Exist Once More Read online

  It was so fast, even frame by frame. No words were exchanged before the visitor raised his arm, steadied it, and fired in what almost looked like one smooth movement.

  I turned off the holofile after my third viewing. There was nothing more to see or learn. Rudolph Wilcox had been a farmer, one shot and killed by…someone. His life extinguished for a reason probably lost to history forever.

  It was sad, but I was stumped as to why it mattered to the bigger picture. He didn’t seem that important, even considering all of his good deeds. There were average people who founded families that made it onto the refugee ship, sure, but…why would the Elders have changed something that saved this man? His family?

  President Truman and the decision to drop an atomic bomb…now that seemed like the sort of huge, catastrophic event that the Elders might want to set right. Might need to set right if they intended to attempt a return to Earth Before.

  I frowned and tossed my comp to the side, heading for the bathroom. I needed a few minutes to clear my head before tackling another—most likely depressing—file. It would be a lie to say that my curiosity wasn’t piqued at being able to learn a little more about where Oz came from, even knowing that it was going to be tough to watch.

  In the mirror, my dark eyes swirled with confusion. I brushed my teeth and skipped a shower, going straight for my soft pajamas instead. The combination of clean teeth, warm sheets, and the pajamas made me feel ready to face more history.

  Sarah should be back soon, and Yumi had taken my place in the bathroom—lights out was in about twenty minutes. As nice as it had been to have a quiet evening to check out my files, now it felt lonely. The Academy as a whole felt eerie when it was so empty. I guessed I should have been used to it after months of being the only person denied passes off.

  I took a deep breath and punched up the file on the Trumans, settling back into my pillows and tugging the comforter up around my neck. There wasn’t time to go through the whole family from the beginning, the way I did with Rudolph. Not before the lights went out and one or both of my roommates would get irritated at the additional light in the room.

  I knew President Truman was instrumental in the changes that had been made. Might as well save time and start with him.

  The beginning of the holofile showed Harry Truman’s humble beginnings in Missouri, the smack-dab middle of the United States. The file was long—over two hours—and I scrolled forward through the years since we knew when he was supposed to have dropped the bomb. I wanted to see what happened in the days before President Truman authorized the bombing, the day of, and the aftermath. That way we could go back and see for ourselves how it was different once Sarah figured out the cuffs.

  I watched as a war started. A bombing on a naval base on the Hawaiian Islands—Pearl Harbor. That, I remembered. We’d all been there, had all seen it. It was awful and unexpected, and a lot of men had died. It made sense that the United States would have retaliated against Japan at some point. That was the way men handled things then.

  I slowed the march of images as the war wound down—Hitler killed himself and the fighting in Europe concluded. The meetings in Truman’s office at the White House, at the Pentagon, and at his vacation residence increased. The same people were gathered at each one, around large oak tables.

  I turned up the volume and flicked the button that sent the audio through my brainstem tat since Yumi had waved goodnight and slid under her covers. Sarah wasn’t back yet. Maybe she and Oz were actually having a good time.

  The men in the White House argued. Some of them wanted to retaliate against Japan for Pearl Harbor, like I suspected, and thought that doing so then could end the war in the South Pacific. It was those men that seemed to have Truman’s attention; I could tell he liked the idea of saving American lives. Rightfully so, since they were his responsibility.

  His expression was grave as he listened to others who opposed the use of such force, citing the massive loss of civilian life and the fact that they knew so little about the long-term effects of the atomic bombs.

  The technology was new, and they continually brought up something called the Manhattan Project, and I made a mental note to see if we could find anything out about that. Maybe I’d missed it in my haste to get to this moment.

  The debates must have gone on for a while. Sometimes there were only a few people, other times a group gathered. There was no doubt that he’d taken the decision seriously. I couldn’t help but feel as if he’d made the wrong one, in the end, but I wasn’t there. I had my own awesome responsibility and it felt heavy and unmanageable.

  For the first time since I’d been peering into the past, making assessments on how things were handled by people who can’t argue or explain, I felt their pain.

  Felt Truman’s pain.

  Sarah came in and shot me a quick look, then went into the bathroom. I quickly scrolled through the actual dropping of the bombs and the devastation, making a note to at least follow up on the after-effects of such an event on the local environment and population.

  Two things to follow up on, then, and at least one of them—the Manhattan Project—took place before Truman dropped the bomb, so the event should be intact as it truly happened. The second thing, the effects…I might have to find out in theory.

  Sarah emerged from the bathroom and sat down on the edge of my bed, then put a finger to her lips. Yumi was asleep, probably, but better safe than sorry.

  “I figured it out,” she whispered. “The cuff.”

  She pushed her tablet into my hands and I thumbed through schematics that made no sense to me, but looked impressive. They were in black and white, full of lines and numbers and mathematics. Not plastic and metal and little lights that told me when and where I was going. Nothing to hold onto, or to use.

  “So how do we make it?”

