Tomorrow Page 21

  So far my patience with her has come naturally, but now it collapses under the weight of a grief that will never fully heal. “I won’t take back the truth. And it wasn’t just Latham who got sick, it was Kinnari too. If you think I’d lie about her horrible transformation—the inhuman things the Toxo virus did to her—then you’re hopelessly in denial.” My voice sprouts thorns. They slice into my throat as I describe the night I woke up to find Kinnari in my bedroom, scratching her face, laughing manically, and apologizing to me for something she couldn’t have helped. The infection.

  That was only the beginning and I explain the rest in anguished fits and starts. Kinnari’s devolution. The monster my sister became while my mothers and I could only watch helplessly from beyond the force field. My eyes are searing and blinded with unspilt tears as I remember what Kinnari did to her pet bird, what she would’ve done to us if she’d had the chance.

  I could’ve prevented her infection in the first place, but I thought I had more important things to do. Freya used to blame herself for Latham’s infection too, back when she could remember it. We tried not to speak of the terrible details from that night and instead hold fast to our previous images of Kinnari and Latham. The people they truly were. Not the puppets the Toxo made them.

  But being forced to confront that night again after everything else I’ve been through in the past twenty-four hours breaks me. My vocal cords are slashed to shreds, my inner strength bleeding into the pavement underneath my feet.

  Freya grips my good hand under the table, stopping me dead. Her fingers are warm, unlike the last time I held them, and her eyes are pink and pained. It’s minutes before either of us says anything, and then Freya cuts through the silence. “You’re too tired to do this anymore,” she says, newfound tenderness in her tone. “I think maybe we should go back to the motel now.”

  I nod and push my chair back, our hands untwining. We stroll slowly out of the park together, probably looking, to any passersby, like two regular people who’ve been poking holes in their relationship and then trying to knit the pieces together again.

  Eighteen: 1986

  I know that Freya hasn’t suddenly decided to take my story on faith or regained her memories from the last three and a half years while we were sitting in the park; it’s only that she can’t deny the truthfulness of my emotion and doesn’t want to argue anymore. I understand all that as we step through Seattle streets together. I guess I was never going to convince her of the convoluted truth in one afternoon. It will take time. I don’t know how long. Day, weeks, months. But as long as she doesn’t run off again, we’re heading in the general right direction.

  I spy a drugstore window advertising passport photos as we walk, and I guide Freya inside the store with me. The woman who snaps our pictures says usually there’d be more of a wait but it’s been a slow day and she can have them ready for us in thirty minutes. We wander up and down the aisles, Freya sleepily examining the magazines, headache and digestive remedies, and hair products. Sometimes she stops to read packages’ small print and other times she holds the objects up to me so I can explain their function.

  In aisle three I catch her eyeing up the sanitary napkins with a frown. The Bio-net made such things unnecessary in the future, but Freya makes no comment on their strangeness.

  Soon we’re in a cab on our way back to the motel and Freya tells me about the college student who gave her a ride into Pioneer Square and the homeless man, Jim, who befriended her there. “He didn’t seem to have anything of his own,” she says, “but he used some of his physical currency to buy me one of those Mac things because I was hungry.”

  “How did you like it?” Compared to what Freya was used to in 2061, the Big Mac would’ve tasted like salty rubber, as most fast food of 1986 does. Strangely, you find yourself developing cravings for it anyway. Sodium, trans fat, fructose, caffeine, nicotine.

  Freya makes a face but diplomacy quickly replaces her expression of distaste. “It was really generous of him. I wish there was some way for us to help him.”

  “I do too.” There are too many people with nowhere to go and I’m not sure what’s worse, letting them live in the streets where they have to beg for whatever they can get, or warehousing them in camps the way we did in the future. Jim has his freedom but probably doesn’t know where his next meal will come from. Malyck Dixon was fed every day but kept on such a short leash that my dog June, before she was stolen, had more liberty.

