Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You) (15 page)

Nikki steps over to where I’m standing near the doorway. Her arms close around mine again. “Thank you for doing this.”

I allow myself to press against her for just a minute, to feel the comfort of her arms. But I need to stay focused in order to get through this, and I step away quickly.

LJ straightens from behind the desk. “It’s time.”

I open my mouth to respond but I’m cut off by the shriek of a loud siren. It sounds like an old-fashioned fire truck, dipping down then louder again. I cover my ears with my hands, but cannot block out the noise.

“The alarm. Someone’s breached the perimeter.” Jay rushes back to the computer. His fingers move so quickly they blur as he jabs at the keys. “There’s a break near the southwest corridor.”

“The Project,” Nikki whispers, her hands pressed to her face. “They’ve found us.”

“I’m on it.” Tag moves toward the door, pausing at the last minute to look at me over his shoulder. “Good luck, Lydia.”

“Wait.” I put my hand out to stop him. “I know you won’t remember this, once the time line changes, but take care of Wes for me.”

“I will.” His wide mouth is set in a grim line. “I promise.”

I do not watch him leave, just stride across the room to the TM the resistance created. I pry open the makeshift pieces of metal that have been tacked together to create a door. The light inside is impossibly bright, and I blink, my eyes tearing as I enter the machine. I turn to pull the heavy door shut. Nikki and Chris are already gone, and only LJ remains, tapping on the keyboard, his eyes darting toward the hallway and the shrieking alarm. On the monitor in front of him I see a pulsing red dot on a black screen map. It is moving rapidly to the right.

I hesitate before closing myself into the TM. When I do this, everything changes. I will never see my parents, or Wes, or my grandfather again. My memories will be all I have, and over time, they will fade until I will be left wondering if they ever happened at all.

But I will not let the Project steal any more lives, especially from those I love, and so I pull the door closed, the metal slowly grinding as it shuts. Light is all around me, throbbing, shifting, so hot that my skin burns against the fabric of my dress. I can only hear the faint sound of the alarm outside, the TM buzzing louder and louder, a constant drone that rattles through my body. I sink down to my knees, pressing my hands to my ears again. The light around me starts to change colors, first red, then blue, then green. I tilt my head back to see that the ceiling has disappeared. In its place is smoke and sparks, a churning mass. As my body slowly melts away I hear a noise, an echo, a flickering sound.

“Lydia!” it screams. At least I think it does. Or maybe I just imagine it in that final moment before I am torn apart, before I am gone.

Chapter 17

I
come
to on the floor, feeling metal beneath me, not dirt. This can’t be right. I’m supposed to be in the woods.

I crawl to my feet, touching those familiar smooth walls, the manual control panel built into the side. My fingers shake against the still warm metal. I’m in another TM.

The door slides open. A man in a white lab coat is standing there, his light hair slicked to one side, his pale eyes wide behind thick, black-rimmed glasses.

“You’re not one of our s-subjects,” he stammers.

I straighten fully, ignoring the way my back spasms, my arms tremble, the lingering effects of the TM tearing through my body. “What’s the date?”

“W-what?”

“The date. What is it?”

“May fourth, nineteen forty-five.”

My stomach dips as though I’m standing on the edge of a cliff looking down and knowing I have to jump. Two years late.

“You’re n-not supposed to be here.”

“No. I’m not.”

He opens his mouth to scream for help and I launch myself out of the TM, kicking him directly in the jaw. His head snaps to the side and he starts to drop, but I grab his body before he can fall and lower him gently down. He’s still breathing, his chest rising and falling with the steady movement, but his mouth is sagging, his eyes closed tight. I only have a few minutes at best before he wakes up.

I drag his body under one of the large desks that run along the side of the wall and set him on the dusty ground. He is wearing spotless wingtip shoes, and I pull them off, followed by his white cotton socks. I tie them together to create a gag. There are wires under the desk connecting to the consuls above and I rip out two long pieces and use them to bind his hands, then feet together. As soon as someone finds him, they will know there was a breach in security, but there are fewer personnel in the Facility in 1945. I just have to pray no one was watching us from the two-way mirror on the other side of the room.

I wait for one minute, then two. No one comes. I glance at the now-silent TM. It is connected to a large computer system that sits on the desk above me. There are no digital screens against the back wall, no slick tiled floors. It is a simple room, a deceptively simple machine.

Maybe I should try and travel through the TM again, hoping I can reach 1943. But this machine is so new that the metal base still gleams, and the glass top that stretches to the ceiling is barely clouded. The TM wasn’t always accurate before 1950—Faust and his team were still perfecting the machine, and the time travel serum I have in my body hadn’t been invented yet.

