Exist Once More Read online

  The good thing was that the Elders most likely had the same problem. Which meant that however they’d interfered, it had to be in public, where we could see them. Coming to and from the meetings, perhaps, but if that didn’t work, we might have to try a different tack, like each of us staking out the hotel of a different committee member.

  The long and short of it was that we might be here for a while. Jonah had somehow come across money that worked on Earth Before, and the three of us checked into a cheap motel on the outskirts of the city. Analeigh and I chose one bed and left Jonah the other, then we all took turns using the shower.

  The entire thing made me more than a little nervous. We’d had to speak to the hotel clerk to get the room, I’d caught the eye of a terrified pregnant woman in the hallway, and we were going to have to interact with more people in order to find the Elders, not to mention, like, feed ourselves. We could minimize our impact, but who knew what we would change without even realizing it.

  Both Jonah and Analeigh had only laughed at my concerns, saying that as long as we kept our interactions to a minimum and didn’t change anything on purpose, it would be fine.

  I expected the reaction from him, but from her? It shocked me enough to make me shut up, at least for now.

  I couldn’t decide whether I really didn’t agree with them or whether I was still too close to my training to see time travel through different eyes. Analeigh had been gone for months, Jonah even longer. Had they merely forgotten, or had they decided our promises, our duty, didn’t matter?

  Caesarion’s voice emerged from my heart, reminding me that my first duty was to the people of Genesis, not the Elders or the Academy. I relaxed a little, knowing we were here because of what was right for everyone.

  Once we were all cleaned up and back in the small, dirty, slightly damp-smelling bedroom, I looked at my brother and my best friend. They both seemed to be waiting on me to say something. Which I guess made sense, considering I was the only person outside of the Academy, besides Sarah, who knew what exactly we were looking for.

  Okay, not exactly. But in theory.

  “Sarah transferred all of the files we downloaded on the Manhattan Project to my brainstem tat, so my glasses will show me names and backgrounds when we see the men coming and going.” I frowned, unable to stop my gaze from sliding over the scars on my brother’s neck and wrist where he’d removed his own bio-enhancements. They were old and faded but Analeigh’s were red and angry. Bumped up. I knew leaving them would have let the Elders track them down too easily, but it was hard to look at the stark evidence of their otherness all the same.

  “I wish we could all have it, but you know. It’s just me,” I finished lamely.

  And it might not even be me for long, if we couldn’t figure this out. I hadn’t asked how long we could stay with the pirates before removing our own tattoos, but I’d caught them all staring at them at one point or another in the past twenty-four hours.

  So, not long. We’d put them in danger if we did, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

  No one was sure if they could trace us using the tattoos while we were in the past—normally, that was what they used the swipes at the portals and the cuffs for—but if they could, we were gambling even now.

  “Maybe we should just split up from the beginning,” my best friend suggested, looking the slightest bit nervous for the first time since we’d agreed on this course of action. “It would save time. How many people do we know for sure were pro bombing?”

  I shook my head. “We’re not sure. There are no transcripts of the details of the discussion that we know of, and no Historian has been inside, either, for all of the same reasons we’re locked out now. People have made guesses based on who was included and their positions prior and post involvement, but that’s all we have.”

  “I say we stick together today. Stake out the path in and out of the meeting site, see who comes and goes.” Jonah’s own expression was dark with concern. “If we don’t see anyone from the Academy for a few days doing that, then we’ll think about splitting up. Deal?”

  I licked my lips and nodded, unsure whether it was the smartest course of action but sort of relieved at not being out on my own, anyway. We were never in the past alone and there was safety in numbers.

  In a few days, President Truman would hold what would become known as the Potsdam Conference with Stalin and Churchill. They would discuss how to handle Japan and, in the correct version of history, issue the country an ultimatum to surrender or be met with deadly force.

  Before holding that conference, Truman met with members of the military, his cabinet, and some of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project in order to make his decisions. That committee would collectively agree that the bomb they’d created should be used, regardless of a few dissenters who warned that we didn’t know enough about the effects, and that Japan hadn’t been given enough warning to use them in good conscience.

  We needed to find the people who had advised for dropping the bomb—because some or all of them must have been tampered with by the Elders. They needed to be at those meetings, and convince Truman to drop those bombs.

  My throat hurt at the thought, at what it would do to Yumi. She was a real person, not nameless—if countless—faces from Hiroshima. I liked her. We had talked, laughed together, and become friends.

  If we succeeded, she would be gone. What did that make me?

  “Do we know who we’re looking for?” Analeigh asked, startling me out of my head as she tied her long hair back in a ponytail. “What they look like? Names?”

  I shook my head, frustration at the secrecy of this entire process rising up in my stomach like a too-sweet breakfast. “We have names of the people involved in the meetings, and like I said, they’ll register in my glasses. They’re all men, mostly middle-aged, and they’ll be dressed for a meeting with the President.”

  “Probably not too hard to spot in a small town during the summer,” Analeigh reasoned.

