Lost Time (13 page)

Chapter 20

Lani: Without a Flight

I
stand gazing out into the cloudless sky long after the plane disappears. In the twenty years since Sam died, I have never felt so empty and alone. And now, with Shannon packed and gone, this shabby, backwater biodome feels like a prison.

I press my fingers against my eyelids, trying to stop the tears, but it’s no use.

I always knew that someday I would have to let go of Shannon, but I never dreamed it would be like this. And I knew in my heart that Diego was never really mine, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with him.

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…

But they’re wrong.

And now you’ve lost both of them.

I watch a lone falcon rising with the wind currents, wondering for the millionth time how the birds and reptiles beat Doomsday. I imagine Shannon up there in the sky, looking down on a world that is all new to her, excitement and anticipation spilling across her beautiful face. She is the one thing that has given my life meaning these last twenty years, a solid and powerful reminder of why I deserved to survive. Out of all the lies, deception, and evil that surrounded my failed attempt to save my brother, one good and true thing happened: Shannon.

Go and see the world, Shannon, and when you’re done, come home.

If I’m honest with myself, I belong here in this sorry excuse for a biodome. It’s my home, and if I were to leav
e—
follow Shannon to another bubbl
e—
there wouldn’t be anyone here to deliver babies or treat pneumonia. My life is here with Lucy and the others, and I couldn’t bear to have something bad happen to them.

Eventually, I turn away and walk back across the bubble toward the Radio Room, my thoughts turning to Sam. Our mother died giving birth to him, and although my grandmother did her best, by the time he came along, she was crippled with arthritis. I was the one who helped him get dressed and tied his shoes and kissed his knee when he fell.

Back in the turbulent days before I met David, I would tuck Sam in at night, stroking his sweet face until his eyelids got heavy, and tell him we were family,
ohana
. And
ohana
means no one gets left behind.

You should have tried harder to save him. You should have figured out a way.

I sit down on a bench in the park, forcing back tears, and try to decide what I’m going to say to David.

Should I tell him the trut
h—
that Diego claims he’s from 2025 and came here from a parallel universe via a misbehaving time machine?

Would he even believe me?

I shake my head, uncertain what I believe.

All I know for sure is that Shannon is gone, and Diego is in love with another woma
n—
a woman I thought was dead and buried decades ago.

There’s always another woman, Lani
—
a better woman.

Although I hate myself for even thinking it…

I wish she never existed.

Chapter 21

Diego: Into Thin Air

W
e fly east, gaining altitude, unbroken grassy plains spreading out as far as the eye can see. I’m the only one in the plane without a biosuit, and this morning was the first time I’d been Outside.

Lani was right: The fact that everyone is wearing biosuits is downright scary. Add to that the knowledge that even the tiniest hole could mean quick and certain death, and I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a great idea.

After a few minutes, I turn and check on Shannon in the back seat. She’s fast asleep, her puppy, Bearhart, snuggled up next to her in a special dog carrier. At breakfast this morning, Lani had dark circles under her eyes, and I can’t imagine that she and Shannon got much rest last night.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed, Lani. God knows I tried.

I watch Shannon and her puppy sleep
—
probably dreaming of each othe
r—
and smile when I remember Madders presenting her with that fuzzy bundle of wet tongue and big feet. When Shannon put her arms around the puppy for the first time, the sheer joy on her face had everyone in the biodome in tears, me included. It was love at first sight for both of them, and Earhart quickly became Bearhar
t.

And
the rest, as they say, is history.

I face front, gazing out my foggy window and feeling lost. Shannon is as close as I’ve ever come to having a daughter, but I realize now that Madders is the one she’ll always look up
to—
the man she loves as a father. Despite the fact that he’s worthy of her trust and love, it’s tough to know that I’ll always be a distant second.

Unlike you, he’s been there for her all along.

The thought sets off another round of regrets.

Before stepping into the airlock this morning, I wrapped my arms around Lani, and she clung to me like she’d never see me again.

Perhaps it would be best if she were right.

When the plane levels off, Matt crosses his arms and swivels his chair to face me. “It looks like smooth air all the way to KC, so feel free to fire up all those questions you must have.”

I must look troubled because he pats my leg and nods at the dash. “Autopilot. No need to worry. In fact, it’s the safest way to fl
y—
if you’re lucky enough to have the equipment. If something comes up, the computer will let us know.”

“Ah. Okay,” I say, although it hadn’t even occurred to me.

We spend the next hour talking about the Einstein Sphere, the Magic Kingdom, and the time machine. In this world, many of the same things happened, but in a slightly different orde
r—
and a couple of critical things didn’t happen at all.

Matt found a reference to a “metal ball” of “unknown origins” in an old newspaper article, but it seems there were no letters sintered on the outside, no
E = mc
2
, and the sphere landed in the woods instead of a city. It did start a small fire, and by the time it had burned itself out, things had gotten so bad that no one bothered to investigate further, and it disappeared years ago.

