Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel (23 page)

“You told me I’d live a long life.”

I took in a breath and shivered hard before letting it out. One thing Foster was right about: I was soaked to the bone and miserably cold. But cold was the least of my worries.

“The experiment will begin soon. When that happens, everyone dies within a hundred-mile radius,” I said,
“except for thirteen people. Those thirteen people live. Well, they go unconscious and are brought back to life by scientists in the future.

“The thirteen become known as the galvanized—living creatures who were raised from the dead. You are one of them. The first of the thirteen galvanized who wakes. I’m one of them too. The last.”

He shook his head. “Stories. This can’t be true.”

“It is.” He didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure there was anything more that would convince him.

“How do these future scientists wake us?” he asked.

“Painfully. They experiment on you, on us all, until they find a way to wake us. When they do, they’ll think we’re immortal. We’ll think we’re immortal. Until the time that is broken by Dr. Alveré Case finally mends.”

“When does that happen?”

“About three hundred years from now.”

“And what happens when time mends?”

“I’ll watch my brother die, my friends die. I’ll watch you die, trying to keep us safe. You all gave up your lives so I had a chance to come here, three hundred years in the past, to change the experiment. If I can change it, we don’t have to die. Millions of people in the hundred-mile radius of this experiment in the future won’t die. It’s important, Foster. This is important.”

“Mr. Sanders,” he said. “My proper name.”

“This is important, Mr. Sanders. I promise you I am not making this up.”

“Millions?” He frowned. “How old are you, child?”

“In the future, I’ve lived twenty-six years. In the future, you’ve lived over three hundred.”

He took in a deep breath and let it out. “Where are your parents? Tell me the truth. Now.”

“They’re dead.”

“You must live somewhere.”

So much for trying to convince him I was telling the truth. Best to get off here and try to find Alveré Case alone.

“There.” I pointed at the nearest house. “I live there.”

“The jail?”

Crap.

“Behind it. That other house.”

“Jacob Laine doesn’t have any children.”

“Not that house. The other one.” I smiled. “You were right, Mr. Sanders. I was just telling you crazy stories. Thanks for the ride back to town. I’d better go now before I get in trouble. Can I have my watch back, please?”

Okay, if being honest with him had been a mistake, I quickly discovered lying and trying to pretend to be an eight-year-old girl wasn’t working very well either.

He did not give me the watch back. “Where do you live?”

“Fine,” I said, cold, exasperated, and out of patience. “You know what? I’m sorry I asked for your help. I don’t care what you believe, and I am very sorry for your loss. Really, I am. But that watch is my property. Give it back to me, and I’ll just find my way home on my own.”

He stopped the wagon next to a small house and jumped down to the ground. I scrambled out of the seat, my boots hitting the hard dirt of the road, and stumbled. I caught myself and ran around the back of the wagon.

“That is mine,” I said, running after him as he strode
toward the house. “Give me back my watch, Foster. Now. You can’t steal that from me.”

A few people were out on the street, but I didn’t care if they heard us. As a matter of fact, maybe a commotion would make Foster give me back the watch.

“Come inside and get dry,” he said. “We’ll find your family.”

“I don’t want to find my family. I want my watch.”

“Matilda,” he warned sternly, as I suppose any adult would when facing down a strong-willed, and probably delusional, eight-year-old. “Come inside. Now.”

“Not unless you give me my watch.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Matilda,” he said again, louder. “Inside.”

“Matilda?” a voice asked.

I turned.

Standing near the wagon was a boy—well, he was physically older than me. I’d say fifteen or so. He had sharp features and thin brown hair that was wet against his head. His eyes were blue enough I noticed it from a distance. There was something all-around familiar about him.

“Do you know this girl, Robert Chapman?” Foster asked.

“Robert?” I said.

The boy smiled, but there was no kindness in that grin.

And that’s when I knew exactly who it was. Robert Twelfth, Abraham’s friend. Only it wasn’t Robert behind those eyes. It was Slater. Slater Orange.

It has been too long since I’ve written. Quinten is keeping secrets from me. I just hope the Houses haven’t discovered what he’s been doing.

—from the diary of E. N. D.

I
’d been thrown back in time, riding Evelyn’s body, my thoughts and personality woven into her mind. There were only two people who had ever had their minds, thoughts, memories transferred into a galvanized’s body.

Me and Slater Orange.

Slater had been pulled back in time like me.

“Do you know me?” I asked, hoping a bit of Robert was still in there, just as Evelyn was still in me. “Matilda Case?”

“Yes, of course I know you, little girl.”

That wasn’t Robert. Not at all. The cruelty in his smile was all Slater.

Hell.

“Do you know where her family is?” Foster asked.