  Jonah stood and walked toward the thin, shabby door. “And once we spot the ones the Elders are targeting, we’ll be the first ones to know for sure which are the men who wanted to drop that bomb.”

  “The second ones, you mean.” I shot him a smile as I stepped out into the hot, July sunshine. “Because the Elders obviously figured out how to influence this event somehow.”

  “You always were the smart one, Special K. I should have stolen you away with me three years ago.” His smile turned sad, the way it had when he was talking about our dad giving him Grandfather’s journal. “I was hoping you…I guess I was hoping that it wouldn’t come to this. That things could be normal for you.”

  “I know. But like you said, the Elders aren’t going to stop on their own.”

  He ruffled my hair. “We’ll make them. I have faith.”

  There was no reason to make my brother feel worse than he did about abandoning me, and what it had done to our family. Maybe things would have been different if Jonah had blown the lid off the Return Project three years ago instead of running off.

  But maybe not.

  We wandered toward the site of the President’s Potsdam residence, scanning the streets of the smallish town as we walked. Our clothes were nondescript, and even though Jonah and Analeigh had no assistance from tats or other bio-enhancements any longer, blending in wasn’t too difficult. Everyone spoke English. Men and women could stroll together without arousing suspicion. Our clothes weren’t cumbersome.

  No one looked our way with undue curiosity or suspicion. Like Analeigh had pointed out, the town was small, but still big enough that everyone didn’t know everyone else. Since Truman spent time away from the White House here, they were already growing used to strangers in their midst.

  Even though we moved constantly throughout the day—on the streets, in and out of stores, into a soda fountain for a burger that was about the best thing I’d ever eaten—no one registered my glasses or tats. It was dark, past time for dinner, and my
legs were heavy from all of the pacing, by the time Analeigh suggested we throw in the towel.

  “We’ll try again tomorrow, yeah?”

  I didn’t want to agree and neither did Jonah—I knew the way his jaw tightened too well—but we were both stubborn as all get out. Analeigh had been my own personal voice of reason for many years.

  I glanced between her and my brother. It appeared I was sharing her now, though to what extent, I still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask.

  When we returned to the motel, Jonah let us in but lingered in the doorway. “I’m going to grab some burgers. I’ll be back.”

  He left without asking what we wanted. Analeigh fell backward onto the bed with a heavy sigh, kicking her shoes off in the process. They landed on the floor with two thuds. The bangs reverberated up my spine, making me realize how tired I was after the whirlwind of my life since leaving the Academy.

  I flopped next to my best friend, close enough that her hair tickled my bare arm and we traded body heat across the narrow space. Being close to her again after all of these months felt so good, and for a long time, neither of us spoke.

  “I missed you,” I finally said, softly in the silence of the room.

  Her fingers wandered into my palm and squeezed. “I miss you guys, too.”

  There were a million questions on my mind about what had been going on since she left—on her end, of course—but I couldn’t decide the best way to start. I’d never been hesitant around her before, but we’d never been apart this long, either.

  “What’s going on with you and Jonah?” I blurted in the most awkward way possible.

  Well done, Kaia. Smooth.

  Then again, subtle had never really been my thing.

  When she didn’t answer right away, I tipped my head to the side to find her cheeks colored pink. After a moment, her head fell to the side, too, and we stared at each other. Her green eyes were a swirl of emotion, moving too fast to pin one or even two down.

  She bit her lower lip, stealing all of its typical color. “I’m not sure.”

  “But it’s something,” I pressed.

  “Maybe. Is that…would you hate me?”

  “What?” I sat up, surprise giving me a boost of energy. Analeigh did the same, though with less enthusiasm. “Why would I hate you?”

  “You know…he’s your brother.”

  “Right, but he’s not your brother.” I paused and thought about it for the first time, letting my feelings come out of the corners and into the light where I could get a good look at them. Weird, sure. Angry? Nope. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to be able to share details because ew. But like I said, he’s not your brother, and I gather you’ve been spending quite a lot of time together.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Although I question your taste, because Sparrow is the textbook definition of gorgeous bad boy. Yikes.”

  “He’s also as arrogant as they come,” she replied, though her smile said she didn’t dislike him because of it. “Jonah is different.”

  “Always was,” I murmured with a smile, because I’d missed him, too. I kind of didn’t hate the idea of him and Analeigh falling for each other, though I would hate being stuck choosing sides if it ended badly. “So, what have the pirates been up to since you got there? Have you been looting? Pillaging? Wait…are those the same things?”

  She laughed and laid back down, patting the bed until I joined her. The cover appeared dubiously cleaned and my skin crawled slightly, but in the end, fatigue won out.

  “Not looting, exactly. They’ve kind of become, I don’t know. Mercenaries? They take supplies from the central planets to the moons where the fringes have disappeared. Your brother and I have been looking for ways to prove what the Historian Elders are doing with the Return Project. And he’s been trying to find a way to travel onto and off of Cryon to get your parents.”

  My heart jammed in my throat. “Any luck there?”

  “No. They’ve got it protected, though we’re not sure how. Or why, really.” She perked up. “Maybe Sarah can figure it out.”

