Artemis said.

“It is unlikely that we are referring
to Colonel Rain, who is in the command center at this very moment.”

“We are not. We are referring to Sally
Rain, who took the time machine in Vault 3 without authorization and attempted
to change what happened here.”

The uniformed Artemis was silent for
a moment. “We appear to have failed to help these people, then.”

“We have failed in many things,”
Oliver’s Artemis said. “While we may reflect on them later, we have only a
short time in which to act.”

“Our headache grows worse,” the
uniformed Artemis said. “Even now we are beginning to have trouble
differentiating ourselves.”

“Indeed.” Oliver’s Artemis opened the
picnic basket and removed an automatic syringe. “Tell Seven to inject Colonel
Rain with this. We may tell her it is some manner of vaccine against cyborg
conversion.”

“We find it unlikely she will believe
that.”

Oliver’s Artemis shook her head.
“Then tell her whatever we feel is necessary. She trusts us. She is not likely
to object.”

The uniformed Artemis took the
syringe. “Ah, yes,” she said, examining the device. “We have not seen this for
quite some time.”

“It has limited applications,”
Oliver’s Artemis said. “This is one of them.”

“We are betraying her.”

“We regret that. However, if we
cannot locate her quickly, two timelines will be corrupted beyond repair.”

“What is that?” Oliver asked. “Poison?
You’re not going to kill her?”

“No, Mr. Jones,” Oliver’s Artemis
said. “It is a radioactive isotope with a very long half-life. It will enable
us to locate her, and nothing more.”

“Inject her in the past and the
future Sally turns radioactive,” Tyler said. “Smart.” He frowned. “I think. So
the radioactive Sally goes through the portal and…” he thought it over. “Forget
it. I don’t even care at this point.”

“That will do, Mr. Jacobsen,”
Oliver’s Artemis said.

The uniformed Artemis nodded. “Very
well. We will address this matter shortly.” She glanced at Oliver. “We did not
expect to see this one here.”

“We will speak no more on that
subject,” Oliver’s Artemis said. “The matter remains unresolved.”

“Very well.”

“Wait,” Oliver said. “What did you
mean you didn’t expect to see me?”

“How many meanings can that statement
have?” the uniformed Artemis asked. She looked back at her future self. “How
will we know if we have succeeded?”

“If we do not meet again in this
world. If we do…” she shrugged. “We have no further solutions, and all will be
lost.”

The uniformed Artemis turned and
walked back to her car. Oliver watched as it drove away. “Was that you in there
driving?” he asked Tyler.

“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “I don’t
remember it.”

“What did she mean?” Oliver asked
Artemis. “You didn’t expect to see me?”

“Mr. Jones, forgive me for my
directness, but I am in a great deal of pain. So…shut up. Surely we have more
important things to concern ourselves with right now.”

“Will you tell me later?”

Artemis considered that. “Probably
not.”

Oliver cursed under his breath. “What
do we do now?” Tyler asked.

Artemis removed one of Seven’s tablet
computers from the picnic basket and turned it on. “We wait,” she said. “It
will not take long.”

Chapter 20

Not long turned out to be about
twenty minutes, during which time Artemis entertained no further questions from
either Oliver or Tyler. The girl spent most of the time massaging her temples
with her fingers. At one point Tyler asked if she wanted him to run out to find
something stronger than aspirin for her to take. “It will not matter,” she
said. “The discomfort will continue until I no longer exist in two places at
once.” She glanced at the tablet computer on her lap. It displayed a wireframe
map of the city, but nothing more.

“What exactly are we waiting for?”
Oliver asked. He barely had the question out before two red dots appeared on
the screen. Artemis studied them for a moment, then manipulated the touchscreen
to zoom in on one.

“What’s that?” Tyler asked.

“It is Sally’s location.”

“Why are there two of them?” Oliver
asked. “Oh, I get it. One of them is the past her, and the other is the her
we’re looking for?”

“How fortunate that we saved you from
the cyborgs,” Artemis said. “Who else would be here to point out the obvious to
me if we had not?”

Oliver blinked in surprise.
“Um…okay.”

Artemis shook her head. “I apologize,
Mr. Jones. I am not feeling myself at the moment.” She tapped the screen. “You
were correct in your assessment. This is Sally’s location.”

“Where is it?” Tyler asked.

“It is exactly where she would never think
to look,” Artemis said. She sighed. “I could probably have guessed it myself,
if I was able to think clearly.”

“Where?” Oliver asked.

“It is the house where she and her
sister grew up.”

“They don’t visit their parents
much?”

“Their parents are long dead,”
Artemis said. “But that is not the point. They did not have a happy childhood.
Sally hates that house more than…more than anything, I should imagine.” Artemis
watched for a moment as another airship passed by overhead. “We will be needing
the car, Mr. Jacobsen.”