“Indeed I do.” Slater sauntered forward. He had a
rifle resting over one shoulder, but Foster didn’t even blink at it. “I was hunting for you, Matilda,” Slater said.

“Why?” Foster asked in a dubious tone.

Slater ignored him. “You and a dozen of our acquaintances. Why don’t you be a good little girl and come along with me to find them?”

“No.” I backed up until I ran into Foster, then clutched the edge of his long, wet coat. “I don’t know you. I don’t know him,” I repeated for Foster’s benefit. “Don’t make me go with him. I won’t go with him.”

“That’s too bad,” Slater said. “Because I was just going to hunt down a friend of yours: Abraham. Remember him?” He shifted his grip on the hunting rifle. “He and I are going to have a grand time.”

He was going to kill him. Slater was going to shoot Abraham before the Wings of Mercury experiment went off. Abraham wouldn’t survive the experiment because he’d be dead.

“Where is he?” I whispered.

“You don’t know?” He shook his head slowly. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to him.”

My heart was pounding so hard, it was throbbing in my ears. Four hours left before time would break. If Slater found Abraham—worse, if he already knew where he was—Abraham would be dead.

He must be bluffing. I didn’t know where anyone was in this time. He couldn’t know either, could he?

Or maybe Robert was in there, in his head, telling him things. I could feel Evelyn still curled in the back of my thoughts. She was little and sad and missing her parents.

Robert would be older. He would know the people in this town. Maybe Slater had mentally overpowered him.
Maybe Slater had locked him away at the back of his mind and was forcing him to give him information.

I was breathing too fast, panic strangling all the air out of my air, my head gone dizzy. A small, fearful, childish noise escaped me.

Foster’s wide hand rested against my chest, pulling me closer against him. He was a warm, safe, solid barrier between me and Slater.

“Don’t worry yourself about her,” Foster said. “I’ll get Matilda home. Go on now, Robert. I’m sure your father is looking for you.”

The rage that twisted Robert’s face was sharp and sudden. He swung the rifle down and pointed it at me. “You aren’t going to be there to get in my way this time. House Brown won’t be there, because I won’t let it. Abraham won’t be there to start the Uprising for it. And I will kill every last galvanized I can find.”

Foster stepped fully in front of me and took the distance between me and Slater so fast, the younger man had time to get off only one shot.

It went wide, maybe because Slater wasn’t familiar with the weapon or the younger body. Maybe because he carried the memory of what had happened the last time the huge man had come at him.

Foster snatched the rifle out of Slater’s hands and emptied the bullets into his palm. “What has gotten into your head today, Mr. Chapman? You get on home before I tell your father what you’ve done. Go on.”

He held the rifle at his side, barrel pointing down, bullets in his other hand. “Go.”

Slater glared at the gun and then up at Foster.

“I killed him, you know,” Slater said. “Your precious
Welton. Bashed him over the head and watched him bleed. And I will kill you too. All of you. Your parents, Matilda? When I find them and your brother, I will kill them too.”

Foster took another step toward him, but Slater backed away fast, almost tripping over his feet as he ran away, disappearing around the corner of the nearest building.

I wasn’t filled with panic anymore. I was filled with anger. If Slater had found one gun, I was sure it wouldn’t be all that difficult to find another. He remembered the future and he was planning for his long life inside a galvanized body. Maybe he was planning a long life where he was the only galvanized who survived.

No. I’d get the calculations to the tower. I’d make Alveré listen to me. Then I would come back here into town and stop Slater before he found Abraham and the others. There was still time. There had to be time to save the people I loved.

“Please,” I said to Foster’s back. “I just need my watch.”

“He knew what you know,” Foster said. “Galvanized. The experiment.” He turned, the watch held loosely in one hand. “Who is Welton?”

“A dear friend of yours. He was sick as a child. You cared for and helped raise him, then stood beside him as he took over ruling a very powerful . . . um . . . business.”

He stared off into the distance for a long moment. Then seemed to make up his mind.

“I know Alveré Case,” he said. “I helped build that tower.”

“What?” I said, stunned.

He ushered me toward the house, opening the door and stepping in behind me.

“I know Dr. Case’s work,” he said. “I also know what his experiment is intended to do: time travel. I thought someone had been telling you his secrets—a parent, a family member. But you know it and Robert knows it, though he has revealed his intentions to no one. How?”

“This girl.” I pressed my palm against my chest. “Her name is Evelyn Douglas. She fell into a deep sleep—a coma from which she never woke when that experiment went off. But her body was preserved by scientists. I, Matilda Case, was born in the future. When I got sick, my brother transferred my mind into Evelyn’s body.”

“And Robert?”

