EMIT (THE EMIT SAGA) (36 page)

“That makes no sense. How do they keep getting away from you?”

“We really don’t know, every time we go in they’re one step ahead of us. Whenever something happens, we travel back to before the incident, but the same things happen at a different time or place. We don’t know how they’re doing it. James is adamant that someone in EMIT is helping them.”

“Like what things?”

“You first got hit on Central Park South but the next time it happened on Central Park West and on a different day. James fixed it once, but when it happened again, he said it was best to focus on the catastrophe and stop changing things unless it was a fatality. He felt we were wasting time and travel trips.”

“Of course he did,”
I said sarcastically. “If they can change things, they must have a time machine, too.”

“It’s possible,
but highly unlikely. All the time machines are in secure locations under heavy guard and only authorized personnel have access to it. Only the scientists and the top stratum know where the plans are stored. Someone can’t just steal the designs. It’s impossible.”

“It’s possible other scientists discovered time travel, too. There are a lot of brilliant people in the world. Couldn’t someone have told somebody else of its existence? And maybe they’ve been trying for years and finally succeeded.”

“I don’t think so because we track all our travels and nothing changes anywhere in the world. The only changes have been with you.”

“That’s crazy. How far in the future have you gone?” I asked wondering.

“Only to the end of this year. We have a different team that’s responsible for future travels to discover what catastrophes will happen in future years. That group consists of agents and scientists who travel back and forth sharing the latest technology available from the future. Then the older time machines are updated. I’m in the group that actually works on stopping the issues that the scouting teams uncover. No one can travel more than fifty years from his or her own base year. Since my base year is 1969, I can only go as far as the year 2019, but we only deal with one year at a time. Once the issues are solved, we move onto the next year.”

“Why only fifty?”

“The same reason as why we can’t travel to the past. Medical issues.”

“
If you stay here permanently, this would be your new base year and you could go much further into the future?” I asked thinking out loud.

“Yes and no. First, I’d need to get authorization to change my base year and second, I’d only be able to time travel to the end of this year until EMIT moved on to the next year. Paige, no one in the agency has ever changed their base year.”

“That’s surprising. Why not?” I asked bewildered.

“Why do you say that? Think about how hard it would be for you to leave your family
.”

“I didn’t think of it like that. I was just thinking about the adventure part of it,” I answered, understanding what Daniel was alluding to.

“Future travel is much more involved and complicated than just going into a different year. EMIT only enters one year at a time, takes care of what it needs to do in that year and then we move on to the next year. The travelers that go into the future to fact-find never leave the lab facilities. They find out everything they need from
news on the computers and we use that info to handle whatever case we’re working on.”

“But why don’t they leave the labs in the future?”

“If we exit into a year and engage there before we know what needs to be stopped, we can seal events and we might not be able to stop or correct them. We have to deal with one year at a time. The changes we make in this year will affect what happens next year. If I check next year’s issues today, it wouldn’t be as accurate. What we do in this year will alter things in the future.”

“How do you
know about what changes?”

“Our cells record everything that happens, including our locations. All day our cells sync the information to the EMIT offices including video recordings. The staff updates all that information constantly on the computers. Whenever a traveler goes to the future to check things out, he loads all that data on a flash drive and another agent returns immediately with the new information.”

“Why not the same traveler?”

“We have to wait twenty-four hours before traveling again because it’s bad for our bones.”

Someone else had to have a machine. Daniel had to be wrong. “Is there a country that has any inkling or suspects the existence of time machines?” I insisted.

“The only country that we’re concerned about is France,” Daniel finally revealed. “We haven’t been able to detect
if they have one yet.”

“So what
is the plan?”

“
Well, I have to tell you that James said if we can’t stop this soon, we might have to start from scratch.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked nervously.

“We’ll have to start researching again from the beginning of this year to give us more time to figure this all out. The bad thing is that you wouldn’t know me.”

“Are you telling me that I could forget you?” Somehow, I found that difficult to fathom, but if I could forget getting
killed, I could forget Daniel. “No! I don’t want that.” Is that why James told me that Daniel didn’t have a girlfriend because he knew that I might soon forget him?

“James will allow our relationship for now because he knows how much I care for you. I’m trying to get him to
not to alter things on the day we met and then everything will be fine.”

“I don’t want
to forget you.” After his reassurance that he’d work everything out, I tried to compose myself and prayed that he really could.

“Honestly, I think all the changes that are happening might be my fault.”

“How could that be?”

“Not
the things that happened before I talked to you, but afterwards. If I didn’t talk to you, your daily routines would’ve been different and that’s why now there is utter chaos.”

Well, he had me there since he was so right. After we met, I couldn’t stop thinking about him and constantly searched for him. I’d never acted like that before.

“What did James say about your theory that you’ve caused the changes?”

“I didn’t tell him. I’m afraid he might make me stop seeing you.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’m not, but he’s pretty positive the changes are being done internally.”

Daniel’s tone suddenly changed and he became very serious. “When I learned you were hit by the car, I went into the future to see what was going on and it was bad. By intercepting phone calls, we learned that they knew the NSA was close to catching them and they....”