The Rain house was in the suburbs on
the outskirts of the city, closer to the combat area than Oliver would have
liked. The black smoke that he’d seen rising in the distance before was now
uncomfortably close, although he knew it was still many miles from their
position. Every now and then he saw military jets overhead, patrolling in
groups of four. There didn’t seem to be any imminent danger, but he hoped this
wouldn’t be a lengthy visit. Lieutenant Forrest hadn’t been exaggerating back
at the hanger where they’d crossed into this world. The war really wasn’t going
well.

“Should we be armed for this?” Tyler
asked. “I doubt Sally is going to be happy to see us.”

“There is little point to that,”
Artemis noted. “Even if you were willing to shoot her, which I know you are
not, do you think you could outdraw her?”

“Of course not.”

“She shouldn’t be expecting us,”
Oliver said. “She doesn’t know what happened back on our Earth.”

“She will know the moment she sees
us,” Artemis said. “I do not expect her to take it well. While I doubt there
will be a physical confrontation, you should both prepare yourselves to attempt
to restrain her. Your werewolf strength may be needed, Mr. Jacobsen.”

“I doubt it would make any
difference,” Tyler said.

“She’s really that good?” Oliver
asked.

“You’ve seen her fight,” Tyler said.
“She’d wipe the floor with me no matter what form I was in. I’d put money on
her over pretty much anyone, except maybe Maria. That was another reason we
wanted her with us.”

Oliver recalled seeing what the
vampire had done to a room full of cyborgs. He wondered what it would have been
like if she and Sally had come to blows. Regardless of who won, the collateral
damage would probably have been fairly impressive.

Artemis pointed to a small, two-story
house with a “for sale” sign on the front yard. The house and the entire
neighborhood appeared abandoned. Oliver hadn’t seen a single person outside and
nearly every house on this block had its windows boarded up. The proximity to
the war front had probably driven most of the people here away, he thought.
Nobody wanted to be home when the cyborgs came marching through backyards,
converting everyone they could get their hands on and shooting everyone else.
Oliver found it hard to blame them. He wondered where the refugees had gone,
not that the answer would have meant much to him. This world was similar to his
own in many ways, but he had no idea exactly what territory the American
Federation encompassed, or how much of it had been conquered.

Tyler pulled the car up to the front
of the house and killed the engine. “I really don’t want to be doing this.”

“We can’t have everything we want in
life,” Artemis snapped. “I know I certainly haven’t.” She stepped out of the
car and slammed the door shut behind her.

“What was that?” Oliver asked.

“Her head is really messing with
her,” Tyler said. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Is there something we can do?”

Tyler sighed. “I don’t understand
what’s going on with her,” he said, “but I know there’s something strange about
how she interacts with time.” He watched as the girl started up the steps to
the house. “I don’t think it’s so much that she’s lived a long time. I think
time just forgot about her at some point, and being here, it’s remembering
her.”

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,”
Oliver said.

“I just told you I don’t understand
it,” Tyler said. “You know what my job here is? I eat too much, I geek out over
aliens, and I turn into a big-ass wolf when somebody needs to get smacked
around. This shit is way above my pay grade.”

Oliver stared at him. “Are
you
all right?”

“No,” Tyler said. “I don’t want to be
here right now. I would rather fight the whole damn cyborg army by myself than
walk in there and tell Sally her sister has to die.”

“Wait…
that’s
what we’re doing?”
Oliver didn’t recall hearing this part of the plan, but then again, he wasn’t
exactly sure what their plan was supposed to have been.

“Why the hell do you think we’re
here?” Tyler asked. He got out of the car.

Oliver followed him a moment later
and they joined Artemis at the front door. Artemis rang the doorbell. A minute
passed with no response. Oliver took a step back and looked at the house. All
of the blinds were shut, and he couldn’t see anything that looked like someone
peeking out at them. “You sure she’s here?” he asked.

“Quite sure, Mr. Jones.” She rang the
bell again. “Open the door, Salera!”

After another moment the door slowly
opened. Sally Rain stood there in camouflage pants and a white tank top,
looking as if she’d neither slept nor bathed in quite some time. She looked at the
three of them in turn, finally turning to Artemis with a sigh. “Damn it,” she
said quietly. “It didn’t work.”

“Might we come in, Salera?” Artemis
asked.

Sally stepped aside and Artemis
brushed past her into the house. “Hi,” Oliver said.

“Hi.” She gave him a small smile.
“Hey there, T.”

Tyler shoved his hands into his
pockets and went inside the house. After a moment, Oliver followed him. Sally
closed the door behind them.

The front door led straight into the
house’s living room. There was little furniture other than an old couch, a
dusty coffee table, and a few mismatched chairs that looked like they’d been
collected from other rooms. A military radio unit sat on the coffee table,
squawking every now and again with chatter. Next to it sat a holstered pistol. Oliver
wasn’t particularly surprised that a house for sale in a neighborhood where
nobody wanted to live didn’t exactly look like a home. Nor was he surprised to
see a red-haired woman with her right wrist handcuffed to one of the chairs.
She wore a blue lab coat and also looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping much
lately, or at least not sleeping very well.