  I don’t ask Freya if her sympathy for Jim is another sign she’s coming around to the truth, but I take it as one.

  Minutes later we’re settling into the motel room again. Elizabeth hasn’t returned, which gives me something else to worry about. Maybe she took the two hundred dollars I gave her and put it towards a one way ticket to Belgium. She could’ve been lying about how much cash she had back in B.C., just like I was. She could be jetting over Washington State as I watch Freya unbuckle her sandals. It wouldn’t surprise me.

  For all I know, Elizabeth could’ve made a call to one of the U.N.A. directors and fixed a deal. Information about our whereabouts for a promise not to chase her. Putting my fate in her hands has gotten Freya and me this far but the last time I decided to trust someone it ended with me burying a bullet in his chest. So just how long should we wait for Elizabeth to return?

  Freya’s already crawling back into bed, casting an uncertain look in my direction. If she believes none of this is real, odds are she’ll act more recklessly than she would otherwise. After all, bodies can be fit together for hours without any consequences in gushi or whatever kind of vision she thinks she could be having. But if she’s not so sure, like her expression suggests, maybe she wants to keep me at a safe distance.

  “I’ll be over here,” I assure her, dropping into the nearest chair. I want to stay awake, be ready for anything that might happen. And if Elizabeth isn’t back soon, Freya and I will have to skip out. Catch a bus or train that will take us far away from here and acquire more cash in the quickest and easiest way possible. I’m not looking forward to it but that’s reality. We’ve run out of options and stand at the point where I’ll have to knock off a convenience store or some other place with minimal security in order to buy flights off the continent.

  There’s no time to raise enough money legitimately, and I’m running through robbery scenarios in my head, staring from the numbers on the nightstand clock radio to Freya’s sleeping form, when a key turns in the door. Elizabeth bursts into the room in a patterned head scarf, the windbreaker I gave her earlier, and a pair of jeans that she’s folded at the ankles. “Where have you been?” she demands, her jaw and shoulders taut.

  “Where have you been?” I fire back, my fingers grasping at an inch’s worth of air. “We were this close to leaving.”

  “I came back hours ago. There was no one here.” Elizabeth’s panting as she marches towards my chair, her left hand closed around a plastic bag. “I thought you’d either been taken or left. I’ve been driving around looking for you, hoping it was some kind of misunderstanding.”

  “She wandered off while I was asleep.” I glance at Freya on the bed. Our shouting has woken her. “It took hours to find her. She was all the way across town. When we got back and you still weren’t here, I thought you’d left Seattle without us. I was going to give you until six o’clock.” It’s almost six now.

  Outrage blossoms on Elizabeth’s face. “I wouldn’t leave without you, Garren.”

  I’m glad to be wrong. “Why didn’t you leave a note?”

  Elizabeth unties her scarf. “In case they’d been here, taken you, and were planning on returning.”

  “But you came back anyway.” She has more loyalty than I’ve given her credit for. I’m impressed.

  “You could’ve written a note, too, you realize,” she says testily. “That would’ve saved us the misunderstanding.”

  “I left in a hurry.” I explain about Freya’s three-and-a-half-year memory gap and the difficulty I had convi
ncing her to come back to the motel while Freya looks on from across the room, her weight balanced on her elbows.

  Elizabeth approaches the bed and begins quizzing Freya about dates and events. It doesn’t take long to confirm her memories end partway through 2061, in the middle of that game of veloxball in Thomas Jefferson’s Gymnasium C.

  Freya’s lips harden, her tone teeming with intellectual curiosity. “If what Garren told me is true, then you were one of the people who tried to wipe me.”

  Elizabeth bows her head. “I can’t discuss it, except to say that we were wrong and I’m happy there wasn’t more damage done.”

  I remind Freya that most people working for the U.N.A. are unable to discuss the future or their work because specific mentions of either activate a wipe sequence. “But never mind that now.” I hurry the conversation along, afraid it could lead us to Isaac and the things I’ve intentionally omitted. “What about the passports?”

