Exist Once More Read online

  They rounded a corner, taking a left into an alley, and ran smack into three men wearing long, black robes.

  The sight surprised me so much that I froze, standing in full view of the Elders until Analeigh dragged me out of sight behind a large blue Dumpster. The stench of rotten food and trash filled my nostrils and I tried not to gag. My heart beat so loud in my ears that it was hard to hear, but through the crack between the building’s wall and the stinky blue bin, we watched as Maude Gatling, Zeke Midgley, and Rachel Turing—all of whom were far stronger and quicker than they had ever seemed to me—accosted the two men. They had the element of surprise on their side but it still took upwards of three minutes before they’d overpowered the willowy scientists.

  During the scuffle, the Elders had managed to get the men’s hands tied behind their backs with a material similar to the Kevlar that made up their clothing on Sanchi—definitely nothing from this time and place. I took heart in the fact that my glasses hadn’t informed me that either scientist would meet their doom today, and though they were sporting some scrapes and bruises now, they didn’t look otherwise too much the worse for wear.

  Dr. Bush started to ask in a quite indignant voice just what they thought they were doing, and Dr. Conant joined in demanding to know who they were, but those protests were muffled after Zeke flicked a finger and Rachel and Maude quickly taped the men’s mouths shut.

  Again, they used a product from our present, not regular duct or electrical tape, which would have been readily available at the drug store down the street.

  Which meant they couldn’t have cared less that they were exposing our entire way of life to people on Earth Before.

  Analeigh’s wide eyes met mine briefly before returning to the scene in front of us. I didn’t want to miss anything.

  The Elders were making quick work of their captives, Maude and Rachel hauling them to their feet and prodding them into a line. Zeke went first, then the scientists, then the women, as they hustled their prey out of the alley and to the left.

  I didn’t know the city well enough to guess where they might be going, and we needed to know the answer like we needed oxygen in space. If we could figure out where the Elders were staying, we could come back and stop them before they delayed the men who needed to convince Truman to drop the bomb, and this whole plan just might work.

  I assumed these two men might simply have been replaced, or perhaps Truman had gone ahead with a smaller committee made up mostly of those who would oppose his usage of force without warning.

  Analeigh and I got up without discussing it, moving as quietly as we could through the trash-littered alley toward where the Elders had disappeared. I could hardly believe what we’d witnessed.

  The entire thing seemed like a dream. The Elders seemed so out of place in the scene, but they hadn’t hesitated as they’d intercepted those scientists. Changed the past like it didn’t matter one whit.

  I’d never seen anything like it before now. Never believed I would. Never wanted to again.

  Are you sure? It seems like you’ve seen someone do something similar before, but when?

  I shook off the nagging feeling, again, that a memory had slipped out of my grasp. Sure that I would recall witnessing another event as it changed forever.

  As we turned the corner behind the Elders, Analeigh pointed down the next block, where the group was disappearing into a nondescript building toward the end.

  We crept closer, making sure the doors and curtains were closed tight. I made note of the address, thinking that we had what we needed. We could come back earlier, stake the place out, and make sure the Elders never interfered.

  But as Jonah pointed out after we found him pacing nervously in the hotel room, we weren’t going to be able to do it alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We left Earth Before twenty minutes later, taking just enough time to gather our things and eat the last cheeseburgers Jonah procured from the diner. The rendezvous point with the Anne Bonny was set—it would be my first time using an illicit portal and my nerves tickled even though I knew Analeigh and Jonah had done it before without consequences.

  The others would have to come back with us, earlier today so that we could catch the Elders before they kidnapped those scientists. As uncomfortable as it made me, we might also need their weapons in order to convince the Elders to stop their plans, and even unarmed, the pirates were a pretty physically intimidating bunch.

  Jonah set his cuff and we all stood close together in our shabby room while the blue light whisked us back to Roma.

  Roma, Amalgam of Genesis - 51 N.E. (New Era)

  We were met with a row the moment we climbed aboard the ship.

  Two of the pirates, Teach and Sparrow, we planted on one side of the cargo bay while Jean stood opposite, one hand wrapped protectively around Sarah’s upper arm. Her face was pale, freckles like specks of dirt as her expression wavered between terrified and indignant.

  We’d heard them shouting as we waited for the hatch to come down, but their words had jumbled together, amplified inside the metal box to the point where none of them made a lick of sense.

  They fell silent as we entered. Jean dropped Sarah’s arm but moved a step closer to her in the process, protectively, maybe. Or maybe not.

  “What’s going on?” Analeigh demanded, taking big strides to Sarah’s other side and pulling our friend toward her. “Sarah?”

  “The Council is tracking us through our tats. The guys wanted…” She trailed off, then swallowed hard and visibly pulled herself together. “They wanted to dig out my tats. I put together a blocking mechanism sort of like what they’re using to stop travel to and from Cryon. It’s working but they don’t think it will last.”

  “Will it?” Jonah asked, his lips pulled tight over his teeth like an animal on Earth Before.

  “Not forever. Hopefully long enough to sort this out and get me back home.” Defiance shone in her eyes.