“He was tricked. A powerful man named Slater forced my brother to transfer his mind into Robert’s body, which killed Robert. Slater hates the galvanized, but wanted the immortality our bodies possess. Or will possess if I can convince Dr. Case to change his experiment.”

Foster glanced down at the watch in his hand. “Who is Abraham?”

“Abraham Vail is a galvanized who stood up for liberty and justice when the world was falling beneath cruel dictators. He started an uprising for freedom that eventually became a peace treaty between men like Slater and us common people.”

“Robert wants to destroy Abraham because he will take away Robert’s power in the future?” he asked.

“Slater, in Robert’s body, wants to destroy Abraham because he was the one who brought the galvanized together—will bring them together.” I took a deep breath. “This is all a little confusing for me too. But trust
me, Abraham will be the one who sacrifices his own freedom for the rights and freedom of humanity.”

“Is he a hero? A great man?”

“A lot of people believe all the galvanized are heroes. They have saved so many lives and done so much selfless good. But Abraham thinks of himself as just a man.”

“I live to see this? Three hundred years?”

“Yes. But not before enduring a lot of pain. A lot.”

Foster walked to the far side of the room and picked up a towel hanging there and handed it to me. I dried my face and rubbed it over my hair, then wrapped it around my shoulders.

“What do we need to tell Alveré?” he asked.

We.
He believed me. All the anger and panic washed away in a relief that almost made me feel like I’d forgotten how to breathe.

“I need the watch,” I said.

This time, he gave it to me.

I flicked open the back of it and pulled out the folded paper. “We think this is the formula that needs to be corrected. You’ll have to convince him to do so before the numbers on the watch reach zero.”

“
We
will convince him,” Foster said. “You are coming with me, Matilda.”

I shook my head. “He won’t believe an eight-year-old child. I won’t matter to him. What I say won’t matter. But he’ll believe you, though, because you’re a friend, a peer?”

“A friend.”

“Then you will be the best person to convince him. Please hurry, Foster. Please make him change the experiment. All the future depends on it.”

“I will,” he said. “But you must be there with me.”

“I can’t,” I said. “Slater is planning to kill people. Kill the galvanized. He’s going to turn this town upside down to find them and kill them. I need to stop him.”

“You are eight years old. How are you going to stop Rob— Slater?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I will.” I snapped the watch closed again and checked the face. Three and a half hours. That was all the time the world had left.

Again.

“It’s Abraham, isn’t it?” Foster asked.

“What?”

“In the future,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you love him? Is that the reason you came back into the past? To save him?”

I shook my head. “I came to stop Alveré from going forward with his experiment without changing the calculations. That’s all.”

“Then why don’t we tell him to stop the experiment altogether?” he said. “If it never happens, the disaster won’t hit, we won’t become galvanized, and the world will go on—changed, without us, without the galvanized.”

He was making sense. Changing time in any manner just seemed like a recipe for disaster. And, yes, I loved Abraham. I didn’t want him to die in the future when time ticked down and the explosion took out half the continent. I also didn’t want my brother, Quinten, to die, to be blown apart by the soldiers who had come to kill me. I didn’t want Welton and my grandmother, Neds, and, hell, Foster to die.

I’d been the cause of enough pain for the people I cared about. But this had all started with Alveré Case. I
wanted the chance to make sure that when time mended in the future, those millions of people wouldn’t die.

“Millions of people will die in the future if we don’t change the experiment,” I said.

“Hundreds will die today if we do,” he said.

And that was true. No matter what we did, there were going to be a lot of deaths.

“I’m trying to save my world, Foster,” I said. “I have to try. Do you really think you can talk Alveré out of ever trying the experiment?” I asked. “Do you really think you can make him dismantle the machine? Can you promise me he will never be curious as to what would happen if he set it in motion?”

“No. I can’t guarantee that.”

“Someone, someday is going to stumble upon this research. And then they will break time. If this experiment is going to happen, and I fear that it will, then let’s make sure it is done correctly and controlled. With those calculations.” I handed him back the watch. “Agreed?”

He nodded. “Agreed.”

“Then please hurry, before it’s too late.” I ran past him, but he had a heck of a reach. Foster caught my arm. “I can’t let you go, Matilda.”

“What? No!”

He lifted me up and carried me out of the house to the wagon. I struggled, but I was an eight-year-old girl and he was a full-grown, very strong man.

“I have to save him,” I said. “I have to save Abraham. Slater’s going to kill him. I can’t let him kill him.”

“What will be will be,” Foster said grimly. “You aren’t going to do this world or yours any good by throwing yourself in front of a bullet meant for another. If
Abraham is half the man you say he is, he will handle Slater on his own.”

“No,” I said. “Please.”

But Foster climbed up into the wagon and held me down with one arm while he urged the horse into a gallop, quickly putting the town behind us.