The Flight of the Silvers (28 page)

As she sat up, her hand brushed a small object on the blanket, an eight-inch cigar tube. Future Mia must have sent another delivery in her sleep.

She unscrewed the lid and shook out a roll of blue currency. Her jaw went slack as she counted fifteen hundred-dollar bills.

Mia used her finger to fish out the other two pieces of the parcel: a small white scrap containing a Brooklyn address and an eight-by-ten sheet of notebook paper densely crammed with text. The lettering was blocky and angular. A man’s handwriting.

Hello, Mia,

You don’t know me yet, but I’m a friend of your future. In fact, you’re sitting next to me as I write this. The Mia I know is fourteen, just like you. But this one traveled across the country to get to me. She made it here with flying colors, along with all her friends.

Mia spotted her own scribble in the margin.
Hey girl! See you on the other side!

The author continued:

It’s of great importance that I earn your trust, which makes this next part all the more difficult. I’m sorry to say that the people who attacked you in Terra Vista are my people. My clan. There’s a group of us who live in the outskirts of New York: forty-four families, all natives of this world, all gifted like you and your friends. We even have a few folks who can fly on wings of aeris, though they can’t do it as often as they’d like. Through discipline and the occasional use of misdirection, we’ve managed to keep our talents hidden from the public at large. We don’t want to be lab rats any more than you do. For us, the price of living free is living quietly.

Recent developments, however, have put us all in a bad state. In the weeks since your arrival, several of our own have gone missing. Worse, the augurs of our clan—the ones who can see the future, live the future, and hear from their future selves—have all gotten wind of a terrible event coming. A second Cataclysm, of sorts.

Shortly after our troubles began, a man named Richard Rosen (you know him as Rebel) determined that the disaster ahead can be averted by destroying all the new people who arrived in this world. He believes you’re all living ruptures in the fabric of time, breaches that need to be plugged. Though his theory isn’t entirely based in fiction, it’s deeply flawed. Unfortunately, fear won out over reason and Rebel got the clan to see things his way. For your sakes, I wish I’d fought better. All I managed to do was get myself banished from the councils.

But I’m not out of the game yet. I’ve got my own plan to stop what’s coming, one that doesn’t involve murder. Unlike Rebel, I don’t think you and your friends are part of the problem. In fact, I believe you’re part of the solution. One of you in particular.

So I’m writing you now, Mia. I’m asking you to come find me at the enclosed address. I can provide you all with shelter, safety, and crucial information. For those of you looking for a purpose on this world, I can sure as hell give you that too.

Come to Brooklyn. You won’t have to worry about Rebel for a while, but there are other people on your trail. I’ll let your older half tell you about those folks, on the other side of this note.

I’d say I look forward to meeting you, but I already have and I’m already glad. I’ll just say I look forward to you meeting me.

All the best,

Peter Pendergen

Beleaguered by all the new information, Mia turned the letter over. The other side was written in Mia’s hand, an assortment of quick thoughts scrawled at various angles. A passage at the top caught her attention. It was circled twice and garnished with a smiley face.

Apology from Hannah in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Mia jumped when the door opened. Hannah stepped out of the steamy bathroom. She adjusted her towel wrap and aimed a soft expression at Mia.

“Hi.”

“Hey. Where’s, uh . . . ?”

“She’s checking on Theo. How are you doing?”

Still reeling from the letter, Mia could only shrug. Hannah fixed a somber gaze at her feet.

“Listen, I talked to Amanda. She told me you spent all night in the security room with Erin, looking out for intruders. She also said you’re the one who pulled the fire alarm and warned Zack about Rebel. I’m . . . I don’t know what came over me. When I learned about your note, I just flipped out and assumed you didn’t do anything with the information. But it turns out you did a lot. So, I’m sorry. And I’m so sorry for saying you were responsible for Erin and Dr. Czerny. Can you forgive me?”

Mia bit her lip, nodding in warm accord. Hannah leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms.

“Okay. Now that I got that out, I have a favor to ask. In the future, should you get another—”

“Evan Rander.”

Hannah blinked at her. “What?”

“A note I got. A warning. If you see a small and creepy guy with a ‘55’ on his hand, run. That’s Evan Rander. He’s bad news.”

Though Hannah had failed to notice any numbers on anyone’s hands, she could think of two different men who’d set off her creep alarms today.