“Artemis,” the woman said. “I can’t
say I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Hello, Linnea. It is refreshing to
see you again, although I regret these circumstances. You already know Mr.
Jacobsen,” she said, nodding at Tyler. “This other gentleman is our associate,
Mr. Jones.” She took a seat near Linnea across from the couch. Tyler sat down
next to her.

“Oliver,” he introduced himself,
looking into Linnea’s emerald eyes. The family resemblance was striking. Linnea
could nearly have been Sally’s twin, except that she was at least five years
younger and somehow didn’t seem to have the edge that Sally did. Sally was a
lioness always ready to pounce. Linnea was a lioness who had better things to
do with her time.

Sally took a seat on the couch.
“There’s food in the kitchen,” she said to Tyler. “It’s all convenience store
stuff I picked up. Nothing good.”

“We had sausage rolls,” Tyler said,
not looking at her.

“
You
had sausage rolls,”
Oliver noted.

Sally smiled faintly. “You always did
like those.” She sighed. “So,” she said to Artemis. “What went wrong?”

“Might you release your sister from
confinement before we speak? She looks quite uncomfortable.”

Linnea rattled the handcuffs binding her
to the chair. “That would be nice.”

Sally looked her sister in the eyes.
“Only if you promise not to try to run away again. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Linnea rattled the handcuffs again.
“I’m not entertaining the idea I could get past you,” she glanced at Artemis
briefly. “At least not while you’re conscious. Take these damn things off me.”

Sally stood up, crossed over to where
her sister sat, and uncuffed her. Linnea rubbed her wrist with her left hand.
“Thank you.”

“Please sit down,” Artemis said.
Sally took her seat on the couch again. “I will not pretend I do not understand
your motivations here, Salera…”

“Don’t call me that,” Sally said.
“Only my sister gets to use that name.”

“Very well.” Artemis looked at
Linnea. “What did she tell you?”

“Everything,” Linnea said. “I can’t
say I believed any of it, at first. I thought she’d finally lost her mind. And
then I heard her voice on that radio saying I’d gone missing, when I was
sitting right here with her.” She shook her head. “Time travel. I had enough
trouble believing you were from another world, until I saw you walk through
that mirror with my own eyes. I’m not sure why I was so surprised you had a
time machine, too.”

Artemis nodded. “And I’m not sure why
I was so surprised your sister used it to try to save you. Well, tea seems in
order. Do you have any?”

“There’s some in the kitchen,” Sally
said. “I think you got me hooked on the stuff. I missed it when I got over
here.”

Artemis nodded at Tyler, who
disappeared into the kitchen. Oliver, who hadn’t been entirely sure what to do
with himself up until this point, took one of the empty chairs. “You tricked
me,” he said to Sally.

“Yeah.” Sally looked away. “I’m…I’m
sorry about that, Oliver. I really am. I would have just asked you to help me,
but…”

“You thought I wouldn’t?”

“No. I know you would have. You’re
that kind of guy. But you said you had to believe.” She shook her head. “You
said you had to believe, so I told you the time machine worked. I hid its number
tag in the warehouse so you couldn’t look it up and see that it didn’t.”

Oliver nodded. “I’d sort of guessed
that. It seemed weird that everything else was in place but that one number was
nowhere to be found.”

“It was an ambitious plan, Sally,”
Artemis said. “I won’t deny that. How did you imagine it would succeed?”

“The Kholon facility should have been
bombed yesterday,” Sally said. “It wasn’t. I must have gotten the timing wrong.
We just have to wait now. They’re so close to the cure, as soon as they finish
it…”

“
I’m
close to the cure, Sal,”
Linnea said. “Me. I don’t want to sound arrogant here, but…” she glanced at
Artemis. “I guess this isn’t the place for false modesty, is it?”

“It is not.”

“My research is years ahead of
everybody else’s.” Linnea left her chair and went to sit next to Sally on the
couch. “Even if the rest of my team understood my notes, which they don’t, they
wouldn’t know where to start with it. Hell, I wasn’t even sure it would work,
myself. Now that I know it does, I could finish it in a few hours.”

Sally nodded. Oliver saw tears
starting to form in her eyes. “Then they just need to get to work,” she said.
“Radio them and tell them what to do.”

“You’re asking me to explain algebra
to a monkey. Over the phone.” Linnea shook her head. “It has to be me.”

“Sally?” Oliver asked. “Look, I’m
sorry, but this plan…it didn’t work. You lost.”

Linnea looked at Artemis. “You
wouldn’t be here if we’d won the war,” she said. “How bad was it?”