I think of LJ’s file, with plans for every scenario, pressed tight against my back. The most important thing is that I stop the Project. It’s still possible in 1945, just more difficult.

It’s too dangerous to stay in the Facility while I decide how to adjust the plan. And now that I’m in 1945 there are a few people I need to see again.

I slowly inch out from under the desk, pressing my body to the side of the wall as I move toward the exit. Thank God there are no surveillance cameras in the forties.

I open the door a crack. The hallway is empty, so I slide into it and run, half hunched over, my eyes, my ears, everything on alert. The walls and floors are as white as I remember—freshly painted, lit with the fluorescent bulbs that Tesla invented, too.

I turn a corner and hear voices coming from up ahead. There’s nowhere to hide here, but the door to my right is unlocked. In 1989, it leads to a storage area, so I quickly slip inside.

The small, shadowy room overflows with towels and cleaning products. The smell of bleach is strong, and I wrinkle my nose as I turn back to face the door. My foot hits a discarded bucket and it slides across the floor. I lunge for it. I can’t get caught down here. It’s bad enough that blond scientist saw my face, and I can only pray that the kick to his head will disorient him enough to forget.

My palms are slick with sweat, but I wipe them on the fabric of my dress, forcing myself to relax. I am not the same girl I was when I first traveled through the TM. I know this Facility inside and out. I have studied it, walked these hallways as a recruit, and trained in the gyms on the lower levels. I know mixed martial arts and how to kill someone thirty ways without a weapon. I refuse to be scared of what’s out in those hallways.

The footsteps are coming closer. I lean forward and press my ear to the door.

“I’ll bring the samples to your office,” a male voice says.

“What are the effects of the new formula?” I recognize the faint Eastern European accent. Dr. Faust.

“Inconclusive, but I think it will ultimately be rejected. It’s not helping them travel any easier.”

Formula. Traveling. I wonder if they’re talking about the polypenamaether. Is Dr. Faust in the process of inventing the serum?

I move closer to the door. I can only see a sliver of the hallway, but I make out Faust, with his slightly heavy frame, his broad shoulders and thinning brown hair, newly laced with white strands, even though I last saw him only a year ago.

“We’re running out of resources. We couldn’t get that much of a sample after the boy was shot. There are no second chances,” he snaps at his companion. “All you have to do is isolate the foreign agent in the blood. It’s not that hard.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

After the boy was shot
. Could he be talking about Wes?

A year ago, I watched Wes’s blood drip to the floor of the TM chamber, so dark against the white tiles. From the beginning, Dr. Faust had been fascinated by Wes and the quick, efficient way he acted. He saw Wes as an example of what the Recruitment Initiative could become.

Was that day the birth of the time travel serum? Was it derived from the mixture already embedded in Wes’s blood?

It would mean that no one ever really invented poly-penamaether, but that it was simply brought to the past inadvertently, creating a continuous cycle of discovery. I tighten my grip on the doorknob, the cold metal biting into my skin. If it is true, then I’m glad Wes will never know. He wouldn’t want to be responsible for aiding the Project in any way, let alone creating the basis for what makes traveling through the TM possible.

Then the two men are gone, and I ease the door open again, stepping out into the hallway. It does not take me long to reach the stairs near the exit, and I sprint up them. They are dark and dingy, with no lights embedded in the floors or ceiling.

I rip open the door at the top. There’s a guard standing in front of the wide concrete doors that lead out into the woods of Camp Hero. He has his back to me, his hands wrapped around a rifle, and he is just starting to turn around.

I spring onto his back, locking my legs around his waist. He makes a grunting noise, and I grip his neck between my arms. His hair is an oily brown, pressed tight against my face. It smells unwashed, like musk and soot, and I struggle to take a breath. He drops his gun, but it makes no sound on the soft dirt floor. There are pieces of broken furniture scattered around the room, rotting wood and discarded nails and screws. The back wall is lined with metal doors. The one I came through is still ajar, and the thin light from the bottom of the stairs spills across the shadowed floor.

The man claws at my arms, his blunt fingernails digging into my skin. I wince as he draws blood, but I don’t let go. He is wearing the black uniform that all guards in the Facility wear, though this one is in the boxy, high-waisted style of World War II uniforms. I tighten my hold. I’m not trying to kill him—it only takes five seconds to knock someone out. I soon feel the man’s body go limp. As he falls, I drop my feet to the ground and then take his weight, staggering under his heavy build. I lay him down in the dirt, and then look up at the concrete doors. They are sealed shut, with only a tiny line down the middle that lets in a strip of sunlight.

