Yesterday (29 page)

I close the door behind her. Garren drags a kitchen chair into the hallway and jams it under the doorknob. “It won’t hold her long,” he says. “Let’s go.”

We rush out of the house. Since I’m the one with the car keys in my hand, I head for the driver’s seat. They programmed me with driving memories. I should be able to do this.

I lean over to unlock the passenger door and Garren hops in next to me and tosses his bags into the backseat. I slide the key Janette’s mother gave me into the ignition. Twist it and pump the gas pedal. The engine starts. So far so good. I slide into reverse, relieved that Janette’s mom has an automatic.

My implanted memories of driving in New Zealand involve shifting gears but this should be easier. I back out of the driveway like I’ve done it a thousand times before, but once we hit Yonge Street I’m so focused on obeying traffic signals and making sure not to run anything over that I don’t have any spare brain power for directions.

“Where am I going?” I ask Garren as we zip down Yonge Street.

He’s busy ejecting the gun magazine. “Bullets,” he prompts.

The box is jutting out of my pocket and I reach for it and then hand the box over. “Do you know what you’re doing with that?”

“A little. I had a friend back in Billings who was into old weapons like this.” He pauses to look over at me. “Sounds weird, I know. He took me to a shooting range once.”

“I didn’t know there were any shooting ranges left.”

“Not many,” Garren says.

I smirk. “All you grounded people are crazy for old things, huh.” The car behind me honks for no reason that I can see. Garren glances up to catch me staring into my rearview mirror.

“You’re doing fine,” he says. “The guy’s just an asshole.”

“Directions,” I remind him. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a straight run down Yonge Street to Dundas but we should probably ditch the car somewhere and switch to the subway. Once she calls the cops they’ll be looking for the car.”

We dump the car a block from Eglinton Avenue, about ten feet from a
NO PARKING
sign. Garren has the gun down the back of his jeans and the box of bullets tucked into the satchel he’s carrying on his back. We walk briskly, rather than run, in the direction of the subway so as not to call attention to ourselves. I’m ultra-conscious of the knife in my bag and the lethal weapon in Garren’s possession. We’re bona fide criminals now.

“That must’ve been really weird for you with Janette’s mom,” I say.

“I never met her mom before,” Garren tells me, his breath visible in the air. “Just her brother, but I could see the family resemblance in her mother. She and Janette have the same eyes.” I don’t specifically remember Janette’s eyes, just her strawberry-blond hair and that she was pretty. I watch Garren’s eyebrows pull together as he adds, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll give a really shitty description. Otherwise, if Janette puts it all together we could be in trouble. My photo could be flashed all over the news.”

“The cops were looking for us before this anyway,” I point out.

“And here you still want to risk hitting this major downtown shopping mall.” Garren shakes his head. “We should just leave Toronto right now. Forget meeting your mom’s friend.”

“I won’t blame you if you do.” Then I wouldn’t have to worry about him.

But Garren’s silence makes his decision clear.

“I’ve been thinking you shouldn’t be with me when I meet her,” I add. “Maybe just stick close enough to watch. That way, if
they’re
coming you’ll have an advance view.”

“And cover you?” Garren suggests, like we’re in a TV cop show.

“Right.” I picture me and Nancy meeting surrounded by books. I concentrate hard and the layout of the store begins to take shape in my mind. Unfortunately, there’s nothing beyond that. No sense of danger and no feeling of well-being or satisfaction either.

I rub my eyes as I turn towards Garren.

“Anything?” he asks. “What can you see?”

“Just the bookstore itself so far.”

We descend into the subway where I imagine people are staring suspiciously our way. Garren keeps his gaze pointed at the floor space between his feet, like he’s giving me room to think and hopefully see something that will help us. The bookstore, the bookstore, the bookstore. That’s all I see. Shelves full of paperbacks. The sleeves of Paula Resnik’s coat as I approach the magazine stand.

I break away from the vision and graze Garren’s knee. “I’m still not getting much. Maybe it’s too early.”

“I wish you weren’t going to do this,” he says.