  “We need to bring photographs in tomorrow morning.” Elizabeth turns to take a seat in the only other chair in the room. “My first lead didn’t pan out. There was no one home at the address. I waited for an hour and half before starting fresh. Then there was more waiting before I could meet with the second man. He took half the cost in advance and will attach the photos when we come in and pay the rest of his fee. There’s some other potential good news. He has a contact in a repair shop and we might be able to get some money for the car.”

  A chop shop that will take the car apart and sell its pieces. “How much would they give us for it?”

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth replies. “He didn’t say. We can wait and see before going ahead with other plans to pick up more cash. We might be lucky.”

  “Let’s hope.” If there’s a way to get off the continent that doesn’t involve having to commit a robbery, I’ll take it. We have to wait until tomorrow to get our hands on the passports anyway.

  “I almost forgot.” Elizabeth dumps the contents of her plastic bag onto the circular table between us—a pair of tan pants and a long sleeve checked shirt. “I bought them at a second-hand store along with these.” She taps a hand to her jeans. “I thought they looked about your size.”

  “Thanks.” After forty-eight hours in the same clothes, I must be on the verge of growing mold. Wearing anything else would be an improvement. “Can you watch over Freya while I shower and put these on?”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth brightens like my request is a sign that I’ve forgiven and trust her. I’m not sure either of those things is wholly true but I’m genuinely relieved she came back for us.

  Later, after I’ve thoroughly cleaned up everything but my plastered wrist, Elizabeth and I discuss our airport and flight plans while Freya sleeps. Elizabeth nervously agrees that going our separate ways at the airport tomorrow will increase our chances of eluding the U.N.A. She casts a philosophical look at Freya as she declares, “I think she trusts you even if she hasn’t quite accepted what’s happened yet. Aside from the sizeable gap in her memory, she seems cognitively healthy. I think you two are going to be fine.”

  “Hopefully we’ll all be fine. Once we get away from here.” Elizabeth and I are sitting on either side of the table again, me in my second-hand tan pants and checked shirt, periodically shifting my gaze to Freya’s hair on the pillow—the only part of her I can really see.

  “It could be they’re not even coming after us.” Hope crowds onto Elizabeth’s face.

  “I thought that once before and this is how it turned out. If they just let us go this time it probably means bad news.” That shooting Isaac didn’t end the virus threat.

  “Don’t think about that. It’s beyond us.”

  “Take things one day at a time,” I quote. It was probably some other time traveller who coined the cliché—a man or woman who knew firsthand the only way to get through life without being pulled under by its weight is to live moment by moment, freeing your mind from the dangers of the future.

  Elizabeth nods like this is sage advice. Our fears about each of us deserting the other have been proven false and that’s brought us closer. I lean across the table and whisper that I never told Freya about Minnow plan’s for 1986 or the global disaster of 2071. “I don’t want her to have to worry about that kind of destruction,” I explain. “She’s better off not knowing.”

  “Maybe so, but…” Elizabeth hesitates. “You felt otherwise about your own memories.”

  “This is different.” I only want to protect her.

  And the U.N.A. wants to protect the future. Maybe our aims aren’t poles apart, then, but there’s an important distinction. What I’m doing won’t steal Freya’s identity or past from her. Only hide dark shadows that may never touch our lives anyway.

  “You might feel differently in the future,” Elizabeth points out. “It could be a great burden for you, knowing these things and not having anyone to speak to about them.”

  “That’s a burden you’ll have to face too.”

  “I won’t have any option. My choice that my life would be a secret one was made years ago.” Loneliness falls around Elizabeth’s shoulders like a cloak. “Anyway, everything doesn’t have to be decided tonight.” She stands, drawing her solitude snugly to her so it fits like a shield.