“Okay. Wow. I don’t know what to make of that yet. But I’m glad you told me. Thank you.”

Hannah glanced at Mia’s journal on the end table, then nervously scratched her neck.

“Is there, uh . . . is there anything else from the future I should know?”

With a flustered sigh, Mia looked down at the fresh new dispatch in her hand. Yeah. There was something else.

EIGHTEEN

Nobody knew what to make of Peter Pendergen. The Silvers convened in one motel room, debating all the revelations and implications of his letter. When they didn’t talk over each other, they fell into a pensive silence, one so deep they could hear the slow drip from the showerhead.

Hannah dumped the empty plates and wrappers of their takeout dinner into the trash, then reclaimed her spot on Zack’s bed. She peeked over his shoulder as he sketched a man’s face on motel stationery.

“I don’t trust him,” she uttered.

“Me neither,” Amanda said from the desk chair. She kept an eye on the muted lumivision. The nine o’clock news would begin in five minutes. She fully expected to be the top story.

“I don’t think any of us are ready to marry the guy,” Zack replied, “but are you both suggesting we avoid him completely?”

Zack had made it clear that he was very much in favor of meeting Peter. He admitted that his vote was influenced by his desire to go to New York and search for his brother. It also didn’t hurt that Brooklyn was 2,500 miles away from the site of their police standoff.

Amanda flicked her hand. “I don’t know. It just feels like a trap to me.”

“What are you basing that on?” David asked.

“Azral let us go. Maybe this is the reason why. After everything we learned about Dr. Quint today, is it really such a stretch to believe that Peter’s also working for the Pelletiers?”

David shook his head. “I think you’re being overly paranoid.”

“I think she makes a damn good point,” Hannah said. “I also find it weird that he didn’t include a way for us to contact him. No phone number. No e-mail.”

“Well, keep in mind this letter’s from Future Peter,” Zack said, aware of how silly he sounded. “Maybe the current Peter isn’t in a position to hear from us. It might put him at risk somehow. Or put us at risk.”

The sisters crossed their arms in synch, wearing the same dubious frown.

“I don’t buy it,” said Hannah.

“Me neither,” said Amanda.

“And what about the fact that Mia got a warning flat-out telling her not to trust him?”

Mia sighed from the foot of David’s bed. She’d spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the hot seat tonight, answering numerous questions on behalf of her future selves. She knew she couldn’t talk about Peter without mentioning the two conflicting messages she’d received about him five weeks ago:

Don’t trust Peter. He’s not who he says he is.

Disregard that first note. I was just testing something. Peter’s good. He’s great, actually.

After reading the messages aloud, Mia had glanced up to five dim and bewildered faces. “Yeah. Now you know what I’ve been dealing with.”

Sadly, there was nothing in this latest parcel to clarify the confusion. On the flip side of Peter’s letter, Future Mia addressed the matter with a virtual shrug.

I wish I could explain those notes, but I still don’t know why we got them. All I can tell you is that I’ve known Peter for six months now and I trust him with my life. He’s a good man. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, but he’s a good man.

Below her passage, Peter scribbled a brief retort.
I am very funny.

“I’m honestly not sure what to think about him,” Mia said. “But if he is who he says he is, if he really does have shelter and safety to offer us, then I’d hate for us to blow our chance because I got a bad message.”

David nodded vigorously. “Exactly. This is an opportunity. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I still want the answers that Quint and Czerny promised us. Maybe Peter can provide them. On top of that, there’s also the matter of that second Cataclysm. If Peter’s right—”

“—then we’ll be walking right into it,” Hannah griped.

“He didn’t say it was happening in New York,” David replied. “He just said it was happening. He also said we’re potentially part of the solution. Don’t you think that’s worth investigating? Isn’t that a better way to spend our days than aimless wandering?”

Once again, the discussion hit a weary lull. Theo sat cross-legged on the desk, staring out the window at a municipal impound lot.

“Theo?”

He glanced up at Zack. “Huh?”

“You’ve been Johnny Tightlips over there. What are you thinking?”

There was no safe way to answer truthfully. From the moment Mia revealed her surprise cash endowment, Theo’s dark inner demon had snapped awake in its cage. It eyed the money hungrily, calculating the sheer amount of liquid solace that $1,500 could purchase. It would carry Theo for miles, all the way to the next world.