  “Even if she could, what would my parents do? Ride around on a pirate ship?” The thought almost made me laugh.

  “I mean, it’s better than being forced to work twelve hours a day.”

  “True.”

  Analeigh paused, but the crackle in the air promised thoughts were turning in her mind. “Do you think we can really do this? Prove the Elders changed Hiroshima, and that they’re trying to influence the horrible events their founders were involved in so that we can somehow turn back the clock?”

  I had to think about that for a while before answering, too, but unlike my clear-cut reaction to Analeigh telling me she liked my brother, this one felt muddy. “I don’t know. I hope so, and not only because I really want to get back to the Academy and our lives the way they were. It’s also…people are appearing who shouldn’t be. Others are gone. That can’t keep happening without serious consequences.”

  It felt so good to talk to Analeigh again. I had Sarah, but we’d always been a threesome. It hadn’t been the same.

  “Like your new roommate?”

  I swallowed, my throat thick with tears again. “I like her. This isn’t fair, and I know…what would people like her think if they knew what we were trying to do? Would they fight?”

  “I don’t know. I guess…I guess it depends whether you still believe that what we were taught—that the past is just that and it should never, ever be changed—holds true. If so, then there’s only one right answer, Kaia. We put it back.” She looked at me, her lips set in a hard line and her voice changing to match. “Do you really think our lives could go back to the way they were before this, though? Or that we should want them to?”

  I frowned. “The Historians do good work, and we were supposed to be a part of that. Dreamed of it, really. This whole Return Project thing could tarnish our reputation for decades. They could decide to pull the plug on our Academy altogether. What then?”

  “No, I know. I don’t disagree, but…” She sighed. “There’s so much more going on in the System than they tell us, Kaia. There are people who need help, and the Council acts as if the people on the fringes don’t exist because they don’t fit into a certain mold.”

  It was worrisome, and brought to mind those kids in the Muslim camp back on Earth Before—ignored and shoved to the side because they didn’t look or believe like people thought they should.

  Maybe it was true, what I’d thought over the past several weeks, that humans couldn’t ever really change. That we kept traveling the same circle, toward and then away from justice, and always would.

  “So you’re saying you like being a pirate?”

  Her laugh turned self-conscious. “I don’t know if I count as a pirate, but I suppose I am a wanted woman.”

  “Yeah, for totally bogus reasons that will go away once we prove the Elders are corrupt.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you…do you feel like you’ve forgotten anyone? Someone we knew at the Academy, maybe?” I changed the subject quickly, hoping to catch her off guard enough to get an honest response. It bothered me that no one else seemed bugged by the disappearance of the boy I was sure we’d known. Why was it only me?

  Analeigh frowned harder, the wrinkle on her forehead a telltale sign she was deep in thought. “No. It’s totally possible, obviously, but it doesn’t make sense that we would remember missing people. The only reason they know an Elder is missing is because there are supposed to be twelve, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re right. Maybe it’s nothing.”

  It wasn’t nothing, but I couldn’t explain my discomfort. We lapsed into gossip about the Academy instead, about the pirates, and when Jonah got back we devoured the greasy, delicious food of Earth Before like we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  In the morning, we would try again. And again and again, until we figured out what, exactly, had happened to change Truman’s mind.

  It was thr
ee days later, on July sixth, when we spotted our first candidate.

  A Dr. Vannevar Bush left a cafe in town after breakfast and hurried down one of the main streets, sweat beading on his brow. He was wearing a suit and tie in the middle of a July heatwave, which allowed Analeigh to spot him even before my glasses started to spout out details.

  They displayed as fast as I could read them—the man was an accomplished scientist, part of the Manhattan Project, but according to a current version of history, not a part of the Interim Committee meeting with President Truman.

  The last fact sparked my interest and I snagged Analeigh’s sleeve. Jonah had left to find somewhere to pee after looking more and more uncomfortable for the past thirty minutes.

  “Is it one of them?” she asked, looking as if she was trying to shake off some of the sleepiness that had infected us both. We’d been wandering around in the sticky heat for hours.

  “Yes. He’s a scientist, and he worked on the Manhattan Project, and he’s assigned to the committee. In this way things are now.”

  “Let’s follow him,” she hissed, glancing around. Fully awake now.

  “What about Jonah?” I hemmed, not wanting to leave anyone behind.

  “He can take care of himself.”

  “Fair enough.” I kind of loved her attitude. At least Analeigh hadn’t become the kind of girl who always waited around for the boy she liked. That would have been the worst.

  The two of us set off behind the suited man, Dr. Bush, tossing the trash from our take-away lunches into the bin on our way past. We didn’t get far before the doctor met another man, this one in a hat and looking more than a little bit nervous.

  Analeigh raised her eyebrows my direction in a silent question.

  After my glasses gave me the info, I checked it against the Manhattan Project files before I nodded. “Another one.”

  James B. Conant, another scientist. Another man on my list of people on the Interim Committee about the Manhattan Project, and who had a continued involvement in its existence going forward.