“I know. And I hope I don’t regret it. But if there’s more to know, I have to hear it. This could be our last chance for our entire lives.”

Garren nods tiredly. “I’ll be watching you. If you have a premonition about being in danger, don’t wait. Get out of there right away.”

We arrive at the Eaton Centre stop early and wander the nearby PATH, a network of pedestrian tunnels filled with shops and services that link various parts of the city. I wasn’t aware of its existence before and Garren says he’s never been down there himself but he figures we’re less likely to be spotted there than wandering the mall or out on the street.

Most of the people we pass on the PATH look like office workers and pay little attention to us but I’m increasingly nervous and just want to get my meeting with Nancy over with. At seven minutes to twelve Garren and I part company across the street from the Yonge and Dundas entrance to the Eaton Centre. He whispers in my ear that he’ll be right behind me.

I feel numb as I stride through the shopping center, scanning for the bookstore. Garren told me it was on the top shopping level, right in the middle of the mall. As soon as I spot it another image comes into sharp focus in my mind, one of a man my father’s age. I’m walking through the mall with him, listening intently to whatever he’s telling me. Nancy’s nowhere to be seen.

I snap back to the present and survey the bookstore, looking for Nancy or the man from my vision. Bookstore employees aside, the only person in the store is a gray-haired lady thumbing through a slim hardcover.

As I step inside the store someone touches my back. “Freya?”

I twirl to face Nancy. She has an envelope in her hand and thrusts it towards me. “This is for you,” she says. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be more but I hope it will help.”

I slip the envelope down into one of my front pockets. “Nancy, you have to tell me what you know. How we got here. What’s happening at home. Whether the U.N.A. has fallen.”

Nancy’s top lip quivers. “I told you I couldn’t discuss any of that. It’s out of my hands.”

“What about my mom? How is she? What’s Henry been telling her?”

Nancy glances worriedly over her shoulder before returning her attention to me. “You can guess how she is but there’s nothing you can do about it. Look, Freya, this place is too exposed. You should go now.”

“The Toxo—what happened?” I can’t let her disappear without a word about what’s happened to the world I’m from.

“No matter how you ask, I can’t say anything about any of it. I’m sorry. I really am.”

I clutch her arm, feeling wild. “I’m not going to let you go until you tell me. Do you understand?”

To be thrust out of my own time and dropped down in the past without warning. Minus a brother. Minus a father. Now minus a mother too. Forced to run for my life. I deserve to know
why
. I deserve more than whatever amount of money is inside the envelope she gave me.

“I think that’s a conversation you and I should have
instead,” a clipped male voice declares. The man from my vision, in a gray suit and matching vest, pries my fingers from Nancy’s arm. “I’ll take it from here,” he tells her.

“Believe me, I didn’t know,” Nancy says with a pained expression. “I’m sorry, Freya.” She scurries away without another look. My gaze follows her out into the mall but I don’t have enough time to search out Garren. I can only hope that he’ll continue to remain hidden because I can’t read the man’s intentions yet.

“Who are you?” I demand.

“We’ve never met. I think we should leave the store before we attract too much attention.” He motions to one of the bookstore employees who is staring at us from behind the cash register across the room with a decisive frown. “I don’t think they liked the look of you grabbing Nancy.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are,” I insist.

“The police could be here in a few minutes if that’s what you’d like,” the man says dispassionately.

“I can’t believe that’s what you’d want yourself.”

He smiles tepidly. “All right, Freya. If you want to play it that way, it’s fine. We’ll have you in the end anyway. I think you know that.”

He’s so sure of himself that my stomach drops. I step slowly out of the store with the man and pause in the hallway. There are too many people. Surely he wouldn’t want to cause a scene.

“I’m not leaving here with you,” I tell him. The words are
barely out and I’m flashing headlong into the future. Along the hallway other suited men are waiting for us, through the crowd. As I near them a shot rings out. I spin around, searching frantically for Garren.
We have to get away
.

The premonition cuts to black. I don’t know how this will end.

“It’s either us or the police,” the man says. “We can’t afford to let you go.”