“What? I got killed again?” I asked impatiently.

“Yes. You were abducted by gunpoint and shot.”

“Just great! But if the catastrophe happens even after they kill me then somebody else has what you’re looking for.”

“Their informant was adamant that you had the envelope. One of the callers said you should have been tortured and not killed because their plan needed to be postponed by six months while they got what they needed from another source,” Daniel said through clenched teeth.

“Who was the informant?”

“We don’t know. It was data picked up through satellite monitoring, but I think you have whatever it is they need.”

“I don’t understand this because I don’t have anything.”

“When we get back to the city, we have to figure out where it could be and prevent your death and the nuclear attack.”

“Where could it be?” I asked worried that I had to go back.

“I have no idea. Let’s start with your apartment. Maybe in your dad’s office?” he suggested.

“I brought files home before so maybe it’s in one of them,” I answered feeling encouraged.

“We’ll start there.”

“I can’t believe this.” I felt dazed and foggy. “Daniel, I’m really scared.”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight. The reality will set in once we get back to Manhattan and you had to know everything.”

“Do you have to go to DC in the morning?” Panic started setting in and Daniel watched my face, as I grew more and more terrified.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go for a meeting. You’ll be safe while I’m gone, I promise. Nothing happens until you get back to New York and I’ll be there waiting for you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t leave if you weren’t. I also want to see what’s going on in the future. Reports from agents aren’t specific enough because they’re only reporting the specifics of the case. I’m interested in your outcome, even though that’s constantly changing, so I need to access all the data about you,” he tried explaining.

“
If things keep changing, how can you be so sure I’ll be safe?”

“Because they never come to Long Island, they always stay in the city.”

“But I never got hit by a car before either, so they could come here.”

“James assures me you’ll be safe and even if anything does happen, he’ll take care of it.”

After calming down, I suddenly realized that James wasn’t on Long Island. “James isn’t here, how can he promise you or me anything?” I started getting really scared. “And if there’s a bad agent what if he comes here? Or what if he’s here already? Wait, how can you fix anything if it happens when you’re traveling to the future?”

“Calm down. James is coming back here while I’m away.”

“Where is he? Plum Island?”

“No, he’s in New York.”

“But why? You said that he’s normally in DC.”

“Yes, he’s in New York to oversee this
operation because he’s second in command. James comes in towards the end of the operations, reviews what’s been done and decides what the next steps should be.”

“
Who’s in charge in New York?”

There was a long pause and then he said, “I can’t say.”

“But why not? I know who your uncle is and he’s more senior than the guy in New York.” 

“The less you know about this and the personnel involved the better. I’m only allowing you to meet people who you
need to know,” Daniel said.

“What do you mean
?” I asked.

“If anything happened and you saw Pierce, Brad or James, you would know that you were safe, so you would go to them. I need to give you their cell numbers. Can I have your cell?”
I handed him my phone and he put in their contact information.

“
Speaking of Pierce. Is he really from Chappaqua?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“If I wasn’t here this summer, my Dad would’ve been dealing with this?” I said out loud.

It seemed like he wasn’t listening but then he stopped. “Wait, that’s right, you weren’t supposed to be here this summer. Maybe I should travel to save your grandmother from falling in London. Then you won’t be involved
in this and you’ll be safe in London. At the same time, we won’t meet,” he said resignedly. “I can bump into you again after this mess is solved and hope you’ll like me again.”

“
Forget it. I’m glad we met, even with everything that’s happened.”

“I wonder if your grandmother
fell before or if this was new.”

“You think everything could have changed because of Nana’s fall?” I asked,

“I’m not sure. We’ve never watched you before.”

“But weren’t you bugging our house? Wouldn’t you have known if Nana had fallen before?”

“No, we never bugged your house before and never paid attention to personal data, just your dad’s business dealings. We put our surveillance equipment in your apartment three weeks before we met in the park. So as far as your grandmother’s fall is concerned, I’m not sure if that was supposed to happen or not. I’m going to ask James to check the other times if he could.”

What he was implying was crazy, but so was everything else he’d told me. “How can you check though?”

“If James thinks it’s important, he’ll review your dad’s phone calls from all our time travels. They could also view the satellite images and send someone to see exactly how the fall happened,” Daniel explained. “I’d go if asked, but right now I need to check the future. I can’t do both and be back on Sunday.”

After what seemed like hours, I began to get comfortable with the story and
asked about the invention. Daniel looked at his cell and slid the top off. I saw how different it was.

“Can I see it?” I asked when he was done. “Now I understand why you think my cell is old.
This is scary looking.” There were weird symbols and buttons. It looked so foreign.

“Only EMIT has these. Everything I do is recorded and videotaped.”

“Everything?”

“That involves the case. They know where I am at all times. Our personal interactions, I have on a private file just in case. All data has to be saved so we know what happens on every visit to be able to document changes. All the information is sent to the EMIT office. There, the staff uploads all that transpired that day into the main computer and then it’s in the system. Our cells help them track our movements so everything is monitored. If something needs to be changed, the agency knows exactly where in time to go back to. All the info the agency has, we can access from our phones.”