“I don’t know. I mean I understand what David’s saying. I respect it.”

“But?”

“But this is our first day out in the world. We’re still flailing around like newborns. And now you’re talking about crossing the country to help some stranger stop a Cataclysm? That’s not just ambitious. It’s nuts.”

Theo saw David’s eyes narrow to a cool squint. The dark demon smiled.
The boy doesn’t like you. He sees you for the burden you are. You think he’s the only one?

“Looks like we’re split down the middle on this,” Amanda said.

David chucked a hand in frustration. “You guys can do what you want. If I have to go to New York alone, I will.”

“Hey, come on . . .”

“David!”

Zack raised his palms. “Okay. Stop. We’ve had enough drama for one day. Can we just agree in the short term that we need to get the hell away from California?” His posit was greeted with soft nods. “Good. Then we can all keep going northeast. Maybe Mia will get more info along the way. Maybe we’ll dig up our own. The point is that we have days to decide.”

Everyone tensed up as the sound of police sirens filtered in from the street. The Silvers sat motionless, fingers extended, until the noise faded away.

Zack sighed exhaustedly. “We also have more pressing concerns.”

Mia’s older self had succinctly explained the scope of their legal problems.

It’s not the cops you need to worry about. It’s the Deps. DP-9 is the federal agency that handles temporic crimes, and they’re very good. They already know what we look like and what some of us can do. They’re extremely eager to meet us, especially Amanda.

The news had caused five stomachs to drop, and sent Amanda to the bathroom with dry heaves. But the warning came bundled with advice, three simple rules for avoiding detection:

1. Stay away from civic cameras. That means no hospitals, no bank machines, and no public transportation of any kind. They’re all heavily monitored. You will get spotted.

2. Don’t get friendly with the locals. The more you talk, the more you expose yourself as foreigners. They do not like foreigners here.

3. No public displays of weirdness, ever. Keep your talents hidden. Even if you think no one’s looking, assume they are. It’s the only way you’ll make it to New York.

David lurched forward in bed, matching Mia’s prone position. He playfully brushed her shoulder.

“Thanks to our invaluable messenger here, we have nearly everything we need to keep ahead of the federal agents. The one thing we’re missing is transport. If we can’t take buses or trains, then we’ll have to acquire a car.”

Amanda eyed him sharply. “I hope you’re not talking about stealing one.”

“I am, actually. Is your objection moral or practical?”

“Both,” she said.

“For the moral objection, I assume they have auto insurance on this world. Anyone we steal from will be reimbursed.”

“Yes, and I
assume they have LoJack on this world, or some other high-tech system that makes it easy to track stolen cars. Are you really that eager for another police chase?”

“Well, that’s the practical objection, but—”

David stopped at the sound of Theo’s dark chuckle. For a moment, the boy’s expression turned so cold that Mia felt the unprecedented urge to move away from him.

“I was about to say that we could target an older vehicle, one less likely to have a tracking device. But by all means, Theo, go ahead and mock me. At least I’m offering options.”

“I’m not mocking you, David.”

“Then why were you laughing?”

Theo couldn’t safely answer that question either. He remembered what it was like to be sixteen and fearless. He remembered the false security his own brilliance afforded him. Now, at twenty-three, it was far too soon to play the role of the hardened old crank. And yet here he was, chuckling at David’s impertinence, fighting the urge to say, “Boy, it ain’t that easy.”

“I was mocking myself. But for what it’s worth, you’re right that we need wheels. We’re going to hit desert soon. That won’t be fun to walk.”

Zack continued his memory sketch of Evan Rander. “As long as we bring enough water and don’t pray to any golden calves, we’ll make it through the desert. I’m more concerned about the financials. Fifteen hundred isn’t enough to get us across the country.”

“You don’t think so?” Amanda asked. “I mean we’re stocked up on supplies now. If we’re careful—”

“If there’s one thing I learned today, it’s that ‘cheap’ times six equals ‘expensive.’ Unless Future Mia fronts us another loan, we’ll have to come up with more.”

“I’m not so sure.”

Theo shook his head. “No, Zack’s right. It’s not enough money to get to Brooklyn.”

Hannah leered at him with sudden puzzlement. He caught her hot stare. “What?”

“You said that before.”

“Excuse me?”