Matt also dug up some stuff on a quantum computer being developed by Stanford. The scientists claimed they were capturing photons from another universe, but the project went under, quite literally, when the rogue nuke was diverted into the Pacific Ocean and half of California was hit by the resulting tsunami. Things happened just as they did in my worl
d—
except that in this universe, Phil and the Peeping Tom team weren’t safely inside the Magic Kingdom.

But despite being well behind us in time machines and peeping toms, there was one field where this universe was light years ahead: David Kirk’s biodomes.

But why?

That question nags at me night and day. What happened in this universe that changed things? Could it be as simple as the missing Einstein Sphere: Instead of racing to build a time machine, these people built biodomes? Or was there a Magic Kingdom in this world, and their time machine sent James off to yet another universe? My universe?

Christ. If there’s a Magic Kingdom here, you need to find it.

If there are any answers to be found, they’re locked up inside that hollowed-out mountain. Matt couldn’t find anything on the time machine project, but he did find a few references to a top-secret government installation in the mountains. He thinks the place was built during the Cold War, and the description matches what I remember of the Magic Kingdom.

“I’d bet my last socket wrench that underground city exists,” Matt says. “And if it does, I’m just the man to find it. Hell, even if no one is inside, think of all the tools and computers they’d have. Crikey, it would be like discovering a buried treasure. Do you have any idea where it is?”

“Unfortunately,” I say, “No. I was locked inside for a couple of months, but I don’t remember how we got there. The government guys picked me up in the middle of the nigh
t—
after I’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours and hiking hard all day. I passed out ten minutes after they grabbed me, so I don’t even know for sure how long I was in the car. That mountain could be almost anywhere in Colorado.”

“That’s what planes are for, mate. There’s nothing like a good riddle to keep an old hermit like me occupied. Once I get back to the Bub, I’ll start looking for it.” He glances back at Shannon who’s still asleep in the back seat. “But for right now, we need to get ready to land.”

He turns and pats her on the leg. “Hey Shenanigans. Time to wake up.”

“Are we there already?” She bobs her head, still half-asleep.

“Yep,” I say, turning around so I can see her face.

“We’ll be landing in KC in ten minutes,” Matt says as he takes the plane off autopilot. “We’re going to drop off some mail and take on fuel, but it shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

“Ranger that,” Shannon says.

“And Roger too,” Matt adds, a smile in his voice.

I turn back around and watch the decaying buildings and empty roads slip by beneath us. From this high up, it looks like a vast toy train table with rails and rivers and roads snaking around tree-covered hills and through low-lying town
s—
only there isn’t a child to flip the switch, start the locomotive puffing down the tracks, and bring the scene to life.

And a hundred years from now, it will all be gone.

Matt shifts in his seat. “I don’t know how much you know about the Kansas City Refuge of God, but they’re not exactly fond of visitors, so they don’t get a lot of planes landing. There’s no control tower or radio contact, even though they have scads of fuel.”

“Okay. But where’s the biodome?” I ask.

“There isn’t one,” Shannon says. “People sealed up the terminal building and an adjoining hotel instead of building a biodome. We learned about it in history.”

“They have a generator that keeps up a constant outward air pressure,” Matt says. “And so far, it seems to have kept everyone alive.”

“But they don’t have many people left,” Shannon says. “Less than fifty, and if Mom hadn’t saved a bunch of them with a whooping cough vaccine three years ago, there might not be any.”

Matt nods. “I delivered the vaccine and three hundred pounds of medical supplies, so I don’t think we’ll have problems, but I usually tell passengers to stay in the plane.”

“Makes sense.”

“But in your case,” he says, glancing over at me. “I’m going to tell them you need to relieve yourself. So if you could hop out and show them your, um,
abilities
before you do your business, it might make them more inclined to fuel me up on the way back.”

“Sure,” I say. “I could use a chance to stretch my legs.”

“Good. And as religious fanatics go, these guys are pretty tame, but you might want to watch your word choice around them, if you know what I mean.”

“Right. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

He glances back at Shannon. “Just sit tight and I’ll get us back in the air shortly, okay?”

“Will do,” she says.

Matt puts down the landing gear and a minute later, we’re on the ground. He follows an old yellow line to the terminal building and shuts down the engine. We watch a handful of suited figures exit the airlock and lumber toward the plane.

Matt gets out, chats a bit stiffly with one of the ground crew, and walks over to the side of the plane to supervise the unloading of some cargo. After a minute or two, he glances up and gives me a discreet nod.

I climb out, forgetting about my headset until it jerks off and slams against the side of the plane. “Sh
i—
oot.”

Everyone on the tarmac is staring at me.

I pick up the headphones, set them back on the seat, and then shut the door, trying not to look like an idiot.

There are faces in the terminal windows watching me, but when I meet their gaze, they vanish. Still, I can feel their stares follow me as I walk across the disintegrating concrete looking for a place to take a leak.

This is going to be awkward.

I step behind a broken-down jet bridge, check that there are no obvious eyes on me, and relieve myself.

As I return to the Cessna, I wave to one pair of eyes and catch a quick wave back before they too disappear.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re back in the
air—
tanks
full—
as the plane ascends into a cloudless cerulean sky.