  “Sparrow, get us out of here. We’ll keep moving in deep space, outside their radar, until we need another portal. No one is maiming my sister, or her friend, today.”

  Sparrow complied, though he did take the time to shoot me a dirty look before exiting. I glared back and him, and at Teach, then shot a grateful glance toward Jean, who had clearly been the only one willing to trust Sarah enough to wait until we returned.

  “Are they tracking us in the past, on Earth Before, or just out here?” I asked once they were gone, biting my lower lip.

  “Just here. If we could use the tats between past and present we wouldn’t have needed cuffs for traveling at all,” she pointed out, quicker on the uptake than I was, as usual.

  “Okay, well, then we might not have to get okay with the idea of taking them out at all.” I paused, holding my breath as the ship lifted off. It felt as though everyone was doing the same as we waited for a Council ship to touch down, for someone to arrest us or whatever. There was little precedent for any true law enforcement in the System; even the pirates, I didn’t think, were quite sure what to expect.

  “What did you find?” she asked once we felt the Anne Bonny slip into light speed. Her eyes were bright with hope, and for once, she didn’t have to be disappointed.

  Jean and Teach started to wander off—slink off, was more like it—but Jonah barked at them to stay. “This concerns all of us, and if the Council or the Historian Elders are on to us then we need to make a move fast.”

  The pirates returned, still looking a bit sheepish. Good.

  “We need to go back, maybe a day before we did this time, and take out the Elders before they interfere,” I said after Jonah nodded my direction. “We know where they’re staying, and when they make their move.”

  “Okay, so we head to another portal and wait for you there, same as this time.”

  “No. I think we all need to go.” Jonah’s voice was firm, as if he expected dissension. These pirates were not Historians. They weren’t schooled in how to act in the past, how
to stay invisible, or even how to use the cuffs should we get separated. It was dangerous to take them.

  It was dangerous not to.

  “We need everyone,” Analeigh said, stepping to Jonah’s side. “There are at least three Elders there, and we only saw them accosting two scientists. There could easily be more of them that we didn’t encounter, out dragging different people back to their house or whatever. We can’t take any chances.”

  “We need our weapons so we can be sure we stop them.” My brother’s voice had softened this time, not exactly pleading but definitely not demanding, either. “It’s the only way to save the System, and even if you guys pretend you don’t give two hoots about that, I know it’s not true. Since it’s what’s keeping you alive and all.”

  Teach and Jean exchanged a glance. Jean shrugged. Teach raised a dark eyebrow. “Sparrow isn’t going to like it.”

  “Sparrow doesn’t like anything,” Analeigh reminded them, which made everyone smile, if not relax.

  “Where’s another portal?” I asked, my skin itching as if it wanted to take off into the past without me.

  “There’s one on Petra,” Jonah replied, watching me closely. Like he thought maybe I was about to crack up.

  It sort of felt that way. A sense of urgency had fallen over me like a heavy cloak since we’d realized we had the chance to stop the Elders. To bring back the people who had gone missing, set our world back to right before something worse happened.

  To bring back the boy, if he was real. The more I thought about him, the more frustration crawled through my veins.

  “How fast can we get there?”

  “If we want to run outside their tracking limits long enough for them to lose us, we could leave in less than a day. But as soon as Sparrow puts the Anne Bonny down on Petra we’d only have hours before they found us and showed up.”

  “That should be more than enough time. We’ll go back the morning of the day we saw them, before dawn.”

  “What are our plans, exactly?” Sarah asked, her face pale. “I mean…we’re not going to hurt them, are we?”

  “No.” Analeigh shook her head without checking with anyone else. “We’ll use the stunners, and the same tactics they used on the scientists today.”

  Jonah nodded approvingly, his gaze lingering on Analeigh’s pretty face. The air between them sparked, leaving no doubt in my mind that whether or not either of them had admitted something romantic was brewing, it definitely was. “Put ’em down and tie ’em up. I think it’s the right approach.”

  “One of us needs to stay until the meeting goes off as planned, too,” I said. “The rest come back and we can all meet up later. I’ll do it.”

  “We’ll see how it goes,” my brother replied, clearly having no intention of letting me stay.

  I pressed my lips into a thin line. He could argue all he wanted, but I was staying to see this through. To make sure we did what we came to do. Finish what I started last semester.

  Maybe part of me wanted to make Caesarion proud. He would love to see me stepping into this role, taking responsibility for my people in a way I had never expected to have to until after we’d already met.

  We wouldn’t argue about it now. We’d plenty of time for that, and in the heat of the moment, with his friends and Analeigh to think about, Jonah wouldn’t win.

  We split up, then, with Analeigh and me heading to grab some much-needed sleep, Sarah going up to the bridge to analyze exactly how long her block would hold once we set down on Petra, and the boys going to inventory weapons for the trip to Earth Before.

  Time passed quickly as we sped through space and then dropped out of orbit near Petra, where our hydrotechnology was located. The prettiest of our planets, supposedly, and the only one where homes were drawn in a lottery. I’d never seen it in person.

  When we came back together, Sarah informed us that three hours was all she could guarantee us with the block. We had only that amount of time to enter the past, disable the Elders, and get back to the ship before the Council showed up with stunners of their own.