  “That’s the trick. We didn’t talk about that part, but obviously we either need access to the place that makes ours, or somewhere with similar capabilities.” She bit her lower lip, a wrinkle appearing on her forehead. “I was thinking maybe your brother could help us, but I know we don’t have a way to get in touch with him.”

  “No. Not that I know of.” Frustration swirled in my blood, making the room feel too hot, which it never was. I needed to get home and check on that stupid statue. Or maybe there was something else there, another clue or a note left by my brother. Some way to communicate with him that I hadn’t thought of.

  Yumi mumbled something from her side of the room, flopping onto her side so that she was facing us.

  Sarah scooped up her tablet and hugged it to her chest, looking as frustrated as I felt. “What did you find in the file? Anything useful?”

  “Nothing that will mean anything until we go visit and see how it changed. It’s too dangerous to watch the files that have been altered, I think. The Elders surely flagged those after they changed them.”

  “The next step is making a cuff. We’ve got to figure it out.”

  “We will. If they would let me out of the damn Academy…” I trailed off, an idea popping into my head. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before tonight—we could have given it a shot. “You could go. To my house. Or Oz. Or anyone other than me, actually.”

  “You don’t think they’re following us? Or at least tracking our tats?” Fear tightened the lines around her eyes.

  I knew we were both thinking about what happened to Analeigh.

  “Maybe.” I snapped my fingers, trying not to give in to the fear. “Levi could go.”

  Yumi shifted again, then opened her eyes and peered at the two of us with a sleepy gaze. “You two going to bed soon?”

  “Sorry,” I apologized without thinking about it, knowing that she was a light sleeper who took her sack time seriously.

  I knew that for real, but it was also in my faked memories. The whole idea of thoughts and interactions and knowledge being planted in my brain still creeped me out.

  Sarah turned off her comp and went t
o her dresser, pulling on her own pajamas and getting into bed. We were done talking for the night, that was for sure. I thought I’d be tired, that sleep would come easy, but it had been a long time since that had been the case.

  Instead, I lay awake with my thoughts—about Yumi, and England, and Oz, but also about what my parents were trying to tell me with those messages. I wished that Levi had gone to the house tonight to see what he could find, but it was too late now.

  Next time. And maybe by then we would have figured out how to make real cuffs from Sarah’s drawings and mathematics, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Genesis Council, made up of the oldest members of each Academy, wasted no time setting up meetings with each and every Historian in training. They scheduled them in order, starting with the youngest class and quickly moving to the oldest—mine. My stomach twisted into knots as my turn approached; that my last name fell at the end of the alphabet was a blessing and curse that let me wait as long as possible.

  Oz went before me, but there was no time to communicate or prepare about the questions they were asking as we passed each other silently. The Council had commandeered Zeke’s office for the duration of their interrogations. Being called into his inner sanctum did the opposite of put me at ease.

  As we passed each other, Oz’s expression was impossible to read. He did give me a small smile, one that might have been meant to be reassuring, right before a woman I didn’t recognize stepped into the doorway of Zeke’s office.

  “Miss Vespasian? If you’ll come in, we should be able to finish with you before lunch.”

  Finish with me. That certainly wasn’t a very comforting way to put it.

  Once inside the room, I scanned all eleven of the faces. There was supposed to be a full twelve, but the representative from the Historian Academy had been excluded, for obvious reasons. They might have been using Zeke’s office, but he definitely wasn’t here.

  They introduced themselves one by one, the only name not falling straight out of my head the one that belonged to the woman who had greeted me, because she seemed to be in charge. Her blond hair was coiffed perfectly and her blue eyes were so light they looked nearly transparent, and her name—Olivia Price—sounded as aloof and cool as she appeared.

  I’d never heard of her before, but I’d been at the Historian Academy since I was ten. I knew a few of my parents’ friends but that was it—we didn’t fraternize much, even at Stars or the other hangouts where we came into contact with kids from other Academies.

  We were focused. It worked.

  Except for now, when I had no frame of reference as far as any of the people glaring at me like they’d already decided I was the sole person responsible for the potential destruction of Genesis.

  “Kaia Vespasian,” Elder Price began, her smile thin, her lips bloodless. “We heard you had quite the exciting adventure last semester. Using a cuff without authorization. Interfering in the past in order to meet your True Companion…”

  She trailed off, nearly white eyebrows raised as though waiting for an answer. Fear made it hard to focus and tempting to blather, but the instinct to play everything close to the vest trumped it at the last second.

  I pressed my lips together and folded my arms over my chest, conjuring an expression that hopefully said I wasn’t terrified she was about to go over our Elders’ heads and banish me—or worse—then tipped my head to the side. “Was there a question in there?”

  She chuckled, though the expression on her face suggested she didn’t find any of this particularly funny. “Clever girl. But one who doesn’t seem to realize how many lives are leveraged against her.”

  The threat, however subtle, seized my heart. The image of my vulnerable parents slammed into my mind and my body went numb.

