Timesurfers (7 page)

“Mum called. An unexpected meeting with some
super important person came up. I’m ordering Thai food for
dinner.”

“Fine. I want wontons.” Her eyes swept the
front yard before she closed the window. The hairs on the back of
her neck prickled, and a shiver trickled down her shoulder blades.
Her spider sense tingled. The lingering feeling that someone
followed her home remained. She jumped as her phone beeped with her
6:00 p.m. reminder.

CATE: “HOME AND JUST
ORDERED THAI FOOD”

PIP: “? YOUR
DAY?”

CATE: “FINE”

PIP: “STILL
SINGLE?”

CATE: “NOPE!”

PIP: “TART”

Cate smiled and deleted the conversation.

***

With her stomach full of delicious Thai food, she
felt calmer. The doorbell played “Waltzing Matilda,” a little
reminder of Australia. “I’ll go,” Cate said.

Xavier just stretched on the couch and patted
his belly contentedly.

She hesitated as her hand grasped the
doorknob. “Who is it?” she called, purely to set a good example for
Xavier, and certainly not because she was worried. Her hand shook
as she flipped the porch light on.

“It’s me. Open the door...please.”

She groaned and flung the door open. “Get off
my porch, asshat!”

“Can I come in?” Zach asked.

“Nope.”

An enormous ginger cat was curled up on the
porch chair with one eye half open. Polka Dot was the neighbourhood
stray. He had unofficially adopted Cate’s family as his owners of
choice. A hiss conveyed his contempt for the proceedings which had
disturbed his sleep. Zach was only an inch taller than her and a
stocky build. His blue eyes were flat and lifeless, and his
normally pleasant, round face was drawn. She wanted to take the
high road and be all magnanimous, but she couldn’t. Zach dumped her
by text. Some things were unforgivable. “Did you get lost on your
way to see Brittany?”

“Can we talk?” Zach raked a hand through his
hair. Ringlets were hard for a sixteen-year-old boy to pull
off.

“Why not send me a text?” she hissed. “That
seems to be your preferred form of communication.”

“Cate...” Zach raised his blonde eyebrows and
stared.

She imagined slamming the door in his face.
Instead, she stabbed at the stop clock on her wristwatch and folded
her arms. “You’ve got three minutes.”

“Let me come in.”

“There’s absolutely no chance of that. Not a
good use of your limited time.”

“I’m worried about you.”

She snorted.

“You’ve fallen in with a pretty rough
crowd.”

“What
are
you
waffling about?”

“Austin and his friends.” Zach shoved his
hands into the pockets of the low-slung, faded denim jeans he now
favoured
instead of his
usual dark blue chinos.

Austin had certainly got Zach’s attention.
“What’s it to you? What do you know about them anyway?”

Zach dragged his hands down his face. “I
just...don’t like them.”

The purple shadows under his blue eyes
reminded her of when he was recovering from the infamous broken
nose she gave him her first week in Tempus Falls. He looked
dog-tired.

“I think it would be better if you gave them
the flick.” Zach hung his head, his shoulders hunched.

“And I don’t care what you think.” Her voice
was hard and flat.

“Look, I know that things have been confusing
the last few days.”

He dumped her. Nothing confusing there. Did
he somehow know about the other stuff going on in her life?

“I’ve given it some thought, and I think it
would be better for you if we forgot about the breakup. I’m
prepared to take you back.”

Imagine that. HE was prepared to take HER
back. She would need to hold off on turning cartwheels with
excitement. “Are you insane?” she hissed, fingers drumming her
hips. “I will never, EVER be your girlfriend again.”

“Be reasonable. I made a mistake. I’ve
apologised
. Can’t we go
back to how it was?”

He was a tosser, but if he was in danger
because of her, she should help him. “Are you in some kind of
trouble? Has someone scared you or threatened you?”

“No. You
need
me. Be
my girl again.”

She felt zero guilt in her next words.
“Didn’t you hear me say I would
never ever
be your girlfriend again? For a supposedly clever guy, you’re
clueless. Did they remove the thinking part of your brain when they
made you all popular?”

“There are worse things than being popular. I
can get you there by association. After all these years of being
ostracised
to social
Siberia, I would think you’d be gagging for it.”