I turn to the passed-out soldier and rifle through his pockets until I find what I am looking for. It is a rectangular piece of metal with random shapes cut out along the thin surface.

I feel along the right side of the wall until I find a tiny slit and quickly slide in the key. The doors part with a scrape, stone rubbing against stone, the whine of a rusted gear. I move to the center. As soon as there is a large enough opening, I step out and into Camp Hero.

The green army truck makes a rumbling noise as it drives down the packed-dirt road. I crouch in the back, half-hidden under an empty burlap sack.

I found the truck parked near the bunkers and mess hall, the white buildings disguised to look like civilian homes from the air. Now we are headed toward the heavily guarded entrance of the camp, not far from the Montauk Lighthouse.

“Just you today, Johnson?” one of the soldiers at the gate calls out as soon as we approach.

“Yup,” the driver answers.

The back of the truck is open, with rough canvas stretched over the rounded top. I pull the sack closer to my body. It smells like old grain, and I can only see an inch in front of me: the scarred metal of the truck bed, a corner of dusty road, a man’s khaki pant leg as he walks past.

I think back to what the scientist said. It’s the spring of 1945. Thanks to my endless history studies as a recruit, I know that Hitler killed himself five days ago, and American and Soviet troops have successfully taken Berlin. Japan is still fighting, but in only a few months America will drop the atom bombs that will finally end the war.

When I traveled to 1944, World War II seemed like it would never end. Mary’s friends were signing up to fight; her brother, Dean, and her crush, Lucas, had already fought overseas. Food was rationed, and everyone was on edge, waiting for bad news, fearing for loved ones. But a year has passed now, and the war is almost over. I feel the change even at this gate. Before, a guard would have inspected the back thoroughly, but now he just waves the driver through. “Get us some more Spam, will ya? Mess is almost out.”

“Sure thing.”

The truck starts moving again, and the wind picks up, rippling the canvas overhead. I know we’re on the long highway that stretches from Camp Hero to the downtown area of Montauk and I pull the sack away from my face to watch the low, scrubby trees pass by, light green with new leaves. The ocean is to my right, the waves breaking against the beach in rolls of white foam. Now and then we pass a small roadside stand selling fish or vegetables with hand-painted signs. As we get closer to town I see a few fishing shacks tucked into the dunes. Made from blue and gray weathered wood, they are sea tossed and crusted with salt, as if they sprang up from the ocean rather than made by men on land.

We reach the downtown, and it is exactly as I remember: a few low buildings, the general store with a sagging porch, one tall, brick, Tudor-style town hall.

The truck does not stop in the center of town; the driver must be headed to East Hampton, where the army picks up most of their supplies. I pull the sack off and crawl to the back end, waiting for the truck to start climbing the short hill that’s not far from the school. As soon as we reach it the truck slows, and I feel the driver shift down and then down again, the engine whining, the wheels churning under us. Bracing one hand against the bumper, I throw my body toward the side of the road. I roll and roll, stopping when I’m lying on my back, gasping for air. The cut on my leg burns, and I sit up, pulling stray pieces of grass from my shoulders. There are no other cars on the small highway, and the truck keeps going, quickly disappearing from sight.

I circle the pond that sits near the middle of town. It is only steps from the road, and the water reflects the few houses and trees that run alongside it. The day is bright and cool, the spring air sharp.

Soon I leave the main road and turn onto a narrower, more private street. The trees are thicker here, and I walk in the shade, watching the shadows of the leaves make interlocking patterns in the dirt. It’s not long before I see the house: two stories, white, a bright-red front door.

I climb up the steps and knock. My breath is short, and I bite my lip. It has been a year since I was last here. They might not even remember me.

“I’ll get it, Daddy!” I hear shouted from inside. There is a clomping sound as feet quickly hit wooden steps, and then the door is flung wide-open.

Mary Bentley, my great-great-aunt, only eighteen years old in 1945, freezes, one hand at her chest, the other still wrapped around the doorknob. “Lydia?” she whispers.

“Mary.” My voice breaks on the word. I take in her dark-red hair, a mirror of my own, her Bentley-green eyes, high cheekbones, and full mouth.

“Lydia!” This time she squeals it and flings herself at me. Her arms are tight around my neck, our cheeks pressed together. I hug her back. Beyond Mary’s head I see her mother, Harriet Bentley, emerging from the kitchen holding a dish towel. Dr. Bentley must be in his study; I smell his pipe, sandalwood and spice.

For the first time in a year, I feel like I have finally come home.