“That thing you just said. You used those exact words back in the van.”

Now it was Theo’s turn to become baffled. “I don’t recall saying that.”

“I don’t recall him saying that either,” David attested. “I was there the whole time.”

“No. I don’t mean the van today. I mean six weeks ago. When I first met you.”

In the wake of everyone’s dumbfounded looks, Hannah bared her palms. “I’m not making this up! We were on our way to Terra Vista. You’d fallen asleep. And then suddenly you mumbled, ‘He’s right.’ I said, ‘Who’s right?’ and you said, ‘Zack. He’s right. It’s not enough money to get to Brooklyn.’ Then your nose got all bloody and you fell into your coma.”

The showerhead dripped ten more times before Zack broke the muddled silence.

“Uh, normally I’d write that off as a strange coincidence. But after everything we’ve seen, Theo, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest you might not be entirely weirdness-free.”

Theo felt a hot rush of blood in his face. He stammered for a response.

“I really don’t see how—”

“Oh my God!”

The others followed Mia’s gaze to the lumivision, where the nine o’clock news had just begun.

Contrary to Amanda’s expectations, the broadcast didn’t open with her police sketch. In fact, the standoff on Highway V would merit just forty seconds of airtime. In the absence of any fatalities, and the coordinated silence of all law enforcers on scene, the incident was treated as just another police chase. Another irksome traffic jam.

The top story of the day was much juicier. The star of the tale was Sterling Quint.

—

At 6:34 this morning, operators at Triple-5 Emergency received eleven distress calls of the exact same nature—eleven spouses, lovers, and siblings who’d all succumbed to the same fatal stroke. When record checks revealed that the deceased were all employees at the same organization, authorities suddenly became quite interested in the goings-on at the Pelletier Group.

By sunset, the last of the bodies had been discovered. Four names on the payroll had yet to be accounted for: Erin and Eric Salgado, Beatrice Caudell, and the head honcho himself, Sterling Quint. The world-renowned theorist had left for work at 7
A.M.
and was never heard from again.

The story quickly caught fire at newsrooms across the nation. Some broadcasts filled their screens with juxtaposed photos of a dour Quint and a nervous Beatrice—a saucy suggestion that the pair had perpetrated the massacre and were now lovers on the run.

The Silvers watched the lumivision with wide eyes and white faces, processing the deaths of everyone they knew outside the motel room. Hannah thought of poor Charlie Merchant, barely a year older than her. Her eyes welled up with tears.

“I don’t get it. Why would he kill them?”

“I assume you’re not referring to Quint.”

“You know I’m not, David. Come on. I’m talking about Azral.”

“It had to be him,” Amanda said. “Him and Esis.”

The widow couldn’t get her mind off Czerny. His death had seemed so inconsistent with his type of injury. Now she knew why. She bit her trembling lip.

“They threw them away. They didn’t need them anymore, so they just tossed them like garbage.”

David shook his head. “For all we know, this was the work of Rebel’s people.”

“Doubtful,” said Theo. “If Rebel’s people had the ability to kill remotely, they wouldn’t have come at us with guns and swords.”

Mia couldn’t bear the thought of anyone having that power. She pictured Azral standing before some necromantic circuit breaker, shutting off lives from miles away. She could only imagine he had six more buttons, all labeled with the names of people in this room.

“Do you think maybe Beatrice got away?” she asked.

The lack of response was enough to confirm her grim suspicion. She took a moment to mourn the poor woman who’d baked her a cupcake for her birthday.

Zack remained silent from his perch on the bed, stewing over the large new problem this tragedy created for them. The Salgado van and the body of Dr. Czerny were two thick chains that tied the Silvers to the Pelletier slaughter. While the media continued to chase ghosts, the federal agents would have a stronger notion of who to blame.

—

By ten o’clock, Melissa Masaad was angry enough to break the law. It took twenty minutes of research to uncover the location of the nearest tobacco den, hidden away beneath a Terra Vista bowling alley. Six more minutes of digging earned her the passphrase.

“Are your bathrooms clean?” she asked the cashier, just as she was told.

For once, Melissa’s foreign attributes worked in her favor. The greasy old man at the counter would have never suspected she was a Dep. Even if she had been with DP-4, the illicit substances division, she wouldn’t have wasted time on such a piddling sting. The Bureau didn’t care about smoke-easies.