Cate’s mouth moved, but so many words flooded
her mind to describe the kind of massive wrong Zach was she
couldn’t pick one.

“Leave now,” she said through her teeth.
You infuriating twerp.

“Come on, babe.”

“I’m
not
your babe.”
Anger dripped into Cate’s chest, pulsing toward her fingertips with
each heartbeat.

“You can’t afford the luxury of being
choosey.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” She fixed
a steely gaze on Zach. Did he know about her witness protection and
the boyfriend requirement? Or was he just being a jerk?

“Every girl needs a boyfriend. They’re
pathetic and lonely otherwise.”

He was just being a total jerk. “Did your
ears actually hear what your mouth said? What complete crap, you
misogynistic imbecile.” She flexed her fingers; the anger leaching
through her body had reached a dead end at her fingertips, and it
wanted out. She punched Zach directly on the nose.

He staggered back, blood trickling through
his fingers. “Geez.”

“FYI—a boyfriend is not a necessity!” she
said quietly. “Now get the
hell
off my
porch.” She slammed the front door. Zach had nothing to say she
wanted to hear. His sucking up did give her a sense of having the
upper hand though. She could see how people became drunk on power.
It was terrific. Her phone beeped.

PIP: “NO MORE FIGHTING.
EVEN IF HE IS A DICKHEAD”

CATE: “RECEIVED AND
RELUCTANTLY ACKNOWLEDGED”

She went to delete the conversation but
hesitated.

CATE: “CAN’T YOU HAVE HIM
KILLED?”

PIP: “NEGATIVE”

She smiled and walked up the stairs. Zach
would have a damn sore nose.

Chapter 5

Wizard Magic

“E
nough whining, Zach. You deserved a broken nose.
That was abysmal. Your goal was to convince Cate to take you back.
I didn’t see an ounce of
grovelling
.” Each time Jonah looked at Zach, he was
reminded the guy was scum. The terrible thing Zach would do to Cate
was unforgivable. Letting him live long enough to allow history to
take its course was killing Jonah inside.

“Most of this Timesurfing gig is waiting and
watching. You made it sound way cooler than it actually is. I don’t
give a rat’s ass about getting Cate back. I like Brittany.” Zach
glared and unlocked the front door to his house. “Is it really that
important to do what Mortez wants?”

“You saw me unconscious with half my face
caved in. You heard the screams when Mortez fed those people to the
fire ants. That’s what happens when people fail to carry out her
orders.”

“I was barely conscious at the time,” Zach
snapped. “You’d just told me that I was going to be a Timesurfer,
you were a Timesurfer from the future, and then I was nearly boiled
alive when—against my will—we magically travelled through time to
the future. It’s a lot for me to take in. I’m not sold on the idea
of being a Timesurfer yet.”

What a self-involved dick this guy was. Dumb
too, if he thought he could choose whether or not to be involved
with Mortez. This was an unmitigated disaster. Mortez had sent
Jonah to execute a nuclear physicist who would accumulate his
fortune selling hand held nuclear weapons to terrorists. There had
been no record of Cate being at the bus stop. He had triple checked
her location that afternoon because she lived in Tempus Falls on
that date. She should have been at the movies on the other side of
town with tosser Zach. Well away from the threat of any injury from
his bomb. On discovering Cate at the bus stop he had disarmed the
bomb to avoid killing her, but in doing so had failed to kill the
target. The beating he took after the catastrophic mission came
flooding back.

Blood tinged spots erupted
in front of his eyes. Unconsciousness beckoned, enticing him to
give in. While his body screamed with pain, he knew he was
alive.

“Jonah,” Mortez crooned,
her fingernail slicing through his chin as his knees sagged. She
hoisted his limp body off the cold floor and twirled his windpipe
between her fingers, giving him the weird sensation of drowning
while on dry land. “To say I’m unhappy with your unsuccessful
mission would be the understatement of my existence. Your failure
to kill your target is unacceptable.”

His lungs would surely
disintegrate soon. Lack of air caused alveoli to explode in a
lethal and excruciating chain reaction. Mortez slammed his face
into the smooth marble floor, already slick with his blood. Her hot
breath licked his cheek as she stroked his face. Her fingernails
drew blood with each caress.