“Why?” I lean over the railing and stare at the bustling levels of shopping mall beneath us.

The man stands next to me, his posture stiff. “Tell me, how did you remember?”

“Why should I tell you that? Why shouldn’t I just throw myself over the railing right now? That way no one gets me. Not you and not the police.”

The man rests his arms on top of the railing, his chin drooping. “We’re not going to kill you, Freya. You just can’t continue to remember.” He raises a finger and points to the left and then the right. “They’re waiting for you in either direction. There’s no escaping this. But I need to know everything I can about how you remembered.”

“What happens if I don’t tell you?” I imagine the worst torture. Broken bones and severed limbs. My blood runs cold.

“Nothing as dramatic as what you’re probably thinking. But we need to do the wipe and cover again and that will be dangerous in itself. We don’t have the proper equipment here to perform as thorough a job as they thought they’d
done back in the U.N.A. It might be a bit rudimentary and leave you a different person than you could’ve been.” He sounds apologetic. “If you tell me what you know about how you remembered in the first place it might help us to do a better job.”

“You’re going to butcher my mind.”
A different person than I could’ve been
. That’s like a death of its own. I think of the wipe-and-cover victims I’ve seen on the Dailies, their personalities rubbed out and replaced with devotion to the state. That’s the kind of powerful result a W + C is capable of, when they can control it. Uncontrolled, it seems that anything could happen. At best, I’d forget the truth—have my brother, my father and my real past stolen from me a second time. At worst, I could come out of this a vegetable, forever damaged. And not just me … If they get Garren I’ll never forgive myself.

But I wouldn’t remember anyway. All of this would be gone.

That’s what I first sensed at Henry’s but had no name for—the things they would take from me. My memories and maybe more, the very essence of who I am.

I gaze down at the miniature shoppers below me, going about their business, oblivious to the decision I’m facing. It would be worth it to jump and save Garren, save the person I am now.

“You don’t want to do that,” the man admonishes. “It’s not what we want either. We’re not the bad guys, Freya. We
wanted
to help. We’ve helped other people like you and your family but there’s a more important aim. Global survival.”

“What do you mean?” I lift my head. “How is any of this possible?”

“You know about the wipe and covers,” the man says quietly. “We’ve seen some that have taken quite a toll on young people—the neurological immaturity increases the risks—but I’ve only heard of one person who remembered his past after a wipe. He was a seventeen-year-old identical twin back in the U.N.A. and his twin hadn’t been wiped.”

“So I’m a scientific oddity.” If I can keep the man talking long enough maybe another vision will stream through my mind and help me decide what to do.

The man nods pensively. “You want to share your thoughts on that?”

“How about you tell me more first. You’re the only person I’ve come across who hasn’t told me they can’t talk about it.”

“It’s true. The others can’t talk about it. It’s a programmed Bio-net fail-safe. The second they begin to transmit information about the future and what we’re doing here, a wipe sequence is triggered.”

“Why?” I glance to the left, at the Special Forces–type duo in the distance who are probably itching to charge over here and haul me away if only I wasn’t in such a public place. They’re as human as I am but I know they’ll do whatever they have to in order to take me, the same as the SecRos would’ve.

“Can you imagine the trouble it would cause in the present if it was known there were people who’d been sent back from the future living among the population? News of future environmental instability—and now the plague—could potentially be enough to significantly destabilize this society.” The man looks at me from the corner of his eye. “It’s the guardians’ job, people like Nancy Bolton, to make sure those sent back settle in successfully. We couldn’t reasonably expect that everyone who has come across time would be capable of remaining quiet about their experiences. Besides, the wipe and cover makes the adjustment easier—for most people anyway.”

In the secret sliver of my mind’s eye that I suspect helped me remember in the first place I see Garren and me running. Alive. Intact. Running scared through Toronto streets. There’s still a chance for us. The vision proves there must be.

“What did you mean by a more important aim?” I ask, stalling. Garren must be waiting too. There are too many of them, too far apart. Five of them that I can see, including the man next to me. Even if I could get to my knife in time, there’s no chance I could escape them all.