  With that, we say goodnight. Elizabeth takes the far bed and I lie down next to Freya, on top of the covers and facing the other direction so I won’t make her uncomfortable. I sleep fitfully, my mind unable to relax. If I dream, I’m not aware of it. But each time I wake, the shadows on the wall feel sinister and every sound is a potential menace.

  It would be worse if not for Freya. Her nearby presence soothes me enough to drift off again. The last time I wake up she’s bent over me, her hair tousled and the hem of her polo neck bunched up around her waist where the bed sheets have gathered too.

  “What is it?” I mumble.

  “Nothing.” Freya backs away, her knees shooting up to form a tent under the covers. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “You didn’t.” I sit up next to her, yawning into the dark. “I don’t think I’ll sleep well until this is over.”

  “You think something bad is going to happen?”

  I’m mindful that I told her there was nothing to worry about. “I just don’t think we can let down our guard, that’s all.” I’ll worry less once we’re on a plane out of here.

  “Because they might find us?” Freya asks, like she’s repeating some often-heard wisdom she has yet to confirm for herself.

  “Only if we’re not careful and wait too long to leave, which isn’t going to happen.”

  We’re both whispering so as not to disturb Elizabeth, and Freya nods, her head slanting down to rest on her knees as she stares at me. “The way you say all these things is so persuasive, but how am I supposed to believe I’ll never see my brother again? That everything I knew is just gone.” She gasps as her tongue stretches over the word. “In one second. I was there and now I’m here, with you. And you and everything else here seems so solid and real, but…time travel…”

  Her sentence dangles, twisting enigmatically in the hazy patch of moonlight seeping through the parted curtains. I remember my awe when Freya and I first learned the earth wasn’t the transparent, finite place we’d believed it to be. In the last twenty-four hours that awe has transformed into dread—the fear that there will be no end of threats from the future rocketing along the chute towards us.

  One day at a time. Don’t think beyond tomorrow.

  “I know how it sounds,” I say.

  Freya buries her head in her knees, momentarily hiding her face from me. When she turns to reveal herself again she says, “These people you say are after us, would you recognize them if you saw them again?”

  “Most of the ones I’ve encountered are dead now.” I never explained exactly how I escaped. “I had no choice. It was either us or them.”

  I watch shock at the revelation that I’ve killed people streak across Freya’s face. �
��So these U.N.A. security personnel could be anyone, anywhere?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” My system shifts into high alert mode. “Why? Did you see someone suspicious today?”

  “No. Not how you mean.” Freya raises her head, unease glimmering in her pupils. “I’ve just been having some strange visions. Everything I’ve seen today is exceptionally weird and maybe this other thing is only another part of whatever’s going on with me but…” She wraps both arms around her knees, hugging them tight.

  “Tell me, Freya.” The concussion must’ve messed with her second sight—otherwise the U.N.A. wouldn’t have been able to kidnap her—but it sounds like it’s back. On one level that’s good news. Despite what they did to her, she’s recovered.

  She releases her knees at the sound of my voice, straightening her spine. “The first time I saw him was when I woke up in the trans with you. In my mind there was an image of a boy crawling through a field. There was a lot of blood on his clothes and his face. He was hurt. From what I could see of him, he didn’t look familiar. Normally my visions are of people who are close to me and things that are just about to happen to them or me, but this didn’t work that way. There was just this bad, bad feeling attached to the vision.”

  Goose bumps erupt on my arms. “What kind of bad feeling?” Before she can answer I add, “You said the first time you saw him. There have been more?”

  Freya’s head jerks in agreement. “A few. Enough for me to tell he was a man and not a boy. A smallish man. I think there was someone helping him later. He seemed barely conscious but he was in some kind of trans, like some of the ones in the streets here. And then just now, before you woke up, I saw him again. Lying down with wires attached to him. The bad feeling was so strong it was almost as if I was the one feeling it. But I wasn’t.” Freya’s hands run up and down her arms, like she’s trying to warm herself. “It was coming from him.”