“Bring them to me,” Mortez
commanded the guards.

Straining his tattered
neck, Jonah saw three people frog marched into the room: a
middle-aged couple and a young girl, their faces chalk grey. He
didn’t know their names, but knew they were family. Whenever he
failed on a mission, irrespective of the reason, Mortez executed
one person from his family. Today three stood before her. She was
furious.

Mortez snapped upright and
strutted to where his relatives stood. Menace shimmered from her
every pore as she snapped her fingers for Jonah’s attention. A
guard handed her a boning knife, which she twirled in her fingers.
“Eyes on me,” she demanded in a terrifying whisper.

Jonah stared, horrified at
the inevitable, yet unable to look away as with slow, precise
movements Mortez sliced off the woman’s and then the man’s ears.
Their screams ripped through his heart. The bloodied boning knife
clattered to the ground and Mortez grabbed the girl by the throat.
Her fist smashed through the girl’s chest, which tore like tissue
paper.

“More will die each time
you fail a mission.” Mortez held the girl’s beating heart high
above her head, and with a graceful pirouette, tossed it on the
floor. “Hear this well. If a mission ever again threatens
Catherine’s life it will be your heart on the ground.” She ground
her heel into his skull. His pain vanished.

Jonah shook off the memory. His family was
only safe if he succeeded in the missions Mortez assigned him. “If
you fail Mortez you’ll be food for the fire ants, Zach.”

Zach flopped onto a chair and gingerly
touched his nose. “All hail the powerful Mort...” He froze and
stared at a spot behind Jonah, his face ash grey.

“Well, well, boys,” Mortez crooned. She held
out her inner arm for Jonah to check. The list of four digit blue
numbers inked down her arm stopped at 2014.

Jonah did the same and Mortez tapped the 2017
quantum indictor on his arm. “So I’ve sent you back in time. What
about Zach?”

“He doesn’t have any quantum indicators yet.
He’s from this time, 2014.”

Mortez motioned to Zach. “Come here.”

The colour drained from Zach’s face.

“Don’t make me come and get you,” Mortez
said.

Jonah pulled Zach from the chair and shoved
him toward Mortez, who blew on her fingers and rubbed her hands
together. Zach’s eyes crossed as she pressed her index fingers
against his nose.

“The midnight reset shows someone used a
popularity charm on Zach. It must be a powerful wizard, because
they didn’t have much to work with.” Mortez removed her fingers
from Zach’s repaired nose. “I assume the fact that Cate broke your
nose, again, is a testimony to your abysmal performance to set
things right. You should still be dating Cate, not some perky
cheerleader called Brittany. I’m not sure why that’s a big deal. I
would have thought it was impossible for Cate to not be better off
without you. Regardless, I trust that no matter how unfathomable I
find it, my future self has her reasons for wanting to amend the
situation.”

“How do you know I’m not meant to be dating
Brittany?”

Mortez gave Zach a look which should have
made him drop dead on the spot. “History resets at midnight each
night. I see the manipulated time lines. A wizard is using magic to
mess with you and Cate. You, I don’t care about. Cate, I do.”

“Oh, please! I’m pretty sure I would know if
some lame wizard cast a spell on me.”

Mortez silenced Zach with a raised eyebrow
and ferocious glare. “I don’t have the time, or inclination to
provide you with a Timesurfing 101 lesson. Question something I say
again and I’ll kill you.”

Zach shrank back into his chair. “I’m not the
one who nearly blew up your precious Cate at the bus stop.”

Mortez stared at Jonah who shifted
uncomfortably.

“I’m sure my future self dealt with that
sufficiently. It was only an issue because you dumped Cate for
Brittany, Zach. That’s what caused the alternate time line. I trust
there’s a plan to right this situation?” Mortez turned on her
heel.

Jonah shivered, remembering how her heel
smashed into his face. “You know the magic won’t let me answer
that.”

“I know the only person I would trust to
ensure the realignment, correction or protection of Cate’s path is
you, Jonah.” Mortez looked over her shoulder and arched an eyebrow
at him. “I understand you can’t tell me why you’re here and what
outcome you hope to achieve. I need Cate. We need her. She can’t
under any circumstances, in any time, choose to work with Naitanui,
or anyone else except me.”