  We figured out every last minute before dropping out of orbit. All but one of us would return within two hours, just in case, and the person left behind would rendezvous with the ship four hours later on Roma. Hopefully the swap would throw them off, but since the third portal was at the Academy, we didn’t have much choice except to try.

  At least it would only be one person that got caught, if things went badly, and not everyone. Maybe that was the best we could have hoped for, considering.

  Before we left, Analeigh made sure everyone knew how to work the cuffs, along with the correct coordinates to get to any of the three illicit portals,. It seemed as though we had too little time, then too much, but before I had time to really process the fact that we were about to go assault our own Elders in the past, it was time.

  There was nothing left to do except go.

  Potsdam, New York, United States of America, Earth Before - July 3, 1945 C.E. (Common Era)

  The quiet, pre-dawn streets of Potsdam, New York, were draped in a cool, morning dew that should have made for an enjoyable summer morning. Would have, maybe, had I been able to forget for a single second what we were here to do.

  Not only were we about to attack our own Elders, who we had, only months ago, trusted implicitly, but we were going to ensure that the deaths of well over two hundred thousand people went down as planned.

  Including Yumi Phan’s, centuries in the future.

  Even though I knew we had to do it, that putting things back to the way they were was not only the right thing to do, but the only thing to do, it didn’t mean I felt good about it. My stomach roiled as I thought of my roommate, and Levi, and what he would think when he found out we’d kept the truth about her from him all this time.

  Or if he would even remember her at all.

  Somehow, the second thought disturbed me more than the first.

  The house we’d spotted the Elders using yesterday was quiet, the shutters and curtains were drawn, the front door locked tight against intruders. We had no way of knowing whether the people we were after had already arrived or if they would spend as little time here as possible. Surely they had devised their own way to disable the self-destruct by now, but I didn’t think that the basic principle that governed time travel in Genesis—that time passed at the same speed in the past as it did in the present—could be altered. Which meant they may at least attempt to be gone as little time as possible so as not to be missed back home.

  Teach made short work of the lock on the front door, the tiniest of clicks when it sprung open sounding like a shriek in the quiet morning. I jumped. Jonah and Analeigh shot me simultaneous looks that slammed me from both sides and had the opposite effect of calming me.

  The pirates drew their stunners from their belts. A sonic waver also hung from my brother’s waist, though they promised the use of the deadly device would be a last resort—something to use if one of our lives was in danger and not unless. He was the only one who had brought the gear that would protect him against the blast, should he have to unleash it. His shouldering of responsibility for not only his crew, but Analeigh, Sarah, and me relieved me, but it saddened me, too.

  He had changed so much since he’d left the Academy, out of necessity, and I’d missed it. He was still the Jonah I’d grown up with, the one who had pulled my pigtails and taught me how to intimidate with my mind instead of my small frame, and yet he was different, too. I hated that I’d missed it.

  You’re different, too, Kaia. How do you think he feels about that, and yet he’s not asking you any questions. You’re family. You protect each other. End of story.

  I frowned at the voice in my head, the one that sounded like half-mine and half as though it might belong to the mystery boy who may or may not exist only in my subconscious. I wished so hard that Caesarion were still alive in his time. That he could have helped me through all of this.

  His advice had been invaluable,
given without judgment or understanding of the issues we faced in the future but imbued with steady knowledge that crossed millennia. He was the sort of person that should be put in the position of saving Genesis, not us.

  Not me. Caesarion was born to lead. It was in his blood, and his soul, and he’d learned from his mother that his duty to his people was more important than even his own happiness. Or his own life.

  I wasn’t sure I could do it. That I was fit. Tears burned in my eyes as we stepped through the front door on silent feet.

  My Kaia, think of where you come from, of the people tied to your own blood through the centuries. They have each given you gifts, have they not? The ancestors trust you to be a part of their legacy. You must trust yourself.

  This time it was Caesarion’s melodious, confident tones that rang through my body like church bells from a tower on a clear morning. They steadied me. I took a deep breath and thought back to my own paternal founders—rulers of Rome, of Judea, and the grandfather who had been instrumental in taking humanity to a new colony in space. Saving us.

  The thoughts straightened my spine. Maybe it didn’t seem like leading was in my blood but the people who came before me promised otherwise.

  Thank you, my love. I issued the gratitude into the universe, liking the idea that in some time, some place, Caesarion heard them and understood that I had not forgotten him. That no one ever would, despite his short, long-ago life.

  In the present, the Elders’ hideout was dark. They could have been asleep in the bedrooms that appeared to be at the top of the long, narrow flight of stairs, but the place had that cold, deserted feeling that suggested it was empty.

  Even so, we searched quietly in pairs, room by room, until we confirmed the assumption. After a quick conference, still nervous that we wouldn’t get to them in time, we split into three groups. One would patrol town and keep an eye out for the Elders or for the scientists about to be kidnapped. One—the largest—would remain at the house ready to overpower anyone who came here first, or after, if we missed them. The other would stake out the site of the attack, in case the Elders were doing the same thing.