  “Let’s get right down to it—because of your specific experiences, we were hoping you might have seen something in the past. Anything that didn’t make sense or add up, or that made you wonder whether you were the first person to travel on unauthorized trips.” She paused, squinting at me. “Surely you’re not the first Historian to ever break the rules about interacting. The temptation must be great.”

  My knee-jerk reaction to defend the Academy came on hard, and fast. This woman obviously had an axe to grind about what we did here. If she thought I was going to admit that we just did whatever we wanted, ran amok on Earth Before, she’d come to the wrong girl. Olivia Price could think what she wanted about the Historians and our mission, but she was wrong. We did important work, and we did it responsibly.

  But something else she said, something about other people going on unassigned trips, triggered a memory from my time with Caesarion. Some of the men protecting him had accused me of being a dark one—they claimed they’d seen others wearing similar clothes, others who arrived and killed silently with a weapon that could only be one of ours.

  They’d blamed it on sorcery or magic. Witchcraft.

  But it had sounded to me as if Historians had been in the past, using sonic wavers for reasons still unknown at the time.

  I wouldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t confirm that there were those among us who were taking chances that could have been deadly. If the Council decided the best thing was to shut down our ability to travel, even for the duration of their investigation, our chances of learning the truth about the Return Project, of stopping it, went from slim to none.

  “No.” It was a lie, and I had the sudden, uncanny feeling that Olivia Price knew that. “I was wrong to do what I did and I’m lucky to be here, still on track to finish my apprenticeship next year. But I didn’t see anyone other than me—and Oz Truman when he came to warn me after the Elders found out what I was up to—in the past.”

  That part was true, at least. Others might have been there, but I only saw Oz.

  “Very well.” She licked her lips and glanced down at the comp resting on Zeke’s desk. “You should know that we have reliable intelligence that suggests not one, but several significant changes have taken place in the history of Earth Before. As you know, the members of this Academy are the only people with the sort of access to make that happen.”

  As a girl with an outlaw for a brother, I knew better than most that wasn’t exactly true, but Jonah and his pirate friends weren’t the only sub-culture that had risen up in Genesis. The Council did a fairly good job rooting out criminal behavior when it reared its ugly head, but like my brother and his pals, not everyone got caught. At least not right away.

  “I’m sure there are others with the capability,” I replied. “But if there are people here who are using our tech for nefarious purposes, I hope you find out who they are. That’s not what we’re trained for, and changing the past is not what we believe our purpose to be.”

  The rest of the Elders behind her looked slightly bored by the conversation, more than a few of them reading on their own comps.

  Elder Price, though, she had laser focus, and it was all for me.

  She cocked her head. “I hope that’s true, Miss Vespasian. Your family is a prestigious one. I’m sure that, if you were to help us set things right, something could be done to restore each of them to their proper place in this society.”

  My mouth went dry at the bold implications of her quiet words—that if I cooperated with them, if I sold out my Academy and my purpose in this universe, they would save my parents. Maybe offer Jonah a pardon, even.

  It tempted me for the briefest of moments. Proof I was human, I supposed.

  But only for a moment.

  “I’ll keep that in mind if anything comes to my attention. Until then, I’m going to keep doing the job I was selected to do, and find ways to make the past—as it is—work to make Genesis a stronger place.”

  She paused, and the silence seemed to go on much longer than it probably did. “Very well. But Kaia…we will find out what exactly has gone on here, and who has been privy to that knowledge as it has been happening. At that point, we will not be able to protect anyone involved. Or th
e people around them.”

  I nodded, still trying to get enough moisture into my mouth to swallow and failing miserably. She frightened me, and not only because of her words—it was her odd, detached demeanor. As if it would mean nothing to her to kill my parents to leverage me, or to do the same to anyone else she figured may be able to reveal things she wanted to know.

  “I understand.”

  “You may go.”

  I did just that, trying not to scramble in my haste to get away from the intimidating woman and the rest of the Council who, even if they weren’t threatening to kill my family, weren’t stopping the woman who was.

  I returned to my room on autopilot, deciding on a protein tab for lunch—if I managed to conjure an appetite at all. Skipping one group meal surely wouldn’t be enough to raise red flags with our Elders. After all, a chat with Olivia Price had surely made more than one of us a bit queasy. I couldn’t be the only one.

  To be honest, I might not be able to eat dinner, either.

  A message came in on my wrist comm later that afternoon, an hour or so before dinner. I was in the comp lab with Sarah, both of us working on getting our final Reflections on the Muslim internment camp in order for the following day. I, for one, was looking forward to never having to watch those recordings again.

  It was my wrist tat that flashed, though, and I frowned as I glanced down to retrieve the message. With Analeigh gone and Sarah speaking to me only when necessary, I hadn’t gotten one that wasn’t Academy-related in months—but if that was the case, she would have gotten it, too.

  The message was from Elder Booth, which deepened my frown.

  Miss Vespasian -

  As part of your training, I would like to take you on an unscheduled Observation this evening. Attire will be secretarial, mid-nineteen forties. Please make the necessary arrangements within the hour and then meet me at the travel pods. We will not be gone long.

  - Elder Booth